If it wasn’t so serious, we could just laugh. But green activists have been so successful over the last 30 years with their “settled” science propaganda that they have persuaded a Conservative Government in the U.K. to embrace the Net Zero agenda. A Marxist-inspired, control and rule agenda complete with reduced mass personal transport, higher energy costs, restricted diets and all the loss of personal freedoms that these entail. The Covid pandemic has shown just how many freedoms can be snatched away in a modern connected society by the spread of widespread fear, fuelled by selective state-sponsored science and, of course, made up models.
[…]
Meanwhile back in the real world, it is obvious that many green extremists are starting to think the unthinkable. Democracy is all very well but is falling short when decisions have to be made by self-proclaimed experts going about their important work of saving the planet. Writing in the American Political Science Review last month, Ross Mittiga, Assistant Professor at the Catholic University of Chile, noted that as the climate crisis deepens, “one can find a cautious but growing chorus of praise for ‘authoritarian environmentalism’”.
Another reason for de-covidification otherwise the current totalitarianism will serve as a model for other ones.
The current government is Conservative in Name Only and has been since Dave “Hug a Hoodie” Cameron turned the old Conservatives into a New Labour tribute band.
I naively thought that the whole climate change nonsense would have died a natural death by now. Surely it would be obvious that the climate change alarmists were wrong when not a single one of their doom laden prognostications had come to pass. Instead the failed predictions have been flushed down the memory hole to be replaced with new ones. The new predictions are oddly unspecific, something really really bad will happen and whatever it turns out to be will be just what we predicted.
In a way, you can see why Communist authoritarianism appeals so much to modern governments: they don’t allow for any uncertainty or criticism and thus all is well in their garden.
Less so yours and mine, but thee and me are of no concern to the horde of well-paid apparatchiks. We just pay and with their permission, play.
It is all pretty grim – but there is still hope.
For example, Japan is still a great manufacturing nation – in spite of the folly of policy in recent years (which I thought would crush the country – I was wrong).
And the United States may still recover – it depends very much on the elections of 2022, and 2024. We just do not know yet.
As for the United Kingdom – no comment.
One obvious point that I failed to grasp about Japan was that, even with the government spending and taxes that I denounced, it still had a SMALLER government (relative to the size of its economy) than the United Kingdom.
If you do not have a Welfare State of our size – then you can go for “infrastructure” schemes and so on (without collapsing), even though these schemes have real costs (contrary to the Keynesians such government building schemes are not a, net, benefit – they are a, net, COST).
On “Met Zero” – Japan has wisely refused to follow the policy of getting rid of nuclear power stations.
A mad policy – not just supported by the opposition, but also by the losing (thankfully losing) candidate in the recent LDP leadership election for Prime Minister.
That the “Net Zero” people push GETTING RID of nuclear power stations shows this policy is NOT really about C02 emissions – it is part of the general death-to-the-West agenda.
The United States has been cutting C02 emissions for years and produces vastly less C02 than the People’s Republic of China – which is massively INCREASING its C02 emissions.
Who do the “Net Zero” international forces (including the Biden/Harris regime in the United States – produced by Election Fraud) hate? Do they hate the People’s Republic of China which produces vastly more C02 than anyone else and is greatly INCREASING its C02 emissions?
No they do not hate the People’s Republic of China – the international establishment (the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, all of these Collectivist Totalitarians) LOVE the People’s Republic of China – regardless of how much C02 emissions it produces.
What they (including the Biden/Harris regime) hate – is the United States of America. Regardless of how much the United States cuts its C02 emissions – they hate America just as much.
This is not, and has never been, about C02 emissions.
Why do they hate America?
They (including the Biden/Harris regime) hate America because, even its horribly decayed condition, America still stands for liberty – and it is liberty that they hate.
Just get the Bill of Rights (not just from the United States Constitution – but from the Constitutions of many of the 50 States) and imagine what that means to someone such as Dr Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum (or, come to that, what it means to someone such as “Vice President” K. Harris).
The Bill of Rights sums up everything they hate, everything they wish to destroy.
That is what this is all about – not C02 emissions.
And it is the same with the United Kingdom – what is left of liberty here (not C02 emissions) is the real target.
This is the true target of much of the education system, the mainstream media, and the rest of the international establishment – their objective is the destruction of what is left of liberty.
It’s just like 1930 Germany all over again
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/germany/sp001630/peter.html
Plus the great myth that Nazi’s were extreme right wing lunatics. In fact, they were were extreme left wing lunatics.
Oh, I know. The hatred of nuclear comes from the anti-social “scientists” who hate everything they don’t understand – and that would fill a supertanker. Let me state, for the record, that “sociology” in all it’s forms is complete and utter wank. It is a hybrid hodge-podge of shite backed by statistics spouted by long-range twatters who can’t even grasp elementary algebra but do they not pontificate? I know this is The Guardian but really? And I know that SOAS has long been a self-hating shite-pile of an institution but gimme strength! Just look at his face in the picture and try to imagine not wanting to hit it with a hammer. Prof Habib ought to be fed to scuttling things.
There is a book called When Prophecy Fails. I cannot quote the entire book, but here is a summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails
Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer may also be consulted. It’s clear that proof the prophecy is false will only scourge away the moderates in the belief. Those remaining will believe twice as fervently. And I have seen at least a half-century of failing Green prophecies.
The old Jonah Goldberg Canard.
The fact is that Nazis were radical right wingers.
Yes, I know that Nazis were “national socialists” and that the Nazi platform included many things we would consider left-wing like environmentalism.
But the fact is that Nazis were radical right wingers.
This was true in Weimar Germany, but only because the left wing was occupied by the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, who were actual Communists.
All the race hatred and centralized economics that the Nazis espoused were shared by the left wing of the day in other countries, i.e. the Klan in the United States (entirely a Democrat operation) and the New Dealers (Democrats to the core). Woodrow Wilson was a Progressive segregationist who would not have had any fundamental ideological differences with the Nazis, even if he might not have villainized the same people that they did.
Terms like left-wing and right-wing are only specific to the political biomes they inhabit. If you want to use them generally you have to define what they mean. For me, right-wing means limited state interference with the economy, and a reliance on traditional social and legal structures (that is, a resistance to innovation in those areas). Race hatred is not a feature of right-wing politics; if anything, the left is overrepresented in this regard.
So what about the policies of the Nazis is right-wing in the general sense, as opposed to right-wing in the political biome of Weimar Germany specifically?
NickM
What do you do when someone, such as the German government, tells you how much they hate C02 emissions – and then closes down the nuclear power stations.
And the same sort people tell you how much they hate the authoritarian Mr Putin (a very nasty man – I agree that he is a very nasty man) and then set attack dogs on their own people for opposing Covid restrictions – and decide to depend on the same nasty Mr Putin for their energy supplies (having shut down a lot of their own energy supplies).
I do not say anything to such people – they are not rational, there is nothing much one can say to them.
And is it that different in the United Kingdom?
More nuclear power stations are closing here than are being built. And we do not develop our own hydrocarbons whilst depending on other powers (including, INDIRECTLY, nasty Mr Putin) for our energy supplies.
And the British people are taxed into the ground for the crime of producing about 1% of C02 emissions.
What can one say about all this to the people in charge? Nothing – nothing one could say will have any influence upon them.
Besides one might be outed as a “Denier” and persecuted.
There is no rational reason for such persecution – but there never is any rational reason for persecution.
I have seen the young activists – they are often beautiful people (whereas I am an fat, bald, ugly old …)
But the people who sang “Tomorrow Belongs To Me” in a certain film were beautiful to.
Meanwhile the Economist magazine is saying that we are in the last days of Mr Putin – whilst celebrating the life of “Britain’s first Trans Activist” (no doubt a very nice person – but was this really the most important person to die this week?), and telling a lot of despicable lies about January 6th 2021.
Still at least the Economist magazine are still pro nuclear – not that nuclear power stations can really deliver the “Net Zero” they want, as one can not run tens of millions of cars, and so on, on electricity (unless the plan really is for only the Davos crowd to move about – while the rest of us are put into “smart cities” to have every aspect of our lives controlled – very Agenda 2030).
If people were still allowed to write comments on Economist magazine articles what could one say? “You are a bunch of raving loonies” is not very polite. And it also might attract unwelcome attention….
“right” and “left” are used to mean all sorts of contradictory things Ferox.
As for the National Socialists – they were economically Collectivists (as Hayek and Mises pointed out at the time – see such works as “Omnipotent Government”).
More broadly the National Socialists were (as Erik Von Kuehnelt-Leddihn explained) heirs to radical elements in German thinking – Richard Wagner is an obvious example (although it is often forgotten that he was against money and private property in the means of production), but also more serious thinkers such as the once famous philosopher Fichte in the early 19th century, there were many German Collectivist thinkers who were not Marxists (although many Nazis were actually from the Marxist tradition – Hitler himself was from the NON Marxist socialist tradition in Germanic thought).
Rousseau claimed that his “Law Giver” (really himself) would tell the “General Will” better than what people would think themselves (that was merely the despised “will of all”) – “I know your true will better than you do” is very National Socialist, the “will of the people” being the will of the Leader or Law Giver.
Rousseau’s Collectivism (from his master the Abbe de Mably) also has echoes in both Marxism and National Socialism.
But it is the National Socialist obsession with RACE (like Herder or Fichte in German thought) that really marks them out – and, for example, shows them to be very different to the Italian Fascists (who were not that interested in race – they supported total statism, as the National Socialists did, but lacked the total obsession with race).
Someone who calls a National Socialist, such as Adolf Hitler, a “Fascist” shows themselves to be deeply ignorant – or dishonest.
Nationalist versus internationalist does not help really.
For example, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt was a nationalist, and Woodrow Wilson was an internationalist.
Yet it was Woodrow Wilson who was more interested in (indeed obsessed by) RACE.
It was also Woodrow Wilson who, whilst not being a Marxist, had a terrible fear that “Reactionaries” might overturn the Russian Revolution – he had the same fear concerning Mexico.
If anyone doubts that Woodrow Wilson was a Collectivist even before becoming President – I would suggest that they look at his massive book “The State”, and (if you do not have the time for vast books), then “Philip Dru: Administrator” by his “other self” Colonel House.
I have waxed poetic in dozens of Samizdata threads over the years regarding the differences between the right and the left. The fault line between the right and the left runs through every man’s heart. In early Western philosophy, it is Plato who encapsulates the right and Aristotle the left.
Yes, there is a right and there is a left. What precisely those terms mean evolve in different cultures, but there are certain attributes common to the right and to the left across all times and all space and all human cultures.
The Nazis were clearly of the political right.
One way to understand this is to understand the BDH-OV conflict, which happens in every human society since the beginning of time.
https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/05/bdh-ov-conflict_07/
https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/05/castes-of-united-states/
OV is generally a proxy for the right. BDH is the wrong, er, i mean the left.
“the Nazi regime was OV to the core” – Mencius Moldbug
It’s drivel, Paul. Why are we encouraged to recycle more like that’s a positive thing rather than a mitigation. I live in a house that’s over 300 years old and it ain’t falling down any time soon. I’m not allowed full double-glazing – it’s grade 2 listed. Now, who is green? Is my wife and my’s nigh on 20 year old petrol FIAT greener than the latest Tesla? Hell, yeah! You do know the mileage you have to rack-up before the CO2 emissions equal those of making the thing? And then there is Apple going hell for leather on wireless charging. The idea is not supplying a USB cable with a phone is better for the environment. This ignores the simple fact that wireless charging is massively less efficient (or that your shiny new iPhone is made by slaves in China – admittedly another issue). Do the greens have the slightest idea just how much electricity will be needed for their dream? Do they care? Of course as a physics graduate my opinion on nuclear is worthless because I’ve been “indoctrinated”. I don’t think so but let’s say, “yeah”. Haven’t they been “indoctrinated” as well?
Anyway, I know what this means…
…and it is true and of astonishing beauty.
NickM – quite so, but the teaching of the natural sciences is being taken over by the very people you oppose. Already scientific papers are being turned down (or even removed – years after they have been published). And people are being driven from the universities. All for violations of the sacred dogma of egalitarianism (so called “Equity”) – and that includes “Climate Justice”.
So, if you oppose the Greens, you are AUTOMATICALLY wrong NickM – because you are a heretic, a “denier”. And such a person can not be allowed to have scientific qualifications.
“But that will kill the West – it will destroy science”.
Yes – I know that.
Plato did not just attack gold and silver money, or just attack private trade and private production, or even just say we should deny scientific truths (such as the fact that some things move in the sky – whilst at-the-same-time-as-denying-it use the information for navigation – hence Plato’s invention of “Double Think” believing, or acting on, contradictory things), he also attacked the family itself – a mother and father looking after their own children, and suggested communal raising of children (at least for the elite).
If all this is “the right” Shlomo Maistre – then so was Rousseau of “the right” (with his “Law Giver” and his handing over his children to foundling homes, because he could not be bothered to take care of them).
The Nazis also (especially the SS) thought not just of economic collectivism – but also of social (cultural) collectivism, although they did not get as far with communal breeding (and so on) as they would have liked to. They Revolutionary Nazis inherited a basically conservative society – and they understood that it would take time to radically transform it, see Erik Von Kuehelt-Leddihn on the radical (revolutionary) ideas of the National Socialists.
But if all of this is “the right” – Plato, Rousseau, the French Revolution (the ideas of Rousseau written in blood – are the French Revolution), the National Socialists and so on – then so is Karl Marx and so on.
In which case people such as Aristotle, or Edmund Burke (very much a follower of Aristotle), or Margaret Thatcher. or ME – are all people of the “left”.
In short you have reversed how I use these terms “left” and “right”.
But as your usage is consistent, Plato, Rousseau, the Nazis and all other enemies of Civil Society described as the “right”, and the defenders of Civil Society described as the “left”, then I can not really fault it.
To give examples from British politics – in your usage of the terms, such Prime Ministers as Clement Atlee, Harold Wilson and Edward Heath would be of the “right” (because they expanded the state and undermined Civil Society), and such Prime Ministers as Lord Liverpool (who greatly reduced the size and scope of government in the 19th century) and Margaret Thatcher (who did so, but rather less well) in the 20th century, would be of the “left”.
Fair enough – again as your usage is consistent, I can not fault it.
I am (in your system) someone of the left – and my foes in the Guardian and the BBC (and my dear friends in certain parts of my own political party) are of the right.
Time for bed – it is almost 0300 in the morning.
On justice the traditional view (as Plato knew) was that justice was to each their own.
His “counter argument” (put in the mouth of “Socrates”) is “what about if you had borrowed an axe from someone – but then he went mad and wanted the axe back so he could murder people, would it be just to give him the axe?”
On the basis of this “argument” Plato (sorry “Socrates”) rejects the traditional view of justice as to each their own (the non aggression principle – the basis of natural justice and law) and then proceeds to build the totalitarian collectivism of the book that later came to be called “The Republic”.
The obvious answer “it is still his axe – but he wants to use it to violate the property (indeed the very bodies) of others – and that is a greater violation of property rights justice, than not giving him the axe back” is not stated by the people supposedly talking with “Socrates” – they just say “no it is not just Socrates” and then sit there like lemons while he explains his totalitarian alternative view of “justice” to them.
I find Plato’s “argument” against the traditional view of justice unconvincing (indeed absurd), but then I am a leftist. Or by this new usage of language I am a leftist – along with Aristotle, Cato the Younger, Cicero, Edmund Burke, Margaret Thatcher and others.
Well at least I am in good company in my leftism.
In political philosophy there must be consistent usage.
If Adolf Hitler is to be described as “right wing” Shlomo Maistre, then “Lenin” and “Stalin” must ALSO be described as “right wing”. They also expanded the state, they also were murderers, they also believed in no individual rights AGAINST the collective, they also were passionate people who put their vision of creating an ideal world (in the spirit of Plato’s Republic, or Moore’s “Utopia”, or Rousseau’s “Social Contract” with his totalitarian Law Giver who could CRUSH the “will of all” in the name of the “General Will” that only the LAW GIVER knew) above anything that already existed.
And people such as Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, who REDUCED the size and scope of government, and released political prisoners (and so on) must be described as LEFT wing.
The point is simple Shlomo Maistre – the followers of Rousseau in the French Revolution (Robespierre and so on), and the followers of “Lenin” and “Stalin” in the Soviet Union, and the followers of Mr Hitler and the other National Socialists in Germany are very clearly ON THE SAME SIDE OF A GREAT DIVIDE IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY – they were Collectivists. Whereas people such as President Warren Harding or President Calvin Coolidge were very much ON THE OTHER SIDE.
I do not care which side is called “left” and which side is called “right” – as long as Hitler and Mussolini are put together with Robespierre, “Lenin”, “Stalin”, Mao and so on. Which is where they clearly were in terms of politics.
And on the other side we have people such as Prime Minister Lord Liverpool and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge.
As Edmund Burke pointed out – anyone who claims that the French Revolution was about protecting individual rights against the state, is either horribly badly informed, or a liar. As any consideration of the events will show that it led to a bigger (and more vicious) government than there had been before – and that is exactly what one should expect from followers of ROUSSEAU.
If Rousseau and Karl Marx (another would-be tyrant) are not “the left” it is rather confusing (a person from the Netherlands who used to be about here should note this – but he boasted that he never-read-my-comments) – but if they are “the left”, then Mr Mussolini and Mr Hitler are also the left. For they to pushed more Collectivism (not less Collectivism) and they to accepted no limit on their own power – in their desire to create a new society in accord with their will.
Well, Paul Marks has said pretty much everything I was going to say contra Shlomo Maistre. Except one thing which I think is perhaps interesting. Bertrand Russell who was very much of the left regarded Plato’s Republic as an absolute model for totalitarianism. He stated as much in his “History of Western Philosophy” which I read as a kid. Essentially Aristotle was a much more profound (read, “right” in every sense of that word) thinker. He might have been pants on aspects of science (goats breathing through their ears – thanks for that nugget, Paul!) but when it comes to understanding the individual, rather than the state, as the fundamental unit of society he really got it. Plato didn’t. Plato always seemed to me a deeply depressing philosopher. His Republic was a North Korea in miniature – utterly collective, deeply militaristic and based upon concepts which took no account of truth – in fact allowed truth to be invented, not discovered – and I didn’t bust a gut doing physics and maths for that. I want to live in a society which is not based on a “noble” lie which is in anyway a total contradiction in terms in exactly the sense many centuries later Orwell understood and I had hoped a frequent member of the Samizdata commentariat would just grok. One does not equal two no matter how much you might want it to regardless of whatever devilment one has in mind.
I do wonder if Shlomo has had a serious head injury or he’s just playing Les Buggeurs Risible because his total inversion of political left and right seems to suggest he’s well away with the fairies. I mean if you are that deranged as to the difference between left and right you shouldn’t use public highways.
I am reminded of what I consider the greatest short story ever. Jorge Luis Borge’s
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
It is quite long and has some typos but it’s the best I can find online. It is utterly brilliant. When I first read it 25 years ago I was… I dunno… But it is awesome.
I suspect this is probs about the best translation available. Well worth it.
Like the writer Lionel Shriver, interviewed on the Spectator TV channel the other day, I regard any campaign that seeks to achieve “zero” something is likely to be fanatical. “Zero covid” or “Net Zero” C02 are both utopian projects requiring huge limits on liberty.
Yes NickM – the fact that Bertrand Russell liked Plato, and disliked Aristotle, is a fairly good guide. Bertrand Russell was also a follower of Thomas Hobbes – which is why he supported submission to Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and submission to the Soviet Union later on. Hobbes – submission to the strongest, or most ruthless, power.
As for Plato – do not write him off in terms of philosopher. I do not read as I did when I was younger – but I remember how fascinated I was with the works of Plato. He has so much to say on so many different subjects.
The thing about Thomas Hobbes, Rousseau, Jeremy Bentham, Karl Marx.. is not just that what they say about political philosophy is wrong, it is also BORING. I also find Hume and Mill a bit flat – but many other people greatly disagree with me on that. If I think about the view of all these men on art, or music, or life after death, or (well anything) – my first thought is YAWN, this is going to be predictable, and not just predicable – a bit flat as well.
Plato is never boring – at least not in a good translation, he always has interesting things to say (even if one disagrees with him), Nietzsche is the same in that – agree or not agree, he always has interesting things to say.
Johnathan Pearce.
I do not see why you think that Zero Carbon Emissions and Zero Covid are difficult – they are actually quite easy.
All that needs to be done is to exterminate humans – then, after their bodies have finished decaying, they will not produce any more C02. They will also not have Covid 19 – not after their bodies are gone.
Have a problem with this policy? Well then you are clearly not committed to Gaia – and the Woke Inquisition will be having a word with you.
That might cover zero COVID, but for zero carbon you will need to kill all the other animals as well … and cork the volcanoes too.
On the other hand, that is at least as plausible as their other ideas, so I am sure they won’t be too dismayed.
Nah! Since political whining is a function of sentient abstract thought ( including how much ‘carbon’* is in the atmosphere ), if all animals capable of sentient thought are extinguished, then all the trivia those beings concerned themselves with, are extinguished too.
My cat never much bothered himself with how much rubbish we as a household unit threw into some Indian rubbish heap ( thanks to the EU ban on UK landfill and the necessary export of the stuff to Turkey or other third world shiteholes, making them even shitier ). After humans have been extinguished, he’ll pretty much continue as before.
The discussion of left and right is illuminating. I think, that the bloodiest aspects of the pre war struggle of the NAZIs was largely against the Communist party as their main rivals. In any case. I’m with Paul Marks, in that if all those things that I have attached myself to over the years, small government, individual freedom, rule of law, la di da. while under the illusion that they were icons of the ‘Right’, I have not much trouble retaining my attachment to those ideals, and changing labels.
*shorthand of the ignorant for Carbon Dioxide.
I think you mean pre-power struggle, not pre-war struggle as opposed to pre-war propaganda. Further, while that is true of the street fighting between the Brownshirts and the Red Front, the Nazis and Communists often cooperated when needed to keep the Weimar republic disfunctional, both in the Reichstag (e.g. a filthy alliance of Nazis, Communists and bleeding-heart ‘liberals’ passed more than one Reichstag amnesty vote that put sundry Nazis, Communists and apolitical petty criminals back on German streets) and outside it (e.g. the plebiscite to dissolve the Prussian parliament in 1931 and the Berlin transportation strike of December 1932).
A prophecy in one paragraph:
[Unelected powerful bureaucrat:]
“… {We have invoked the] Civil Contingencies Act. It was drafted to govern exactly this sort of situation.
We have to take preventative action to stop it from turning into a tidal wave… We have to do it as soon as possible before disasters… become daily occurrences. We are facing armaggedon; we’ve got to head it off before it happens….
Law-abiding citizens like yourself go about in a state of fear out of all proportion to the scale of the problem, fanned by the tabloid media.”
Ferox – you are making an error.
It is not C02 as such that they object to – it is “man made”, “human emissions” of C02 that they object to.
And not all humans either – for example CHINA can produce as much as C02 as they like.
It is C02 emissions from-the-West that is bad – not C02 as such.
In short, as so often, the policy can be summed up in four words – DEATH TO THE WEST.