What's the opposite of a realist?

I'm worried about some among our people.
It seems as though all this 'race as social construct' talk has had an effect on many people, to the point where they no longer seem to be able to think about race in a common-sense way. And this is true even of the people who post on race-realist sites. For example, this comment from a discussion about DNA testing for people seeking their African roots:

15 — Anonymous wrote at 11:31 PM on June 29:

Like obama all of these “african americans” have huge quantities of White blood flowing through their veins…''

I've seen this idea repeated many times on such sites. Now, it's true that on the Internet we don't know who is saying what; I am assuming the commenter is White, but it could be anyone posting that comment.

But let's assume he is White.
Where is this idea coming from, that all blacks have 'huge quantities of White blood'? First of all, do our eyes provide us with evidence of this? I don't see it.

I suppose on average, American blacks are lighter in complexion than their cousins in Africa, but they don't appear to have ''huge quantities'' of White blood. Are people unconsciously buying the propaganda that there was a great deal of miscegenation in the slavery days? That idea is very important to the Left, because it further confuses racial categorization; they can repeat their triumphant line about how ''we're all mixed together anyway, there are no pure races!" And then they can start their litany of accusations, with lurid tales of slavemasters cruelly having their way with female slaves. I've read so many stories of people seeking their African roots, finding they have some modicum of European blood, which is explained as a result of 'rape' by a slaveowner. How do people jump to the automatic conclusion of rape in such cases? And must the White admixture, if any, date back to slavery days? Could it not have happened in later generations? I object to this automatic assumption that rape by White men is involved in any case of European DNA appearing in blacks.

But why this belief that American blacks have a great deal of White ancestry?

The always-ignorant 'Yahoo Answers' people echo the nonsense.

The 'best answer' as voted by readers says:

To know for sure they would all have to be tested. In addition many "white" Americans have black ancestry, because their ancestors were light skinned descendants of slaves and usually their owners and they married people of European ancestry until their past was forgotten or completely hidden even from themselves.

"One-third of white Americans, according to some tests, will possess between two and 20 per cent African genes. The majority of black Americans have some European ancestors.

Last year, Professor Peter Fine at Florida Atlantic University had an idea for an art class. He would gather a group of students to produce work around their idea of their racial identity. But as part of the class he asked them to take a DNA test that would break down their racial background. His bet was that most of the class - of whom the majority saw themselves as whites of European descent - had no real idea who they were.

He was right. Of 13 students, only one turned out to be completely European. The rest displayed a mixture of European, Native American, African and Asian genes. The one black student turned out to be 21 per cent white. Fine himself - who admits to looking like a corn-fed stereotype of a white Midwesterner - discovered he was a quarter Native American. ‘I honestly think these tests could have a large effect on American consciousness of who we are. If Americans recognise themselves as a mixed group of people, that could really change things,’ he said."

Ultimately all our ancestors originated in Africa, since we are all descended from "mitochondrial Eve," an African woman.''

Well, she gets maximum points for regurgitating the PC propaganda, anyway.

So we are almost all mixed, according to the official story.

I can fully understand why the good little leftists, like the person who posted that 'best answer', believe as they do, but I fail to understand why people who are supposed to be realists want to believe similar things.

Is there any reliable information on how much White admixture there is among black Americans, or vice-versa? It seems difficult to find on the Internet, and it would seem likely that without widespread (and reliable) DNA testing any information would be unreliable. Most people don't know their genealogy beyond their grandparents, or in rare cases, great-grandparents.

Until such solid information is widely available, which I don't foresee happening soon, all we can do is go by the evidence of our eyes as well as by what is actually known about our ancestries.

As far as our current president, for some reason this bizarre theory has caught on (propagated, for some strange reason, by Rush Limbaugh and others) that the president is less than 1/8 African or ''12 percent.'' Why, I wonder do people believe that, or why do they want to believe it?

Another often-heard idea from some on the 'realist' side is that ''the president chose to identify as black; he could have chosen White.'' I honestly think that remark, if made, say, 50 years ago, would have met with incredulity.

Maybe this man could have 'chosen', being somewhat ambiguous in appearance, but for most who have more than a little minority ancestry, there is no question of 'choosing' a White identity.

But for the ultimate illustration of racial confusion, this story is being discussed in various places, and on some of the comments sections, people are claiming that the children in question ''look just like Michael''. This, to me, is beyond bizarre. Have people lost all common sense? Is the multicult, colorblind propaganda rendering us just, well, blind? It seems so.

As far as I know, it's still a fact that a black parent cannot father a White child.

A generation or more ago, I think you would not have found many people who could believe such silliness. It's simply counter to common sense, and to the evidence of our eyes. Are more White people on the verge of becoming truly blind to race, or are they convinced of the liberal idea that we can 'choose' who we are, regardless of our genetics? It looks that way.

What's the opposite of a race-realist? A race-fantasist? A race-denier? A race agnostic?
Whatever we call it, it gives me the feeling that I've gone through the looking-glass.

If you haven't seen this already...

This story is enough to raise your blood pressure.

A group that preaches racial superiority and divisiveness wants to enact a stealth illegal immigration bill -- not dissimilar to chain migration. The bill will reward illegal immigration to the direct detriment of all American taxpayers and especially the elderly.

Kind of puts Judge Sotomayor's membership in La Raza in a new light, doesn't it?

Groups like La Raza encourage the Balkanization of America. They promote mutually hostile political groups that do not form a "melting pot", that do not utilize a common language, and that do not share the principles of America's founding.

Read the rest at the link. At the bottom of the post, there is a quote from a press release which supports the above story as being plausible.

I haven't spent much time blogging about immigration, legal or illegal, lately, or about amnesty. I think I said in the past that amnesty is more or less irrelevant at this point, as illegal immigration continues unabated as far as I can witness, and that since illegals enjoy a kind of de facto amnesty, why should they worry about whether or not an actual amnesty passes? And the linked blog piece indicates that such is the prevailing attitude among the illegals and their apologists. They enjoy just about every privilege that is supposedly reserved to citizens, without having the same responsibilities. Amnesty seems inconsequential to them. They are our equals and more, as far as our 'government' is concerned, so why would they want to change anything?

This idea of 'health care for all' seems designed to benefit the illegals and others who are outside the legitimate system. It will benefit very few, if any, of us.

SCOTUS on the Ricci case

Court rules for White firefighters in discrimination case

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a group of white firefighters in Connecticut were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision endorsed by high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

The 5-4 ruling poses a potential complication to Sotomayor's nomination, with confirmation hearings set to start in July. Already, supporters and critics of Sotomayor are seizing on the decision in an effort to defend their stance.

In the high-profile, controversial case, white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., argued they were discriminated against when the city tossed out the results of a promotion exam because too few minorities scored high enough on it.

Justice Anthony Kennedy authored the opinion in favor of Frank Ricci and his fellow firefighters who sued the city of New Haven.''

Some on the right are hailing this as a huge victory, and while it's true that we should be happy for good news wherever we find it, it does not seem clear that this is as decisive as some are indicating.

Here is Jared Taylor's take on it, which is somewhat less celebratory than that of most conservative commentators so far:

Conservatives are heralding the Supreme Court’s decision in the Ricci case as a great victory—and it is true that the results of the New Haven firemen’s exam will be accepted and several whites will be promoted to lieutenant and captain. However, as Justice Anthony Kennedy conceded in his majority decision, the court dodged the central question of whether it is constitutional to discriminate against white people in the name of “fairness” for non-whites. This decision is not even half a loaf for whites—it’s more like a few crumbs.

As Justice Antonin Scalia pointed out in a concurring opinion, today’s decision “merely postpones the evil day on which the Court will have to confront the [real] question,” namely whether “disparate impact” is legitimate grounds for throwing out employment standards.
[...]
The Court did one useful thing, however. It made it harder to junk test results because of “disparate impact” by saying there had to be a “strong basis in evidence” that the harm this did to whites was justified. But as Justice Ruth Ginsberg pointed out correctly—in what was otherwise a nasty dissent—all this does is set up yet another murky standard that will make it hard for employers to know what is legal and what is not.''

Earlier today I was saying that perhaps these jobs should be assigned by throwing names into a hat, that being the only truly 'fair' way. I thought I was being ironic, but according to Steve Sailer, that kind of thing is already a reality in Chicago, where a lottery is used:

'...lotteries are exactly what cities such as Chicago are already doing with the results of firefighter tests, in an attempt to comply with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s "Four-Fifths Rule". This regulation puts the burden of proof in discrimination cases on employers when blacks aren’t hired or promoted at least 80 percent as often as whites.

There’s a reason you don’t see much in the newspapers about cities hiring firefighters by lottery: this method is terrifying to anybody who might someday be trapped in a burning building. So politicians don’t explain too vividly to the public what exactly they are up to.''

Truth is stranger than fiction.

We had a fire last year, and though it was minor, it was unsettling when a group of firefighters arrived, one of their number being a diminutive girl of about 23.

According to some people, seeing a female firefighter should have been comforting to me:

Firefighters say diversity can be especially important in emergencies. Victims may feel more comfortable when they see first responders who look similar to them or understand their neighborhoods, they say.

White members of Engine Company 60 on the South Side of Chicago see it differently. The mention of New Haven drew a cluster of firefighters who said they have seen examples of reverse discrimination and voiced concern that procedures used to increase diversity in the higher ranks may harm the public.''

I agree with the guys of Engine Company 60. I told a family member that I demand to have strapping 6-foot-4 men arriving to fight the fire, rather than a petite girl. The idea of hiring anybody less than the most qualified and the fittest to do these jobs is an affront to society and a risk to human life.

But the Ricci case of course goes far beyond who is hired to fight fires. At issue is the whole affirmative action farce, and the widespread effect on our society of placing people in jobs based on skin color or gender rather than choosing the best and the smartest.

And it has to do with the whole tortured issue of ''fairness'', which the left likes to talk about. To them, ''fair'' seems to mean exacting an eye for an eye. They insist that rampant racial favoritism kept Whites dominant for many years in this country, and to believe this, they must deny that actual racial differences exist. And they believe that 'affirmative action' is a legitimate way to exact revenge or payback.

It's politically unacceptable for them to acknowledge that in the old days, people were generally hired on merit, and the best man usually won. To make merit the main criterion would, unfortunately for the left and their minority clients, mean that the latter would have to compete with Whites on a truly equal basis, and they are afraid this would mean a return to the bad old days.

Obviously, too, this SCOTUS decision does not reflect well on Sonia Sotomayor, as her opinion is again repudiated by the Supreme Court. But this will not deter her supporters, who will spin in in some way to deflect any criticism of her by Republicans.

Some beautiful music

I think a change from the usual topics is welcome if only for a moment, and so I am offering some music that I've enjoyed.

I recently got the album called Adieu False Heart, by Linda Ronstadt and Ann Savoy. Ann Savoy is known for her work with her husband, Cajun musician Marc Savoy and some of the music on the album is in that tradition.

This version of the 1966 hit song, Walk Away, Renee, is beautiful, and stands up well in comparison with the original version, though it's very much their own styling. The song title is changed to reflect the masculine spelling of the French name, 'Rene' which is appropriate.

I have not always been a fan of Ronstadt but this album with Ann Savoy is beautiful, and the material, to my surprise, is not all traditional, though it sounds as though it might be.
I hope you enjoy this song.

'...every form of tyranny...'

Thomas Jefferson famously said "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." We've all heard this quoted, or read it, but it's significant that he specifically said ''tyranny over the mind of man."

Often when we hear the word 'tyranny' we automatically envision the old Communist regimes in Eastern Europe where people were shipped off to gulags or mental institutions for dissenting from the regime and the Party. This hard totalitarianism, with its roundups of dissidents, or its midnight knocks on the door, is not the only kind. Though the systems could and did imprison (and sometimes kill) the bodies of dissenters, they could not always imprison the minds of their subjects.

It's commonly said, by those with direct experience of these regimes, that the people in general did not truly believe the ideology whichwas the basis for the Communist regimes. Newspapers, radio, and television, as well as movies, offered only the accepted party line on anything, and heavily censored anything that belied the official belief system. However, it seems that this information control was rather clumsy and transparent, and many people thus saw through it, inwardly rejecting it while outwardly conforming, and discreetly keeping silent.

Sometimes it's a temptation to wonder if the same is not true in the Western countries, where our politically correct, mandatory multiculturalism and ''equality'' are the dictates of the day. There is, certainly, a core of people who, for whatever reason, have managed to reject the lies at the heart of the prevailing order. But are these people sufficient in numbers to form any significant opposition?

Sad to say, I think the majority in our country, and perhaps in all Western countries, are fully indoctrinated, so much so that they have no idea they have even been programmed to think as they do. I think many are indoctrinated so thoroughly that they believe the ideology of the regime to be their own, independent beliefs, and what's more, they would probably be willing to give their lives or take the lives of others for the sake of those beliefs.

True believers, no matter how bereft of truth the system to which they've pledged themselves, will do this. How many cults have made the headlines, as their benighted followers commit suicide or go to the extreme of killing the ''traitors'' who desert the cult or question its tenets?

Thomas Jefferson was a man who chose his words with great precision and care, as he did all things. When he wrote the phrase, 'tyranny over the mind of man,' he did so for a reason.

Imprisoning men's bodies does not confine their minds. The Left knows this. It's often said, however, that an idea can't be killed. When the Communist regimes imprisoned people like Solzhenitsyn, they did not destroy his ability to think freely. When a dissident or resister is killed, his ideas often spread because of his death. You truly can't kill ideas, but the tyrants know that you might kill an idea a-borning, and stop it from becoming fully formed and growing. And you might, to a great extent, render many people incapable of conceiving a free idea. You might intellectually sterilize or stunt people by steady, unrelenting propaganda, especially if it's started as early as possible in life, and sustained. You might, if you wished to do this, use everything from advertising to movies, to plays, music, literature, the visual arts, sports and games. Soon, as the propaganda takes hold, people propagate it without even realizing they are passing it on, like a virus. It becomes part and parcel of the whole culture.

To truly condition people and diminish their ability to think freely, you might also make plenty of mind-numbing, dulling drugs available, from the illegal ''street drugs'' to the respectable kind, prescribed by your kindly doctor and dispensed by the pharmacist. Have you ever noticed how many people you meet are on some kind of mood-altering drugs these days? The children are on various drugs for 'ADD", or ADHD or whatever it's called now, and the adults are often on antidepressants or sleep medications. Why are our medical professionals so eager to press these things on us? Every time I visit the doctor, the routine question ''are you depressed?'' is asked. Whose idea is it to importune people to take antidepressants? Is it some kind of official policy?

I am not impugning the character of doctors or other medical workers. I don't doubt that they believe they are doing only what is for our benefit, but I wonder why as a people we are so medicated.

A population that is harried and stressed by unstable conditions, uncertainty about tomorrow, and grieving, in some cases, the loss of the familiar, may feel more need to medicate their feelings away, and our government is probably happy to encourage this trend, as they become increasingly involved in our medical and health business. But a population that is anxious, stressed, and medicated for it will be less likely to be able to think clearly and judge rightly.

The ideologues who shape our culture do not want a populace with the time, the acuity, or the inclination to think and evaluate for themselves. The ideologues, those soft totalitarians who sit in seats of power, want to influence if not control our thoughts. Not only are our thoughts fair game, but our feelings, our emotions, our attitudes, our opinions, our moods, our wishes, aspirations, dreams, hopes, and expectations. They want to dictate the language we use, the words we choose to express ourselves. Obviously, via our entertainment, they want to shape the most private and personal fantasies and urges, too, and then enslave us to those as well.

Even our most sacred impulses are being shaped by the insidious influence of the prevailing ideology, which of course is, like the true God, a jealous 'god' who wants us to have no other deity but itself. Our churches, being led by and populated by imperfect people, has also fallen prey to the world's belief system, and the propaganda, which wants to govern how we relate to God as well as to our fellow man.

The Bible tells us not to fear those who kill the body. The soft totalitarians, the mind tyrants, may not kill dissenters outright, but they want to abort our ability to think and to feel as free men and women.

Just a heads-up

For Forum readers, I've posted a piece over there, in VA's Latest. It won't be posted here, just there. Stop by if you like.

No escaping politics, (again)

Some time back I wrote a piece called 'No escaping politics' in which I lamented that even when I try to take a break from Internet controversy and surf some non-political blogs, I found that many bloggers who blog about, say, old movies or vintage photographs or art or music (or even cute animal pictures) insist on thrusting their political (leftist, PC) views into the forefront. This was nauseatingly on display during the last endless election cycle, with many non-political bloggers devoting their non-political blogs to paeans to The One.

Oftentimes when I like to take a break from all the controversy, I take refuge in music. It's a great healer for me. Recently somebody had sent me an album by a group called The Flatlanders, who are a West Texas group who do a rather quirky, 'Alt-country' style of music. In the past, I've liked their music, including that of band member Jimmie Dale Gilmore when he made solo albums. His music is rather eccentric, with occasional allusions to his New-Agey religious affiliations (he apparently followed a guru in Colorado for a while; how does a West Texas boy end up in that situation?). But I liked his music generally.

However, this Flatlanders effort has a song called 'Borderless Love' which contains something like the following lyrics:

A wall is a mirror that can only reveal
One side of a story that passes for real
But break it all down, it all becomes clear
It's the fearless who love and the loveless who fear

Borderless love, the land of the free
Borderless love, how far can you see?
Borderless love, there's no fear at all
In a borderless love there's no need for a wall...

And on a song called Homeland Refugee:

There’s some refugees from Mexico
Behind an abandoned Texaco
We nod and smile, it’s clear we’re all the same
For everything this world is worth
We’re all just migrants on this earth
Returning to the dust from where we came

So you see, it's all in vain, trying to escape from the propaganda. It's everywhere. You can run, but you can't hide.

People who dislike Christians have a term, ''Bible-thumper'', for those they perceive as aggressive proselytizers who zealously preach their religion and impose their moral framework on all and sundry, every chance they get.
We need an equivalent term to describe the leftists who can never shut up about their ideology/religion.

Generally when I rant about this kind of thing, somebody will tell me, ''oh, they're all leftists, but I just tune all that out and ignore it and enjoy the music (or movie, or TV show).'' I find that hard to do. I won't buy music that forces this pushy worldview on me, nor will I see movies or TV shows, or buy products, which force their goody-goody PC on me as the price of 'enjoying' their entertainment.

As the book title has it, ''shut up and sing!' And 'entertainers', please leave your half-baked beliefs out of it. You go to your church, I'll go to mine.

On comments

The post and accompanying thread about 'Opinions we loathe' is in danger of being deleted. I just don't have the time or energy to wade through the comments and determine who instigated what.

I do notice, in reviewing posts over the last several weeks just now, that at least one person has posted under seven or eight pseudonyms and a couple of IP ranges. What can I make of this? Certainly nobody is required to stick to one user-name; anonymous comments are not forbidden either, although I wonder if they ought to be. Unless someone is here to pose as several different people, sometimes trading comments with himself on a thread. why the many different names?

The problem on the Internet is that there are people who are here to stir up trouble on blogs like this one, just because we discuss non-PC ideas here, and then some people are just pot-stirrers who like to disrupt. There are people whose role is as agent provocateur on blogs like this one, and I can't know, unless I know you personally, or ''know'' you via e-mail or PM exchanges, who is who. Even then, things can be other than what they seem. By their fruits shall ye know them; if certain posters have a disruptive effect, I will take it that they are here for that purpose.

I would ask, please, that each person have a consistent identity, and not represent himself as a half-dozen different people. I do see your IP numbers, and believe it or not, I do recognize writing styles.

My idea for this blog is that it be, ideally, for relatively like-minded people. I am not here to do battle one-on-one with those on the opposing side. Neither do I want to have to defend myself against people from ''our side'' who think I am too far-right or not far-right enough.

I will use the ban button when called for. I would prefer not to. I would prefer everybody police himself and write responsibly here. There are other places where the shock talk is the norm, but not here. I trust most of my regulars to be responsible and adult. Thanks. For the most part, you are a good group of commenters.

Custer's Last Prayer

George Armstrong Custer, died at Battle of Little Big Horn, June 25, 1876

Opinions that we loathe

"If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the
principle of free thought—not free thought for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought that we hate. .
. . We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expressions of opinions that we loathe. '' -Supreme
Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

My regular readers may want to skip this entry; it's meant for the self-righteous visitors who felt themselves to be 'victimized' or offended by words I wrote here the other day. This is meant for those who think that I and those who think as I do are their personal enemies. So please, indulge me in a little venting.

I want to clarify, first, what I said in the blog entry about Richard Nixon's politically incorrect conversations, which have caused some stir recently. In regard to abortion, I do not support abortion, at all. I was not suggesting I agreed with Nixon's views on the appropriateness of abortion in certain situations.

I did say that his politically incorrect views regarding interracial unions represented the prevailing majority opinion at the time he expressed them. And this is factually true. In fact, those views seem to be the prevailing consensus now, at least in practice, as statistics show that even in this politically correct, ''race-transcending'', colorblind age, the vast majority of people marry within their race.

That's fact, which can be supported by statistics, as well as by impartial observation of real life.

Factoring in all racial combinations, Stanford University sociologist Michael Rosenfeld calculates that more than 7 percent of America’s 59 million married couples in 2005 were interracial, compared to less than 2 percent in 1970.''

In other words, about 93 percent of America's married couples are of the same race. This indicates that preference for one's own race in marriage is still the norm, still the preference of the great majority.

That this fact bothers some people, or hurts their feelings, is not the issue, and it is certainly not my fault, much less my problem. The facts are what they are. Human beings are what they are, and racial cohesion (as well as racial loyalty, until recently) are simply intrinsic to human nature.

The fact that such a substantial majority of people marry those of their own race says something, especially in the face of a half-century or so of nonstop propaganda meant to break down racial consciousness and intra-racial loyalty and cohesion.

My comments about the majority opinion was not meant to express approval of abortion in whatever circumstance, nor to claim that the majority of Americans believed abortion permissible, then or now. My comment was merely to indicate that today's politically correct received opinions on race were not popular opinions back then. And that's fact, even though some like to call facts they dislike ''hate''.

What is really at issue here is not facts, but 'feelings'. A commenter bemoaned that there is 'so much evil in the world', meaning that certain politically incorrect ideas are not merely mistaken or wrong, but ''evil'', and possibly a threat or a danger to others. And not only that, but I myself and perhaps the people who agree with me are 'evil' as individuals. Collectively, ''evil'' people with ''evil'' ideas constitute a dangerous group to the emotional forces of the left.

My recent entries on the subject of 'hate and extremism' touched on that idea: the attempt to make thought-criminals of all those who disagree with the PC regime which dominates all thought and discourse in public. It does not matter to the fearmongers on the left that these 'extremist' opinons are nothing more than your parents' or grandparents' ideas, and certainly the ideas of our Founding Fathers and past generations in general.

Suddenly, traditional, widely-held, time-honored ideas are 'evil.' What kind of mind looks at their own history and their own people, seeing only 'evil' and threats lurking around every corner?

Ultimately, I've found that it's a waste of time and breath to argue with the indoctrinated and the PC pharisees of the left, most especially where racial matters are concerned. I believe I've said that one in 1,000 liberals might be willing to be honest and listen to the other side. I take that back. I now think it's more like 1 in 10,000 or in 100,000.

For liberals, it's all about their feelings, and if you hurt their feelings with an idea or opinion, you are evil and should be silenced, or rounded up, as Bonnie Erbe and her ilk propose.

I've had people on the Internet literally wish me dead because of my opinions. How's that ''stop the hate'' thing going for you liberals? It looks to me as though the hate is mostly one-way, coming from your side towards ours.

Liberals, and all politically correct censors and self-designated vigilantes, remove the plank from your own eye first, rather than searching for the mote in your conservative brother's eye.

Here's an idea: try arguing ideas or facts when you disagree with someone. Implying that your interlocutor is 'evil' because you disagree with his ideas is immature, childish, and unworthy of a thinking adult. I will not engage in any kind of debate with those who attack my character because they hate my ideas, and therefore hate me.

Should it not be possible for a grown-up to dislike someone's ideas or opinions without calling that person 'evil'?
Please know that your ideas are as odious to me as mine seem to be to you, the difference between us being that I do not troll liberal/leftist/minority blogs looking for a fight, or for a chance to verbally assail those I differ with. Nor do I try to silence them, as they would love to silence those to their right.

One more thing which needs to be said: liberals tend to loathe conservatives and particularly Christians because they think Christians ''want to impose their morality'' on everyone. Hello? All that liberals do involves ''imposing their morality'' on the rest of us. A prime example is the subject at hand, the subject that so offended my delicate commenter yesterday: race and freedom of association. Because liberals deem it a good and moral and high-minded and 'enlightened' thing to pretend that race does not exist, or to condescend to associate with people of differing races, nothing will do but to force everybody to partake in that association. No one is to be allowed to refrain from associating with others, and no one is to be allowed to be left alone. The government must, by use of force and coercion, compel association with all and sundry, regardless of the wishes of those involved.

What on earth is this but imposing your morality on someone else?
I mean, it's nice for you that you have this enlightened 'egalitarian' religious faith, which enjoins you to pretend there is no such thing as race, ethnicity, or gender, but must you impose that religion or ideology on me and mine? What gives you that right? And under what Constitutional principle is the government to force people to associate with any given group, or to forbid people to assemble with others of their free choosing?

Even if you find some Constitutional justification for this, it is not ethical or moral.

Liberals relish calling conservatives ''judgmental'', and yet you liberals reserve all judgment to yourselves, judging and condemning willy-nilly, as if you are the voice of God himself. And isn't it you who claim that there are no moral absolutes? Then your absolutism about equality is meaningless and arbitrary. If there are no absolutes, then my views are just as valid and just as moral as yours are.

Your self-righteous, often self-pitying moralizing has no legitimacy, especially coming from those who say everything is relative, there are no absolutes.

The kinds of comments I get from the left, from their various "offended'' victim-clients, and from the 'mainstream respectable conservatives' only serve to convince me that this country cannot endure under one government; we are far too polarized, not only along racial, ethnic, and religious lines, but also across philosophical and ethical lines. If my good (racial loyalty, love for my own and my fathers) is someone else's ''evil'', then what hope is there of sustaining such a society?

Losing the immigration wars

From an article called Not So Huddled Masses: Multiculturalism and Foreign Policy
by Scott McConnell

The modest contemporary literature on the connection between America’s immigration and foreign policies contains this assertion by Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan, from the introduction to their 1974 volume Ethnicity: Theory and Experience: “The immigration process is the single most important determinant of American foreign policy . . . This process regulates the ethnic composition of the American electorate. Foreign policy responds to that ethnic composition. It responds to other things as well, but probably first of all to the primary fact of ethnicity.”

Yet, the authors noted a nearly complete absence of discussion of the issue, and they pursued it little themselves. Rather, they tossed it in as a supplement to their general argument: ethnicity was not going to wither away, leaving only colorful residues for annoyance or celebration. It would remain a primary form of social life in the United States.

Nonetheless, ethnicity played little role in the foreign policy battles of the 1960s and 1970s.''

This is an interesting piece, though I take issue with certain of his presuppositions.

He does correctly note that the 1965 Immigration Act was a turning point, and he makes the connection between the passage of that Act and the Civil Rights Revolution of the years preceding. On this blog I've mentioned that Ted Kennedy himself said that the Immigration Act was a natural extension of the Civil Rights Act, as if to imply that 'civil rights' for American-born blacks also extended to the 'civil right' to immigrate here for all nonwhite peoples. To continue immigration restriction, especially when the restrictions favored European immigrants, would be seen in the light of our newfound ideology as 'discrimination', and that, above all, was not to be allowed.

In any case, the backers of the 1965 act did not imagine huge demographic changes: there would be, they claimed, some modest increase in the number of Greek and Italian immigrants but not much else. The sheer inaccuracy of this prediction was already apparent by the early 1970s. The 1965 Act allowed entry of immigrants from any country, so long as they possessed certain job skills or family members living here or had been granted refugee status themselves.

The family reunification provision soon became the vital engine of immigrant selection. By the 1980s, it had greatly increased numbers of Asians and of Hispanics—the latter mostly from Mexico. The European population of the country was now in relative decline—from 87 percent in 1970 to 66 percent in 2008. If immigration continues at present rates (and barring a long-term economic collapse, it is likely to), by 2040, Hispanics will make up a quarter of the American population.''

I think he, (along with most who discuss this subject of demographics) greatly underestimates the numbers of Mexicans and other Hispanics who are here now (who knows how many?) and the number who are still coming. The government has consistently, and I think deliberately, lowballed their figures so as to allay the concerns of many people. And obviously, the low estimates produce an inaccurate prediction of how many will be here by 2040. I am convinced that White Americans will be a minority before that date. All the signs are there.

McConnell discusses the role played by ethnicity in our past foreign policy. He describes how the various ethnic groups in America influenced our country towards neutrality in both world wars, as conflicting ethnic interests caused heated disagreements about the right course of action.

In any event, America’s intra-European divisions began to melt away quickly after Pearl Harbor, as military service became the defining generational event for American men born between 1914 and 1924. The mixed army squad of WASP, Italian, German, Jew, and Irish became a standard plot device for the popular World War II novel and film.''

But did those wartime movies simply reflect the reality of the 'melting pot' America which had unified around the patriotic cause? Or were the movies meant to try to create such a reality and influence the real world? There was probably some of the latter involved. I've noticed how many World War II era movies were heavy on the 'one big American family' storyline, with each European ethnicity being celebrated and given positive treatment. Did the old distrusts and animosities evaporate during the War, or did they just get swept under the carpet for the duration?

McConnell connects the new post-war ethnic activism to the Cold War, with many Eastern Europeans being very anti-Communist.

Eastern Europeans lobbied for the rollback of Soviet rule, enshrining it as a GOP platform plank if not a practical commitment. Americans of East European background remained staunchly anti-Communist long after anti-Communism surrendered its luster in the aftermath of Vietnam, allying with neoconservative Jews and hamstringing Nixon and Kissinger’s détente policy. As anti-Communism became an engine of Americanization, the Cold War showcased the hyphenated American.''

I've noted too that the Cold War also became further incentive for America to embrace egalitarianism and to aggressively push 'civil rights', as a response to Communist propaganda. The old Soviet Union found that for many Americans, our Achilles' heel was the racial inequality that they saw in America. And the Soviets, being fully committed to egalitarian ideology, believed that any inequalities were the result of oppression and discrimination, not of any innate differences among the races. So they focused on the racial divisions in our country, seeing this as a way of discrediting our claims of being a free country with 'liberty and justice for all.' The Soviets, in addition to emphasizing in their propaganda how we were a country of haves and have-nots, a country with extremes of wealth and poverty, liked to accuse us of being racially backward. And our elected officials seemed especially stung by these allegations from the Soviets. They felt that we had to show the world we were making progress on 'racial unity' and thus win the propaganda war, the public relations war.

Now, we seem committed to continuing this 'multicultural', proposition nation image that was so deliberately crafted in the 60s and onward.

McConnell downplays the potential foreign policy influence of Hispanics, seeing them as not particularly loyal to the Mexican state, which they see as corrupt. I wonder if he noticed all those demonstrations a few years ago, in which Mexicans (and other Latinos) aggressively carried their national flags? Has he ever been through a Mexican neighborhood and seen how many Mexican flags fly? Granted these are anecdotes, not hard evidence, but I would say the Latinos, whether Mexican or other Latin Americans, are highly ethnocentric, aggressively so, as they have always been. He confuses loyalty to a state or regime with loyalty to their ethnic nation and their culture.

How can it be that we have always been a neighbor to Mexico, yet few Americans seem to know much about Mexicans, other than the stereotypes and the pro-Hispanic propaganda put out by the RNC et al?

McConnell, like most conservatives, seems almost exclusively concerned with the fortunes of political parties rather than the well-being and the future of the American people, the core, American population. I get the sense that he thinks we are already history, or soon will be, and this does not bother him.

He cavalierly describes the end of 'Anglo-Protestantism':

For if solidifying the American nation required a re-invigorated Anglo-Protestant culture, the initiative would have to come to a considerable degree from Anglo-Protestants themselves. Reading Huntington (and Kennan as well), one cannot but sense that what they really seek is a revival of something resembling the American national elite of the 1940s and 1950s, exemplified by the foreign policy “wise men” of the Truman era (of whom Kennan was one). But that particular Protestant elite, whose cousins held the commanding positions of America’s industries and universities, was more or less banished from the national stage in the 1960s. Not only is its return impossible; it barely exists. What has replaced it as the dynamic core of American Protestantism is the evangelical culture Bacevich describes, rooted in the South and West, whose attitudes were epitomized by the Bush-Cheney administration.

If the emergence of an American elite able to cement a strong national identity and coherent national interest is unlikely, what options remain for a country now irreversibly multicultural? Huntington saw the choice as either imperialism or liberal cosmopolitanism, both of which would erode what is unique about America.''

He describes paleoconservatives (among which he includes immigration restrictionists and 'America Firsters') as being future losers in the 'immigration wars.'

And yet he does not seem to see that it is America as we have known it which is being lost.
I suppose this is the fruit of seeing America as a political entity or an ongoing 'proposition' rather than a nation made up of a specific core group of people and a continuous tradition.

The Jefferson canard, yet again

Over at AmRen, the old Thomas Jefferson smear is discussed once again, although this time the headline of the story posted says that

Thomas Jefferson Did Not Father Sally Hemings's Children, Author Claims in New Book

Contrary to popular belief, President Thomas Jefferson did not father the children of his slave, Sally Hemings, according to William G. Hyland Jr., author of ‘In Defense of Thomas Jefferson: The Sally Hemings Sex Scandal.’ It was his brother Randolph, “a ne’er-do-well,” who had a history of consorting with his brother’s slaves.''

Nevertheless, no matter how many times someone tries to dispute the common assertion that 'Jefferson probably sired his slave's children', people insist on believing it, and this is true even of people on the right, even people on the racialist right, and 'patriotic conservatives.' Can any of you explain the appeal of this idea to so many Americans? I would truly like to understand it, although I will still dispute it.

I understand, I think, why the left/liberals and even the 'mainstream' right likes the story: they like the multiculturalist, 'only one race' ideology. The left and the black activists like it because it perpetuates their claims about how female slaves were exploited, or as they usually assert, 'raped' by lecherous White slaveowners. They like the notion that White men, then as now, were hypocrites and that they were miscegenating behind closed doors. They like the idea that a Founding Father, the pre-eminent Founding Father, was a flawed and probably lustful man, who said one thing and did another in private. Bringing the Founding Fathers down a peg or two is always a favorite pastime of the malcontents on the left.

Jefferson was known to have said some very politically incorrect things on race, things which probably vex the leftists and liberals, who otherwise seem to think Jefferson was one of them. So if they convince themselves that Jefferson was really a believer in 'only one race, the human race', then they might be able to like him better.

And then I will add one more to these motives for believing the story: the 'National Enquirer' mentality of many of today's Americans, of both political parties. Nowadays people avidly follow all sorts of celebrity gossip and scandals, although scandals seem not quite so shocking to today's jaded populace. Still, people love any kind of salacious news about public figures, the latest example being the Sanford story in South Carolina. Several years back there was quite a flurry of stories about the late Senator Strom Thurmond, also of South Carolina, and the revelation that as a young man, he fathered a child by a black woman.

This revelation was relished all the more by those on the left because it further confirms their image of Southron Christian White men, especially those of conservative views on race, who are shown to be 'hypocrites' and lechers.

But most Americans seem fascinated by revelations of scandalous or immoral conduct on the part of the famous and powerful. Somehow there is a sense of Schadenfreude on the part of some, as they revel in the idea that the famous or powerful or even great men may have feet of clay, and may be simply human like everybody else.

Am I saying then that Thomas Jefferson was not human and not flawed? Of course not. Am I saying that I know with certainty that the claims about his fathering a slave's children are absolutely false? No, I can't say that with certainty -- and by the same token, neither can those who press the claims assert the opposite with certainty. As far as I am concerned the onus is on the accuser, always, to prove any allegations, and it appears as though the claims are doubtful or moot.

All the available evidence as to Jefferson's character seem to militate against the claims being true. To believe that he could so completely belie his public words with his private actions is to believe that he was a thoroughgoing liar and dissembler, and there is just no evidence, beyond scurrilous rumors, to support that view of him.

Sometimes people ask me why these allegations bother me so much. The paragraph above sums up my objections rather well. If we accept the rumors, it seems that we are making Jefferson a fraud, and we are certainly making him an adulterer and a libertine.

It's true he was not a fully-believing Christian, although I don't accept Christopher Hitchens' view that he was a closet atheist who gave grudging lip service to Christianity for political reasons only. That view, too, would make him a liar and a dissembler who viewed everything in terms of political expediency. There's just no evidence that he was as calculating and cynical as that.

But again, it seems to be popular nowadays to try to demote the great men of the past and to bring them down to a level of mediocrity, as if to deny that there is such a thing as a great man, who is a man of integrity. These days, many of us, it seems, want to make every great man smaller -- so as not to feel dwarfed by them, I suppose.

Some of the people with whom I've discussed this issue have come right out and admitted that they find the Hemings canard titillating (some have even said it's a 'beautiful story'; Jefferson 'found love' across racial lines). Methinks some Americans have read too many novels like Mandingo. I really don't care to hear about people's lurid fantasies.

And now it appears as though the multiracial mating agenda seems to have become far more openly pursued lately. We've all noticed the interracial family angle being pushed in the media, in movies, TV shows, and commercials.
Have you noticed the 'E-Harmony' TV spots where almost every couple is interracial? It's become so obvious that this is the next step that there's no denying it. And this Jefferson story fits with the propaganda.

I've read the first few comments on the AmRen discussion, and at least one person, so far, has loudly asserted his belief in the veracity of the rumor. And I won't read the rest of the comments because there will doubtless be others to echo that one.

What's at issue here is not just Thomas Jefferson's reputation, but the insistence of some people on forming their opinions based on what they want to believe, rather than on evaluating the available evidence. The other side of this story almost never gets any play in the media. The politically correct storyline demands that the Jefferson slander become accepted as incontrovertible fact, and it seems they have convinced a majority of Americans that it is true. I hear it repeated constantly, and in some very unlikely places.

And accepting these stories as true is just another way of demoralizing us as a people.

No doubt it's a hopeless cause to try to defend Jefferson's name, but I will continue to do it because it's the right thing to do.

For those who want to read more on the question, you can check out the links at the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society.

Here is a rather silly article from the BBC insinuating that Jefferson had 'African' or 'Middle-Eastern' DNA, (further to the idea that we are all one race, the human race, I suppose.)

And last, I've posted a reply to the allegations from a Jefferson Family Historian over at the Forum.

Marooned on multicult island

The story of the British ship HMS Bounty and the infamous mutiny, which has been told in books and in several Hollywood movies, is one that has for some reason fascinated me over the years. I haven't read the book on which the movies were based, but I've seen three versions of the film: the one with Errol Flynn, then the Clark Gable version, and the Marlon Brando version. There was a more recent film with Mel Gibson I believe, but I ignore more modern movies.

In my college anthropology class, we spent some time studying about the Bounty, mainly in the context of the 'Founder effect' as seen in the Pitcairn Islanders, who were the descendants of the Bounty mutineers and the Polynesian men and women who went with them to Pitcairn.

I suppose the story was fascinating to me in that I found it hard to envision how a group of English sailors could simply blend with a group of South Sea Islanders. The two peoples and their ways of life seemed so profoundly different, to me.
What could motivate them to do such a thing?

Here, The Narrator, who blogs at Signals From the Brink, writes a very interesting essay on the HMS Bounty, the mutiny, and the resulting Pitcairn Island society. He makes a novel analogy between the Mutiny and the present Western crisis.

There are various ways of describing and understanding the unfortunate turn many in Western Civilization have taken over the past century. Comparing events to “revolutions” and the course of specific nations to the Titanic striking the iceberg are common (engaged in by this writer as well). But every now and then a new perspective may help better see the possible causations as well as the potential remedies/outcomes to our plight.

“History repeats itself” we are told and sure enough that seems to most often be the case. More than that, specific historical incidents seem to foreshadow events on a greater scale and era.

Such an event is the Mutiny On The Bounty. (I should state that I’m no expert on the subject and that my casual interest in it was sparked by viewing the 1984 film ’The Bounty’.)

That mutiny, wherein a group of men from a civilized Western nation, having temporarily grown accustomed to a leisurely life of hedonistic nihilism on a tropic Island, rebel against their commander when faced with returning to a orderly and disciplined, (Western) way of life, has a general theme which can be applied to our current situation.''

It's a fascinating piece. He makes a case that the mutineers acted of their own accord to rebel against the Western (and I would add, Christian) society into which they were born, and to start a new life of 'noble savagery' with their newfound Polynesian companions. As history has shown, the paradise went awry fairly early, as such efforts always do, especially when 'diversity' and culture clashes are built-in.

An overview of the Pitcairn Island history is here, at this Seventh Day Adventist website. The Adventists brought their faith to the mutineers' descendants, and though the article notes that there are only small numbers of Adventists there now, they don't even hint at the troubled nature of the society on Pitcairn, which is dealt with here in a Vanity Fair article. It seems that the Christian veneer of the Islanders was rather skin-deep, and the sexual mores of the people seemed to follow the kind of anything-goes approach to sexuality so admiringly cited by anthropologists like Margaret Mead, who wrote of the casual attitude to sex in the South Seas. From the VF article:

Headlines around the world had focused on the criminal case: Pitcairn’s cloud of vice. But a more dramatic story lay buried in the thousands of pages piled high on a table partly shielding the Privy Council lords from the commoners facing them.

For most of its history, Pitcairn lived with a secret sex culture that defined island life. Adultery was not just routine but pervasive, as was the sexual fondling of infants and socially approved sex games among young children. Incest and prostitution were not unknown. The criminal charges stemmed from a longtime island practice of “breaking in” girls as young as 10.

The legal case had dragged on for eight years and threatened the island’s survival. Sharp divisions existed over Mother England’s fairness in forcing the weight of English law onto a tiny population as isolated and lost in time as Pitcairn’s. Colleen McCullough, the Australian author of The Thorn Birds and wife of a well-known Pitcairn descendant, harshly criticized the British for prosecuting what even the Foreign Office grudgingly conceded was a “cultural trait.” She said, “It’s Polynesian to break your girls in at 12.”

Typical liberalism: "who are we to judge other cultures? If pedophilia is 'their culture,' who are we to judge? So say the multicultists.

This National Geographic article also deals with these scandals, and the 'cultural differences' rationalization.

As The Narrator says in his essay,

This hedonistic utopia was, ironically, founded by people of low character and no qualms about disloyalty and lack of honor or restraint. It’s not difficult to imagine how well that worked out.

Bligh addressed the temptations to which they had yielded in his published account of the mutiny in 1790, writing:

“It will very naturally be asked, what could be the reason for such a revolt? in answer to which, I can only conjecture that the mutineers had assured themselves of a more happy life among the Otaheiteans, than they could possibly have in England; which, joined to some female connections, have most probably been the principal cause of the whole transaction.

The women at Otaheite are handsome, mild and chearful in their manners and conversation, possessed of great sensibility, and have sufficient delicacy to make them admired and beloved. The chiefs were so much attached to our people, that they rather encouraged their stay among them than otherwise, and even made them promises of large possessions. Under these, and many other attendant circumstances, equally desirable, it is now perhaps not so much to be wondered at, though scarcely possible to have been foreseen, that a set of sailors, most of them void of connections, should be led away; especially when, in addition to such powerful inducements, they imagined it in their power to fix themselves in the midst of plenty, on the finest island in the world, where they need not labour, and where the allurements of dissipation are beyond any thing that can be conceived.”

It would appear that the combination of their isolation from civilization and perhaps the character of the founders of this 'utopia', they inevitably degenerated.

An interesting side bit of trivia is the linguistic degeneration. The descendants developed a kind of bastardized English or pidgin dialect:

...an amalgam of 18th-century English and Polynesian that the old-timers still use among themselves. This pidgin language was developed as a way for the English sailors and the Tahitians to communicate, and it features some words I could discern, such as musket (gun), and others I couldn't, such as tin-tola (girlfriend) and wettles (food). Brenda helped translate.

Len: "Nava bin doun Gudgeon fer long time." Brenda: "No one has been down to Gudgeons in a long time."

Len: "Mebe gut sum good side fer clime Down Rope." Brenda: "Maybe there's some good climbing at Down Rope."

Could this be the kind of change we will see in our English language? Will our descendants, if they speak English at all, speak this kind of dumbed-down pidgin dialect?

The Narrator's point is that the mutineers chose their fate; they knowingly decided to abandon their people.

There is no doubt that those outside groups who would wish us harm today have encouraged and cheered on that percentage of us who seek to mutiny against Western Civilization in favor of a multicultural hell. But the fact is it takes a willing participant to be led. And sadly there are not only all-to-willing followers amongst the disloyal, but leaders as well.

In the end we must be careful in our duty of defending the honor or our people, not to deify them or absolve them from the treachery that many of them so willfully engage in.

To be clear, this is not an advocacy of abandoning the resolve to expose the activities of those who might wish us ill, but rather a call for a little more focus on the inward development of the qualities that are needed for the difficult task of preserving and nurturing our people and their civilization back to a safe harbor. We need to once again champion the virtues which established our great societies but which have, of late, fallen out of favor. And part of those virtues was the belief that every man is to, ultimately, be held accountable for his own actions regardless of circumstance or whatever outside influences might have swayed his behavior or actions.

It is indeed a question of character. Some men have poor character and give heed to whatever impulse happens to strike them, while others remain true and honorable no matter how enticing the deceptive voice whispering in their ear is.

There has been a mutiny on the HMS West, and those who remained true to their own have been set adrift. But we must keep hope, for upon reflection of past events we can see the inevitable fate of each group based upon the path they have chosen.''

One or two of the commenters think The Narrator's analogy is not truly apt, because we in the West have not instigated a mutiny; instead we are having it imposed by outsiders against us, or being manipulated into embracing a destruction of our way of life and our people. I suppose there's truth in that, but still, I think the Narrator's point is worth considering, too. But are we to be the mutineers, refusing to follow a derelict captain and a corrupt and oppressive system, or are we the mutiny-resisters? Are our 'leaders' the mutineers against the legitimate order, setting a course to their own misconceived multicult utopia, with unwilling passengers on board?

I've often wondered, myself, why our society and our era has been so vulnerable to these manipulations. Every generation has its malcontents and traitors and those who want to tear down the existing order. In a healthy age and a strong society, those people are ignored and given no legitimacy; people in general are not led astray by them. Why is our age and why are our people suddenly such easy prey?

We've discussed all kinds of factors: the media and its enormous power, the prosperity of our time which makes us soft and hedonistic, the loss of our Faith, and of course the influence of subversive outsiders whose interests conflict with ours. Ultimately, though, are we all just pawns, or do we have the ability to discern, to reject the manipulation, and to choose for ourselves?

And if we still maintain that this situation was forced on us, by guile and manipulation or by force, then does this amount to a plea of helplessness and an abdication of responsibility? Or are we still strong enough in ourselves to assert our own will and act in our own interests?

Some blog business

I'm adding a couple of new links to my blogroll.

One is to the blog Never Yet Melted.
The other is to the Light in the Forest blog, which is the blog of JJames, who comments here occasionally. I know some of you are familiar with his blog.

I recommend both blogs to you, if you haven't yet read them.

On another note, the Forum (yes, it's still there) is set to undergo an upgrade shortly, sometime in the next week or so, but there should be no significant disruption with the changeover.

The Forum is rather neglected these days, as I have little time to spend there. It could potentially be a good thing, if made use of. Every now and then I throw the question out to you all, should we pull the plug on it, or try to make it work? Usually I get a few responses saying 'leave it up', and a great many ''whatever you want to do'' responses. But a forum is not a one-person project, so for the moment it's rather dead over there. I would like to see it work, but as the old saying has it, you can lead a horse to water, etc.

The forum format apparently doesn't appeal to everyone; some don't like registering. However among the advantages are that it is more 'democratic', and any member can post news stories or start discussions. My thought is also that if this blog were down the Forum would be an alternative.
Anyway, for now, it's there for you.

Politically Incorrect Nixon

The New York Times is revealing some material from newly-released tapes of former President Nixon. As has already been disclosed from previously revealed conversations, it seems Nixon said some very politically incorrect things on abortion and on the taboo issue of race.

The left (and the politically correct ''right')' is wallowing in this stuff, loving it. It gives them even more pretext to hate and vilify a man they've already hated for decades, and now they can indulge in a new round of bashing. I could link to any number of faux-outraged discussions around the blogosphere, but I won't.

His latest-reported remarks will no doubt put him firmly on the same level with the left's favorite bogeyman, Hitler, though I think the reaction is over the top.

Were his words that outrageous? By the early 70s, it was already pretty risky to utter those opinions publicly, because the PC pitbulls were already on patrol to savage anybody who crossed the lines. But the plain fact is, much of the country held views not that dissimilar to Nixon's, whether in regard to his conversations with Billy Graham, or on the issue of abortion.

However, I am not sure that I would prescribe abortion as Nixon did, but in regards to interracial couplings, his opinions were probably in line with those of the vast majority of Americans.

It just shows how today's mainstream can so quickly become another day's thoughtcrime and villainy.

American History, PC and pre-PC

Over at the Iron Ink blog, Bret has a series of entries under the heading
Bret's Thumbnail Summer Course on American History

The discussion is based on Thomas Woods' "Politically Incorrect Guide To American History." Although that book has been on my informal list of books I hope to read, so far I haven't gotten around to reading it. I have quite a stack of books here that I have not read, so it may be a while before I get to Woods' book, but it would seem to be worth reading, as is the Iron Ink series of posts.

In introducing the series, Bret describes the conflict between the politically correct version of American history which is prevailing today, and the older version.

Recorded American History is viciously fought over by those who would use history as part of an effort to bend and shape the American psyche so that it conforms to a particular theological / ideological mold. If it is true that it is the victors who write history it is even more true that it is historians who control the self-understanding of a people or a nation.

The book that we are reading this summer is dedicated to over-throwing current popular historical myths that many contemporary American historians are seeking to advance as set and established truths in our culture. This is where the “Battle Royal” begins. As I said some historians are seeking to teach one set of “truths” and the historian who wrote the book we are reading is battling against their reading of American history in favor of an older and more tested reading. Both set of historians are dealing with the same set of recorded facts and events but the battle heats up as each school of historians handle and compile the facts in such a different way that one quickly begins to realize that the differences between the historians is not one of facts and events but rather the difference is one of worldviews.
[...]
This book challenges the current myth supported by many contemporary American historians that the Puritans were racist or that they stole Indian lands. This book challenges the current myth supported by many contemporary American historians that the American revolution was of a same piece with the French Revolution. This book challenges the current myth supported by many contemporary American historians that the American Constitution is a living document by focusing on the Constitutions original intent. This book challenges the current myth supported by many contemporary American historians that the American War Between The States was primarily about slavery.

These and many other current interpretations of American history that are intended to fill Americans with self hatred so that the nation’s character and direction can be more easily changed are challenged in this book.''

This is something that's important, of course, for younger people who have been exposed to the PC version of history, but which needs to be emphasized for many of the older generations as well. Those of us who are baby-boomers and older remember America as it was before the PC reign, and most of us were taught the politically incorrect truths as they were recognized in the pre-PC era. Shockingly, though, I encounter people who are old enough to remember the old America, but yet seem to have been indoctrinated by the PC version that is promoted by the media today. It seems that many of the older generations seem to have forgotten what they once knew. I am dumbfounded to see that; I don't know how it can happen.

So I think all ages could benefit by a re-visiting of American History, seen without the distorting lenses of political correctness.

In the Iron Ink entry called 3 Insights Into the Colonial Character, Bret uses the term 'classical Americans.'

Classical Americans have ever been leery of governmental expansion. Classical Americans have understood that when governments expand their reach the result is that the reach of the free individual is constricted. Classical Americans have understood that government, by its very nature, always desires to expand and so are ever vigilant against such expansion.''

That term 'Classical Americans' caught my fancy, and I wondered if he intended it as I use the term 'old Americans' or sometimes 'vanishing Americans', or perhaps like Stephen Hopewell's 'Heritage American.' A commenter asks him about the phrase, and Bret responds

''The term "Classical American" is mine as far as I know.''

It's a good term, if I understand it properly.
I hope the series continues; it's interesting reading so far.

Taking Christ out of Christendom

Here, DanielJ of the blog Tomorrow in Vinland writes about Philip Rieff and the Triumph of the Therapeutic.

I will not even attempt to discuss Rieff and his ideas. I know little but that he was Jewish, and that he was married to Susan Sontag, she of the infamous ''the White race is the cancer of the human race'' comment.

Now that does not necessarily delegitimize his ideas or writings, but nonetheless I haven't been inclined to read his works. There is a thread at the Kinism Forum on Rieff, here, for those interested.

The excerpts I have read show his writing to be too abstruse and arcane and too intellectual for my liking; I am not one of those who can deal in abstractions and ideas about ideas on a sustained basis. So I will leave Rieff and his ideas to those who have a head for such rarefied stuff. I am, however, interested in the idea of the role of the therapeutic culture in a post-Christian West. That may be a topic for another entry. And even more, I am concerned with the ongoing anti-Christianism that many self-identified neo-pagans promote on the racial right.

Taking that last into account, this first reply to DanielJ's post was expected, and all too typical:

If today’s Christianity is a defence mechanism against non-White invasion of Euroman’s lands then I’m a baked hedgehog with mushroom sauce. Christianity, that ancient Hebrew heresy foisted upon White people by Jews and their proselytising, brainwashed catspaws, is the natural parent of multi-culturalism’s sponsor, Marxism. Of course, the supernatural element of Christianity’s arrant nonsense had to be excised in order for those foolishly egalitarian Whites who, at least, valued observed reality above blind, racially alien, Middle Eastern deity worship to accept the worthless religion’s new Communist guise.''

He pretty much hits all the usual notes sounded by the anti-Christian zealots on the racial right.

But wait, one pro-Christian comment appears:

1. Christianity has been for a long time the religion of the West. As an empirical proposition, as Europe has dispensed with the old faith, it has been transmogrified into a bunch of non-reproducing, non-white-ass-kissing pansies and socialists. Correlation or causation?

2. Must Christianity lead to multiculturalism? I genuinely do not know (and neither do you - this is one of the most profound yet largely unexplored areas of intellectual concern). All patriots should avoid this easy inference, however, as it is not clear that multiculturalism is a latent outgrowth of “taking Christianity seriously”. At least as likely is the hypothesis that Christianity’s replacement, sentimental secular humanism, the aptly called Religion of Humanity, is what has directly lead to our modern hysterical denials of racial differences, and acceptance of race-replacement.''

Yes. If 'taking Christianity seriously' is the issue, then just about any generation before the 20th century took it much more seriously than today's lukewarm liberal Christians and CINOs (Christians In Name Only). So if Christianity was the toxic ingredient that killed off the spirit, and is killing the body, of the West, it would have done so long ago. None of the critics ever address this little anomaly.

3. Another empirical proposition. Most conservatives generally, and most racial conservatives in particular (I don’t mean celebrity racialists, or extreme rightists - just the plain people who vote against immigration, affirmative action, etc) describe themselves as “conservative Christians”, at least here in America. There is, in other words, a much stronger correlation between Christian conservatism and racial conservatism, than between atheism and racial conservatism. Why this should be, or WHETHER this should be, intellectually, I don’t know. But this fact ought to influence political thinking about explorations of the intersection of Christianity and race-liberalism, especially when calls for a new paganism or similar nonsense start issuing forth.''

This is a point I haven't made sufficiently: there is at least as much of a case, if not more, as the commenter says, for a correlation between conservative Christianity and racial conservatism. I keep asking, with no response, why, if Christianity is guilty of destroying the West, it took millennia to do so. That's like saying that a meal eaten a decade ago could kill someone today. Presumably if Christianity was so destructive to the West, the West would not have survived and prospered and expanded for centuries.

4. I am sufficiently confident in my comparative theological knowledge to make this claim: the only philosophically and scientifically tenable alternatives to atheism are either some form of rational Christianity, or a deism as yet not fully articulated; that is, all existing non-Christian forms of supernaturalism, including various Christian sects, fail intellectually and scientifically. Christianity, especially Catholicism, is very strong, however. The more it is studied the more (intellectually) impressive it becomes. Paganism, however, whatever its former tribe-unifying merits, cannot be resurrected by the modern mind.''

The last sentence seems convincing to me. The fact is we know very little about the pre-Christian religions of Europe; there was no extensive body of writings, no holy books, nothing other than bits and pieces written by Roman historians or others in various places. Much of what is called 'paganism' today is a cobbled-together 'tradition', mostly the work of Gerald Gardner, who lived in the 20th century, far-removed from the traditions he was supposedly resurrecting. In Victorian times, Sir James Frazer and his work The Golden Bough also contributed a great deal to this reinvented paganism. In other words, the authenticity of it is very much in question, but then I suspect that matters not at all to its proponents, because it appears that to them, neo-paganism is merely a means to an end, a supplanter of Christianity which they deem as more useful to their cause of creating a new Europe in which the hated faith of our fathers will not exist. A Christendom without Christ, as some have put it.

5. Even if all religion is, finally, empirically false, white nationalists may want to encourage a new efflorescence of traditional Christianity, if only for its healthy, life-affirming aspects. The old faith encouraged large families (biological reproduction). We need this now. For centuries, moreover, the old faith was not seen to be incompatible with anti-miscegenation laws, with ethnic expulsions, with ranks and hierarchies, and with anti-immigration statutes. Instead of jettisoning the faith because it has been racially corrupted, the easier as well as more politically prudent and fruitful course would be to recover and reapply the earlier, non-multiculturalist understanding of Christian obligation."

[Emphasis mine.]

6. The Faith presided over great periods of Western (biological) expansion. It may have helped cause that expansion, directly and certainly indirectly. The Faith is therefore not necessarily inimical to the West; secular liberalism undeniably is. Oh, and the Faith may even be true ... racialists should adjust their thinking accordingly. ''

That last little point is not made often enough. What if Christianity is true? That should be the central question. Is it true? Is there a God, one God, as the Bible states, and is Christ his son and our savior? If so, then it behooves those who revere truth to seek out the true God, rather than inventing or 'rediscovering' a set of 'gods' who will serve as mascots or talismans for their new Christless Eurotopia.

I'm often tempted to ask those who profess to be pagans: do you really believe in your gods or are they just intellectual symbols for you? Props in your scenario for a new Europe? If they do exist, and if they are specifically tribal gods of the White race or the Northern European race, are they not there to help their people now? Or are they dormant until Christianity is overthrown?

Truth be told, I've known people who professed to be pagans or Wiccans or sort of freelance witches, or Druids. Before I was a Christian, I was something of a seeker, spiritually, and I learned about all religions, Eastern and Western. I never got the sense that the pagan gods were real and vital in the minds of those who called themselves pagans. How is worshipping them supposed to spiritually and racially revivify the West? Come to that, why did the pagan West fall to Christianity, if the gods were so potent, and if paganism was authentic while Christianity was alien and artificial for Europeans?

And I don't buy the allegation that Christianity was 'forced' at swordpoint on Europeans. Those who say that must be confusing Christianity with Islam. Christianity was not forced on Europe. The story of Constantine forcing his supposed 'faith' on Rome (his profession being in doubt, according to some observers) does not apply to Europe generally.

I have no grudge against the pagans or neo-pagans on the right, as long as they are not calling for the stamping out of Christianity, nor engaging in wholesale slanders against our Christian ancestors. I think that all of us who care about the future of our people have to come to some kind of modus vivendi, and tolerate one another. We can't afford the divisions, and I don't see these divisions as originating with the Christian side; the hostility consistently shows up in the constant blaming and vilifying of Christians and the faith of old Europe. I simply don't see how one can love Europe and hate the faith which informed it during its height of achievement and strength.

Father's Day

I wish all the fathers out there a Happy Father's Day.
Not all of us are blessed to have a father who is still living, but those of us who do, let's honor our dads today, and thank them for their love and protection.

Texas independence, and the sovereignty movement

Over at the Mat Rodina blog, Stanislav writes from a Russian perspective on the possibility of Texas independence via secession.

He notes what correspondents in Texas, or expatriate Texans, tell him about the secession movement in that state. There is the opinion that Governor Perry is merely doing some political grandstanding, or political posturing, while at the same time distancing himself from the secessionist movement.

While most do not believe that their governor Perry was doing anything but trolling for votes in a hard reelection that is upcoming, it makes one wonder what it means in the Texas society if the path to reelection is through talk of succession [sic]. What the good governor may not realize is that such issues, which are already building or have built under the surface, given an outlet, will take on a life of their own. Like a breaking damn [sic], public opinion can and will switch quickly given the proper circumstance and the force that follows will sweep all ahead.''

That last point is something that I have emphasized in various ways; though today secession may not be feasible, given the right circumstances, things may turn on a dime:

''Thus, with 1 in 3 citizens of Texas pro independence, a move to 2 in 3 is only a crisis away and with the americans continuing to sink and their dollar continuing to turn to trash, that crisis is already under way.

The crisis is happening in Yekaterinburg, Russia. It is in the form of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting between Russia, China and six other SCO members. The US request to attend was denied. The jist of this meeting is to work out plans to de-dollarize the trade between the member states.''

this conference, and the potential economic consequences, is unsettling, so we'll see what happens.
Read the whole thing at Mat Rodina, including the interesting comments following.

And if you haven't seen the following articles, you might check them out:

This piece from the L.A. Times.

This piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal recently, which is ironic of course in that the WSJ is notoriously pro-open borders. One wonders if the corporate classes are actually now seeing some angle which would be to their benefit in a secession scenario.


Finally, this article, from a libertarian point of view, is interesting, but it does not acknowledge any ethnic or racial basis on which a breakup might occur; the writer, in true anti-collectivist, race-denying fashion, focuses on political or Democrat-Republican divisions among the states and envisions a pattern based on voting habits. Given the ongoing demographic changes being inflicted on this country, does he not see that today's red state will likely be tomorrow's so-called 'purple' state, and next year's or next decade's 'blue state', with a new ''minority majority"? It's happening as I write this.

Daddy to the world

I noticed that all day, the news channels were covering Iran nonstop, with shaky video footage of the street disturbances. FoxNews seems to be covering it with the most urgency, with CNN slightly less so.

I've also checked in on the FReepers to see what the consensus over there is, and the original poster of this thread
challenges those FReepers who say 'it's none of our business' and asks "...how can we watch this brutality with good conscious [sic] and do nothing to stop it?"

Answers?

I am one of those the poster denounces, who say 'it's none of our business' and 'we can't be the world's policeman.'

Many Republicans argue that as Americans, we are the ones whose job it is to speak out for 'freedom' and 'democracy' in every country, and that when necessary, we have to be ready to intervene directly so that others can also have 'freedom' and 'liberty'. If not, we are hypocrites. Some are saying that Reagan was our exemplar, and he would surely intervene to 'free' the Iranians.

I can't help cynically wondering if some of those who decry our country's lack of action (so far) on behalf of the Iranians simply enjoy being able to criticize a Democrat President for his inaction. Mind you, I am not saying he is wise in his refraining from action; I think he is simply trying to stay above it and not ''take sides'' since he has aspirations to being some kind of world leader.

However, I don't know whether America will perhaps intervene and do something at some point.

And to be honest, I don't follow the internal politics of Iran to be able to judge their situation. I don't see it as a pressing need. We have our own worries right here in our country as to our own liberty.

For me, it all comes down to the question of whether every people is 'entitled' to freedom, or fit for it, or capable of it. Are all people meant to live under some kind of 'free' republican government, or representative system? And if so, should they not also be capable of establishing it themselves eventually? If freedom is obtained for someone without their having done so themselves, will they appreciate it, or more importantly, will they have what it takes to sustain it and preserve it, once having gotten it?

To me, it seems that this idea that we have to go around bestowing freedom and democracy around the world, and be the world's guarantor of what are vaguely designated as 'human rights', is an extension of colonialism in a way. Why should we have to be 'daddy' to the world, whether sugar daddy for immigrants, or Big-Stick Carrying Daddy for the world outside?

Benjamin Harrison spoke truly when he said "We Americans have no commission from God to police the world."

And Kipling said, accurately, that what we get in return for our troubles, when we try to shoulder others' burdens is "The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard".

Looking back

Here's another video glimpse of old America, if you have 25 minutes or so to watch it. It's dedicated to the 'Woman American', and the flim was made by 'the Chevrolet Division of GM', rather ironic considering recent events with GM and with the sad state of American manufacturing generally.

The film is about, among other things, our old American virtue of thrift, as practiced by the typical American wife and mother. It is a nostalgic look back at the daily life of a time when most people, even the middle-classes and upper-middle classes, practiced a simpler way of life, with few pretensions. America was at its height of prosperity and plenty when this film was made (circa 1962) but people lived more modest lives then.

For those who remember the time, this is nostalgic; so much of this is familiar to me as part of my childhood.
Yes, I know those times are dead and gone, and can never be brought back. I say this because there is always someone who has to remind us of this when we look back. But though we can't enter a time machine and go back, we can look back to glean what we can from those times, and perhaps try to correct some of the missteps we took along the way to today.

Just a caveat: some Lincolnolatry at the beginning, and beware some proto-Political Correctness and a nod to 'diversity' towards the end.

Who's sorry now?

Over the last year or so, there have been several formal 'apologies' for slavery issued by various elected officials.

When the current president first announced his candidacy, I saw it as inevitable that reparations would be on the agenda should he be elected, and here we are. The U.S. Senate offers a formal apology for slavery, and
the intended recipients find fault with the offer, because the measure passed by the Senate carried a disclaimer
about possible reparations claims. I think that was rather a shrewd thing to do politically, because even our blind and tone-deaf Senators know that the idea of reparations is unacceptable to most of their White constituents. Still, typically seeking to work both sides of the street, they want political credit among black constituents for the apology and for their politically correct grovelling.

Several years back when this subject came up among many White Republicans, many would scoff at the notion that reparations would ever actually be paid; it seemed to me that they were whistling in the dark when they dismissed the idea of reparations. It's only common sense to recognize that we were then, and even more so now, on a trajectory which would take us surely to the destination of apologies+reparations.

It may be that this particular measure won't pass just yet, but like the falsely-so-called 'immigration reform' that simply will not die, this idea will keep on reappearing until most White Americans have become so inured to it, and so jaded and devoid of outrage, that they will shrug when it passes.

There are so many obvious reasons why this is a bad idea, and why it would set a disastrous precedent, that it shouldn't be necessary to even run down the list of reasons. I am sure most if not all of my readers would be able to name many arguments against reparations, to blacks or to any other group.

Some usually mention that 'we' already gave reparations to Japanese-Americans for their internment during World War II. That in itself set a precedent on which the present case for reparations is built. And it should be remembered that Reagan, the sainted conservative President, signed that bill, as the linked article mentions.

However, many of the people who received restitution in that instance were, at least, the very people who were interned, not their remote descendants, as is the case with slavery. The idea of people who never owned slaves paying people who were never enslaved is something that is not consistent with our ideas of justice. We don't usually hold people responsible in a legal sense for something that their ancestors several generations back did.

Shall we mention some of the other absurdities of this idea?

For a start, how do we know which blacks are truly slave descendants? Not all blacks in the United States are descended from slaves; there were blacks who came here as free men and women. Some of their ancestors had been enslaved in the Caribbean or elsewhere, but in any case, these ancestors were never enslaved by American Whites.

Some blacks are themselves descended from black slaveowners, of whom there were more than a few.
Will their descendants get reparations, or pay them, or both?

Again, we cannot know the ancestry of many people, black or White, so as to assign "guilt" or lucrative victimhood with certainty. There are many 'dead ends' in most people's family trees, beyond which the ancestry is not known with any certitude. The way in which reparations would be determined would have to be simply along racial lines, and obvious racial lines. If you are White, you will be a payer of reparations, even if you try to cry off by saying ''my ancestors didn't get here until after 1865!" or ''my ancestors were too poor to own slaves" (note: it was not only wealthy plantation owners who had slaves) or ''my ancestors fought in the Union Army to free slaves! I'm not guilty." No, none of these excuses will hold any water. White? Guilty, as usual. Black? Line up to get your victimhood bonus.

To be fair, I would not be surprised to see some politically correct Whites try to find remote black ancestry so as to join in even deeper solidarity with blacks, although I doubt blacks would welcome them as brothers or sisters. Expect genealogists to do land-office business with people trying to find out their roots. And sadly there are some sorry Whites who would try to get reparations based on hoped-for black ancestry somewhere. This happens with some Whites who want to claim Indian ancestry when there is money to be had there. I had a classmate in graduate school who was determined to find some Cherokee ancestry even after her inquiries indicated that she had no enrolled ancestors in the Eastern Band Cherokee. She just wanted so badly to be Cherokee, and maybe that Bureau of Indian Affairs funding looked pretty good, too.

I would bet many people will get DNA testing to determine what their ancestry actually is, with some people being surprised and many dismayed by the results.

[A side note to the author of the linked article on DNA tests: the supposed 'probability that Thomas Jefferson fathered' a slave's child is not supported by the facts.]

But in general, those who pay reparations and those who will be paid will depend on obvious racial identification.
Actual 'guilt' cannot be accurately determined, so it will be no good to try to plead innocent. If you are White, you lose, regardless of your recent immigrant history or your non-slaveowning heritage.

I wonder if any liberal, PC Whites will feel wronged by having to pay up? Probably not; they will be only too glad, because then they can gloatingly watch their fellow Evil Whites be humiliated again.

And one of the most exasperating things about the idea of buying our way out of guilt (or supposed guilt) is that it will not work. It will not stop the demands, the allegations, the complaints, the recitation of grievances, the extortion. Why should a payment of money change anything? Just as with this last election, when some people naively believed that electing a black president would put us 'beyond racial conflict' or that even more absurdly, it would stop blacks' playing the race card, why should anything change, when the present scheme of things is working out so well for blacks? They hold considerable power by simply playing the race card whenever things are not to their satisfaction. The fact that they have the upper hand is obvious when we consider how they can use their race and our desire to be 'fair' to get whatever they demand, and to escape consequences of their shortcomings or wrongdoing. The present system is eminently satisfactory to them, and to all minorities, for that matter. As long as we keep paying the blackmail, the demands will continue. As the saying goes, any behavior that we reward, we get more of.

We (or more accurately, our elected ''representatives'') are simply digging the hole deeper.