Something the old paleocons recognized in the 1980’s, was that the new conservatism of Bill Buckley was doomed to fail, because it started from the premise that the current political arrangements were legitimate. Since the Left had defined those arrangements in the 20th century, it meant the New Right was going to become corrupted by its willingness to operate within the Progressives rules. For example, if you agree that segregation is evil, there are only a narrow set of policy positions you can support with regards to race.
That is, of course, exactly what happened. Instead of being a moral philosophy that stood in opposition to Progressivism, it became a foil. Conservatives were the controlled opposition, who gave legitimacy to left-wing ideas by opposing them and then ultimately embracing them. If you embrace the premise, you inevitably embrace the ends. The debate is about the middle part. It’s why conservatives have spent decades trying to accomplish the goals of the Left, without embracing the means of the Left.
In the context of the Cold War, this debate between the Left and Right, was mostly about economics and foreign policy. As much as the conservatives tried to paint the Left as a bunch of Bolsheviks, the Right never seriously challenged the Left on socialist policies like public pensions, socialized medicine and anti-poverty programs. Similarly, the approach to the Soviets was a debate about how to best manage it. The exception was Reagan’s talk of roll back, but that was mostly rhetoric. He was more than willing to bargain with them.
That’s something to keep in mind with the battle over what will come to oppose the latest iteration of Progressivism. The Ben Shapiro types who are endlessly punching Right by demanding America be defined as an idea, rather than a place and people, are embracing the main argument of the Left. They have different notions of what those ideas mean and how they should be implemented, but fundamentally Ben Shapiro agrees with the Left that America, or any nation for that matter, is just a set of ideas, not a place and people.
This new conservatism must end the same way as Buckley conservatism ended. That is, as an amen chorus for the Progressive state. If you agree that the new definition of a nation is post-national, as in not being defined by borders, language and people, then the debate is what defines the new state. If you further agree that the new state is defined by ideas and a set of values, then the only thing left is to figure out who defines those ideas and how will they be enforced. Eventually, an agreement is reached.
This notion of the state as a post-national, post-Christian theocracy is not without real consequences. It may seem ridiculous, but when the people in charge believe in something, no matter how absurd, the people pay the price. You see that in the Kavanaugh fight. Big shot intellectuals are starting to notice what people on this side of the great divide have been saying for years. If society is defined by “who we are” then someone who dissents must be excluded from that society, by force, if necessary.
In that context, splitting the difference could no longer be passed off as moderation. It was cowardice. Any Republican who voted against Kavanaugh (and, of course, any Democrat who voted for him) would thereby exit his party. Just as the congressional vote in 1846 on the so-called Wilmot Proviso revealed that the fault-line in American politics was about slavery, not party, the Kavanaugh nomination shows what American politics is, at heart, about. It is about “rights” and the entire system that arose in our lifetimes to confer them not through legislation but through court decisions: Roe v. Wade in 1973 (abortion), Regents v. Bakke in 1979 (affirmative action), Plyler v. Doe in 1982 (immigrant rights), and Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015 (gay marriage). The Democrats are the party of rights. As such, they are the party of the Supreme Court. You can see why Ted Kennedy claimed in a 1987 diatribe that the Yale law professor Robert Bork would turn the United States into a police state. For Democrats, an unfriendly Supreme Court is a threat to everything.
That means the country itself. The general Democratic view that has hardened since the 1960s is the one expressed on many occasions by Barack Obama. The United States is not a country bound by a common history or a common ethnicity—it is a set of values. That is an open, welcoming thing to build a country around. But it has a dark side, and we have seen the dark side during the hearings. If a country is only a set of values, then the person who does not share what elites “know” to be the country’s values is not really a member of the national community and is not deserving of its basic protections, nice guy though he might otherwise be. Such people “belong” to the country in the way some think illegal immigrants do—provisionally.
Back at the founding, opponents of the new Constitution argued that the new political model would inevitably result in the supremacy of the court. Anti-federalists argued that the Supreme Court, as defined under the Constitution would become a source of massive abuse. Beyond the power of the executive, the court would eventually come to dominate the legislative branch. This is exactly where we find ourselves today, where both sides of the ruling elite view the court as the only source of legitimate moral authority.
That’s why the Kavanaugh fight was so vicious. Progressives fear the court could define “who we are” in such a way that excludes them. It’s also why guys like Ben Shapiro are not just wrong, but dangerously wrong. By going along with the general premise of a country being just a set of values, he is committing suicide on your behalf. He has a place to go if things don’t work out here. If the definition of “who we are” turns out to not include you, where are you going to go? More important, where are they going to send you?
That’s why this new notion of the state can only end in horror. Since the Greeks, political philosophy has assumed that a society is a group of related people, with a shared history and shared space. The debate was over how best to organize society, to match the temperament and character of the people. This new model allows no room for debate and no tolerance of dissent. Like every totalitarian ideology, it has to end in a bloodbath as the fight to define “who we are” results in the pruning of those who are deemed “not us.”
W, our worst president ever, totally blew a golden opportunity. The only logical first step after 9/11 was to totally shut down our borders and points of entry. After these steps alot of our agenda would have naturally followed due to the patriotism and single minded purpose that existed at that time. Oh if we only had a real leader then. Hell most of the world was even on our side. W FUCKING BLEW IT!
Great point. Hadn’t really thought of that. My thinking was that W had the option of randomly invading the Middle East, or just beefing up security at home. You’re right though, he could have gone apeshit on the borders and immigration, and pretty much gotten away with it at that time. I’ve always hated him. I think Z said he hates W more than any modern-day president.
I’m proud to be able to say that I never once voted for a Bush.
His biggest crime was tamping down our natural rage along with constant assurances that: 1. islam is an ROP and 2. islam is at risk (from us) and must be protected. Even with that, not in the same ballpark as O when it comes to intent and actual destruction of long-held values.
ahhhh, I can her a new post sizzling on the grill, ready to serve up, at the Zman Cafe
LOL. great image
Been [one of] my primary themes for, well longer than my aged almost 72 years can remember: the CONstitution, that, by the way, does not formerly address the status of the ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. Any One else consider said CONstitution to be the beginning of the limitation of those INDIVIDUAL “RIGHTS” declared in the DOI and ratified by great suffering, loss of blood, limb, personal bounty and . . . LIFE? And for those unfortunate enough to have experienced war “up close and personal”, especially those conscripted and forced in to a far-away foreign “conflict” solely for avarice and domination by a few socio/psychopathic semi-animate viruses, that DOI “method of ratification”, has special significance. Whereas, said CONstitution was both hastily and conveniently “ratified” by just a few sigs the likes of closet monarchist/BRUtish agent Hamilton! Hoo-rah, Aaron Burr!
Rather surprised “Z” didn’t include mention of said and the original “Republic” with which the “Rights” of individuals/minorities remain as important as the [current] “democracy” of two wolves and a sheep determining what’s “on the menu”, withOUT even the necessity of a “majority” any longer, i.e. the first “go around” of rapist Clinton’s “election”.
That being said, excellent literary construction and analysis of a looming issue by “Z”, as usual.
And a LARP ftw!! How much does Soros pay you through one of his various entities?
Fantastic writing!
The idea that a country is “defined as an idea, rather than a place and people” sits well with the EU rulers in France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. The yokels farther east who have proclaimed themselves as Christians living in Christian countries know they are a place and a people. Plus, parts of Eastern Europe were under Muslim rule for several centuries. Hungary and Poland especially adopted the idea “never again” because they have not forgotten.
Z: “Big shot intellectuals are starting to notice what people on this side of the great divide have been saying for years.”
Yes. It’s one way Overton starts nudging. The supreme court circus (hopefully) will force the big name intellectuals on the polite Right to write more honestly. I say write, and not think, because they’ve always known what’s up. Now their task is to start putting it into polite print.
It must be anger inducing to see these establishment Right intellectuals start coming around…WAY TOO FUCKING LATE…to what true badasses like Z, Sobran, Francis, Derb, AmRen, VDare, and others like them, have had to have their live’s ruined to be able to say for the last 20 years. You hope for a televised debate 20 years from now, when white man is near the end and finally woken up too late, and Z gets to point at a Christopher Caldwell type, and say, “where the hell were YOU 20 years ago when a real opinion would have mattered!” I’m wasted. I can barely write. You get my meaning.
I’ll wager serious money that they’ll be right back to the status-quo in no time. It’s still important that they win, for the sake of the 1st and 2nd amendments, but the left just tried to move too quickly this time. The country is still too white/not enough whites are sufficiently bat-shit crazy yet. Look over the descent of America post-WII. Virtually everyone has embraced 90% of it, or shrugged their shoulders and changed the channel. For God’s sake, you literally cannot turn a television set on without being bombarded by propaganda attempting to induce white women to have sex with negros. The GOP leadership are still in the ultimate employ of the elite (who are united against us)/are still good, bourgeois, National Review modern-Christians at heart.
I hear this a lot on our side, about how TV is constantly showing mixed black & white couples. I think the thought angers hard-Righters so much, that they greatly exaggerate the situation.
“All the time”, “bombarded”, “every time”, “constantly”. Really? I’m not nitpicking or asking for precision. I watch a bit of TV (I still have cable, do you guys? If not, then ease off on the big opinions of what you’re not even watching).
Anyway, I see mixed black & white couples on TV a few times. Not regularly. Yes, it’s increased since BLM/Trump/etc. But I think it still scares advertisers and companies they represent. Corporations don’t like pissing off large parts of the country IF they can help it.
Secondly, blacks aren’t too big on their own kind hooking up with whitey. Especially in these tribal times. We’re the devil. It’s the white SJWs in marketing pushing the mixed race images. I doubt blacks are so into it. But that’s a secondary point.
“As much as the conservatives tried to paint the Left as a bunch of Bolsheviks, the Right never seriously challenged the Left on socialist policies like public pensions, socialized medicine and anti-poverty programs.”
The problem is that a lot of the stuff the Left pushes ends up being either popular or popular enough. When Eisenhower took office, he didn’t roll back any of the New Deal because he knew it would have hobbled him politically. The problem for the Right is that the foundations of our current order don’t stretch to 1776 or 1865 but to 1945 and that it was an order that they didn’t really have a part in constructing. Everyone know who Harry Truman is and most educated people can list a few things he did; only political wonks know about Robert Taft. We are in a debate now because the old order is falling apart as events around the world shift.
“This new conservatism must end the same way as Buckley conservatism ended.”
Buckley conservatism was destroyed by the Democrats. (Trump is the outcome of its destruction more than he was the reason for it. We’d have all the same problems we have now but would the political scene be the same if Mitt Romney had some spine back in 2012?) And the new conservatism is dying the same way – the Democrats are killing it. All the debate on the Internet and social media hasn’t done as much to kill the conservative idea you describe as much as the last two years of Democrat protest and insanity. Those insane women pounding on the doors to the Supreme Court are probably doing more to kill post-Buckley/Pre-Trump conservatism than anything else.
“That’s why this new notion of the state can only end in horror.”
I think part of the problem behind the unhinged Progressive reaction to everything since 2016 is that the bulk of their population live in an urban bubble and they really thought that they had finally and totally won back in 2012. They just can’t seem to come to terms with the idea that the fluke election wasn’t in 2016 but in 2012 and that we are in the middle of a massive directional correction that makes everything they think about the world meaningless.
The lasting upshot of all this Kavanaugh business, if you listen carefully to the rhetoric, is that the left has openly declared itself as a revolutionary party:
As the left has lost control of the Supreme Court, the Court is now illegitimate;
As the Senate allows for equal representation regardless of population, the Senate is illegitimate;
The electoral college, illegitimate;
Any opposition party presidency, illegitimate;
Federalism in general, illegitimate;
The 2nd Amendment, freedom of religion and association (and by implication, the rest of the Bill of Rights), illegitimate.
The left is nothing if not lacking in reflection, and no one on the left seems to have troubled themselves to think through the implications of these positions, but I can’t see them abandoning them now that they’ve embraced them, since the nature of the left’s internal interest group politics demand it. The rationale, when it comes, will probably be that as the Constitution is in tatters anyway, we (the left) can bulldoze what little remains and erect something more to our liking upon the ruins. As only white people in flyover land will resist us, we can demonize and marginalize them, and wage some sort of cultural revolution/race war on the Chinese model against them.
Large portions of the GOP/independents will ignore the writing on the wall until too late, because admitting the obvious will be too frightening. But the truth is that our politics are on a set trajectory of increasing radicalization, and there is little anyone can do to stop it. Better to admit the realities, and prepare yourself for what’s coming.
Reminds one of islam. The need for dhimmis to control, only one group having the legitimacy of being able to witness, one group holding certain positions of power and certainly only one way of looking at things considered legitimate. It even shares the characteristic of having a group of mullahs (or profs, bureaucrats, talking heads, etc) deciding what that set of beliefs will be.
You got to think like a Fabien Neo-Bolshevik. The mid-terms are their “November Revolution” now. The leftists aren’t planning to win the mid-terms, they are planning on loosing. It’s their only way out of MAGA. Their fundraising efforts are just that, to fund their intentions. Thing is they do not know how to pass legislation via honest lawful means. It’s impossible for them to enact any meaningful legislation thru The Congress, they don’t offer anything but the politics of hate & envy. Not enough people buy into the human extinction movements ideology or strategy, never mind the tactics as we just witnessed over Kavanaugh. So as far back as institutional memory serves, the Fabian bastards have employed every monkey trick possible, through gerrymander, vote fraud, vote rigging, graft, influence peddling, and plain old fashioned corruption. Without a yellow journalism 5th column fake media, agent provocateur’s of the “deep state”, and judicial activism of Judge Usurpers, they would not even be a political party. Their entire political machine, even if it was so ordered by their neo-politburo, couldn’t enact legislation via republican form of government, it isn’t geared nor run in that fashion.
They want to loose, because they can play the ultimate in victim’s card, violent action ensues, Neo-Bolshevik style. They think it is justified, believe it is their right to use violence to settle wrongs done to their shakedown ideology, and in their special world they are right. This mid-terms is their November Revolution. See, we are not supposed to exist, dirt people, Deplorable’s, Bitter clingers, we don’t exist. We are undesirables, the unwashed, white trailer trash. The entire history and existence of America as us dirt people know it, is The Problem. Responsible for all ill’s, all racism, globull warming, poor subjected brown people who have rights to America because us dirt people refuse to be inclusive. All that fucking commie bullshit.
The color revolution on 11-8-16 and The God Emperor’s ascension to the thrown of power of the peoples Consent has ruined everything. The timeline. The Overton Window has been smashed. All the decades and centuries of planning for the demise of America into amerika, all the wealth and riches, the devotion and preparations of the long march, are disrupted in ways they believed was a thing of the past at last. They where one pantsuit away from the glory of total raw naked power. They are going with plan B. Go full retard Neo-Bolshy on the dirt people arses. Order out of Chaos.
You write these lengthy comments and you don’t know the difference between “lose” and “loose” and their derivatives?” Seriously?
Seriously! I’ll write whatever I fucking like, and you can take your snide grammar nazi nastiness and shove it up your worthless troll ass.
Well said sir.
I often just sort of fucking marvel at the blind spot that was the Supreme Court by our Founders. They wrote a rather bulletproof document and set of laws that have been copied the world over in various iterations throughout the centuries.
But on this one issue, they seem to have been completely out to lunch that day. Let us set up nine (Nine Rings to Men…) judges that sit on their appointed, not voted for, seat IN PERPETUITY. W T F?!
Even Judge Scalia (Peace Be Upon Him) knocked it outta the park in one of his final statements with a scathing indictment of this very issue. His quote was, paraphrased, “somehow we have allowed nine lawyers in black robes to become the ultimate legislative body of the land”. He is 100% on point.
SCOTUS Justices should have term limits! Why on EARTH would they not when every other official of that caliber does. And I would further say they should be voted in and out like legislators and the executive branch. The ability to be impeached and removed wouldn’t hurt as well.
I truly have no idea what they were thinking when they penned that set of edicts because it seems countervalent to everything else they wrote which was rock solid.
Look at it not as a blind spot, but a feature of the centralism the USC as an instrument of administrative tyranny created. Then you see why The US Constitution, has never created one iota of freedom and Liberty. Only usurps power not granted them by the will of the people. Its the timeless war of hearts and minds, good verses evil.
Consider historical context. There we no inferior federal courts at the time. The Supreme Court was envisioned largely as a forum to consider disputes between the states and branches of the federal government. Early justices routinely retired to take other jobs. and lifespans were shorter then.
Moreover, there’s not much documentary evidence that the founding fathers considered the Supreme Court to be the final arbiter of the law. Marshall kind of pulled that decision out of his arse in 1803 in Marbury v. Madison, and ultimately it stuck.
The constitution does not specify the number of justices, fyi.
The Founding Fathers never specified nine–or indeed any number–of justices of SCOTUS. Nor did they give it the power of “judicial review” that it now has. That is a usurped power (Marbury v Madison). The Congress has the power to restrict the SCOTUS to its original, Constitutional jurisdiction, but the political will to do so is lacking.
It is no wonder why they had to add on the Bill of Rights and Amendments onto the USC before any of the various States would ratify it, and even then a couple hold out states didn’t ratify it till years into the next century. When they caught the Compact of Confederation representatives unprepared in Philadelphia, with the introduction of the USC, Patrick Henry summed it up rightly, “I smell a rat” which was putting things mildly. Didn’t everyone just get through fighting & dying, loosing everything, to rid themselves of the very things the USC was? Regulatory and administrative tyranny, or centralism. That is not what they all fought for in no uncertain terms, to NOT be the subjects of a far off unreachable unelected, well, deep state, if I may.
But they pulled another fast one when they wrote the USC, they wrote Scripture and God out of this instrument of administrative centralism, which where the bar with which a person was judged and be held accountable to, ultimately, the power of the Consent of the people, under which they would serve public office, Judges in particular. Exactly because of the usurpations of powers not entrusted to them to take. God is only mentioned in one instance in the US Constitution.
Al Benson Jr. wrote a short masterpiece: https://revisedhistory.wordpress.com/2014/11/10/if-liberty-was-the-object-why-did-they-give-us-centralism/
In it Benson refers to Gary North’s outlier Political Polytheism, here’s Al Benson Jr.:
“…The issue seemed clearer to some (but not all) in 1787. When the Constitution was presented for ratification in Virginia the issues were much better understood than they are today. Of course people back then had not had the dubious “benefit” of our government school system with its obfuscations and omittances regarding our history. It was pretty well understood in Virginia, as well as in other areas, that the issue was a strong federalism, or centralism, as opposed to a loose confederacy of state governments where states rights were to be the rule–the dreaded (by historians) Compact Theory!
In his speeches against ratification Patrick Henry noted that the delegates in Philadelphia had overstepped their bounds in that they had not been sent there with power to create a central government, but only to amend the Articles of Confederation. However, in light of the results of that convention it does seem that some went with other motives in mind. Henry warned the Virginia delegates that they were not to consider how they could increase trade nor how they could become a great nation, but rather how their liberty could be secured. Henry said, and quite accurately, “…for liberty ought to be the direct end of your government.” He made another prescient statement in this regard when he said: “If you give too little power today, you may give more tomorrow. But the reverse of the proposition will not hold. If you give too much power today, you cannot retake it tomorrow, for tomorrow will never come for for that.” In light of the direction this government has gone in from 1787 until now, does any sane person wish to argue with Mr. Henry’s logic?
Author, economist and columnist Gary North wrote a book almost twenty years ago now called Political Polytheism which dealt with much of this. For starters he noted that: “…The Constitution removed Christian religious tests as the judicial requirement of the judges and officers of the new national government. That, in and of itself, delivered the republic into the hands of the humanists. Nothing else was necessary after that. From that point on the secularization of America was a mopping-up operation.” That’s a much different assessment than most of us have been fed regarding the Constitution, even in Christian circles, or might I say, especially in Christian circles? I have to admit that when I first saw North’s book and skimmed it, I was a little hesitant about his thesis. As the years have passed I have become much less so…”
Read the whole thing, its one of Benson’s best pieces, follow the thread through history, it defines much of what we are and how things have morphed into what they are today.
I have been reading works on Patrick Henry, most is free or 99cents on Kindle, Henry was a pretty amazing guy. He may very well effected events in such a way that he literally saved the 13 Nation States from worse than we face today as 50 NOT sovereign States. And I’m pretty sure thats one if not one of the major reasons why we are where we are today. They took the Sovereign state of the individual Nation States away so they could A, diminish and exclude the Consent and Will of the people, and B, thus eliminate the Sovereign nature of the individual Nation States.
It stands to reason, because the rise of the various Alt-Rights, are essentially the call for the rebirth of Nationalism.
There’s a great section in The History of The Second Amendment by David E. Vandercoy of Valparaiso Univ. Law Review, http://www.guncite.com/journals/vandhist.html
where it gets into the size of Nation States, the theorist Baron de Montesquieu:
“…the geographic size of an area strongly influenced its form of government.[190] Montesquieu had written democracy could survive only in a small-sized state, small enough to permit the actual participation of the people in government and small enough so that each citizen understands that promoting the public good directly promotes the individual.[191] A middle-sized territory, as Montesquieu terms it, would inevitably become a monarchy; to an extensive territory, a despotic form of government was best adapted. In large republics, the public good is sacrificed to a multiplicity of views and the citizens do not perceive the nexus between promoting the public good and their individual welfare.
According to Montesquieu, a middle-sized territory would tend to become a monarchy because ambitious persons who do not perceive the public good as beneficial to them seek grandeur by imposing their will on others. One person eventually prevails and assumes the role as prince. The monarchy then exists through a system of honor established by giving perks and titles. If the territory is too large, one person cannot command sufficient allegiance on honor of enough of the populace to control the territory. Ruling a large territory requires more than a system of titles and perks. Order can be maintained only by immediate, passive obedience to the rules; passive obedience can be achieved only by an instilling fear. The multiplicity of views, the dissents, are stifled by fear. According to Montesquieu, rule by fear, despotism, was a logical incident of the government of a large territory. Montesquieu’s theory continued that while a small republic could internally maintain its republican character, it would be destroyed by foreign forces.[192] The dilemma could be resolved only by a confederate republic, a form of government in which small states become individual members of an association which is able to provide security for the whole body.[193]
The Antifederalists used Montesquieu’s well-known works to argue for a less powerful central government and more autonomy for the individual states, a government which would more closely resemble the Articles of Confederation model and Montesquieu’s confederate republic rather than that proposed by the Constitution. Antifederalist publications confirm that preserving the autonomy of the states was a means to the end of protecting the people’s rights, not an end (p.1034)in itself. In arguing against the new Constitution, the Pennsylvania Minority framed the question–“Is it probable that the dissolution of the state governments, and the establishment of one consolidated empire would be eligible in its nature, and satisfactory to the people in its administration?”[194]…”
The whole thing is stuffed to the gills with things that pertain exactly to our time now. Define who we are, why we have certain unalienable primal rights and Liberty to begin with that have nothing to do with man made law, exactly because they are birth rights you are born with. It brings back into focus, with that so important feature, prudence, the questions of our time that are memory holed and disappeared by the revisionists and humanists, exactly because these idea, theories and precepts, their long proven and won relativity, are so dangerous, the thought police have all but eliminated them from history and knowledge.
The left is going to have a hard time with “who we are,” when they find out WHO their Coalition of the Ascendant ARE. The Muslims, Chinese, Mexicans, Guatemalens, Indians, etc, aren’t really who they are and hold many values and beliefs abhorrent to the pussyhat crowd. But they’re too busy attacking white privilege and white males and traditional white European values to notice that this will be an example of “beware what you wish for.”
I’m not a conservative because there’s nothing left of the old order to conserve. It’s like Abe Lincoln’s favorite axe: he replaced the head twice and the handle three times but it’s still his favorite axe.
I’m now a radical.
Unlikely that Shapiro has a “place to go if things don’t work out here” because the next Democratic administration will surely make that place walk the plank.
One can only hope so.
The stupid hurts, but this Charles Blow column is worth reading, if only to understand your enemy. If you are a real masochist, spend 5 minutes scrolling through the comments.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/opinion/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion
As an aside, when did schools stop teaching basic civics in 7th or 8th grade? It’s astounding how few people understand that the US is a constitutional, federal, republic, and NOT a democracy.
Huh, well…school can not change genetics. I was on the 7 and 8 grade in the USSR and they teached a lot that USSR is Soviet Socialist and so on. And we had Constitution too.The only thing we learned that this is madness and we need to get rid of it.
This works other way too. 100 million diverse people see only white supremacy. Humans make the country not other way around. If anybody wants to talk about Constitution and integration, just ask. If somebody gives you Pakistani Passport, would you fuck a goat. If you claim that “they”are able to integrate and follow the Constitution, then probably you can too…:D:D
You are correct.
The comments merit a face palm. But why be surprised by the article itself? Do you really expect a Grambling graduate to write anything else?
After reading and enjoying Z since I found him (via WRSA), my only suggestion is, buy more ammo.
To sum this up more succinctly (and if I understand correctly), Progressives are taking the physical nation of America with its shared history, customs, land, and borders…and creating a brand new country that is only defined by “who we are”. And Progressives get to define those borders. Thus, many of us will suddenly find ourselves to be “illegal aliens” and denied the very rights and liberties that we enjoyed previously but that the Lett want to confer I in everyone who crosses our border.
Their country will be far more restrictive towards their ideological opponents than we ever intended for the America as envisioned by our founders.
The Progressives (and their co-conspirators in the DC political elite) are only in favor in open borders because it provides a new voting block that they can bribe using tax dollars and thereby ensure their incumbency. Provided these new illegal “citizens” adopt the Progressive ideology, they will remain within the flock. If they ever veer away from the approved orthodoxy, then they will be sent to re-education camps along with all the other dissenters. This is the magic of totalitarianism.
To sum it up, Samuel_Adams, the left is trying to delegitimatize the conquest of the Western Hemisphere by white people with white culture and priorities. So yes, to them WE are the illegal aliens and worthy of only hate.
Would you happen to have some specific citations for the anti-Federalists opposing the creation of the Supreme Court on the basis that it would be abusive? It’s not that I don’t believe you; it’s that I’m interested in what they had to say and would love to read it myself.
Of course, history has shown us that the anti-Federalists were pretty much right about everything…
https://mises.org/library/antifederalists-were-right
Thanks.
Excellent historical account of the anti-federalist verses the federalists:
http://www.guncite.com/journals/vandhist.html
They already have defined us as the enemy whom they want to see us dead and gone and pretty much already kicked our asses to the curb in terms of political influence and power. The only thing they haven’t done yet is stuff us in boxcars and send us to some quarry or incinerator. But that day is coming.
Point is the Left has always treated this, as war by other means. That means they are ruthless SOB’s that will do anything to achieve their goals. We still don’t get that and that”s partly why our side is a dumpster fire of failure. We don’t even know the fight’s begun and we’re being cut off at the knees.
That’s why this new notion of the state can only end in horror…. This new model allows no room for debate and no tolerance of dissent. Like every totalitarian ideology, it has to end in a bloodbath as the fight to define “who we are” results in the pruning of those who are deemed “not us.”
When I’m trying to explain this to people who don’t get it, I find it helps to put it like this:
“A proposition nation isn’t a nation–it’s a cult.”
That seems to get the point across. Persuasive because it’s true.
But I’m still smiling…
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ff472147195e470c90939711f450696d9fb051ab61732c1f7a1b98f34d099117.jpg
” If a country is only a set of values, then the person who does not share what elites “know” to be the country’s values is not really a member of the national community and is not deserving of its basic protections, nice guy though he might otherwise be. ”
Values define ‘rights’. Values are more accurately Fashions. Very few Fashions are timeless. Most are momentary flashes of popularity soon relegated to ye olde dustbin of history. The shrieking Harridans/Herr-i-mans continue to ramp up the hysteria and shorten the cycle. It doesn’t even take 28 days.
They are on to the next outrage. As soon as they determine what that is. Dealing with progs is worse than a petulant neglected over-indulged toddler. With credit cards & driver’s licenses. Just because you win one battle doesn’t stop them from being hell bent on driving to the liquor store and buying a chainsaw. With multiple clips.
Cuckservatives lost the game in the first quarter — the rest has just been both sides running the clock out — when they folded on leftists defining everything they wanted as somebody-or-other’s “rights.” Now there’s virtually nothing left, no barking mad demand, that progressives do not claim as a right, as opposed to a privilege or a political choice. How can anyone stand in the path of a divine rights steamroller and yell “Stop”?
But still, the chinless Constitution clutchers don’t get it that progressives neither know nor care about the precious Constitution, the Founding Fathers, all that old Fourth of July rhetoric. Most of us are sorry to see it come to pass, but we have to admit that the debate is over; the front line is now power politics. It’s good to point to many excellent constitutional principles that are currently obscured, in the thin hope that someday they will be rediscovered and respected again. But it’s foolish to avoid standing up to tyranny by taking refuge in a Constitution that one side is blind and deaf to.
The house is divided against itself and I see no realistic nonviolent solution except partition.
Constitutions are like arseholes: everybody’s got one. Most constitutions in the world are carbon copies of the American, the difference is that only Americans care about it.
If Euros feel their civil liberties are being trodden upon, they rarely argue by referring to their constitution rather than to common sense and Dead White Males.
Why partition? You do realize less than 10000 people are the cause of the shit storm we are in. If we took the energy and violence needed to pull off a partition and directed it at these 10000 people most of our political problems would recede quite rapidly.
Our side is f**king weird, We’d rather try for a partition that would result in the deaths of tens of millions and probably start WWIII rather than selectively retire members of the ruling elite and their apparatchiks in government, media and academia.
You’re right, Rod, but consider the logistics and organization that would require. OPSEC would be a nightmare. Who has a backdoor into any comms outside of HAM radio and even that is vulnerable? It only takes one Reality Winner to spill the beans or warn the problems.
There are potential compromises that could avoid a civil war, but the Left will never compromise because it is a religious war for them. A return to states’ rights or a negotiated exit of the I-95 corridor and West Coast — either one would be fine with our side but not with them because they want to centralize power and crush us like the cock roaches they think we are.
Max, don’t be shocked if some of them face the music, that they’d better deal soon, before their bargaining power collapses.
This BK – Ford gambit of theirs was insane, and may very well blow back hugely on them (along with FISA-gate etc.), perhaps quite soon.
In recent days, folks like Sundance (at the Last Refuge), Jim Kunstler (at Clusterfuck Nation), and K.N. McBride (at Posse Incitatus) have been connecting dots, e.g. about, ahem, “intersections”, between Ford, Monica McClean, Schumer, David Laufman, and Peter Strzok.
Kunstler flatly predicts that “they’re going to get nailed”.
Completely agree that the Ford thing was a DOJ/FBI op — the Laufman connection is the kicker. Even if revelations led to a Red Storm in November, we’re not to the point where Dems would even consider secession IMO. The DNC/media will just foment more James Hodgkinsons.
What is all this talk about secession and/or breaking up our country to massage the senses of the leftists, the minorities and our enemies? Screw that! I secede nothing! This is our country and if a civil war comes we kill them all or throw them out but we won’t reward being anti white, anti Christian and anti American with a chunk of OUR LAND.
If the blue wave doesn’t materialize and the GOPes hold Congress, election night is likely to be very lively.
Yes, they are going to get nailed. McLean has retained counsel, which means she knows that a target in the investigation that Grassley requested.
I’ve been commenting here for three years about the corruption at the top of the Obama DoJ and FBI. This Ford hoax was a gift from God in the sense that it provided exactly the pretense needed to go after them. A civil war is coming to the DoJ/FBI. It will be fun to watch.
How about suing the Holton-Arms School, where these charming women all went to school? Blasey, McLean and the one they tried to suborn, Leland Ingham Keyser, who refused to play along, even under pressure. There are about 3 men, all “P”/fathers of current students who are on the Board of the place. The head of the school cheered on the alums who “believed” Christine Ford, saying how great it was to “support’ her — A LIAR!!
Once upon a time, the earth’s surface consisted of many different ecosystems and all living things adapted and evolved uniquely and optimally within those “places.” Hence the second-order differences within all species, including Homo sapiens. We are racially and ethnically different because we optimized to the place and circumstances of our unique evolutionary path. This is natural evolution. Since the advent of language, a new and parallel form of memetic evolution has arisen within our species alone. This is the realm of “idea” based selection, and it is very new.
A civil war go very badly for people like Zman and his ilk.
One side has the following: Black Muslims Jews Asians Latinos white women Indians homosexuals the trans community and others
Your side has a dwindling group of angry impotent white men
That tells you something right there
This could be the treatment for a very dark comedy.
Typical example of communist mindset and also most accurate prediction how communism dies.
I also predict that communism in US comes down the same way as in the USSR. As we remember, some people brought tanks on the street and believed, that somewhere under the rock are so called Homo Sovieticus, Soviet Human who rises up and saves the communism.
Huh, well, nobody came….:D
Bring it.
Tender is the Denny, go to any packed college football stadium on a Saturday morning. Almost every one of those virile screaming Chads joins our side when the shit goes down.
Even if their idea of fun is watching some Negroes play with a ball…
You are right..and wrong.
You have the coalition, the money and the organisation. What you lack is a binding internal logic besides ARGLEBARGLE KILL WHITEY. WTF does a lefty doctor from mumbai have in common with a black gangbanger? Nothing. Aside from the desire to exploit the wealth of White America.
So when shit does go down, things will go very good for you.
At first.
But your coalition will eventually splinter, as its constituents have little, for lack of a better word, mannerbund. Its only binding glue is a negative, and that’s not enough in the long run. So you will fall the way all tribal coalitions fall.
After taking a beating, the deplorables will begin to recover. There are groups with higher Iq, and groups with more wealth, but no group brings the combination of IQ, wealth, and numbers that the deplorables will bring. And thanks to Bush and Obama, millions of them have advanced degrees in Urban warfare.
An actual shooting war will remove all pretenses or the need to bend the knee to progressive opinion. When this happens, the greater internal cohesion of the Deplorables will begin to show.
“One side has the following: Black Muslims Jews Asians Latinos white women Indians homosexuals the trans community and others”
All of whom have never inflicted one single defeat on white men – losers to a man; either that, or they were too busy f*cking our brains out (white women), or were too smart to try (Jews).
Bring on your Trans/Feminist/Gibs Army, Danny – we could use the target practice…
Our guys can make tanks, fighter planes, submarines, missiles, aircraft carriers and artillery. Your guys can make brass hookas and garish rugs.
You forgot to include the pussyhat-wearing soyboys.
Look at the down votes on Tender Denny – but he has a valid point. He forgot to list all the welfare recipients and government employees, college professors, etc.
Look at the down votes on Tender Denny – but he has a valid point…
Truth sometimes is to painful to admit to…We have lots of potential but no organization to direct or does anyone really think we will all move in the same direction at the same time…
No organization, unless the Pentagon, or some like institution, has been (secretly) covering for Trump. Without some such backing, he wouldn’t have gotten in, much less lasted long enough, to where he may well be now able to deliver huge blows to his Deep State foes, and, possibly, to the institutions who’ve been covering for this DS.
What?
Hey Tiny, your side consists of targets.
And then the fun begins as the diverse bunch of lefty-lovers falls out among themselves, as they always have done and always will. Not only does the left always eat itself, turns out the muslims don’t like the blacks, the blacks aren’t friends with the latinos, the trannies aren’t liked by anyone other than TV stations looking to ‘shock’ the audience and the white women for all their ‘together’ talk don’t like what’s coming their way.
End result, this rainbow coalition on paper is a whole lot of new little wars and the tenders get chewed up really bad and wonder why they supported the side that would never support them. Cue tears and much wailing, but by then it’s far too late, mate.
White women will peel off with the white men…Probably no group is more upset at the Kavanaugh BS than those who can see or have seen their men in that position.
Perhaps not all women are on that side. Perhaps you are thinking of college girls.
“If you embrace the premise, you inevitably embrace the ends.”
Reminds me of Johnny Carson’s setup to a comedy skit where he said if you buy the premise you buy the bit.
The, that’s not who we are, rejoinder is used by both sides now in mainstream politics. Really tired of hearing that and our push back has to bury mantras like that and every other tedious reprimand from them. Even if the progs are beaten down good, what replaces them? The virus is present everywhere and in everyone. Hell, it lies dormant in me and I fear my Boomer life indoctrination will not be able to fully fight it.
I went to segregated schools in the South. That inoculated me from the idiocy that followed.
Ditto. I’d have no problem whatsoever being the one who decides who gets right and privileges and who doesn’t. The aristocratic republic is the only viable polity ever devised. We had a great one, but New England Puritans and their cronies destroyed it.
Another excellent column that should not be permitted to be lost by moving down the thread.
As to the excerpt, Christopher Caldwell needs to take himself to the woodshed for writing the sentence “The Democrats are the party of rights.” To the contrary, the Democrats have actively opposed the 2A right to bear arms, property rights, the right to free contract, freedom of association, free speech, and freedom of religion, and many others.
The Democrats are the party of their political positions, which they have to enshrine as rights through the court system precisely because their political positions cannot obtain majority support. That is why the Democrats went nuclear on Kavanaugh. A conservative Supreme Court, meaning a Court which issues majority opinions that have foundation in the Constitution, is a death knell to the Democrats’ ability to legislate via the Court.
It would be better said “the Democrats are a party of privileges” – they don’t really believe in “unalienable rights to anything” just temporary “allowances” based on who/what/where and under what circumstances
Well said, Guest
Agreed. The democrats/leftists are a party of political privileges bestowed on some and denied others. The don’t believe in rights they just keep creating new privileges for their ever expanding circus of “victims” and thereby excluding “the Other” from participation in their own governing.
The problem, though, is that if a “nation” isn’t just a set of beliefs and ideas, then it is a volksgemeinschaft, and we can’t be having *that*!! (Really, I love the meta-irony here. “Racism” itself is a purely White characteristic, in that only we can perceive it. No race darker than Taylor Swift in a snowstorm has a word equivalent to volksgemeinschaft, because it’s utterly pointless for them to have one).
Everybody here already knows this, but I’ll just re-state it concisely, for the benefit of the future book-reviewers: the clarity, lucidity, complexity and density of Zman’s thought is simply put, a marvel to behold. We’re at levels of Nietzschean-aphorism-elegance here that the textbooks told us shouldn’t be possible. I could make a long-winded comment (and maybe I will, just to annoy Hungus) on any one single sentence of this post, but I’ll wait and catch my breath. Bravo. Even in the points where I might have some sort of antsy fencing-foil quarrel, who cares. This is masterful stuff.
Zman, Tucker Carlson, and Ann Coulter for the post-Republic triumvirate.
@Lester:
I echo your sentiments!
Only change I’d offer is to take Ann Coulter out of the running. She has since shown herself to be part of the Establishment, and not go too far ‘off the plantation’ with her remarks about things.
Her popularity still exists so that she can sell more books to the CivNats.
Now Ann Barnhardt, that’s a gal I’d like to see running things.
(But she won’t, b/c she understands that the people who *should* be “running” things, have no desire to do so; and therefore the Catch-22 situation makes them the best –yet untenable– candidate.)
You do realize–don’t you?–that Ann Barnhart is mentally unstable.
Dear God. Tucker is a total cuck.
The PoC certainly seem to be exhibiting some such thing when they get up in srms over gentrification.
“Nation” is derived from the Latin “natus” the past participle of the verb “nascere,” to be born.” A nation is a group of people related by blood, hence the Cherokee nation, etc.
The progs badly misplayed their hand this time, and Trump is letting everyone know just exactly what they would do if given enough power. Have a strong suspicion that Soros is going to be hauled in and locked away for good, soon. We’ll see. All those SJW types are going to find future employment very difficult indeed, given their social media “confessions”. Not disagreeing with your main thesis, just saying it isn’t going to happen this time.
Yes, since almost everyone, male or female, has done something stupid in high school, this was a bridge too far for the Left. A large percentage of people on both sides of the political spectrum thought that the Ford allegations shouldn’t have disqualified Kavanaugh even had they been true, which they pretty evidently were not. Also, the Republicans displayed unexpected testicular fortitude on this issue, obviously figuring “Good Lord, if Lindsey Graham can man up, what’s my excuse?!?” Here’s hoping this pushes the Left into realizing that separation is the only way out.
That’s certainly something to be hoped for, but I can’t imagine the Left ever ceding us the legitimacy to have our own territory. We’ll have to fight for every square inch.
That is precisely the problem. Unlike the Second Revolutionary War (ca. 1861), this will be a truly civil war in that the combatants are not neatly divided geographically. So where is “our own territory”?
The invaders and traitors all live in tiny blue counties in a sea of red. Cut off the transport networks that feed those colonies and then wait. For extra spiciness target water treatment facilities.
Definitely an intriguing scenario. I imagine, however, that we’ll have to let them have their islands. There are a lot of them.
Give ’em New England, and good riddance!
That remains to be determined. There may well turn out to be more than one. As a first guess, I’d say not the coasts. The southern birder region probably becomes Mexico. A good part of the southeast woukd have to be contested with the blacks. A good part of the heartland, though, coukd be ours.
And just like clockwork, another honyock cedes the ‘southern birder (sic) region’ to Mexico. Every single time there’s a discussion of splittin’ up the USA, some expert intones that the south or southwest will go back to Mexico. Do you experts realize that 40-45% of all the US petroleum extraction + refining is in Texas alone? Factor in New Mexico and you’re up another 3-4% of the country’s petroleum production. Do you want to rely on a windmill to power your lights? (car, water treatment plant, sewage plant, etc.) Not me.
And ceding the coasts to people of color doesn’t sound like a good idea. Whites will probably continue to be responsible for the most part of growing the food, making the goods, keeping machinery running, etc. so it’s only right that whites control the ports and business centers found on the coasts. Otherwise the people of color will run them in to the ground, whereas the white people will create prosperity. I still think the white people need to rise up and take all of the Americas for ourselves. After the die-off from fighting for this scenario, the people of color can stay if they can dwell peacefully and productively in our society. Otherwise, bye-bye.
Yea why can’t we drive Mexico into South America…;) But I understand where the thought comes from because when no one wants to band together what makes you think we will hold anything…Our pettiness, bitching, backstabbing, stupidity is going to not only get us killed but our bloodlines as well…WTF men is that couch just to comfortable…
I don’t know why we don’t just push them below the Panama Canal, then shut them down there. Easy peasy. No need for a wall
So where is “our own territory”?
Whatever you can defend and if it doesn’t look like you can defend much where you are at then you better make more allies or move to somewhere you can…
How about this…it’s all our territory! Why give any of it to some other group. Who the hell tamed this land mass called the USA? Wasn’t no black nor brown!
All these damn keyboard experts want to carve up the continent like they’re Metternich, for pete’s sake.
I view it as a strategic withdrawal, before new offensives can be launched. But I’m open to other strategies.
They’ll cede control when you rip it from their bloody claws
Graham and Pence seemed to have learned that you can deliver the “screw you” message to people that deserve it, have some fun with it, and the world doesn’t end. Wonder who they learned that from? 🙂
Some old boomer, prob’ly
“The progs badly misplayed their hand this time.”
To this I say, so what.
They will do what they always do; regroup and try again to achieve dominance using any and all means – mostly lies, deceit, slander – and of course, greater levels of violence and personal terror.
You know, after the USSR fell to pieces (it devolved into 15 independent nations) , as did the 8 communist nations of Eastern Europe (but hey, real communism has never been tried !!) , one could surmise that the religious ideology of communism / socialism would be on the ash heap of history.
But it just resurrects itself over and over again.
Of course, communism/socialism is government of, by and for the self anointed elites; the intellectuals.
Any nation in which individual freedom for the masses is extant is an affront to the elites; for the elites see themselves as the only group that has the intellect and the right to dictate how everybody is to live and think; how society must be structured.
And at the base of this reasoning is their deep seated contempt for the ordinary person. They have readily admitted this, referring to the masses as the Walmart crowd or folks in fly-over country or deplorables.
This elitist mind set is nothing new; the landed gentry and aristocrats of Europe during the days of Kings and Queens freely admitted that only they had the capability and thus the right to “structure society.” The unwashed masses were simply too ignorant to govern or even have a say in how to be governed.
This is the central reason European elites found the new US government in 1787 abhorrent; it established the primacy of INDIVIDUAL rights.
And if individuals can control their own lives, well, they may choose paths disagreeable to the self anointed elites.
And even worse for the elites, they, the elites are not needed.
What then are the elites to do aside from the intellectually vacuous pursuit of wealth or, in the case of non-STEM academics, writing “research” papers that no one bothers reading (which tells you how “important” their research is) ?
The answer, of course , is to make themselves generally useful (in their own minds) by organizing themselves to once again reassert their dominance over the contemptible unwashed masses; you know, to order society in such a way as to eliminate poverty, inequality, blah, blah, blah.
(Funny how the wealthy elites never think to eliminate their OWN inequality by giving away 98% of their billions; but you see, they deserve to keep their vast wealth, because, well, they deserve to keep it. They are elites after all, and they must judged by totally different standards- their own).
We see this today in the actions of billionaires like Steyer, Soros, the Silicon Valley billionaires and the very wealthy socialists who control the democrat party.
The left never gives up; they are simply another “tribe” seeking dominance. They are a cancer and a bubonic plague all rolled into one; they keep jumping to the next living host after they have killed off the one they were on.
@JohnTyler
Well there wouldn’t be an elite class if the peasants weren’t so dumb and malleable…Also if the middle class knew how to band together then maybe the elites would shut up and just enjoy their blood money…But that apathy thing keeps rearing its ugly head…
When your motto is to stand in the path of history yelling, “Stop,” there isn’t much you have to offer. It’s a passive plan with no goal. It is obvious that the Buckley conservatives were only willing to be a little edgy lest they to be cast into the void. They never spoke of casting any of the left into the void. Instead they bragged about those on the right they had sent to Siberia.
OT: What are your thoughts on the market priests who, every natural disaster is seems, have to come out lamenting anti-gouging laws and how it slows recovery?
Fortunately, the Ben Shapiro types have almost no support on the ground, it’s all a media-astroturf phenomenon, like “NeverTrump”. Among actual, normal people, most conservatives support Trump (at least functionally, even if they don’t care for him personally), and most liberals oppose. I’ve never actually met a “but muh values! – America is an Idea” conservative in real life.
Are you HIGH????????
Conservatives LOVE Shapiro. My Twitter timeline is choked full daily of Shapiro acolytes 24/7. All the old Boomers think he’s the next Reagan.
Yes, the old boomers — 60 + “a little” here. The illusion / delusion is strong in this group … still.
Benji took considerable flak from his followers over some of his Ford comments…
Not “all.”
Little Benji, Israel-first chickenhawk that he is, has been promoted by the (((media)))..
“Standing athwart the course of history yelling, ‘stop'” Basically admits, “We are the controlled opposition”.
You can’t throw anyone into the void when you’re just two sides of the Enlightenment. Or, two sides of the same coin, if you will.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen this movie before. Stalin and Hitler did a lot of pruning for their respective sides. And the gardener looks to be headed toward one side or the other once again. If reasonable people cannot be elected, you’d be best advised to get yourself a second passport.
And in the PRC, and in Cambodia.
Or some clippers.
To where? We have a second passport, but I don’t think that country will be any safer in the long run. Anyway, I’m an American, so I will stay and fight.