Where “Social Justice Warriors” come from
September 29, 2015 § 232 Comments
Some people are beginning to rediscover that present day Social Justice Warriors are simply the original American patriots in modern form. Internet shaming and career destruction are an iteration of tar and feathers. Expressing anything less than enthusiastic approval of sodomy is now just as bad as failing to be up in arms and outraged over a 2% import duty on tea.
The role of American conservativism is, as it has ever been, to jealously and militantly preserve the conditions which produce SJW’s and the ‘progress’ of previous generations of SJW’s. In America we call the concentration of secular power in the hands of the SJW’s, who exercise that power to tar and feather loyalists, “freedom“. And we always have, since the founding of the Republic.
Zippy Catholic 
Of course, the takeaway will be “see, that’s why we should adopt SJW tactics. They work!”
Generally, CJ, yes, that’s what most people take away from it.
Gasp! You dare cast dispersions on the founders? You are a villain sir! Seriously I remember learning later from contemporary accounts of British and Hessian troops and how they were flumoxed by the rebellion when they came upon the average continental farmhouse that demonstrated a level of prosperity beyond the wildest dreams of the average European yeoman. And yes the SJW’s of today are merely the latest in the line of richly blessed but oddly dissatisfied Yanks. You are right to connect the line from them back to 1776. However I do hope you are prepared for the onslaught of “patriotic conservatives” measuring you for a hangman’s noose. Or at least to shoot your porch light out,
John Hancock was not too keen on the tax for it resulted in cheaper tea than the tea he was smuggling into the colonies.
Not a few men have pointed out that the Puritans rapidly lost their Faith but never the belief that they were saints chosen by God to spread their -whatever – all over the world.
[…] Source: Zippy Catholic […]
Once you realize that SJWs are an evolution going back to the Whigs you are halfway to Moldbug.
From Whigs to a post Civil War “Yankeeism” around knowing what’s best for everybody mating with Edward Bellamy (we will never know who was on top) to Trotsky and ultimately what we have ended up with today.
This should be a warning for the next republic if there’s a world left for one to exist on.
However I do hope you are prepared for the onslaught of “patriotic conservatives” measuring you for a hangman’s noose. Or at least to shoot your porch light out,
Zippy won’t care, just as he doesn’t care that his critique is a dishonest one that deliberately avoids discussion of the many actual abuses by the British against the colonists such as depriving them of due process rights, arbitrary alteration and abolition of colonial governments and attempted mass gun confiscation.
The fact is that when you consider how the Crown actually treated the colonists, it is manifestly obvious that they were no more regarded as Englishmen than the Indian subjects of the Crown.
Ok, maybe closer than the Indians, but the British government did not hesitate to deprive them of quite a few rights and privileges that were strongly protected for actual Britons living in Great Britain.
I highly disagree. SJWs are the spawn of the Jewish Frankfurt School not of the WASP Classical Liberal Founding Class of 1776.
Jefferson’s isolationism, agrarianism and nativism alongside Hamiltonian and Jacksonian nationalism do not seem to be a radical liberal agenda.
I say this as someone who is opposed to Classical Liberalism. I support Romanticism.
And another thing, the “mob violence” of the revolution that was supposedly a precursor to the SJW mob mentality is typical of any revolution. The fact that loyalists who stayed were not subject to official state persecution afterward is unusual in the scope of human history and absolutely not something that those with an SJW mindset would do. Remember the common saying from SJWs on people they despise: “there is no place in society for people who do/say/believe $X”
I’ll agree that SJW behavior is just the behavior of pretty much all revolutionaries. As for what present day SJWs would or would not do after total and comprehensive capitulation by everyone they oppose, that is simply speculation.
Even a cursory glance at a history text reveals that the American Revolution was criminal-led treason. Indeed, one of the most read articles on the Edanian blog is on that very topic. It is found here:
http://kingdomofedan.com/the-declaration-of-independence-a-failed-justification-for-perfidy-treason-and-terrorism/
From the criminal-funded attack on property celebrated as the Boston Tea Party (whee smuggler-financed and led thugs destroyed goods to ensure the colonists would be forced to continue to buy higher-cost, lower-quality tea from smugglers) to the ambush of French forces led by Washington where French prisoners of war, including wounded, were executed after capture (which was the trigger for the Seven Years War),on there ‘Founding Fathers’ proved themselves to be a traitorous, lawless bunch keen to use mob violence to further their aims.
Even a cursory glance at a history text reveals that the American Revolution was criminal-led treason.
This isn’t even slightly true.
From the criminal-funded attack on property celebrated as the Boston Tea Party (whee smuggler-financed and led thugs destroyed goods to ensure the colonists would be forced to continue to buy higher-cost, lower-quality tea from smugglers)…
If by “celebrated” you mean “condemned by several of the most famous and influential founding fathers”, sure.
Look, you can believe the American Revolution was unjustified if you like. That’s fine. But to ultra-simplify it like that is wrong bordering on dishonest.
Anytime somebody starts talking about a complex and divisive historical event with many competing factions all having different goals and ideas with some variation of the words, implied or stated, “It’s obvious that..”, I may not tune them out completely, but you’re definitely coming into the discussion at a distinct disadvantage.
It is obvious that the 9-11 attacks were unjustified acts of murder.
Malcolm,
I understand that you are a cynic, but you do know that Hancock was a smuggler, Jefferson an embezzler, Franklin a perjurer, all of them not just war profiteers but also profiteers who sold to the enemy of their own nation?
The Seven Years War was triggered by colonists, often led by Washington, leading attacks on French troops on French soil in direct violation of not just a British treaty but royal command. The last straw was when prisoners taken by Washington were executed while in custody.
It is easy to go on a rather long discussion of the lawlessness, violence, and criminal acts of the various leaders of the Rebellion. including how Franklin hid the dissent from the King and parliament for his own, personal, gain.
Perhaps you think that when an entire region refuses to pay taxes or obey the law as they instigate wars and lynch public officials is sufficient cause for that same region to revolt. I do not.
If Parliament had been treated with half of the contempt that the King showed to duly established colonial governments, the King’s own subjects would have hauled him out into the street and cut his head off.
“duly established colonial governments”
Duly established under whose authority?
Let’s say the Founding Fathers were everything that Zippy and KR says they are.
So what do we do about it? We are all born into this context and it is from this context we can move forward. We’re not going to have kings and more importantly kings are treasonous in this day and age just look at how Juan Carlos stabbed Franco in the back.
Look at the House of Winsor as well.
We can’t go back to the days of kings in America and at this point we have to just move forward, the goal should be to establish the Fourth American Republic, hand-wringing won’t get us there.
I understand that you are a cynic, but you do know that Hancock was a smuggler, Jefferson an embezzler, Franklin a perjurer, all of them not just war profiteers but also profiteers who sold to the enemy of their own nation?
Yes. You remind me of the guy I talked to trying to convince me that Christian history was really ultra-violent while bringing up tons of events I already knew about. No, the founding fathers were not Saints. Nor did the historical events you’re talking about happen in a vacuum. Nor am I even convinced that the revolutionaries were right; you could be correct that the was unjustified – I don’t know yet. I’m just rejecting the hyper-simplistic picture you seem to be painting, as if we’ve got white hats on one side and black hats on another.
History just doesn’t work like that.
Perhaps you think that when an entire region refuses to pay taxes or obey the law as they instigate wars and lynch public officials is sufficient cause for that same region to revolt. I do not.
Perhaps. Perhaps I have other reasons too, or maybe not. You wouldn’t know, since you didn’t ask and I never said.
I believe Mike is referring to the local parliaments set up in the colonies by the authority of the Crown with the ability to pass local laws
(in short, representation)
Jeffrson complained bitterly in the Declaration of Independence that the King had a veto right over his parliaments (although he had the same power of the main parliament). Jefferson and others also complained that the king forbade felons or those convicted of crimes against crown agents, or embezzlers, to serve in these parliaments (meaning many of the founders we barred).
Another complaint was that when these regional parliaments committed crimes (such as when Virginia sent militia into the Ohio territory to attack the French – during peacetime) the king would rebuke them and, if they broke enough laws, dissolved them and order – new elections (gasp)!
Of course, these colonial parliaments could have been ended at any time if the colonists just agreed to one of the multiple offers made to give them seats in the British parliament. Offers that were turned down, one and all, because then they would have lost their status as colonies and been subject to the same taxes as any British region.
Considering the riots that led to the Boston Tea party were about a 2 pence per pound tax on tea (at that time the *only* British tax on colonists) I’m sure that any taxes would have seemed like more.
Zippy – welcome back.
This is a question for you and for King Richard — since I’ve read quite a few of the neo-reactionary blogs for a number of years, especially the infamous Moldbug, my question is there any kind of political authority you accept besides royal authority? And if only royal authority, what do you think of clashes over dynastic succession? What about a kind like Henry VIII who defies church authority?
The Glorious Revolution — was it criminal? The Magna Carta — was it an attempt by the King’s subordinates to usurp his proper authority?
I know these are a lot of questions on a big topic, but even some of your thoughts would be appreciated.
Malcolm,
Thank you for clarifying. I apologize for my misunderstanding.
I meant to say, “my question to you both…” I think you get my meaning 🙂
I’ve read Moldbugs’s entry on the American rebellion and King Richard’s on the DoI. And yeah, when the grievances are taken at face value assuming no hyperbole (and that’s a huge assumption) and weighed against the criteria that justlfy making an armed revolt, they do appear to come up short.
But it seems to me there is problem from a Catholic “reactionary” standpoint. Namely, in 15-what-not, Henry VIII’s England concocted nonsense to justify kings rebelling from the Church and establishing a prototype police-state to do it. Several hundred years later, in what looks like poetic justice, subjects concocted nonsense to justify rebelling from kings.
From a Catholic reactionary standpoint, why isn’t American Colonists vs. Mother England a case of “the garbage taking care of itself?”
Malcolm,
Thank you for clarifying. I apologize for my misunderstanding.
Much appreciated. Thank you.
Scott,
There are a few ways of looking at the American Revolution. The Crown Prince does jokingly refer to it as ‘that rather Protestant bit of politics that concerned the Atlantic’.He also notes that the tool used to gain enough support to actually rebel was anti-Catholicism.
While Americans idolizing scofflaws, thieves, and thugs is nothing unusual and every nation polishes the reputation of it founders as they place their statues in public Americans take not just the step of believing the myths but sometimes go a step beyond use those myths as justification.
” The Crown Prince does jokingly refer to it ”
I read this as the Clown Prince lol. As in the Joker.
KR, are you American? Is it conservative/traditional to lambast the men who founded your nation?
Sure they may be held to criticism, but to completely denounce them seems wrong.
From my understanding KR is a British citizen.
Svar,
I am an American citizen, as well, yes.
I am also a decorated combat veteran of the American military.
A man is a scoundrel whether he is beloved or not; a criminal is still a criminal if he is rich and famous; the truth is true if it is frightening or comforting.
Means cannot be separated from ends, nor even from motivations.
A man proven to be a liar, cheat, traitor, embezzler, and philanderer is worthy of denunciation.
Well, I was wrong.
Sorry, KR.
Malcolm,
No need to apologize! The question is rarely asked.
Actually, I’m referring to the fact that in practice, the native legislatures had no meaningful power since they were fully subject to both king and the British Parliament. The British government has always been a unitary system with no subsidiarity. That means that even on purely local issues, the national parliament can wipe away all local authority as it sees fit.
And in the 17th century, the Crown did wholesale alter and abolish a whole swath of the colonial government purely for efficiency, when it created the Dominion of New England. The main reason it was short-lived was the Glorious Revolution which provided a pretext for the local leaders to revolt and reassert their old authority as it was expected that the Crown would now side with them.
This is an example of why Malcolm is correct. There were a lot of bad deeds on both sides.
Fake Herzog:
You are right that you’ve asked a big question, and at least at the moment I only have time for short answer. Specifically, the notion that I only recognize royal authority is very nearly the opposite of the truth: I’ve strongly criticized the very notion of monolithic authority, explained how liberalism leads to it, and further explained how that destroys organic subsidiarity.
We all should be mindful of the fact that there were a lot of leading men involved in the revolution and the character and reasons varied greatly between them. I, for one, will not say much in Sam Adams’ defense. But to go after men like Madison, Henry, John Adams, Washington and Hamilton is a very big stretch.
From a Catholic reactionary standpoint, why isn’t American Colonists vs. Mother England a case of “the garbage taking care of itself?”
One could also note that the founding fathers also created the first system of government in which English Catholics could serve in all elected offices, as civil service members and in the armed forces since the Reformation came to England, as well as enjoy full and equal rights under law with the Protestant majority.
I’ve strongly criticized the very notion of monolithic authority, explained how liberalism leads to it, and further explained how that destroys organic subsidiarity.
Monolithic authority was one of the problems with the British Empire prior to the Treaty of Paris. After we won our independence, the other colonies were increasingly successful at convincing the British to turn over true local authority to them.
Interestingly enough, despite some of the attacks on Washington’s character on this thread, his British contemporaries, including the King ironically, actually held a great deal of respect for him and his character.
Not to burst your metaphor, but in the case of the founders (who you link to the SJW’s) it was the founders themselves who risked death for taking on the powerful establishment, and not the other way around, as it is today. The founders had more to lose than the loyalists did. Many of the loyalists remained loyal because their wealth was based on their privileged connections to the crown and landed gentry in England.
Today, many SJWs are SJW because their entire self-worth is wrapped up in the narrative of the modern feminine, gay, minority imperative, and were that to be destroyed they would have to face the reality that they are actually just failures because of their own actions, and not that of some perceived “mean white guy” composed of the alpha dogs that they themselves will never be.
Tarring and feathering aside, it was the FOUNDERS who subscribed to a radical idea that stood outside of that era’s “Overton Window,” (the idea of limited self-government, at least among white males) which had not been previously seen on a similarly large scale during the Christian era.
@ KR
Well, from where I stand, both traditionalism/classical conservatism and classical liberalism are no-goes. The only way forward is romantic nationalism.
Are you advocating classical conservatism?
Just a few quick questions:
If “Social Justice Warriors are simply the original American patriots in modern form”, why are so many of them endlessly critical of America’s history, culture, social conventions, laws, economic system and Constitutionally-protected freedom of speech?
If “Social Justice”, as it is practiced by SJWs, is based on American conservatism, why are so many SJWs militant liberals and progressives?
WHO, exactly, “in America” uses the word “freedom” to mean “the concentration of secular power in the hands of SJWs”? I have never heard anyone define freedom this way, including SJWs, most of whom would say there is entirely too much freedom (at least for some people) in America.
To compare the SJWs to the Founding Fathers is an egregious insult to the latter. Did George Washington hide behind the anonymity of a cutesy user name? Did Patrick Henry continually portray himself as a victim of violence every time he was criticized? Did Benjamin Franklin ever retreat to a safe space whenever the debate in the Constitutional Congress strayed into areas unaligned with his value system? Was the First Amendment intended to a “speech code” designed to protect the sensitive from triggering phrases?
Or do just have your head up your ass?
Xephon:
To take just one of your questions: we’ve had lengthy debates here on the meaning and implications of making freedom a political priority. A good starting place is to follow the link in the OP at the point you reference.
Svar,
I am what could easily be labeled a Traditionalist Conservative. I find Romantic Nationalism to be founded on shaky ground, although the focus on the organic culture, etc., at its heart is noble.
Xephon.
You ask, “If “Social Justice Warriors are simply the original American patriots in modern form”, why are so many of them endlessly critical of America’s history, culture, social conventions, laws, economic system and Constitutionally-protected freedom of speech?”
Please read the literature of the American Revolutionaries again and you will see a pattern: disdain for their own nation and its rulers (England); disdain for the customs of their own people/nation; dismissal of societal norms; etc. The Sons of Liberty and similar groups looked upon England with ‘endless criticism’. And their goals? To make a ‘better, more just world without the division of class and oppression of tradition, actually.
Post revolution the writers are filled with a triumphalism of having ‘swept away the old’ as they build a better future for the entire world.
Sound familiar?
You ask, “If “Social Justice”, as it is practiced by SJWs, is based on American conservatism, why are so many SJWs militant liberals and progressives?”
This is a common error, no matter how many times the correction is expressed.
The American Founding Fathers were Liberals *by definition*. Their sources, own writings, goals, outlooks, etc. – all inherently Liberal. Based upon their belief in improvement, etc. they are arguably ‘progressives’, as well. And they were certainly militant!
[Quick aside – Xephon, are you a supporter of nigh-absolute Freedom of Speech? Democracy? Capitalism? Yes? That means you are a Liberal, just a slightly different flavor than, oh, Monbiot]
You ask, “Did George Washington hide behind the anonymity of a cutesy user name? ”
No, but only because he wasn’t much of a writer. Plenty of other did, though. From Publius to Busy Body, Horatius to Fanny Mournful, the Founding Fathers wrote and publishes prodigious amounts of everything from political commentary to puerile limericks under pseudonyms. Some of them even engaged in what is now called ‘sockpuppetry’; using different “user names” to imitate support for something they, themselves, wrote under a “user name”.
I suggest you read the book ‘Famous Scribblers’ for more details.
I could continue about the sometimes false accusations of tyranny and oppression; how Franklin left for France as much for breathing room as diplomacy; about the Sedition Act; and so on.
I could continue about the sometimes false accusations of tyranny and oppression;
You mean like how in the 17th century, the English arbitrarily reorganized New England under a completely different form of government that was not compatible with anything they knew in England?
Mike T:
Wow, management restructuring. And “arbitrary”! That sounds oppressive enough to justify starting a shooting war.
The Founding Fathers can’t really blamed for the Frankfurt School which is where SJW ideals come from, not from the Founding of the Republic.
Svar:
I think the Frankfurt School is – at most – one of the side shows produced by liberalism’s intrinsic rebellion against nature and nature’s God. Treating it as something other than a symptom triggers the same old banal avoidance pattern: that is, avoid the need for fundamental repentance by blaming society’s ills on the oppressor-untermensch.
Wow, management restructuring. And “arbitrary”! That sounds oppressive enough to justify starting a shooting war.
What I’ve gather from responses like this is that in your eyes, very few things short of rounding up an entire group and slaughtering them would ever constitute oppression in your opinion.
Zippy,
I know I asked a lot and I do thank you for your initial response, but I also want to thank you for your response to Xephon — the post on “freedom” is very helpful to get me up to speed (again?) on where you are coming from.
King Richard,
I know you didn’t respond to me, but in your response to Xephon you say the following:
“Please read the literature of the American Revolutionaries again and you will see a pattern: disdain for their own nation and its rulers (England); disdain for the customs of their own people/nation; dismissal of societal norms; etc.”
But isn’t that exactly what is at issue — the Pilgrims/Puritans came here to America (and many colonists, not all, but many) followed because they felt alienated in their own country — England was in a real sense oppressive to them and they want to pray, live their lives, pass laws, etc. as they saw fit in their own communities. As Zippy sort of says, all of politics happens at the ‘edge cases’ (Zippy I don’t have the time to look up your exact quote and I know you hate it when folks put words in your mouth so I’m trying to get at your general meaning here) — where ‘freedom’ is contested. When the colonists left England to live their life in America they really did become a separate people over time and the King and Parliament couldn’t appreciate these facts on the ground. This was also true of the other English-speaking colonies and I suppose you could point to them as a better model of constitutional government/independence from England over time — perhaps you would be right. I probably would enjoy living in Australia or Canada just fine.
But as an American, I do love my country and I find I love its founders and political ideals as well — they seem to have served us well for many years. I’m more of a ‘we made a wrong turn in the 20th Century’ kind of guy, but obviously I read folks like Zippy because I acknowledge that I might be wrong and the whole American project from Declaration to Bill of Rights might need to go — but I’m not there yet 😉
The Frankfurt School and Gramsci were pivotal in pushing the left down the route of deliberately debasing the culture across the full spectrum of its constituent components in service of the “Revolution.” Calling them a symptom is like calling a secondary infection just another symptom.
When the colonists left England to live their life in America they really did become a separate people over time and the King and Parliament couldn’t appreciate these facts on the ground.
Let’s not forget Virginia and Maryland. Virginia was colonized by men who wanted to make money and rise in status. They had no real affection for the old English class system. Maryland was a refuge for English Catholics who were badly persecuted under law in Britain.
When you get down to it, the American colonies were a dumping ground for dissenters from the Church of England, Ireland and the lower classes of Great Britain. That’s to say nothing of all of the German, Dutch and French that were present as well. I don’t see how anyone can rationally look at the makeup of the colonies and expect a strong natural love and fealty to England there.
King Richard,
What is your source for this:
“to the ambush of French forces led by Washington where French prisoners of war, including wounded, were executed after capture (which was the trigger for the Seven Years War)”?
By research indicated that the incident is not as clear-cut as your make it out to be:
http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/18thCentury/articles/thestart.aspx
What I found most interesting about the post is the cartoon. It fits Zippy’s argument perfectly. That doesn’t mean that his argument is correct, but it is a very good demonstration of how 1970s liberals were able to distill rebellion from our complex history, and then sell it as the essential ingredient; as opposed to the impurity that it was.
Mike T:
Yes, you have a tendency to see (or at least express) things in hyperbolic terms.
All sorts of things ‘constitute oppression’, because there are all sorts of kinds and degrees of oppression. Starting a shooting war at all, however, let alone against legitimate authority (however flawed, stupid, etc), must be justified under the just war doctrine; and the bar is pretty high there.
FH:
That’s pretty close. Politics is by definition whatever means is used to authoritatively resolve controvertible and actually controverted cases.
“its founders and political ideals as well — they seem to have served us well for many years.”
I can agree that it was a rip-roaring success, but largely by writing checks against a treasury of Christian manners and mores (even some of the founders recognized that). A treasury that is all but depleted leaving the inherent lie of liberalism laid bare.
Fake Herzog,
Thank you for your comment.
Further:
Your own source states;
“When the French camp was found, Washington, with 47 militiamen and some Indian warriors, attacked the French camp. According to Washington’s diary, his men fired only when discovered by the French…”
This is an ambush of a foreign military in peacetime without provocation.
Scholarly sources confirm this summary from History.com,
“… Washington struck first, successfully ambushing the small party….”
As is pointed out in scholarly sources but often omitted, Jumonville was not the only captured French soldier killed after they surrendered – this is repeated in testimony of a French prisoner who escaped as the prisoners were being killed, one of Washington’s own men in sworn testimony, and from the French survivors. Eccles, O’Meara, and Williams all point to these deaths,as confirmed by the testimony of multiple sources. Lengel points out that one of the reasons the Iroquois weren’t as cooperative at the beginnings of the Seven Years War was the Mingo were still upset that Washington didn’t let them keep all of the scalps of the French they (the Mingo) had killed at Jumonville Glen, but Wasshington and other witnesses all agree the Mingo did not fire during the ambush, so anyone the Mingo killed, they killed after the surrender.
In short, Washington ambushed a camp of French, at night, in peacetime, lost control of his troops and some of the prisoners were killed.
[…] skepticism has been expressed about drawing a connection between the Sons of Liberty torturing loyalists for failure to vocally support […]
@KR
Do you deny that Washington, Hamilton, are the Founding Fathers of the US?
As an American citizen and decorated combat veteran, does that make you their “children”?
Cane,
They certainly are founders of the US. No, it does not make me a “child” of theirs.
Yes, you have a tendency to see (or at least express) things in hyperbolic terms.
I actually was just responding in the spirit of your response to my original point. Calling it a reorg like it’s just a CEO changing an org chart may not be hyperbole, but it’s orwellian in its use of euphemism.
@RK
Why did you drop fathers from the description of the “Founding Fathers”? I see above you used the term “Founding Fathers” at least twice, but here you have excised it.
Were the English kings a type of father? I mean this in the same sense that Zippy speaks of rebellion against legitimate authority; that he makes the comparison (somewhere recently) of a stupid drunken father still sitting in the father’s chair.
What, then, do you believe is your relationship to the US Founding Fathers, as an American citizen and a combat-decorated veteran of the US military?
Cane:
I know you didn’t ask me, but you did cite me, and what the heck, I’m just gonna give my own answer.
The founding fathers are dead, so my relationship to them is at most like my relationship to (say) Harry Truman, or a present-day Englishman’s relationship to George III.
The current USG is a legitimate authority, and my relationship to it qua legitimate authority is similar to what my relationship would be with a stupid drunken father.
The term Founding Father is very common, but I dropped it to point out it is just a term, not a reflection of fact.
My ‘relationship’ with them? That is an… odd way of phrasing it. I am not related to any of them by blood, to the best of my knowledge.
Although, interestingly, my direct ancestor was a personal friend of George Washington when they were both young men. Washington helped survey his land and they were officers in the Colonial militia together. His home, named for my family, still exists and is on the National Historical Register.
America has been very good to me, something I have stated publicly often. I am proud of my service to America.
But that does not mean that I should, or can, ignore that the act of founding America was unjustified, nor that the men who led the rebellion were often of the worst sort. I can acknowledge the fact that Americans are a friendly, generous people and still know, and point out, that the concepts under girding the American systems are pernicious.
Mike T:
I actually am quite open to being shown that it was something other than a legitimate management reorganization by the legitimate authority over the colonies and the Englishmen who lived there. Governing colonies is different from governing the home country (as e.g. governing a US subsidiary is different from governing one in India); so just showing that there were different rules and structures in the colonies from those in England can’t really do the heavy lifting. Specific injustices would have to be shown and evaluated on their own terms. And as is ever the case in human affairs, I have no doubt that there were some.
But even if I grant some unfairness in the way things were managed by the Crown, the distance between that and the justification for starting a shooting war is, again, very high.
Cane, Zippy,.
If you were transported to Nazi Germany in 1935 should you support the concepts of the Nazi Party?
No.
But that doesn’t mean you can break their traffic laws.
The theoretical foundation of America is inherently Liberal; Democracy is self-destructive. But this is a combination of so far removed from the every day life of the typical American and, frankly, so opaque to even its nominal leaders that it is not a personal issue. I must still obey those laws that are not inherently sinful but regardless of the origins, it is now sovereign in its existence.
The King Has Two Bodies, after all.
@KR
I appreciate your candor.
I cannot help but wonder if you meant to imply more specifically that you are not American like those bad Americans; that everyone is aware you’re of a different breed.
Not at all; particularly in light of your next statement.
There you have it! You are (especially in comparison to most Americans) quite closely related to the Founding Fathers. There is documentation that you are directly related to close friends of Washington, and your actual blood family has a monument!
Did you ancestor fight on the side of the rebel Colonialists, or the Loyalists, or neither?
I am related by blood to Betsy Ross, FWIW.
I actually am quite open to being shown that it was something other than a legitimate management reorganization by the legitimate authority over the colonies and the Englishmen who lived there.
The way I understand it, the Dominion of New England was a reorg equivalent to the King not calling a new election, but liquidating Parliament as an institution. Under English law, the King has no authority to just dispose of Parliament and rule by decree.
That’s why King Richard’s assertion that the King treated the colonial legislatures as “parliaments” rings hollow to me. He came in, destroyed a bunch of valid institutions that were not in rebellion and put most of New England under a form of government that England had not had for centuries (and that would not be legal to do to Englishmen living in England)
It would be akin to the federal government coming to your state, out of the blue, declaring the state to be grossly inefficient and placing it under a federal proconsul with the entire elected and appointed government disbanded and the government ruled by decree from Washington. Mainly out of expediency, not actual serious illegality by the region.
@Mike T
Does that necessitate shooting?
It sounds just like the result of American Civil War. Should states-right advocates start shooting this afternoon? If not this afternoon, when is a good time to start shooting our fellow citizens?
” quite closely related to the Founding Fathers.”
My father went to school with and was friends with Joe Ferriola when he was in grade school, yet I have no ‘close relationship’ with the Chicago mob. My wife’s family is intermarried with that of Michael Collins, yet my sons have no ‘close relationship’ with the IRA.
Bonald’s post about DRBill’s comment may be pertinent.
My American heritage…I had a half-breed Injun great-grandmother on my mother’s father’s side, paleface. My mother’s mother’s mother was a member of some KKK women’s auxiliary.
I am the offspring of some traditionalist’s exogenous bugbears.
Though, like most po’ folk, we ain’t got no jews.
“Svar:
I think the Frankfurt School is – at most – one of the side shows produced by liberalism’s intrinsic rebellion against nature and nature’s God. Treating it as something other than a symptom triggers the same old banal avoidance pattern: that is, avoid the need for fundamental repentance by blaming society’s ills on the oppressor-untermensch.”
Before the Frankfurt School, which synthesized Marxism with the perverted Jewish socio-sexual theories of Freud, the Classical Liberal founders of the First American Republic appealed to the Natural Law and the paleocons over at Chronicles believe that the Founding was appealing to the law at set out by the Magna Carta.
I see Cultural Marxism to be the continuation of the Jewish war against Christ and the Civilization that took up the mantle of Christ, the West.
Now, you’re argument that this is a secondary infection is interesting (as in I am considering it). Are you a Spenglerite? I am influenced heavily by him and I too can not determine whether or not what we are seeing is a natural biological degeneration or a purposeful subversion.
Knowing which one it is is very important because it shows us the way. Whether or not the solution is to allow the collapse to occur and rebuild a new civilization in the ashes or whether to go after the subversives.
Cane,
Your last questions really don’t apply to that scenario. The scenario I describe as an analog to the establishment of the Dominion of New England is a more powerful authority outright overthrowing a weaker and lower one. If the weaker and lower one is a legitimate authority that is not a squabble, that’s an act of war by the higher authority.
Zippy,
That was very interesting. If I may meander a bit.
When I speak with people in person, especially about Edan, what you see here comes up rather often;
“Your family came to the Americas in the 1600’s, your family was close with Washington, you have a home named for your family on the National Historic Register, your ancestors fought in every American War from the Seven Years, including both sides of the Revolutionary War and both sides of the Civil War, and you, personally, have medals awarded for actions in combat. How can you do what you are doing?”
One of my answers is –
Why aren’t you as concerned about the founding of America?
But the real question is-
Why aren’t you?
I am influenced heavily by him and I too can not determine whether or not what we are seeing is a natural biological degeneration or a purposeful subversion.
Gramsci advocated deliberate and quite purposeful subversion. Modern art, for instance, is right out of Gramsci’s suggestion of how to debase art to the point that it lost aesthetic value and ability to provide any meaning to society. In fact, it was weaponized specifically to attune men to ugly things, not beauty, because that would lower their resistance.
That video was for Cane.
Svar, I haven’t even read “Decline of the West”, but from what I understand by osmosis it is probably a bit too deterministic – though granted on a grand rather than microscopic scale – for me to take it too seriously at least as a detailed theory. But I’m strongly skeptical of grand unified theories in general, and I don’t pretend to be able to speak intelligently about Spengler. If there is correspondence between his views and mine it is a matter of convergence not derivation.
Liberalism is advocacy of continual, purposeful, deliberate political rebellion.
And almost everyone believes in its basic precepts. They just differ about the unprincipled exceptions and particulars.
@KR
To be sure, but you’re sort of squirreling around. I asked what was your relationship to the Founding Fathers. To which you replied that it was an odd question, and then turned right back around and relayed a close relationship between your family, and Washington. They were friends, comrades, and business associates. There are documents and monuments holding witness to what must be called (regardless of personal opinions) a historic relationship, to you, and through blood.
The same evidence has not been offered by you for Ferriola or Collins. More to the point: We’re not talking about the Chicago Mob or the IRA. We’re talking about the American Revolution.
You staked out a position that it is a good and right and just thing to recognize criminals and their misdeeds; specifically in reference to the American Revolution, and regardless of their stature or our parentage. TO wit:
In this same spirit, I see an opportunity for you to state whether or not your documented and monumented, blood relation–a close friend, comrade, and business associate of that scoundrel and traitor George Washington–was, or was not, a treasonous criminal worthy of denunciation. So I ask again:
Did you ancestor fight on the side of the rebel Colonialists, or the Loyalists, or neither?
“…relayed a close relationship between your family, and Washington…”
This is the odd part.
Washington is dead, and has been for some time. I have no ‘relationship’ with him. There is an historical connection between one of my ancestors and Washington, but that is not a ‘relationship’. I am not sure of the point.
My ancestor? the close friend sat out the Revolutionary War while 2 of his sons fought under Washington and 2 others were Loyalists (including the oldest, my ancestor). Afterwards the Loyalists moved west to avoid repercussions.
But, even if it were otherwise, there are two points;
1) What bearing would that have on me?
2) What bearing would this have on the actions of Washington, Jefferson, etc?
KR:
It is all John Wycliffe’s fault, really. Under Wycliffe’s theory of dominion, once a man sins mortally he loses his authority (John of Gaunt used this principle to confiscate the property of “sinners”, since ownership is a kind of authority). So the West has a long history of framing all authority as abuse just because men in authority are (like men in general) quite frequently morally corrupt and barely competent.
Accepting that the imperfect authority of men is nevertheless legitimate authority is a tough nut for human beings in general, and most especially modern human beings. As I put it before,
“The modern project is driven by a relentless motivation to deny and avoid messy fallible human authority. Positivism attempts to do this in the domain of epistemology. Nominalism attempts to do this in the domain of language. Liberalism attempts to do this in the domain of politics. Protestantism attempts to do this in the domain of religion. Feminism attempts to do this in the domain of sex and the family. Scientism attempts to do this in the domain of ontology. Utilitarianism attempts to do this in the domain of deontology.
Examples can be multiplied. But the common thread is an attempt to avoid or reject messy, fallible, flawed human authority. The common thread is to propose that even if we are not God and cannot be God, by God nobody else will stand over me personally in some human hierarchy. The common thread is to reject bending the knee to any other man.
And the inevitable result is descent into raving, meaningless chaos.”
Zippy,
And I see the converse, as well. My discussions of the fallibility, even criminality, of the Founding Fathers is less ‘therefore, they were Wrong because they were Bad’ but rather ‘They are a myth; they lend no weight to Democracy, etc.’
“Liberalism is advocacy of continual, purposeful, deliberate political rebellion.
And almost everyone believes in its basic precepts. They just differ about the unprincipled exceptions and particulars.”
The things you call liberalism are not new. They showed up in Rome and they showed up in Ancient Iran. Maybe this is what dying civilizations do.
@KR
No, it’s not. Relationship is a perfectly normal synonym for connection. You tried to skirt yourself away from a connection to the American Revolution: by dropping “Fathers” from “Founding Fathers”; by protesting that the very normal word “relationship” was somehow odd; and by ignoring my question until I persisted.
At the same time you made us all aware of your combat-decorated veteran status, and of your family’s long-standing, connected, documented, and even monumented status in this nation of Founding Scoundrels we call the USA.
Hard to say, but I found it interesting.
Probably none, but again it is hard to say. I don’t know what conversations your family members had with others; possibly with Washington, or perhaps which were third-hand passed onto Washington. It’s a big mystery.
Regardless, it was not actions of which you said they were worthy of denunciation, but the men themselves.
@Zippy
Five-year olds who’ve never heard of John Wycliff do the same thing when their older, in-charge, siblings step out of line.
Zippy,
This caught my eye:
““The modern project is driven by a relentless motivation to deny and avoid messy fallible human authority.”
Couldn’t one really say this about all of human history? Whether it is Caeser taking power because the feckless Senate wasn’t doing their job, of that same Senate killing him because he had become a tyrant? Or the Normans invading England and taking over, thanks to the relationship between William and Edward the Confessor? (Was that a just war under Catholic doctrine?) Or the conflict between various Kings and Popes in the medieval era (my favorite is the story of Henry IV waiting for forgiveness outside Canossa from the Pope!) Or Henry VIII rejecting the Pope’s authority and assuming authority over the newly created Church of England? Etc. etc. It seems like this is hardly a modern project.
FH:
Yes, rebellion against authority has been around since the Garden in various forms. But liberalism is the form taken by our rebellion.
I seem to frequently encounter two different attitudes toward my criticism of liberalism specifically and modernism more generally.
The first is “well, this kind of thing has been around forever, so, nothing to see here, move along.”
The Charybdis to this Scylla is a refusal to see the connection between (e.g.) classical liberalism and modern liberalism, Sons of Liberty and Sons of Sodomy.
I don’t agree with either of those interpretations. But in a way it doesn’t really matter, because stipulating one or the other (since they are mutually contradictory) doesn’t really change anything important. For example, if liberalism/modernism is a false lie from the pit of Hell then tracing its genesis to Genesis wouldn’t actually relieve us from the duty to reject it utterly and oppose it with all of our being.
Refusing to oppose murderous error because of its historical point of origin involves committing the genetic fallacy. It doesn’t matter if I am right in tracing the specific origins of liberalism. It only matters if I am right in characterizing what it is.
“I seem to frequently encounter two different attitudes toward my criticism of liberalism specifically and modernism more generally.
The first is “well, this kind of thing has been around forever, so, nothing to see here, move along.””
Well the issue is that we need to diagnose the problem to understand what we are dealing with. If this is a natural degeneration than we can’t do anything about the same way we can’t stave off death forever.
If it is a subversion, then like I said before, we must go after the subversives and repair their damage and reverse the course.
“Svar, I haven’t even read “Decline of the West”, but from what I understand by osmosis it is probably a bit too deterministic – though granted on a grand rather than microscopic scale – for me to take it too seriously at least as a detailed theory. But I’m strongly skeptical of grand unified theories in general, and I don’t pretend to be able to speak intelligently about Spengler. If there is correspondence between his views and mine it is a matter of convergence not derivation.”
The basic premise of Spengler’s views is whether or not societies and civilizations are living, breathing organism-like entities and whether these entities can die.
It’s not any more deterministic than saying that you and I are both going to die. We have to.
I also find that Spengler is best understood when complemented by Toynbee.
@Zippy
True.
It matters when the discussion is about whether or not SJWs do actually come from the “original American patriots”.
It also matters in trying to develop a stereotype, warning signs, and cues. For example: Someone above mentioned that (contra SJWs today) the American Revolutionaries were outside the power structure. I take your grouping of John Wycliff and (largely) Protestant American Revolutionaries as lending itself to a stereotype which warns against Protestants, generally, as a source of SJWs.
Maybe you’re right, but either way it does matter if that stereotype is useful and so studying the specific origins and typical pathways is useful. We could, for example, use that Protestant stereotype to not waste time looking for SJWs among Roman Catholics unless something egregious pops up.
Zippy, CC has a point. Could you explain the connection between WASP Classical Liberal Revolution and the SJW “Revolt of the Untermensch” situations?
KR, do you have any recommended reading on the French and Indian War? The Fred Anderson books were OK as an overview but seemed mostly to be more like “Prelude to 1776.” Thanks.
Throwing this question out there, as being somewhat relevant. Was Hitler justified in executing Claus von Stauffenberg for treason (assassination attempt, 1944)?
If you don’t think the answer is obvious, what historical facts would you alter, to make him clearly justified, or clearly unjustified, in your judgment?
A Jesuit is responsible for the promulgation of the phrase and concept “social justice”.
Hopefully folks realize that social justice is a good thing, properly construed, and that tarring and feathering and other mob violence is not a good thing.
Which one of those things was stoning under the Mosaic law?
He who is without sin can cast the first one.
“Throwing this question out there, as being somewhat relevant. Was Hitler justified in executing Claus von Stauffenberg for treason (assassination attempt, 1944)?
If you don’t think the answer is obvious, what historical facts would you alter, to make him clearly justified, or clearly unjustified, in your judgment?”
It’s not obvious. It would be obvious if Claus von Stauffenberg wasn’t another mystic Catholic nationalist.
If the Germans had won, there would be intense fighting between the Nazis and Waffen-SS and between the more conservative and reactionary types like the Wehrmacht.
King Richard, Zippy and all who are interested:
This is particularly timely given this discussion:
http://www.henrydampier.com/2015/09/book-review-the-true-history-of-the-american-revolution/
I plan to get the book and read it soon!!!
“Hopefully folks realize that social justice is a good thing, properly construed, and that tarring and feathering and other mob violence is not a good thing.”
Fr. Coughlin talked about “Social Justice”.
It’s just that the term has been warped by pansy Christians and Cultural Marxists. If it was any other group, SJWs would call it “cultural appropriation”.
So, Zippy, do you have a solution to this mess? I laid out going after the oppressor-untermensch but you say that won’t work. Why?
Svar – Zippy has a post entitled “The Problem is You and the Solution is Repentance.” I think that summarizes his answer to your question.
Svar:
Because there is no oppressor-untermensch.
The oppressor-untermensch is a myth entailed by any utopian ideology – and reactionary mirrors of those utopian ideologies which insist on being its precise opposite – to explain the mismatch between its expectations and reality. Like all effective myths it tends to have various anchors in reality, of course, but is no less a myth for that.
Liberalism of course is and has always been a utopian political ideology (that is, a political ideology with a self-conceived telos which is impossible given the true nature of things). So it entails the existence of an oppressor-untermensch: if only we could end the oppressor one way or another the free and equal superman, self-created through reason and will, emancipated from the chains of history, arbitrary natural accident, and other peoples’ provincial conceptions of “God”, would be able to live in peace.
@Zippy
I’m with you on the mob violence.
The phrase “social justice”, it seems to me, was invented to bolster (or perhaps introduce to certain crowds) the untermensch fallacy you rightly and frequently denounce. Social justice is not a good thing because it’s not really a thing; at least not discrete from (another non-thing) individual justice. All true justice is just whether it is applied to an individual, or across a society. Modifying justice with “social” is meant to degrade justice overall.
To say that while it may be just for George, but it is unjust socially is evidence of injustice all around. For one thing, George is part of society. Either a thing is just to him and the rest of society, or it is not just at all. The intellectuals who promote social justice know this, and use it precisely to catch people into a trap which is actually designed to kill justice because being just too often gets in the way of overcoming the untermensch oppressor.
The reasons utopian liberalism did so well for so long in the USA are manifold.
Scott W alluded to one of them already: everyone mostly ignored the incoherent utopianism in day-to-day dealings and fed off of the dead patrimony of Christendom. As the parasite got its snout further and further into the corpse it hit bone or hide in places, giving rise to things like the Frankfurt School, Naziism, Stalinism, the abortion holocaust, and present-day SJW’s. Now the corpse is almost completely consumed, and the larger part of our society believes that failure to affirm the wonderfulness of sodomy is wicked beyond the pale.
Another reason is simply because it actually was the ‘underdog’ against the dying Protestant post-Christendom monarchies: that is, it was in its early growth phase in 1776. But it didn’t take too long from there to start spitting out spasms of unprecedented violence.
When reading my last sentence it should be understood that I agree with you, Zippy, that there is no untermensch oppressor.
Cane:
That’s true, but the common good and the individual good are distinguishable, so talking about what is just (the minimally required good action or inaction) distinctly for ‘social’ and ‘individual’ is perfectly reasonable.
It is also true enough that they are often falsely set in opposition, as if (e.g.) it were possible for the common good to require committing injustices against individuals. But that is because people are idiots, not because there is a conceptual problem with social justice.
@Zippy
Perhaps we can rehabilitate Game, then, despite our agreeing and mutual protests.
“If you use their words, you will end up thinking their thoughts.” ~ ZC
That goes double with idiots, and triple for idiots when idiots hear conceptual thinkers use “their words”; properly construed or otherwise.
Cane:
What the SJWs have done to social justice, Christian game supporters attempt to do to game. SJWs want to reconceptualize justice as something other than justice (specifically liberalism), and force us to use the old term for the new concept. CGSs want to reconceptualize game as something other than the equivalent of slutty behavior for men (what ‘other’ specifically depends on the apologist), and force us to use the old term for the new concept.
I don’t think we should cooperate with either.
As with racism I would take the position that given the rampant abuse of the concept it is imprudent to use the word in casual discussion; and in non-casual discussion only very carefully, as here.
“Svar – Zippy has a post entitled “The Problem is You and the Solution is Repentance.” I think that summarizes his answer to your question.”
Repentance solves the question of whether or not I get Eternal Life. I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about saving our nation and our civilization. Christ could care less if America or the West dies because that is not of His concern, He didn’t care if the Roman Empire died and He shouldn’t have. The premier concern is whether not He dies within our hearts and that is both His sole concern and our number one concern.
What I am talking about is our second most important concern, the state of our local and national communities and the greater civilization these two things lie within.
@Zippy
I would agree with this statement if you had left out social. Isn’t it true that you’re trying to discard the metaphysical baggage of the term “social justice”? It was coined for a particular reason, used by a particular group of people, started particular movements and politics, and launched particular actions.
It seems to me that you’re arguing they used two words (social and justice) together, and that since we all agree those words are real, then the metaphysical baggage of them is an illusion in the minds of liberals; that we should use them (carefully, non-casual, etc.) in the way that the coiners of social justice should have used them if they had been us.
Obviously, I’m asking about more than “social justice”. I’m exploring your (very engaging) ideas of linguistics, metaphysical baggage, and interpretation.
Cane:
From my POV social justice is a concept from Catholic social doctrine, which itself is derivative from the distinction between commutative and distributive justice, which in turn has a pedigree going back to before Christ. That’s metaphysical baggage that SJWs are trying to shed, and I’m not interested in helping them do so.
“The oppressor-untermensch is a myth entailed by any utopian ideology – and reactionary mirrors of those utopian ideologies which insist on being its precise opposite – to explain the mismatch between its expectations and reality. Like all effective myths it tends to have various anchors in reality, of course, but is no less a myth for that.
Liberalism of course is and has always been a utopian political ideology (that is, a political ideology with a self-conceived telos which is impossible given the true nature of things). So it entails the existence of an oppressor-untermensch: if only we could end the oppressor one way or another the free and equal superman, self-created through reason and will, emancipated from the chains of history, arbitrary natural accident, and other peoples’ provincial conceptions of “God”, would be able to live in peace.”
I don’t believe in Utopia, I believe in Good. And more importantly I believe in “better”.
Would our situation become better not perfect but better if certain groups were either A: better behaved or B: Just gone?
I say so. Our country would be better without Cultural Marxists, ultra-capitalists (mostly managerial capitalists), and globalists. Our country would be better off if we adhered to the Paleoconservative Three Tenets: Nativism, Protectionism, and Isolationism.
Would sin still exist? Of course. But we can work on repair our culture and our communities and create a situation in which major, extremely destructive sins occur far less frequently.
Svar:
Repentance from error and wickedness isn’t just about eternal salvation. Whole peoples sometimes have to do it in order to avoid, at least for a time, utter destruction.
“Svar:
Repentance from error and wickedness isn’t just about eternal salvation. Whole peoples sometimes have to do it in order to avoid, at least for a time, utter destruction.”
How do you plan on bringing this about? It’s easier to throw out subversive and dangerous elements from society to bring about the full repentance of a people/tribe/nation/civilization.
It’s easier to bring about the latter if the first is done before.
Svar:
If political right wingers manage to succeed in enacting the sort of things you suggest without fundamental repentance broadly and deeply in the populace first, it will end up being some new riff on the nazi/stalinist phase of modernism. That isn’t what you want, of course; but nature doesn’t care what you want.
Zippy, do you think stoning by the law was unjust? If not, then how can Christ’s reply be read as you seem to implicitly read it? Or, well, how DO you mean to read it?
Ioannes Barbarus:
It looks to me like you’ve entangled two very different questions together.
One question is whether stoning is or is not a morally licit method of execution when carried out by the competent authority after a just juridical procedure resulting in conviction of a capital crime. It isn’t a question I’ve ever addressed, but to get an idea of how I think about that sort of thing you might read my waterboarding series. We spent seven years or so endlessly arguing about that kind of thing across many blogs during G.W. Bush’s tenure as President.
The other question is whether it is morally licit for a mob to torture and murder someone, whatever method is used to commit the torture and murder. The answer to that question is “no”.
“The other question is whether it is morally licit for a mob to torture and murder someone, whatever method is used to commit the torture and murder. The answer to that question is “no”.”
Define “mob”. Sometimes extralegal justice is necessary when the state shirks it’s own duties.
Giving a definition wouldn’t solve anything. If you want to know when rebellion is justified, start with the just war doctrine.
I would say that the revolt on the streets against Merkel’s migrant policies is perfectly justified outside of just war doctrine. An elite has no legitimate authority to enact policies which amount to “electing a new people.” It’s one of the few times rebellion is intrinsically justified.
It is probably useful to distinguish between crowds boo-ing about things they don’t like and mobs torturing and murdering people.
Zippy, I am not talking about war against other states but against subversive elements in society. I believe that the Just War doctrine would allow an uprising against “refugees” and the hostile elites that bring them in as well as usurers and other financial exploiters of the nation.
If it is morally licit to take medication to remove tapeworms or chemo to remove tumors from your own body, than it is morally licit to remove dangerous elements from the national body.
Svar:
Any shooting war (or stabbing, or what have you — any war involving violence), including a revolutionary one, has to be justified as a just war (jus ad bellum); and conduct during that war has to be just conduct (jus in bello). There aren’t any exceptions to this, and analogies don’t produce exceptions to it. Revolutions are not in principle impossible to justify, but the hurdles are very high.
“Enter through the narrow gate” isn’t just airy-fairy theology up in the sky. It has practical implications for how Christians (that is, people who do not want to burn in Hell for all of eternity) approach life in very practical ways.
Many realize this, and go away sad (Mt 19:22).
Furthermore, even the analogy to medicine itself is bad. Cultivating a revolutionary spirit in order to combat the products of a revolutionary spirit isn’t medication to kill the infection. It adds to the infection. The right wing of liberalism is as much a part of liberalism as the left wing. They work together to make it impossible for our civilization to ever recover.
Everyone is always asking me for a technical solution: “who do we have to get rid of to make things better for the rest of us” is a popular one.
But whether or not a way out exists at all, the first rule when trapped in a hole is to stop digging.
“Any shooting war (or stabbing, or what have you — any war involving violence), including a revolutionary one, has to be justified as a just war (jus ad bellum); and conduct during that war has to be just conduct (jus in bello). There aren’t any exceptions to this, and analogies don’t produce exceptions to it. Revolutions are not in principle impossible to justify, but the hurdles are very high.”
If my body is sick does God not give me the right to heal it? War doesn’t have to start out physically for it to end up that way. Right now we are at war with Marxism and it’s time to fight back.
“Furthermore, even the analogy to medicine itself is bad. Cultivating a revolutionary spirit in order to combat the products of a revolutionary spirit isn’t medication to kill the infection. It adds to the infection. The right wing of liberalism is as much a part of liberalism as the left wing. They work together to make it impossible for our civilization to ever recover.”
My second analogy was chemo to remove a tumor. Chemo is devastating in it of itself extremely damaging in the short-run but beneficial in the long run.
“The right wing of liberalism is as much a part of liberalism as the left wing.”
Forget about that, like I said: 1. Christ 2. Nation.
““Enter through the narrow gate” isn’t just airy-fairy theology up in the sky. It has practical implications for how Christians (that is, people who do not want to burn in Hell for all of eternity) approach life in very practical ways”
Is Fr. Torquemada burning in hell for what he did? I believe not. Getting rid of people is not unChristian. Extermination definitely is unChristian, but expulsion is not.
The important thing is that we find some way to justify violent uprising.
Re: chemotherapy, it would be a good point if the “fight the modernist revolutionary spirit with a new, improved revolutionary spirit” hadn’t already been done over and over again, with spectacular failures wreaking tremendous destruction all while simply cementing liberalism’s grip on society. Selling cyanide as chemotherapy is a suicide cult you’d think the political right would have learned to stop joining by now.
Our deliverance, if it is to come at all, will not come from an uprising against Pharaoh. It will come when we paint our doorposts with the blood of the Lamb, and the self-inflicted plagues devastate our oppressors.
“Everyone is always asking me for a technical solution”
Point them to Tolkien?:
“the spirit of wickedness in high places is now so powerful and many-headed in its incarnations that there seems nothing more to do than personally refuse to worship any of the hydras’ heads.”
“Re: chemotherapy, it would be a good point if the “fight the modernist revolutionary spirit with a new, improved revolutionary spirit” hadn’t already been done over and over again, with spectacular failures wreaking tremendous destruction all while simply cementing liberalism’s grip on society. Selling cyanide as chemotherapy is a suicide cult you’d think the political right would have learned to stop joining by now.”
Once again, forget terms like Left and Right and reactionary and revolutionary and conservative and liberal. The platform is that of Christ and that of Nation.
“The important thing is that we find some way to justify violent uprising.”
How much more justification is needed? The Church is no longer a spiritual refuge from the world due to our enemies infiltrating the Church with the Church leadership doing nothing about it (while they have excommunicated the SSPX). Things are just as bad on the national and civilizational front.
At this point we have the justification. Maybe the successor to Trump will be the national savior that takes the helm and goes down the path that Trump first laid down. Who knows what’ll happen, but things will get much worse before they get better. They always do.
Svar:
Have you worked your way through the just war doctrine to come up with a proposal for specific actions which meet jus in bello?
You assert that kind of thing a lot, but you haven’t actually shown either the justification [for whom in particular?] to begin violent action or the specific somethings-or-other and their particular justifications.
WRT Svar’s point about “refugees,” the events in Germany are more of the product of nature taking hold than anything else. Sure, many Germans will go to Hell for various reasons, but Germany will still be Germany if the uprising is successful. A Germany that has been overrun by more fertile, more culturally confident Muslims will cease to be Germany in time. The revolutionary spirit may make Germany sicker, but a Germany that is still demographically German can get healthier in future generations. One that becomes a Middle Eastern Islamic colony in Europe is unlikely to ever get better.
You assert that kind of thing a lot, but you haven’t actually shown either the justification [for whom in particular?] to begin violent action or the specific somethings-or-other and their particular justifications.
I think Vox Day has presented some decent arguments. One of which is that there is no meaningful distinction in the long run between an invasion by an army and an invasion by a mass migration of civilians intent on colonizing the territory of another people. The long term goal is more or less the same: taking over the territory.
That doesn’t justify mass murder of the civilians because they are not soldiers, but it does justify reasonable force to drive them back. It is much like the difference between an armed robber and a squatter who is squatting in a home that is actively claimed by someone. You aren’t justified in shooting an unarmed squatter, but you are justified in punching his lights out, dragging him to the door and threatening to kick his ass down to the street corner if you see him trying to sneak back in again.
I would go so far as to say that the German people have shown commendable restraint in focusing on targeted property damaged aimed exclusively at thwarting federal policy on the migrants. In the grand scheme of things, burning down a building that is being put to use in a way that everyone but the multiculturalists see is toxic to the common good is really a modest response to something that historically often was resolved with mass murder.
Mike T:
I realize that you aren’t Catholic. But handwaving isn’t the same thing as running through the just war doctrine in detail and showing what specific actions it authorizes and why.
@ Mike T
“WRT Svar’s point about “refugees,” the events in Germany are more of the product of nature taking hold than anything else. Sure, many Germans will go to Hell for various reasons, but Germany will still be Germany if the uprising is successful. A Germany that has been overrun by more fertile, more culturally confident Muslims will cease to be Germany in time. The revolutionary spirit may make Germany sicker, but a Germany that is still demographically German can get healthier in future generations. One that becomes a Middle Eastern Islamic colony in Europe is unlikely to ever get better.”
Thank you, that is what I have been trying to say this whole conversation. The revolutionary spirit is the harmful yet last option i.e. a chemo and the same way how chemo makes you sicker we’ll be sick for a while but eventually we’ll recover.
We’ll never recover if we let the tumors inside of us grow. The only option right now is chemo.
“That doesn’t justify mass murder of the civilians because they are not soldiers, but it does justify reasonable force to drive them back. It is much like the difference between an armed robber and a squatter who is squatting in a home that is actively claimed by someone. You aren’t justified in shooting an unarmed squatter, but you are justified in punching his lights out, dragging him to the door and threatening to kick his ass down to the street corner if you see him trying to sneak back in again.”
In the case of the Syrian refuge crisis, shooting is justified because this is most definitely a Trojan Horse-style hostile invasion not a Camp of the Saints scenario.
Just look at the pictures of these “refugees” and then look at the stats. The “refugees” look like swole frat boys on Spring Break and 80% of these “refugees” are young men not families and 30% are not even Syrian but pretenders.
The smart, sane countries of Eastern Europe are only allowing in Christian Syrian refugees i.e. actual refugees i.e. decent people who don’t cause problems and aren’t unnecessary burdens.
“Mike T:
I realize that you aren’t Catholic. But handwaving isn’t the same thing as running through the just war doctrine in detail and showing what specific actions it authorizes and why.”
I read the criteria, a few of the criteria are vague and trying to split hairs or count how many angels are dancing on the head of a pin when a Saracen has his dagger at your throat is suicidal.
This isn’t the same situation as deciding to wage war on Iraq. The battle is here, the enemy is within. More accurately, the enemies are within.
I read the criteria, a few of the criteria are vague and trying to split hairs or count how many angels are dancing on the head of a pin when a Saracen has his dagger at your throat is suicidal.
Which sections are you having trouble getting past?
Three things:
1. The Germans have an invading horde at their doorstep.
2. The Germans have a perfectly reasonable chance to drive them back.
3. Those trying to get into Germany are doing so via a wicked elite and without regard for the good of Germany.
Even if #2 didn’t apply, the German people eventually have a basic right of self-defense along the lines of what Solzhenitsyn said the Russians didn’t realize they had and should have used in desperation against Stalin’s regime when they were rounding up people in vast numbers.
There is no moral obligation to lay down your arms in a truly desperate situation against an enemy you cannot be reasonably certain will treat you or your progeny humanely.
It is certainly possible that some actions or other (they would have to be specified) by some people or other (they would have to be specified) might pass the JWD. But when people agitating for violence break out the “angels dancing on a pin” trump card that makes it seem less likely that what they are agitating for is justified, not more likely.
The criteria for a Just War:
“1. Last Resort
A just war can only be waged after all peaceful options are considered. The use of force can only be used as a last resort.
2. Legitimate Authority
A just war is waged by a legitimate authority. A war cannot be waged by individuals or groups that do not constitute the legitimate government.
3. Just Cause
A just war needs to be in response to a wrong suffered. Self-defense against an attack always constitutes a just war; however, the war needs to be fought with the objective to correct the inflicted wound.
4. Probability of Success
In order for a war to be just, there must be a rational possibility of success. A nation cannot enter into a war with a hopeless cause.
5. Right Intention
The pirmary objective of a just war is to re-establish peace. In particular, the peace after the war should excede the peace that would have succeeded without the use of force. The aim of the use of force must be justice.
6. Proportionality
The violence in a just war must be proportional to the casualties suffered. The nations involved in the war must avoid disproportionate military action and only use the amount of force absolutely necessary.
7. Civilian Casualties
The use of force must distinguish between the militia and civilians. Innocent citizens must never be the target of war; soldiers should always avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are only justified when they are unaviodable victims of a military attack on a strategic target.”
Number 2 is a criteria that will never be met unless a current regime gets replaced “peacefully” (never will happen, the elites will not give up power without a fight even if a true opposition was elected in)
Number 5 is wishful thinking. When has a war ever lead to greater peace right after the war? War occurs when two opposing groups are in close proximity towards each other and are competing over resources/power. The main goal is not peace but victory.
Sometimes you have no chance but to just act which is what the Germans are doing in response to the phony refugee crisis which is an act of war by the elite of Germany against the German masses (and by the the “refugees”). According to the Just War criteria, the masses can never wage a war to overthrow a hostile elite since the revolutionary element of the masses do not consist of a legitimate government (yet).
Svar:
So, to be quite clear about it, you simply reject the just war doctrine. Is that correct?
I can’t speak for Svar, but my view on the European migrant issue is similar to Vox Day’s which is that the difference between an army and a migrating body of civilians is simply a matter of degree. In every meaningful way, if you have two choices: 50k Mexican troops marching on Arizona’s capitol or 3m Mexican civilians setting up new homes illegally in Arizona, the effect is really the same. That is, a large body of foreigners forcing themselves on a population that doesn’t welcome them.
In both cases, it’s an act of aggression against the receiving population. That’s why I think the squatter vs. armed robber comparison is apt. Both are acts of aggression against property. The degree to which force may be justified varies due to the particular circumstances, but the mere act of aggressing unjustly creates a situation in which the victim may act in self-defense.
WRT to JWD, I generally think the basic human right of self-defense cannot be trumped by JWD considerations. Even animals have a right to fight to the death against all odds in self-defense and in defense of their offspring.
“Svar:
So, to be quite clear about it, you simply reject the just war doctrine. Is that correct?”
Just criteria 2 and 5. At what point do you realize that you are in a crisis and decide to act?
If you have an intruder in your home are you going to just sit there and think about what St. Aquinas would say or would you act?
Zippy, answer this question. Do the German people have a just cause against the German elites and Brussels and the invading hordes?
I’d be interested to hear Zippy’s thoughts on deportation of illegal aliens in the US (say Trump were to become President). What could and could not be done morally?
I can’t remember who made the argument here or at W4, but someone made the argument that the illegals have a right to stay because the (corrupt) elites have tacitly given them permission to build a home here. I’d be curious to see Zippy’s take on that in the context of a wicked ruler’s present decisions on leniency on law-breaking and to what extent they bind a future ruler from enforcing the law against the law-breaker.
Andrew E:
There isn’t anything intrinsically immoral about deporting illegal aliens. Given that, evaluating the morality of particular actions would depend, as ever, on the particulars.
Svar:
In the first place, the question is hopelessly vague. Which German people? Just cause to do what in particular?
I’ve hinted in the past about how one might develop a theory of just revolution against tyranny consistent with the JWD. But I’m frankly reluctant to explore it further for at least two reasons. The first reason is that I’m just not that interested in the question personally. The second is that most folks seem to have already made up their minds that their favorite rebellions are justified, and are just looking for ways to rationalize them. So the whole thing is likely to degenerate into an exercise in hamster-feeding on a subject I find tedious with interlocutors who aren’t really asking the question “what ought to be done” — who have already decided what they think ought to be done and just want to hear their opinions coming from my mouth.
“So the whole thing is likely to degenerate into an exercise in hamster-feeding on a subject I find tedious with interlocutors who aren’t really asking the question “what ought to be done” — who have already decided what they think ought to be done and just want to hear their opinions coming from my mouth.”
Well to be perfectly honest, no one here has any power to do anything so this is all just hypotheticals.
“In the first place, the question is hopelessly vague. Which German people? Just cause to do what in particular?”
Which German people? The German people. Is there any other kind of German people that I’m not aware of?
Just cause to toss out elites and wage war upon them, disobey Brussels, and remove the invaders.
“I can’t remember who made the argument here or at W4, but someone made the argument that the illegals have a right to stay because the (corrupt) elites have tacitly given them permission to build a home here.”
This is the sort of reason why blind adherence to authority is a fool’s doctrine. Some high-up Kasperite Cardinal Daneels told some victim of clergy abuse (i.e. bullshit euphemism. What happen was some queer priest with pedophiliac tendencies-big surprise-sodomized some youth) to remain quiet.
Another example would be Prima Noctis. At some point, you can’t expect the folk to take it.
When elites abuse their power, they have to answer to the will of the nation.
“The German people” is an abstraction. Abstractions are not moral agents.
In order to be justified in waging war (if that is even what we are talking about, since folks keep conflating it with personal self defense when actually personally under violent attack in person), the persons initiating it must (among other things) be a competent authority acting on behalf of the common good of the community over which they are competent authority. (The hint I’ve given about developing a theory of just revolution is that under organic subsidiarity, authority is not monolithic).
That’s (one reason) why all the raging and handwaving is just noise. Folks want ratification of their predetermined conclusions. Nobody is really interested in defining the sub optimal space of morally acceptable options.
““The German people” is an abstraction. Abstractions are not moral agents.”
On what basis do you make this argument? Have you ever met a German? Are there are group of Germans occupying a known territory with known folkways and culture?
A group of people most definitely count as a moral agent.
“In order to be justified in waging war (if that is even what we are talking about, since folks keep conflating it with personal self defense when actually personally under violent attack in person),”
It’s a proper conflation.
” (The hint I’ve given about developing a theory of just revolution is that under organic subsidiarity, authority is not monolithic).”
What would be the point? Charles Martel didn’t need the Just War doctrine to fight the Battle of Tours. Why would we need a theory to overthrow corrupt or hostile elites?
Svar:
What would be the point in determining the morally right course of action?
Again, Svar, you preemptively reject the just war doctrine because you have already determined what you favor (though you’ve only described it in very general terms).
To which I respond, then what is the point in even entertaining what you have to say on the subject?
“What would be the point in determining the morally right course of action?”
Why didn’t Jesus not say anything about homosexuality or sodomy? Because He felt that there was no point in doing so, it should be glaringly obvious to anyone that these things are perversions.
In the same way, it should be glaringly obvious what the right thing to do is in the situation we are in now, you don’t need a theory regarding it. In case I am a bit vague, the right thing to do is to depose the elites and take the helm of the state.
Some situations are shades of grey and some are black and white. This is black and white.
“Again, Svar, you preemptively reject the just war doctrine because you have already determined what you favor (though you’ve only described it in very general terms).”
The Just War Doctrine has a big hole regarding Civil Wars/Rebellions/Revolutions.
It’ll be a while since someone makes a Just Revolution Doctrine but right now, it’s too late to worry about that.
Svar:
Are you under the impression that that isn’t a vague statement?
Do you want step-by-step plans? Who do you think I am, Bane?
I agree that JWD does not apply to defense; if somebody tries to take over your country, you fight back. But how do you justify using violence against non-violent “aggressors”?
Malcolm:
All justly declared wars are defensive wars against an unjust aggressor. That is part of the criteria.
You’re right (he says after looking over the criteria again).
This reminds me of a great scene from the second book in “The Once and Future King” cycle, “The Queen of Air and Darkness” (by the way, what an awesome title). Merlin, Arthur, and his cousin Sir Kay are having a discussion about when it is just to wage war. Merlin claims that it is only just if you are defending against an attacker.
Sir Kay disagrees, and Merlin prompts him for another example. “We had to wage war to establish Arthur’s kingship” he says, and the chapter ends.
(Arthur’s right to rule was hotly contested, based as it was on the drawing of a sword from a stone.)
“But how do you justify using violence against non-violent “aggressors”?”
Who are the non-violent aggressors in this scenario? The elite or the refugees?
How else do you plan on overthrowing the hostile elite we have in this country? Asking them nicely?
The elites have waged war against the nation via both population replacement via numerous refugee hoaxes and via economic exploitation.
Regardless, if we don’t act soonish (by the 30s) we’re toast. The bottom line is that the time for action has come. Any hopes of a Christian nation will be completely lost if action is not taken now.
Who are the non-violent aggressors in this scenario? The elite or the refugees?
You tell me.
How else do you plan on overthrowing the hostile elite we have in this country? Asking them nicely?
That’s not an answer.
Believe it or not, I’m not on Zippy’s “side” here, any more than I’m on yours. In fact, I’m highly sympathetic towards your position, but this thread has helped me realize how little I’d thought it through.
Nor, do I suspect, did you.
So go ahead. Sell me. How are you going to justify violent rebellion against people who aren’t actively attacking me?
But how do you justify using violence against non-violent “aggressors”?
See my squatter example. Squatting is not, strictly speaking, a violent act. However force is intrinsically justified against squatters. Not deadly force, but force sufficient to remove them. The extent that they resist is the extent that you can escalate. If a squatter starts trying to beat the hell out of you, you are justified in killing them.
The European response tracks closely with this. Water canons, posting the army and police with orders to push them back and arrest them. If they start rioting, the European security forces will be justified in shooting every man and woman who in any way appears to be participating.
And sadly, if the migrants push further beyond that, I fully expect the Europeans to put genocide on the table.
How are you going to justify violent rebellion against people who aren’t actively attacking me?
What they are doing now is trespassing. The ability of the elites to offer them refuge is limited much like how a landlord cannot licitly invite a homeless family to come live in your apartment’s spare bedroom without your permission. Authority over property (including a sovereign’s over the country) does not extend in ways that only end in abuse.
This is one of many examples, malcolm, of how the migrant issue is not a peaceful one. People who feel that entitled toward others’ land and community will likely never be peaceful contributors.
Folks keep conflating many things which must be kept distinct. These (just for example) are entirely different moral questions:
1. What may a competent authority (which one?) do when faced with violent migrants?
2. What may the competent authority do when faced with nonviolent migrants who are not fleeing life threatening circumstances?
3. What may the competent authority do when faced with nonviolent migrants who are fleeing life threatening circumstances?
4. What may a citizen do when burglars or vandals are attacking them or their property?
5. What may a citizen do when the competent authority has an immigration policy with which the citizen disagrees?
etc, etc.
There is all sorts of handwaving going on about incommensurable situations, possible actions, and possible actors. The mayor ordering the use of water cannons against a mob is a very different thing from some private citizen shooting police because he disagrees with policy.
Frankly, right wingers who rationalize talk of violent rebellion against their own governments because of immigration policy strike me as more than a little precious. Immigration policy is really important for a healthy polity, to be sure, but it pales to nothingness in comparison to, just for example, mass slaughter of children and cannibalization of their body parts in the name of science. Folks who aren’t already in violent rebellion to protect the millions of innocent who are being murdered and cannibalized for medical science are frankly not credible in suggesting that immigration policy, however wrongheaded and self-destructive it may be, suddenly does justify violent rebellion.
If we are talking about possible moral justifications for violent rebellion, immigration policy should be right up there with pollution regulations on the scale of things that matter. Sure, it is bad, even really bad; but compared to other things it hardly registers.
And the fact that those agitating for violent rebellion on the basis of immigration policy have such upside-down moral priorities tells me a number of things, not least of which is that, whatever their personal intentions, any ‘movement’ they manage to start will take on a life of its own. And we’ve seen where racialist modernism unmoored from a moral compass leads before.
Sure, it is bad, even really bad; but compared to other things it hardly registers.
Bullshit. Look at Germany’s demographics. 800k migrants + normal immigration, every year for 5 years, is over 4m new non-Germans living in Germany which has very low numbers of young native Germans. It is, as Svar said, “electing a new people” whether the elites formally intend that or not. It is akin to the elites allowing their country to be colonized, not taking in a manageable number. At those numbers, it is absolutely impossible to expect them to integrate even if the vast majority desperately want to become true Germans in every way but blood.
Zippy, can you give two or three examples of actual historical conflicts that you believe met the Just War criteria? I’m not asking for explanations, and I promise not to try playing gotcha: I’m just trying to see how you apply the criteria.
Mike T:
That sound you hear is the point of my last comment going right over your head.
but it pales to nothingness in comparison to, just for example, mass slaughter of children and cannibalization of their body parts in the name of science. Folks who aren’t already in violent rebellion to protect the millions of innocent who are being murdered and cannibalized for medical science are frankly not credible
This strikes me as a very similar argument to how liberals argue that you can’t possibly be truly “pro-life” if you aren’t for the entire welfare program that they insist cares for everyone. It’s just a way of saying you’re not a true Scotsman, therefore you don’t count.
Furthermore, the right is diverse. You can’t expect everyone to share your priorities. There are plenty on the right for whom moral social issues are less of a priority than legal, economic and foreign policy matters. Condemn them all you want for not prioritizing abortion, but it is what it is.
You also know damn well that the pro-life movement will never support vigilantism in the mainstream because that would call its own principles into question in the eyes of most people it is trying to win over. The over the top reaction to Dr. Tiller getting shot also tells you all you need to know about why there will be no popular uprising from pro-lifers.
My money is that it will actually be the nationalists on the right across the West who will strike the first blow against abortion and easy contraception because of the impact on fertility.
It seems to me that “preserving Western Civilization” is a fig leaf to cover right-liberals darker intentions. By the way, “saving Western Civilization” is in the subheader of Alpha Game Plan, one of the blogs in the Game circle jerk.
>The over the top reaction to Dr. Tiller getting shot also tells you all you need to know about why there will be no popular uprising from pro-lifers.
I thought it had something to do with pro-lifers being mostly Christian and Catholic and their religion forbidding murder and revenge.
Craig N:
We have to look at just cause and just conduct separately, and of course the latter is much more complicated because you have to evaluate everything that everyone did during the war.
But in terms of just cause, in my view WWII and the recent US-Afghan war in response to the 9-11 attacks were justified. Iraq II was not.
If there is a squatter in my house, I have the right to use force to remove him and to make sure he gets sent to jail for sitting in my home. I do not have the right to kill him unless he provides a threat extreme enough to kill me.
Mass deportation is fine by me. I’m just having trouble getting from there to war before I see organized armies.
“Who are the non-violent aggressors in this scenario? The elite or the refugees?
You tell me.”
You brought up the terms.
“How else do you plan on overthrowing the hostile elite we have in this country? Asking them nicely?
That’s not an answer.”
Well yeah, it’s a question. I’m trying to figure out where you come from. That helps me understand what exactly you are asking.
“So go ahead. Sell me. How are you going to justify violent rebellion against people who aren’t actively attacking me?”
Indirect violence counts as violence. Osama Bin Laden didn’t fly a plane into the twin towers but he ordered it. The elites have been stabbing us in the back and have flooded our country with invaders who have no intention of assimilating and in fact, in these large numbers, are unassimilatable.
Say I come into your house and refuse to leave. Are you not going to call the cops who will most definitely use force upon all the way up to lethal force depending upon the circumstance?
Mass deportation is fine by me. I’m just having trouble getting from there to war before I see organized armies.
I don’t know about Svar, but I’m not advocating war against the migrants at this point. I’m saying that the destruction of property intended to be used to effect this policy is justified by the German people.
I thought it had something to do with pro-lifers being mostly Christian and Catholic and their religion forbidding murder and revenge.
There’s a huge leap from saying “the dude was a scumbag 5 levels below a mafia contract killer, but this is still wrong” to the over the top lamentation about how a child of God was killed by a fiend who struck him down as he did his usher duties. One is a recognition of morality, the other a sick moral equivocation.
It seems to me that “preserving Western Civilization” is a fig leaf to cover right-liberals darker intentions.
I think VD got it right in response to all of the humanitarian hand-wringing by moderates who won’t take decisive, but humane action now, while the problem is still manageable with morally licit measures:
If the choice is between having your children raped and killed or murderous ultra-nationalists, the normal citizenry will choose the ultras every single time. The loudest voices in favor of immigration bans and mass deportations should be the strident anti-Nazis, because the mass migrations presently being enabled by the Western governments is the most certain way to bring the ultras to power.
The people will not keep standing by forever. Eventually someone will stand up for the nation. If it’s not a Christian, it will be a non-Christian. What will damn the church on this issue, in this period of history is that it couldn’t produce leaders capable of averting the tragedy while not selling out their country.
“Frankly, right wingers who rationalize talk of violent rebellion against their own governments because of immigration policy strike me as more than a little precious. Immigration policy is really important for a healthy polity, to be sure, but it pales to nothingness in comparison to, just for example, mass slaughter of children and cannibalization of their body parts in the name of science. Folks who aren’t already in violent rebellion to protect the millions of innocent who are being murdered and cannibalized for medical science are frankly not credible in suggesting that immigration policy, however wrongheaded and self-destructive it may be, suddenly does justify violent rebellion.”
We’re precious? That’s rich. Who are the people who’ve spent exhorbitant amounts of time and effort for the last 40 years trying to repeal Roe V Wade while their entire country falls apart around them? That’s basically these people’s entire platform, just abortion. And now they’ve extended pro-life to electric-chair worthy criminals and now to trespassers.
The pro-life movement, along with the conservative movement, has been a resounding failure.
“Folks who aren’t already in violent rebellion to protect the millions of innocent who are being murdered and cannibalized for medical science are frankly not credible in suggesting that immigration policy, however wrongheaded and self-destructive it may be, suddenly does justify violent rebellion”
Credible to whom? Just you?
I’m anti-abortion as much as anyone here, but I don’t obsess over it, because we both know we have people will one-track minds to do that for the rest of us.
We can end abortion, porn, (insert the *one* sin that makes God super-duper angry, used to be slavery), after we repair and restore our culture and THEN change the legislature to reflect that change.
But we can’t do that if we do not have a cultural consensus. You need a cultural consensus to establish a moral consensus.
Mike T:
The truth is the opposite of (that sense of) diverse.
I don’t see why you fellas are talking about the pro life movement. The point isn’t about the pro life movement as presently constituted. The point is that as far as criteria justifying armed insurrection goes, the abortion holocaust is objectively a far better candidate, to such an extent that advocating war over immigration policy looks like advocating war over pollution. This has further implications which I have already discussed repeatedly, and has nothing at all to do with the pro life movement as presently constituted.
You brought up the terms.
Sure. You seem to be saying that these non-violent aggressors are “the elites” (whatever that means). But what you’re proposing is so hopelessly vague I have no idea what your game plan here is. Assassinate Obama? Storm Congress and take them hostage? What do you think we should do?
The pro-life movement, along with the conservative movement, has been a resounding failure.
Since Roe v. Wade the pro-life movement has won battle after battle after battle, to the point that the majority of the country is now on our side and Planned Parenthood has been on the verge of being defunded. I don’t really know what to say to that comment except that it’s wrong.
I don’t know about Svar, but I’m not advocating war against the migrants at this point. I’m saying that the destruction of property intended to be used to effect this policy is justified by the German people.
Possibly. I’d have to look into it more.
“I don’t know about Svar, but I’m not advocating war against the migrants at this point. I’m saying that the destruction of property intended to be used to effect this policy is justified by the German people.”
I’m more focused on the elites. “Refugees” and homosexuals and other assorted wreckers are a weapon used by the elite upon the populace. You know a thing or two about leopard hunting? When a leopard is being chased by dogs he’ll first attack the dogs until he gets a glimpse of the hunter and immediately figuring out who the real cause of his woes are, he’ll stop everything and bolt right for the hunter.
“The people will not keep standing by forever. Eventually someone will stand up for the nation. If it’s not a Christian, it will be a non-Christian. What will damn the church on this issue, in this period of history is that it couldn’t produce leaders capable of averting the tragedy while not selling out their country.”
The Catholic Church has gotten burned over and over again for meddling in national affairs mostly in ways detrimental to the nation in question. The Protestant Church in the vast majority of case is no better. Only the Eastern Orthodox have been good on national matters. While Pope Francis commits borderline treason by browbeating countries to accept large numbers of foreign elements, a Hungarian EO bishop calls it an invasion, which it is.
” The point is that as far as criteria justifying armed insurrection goes, the abortion holocaust is objectively a far better candidate, to such an extent that advocating war over immigration policy looks like advocating war over pollution”
False conflation. One of those three things are existential issues. But I’ve already explained that abortion can be mitigated and even completely ended (more accurately 98% reduction) if we have a cultural and moral consensus. That point seems to fall on deaf ears.
“Sure. You seem to be saying that these non-violent aggressors are “the elites” (whatever that means). But what you’re proposing is so hopelessly vague I have no idea what your game plan here is. Assassinate Obama? Storm Congress and take them hostage? What do you think we should do?”
Assassinate Obama, lol. Why would anyone do that? No joke, I’m dead serious, why would anyone in their right mind do that?
Looks like both you and Zippy need a game plan, so here are my points (keep in mind the caveat that things have changed with Trump merely saying “taboo” things):
1. Wait for catalyst
2. Seize the moment (involves pointing fingers, consolidating allies, political violence against rivals)
3. Take power
4. Eliminate all enemies of the nation
5. Rebuild
Yeah, that may seem vague but what you and Zippy are both expecting me to do is predict the future. I don’t know what the future is going to bring anymore than you.
It feels like you are shifting the goal posts. I am talking about a general principle and you guys want specific step-by-step blueprints.
“It seems to me that “preserving Western Civilization” is a fig leaf to cover right-liberals darker intentions. By the way, “saving Western Civilization” is in the subheader of Alpha Game Plan, one of the blogs in the Game circle jerk.”
Lol at obvious ad hominem. So because some PUAfags mention “saving the West”, saving the West is a bad thing.
Hey, maybe, just maybe Saving the West is really just that, Saving the West.
Also, I like how you call us right-liberals even though we want to actually preserve the West and advance it instead of just watch it degenerate further.
What are these “dark intentions” (ooooh spooky!)?
“. It is akin to the elites allowing their country to be colonized, not taking in a manageable number. At those numbers, it is absolutely impossible to expect them to integrate even if the vast majority desperately want to become true Germans in every way but blood.”
And in those large numbers, genetic assimilation is impossible without completely changing the face of Germany forever. A drop of ink in a river is no big deal but a tons upon tons of ink? Then we have a problem.
“I thought it had something to do with pro-lifers being mostly Christian and Catholic and their religion forbidding murder and revenge.”
First off, “Christian AND Catholic”? Are you even Christian? Do you not know that Catholics are Christian?
Second off, this is what we mean. Zippy, do you support murdering abortion doctors? (if you say yes, then I’ll know that atleast you are being consistent with your stated views. If you say no, than Mike T is right about you pulling the No True Scotsman argument). I mean, I support having them executed by the state after a regime change in the same way I support the execution of treasonous elements. I just don’t see abortion being the starting point.
Svar and Mike T, I think it might be worthwhile for you to glance at Kings and Chronicles. As a general rule, the times when Judah was relying on alliances and fortresses and armies, their victories were Pyrrhic at best. The times when they focused on the moral issues (restoration of right religion, abolishing idolatry and child-sacrifice and “the effeminate”), they generally got time to take care of the other stuff. Hezekiah, for instance, fared much better against the Assyrians than a rebellious Zedekiah against Babylon.
Another point worth considering is that bad kings/governments are themselves often punishments visited on a bad people. This was suggested to me by the blog V for Victory (http://v-forvictory.blogspot.com/2015/06/dies-irae.html). It’s not long, and after you read that article, it might be worth glancing at Psalm 124(125) for some additional support of the idea.
Now I’ll concede, Svar, that is you had “cultural and moral consensus” against abortion, abortion would more or less end, however legal it was, which it wouldn’t be for long. But how exactly do you plan on establishing this consensus? And how, in all seriousness, does establishing said consensus necessitate rebellion?
And anyway, if assuming the new elites will be better than the old elites isn’t one of Vizzini’s classic blunders, it should be.
Svar:
You really don’t seem to be even bothering to read what I write. Or even what you write yourself, for that matter: I am not the one making claims that violent revolution is justified.
All I’ve done is take seriously the claim – which you and others have made repeatedly – that violent revolution against the government is now justified. In order to evaluate that claim, we have to consider what might actually constitute justification for it in the hierarchy of wrongs being committed by the government.
And in that hierarchy of wrongs, sanctioning the murder of tens of millions of innocents is more grievious than bad, self-destructive immigration policy: the former is so much worse than the latter in the hierarchy of wrongs that the latter is insignificant.
Part of the just war doctrine is that the damage by the aggressor must be lasting, grave, and certain; and in the hierarchy of moral gravity, “the state-sanctioned murder of tens of millions of innocents” reduces “bad immigration policy” to an insignificant speck.
And as I said before, other conclusions follow.
“And anyway, if assuming the new elites will be better than the old elites isn’t one of Vizzini’s classic blunders, it should be.”
Well the “Old Elites” were the WASPs who founded this country. The New Elites are what we see today. What we need are New New Elites. Maybe they will be as bad as the ones if not worse. Who knows. Maybe we/our side will do better. That’s my hope.
“Another point worth considering is that bad kings/governments are themselves often punishments visited on a bad people”
Agreed, but I believe that the masses are feminine and they conform to the will of the Elites. At the same time, a morally strong nation would never accept what we’ve been forced to swallow.
“The times when they focused on the moral issues (restoration of right religion, abolishing idolatry and child-sacrifice and “the effeminate”)”
“Now I’ll concede, Svar, that is you had “cultural and moral consensus” against abortion, abortion would more or less end, however legal it was, which it wouldn’t be for long. But how exactly do you plan on establishing this consensus? And how, in all seriousness, does establishing said consensus necessitate rebellion?”
This is the thing. If we restore and repair the culture and the spiritual drought we are in, we could still have Roe V Wade on the books but no one would use it. If we get rid of Roe V Wade and not cure the underlying issues, abortion would still be prominent enough to be a real problem.
But we can not work to repair our culture if we have elements in society working their utmost best to undermine us at every step of the way or if we have large amounts of culturally alien foreigners.
“All I’ve done is take seriously the claim – which you and others have made repeatedly – that violent revolution against the government is now justified. In order to evaluate that claim, we have to consider what might actually constitute justification for it in the hierarchy of wrongs being committed by the government.
And in that hierarchy of wrongs, sanctioning the murder of tens of millions of innocents is more grievious than bad, self-destructive immigration policy: the former is so much worse than the latter in the hierarchy of wrongs that the latter is insignificant.”
Fine. So we have the murder of innocents on top of the treasonous immigration issue. Both are execution-worthy,
How is this case not closed yet?
The question is that of focus, I can’t focus on everything, the immigration stuff, the economic exploitation stuff, the war-mongering, the infanticide, the sexual deviancy. This is all a product of the elites. Does it matter which dog is the one that is really nipping at your heels when you can already see the hunter in clear view? These are all products of a hostile and treasonous elite.
Seriously, if a leopard can get it, why can’t most conservatives?
Svar:
Right.
What you’ve further insisted upon, as I understand it, is that the revolution cannot wait for repentance. It has to come right now based on a coalition with our otherwise mortal modernist enemies who vastly outnumber us but agree that long-term suicidal immigration policy is bad.
All that will get you, as I’ve said any number of times now, is a new iteration of the nazi/stalinist phase of modernity. That again is not your intention; but reality doesn’t care about your intentions. You can intend to bowl a strike all you want, but that ball is going to go where you actually throw it.
Hrodgar:
Fomenting a spirit of rebellion works against any effort to disestablish liberalism.
I expect that it is possible, as I mentioned upthread, to develop a theory of when armed rebellion is justified which is consistent with just war theory, specifically by starting from the understanding that authority is inherently and naturally distributed under subsidiarity and is not monolithic.
However, even if some particular proposal for armed rebellion were found to be justified under the just war doctrine one of its bad side effects would be its affirmation, under liberalism, of a spirit of rebellion in general. This is like adding gasoline to the fire, and would have to be part of the considerations of whether or not rebellion was justified in the first place.
In Europe, the majority of immigrants are Muslim, and to attempt anything like what I am about to speculate is doomed to suicidal failure. But are our own immigrants, for all the fact that they’re predominantly criminal simply by virtue of being here, actually worse than the inhabitants of the country they’re immigrating to?
In other words, while they shouldn’t be immigrating here and I do think we should be deporting them while it’s still probably feasible, if we’re willing to make alliances with folks who are horribly off-base in order to accomplish some putative greater good, if we’re going to say it’s acceptable to ally with, as Zippy says, our “mortal modernist enemies” in defense of mere cultural, racial, and political entities, is there anything wrong with, assuming we could pull it off, allying with Mexican invaders to stop widespread baby murder?
Now, I have no idea whether this is actually doable, and it’s possible that any attempt would, like similar attempts with the Muslims probably would, not only fail but just make the bloodshed worse when it comes. But if it comes down to “saving the West” or saving even a single soul by preventing them from committing a mortal sin (murdering their own child, for instance) I think we’d better take the second. Temporal vs. eternal and all that.
And if it’s not okay to ally with Mexican invaders to stop abortion, what is the difference that makes it okay to ally with folks much more opposed to all that is Right and True to stop something so much less serious (i.e. the decline or death of a nation which, after all, does not have an eternal soul)?
Hrodgar:
These kinds of questions are I think more of a Rorschach test for what people really care about in their bones than they are plausible proposals of alliances likely to work out well for serious traditional Christians.
That’s pretty much what I was getting at. I don’t actually think a trad/Mexican criminal alliance would work very well. I just think it is at least no more absurd or doomed to failure than what is actually being suggested.
Also pointing out that, as noble as a goal of “save the West” might be, it isn’t the noblest.
“All that will get you, as I’ve said any number of times now, is a new iteration of the nazi/stalinist phase of modernity”
As an aside, I respect the fact that you conflate the two because they are quite similar. Both had the idea of “One Nation, One Socialism” and a prominent American intellectual of the Spenglerian tradition, Francis Parker Yockey said that the rise of Stalin was the beginning of the divide between international Jewry and the Soviet Union.
Not a fan of either. I’m not a Slav, but I don’t support Slav-slaughter.
“What you’ve further insisted upon, as I understand it, is that the revolution cannot wait for repentance. It has to come right now based on a coalition with our otherwise mortal modernist enemies who vastly outnumber us but agree that long-term suicidal immigration policy is bad.”
I feel that we can’t make the perfect become the enemy of the good and in the long run, we have a better chance at repentance with these guys than the CUltural Marxist who is at war with both Nature and God’s Nature.
Hrodgar, the vast majority of Mexicans will not be our allies. Pre-Plutarcho Calles, yeah, they would be both our allies and our co-religionists but now? No. They are too steeped in the PRI mythology of a Aztec-Marxist nostalgia. I know too many Hispanics, descending from not the Cristeros nor of the Tejanos, Novomexicanos, or Californios but of a mass of opportunistic individuals, who are steeped in a volatile pseudofaith (look up Santa Muerte and the paganisms within Mexican folk Cartholicsm) instead of the old Spanish Catholicism of Old Mexico, who support not the social conservativism we believe in but the prevailing social liberal zeitgeist.
Dubyaesque beliefs in “Natural Conservatives” are based in a myth not a reality and this is a myth that many Christians, especially Catholics, adhere to. The belief is that the Mexicans will save us. They won’t and they will be a bloc forever opposed to the Gringo who stole their land. The latter being a lie of sorts, the vast majority of Tejanos (and their Indian allies) supported the Anglo-Texan settlers in their war against Mexico, and on top of that, most of these Mexicans were never near the border on either side but come from deep within Mexican territory. Others are not even Mexican but Central American.
Have you ever met a Tejano? It is a joy to meet such an individual, just as it is to meet a Christian Arab. In the same manner a Christian Arab has all of the Arab hospitality and the light of Christ within him without any of the Arab pathologies (that we see in Muslims), the Tejano has that deep Hispanic culture (based in Spanish-Mexican culture not Aztec nostalgia pseudo-culture) many admire without the Hispanic pathologies that we are all well aware of.
1. Wait for catalyst
2. Seize the moment (involves pointing fingers, consolidating allies, political violence against rivals)
3. Take power
4. Eliminate all enemies of the nation
5. Rebuild
Forget blueprints. Who are the allies? The rivals? Take power from who? Who are the enemies? What would constitute a catalyst?
I’m not asking for step-by-step blueprints. These are basic, fundamental questions.
Zippy-
I know this is pretty long, but I wonder if you have ever read it or would be interested in commenting. Fr. Rose was saying the same (kinds of) things you are saying, in the 1970s.
http://www.oodegr.co/english/filosofia/nihilism_root_modern_age.htm
Svar:
Nazism and Stalinism are forms of liberalism mugged by reality and forced – since the alternative, repentance, is unthinkable – to name and exterminate a particular oppressor-untermensch.
(EDIT: Nazism is “right” because the oppressor it names is a race. Stalinism is “left” because the oppressor it names is a class).
Scott:
I’m passingly familiar with Fr. Seraphim Rose. Larry Auster, or someone I used to correspond with, frequently mentioned him. But I acquired my own sociopathy before then, FWIW.
Understood. However, in this writing he lays out very precisely why there is no deep philosophical difference between what we call “liberal,” “conservative” or “libertarian” or whatever.
He is saying here that instead of “the answer to 1984 is 1776,” “1984 was born of 1776.”
Very similar to stuff one can read on the Zippy Catholic site.
I read (between the lines) that Zippy is not necessarily putting forward abortionists as more worthy of war according to the JWD. He’s pointing out the absurdness of a suicidal culture which demands immigrant-free spaces to commit suicide by murder. Specifically, cultural suicide by murder of the very people who would displace immigrants if only they hadn’t been killed. By the force of merely still being in existence and requiring resources, the aborted would have put downward pressure on immigrant numbers both in absolute terms, and in comparative percentages.
Svar:
I think that is what he said — his point is that believing that secular racialists and nativists can be our allies is as wrongheaded as believing that Mexican illegal immigrants will be our allies.
Yes, well, finding a nice tame liberalism that you can work with might have been an understandable mistake in, say, the days of Chesterbelloc.
But the hour is late, and we have another fifty plus years of liberalism under our belt to see how those alliances turn out.
his point is that believing that secular racialists and nativists can be our allies
I think this is one area where a lot of Christians have blinders, including it seems you as well. A Chinese family will never fully integrate into old European identity like “German” or “Italian” or especially “Greek” any better than a Mexican of native ancestry will ever be truly part of Chinese society or a white American able to integrate into Igbo culture in Nigeria. Most identities are partly rooted in similar racial makeup. No matter how fluent and adept in the customs, they will never “look like part of the group.”
And then, if Vox Day’s theory that culture is partly a manifestation of innate population characteristics and reinforces those differences, you have an even bigger problem since the new bloodlines won’t have the same innate tendencies that help form the culture.
Cane,
Zippy’s analysis falls short by conflating spiritual suicide with temporal suicide and not accounting for the fact that in the West both are happening simultaneously. A country that aborts itself into ruin, but is still predominantly occupied by its own people can recover in future generations. A country that is overrun by a more aggressive and fertile people will be literally outbred in its own land unless they “go 19 kids and counting” on the invaders.
From my perspective, the immediate threat is the replacement of the nation with a new one. Our own country is a testament to how that can happen. If you doubt that, then just ask a pure blooded American Indian what they think–if you can find one in most states.
As a matter of fact, not opinion, fact if Merkel’s targets on migrants were reached every year for 10 years straight, Germany would be on an irreversible path to being half Arab, half European within a generation. Even if Germany had an unprecedented revival, it would take literally at least a straight decade of uncontracepted [redacted] like meth-addled rabbits to tip the scale back into the native population’s favor.
“I think this is one area where a lot of Christians have blinders, including it seems you as well. A Chinese family will never fully integrate into old European identity like “German” or “Italian” or especially “Greek” any better than a Mexican of native ancestry will ever be truly part of Chinese society or a white American able to integrate into Igbo culture in Nigeria. Most identities are partly rooted in similar racial makeup. No matter how fluent and adept in the customs, they will never “look like part of the group.”
And then, if Vox Day’s theory that culture is partly a manifestation of innate population characteristics and reinforces those differences, you have an even bigger problem since the new bloodlines won’t have the same innate tendencies that help form the culture.”
Yes and no. It depends, there is both a physical aspect to race and a spiritual one as outline by Spengler. One Chinese family could easily integrate into a Western society. Maybe even a thousand. But not millions of Chinese families.
The issue is that even similar ethnic groups have trouble with one another in large groups, radically alien ethnicities would obviously have an even harder time assimilating and melding in.
Mike T:
I don’t know who you are talking to, but it doesn’t appear to be anyone in this thread.
Stipulate for a moment that there is a potential group of allies A with whom we are considering making common cause.
The fact that A gets many things right doesn’t imply that they would make good allies. The fact that Communists understand physics and know how to make the atomic bomb does not imply that they would make good allies, for example.
The reason why is because of the things they get wrong: because of the holes in their beliefs.
It isn’t the truths that they get right which makes it foolish to try to make allies of them. It is the A-holes in their midst which make it foolish to try to make allies of them.
Mike T:
And again, you don’t seem to have actually read what I actually said. I am drawing no connection between abortion and immigration (not that there is anything wrong with that).
I am comparing the moral gravity of state-sanctioned murder of tens of millions of innocents to the moral gravity of foolish, self-destructive immigration policy.
And the fact that this simply sails over the heads of my interlocutors, and that they chase all sorts of squirrels rather than actually addressing the point and its implications, tends to confirm exactly what I actually am saying.
I am comparing the moral gravity of state-sanctioned murder of tens of millions of innocents to the moral gravity of foolish, self-destructive immigration policy.
I am aware of that, and I am saying that your premise is flawed. That people are not up in arms about an even more serious moral issue is orthogonal to the other one.
Mike T:
There goes that whooshing sound again.
The objective gravity of two moral wrongs has nothing much to do with what people are or are not up in arms about.
You said:
Folks who aren’t already in violent rebellion to protect the millions of innocent who are being murdered and cannibalized for medical science are frankly not credible in suggesting that immigration policy, however wrongheaded and self-destructive it may be, suddenly does justify violent rebellion.
and then:
And again, you don’t seem to have actually read what I actually said. I am drawing no connection between abortion and immigration (not that there is anything wrong with that).
You are drawing one particular connection. You are saying that the abortion holocaust is a far more significant moral issue than anything pertaining to immigration policy, and then proceeding to say that anyone who is not already ready to go to war to stop the former is simply not credible with you on the other issue.
But as to your claim about “racialist movements” that are unmoored in proper moral teachings, we aren’t that close to anything “racial” on the migrant issue. Most people are quite content with the use of official state, non-lethal force to drive the migrants back and failing that, property damage to deny them an easy time settling in their communities.
It is precisely the hand-wringing moralists who will drive the situation into the ground, make the people desperate and go where they originally did not want to go. That is personally why I am so antagonistic toward the elites on this issue. They are leading many of their own people down a path that may stop at the gates of Hell.
I should also add that you likewise are not entirely reading what I am saying, as I am in fact not justifying war against the elites at this point. I am saying that on a group level, the response of the people of Germany is akin to trying to drag an angry and unruly squatter who is fighting back out of the house. To the extent that elites side with the squatter and try to violently assert his non-existent property rights, the elites justify rebellion.
Mike T:
Well, I agree that you’ve changed the subject 😉
“It is precisely the hand-wringing moralists who will drive the situation into the ground, make the people desperate and go where they originally did not want to go. That is personally why I am so antagonistic toward the elites on this issue. They are leading many of their own people down a path that may stop at the gates of Hell.”
He has a point. From personal anecdote, I was not into the whole race thing until I was forced to deal with it regarding the Zimmerman Case
If this is correct to any reasonable degree, all Hell will break loose in Europe in the not so distant future.
Reblogged this on Descending Forward and commented:
Something to think about
[…] Failure to recognize this keeps ‘conservatives’ locked in the mind trap. They naturally, as conservatives, feel loyalty to their ancestors and the thoughts of their ancestors — who happen to be classical liberals. And because conservatism entails a certain acceptance of how things are without thinking them all the way through, conservatives never accept that their revered classical liberal ancestors and the hated leftists/progressives just are the same sort of thing. […]
[…] commitment to liberalism an insufferable sense of entitlement. Scratch a classical liberal and you’ll find an SJW. Perhaps this latest kerfuffle has demonstrated all of this concretely for a few folks who […]
[…] to important things like yellow driveways. And where did all of these social justice warriors come from, […]
[…] to important things like yellow driveways. And where did all of these social justice warriors come from, […]
[…] SJW‘s lie they are not representative of authentic liberalism. Most liberals are just like […]
This discussion has made me realize that since the 2nd Amendment is designed to help rebellion, it is insofar as it does that, bad.
Even if the 2nd amendment simply said “the United States shall possess no authority to regulate the ownership of private weaponry. Sole jurisdiction shall fall exclusively to the several states.” it would have the same material impact on rebellion against federal authority.
The way this works is that severing positive law specifically and the exercise of authority more generally from its metaphysical baggage is possible and coherent whenever Mike T feels like begging the question.
Mike T,
There is nothing wrong with that version of the amendment at first blush. It’s also now what we have.
The 2A was really meant more for allowing people to fight off Indians and foreign invaders. The “well regulated militia” bit doesn’t nullify an indidiual right as some argue but it wasn’t put in there for no reason. I don’t disagree with the Heller decision regarding firearm ownership as an individual right (if you are going to incorporate the right how else is it actualized except at the individual level) but the primary purpose of the 2A was not quite protection against muggers and it certainly wasn’t about revolting against the government. I really don’t see a metaphysical baggage problem.
In case someone spots it, Heller wasn’t actually an incorporation because it dealt with DC. McDonald was the incorporation case. I should have used a different verb.
Re: metaphysical baggage I’ll just point out that the history of passage of the 2A taken in isolation doesn’t exhaust its meaning, even if we stipulate that history to be unproblematic.