National Socialists are socialists and trying to counter the “Identity Politics” of the left with more “Identity Politics” is like trying to counter arsenic with cyanide
One does not really need to read “The Road to Serfdom” by F.A. Hayek or “Omnipotent Government” by Ludwig Von Mises (although it is good to read these works – especially “Omnipotent Government”) to know that National Socialists are socialist collectivists – watching the Nazis, for that is what they are, marching at night with lighted touches through the University of Virginia chanting “Blood and Soil” should tell anyone that these people have nothing in common with the philosophy of the Bill of Rights – that they are collectivists, socialists.
“But Paul the opposition to them was controlled by Marxists – a movement that has murdered even more people than the Nazis” – and where have I denied that? I understand that very well – and I have condemned the left, in the strongest terms, all my life. But one does NOT oppose arsenic with cyanide – one does NOT oppose the “Identity Politics” of the “left” (of the Frankfurt School of Marxism “Diversity” crowd) with an “Identity Politics” of the “right”.
“But Paul one can not defeat the Marxists with the philosophy of the Bill of Rights (mocked for centuries now by the “educated” – Mr Hume, Mr Bentham and so on) – one can only defeat collectivism with a different form of collectivism”.
A pox on such a “victory” – and a pox on all those who choose it.
They all (both sides – which are from the same evil root) reject moral personhood – the soul in either the religious or non religious sense.
The thing is, it’s not stable to have identity politics on only one side, and the left is 100% invested in theirs, so what to do? My fantasy is that Trump tackles this head-on. Declare a total federal commitment to classical liberal universalism: we judge Americans by their merits, not by their race or gender or ethnicity or sexual orientation. And so from now on, we end all affirmative action, all racial quotas, all student loans for oppression studies, all aid to education if it includes nonsense like “Whiteness Studies,” Title IX, and all the rest.
Of course the left (and many moderates) would totally flip out, but it would be a clarifying moment: everyone would have to choose the side of being fair to everyone as a human being, or advocate an eternal and internally-contradictory political battle over which identity gets favored over what other identities.
PapayaSF
August 14, 2017 at 10:26 pm
“My fantasy is that Trump tackles this head-on. Declare a total federal commitment to classical liberal universalism: we judge Americans by their merits, not by their race or gender or ethnicity or sexual orientation.”
That would certainly bring it all to a head.
He’d be impeached inside of three weeks, convicted in six, and President Pence would be searching for suitable words, deeds, and amounts of reparations to address the insult, with the earnest support and advice from the GOP. They’d be bidding up the price just between themselves.
Trump made a good response. He should lay back now, and let it all play out. This is yet another episode that won’t change any minds, but will harden lots of hearts.
Saying “National Socialists are socialists”, ‘Leftists are fascists too’, or ‘Democrats are the real racists’ doesn’t persuade any but those already on one’s own side. Leftists laugh if you point out their contradictions and hypocrisy, and keep right on organizing the next riot.
Lots of centralists and socialists talk about sharing the wealth, and the means is usually by having more power in the hands of a central authority. Libertarians can latch onto the ‘sharing’ idea, by talking about sharing power, having local governments to handle local affairs, etc.
Just a thought…
Antifa just brought their bats and chains to another generic pro-America and free speech rally in Seattle.
The media wants the narrative to be about the KKK and Trump’s culpability, but the rising tide of political violence is almost wholly from the fascist left. City riots, assassinations of police, shooting of politicians, campus beatings and a disturbing pattern of violent attacks on peaceful rallies.
If this was flipped with Democrats the victims, the media would be hysterical. Instead there’s a tacit acceptance that the violence is a justified form of resistance. But this is dangerous. It’s one thing for immature thugs to break windows during a G7 protest. Directly attacking everyday Americans who want to hear a speech or wave the flag is a different thing altogether. Identity politics is morphing into tribal conflict.
As for President Donald Trump – he is NOT personally a racialist and he has condemned racialism several times (most recently only yesterday).
But Donald Trump would not have won the nomination last year (against Ted Cruz) without the support of racialists and Jew haters (yes Jew haters – even though President Trump’s own daughter is Jewish).
People did not vote for Mr Trump in those Primaries last year because they thought he would cut taxes (half of Americans do not even pay the Federal Income Tax) and cut government spending (Mr Trump had no clear plans on government spending – indeed Candidate Trump had no clear plans on anything).
So why did they vote for Mr Trump in those primaries last year – against a Barry Goldwater conservative (Ted Cruz)?
It was the White Nationalists – they made the difference in the campaign. When they say to President Trump “we gave you the nomination” they, horribly, speak the truth.
I think President Trump sincerely wants to break with these evil people. But without them – what is his message?
Populism has always, in America, been about RACE – no matter how much some people want to deny that.
The “Alt Right” (the “Alternative Right”) has proved to be a fundamental threat to the very existence of traditional American Conservatism.
There can be no compromise with people who go on night marches with lighted touches chanting “Blood and Soil” through the University of Virginia.
The “Alt Right” movement must be destroyed – not destroyed by Communist mobs, but destroyed by traditional American Conservatives, or there will be no traditional American Conservatives.
A movement based upon LIBERTY will have been replaced by a movement based upon RACE.
And the lies of the left (that Conservatives are racialists) will have been made the truth.
When Marxist gangs control the streets and the only people who risk themselves to engage in the fight are “Nazi’s” then the Nazis are going to get well earned respect and support. The moment some principled arm-chair commentator puts himself in the line against bat and mace wielding thugs, we’ll talk about our new choice for vanguard. But until that time, it’s the people who fight that are earning their stripes.
And here it is from the horse’s mouth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGhXo_a5NAM
Mr Black – I have already answered your point, before you made it. I suspect I was denouncing Marxists before you were born.
As for your quote signs around the word Nazis (there is no apostrophe) – they marched through the University of Virginia grounds (right up the statute of Thomas Jefferson) with lighted torches and chanting “Blood and Soil”.
What do they have to do to convince you that they are Nazis Mr Black – if a night march with lighted torches chanting “Blood and Soil” does not convince you?
Do they have to sing the Horst Wessel Lied before you are convinced?
And where were the Communist mobs in this peaceful town in Virginia BEFORE the Nazis turned up?
Do you not see that both sides feed off each other?
I remember Richard Spencer (who still denies he is a Nazi) making a speech on the election victory of Donald Trump.
“Hail Trump! Hail Our People! Hail Victory!” said Mr Spencer.
That is not a natural English language political speech. It is basically German, a certain sort German political utterance, translated into the English language.
What do you think World War II veterans think when they hear a speech like that?
I have the sickening suspicion that there simply aren’t enough “traditional American Conservatives” in existence — what’s more, there can’t be — to do this.
I’m not defending the “Alt Right” in this, although I guess I am defending politicians who try to gain power by allying with them. I can’t say it’s a wise move, though.
Frankly, the situation is a large part of why I’m suicidal, and only haven’t gone through with it because my family keeps whining whenever I bring it up.
Isn’t this exactly how the actual original Nazis got into power? Fighting in the streets and widespread unrest?
And to echo what’s above, I think it’s going to be too late very very soon. Serious questions need to be asked about why the local government stood down the police in Charlottesville. If the government is unwilling or unable to keep order then people are going to turn to the biggest or most smartly-dressed thug to do so. And then we’re done.
Paul, lots of emphatic statements but no data. The primaries were polled heavily. Can you cite any to support your claims about “white nationalism?”
“There can be no compromise with people who go on night marches with lighted touches chanting “Blood and Soil” through the University of Virginia.”
It was at most a couple hundred people who attended from all across the USA. The Klan has held similarly sized rallies for years. The only difference is that the violent Left showed up to riot.
So the protest wasn’t a reflection of anything changing on the right, so much as a dramatic shift to violence on the left.
Paul, with respect, that’s all simply nonsense. The “Alt-right” is a fringe movement, with almost no true believers. Just like neo-Nazis. Their numbers and importance are blown all out of proportion by a media which finds that distortion conducive to advancing its narrative. In Charlottesville they seized upon the unhappiness of non-racist southerners dismayed at the systematic leftist denegration (indeed, desecration) of their history (and who comprised most of the participants in that abortive rally). So naturally the media gave them all the airtime. But that isn’t the true story of any of this sorry event.
Just this morning I listened to a description by someone who was there who is not a racist, white supremacist or Nazi, but merely a southerner protecting his heritage. He described how the police herded them into a area enclosed by barricades on three sides (with the Antifa and BLM thugs on the forth side); then ordered them to leave but would not permit them to exit out the back but forced them to run the gauntlet through armed thugs wielding bats and hurling excrement at them; of police spraying them with mace for not complying with sufficient alacrity even though that was physically impossible; of being offered absolutely no protection by police who had been ordered to “stand down” by the state’s governor; and a host of similar atrocities perpetrated by their own government. And now we are learning that the loudmouth speaking for the white supremacists might actually be a plant (a former rabid Obama and Hillary supporter until just this January). The more we learn about this the more it stinks. Say what you like about Nazis (I will agree with you), they were not the problem here. And until someone in authority stands up and excoriates the Antifa and BLM thugs, and begins aggressive prosecution of every one of them at this rally (illegally, I might add), the white supremacist cause will only gain adherents. You are on the wrong side of this.
My sense is that the alt right is of some size, but a mix of factions: lots of MAGA Trump supporters unhappy with the GOPe and DC think tank conservatism, Moldbugian neo-reactionaries, Kekistan semi-trolls, some libertarians who reject the open borders orthodoxy of the LP, and a few actual neo-Nazis and KKK types.
Laird, I believe you are correct that the Charlottesville authorities and the Virginia governor basically set this up for violence. The antifa types outnumbered the Unite the Right demonstrators by several times, so police actively promoted a clash. We saw that in Chicago, in San Jose, and in Berkeley. Hopefully the Department of Justice will prosecute this as a civil right violation, but given the leftist slant of that division, I’m not counting on it.
Sorry, Paul, but anyone who talks about the Alt-Right, with the definite article, is talking out of their backside. There is no such thing.
MILO (who himself disavows the alt-right), together with Allum Bokhari, published this guide to the so-called Alt-Right a year and a half ago.
In the USA, at least, it now seems to involve any and every conservative who is unhappy with the ineffectual GOP.
Five years ago, it involved Stormfront and all seven remaining members of the KKK. Now, it means everyone who doesn’t think that John McCain was a brilliant choice for our presidential candidate.
Since I think the phrase “alternative right” was coined by Paul Gottfried to describes paleocons and associated groups, it was more than Stormfront/KKK (and in fact didn’t include them).
If I can leave aside the Nazi stuff (because talking about that stuff online and making a mistake in emphasis or leaving anything open to intepretation can lead to career suicide); the identity politics stuff does worry me more. I don’t spend my life reading up about such things so correct me if I’m wrong but it seems to me that if you categorise everyone by race (and other features like gender etc.) in order to create ‘us versus them’ then ‘them’ will eventually take you at your word and organise themselves as well – it seems inevitable that ‘white people’ will eventually become an identity group. In many powerful countries white people are a majority or large minority so I wonder why the non-radical left thinks this is a good thing for their election prospects – what am I missing here? Perhaps the US Democrat party can unite enough of the non white vote but what’s in it for the UK Labour party? I’m very confused about this, I can see that the hard left just wants a ruck and doesn’t care about elections but what about the centre-left parties.
In fairness, the “alt” designation predated Gottfried’s “alternative” one. “Alt” was a separate and relatively unregulated and unmodded hierarchy within the Usenet domains that sprang up when Usenet became, in some minds, over-moderated and rule-bound. You could go to “usenet usa.politics” and get party platforms and approved essays, or you could go to “usenet alt.usa.politics” and get what was essentially reddit or 4chan.
And everyone knew that if you wanted proper porn, you didn’t go to “usenet binaries.pics”, you went to “usenet alt.binaries.pics.”
So, the term “alt.right” sprang up to indicate the relatively wild and untamed areas of the right uncontained and unapproved by the proper GOP influences.
(At least that’s my memory, but I did a lot of drugs back then.)
Movement, or “Buckley” conservatism, is a fundraising scam, a grift, a Reagan mystery cult with a gift shop selling books, magazines, tv shows, and holiday cruises. It didn’t engage in the culture war when it could have made a difference,and in the end it managed to conserve nothing. Might as well call me “alt-right”, I’m finished with those clowns. I don’t think I’m the only one who is, either.
Laird – I disagree with what you say. Not all of what you say in your comment – but a lot of it. However, I fully support your freedom to say what you have said.
CayleyGraph.
I am very sorry you feel the way you do – I feel as you do and have done for a long time (it is not a good way to feel).
As you are an American I would advice you (advice you with all the passion I have left) to find people who believe in the principles that you do – in the principles of the Bill of Rights.
You can do this with much less difficulty than I can – after all I am British, and if you think that America has lost sight of fundamental liberties (and IT HAS), Britain has lost the memory of what fundamental liberties even are.
No one of importance here in Britain will stand up for Freedom of Speech – let alone anything else. Perhaps that will change at some time in the future – but I will not live to see such a restoration.
In the United States you still have a chance CarleyGraph – not a good chance (I will not lie to you), but a chance. So do not throw your chance (your life) away.
As long as a few Americans (a “saving remnant” of Americans) understand and believe in the basic philosophy of the Bill of Rights there is hope.
Hope that that the knowledge of the fundamental principles of the United States of America may be PRESERVED – so that at some future time they may be RESTORED (made to live again).
Here in Britain the very memory of the fundamental liberties has been lost – which makes the prospects of their restoration somewhat less likely.
Work with others (few though they may be) to preserve the memory of the fundamental liberties – do not let the flame of memory be snuffed out, preserve the memory of liberty, guard it.
Then, at some future time, the flame of liberty may shine forth again.
“The Alt Right do not exist” – incorrect as I read the stuff some of them write almost every day, they exist and there are a lot (not a few) of them.
“The Alt Right are just those Conservatives who denounce the ineffective G.O.P.”
Well who are the individuals who have denounced, in detailed terms, the policy ineffectiveness of the Republican Party? Not talked in vague terms – but actually explained what the party should do (in policy) and is NOT doing.
In the Senate, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Mike Lee spring to mind at once (and a few other names come to mind later). They have passionately denounced the GOP leadership for years – in the strongest possible terms (especially Ted Cruz – who savaged the GOP leadership, on specific policy grounds, on a regular basis for years).
How come that most people do not call these Conservatives “Alt Right”. Why would the Alt Right be rather unlikely to like them?
Because they, these real conservatives, are not racists.
It is that simple and that brutal – the Alt Right is about RACE.
They are the stereotype the left have of conservatives – made flesh.
Indeed if I ever found out that that the left created the Alt Right (to discredit conservatives) I would not be astonished.
And this “Identity Politics of the right” is vile – just as the “Identity Politics of the left” is vile.
The “Patriots” of the Alt Right urinate on the things America should be most proud of – such as World War II and Korea.
Look at the intellectual, and moral, collapse of such people as Patrick Buchanan.
Buchanan has turned into a person who tries to blame World War II on the Allies and (and not because of the weak policy towards the Nazis in the 1930s) and who cares only about ethnicity. About “caring for Our People” (the government doing the “caring” of course).
And there are many, very many, people like “Pat” Buchanan – they are Legion.
If they become the Conservative movement – it is over, at least for our life times.
“National Socialists are socialists.”
Indeed, and this is why we should shun the abbreviation ‘Nazi’ and use the full term; it emphasises that the true roots of the ideology lie with the collectivist left and has no connection with the conservative / libertarian right.
‘Nazi’ as a word would sit very well in Orwell’s Newspeak: it is a ‘duckspeak’ world that can be quacked without thought, which is of course the whole point (“The political purpose of Newspeak is to eliminate ambiguity and nuance (shades of meaning) from the language, and so reduce the language to simple concepts … The Party also intend that Newspeak be spoken in staccato rhythm with syllables that are easy to pronounce, which shall facilitate automatic and unconscious speech, thereby diminishing the likelihood of critical thought.”), whereas ‘National Socialism’ is a polysyllabic phrase which the tongue – and hence the brain – is obliged to take a moment to pronounce.
Ayn Rand’s character Ellsworth Toohey also makes the connection explicit in his self-revelatory speech to Peter Keating in ‘The Fountainhead’, where he explains that Communism posits the supremacy of class over individuals while Fascism posits the supremacy of race over individuals: but the common theme is always the diminution of the individual human being.
In many minds, including my own, the Tea Party and Cruz/Lee/Paul ARE the actual first effective and spreading alt-right. The rest, while claiming to offer alternatives, mostly offer dead ends. But, effectiveness aside, they were and are alternatives to the GOP.
Zerren Yeoville: That is a brilliant suggestion, from a persuasion point of view. It is more informative, more precise, and totally wrong-foots the left. Attention, Scott Adams!
The alt-right are legion, they’re everywhere, they’re taking over the conservative movement.
Again, these are emphatic statements, but where is your evidence. Name just three prominent alt-right or white nationalist leaders who are rising to power.
Also waiting for your evidence that white nationalists won the election for Trump – keeping in mind that Trump won the white vote by the same margin as Mitt Romney.
https://www.google.ca/amp/www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trumps-victory-divisions-by-race-gender-education/%3famp=1
Paul, I think you are essentially delusional over this issue. With long-term planning and publicity this “Nazi march” could draw less than a thousand people, of which many would not have any interest in Nazis and are there simply to protest the loss of their culture and heritage. Meanwhile, Marxist gangs can be assembled in any city in America on 24 hours notice and conduct a riot on demand with the approval and probably the coordination of the Democrats. And looking at this picture, you think perhaps 300 “Nazis” are the real threat, not the national Marxist/communist movement. You have zero credibility.
Paul, do you reaize that the various websites you are reading reflect only a limted scope of the actual reality on the ground (icluding, granted, some very imporant aspects of it), with virtually none of the MSM doing even that? When was the last time youvisited the US? How many people’s homes have you entered? How many of them have you seen drunk to hear what they really think and feel about this or that? Sorry, but you have no actual idea about the issues you are dicussing here, and are simply refusing to let facts get in the way of your preconcieved notions.
Not so fast with the scare-quotes, Mr. Black: there were in fact some real Nazis at that protest, check the Stormfront forum and see for yoursef.
I second Alisa at August 16, 2017 at 9:15 am and August 16, 2017 at 9:20 am.
On the one hand, there is a lot of spun coverage and much genuine confusion that time may clarify. I have stop-framed one car video and it certainly seems like a black guy strikes it with some long object (a bat?) at an early point when it is driving slowly, and surrounded by a crowd that seems friendly to the bat-wielder. (I will examine more the videos linked by Phil Ossiferz Stone when my day-job allows.) In the street fighting between nazis and communists in Weimar, even a car-driving nazi could sometimes have been surrounded by communist thugs, hit someone while fleeing and so be innocent of crime on that particular day. In the modern day case, even a guy who needs his meds could have been on them that day and reacting as you or I might.
On the other hand, while I would certainly protest the removal of Lee’s statue, Alisa seems correct that some there had views I don’t share. (And rumours that Kessler had a pro-Obama past and may be an agent provocateur remain to be sifted.) The car driver is reported to have had such views (and meds).
Alisa, I think it’s mostly nonsense. What exactly IS a Nazi, anyway? Someone who carries the flag around? Or do they not like Jews? Or do they have plans for exterminating races? Or destroying Communism? 90% of these “Nazis” could probably not even define what it is they are try to do and those that could define it probably wouldn’t sound much like Nazis. Certainly some people were there representing themselves as Nazis but so what? The left represent themselves as tolerant liberals. Labels don’t mean a whole lot unless we know what’s under them. I don’t regard 5 or 100 or 200 “Nazis” as being representative of the right as a whole, of the alt-right or even of that march.
I think what most people mean, even the Nazis themselves when they use the term is someone who wants a white homeland without Jews, blacks or any of the other diversity tokens being thrust onto them. And those beliefs put them in line with a large majority of the worlds population who also do not want foreign cultures and peoples displacing them. Using the word Nazi because they happen to be white and not Japanese or South African seems ludicrous to me. It’s adopting the lefts framing out of laziness.
In the USA these days, a “Nazi” is usually a spiffed-up white supremacist who likes the power that a military uniform with skulls gives him, who knows vaguely that Hitler thought whites were the Master Race and “did something about” non-whites and “Joos”, and who isn’t intelligent enough to have need to delve any deeper. There’s no National Socialism aspect to these people at all – they’re just race-baiters.
As to the “Joos” part, I remain baffled. The average 80-IQ white supremacist can’t point to anything any Jewish person has ever specifically done to them that was bad, but they remain fixated on Jews as some organized force keeping them down throughout history. Maybe it’s just that stupid people need a golem.
As to Charlottesville, these people comprised maybe 20% of the crowd, but of course they get all of the press.
That’s my impression too.
Of course there were some real Nazis at this march. (And yeah, some of them are socialists of that stripe.) But the question is what that means. How far out do the tendrils of guilt by association go? The left wants to taint everyone to the right of Castro as a Nazi, and this march gives them an excuse. But of course they don’t want that same degree of lumping and blurring to be used to describe their side. For example, remember that basically all the anti-war marches of the Bush years were organized by self-described Communists, and the MSM never mentioned that fact, much less used it to discredit every person at every peace march. Obama and Hillary can be connected with Communist groups more easily than Trump can be connected with Nazis. I hate the double standards: let’s pick one, and apply it universally.
I’d like to withdraw my comment last evening where I was making the point that the alt-right was simply too diverse, too amorphous to be considered a thing. In much the same way that Mrs Thatcher said there was no such thing as ‘society’, I believed there was no such thing as the alt-right. It was the regarding of the alt-right as a single, definable, reified thing, that I objected to.
As it happens, however, I am currently reading MILO’s new book, Dangerous. In the chapter on the alt-right he talks about the explanation of the diversity of the alt-right he wrote some year and a half ago. He then goes on to say:
I was not aware of this shift in the alt-right movement.
There has been an intentional shift in how the press defines it, but much of Milo’s motivation for this statement, I think, comes from his losing a preeminent public position of representing the alt-right. He did a very good job of clarifying to the public just how wide a coalition it really is, but when he got shot down, his public themes seemed to die with him. But I believe that your original comment remains accurate.
Milo’s poor word choice in one interview cost conservative society heavily. He was actually the perfect choice of characters to be the public persona of the diverse alt-right. But he self-destructed, lending weight to my feeling that he’s another Newt Gingrich – a brilliant spokesman until his next inevitable blowup.
Science fiction writer Sarah Hoyt has written a good article aimed at dispelling the seemingly-growing fear that Nazis are making a comeback. Worth a read.
I believe most of the ‘conservatives’ are too pathetic to do what is needed, precisely because they are afraid of being called racist.
Freedom of speech, freedom of association, and private property. Having the guts to end the real systematic racism- various and sundry laws that discriminate against white people.
Too many people fall into the leftist trap. Then there are the leftists themselves- in every institution, subverting it. So, the F.B.I. should be dealing with the state and local officials who were truly responsible for this mess, but the odds are high the investigators are leftists and will use the investigation to reinforce the narrative.
The word satan meant accuser. And the left will accuse- and then use that as a pretext to try to take over. They aren’t trying to right any wrongs.
August, you bring up a good point that I was considering today as well while reading the nonsense filling the right-side blogs at the moment. It would appear that virtually the entire right-wing has adopted the lefts standard here, that racism is the new Ultimate Crime. As far as I can see, racism is not only universally practiced but would pretty much fall under the principles of free speech. But now we have to work ourselves into a frenzy because somewhere a white person was racist in public.
Who do you think you are fooling? Seriously, give it up. You want an ethnically pure ‘homeland’ and never mind that Jews have been part of European history since the Dark Ages, you think ‘most people’ do not want them? I don’t think your views are very widely shared, to put it mildly. It is not so much a dog-whistle as a trumpet.
After having written the previous remark I quoted, no, ‘ethnic cleansing’ to use the delightful Serbian term, does not fall under the principles of free speech. There can be no accommodation with people with your views, you just have be fought against. You are really no different to the alt-left when push comes to shove.