Edward Cline's Blog, page 12
July 14, 2016
Fugitive Reflections
I settled into my new apartment here in the “Heart of Texas” (the town shall
remain nameless to all but those close to me) which is, from all outward
appearances, an intellectual wasteland, I began to make some observations. Trying
my best to acclimatize myself to the heat and realign my sense of direction, in
the beginning I would sit for a while on a neighbor’s steps and endeavor to
de-simmer.
The town is like Las Vegas; tawdry on one hand, without character on
the other. It shares also with Vegas the heat. However, whereas in Vegas, there
are few pleasantly cool mornings, until the heat that collects in its basin
soars dramatically as the day wears on reaching the uppermost neighborhoods,
here there are many evenings and nights when I needed to cover myself with a
blanket, it was so cold. The mornings are pleasant enough, until the heat
builds and climaxes a little past noon. And here, because the place is
relatively flat, winds blow the heat around, but not fast enough to make it
miserable. Air conditioning is an absolute necessity. It makes one wonder, as I
often did about Vegas, how people managed to live without A/C, crawling in
their wagons at oxen-speed through hostile terrain and onto Death Valley and
California beyond or ensconced in their adobe or tin roof huts cooking hot
meals under broiling sun
There is a nursing home beyond the wire fence facing my patio. I have a
magnificent view of two of its dumpsters, and a regular parade of nursing home
personnel hauling trash to those dumpsters, taking their time to have a smoke
on the way and to yak about the day’s developments inside the home. The nursing
home itself resembles a morgue or a crematorium.
For a while I would sit and stare at the pitiful sight of a dead
sparrow that had tried to fly through the fence, near the bottom. Its head and
neck drooped on the wire, and its feathers would flutter in the breeze. It
served to deepen my depression for my circumstances. I felt like I had a
personal connection with that bird.
I grew tired of seeing it. One afternoon I rose and walked over to the
fence to nudge it with my shoe so that it would drop out of sight into the
nursing home parking lot and I wouldn’t need to see it again. To my surprise,
it wasn’t a sparrow at all or any other kind of hapless bird; it was a tiny twig
with several gray-grown leaves. The discovery served to raise my spirits a
smidgen. I nudged the faux bird over the fence.
The town is not a hub of intellectual vitality. It is top-heavy with “plus
size” fat people whom I think have never cracked open a book since high school.
For all the brands of food sold in the local grocery market – a huge affair,
almost as big as the local Wal-Mart – the ones that feature “reduced fat”
advisories on their labels, the admonition doesn’t seem to sit well with so
many of the inhabitants with the mandatory calorie counts and highlighted
announcements of the twelve essential vitamins
on packaging It’s mostly women who are balloon-size
or near clinically defined obese. And mostly they’re white.
I made another observation, that there are more “mixed couples” here
than I’ve seen anywhere else, that is, of black men with white wives or common
law wives. Or just companions. For some reason, black men almost universally
prefer plump, slobbish white women. The women have children, are homely, and there
is a dullness in their expressions that confesses a certain level of mental
inertia that could be deemed criminally stupid and obsessively short-range. I can’t explain that. I don’t think personal
esthetics has much to do with the pairings, either from the men’s standpoint or
from the distaff side. The men typically are bruisers with dreadlocks, which
may be a sign of virility in black sub-culture. Black sub-culture is so
malevolent it repels any kind of prolonged investigation, by me, at least. The
main “attraction” between them seems to be a matter of convenience. Any port in
a storm and it becomes permanent anchorage.
The drive to Texas from Virginia was incident-free. I was not in a
hurry and did not push my car to extremes. I kept a steady 60-65 mph pace and
rarely got up to 70. I just let all the highway traffic pass me. When I had the
road to myself, I would “thread the needle,” that is, feed into a curve in the
road on my left and then feed into the opposite curve on my right. I learned
that trick years ago while driving across country. The maneuver slices miles
off of one’s mileage. It has to be done when there’s no one behind one.
Truckers rule of the roads. Except when they decide to call it a day
and “coop out” in their cabs for much needed sleep. That can occur day or
night. There were countless “truckers only” spots off the highways where
perhaps a dozen rigs would be pulled up, their drivers stretched out in their
bunks, if they had one of those double-decker cabs atop the seats. I don’t know
what else the cabs are equipped with. Perhaps with fridges and water. At night,
or close to morning, one could see swarms of these behemoths grouped at the
stops, their cabs and haulage lit up like horizontal Christmas trees, looking
like snoozing creatures. The Highway Patrols of each state keep out automobile
traffic.
Truckers by and large are the safest drivers on the road. They’re more
considerate of automobile traffic than the drivers of cars are to anyone else.
I did see one major accident on the way through Arkansas. It seems that
a big rig had a passing dispute with two cars. The cars got bumped off the road
and were demolished, and I guess so were the inhabitants. The rig itself went
off the highway and landed upside down in a gully, its cargo strewn all over,
and the cab itself smashed to pieces. Ambulances, fire trucks, and two dozen
police vehicles had blocked the northbound traffic for two or more miles. That
was the only mishap I witnessed on the entire trip from Williamsburg, which
lasted about a week and a half.
It is a little-known fact that truckers did not always rule the roads.
When President Dwight E. Eisenhower signed the Interstate Highway law in 1956
(it may have been in 1955), truckers in short time took away a lot of business
from the railroads, and once the interconnecting interstates had been built and
were linked up. The federal highways had to integrate with state and local
highways. Railroads had to scramble to save their business, aside from having
to kowtow to the rules and regulations of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Highways, said the law, had to have portions
of them long enough to accommodate landing military aircraft, at least a mile
in length. For a long time, railroads used to supply every nook and cranny in
the country with food and other necessities. But no more.
Readers may have noticed that Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, which
focuses on the fortunes and misfortunes of railroads under government
regulation, particularly Taggart Transcontinental, was researched and written
before Eisenhower’s stroke of a pen created the interstate system. Rand’s opus
debuted in 1957, a year after transcontinental shipping was doomed to second
class status by federal fiat.
From my perspective, the most “romantic”
places on the road are the truckers’ stops, They have names such as the Flying
J, or Love’s, TA, or Petro. This is where trucks are refueled at special pumps,
their tires re-inflated, engine repairs are made, and their haulage weighted,
as well, in anticipation of trucks having to stop at state weighing stations.
They usually feature “truckers” only lounges, bathrooms, and shower stalls. The
shops inside sell every imaginable thing one could want or need for
long-distance driving. There are restaurants and other food concessions. Some
stops promote entertainment and gaming arcades for children.
Of course, this is an
awkward time to be extolling truckers, on the occasion of the Islamic truck
massacre in Nice, France.
July 3, 2016
The Fool’s Gold of Pragmatism
I made the remark during a recent email discussion of my eviction by my former
landlady because I was seen as a “risk” to my neighbors, and that it was more “pragmatic”
to remove the “threat” by throwing me to the ISIS wolves. Rather than thank me
for defending her rights, she wished to eliminate the potential “threat” to her
tenants and property.
I am a Muslim. I am reason-proof.
The situation, inaugurated when the FBI/NCIS paid me a visit on May
18th to inform me that my Rule of Reason site was on the radar of ISIS and
other Islamic terrorist organizations, but the agent advised me that I was in
no imminent danger. Thousands of Americans have been “targeted” by ISIS
activists, or by wannabe terrorists. Their landlords or bankers have not told
them to get lost. It is hard to ken the mentality of a person who would pretend
that evicting me – an unprecedented event in my life – would somehow magically
ward off any murderous Islamic mischief from her other tenants.
The best way, according to the landlady, to avoid any potential
unpleasantness with Muslims and Islam, was to extinguish the red light that was
Edward Cline. Get it off the property and as far away as possible. Deny that he
existed.
I was instantly relegated to the status of a post WWII displaced
person. I am currently “living out of a suitcase” in a dump of a motel. It has
been a very stressful and costly experience for me. Not even several stories
about the sheer irrationality of her actions have swayed the person I have not
so fondly nicknamed, “The Bitch of Buchenwald.” As Daniel
Greenfield noted in his article, the landlady acted, for all intents and
purposes, and whether or not she knew
it, as an agent of ISIS. There are scores, even thousands of her ilk in our
federal, state, and local governments. Obsessed with not rocking the Islamic
boat, though that boat has rocked with increasing frequency with hundreds of
lives lost just in the West.
See a recent article, “The
Totalitarianism of Modern Airports” and “Last Call” in
a note with more details.
See also Matt Bracken’s Western
Rifles Shooters article, which is another major article about my unprecedented,
scandalous and bizarre eviction.
Pragmatism is fool’s gold. The pragmatic, to the anti-intellectual, is
that which “works.” It is a series of actions which result in a “desired”
result, which series eschews reason and logic. Turning the ignition key of one’s
engine gets it started. Mixing egg yolks with some milk will produce scrambled
eggs. Pragmatism sans reason is on a mental level of remembering how to
tie one’s shoelaces. It is the mode of primates and other animals. That is the
top level of animal actions. We don’t need reason, said John
Dewey, the premier American philosopher of Pragmatism. But “thinking” without
thinking is not the “practical” mode of men. Mental labor is required of all
actions taken by men. And thinking requires the employment of Aristotelian
logic.
I can tie my shoelaces because I have automatized the actions needed.
My fingers seem to operate without my having to think about the requisite
actions to loop the laces and fix knots. But on a deeper level, beneath layers
of years and practice, from the first time I needed to tie my own shoelaces.
Reason governed the course of my actions, and still does.
Dewey wrote in his 1938 Logic: The theory of Inquiry.
He defined with precise brevity the criterion of
validity common to these three schools, which lack agreed-upon definitions:
But in the proper interpretation of
"pragmatic," namely the function of consequences as necessary tests
of the validity of propositions, provided these consequences are
operationally instituted and are such as to resolve the specific problem
evoking the operations, the text that follows is thoroughly pragmatic.
I think the key term in
Dewey’s definition is “consequences.” Theoretically, in the Dewey world, one
could just as easily fix a plate of scrambled eggs by becoming a whirling
dervish. Perhaps in the cartoon world, that would seem to be possible. But it
has nothing to do with reality, with actually preparing scrambled eggs.
Primates cannot fix a plate
of scrambled eggs. They are “programmed” by their biology to take the correct
steps to ensure their survival, from “learning” how to peel bananas to fishing
for ants to eat in the dirt with a twig. I think that one of the most
disastrous results of projecting human actions onto animal behavior has been to
confuse volitional human behavior with animal behavior. It has been a train
wreck in the field of teleology, and it has had dire political and educational
consequences. Perhaps I have it backwards, and the train wreck is caused by
instead deducing human actions from animal actions. Divorcing human actions
from reason also gives rise to other debilitating and vicious notions, from racism
to sexism to “white privilege.”
Syllogisms? We don't need no stinkin' syllogisms!
Pragmatists seek
consequences. They want results. They take actions. But the actions they take
are only coincidental to their actions. The actions they take merely parallel
the course taken by following rules of reason.
To Dewey and his Progressive
followers, Aristotelian logic and reason were merely “optional” and not the end
and be-all of human existence. Reason was not the only “logic” available to men
to ensure their survival.
Logical positivism also figured in Dewey's
thought. About the movement he wrote that it "eschews the use of
'propositions' and 'terms', substituting 'sentences' and 'words'."
("General Theory of Propositions", in Logic: The Theory of Inquiry)
He welcomes this changing of referents "in as far as it fixes attention
upon the symbolic structure and content of propositions." Yet Dewey was
not entirely opposed to modern logical trends. Concerning traditional logic, he
states:
Aristotelian
logic, which still passes current nominally, is a logic based upon the idea
that qualitative objects are existential in the fullest sense. To retain
logical principles based on this conception along with the acceptance of
theories of existence and knowledge based on an opposite conception is not, to
say the least, conductive to clearness – a consideration that has a good deal
to do with existing dualism between traditional and the newer relational
logics.
This “dualism” is now
proposed to allow Islamic Sharia law and “customs” to coexist “peacefully” with
Western values of freedom and the independent mind and freedom of speech. There
is Western logic and there is Islamic logic. Aristotelian logic is “nominal.”
In education, school
children are now being taught how to “tolerate” Islam and Muslims by “experiencing”
what it is like to be a Muslim. Instead
of being taught the principles of freedom and being introduced to John Locke,
the thought of the Founders, and the efficacy of the individual and of
capitalism, they are being taught how to bow, scrape, and grovel before an “all-knowing,”
brutal, and whimsical deity.
But they cannot coexist. One
must supplant the other. The “coexistence” has been anything but “peaceful.” No
matter how many times Pragmatists follow formulaic, predetermined courses of
actions to contaminate or merge Western culture with Islamic culture, Western
culture must first defer to Islam and then either self-destruct or be destroyed
by Islam. Islam, as a totalitarian ideology, does not defer to freedom of any
kind – except the “freedom” to kill.
Pragmatism is the fool’s
gold of action by men seeking to preserve their lives and values. It can only guarantee
their eventual – and often immediate – extinction.
landlady because I was seen as a “risk” to my neighbors, and that it was more “pragmatic”
to remove the “threat” by throwing me to the ISIS wolves. Rather than thank me
for defending her rights, she wished to eliminate the potential “threat” to her
tenants and property.
I am a Muslim. I am reason-proof.
The situation, inaugurated when the FBI/NCIS paid me a visit on May
18th to inform me that my Rule of Reason site was on the radar of ISIS and
other Islamic terrorist organizations, but the agent advised me that I was in
no imminent danger. Thousands of Americans have been “targeted” by ISIS
activists, or by wannabe terrorists. Their landlords or bankers have not told
them to get lost. It is hard to ken the mentality of a person who would pretend
that evicting me – an unprecedented event in my life – would somehow magically
ward off any murderous Islamic mischief from her other tenants.
The best way, according to the landlady, to avoid any potential
unpleasantness with Muslims and Islam, was to extinguish the red light that was
Edward Cline. Get it off the property and as far away as possible. Deny that he
existed.
I was instantly relegated to the status of a post WWII displaced
person. I am currently “living out of a suitcase” in a dump of a motel. It has
been a very stressful and costly experience for me. Not even several stories
about the sheer irrationality of her actions have swayed the person I have not
so fondly nicknamed, “The Bitch of Buchenwald.” As Daniel
Greenfield noted in his article, the landlady acted, for all intents and
purposes, and whether or not she knew
it, as an agent of ISIS. There are scores, even thousands of her ilk in our
federal, state, and local governments. Obsessed with not rocking the Islamic
boat, though that boat has rocked with increasing frequency with hundreds of
lives lost just in the West.
See a recent article, “The
Totalitarianism of Modern Airports” and “Last Call” in
a note with more details.
See also Matt Bracken’s Western
Rifles Shooters article, which is another major article about my unprecedented,
scandalous and bizarre eviction.
Pragmatism is fool’s gold. The pragmatic, to the anti-intellectual, is
that which “works.” It is a series of actions which result in a “desired”
result, which series eschews reason and logic. Turning the ignition key of one’s
engine gets it started. Mixing egg yolks with some milk will produce scrambled
eggs. Pragmatism sans reason is on a mental level of remembering how to
tie one’s shoelaces. It is the mode of primates and other animals. That is the
top level of animal actions. We don’t need reason, said John
Dewey, the premier American philosopher of Pragmatism. But “thinking” without
thinking is not the “practical” mode of men. Mental labor is required of all
actions taken by men. And thinking requires the employment of Aristotelian
logic.
I can tie my shoelaces because I have automatized the actions needed.
My fingers seem to operate without my having to think about the requisite
actions to loop the laces and fix knots. But on a deeper level, beneath layers
of years and practice, from the first time I needed to tie my own shoelaces.
Reason governed the course of my actions, and still does.
Dewey wrote in his 1938 Logic: The theory of Inquiry.
He defined with precise brevity the criterion of
validity common to these three schools, which lack agreed-upon definitions:
But in the proper interpretation of
"pragmatic," namely the function of consequences as necessary tests
of the validity of propositions, provided these consequences are
operationally instituted and are such as to resolve the specific problem
evoking the operations, the text that follows is thoroughly pragmatic.
I think the key term in
Dewey’s definition is “consequences.” Theoretically, in the Dewey world, one
could just as easily fix a plate of scrambled eggs by becoming a whirling
dervish. Perhaps in the cartoon world, that would seem to be possible. But it
has nothing to do with reality, with actually preparing scrambled eggs.
Primates cannot fix a plate
of scrambled eggs. They are “programmed” by their biology to take the correct
steps to ensure their survival, from “learning” how to peel bananas to fishing
for ants to eat in the dirt with a twig. I think that one of the most
disastrous results of projecting human actions onto animal behavior has been to
confuse volitional human behavior with animal behavior. It has been a train
wreck in the field of teleology, and it has had dire political and educational
consequences. Perhaps I have it backwards, and the train wreck is caused by
instead deducing human actions from animal actions. Divorcing human actions
from reason also gives rise to other debilitating and vicious notions, from racism
to sexism to “white privilege.”
Syllogisms? We don't need no stinkin' syllogisms!
Pragmatists seek
consequences. They want results. They take actions. But the actions they take
are only coincidental to their actions. The actions they take merely parallel
the course taken by following rules of reason.
To Dewey and his Progressive
followers, Aristotelian logic and reason were merely “optional” and not the end
and be-all of human existence. Reason was not the only “logic” available to men
to ensure their survival.
Logical positivism also figured in Dewey's
thought. About the movement he wrote that it "eschews the use of
'propositions' and 'terms', substituting 'sentences' and 'words'."
("General Theory of Propositions", in Logic: The Theory of Inquiry)
He welcomes this changing of referents "in as far as it fixes attention
upon the symbolic structure and content of propositions." Yet Dewey was
not entirely opposed to modern logical trends. Concerning traditional logic, he
states:
Aristotelian
logic, which still passes current nominally, is a logic based upon the idea
that qualitative objects are existential in the fullest sense. To retain
logical principles based on this conception along with the acceptance of
theories of existence and knowledge based on an opposite conception is not, to
say the least, conductive to clearness – a consideration that has a good deal
to do with existing dualism between traditional and the newer relational
logics.
This “dualism” is now
proposed to allow Islamic Sharia law and “customs” to coexist “peacefully” with
Western values of freedom and the independent mind and freedom of speech. There
is Western logic and there is Islamic logic. Aristotelian logic is “nominal.”
In education, school
children are now being taught how to “tolerate” Islam and Muslims by “experiencing”
what it is like to be a Muslim. Instead
of being taught the principles of freedom and being introduced to John Locke,
the thought of the Founders, and the efficacy of the individual and of
capitalism, they are being taught how to bow, scrape, and grovel before an “all-knowing,”
brutal, and whimsical deity.
But they cannot coexist. One
must supplant the other. The “coexistence” has been anything but “peaceful.” No
matter how many times Pragmatists follow formulaic, predetermined courses of
actions to contaminate or merge Western culture with Islamic culture, Western
culture must first defer to Islam and then either self-destruct or be destroyed
by Islam. Islam, as a totalitarian ideology, does not defer to freedom of any
kind – except the “freedom” to kill.
Pragmatism is the fool’s
gold of action by men seeking to preserve their lives and values. It can only guarantee
their eventual – and often immediate – extinction.
June 26, 2016
Brexit and My Exit
Readers will note
that there is a new feature on this site, a PayPal button at the top or bottom
of a new post, which anyone may use if he wishes to donate to my PayPal account
to defray the costs incurred from my being evicted from my apartment of seven
years because the landlady deemed me a mortal risk to her other tenants. Not because
I was a physical menace to my neighbors, but because of what I wrote about Islam
and Muslims. None of it flattering and none of it disinterested.
The situation,
inaugurated when the FBI/NCIS paid me a visit on May 18th to inform me that my
Rule of Reason site was on the radar of ISIS and other Islamic terrorist
organizations, but that I was in no imminent danger. Thousands of Americans have
been “targeted” by ISIS activists, or by wannabe terrorists. Their landlords or
bankers have not told them to get lost. It is hard to ken the mentality of a
person who would pretend that evicting me – an unprecedented event in my life –
would somehow magically ward off any murderous Islamic mischief from her other
tenants. I was instantly relegated to the status of a post WWII displaced
person. I am currently “living out of a suitcase.” It has been a very stressful
and costly experience for me. Not even several stories about the sheer
irrationality of her actions have swayed the person I have not so fondly
nicknamed, “The Bitch of Buchenwald.” As Daniel
Greenfield noted in his article, the landlady acted, for all intents and
purposes, as an agent of ISIS. There are scores, even thousands of her ilk in
our federal, state, and local governments. Obsessed with not rocking the Islamic
boat, though that boat has rocked with increasing frequency with hundreds of
lives lost just in the West.
See a recent
article, “The
Totalitarianism of Modern Airports” and “Last Call”
for more details.
See also Matt
Bracken’s Western
Rifles Shooters article, which is a major article about my scandalous and
bizarre eviction, and which generated a generous over-flowing of donations to the
Go Fund campaign.
That being said,
I turn now to the stupendous and thoroughly enthralling vote by Britons to
divorce their country from the European Union of Orwell’s Oceania of 1984.
The result of that vote on June 23rd was one of the few uplifting moments in my
current predicament. The Brexit vote was so resounding that it has inspired
France and even Sweden to follow suit, if the forces can be similarly marshaled
among put-upon populations to get off their duffs and discard their fatalism
and campaign for a similar bill of divorcement. They are certain to be followed
by other moves by disenfranchised populations to part ways with the EU.
The German government,
of course, will not take this laying down. It will do its best to quash such a
movement among Germans, because Angela Merkel and her cronies more or less
govern the EU. She and her minions are certain to take
every ruthless step to foil such a movement. She is as mentally disturbed
as my former landlady.
There is reality,
says Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker
of the European Commission. We don’t like it. We decree it outlawed. Dissidents
will be arrested, gagged, and locked in cells with mad Muslims.
This is the
hallmark of insanity.
that there is a new feature on this site, a PayPal button at the top or bottom
of a new post, which anyone may use if he wishes to donate to my PayPal account
to defray the costs incurred from my being evicted from my apartment of seven
years because the landlady deemed me a mortal risk to her other tenants. Not because
I was a physical menace to my neighbors, but because of what I wrote about Islam
and Muslims. None of it flattering and none of it disinterested.
The situation,
inaugurated when the FBI/NCIS paid me a visit on May 18th to inform me that my
Rule of Reason site was on the radar of ISIS and other Islamic terrorist
organizations, but that I was in no imminent danger. Thousands of Americans have
been “targeted” by ISIS activists, or by wannabe terrorists. Their landlords or
bankers have not told them to get lost. It is hard to ken the mentality of a
person who would pretend that evicting me – an unprecedented event in my life –
would somehow magically ward off any murderous Islamic mischief from her other
tenants. I was instantly relegated to the status of a post WWII displaced
person. I am currently “living out of a suitcase.” It has been a very stressful
and costly experience for me. Not even several stories about the sheer
irrationality of her actions have swayed the person I have not so fondly
nicknamed, “The Bitch of Buchenwald.” As Daniel
Greenfield noted in his article, the landlady acted, for all intents and
purposes, as an agent of ISIS. There are scores, even thousands of her ilk in
our federal, state, and local governments. Obsessed with not rocking the Islamic
boat, though that boat has rocked with increasing frequency with hundreds of
lives lost just in the West.
See a recent
article, “The
Totalitarianism of Modern Airports” and “Last Call”
for more details.
See also Matt
Bracken’s Western
Rifles Shooters article, which is a major article about my scandalous and
bizarre eviction, and which generated a generous over-flowing of donations to the
Go Fund campaign.
That being said,
I turn now to the stupendous and thoroughly enthralling vote by Britons to
divorce their country from the European Union of Orwell’s Oceania of 1984.
The result of that vote on June 23rd was one of the few uplifting moments in my
current predicament. The Brexit vote was so resounding that it has inspired
France and even Sweden to follow suit, if the forces can be similarly marshaled
among put-upon populations to get off their duffs and discard their fatalism
and campaign for a similar bill of divorcement. They are certain to be followed
by other moves by disenfranchised populations to part ways with the EU.
The German government,
of course, will not take this laying down. It will do its best to quash such a
movement among Germans, because Angela Merkel and her cronies more or less
govern the EU. She and her minions are certain to take
every ruthless step to foil such a movement. She is as mentally disturbed
as my former landlady.
There is reality,
says Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker
of the European Commission. We don’t like it. We decree it outlawed. Dissidents
will be arrested, gagged, and locked in cells with mad Muslims.
This is the
hallmark of insanity.
June 19, 2016
Last Call
This is my last post on Rule of Reason and http://edwardcline.blogspot.com/,
at least for a long while. The blog sites might remain up for a while, until
Mark Zuckerberg and his Merkelian cronies who govern the Internet eventually take
them down or block access to them, something they do to “offensive” sites in
Europe. They punish them to accommodate Angela Merkel and a multitude of statists
and pro-Islam aficionados who want to “transform” their countries from
civilized ones to ones governed by political correctness, submission to Islam, and
civil anarchy, although the latter state of affairs is not one they are contemplating.
Nevertheless, an upheaval will
transpire. You don’t sic the savages on whole civilized populations without
incurring violent consequences. Look what happened in the Warsaw ghetto. Or during
the Hungarian uprising.
This will be my last post, not
because I was censored by the government or by the FBI or by Zuckerberg’s ilk,
although I think that is in works. As many of you already know, fear of
retaliation, reprisals, and the like have never tethered my language about
Islam, about treasonous Obama, or about the many other enemies of freedom. My
sites will remain silent for other reasons.
The ostensive purpose of
censoring or blocking “offensive” sites is to forestall potentially “fractious”
and violent conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims, which already exists. It already
exists, with or without the state-sanctioned filtering and outright bans, and
for two reasons: the deliberate and government-encouraged invasion of Western
countries by hordes of people whose “religion” is hostile to all Western
values, is an invasion feared and opposed by the thousands current and likely victims
of the invasion; and, two, Islam is a detailed blueprint for the conquest of
the West by Islam, including America.
Read the 1991 Muslim
Brotherhood memorandum about the means and ends of the invasion, especially
of America. More and more Europeans understand that, but are prevented from
speaking out about the mortally deleterious consequences of unlimited
immigration of barbarians from the pestholes of the world. Perhaps more and
more Americans are understanding it, too. I should hope so.
Progressive liberals and other wannabe
totalitarians like Zuckerberg keep harping (or, shall we say, “screaming”)
about the injury caused by “hate speech” and “Islamophobia” and “racism” of
non-Muslims (even though Islam is practiced by virtually every race under the
sun). But, they have little to say about the genuine racism practiced by
Muslims who prey on Western women, Jews, homosexuals, and anyone else who
doesn’t fit their addled conception of a perfect devotee to Islam, which is a
compliant cipher who obeys all the rules of Sharia law, never questions them,
and who would rather just “go with the flow” than bother to…well...think.
Of course, jihadists and other
killers on the make and on the prowl think all the time: How can I strike a
blow for Islam and win my time in Paradise? These people too often come from
the “silent majority” of Muslims, and become “radicalized.” Most of the
jihadists in Europe come from second generation Muslim families. “Radicalized”
is a term I’ve never quite understood the usage of, because if you know
anything about Islam, the Koran, the Hadith, and Sharia, you would know that
Islam is nothing but “radical.” “Radical” in the sense that it advocates, from
top to bottom, the totality of one’s submission to Allah and Islam, or – totalitarianism. It’s a rather simple
concept to grasp.
Whatever you think of Donald
Trump as a candidate and possible President, I do not think he can make much
headway against an entrenched political establishment dedicated to reducing
Americans to obedient ciphers of the State who need to be pacified with various
goodies. He hasn’t the intellectual
equipment. I don’t think he has the moral certitude or fortitude to stymie what
is happening to the country. I would like to think he has, but wishing is not
my forte, either.
Like FDR’s State Department
throughout his administration, which was rich in Communists and fellow
travelers, the current federal government is riddled with Progressives, dwarf
totalitarians, Muslims, and others who lust after and savor the power they
wield.
Several blog sites have run
stories about my eviction by the manager of Lawson
Enterprises for having dared exercise my freedom of speech, quietly and
without violent consequences to me or to other tenants, for years. But, somehow,
in the insulated, hateful PC mind of Allison Otey, the manager, I endanger the
lives of the her tenants. Throwing me to Mohammad’s wolves does not concern the
landlord. She not once expressed the least concern about my fate at the hands
of jihadists, or about uprooting my life with all the attendant costs. She may
as well be an agent of ISIS, or of the Taliban, or of Iran. “Punish the
infidels wherever you find them, especially those who talk back.”
"O Muslim! There is a Jew
hiding behind me, so kill him." (Sahih
al-Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 52, Number 177). The Lawson Enterprises version
is:
“Oh,
Otey! There is a champion of American freedom hiding behind me, so punish him
before his hateful words harm one of my tenants!”
But, as the advocates of open
immigration and the alleged defenders of the freedom of religion keep harping,
Islam is a religion, and we have no
right to prohibit its practice. But Islam is first and foremost an ideology. Islam is not the Amish. Has
anyone ever coined the term “Amishophobia”? No. Because there’s nothing in the
Amish creed that encourages the slaughter or submission of the non-Amish. The
Amish creed is not an ideology. Whatever you think of the Amish or of their
beliefs, theirs is not a “religion” to fear if you are not of the Amish faith.
I queried the Virginia Bar
Association in search of lawyers who would be willing to represent me against
Lawson either pro bono or for a fee. No takers. No response. I cast my Internet
net in search of lawyers who’d be willing to take my case on any condition. No
takers. No response. Dead silence.
These articles, to date, have
been:
Daniel Greenfield’s article on
the eviction:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/26306...
The Rebel on the eviction:
http://www.therebel.media/us_author_on_is_kill_list_landlord_gives_30_days_to_get_out
Shane Kavanaugh’s Vocativ article
on the eviction:
http://www.vocativ.com/329297/anti-is...
The Daily Caller article on the
eviction:
http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/15/vir...
The Gates of Vienna on the
eviction:
http://gatesofvienna.net/2016/06/isis...
Solo Passion’s article on the
eviction:
http://www.solopassion.com/node/10251
Darrell Hougen’s Objectivist
Living’s article on the eviction:
http://www.objectivistliving.com/foru...
Among others, including numerous
Twitter mentions.
I’m in the same situation as
Henry Cameron in The Fountainhead. I
have been fighting evil and tyranny all my writing life. It was worth the
fight. But, I’ve run out of gas. I cannot keep fighting and seeing my own
person betrayed and offered as a sacrifice to the killers at large and the
killer in the landlord’s office. I do not want to see the country conquered or
transformed by Obama or by any of the beasts who want to rule the country. I have tried to find a new place to live, but
I don’t meet the income requirements. Virginia and its many landlords and property
owners have stringent rules. I traveled to Dallas under the impression that it
was a freer state, but its tenancy requirements in the way of income are as
onerous as Virginia’s.
I’ve been blocked virtually
everywhere I turn. Many friends and fans have made generous offers of their own
property for me to live on, but at this point in life, I do not want to become
a moocher or anyone’s ward. It’s not my style. The movers have come and gone
and taken away everything valuable I ever owned. It’s in storage somewhere,
awaiting an address for the movers (GalaxyXPress) to send it to. But, I am
clearly no longer welcome in America. I have been stonewalled by the politics,
by the culture.
Doubtless, the government will
seize all my property, including the blog sites.
I have presented my country,
indeed, the world, with many literary and intellectual gifts. Sparrowhawk is my magnum opus. The Skeen
and other novels were fun to create but they still are imbued with a moral
sense of life to which many readers are not indifferent. I’m happy that Sparrowhawk and Cyrus Skeen are popular,
and have tapped into the minds and spirits of so many readers. The two series
do not stop selling. That’s some measure of success in an otherwise hostile
culture that has no use for an independent man and a man of the mind. Jack
Frake, Hugh Kenrick, Dogmael Jones, Cyrus Skeen, Chess Hanrahan, and Merritt
Fury reign supreme in their worlds. For as long as they are available to be read,
they cannot be milked dry.
“The
Totalitarianism of Modern Airports,” which predates this column, was the
result of an off-hand remark to a fellow writer about my observations of
contemporary travel.
I must mention my “Carol Pelletier” and stalwart and dogged heroine
who set up the Go Fund for me
to help defray the costs of moving. Her name is Hilda Naranjo. I must also thank
all the generous and caring individuals who donated to the Fund. Of course,
there is Roxanne Albertoli, my loving spiritual booster for decades. And Steve
Saaf, who knew immediately that we were of the same mind and spirit and not
just yeah-sayers for reason, when we first met during an Objectivist picnic in
California so many years ago.
I, however, have reached the
point of no return. There is nowhere to return to. I’ve fought the good fight
to the best of my ability.
June 17, 2016
The Totalitarianism of Modern Airports
Your Body is the State's Business
I hate flying,
and have hated it for years ever since 9/11, and have sworn never to fly again.
It’s for my blood pressure. I hate it not only because of the airlines'
treatment of passengers or customers as faceless widgets to be squeezed
together as much as possible in an airport, but also on the planes, forcing one
to come in physical contact with other passengers, many of whom one would not
otherwise wish to touch. I hate it also because of the role of the Transportation
Security Administration (TSA).
The typical large
airport is a microcosm of a regulated, controlled society, an experiment in
Progressivism. The miasma of the environment is repellent if not dulling to the
senses. Modern, post-9/11 airports are intended to be soul-destroying because
the only way to exercise the government’s power is to hold one’s business and
purposes hostage and extort soul-destroying submission to the state’s will. “You
have to go there?” says the TSA. “Well, you have to get past me first. Drop your
drawers.”
All American airports have been turned into microcosms of
totalitarianism. It’s not a hard concept to grasp, once one has passed through
– or rather endured – being molested, fondled, spindled, stamped, x-rayed, bar-coded, ordered
from here to there, stripped bare to reveal one’s secrets or shames, approved or
disapproved, and made to conform to the government’s measure of good and
acceptable behavior. The milieu demands total submission to the state’s will
and ends. There is certainly no ambience left to an airport, except one of
nonstop dread and mental numbness.
Everything seems
to be designed and planned to distract one from observing that once one is in
the clutches of the government, and also of the airlines, one has been reduced
to the status of of an assembly line cog to be processed and dispatched as
speedily as possible – speedily in terms of bureaucracy.
I remember the
time when flying was somewhat romantic, something to look forward to with some
excitement. I remember being greeted by a throng of friends when I stepped off
a plane. Today, anyone not flying isn't even allowed in most of the spaces and
byways of an airport. One’s friends, family, and well-wishers have been banned
from having any business inside an airport. One’s greeters are confined to an
area outside of the processing center.
I also remember a
time when there were smoking sections, when actual meals were served to
passengers instead of dispensing to hapless passengers what look like dog
biscuits or packets of pretzels, when the stewardesses were pretty and
bustling, when the seats were wider and roomier. Today, one is ensconced into
as little square footage as possible without fitting one into a tagged
straightjacket.
I refuse to
subject myself anymore to it.
The airlines are
complicit in reducing Americans to sardines who pay for the privilege of being
stuffed like baggage into its planes.
American airports
are proving grounds to test the willingness of Americans to tolerate abuse by
the government.
In terms of
employment, jobs at airports seem to be the exclusive realm of “minorities.” The
TSA is an “equal opportunity,” “affirmative action” employer. It will hire
certified dullards, perverts, thieves, and sadists, of any gender or race or
religion. Even Muslims and individuals whose command of the English language is
shaky or nonexistent.
The thoroughfares
of terminals are replete with eateries and shops of every kind. These are
called concessions, that is, businesses that are the mere stewards of whatever
has been allowed by the government for sale. Naturally, everything for sale is
taxed. They exist by government fiat. The government’s policy is to keep the passengers
fat and happy before sending the cattle to the stockyards of “security.”
The TSA costs the
country billions,
yet it has neither detected nor foiled a single jihadist plot in its entire
existence. It has failed repeatedly when supposedly dangerous materials or
potential weapons have been sent through its screening system by agents testing
the system’s effectiveness in security,
which is nil. It is a police bureaucracy staffed, from top to bottom, by approximately
65,000 of the otherwise unemployable dross of the earth who take delight in
putting their moral betters through the search and fondle wringer. It practices
extortion on a scale that would make the Mafia green with envy. It exists, in
one sense, to gauge the degree to which Americans are willing to submit to its
own brand of Islam.
The Police State, American and Nazi Styles
As a tool to “fight”
jihad, it is absolutely useless. There are dozens of articles that have exposed
its ineptness in “protecting” Americans against bombers and suicide vest-clad Muslims.
Indeed, it employs Muslims, lots of them.
Congress has
promised over and over again that it will reform the TSA and correct or
eliminate its criminal activities. But Congress has never been in much of a
hurry. After all, most members of Congress are exempt from being treated like warp
and woof in travel, as the electorate is. They’re special. They’re the “elite.”
The TSA has a
pigsty’s record of the theft
of passenger property. Again, there are dozens of investigative articles that
chronicle the ubiquitous
larceny committed by TSA agents. Those blue surgical gloves worn by the
agents are supposedly worn to protect passengers from whatever nasty things the
agents or their victims have, and also they help to prevent any fingerprints from
being left behind. Computers, watches, jewelry, cartons of cigarettes, valuable
apparel – it’s all on a TSA employee’s felonious “shopping list.”
The modern
airport is a model of the kind of society Progressives and other drooling totalitarians
hanker to see America “transformed” into. It is a regulated society in which you
are accountable to the state, but the state and its anonymous minions are not
accountable to you. The modern airport is a precursor of things to come. Frankly,
it’s already here.
One event in my
life prepared me, in a manner of speaking, for my last visit to an American airport
(I imagine most European airports are just as intolerable), and that was being
thrown under the bus by a landlord who, having learned that I had been visited
by an FBI/NCIS agent to warn me that this blog spot was on the radar of ISIS and
perhaps that of other terrorist organizations, decided to evict me from my
apartment. Arguing with the landlord was about as fruitless as arguing with a
TSA agent. In fact, it was counter-protective. The more reason I employed with
the landlord, the more hostility was generated against.
So, get this: Even
though the threat to me, according to the FBI agent, ranged from minimal to
nil, and that a jihadist was likely to attack anyone or everyone in the
apartment complex where I lived, I somehow posed a “risk” to my fellow tenants.
The landlord was concerned with the “safety” of her tenants. A knowledge of Islamic
and Muslim “culture” and ways was a verboten subject, not to be discussed with
the landlord. She did not wish to know anything about them. Bringing up the
subject of the Orlando massacre was futile. The landlord was proof against
reason. I had been writing about Islam for decades, and not once had ever been
threatened by a jihadist, nor even sent a nasty comment or had my Facebook page
invaded by pro-Islam or pro-immigrants in search of signs of “Islamophobia,” it
mattered not.
You, who have
been nominally risking his life while defending the right of Americans to speak
freely about Islam and the federally subsidized and encouraged invasion of the
country by the ciphers of an alien and hostile ideology, must be shown the gate
and risk being killed. You must be sacrificed for the health and welfare of
your fellow tenants and neighbors, who may or may not have anything to say
about Islam. Your jeopardy and safety are of no concern.
The experience has
left me wondering: Is the landlord a secret agent of ISIS? Is she a Taliban
tart? An al-Qaeda airhead? Or is she one of those Progressives who refuse to
think in terms of fundamentals, unable and unwilling to venture into the
broader scheme of things?
So, here I am,
uprooting my life at the behest of a callow paragon of mental thickness.
I think she has
missed her calling. She could investigate, instead of being a private property manager,
becoming a TSA administrator. She certainly has the temperament and
personality.
June 8, 2016
May 30, 2016
“A Complete Way of Death”
A Coffin Called Islam
On May 26, Family
Security Matters reprinted an article, co-authored by Clare Lopez and Retired Admiral James A.
Lyons, which originally appeared on Accuracy
in Media. “Misrepresenting the Threat of Islam” largely a critique of
retired General David Petreaus’s article in the Washington
Post (May 15).
Lopez and Lyons score Petreaus on his politically
correct verbal soft-shoe about Islam, pointing out that he overlooks or chooses
to ignore the fact of the Global Jihadist Movement (GJM), and that Islam is
fundamentally not “religion of peace”
that was “hijacked” by “extremists.” Jihadists, they write,
…are carrying out the core principles of
Islam as specified in the Quran, Shariah and the hadiths.
Anyone who
has bothered to peruse the Koran,
Sharia law, and the hadiths, will acknowledge that this is a true statement. I
maintain a folder devoted exclusively to violent Koranic verses; there are
over two hundred of them I could easily cite here. The core principles reside
in those verses and they are taken literally by jihadists of the Sunni and
Shi’ite branches of Islam – as they were meant
to be taken and which do not leave any room for subtextual interpretation. Those
verses do not represent a guide to becoming flower children, but rather to
becoming conquerors and killers.
Lopez and Lyons also upbraid Petreaus on his cheap
shot at the First Amendment.
Petreaus
not so subtly actually attacked our First Amendment rights when he expressed
his concern over the current political dialogue that highlights the threat from
Muslims and Islam. This was unconscionable! He has fallen into the trap of
“Don’t criticize or take a position that might offend” the seventh century
sensibilities of the followers of Islam.
Heeding that draconian advice would effectively
shut down all criticism of Islam – scholarly, satirically, and vocally. Permanently.
No one could open his mouth about or apply a pen to the subject without
inviting a Muslim or government “backlash.” And what were Petreaus’s squeamish
words?
Setting aside moral considerations, those
who flirt with hate speech against Muslims should realize they are playing
directly into the hands of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The terrorists’
explicit hope has been to try to provoke a clash of civilizations — telling
Muslims that the United States is at war with them and their religion. When
Western politicians propose blanket discrimination against Islam, they bolster
the terrorists’ propaganda. At the same time, such statements directly undermine
our ability to defeat Islamist extremists by alienating and undermining the
allies whose help we most need to win this fight: namely, Muslims…. I fear that neither is true; in fact, the
ramifications of such rhetoric could be very harmful — and lasting.
Let’s parse that statement, and not “set aside moral considerations.”
After all, Muslims are the most sensitive crybabies around (until they become
crybullies).
“…those
who flirt with hate speech against Muslims should realize they are playing
directly into the hands of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.”
Not criticizing or mocking Islam has not
caused al-Qaeda or ISIS or a domestic Muslim convert to refrain from beheadings,
bombings, and conquests. Official government silence, on the other hand, has invited
the terrorists to commit more atrocities. Jihadists rush to fill the vacuum
left open by political correctness and appeals to “moderation.”
“The
terrorists’ explicit hope has been to try to provoke a clash of civilizations —
telling Muslims that the United States is at war with them and their religion.”
But the
clash of civilizations has been underway for decades, and no American president – not Reagan, not either of the Bushes, and
certainly not Obama – has ever had the courage or the moral rectitude to
recognize that the West ought to be
at war with Islam, especially because Islam has declared war on the West. The
“provocation” has come and gone, and Islam owns it.
“When
Western politicians propose blanket discrimination against Islam, they bolster
the terrorists’ propaganda.”
This is an
indirect reference to Donald Trump, but also to other critics of Muslims and
Islam who have proposed the same thing. I personally fail to understand how
speaking out against Islam and jihadists “bolsters” terrorists’ propaganda.
They will spew their propaganda regardless. They would prefer that we keep our
mouths shut and go quietly into the night, and that anyone voicing opposition
to Islam or Muslims or jihadists be silenced and punished in accordance with the
West ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of
Muslms by eviscerating freedom of speech (per the Muslim Brotherhood
Memorandum of 1992). Read a portion of the memorandum here.
“The
process of settlement is a ‘Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all the word
means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America
is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization
from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands
of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious
over all other religions.”
“At the same time, such statements directly
undermine our ability to defeat Islamist extremists by alienating and
undermining the allies whose help we most need to win this fight: namely,
Muslims.”
This is
news to me, that we have “allies” among Muslims in this country or elsewhere.
There’s nothing to “undermine.” A Muslim rooting for the Dallas Cowboys or
having an ice cream cone is not a definition of a Muslim “ally.”
But the
one statement by Lopez and Lyons that caught my attention was this:
Muslims do not consider Islam to be a
“religion.” They call it a “complete way of life.”
A complete way of life. I had encountered the phrase almost
repeatedly in my Islamic readings, but never grasped its significance in
relation to Islam until Lopez and Lyons stressed it.
Yes, I
knew that it meant the totality of
living. Lopez and Lyons wrote:
Clearly, our leaders need to understand that
Islam is a totalitarian ideology,
governed by an alien legal system called Shariah that obligates all Muslims to
carry out jihad to conquer the world and subjugate it to Islamic Law. [Italics
mine]
Every
dictator in history has preached a “way of life” to his subjugated citizens –
Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. And in every instance those “ways of life” have
invariably led to misery, slaughter, and poverty. And to death. What the
dictators preached, however, was that the imposed “way of life” was a struggle
to achieve some of kind of happiness on earth.
Islam’s
notion of a “complete way of life” is quite the opposite.
And what
is a “religion?”
Every
definition of it I found boiled down to the same basic parameters: the
institutionalized worship of and reverence for a deity or supernatural being,
with obedience to the deity’s wishes in variance with the severity of the creed.
Some religions impinge on one’s daily life to some degree, or not at all. One’s
“way of life” can include following divinely given golden rules, or none at
all. But most religions allow one to set aside some quantum of mortality for
oneself.
Islam does
not. However, here are some excerpts from a handful of Islamic sites that
emphasize a “complete way of life.”
From “Islam: A Complete
Way of Life”:
Argument 2: One could out of sheer academic
interest look at every aspect of life covered by Islam. Then one could develop
alternative forms for each aspect and thereby have a theoretically complete way
of life (assuming that Islam is indeed a complete way of life). However, the
alternative way of life, although complete, would obviously be a
humanly-inspired way of life. Again, being a complete way of life is not a
sufficient condition for being divinely-inspired. The very concept of divine
inspiration includes the concept of being a complete way of life.
This assumption holds that the concept of
divine inspiration logically entails, or analytically includes, the concept of
being a complete way of life.
[Emphasis mine]
Assumption 3: If a way of life is not
complete, then it is not divinely inspired.
It says
that while one may have a “religion,” it does not mean that the “religion” is a
“complete way of life.” It rejects the human element. Islam regards man-made
law as pernicious.
From “Islam 101:”
The Shari‘ah thus
prescribes directives for the regulation of our individual as well as
collective lives. These directives affect such varied subjects as religious
rituals, personal character, morals, habits, family relationships, social and
economic affairs, administration, the rights and duties of citizens, the
judicial system, the laws of war and peace and international relations. They
tell us what is good and bad; what is beneficial and useful and what is
injurious and harmful; what are the virtues which we have to cultivate and
encourage and what are the evils which we have to suppress and guard against;
what is the sphere of our voluntary, personal and social action and what are
its limits; and, finally, what methods we can adopt to establish a dynamic
order of society and what methods we should avoid. The Shari‘ah is a complete
way of life and an all-embracing social order. [Emphasis mine]
Sharia law commands that its “complete way of
life” be integrated with an “all-embracing social order.” Which means that
Islam is totalitarian, from top to bottom. It embraces everything you do, say,
or think.
From “The
Austin Network of Islamic Studies”:
A Complete Way Of Life !
Islam is a religion, but not in the western
meaning of religion. The western connotation of the term "religion"
is something between the believer and God. Islam is a religion that organizes all aspects of life on both the
individual and national levels.
Islam organizes your relations with God, with yourself, with your children,
with your relatives, with your neighbor, with your guest, and with other
brethren. Islam clearly establishes your duties and rights in all those
relationships.
Islam establishes a clear system of worship,
civil rights, laws of marriage and divorce, laws of inheritance, code of
behavior, what not to drink, what to wear, and what not to wear, how to worship
God, how to govern, the laws of war and peace, when to go to war, when to make
peace, the law of economics, and the laws of buying and selling. Islam is a complete code of life. [Emphasis mine]
Instead of the crescent and star,
this is the proper symbol of Islam
Islam is
arguably more totalitarian then were Nazism
and Communism. Nazism at least allowed you to eat your sauerkraut in peace
before you attended the next Munich rally or killed another Jew. Communism
allowed you gulp your vodka without recrimination before killing another kulak or
Polish officer in the Katyn Forest.
Islam allows
you nothing that is proscribed or specifically forbidden, or nothing that is
not halal. Every little detail of
living is governed by Islam, except for minor concretes, such as the brand of
your underwear or the make of your car.
And what
is the purpose of Sharia law and conforming to Islam? To gain a place in
Paradise. Life on earth is not important. One’s life is not important except as
it relates to Allah’s will and pleasure. Islam could be said to be similar to
Christian altruism. But in Christianity it is a virtue to sacrifice values. In
Islam, it is a virtue and an obligation to sacrifice non-values. Such as infidels, Jews, and other non-Muslims. Islam
can't value that which it condemns or does not value; albeit, the non-values can be eliminated, destroyed,
and infidels can be enslaved to serve Muslims and Islamic purposes.
Islam has
no values, not for anyone who values his life, not for anyone who wants to
achieve or keep values. It is the perfect system for those motivated by envy,
by hatred of the good for being the good, and by a Kantian will and rote-learned
imperative to destroy for the sake of destruction. The elimination of values is
the only value possible in Islam. And to a rational Western mind, that is a non-value.
Islam is
not interested in creating a Paradise on earth. It is interested only in
creating a perfect human society that abides by Allah’s wishes. It creates a
hermetically sealed society that permits no air, no choices, and no freedom, with
everything predetermined and beyond the realm of reason and choice. It is the
enemy of volition and values. It is a system of nihilism.
Islam is
literally a “complete way of death.” It is not for nothing that it is often called
a death cult by its critics. Its devout worship and live for death, in various
degrees of fervor, whether or not they consume ice cream or root for the Dallas
Cowboys or set off bombs in Belgian airports or slaughter concert goers in
Paris or massacre 3,000 people on 9/11.
The only
way for “peaceful” Muslims to cast off the stigma of responsibility for the
crimes committed in the name of Islam is to understand and repudiate Islam.
Men like
General Petreaus are politically correct ignoramuses and dhimmis.
However, do
we really want Islam— or systemic nihilism – to gain more than the toe-hold it
already has in America?
May 28, 2016
Beyond Satire
Real life too often today puts satire to shame. I
shall begin with “Liberal Line Dancing.”
Some years ago in Baltimore I took a stroll through
a street festival near the Inner Harbor. One event I encountered was something I
hadn’t witnessed in person before: line dancing. I had become immersed in the subject
of dancing while researching the Sparrowhawk
series, set in 18th century Britain and America. I learned that it was only in
the early 19th century that individualized dance between couples was introduced
and became popular, preceded by the form of highly formalized and controlled
modes such as the minuet and its variants, in which the couples barely touched
each other.
Until then, from Medieval times to the present, dance
was largely a collective pastime. Line dancing seems to be a hybrid of square dancing,
which itself has roots in contra or country dancing preceding even Shakespeare’s
time, but without participants even having to touch anyone. I was obliged to square
dance in high school, and had to clasp the sweaty palms of dozens of others of
either gender I didn’t know and didn’t want to know. Personal choice in such
affairs of one’s partners was ruled out.
In liberal political, synchronized line dancing,
all the players, in unison, wobble, wiggle, gesticulate, kick, turn about,
swivel their hips, pantomime, roll their shoulders, and place their hands over
their ears, mouths, and ears. The moves are commanded by a dance master,
accompanied by a fiddler playing a monotonous tune over and over again, or
perhaps with a Karaoke player. The most popular liberal line dances are called “The
Shuffle,” “The Dodge,” “Duck and Grovel,” “The Wet Dog,” “The Double Side Step,”
“Shake ‘n Bake,” “The Burqa Bop,” “The Muslim Moon,” “The Prayer Rug Stomp,” “The
Shadada Shimmy,” “The Cover Your Butt,” “The Twirly,” and “The Hillary Rodham.”
Of all the religious, ethnic, or political groups that
make up this country, only Muslims have no dance tradition. Islam does not
permit dancing, except for joyous, spontaneous jumping up and down every time
Americans or Westerners are killed. Muslims only believe in making babies, and
that can’t be comfortably done on the dance floor.
On a more serious note, one of the biggest allies
of Muslim immigration (and also of illegals from South of the Border) are the
myriad "fair housing laws." The federal government has issued them,
and so has every state and local municipality. "Fair housing laws"
prohibit discrimination by race, creed, etc. by property owners or landlords. I left this amended comment on a Sultan Knish
column, “Only
Islam Can Save Us From Islam.”
Employing this law, the feds and Christian charities that bring in Muslims by
the boat full can dump Muslims "immigrants" in places as urban as New
Jersey and as unlikely as Montana.
The irony of a "fair housing" law is similar to that of a state or
city banning smoking in "public" spaces like restaurants, private
clubs, and so on. The irony is that if you set the terms of whom one can
associate with in these conditions, you own the facility, not the owner.
Non-smokers wanted their "safe places" in which to dine. So bars and
restaurants lose business and eventually go out of it. I've seen it happen over
and over again where I live.
And if you try to prohibit Muslims from even applying for living space in this
country in a private venue, you no longer own your apartment or residential
block; the government does and the only beneficiaries are the
"discriminated" applicants. You will be called to court and fined up
the wazoo. And probably even told to pay compensation to Muslims for trying to
keep them out of your hair, out of your daughter's shorts, and off your neck in
terms of knives. You’ve hurt their feelings. Freedom of association is a dead
letter. If you can't choose your tenants, then you are but a steward of
"public" property, and the master sets the rules.
Related to this subject is the new, utterly bizarre
anti-discrimination rule in New York City, which prohibits private businesses
from barring LGBT and other anti-sex groups from employment and perhaps even
housing, and probably even forces bakeries to bake cakes or taking wedding
photographs of people you really don’t want to see or touch. Daniel Greenfield
discusses this rule in a Front Page article, “New
York is Enforcing Gender Identities It Can't Define.”
Individuals
living in New York City can choose from a minimum of 31 different gender
identities, many of which allow them to fluctuate between some version or a combination
of male or female identities.
Businesses
that don’t respect and accommodate an individual’s chosen gender identity
risk incurring six-figure fines under rules implemented by the city’s
Commission on Human Rights.
The list
of protected gender identities is available online and includes options such as
“gender bender,” “two spirit,” “third sex,” “androgynous,” “gender gifted,” and
“pangender.” A city official confirmed
to The Daily Caller that all of the listed identities are protected by the
city’s anti-discrimination laws, but said that the list was not exhaustive.
“Exhaustive” is too delimiting a term. Say, rather,
the list can be expanded ad infinitum.
You have only to use your imagination.
BI-GENDERED
• CROSS-DRESSER • DRAG KING • DRAG QUEEN FEMME QUEEN • FEMALE-TO-MALE • FTM •
GENDER BENDER GENDERQUEER • MALE-TO-FEMALE • MTF • NON-OP • HIJRA PANGENDER •
TRANSEXUAL/TRANSSEXUAL • TRANS PERSON WOMAN • MAN • BUTCH • TWO-SPIRIT • TRANS
• AGENDER THIRD SEX • GENDER FLUID • NON-BINARY TRANSGENDER ANDROGYNE • GENDER
GIFTED • GENDER BLENDER • FEMME PERSON OF TRANSGENDER EXPERIENCE • ANDROGYNOUS
Don’t blink, or you’ll miss page two of all the
alternative genders. Greenfield remarks: “About 70 percent of this list means
the same basic thing. Non-op is also redundant because the official doctrine
now is that a man can claim to be a woman without undergoing any surgery.”
Reading the list, I was reminded of a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode
in which Dr. Beverly Crusher, the Enterprise’s medical officer, was having an
affair with a humanoid alien who was actually just the host of a parasite that
was the real intelligence. The host suddenly dies and a new one is sent for. The
actual alien, put in stasis until the new one arrives, resembled nothing less
than a bovine liver.
The new host arrives. It’s a woman.
Dr. Crusher rejects the prospect of having an
affair with her. When asked why by the host (speaking unseen for the
transplanted bovine liver), she responds that the human race “hasn’t progressed
that far yet.” Or words to that effect. Crusher would be amazed by the number
of “new” genders that don’t even include the livers of ungulates. Perhaps she
would prefer necking with the bladder of a yak. There are more genders on the New
York City Commission’s list than aliens in the crew of the Enterprise, more
aliens in gender than in a Star Wars
cantina sipping Galactic Slurpees.
Of course, readers will all remember the arduous affection
of an Argentinean (or Peruvian) who, with great ceremony, married a tree.
Determined to go one better, several San Diego students married the ocean at
the behest of Santa Monica philosophy professor Amber Katherine. Truth Revolt’s
Trey Sanchez carried the headline grabbing story, “This
Week in Progressive Lunacy: 'EcoSexual' Professor Marries Students to the Ocean.”
Campus
Reform talked with Amber Katherine, a philosophy professor, to explain the
event and what it means. She said it was to bring about an "ecocentric
passion and even lust" for the Earth. Funding for this environmental
"marriage" came courtesy of SMC's Public Policy Institute, as well as
other campus organizations.
Rings were handed out and students were led
with the pronouncement, "With this ring, I bestow upon the sea the
treasures of my mind heart and hands—as well as my body and soul. With the
power vested in us, we now pronounce you ‘married to the sea.'"
Once "wed," the class was
instructed to "make love with the water" by dipping toes in the sea
"or any part of your body that you want."
Splish, splash! Looking out, of course, when
engaged in connubial bliss, for sharks, Portuguese-men-war, and moray eels.
When you marry the ocean, it isn’t promising you a rose garden. Still, the
ocean is what the New York City rules might define as “gender fluid.”
Meryl
Dickson, of The Walking Dead, in between sips of his whiskey, asks:
“Never mind socialism. Do they know anything about differential calculus?”
Let us not forget the landlocked Wiccans, who held
a formal ceremony in the name of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie
Sanders. Craig Bannister of MRCTV reported on May 1st, in “Sanders Camp Holds Friday 13th ‘Ritual for
Bernie’ for Wiccans, Druids and Heathens”:
A
Bernie Sanders event in Portland, Oregon is inviting wiccans, Druids, heathens
and atheists to a “Ritual
for Bernie” to “raise the energy” of his presidential campaign:
“Clearly
you're feeling the Bern. Maybe you're a Wiccan? Pagan? Goddess worshiper?
Heathen? Druid? Spiritual but not religious? Secular Jew? Spiritually open
minded? Unaffiliated? Atheist who likes ritual? Other? And you would like to
engage with a community of like minded individuals to raise the energy of the
Bernie Sanders vibration to a higher frequency and ultimately change the world
for our children, grandchildren, and all future generations. I hear you!”
The
event is aptly set for Friday 13th in a place called Woodstock Park
– and, spelling errors aside, appears to be legitimate, since it claims to be
“Paid for by Bernie 2016” and lists both a “Contribute” button and Sanders’
official campaign mailing address.
With
such hope and change offered by the Wiccans, all Sanders needs now to clinch
the Democratic nomination is a rain dance by Elizabeth
Warren, that war bonnet-wearing faux
Cherokee Indian from Massachusetts.
Let us not leave out the ethereal perorations and scribblings
of university professors. They are in large part responsible for the lunacy in
our culture. On May 16th, Tom Ciccotta ran a Breitbart column, “Madness
Behind the Method: The Writings of the Craziest SJWs in Academia.” Here are some samples of papers written by
the cream of academe:
From North Carolina State: “Sexy warriors: the politics and pleasures of
submission to the state”
Jesse
Paul Crane-Seeber, who received a Ph.D in International Relations at North
Carolina State University, wrote his dissertation on why “war is sexy in
contemporary US culture.” The paper, which was titled “Sexy warriors: the
politics and pleasures of submission to the state” allowed Crane-Seeber to
become an Assistant Professor in Public and International Affairs at NC State.
From
Palgrave Macmillan, publishers: “Pornographic Animals”
“Pornographic
Animals” is a text written by R. Malamud to explore the intersection of visual
sociology and human sexuality. In this groundbreaking work, published by
Palgrave Macmillan, Malamud writes about human-Animal intercourse and why
humans are sexually attracted to animals.
From
the University of California-Santa Barbara: “Smart Cookies: The Gendered
Spaces of Labor, Citizenship, and Nationalism in the Girl Scout Cookie Sale”
This
2013 PhD dissertation points out the danger of selling of girl scout
cookies and argues that the practice “prepares girls for their roles as
American women in a neoliberal and capitalist society.” According to the
author, the girl scout cookie selling tradition is responsible for aiding
in unconscious female support of “market capitalism, neoliberalism, and
American nationalism.” The dissertation argues that the annual girl scout
cookie sale manipulates young girls into blindly accepting American society’s
expected role for women.
From the University of Alberta: “The
Moving Body and Social Change”
Pirkko
Markula of the University of Alberta argues that one of the best ways to fight
capitalism is through personal exercise routines. According to Markula, through
her “experiences as a fitness instructor”, the work “explore[s] if it
is possible to practice movement differently beyond the biopolitics of
neo-liberalism.”
Had enough? There’s much more in Ciccotti’s
article, if you need a good laugh.
But do not laugh too hard or too long. These people exist in
the real world. They want you to come along with them and share their Kook Aid
and power bars. Progressivism is a long, long progression to insanity.
shall begin with “Liberal Line Dancing.”
Some years ago in Baltimore I took a stroll through
a street festival near the Inner Harbor. One event I encountered was something I
hadn’t witnessed in person before: line dancing. I had become immersed in the subject
of dancing while researching the Sparrowhawk
series, set in 18th century Britain and America. I learned that it was only in
the early 19th century that individualized dance between couples was introduced
and became popular, preceded by the form of highly formalized and controlled
modes such as the minuet and its variants, in which the couples barely touched
each other.
Until then, from Medieval times to the present, dance
was largely a collective pastime. Line dancing seems to be a hybrid of square dancing,
which itself has roots in contra or country dancing preceding even Shakespeare’s
time, but without participants even having to touch anyone. I was obliged to square
dance in high school, and had to clasp the sweaty palms of dozens of others of
either gender I didn’t know and didn’t want to know. Personal choice in such
affairs of one’s partners was ruled out.
In liberal political, synchronized line dancing,
all the players, in unison, wobble, wiggle, gesticulate, kick, turn about,
swivel their hips, pantomime, roll their shoulders, and place their hands over
their ears, mouths, and ears. The moves are commanded by a dance master,
accompanied by a fiddler playing a monotonous tune over and over again, or
perhaps with a Karaoke player. The most popular liberal line dances are called “The
Shuffle,” “The Dodge,” “Duck and Grovel,” “The Wet Dog,” “The Double Side Step,”
“Shake ‘n Bake,” “The Burqa Bop,” “The Muslim Moon,” “The Prayer Rug Stomp,” “The
Shadada Shimmy,” “The Cover Your Butt,” “The Twirly,” and “The Hillary Rodham.”
Of all the religious, ethnic, or political groups that
make up this country, only Muslims have no dance tradition. Islam does not
permit dancing, except for joyous, spontaneous jumping up and down every time
Americans or Westerners are killed. Muslims only believe in making babies, and
that can’t be comfortably done on the dance floor.
On a more serious note, one of the biggest allies
of Muslim immigration (and also of illegals from South of the Border) are the
myriad "fair housing laws." The federal government has issued them,
and so has every state and local municipality. "Fair housing laws"
prohibit discrimination by race, creed, etc. by property owners or landlords. I left this amended comment on a Sultan Knish
column, “Only
Islam Can Save Us From Islam.”
Employing this law, the feds and Christian charities that bring in Muslims by
the boat full can dump Muslims "immigrants" in places as urban as New
Jersey and as unlikely as Montana.
The irony of a "fair housing" law is similar to that of a state or
city banning smoking in "public" spaces like restaurants, private
clubs, and so on. The irony is that if you set the terms of whom one can
associate with in these conditions, you own the facility, not the owner.
Non-smokers wanted their "safe places" in which to dine. So bars and
restaurants lose business and eventually go out of it. I've seen it happen over
and over again where I live.
And if you try to prohibit Muslims from even applying for living space in this
country in a private venue, you no longer own your apartment or residential
block; the government does and the only beneficiaries are the
"discriminated" applicants. You will be called to court and fined up
the wazoo. And probably even told to pay compensation to Muslims for trying to
keep them out of your hair, out of your daughter's shorts, and off your neck in
terms of knives. You’ve hurt their feelings. Freedom of association is a dead
letter. If you can't choose your tenants, then you are but a steward of
"public" property, and the master sets the rules.
Related to this subject is the new, utterly bizarre
anti-discrimination rule in New York City, which prohibits private businesses
from barring LGBT and other anti-sex groups from employment and perhaps even
housing, and probably even forces bakeries to bake cakes or taking wedding
photographs of people you really don’t want to see or touch. Daniel Greenfield
discusses this rule in a Front Page article, “New
York is Enforcing Gender Identities It Can't Define.”
Individuals
living in New York City can choose from a minimum of 31 different gender
identities, many of which allow them to fluctuate between some version or a combination
of male or female identities.
Businesses
that don’t respect and accommodate an individual’s chosen gender identity
risk incurring six-figure fines under rules implemented by the city’s
Commission on Human Rights.
The list
of protected gender identities is available online and includes options such as
“gender bender,” “two spirit,” “third sex,” “androgynous,” “gender gifted,” and
“pangender.” A city official confirmed
to The Daily Caller that all of the listed identities are protected by the
city’s anti-discrimination laws, but said that the list was not exhaustive.
“Exhaustive” is too delimiting a term. Say, rather,
the list can be expanded ad infinitum.
You have only to use your imagination.
BI-GENDERED
• CROSS-DRESSER • DRAG KING • DRAG QUEEN FEMME QUEEN • FEMALE-TO-MALE • FTM •
GENDER BENDER GENDERQUEER • MALE-TO-FEMALE • MTF • NON-OP • HIJRA PANGENDER •
TRANSEXUAL/TRANSSEXUAL • TRANS PERSON WOMAN • MAN • BUTCH • TWO-SPIRIT • TRANS
• AGENDER THIRD SEX • GENDER FLUID • NON-BINARY TRANSGENDER ANDROGYNE • GENDER
GIFTED • GENDER BLENDER • FEMME PERSON OF TRANSGENDER EXPERIENCE • ANDROGYNOUS
Don’t blink, or you’ll miss page two of all the
alternative genders. Greenfield remarks: “About 70 percent of this list means
the same basic thing. Non-op is also redundant because the official doctrine
now is that a man can claim to be a woman without undergoing any surgery.”
Reading the list, I was reminded of a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode
in which Dr. Beverly Crusher, the Enterprise’s medical officer, was having an
affair with a humanoid alien who was actually just the host of a parasite that
was the real intelligence. The host suddenly dies and a new one is sent for. The
actual alien, put in stasis until the new one arrives, resembled nothing less
than a bovine liver.
The new host arrives. It’s a woman.
Dr. Crusher rejects the prospect of having an
affair with her. When asked why by the host (speaking unseen for the
transplanted bovine liver), she responds that the human race “hasn’t progressed
that far yet.” Or words to that effect. Crusher would be amazed by the number
of “new” genders that don’t even include the livers of ungulates. Perhaps she
would prefer necking with the bladder of a yak. There are more genders on the New
York City Commission’s list than aliens in the crew of the Enterprise, more
aliens in gender than in a Star Wars
cantina sipping Galactic Slurpees.
Of course, readers will all remember the arduous affection
of an Argentinean (or Peruvian) who, with great ceremony, married a tree.
Determined to go one better, several San Diego students married the ocean at
the behest of Santa Monica philosophy professor Amber Katherine. Truth Revolt’s
Trey Sanchez carried the headline grabbing story, “This
Week in Progressive Lunacy: 'EcoSexual' Professor Marries Students to the Ocean.”
Campus
Reform talked with Amber Katherine, a philosophy professor, to explain the
event and what it means. She said it was to bring about an "ecocentric
passion and even lust" for the Earth. Funding for this environmental
"marriage" came courtesy of SMC's Public Policy Institute, as well as
other campus organizations.
Rings were handed out and students were led
with the pronouncement, "With this ring, I bestow upon the sea the
treasures of my mind heart and hands—as well as my body and soul. With the
power vested in us, we now pronounce you ‘married to the sea.'"
Once "wed," the class was
instructed to "make love with the water" by dipping toes in the sea
"or any part of your body that you want."
Splish, splash! Looking out, of course, when
engaged in connubial bliss, for sharks, Portuguese-men-war, and moray eels.
When you marry the ocean, it isn’t promising you a rose garden. Still, the
ocean is what the New York City rules might define as “gender fluid.”
Meryl
Dickson, of The Walking Dead, in between sips of his whiskey, asks:
“Never mind socialism. Do they know anything about differential calculus?”
Let us not forget the landlocked Wiccans, who held
a formal ceremony in the name of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie
Sanders. Craig Bannister of MRCTV reported on May 1st, in “Sanders Camp Holds Friday 13th ‘Ritual for
Bernie’ for Wiccans, Druids and Heathens”:
A
Bernie Sanders event in Portland, Oregon is inviting wiccans, Druids, heathens
and atheists to a “Ritual
for Bernie” to “raise the energy” of his presidential campaign:
“Clearly
you're feeling the Bern. Maybe you're a Wiccan? Pagan? Goddess worshiper?
Heathen? Druid? Spiritual but not religious? Secular Jew? Spiritually open
minded? Unaffiliated? Atheist who likes ritual? Other? And you would like to
engage with a community of like minded individuals to raise the energy of the
Bernie Sanders vibration to a higher frequency and ultimately change the world
for our children, grandchildren, and all future generations. I hear you!”
The
event is aptly set for Friday 13th in a place called Woodstock Park
– and, spelling errors aside, appears to be legitimate, since it claims to be
“Paid for by Bernie 2016” and lists both a “Contribute” button and Sanders’
official campaign mailing address.
With
such hope and change offered by the Wiccans, all Sanders needs now to clinch
the Democratic nomination is a rain dance by Elizabeth
Warren, that war bonnet-wearing faux
Cherokee Indian from Massachusetts.
Let us not leave out the ethereal perorations and scribblings
of university professors. They are in large part responsible for the lunacy in
our culture. On May 16th, Tom Ciccotta ran a Breitbart column, “Madness
Behind the Method: The Writings of the Craziest SJWs in Academia.” Here are some samples of papers written by
the cream of academe:
From North Carolina State: “Sexy warriors: the politics and pleasures of
submission to the state”
Jesse
Paul Crane-Seeber, who received a Ph.D in International Relations at North
Carolina State University, wrote his dissertation on why “war is sexy in
contemporary US culture.” The paper, which was titled “Sexy warriors: the
politics and pleasures of submission to the state” allowed Crane-Seeber to
become an Assistant Professor in Public and International Affairs at NC State.
From
Palgrave Macmillan, publishers: “Pornographic Animals”
“Pornographic
Animals” is a text written by R. Malamud to explore the intersection of visual
sociology and human sexuality. In this groundbreaking work, published by
Palgrave Macmillan, Malamud writes about human-Animal intercourse and why
humans are sexually attracted to animals.
From
the University of California-Santa Barbara: “Smart Cookies: The Gendered
Spaces of Labor, Citizenship, and Nationalism in the Girl Scout Cookie Sale”
This
2013 PhD dissertation points out the danger of selling of girl scout
cookies and argues that the practice “prepares girls for their roles as
American women in a neoliberal and capitalist society.” According to the
author, the girl scout cookie selling tradition is responsible for aiding
in unconscious female support of “market capitalism, neoliberalism, and
American nationalism.” The dissertation argues that the annual girl scout
cookie sale manipulates young girls into blindly accepting American society’s
expected role for women.
From the University of Alberta: “The
Moving Body and Social Change”
Pirkko
Markula of the University of Alberta argues that one of the best ways to fight
capitalism is through personal exercise routines. According to Markula, through
her “experiences as a fitness instructor”, the work “explore[s] if it
is possible to practice movement differently beyond the biopolitics of
neo-liberalism.”
Had enough? There’s much more in Ciccotti’s
article, if you need a good laugh.
But do not laugh too hard or too long. These people exist in
the real world. They want you to come along with them and share their Kook Aid
and power bars. Progressivism is a long, long progression to insanity.
May 12, 2016
It Didn’t Start With Marx
An extraordinary book came my way, one which alters
to some degree my own focus on the current conflict between socialism and
conservatism, between secular political collectivism and religious political
collectivism in America. This is George Watson’s The Lost Literature of Socialism, originally
published in 1998 and reissued in 2001. Then, as now, it is largely unheralded
by the doyens of socialism and conservatism. The book remains obscure for many
reasons, not least of which is that its contents are a revelation which current
socialists and egalitarians would prefer not become general knowledge.
Many of the unsavory roots of socialism, as
highlighted by Watson, are hardly complimentary or flattering and do not lend
themselves to the unicorn picture of a humane political system in which no
person wants for anything, neither free cell phone, an education, and two cars
in every garage. But the sources and roots of socialism are basically unknown
to modern advocates, who are genuinely ignorant and oblivious to what their
forerunners had in mind. They are asking for something the true and inevitable
nature of which they do not bother to examine in any depth other than quoting
Marxist “scripture” out of historical context and often out of the context of a
writer’s works.
Modern socialists are not holding fingers to their
lips and urging sotto voce, “Shush!
It’s really embarrassing what so many of our pioneer socialists said and did,
it’s best that this knowledge not get around! If people knew, it could harm the
cause!” No. They are utterly oblivious to the truth. Watson notes that, overall, modern Marxists “were
not just ignorant of the world. They were ignorant of Marx.” (p. 27)
In
1983, in one of his last books, Politics
of the Ancient World, [Moses] Finley rightly deplored the vulgar habit of
calling all class analysis Marxist, since, he said, it is in fact at least as
old as Aristotle.
Socialism as an articulated, propagated cause,
therefore, did not start with the publication of The
Communist Manifesto (1848) or with Das
Capital (1867). It had been growing long in the tooth for decades, even
centuries before Marx was even born. Watson, a British Liberal, in his Preface,
writes:
The
literature of socialism is lost in the sense that it is unread….A lost
literature is still a literature, after all, whether it survives in books, periodicals,
or manuscripts, and it is the business of the literary historian to read it….
There
is abundant evidence…that socialism was not always supposed to be left-wing or
favorable to the poor, whether by its adherents or its opponents. It was not
anti-racialist…and not always in favor of the welfare state.
Why have they not been heralded? Why have these
classic works been ignored, that is, ignored in the sense that they are known
and contain inconvenient ideas, not because they are known but snubbed and
given short shrift? In the main, most advocates of socialism today do not
understand what it is they are advocating. It is because Watson, in researching
the sources and foundations of socialism and socialist thought, realized that
most of the big names in the history of the development of socialist ideology
were, practically to a man, conservatives!
That is, they wished to preserve the status quo of
an elite cadre that governs men and disposes of their lives and property. They
wished to have the power of Mandrake the Magigian to appropriate the wealth
created by capitalism and create a new social order based on collectivism using
that wealth, with themselves as the governing class above everyone else.
The vision they commonly held was one that projected
an “idyllic” Medieval era, when knights jousted on brave steeds, the elite held
court and ate well, and the general population existed at subsistence level or was
locked into a guild socialism mosaic of trades and crafts, never to dream of
leaving their assigned stations in life or aspiring to leave their allotted
status as yeomen and servants for the privileged.
The Kennedy clan can be said to be the first
full-fledged realization of a self-perpetuating aristocracy that lorded it over
the rest of us. It was Joseph Kennedy, Sr.’s intent that his family should
rule, and rule in the literal sense of the word, a rule that bought off the
populace with socialist bromides and platitudes to placate the hoi polloi and plebeians with
legislative crumbs.
There isn’t a howling socialist demonstrator or
candidate for political office who does not
want to be in that elite, from Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Paul Ryan, and
virtually every Democrat and Republican. They want to preserve the status quo
so that they can rule, and rule from the vantage point of privilege and
empowerment. The “revolution” they want to ignite is not a drive to higher
heights of social organization, but a revolving door that puts them back in
power, after some messy “revolutionary” disturbances, as the privileged class,
insulated from the travails they impose on the population at large.
Until Karl Marx came along, socialists who predated
him thought of socialism in terms of rank,
not class. The difference between rank
and class is purely “social,” and has little to do with “class warfare” or the
evolution of capitalism to an ideal social state. Rank implies that one knows
one’s place in society. You take orders, do what’s expected of you, and never
presume to tell the next person up the ladder his business.
A promotional flyer for Watson’s book reads and
captures the tenor of Watson’s opus:
…Watson
examines the foundation texts of socialism to find out what they really say:
the result is blasphemy against socialism and against socialism’s canon of
saints. Marx and Engels publicly advocated genocide in 1849; Ruskin called
himself a violent Tory….and [George Bernard] Shaw held the working classes in
utter contempt. Drawing on an impressive range of sources from Robert Own to
Ken Livingstone, the author demonstrates that socialism was a conservative,
nostalgic reaction to the radicalism of capitalism, and not always supposed to
be advantageous to the poor….Two chapters…study Hitler’s claim that the whole
of National Socialism [Nazism] was based on Marx, and bring to light the common
theoretical basis of the beliefs of Stalin and Hitler which lead to death
camps. As a literary critic, Watson’s concern is to pay proper respect to the
works of the founding fathers of socialism, to attend to what they say and not
to what their modern disciples wish they had said….
Here is a sampling of what the “ancients” of
socialism said. In 1862, John Ruskin (1810-1900), an art critic and essayist, and
virulently opposed to the Industrial Revolution, published Unto
This Last . Watson writes:
Whether
medieval, Neolithic, or Paleolithic, socialism was from its origins a
hierarchical doctrine, and it habitually venerated aristocracy and leadership. “My
continual aim,” Ruskin wrote in Unto This
Last,
...has
been to show the eternal superiority of some men to others, sometimes even of
one man to all others; and to show also the advisability of appointing such
person or persons to guide, to lead, or on occasion even to compel and subdue,
their inferiors according to their own better knowledge and wider will” (paragraph
54).
Those
who have wondered why, in practice, socialists can be so snobbish may have
their answer here. They were not snobs in spite of being socialists…but
socialists because they were snobs. Capitalism, after all, is radically vulgar…and
it can give spending power to the most dreadful people. (p. 48)
I may be an upper class twit, but I own you.
I do not know if Ruskin ever killed anyone, but
V.I. Lenin (1870-1924) killed on a mass scale once the Bolshevik government was
established in 1917. Yet, he hailed from the Russian aristocracy. His father
was made an hereditary nobleman for his work in education. Lenin, for all his
hard-scrabble revolutionary activities and periods of imprisonment and exile,
had aristocratic pretensions. Watson sheds some light on Lenin’s aims:
The
principle of socialist aristocracy was candidly announced by Lenin fifteen
years before he seized power, and in What
Is to Be Done?, a pamphlet written in exile, he put a blunt case for
the rule of an intellectual elite….Lenin’s argument is uncompromising. Since
Marxist revolution is based on theory, and only intellectuals can understand
theory, only an intellectual elite can lead the revolution: “the educated
representatives of the propertied class, the intelligentsia.” (pp. 48-49)
The chief and overriding end of Lenin’s crusade
against the Romanoffs and aristocracy was to replace them in fact and in
political practice with Lenin and his commissars (and their successors). This is
what happened. Soviet Russia, for over half a century, was ruled by a
self-perpetuating aristocracy.
Socialism
necessarily means government by a privileged class, as Lenin saw, since only
those of privileged education are capable of planning and governing. [George
Bernard] Shaw and H.G. Wells [both British Fabians], too, often derided the
notion that ordinary people can be trusted with political choice….Socialism had
to be based on privilege…since only privilege educates for the due exercise of
centralized power in a planned economy….The next step was for the ruling elites
of the socialist world to grant themselves the privileges, sometimes even
hereditary privileges of a ruling caste. (p. 49)
On pages 62 and 63, Watson provides an note about
the origin of key terms:
Socialism
was first used as a term by Robert Owen in the “Cooperative Magazine” in 1827;
and it was an English Christian Socialist, Goodwyn Barnby, who claimed in 1848
to have invented the word “communism” in Paris in 1840.
Watson cites numerous “unknown” advocates or
critics of socialism throughout The Lost
Literature, among them Alfred Sudre, a French lawyer and writer who
published, in 1848, Histoire
du Communisme .
Its subtitle was “an historical refutation of
socialist utopias.’ Sudre opposed socialism and communism. He wrote that
private property was the best defense of the poor against oppression by a stratified
communist or socialist aristocratic establishment. Watson writes of Sudre that
he averred that
The
liberating claims of socialism…however sincere, are a chimera, and the nation
that places economic power in the hands of a central authority, Sudre argues,
will end with a tyranny like Plato’s guardians, ruled by fear and military
discipline. It was the commitment of political thinkers in antiquity to the
concept of a perfect state that led them into the monstrous errors that now
threaten mankind, and Sudre was the first to notice how deeply indebted the
early socialist thinkers were to the heritage of ancient philosophy, though his
target was not Aristotle, who inspired Marx, but Aristotle’s master, Plato.
Sudre, writes Watson, was more radical than
traditionalist, radical in the sense that he saw free enterprise and private
property as a defense against socialist tyranny.
His
case is both theoretical and practical. The real charge against communism is
that, whatever its motives, its effects would be to create a privileged caste. It
is more conservative, as an idea, than any group or party which, in a
democratic age, chooses to call itself that. (p. 66)
Watson’s discourse is replete with discussions of
obscure writers and excerpts from their works, pro and con socialism. Sudre,
John Millar, David Hume, William Morris, Marx, Engels, and so on. It was not so
startling, for example, to read that Hitler was first and foremost a socialist
(thus the name of his Nazi party, the National
Socialist German Workers' Party), but he was willing to allow some free
enterprise in order to prop up his command economy. The striking thing is that,
while he maintained a lifelong enmity for socialists and communists, he
admitted in private that he and Nazism were indebted to Marx and Marxism –
including the means to exterminate whole races as Stalin could, except he claimed
that the Nazis were more efficient at it.
I highly recommend Watson’s The Lost Literature of
Socialism, especially to those socialists among us who wish to redistribute our
lives, our property, and our futures. As a friend who has read it remarked, “there
is a nugget on every page.” Socialists who heed my recommendation, however, may
need to recalibrate their political philosophy.
The
Lost Literature of Socialism , by George Watson. Cambridge, UK: The
Lutterworth Press, 1998. 112 pp.
May 9, 2016
Preview of "Exegesis"
I expect to finish Exegesis by at least the end of May. I thought this would be a fitting inaugural post for the "new" Rule of Reason. I hope you enjoy it.
Foreword by the Author
It is late June, 1929. Cyrus Skeen has concluded his case in Stolen Words, in which he exonerated a prominent novelist of the charge of murder, even though the author had plagiarized other authors with the cooperation of the now defunct publisher. Skeen’s artist wife, Dilys, has returned from a visit to relatives back East in Massachusetts, and was preparing to work on her first painting. Skeen’s new secretary, Lucy Wentz, is quick on the uptake, and is working out fine. But now a new nemesis has confronted Skeen, an unknown person who is killing people who have committed horrendous crimes. He writes Skeen and expresses his appreciation for Skeen’s crime-fighting acumen and skills, but wants Skeen to join him in a crusade to terminate all killers. Skeen has not killed any criminal gratuitously – he has killed in self-defense only when someone has threatened to kill him or someone who is a value to him – and wonders why his admirer thinks he would be open to the idea. Then the district attorney for San Francisco demands an explanation for why Skeen’s revolver was found next a murdered mass killer. More criminals are found dead. The unknown vigilante pins a note to each body, signed “Exegesis.”In another unusual case tackled by Cyrus Skeen, the intrepid and unflappable detective delves into the mystery with his usual panache and certitude.
Chapter 7: An Evening at Maud’s
Mrs. Maud Skipton, prominent society hostess and wife of the ever-absent Jerome Skipton, wealthy shipping magnate and Pacific trader, hosted lavishly catered parties in her Nob Hill mansion, which was directly opposite Carmel Towers on Sacramento Street on the other side of the Hill. Her wealth and ability to become Nob Hill’s social arbiter was sustained by her husband, who had interests in almost every facet of Pacific trade and shipping. Cyrus Skeen, private detective and a member of San Francisco "society," could recall meeting Mr. Skipton only once and very briefly years ago at another of his wife’s parties. He somehow managed to be away on business in the Far East every time his wife threw one of her get-togethers.Mrs. Skipton was stout and aged fifty-two. Skeen and his wife occasionally attended her parties more for the kinds of people they might meet than out of any expectation of enjoyment. Dilys frequently referred to Mrs. Skipton as the "de facto dowager."Skeen regarded Maud Skipton as a simple, charming and harmless woman who valued the beauty of a high society community into which she welcomed anyone with a certain amount of class and sophistication. Although she herself was not brilliant in any sense, she put great stock in the brilliance of her soirees. She tolerated Skeen’s ribbing and jesting about her because she knew he was not vicious. Her frequent and well-attended parties were an antidote to her cloying loneliness.Skeen and Dilys walked from Carmel Towers to the Skipton Mansion across Nob Hill. It was a pleasant, warmish evening. The doorman recognized them and greeted them. The Skeens knew their way around the mansion and went directly to the grand staircase that led to the ballroom upstairs.The dazzlingly lit ballroom beyond was thick with guests, men in tuxedos, women in evening gowns, and servants circulating with trays of drinks. A band somewhere in the back played a popular tune at just the right pitch so as not to drown out conversation. Dilys gave the butler her black cape at the door. She and Skeen were instantly greeted by the hostess.Maud Skipton, sporting three strings of pearls and in a silvery gown that did not attempt to disguise her stoutness, gave them an effusive welcome. “Thank you both for coming this evening, my two dearest neighbors! I could hug you both!”“Thank you for inviting us, Maud,” said Skeen, resplendent in his tuxedo. Dilys was wearing a shimmering, blue satin, backless frock. Her blondish-brown hair featured a black feathered headband with a black feather. “Happy birthday, Maud,” said Dilys. Skeen presented the woman with a flat box gift-wrapped in sparkling green paper. “Something to keep you warm on chilly nights,” he said. Attached to it was a small, enameled white cardboard with caricatures Dilys has drawn on it: Skeen was represented by a pair of probing eyes and a lock of hair over his forehead; Dilys represented herself with half-closed, seductive eyes and pouting lips. At the bottom of the card were Skeen’s and Dilys’s signatures.Maud took the package and stared at the caricatures. “How ingenious! How marvelous! I shall keep the card alone!” She shook the box and looked quizzical. “What’s in here?”Skeen grinned impishly. “Well, we found Mr. Skipton, dry-cleaned him, folded him up, wrapped some colorful ribbons around him, and fitted him into the box. He protested a little, but we gagged him.”Skeen knew that he could jest about Jerome Skipton without hurting the woman’s feelings. It was a running private joke between Maud and him.In the box was a sable shoulder wrap Skeen had found in Baum’s on Union Square. The hostess laughed and squeezed Skeen’s shoulder. “You naughty boy! I ought to send you to your room without supper! In fact, you two are such dears to me I wish I could adopt you both as my children!”“You’d regret it,” said Dilys. “We're unruly and misbehaved. Cyrus and I had to report to the Truancy Department twice just this week.”“Dilys – may I call you Dilys? – ” Maud answered, touching Dilys’s bare shoulder, “you look enchanting. The feathers become you. And my hero here looks dashing, he’s my favorite real-life heartthrob, you know!”Dilys leaned a little closer to Maud. “Just you keep your hands off of him, Mrs. Skipton,” she said in jest, “or we shall have to go three rounds.”“Gladly, darling,” replied Maud. “You’re a sprite, and could probably fly circles around my head and make me dizzy. Well, here’s the to-do, the buffet is over there, drinks are on me, of course, and I’m sure you’ll want to meet old acquaintances. The band I hired sounds lively. Shoo!” She waved the couple inside the ballroom and handed the butler the gift. Another couple was waiting to be greeted.Dilys remarked to Skeen as they went in, “She’s a pip.”“A pip and a half.”“Am I really a sprite?”Skeen grinned. “You’ve had your spritely moments, darling, but you are most assuredly not a sprite.”“What am I to you, if not a sprite?”Skeen put his arm around Dilys’s waist and squeezed it. “You’re my very private vamp.”Dilys pressed his hand closer on her waist. “Yes, I am. You had an exclusive on me a long time ago.”“Do you like vamping me?”“Yes. Every minute. Because I know what to expect.”“And you don’t have to bat a single eyelash.”Dilys grinned broadly up at her husband. “But, if I batted one eyelash, I’d be winking at you.”“I won't stop you.”The ballroom was ringed with café tables, each of which held a slim vase with a rose in it, a crystal ashtray, and tiny placemats on which were inscribed, “Happy Birthday, Maud.”. Skeen and Dilys found a vacant table and sat down. They were almost immediately approached by a servant who asked them what they would like to drink. Skeen said, “Scotch and soda, please.”Dilys answered, “The same, thank you.”The servant disappeared into the milling crowd. Skeen broke out his cigarette case and lighter and placed them firmly on the white napkin before him. Dilys took a cigarette holder out of her tiny purse, which was attached to her wrist by a silver cord.Couples sat at either side of the Skeens, and were busy with their own conversations. The crowd was decidedly middle-aged, with a generous sprinkling of older men and women. Carpeting had been removed to make room for a dance floor in front of the band, which sat on a slightly elevated platform. Close to it was an open bar manned by three bow-tied bartenders in white shirts. On the other side of the band was the buffet with a variety of food and desserts. At the end of the buffet was a table holding an enormous birthday cake of blue, green, and yellow icing. It was half gone by now; a woman in a maid servant’s uniform was handing out slices to guests. Multicolored paper ribbons and balloons hung from the ceiling and moved gently in the wafting air. “The band sounds good,” Skeen remarked as he lit an Old Gold. “Better than the last time we were here.”Dilys nodded. “I think the band leader or the drummer was drunk that night.”“Yes, that’s right. The band leader couldn’t keep up with the drummer, or the drummer kept falling behind the notes. I don’t think Maud asked that band back again.”The servant reappeared and gave them their drinks. He bowed once and went to other tables to offer to refresh the occupants’ drinks.“That’s a nice tune,” remarked Dilys. “Never heard it until now.”“I think it’s called ‘The Cat Walk.’ It was being played over the speakers at the Merry-Go-Round the other day when Millard and I had lunch there. I asked the waitress what it was. There was a singer, some of whose lyrics I couldn’t understand. But some of what he sang went, ‘It’s nice to hear you purr over me.’ Or words to that effect. His ‘meows’ were definitely off-key.”“See anyone you want to talk to?” asked Dilys.Skeen said, “I see a few people I’ve offended one way or another at past parties, but I don’t think they’d welcome another conversation with me. And at the moment, I don’t feel like introducing myself to strangers.”“I hope Maud likes her present.”“She will.”“What’s that dance people are doing to ‘The Cat Walk’?” asked Dilys.Skeen studied the couples, who were doing fantastic contortions and whirls and pausing now and then to stamp their feet on the floor. He shrugged. “I guess it’s a leftover from Isadora Duncan’s day. A combination of ‘I’m a Little Teapot,’ an epileptic seizure, and the Argentine tango. I don’t think cats have anything to do with their gyrations.”“It’s a horrible dance,” said Dilys. “It’s worse than the Charleston.”Dilys asked Skeen, “Isn't that Louise Brooks over there? In the corner, at the buffet with that sour-looking fellow.”Skeen looked at the object of Dilys’s attention. “Yes, I think it is. She’s looking particularly sultry this evening.”They chatted amiably without consequence with some guests who came to their table, then went for slices of Maud’s birthday cake, which they brought back to their table.. Skeen blinked once after a few forkfuls. He said to Dilys, “Correct me if I’m imagining things, but I think the creator of that cake slipped in a few poppy seeds. The better to wish Maud a very happy birthday.”Dilys smiled. “I’m feeling distinctly light-headed, too. I wonder if Maud knows, or if she gave the baker special instructions.” She paused and stared at her cake. “It might have been a whole bushel full.”Skeen hummed to himself. “I think we’d better have a plate of the beef Stroganoff. And coffee. I suspect that Maud had had a few slices of her cake by the time she greeted us.”“You know,” said Skeen, glancing at the glittering, noisy crowd before them, “I think most of the guess tonight are giddy from her birthday cake. They seem unusually chatty and bubbly.”The party went on. As soon as Skeen and Dilys had finished their beef Stroganoff, a waiter came to sweep the porcelain away. A couple approached their table. “Excuse me, sir. Aren’t you Cyrus Skeen, the fabulous private detective?”Skeen nodded. “And this is my fabulous wife, Dilys.”The two couples exchanged nods.“Pleased to meet you both, for sure. I’m Baxter Barnes. This is my wife, Josephine. We live in the Cow Hollow down the hill.”“A pretty steep climb,” Skeen remarked.Mr. Barnes chuckled. “It is! But, I just wanted to ask you what you thought of this Carlyle business? It’s just a shame that he chose to end it all. He was a pretty promising fellow. Could’ve succeeded Kragan, if he lasted long enough.”
Skeen scoffed mildly. “He was promising, but apparently he didn’t deliver on that promise.”“That’s a rather cryptic observation, sir.”
“Read tomorrow’s Observer-World for more details about Mr. Carlyle. I’m not at liberty to divulge them at the moment.”Mr. Barnes smiled and wagged a finger. “I knew you had something to do with it! You’re always involved in some scandal or other!”Skeen shook his head. “Maybe, Mr. Barnes, and I’m not even a scandalmonger.” He rose and said, “You’ll please excuse us, but my wife and I would like to take a turn on the floor.”Dilys rose in answer.Mr. Barnes offered his hand. “Well, nevertheless, sir, I’d like to thank you for keeping our streets free of criminals.”Skeen shook the man’s hand and replied, “The irony of it is, Mr. Barnes, is that most of the criminals I’ve collared have never endangered or harassed the public at large.” He smiled, took Dilys’s hand, and led her away.Skeen and Dilys danced a fox trot to “Double Talk, Trouble Talk,” and then a slow dance to the Gershwins’ “Someone to Watch Over Me.” When the numbers were finished, they went directly to the bar, ordered fresh drinks, and returned to their table. Skeen lit another cigarette, and lit one for Dilys after she had fitted one into her holder. She noticed a small, cream-colored envelope sitting atop Skeen’s old drink. It was addressed to Skeen. “I think someone’s left you a mash note, darling. Please, don’t let it be from Maud.”Skeen grinned, took the envelope, and slit it open. He took out the note that was inside, unfolded it, and then put down his new drink.Dilys glanced at his face. It was grim.Skeen said, “He’s here.”“Who?”He handed her the note. Dilys read the note, her brow becoming dark with anger. The elegantly written note read:“Mr. Skeen:Well played, sir. I regret that the experiment cost Mr. Carlyle his life. I had not intended that. I was hoping he had the stamina and bottom to work to replace the implacable Mr. Kragan, some day, at least, but that is now not to be. But, I was certain you would have had enough of the matter that you would take matters into your own hands and, like, Theseus, venture into the Minotaur’s own lair. Your unintended slaying of the poor fellow at his own game was a masterpiece. My hat is off to you. ‘Exegesis’”
Dilys handed the note back to Skeen. “Where is he?” she asked, her eyes busy scanning the crowd.‘I don’t know, darling,” said Skeen. “I’ve never set eyes on him. But if he’s here, then he must be on the guest list.”
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