Democratic Theocracy

Iran has been in the news lately and one of the interesting things about the coverage is Western media rarely talks about the president of Iran. In fact, almost all Iran stories skip the president entirely. This is highly unusual as Western media is conditioned to personify countries that are out of favor. The bad country becomes the ruler of that country and that ruler is always some form of Hitler. The closest they get with Iran is using a picture of the supreme leader in the copy.

One reason for this is Iran is a complicated place and Western media struggles with anything more complicated than the good guys versus bad guys narrative. Despite what most think, Iranian politics has factions and parties, with the winners being picked by the voters at fairly normal elections. Those factions and parties argue about all the usual things, including foreign policy. The current president ran on a platform of improving relations with the rest of the world.

The funny thing about Iran is that it has avoided what has happened with all prior revolutionary societies. They did not have rounds of purges or a great terror in which a strongman consolidated power. There is no cult of personality in the way most communist societies evolved. They are not dogmatically attached to a narrow set of economic policies. Instead, Iran has evolved into the world’s first explicitly democratic theocracy based in its form of Islam.

At the top of Iranian society is the Supreme Leader. He is appointed by the Assembly of Experts, who are elected to their positions. The Guardian Council approves all candidates for elected office, including those nominated to the Assembly of Experts, so the gatekeepers of politics are the religious authorities. The result is a political system that can debate and argue over public policy, but within the broad religious framing of the Islamic authorities.

This is why the West often talks about Iran as if it is a medieval society. In medieval Europe, the Church set the boundaries for secular government. The King had to be in good standing with the Church, but the Church needed to be in good standing with the king as he provided security. From the perspective of “secular” societies in the West, the Iranians have recreated a throne and altar society, something the West abandoned in favor of reason and democracy.

The interesting thing about the criticism is it comes with some envy. The managerial class of the West, especially in America, would probably prefer the explicit relationship between the moral and the practical. In Iran, if Islam forbids it, it is simply forbidden and that is the end of it. In America, banning the discussion of crime stats is forbidden for an extensive list of contradictory reasons sprinkled with magical thinking about the reality of the human condition.

This may be why Iran avoided the cycle of violence and authoritarianism that we expect to see with revolutionary societies. From the start, the morality of the revolution had been resolved. The main task was to first remove the prior regime and the Western influences that emanated from it. Once the old regime was gone, there was no void where the old morality existed, so there was no battle for who would decide how to fill the void and with what to fill it.

This may explain some of the convulsions of the West. Christianity and the carryover from it provided the moral center of the progressive ideology. That slowly gave way to opposition to communism in the Cold War. Once the great struggle had been won, there was no longer a moral purpose to the progressive ideology. What flowed into it was whatever was kicking around the institutions. Fringe lunacies suddenly had a clear path to the center of the progressive moral universe.

Once again, we see that Marx was right about politics. At the highest level, it is about the battle over moral questions. Once the moral questions are answered, there is no need for this sort of politics. Instead, politics is reduced to debates about how to address the mundane practical issues of governance. For thirty years Iran has only had to worry about defending itself from the West, while for the last thirty years the West has been searching for a new god to replace the old one.

What you see in Iran is something the West cannot reconcile and that is the limit of reason, which is the moral. The ideology of the West rests on the assumption that all moral questions have a reasonable answer, so all moral limits that cannot hold up to reason must be invalid. Iran does not struggle with this dilemma, because the moral limits are beyond question and they are right there in the Koran, as interpreted by the religious authorities.

Put another way, what Iran has in excess is the answer to the two most important questions for any society and they are “who says?” and “why not?” The answer to both questions is well known to everyone in Iranian society and therefore the questions never need to be asked. In the West, there are no answers to those questions, so the closest we get to an answer is the jungle of rules against discussing anything that challenges the sensibilities of the managerial class.

What we see with the contrast between Iran and the West, particularly America, is a contrast in two forms of democratic theocracy. Iran starts with the issue of morality as a settled matter and implements democracy as a means to sort practical ends. In the West, democracy is a moral end in itself, but the result is endless debates over what will be temporarily viewed as timeless truths. Iran is the mirror of American in terms of the relationship between the moral and the political.

There are other reasons why Iran is what it is, not the least of which is that it is full of Iranians who can date their society back to the ancients. Islam also has a vastly different view of the natural world than what evolved out of Christianity. Even so, the fact that Iran has survived as a democratic theocracy provides a clue for how American progressivism could survive as well. Otherwise, it shakes itself to pieces searching for something to fill the void that lies at the center of it.


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Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
3 hours ago

“. . . provides a clue for how American progressivism could survive as well.” I disagree. White progressives must be “in front” of the plebs morally, i.e. they must disagree with them, to maintain their feeling of moral superiority. As soon as the majority of people move to agree with the progressives, the progressive moves farther out. You saw that with gays. First, the progressives tolerated gays, but as the majority accepted that position, progressives moved to embracing gay to celebrating gays and then did the same with transgenderism. Progressives have to hold a morality different from the majority to… Read more »

MikeCLT
MikeCLT
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
3 hours ago

Much truth here.

Captain Willard
Captain Willard
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
2 hours ago

Yeah, it’s the nearest thing to “permanent revolution” that we can see. It also trips up ostensibly reasonable people (like me maybe when I was a young Normie). I supported drug legalization and gay marriage because I don’t like telling other people what to do. What a fooking idiot I was….

Jack Dodsen
Jack Dodsen
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
2 hours ago

Exactly. Progressivism’s evolving morality is in fact a form of permanent revolution. It is in fact moving toward an American-style of totalitarianism although it alternatively could veer toward water buffalo worship or something else. The “who says?” question and the definition of morality never can be settled or progressivism ceases to be a thing. This is both the Achilles Heel and raison d’etre of the Global American Empire and thus the reason it is falling apart. Frankly, it is a bloody miracle it has lasted this long.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  Jack Dodsen
2 hours ago

I think that the RoW has realized that GAE can never quit, can never live at peace with other countries. GAE is terrifying (and annoying) combination of WASP moral progressives and Jewish supremacists. The WASPs are incapable of accepting that other groups might have a different morality while Jews are incapable of accepting that other groups might not want to have Jews running amok in their society.

GAE is the terminator. It doesn’t know how to quit. Other countries understand this now and are working to build walls to keep us out.

Jack Dodsen
Jack Dodsen
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
2 hours ago

The Pride flags flying at embassies encapsulate this phenomenon perfectly. I float the idea from time to time that the WASP’s continue to have the upper hand and most disagree. Given that discretion to fly Pride flags is given to ambassadors only in Muslim countries, they may be right.

The GAE indeed is terrifying. It has deeply religious convictions that change almost daily and the penalty for apostasy often is death.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
2 hours ago

GAE as the Terminator the rest of the world is trying to manage is an important point.

One recent action that supports this idea are Iran’s recent comments they are finished responding to Our Greatest Ally in a restrained fashion.

Xman
Xman
Reply to  Jack Dodsen
41 minutes ago

Yes. GAE/ZOG has replaced the Soviet Union as a militaristic, expansionist, totalitarian empire. Democratic “equity” for obese trannies and negroes and women is simply a form of communism.

Unlike the boot-on-your-throat, industrial Soviet communism, though, it’s basically a Huxleyan/sexual/consumerist communism. Anal sex, abortion and weed seem to be its core principles. The will put a boot on your throat if they have to, but they’d rather keep you quiescent by happily cruising gay bars in Greenwich Village and taking soma (weed).

Marko
Marko
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
2 hours ago

It’s like African-American style. Once the whites embrace it, AA’s start wearing other ridiculous crap.

That’s why you still see AA’s wearing the droopy pants and the loud Sunday outfits. Whites aren’t ever doing that.

KGB
KGB
Reply to  Marko
2 hours ago

Except you quickly reach a dead end. I saw snippets of the latest video by some African rapper yesterday and it was indistinguishable from a 90’s “gangsta” rap video. The same clothes, the same misogyny, the same hand gestures, the same glorification of cheaply acquired wealth. Black popular culture has hardly budged since hip-hop and basketball Americans assumed god-like status during the Clinton years.

Marko
Marko
Reply to  KGB
1 hour ago

That’s probably the point of establishing a morality. Except for a few wiggers and hispanegroes, American blacks have found a “look” and it’s nearly impossible for outsiders to adopt it without looking ridiculous. European Christianity established a morality that very few elsewhere in the world could adopt, and it served as a barrier for entry. Now Europeans (driven by Jews and Anglos) are seeing how far they can push “alternate lifestyles” and replaceable-part consumerism before non-Anglos give up trying to assimilate. Once we reach that stage – probably polyamorous pedophilia or something – then “white people” have found a “look”… Read more »

Marko
Marko
Reply to  Marko
1 hour ago

I put “white people” in quotes because being and acting “white” is now an affectation rather than a racial reality. Meaning fake emotiveness and smug superiority. Kamala Harris is whiter than me, for example.

Tarl Cabot
Tarl Cabot
Reply to  KGB
1 hour ago

This occurred to me as I have been recently rewatching “The Wire”. Except for the tech, nothing has changed. Baltimore is still Baltimore, arguably worse. One of the gateways to this side of the great divide is the realization that it can’t be fixed.

The implications of that are not for the faint of heart.

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  KGB
1 hour ago

Blacks—everyone but East Asians, really—have been trained to hate old music. Dumb ones simply obey their screens, the algorithmic BUY NOW that says if you’re not shopping you’re lame (white), while smart ones chant “canonicity is whiteness.” It’s recent. Just a generation ago, old record black guy who showed the kids Bobby Womack was a stock character—in media and in life. He’s extinct. They don’t learn anymore. Hiphop made by hiphop fans is stereotypically inbred/regressed, ugly and retarded. The inventors of it were interested in other things. The genre-defining rap beat was jacked from Kraftwerk.

Carrie
Carrie
Reply to  Hemid
6 minutes ago

I remember growing up (Catholic elem. & h.s.) and having a few black friends in grade school (mostly 4th – 8th gr.). Because of where I grew up, they were the children of military families (enlisted), and thus had at least some level of discipline at home. But what I also remember is, during that era (ca. 1986 – 1990), learning about / hearing “go-go” black music. I liked the rhythm, but it never really “gelled” for me. I had a musical-enough brain (thank you piano lessons & clarinet lessons) to know that it all sounded the same, even though… Read more »

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
2 hours ago

The Iranian regime is definitely not a model for the progressives. The interesting question is whether that regime can tell us something. So far I’m not sure

Outdoorspro
Outdoorspro
Reply to  Moran ya Simba
2 hours ago

Not so sure about that. The progressives would happily adopt a model that lets them be the first and final arbiter of what is moral. You see it now in the way their media arm tries so hard to select who can and cannot run for political office. I’m also very, very sure that they’d be quite happy to throw apostates off of tall buildings.

Jeffrey Zoar
Jeffrey Zoar
Reply to  Outdoorspro
2 hours ago

I’m sure they’d be happy to order someone else to throw the apostates off buildings. I’m not so sure they’d be willing to do it themselves.

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  Jeffrey Zoar
1 hour ago

Only 99.96% of cops and soldiers would lustily slaughter your family if some government tranny told them to.

Tired Citizen
Tired Citizen
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
2 hours ago

Exactly right. It is a perpetual march further left. This also allows for victimhood to be maintained by the chosen groups.

1660please
1660please
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
2 hours ago

I think that you’re right. I also think that with fallen human nature, there will always be some supposed “victim” for progressives to champion. So there seem to be multiple driving forces for those “self-anointed” ones. In addition to their disdain for us, they believe themselves as being on the side of the oppressed, while, in many cases, they are actually advocating for the evil, the immoral, the flawed, the degenerate, the evolutionary mutant, etc. If one doesn’t accept the Christian idea of fallen humanity, one can still accept, by looking at history, that humans have certain biological tendencies that… Read more »

Ivan
Ivan
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
2 hours ago

It really has thrown the harpies for a loop, esp men in dresses in the ladie’s locker room. The bra burners by and large DO NOT stand behind women in sports.

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
58 minutes ago

Right. If they aren’t progressing, they aren’t progressive. The line points one way and it’s a moral imperative. Doesn’t have to be reasonable, or even coherent.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
55 minutes ago

Quite. Once the Left accepts the status quo, morally or otherwise, they go out of business. Their job is to push society leftward infinitely.

Mr. Burns
Mr. Burns
3 hours ago

America does have a religious authority. The Jewish comics on TV. Whatever they make fun of on any given day is bad. Whatever they praise is good. What’s so hard about that? Why do some people have such a hard time accepting their authority? Can’t you hear the laugh track of all the normal people backing them up?

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  Mr. Burns
3 hours ago

That’s been our faith for 30 years, but even American whites are starting to notice that something isn’t right. What’s more, blacks never accepted it. Hispanics never even noticed it. Finally, Indians see the game being played by Jews and want to play it themselves, which causes a serious problem for Jews.

MikeCLT
MikeCLT
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
2 hours ago

It causes a serious problem for the rest of the US too. See Z’s post on Hindu Lebensraum. India has a huge, young, and growing population that is looking to move. Canada and the US are desired destinations. Indians are nice and polite people right now, but they are as tribal as anyone in the world and will play that game hard when their numbers are sufficient. You can already see it in the IT sector. Whites and East Asians get excluded. Look at all the AA benefits Indians get from the SBA that are not available to citizens. That… Read more »

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  MikeCLT
2 hours ago

Agree. But if whites are going to act like slaves, they’re going to have a master of some type or another. Whites could easily throw off their Jewish masters or any other group if we simply started to view ourselves as a people, but we don’t.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me a thousand times, shame on me. Whites should be ashamed.

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
13 minutes ago

White is more diverse than Jewish, or even Indian. Iirc, Z has mentioned Aleksandr Dugin talking about a civilizational perspective. That’s probably more workable than a racial one, but even then, you have to deal with the Athens and Jerusalem bit. You almost have to start from the beginning to get a sense of who you are.

Johnny Ducati
Johnny Ducati
Member
Reply to  MikeCLT
1 hour ago

We are presented with the polite, well-behaved hadji in movies and TV. I’ve had quite some dealings with them, and now see them as shifty little brown jews, always begging for discounts and whining like they are injured when they have to pay full price.

Bitter reactionary
Bitter reactionary
Reply to  MikeCLT
1 hour ago

Indians are nice and polite until they fire you from your job to replace you with co-ethnics. They are a menace, just of a different type from the other more violent ones. None should ever have been allowed to come here. They need to go back.

Jack Dodsen
Jack Dodsen
Reply to  Mr. Burns
2 hours ago

The raison d’etre of America is the permanent revolution, hence the Jewish comedians are yielding to Progressive scolds who in turn are falling apart (disagree with Z on the permanence) and likely to be replaced by other religious fundamentalists. I do appreciate the wisdom of the analogy, though.

Marko
Marko
Reply to  Mr. Burns
2 hours ago

I think this was the case until 7 years ago or so. Before Trump won, TV shows and movies were still “good” and stand-up was more popular than ever. Jews were driving most of the popular podcasts, even the “right-wing” ones. Now there is an ever-larger segment that is decoupling from mainstream entertainment. People who watch mainstream entertainment either have kids and can’t escape them, or are terminally normie and the proverbial sack of potatoes. I think for the Progressive and the Regime-minded, what’s on TV and on mainstream news is scripture, or at least is something to critique, as… Read more »

Last edited 2 hours ago by Marko
Jack Boniface
Jack Boniface
Member
3 hours ago

Poland tried to be a Catholic version of that after communism ended in 1989. It still is to some extent. But the Tusk regime wants to make it go full Western decadent.

Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
3 hours ago

“the Iranians have recreated a throne and altar society, something the West abandoned in favor of reason and democracy.”

Abandoned for Jewish finance capitalism with a threadbare democratic facade that doesn’t fool any astute observer.

Otherwise, it shakes itself to pieces searching for something to fill the void that lies at the center of it.”

That’s the thing, isn’t it? That void and the nihilism and despair it engenders.

Last edited 3 hours ago by Arshad Ali
Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  Arshad Ali
3 hours ago

Most of what we’re witnessing now is the larger countries of the world attempting to move away from Jewish financial control (enforced by white guys in the military). The Global American Empire is a financial/trade empire, which suits Jews perfectly, though it originated with the British, then the WASPs took it over and now the Jews have it. The heavy use of trade and financial sanctions against Russia is no accident. But it failed, which is more important than the military defeat in Ukraine. It will take a long time, but the BRICs are slowing – so slowly – working… Read more »

Arshad Ali
Arshad Ali
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
1 hour ago

I think the Jews were always in the background and left the glory to the goys.That seems to be their modus operandi.

Anna
Anna
Reply to  Arshad Ali
1 hour ago

Arshad, it is exactly like things are done in South Africa: the whites make all the right decisions, are left invisible and blacks take full credit.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Anna
43 minutes ago

Uh huh. The dazzling and immaculate magnificence of AINO is the manifestation of all those correct decisions made by Jews.

G Lordon Giddy
G Lordon Giddy
3 hours ago

The Persians actually believe in the edicts of their God.
I am not sure how we get this back in the United States?
Christianity in the United States has been declining for some time and even when it was not declining the influence of Jefferson and the enlightenment boys created a belief that there was actually a wall between church and state.
Its probably the only wall that we will ever successfully build.

Tars Tarkas
Member
Reply to  G Lordon Giddy
2 hours ago

Much of the wall was constructed in the post war (ww2) period. Not all of it, but at least some of it. Plus, even when it was written, it applied to the federal government, not the states. Massachusetts, for example, had a state church with taxing authority of the residents of the state.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
1 hour ago

All the original 13 colonies had further racial and religious restrictions on voting and office holding. Initially many of these were to restrict office holders to Protestant Christians – Catholics could not hold office in New Jersey until 1844. The Jews pushed to change the Pennsylvania religious requirement for office holders in 1790.

The ‘wall’ was in rubble a century before WWII.

Tars Tarkas
Member
Reply to  3g4me
40 minutes ago

You’re forgetting things like the removal of religion in schools, of blasphemy laws and of decency laws.

pyrrhus
2 hours ago

Iran as a country is 3500 years old, by far the oldest in the World…Like the Chinese, they know who they are…And Iranians have always been the philosophers and intellectuals of the Middle East, but thanks to our media, Americans tend to think they are primitive, despite their advanced industries and scientific knowhow…,,.

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  pyrrhus
2 hours ago

They might actually be the oldest continuously existing state in the world. It comes down to definitions of a state and whether a state can continue existing when it is occupied. But I think Egypt would be another candidate. But Egypt was definitely population replaced. The people who built pyramids were not Arabs

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  pyrrhus
1 hour ago

If you lump Iran in with Arabs, you are dumber than a box of rocks. I’ve mentioned this before, but all one needs to do is look at current Russia-Iran exchange due to Ukrainian war. Iran has built a forward thinking response to US technology edge via the revolutionary use of inexpensive drones. They also have the “bomb”. They’ve refined uranium to just under fissionable material percent, but have huge amounts. Processes to take it to useful percentage is now of short duration in the centrifuges. I suspect all other aspects of ignition are already constructed. Not sure why they… Read more »

Steve
Steve
Reply to  pyrrhus
1 hour ago

Believe it or not, they also have some of the greatest ski slopes in the world. The arid conditions in the mountains give the snow the consistency of confectionary sugar.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Steve
38 minutes ago

Jamaal-Khalid Killy wholeheartedly agrees.

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
2 hours ago

I’m no fan of the Iranian system but I doubt they have as much child molestation as here and they are not confused about the difference between men and women. I think they too have a collapsing birth rate so they are doing something wrong as regards human nature. But incredible as it sounds they are a saner society than the West

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Moran ya Simba
2 hours ago

They are also not replacing their heritage stock. Theocratic or not, Iran will still be Persian in the future. We can’t say the equivalent

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Moran ya Simba
2 hours ago

Iran’s people know where they are going because they know where they have been. That is to say, they understand and value their history.

Thus, they are able to use it as a guide for acting in the present and to plan for the future.

In comparison, look at how the GAE treats the historical legacy that enabled it to ascend to the height of global power.

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
1 hour ago

Iran’s follies and faults are quite familiar to history and far smaller than GAE’s

Horace
Horace
Reply to  Moran ya Simba
2 hours ago

Everyone has collapsing birth rates embedded into the fabric of their civilization. Some have manifest. Some have not. yet. All women want sex. Not all women want babies. The dominant pattern in human history up to about 50 years ago was that women had no choice in the matter: sex -> babies. This is the pattern that EVOLVED. No other selection pressure was necessary for perpetuation. The advent of inexpensive and effective birth control has decoupled sexual gratification and babies. This broke the dynamic equilibrium. The only societies that are reproducing are those that control their women both with intense… Read more »

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Horace
2 hours ago

Nature did not see fit to give women the choice as you point out.

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  Horace
1 hour ago

That last bit is no longer true. There’s a famous photo from Japan of an isolated countryside vending machine under a dedicated street light, its uninterrupted peaceful vigil to dispense drinks to a people who don’t steal (except umbrellas). It looks like the past we just barely remember, California from old movies. It’s often paired with the most American picture, a school Pepsi machine so tightly and complexly welded into its custom security cage that you can’t even put money in it. The Eye Of Globohomo saw that picture of Japan, and saw America’s longing for it, and sent Rahm… Read more »

Anna
Anna
Reply to  Moran ya Simba
1 hour ago

Moran, you should see a video of their “Supreme” Ayatollah kissing 5 year old girl and asking her how she liked it. Needless to remind that a marriage if old men to 6-7 years old girls are allowed under Islam.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Anna
46 minutes ago

True. Also true that marriage of uncle and niece is allowed under Judaism – even in Rhode Island.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Anna
34 minutes ago

Needless to remind that a marriage if old men to 6-7 years old girls are allowed under Islam.”

A coming attraction of postmodern secularism in the West.

Good ol' Rebel
Good ol' Rebel
Reply to  Anna
23 minutes ago

Remember the Boston Massacre, the Maine, the Lusitania, the Tonkin Gulf, babies out of incubators, yellow cake, a day in infamy, Suddenly for No Reason, the ayatollahs violating the whamen.
Its all so tiresome.

Tykebomb
Tykebomb
3 hours ago

Not exactly bloodless, the Iranian revolution was a weird mix of socialism and shia Islam. That’s actually the debate at the imam council level. The original Ayatollah actually leaned more socialist than shiite, but still killed a lot of mainline communists in camps. It’s why Reagan tried to smuggle them guns.

Shia Islam is also the more reason driven branch of Islam. Famously, the Ayatollah’s favorite book was The Republic. It’s as if The Guardians let the people have a little democracy.

Fascinating place. Well worth picking up some books about it.

Last edited 3 hours ago by Tykebomb
Spingerah
Spingerah
Reply to  Tykebomb
2 hours ago

Not only communists, all religious minorities were either executed or fled the country.
Sikhs, Bahai and Sunnis, Zoroastrians there were a few Jews & Christians
Mohomadeans will be killing each other and all “infidels”of whatever stripe forever.
I suspect many of our “greatest allies” being a mirror image in many ways will eleminate their inferiors as well as soon as they are able. they are in process of ethnic cleansing now.

Jack Dodsen
Jack Dodsen
Reply to  Spingerah
2 hours ago

It really depended on the religious minority. Like all revolutions, murder and expulsion of regime opponents real or perceived was the first order of business. All Bahai and Zoroastrians either fled, were murdered, or expelled immediately. They were not perceived as People of the Book. Jews and Armenian Christians not perceived as enemies of the state were allowed to stay in some cases under tightly controlled conditions. Sunnis were in some cases allowed to remain under limited rights. It is somewhat analogous to how Israel treats Gentiles. One report that stuck with me after the revolution was that before they… Read more »

btp
Member
3 hours ago

Well, Iran also shows us that what comes next might very well be what came before. Americans and atheists, but I repeat myself, simply cannot conceive of a system where the legitimacy of the regime is determined by how it attends to the business of the peace and the faith – which was the old term for what the authorities were doing as they looked out for the health of the Body of Christ. We can’t have that, you know, because we discovered the steam engine or because we didn’t encounter God when our guys went to space or whatever.… Read more »

Spingerah
Spingerah
Reply to  btp
2 hours ago

The west has its problems for sure
Try living in any Islamic dominated place as anything but whatever the state religion happens to be & see how it works out for you.

Paul Gottfried
Paul Gottfried
Reply to  Spingerah
1 hour ago

Or try driving in British style in the US freeways?

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Spingerah
33 minutes ago

Try speaking of negro stupidity in your workplace and see how that works out for you.

Alan Schmidt
2 hours ago

>  In the West, democracy is a moral end in itself, but the result is endless debates over what will be temporarily viewed as timeless truths. 

There is a parody government in the game Hellraisers 2 called “Managed Democracy” which is clearly a hard-line dictatorship in a democratic veneer. The Starship Troopers like soldiers are talking about defending this government from the aliens who are invading.

The characters in that game act less ridiculous than our your average shit-lib.

Templar
Templar
Reply to  Alan Schmidt
1 hour ago

It’s “Helldivers 2,” not “Hellraisers 2.”

TomA
TomA
2 hours ago

Both Iran and Russia are succeeding as nations and not succumbing to subjugation by the West. That is why they are hated by the Globalists and must be destroyed. And the Globalists are pleased to sacrifice their peons in service to this goal. This dynamic will persist and escalate until this small cadre of parasites feels the heat of their debauchery. That is the solution to the problem. We don’t need to keep refining the diagnosis. We need to implement the cure.

Maxda
Maxda
Reply to  TomA
27 minutes ago

Underneath all the justifications there are some ancient grudges against the Russians and Persians. Scratch an Eastern European Jewish neo-con like Kagan hard enough – and there are old resentments against his people’s ancient enemies. The rest is just greed and excuses.

N.S. Palmer
3 hours ago

For individuals, the basic moral question is “what kind of person do I choose to be?” For nations, the basic political question is “what kind of society do we choose to have?” “In the end, we face every day the question posed by American Founder Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Paper #1: ‘whether societies of men are really capable of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.’ The answer is equivocal. We can establish morality (and good government) by reflection and choice, but our choices… Read more »

Some Guy
Some Guy
Reply to  N.S. Palmer
1 hour ago

“N.S. Palmer is an American mathematician. He worked as a policy analyst on Capitol Hill and has written for numerous publications including The Jerusalem Post and The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles.”

Greg Nikolic
3 hours ago

Progressive thinkers who have abandoned Christianity are still wedded to secular humanism, a form of morality that puts human well-being at the forefront of the list of priorities. The support for trans people and extreme feminism is the icing on the cake as far as they’re concerned. The notions that animate progressivism are ever-expanding, a buffet table of wishful desserts. What is “in” one year is added on by two “in”s the next year. It’s impossible to fully satisfy the progressive heart. 💓 Left in limbo by society and driven to make changes, he gathers with like-minded rabble-rousers and takes… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
1 hour ago

That’s an interesting elucidation of Iranian government. Sounds like they’ve got a pretty good system. As for government and politics in AINO, a couple of quibbles. First, I don’t consider defeating global communism to have been part of the progressive project. The Left in America prior to the rise of the New Left was ambivalent on this matter. They certainly were not, in the main, pinkos. However, there were plenty of fellow travelers and anti-anti commies. I guess one could say they were soft on communism. It was conservatives, generally a weak and feckless tribe, who did the heavy lifting… Read more »

c matt
c matt
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
22 minutes ago

You are confusing the process of reasoning with reality. Progressives certainly reason from their premises. But there is no guarantee their premises comport with reality.

Captain Willard
Captain Willard
2 hours ago

The “great question” of our Age is whether a society can maintain order and morality while advancing enough technologically to increase living standards and keep everyone happy. Iran is perhaps the most interesting case study in this regard. Which is why they are trying to destroy it……..

Templar
Templar
3 hours ago

Even so, the fact that Iran has survived as a democratic theocracy provides a clue for how American progressivism could survive as well

Seems more like a clue as to how America can survive the extinction of progressivism.

Dutchboy
Dutchboy
1 hour ago

The traditional Catholic understanding of the relationship of Church and State is the “two swords” philosophy, wherein the state has certain functions as does the Church. The state functions are always circumscribed by the Church’s moral teachings while the Church supports the State as long as the State operates within those boundaries. This relationship was always problematic, since rulers typically concern themselves with acquiring more wealth and power whereas the Church is intent on promoting virtue and holiness among its flock (including the rulers). The potential for clashes is obvious and they were frequent. The liberal ideology that replaced the… Read more »

Dr_Mantis_Toboggan_MD
Member
1 hour ago

Iran is always going to be a regional hegemon. It’s economy alone dictates that. It is a crime against logic that we don’t ditch the “mad mullah” BS talk and engage the Iranians. We let bygones be bygones with Vietnam. Why not make peace with Iran unless we are directly controlled by our overlords in Tel Aviv? That proves who really runs our government thanks to AIPAC dollars. We’ve never fought a war against the Persians, unless you count Operation Nimble Archer and the tanker wars in the late 1980s. I know the Obama administration tried, but the predictable neocons… Read more »

stranger in a strange land
stranger in a strange land
2 hours ago

The penultimate paragraph is as brilliant, pragmatic, and pithy a statement of Iran v USA as I can imagine.
Ironically, Iran may end up being governed somewhat like shah Pahlavi envisioned – sans the Western decadence & decay.
BTW – great book on the fall of the shah – The Fall of Heaven.

Hi-ya!
Hi-ya!
34 minutes ago

Although I only listened to it in the car, and it really needs closer attention, this is the subject of McIntyre s after virtue.

here’s an example of what one mat call piety:

…we have strongly exhorted (the faithful of France) to increase their love and efforts in defence of the Catholic faith and likewise of their native land: two duties of paramount importance, and from which, in this life, no man can exempt himself. 

Leo XIII, Au Milieu Des Sollicitudes: On the Church and State  in France (1892) 

usNthem
usNthem
1 hour ago

The Bible provides the moral foundation and guardrails the majority accepted and embraced. But sometime in the last century that all changed. The Bible is now so yesterday, today’s progressive knows much better and we’d all better get on board or else. Don’t be a hater, don’t you know?

Hi-ya!
Hi-ya!
1 hour ago

Let’s say there exists an American nation; ie whites that have ties to pre ww2 America. I think you could rightly call them a nation. But that’s another topic. Let’s say that nation became self conscious and kicked everyone else out of North America.

would there be a throne and altar? You’re still stuck with a “mere Christianity” scenario at best and then its back to muh constitution and smarty pants like Thomas too cool for religion Jefferson.

Last edited 1 hour ago by Hi-ya!