Monthly Archives: February 2018

Do We Have A Brutus?

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For most people, the name “Brutus” brings to mind the Roman politician, who took a leading role in the assassination of Julius Caesar. Because the winners write the history books, he is also remembered as a villain, the guy who murdered the great man and sent the Roman Republic careening toward authoritarian rule. That is probably not fair to Brutus or the other members of the Optimate faction. Julius Caesar was no friend of the Republic, despite being the leader of the Populis faction, but that is how it goes with history.

There is another Brutus, one who is relevant to our age. Lucius Junius Brutus is remembered as the founder of the Roman Republic. Until the fifth century BC, Rome was ruled by a series of kings. According to Livy, The son of Tarquinius Superbus raped a noblewoman named Lucretia, who was a relation to Brutus. There was already great discontent with the behavior of the king and Brutus had many other grievances, but this was the tipping point. Brutus led the revolt against the king and established the Republic.

The story itself is worth relating. After she had been raped, Lucretia summoned Brutus, her father, Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus and Publius Valerius Poplicola, whose name the Founders would use when promoting the Constitution. After she told them what had happened and how she had been dishonored, she committed suicide by stabbing herself with a dagger. Brutus pulled the dagger from her chest, held it up and immediately shouted for the overthrow of the Tarquins. The revolution started at that moment.

Hidden in that story, which is most likely apocryphal, is the logic of republican virtue and republican morality. Free men fight and die for their honor, for their liberty and for their posterity. It is a form of rule based on a set of ideals, rather than a practical arrangement among men. A king is a pragmatic compromise that works now. A dictatorial committee is just the best way to establish order in the moment. A republic assumes men are not angels, but it assumes each generation will generate enough virtuous men to maintain it.

Our first Brutus is remembered as an example of that republican virtue, not because he established it, but because he sacrificed for it. Brutus became the first consul of Rome. During his consulship, the royal family tried to subvert the republic in order to regain the throne. This is remembered as the Tarquinian conspiracy. Among the conspirators were two of Brutus’ sons, who were sentenced to death. Brutus gained great respect among his peers for stoically watching as the sentence was carried out.

We are a long way from those times, but we have similar challenges. The emerging conspiracy among career political appointees and intelligence officials, a conspiracy to overthrow the orderly functioning of the republic, is not a lot different from what the Romans faced 25 centuries ago. It is not hugely different from what faced them five centuries after the founding of the Republic. In the former case, a Brutus was able to rise to the challenge. In the latter, another Brutus was not able to answer the call.

In the current crisis, there are some similarities to both events. Those plotting against republican order are doing so claiming Trump is an authoritarian. They see his very existence as proof of some hidden conspiracy to overthrow democracy and install Trump as the 12th invisible Hitler, returned to usher in the Fourth Reich. That sounds ridiculous, but not unlike the plotters against Caesar, the people scheming to get Trump, justify their actions, not on merit, but against what they imagine Trump is secretly plotting.

Those defending the plotters believe it too. Like the conspirators, they have no choice but to believe it. They are calling the release of the memo a constitutional crisis, implying a grab for power by Trump. They have to go down this path, turning everything on its head, otherwise they are the villains. They need to see themselves as the white hats and they need the public to see them as that too. The men who assassinated Julius Caesar justified murder, by imagining themselves as the defenders of Rome for the same reason.

On the other hand, we have Trump, maybe the last man in the Imperial Capital, who still believes in the old ideal of America. Trump is a true civic nationalist. He is the first president in many generations to truly sacrifice in order to serve in office. He is a man of weird old America. He even sounds like where he comes from, which is no longer typical of a member of the political class. He came into office believing that his victory would be enough to convince the political class to go along with his reform program.

On the other other hand, Trump is the guy tasked by history to impose order on a chaotic American political world. Much in the same way Julius Caesar was faced with a choice between obeying the rules and permitting chaos, Trump is faced with the choice of letting things go on as usual or imposing the rule of law. If he yields to the will of the Senate, so to speak, he risks undermining the constitutional order. If he goes against the political class and business as usual, he risks war with the old guard and all that comes with it.

Trump is both the tribune of the people and the defender of the prevailing order. He is in a strange position; in that he is pushing for the sorts of reforms popular with the Populis faction and tasked with defending the order that makes it possible for the Optimate faction to exist. He is Lucius Junius Brutus, overthrowing the current order, but he is also Marcus Junius Brutus, motivated by a desire to defend the old order. It is like the confluence of two rivers of Western history. Time will tell if we have the Brutus to save the republic.

Travelogue – Boston

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I spent many hears in Boston and I come back regularly. Even so, I am always surprised to see some unexpected change. Even in a sclerotic culture like New England, life does not stand still. New buildings are built to replace old ones. Roads get redesigned. The general look and feel of the place changes over time. To paraphrase Heraclitus, you never visit the same city twice. Perhaps it is just a function of age, but when I travel now, I am much more aware of what has changed, rather than what is familiar.

The biggest thing that has changed since my last trip here is me. There used to be a time when Boston was famous for the worst drivers in America. Tourists would bring back their rental cars and take cabs, because after a short dose of Boston drivers, they were too afraid to be on the road here. Now, Boston drivers are nothing special. Having spent the last decade driving the Imperial Capital, my standards have adjusted. Nowhere has traffic like Washington. Los Angeles is a motoring paradise by comparison….

At the airport in Lagos, I saw what I thought was the ugliest women I had seen to this point in my life. I mean so hideous my instinct was to look away. Then as it approached where I was sitting, I realized it was a tranny. Everyone else had the same reaction. Of course, the tranny was on my plane, but luckily, I boarded in the early group so it was sent to the back of the plane. But as luck would have it, the tranny was on the same shuttle to the rental car facility. The looks from the counter agents were priceless.

Driving out of Logan, I could not help but think about what Theodore Dalrymple said about communist societies. Perhaps these efforts to force the rest of us to accept cross-dressing loonies as normal is a push to turn us into emasculated liars. Maybe that’s part of it, but my sense watching the tranny parade around the airport is that this is just wanton decadence. You see this on campus with the vulgar displays of every conceivable sexual prediction. I think we are ruled by a class of Caligula’s now, for now…

I had an interesting conversation with friends at dinner on Thursday night. One friend I would describe as between CivNat and Dissident Right. A year ago, he was listening to Ben Shapiro, thinking he was radical. Today, he listens to me. It is a trip the ferryman has seen many times. His sister, the other person at dinner, is a lifelong feminist Progressive, but having doubts as she reaches her middle years. Over dinner, we talked about race, sex, ethnicity, quirks of evolutionary biology. All the stuff popular on the Dissident Right.

I have gotten better at talking about these things with normies and reality-curious Progressives. I have a library of pithy stories and examples to make it easy for them to accept biological reality on their terms. In the case of reality-curious Progressives, I frame things in moral terms. It does not always work, but it keeps them from shrieking “Witch! Witch!” and notifying the authorities. Her brother thinks I red-pilled her, but we will see. It is a long road from there to the water’s edge. Still, it is another green shoot…

Boston did not fare the previous Progressive Awakening very well. The cultural upheavals of the 60’s and 70’s broke the working class structure of most American cities and Boston was not an exception. As a result, the city was in decline into the 80’s, but then it righted itself in the late 80’s and 90’s. Like New York, rich people started demanding better policing and better schools. The city started knocking down slums and opening up the housing market to developers. By the late-90’s, Boston was in a renaissance.

When the ululating started again in the late Clinton years, the city was not destroyed by Progressive wreckers seeking to make a point, Instead, it was filled with neo-liberal globalists, investing in the city. The colleges exploded with money, as college kids poured in toting government loans and financial aid packages. Boston became a technology hub, with great tech firms ringing the city and biotech startups growing like warts on the college campuses. Eastern Mass as a whole is nothing like it was at its nadir…

Locals here are gearing up for another Super Bowl. I moved here the year the Patriots made their first big game, where they were destroyed by the Bears. I was here when they won their first one back in 2002. That would have been the 2001 season. The difference in atmosphere between now and then is stark. The Patriots have been great for close to two decades now. Winning is not as fun for the fans. There is also the melancholy of knowing that the great run is nearing an end. Both Belichick and Brady are close to done…

Something I forget about until I get here is just how crappy the service is in Boston. In Lagos, the retail shops are run by Koreans and South Asians, so they are super polite to honkies. The businesses staffed with blacks are a riot of inefficiency, but they are polite about it. Here, lots of white people work retail and they act like they are doing you a favor by waiting on you. At the Dunkin Donuts the other morning, the pram-face who served me coffee had a look on her face like she was thinking about sticking a shiv in my ribs…

Shipping Up To Boston

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This is a road trip podcast. I’ve been on the road and I remain on the road through the weekend. As this goes up, I’m in Boston. That means I recorded this in bits and pieces as I had time. It also means I did so in odd places, like police stations, cemeteries and sorority houses. Usually, I put this together later in the week, trying to include at least one news item, but this week, I had to get things done earlier than normal. It has been pre-recorded for your future listening pleasure. Take that space-time continuum!

I’ve come down with a case of Ebola this week. It is running rampant in Lagos on the Chesapeake. I rarely get sick, but I’ve got it this time. If my voice sounds a bit odd, that’s probably the reason. There’s also the fact that I’ve not had a lot of energy so I was not enthusiastic about cleaning up the audio. That is a tedious task, made infinitely more tedious when fighting off the monkey virus. But, I take pride in never letting poor health keep me from work, so I pushed through it. Like Hitler, I suffer for my art.

This week I have the usual variety of items in the now standard format. Spreaker has the full show. I am up on Google Play now, so the Android commies can take me along when out disrespecting the country. I am on iTunes, which means the Apple Nazis can listen to me on their Hitler phones. Of course, the Hitler Phones are so slow now, you may never finish. YouTube also has the full podcast. Of course, there is a download link below.

This Week’s Show

Contents

Direct Download

The iTunes Page

Google Play Link

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On Odysee

The Un-Americans

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One of the things that has always been true about America is that you never question someone’s patriotism unless you have strong evidence. Part of this is due to the immigrant back story of most Americans, but a bigger part is the fragmented nature of the country. Patriotism is the glue that holds the American Nations together. Different groups from different regions stick together because of a common national creed. This also works across class lines. The rich, the middle and the poor are equally patriotic.

One result of this has been a desire by leaders to not look like fops. Politicians, businessmen, even generals, have always done the every-man act in order to seem like one of the folks. We do not have a hereditary class, but we do have rich people. Rather than a rigid class system, the rich make sure to let the lower classes know they have the same duty to the country as everyone else. This soul and soil nationalism, rather than blood and soil, is what binds the social classes and the regional cultures together. At least it used too.

That is certainly not the way things are now. Our cultural and political leaders go out of their way to signal their hostility to the lower classes. In fact, it has become so common for our betters to sneer at us, they are competing with one another to prove just how much they hate Americans. Of course, they mean white Americans. The swarthy recent imports are the best, but the old stock, well, they are the worst, according to the people claiming to represent us. It really is remarkable just how much they detest us.

A commenter on Steve Sailer’s blog asked, in response to this David Brooks column, “Has there ever been another time in American history when American elites felt this comfortable expressing such open contempt and hatred for their fellow citizens?” It is a good question. Certainly, elites from some sections have hated the people of other sections. Virginia gentry, prior to the Civil War, thought the goobers from West Virginia were worst than Indians. New Englanders hate the South. Everyone hates Cleveland.

What we are seeing today is different. It is a public hatred directed at the fundamental nature of America, and by extension, Americans. Here is an example from Bill Kristol in response to an immigration segment on Fox News. What Kristol is arguing is that Americans, as in current citizens, have no right to discuss immigration policy. It is immoral for us to say anything about it. On the other hand, non-Americans, people not currently citizens, have a moral duty to cross the border and settle in your neighborhood.

Kristol is hardly alone. It is not strictly a Jewish thing either. Lyndsey Graham is not Jewish, as far as anyone knows. He no longer thinks America should exist. He denies that the current citizens have any right to exist whatsoever. Granted, he is a shrieking hysteric, prone to hyperbole, but there is only one way to interpret what he is saying. Being an American is no longer permissible. In fact, the underlying rationale of the open borders side is that the current Americans are just no good and need to be replaced.

Now, this turn in elite opinion has been a long time coming. In the Clinton years, suddenly comfortable Boomers started buying McMansions and pretending they were too good for the hoi polloi in flyover country. Progressive politics moved away from the bread and butter economic issues and onto esoteric identity politics. This snootiness was most apparent when the Left went to war on Walmart. Once Progressives stopped pretending to like normal Americans, the so-called Conservatives joined them.

Elites have always had a disdain for the lower classes. This has been true at all times and all places. Elites have also always had a duty to look out for the interests of the lower classes. The ruling class may not have liked the people over whom they ruled, but they were duty bound to look out for them and keep their opinions to themselves. What is happening in modern America is the ruling class is rejecting their duty to their fellow citizen, because they have contempt for the very notion that we are their fellow citizens.

There really is no example from history where the ruling class revolted and declared war on its subjects. That is where we are today in America. When Trump gave his State of the Union, most of the people in the building hated him because he holds onto the old fashioned belief that the American government should serve the American people. As far as they are concerned, he’s not just a class traitor, he is insane. After all, why would anyone think the people in charge have any responsibility to the rabble?

It used to be that “un-American” meant counter to the American system and the American creed. The people charged with policing that were the people in charge. Today, being un-American is a badge of honor for the people in charge. A US Congressman actually fled the building when the crowd started in with a patriotic chant during Trump’s address to Congress. You can be sure he was the toast of the city, a hero to his coevals in the political class. Bizarre as it sounds, America is a country now ruled by un-Americans.