'Pseudo-conservatism' as seen in 1955

In his essay The Pseudo-Conservative Revolt, from the 1955 collection of essays called The New American Right, Richard Hofstadter writes:

''Status problems take on a special importance in American life because a very large part of the population suffers from one of the most troublesome of all status questions: unable to enjoy the simple luxury of assuming their own nationality as a natural event, they are tormented by a nagging doubt as to whether they are really and truly and fully American. Since their forebears voluntarily left one country and embraced another, they cannot, as people do elsewhere, think of nationality as something that comes with birth; for them it is a matter of choice, and an object of striving. This is one reason why problems of "loyalty" arouse such an emotional response in many Americans and why it is so hard in the American climate of opinion to make any clear distinction between the problem of national security and the question of personal loyalty. Of course there is no real reason to doubt the loyalty to America of the immigrants and their descendants, or their willingness to serve the country as fully as if their ancestors had lived here for three centuries. None the less, they have been thrown on the defensive by those who have in the past cast doubts upon the fullness of their Americanism. Possibly they are also, consciously or unconsciously, troubled by the thought that since their forebears have already abandoned one country one allegiance, their own national allegiance might be considered fickle. For this I believe there is some evidence in our national practices. What other country finds it so necessary to create institutional rituals for the sole purpose of guaranteeing to its people the genuineness of their nationality?

Does the Frenchman, or the Englishman, or the Italian find it necessary to speak of himself as "one hundred per cent English, French or Italian? Do they find it necessary to have their equivalents of "I Am an American Day"? When they disagree with one another over national policies, do they find it necessary to call one another un-English, un-French or un-Italian? No doubt they too are troubled by subversive activities and espionage, but are their countermeasures taken under the name of committees on un-English, un-French or un-Italian activities?''

Obviously, this problem exists because America, since the large waves of immigration began, has become more and more based on ideas and creeds, rather than kinship and shared heritage and culture. When the definition of being an American became based on allegiance to a flag, to a republic, and to abstractions such as 'liberty and justice for all', then what is left to unite a chance collection of unrelated peoples?

''Sociological studies have shown that there is a close relation between social mobility and ethnic prejudice. Persons moving downward, and even upward under many circumstances, in the social scale tend to show greater prejudice against such ethnic minorities as the Jews and Negroes than commonly prevails in the social strata they have left or are entering. While the existing studies in this field have been focused upon prejudice rather than the kind of hyper-patriotism and hyper-conformism that I am most concerned with, I believe that the typical prejudiced person and the typical pseudo-conservative dissenter are usually the same person, that the mechanisms at work in both complexes are quite the same, and that it is merely the expediencies and the strategy of the situation today that cause groups that once stressed racial discrimination to find other scapegoats. Both the displaced old-American type and the new ethnic elements that are so desperately eager for reassurance of their fundamental Americanism can conveniently converge upon liberals, critics, and nonconformists of various sorts, as well as Communists and suspected Communists.

To proclaim themselves vigilant in the pursuit of those who are even so much as accused of "disloyalty" to the United States is a way not only of reasserting but of advertising their own loyalty and one of the chief characteristics of American super-patriotism is its constant inner urge toward self-advertisement. One notable quality in this new wave of conformism is that its advocates are much happier to have as their objects of hatred the Anglo-Saxon, Eastern, Ivy League intellectual gentlemen than they are with such bedraggled souls as, say, the Rosenbergs. The reason, I believe, is that in the minds of the status-driven it is no special virtue to be more American than the Rosenbergs, but it is really something to be more American than Dean Acheson or John Foster Dulles -- or Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The status aspirations of some of the ethnic groups are actually higher than they were twenty years ago-which suggests one reason (there are others) why, in the ideology of the authoritarian right-wing, anti-Semitism and such blatant forms of prejudice have recently been soft-pedaled.

Anti-Semitism, it has been said, is the poor man's snobbery. We Americans are always trying to raise the standard of living, and the same principle now seems to apply to standards of hating. So during the past fifteen years or so the authoritarians have moved on from anti-Negroism and anti-Semitism to anti-Achesonianism, anti-intellectualism, anti-nonconformism, and other variants of the same idea, much in the same way as the average American, if he can manage it, will move on from a Ford to a Buick.''

I am actually puzzled by this last paragraph; what does he mean by 'raising the standard of hating'?

Maybe we could say that liberals have 'raised their standard of hating' to forms that carry some kind of social cachet or status. In that sense, they too are 'status-strivers.'



Back to Hofstadter's essay:

''Such status-strivings may help us to understand some of the otherwise unintelligible figments of the pseudo-conservative ideology the incredibly bitter feeling against the United Nations, for instance. Is it not understandable that such a feeling might be, paradoxically, shared at one and the same time by an old Yankee-Protestant American, who feels that his social position is not what it ought to be and that these foreigners are crowding in on his country and diluting its sovereignty just as "foreigners" have crowded into his neighborhood, and by a second- or third- generation immigrant who has been trying so hard to de-Europeanize himself, to get Europe out of his personal heritage, and who finds his own government mocking him by its complicity in these Old-World schemes?''

Compromise or capitulation?

This piece appeared recently on the British Resistance blog, and it is worth reading. A great deal of what the writer says applies very much to us, here in America, particularly regarding how best to get our ideas across to those who are open to the truth.

Many Americans who are ethnopatriots have somehow bought the idea that the English Democrats are a 'nationalist' group, and the writer of the blog piece emphasizes that they are not.

''The English Democrats, like UKIP and all the main establishment parties are in favour of a multiracial society. According to them Black, Asians, Orientals are all English as long as they have ‘integrated’. This Politically Correct nonsense is an insult to generations of English people and a betrayal of their sacrifice. To quote the Duke of Wellington: “If a dog is born in a stable it doesn’t make it a horse”.

Some people attempt to portray the English Democrats and UKIP as ‘civic nationalists’. Yet this term is wholly inaccurate. Although some of their policies might superficially be seen as nationalistic as they are not actually nationalists at all.
[...]
For a nation is not just a cultural continuity it is a biological continuity as well.

To accept this fact of life doesn’t imply hatred of others, it’s just stating a love of our own people and nation and a desire to see them continue to exist. This desire means our nation is more than just a geographical piece of land with no more meaning or significance than any other. It is a sense of belonging; of shared history and ancestry – a common bloodline; a feeling that we belong to a people who are special and unique.

What’s the point of having an English Parliament if England and the English people are being destroyed?

And why try to preserve English culture if you don’t care that very people who created it are becoming extinct?''

And here, the writer addresses the frequently-heard argument that we have to tailor our message to suit the timid out there, or adopt a moderate and muted approach so as not to alarm these same timid or 'respectable' people. Apparently this argument is being used in the UK as here.

''They say that their ‘moderate’ approach is some kind of a shrewd tactic; by abandoning their beliefs and principles in order to try and appear ‘moderate’ they’ll get more support. This is really just another way of saying that your enemy may go easier on you if you agree not to pose too much of a threat – and agree to play by his rules beforehand!

They fantasise that they might be able to take over the English Democrats at a later date and then use this ‘respectable’ organisation to promote genuine nationalism.  This is not just a daydream, it is also a rationalisation to ease their guilt. It is also complete and utter claptrap!

Any party promoting the acceptance of multiracialism will obviously recruit people who agree with that message.  So it’s unlikely a steadily decreasing, miniscule minority of non-believers is ever going to take power within it.

Also, the English Democrats could at any time be subjected to the same level of lies and smears the BNP has had to endure.  This would cause their organisation to collapse almost overnight as most of their membership would run for the hills rather than risk  their social standing and ‘respectability’ by being labelled ‘extremist’ or (God forbid!), ‘racist’ by the establishment media.

These types of people usually not only lack the physical courage to stand up and tell the world what they believe, they also lack the moral courage to admit to themselves!''

This is all something that could be addressed to the 'respectable' aracial conservatives, who like to indulge in the same kind of wishful thinking: if we don't alarm the minorities and the 'swing voters' we will win big time in the next election. So play along with political correctness, bow to the altar of MLK, Glenn Beck-style. I firmly believe that much of the MLK worship that we see from Republicans started out as an effort to conceal what they feared were actually 'racist' attitudes, and to win elections by sweeping all political incorrectness in the party under the rug. Over time, they began to believe in the feigned 'respectable' image; they somehow became true believers, and utterly liberal in the social sense, true egalitarians. By feigning these attitudes they slowly began to fool themselves and believe the left's ideology.

Further to the right, some ethnopatriots are also favorable to the 'respectable' attitude in the sense of catering to what the 'respectables' think is appropriate, watering down the message or, like the Tea Party, emphasizing 'diversity' to some extent or other.

And I can't count the number of times I've been informed that 'politics is the art of the possible' and that 'we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.' In other words, we have to accept certain things as inevitable and impossible to reverse, such as ongoing mass immigration. 'We can't deport 12 million people; we just have to get them to assimilate' or: 'let's face it, we can never turn the clock back.' Apparently this mindset is present in the UK too, along with the ubiquitous talking points.

''Those now trying to justify their desire to retreat even further state: ‘politics is the art of the possible’ and therefore we need to accept the status quo with it s media-induced degeneracy and tailor our policies accordingly.

Firstly, we are not just engaged in politics, but a war for our very survival as a people. Secondly, politics is also about persuasion – we need to persuade people our beliefs are right rather than just giving in. We need to touch the collective conscience and soul of our people by inspiring and motivating them; standing up for what we believe in rather than cynically betraying our principles.''

I could not agree more with these sentiments. The incrementalists  need to acknowledge to themselves that such tactics require years to be successful, and the time is running out for us. The left used the stealth approach, infiltrating all the political parties and other institutions of our society. They usually hid their leftist beliefs and affiliations, and thus were able to do their work unnoticed and unimpeded. However, they had plenty of time; they could take it slowly. We don't have that kind of time. And the ideas we wish to promote are ideas and beliefs that are sorely needed now to reverse the terrible decay that we have seen in our country, to counteract the poisons of multiculturalism. But like any medicine, they must not be watered down, else they will have no efficacy.

And yes, I do return to this theme periodically, and yes, it is repetition, but there may be a few people who have not thought about these questions much, who read this and who understand it, and there may even be one or two who are convinced by the blog piece I linked, or by my words. If even a few 'get it' then that's something. As the blog post writer says, 'politics is about persuasion' and inspiring and motivating.

Lovecraft on 'the paramount things of existence'

''In my opinion the paramount things of existence are those mental & imaginative landmarks -- language, culture, traditions, perspectives, instinctive responses to environmental stimuli, &c.-- which give to mankind the illusion of significance & direction in the cosmic drift. Race & civilisation are more important, according to this point of view, than concrete political or economic status; so that the weakening of any racial culture by political division is to be regarded as an unqualified evil -- justifiable only by the most extreme provocation.

Greece suffered from lack of unity -- Athens & Sparta, Syracuse & Thebes, &c. &c., being all separate city-states which acted together only under the most exceptional circumstances. They managed to stand unitedly against Persia, but could not do it against Rome. Rome itself, on the other hand, was always admirably united — hence stood firm against all comers till dissolved by internal decay. The English civilisation has so far stood up successfully on both sides, & with good luck can probably continue to do so; but whenever an external menace appears one wishes that a coordinated defence by Britain & America were firmly guaranteed instead of merely probable.

In addition, the state of culture in America would have been greatly improved by continued solidarity with Great Britain. It is unlikely that the vulgar financial & quantitative ideals of the American majority today would have been quite so paramount had the region remained true to its rightful sovereign -- nor would the spirit of lawlessness have been so general & deep-seated. Some foreigners would have entered, but probably not in such vast quantities; & the machinery of assimilation would have been better.

The policy of inviting “oppressed” races is fatal to national welfare, since these elements are almost always biologically inferior & therefore unfit to uphold the institutions established by elements of greater stamina. When a race or group is oppressed, it is usually because of its own inherent inferiority -- & we do not want a nation of inferior cringers on the soil settled by sturdy Englishmen. I think the “melting pot” delusion is about played out, & doubt if any immigrants of non-Nordic stock will ever be welcomed on a large scale again. To fancy that the posterity of Slavs, Jews, & Latins can approximate the instinctive emotional life of sturdy, fighting Teutono-Celtic peoples is to subscribe to a fatal fallacy…"- H.P. Lovecraft, from a letter dated Feb. 26, 1932

Lovecraft obviously did not foresee the threat to his beloved English civilization, and we know he was mistaken to think that the 'melting pot delusion' was played out. His brand of Anglocentrism is all but gone in an America in which Anglo-Saxons have been deposed from real power. And his views on Eastern and Central European immigrants will no doubt raise some hackles, but his views were not at all uncommon in his time. Nowadays, Anglo-bashing is prevalent while the melting pot descendants are respected more.

Amnesty -- in Poland

Sound familiar?

WARSAW) - European Union member Poland which is also part of the 25-state Schengen free travel zone on Friday granted amnesty to some of the estimated 50-70,000 illegal migrants believed to be living on its territory.

"We want Poland to be an open, hospitable and friendly country for those who are looking for the opportunity of a better life here," Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski told reporters after having signed the amnesty Friday.

 So Eastern Europe may not the the 'promised land' after all.
And what sense does it make to have Polish people coming to Western Europe for jobs, while welcoming 50,000 to 70,000 third-worlders to Poland? The world is getting more insane by the day.

''Some country"

In 1913 the English poet Rupert Brooke visited America for the first time, and wrote letters giving his impressions. They were published in newspapers at home, and later complied in book form, in a book titled Letters From America. 

Like many Europeans, Brooke's first impressions of this country were of New York, which even in 1913 was hardly a real American city. Still, his observations are interesting. Some of the things he writes seem valid still, while others seem less so, not surprising given the great changes this country has seen since 1913.

The phrase ''This is some country" was uttered by one of the Americans he encountered in New York.

From Chapter I, New York:

"One is surrounded with Yiddish, Italian, and Greek, broken by Polish, or Russian, or German. Some American anthropologists [Boas?] claim that the children of these immigrants show marked changes in the shape of the skull and face, toward the American type. It may be so. But the people who surround one are mostly European-born. They represent very completely the H.C.F. of Continental appearance which is labeled in the English mind as 'looking like a foreigner,' being short, swarthy, gesticulatory, full of clatter, indeterminately alien. Only in the dress and gait have they -- or at least the men among them -- become at all American.

The Americans by race walk better than we, more freely, with a taking swing, and almost with grace. How much of this is due to living in a democracy, and how much to wearing no braces, it is difficult to determine.
[...]
Also, Americans take their coats off, which is sensible, and they can do it more beautifully because they are belted and not braced. They take their coats off anywhere and anywhen, and somehow it strikes the visitor as the most symbolic thing about them. They have not yet thought of discarding collars, but they are unashamedly shirt-sleeved. Any sculptor, seeking to figure the Republic in stone, must carve, in future, a young man in shirt sleeves, open-faced, pleasant, and rather vulgar, straw hat on the back of his head, his trousers full and sloppy, his coat over his arm. The motto written beneath will be of course, "This is some country."
[...]
What facial type the sculptor would give the youth is harder to determine, and very hard to describe. The American race seems to have developed two classes, and only two, the upper-middle and the lower-middle. Their faces are very distinct. The upper-class head is long, often fine about the forehead and eyes, and very clearly outlined. The eyes have an odd, tired pathos about them, mixed with the friendliness that is so admirable -- as if of a perpetual never quite successful effort to understand something. It is like the face of an only child who has been brought up in the company of adults.
[...]
Smoothness is the one unfailing characteristic. Why do American faces hardly ever wrinkle? Is it the absence of a soul? It must be. For it is less true of the Bostonian than of the ordinary business American, in whose life exhilaration and depression take the place of joy and suffering. The women's faces are more indeterminate, not very feminine; many of them wear those 'invisible' pince-nez which centre glitteringly about the bridge of the nose, and get from them a curious air of intelligence. Handsome people of both sexes are very common; beautiful, and pretty, ones very rare...''

From Chapter III:

"...business has developed insensibly into a a religion, in more than the light, metaphorical sense of the word. It has its ritual and theology, its high places and jargon, as well as its priests and martyrs. One of the most mystical manifestations is in advertisement. America has a childlike faith in advertising."

From Chapter IV: Boston and Harvard

"The city sat on her little hills, decorous, civilised, European-looking. It is homely after New York. The Boston crowd is curiously English. They have nice 18th century houses there, and ivy grows on the buildings. And they are hospitable. All Americans are hospitable but they haven't quite time in New York to practise the art so perfectly as the Bostonians. It is a lovely art...But Boston also makes you feel at home without meaning to. A delicious ancient Toryism is to be found here. "What is wrong with America," and middle-aged lady told me, "is this Democracy. They ought to take the votes away from these people who don't know how to use them, and give them only to us, the Educated."

Basic, inherent rights, theirs and ours

The Cherokee tribe has apparently purged blacks from their tribal membership ranks. Needless to say, this story, involving two 'special victim groups' causes some consternation among the lefties who romanticize both groups, and experience conflict when two such groups are hostile to each other. Who to side with? It's a given that when Whitey is involved, Whitey is to blame. That is an ironclad rule. But with blacks vs. ''Native Americans'', who's the good guy?

Well, the Cherokee are the likely 'bad guys' in this story, from the politically correct point of view. After all, they apparently had slavery, and worst of all, they had black slaves, and are now being disturbingly ethnocentric by asserting their identity as distinct from the blacks among them.

Surprisingly, this lefty forum has a fairly interesting discussion of the story, with some information that was new to me.  Some of the posters make points that are rarely acknowledged or mentioned in polite society: for example, the fact that all Buddhist countries had slavery, the fact that Indian tribes were often at war with one another (not all was peace and love), and the fact that many Indian tribes enslaved other Indians as well as Whites. There is some surprising honesty on that thread, considering the leftist tendencies of the forum.

Still, I expect lefties in general to come down on the side of blacks, since the latter seem to be near the top of the hierarchy of victims, just below the Jews. I've also witnessed considerable White liberal hatred for Indians when those Indians are guilty of politically incorrect behavior, such as hunting whales in the Northwest, or selling cigarettes on their reservations. Indians are not forgiven everything by White liberals as are blacks, so the HuffPo readership will react accordingly.

But as to the idea of the Cherokee asserting their right to determine who belongs to their people and who does not, I agree that, as their spokesman says in the article,

"It's a basic, inherent right to determine our own citizenry," a Cherokee leader told the Washington Post. "We paid very dearly for those rights."

If only we were acknowledged to possess those basic, inherent rights.

No such thing as chance?

Pat Robertson, on the subject of the quake damage to historic landmarks, says something impolitic and the FReepers (even the Christian ones) are up in arms.

Pat has been in the doghouse with mainstream 'conservatives' ever since he said that 9/11 might be Divine judgement against America.

Before I go further, let me make the disclaimer that I am no fan of Robertson's, or of the TV evangelist ilk in general.

The comments, however, were mostly very shrill in denying that God judges anyone, anywhere, anytime, for any reason. They were (self-)righteously indignant about the idea that God does such a thing, and especially any implication that America might not be God's favorite.

One FReeper declines to join in the chorus of condemnation of what Robertson says.

''Just because a Quack says it....doesn’t mean it’s NOT true...

Bizarre, I think, that 2 of the major symbols of DC, the Washington Monument and the (yes, unofficial) National Cathedral are severely damaged, while everything else is more or less unscathed.

Is Deism—and it’s absent “god” who never communicates with (it’s/his) Creation—now the National Religion, even amidst Conservatives?

Just because Pat Robertson says it, makes something wrong?

Sounds pretty bigoted to me...''

15 posted on 08/26/2011 4:06:48 PM PDT by AnalogReigns''

He has a point about 'conservatives' who profess to be Christians believing in a kind of Deism, the 'god' who does not interact with his creation, who only sets the machine in motion and steps back from it. This is not the Biblical God.

One other Christian commenter adds to what the first dissenter said:

''To: AnalogReigns

Agreed. PR has been seriously off base at times, but I don’t find this to be a stretch at all. God does intervene in the affairs of men. We have as a nation strayed from the principles upon which this republic was founded and there are serious issues that must be addressed. This weakening of foundational (Judeo-Christian) principles was apparent long before they showed up in the Washington Monument.

From a biblical understanding, there is no such thing as chance. God in his grace does warn us.

30 posted on 08/26/2011 4:52:57 PM PDT by bereanway''

I disagree with the idea of 'Judeo-Christian principles' but otherwise bereanway makes good points.
I was thinking about the conservatives and their deistic 'god' when I was reading a thread involving human differences and evolution. I noticed that, despite the number of people on such a thread who profess Christianity, few to none will take issue with the basic premises of evolutionism. Basically everybody buys Darwin's theory nowadays, even if they offer half-hearted disagreements here and there.

I don't know how it is possible to reconcile the idea of the Biblical God with the popular 'Christian' concept of an impersonal 'god-force' who perhaps created life in a primitive form, as it were, and stepped back to let 'nature' or whatever, complete the job, culminating in Homo Sapiens.

Similarly, the idea many of the FReepers have of God is that he did intrude into human history in the past, but since then has become something of an absentee landlord, or a disinterested observer, or that perhaps he is like a nonjudgemental grandfather whose memory is failing. Whatever they believe about him, they believe He is not a God of justice, nor is he a Man of War, as the Bible says.

Evidently there are a great many Christians-in-name-only out there, who make up their God as they go along, according the opinions or exigencies of the day.

No help wanted

Below, a comment left at an online review of the book 'The Help'. Read it and weep at the condition of our folk.

''I just now finished "The Help". What an excellent depiction of life as a black women in white people's homes. I have always felt an obligation to understand what life must have been like for these women and Kathryn provides us that understanding. However, my senses are still reeling from the remorse and guilt I feel that my race treated other human beings as these people were treated. Why did it ever take so long for this wrong to be set right?

Thank you, Kathryn, for writing this book. We all owe it to the black population to empathize with their history.

I can't tell you how much this book has moved my soul.

Sincerely, Donna''

The movie version of "The Help", reviewed here by James Edwards, reminds me once again of the reasons why I do not see recent movies -- or anything much from the era of Political Correctness and White self-flagellation.

''But it's only a movie! Lighten up! Enjoy it for entertainment value and ignore the politics!" typifies the 'advice' I get from many people who don't understand why I shun most modern 'entertainment.'

Occasionally a liberal relative or friend will impose one of these movies on me when I am in their company. I cross my fingers and tell myself to give it a chance, hoping that there will be at least some of the movie that does not induce retching, or raise my blood pressure sky-high, but I usually end up walking out, and swearing never to suffer these movies or the people who inflict them on me again.

Every now and then someone, relative or friend, tries to convince me to start writing novels and I tell them I am not capable of writing anything that would be a sure-fire winner in postmodern America or anywhere in the anti-White Western world. What is needed is to be able and willing to write this kind of tripe: a story about the South in the bad old pre-PC era, the sinister South wherein all White people (but most especially White men) were evil bigots as well as being stupid, graceless, and unattractive. There has to be, however, a 'good' White character. Most often it is a woman, as in this disgusting-sounding movie, but occasionally it is a man, as with the sainted Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird.  We can recognize the virtue of the 'good' White by their allegiance to black folk. Their virtue resides in their turning against their own people and self-righteously championing black people. (Never mind that to do so implies that black folk cannot defend or champion their own cause, and must be defended by saintly anti-White Whites.) We saw Atticus Finch do this in TKAM, and if memory serves there was a similar plot in Fried Green Tomatoes, involving White bigots, saintly blacks, and (good) White ladies.

If I wanted to abase myself and my people, I could write a novel to the PC specifications; after all, it is necessary that the writer should be a self-hating Southern person, preferably a female liberal. The writer has to look down on her own folk and idealize black and other minorities, as well as lesbians/gays/transexuals, who automatically fall into the 'good White' category. So my Southron background would be a plus, if I were willing to sell out my fellow Southrons to make a buck. The self-hating part is one I cannot stoop to, at any price.

"The Help" seems to cross a new line, however, or strike a new low, in the plot device of the excrement-laced pie served up to some evil White lady in the movie. And yet Whites are cheering this nausea-inducing scene. If this does not tell us something, then we are in need of help.

Kathryn Stockett, the person who wrote the book, is obviously the typical SWPL, a 'Southern' woman who was a transplant to Manhattan (yes, I was too, though I never fell prey to the self-hating Southron syndrome). She is evidently from the standard privileged liberal family, the child of moneyed parents who purportedly left her to be cared for by the sainted black nanny. In some ways her own biography reads like something that someone would invent, the spoiled rich girl, the Southern belle with liberal, snooty parents.

Stockett believes that even now Jackson, Mississippi, is still one of the most segregated towns in the US. Her mother, Ruth Elliott Stockett, still lives in Jackson. 'She runs the election system for the state of Mississippi – and if you met her, you would laugh! She’s high-pitched, Southern, comes off as kind of absent-minded, but she’s very intelligent. My mother doesn’t have a maid – she’s a liberal. She cleans her own house. And she’s completely colour-blind, she has no sense of black and white. I remember when I was growing up I came home from school one day and my mother was sitting in the living-room with a black woman, talking and laughing and having a good time. After the woman left I came down and said, “Mum, who was that black lady in our house?” We’d never had a black guest before. And you know what my mother said? “She was black?” She wasn’t kidding. She didn’t even notice.’

The woman and her life story are a cliché come to life.

The book publishers and Hollywood producers want only people like this to depict the South and Southron folk, and they want to bludgeon us endlessly with these tales of the outrages (separate drinking fountains!) of the past. And yet the majority of 'our' folk cheer the abuse. Even on an ostensibly 'conservative' site such as the Wall Street Journal comments page.

So these kinds of books and films flourish, and they move women like the benighted 'Donna' at the beginning of this piece to some kind of religious fervor. Donna says it 'moved her soul.' We are talking about people feeling 'saved' by a movie.

I think we need to be able to divide this country along the lines of our religion: the Donnas of this country whose 'soul' is moved by self-hating anti-White preaching, and the rest of us who still worship God, and love our own people.

Stereotype denial

A particular affliction of the politically correct left is the denial that stereotypes have any validity at all, or any source in the real world. No; stereotypes, so-called, are simply the deranged imagination of evil racists who prowl the world making up utterly false images of the protected groups. Or so the PC prigs insist.

Say that you have seen many, many living examples of the 'stereotypes' and you will be called derogatory names and banned from polite society.

Trouble is, sooner or later the politically correct pharisees have to start taking accouint of the evidence of their 'lying eyes', -- don't they?

Symbolism

Last year, there was the event shown in the picture above, now, there is today's story about the Washington Monument.

The east coast earthquake

In Tuesday's earthquake, measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale, it appears that some Washington, D.C. landmarks suffered damage. Coincidence? It's hard not to think of some of these events of the past few years (bizarre weather and storms-of-the-century, lightning strikes on the White House and the White House grounds) as being a message from God. I do believe we are seeing the 'earthquakes in divers places' about which we have been warned.

Meanwhile, I hope that anyone reading this blog who is out in that part of the country is all right, and not too disturbed by the quake.

Over at Free Republic, some of the California FReepers are laughing at the reactions of many East Coast and Midwest people who are not accustomed to quakes. Quakes can be very distressing to those who are not experienced in dealing with them. Personally I've been in some fair-sized quakes on the West Coast, the strongest being a 6.5 or thereabouts, and no matter how many times I've been through even the more moderate quakes, it's still a little unsettling. I think I would rather deal with tornadoes, or even hurricanes, because at least there is usually some warning, and it is possible, given enough notice, to evacuate and get to a safer area. Earthquakes give no warning, and there is no place to go to escape the rocking and rolling once it starts.

Does anyone have any quake stories to share with us?

Distinctions and differences

I was just feeling vexed by many comments at Steve Sailer's blog, wherein David Starkey's response to critics was being discussed. I blogged about that here the other day. I was irritated by the almost-uniform praise for Starkey's remarks -- why? Because he plainly says that there must be an English nationalism that is multiracial and inclusive! Nobody seemed to catch the contradiction there, except for a couple of commenters. Or perhaps nobody cares.

Why is it so hard to grasp that the term 'English' means people of Anglo-Saxon descent, and that people from Jamaica or Somalia or China or Pakistan are not and can never, ever be English? If they can be English, perhaps I can move to China and become Chinese.

But then I came across this very good piece by Christopher Pankhurst at Counter Currents, called England's Dreaming. Pankhurst's piece notes the distinction between English and British, which is crucial to understanding the absurdity of Starkey's remarks, or to understanding the situation in the UK, wherein the Scots, the Northern Irish, and the Welsh are allowed, no, encouraged to identify with their ethnicity, and to maintain their culture and heritage, while English heritage and symbols are frowned upon and ignored. The English flag of St. George has become almost as politically incorrect as the Confederate Battle Flag. Why?

''...it is perfectly clear that the English are facing a unique form of disenfranchisement. On the one hand, our Welsh and Scottish neighbors have their own forms of devolved parliaments that are specifically established for them, whilst the English have only the United Kingdom parliament. In 2004, the UK parliament was only able to pass the bill allowing higher tuition fees in England with the votes of Scottish MPs, whose constituents were exempt from it.[6] On the other, the overwhelming majority of immigrants to the UK are located in England,[7] necessitating the full implementation of the “equality” measures outlined above, and the consequent debilitation of our English youth.

The English are systematically denied their own unique identity by a cultural cabal who denigrate the indigenous people as post-colonial fools who are getting their just desserts. The English underclass is routinely depicted as stupid, promiscuous, and justly deserving of their jobless future in a way that would be denounced as racist if it were applied in the same way to any other group. And, when viewed from this perspective, what sort of a way out is there for these youngsters who do not even have the residue of a cultural identity to cling to?''

No doubt it would be more accurate to use the term 'Anglo-Saxon' to specify the ethnic English people. When the media begin to refer to 'Jamaican-English people' or other such absurdities, it's time to either reclaim the term English, or use some other term. Our own national label, 'American', now means virtually nothing in terms of describing a speficic race or ethnic ancestry. Hence it is a 'civic identity', not an ethnic one. Perhaps it has not meant anything ethnically since before the Ellis Island wave of immigration.

The English people, specifically, are the targets, though, of an assault on their identity, in much the same way as we old-stock Americans. Yet because of sloppy use of words, few people perceive this fact.

I've been guilty in the past of carelessly interchanging 'British' and 'English' though I understand the distinction, but I've personally resolved to be more precise when I use these terms in the future, to try to clarify the difference that seems to escape most people's notice.

From the 1960s: Dan Smoot on foreign aid

Recently a number of videos of the Dan Smoot Report have been posted on You Tube. They are interesting to watch and listen to; many of the issues he discusses are very relevant today, and you can see that he was somewhat prescient. His remarks on foreign aid and the damage it does are still very pertinent, and provide some background as to how we got into our present situation.

Dan Smoot's program was quite popular in its day; although I was a little too young then to grasp what he was talking about, I do remember that he was well-known in the early 60s, before 'conservatism' became the farce that it is today.

Smoot, with his articulate commentary, is quite a contrast to the dumbed-down political 'pundits' and commentators seen on Fox News and elsewhere today. It is also refreshing to listen to someone with the precise diction that used to be the standard for broadcast media figures in those days.

Proud to be...you know...

At Unamusement Park, there is a post by a guest, described as a regular reader of the blog, but who evidently believes that the messages therein are too 'strong' for the average White people out there. Strangely, though, the 'guest' has just said in the preceding paragraph that he 'wouldn't change a thing' about the blog.

''You cushion the blow with humor, which is what makes your site so much better than the typical skinhead/Hitleroid/militiaman/Olde Southe schtick one sees elsewhere on the Internet. Still, to a typical white person of the sort that drinks Lite beer and watches cable television eight hours each day, I think that the material on your website — as good as it is — is still going to be either incomprehensible or over-the-line shocking.''

Realizing that I may be in the minority here, I think this post is a little condescending and dismissive towards the ''typical'' pro-White material in the blogosphere. I suspect my blog would be condemned under the ''Olde Southe'' category, whatever that may mean. This all sounds like the occasional condemnations directed at people who ''live in the past'' or ''idealize the 1950s.'' There is that school of thought, that we must jettison the past and create some kind of utopia from scratch, as the Jacobins tried to do in France. According to this school of thought, the past is valueless.

Critics of the existing efforts usually have their own recipes or prescriptions of what will work, and in this case, the guest gives his:

''Joe Whitebread isn’t going to respond the way we wish him to when confronted with tales of black mob violence or reverse discrimination. He has been carefully taught (and truly believes) that black violence is his fault (“the legacy of five hundred years of slavery”), and that reverse discrimination in hiring, college admissions, etc. are a just response to white privilege, systemic racism, and the good old boy network’s anti-black conspiracy.

Neither are appeals to science a viable method of making the typical white person admit that race is in part a biological reality. Jane Litebeer doesn’t give a damn about science. She does not understand it and has no idea what words like “median,” “heritability,” and “phenotypical” mean. Such things confuse and scare her. She forms her worldview not on the basis of empirical science but on what her favorite actors, pop stars, and trash-fiction novelists tell her is true.

To typical white people such as Joe and Jane, the material on your website is not a call to arms. It is racist trash published by and for buck-toothed rednecks, Klansmen, and people like that bad guy on this week’s episode of Law & Order. They see it that way because they have been taught to see things in that way.''

With all due respect, the average Joe and Jane are not necessarily as clueless or uninformed as implied above. Average people are more savvy than many give them credit for.

The answer, according to the guest writer, is the stealthy approach, and for our model, he gives us the 'gentle, soft-spoken, respectable' civil rights leaders, like MLK, who defeated Jim Crow and asserted their 'dignity.' I would question the 'gentle, soft-spoken, respectable' characterizations, but I'll leave that one there.

We, however, have real 'gentle, soft-spoken, respectable' leaders, such as Jared Taylor and others, yet even they are depicted as firebrand 'supremacists' and denied the right to speak in public. That approach has been tried for decades and is still being used. It's hardly as though we haven't gone that route for these many years. I am not saying that it cannot be a useful approach; I am saying it is not new.

I don't see how the situation of Whites is analogous to that of pre-Civil Rights Revolution blacks. Their activism was part of a whole Communist effort to pull down the existing system, and the language used was the Marxist language of victimhood, of the virtue of the 'underdog' and the wretched of the earth. This is not our language, nor should it be our approach. And did MLK and the 'moderates' in his circles end Jim Crow? Or was it mainly due to the more militant blacks of that era, who were legion?

Also, they had the media wholeheartedly on their side, as well as most of the political establishment. Can we say that? We are much more the 'underdogs'.

As for the guest's recommendations that people do leafleting with very innocuous (dare we say politically correct?) language and images

''How do we drive Joe and Jane to this website? By low-tech means — flyers slipped into newspaper stacks, posters tacked surreptitiously onto bulletin boards, posters stuck up (non-permanently) in the dead of night on fences and bathroom walls across America. Each of these bears a professional-quality image promoting one of our core points in a friendly and positive faction, and each bears the inscription “proud2bewhite.com”. I have included a low-res sample of one of these propaganda pieces with this message as an example.''

Again, this has been done. Many individuals and probably various local groups have printed up flyers or leaflets and distributed them, often with very non-controversial language and images, yet when people do such things, often we read shrill headlines in the local paper ''Hate material distributed in area by anonymous extremists!" And think how often we read of some high school or college group which attempts to start a 'White students' organization' or 'White pride' group, or even a 'European-American' group, only to have it banned or forbidden by school officials. Even innocuous terms like that are considered 'hate speech.' Are we the people who dare not speak their name?

Am I being a naysayer here?  I am simply saying that there are many possible approaches and that it is not desirable to proclaim that everybody else's approach is wrong, while I have THE right one, the secret to success. No, by all means, try the various approaches, but it's good to be aware of just what various people have already done, and learn from their experience what works and what doesn't. There is no one approach that must be followed to the exclusion of everything else -- and there's no need to reinvent the wheel. It's not as though people haven't been trying for the last several decades to promote our cause. To imply that none of these things have been done is to diminish the work that has been done, and is being done.

As far as avoiding certain language for fear of alienating 'Joe and Jane' Average out there, how long do we have to bide our time and tiptoe around the truth, and coddle people's delicate sensibilities? The hour is late; we do not have decades to get the messages out there. If people shy away because they think the word ''White'' is racist, or 'hateful', then what possible use would they be? They are obviously either indifferent to the fate of their kin and people, or they are too cowardly and squeamish to stand up and speak the truth to anybody.

This has been a persistent theme among many 'realists'  or 'patriots', the idea that we have to tiptoe and avoid 'scaring people off.' If I find that people are 'scared off' by simple truth or plain language, I write them off as hopeless. There are people who will never see the light, or even if they see it, they are afraid to admit it, much less to take a stand.

I would truly like to see this idea wither away: the idea that we have to 'tone things down' or else we will 'turn people off.' Nobody of any integrity or character is 'turned off' by the truth; if they are, they have shown themselves to be amoral and servile. Unfortunately, decades of propaganda have done this to many people, and it can't be undone by continuing to avoid the truth, or avoiding controversy. The hour is late; we haven't got time to take the long way around.

I often wonder if these 'tone it down' approaches are not the contrivance of our foes, meant to make our side into an ineffectual irrelevancy, a milk-and-water, inoffensive dead end.

"Diversity" has arrived in the small-town Northwest

According to the news reports, this is the first such incident during the 100 years of the fair. I will bet that this won't make the national news, but it's one more example of what is happening to 'our' America.

LYNDEN — A 15-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder Saturday night, Aug. 20, after gunfire and a stabbing at the Northwest Washington Fair injured four people.
Police believe the violence was gang-related.
Two men and a woman were shot, and a third man was stabbed, Lynden Police Chief Jack Foster said. The victims, ages 18 to 23, were taken to St. Joseph’s hospital for treatment.'' 

No names, no descriptions; par for the course. Then of course if/when more details are known and this proves to be 'diversity-related' as the comments at the website imply, there will have to be hand-wringing articles about how the community responded with 'bigotry' and stereotyping. The usual. This article, from the big-city Seattle Times, is not much better.
 
Many of the comments -- we are talking about the Northwest, after all -- are from the gang of nasty liberal scolds, but this one comment combines humor and a little cynical realism:

Hopefully Lynden can learn from this tragedy and and adapt to the cultural diversity that includes a Fair that offers rides and attractions that invite participation from Gang Bangers so they feel inclusive in the fun and activities.

Perhaps they could have their own midway with games such as "Russian Roulette" or blindfold them with a red or blue bandanna (respective of their gang association of course) and let them swing away at a live explosive Pinata. And my favorite, "Bobbing for Hand Grenades".

Other attractions could be "Amnesty Alley", where they enter on one side and work their way through a maze and emerge on the other side with a forged Social security number, a drivers licence, health insurance, housing vouchers and voting privileges.

How about "The Rio Run" where they have to climb a fence then swim across an artificial river with their pregnant wife and children, and on the other side their rewarded with citizenship, free education and college tuition....fun for the whole family!

Id like to see the "Droopy Drawers" race where rival gangs race 100 yards with their pants around their knees while being chased by law enforcement without falling down and the winner gets a free belt that fits above their waistline.

One would have to offer the "Graffiti Wall of Interpretation", where Fair attendees have to guess what the he!! their tagging means and associated gang affiliation.

Of course the real fun would come with the "Tunnel to Freedom" in which contestants are given a shovel, a gun and a kilo of coke and must dig their way under the 4-H barns. Should they emerge short, under Suzie Van Der Hoots lil' pig stye, their greeted by a half dozen rednecks with side arms and must avoid open fire before they can skittle their way back to safety.

It's this kind of thoughtfulness towards embracing their culture that might make everyone feel at home at the Fair and these hoodlums might not feel so isolated, and their pent up Machismo could find a release in enjoying a nice sunny day at the new and inclusive Fairgrounds!

You have to laugh or you'll cry.

Dialect quiz

I found this dialect/accent quiz at OneSTDV. I think I've done it before, though I can't find the source of it online.
It's interesting to see how people from different regions describe certain things. Here are the questions:

1. What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?  
2. What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?
3. What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
4. What do you call gym shoes?
5. What do you say to address a group of people?
6. What do you call the kind of spider (or spider-like creature) that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs? 
7. What do you call your grandparents?
8. What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
9. What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
10. What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

My responses are:
1 - tp'ing or rolling
2 - pill bug
3 - coke
4 - tennis shoes
5 - y'all
6 - daddy longlegs, or 'granddaddy spider'. The latter may be a peculiarity within my extended family as nobody else I meet seems to use it.
7 - Granddaddy and Grandma
8 - Buggy
9 - The devil is beating his wife!
10 - Remote

When reading the responses at OneSTDV, I noticed that several people answered #9 with the term 'sunshower.' I honestly have never heard that term before, so I learned something, I suppose. I often repeat the 'devil beating his wife' phrase when we get sun and rain simultaneously, and most Yankees seem unfamiliar with it.

From reading various responses, it does seem that the South is a region to itself as far as some vocabulary words are concerned.

'We want honesty'

English historian David Starkey, who recently created so much controversy with his comments on the recent riots in the UK, has responded rather strongly to his many critics.

While he says some things that are true, things that need to be said, such as the following,

"We will not continue, I think, to tolerate being lied to and cheated in the matter of race,' he wrote in the Daily Telegraph. 'Instead of 'not in front of the children', we want honesty.' [...]

'Central to any such discussion, it seems to me, are the successes and failures of integration in Britain in the past 50 years. And it was these that I was trying to address.'

Admitting that his friends agreed his greatest error was mentioning former politician Enoch Powell, whose 1968 Rivers of Blood speech attacked immigration, he added that a legacy of the reaction to Powell had been 'an enforced silence on the matter of race'.

He wrote: 'The subject has become unmentionable, by whites at any rate. And any breach has been punished by ostracism and worse."

he unfortunately spoils it by betraying his tendency to be politically correct when push comes to shove, and to downplay the very thing which he thinks needs more honest treatment, race.

He shows his true colors as another 'civic patriot', one who believes that patriotism or nationalism are matters of allegiance to a geographic location or a particular political entity, in this case, the United Kingdom.

''If all the people of this country, black and white alike, are to enter fully into our national story, as I desperately hope they will, they must do so on terms of reciprocity,' he wrote."

In other words, he is the equivalent of our colorblind conservatives who believe that as long as people from anywhere agree to sign onto the prevailing belief system and integrate, then any racial and ethnic conflicts will disappear. Obviously that last statement quoted indicates that he 'desperately hopes' for a multiracial, multicultural UK. We have this same deluded belief system dictating 'our' government's policies, too, and we are seeing dismal and dire results just as the UK is.

Much as Starkey says some of the right things, and calls for 'honesty' on this subject, he is being less than honest, apparently even with himself. 'English' nationality is not a civic nationality, though British is, and English people come in one color only, though it's somehow taboo to say it, even for a purported 'right-wing historian.'

Who are we? How do we choose?

In a recent post of mine the question arose of whether Americans represent a mix of European ethnicities rather than a distinct people. I expressed my opinion that yes, Americans are a mixed people of various European origins for the most part.

Not everyone agrees with that point of view. Some people in the South have believed that Southrons are a distinct people by virtue of having very homogeneous origins in Britain, and by virtue of  the original colonial stock having been much less diluted by the varied strains of immigrants of the 19th and early 20th centuries.



At one point I would have expressed that opinion, but now have some doubts about ambiguities there.

But for those who are of various European ancestries, how do you identify yourself? Do you identify as 'just American' or by your region, or do you identify with a preferred ancestral strain -- as certain ancestries seem to wax and wane in popularity -- and how do you decide where you identify?

Is it possible to identify equally with two or more ancestries? If so, how do you reconcile them if there is animosity between the two or more different ethnic groups?

It seems I know many people in American who identify with a lesser strain of their ancestry (one-eight or even less, sometimes) or who simply ''believe'' they have descent from a particular nationality, even if there is no real evidence of it.

I do think this divided identity weakens us somewhat, and predisposes many Americans to favor the 'creedal nation' or 'proposition nation' and to say ''anybody can be an American.''

So how do we address this?

Counter-jihad and counterfeit nationalism

Not very long ago I posted an entry on the counter-jihad movement, and the question of whether it is in competition with ethnonationalism or ethnopatriotism. Along those same lines, Michael at Southern Nationalist Network posts a piece called 'Counter-jihad' fake nationalism'.

He points out how counter-jihadism, unlike 'organic' nationalism based on kith, kin, culture, and soil, ignores those things and focuses on larger groupings of humankind, competing 'civilizations' which are engaged in a struggle. For the counter-jihadists, Islam is the main enemy, and the West is 'our side', standing for certain abstract ideas like freedom and equality.

As I've mentioned before, I was one of those who were vaguely in the camp of the counter-jihadists following 9/11 and during my transition back to a real traditional view of my loyalties and identity. I think a lot of people on the right were at some point in sympathy with counter-jihadism, as it seemed to be defending our Christian civilization. However, as I grew more acquainted with the various counter-jihad writers and bloggers, I began to notice how political correctness/cultural Marxism pervaded their point of view. For instance, criticism of Islam often focused on how 'misogynistic' it is, or how 'homophobic' it is. In other words, the critics were defending liberalism rather than traditional Western Christian civilization.

The other problem for me with counter-jihad is that it seemed to argue for our continued intervention abroad in the name of 'equality' or 'democracy' in Islamic countries. For me, the concern is for my people, my kin, and my region, not for people on the other side of the globe. We are not obliged to save the world. Again, counter-jihadism also vociferously supports Israel, and commits us to a perpetual war against whoever is not pro-Israel, or philo-Semitic. I choose not to side with either Islam or Israel.

I also grew weary of the counter-jihadists championing various people held up as heroes and heroines of the anti-Islamic struggle: people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, or many other people from Islamic countries who fill the role of ''good Moslems'' or ex-Moslems who seem to fill the same role for politically correct counter-jihadists that Herman Cain or Thomas Sowell fill for good  Republicans. The GOP has its 'magic Negroes' to lend politically correct cachet; the counterjihad group has their magic Moslems (or ex-Moslems) who are held up as saints to be admired. And their message for us is that we must defend their rights, even at the cost of our own young people's lives, as they are sent to fight wars in the Islamic world.

The idea is, for counter-jihadists, that we, the 'good Moslems', Israel, and all those who believe in certain abstractions, make up our supra-national equivalent of the proposition nation. We are ostensibly held together only by abstract notions of 'tolerance' and 'freedom'. The counter-jihad is multiracial, multinational, multicultural; it's a center-right version of the left's 'rainbow nation'. It is a 'globalist' movement in its way; it supposes that we must set our sights toward some kind of supranational horizon, rather than closer to home, as is more natural.

It is telling that many counter-jihadists are actually semi-apostate leftists who 'got religion' after 9/11, but who have still held tightly to their notions about 'equality and tolerance.' As Michael notes, they are on the same page with neocons in this respect, with their crusading-for-democracy beliefs.

While I believe that those of us in what was once called Christendom have a great deal of common heritage and cultural similarity, as well as ethnic and racial kinship, I don't identify with some abstract notion such as 'the West',  or 'Western civilization,' but with my region (the Southern states), my home state, my blood kin, and the culture that is part of those things. Counter-jihadism disdains this kind of loyalty and identity.

So was Breivik a nationalist? Michael says no, and the writer of this piece also says no.

 It is clear that Breivik represents a neoconservative agenda close to that of Geert Wilders’ which exists to defend so-called “secular-democratic values,” without clearly defining what those values are, while also rejecting traditional nationalist sentiments, such as the importance of ethnicity. In other words, Breivik did the nationalist movements of Europe no favor, his actions are detrimental to those who want European survival, and his ideology is a muddled agglomeration of inconsistent concepts.''

The question for me is: can those who believe in this kind of muddled 'philosophy' ever come to a truer kind of ethnopatriotism or ethnonationalism? I know that a few have made that journey, but many will likely not be able to; there are too many points in which counter-jihadism is in diametric opposition to real ethnonationalism.

The media propaganda machine vs. Rick Perry

I'm not a particular fan of Gov. Rick Perry, but I feel compelled to note how the Democrats and their media minions are going after him, ever since he declared his candidacy.

No doubt everybody has read these stories:

NBC edits Perry Comment, charging racism

Ed Schultz admits editing Perry, doesn't apologize for falsely accusing him of making racist remark

Then some Fox News liberal female asserts that Rick Perry 'wants to kill all illegals on the border'

Wait! Are we talking about Rick 'Open Borders' Perry? The same one who said an Arizona-style immigration law was not for Texas? The same one who was personally thanked by Vicente Fox for his efforts to give reduced tuition to illegal students?

Perry makes the right noises about State's Rights and about Ben Bernanke, but it may be just so much sound and fury, and the fact remains he is a globalist like just about every politician of any note in this country.

But because he is from the South, and because he is a professing Christian, he will be the object of a lot of vilification in the left-wing media and among the usual suspects on the secular, mainstream right. Watch for his Christian faith to be ridiculed and depicted as 'fanatical' or 'fundamentalist' when he is nothing of the kind.

It's too bad that George W. Bush left such a bad impression as a ''Texan'' (as did an actual Texan, Lyndon B. Johnson, in his own day), with the result that many people will tend to recoil at the prospect of another Texan (real or purported) in the White House.

There is still Ron Paul, of course, though he is a Texan by residence only, not by birth. Some of you might remember I was a Paul supporter for a while in the last election, but his weak remarks about immigration, and his libertarian ideology on race,  have disqualified him in my eyes.

But regardless of what we think of Rick Perry, the media's blatant attempts to paint him as a racist are deplorable, and smack of desperation.

Our unbalanced political style

From ''Women's suffrage: The Reform Against Nature"
Horace Bushnell, 1865

''It is a common assumption that appears and reappears at every turn in the advocacy of women's suffrage, that our elections will be moderated and made more respectable by the presence and participation of women; because the women themselves will be more restrained in their manners, and will have a restraining, mitigating effect on the men. Nothing could be more agreeable to be hoped, and when we note the civilizing effect of the presence of women, coming in as they sometimes do, to grace our public assemblies, we are tempted to believe that such kind of advan- tages will be gained.''

The early suffragettes promoted this idea, the idea that women might bring some kind of civility and gentleness into politics, and stop men and their wanton aggression.

However, we've seen that such has not been the case in the decades since women got the vote, and entered political office. Over the years, especially since mid-20th century, it seems as though there has been much more partisan rancor and ugliness of rhetoric in politics. Various theories have sprung up as to why this has happened; there is a school of thought which insists that partisan bitterness and strife has always been a feature of American politics, and that in fact things have improved in this area. But it seems palpably true that things have become more heated and acrimonious, downright hateful, since the administration of John F. Kennedy, and the post-assassination era. One theory was that the left became virulently embittered by JFK's assassination, and that they have been on a tear against the so-called ''far right'' ever since. But whatever the reason, it seems that politics is now so vitriolic that many ordinary people are turned off, and choose not to participate, leaving the field to the most fanatical. Why has 'feminism' and the feminine influence not moderated this? It has seemed, on the contrary, to have exacerbated it. Bushnell continues:

''But we need not go far, I think, to gather up facts or incidents that indicate a result exactly opposite. "Women admire a great deal more strongly than men, and when they have a candidate, one who has become the idol of their choice, there is nothing they will not do to carry their end in his election; just as the proud Duchess of Devonshire allowed a butcher at the hustings to kiss her, on condition of his voting for Fox.
[...]
In all which we are to see that women are the most violent partisans in the world, and that nothing is more certain, when the women's suffrage plan is carried, than that all party contests will be raised to a pitch of exasperation never before seen. "We ought to anticipate just this from what we know of men themselves; for there is a certain class of men that have a softer fiber, and a finer and more fragile person, and these are always the persons to be most extravagant, most violent, and most fiercely denunciatory in all measures and causes of reform. The sturdy, thick-bodied, masculine men keep their balance and their key of moderation, but these others are vitriol and gall to every sort of opposition.''

This 'certain class of men' with a 'more fragile person,' and who are the 'most fiercely denunciatory in all measures' sounds very much like most of the liberal Democrat politicians, with their over-the-top, attack-dog kind of rhetoric. There are any number of men with fangs and claws like this on the left, and their bitterness has more than a touch of feminine bitchiness about it. The overall feminization of our society, and the rise of the 'sensitive liberal male' has something to do with this.

''Accordingly we shall see, when the days of women's suffrage are come, that all we had to say of moderation and a gentler type of manners, in our political affairs, has been a most sad mistake, that party strife was never before so bitter and so mixed with hate. "Women are a great deal more violent, constitutionally speaking, than men; the very delicacy of their nature makes them so, and as soon as they are called to violence, which now they are not, they will make an element of unmitigated bitterness. When the charities of a womanly nature are burned out, and nothing left but spleen or frenzied passion, we have a spectacle both sad and frightful.''

Only when we return to a better balance in society between male and female will we see a return to a less harsh style in politics, and a more civil and measured tone.

Update: I have just read Brandon's somewhat related post at Naive Gatekeeper here.

Whose riots?

It's interesting that Alex Salmond of the Scottish Nationalist Party has capitalized on the riots in England by claiming that the riots must be called 'English riots' because Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales have had no unrest. Therefore, the riots are 'English riots.'

This is verbal sleight-of-hand. Saying that the riots are English is tarring the English people as rioters, when it's evident that the riots were 'diversity-related, not perpetrated predominantly by English people.

The news media took great pains to show that 'there were many Whites who participated' in the rioting and looting, or so they say. But even if we grant that there were a certain percentage of White lawbreakers involved, how does it then follow that the White outlaws were English? There are White people of various ethnicities now living within the bounds of what is called England. There are Poles and other Eastern Europeans; there have long been Irish, Scottish, and Welsh, especially in the urban areas. London in particular has always had a great many such people. London is one of the least English places in the UK, ironically, but many people do not grasp even what this statement means, because of the blurring of ethnic and national definitions.

England is now the most 'diverse' part of the United Kingdom, with the greatest proportion of immigrants and immigrant descendants, especially nonwhites. Scotland, of which Salmond is boasting, does not have the same numbers or percentages of 'diversity', and has thus not been as afflicted with diversity-related crime and disorder -- not so far. But give Scotland time; what with the SNP's leftist, multiculturalist orientation (it is not a nationalist party in the right-wing sense) there will eventually be similar events in Scotland. It's a certainty. Diversity brings disorder, sooner or later. And the SNP cozies up to Islam and proudly welcomes immigrants as members.

Most Americans either feign ignorance of this fact, or are unaware of it, probably because Scotland is 'cool' for Americans nowadays, what with Jim Webb's ''Born Fighting'' or Mel Gibson's Braveheart. Scottishness is cool and desirable; Englishness -- even if it is understood as an ethnicity and not just an address -- is not.

From the Christian Science Monitor article:

Salmond said Scotland has a "different society" from that in England and that there is "no history" of this type of rioting. "Until such time as we do have a riot here, what we are seeing are riots in London and across English cities," he said.''

The Christian Science Monitor, surprisingly, mentions some politically incorrect facts here:

''Youth workers say the racial tensions in the background of the riots in England are not present in Scotland, which is more homogenously white.''

But again, Salmond and his fellow Scottish 'nationalists' seek a more 'diverse' Scotland. Good luck with that diversity, Alex.

A Guardian article does note the fact that neither Wales nor Scotland were immune to the violence:

''Meanwhile, police in Cardiff reported four incidents in the city on Tuesday night, including two arson attacks, an attempted looting and disturbances at a takeaway.''
[...]
Willie Rennie, the Scottish Liberal Democrats' leader, accused Salmond of "seeking narrow political advantage out of the misery of others". He added: "Scotland is not free from social tensions and community disorder, and instead of gloating about riots in another part of the UK, the first minister's efforts would be better spent addressing those deep-rooted issues here."

Two teenagers are to appear in court in Scotland accused of trying to orchestrate riots using Facebook: a 16-year-old will attend Glasgow's court and an 18-year-old is expected to appear at Dundee sheriff court on similar charges. Tayside police said they were pursuing other similar investigations.''

The attempt to make it seem that the English people were the perpetrators of the riots seems to be part of the overall attempt at blurring the definition of 'English', stripping the term of any meaning as an ethnic designation. Soon, if the powers-that-be have their way, ''English'' will be a meaningless civic identity, much as American has become. Anybody and everybody can now be 'American' and likewise, anybody who steps on English soil can now be 'English.'

And fewer people seem to even recognize that the term 'English' describes a group of people related by blood, not just a catch-all term for anybody within a specific territory.

Left vs. Right? Or two sides of one coin?

Peter Hitchens seems to blame leftism for the recent riots in England, yet at the same time he says the following:

All this piffle enshrines the official (and hopelessly wrong) view that crime is caused by circumstances and background, not by unleashed human evil. It is precisely because of this windy falsehood that the cells are crammed with young men who broke the law because they felt like it.
[...]
Hulking louts – black and white, for this was an equal-opportunity crimewave – are accompanied before the bench by alleged ‘parents’ who are obviously afraid of their broods.''

So, if the idea that blaming crime on circumstances and background is hopelessly wrong, how can blaming it on liberal policies be right? The blame lies with the people and not with leftism or ''culture''.  I also find his political correctness (in saying it was an 'equal opportunity crimewave' ) rather ironic.

English historian David Starkey started a controversy by saying some politically incorrect (though not quite specific enough) things about the causes of the riots. He alluded to Whites acting black, and the influences of what we might call ghetto culture.

I'm sure you've all seen the video and read some of the many discussions surrounding it.

The discussion of Starkey's comments at Free Republic was one of the more discouraging of those I've read.
Here are some of the many comments there:

I can’t speak for England but in America, “black culture” was an artificial creation to benefit the democrats.

Looking back to the 30s, 40s, and 50s, black culture was pretty much indistinguishable from the rest of American culture. In the case of black conservatives, they’re still regular old Americans.

4 posted on 08/13/2011 1:49:06 PM PDT by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin)

I disagree with this guy. Its not “black culture.” West Indian blacks and many African blacks are a hell of a lot more industrious, law-abiding and civic-minded than a number of Welfare case whites. Its clear that when whites buy into the entitlement culture, they are lazy and disrespectful. We see examples in Britain. A lot of the rioters are white. Then we see the example of the black woman who turned in her daughter because it was the right thing to do. The reason this can be mistaken for “black culture” is because blacks come into contact with the Welfare state the most.

8 posted on 08/13/2011 1:53:23 PM PDT by Opinionated Blowhard ("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")

There probably as many whites with the gansta mentality as Blacks.

I heard a guy this Am (British) He said From Blair to present the Welfare entitlement mentality has destroyed British Culture. He said that there are a great number of Brits that have not had a job in 20 years and their children have grow up to expect EVERYTHING to be provided for by the GOV. He also blamed the multiculturalism that has destroyed British Society.
No National identity or values.
It is going to take a harsh pulling out the Socialist Society by the roots. These mobs of lazy leaches will not take it sitting down. count on it.

10 posted on 08/13/2011 2:00:01 PM PDT by Marty62 (Marty60)

The rate of illegitimacy among blacks was once lower than it is today among whites. When you correct for the effects of illegitimate birth in a fatherless household, the crime rate among blacks today is no worse than among whites.

You can thank the cultural Marxists for destroying Western culture. It's what they set out to do.
12 posted on 08/13/2011 2:04:39 PM PDT by hellbender

“Looking back to the 30s, 40s, and 50s, black culture was pretty much indistinguishable from the rest of American culture.”

I have heard - but not seen verified - that during the period you mention church affiliations were higher and out of wedlock birth statistics were actually lower in the black population compared to the US population as a whole.

Then came The Great Society, War on Poverty, War on Drugs and Sexual Revolution.

14 posted on 08/13/2011 2:06:51 PM PDT by Psalm 144 (Voodoo Republicans: Don't read their lips - watch their hands.)

It’s only the intrenched welfare blacks that are the problem. When a person gives up on life and accepts handouts, he is no longer a human being, capable of incredible achievement. Liberalism destroyed this country and I don’t think there is a “going back.” I have the utmost respect for black people along with anyone else who receives an education and contributes to the common good of our society. Everyone else, regardless of color, is a parasite deserving of extinction.

15 posted on 08/13/2011 2:06:57 PM PDT by New Jersey Realist (Congress doesn't care a damn about "we the people")

Depends on what you define “violence” as. Do you include “violence” as shanking a kid for his lunch money and exclude conflicts between empires which results in the deaths of millions or reckless driving in the suburbs.
(There’s actually a 13-1 ratio of dying in the suburbs of a car accident than dying in the city of a murder). You can’t pepper spray a car.

Anyway, I would take anything he says with a grain of salt.

“The author declared a national holiday for England, he criticised Scottish, Irish and Welsh nationalisms describing these nations as “feeble little countries”. In the same context, he described England as a “formerly great” nation”

So.. how many of you other freepers are of Irish, Scots or Welsh ancestry?

23 posted on 08/13/2011 2:25:30 PM PDT by NorthStarStateConservative (Springtime in America will arrive on January 21, 2013.)

Furthermore, I also want to be on record quoting Ayn Rand.

“Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage—the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestor”

25 posted on 08/13/2011 2:28:38 PM PDT by NorthStarStateConservative (Springtime in America will arrive on January 21, 2013.)
I’m curious how many blacks in the early 60s actually thought the great society programs were going to be a good thing.

It’s my take, that many of them probably dreaded it.

It’s my take also, that what they really wanted, was to simply be allowed to participate and thrive, like the rest of us.

Now that would have been a great society, I could have signed on to.

Instead this nation was wounded to the detriment of all citizens, especially the black family

26 posted on 08/13/2011 2:29:04 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (The Destroyer is anti-US, the West, Christian, Israel, banks, W.S., Corps, & the free enterpr systm.)

 I’m curious how many blacks in the early 60s actually thought the great society programs were going to be a good thing.

When progressives lost the racial war they immediately set out to re enslave minority cultures with government largess. The Great Society was an overt effort to chain inner city poverty culture to the democrat party. .

The social service policies of the 60's were intended to stifle personal responsibility and encourage dependence on state services.

It worked. Those who most viciously opposed civil rights regained their place as overlords by breaking down (especially) black culture with policies that rewarded promiscuity and promoted dereliction of parental duties.

These policies persist to this day. The belief that government subsistence is preferable to economic freedom is the cornerstone of progressive ideology.
31 posted on 08/13/2011 2:47:25 PM PDT by Louis Foxwell (This IS my blog site.)




I know crime rates are high in Jamaica, but growing up in New York City, Jamaican immigrants tended to be very hard working and orderly. (IIRC, in “Free to Chose”, Milton Friedman claimed that Jamaican immigrants had higher per capita incomes than white Anglo-Saxons.) Also, locally, going back to World War II, in this part of Massachusetts, we get an influx of Jamaican fruit pickers on temporary work permits. They come up during harvest season, pick fruit and live in bunk house dormitories for the few weeks they are here. They are orderly, workmanlike and quite clean. Flannel shirts and jeans, no dreadlocks. The work permits are handed down from father to son and highly prized. They probably make about $12/hour, but are grateful for the work. The farmers vastly prefer the Jamaicans to native Americans, since they are more productive and do far less damage to the trees and are less likely to bruise the fruit.

33 posted on 08/13/2011 2:56:16 PM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (Somewhere in Kenya a village is missing its idiot)



Well, it is layered on a white, lower-class culture, that is not much different. Just read Dickens. Bill Sykes would fit right into the present scene. Not to make a pun, all the blacks do is add color.

36 posted on 08/13/2011 3:16:36 PM PDT by RobbyS (Pray with the suffering souls.)



I beg to differ. As a white woman transplant to Georgia, in the 60s - I never experienced animosity or resentment in my relationships with men & women of color. They were gentle, joyful people - in spite of segregation and indignities. Perhaps their strength of character developed because of their ‘second class’ status and struggles to succeed.

It truly is appalling how the government handouts have caused men and women of all cultures to lose parenting and social skills in this society. Once again, we are ‘separate but equal’ in all our deviant and destructive behavior. JMHO

40 posted on 08/13/2011 3:35:39 PM PDT by sodpoodle (Despair; man's surrender. Laughter; God's redemption.)

Perhaps, to a point; but the English hooligans (see: soccer riots) needn’t have any coaching for this sort of behavior.

49 posted on 08/13/2011 4:38:08 PM PDT by Pharmboy (What always made the state a hell has been that man tried to make it heaven-Hoelderlin)

Ya know the thing is CC, “we” on our side don’t see “color”; only the merit of the individual. It’s 2011 and the liberals and marxists are still hanging onto to a culture war that only exists to them and the destruction they have wrought in the “black community”. Its sad there are soooooo many great Americans out there lumped into a “political” group simply because of their skin color.

[Emphasis mine - VA]

57 posted on 08/13/2011 6:17:42 PM PDT by Michael Barnes (Obamaa+ Downgrade)

However, here's one of the few dissenters from the ''we don't see color'' party line:

To: Opinionated Blowhard

Herr Blowhard,
Kindly take a trip to Africa to witness for yourself. The bulk of Africa still operates at the tribal level, no one can get ahead of the chief. A huge impediment to their cultures turning into civilizations. With this, there is the subculture, if you want it , take it. This has been going on for a zillion years. If you have a handle on the English language, you are pegged as white. If you have a education? The majority frame you white and ostracize you.
We see this same culture in the Ebonics gang of America. Its in the rap crap. Its in the hip hop. Over there? Thats the majority. They do not understand that wealth accumulation is a process, they see it as, “man, he musta ripped off a lot of guys”
 

The blacks over here? Don’t know how good they have it. Every nation there is corrupt to the core. Genocide? Still alive there. Racism? un paralleled , but then again that leads to the genocide. Pal? There is a lot to be said. Take a trip, go live there for a couple of years and you will understand their culture better.

Yes, they do have some industrial strength people but their institutional quality people far out number their good.

Thats here, Britain and in Africa, the home and root of their problem.''

And these, my friends, are ''conservatives''. I wonder if even hardcore leftists would be as fawningly PC as most of the above comments. The leftists are laughing their heads off at the ease with which they've managed to control both parties, and to convince ''conservatives'' that the PC party line is ''conservative'', and truth.

What hope is there of any real change by consensus, if this is the way people on the ''right'' view the issue of racial differences?

Trafalgar Square Riot, 1913

This 'riot' was in connection with a suffragette procession. It looks pretty tame compared to what we've seen lately. But leftism was already present and fermenting even back in 1913.

The more things change...

From 1964, Whites cheer Malcolm X for blasting Whites

"Time is on the side of the oppressed," he said, punctuating his remarks with an oddly unnerving short laugh and sharp snap of his long fingers. "You'll soon see a terrorism that will terrify you." The audience applauded his observation...''

Low fertility rates because...?

At HBD Chick's blog, she tells of an interesting study that implies that too much outbreeding may contribute to lower fertility rates.

Of course this is bound to be controversial, especially since the propaganda-meisters wish us to believe that we are in dire peril from too much ''inbreeding'' among White folk, and that massive outbreeding with everybody on the planet is the necessary remedy.

I freely admit I am not any kind of expert on genetics or 'HBD' though I do have some rudimentary understanding of it. But this idea about optimal mating being between distant cousins seems to make sense, from my own observations and from all the genealogy research I've done. In colonial days in our country it was not unusual for people to marry (distant) cousins because of the relatively limited mating possibilities; this was before mass global travel and the nomadic lives led by Americans in more recent times. People sometimes never strayed more than 20 miles from home and the likelihood was that people married within their own small communities. And people then were very fertile, having 8-12 children in many cases. Christianity no doubt played a part in the large family sizes but contrary to the popular myths about people being too ''inbred'' if they married a 3rd or 4th cousin, the offspring seem to have been healthier than we have been conditioned to believe would be the case.

Many people don't understand that 'inbreeding' describes only closer relationships; it is not the same thing to marry a fourth (or an even more distant) cousin as it is to marry a first cousin. 

 This bizarre idea that American Whites are an 'inbred' group has caught on among many people who don't seem able or willing to think it through for themselves.

Thousands of words

It's been pointed out more than once by different people but these two pictures tell the story of what is happening in former Christendom. It's all right there. This is how it happened, and how it is still happening.
Sad. Tragic.

A change in the air?

Somewhat related to the post below this one, here is a blog entry from one of the so-called 'Birther' blogs I read, dealing with the series of attacks by (in SBPDL's terminology) 'mahogany mobs' around the U.S. I link to it because I find it interesting that this subject is being discussed on such a blog; it seems that most of the blogs having to do with the eligibility issue are scrupulously aracial, or careful to affirm their anti-racist credentials. Understandable, I suppose, because the left always plays the race card; any criticism of the regime is by definition, ''racist''.

But I am wondering if the tide may be turning, when people who usually studiously avoid such subjects are discussing them openly.

I've also been very surprised when having heard from people who actually voted for 'the one', now expressing extreme remorse and disgust at the ''change'' they got in return for their vote and their efforts.  Even some of my brainwashed liberal kin (with whom I have had little contact in the past few years) are now being shockingly outspoken, whereas before they were as politically correct as the worst of them.Even the once-taboo Jewish issue came up, to my surprise.

Some of my non-Christian readers may think it quaint but I pray constantly that the scales might fall from the eyes of our folk, and that people will begin to see the vast construct of lies that is at the heart of our present decaying order.

The powers-that-be have overplayed their hand, and they can't keep people blinded forever.