Gambling with our future, again

I cast my vote today. After a lot of soul-searching about what choice to make, it is something of a relief to have the voting process done and over with, for myself at least. Now I can be at peace about it, knowing that I made a conscientious choice that seemed, given the available choices, the best one.

I see that The Economist editors have decreed that ''It's Time". Time for Obama to be President. He's earned it, they inform us.

In terms of painting a brighter future for America and the world, Mr Obama has produced the more compelling and detailed portrait. He has campaigned with more style, intelligence and discipline than his opponent. Whether he can fulfil his immense potential remains to be seen. But Mr Obama deserves the presidency.''

It's not as though this is surprising, coming from The Economist. They are not conservative, but globalist/corporatist in their overall philosophy. I let my subscription lapse some time ago because I got tired of their always pontificating about the Third World or "the poor world" vs. "the rich world", the latter being us, of course. It's clear they favor mass immigration to the 'rich world' and they favor the globalist agenda generally. There is nothing conservative about that.

But the idea that Obama has earned the presidency is absurd. They say the way he has conducted his campaign is persuasive.
What I think they are really saying is the same thing that Obama fans have said: ''it's time." The idea is that "it's time" for a black President. Like Hillary's female followers said, "it's time" for a woman President.

What kind of idiocy is this "it's time" mantra? If we choose our Presidents that way, why have elections, why have requirements for holding the office? Let's just pick one of every kind, every race, creed, nationality, sexual preference, gender (don't let's leave out 'transgendered' people!) and language. Why not? Take turns, now, children. It sounds like kindergarten: everybody gets a turn. So now it's blacks' turn.

A modest proposal: I propose we just throw some names into a big barrel, like in a raffle or lottery, and draw them out at random. It would save enormous amounts of money that is now squandered on these overblown 'campaigns', which are tiresome, dishonest, and generally useless. It would be eminently 'fair' if all you care about is giving people of every race, nationality, and so on a ''turn" at running the country. For example since somebody somewhere has decided "it's time" for a black President, we could just throw a lot of black people's names into the barrel and draw one out at random. We might want to discard all the requirements for the Presidency, too, They are probably racist and they certainly are 'discriminatory.' After all, allowing only citizens to be President is unfair, isn't it? Oh, wait: it looks as though that requirement is now being ignored anyway, suspended so as not to 'discriminate' against Obama, who refuses to prove his citizenship.

After we have a black president, will it ever be "time" for a White President again, especially a White male president? Somehow I have doubts about that. A precedent will be established, and then the Republicans will have to run a nonwhite candidate. I am sure they have somebody in mind, even now. And in the future, Hispanics, by sheer numerical superiority, will be in the drivers' seat.

I don't know which way the election will go; I did my (small) part as a citizen and we will have to wait until Tuesday (at least) to learn the outcome. I hope people will vote for the best (among the less-than-stellar choices) and not vote out of spite against fellow Americans, or vote for the worst in hopes of a backlash. Too much is at stake to take chances or gamble on extremely long shots.

The Economist says:

America should take a chance and make Barack Obama the next leader of the free world.''

I prefer not to gamble with the future of this country; my family, like a lot of American families, has a great deal invested in this country. At great risk and cost to themselves, our forefathers settled, created, and sustained this country for centuries (since the early 1600s, in the case of many of us). To roll the dice with the future of this land, to risk our progeny's future is not a chance we should want to take.

For what it's worth...

A few Obama-related links:
First, Barack Hussein Obama and the Triumph of Marxism
Fjordman's latest on Obama.

Several of the links following contain some information about Obama which certainly calls into question the facts presented by the candidate himself and his campaign people. However, I've been halfhearted about posting links of this kind because I think most of my readers have no illusions about Obama, and those who really should read these things and consider them objectively will not do so, being fully indoctrinated members of the cult. So it may be preaching to the choir to post these links, and I suspect most of you are aware of the information contained therein, having already read it at the linked sites or elsewhere. But I present the links as rather interesting information, raising further questions.

These links have some interesting information about Obama's vague past, and the many gaps and unanswered questions.

Pamela at Atlas Shrugs compiled an impressive amount of information about Obama's birth, and notes the discrepancies between the official story, and the (rather scant) existing public information.

This rather odd story from the Times UK introduces readers to Obama's 'auntie' living in public housing in Boston, and his uncle, both described as coping with the "harsh realities" of immigrant life in the U.S.

And last, but certainly not least, Steve Sailer has made his new book on Obama available online at VDare. It's available in .pdf format, and can be downloaded. I've downloaded it, but I have not yet started reading it. Have any of you?


The .pdf file is here: America's Half-blood Prince: Barack Obama's Story of Race and Inheritance

Comments glitch

Just a heads-up: there seems to be a problem with Haloscan; some of your comments which appear on my Haloscan page are not showing up here as yet. Some of my own comments also seem to be hung up somehow, so if your comment is missing, it is likely a Haloscan problem.
I hope it's corrected soon.

Who's to blame? Where did it go wrong?

During yesterday's discussion of my piece on 'fight or flight'', ''stand or fall", some of the younger commenters spoke of feeling betrayed or angry with the older generations, because those who lived before us failed to avert the disaster that has since befallen this country.

Why, it may reasonably be asked, did someone in past generations not see this train wreck coming and act to prevent it?

The short answer is: some did. A prescient few saw or sensed what the ultimate outcome of, say, the 1965 Immigration Act would be, and opposed it. A number of the older generation in the South -- heck, even in the North, warned what the outcome of ''integration'' would be. They warned that the races would mingle, with a leveling downward of social mores, and they warned that the barriers and walls which nature had created among the different races would be broken down, and a blurring of the races would begin, with unfavorable results for majority America. Carlton Putnam was one such voice of warning, and there were many others, whose names are forgotten.

It appears to me that they have been vindicated, that what they warned of actually has come to pass.
In fact, I would say that their prophecies were rather mild, compared to what has actually transpired.

And of course there were many during the 40s and 50s and even into the 60s who warned of the encroaching Communist influence, and of its plans for 'transforming' our country stealthily.

Why were these watchmen not heeded?
In part, it was because those in power in the media, in government, in academia, and even in the business world, were complicit, to a greater or lesser degree, in the transformation of our country. The 'voices in the wilderness' were increasingly ignored by those who control the flow of news and information. Where they were not ignored, they were ridiculed, called 'paranoid' and reactionary, and ultimately excluded from influential circles, marginalized, dismissed as anachronistic or 'right-wing extremists'.

Most of us, except for the most vigilant and strong-willed, become caught up to some extent in the dominant currents of our time. Most of us absorb a certain amount of the liberal propaganda which has become so all-pervasive during the last 30 or 40 years. Peer pressure is also a factor, even among adults. We tend to be influenced somewhat by the popular ideas and trends of our time. Sometimes radical liberal innovations are so cleverly insinuated into our society that they are not recognized as what they are, but are simply seen as 'progress', an inexorable process which 'just happens', which is inevitable, and for that reason, somehow good.

Then we tend to scorn the ideas of our parents and grandparents simply because those ideas were held by our parents and grandparents. Who wants to be associated with the backward thinking of fusty old folks who just didn't ''get it", having been deprived of the wonderful enlightenment of our present day?

Nationalism, or simply loving kin, home, hearth, faith, and nation are so yesterday, so 20th century. Everybody knows we are moving on to a new paradigm for the new millennium, and it's all about 'one world', unity in diversity, transformation, global villages, and so on. ''Globalize yourself'' as one cable TV channel commands us.

It's not a new thing that people are, to some extent, products of their age. They absorb, often by osmosis, the reigning ideas or buzzwords or shibboleths of the era, and of the social class in which they live and move and have their being. The media, too, are omnipresent and all but omnipotent, it seems, in shaping people's thinking. And the media, collectively, are a malevolent influence in our world.

But are we all just products of our environment? I would say, and I think most conservatives would say: NO.
We are not blank slates. And the fact that there are many insistent voices murmuring in our ears, telling us what to think and what to say and what to believe does not absolve us of the responsibility to think for ourselves.

Even in some of the more oppressive regimes in the history of our planet, there have been dissenters who saw through the propaganda and the lies, and who stood up and resisted the pressures toward groupthink. Totalitarians can try, but they can't fetter our minds, not completely.

My parents grew up in a much freer and healthier time, so they were subjected to fewer malign influences than my generation and succeeding generations, who have been steeped in Political Correctness. Still they had certain blind spots; perhaps they trusted government too much; those who lived through the Great Depression often tended to see Big Government as the dispenser of all good things. My parents were taught, as good Americans, to obey lawful authority, and to honor our leaders and our national symbols. Patriotism is a good thing, insofar as our government is a just or legitimate authority. But if carried to the extreme of blind obedience and the refusal to scrutinize our government and hold it accountable, it is a negative thing.

Again, some in the older generations were able to 'see through' things, and sift what was just from what was unjust, what was worth their loyalty and trust and what was not. It always comes down to personal responsibility, and the need to use discernment and good judgment.

I honestly feel for the younger people who have never known anything but the PC regime and the multicult propaganda. But I think that those with native good sense and a sound sense of right and wrong will be able to recognize falsehood and propaganda and reject it for what it is, rather than being swept along with the spirit of our corrupt age.

We are all ultimately responsible for the choices we make, and whether Christian or not, it's essential to do as the Bible enjoins us and ''prove (test) all things; hold fast that which is good."

Personally I don't blame my parents for not seeing into the future and trying to alter the course of things. Most of us in every generation are caught up in simply trying to make a living, tend to our families and our own little corner of the world, and we can't see the larger picture of our own time, much less project into the future and extrapolate what present trends will bring. We can't fault our parents or grandparents; I believe they did their best, just as we in our time are doing our best, for the most part.

Most of us, including myself, could not have imagined the profound changes that have come about in the last 10 or 15 years, especially. Some of us, living in more sheltered areas, were blissfully unaware of the deep changes being wrought in many other parts of the country. Until recently, maybe even until this day, many Americans imagine that the Mexican invasion is a problem only in the border states, although few areas have escaped it completely. We have to remember that there are many people who don't read the Internet, who get their ''news'' from the worthless old media, and who are thus ignorant of the larger picture. And that is the way our elites have designed it.

9/11 awoke many people, including yours truly, to the scope of the immigration problem in our country. In one of those media sob stories following 9/11, lamenting some petty harrassment of a Moslem immigrant somewhere, I learned to my shock that even small towns in East Texas had Moslem immigrants. That was, believe it or not, a real jolt to me. It seemed so wrong. I had been living in the North for some years, and had imagined that East Texas, or rural Texas generally, was as it had always been in my lifetime, populated by Texans. I could not process the idea of Moslems in a tiny Texas community. Welcome to the Brave New World of No Borders. I felt as if home would never be home again. And that feeling has never gone away.

Now, I consider myself fairly well-informed, compared to many 'average' Americans, but if I was so unaware of what was going on all over this country, I know there are many more who have no clue even now, and will never have a clue until it is on their doorstep. Such is human nature, for many people. Denial is a powerful temptation.

Past generations could, for the most part, ignore the non-American world with a degree of impunity; the world was 'larger' then, and people focused, rightly, on their own backyards. Now, suddenly, the whole world is in our backyards in this ''global century." We will never be able to ignore the world beyond our borders now.

Our elders had a much more narrow world to concern themselves with, and paradoxically they were the richer for it. We, by contrast, are burdened with being the world's social worker and savior and doctor and all-around servant. We are hated where we interfere and blamed for NOT interfering. We Americans (and to a lesser extent, Westerners in general) carry the weight of the world on our shoulders.

So who is to blame for all this? We could play the generational blame game endlessly; each generation seems to feel that its predecessors made a mess of the world, and left it to be cleaned up by the new generation. When I was a teenager, that was a common refrain, as we worried about ''The Bomb'' and nuclear armageddon scenarios. We were all sure that our parents were bunglers or misguided warmongers, and we would re-invent human nature and the world when we assumed the reins of power.

Obviously we came nowhere near improving things, and yet we were unjust in judging our parents' efforts.

I suppose human beings have been blaming each other since the days of Genesis 3, when Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent.
But at this point in our story, we don't have the luxury of fighting amongst ourselves, as seems to be happening with distressing frequency on the 'right'. Maybe it's in our Western genes, this tendency to infighting and self-inflicted wounds. Still, I am no fatalist; our people have been capable of uniting and pulling together when the odds are against us. I am counting on that to re-surface as things look bleaker.

We need, I mean absolutely need, to rebuild some kin loyalty and to put aside resentments and grievances and ideological preening (as on the 'counterjihad' right, where they are obsessed with purity and political correctness) and work together. We are all we've got.

One little postscript here: I quoted the Biblical commandment about honoring our parents. Here's the passage from Deuteronomy:

Deu 5:16 Honour thy father and thy mother, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.''

Maybe the fact that we've ceased to 'honor father and mother' in the broadest sense is part of what has brought us to the precipice. Something to think about.

'Deep, delusionary dementia...' vs. ethnoconservatism

Following my post about 'equality vs. liberty', Takuan Seiyo writes, in his latest essay at The Brussels Journal:

Pods are deeply committed to the idea that freedom and equality are not mutually exclusive. They are the emotional children of the French Revolution and worship its motto so much that they are willing to install PC tyranny in the name of Liberté, enforce racist and gender discrimination and robbery of private property in the name of Egalité, and stop at no fraud, libel and persecution of their opponents in the name of Fraternité.

Pods view biological race and gender differences as social constructs, and therefore social group differences as an unjust inequality that must be rectified by reconstructing society. They view nation, ethnoculture, and private property as obsolete obstacles in the way of freedom, equality and fraternity of all people. Therefore, the right of anyone to immigrate anywhere precedes the right of the one suffering the destruction of his social capital by this immigration. The right of a slacker to home, sustenance, and self-esteem counseling precedes the right of the 80-hours-a-week worker not to have his earnings confiscated to float the slacker in splendid idleness.

They view the refusal to tolerate the intolerable as unacceptable intolerance, and the desire to protect and preserve one’s family, community, country and culture as racism and xenophobia. And lastly, they have stood Jesus’ metaphor on its end, so that they fail to see the beam in the nonwhites’, non-Christians’ eye, but they see and greatly magnify the speck in their own peoples’ eye.

This is deep, delusionary dementia.''

Deep, delusionary dementia. That describes liberalism, does it not? And the rest of the excerpt, wherein he writes about 'pods', makes it clear that it is the Politically Correct who are being described.

As usual, Takuan Seiyo writes a mordant piece on the crisis of our Western world, in which he describes with great accuracy what is happening.

I've used the 'pod people' analogy before; it's such an apt one, for those of us who have seen the old 1956 movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It comes to mind readily when you see the behavior and the relentlessness of the Politically Correct Possessed Ones.
For those few who haven't seen the classic 1956 movie or its later remakes, the story was of an invasion of a small California town by alien lifeforms resembling giant seed-pods, which 'took over' or replaced the human population of the town, gradually, with only the protagonist and his girlfriend escaping replacement. Eventually they are pursued relentlessly by the 'pods' who were once their friends and neighbors, but who are now bent on forcing them to be 'replaced' with pod likenesses of themselves.

The movie comes to mind as some of us see our neighbors and even relatives suddenly becoming willing cult followers of a certain presidential candidate. I can think of at least two such examples in my life. Otherwise normal people becoming zealous defenders of their Leader -- it can be something of a jolt to see it happen to people one knows.

But as for us holdouts, I like the term Seiyo uses to describe 'us': ''ethnoconservatives.'' I think it's a good descriptive term without the baggage of many other possible terms for people like most of us here, who want to preserve our people and our culture and our heritage.

We are the ethno-conservatives -- perhaps 60 million people in Western Europe, North America and Oceania. There are probably four times that number who are like us, but they are latent, unable at this time to cut through the fog of suppressive propaganda and inertia.

In every Western country, we are a minority encircled by brainwashed zealots discharged at a steady rate from the left-only assembly line of public education. The conveyor belt’s propulsive power is multiplied many times over by the giant dynamos of Mainstream Media (MSM) and manufactured pop culture. Our own propulsive power comes from inner conviction, books by Dead White Males, and – to steal a phrase from Abraham Lincoln – the mystic chords of memory.''

He writes that it is in opposition to the PC 'pods' and our treasonous elites that we must define ourselves, and he writes of this dominant 'mental disorder' which has gripped the West:

This mental disorder is now the dominant orientation of the Western peoples, with its triumphant apotheosis, The One We Have Been Waiting For, coasting on the final approach to the most powerful job in the world, so that he can change the world into Pod kingdom.

The dementia’s hold on the brains of the majority of the white population is such that the vile Afro-American racism that America’s probable 44th president imbibed during most of his adulthood goes unmentioned and uncriticized by the MSM. Even Mr. Obama’s opponent in the presidential election remains paralyzed by the possibility that anything he might say would be deemed "racist."

Barack Obama is expected to receive 75 - 80% of the white vote in many urban areas of the United States. If this is not having one’s body and soul snatched, nothing is.''

I rather like his analogy of the present Obamania to the Children's Crusade, which was based on the delusional notion which caused participants to go to the Holy Land and attempt to convert the Mohammedans by means of 'love and peace.' Needless to say, it didn't work out well. Such is always the case when delusional idealism goes up against merciless reality. Tradition has it that many of the 'crusaders' were sold into slavery by their would-be converts among the Moslems. Today's ''pods'' ought to take heed. History has a way of repeating.

Read the entire piece by Takuan Seiyo at Brussels Journal. There are no comments on the piece as of the time I am writing this, but that's not a bad thing; the comments never measure up to the level of Seiyo's pieces, and often derail the discussion, going off on tangents.

I agree very much, too, with his urging Western 'ethnoconservatives', regardless of nationality, to offer mutual support and to make common cause. By uniting, we stand. We are few but we needn't let that discourage us. Defeatism and resignation are creeping up on us, and we mustn't give in to those things.

To return to our pop culture metaphor, in the 'Body Snatchers' movie, it was only when the human beings went to sleep that they would fall prey to the 'body snatchers' and become mindless pods. We mustn't let our guard down or relax our vigilance, and we mustn't be lulled to inaction or somnolent passivity.

Stand or fall

I've just come from a forum where a group of people, mostly British, were discussing the question of whether to emigrate from their country (as the media have been telling us they are doing), or to stay and try to defend and preserve their country, or what may be left of it after decades of mass immigration and multicultural madness.

The discussion somewhat mirrored the one(s) we've had on this blog over the last year or so.
I recently read another discussion on Gates of Vienna, I believe, which dealt with the possibility of secession here in our country, as well as emigration. I could not locate the thread when I went back to find the link. In any case, it was an interesting thread, and it turned my mind again towards those issues.

When we last discussed emigration here on this blog, I was somewhat ambivalent. I can understand the impulse to flight, and I at times think it might be the only way to cope with what is promising to be a rather troubled future for our country. But at the same time, I find my views are inclining more in favor of the 'stand our ground' option.

For my own part, I am not in a position to run away. I have family ties and responsibilities as well as other strongly-rooted affections that make me inclined to hold fast in this country. I suppose those who are young, who have few responsibilities and roots as yet, as well as the youthful urge to experience the wider world, might be better candidates for leaving this country and settling elsewhere.

Leaving aside the obvious fact that most other Western or Anglosphere countries have immigration problems and leftist tyrannies of their own to deal with, it just seems to me that the 'flight' option is essentially making it easy for the invaders, and conceding defeat to them.

The departure of a great many of our younger citizens would mean that a great many older people would be left at the 'tender mercies' of the invading peoples, who have no love for us. This is not something that a real 'conservative' or traditionalist would do; respect for elders is a core conservative principle, and a Western chivalrous principle, I would say. And for Christians, honoring fathers and mothers (and to me, this includes our forefathers in general) is incumbent on us. Walking away leaving vulnerable elders behind is not the most honorable choice. I suppose if you subscribe to the 'every man for himself' and 'the devil take the hindmost' principles, it might be just fine.

But to me, it's not worthy of our heritage to take that attitude.

I've always been one who loved to travel, and I enjoyed my time on the other side of the pond, but during my sojourn there, I became acutely aware that it was not home, even though I have great affection for the British Isles as the home of most of my ancestors. I love the people and the way of life, or at least the real cultures of those lands, pre-multicult. I've seen the people as they are, and I love them as my kin, but I love my kin here in America more, and I love this land and its beauties most of all the places I've seen. 'Breathes there the man with soul so dead', as Scott wrote.

And though I met many people on the other side of the Atlantic who were very kind and hospitable to me (along with some who were not, just as anywhere), I was made aware that they regarded me as an American, a 'Yank' if you please, and though they might regard me as kin, I did not really belong there.

Maybe if one emigrates at a very young and malleable age, one might assimilate to the new country's culture and ways and habits. I think older people are not quite so readily adaptable.

A while back, I mentioned those regular commenters at AmRen and other such forums who are always urging people to run off to Europe. The one recent comment which I found particularly obnoxious boasted of going to Costa Rica, and saying that he was leaving the 'white miscreants' in this country to hold off the invading hordes. This poster had a pseudonym (or was it his real name?) which sounded very central European. Maybe that person never really belonged here among us American 'miscreants', or at least his attitude indicates. So good riddance to him; we don't need fair-weather friends or unassimilated ethnics. As for the choice of Costa Rica, or any Central American destination, I can only shake my head. I know some people claim that C.R. is mostly White, but I suspect that the demographics are rather different in reality than on paper. In any case, even if I believed those claims, I would not choose a Latin American country. I have had enough exposure to their culture and ways that I could not feel at home in any Latin country. I have a passable command of Spanish, but the very sound of the language has come to grate on my ears. I would not emigrate there.

But as for these people who post on various forums encouraging flight, I suspect their motives. I wonder if they are not people with an agenda, purposely trying to encourage self-exile of race-realist Whites, so as to remove the biggest obstacle to the complete remaking of this country.

I remember in our earlier discussion the point was made by a commenter that if we run to another country, we will in fact be doing to others what we so dislike being done to us: we would be going to another country, possibly a country to which other Americans have fled, perhaps settling in an enclave. I think that's a valid point. I choose not to be a thorn in somebody else's side, or an opportunist taking advantage of other people and asking for a piece of their birthright. That would, I think, make me a beggar like those who come here asking for a share in our inheritance.

The world has gone insane, it seems, with this mass movement of peoples in every direction -- mostly from the Third World, have-not sector to the successful First World, but also now with a lesser movement of Western peoples towards various destinations. Ultimately it's going to result in psychological as well as cultural and racial dislocation and confusion on a worldwide scale.

Some people say that our Pilgrim/Puritan ancestors were engaging in 'flight' when they set sail from England (or Holland) for the New World. I disagree. The situation was not analogous to present-day Western whites running away from a troubling situation, hoping only to avoid confrontation with the invaders or the tyrants presiding over this debacle. The Pilgrims and other colonists were not running away because they wanted the path of least resistance or the quick way out; they wanted to make a fresh start and create something new from scratch in a pristine new environment, in a sparsely-populated wilderness. If we had a similar prospect now, it might be a positive thing to leave and start a new society, our way. But there is no new frontier, no pristine wilderness in which we can start afresh. There's only the choice of going from the multicultural frying-pan into the multicultural fire somewhere else. Or, at best, it might be a delaying of the inevitable, if we choose to go to a country which, in five or ten years, may well be as bad or worse as what we may have left behind.

Given that there is supposedly a plan afoot to bring 56 million immigrants into Europe, that continent hardly seems the haven that the AmRen 'flight' proponents tell us it is. The same applies to most of the places emigrants might pick as destinations.

This may be it for us; do we make the best of it, and stick together, or do we all head for the lifeboats?

A request

Lately it seems as if the number of blogs I read daily is dwindling as some of those I formerly read have become defunct or gone on hiatus, and others have gotten too PC for me (or maybe I've gone farther to the right). I find less and less interesting or inspiring material. I feel a trifle discouraged with what is out there in the blogosphere. Maybe things are changing for the worse out there, or maybe I just need some new sources of information or inspiration.

Do my readers have any links to 'right-wing'/traditionalist/nationalist/pro-West/realist blogs or other websites which I or others out there might find stimulating or interesting? Or informative, blogs which are not on my blogroll(s)? Plug your own blogs if you like, or direct me to links you've found, if you please. Thanks.

Conservatives conserving liberalism

Here/s a rather interesting post at What's Wrong With the World, having to do with today's 'conservatism' and its relation to the dominant liberalism of our time.

"Conservatism" is in our time not conservatism but right-liberalism: political liberalism with a few 'conservative' unprincipled exceptions. The exceptions are unprincipled in the sense that they are not founded in our liberalism, and we for the most part don't recognize their incompatibility with our own liberalism. For a while that meant that 'conservatism' was classical liberalism; now it means, for the most part, culturally 'big tent' neoconservatism. In general it means 'whatever liberalism was about 30 or 50 years ago'.

So looking beyond the election of this very moment, the way to beat the Left politically, and (among other things) effectively save the children being massacred by the acolytes of Moloch -- the only way to beat the Left politically, as an eminently practical concern -- is to stop becoming the Left, through a quasi-Hegelian process which seems to take about two generations.''

In this post, Zippy Catholic decries the lack of an ''anchor political conservatism" which would be an effective counter to the dominant core worldview of the liberal.

The first commenter on the thread asks for a definition of liberalism, and then asks ''What is the antithesis of liberalism?"

I've read the existing comments, and there are several, but it seems no one has come up with a solid definition as requested.
We've covered similar territory on this blog, as my longtime readers will remember. So I won't attempt to re-plow that same ground, but any of you who can offer a good definition of liberalism are welcome to do so.

The whole discussion also brings into play the idea of liberty vs. equality, which has also been a recurring discussion on this blog, and it is an important idea that is not discussed or considered as it should be today. It is very much at the heart of what distinguishes liberals and 'conservatives', though of course I will reiterate that even 'conservatives' these days are imbued with the core ideas of liberalism. And the idea of liberty and freedom are constant themes on both ends of the political spectrum, though each side has differing ideas on what actually constitutes 'liberty' or freedom. Both sides constantly evoke 'liberty' and 'freedom' and yet they are not saying the same things when they use those words.

Do liberals, for example, support freedom of association? Their support of anti-discrimination laws, which deny freedom of association, show that they ultimately don't believe we have freedom of association.

Do they support our freedom to arm ourselves? .
Or our right to freedom of speech and freedom of thought? Only if we use that 'freedom' to say politically correct things, or to think the correct liberal thoughts.

And on it goes.
But the liberal worldview is terribly flawed in that it believes that 'equality' can coexist with freedom or liberty.
The discussion makes me think of this statement by Alexander Hamilton:

Inequality will exist as long as liberty exists. It unavoidably results from that very liberty itself. ''

Liberals don't see, or refuse to see, that we cannot ever have equality without some kind of strong hand to enforce it, which inevitably restricts freedom and liberty.

'Equal housing opportunity' means that landlords lose their right to rent to people of their choosing. And landlords are allowed to discriminate based on credit ratings, income, employment and various other things, but they are forbidden to discriminate on racial/ethnic/religious grounds, because ''all men are created equal.''

(Jefferson obviously lacked prescience when he insisted on that phrase; he obviously didn't foresee the perverted uses to which that phrase has been put.)

Equal opportunity in employment has come to mean affirmative action requirements, filling slots with people of the requisite color or ethnicity, or gender.

The illusory goal of equal outcomes in education has meant the dumbing-down of the schools nationwide, as well as the denial of the right of the majority students to get a good education. The many are being sacrificed in the name of the self-esteem of the few -- all for the sake of preserving this fallacy that we are all equal, if we only 'level the playing field' and rig the system to help the less able to 'excel'.

The recent sub-prime mortgage debacle (which is still playing out) was in large part likely traceable to the misguided effort to create 'equality' in home ownership and to bring minorities into more 'exclusive' neighborhoods previously dominated by Whites.

The effort to stamp out all vestiges of 'discrimination' has meant the stamping-out of standards in every area of life -- so as to try to establish an unnatural 'equality' which can only be maintained, if it is ever achieved, with more coercive government action and more propaganda to keep people from thinking inappropriate thoughts or holding politically incorrect ideas which question 'equality,'

Lord Acton said, many years ago, ''The deepest cause which made the French Revolution so disastrous to liberty was its theory of equality."
It seems obvious that if the utopian idea of creating absolute equality between peoples is paramount, as it is in liberalism, liberty will suffer, as in fact it is suffering.

And it follows that if Obama is elected, this obsession with enforcing 'equality' will be carried to even greater extremes than it is at present.
The consequences for liberty and for our American freedoms will be considerable, especially when we now live in a society in which ethnic/racial groups contend fiercely to further their own interests only, without regard to the general welfare.

Kinsman John Randolph long ago said:

"The principle of liberty and equality, if coupled only with mere selfishness, will make men only devils, each trying to be independent that he may fight only for his own interest."

And to return to the subject of 'core beliefs' of conservatism, one of the ways in which today's conservatives have been subverted by liberalism is the embrace of a kind of faux-populism or egalitarianism. Just wander over to any of the big Republican forums and notice the great number of comments disparaging any kind of social hierarchy; everybody professes to be a hard-core egalitarian and (small-d) democrat and disparages the idea of social ranks. Because our forefathers rejected British royal rule, we tend to jeer the whole idea of aristocracy or royalty. However, the idea of a monarchy in this country was considered, and we've probably all heard that George Washington was offered the crown, though he declined it.

But it seems that most American conservatives embrace the idea of 'democracy' although our forefathers rightly disdained that idea, and they embrace 'equality' as an abstract idea, often without really considering what that ideal implies if followed to its extreme, as with the liberals and leftists.

As to some kind of conservative credo or set of core principles, it seems that every now and then, even here on this blog, somebody calls for a 'conservative credo' or manifesto, and decries our lack of an ideology. But it seems to me that 'ideology' as such implies a set of abstract principles, which, by their abstract nature, tend to become disembodied and lacking a grounding in real human experience. Liberals are very ideological, which is the reason for their disconnect with human nature, and for their perpetual attempt to re-make human nature after their ideological pipe-dreams.

Russell Kirk was adamant that conservatism and ideology don't go together.
His 'Ten Conservative Principles' can be found at the link.

The cry of the Obamanistas is 'Change' and transformation. This is typically liberal: change for its own sake, seeking change without regard for the consequences to the larger society, the rush to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Kirk says, of 'progress' and permanence:

Therefore the intelligent conservative endeavors to reconcile the claims of Permanence and the claims of Progression. He thinks that the liberal and the radical, blind to the just claims of Permanence, would endanger the heritage bequeathed to us, in an endeavor to hurry us into some dubious Terrestrial Paradise. The conservative, in short, favors reasoned and temperate progress; he is opposed to the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old.

Change is essential to the body social, the conservative reasons, just as it is essential to the human body. A body that has ceased to renew itself has begun to die. But if that body is to be vigorous, the change must occur in a regular manner, harmonizing with the form and nature of that body; otherwise change produces a monstrous growth, a cancer, which devours its host. The conservative takes care that nothing in a society should ever be wholly old, and that nothing should ever be wholly new. This is the means of the conservation of a nation, quite as it is the means of conservation of a living organism. Just how much change a society requires, and what sort of change, depend upon the circumstances of an age and a nation.''

As to a manifesto or a plan which we need to counter the left, or as to a plan for restoring what has been lost to liberalism's manic quest for utopia, we have an adequate blueprint in the traditional society that existed in America over the last few centuries. Look to the past for the core values and principles on which we sustained this country. Our ancestors were wise people; they weren't perfect, and no perfect society exists. Traditional American ways served us very well, up until the upheavals of the 50s, 60s and thereafter. What has happened since then has been a disaster; first, in rather slow motion, but now accelerating to a dangerous speed.

And there are too few ''standing athwart history, yelling 'stop'!' these days.

A tale of two hoaxes

This is no surprise to many people: the so-called 'McCain volunteer' who claimed she was robbed and assaulted by an Obama supporter has now apparently admitted the story was fabricated.

...According to Pittsburgh police spokeswoman Diane Richard, Ashley Todd, 20, told investigators today that she "was not robbed and there was no 6'4" black male attacker."

Todd initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield Wednesday night and that the suspect began beating her after seeing a John McCain bumper sticker on her car.

Todd claimed that the mugger even cut a backwards letter "B" in her cheek.

But today investigators say Todd confessed that the attack never happened.''

On her MySpace profile (her page is now apparently private) she said:

"Lying is the most fun a girl can have."

And it appears that at least one other young woman thinks along similar lines:
Police Say Girl Lied About Racism Charges

Morgan claims she has been the target of racism at West Bend East High School. The 15-year-old said she’s been pushed down the stairs, had eggs thrown at her and has been called racial slurs.

Police arrested Morgan at her grandmother’s home Monday afternoon. They later booked her at the Washington County Juvenile Detention Center.

Police want the district attorney to charge her with obstructing an officer for lying to investigators.

The police chief said the investigation proves Morgan made the whole story up.''

Can we guess which story will be the most publicized and sensationalized? The MSM are already making hay with the Ashley Todd hoax story. It will be milked for all it is worth; there will be more pontifications about 'White racism' and generalizations made against not only McCain supporters, but Republicans, 'conservatives' in general, and of course Whitey.

And the fake hate crime accusations by the Morgan girl? I will be surprised if she really is prosecuted for lying to police.
The story will be forgotten or buried on a back page, while the Todd story will go on and on, at least until the election is over with.

Compare and contrast: when a White person commits a hoax or accuses a fictitious minority attacker of something --remember the 'runaway bride' story in 2005, in which she claimed to have been abducted and taken to New Mexico by Hispanic kidnapers?

Of course the media made the most of that, and the ''Hispanic community'' demanded apologies. But when a minority person perpetrates a 'hate crime' hoax (which happens not infrequently) the story fades away, and at worst, the hoax perpetrator gets a slap on the wrist or is treated as someone in need of 'help' and 'understanding'. Meanwhile the 'mainstream media' sweep the hate crime hoaxes under the rug, refusing to even look at the apparently growing phenomenon of fake 'hate crime' accusations.

And let's not forget Crystal Gail Mangum, who is still trying to cash in on her proven lies about the 'attack' by the Duke Lacrosse team members.

We know why minorities make up stories of ''hate crimes'' that never happened, or which they themseves perpetrated ('racist' graffiti, nooses, swastikas, threatening notes or whatever). They obviously relish the victimhood role, which is so central to the identity of minorities these days. They may profit by their false claims. They certainly get 15 minutes (or much more) of 'fame' and attention. They get sympathy. And the bonus is that they are furthering the idea that Whitey is always out to get them. Usually the fake 'hate crimes' elicit some kind of community 'demonstration' about 'stopping the hate' and the usual race-baiting speeches are made. It is all part of a kind of ritual, and it is meant to reinforce the whole minority victimhood 'narrative' and the idea of Whites as aggressive and hateful bigots.

Meantime, the media still refuse to talk about the pattern of hate hoaxes.

Thus the other obvious pattern here is that the biased media are anything but objective or even-handed when it comes to reporting these things. In fact, the old media are complicit in the PC hoaxes; they are part and parcel of the whole fraud, by reporting and lending credence to false accusations and patent hoaxes -- when the lies are perpetrated by favored groups.

Most hoaxsters of any type are probably attention seekers, drama queens, histrionic personalities, or just messed-up people.
And that is probably the story with this Todd female. Judging by what she discloses of herself on her MySpace page, she seems to be a girl with a lot of what are colloquially termed 'issues.'

Is she a real McCain supporter or a Republican? To me, her writings don't sound like what I would think of a 'conservative' young woman, but then again, being a conservative doesn't necessarily coincide with being a Republican.

Is there more to the Todd story than just a messed-up, immature young woman looking for attention? We don't know. If she made the whole story up, she should be charged and she should have the book thrown at her. I have no excuses to make for her; she is certainly not helping our side at all; people like her are a liability to us. But I have a feeling she will be made an example of by the media and the justice system, while the Morgan girl will be given a pass. If we really had any kind of equality, each would be treated with similar sternness.

'Crackers' and crackpots

The other day I blogged about Pennsylvania Rep. Murtha, and his slur against his constituents, calling them 'racists' or 'rednecks.' Well this article from the Philadelphia Daily News adds further insult by discussing the 'cracker factor' in the upcoming election.

''I have a theory.

I think McCain's camp is banking on Pennsylvania's "cracker factor."

I think the campaign believes the Democratic view - expressed by Ed Rendell last winter and Jack Murtha last week (and James Carville 22 years ago) - that there are racist tendencies among Pennsylvania voters.

Think about it.''

Well, some 294 comments were appended to the piece before comments were closed, so obviously quite a few people ''thought about it" and many were not pleased by the writer's race-baiting take.

Of course the requisite snotty liberal or two has to show up in any such discussion. (By the way, sometimes I wonder if all these liberal hecklers are really many people or just one guy who surfs the Internet saying the same stupid, snarky things everywhere? The sameness, and the lameness, of the 'arguments' the liberal hecklers always make causes me to fantasize that maybe there are really only a few of them who post the same thing everywhere. I wish it were true, that only a handful of lefties existed. Sadly they are legion. And a lot of them vote.)

This comment from the stereotype sarcastic leftist is a good example of the kinds of things they inevitably say:

There sure are racist tendencies in PA, just take a look at the right-wing comments on this site on a daily basis. There are a lot of scared little white people. I wonder...is it racist for white people to vote for McCain because he's white and so are they? In fact, I wonder if our country isn't completely racist considering white people have voted for white presidents since 1789. (I'm white btw).''

I rather wish he hadn't mentioned that he is 'White'; what an embarrassment to White people everywhere. I would love to converse with this person if only to try to understand how he believes there were nonwhites who qualified to be President back in 1789.

And why do they always make this claim that Whites are 'scared'? I've often made the claim that people (namely Whites) are scared of being called 'racist'. But is fear really what drives the so-called 'xenophobia' or what causes people to become realists or nationalists? I think that's a specious claim. We as a nation have just become so worn down by the constant race-baiting and obsessing over race that many of us just try to tune it out and not respond one way or the other. But I don't think fear or cowardice is behind the backlash against politically correctness. To me it's just the opposite; this backlash shows there is some resurgent pride and a healthy indignation among White people, and if anybody is 'scared' it's liberals and their 'diverse' clientele. It's they who are scared that people are sick of their constant campaign of verbal and emotional abuse of the majority, and afraid that people will no longer submit to the browbeating and the blackmail. And of course they know that once the manipulation and coercion cease to be effective, their game will be up. They are 'scared' they will lose the ability to keep extorting from the majority forever.

The sheer number of angry responses to this 'cracker factor' piece is a good sign. A lot of people, a lot of average people, are seemingly getting fed up with the constant harping and carping about race and 'racism.' People can only take so much of it, and more people seem to be reaching their limit, or surpassing it.

And one wonders how many angry 'cracker' readers left comments that were deleted, as oftentimes happens on PC newspaper websites. I have a feeling a lot of comments did not pass the PC censors.

Another commenter says:

I'm white. I don't hunt. I don't like NASCAR. I graduated from two nationally recognized universities and hold a masters degree in a non-arts discipline. I'm voting for John McCain. Does that make me a "cracker?" '

Well, yes, it does actually. Your color will condemn you as far as the 'colorblind' liberal turncoats are concerned, and it condemns you with nonwhites, who hold all Whites to be guilty of oppression towards their people, regardless of social class, personal tastes, politics, or ethnic origin. White = cracker. Your skin is your destiny, in this brave new PC world, which paradoxically claims that race is really only a 'social construct' and that 'skin color does not matter.'

Incidentally, I had the odd experience the other day of speaking with a woman who had never heard the term 'cracker' before as applied to White people. She was surprised to hear of the word being used that way. This woman has lived all her life in this small, non-diverse town and has literally never heard of a lot of the racial epithets employed by our enemies. I had to fill her in on the uses of the word 'cracker.'
I told her about a friend of mine in a town about 25 miles from here, which has many nonwhites. This friend's son is a teen, and is now the only White boy riding his school bus. He is pale and very blond (tow-headed, really) and he is naturally the target of verbal abuse. But my local friend was taken aback that such situations happen, only a short distance away from here. Diversity is so enriching.

And it can be eye-opening, for some people who have never experienced its 'richness' in real life, up-close.

But maybe now my naive friend is beginning to see that there is a war going on out there; it's not a conventional war or open aggression, at least not all the time. But it's raging nonetheless.

If nothing else this political campaign season is really showing us who is on our side and who is not, who is aware, and who is under the PC spell.

In the case of people like Murtha and the writer who wrote the 'cracker factor' piece, they are either true believers or soulless opportunists who will cynically turn against their own people if it benefits them personally. I think Murtha is the latter. It's about party and also about desire for position, power and the perquisites thereof with people like him.

There are, however, still many Americans like those who responded to this article indignantly, who have just been ignoring the brewing conflict in this country until it began to become more overt and the hostility became undeniable.

But is this process of learning going to take too long to make a difference? Or will there be time to start to reverse things before we go off the cliff?

Opinions?

''Worse is better," redux

Is the idea of ''worse is better'' still floating around out there? It seems to be, judging by some of the discussions I read in certain forums.

How does this idea persist? It's always been misguided, to view it charitably, or downright treasonous, to take a less charitable view of it.

I've written about it before, and I presented my reasons for thinking that an Obama presidency will not ''wake people up" or ''galvanize the right" or bring about some kind of conservative epiphany and restoration.

There have been so many events over the last ten or twen years that should have been wake-up calls, but were not. We've all become, to some extent, jaded over the steady move leftward and the transformation of America right under our noses. Going back to the early 90s, we saw the L.A riots, the O.J. Simpson acquittal and the jubilation of blacks following that. In more recent years, we've seen the lawlessness and shocking behavior in New Orleans following Katrina, and then the Knoxville murders, (ignored by our mainstream media, as the Katrina atrocities have been airbrushed away or denied) and the daily spectacle of the mass invasion of our country and the brazen marching by the invaders in our cities and towns.

Through all these events, there may have been isolated grumblings or flashes of resentment on the part of the majority, but ultimately people go back to sleep or back to their toys and distractions, while Change marches on.

When I pointed this out in the past, I was told that I was being negative, denying the possibility of an awakening on our part. I would love to believe that THIS time it will be different, that an Obama presidency will be the one galvanizing event. Why should it be, though?

Most presidencies have a 'honeymoon period' in which the new President is given some latitude and enjoys the goodwill of a majority of the people. Obama will coast on that goodwill for a time, but be sure that the very pro-Obama media will provide a permanent honeymoon for their guy. All criticism will be treated as examples of racism and bigotry.

Americans may well become lulled by the initial 'honeymoon' period and even those who did not vote for Obama will grudgingly say 'he's not too bad" or perhaps be taken in by this vaunted 'charisma' which I am told he has. Many Americans who are not troubled by anything resembling political philosophies or moral principles will accept whatever Obama proposes to do. Many Americans are not politically savvy, so they will see nothing wrong with most of the more radical leftist ideas he will promote.

Ever try to explain to an apolitical person, in very basic terms, why leftism and socialism are bad for America? When Obama says we need to 'spread the wealth around', that sounds good to many non-thinking Americans. Who can object to "wealth-spreading"? I've tried to explain why that idea is wrong, but my words don't penetrate through the fog in some cases.

Political illiterates, people who have no idea of our founding principles, or people who vote based on how nice a guy or gal the candidate appears to be, are not swayed by logical arguments or arguments based on principle.

They will not see how Obama is making things worse; they tend to believe whatever they hear on NBC Nightly News or what they hear on The View or Oprah or from Katie Couric.

As to the conservatives who think 'worse is better', I would like to hear specifics regarding how long it will take for worse to become measurably better? And how much worse will it have to get?

The biggest question I have is: how do the 'worse is better' proponents have so much faith that little lasting damage can be done by a Democrat President, plus a Democrat Congress, aided and abetted by a liberal media? The underlying assumption seems to be that whatever harm is done can be easily undone, but yet, when was the last time any incoming Republican administration undid what the Democrats did while in office? Did even the Reagan administration, which most Republicans consider the zenith of conservatism in modern America, undo the liberalism so entrenched from the New Deal and 'Great Society"? To my knowledge, nothing much was undone that had been wrought by a very busy left during those earlier reigns.

When our current President was elected, some were certain he would 'clean house' but he never did, instead choosing not only to abstain from criticizing his predecessor, but to buddy up to Clinton publicly.

And are the worse-is-better advocates confident that Obama will not institute a radical agenda when in office? Who will oppose him? Certainly not a majority Democrat Congress and a lot of supine, spineless Republicans who will be scared spitless of being called bigots.

Over at Red State there is an entry and a discussion on what an Obama administration might do.

This CNN transcript from a while back has Obama discussing his plans for a 'civilian national security force' which he says will be just as strong, powerful, and well-funded as the military. Imagine his followers mobilized into some kind of 'national security force.'

Can we embrace the idea of such a 'civilian national security force'? Or universal national service?

He has said he would like to institute a draft, which would involve young women as well as men. He says if some of us are going to war, all of us should be going.

Would these kinds of things cause this mass awakening? I doubt it; his followers, though usually the military-loathing types, would probably gladly don uniforms for their idol. They would also not oppose a draft if Obama proposed it.

But will these things wake up the 'conservatives'? Or will they just grumble and gripe and eventually accept it and get used to it, as with just about every liberal/radical idea that has been pushed through over the last few decades?

Will we see a return of the ''Fairness Doctrine" or the passing of 'hate speech' laws, which have been attempted in the past? These things could seriously stifle free speech.

I think an enormous amount of damage could be done in a very short time, more than in a typical Democrat administration, because any real opposition would be silenced, neutered.

In recent days and weeks there have been a number of articles in the media hinting at riots and mass civil unrest should Obama lose the election. And I guarantee that there WILL be anger, and charges of 'election stealing' and worse if the election is close and Obama loses. We've seen a preview of that in the past couple of elections, with the Democrats pulling out all the stops. The 2000 election debacle, which seemed to drag on forever, was very dispiriting and infuriating. It would be worse if this election goes to McCain in a close race.

Could it not be that unrest following a McCain victory might be enough to 'wake people up? Why do we have to hope for the absolute worst case scenario to 'wake people up'? To me, the whole concept is like torching your house in hopes of rebuilding a better one.

I still say, although I've yet to have anyone agree unequivocally with me, that an Obama presidency would set a precedent. It would be a symbolic changing of the guard, a handover of power to the 'new America', the post-European America. Once that precedent is set, will we ever be able to return to majority dominance again? Or will there be cries of 'racism' and 'going backward' if the parties don't run nonwhite candidates the next time around. I feel sure the Republicans have their choice waiting in the wings, and I have my ideas of who it will be. But a precedent will be set, and with an increasingly nonwhite America, we as a people will be on the wane, permanently. Why hasten this day? Why hurry it along? It may be an irreversible step.

The old saying that breaking eggs is necessary to make an omelette is true, but how much would it take to irreparably shatter our country? And speaking of breaking eggs, we know what happened to Humpty Dumpty. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put him back together again.

I suspect that the people who insist on the "worse is better" strategy have convinced themselves that our country is already beyond repair, and that we have little to lose by gambling it all. But for those of us who believe that there is still something worth saving, why break what is left purposely in hopes that we might be able to put the pieces back together again?

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

I had plans for a different blog entry today, but as I was surfing the blogosphere, I came across a 'conservative' blog, which is one I only recently found via a link, which had a lengthy post in response to the Colin Powell endorsement. The post was one very long and detailed timeline of every pro-black measure promoted by the Republican Party and every pro-black act by Republican presidents and congressmen.
The point being made, evidently, was that Powell and other blacks should be properly grateful and loyal to the GOP because it has steadfastly advanced their interests, ever since the War Between the States.

The comments echoed this kind of sentiment: ''don't the African-Americans know that the Democrats only hold them back? Why don't they realize that they need to vote Republican? It's the Democrats who are the real racists. We just have to make blacks realize that!" --- and so on.

Not one of the posters, apparently White Republicans, looked at the long list of Republican 'achievements' in the area of 'racial equality' and said, hey, it looks as though our interests are being disregarded in favor of courting blacks, and to no avail. What good has it done? What party represents me and my people and our interests? Not one said that or anything like that. It was all about crowing over how colorblind Republicans are and how racist the Democrats are, and why don't blacks join us in the GOP where they belong?

I collect ephemera, as I've mentioned before, and I've come across old documents and broadsides from the late 19th century and early 20th century when, almost comically, each party is claiming to be the friend of the black race, and pointing the finger at the other party to accuse them of neglecting blacks. On the other hand, there is a tract called The Short Catechism of Negro Equality, in which Republicans point to Democrats as being the chief architects of racial equality, while Democrats were apparently denying it. I suppose it all depended on which group's votes were being courted; each party tried to call the other 'bigoted' when it served them to do so, and later tried to claim the title of the most pro-black, pro-equality party.

Here is part of that undated 'Short Catechism"

Who made the Negro a citizen of the State of Maine? The Democratic Party.
Who enacted a similar law in Massachusetts? The Democratic Party.
Who permitted every colored person owning $250 in New York a voter? A General Assembly, purely Democratic.
Who repealed the laws of Ohio which required Negroes to give bonds and security before settling in that state? The Democratic Party.
Who made mulattoes legal voters in Ohio? A Democratic Supreme Court, of which Reuben Wood was Chief Justice.
[...]
Who, with the above facts, and many others, staring them in the face, are continually whining about 'negro suffrage' and negro equality? The Democratic Party.
All these things were done by Democrats, and yet they deny being in favor of negro equality, and charge it upon the Republicans -- just like the thief who cries ''stop thief" the loudest."

There is also this tract published by the Union Republican Congressional Committee in Washington, D.C. called The Position of the Republican and Democrat Parties: A Dialogue Between a White Republican and a Colored Citizen.

You can see a glimpse of it above. Notice the picture of Lincoln, captioned 'The Martyr For Liberty.'

The pamphlet features a question-and-answer format, and from page 2:

Q. "Who freed the slaves in the South?
A. Abraham Lincoln, the Republican President, by proclamation.
[...]
Q. Who gave us the Civil Rights Bill?
A. The same Republican Congress.
Q. What party gave us the right to vote?
A. The Republican Party.
Q. What has the Democratic, Copperhead, or Conservative Party ever done for the colored people?
A. It has tried to keep them in slavery, and opposed giving them the benefit of the Freedmen's Bureau and Civil Rights bills, and the right to vote.
Q. Why cannot colored men support the Democratic Party?
A. Because that party would disenfranchise them, and if possible, return them to slavery -- and certainly keep them in an inferior position before the law.
Q. With whom do the disloyal white men of the South desire the colored men to vote?
A. With the Democratic Party.
Q. Would not the Democrats take away all negroes' rights?
A. They would.
Q. Then why do they pretend to be the best friends of colored men?
A. Because they contend they are fitted only for slavery, or an inferior position, and are happier in either condition.
Q. How would it suit them to be served in the same manner?
A. They would not endure it. They call themselves a superior race of beings, and claim they are born your rulers.
Q. Why do they not do unto others as they would be done by?
A. Because they are devoid of principle, and destitute of all sense of justice where the colored man is concerned.
[...]
Let me say to you further, that the Democratic Party will use all means to get the colored people to put it in power again, but you must remember what has been its past record, and see to it that you do not trust it in the future.
[...]You want to be so organized that you will act as one man, lest your enemy gain the victory.''

What I take from reading these things is that the two parties, Republican and Democrat have switched places, with the Republicans originally being the party which adopted the most punitive, harsh policies towards the South, specifically Southron whites, after the War Between the States. This is the reason why the older generations down South considered the Republican Party anathema. Reconstruction was a chaotic and violent time, and the radical Republicans were bent on revenge against Southron White men.

Today's Republicans, in the mainstream at least, like to boast about how pro-black the party was during the Civil Rights era, and they like to jeer at people like Democrat Senator Byrd for his past politically incorrect positions on racial 'equality'. But they would do well to remember that the Republicans have taken both positions as it suited them. Both parties seem to be made up of mostly craven opportunists who would go wherever they sensed there was a bonanza of votes to be had. Principles and loyalties be damned.

And the present day is no different. Both parties jockey to be seen as the most politically correct and 'inclusive', and just as the men who wrote the tracts quoted above, they are more than willing to sell their own people and kin for thirty pieces of silver, or for access to more power. Notice the writer of the second tract (who is not identified) speaking to blacks and referring to White Democrats as ''your enemy". Nothing like trying to turn blacks against your own people for political gain.

And it's still going on now. Right now, the [White] Democrats are outdoing themselves to try to throw their own kin overboard in favor of minorities, and guess what, the Republicans are doing it too. But while I think the earlier generations were less blameworthy because their pandering was cynical (in many cases), using blacks to undermine their enemies politically, today's liberals truly don't see what they are doing to their own people or perhaps are not even able to care. They have truly become taken in by their own propaganda, and they have become blind to their own interests and deaf to their own people. They truly know no other tune but the politically correct one.

How else can you explain today's alleged 'conservatives' who are all exercised because they can't gain the approval of black voters? How can you explain the fact that they truly believe that blacks and Whites surely, surely have the same interests and needs, if they but knew it?

When are these 'conservatives' going to awaken to the obvious fact that the minorities have two parties and we have none? Where is the party that stands for us and our interests, or must we submit to being exiled forever from political power in favor of the aggrieved 'victims' and their White advocates?

And when will these same White advocates for the poor victims, like the Clintons, ever see that they are being used and thrown away by the people they championed all these decades? And the Republicans, too, are being used and manipulated, while mewling that they want credit for all their altruism and good deeds?

It's a cynical saying, but probably true in this fallen world: no good deed goes unpunished, and both parties are being punished for all their racial self-sacrifice. Unfortunately the American people, who either opposed the do-gooders or were oblivious, are also being punished along with our sorry politicians.

True colors

This is not surprising. The only thing that's surprising about it is that anyone is surprised.

It's rather amusing in a sad way to read some of the comments over at the mainstream GOP forums, where the commenters express shock at Colin Powell's 'racism', and generally seem incensed only because blacks can practice blatant ethnocentrism or racial solidarity and we can't. "No fair! They have to be colorblind if we have to!"

I can honestly say that I expected this endorsement, at least insofar as I ever gave it much thought. We've seen several prominent black figures endorsing or defending Obama, even some who have somehow acquired the reputation of being ''conservative.''

But it seems that their willingness to betray their supposed conservative principles in favor of racial solidarity shows not only their natural, instinctive ethnocentrism but the weakness of their ''conservative'' convictions. As in every other area of life, there is a kind of affirmative action at work when it comes to categorizing minority individuals as conservatives. The bar is automatically much lower, and even a stray 'conservative' principle here or there in an individual will be accepted eagerly as his conservative credentials. Powell never had many real conservative leanings; he was liberal in most important respects, and it seems that for most Republicans, just the fact that a minority person speaks standard English and does not embrace far-left, radical ideas is enough to qualify him or her as ''conservative.'' Most of us are very easily placated when it comes to this issue.

I've blogged before about the obsession that many on the ''right'' have with ''moderate Muslims". The rather embarrassing enthusiasm many display for figures like Walid Shoebat or Irshaad Manji or Ayaan Hirsi Ali is seemingly a show of gratitude that the 'conservative' White feels when finding a minority individual who seems to be on "our side" -- sort of. You can almost see the tears of joy welling up in their eyes as they gush over some conservative minority, like Condoleezza Rice or Thomas Sowell or the "moderate Muslims" who usually show up on Fox News discussions. It's almost as though the Republicans/conservatives feel enormous relief at finding someone in that group that they like or agree with; it's a relief to feel that "maybe I'm not racist (or Islamophobic) after all!"

For that reason, it seems, Republicans and other 'colorblind conservatives' seem to find a real need for "conservative minorities" who will then prove to them that we are really all the same under the skin, and there is really no truth to the stereotypes about minorities. Colin Powell proves that not all blacks are like Jesse Jackson or Louis Farrakhan. Condi Rice, likewise. Thomas Sowell is proof that James Watson was wrong. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is proof that Moslems can be ''on our side''.

I think Republicans are still searching for their Latino poster child, a living example of a ''conservative" Hispanic. They tried with Linda Chavez, but she of course sides with her 'Raza', though she, like Obama, is at least half White/Anglo. And then Mel Martinez was touted as one of those conservative Hispanics, but decidedly sides with his Latino cousins rather than with the gringos. So the paradigm of the minority conservative mascot has not worked out well with Hispanics. But that won't stop the GOP from searching for the elusive Hispanic conservative. It's a hunger, a need, on the part of the doctrinaire 'colorblind conservatives.'

So I suppose it's shocking and dismaying for people who desperately need those like Powell or J.C. Watts to remove their unacknowledged doubts about the PC creed.

Some of the people on the GOP forums who were unhappy about Powell's endorsement are still indignantly maintaining that ''it's not about race; I haven't rejected Obama just because he is black, it's because he is red!''

And maybe that is true in their particular case, but I think there are still many on the ''right'' who refuse to examine why they have misgivings about voting for Obama. I think many of them are too uncomfortable with the concept of acknowledging racial differences, or recognizing that blacks and Whites have different interests to pursue in the political arena. We don't all ''want the same thing" or need the same thing.

Blacks know that they differ from Whites, as do Hispanics. We are the only group not willing to acknowledge that it's human nature to want to affiliate with our own, and pursue our group's well-being. To some extent, we've had the ethnocentrism pummeled out of us, but I think it's still there, even if we try to reject it and deny it to ourselves.

We will always be at a huge disadvantage as long as we are wearing the 'colorblind' blinkers, and everyone else is flagrantly pursuing their group's interest, at our expense.

If we really want 'equality' we should claim our own right to seek the interests and well-being of our own people, as everyone else is doing. Whites are the only dupes trying to play the 'colorblind' game.

The past as a weapon

This is rather depressing.

For some years now, I've wanted to go to Virginia, visit my cousin there, and particularly to visit Williamsburg. But perhaps unsurprisingly, the Colonial Williamsburg "living history museum" is apparently another venue for promoting the politically corrected rewriting of our history.

Blogger MRB describes his visit to CW, and describes the 'historical' markers along the footpath:

Along the path there are numerous markers that try to get the visitor into the mind set of someone from an earlier period. Walking in one reads the following:

1954 “You tolerate segregated schools”

1920 “You accept that women cannot vote”

1913 “You pay no income tax and receive no Social Security”

1865 “You know people who own other people”

My reaction to these and most of the others (there were probably ten in all), was, “yes, times have changed, and mostly for the worst.” Mine was probably not the reaction anticipated by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (CWF).

Far more distasteful than these are the markers that one reads when walking back over the bridge. Below is a list of the “high points” of America history according to the CWF.

1786 Thomas Jefferson: “Made religion a matter of personal choice”

1805 Sacagawea: “Led Lewis and Clark to the American West”

1837 Horace Mann: “Inspired a universal thirst for public education”

1863 Abraham Lincoln: “Proclaimed freedom for 3 million Americans”

1879 Thomas Edison: “Turned night into day”

1908 Henry Ford: “Gave Americans the car keys to everywhere”

1928 Louis Armstrong: “Set America’s free spirit to music”

1955 Rosa Parks: “Moved civil rights to the front of the bus”

1961 John F. Kennedy: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country”

If it isn't immediately evident to you what is wrong with each of these descriptions, read the blog entry linked.
Obviously there are a lot of "high points" in American history that might have been commemorated there; how on earth is Louis Armstrong or Rosa Parks, or Sacajawea for that matter, deserving of mention where so many more important contributions and people were omitted?

Why have we gone so mad as to bow down to a small minority of people while at the same time slighting our own people? Yes, it is mostly a rhetorical question. I know the obvious reasons, but I still cannot get over the irrationality of it, or the self-denigration involved in doing perpetual penance and willingly abasing ourselves.

I had been particularly interested in Williamsburg because quite a few of my ancestors lived there, or were otherwise associated with the landmarks there, for example, the Carys being involved in rebuilding the College of William and Mary. My ancestors including the Carys, the Tabbs, the Langhornes, the Blands, and many others had some ties to that area.

However I only learned through reading the Wikipedia entry linked above that the Rockefellers were involved in the building of the 'living history museum' of Colonial Williamsburg. No wonder there is now a strong globalist/PC slant to everything there. I suspect my Virginia ancestors are turning in their graves at what their homes have now become.

The Wiki describes the usual cultural Marxist influence in the story depicted at CW:

Colonial Williamsburg has been criticized for neglecting the role of free African-Americans in Colonial life, in addition to those who were slaves.
[...]
Despite abolition of slavery in 1865 after the American Civil War, later that century and during the first half of the 20th century, racial segregation persisted in Virginia, with many Jim Crow laws requiring it. When it first opened in the 1930s, Colonial Williamsburg had segregated dormitories for its reenactors. African-Americans filled historical roles as servants, rather than free people as in the present day. Colonial Williamsburg allowed the entry of blacks, but Williamsburg area hotels denied them accommodation, and state law forbade blacks from eating in the restored taverns and from shopping in nearby stores. In the 1950s, African-Americans were only allowed to visit Colonial Williamsburg one day a week until after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 began dismantling segregation laws and practices. Colonial Williamsburg offered some of the earlier public accommodations on an integrated basis.

In the 1970s, in reaction to increasing scorn of its one-sided portrayal of colonial life, Colonial Williamsburg increased its number of African-American slave interpretors. In 1994 it added slave auctions and slave marriages; the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference later protested. In 1999 Colonial Williamsburg added a new program to explain slavery and its role in Colonial America.''

The Wiki also tells us:

''The motto of Colonial Williamsburg is "that the future may learn from the past."

Maybe that should be: "that the future may feel guilty about the past'', and of course be shamed into endless apologies and subservience.

This phenomenon of rehearsing and rehashing our past national or racial 'sins' is uncomfortably like the trend seen in many troubled young people today: the trend towards 'self-harm' or self-injury. I know of some young people who for some bizarre reason inflict cuts or wounds on their own flesh. We are doing this on a national or civilizational scale, inflicting harm and pain on ourselves. What healthy person would do that? What healthy person would endlessly dwell on how bad we are/were as a nation, or how evil our forefathers were? Surely all this recrimination takes its toll on the collective psyche.

I don't know whether I will visit CW; I may go and visit my colonial ancestors' graves, most of whose locations I know. But I really don't care to be subjected to somebody's piously PC revisionism, or to be reminded of what "bigots" my ancestors were. The "bigotry" is simply on the other foot now. But the politically correct are too blind to see this.

Books

As I've mentioned before, I love old books of all kinds, especially reference books, histories, anything factual. It's vital, I think, to read what was written before the present politically correct regime got a stranglehold on the West. So I go on regular forays to local stores (antique and second-hand stores) which sell old books. The thrift shop in my town is an extraordinarily good place to find unusual old books, and to find them at bargain prices. I've found a lot of old books (from 50 to 100 years old) for as little as 25 or 50 cents each. Some of them are not books that are easily found, although from a real bibliophile's viewpoint, they may not be valuable books. Their value to me is in the information they contain, as well as the glimpse into the un-propagandized minds of earlier eras. As the older generations die off, our only contact with the saner world of the past is via old books.

I've got quite a stack of books which I haven't had a chance to read yet, or books which I have browsed but not read through, but here are a few of the recent books which I was particularly pleased to find.

The Standard Dictionary of Facts - published in 1917, 908 pages. "A Practical Handbook of Ready Reference."

The New Dictionary of Thoughts - edited by Tryon Edwards, D.D., published in 1930, 732 pages.
This book is one that I have relished browsing through; as my readers know, I love collecting quotations, and this one is a collection of quotations, many of them from sources who are unfamiliar to our era. Have any of you ever noticed how, for example, Bartlett's has changed through the years? Now they cite such founts of wisdom as 'pop culture' icons and celebrities, and of course they've gone multiculti and Politically Correct, big-time. It's easy to see the shibboleths and prejudices of an era by the quotations that are selected for books like Bartlett's, and by the online sources that are collections of quotes. So this old book of quotes is a real breath of fresh air, speaking of a very different time.

The Joy of Words - by J.G Ferguson, published in 1960. This one is something of an oddity. "Selections of Literature, expressing beauty, humor, history, wisdom and inspiration...which are a joy to read and read again."

Sisson's Word and Expression Locator - by A.F. Sisson. Published 1966.

A Treasury of American Heritage - A Selection from The Magazine of History, including articles from the years 1954-59. Published in 1960. This is a coffee-table sized book, with many wonderful colorplates.

A World of Movies - by Richard Lawton. I can't find a publication date, but it appears to be from the 70s. There are also lots of beautiful pictures in this book.

Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in New England, by David P. Hall. Published 1989.
The previous owner of this book wrote some amusing notations on the dust jacket, and on the flyleaf. Next to the author's picture, he has written "A diehard liberal -- a democrat [sic] no doubt!" On the title page he says "a distortion of true Christianity, written by a nonbeliever. Full of falsehoods, completely misreads the Puritans."

I haven't read it yet, but the previous owner, judging by his notations, sounds like a man after my own heart, though I would have expected liberal bias, considering its publication date. Anyway I hope to read it sometime soon.

I'm also a collector of old cookbooks and recipe books and booklets, and in recent months I've found quite a few from the 1920s through the 1960s. One I was particularly thrilled with is a book called 'The Art of Cooking and Serving', by Sarah Field Splint, published in 1932. It has some nice illustrations on the cover, very typical of that era. Recipe books, too, tell a story of how our country and culture have changed. Still, I enjoy the cookbooks for their own sake.

A few months ago, in my local thrift shop I found a Geneva Bible, which is something I have been wanting for some time, and I've priced them online. I've found they are quite expensive. So I found a Geneva Bible, in very good condition, priced at $5. I passed it up -- only because my bookshelves are groaning under the existing weight, and there are already books with no 'home' stacked around the place, here and there, and the Geneva Bible was a large tome. But afterwards I regretted not buying it, and went back -- to find it's gone, unsurprisingly. Somebody got a wonderful buy.

I suspect that my town is something of a treasure trove of antiques, old books and ephemera because the people who live here are readers of books, and they are also very frugal, tending not to throw valued things like books and antiques away but to carefully keep them throughout the decades. Many of these old book collections and antiques are likely things that have been given away, sadly, on the death of the owner, or when the owners have to leave their homes to go to assisted care or nursing homes. Sad to say, I think the younger generations will not be so careful of possessions as the older folks in this area so obviously are.

So what's on your bookshelves, readers? What are you reading?

Are conspiracy theories always wrong?

Today I was watching part of a documentary on UFOs. I am usually 'multitasking' and often only watch bits and pieces of these things. But as I watched a segment of this program, with allegations of cover-ups on the part of the powers that be, my mind turned to the subject of cover-ups and conspiracies in general.

I've noticed that for a while, UFOs were a hot topic, then the reports began to dwindle away, and the media to ignore the sightings that are occasionally reported. The attitude that most people seem to adopt towards the subject is a scornful, derisive one. Why? Because the popular perception is that people who 'see UFOs' are somehow kooks, cultists, or attention-seekers, and that only ignoramuses believe that extraterrestrials are joyriding around our skies.

There are no little green men, most reasonable people agree. Here's where the mistake is made, though: many people somehow jump to the conclusion that seeing a UFO is the same as claiming to have seen a ''flying saucer' piloted by little green men. However, seeing an object you don't recognize and can't identify does not imply believing in extraterrestrial visitors or 'space aliens'. It just means you saw something unknown. Lots of credible people have seen unidentified objects in the skies; some of them were/are airline pilots, military personnel, and it's claimed that even some of our astronauts reported UFO sightings when in orbit.

Yet the popular perception is that UFO witnesses are deserving of ridicule or incredulity. Similar attitudes prevail in some quarters where subjects like the North American Union are concerned, or the North American superhighway. A couple of years ago, many 'mainstream' conservatives were harshly ridiculing any talk of such things, more or less likening those who discussed the NAU as on a par with UFO cultists and other such 'conspiracy-mongers.' Michael Medved was one of the harshest and most relentless voices accusing those who wrote about it or discussed it, of paranoia and conspiracy-mongering. Medved's arrogant attitude, like so many who take that tone, seemed to be that he knew more than the rest of us 'paranoiacs', and he knew for a fact that no such plan existed, in fact, no conspiracies or covert plans exist anywhere along these lines.

How can any human being without access to the innermost workings of the government, or of the international elites, say that categorically? Clearly our government, like most existing governments, does not divulge everything to the public, and likewise, our biased and ideologically-driven media do not report the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.

So I think most people would agree that governments are capable of concealing things from us, especially when it is deemed likely that making some things public would lead to discontent or unrest among the general public. Sometimes, also, when they are doing things that are clearly against the popular will, or against the Constitution, in the case of our country, they are less than honest and open with us. In an atmosphere of government secretiveness, it is no surprise that sometimes conspiracy theories crop up, as people try to make sense of things that are obviously not being explained credibly by official sources.

The UFO phenomenon is one such area in which the government has not been open and forthcoming, and some writers have asserted that there is government 'disinformation' being sown so as to discredit those who are writing about it and discussing it. We know that governments, including ours, practice such methods in certain situations. Skepticism is a good thing -- up to a point. To be skeptical of everything, or to immediately dismiss speculations as 'conspiracy theories' is not exactly approaching it with a willingness to follow the truth wherever it leads. If we categorically exclude certain things as being 'crazy' or 'paranoid', we are not being skeptics in a good way, but are being too quick to jump to the conclusion that ''there's nothing to see here. Move along.'' It seems to me that the preferred attitude is to remain open to various possibilities. If we too quickly rule out certain explanations of a mysterious event, or we categorically dismiss various lines of investigation, that is closed-mindedness. If it's wrong to jump to the immediate conclusion that a conspiracy and/or cover-up is behind something, it's also wrong to jump to the opposite conclusion, before all the evidence is in.

Why do many people immediately deny the possibility of a conspiracy or cover-up? It can't be because there is no such thing as a conspiracy, because clearly there is. Conspiracies have happened throughout history, and they have often succeeded in effecting great changes in the world. Cover-ups have certainly happened. So why is any mention of possible conspiracies greeted with derision so often? Some people are uncomfortable with mysteries. Appearing to have a ready and incontrovertible explanation for something is a way, perhaps, of appearing to be in complete control of a situation. Finding ourselves up against a mystery, an enigma, or an unknown is rather a frustrating feeling, and it does tend to make us doubt ourselves, and doubt our own power, if we can't explain something. It is therefore preferable to some people to invent facile explanations and pronounce the mystery solved, or to otherwise dismiss the existence of a mystery or an unknown.

And what is a conspiracy? It's nothing more than a couple (or more) people colluding in a plan to do something. My 1936 Webster's says a conspiracy is:

1. An act of conspiring. A combination for an evil purpose. A plot.

Surely in a fallen world, conspiracies happen. They have happened, they are happening, they will happen. And the very nature of conspiracies is that they are secretive and concealed. If there is a conspiracy, those involved in it will automatically deny its existence or cover it up.

We are not going to get honesty from the powers that be about the plans for the NAU, or the rumored plans for the world to be divided up into regions under a global authority. Some of the well-placed people in the media and in other positions of power are also aware of any such plans and are doing their part to deny or obfuscate or promote disinformation. So we can't really expect honest answers to any questions we might ask about such things. Still, we have to pursue the truth.

With regard to the death of Joerg Haider in Austria last week, can we peremptorily state that it was a simple drunk-driving accident? I say we have too little information to say that right off the bat. If the 'accident' involved somebody other than this very controversial man, in fact a much-hated man, described by the left-wing media as something like the second coming of Hitler, we might easily dismiss any talk of foul play in his death. If my neighbor or yours was killed in the wee hours in a car accident, we might assume, most naturally, that alcohol might be the cause, especially if the neighbor was known to be a drinker, and especially if there was nothing otherwise irregular about his life.

The ''simplest possible explanation'' might be different in each case. If a man with many known enemies, such as an organized crime figure or a drug dealer, is killed, then foul play might well be a possibility to consider. A controversial politician would be a target. And Haider certainly had many political enemies, some of whom would probably stop at nothing. Personally I am going to be skeptical of any findings about his death which are released to the public. Things are not always what they seem, and we have to balance a healthy skepticism with a willingness to at least admit of certain possibilities in cases like Haider's. Skepticism should not be closed-mindedness.

The truth is all-important and we have to admit that sometimes the true explanation is not the 'simplest' or easiest. The truth has to be followed where it leads. Seeing conspiracies in everything is not a good thing, but neither is denying that conspiracies do happen.

If we honor truth, we have to keep an open mind until we have sufficient evidence one way or the other, and it serves us well to maintain some suspicion of what 'official sources' say, in many cases, especially when the 'official sources' are European authorities. It appears to me that the powers that be in the EU are even more totalitarian and less trustworthy than our own dissimulating officialdom. Let's direct a little healthy skepticism toward them, where it rightly belongs.