On Triggers and Bullies

Scott Alexander has a interesting post on triggers and safe spaces (h/t: Jim), in which he writes:

The rationalist community is a safe space for people who obsessively focus on reason and argument even when it is socially unacceptable to do so.
…
If you are the sort of person with the relevant mental quirk, living in a society of people who don’t do this is a terrifying an alienating experience. Finding people who are like you is an amazing, liberating experience. It is, in every sense of the word, a safe space.

If you want a community that is respectful to the triggers of people who don’t want to talk about controversial ideas, the Internet is full of them. Although I know it’s not true, sometimes it seems to me that half the Internet is made up of social justice people talking about how little they will tolerate people who are not entirely on board with social justice ideas and norms. Certainly this has been my impression of Tumblr, and of many (very good) blogs I read (Alas, A Blog comes to mind, proving that my brain sorts in alphabetical order). There is no shortage of very high-IQ communities that will fulfill your needs.

But you say you’re interested in and attracted to the rationalist community, that it would provide something these other communities don’t. Maybe you are one of those people with that weird mental quirk of caring more about truth and evidence than about things it is socially acceptable to care about, and you feel like the rationalist community would be a good fit for that part of you. If so, we would love to have you!

But if you want to join communities specifically because they are based around dispassionate debate and ignoring social consequences, but your condition for joining is that they stop having dispassionate debate and take social consequences into account, well, then you’re one of those people – like Groucho Marx – who refuses to belong to any club that would accept you as a member.
…
This would be a good time to admit that I am massively, massively triggered by social justice.

I know exactly why this started. There was an incident in college when I was editing my college newspaper, I tried to include a piece of anti-racist humor, and it got misinterpreted as a piece of pro-racist humor. The college’s various social-justice-related-clubs decided to make an example out of me. I handled it poorly (“BUT GUYS! THE EVIDENCE DOESN’T SUPPORT WHAT YOU’RE DOING!”) and as a result spent a couple of weeks having everyone in the college hold rallies against me followed by equally horrifying counter-rallies for me. I received a couple of death threats, a few people tried to have me expelled, and then everyone got bored and found some other target who was even more fun to harass. Meantime, I was seriously considering suicide.

But it wasn’t just that one incident. Ever since, I have been sensitive to how much a lot of social justice argumentation resembles exactly the bullying I want a safe space from – the “aspie”, the “nerd”, that kind of thing. Just when I thought I had reached an age where it was no longer cool to call people “nerds”, someone had the bright idea of calling them “nerdy white guys” instead, and so transforming themselves from schoolyard bully to brave social justice crusader. This was the criticism I remember most from my massive Consequentialism FAQ – he’s a nerdy white dude – and it’s one I have come to expect any time I do anything more intellectual than watch American Idol, and usually from a social justicer.

Scott hovers around a good point and gives it a light jab or two, but doesn’t go for the throat, so I will.

Bullying is not a regrettable by-product of social justice, social justice does not resemble bullying, rather:

Social justice is bullying.

The purpose of social justice is, was, and always will be bullying. Social justice warriors are bullies, nothing more, attempting to use social, economic, and, occasionally, physical force to enforce group conformity in favour of their ‘one true faith’ of ‘equality’.

SJ is the attempt of the weak and vile to force their abnormalities and disorders on the rest of us to make us as broken as they are. When we are all as pathetic as they are, we will all be equal.

To put it in social justice terms, the purpose of the non-normative discourse is to colonize and occupy white male space.

****

This is why you never give the SJW’s an inch. These are not simply well-meaning but broken people who need a bit of respect. These are not simply sensitive people who should be given a bit of compassion out of politeness. In normal life some minor accommodations to those naturally predisposed to sensitivity driven discourse is simple politeness, but SJW’s are not these types of people and they should not be given even the smallest of accommodations.

How can you tell that the SJW’s are bullies, rather than simply broken, but well-meaning people?

Simple, they seek to enter where they don’t belong. They purposefully seek out things to feel victimized.

A normal person who is sensitive to something (and might be worthy of some accommodation) generally seeks to avoid that something. As a trite personal example, I find emotional outbursts and certain forms of strong emotionalism uncomfortable; it could be fairly said, I am ‘sensitive’ to them. Because of this I tend to try to avoid situations where they occur and I avoid the type of people who are prone to them. It’s basic common sense.

The SJW, on the other hand, purposefully goes out of her way to intrude in other people’s spaces where she knows she will be uncomfortable and condemn them for making her uncomfortable.

We can see that in Scott’s example above: an SJW tries to enter a rationalist community devoted to a safe space for dispassionate discourse and demands that everybody stop with the dispassionate discourse.

You can see it in all the women offended by RoK or Matt Forney. They intrude on a male space dedicated to masculine discussion, where they know they will be offended and feel ‘victimized’.  We can see this with SRS on Reddit, who intrude into RPR and act offended.

In real life, the colonization of male space can be exemplified by the current concerns of the military; the SJW types demand women be allowed into the military, then whine when the military doesn’t bend over backwards to cater to their every whim.

It would be like me going to an Emotions Anonymous (I was only mildly surprised that existed) meeting and demanding they all stop being so weepy and emotional. It would be simply wrong. It’s not my place to be there and, if I am there as a newcomer or guest, it’s not my place to demand they change for me.

This is who you can know the SJW’s are bullies. They refuse to live and let live; they barge into other’s spaces and demand that these spaces change for them.

Never accommodate them.

****

I’ve outlined a number of ways they attempt to bully their allies (and others) into conformity, but of all these, the trigger warning is the most insidious attempt at colonization.

Not only does the SJW demand you kowtow to her will in her own spaces, she demands you kowtow to her will in your own space.

****

As an aside, Scott, if you end up following the backlink and reading this, I know I still haven’t got around to addressing your response to my response to the antireactionary FAQ. I still plan to. Hopefully, eventually.

What’s in a Name?

The best way to identify the goals and predict the actions of a leftist or bureaucratic (redundancy) organization is to assume they are the opposite of what the name of the organization would imply if the organization were named honestly.

Thus, an organization with social justice in its name is generally both both rending social bonds and committing mass injustice.

A leftist organization with community in the name is usually destroying said community.

An organization evoking peace is generally dedicated to spreading chaos.

A leftist organization labelled Christian can generally be found destroying Christian values and hollowing out churches.

A leftist organization with prosperity or anti-poverty in its name will be creating as much poverty as possible.

The Monarch and the Poor

Calvin on the monarch and the poor:

“As God had promised to extend his care to the poor and afflicted among his people, David, as an argument to enforce the prayer which he presents in behalf of the king, shows that the granting of it will tend to the comfort of the poor. God is indeed no respecter of persons; but it is not without cause that God takes a more special care of the poor than of others, since they are most exposed to injuries and violence. Let laws and the administration of justice be taken away, and the consequence will be, that the more powerful a man is, he will be the more able to oppress his poor brethren. David, therefore, particularly mentions that the king will be the defender of those who can only be safe under the protection of the magistrate, and declares that he will be their avenger when they are made the victims of injustice and wrong. . . .

“But as the king cannot discharge the duty of succouring and defending the poor which David imposes upon him, unless he curb the wicked by authority and the power of the sword, it is very justly added in the end of the verse, that when righteousness reigns, oppressors or extortioners will be broken in pieces. It would be foolish to wait till they should give place of their own accord. They must be repressed by the sword, that their audacity and wickedness may be prevented from proceeding to greater lengths. It is therefore requisite for a king to be a man of wisdom, and resolutely prepared effectually to restrain the violent and injurious, that the rights of the meek and orderly may be preserved unimpaired. Thus none will be fit for governing a people but he who has learned to be rigorous when the case requires. Licentiousness must necessarily prevail under an effeminate and inactive sovereign, or even under one who is of a disposition too gentle and forbearing. There is much truth in the old saying, that it is worse to live under a prince through whose lenity everything is lawful, than under a tyrant where there is no liberty at all.”

Labels and Libertarianism

Michael Anissimov has put out the 5 premises of neoreaction with which a someone must totally agree to be a neoreactionary. He argues that “anyone who disagrees with any one of them is almost certainly not a reactionary.”

I agree fully with all the points except possibly #4, which got me thinking about the rather petty problem of self-labelling. Particularly the fact that my self-descriptive label on my about page has been “reactionary libertarian” since I last updated it months ago.

I hold to a form of libertarianism, anarcho-monarchism, as the optimal form of government for English people, something which I just commented on that a couple weeks back. If asked I’d describe myself as a reactionary anarcho-monarchist.

But then again, I don’t “make personal freedom axiomatic“; rather I hold to the principal of subsidiarity. I do not “refuse to consider the negative externalities of that freedom to traditional structures” but rather I believe these structures are best preserved by distributing power primarily to the individual, family, and the community to best “foster community, family, and social cohesion”.

I definitely do hold to the “socialism” of “family and friends helping each other of their own free will.” (I wouldn’t call it socialism though).

Rather than not caring “if a libertarian society would leave many out in the cold” I have thought of the problem of natural slaves, although, simply having strong community values and mores from birth would probably take care of the problem.

I don’t think any who have read my blog are overly concerned about me being “excessively materialistic” in my outlook.

It would seem his criticisms of libertarianism do not apply to me or my thinking.

So, maybe I fall into the category of “theoretically compatible with libertarianism, but is not compatible with the mood and spirit of libertarianism”?

Or am I simply an unwitting entryist?

Could it be possible I’m “lonely and want friends to debate politics with, or [am] intrigued by the personalities of reactionaries, though they are not one”?

Or maybe by rejecting the axiom of a natural right to freedom, I am simply not a libertarian, whatever the similarities?

Maybe it’s time to retire the libertarian label.

I’ve worn it for many a year, but maybe I’m in the ideological territory of post-libertarianism and the label no longer fits.

Neoreaction and Subsidarity

One of the themes of neoreaction is that different groups of people will naturally evolve different forms of government and a government that is optimal for one group may fail when applied to another.

For example, anarcho-monarchism may be right for the anglosphere, but would likely fail outside of the natural institutions and culture that have evolved within the anglosphere.

As Bryce puts it:

The insight of neoreaction, contrasting this, is that the differences between groups do significantly determine the optimal form of governance. To different groups, different political doctrines. Insofar as different treatment of groups is institutionalized, it tends to be institutionalized in respect of the differences those groups. A different group of people calls for a difference in evaluation. This will not and in most cases should not be simplistic, but again, the most optimal forms of evaluation are not going to be able to be wielded by every society.

If national groups require differing forms of government would not regional, or local groups require the same. Two different counties, towns, or even neighbourhoods may have different optimal forms of government.

Because of this the principle of subsidiarity fits naturally within neoreaction:

One of the key principles of Catholic social thought is known as the principle of subsidiarity. This tenet holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. In other words, any activity which can be performed by a more decentralized entity should be. This principle is a bulwark of limited government and personal freedom. It conflicts with the passion for centralization and bureaucracy characteristic of the Welfare State.

Subsidiarity is often a basic and explicit principle of reaction, particularly Catholic reaction, but in neoreaction it tends to be implicitly accepted but not formally acknowledged. For example, Moldbug’s patchwork is inherently subsidiaritist in nature, but I do not remember coming across him explicitly promoting the principle. Searching google for neoreaction and subsidiarity, bring up mostly Nick Steves‘ comments and a bit of Bryce’s work, as would be expected.

The primary purpose of this post is to make more  encourage neoreactionaries to pay more explicit attention to, what I believe to be, an underlying principle of neoreaction, subsidiarity.

****

From this, a reactionary basis for libertarianism or anarchism can be reached. Rather than basing libertarian thought around such things as non-existent human rights, libertarian thought can be derived from the subsidiarity principle.

The individual is the smallest and simplest human organization possible. If everything is to be governed by the smallest and simplest organization capable and an individual is capable of governing itself, it stands to reason that libertarianism is the optimal form of governance.

The problem with this formulation is that not all individuals are capable of governing themselves. Natural slaves, those constitutionally incapable of governing themselves, present a challenge to this form of organization.

Thus we come back to the original theme, different groups of people will have differing optimal forms of governance.

In a society with few, if any, natural slaves, anarcho-monarchism would be the optimal form of government. Most people could govern themselves, the presence of a king would ensure his citizenry refrained from trying to govern each other, and the few natural slaves could easily be cared for through private, charitable organizations.

Thus, for Englishmen, a self-reliant people used to freedom and self-organization with strong natural social institutions, anarcho-monarchism is the optimal form of governance.

For other peoples, with a higher proportion of natural slaves, other more restrictive forms of governance may be necessary.

****

From this we can also discern a factor in why the size and power of government has increased while the non-English population has increased.

As non-English populations have been imported into English countries, the proportion of natural slaves have increased. More natural slaves necessitates more governance.

Thus, immigration from countries where the populations lack English virtues of self-reliance, spontaneous self-organization, and freedom will necessarily lead to more governance.

This is but one reason why immigration, particularly from incompatible cultures, should be severely restricted.

****

We now come to the post that inspired this post, a Town without Big Corporations:

There is no question in my mind that this town has saved itself from eventual decline. Not only is it much less ugly and depressing than nearby towns with chain stores but one has the sense that the people who live there identify with it as a community and feel some loyalty and pride. I say that based on my experiences simply talking and listening to the people who live there. So even if it allowed chains, but restricted their garish signs, the town would be worse off.

Instead of a Pizza Hut, there are individually-owned pizza restaurants and a couple of young entrepreneurs take a traveling wood-burning oven to the farmer’s market. People raise goats, sheep and chickens and sell the meat. There are a number of cheese makers who seem to do reasonably well and who sell things immeasurably superior to corporate cheese.

According to free market radicals, this town is engaging in practices that are fundamentally wrong. It is engaging in explicit protectionism in favor of small businesses. Or free market radicals will say that it’s okay to do this kind of thing here and there on a small scale, but the underlying principle of restricting commerce is immoral and tyrannical.

First, Laura is simply incorrect, but incorrect in an understandable way that almost every person is incorrect today.

The free market and large corporations are not one and the same. In fact, corporations, particularly limited liability joint-stock corporations, are a government-manufactured and -enabled institution that distorts the free market. The corporate takeover of the Anglosphere is not a product of free markets, but rather another government intrusion into the private lives of English citizens.

While I can’t say with utmost certainty, but removing the government-created, limited liability, joint-stock corporations from the free market would most likely halt the corporate takeover of the Anglosphere. How many would be willing to become involved in a world-spanning enterprise and be held responsible for the entirity of what the organization does?

Neoreactionaries should oppose the corporate system, as they are another failing of modernism.

Aside from that though, as a free market reactionary, the free market is the most efficient method of wealth-production in almost all cases; this is historically unarguable.

But wealth-creation efficiency is not the end of society; different peoples may have differing goals for society.

In societies without the basic levels of common trust, neutral courts, and non-corrupt government found within the Anglosphere, the free market may not function at all and/or what may be called a “free market” may be nothing of the sort and may actively harm people.

In the Anglosphere, I would not oppose economic regulation by the king, but I would oppose any regulation by our current democratic, national governments. Almost all economic regulation in our national democracies is created for the good of the state-created corporations, and almost all work against the independent entrepreneur.

Not to mention national regulation thoroughly violates the principle of subsidiarity.

On the local level though, local communities should be free to regulate commerce as they wish. Our social institutions have been annihilated by modern progressivism; some local regulations over commerce should be fine until the English people reassert their historical freedoms under the king.

Liberal Holiday Troubles

I was reading this post on maladjusted feminist killjoys at the holidays, where SSM links to a guide for feminists for surviving the holidays.

In this guide they link to the Democrat’s guide to talking politics with your republican uncle. They link to another on how to argue for abortion and free birth control.

I noticed a similar, “bi-partisan”, article on Slate a couple of days back. I assumed it was tongue-in-cheek.

Doing a quick google search, I find a similar article from Salon, and one from 2012 as well. Here’s one from HuffPo on Obamacare. Ace of Spades finds a couple more, while Human Events received an Obama campaign letter on how to indoctrinate your family on the greatness of Obamacare over the holidays.

Rather than the tongue-in-cheek fun I thought it was when I read the Slate article, it seems this is an actual left-wing campaign.

It seems liberals literally have a campaign going to try to turn holidays into a political indoctrination session. What kind of Orwellian nonsense is this?

Not a single article in the first four pages of the google search was a right-wing guide, although, there were a fwe right-wing sites pointing and deriding the left-wing guides.

Are liberals really so alienated from their loved ones that they have to plan in advance how to debate them on the holidays? Is arguing the greatness of Obamacare really their reason for the season? Are they so intellectually vacuous and uninformed that they need a guide to hold their own in a political debate?

You always here liberals whine about the right-wing relatives picking fights at the holidays, but it seems that is mostly just projection.

No wonder they’re liberal. If I was so alienated from everything good in life, that my thoughts of the holidays were about winning political arguments and surviving the holidays rather than enjoying time with my family, I’d probably choose a self-destroying ideology like progressivism. At least if I became a new socialist man, my life wouldn’t be this pathetically empty.

Sometimes I wonder if liberals should be pitied more than anything. What a dreadful and empty life they must lead.

Post-script: I should note that I do enjoy a good political debate if it comes up, but I don’t really think about, look forward to it, or try to start one and I certainly don’t plan one in advance.

Cheers to Rob Ford

Some of you may have heard of Toronto mayor Rob Ford and his current cocaine scandals. Its one of the few times that a Canadian politician has gotten this much international attention, and from a simple mayor no less.

Fellow traditionalist Richard Anderson thinks he should leave his office, but I disagree.

Sadly, Rob Ford is one of the few vaisya politicians in Canada willing to stand against a political culture made almost entirely of Brahmin. Because of this he’s popular, at least in Toronto’s suburbs, which “aren’t part of the real Toronto” if you ask any of the elitist Brahmins who oppose Ford.  Some thought Harper and his conservatives might fight, but aside from a few minor changes (the gun registry and dismantling the wheat board) their rule has been almost insignificantly different from those of the Liberals prior.

He’s not a reactionary in any sense, but he is a vaisya’s vaisya, because of this he has earned the enmity of the brahmins far out of proportion to his actual power and status. He has been hounded mercilessly by the Cathedral. Really, has any other Canadian politician, even our prime minister, received as much international attention, all negative, this year as this one mayor?

His cocaine scandal has dwarfed that of a national (socialist) party leader being caught naked by police in a massage parlour known for trafficking in underage prostitutes. In fact, shortly after those revelations, “Smiling Jack” was all but deified upon his death. They dwarf the revelations of another national party leader. Trudeau, who admitted to smoking weed while working as an MP. despite this, his hereditary assumption to the liberal throne was all but a given despite his sole qualification consisting of being substitute teacher (and being named Trudeau).

Nope, Rob Ford has been demonized because he is not one of them. He is not the inner party, the enlightened. He is an outsider that dares defy the brahmins in their Citadel; the home of the (Red) Star and the state controlled CBC. Even worse, he has the unmitigated gall to be successful in opposing them and being popular while doing so, turning democracy against the champions of it.

The fight over Rob Ford is one of the prime examples of the democratic, class war between the vaisyas and the brahmins. The brahmins control every bit of leverage, almost all the press coverage, most of the major blogs, all of the universities, and the bureaucracy. The entirety of the Cathedral in Canada, along with parts of international Cathedral, has been been arrayed against him, yet he stands against them where they are strongest, with only the quiet support of his class.

So here’s to Rob Ford. Long may he govern.

Is Rob Ford a good politician? No, not really. But, he is the best the vaisyas have in Canada. He is the only one sticking it to the Cathedral; the only one even trying to fight the left.

Every day he remains in office is one more day the brahmin’s are blasphemed in their strongest cathedral. That alone makes him worthy of support, whatever his other failings.

The system has failed, as it was designed to, and the collapse is inevitable; at the very least we can enjoy the mockery Ford is making of of our self-proclaimed betters.

The only sad part is, that this is what one bumbling man with a spine fighting for the vaisyas can accomplish. What if the vaisyas could actually produce real politicians that had the courage of their convictions? What if we had a charismatic, competent leader who was ideologically strong and firmly loyal to his class?

Think of how successful he could be; we might even be able to turn the tide against the collapse.

If only better men of our class would stand and fight as Ford has.

The Communists Won

This post has been loosely in the works for a while and was created to prove empirical claim #1 of neoreaction from Anissimov. Scott at Slate Star Codex used a computer program to analyze the results, but the graph is prima facie ludicrous. It is simply logically impossible that the US has ideologically stayed the same while the welfare state has grown as much as it has.

Recently Handle has done a little history of communism in the US for us, which prompted me to dust the post off and finish.

****

The United States, and most of the rest of the West, are communist. Not in a pejorative sense, but in a simple ideological sense. The majority of people in the west accept communist politics and most western countries are communist in practice if not form.

Note, when I say communist, I do not mean Stalinist, Leninist, Maoist, etc. Just as communism took different forms in Cuba, the USSR, China, et al., North American communism took its own form.

I know the immediate objection: “But the US is run by the Democrats and Republicans, both right-wing parties of capitalists. The socialist party is a joke, and the communist party almost non-existent. How can you call the US a communist country?”

Again, America is communist in ideology and function, not necessarily in form. To prove that I am going to go back about 85 years ago to 1928. The Communist Party USA released a platform (Google Books version) for the election of William Z. Foster to president. He ran against Herbert Hoover and Al Smith getting 0.13% of the vote.

Let’s look at their demands (summarized) and compare them to our modern world:

****

II*: The Curse of Unemployment

1. Unemployment insurance.
2. 40-hour, 5-day workweek forbidding overtime.
3. Unemployment insurance of 8 weeks wages.
4. Public kitchens providing free meals to the unemployed.
5. Free medical care of the unemployed.
6. Public works to create employment.
7. Abolition of vagrancy laws.

The US currently has EI, a 40-hour workweek (with optional, paid overtime), SNAP, Medicaid, and numerous public works.

The federal government no longer has vagrancy laws, although states and municipalities do. Vagrancy laws have been narrowed considerably.

The US has adopted 5 and a half out of 6 Communist demands related to unemployment. (I counted #1 & 3 as a single demand).

****

III: The Offensive of the Bosses

1. 40-hour, 5-day workweek with 48 hours consecutive rest.
2. High wages.
3. Fight against capitalist rationalization and mass production.
4. Organize the unorganized.
5. Destroy company unions.
6. Amalgamate craft unions into industrial unions; democratize trade unions.
7. Political struggle in addition to union struggle.

These points aren’t as clear-cut, many being calls to struggle rather than specific demands.

Of these demands, they’ve achieved a 40-hour week, high wages, and destroying company unions. The democratization of unions and amalgamation of unions has mostly been accomplished (minus one or two industries). Given that the unions control huge swaths of the Democratic Party, the last point has been achieved as well.

The communists failed to stem mass production and rationalization and unionization rates peaked at almost 35% in 1954.

The US has adopted 5 of the 7 points related to fighting the bosses.

****

IV: The Heroic Struggle of the Miners

1. Build a new militant union in the industry, eliminate Lewis.
2. Organize unorganized.
3. Support two local strikes.
4. Organize relief for struggling miners.
5. Railroad workers don’t haul scab coal.

The third is a local problem and fifth an outdated problem, not national political problems, so I won’t count those.

In the 1970’s most miners were unionized, but unionization rates have fallen to only about 42% since and relief has been organized through more general government programs for struggling miners.

On the other hand, Lewis was not eliminated and the UMW is still the dominant mine union today.

So, the Communists obtained 2 out of 3 of their long-term, national demands related to the coal industry, although, one of them since slipped away.

****

V: Colonies and Imperialist War

1. Abolish the imperialist army and navy.
2. Stop fighting against the revolutions in China and Nicaraugua.
3. Withdraw from Latin America and the Pacific.
4. Independence for American colonies.
5. Hands off Mexico.
6. Withdraw from puppet government in Latin America.
7. Abandon extra-territoriality privileges in the Third World.
8. End current military, set up democratic military.
9. Withdraw from the imperialist peace treaties, the world court, the League of Nations, and cancel war debt.

Here the communists did not get their desires. The army still exists and isn’t democratic. The US is in the UN and world court and still has imperialist peace treaties. The US still has extraterritorial jurisdiction throughout the world. The war debts have not been cancelled.

On the other hand they have stopped interfering in China and Nicaragua. They mostly leave Mexico alone; puppet governments in Latin America is debatable.

Puerto Rico is still colonized, although most other colonies have been freed but still heavily influenced. So, maybe a half for this one.

So, the Communist got only 2.5 out of 10 here, and the two they did get were local ones were they started interfering in the ME instead. Replace Mexico, China, and Nicaragua with Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan and the Communists get 0.5 out of 10.

****

VI: Defence of the Soviet Union

The USSR collapsed; so we’ll just say the communists failed totally here. All four demands were not met, but this was related to the failings of the USSR, rather than the US, so we’ll just leave these out of the calculations.

****

VII: Capitalist Democracy and the Government Strike-Breaker

1. Abrogation of government by injunction.
2. Prohibition of federal troops in labour struggles.
3. Unrestricted right to strike. Unrestricted right to free press, free assemblage, and free speech for the working class.
4. Abolition of the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the President’s veto.
5. Elected judges; free legal aid.
6. Franchise for youths 18-21 and negroes.
7. Abolish anti-syndicalist laws and the Espionage Act.
8. Repeal industrial court laws.
9. Abolition of secret anti-labour organizations.
10. Abolition of media censorship.
11. Immediate release of all political prisoners.

The government by injunction mostly ended and military and quasi-military organizations no longer intervene in labour struggles. The right to strike is generally unrestricted (except a few key industries), the working class retains free press, speech, and assemblage (at least if they’re left-wing), and the media is almost entirely uncensored these days.. 18-year-olds and negroes have the vote. This biased article from Wikipedia seems to indicate secret anti-labour organizations is mostly a thing of the past.

I can’t find much on industrial courts, other than the Kansas courts which are gone. I guess this is a win for the communist.

Anti-syndicalist laws still exist, but were neutered and are almost never used. The Espionage Act still exists but has been watered down in some areas. So we’ll say they got half of this one.

Union leaders don’t go to prison anymore, but Edward Snowden might be considered a political prisoner. Overall, we’ll ignore this as a product of its time.

On the other hand the Senate and Supreme Court remain and federal judges are still appointed (but there is free legal aid).

So, 7 and a half out of 10 demands were met relating to labour relations.

****

VIII: A Labour Party

1. A labour party on all levels.
2. Exclude businesses from the party and base it around unions.
3. Join the workers party.

Hard to say. The Democratic Party and the unions are now so inseparable it can sometimes be hard to see where one begins and the other ends, but the Democrats play with big business a lot as well (as do the unions).

The third point is more a call to action than a demand.

Overall, let’s give the communists 1.5 out of 2 for this section.

****

IX: Social Legislation

1. Old age and unemployment insurance.
2. 40-hour, 5-day work-week forbidding overtime.
3. Compulsory safety and sanitation rules.
4. Effective labour inspection elected by the workers.
5. Free health care for all.

The first three demands have all been met. There is labour inspection, but they are not elected, so that gets a half-point.

Free healthcare for all does not exist, but Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare go a long way to providing “free” care, so we’ll give that a half point as well.

So, a functional 4 out of 5 demands were met here.

****

X: Tariff and Taxation

1. Abolition of indirect taxes.
2. Exemption from taxes for wage earners.
3. Exemption from taxes for farmers.
4. Graduated income taxes with full confiscation of incomes above $25k.
5. Abolish exemptions for bonds, stocks, and securities.
6. Graduated inheretance taxes.
7. Tariffs on working class necessities abolished.

Tariffs have almost entirely disappeared, so the last demand is met. The most hated indirect tax, the tariff, was mostly eliminated, but other forms of indirect taxation abound, so we’ll give the first a half-point. A graduated income tax exists, but there’s no full confiscation, so another half-point.

The bottom 2 quintiles have effective negative income tax rates, but pay payroll taxes so we’ll give that one a half-point. Farmers have a lot of tax benefits but not full exemption, so we’ll give that a half-point as well.

Capital gains are taxed,as are estates, so there’s two wins for the communists.

In tax policy, the communists had 5 out of 7 demands met.

****

XI: Plight of the Farmers

1. Five-year moratorium on farm debt.
2. Protection from monopoly prices on farming supplies.
3. Protection from special explotation by various farming related industries (like railroads).
4. $1 Billion farm relief fund.
5. Federal law against enforced farm foreclosures.
6. Abolition of taxes on farmers.
7. The land belongs to its users.
8. Freedom for agricultural workers to strike and various benefits.

The first will be ignored as it was a temporary demand, as will the land belongs to users as is not really a demand.

The trusts have been beaten. Some people think Monsanto is a monopoly, but they aren’t really a monopoly in the traditional sense. We’ll say the communists got that one, but with the Monsanto caveat.

Other than the occasional, half-hearted, ritualized complaint about the railroads (Joke: A Saskatchewan farmer walks outside on the first day of harvest to see that it hailed overnight, destroying half his crops. He looks towards the heavens, raises his fist, and yells aloud, “Damn you, CN“), I haven’t seen any complaints about the special exploitation, so we’ll say the demand was met.

The US farm bill totals $500 Billion, although, most of that is food stamps, so I guess the farmers for their relief.

Banks can still foreclose on farms and farmers still pay taxes, so those are two demands not met.

Agricultural workers do have the right to strike.

So, the communists had 4 out of 6 demands met (with the Monsanto caveat).

****

XII: Oppression of the Negroes

1. Full racial, social, and political equality for Negroes.
2. Abolition of segregation.
3. Abolition of disenfranchisement laws.
4. Abolition of laws preventing negro schooling.
5. Allow Negroes full access to restaurants and related facilities.
6. Ban lynching.
7. End discrimination of Negroes in the courts.
8. Abolish convict lease system and chain gang.
9. Abolish Jim Crow in federal employment.
10. Remove Trade Union restrictions on Negroes.
11. Equal opportunity and equal pay for equal work for Negroes.

Obviously, all of these have been met, with the minor exception of chain gangs which were revived in Arizona.

So, all 11 demands related to Negroes were met.

****

XIII: Foreign-born Workers

1. Abolish all laws discriminating against foreign-born workers.
2. Workers must unite with foreign-born workers.
3. Immediate repeal of immigration laws.
4. Equal pay for equal work for the foreign born.

The second demand is more a call to action than an actual policy demand.

The first and third demand were all met for foreign-born workers that are naturalized, but not for illegal immigrants.

The third was not met, but with the quasi-official acceptance of illegal Mexican immigrants, they might as well have.

We’ll say that the communist got 1.5 out of 3 demands met.

****

XIV: Working Women

1. Eliminate night, overtime, and job work for women.
2. Paid maternity leave during pregnancy.
3. Paid maternity leave during nursing.
4. Organize women into unions and eliminate discrimination against women in unions.
5. Equal pay for equal work.

Night, overtime, and job work haven’t been eliminated, but there are restrictions and they are optional, so  we’ll say that demand was half met.

Mothers have 12 weeks unpaid maternity leave, so maybe 0.5 out of 2 for the two demands.

Women are not free to join unions and aren’t discriminated against, so that’s another demand met.

Despite the false claims of feminists, women do get equal pay for equal work (equal work is key here). So that’s another demand met.

So, the equivalent of 3 out of 5 demands met.

****

XV: Youth, Child Labour, and Education

1. Abolish child labour.
2. $20 minimum wage for young workers.
3. Establish work-schools in factories.
4. Use schools as feeding centres for the unemployed.
5. Right to vote for everyone over 18.
6. Schools must be free, more schools built, free of religious or jingoistic instruction, free of Jim Crow, and allow teachers to organize.

Child labour was abolished, 18-year-olds can vote, and there are nutrition programs in schools, so that’s 3 demands.

Out of the five demands in one, schooling is free (except university, more schools have been built (but probably not as many as they’d like as people still complain of over-crowding), there is no religious instruction and jingoistic instruction is almost gone, there is no Jim Crow, and teachers can unionize.

So, the first two get a half point, while the others get a full one.

I don’t think work-schools have been established, but there are apprenticeship programs, so we’ll say that’s half-met.

In total, 7.5 out of 10 demands have been met.

****

XVI: Housing

1. Municipal fixing of low rents for workers.
2.  Municipal housing for workers without profit.
3. State laws against immediate eviction.
4. Compulsory repair of working-class homes by landlords.
5. Shelters for the unemployed.
6. Municipal aid to workers’ building cooperatives.

These are all local, but most large municipalities have rent control, subsidized housing, tenant regulations. and homeless shelters.

I have no idea about the last point, but I have heard of no such thing, so we’ll say the demand wasn’t met.

So, 5 out of 6 demands met in housing.

****

XVII: Prohibition

1. Repeal prohibition.
2. End local and state prohibition.
3. Energetic propaganda against alcoholism.

All 3 of these demands were met.

****

In conclusion, of the CPUSA’s 1928 platform, 66 out of 94 demands were met, or about 70% of demands. In relation to foreign relations through, 0/10 were met.

So, if we only look at domestic demands, that’s 65.5 out of 84 demands met, or 78% of demands.

Of those demands most desired by communists (ie. 40-hour, 5-day week and social programs), which were mentioned multiple times, they were all met.

Given that almost 80% of communist demands for the US were met and a number of those not met are on their way to being met (ex: paid maternity leave), we can say that the US is a communist country, in the vein of American communism.

I don’t have time to analyze the Democratic and Republican platform demands of the same year at this time, but I would bet significant sums that less than 80% of their demands were met and upheld by our present time.

Note that many European countries would have met even more of these demands, and would be even more communist than communist America.

The USA is a communist country, of that there can be no doubt.

****

* There are no demands in sections I or XVIII.

****

A few pieces have been edited (20/10/2013): Thanks to Michael Anissismov for pointing out the errors for correction.

The Strong Horse

Legionnaire has a post up on acting progressive to subvert the progressive machine. While I think has strategy has merit, I think it is not the correct path.

The first objection is simply the lefter-than-thou complex of the Jacobins. The Jacobins will happily cannabilize their own and their allies the instant they show any sign of impure thoughts.

You may be able to succeed in infiltration for a while, but eventually something you say will be outside the warren’s acceptable limits and you will be ejected. The strategy will simply not work long-term on an individual level.

But, far more important is that it will be counter-productive in the long-term.

****

The Jacobins succeeded by being utopian and nice, then slowly expanding the definition of nice. The original Jacobin revolution ended rapidly after they began the Terrors. The more moderate Gramscian Joacobins succeeded by inches. They positied one small change as “nice”, “fair”, “equal” and this didn’t seem so bad, so people went along with it. (ie: a small pension so the nearly dead don’t spend their last couple years in miserable poverty). Each little “nice” thing added up until we came to our current cruel, inhuman behemoth. (ie: A pension system where rich 65 year-olds play golf on their non-existent, unemployed grandchildren’s dime).

Reaction can not win that way. It is not nice and never will be. Reality in this fallen world is harsh and ugly; those who are putting forth reality will be putting forth something harsh and ugly, not something nice.

Violent restoration is near impossible and even if it succeeded, what we’d end up with in the end would hardly be what the reaction desires. I’m sure the Jacobins neither desired nor foresaw their revolution would end with a Corsican dictator and a Europe-wide war.

So we have to restore gradually, but we can not restore in the same manner the Jacobins ushered in their gradual revolution.

****

If we look at the current state of the Jacobins, we can see they keep their power mainly by control of the cultural institutions and by barely hidden aggression (such as that used on Watson, Richwine, Card, etc.). Neither of these can be defeated through Legionnaire’s form of subversion. It only plays into the Jacobites power.

By acting progressive you are further cementing the Jacobin’s apparent control over the cultural institutions. Know this, the apparent control is far weaker than it seems on the surface. A number of times in univerity after I made some right-wing (but not yet reactionary) point I was told after the fact that the person agreed with me but didn’t want to say anything. Others currently in the system have told me that people in the university system are not as left-wing as it seems, as its mostly a few really loud people and others simply going along to get along. The illusion of the Jacobin’s control is what builds the Jacobin’s control. By acting progressive you are furthering that illusion. By being open, you are shattering that illusion of consensus and control.

We will here go to Asch’s conformity experiments, which demonstrate that most people will conform to the group even when the group is objectively wrong in an easily verifiable way. Think about what kind of conformity can be manufactured for something as amorphous and hard to verify as politics.

But the more interesting part of the experiment was when the subject received a partner. The addition of a single confederate confirming the truth dropped the incidence of conformity by 80%.

If the Jacobins can force the illusion of progressive conformity, this will simply build the conformity, but if one person simply stands, the illusion is shattered.

As for the punishment, it is primarily social and economic. They can not use naked violent force, for that would shatter the “nice” stereotype they’ve built for themselves, so they weild social pressure instead. If reactionaries show an unwillingness to bow to this pressure and willingly accept the consequences they show the weakness of the actual threats (such as in Vox’s McRapey saga).  This cripples the threatening power of the punishment.

I made numerous crimethink in university. My favourite was when I stated, regarding affirmative action, “why should I be punished because my ancestors were better than others’ ancestors?”. One young women’s mouth, literally, fell wide open in speechless shock. Other than some minor attempts at shaming, I never received any punishments for my crimethink. My grades didn’t suffer, my friends remained my friends, my classmates mostly remained friendly. There were no real negative consequences apart from some easily ignorable shaming. If others see this, the threats will be robbed of their nonexistent power.

In addition, if reactionaries stand with those being punished, then suddenly the social and economic consequences aren’t so bad. If, for example, the right goes to see Card’s Ender’s Game in theatres en masse, this will further rob the Jacobin’s threats of their seriousness.

Reactionaries need to stand strong as individuals to destroy the illusion of control the progressivists have.

Reaction is the ideology of reality and of strength. If we look unconfident of our views, we will lose before the battle begins. If we show weakness we are dead. Hiding the reaction, even with the intent of subversion, will fail, because it will paint us as the weak horse.

Reaction need to be the strong horse.

Look to Islam; the West, especially the Jacobins, falls on its knees mouth wide open before the Islamicists, when what the Islamicists desire for our society is far more contrary and repugnant to the Jacobin’s stated beliefs than even the most extreme reactionaries. Yet the Jacobins bite the pillow and present themselves.

Why? Because Islam is strong. The Islamacists do not quaver, they do not worry about social ostracism, they do not worry about their jobs. They simply fight.

What we must realize is that the modern Jacobin is a spineless, emasculated sham of a man, and he knows it. He allows his women to control him, he licks the boot of his strongest enemies, and he worships those who would do him harm. He beats on conservatives because he knows they will play by his rules and fold in the face of his cultural power. Refuse to play by his rules, refuse to fold, and he will kneel. He knows he can do no other when facing his superiors.

The modern Jacobin women longs to submit to a real man. She is so disgusted with the eunuchs around her that she often chooses her career, or to be alone, rather than marry one. Lead and, even if she won’t follow, you will have respect, which is more than she will give the eunuch, even if she does marry (and divorce) him.

If reactionaries want to win, they must become strong, like the Islamicists, so the men kneel and the women respect.

Anti-Gun Neurotics

I came across this piece about a neurotic woman who buys a gun. (h/t: Tam) Just read these choice excerpts:

Walking into the kitchen to refresh our drinks, I noticed my purse with the 9mm Glock still inside it. I’d forgotten to lock it up! Panic set in as I realized my teen son was playing videogames just 10 feet away. What if he’d decided to get the socks I’d bought him from my purse while I was out on the deck? Thoughts raced through my mind and I pondered how I’d just straddled the fine line between being a responsible gun owner and an irresponsible idiot whose 15-year-old just accidentally shot himself or someone else with my gun.
…
Now all I think about are the sounds I hear at night. I lie awake thinking: “Is someone breaking in? How fast can I get to the gun? Will they hear me? How much time do I have before they get to my bedroom? What if they go to my son’s room first? Will I shoot them in the face or heart or stomach?” And then I think: “How in the world would I live with myself knowing I took a life?”

Sometimes the thoughts intensify and I can’t sleep at all. Mostly, the gun in my house causes me an anxiousness and fear that’s draining. And it leads to some questions that have no easy answers.
…
Another question: How accessible should the gun be when I’m home? A few nights ago, my son came home late, forgot his key, and knocked on the door. My first thought was, “Should I go get the gun?” I didn’t know who was on the other side of the door, and I was scared to find out as adrenaline surged through my body. I’m glad I didn’t get the gun because when I opened the door, I would have been a nervous, untrained mom pointing a gun at my son. The wrong split-second decision on my side would have been deadly.
…
Since having the gun I’ve had two repairmen, a carpet cleaner, and a salesmen in my home. If the gun’s for self-protection, it’s not going to do any good in the safe, but it’s not really practical to have the gun pointing at them as they work. How else would I eliminate the element of surprise if I were attacked? Suspiciousness and fear of people is new to me, and I don’t like it.
…
When I got to the second floor I became nervous, and the Oprah episode where a man attacks a woman alone in a situation just like this played in my head. I thought about the 9mm in my purse as I clumsily continued down the stairs in my skirt and heels. He followed me. I looked back at him so he knew I knew he was there (like Oprah’s expert suggested.) I thought: “Should I pull the gun out? Should I point it at him?” I realized the gun wouldn’t do me any good because he was behind me. My heart racing, we finally got to the lobby door where the man simply passed by me. I’d grown paranoid. He wasn’t the bad guy I perceived him to be, and the gun did not make me safe.
…
An untrained permit holder like me shouldn’t be allowed to carry a concealed gun in states that at least require training and safety classes. <b>I was actually relieved to have a break from the gun and the constant thought, attention, and worry it required of me.

This is absolutely insane. Her neurotic paranoia is astonishing to behold. She repeatedly blames it on the gun (in bold), ie. she believes a chunk of inert metal has power to control her emotional state, but its obvious to anyone with two working brain cells that her mental problems (assuming they aren’t just made up for the story) go a lot deeper than that.

What kind of extreme emotional instabilities does someone have to have to even briefly consider pointing their gun at a professional repairman they invited into their home on the almost non-existent chance he might start violence. This kind of paranoid insanity boggles the mind.

I thought the gun would make me feel more powerful, more confident, and less fearful. I was wrong. All I felt was fear. Physically taking the gun out of the safe and putting it in a holster on my hip literally reminded me that I was going out into a big bad scary unsafe world. There were days when I put the gun back in the safe and stayed home because it simply took too much energy to be scared. It was easier to be at home without the worry and responsibility of being “the good guy with the gun.” My awareness of looming tragedy was abundant. If I had to pull the trigger, my life, the person I shot, both of our families, and all who witnessed it would be changed forever.

This women lives in fear, but it has nothing to do with the gun. The gun only focused her fear on a single issue. Her fear is a base part of her mental make-up, it defines her, but she normally manages to disperse her fear into a generalized low-level paranoia by avoiding situations where she would have any ability to respond to it. The gun gave her the ability to be responsible and to respond, focusing her general pervavise fears onto a single object.

Which brings me to my point: maybe the anti-gun nuts are right, in a way.

Maybe the reason anti-freedom advocates hate firearms and hate freedom is because they are neurotic, paranoid, and incompetent and they know it. The freedom-haters know they would be grossly irresponsible if they owned a gun due to their mental insufficiencies.

Maybe many of the freedom-haters hate freedom because they know they would make horrible choices if they were free. They then project their own inabilities on the rest of the world and assume everybody is as thoroughly inadequate as them.

If I was as crazy as this woman, there is no way I would let myself near a gun. If I thought everybody else was as mind-meltingly unbalanced as her I would seriously reconsider my position on gun freedoms. Thank goodness most of us are more mentally stable than this.

I hypothesize that anti-freedom advocates are simply mentally unbalanced people who project their instabilities on others. In that kind of bizarro world of insane people, gun control would only make rational sense.

It seems like another case of leftists fearing themselves more than anything.

I think the last paragraph is the most telling part of the piece:

I felt a huge sense of relief the day I got rid of the gun. I no longer had to worry that my teenagers or their friends would use my gun when I wasn’t home. I didn’t have to worry that I would be in a situation where I would make a choice about taking another life. I didn’t have to worry that my gun would be stolen out of my car and then used to murder someone. And I didn’t have to worry that one day I would get a diagnosis or have a personal crisis and have a gun on hand to turn on myself.

This woman hates choice, she fears choice, she fears consequences.

This woman is a child afraid of the world who wants a father-figure (in this case the government) to make the big scary world and its cruel choices to go away. She is the very definition of a natural slave.

Read that again and think on it: “I didn’t have to worry that I would be in a situation where I would make a choice about taking another life.”

This women would rather suffer robbery, rape, or death than be forced to make a choice and live with the consequences of that choice. She would rather have death than responsibility.

Maybe I was wrong earlier on in this post. Maybe, the primary drive behind gun-hating is not a gun-hater’s self-awareness of incompetence, but rather fear of responsibility.

Maybe the freedom-haters fear responsibility so much, they would rather live and die as cowering slaves than have to make choices themselves.

Maybe natural slaves are just born natural slaves.

****

Other thoughts tangential to the main point:

In a way, her post supports expanded gun freedoms. If someone as thoroughly neurotic as her can own a gun for a month with no one getting hurt, maybe guns aren’t all that dangerous.

I noticed my purse with the 9mm Glock still inside it. I’d forgotten to lock it up! Panic set in as I realized my teen son was playing videogames just 10 feet away. What if he’d decided to get the socks I’d bought him from my purse while I was out on the deck? Thoughts raced through my mind and I pondered how I’d just straddled the fine line between being a responsible gun owner and an irresponsible idiot whose 15-year-old just accidentally shot himself or someone else with my gun.

I know I already posted this quote above, but I would like to highlight that she thinks her 15-year-old is irresponsible enough to blow himself away should he happen to come across a firearm.

I don’t know how she raised this kid, but sweet mother of Hades, is she really such an incompetent parent that her 15-year-old doesn’t have the basic commonsense to not immediately shoot himself if he stumbles across a gun? Given this article, it might be a possibility, but wow.

Maybe, instead of being a paranoid nut, she should teach her kid (and herself) proper firearm care and use (not to mention basic responsibility and commonsense). It might be more effective.

I learned that some gun owners aren’t very nice when you write something they don’t like. After my first post appeared on the Ms. Magazine site, I was called an “idiot,” “stupid,” “immoral,” “clueless,” “a coward,” and “dangerous.” One woman suggested I put the gun in my mouth and pull the trigger—and several tried to reveal my home address on the moderated comments section.

An incompetent, paranoid woman runs a smear campaign against normal, law abiding people, painting them as violent, dangerous, and incompentent, then she’s surprised when the same people she’s smearing react negatively. The nerve of them.

She ends with this:

My experiment was 30 days of my personal experience. I’m just a mom who wanted to see what it felt like. Now I know.

She has no idea what a regular gun owner feels like, because most of us are not incompetent and paranoid. I know I have never thought about shooting the repair man for repairing my furnace.

As well, most gun owners actually try to learn how to use their weapon before carrying it.