Every once in a while, a post or series of posts comes along that captures why conservatism never amounted to much. This post in the ironically named American Conservative is a good example of the genre. The topic is how to deal with the privatization of authoritarian power, primarily in Silicon Valley. The argument put forward is that using the state to tame these rogue companies is morally wrong, so we have to find some new way to contend with these out-of-control tech firms.
The first thing you should notice is the style is exactly what we get whenever the topic of immigration in on the table. The obvious answer is dismissed. In the case of immigration, that means shutting down the border and cracking down on employers who use helot labor. The open borders crowd always says that is impossible or harmful in some way. Instead, they offer a collection of overly complex solutions that have no chance of succeeding but will keep the punditry busy.
In the case of Big Tech, we have laws on the books to put an end to this reign of terror, but enforcing those is socialism, according to the usual suspects. We cannot have that, even if it would work. Instead, let us have a twenty-year series of international commissions to study technical standards and pass a bunch of laws that no one reads, but have cool names like “Data Portability Act”. In other words, the people who cannot build a wall along the border are going to fix the internet.
Interestingly, the rodents from Conservative Inc. always use the same trick the Left is so fond of using, which is the false dichotomy. “We can shut ourselves off from the world or embrace globalism” is how they frame trade. “We can become a hermit nation or remain a nation of immigrants” is how they frame immigration. Now it is “We can choose central planning or preserve an open internet” with Big Tech. It is the same partisan game the Left plays, just tailored for a middle-class white audience.
The fact is, enforcing Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act as intended puts a halt to the most egregious violations of our rights. Twitter can choose to be a publisher or an open platform. If it is the former, they can censure their platform however they like, but they are accountable for the content. If they choose to be an open platform like Gab, then they get the protection of Section 230. There is no need to reinvent the internet to solve the biggest problem with Big Tech.
Similarly, the obvious collusion that goes on with these big firms could be crushed with the use of existing law. There are plenty of examples of the tech companies colluding with one another to ban people from their platforms. If we can give a cop 20-years on civil rights violations for shooting a fleeing suspect, we can give the harpies of Silicon Valley a few years for violating the civil rights of Alex Jones. One lawsuit is all that would be required to end that practice and restore some sanity.
Of course, the author of the AC piece is clearly trying to strike the libertarian position, which is a blend of hiding under the bed and shilling for global capital. This is what is wrong with the libertarian-conservative commentariat. They are not interested in advocating conservative interests. Instead, they are focused on making sure their corporate donors are free of government interference. If that means the rights of conservatives are trampled, well “whoopsie!”
The writer of the AC piece is someone calling himself Zach Graves. He is head of policy at the Lincoln Network. You always have to be suspicious of any group using the name Lincoln and this is no exception. As we saw with the Lincoln Project, these groups tend to attract the very worst people. In this case, this is a not-for-profit located in San Francisco, conveniently near Silicon Valley. A Loren Graves, presumably the same guy as the writer, is a paid staffer for the group.
Before signing on with the Lincoln Network, Mr. Graves was with something called R Street Institute, which is neoconservative front group. The founder of the Lincoln Network is a man calling himself Garrett Johnson. He popped out of college into a job on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, then into a position as the founder of something called SendHub and now the founder of Lincoln Network. Nothing strange about this at all. There is no reason to suspect anything hanky.
This is the problem with conservatism in a nutshell. It has always been infested with pens for hire. This bit of corporate marketing posted at American Conservative is just a paid advertisement masquerading as commentary. To their credit, the site does acknowledged that they were paid to run it by Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which is a pro-business non-profit in Missouri. There is a good bet that they bankroll the R Street Institute to some degree, given their location.
This is the problem with subjecting everything to the marketplace. When the highest bidder gets to determine public morality, no one can ever question the morality of the highest bidder. Public opinion becomes another commodity to be traded, rather than a genuine exchange of ideas. The founder of The Lincoln Network would be happy to promote communism if that pays better than shilling for Big Tech. He is just face purchased on the market to make the brochure look good.
Similarly, the writers and “policy wonks” at these shops are just pens for hire, with a set of specialties. “Need generic libertarian babble about technology? No problem, we have Zach Graves. That is his specialty.” R Street puts him on the UPS truck and ships him off to a Silicon Valley non-profit. Like the economy as a whole, the marketplace of ideas has become a pirate’s cove. Everything is for sale and everything can be purchased, if the price is right. The consequences are for the suckers to bear.
This is what conservatism should oppose. One basic tenet of conservatism is that there is a transcendent moral truth. That means it is indifferent to the marketplace. it also means that truth itself is not up for bid. Once you concede this point, you are no longer on the Right, but just another kiosk in the bazaar if increasingly bizarre ideas. The way to end the pirate’s cove is to shut it down and hang the pirates. That’s the starting point for conservatism, if it is to be anything more than another grift.
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Hermit nation sounds pretty cool.
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The hermit nation is awful. Take the Amish for example. When given the choice to stay secluded or to join our wonderful and diverse utopia, A whopping 5% choose to join our society.
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“the author of the AC piece is clearly trying to strike the libertarian position, which is a blend of hiding under the bed and shilling for global capital.”
That’s it. Unfortunately, unlike being a liberal in today’s world – or progressive, or a libertarian; being conservative is actually rather hard. The truly conservative type solutions to things also make the most sense; but they require toughness to deploy. Immigration is the classic case: too many iffy foreigners with dubious loyalties? Stop the flow. Deport the troublesome ones as an example. Conduct a few false flags if need be.
Way back when I would interface with NPCs about this, they’d ask ‘But where will the money come from?’… Bwhahahaha, no zealot cares about that! Take care of business first and then settle the check later. Perhaps now these same NPCs will continually ask the same question, even as it seems that where the bucks come from no longer matters, we just chalk up a bit more debt for the future or it magically appears. Magic! That’s the answer!
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Austrian economics are quoted about as much as the Bible to allegedly refute non-Progressive positions here. I imagine in the UK Austrian economics have moved into first place.
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Who knows what the talking heads here waffle on about, Mr Dobson. When I last went to The Guardian the general theme used to counter non-progressive positions was: ‘This will dis-proportionally affect vulnerable persons’ – which means wogs, ‘stanis, fatties, trannies &c.
I do know that the price of my standard loaf has stayed at a steady £1.80 for four years now, however. Helpful, as it’ll soon be one of the only things I can buy!
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Sounds familiar. Here the Wog-Friendly programs are presented as either Biblical mandates or too costly to end for some ridiculous reason. Sometimes it is both.
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Money is a state of mind when you live under the Rainbow. All you need to do is learn to wear lip gloss and pick a good song to dance to.
They have shown us over the last few years that whatever people used to think money was, it’s something else entirely now.
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Conservatism not only is a grift, it’s a failed ideology.
Next up: conservatism has never worked because it has never been done properly.
Sound familiar?
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Heh. I just wrote below that ‘being conservative is quite hard… it requires tough people to implement’ (that was the basic gist). On reading your comment, my statement does indeed appear to be a form of “It just wasn’t done properly”!
Perhaps this highlights the importance of focusing on concrete goals as opposed to deciding what sort of conservative we are?
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It would be interesting to pinpoint when the arguments migrated from concrete proposals to abstract generalities. So we could do it right and all. Snark aside, probably the early Eighties, and even then the rhetoric from Reagan and Thatcher was loaded with abstractions.
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Libertarian Position
(noun)
\lib·er·tar·i·an pə-ˈzi-shən\
definition of libertarian position,
1) a blend of hiding under the bed and shilling for global capital.
You should do more of these Z man these are fun
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Yeah I can’t see it being anything more than a grift unless of course Hispanics and Black people end up getting super conservative and not wanting their kids to be raised on tranny globalism. I find it hard to believe that so many people are streaming across the now open border hoping to pay 70% income taxes and eat vegan and have their kids switch genders.
The best way, it seems to me, to get the left to go for the opposite of an idea is for the right to first articulate some value that they can then utterly desecrate. So, we should out Thunk them by promoting gay mercenaries instead of traditional militaries, free abortion for all with licensing required to have a baby at all, and making same-race marriage totally illegal. You have to marry a non-white person, preferably a transsexual non-white person. It’s the law because we are White Supremacists who love non-white trannies. It’s just who we are. All sports must be mixed gender and be statistically representative of society as a whole in every position. Schools must not ever evaluate children’s abilities but rather encourage them to grow emotionally and nothing else. Shoplifting is liberating property from the evil corporate overlords who stole it.
And on and on. I think we can really win this one guys. Let’s get creative. Ultimately our swarthy brethren want to enjoy material culture as first-world consumers. Well, we need to do everything we can to help them get there and then giggle as the rug is pulled out from underneath them exactly as it was for us.
We have to stop trying to make sense. They use our efforts to explain ourselves against us.
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If the right was serious, the only minority outreach would be blasting hispanic communities with pictures of hispanic tranny kids, black communities with pictures of black kids being sodomized by a gay white dude, and asian communities with academic apartheid propaganda to hit home with admissions discrimination.
They’re going to be either indifferent or hostile to white people, so let’s make them hate the white liberal.
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They keep streaming into Canada. You think they actually want to work? Most of the world is a shit hole. They’ll take tranny story hour any day of the week as long as they get welfare and a “decent” apartment. The mindset partly explains why most of the world is a shit hole.
Plus they’re forming enclaves more and more. Wokeness doesn’t necessarily penetrate as far into the hood. They are also fine with abortion. Chinese / Indians abort like crazy.
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White no-go zones need to start becoming a thing. It doesn’t even have to be violent or an overt challenge to the current power structure, but just a matter of making enforcement so onerous and painful they just start looking the other way.
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A reappearance of “Indian Country”…
Exactly. Here the Blacks simultaneously hate homosexuals and line up dutifully to vote for Big Gay’s biggest supporters because of the gibs.
“Ma’am, we have already determined what you are, now we are just haggling over the price.”
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yay Winston Churchill!
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Do you ever get those “chain emails” that go into some sort of rant that incorporates all the current outrage events that get conservatives on their hind legs? They start listing all these things, then end with some quotes from a civil rights icon or Lincoln his own self. Then the challenge: “How many will have the courage to pass this on?” I’m always surprised at the people I know who fall for this shit.
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The American Conservative is a bizarre publication. They regularly post obviously paid for garbage like the piece Zman wrote this column about. Their most popular contributor is Rod Dreher, who has a decent understanding of religious liberty but otherwise is an emotive fool who gets gaslight by the left all the time. He loves denouncing anyone who even mildly promotes a positive white identity. Their comment section is almost overrun with urban liberals, why they are reading “The American Conservative” is anyone’s guess.
Then they will on occasion publish something very good that it is shocking could get on a publication like this. Along side this column today is one by Emma Freire. She is a writer who moved back to the United States after eight years of living in South Africa and Brazil. She gives confirmation to what many on this side have been saying for years, that our society is devolving become more like these basket case nations using blunt examples. Hopefully she can help wake up some whites.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/coming-back-to-america-observations-after-eight-years-abroad/
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Dreher is the most craven cuck imaginable. He pretends running and hiding is principled. I don’t think he is gaslighted as much as realizes accepting leftwing premises is tge path of least resistance, the sort of thing National Review does.
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David French is worse, but Dreher is bad. Here is a good example from a few years ago. There was a fire that was determined to be arson at a Mosque in Houston, Dreher responded with this hand wringing piece about “fighting religious bigotry” and sanctimoniously sent the Mosque $50 to help them rebuild. A few days later, someone got around to reporting the truth, the fire was started by a vagrant trying to keep warm and only caused some damage to a storage building. When called out on his donation, he was defensive, calling it a gesture of goodwill. Hard to believe he thinks he could guide a movement to stand up to the forces trying to tear down Christianity.
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Forgot to add the link
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/fighting-religious-bigotry-islam/
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If push came to shove, Dreher would gleefully assist the totalitarianis in destroying the last vestiges of Christianity and then offer up his wife and daughters to celebrate the victory. French, who is mentally ill, would just watch.
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David French poses as a conservative evangelical (his twitter picture used to be a portrait of John Calvin) yet he would regularly gush about “Game of Thrones” when it was on air. That was about 5 years ago. Now the norm for TV is that any program not explicitly aimed at young children will have soft-core pornographic content/nudity. Super-Calvinist David French is entirely silent about this sort of thing.
It is a strange site. I know one person involved is pretty much a paleo. Then there are others who strike me as commissars. Then you have goofballs like Dreher. People forget that he has hopped from one cut to the next. He was once something called a crunchy-con, for example. At one time they had Ron Unz running the place.
We really need a decent middlebrow publication that advocates our interests.
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Dreher also periodically changes his religion along with his Conservatism-of-the-week. My favorite Dreher moment was when he referenced human biodiversity and commented he gad not read the science about IQ and race and did not intend to do so. Along with bliss, ignorance is the path of least resistance in that area.
Both Dreher and French are mentally ill, full stop.
If you ever decide to publish a midbrow DR magazine I’m fully onboard.
Barnard: Dreher is a useless cuck who continually apologizes for Whites’ existence. I went and read Freire’s article and some of the comments – what drivel. All she notices upon returning to the US after 10 years abroad is mail and customer service? Not one word about immigration or race. She correctly notes how blase` Americans are about their children, shutting them away with minimum wage non-White ‘daycare’ and in public schools to be taught to be ashamed of their people and history.
The comments are about what one would expect from Conservative Inc. Public life in America – from concerts to libraries to malls – is to be avoided by decent White people. Build your own private world, because Clownworld wants your children. Deny it its prey.
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I’m glad you said this because I was just about to post almost the exact same thing.
I remember being flat out banned from this site long ago for some very milquetoast type comments regarding the schism between ‘Trump supporters’ and ‘conservatives’. That should tell you everything you need to know about the place right there. I’m not even talking about 3rd rail topics like racial IQ differences, the JQ, etc. Just simply that maybe these –millions– of Trump people are not all toothless hillbillies and see something that should be considered thoughtfully vs. shouted down. Boom— insta-ban for life. LOL! Never went back since as it was clear they were a true Mitt Romney level bastion of hypocrisy.
Also re: the comments section, that is the other big tell. It is like reading ‘The Hill’ or the NYT comments section and most of the ‘conservatives’ will either agree with the urban shitlibs or give that sort of ‘gentle resistance’ that allows them to be steamrolled. The entire site oozes with the essence of Cuckservative in the most raw distilled essence of the world.
I was a CivNat heading into college. I joined some campus conservative groups and was integrated into the party at the local/youth level. Quickly noticed that it was fully run by homosexuals. The people involved were:
– homosexuals
– autistic guys with no social skills but who want power
– “policy wonks” who like to feel smart and hum and haw to show how smart and superior they are.
None of these people actually hold any conservative values, nor do they try and fight for them. It’s just a game where they try and climb the greasy pole to get power. It was a big redpill though.
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Oh ya, and I’ll also add that none of the have any game whatsoever, they would simp like crazy even at the ugliest conservative girl. The ratio was like 20:1 male to female.
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The whole Sec 230 business for me is a smokescreen for the Government outsourcing suppression of free speech to the Tech Oligarchs. The so-called conservative/libertarian mercenary grifters have falsely framed it as a private property, “build your own Facebook if you don’t like it” issue. See Parler to find out how this works out……..
The First Amendment says the Government cannot suppress your speech. Private companies, naturally, can do whatever they please. So this is another example of outsourcing: the Government gets Facebook to suppress your speech. Meanwhile, it turns a blind eye to obvious Tech Oligarch collusion to screw Gab and Parler.
I’m not sure what the solution might be, but the DR should be completely b**cotting all the major social media sites.
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Allowing people to sue for slander is the solution.
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Lol! Conservative Rodents Inc.
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I’d surely like to see the hangings begin posthaste. The gallows might be a little pricey due to lumber inflation, but it’ll be money well spent. I imagine rope is still pretty cheap.
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