I know there is a fair amount of dread out there right now. We’re ramping down one war, and ramping up another; the threat of total financial collapse seems actually possible; the moral decay and loss of decency in much of society is endemic and spreading… Good Lord, we’re seeing famine, pestilence and death… lions and lambs lying down together, plagues of frogs from the skies! – and no one seems to know exactly what is happening.
And a lot of people are starting to think that it’s hopeless. My friends, it’s not hopeless. It’s dire! But it’s not hopeless. It’s never hopeless.
You see, people have been here before. Not us, but other people. The great conceit of the modern age is that this is, in fact, a modern age. But it isn’t.
Let’s start at the top: with Barack Obama. Is he:
A. A Muslim-sympathizing, neo-Marxist true believer, who sees America and Capitalism as the principle barrier to fairness and world peace?
Or B, is he merely an empty suit, an unwitting pawn of much larger, hidden forces?
Or C, simply a self-obsessed, incompetent narcissist who happened to be at the right place at the right time.
I’ve given this a lot of careful thought, and I think the real answer is yes.
He is a product of his time; a product of a civilization that has been dynamic and successful long enough for its prosperity to feel inevitable and indestructible. It’s not even really his fault. It has always been pretty clear from his record who he is and what he believes, and we elected him because the country was in the mood for a “progressive” president.
But Progressivism is not progressive – it’s ancient. Cyclical. It’s circular. It is, in fact, the symptom and the eventual cause of impending collapse.
In fact, in all of human history, there has been only one genuinely progressive, genuinely liberating idea: a lightning bolt across the pages of history – the why in 1776, the how in 1787 – the idea of limited government, god-given rights, personal liberty and rule by the vast collective wisdom and industry of the common man, and not by the bored, pampered and self-hating elites that have run everything before and since. This is a once-in-history idea. This is why we have to conserve it. We have to conserve this fundamentally liberal idea.
I said that what we today call Progressivism is in fact ancient and circular. Don’t believe me? Well, the great roman orator Cicero, speaking in defense of his friend Sestius, around 55 BC, said – quote:
“Gaius gracchus proposed a grain law. The people were delighted with it because it provided an abundance of food without work. The good men, however, fought against it because they thought the masses would be attracted away from hard work and toward idleness, and they saw the state treasury would be exhausted.”
When a society – after generations of hard work, sacrifice and hardship – reaches a certain level of prosperity, “Progressives” like Bill Maher, Janeane Garofolo, Rosie O’Donnell and Gaius Gracchus – that last Progressive died in 121 BC – assume that the prosperity is endless, and push for more and more people to get more and more goods and services for less and less work. Why? Because – as today, in America, as with the British Empire, the French Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Ottomans, the Mongols, Rome, Greece, Eqypt, Babylon… They do it for political power. They live for political power. This “Progressivism” is ancient, recurring, tyrannical and ruinous.
And we voted for it. Just like the Romans did.
We can see from Cicero that throughout history, the disease is always the same – too much security and prosperity breeds laziness, narcissism, resentment and entitlement.
So if this is the cycle of civilization, and we see these same recurring signs around us in abundance today – how can there be any hope?
There’s hope because we are Americans. We’re different. Not genetically – although we are in fact the world’s mutts and that is an enormous strength. No, we are different, unique and exceptional culturally – because unlike the Babylonians, the Eqyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Mongols, the Turks, the Spanish, the French, The British and all the rest – we have actually done it. We have created the political tools to limit power and reward hard work, and we have lived with them for almost a quarter millennia. It is only by restoring and strengthening these truly progressive, but now-called conservative ideals that we can break the cycle of history.
How?
Well, first, we have to know how we got into this mess in the first place.
This time around – our cycle – the rot began to take hold in America due primary to a group called The Frankfurt School. Keep in mind that the Frankfurt school is merely a product of where they appear on this great wheel of history – there have been dozens of civilizations that had their own “Frankfurt schools” in languages now lost to history.
But right after World War One, in Frankfurt, Germany the Institute for Social Research – they wanted to call themselves the “Institute for Marxism” but that was too on the nose – was left wondering why the world communist revolution — predicted as a certainty by Marxist social science – was not leading to the international revolution of the proletariat, the actual common working man.
And they figured out that capitalism – damn it! – was providing enough comfort and material gain, enough of an increase in the working man’s standard of living – that it just simply wasn’t going to happen. Ever.
Now, one kind of person might look at this and say, hooray! People’s lives are getting better – guess we weren’t needed after all.
But not these guys. These guys felt they had to bring heaven to earth.
And so they asked themselves: if the vanguard of the revolution wasn’t going to be the worker, then who would it be? And the answer they came up with was: the dispossessed.
The Neo-Marxist revolution would not attack the capitalist economy – that was too successful. The target of the new Marxist revolution would be the Culture.
Marxist philosophers like Antonia Gramsci, and later, Saul Alinski – personal hero to such present-day fellow travelers as Chris Matthews, Hillary Clinton and, of course, The President of the United States – started to create narratives – stories – about America. This rapidly evolved into a philosophy called “Critical Theory” and the idea of Critical Theory was to attack the dominant culture – that would be us – from all sides, simultaneously.
For instance, Black Americans would be told that their labor built the entire country, while White Americans merely sat back and essentially stole everything. Black slave labor did build the cotton economies of the Southern Confederacy, but the entire Confederacy had less factory capacity than New York City alone.
Nonetheless, many black Americans today have been taught that all of this belongs to them and not the truth, which is that that they were, and are, an integral and essential part of the group effort that built this country together.
Likewise, women are told that we live in an evil patriarchy, where all men are tyrants and potential rapists, determined to keep them in a form of domestic slavery, instead of being their partners and helpmates and husbands and protectors.
Gays are told not that this is one of the most inclusive and forgiving societies in the history of the world, but rather home to knuckle-dragging, murdering Neanderthals – when in plain sight, across the seas, one and a half billion Muslims routinely hang or stone or crush to death innocent people merely because of their sexual practices.
And on and on.
And when you try to argue against this social weapon of theirs, this Narrative, this lie that they tell again and again, well then, prepare for their counter-attack, which is called Political Correctness – the attempt to put the argument out of bounds before it can be had.
They use terms like Hate Speech and Racism. They want to put our arguments and rebuttals out of bounds so that they don’t have to hear them or deal with them. They have to exclude those arguments because if they don’t, those arguments are going to kick their asses and they know it.
And by the way: charges of Racism only work on decent people. You go up to a Klansman or a Nazi and call them a racist, and they say “duh!” Of course they’re racists. They’re proud of being racists. But you go up to someone who is not a racist, a person who finds racism appalling and disgusting, and tell them what they are saying is racism – even when it not only isn’t racism, but is in fact the opposite of racism– well, they’ll shut up. Mission Accomplished.
The objectives of the Frankfurt School, of Gramsci and Alinski in their assault on the culture, were laid out in detail and were very clear: Eliminate not only the voice, but the very idea of reason. Destroy history. Delegitimize shared morality. Medicate instead of discipline children. Promote the idea that problems are so complex that only elitists, experts and academics can discuss, let alone solve them. A later pair of American Marxist philosophers developed what became known as the Cloward-Piven strategy: overwhelm America’s social systems – welfare, health care, immigration, etc. by telling people they were owed things, and by intentionally overwhelming them, cause them to collapse – leaving nothing but smoking wreckage, and no where to turn but to the government.
But above all, for this Frankfurt school strategy to work, it needed to foster resentment, envy, hopelessness and despair.
And it’s been spectacularly successful.
My fellow Americans… we are in an information war, a battle of narratives, and if that analysis is true then you and I are the last best hope of the last best hope. We are, together, soldiers in this narrative war for America and for civilization.
So can we win?
Of course we can win!
Let me tell you where we are right now. We’re on the Titanic. Now hang on! There are some amazing things about that night that not many people know about. Things that give me hope.
Some people know that if the lookouts aboard Titanic had spotted the iceberg as little as five or six seconds earlier, Titanic would have been able miss that wall of ice by a few feet and would have survived to come home.
But very few people know that if those lookouts had spotted that iceberg only five or six seconds later — Titanic still would have survived. You see, Titanic was designed to remain afloat with up to five or her forward watertight compartments flooded – but not six. Had the lookout on Titanic seen that iceberg only a few seconds later, she would have hit it straight-on. It would have crumpled the bow, and a few hundred people would have been killed in the collision – but she would have stayed afloat, and instead of 1,490 people drowning in those icy waters, she would have limped home to New York, been refitted and repaired, and continued to do what she was built to do: bring people to America – to freedom. She represented what was best in us: vision, industry, ingenuity and hard work. That ship deserved to come home.
Some people misinterpret this to mean that there were a few seconds where Titanic could have been saved. It’s just the opposite. There were only a few seconds – ten or fifteen seconds – where Titanic could have been sunk. That iceberg went right down the side of the ship, staving in compartment after compartment. Progressivism is doing the same thing to our culture: flooding academia…movies…television…news media…comedy…music…government policy… damaging and flooding, one by one, the social institutions that kept this ship of freedom, ingenuity and prosperity afloat.
Like an iceberg, the danger from progressivism lies beneath the surface: the slow erosion of the work ethic, the fostering of division and resentment and unearned entitlement, the abandonment of the entire idea of decency and morality – all of this beneath the placid surface of simply claiming to help people.
My friends, it far too late to avoid this ancient iceberg, this giant dark wall that has sunk civilization after civilization under the calm disguise of compassion and concern. We cannot steer around it. If we are to avoid that fate, there is only one option left.
We need to ram the iceberg. We need to hit it head-on. We need to put in all the power we have – all of the power – and go right at the heart of that monster. Because everyone talks about what the iceberg did to Titanic, but no one talks about what Titanic did to the iceberg.
You see, I know something critical about this iceberg out in front of us, and that is this: that iceberg is hollow. It’s hollow.
Even the people who believe in it most strongly know it’s a lie. That’s why they have to lie to you about what they believe. They know, in their heart of hearts, that this philosophy has been the ruin of civilization in every one of the countless times it has been applied. They know – consciously or not – that in the last century alone their ideas have cost the lives of no less than 150 million people executed, or starved to death, to bring this paradise to earth.
And unlike the brave and selfless men and women that daily risk, and often give their lives in defense of freedom for their fellow man, these people believe in nothing greater than the sound of their own voice and are willing to die for nothing.
What would Bill Maher, or Janeane Garofolo, or Rosie O’Donnel be willing to give their own lives for? Nothing. Nothing.
It’s hollow. That iceberg is hollow. And we need to ram it, and we need to ram it now. It’s going to crush the front of our ship, and severely damage us as a culture – but we will survive. And by surviving, we can repair the damage and make ourselves better than we were.
We, for the first time in human history, have an example of what a free society looks like. We, for the first time in history, are children of the only real progressives in all of human history. And we, for the first time in history, have the technology that allows common people to talk to each other, to encourage and inform each other, and to make an end run around the suicidal elites and their suicidal, dying media organs.
We can do it. And we’re gonna do it. We are going to whip these communists out of their boots. And starting next time, we’ll start figuring out exactly how.
Bill- right on target as usual. We need strong leadership. Each of us flails about in our own way desperately trying to undo this damage. I pray that we can become better organized to really be the last best hope.
No, Chris, we don’t need strong leaders, we need to take the initiative ourselves; for if we rely on men on white horses we only trade one tyrant for another.
For saviors usually end up running the lives of the people they’ve saved. It’s the impulse that guided the progressives, and it’s the same impulse that will guide those strong leaders you wish for. We’ll have leaders, for that is how we are wired, but we can’t afford leaders who know they don’t need to consider our wishes, our desires. We need to keep our leaders on a short leash, and depose them on occasion, if only to remind the leaders who remain that they lead on our sufferance.
Keep on eye on the California primary in 2012. If it is an open primary (I expect so, for the main argument against it is fragile in the extreme) there is a good possibility it’s going to change things in California. Once it is shown to work expect other states to try the experiment as well. Once that happens then politics as usual is going to be profoundly changed, and the self-described elites are going to get a shock much like that inflicted upon the French nobility back in the 1790s.
Strong leaders. On the contrary, what we need are strong followers. Strong enough to hold our leaders in check, and to oust them when ouster becomes necessary. Followers willing and able to take the initiative, and to become leaders when that becomes necessary. For governing at the sufferance of the governed only worked when the governed have the courage to withdraw their support.
“…not by the bored, pampered and self-hating elites that have run everything before and since.”
Correction needed: “the bored, pampered self-hating elites” never exist. The elites do not self-hate, they hate us, the “masses” who don’t appreciate their geniuses, who want to live our own lives the way we want not the way they want us to. They hate us for being uppity, not knowing our places. They are pampered with the fruits of our labor, and are bored by our lack of sophistication. Worse, once in a couple of years, they are subjected to our judgement and have to pretend to be one of us in order to stay pampered and not have to work for a living like the rest of us, the masses that they despise.
The self-hating ones are not the elites, they are those of us who bought into the “superiority” of the elites and willingly gave up our freedom to these self-centered, pampered, bored elites.
Hollowness is the appropriate analogy here. Progressivism is a reality-disconnected conceit that will collapse Nikolai Ceausescu-style in the (hopefully) near future. Great historical insights, Bill.
Great metaphor, great piece. I sure as hell hope you’re right, Bill. I worry that we’ve become far too decent and mild and far too worried about causing offense to fight for our magnificent inheritance.
And the violence which you aptly ascribe to the Marxists (and which I also ascribe to Islam) against our civilization is a somewhat slow-motion violence (though under the godhead Obama, the pace of their destruction has certainly accelerated!). Is it possible to craft a strategy and a message which meets and defeats the violence of the Left and Islam?
I am convinced that this victory over our enemies will require violence, and in that, the iceberg is certainly not hollow. If I’m right, there will be tremendous blood. I see no alternative against the twin nexus of Islam and Communism. I’d love to hear a different approach, but I haven’t heard it yet.
I think a lot of people are waiting for the next election, this November, to see if the islamocommunists can be neutered at the ballot box. But if America-lovers do not win the House, and if they do not come close enough to taking the Senate; if the islamocommunists subvert the election through character assassination and election fraud, or if the One succeeds in an October surprise that turns out enough of his supporters to carry the day, then I believe the knives will be drawn, and 2011 will be a dangerous year for the survival of our peaceful republic. There has been a strange silence from the militias, the klan groups, and other arms bearers. They surely have not all gone home to enjoy their grandkids and reminisce about Ruby Ridge and Waco. Is it because they have been lying low and planning? They can see – anyone can see – that the situation today is their reason for existence.
I am a peaceful man, I was trained as a child to hunt but quit as a young man because I don’t have the heart for it. I don’t want to see my country torn apart by violence. But the Great Usurper keeps pushing, as if he doesn’t know that we, unlike the spent nations of Europe or the corrupt “republics” of Latin America, or those countries all over the world that never had a chance, are an armed citizenry who believe in our liberty. He acts as if he doesn’t know what will eventually happen – or maybe he wants it to happen. History is full of leaders who brought to life their apocalyptic visions of war and destruction. I don’t need to name them (except to assert against your protests that Lincoln was one of them). Obama can be seen to fit the profile. Therefore all peace loving patriots must pray and work for the day in November that we will overwhelm the haters of liberty at the ballot box and save our beloved republic from the abyss it faces.
The self-hating peoples of the world seem to mainly be in the West.
It is rare to see as much self-hatred, hatred of other lands and peoples,as we see here in America.
Consider the self-hating Jew, Amy Goodman, who uses her radio show to daily curse Israel, America and all that is decent. She makes me ashamed to be associated with her as a fellow-Jew.
The West is under attack from the Muslims, the America-haters, and all who would bring down the greatest land in the world.
jewishdailyreport.wordpress.com
Bill, it’s as powerful in print as it was on Afterburner. Thank you for the text!
And self-loathing is the hallmark of the elitists, the left, the tyrants. They despise us the way an oft-tortured animal despises its master–they’re afraid of us, they loathe the fact that we, the rug merchants of the world, can make a great living in America, but they need us in order to further their elitist, tyrannical worldview.
They are afraid of people like you, Bill, because you articulate what many of us know in our hearts to be true. They will begin to hate you, too, as you achieve more fame and prominence. Their hatred is a sign that you’re on the right path!
And we’re right there with you.
Bill, thanks for taking all the information I’ve been collecting for years and putting it into one bite-sized chunk. The Titanic parallel is frighteningly accurate. Hopefully we will make better use of the lifeboats.
The truth is, if we listen to Bill, and, we can get him into a postition of Power, we won’t need the Lifeboats, unless we have a few traitors that need to be shoved overboard.
I’m a Reagan Republican (old and worn out, of course), and, in my opinion, Reagan would admire Bill as much as we do.
I look forward to reading about the how. Why aren’t you writing speeches for some smart pol?
Very thought-provoking article, Mr. Whittle. Now, which part of the Iceberg to ram?
“A later pair of American Marxist philosophers developed what became known as the Cloward-Piven strategy: overwhelm America’s social systems – welfare, health care, immigration, etc. by telling people they were owed things, and by intentionally overwhelming them, cause them to collapse – leaving nothing but smoking wreckage, and no where to turn but to the government.”
Your quote there points to an inherent inconsistency in the backwards-looking “progressive” agenda — Government will fail to meet the obligations it assumes (such as immigration, health care), and so the people in desperation will turn to … that same failing Government? Sounds unlikely!
Trouble is, it is tough to see how the Political Class will get a well-deserved Bum’s Rush before their failures have become truly damaging.
I’m afraid you give people too much credit. I do not know a single person who enjoys interaction with government bureaucracies (liberal, conservative, or libertarian), yet the liberals (progressives) keep asking for more government. In darned near everything they do, government is inept–it is slow, wasteful, and inefficient–yet a large segment of society wants more of it. We have thousands of pages of regulations and thousands of bureaucrats enforcing them, yet bad things still happen (which a mature, wise person calls “life”), but still the liberals want MORE regulations. You see, they don’t say, “This system doesn’t work.” They say, “We just haven’t done it RIGHT yet. When we do it right, you’ll see that it works.” The disconnect from reality is troubling.
Damn I miss these.
As always Bill, an incredible essay. And dead on the mark. These windbags are poppable and we need to start popping. The how needs to be happening now though.
November is going to be a shock to some people but the maneuvering for that has to begin now. We aren’t aiming for anything that I can see.
That worked out so well for the Titanic.
To hell with writing speeches. When are you going to run Bill? If your name were on a ballot somewhere I’d move just so I could vote for you.
Without wishing to detract from Mr. Whittle’s perspicacity, there is nothing here that Machiavelli and Spengler did not say a long time ago.
Dead solid perfect!
Outstanding essay!
Keep up the good fight.
Excellent.
You really should be writing speeches for politicians.
Just as inspiring reading it as hearing Bill give it! Bravo!!
Exactly the words some of us need to hear on this sacred day when the story of, as you so eloquently state, TRUE human progessivism began.
Thank you, Bill. Thank you.
Happy Independence Day!
In yet another sign of his true loyalties, President Obama has just betrayed Israel in an effort to appease the Arabs. He showed the Israelis a draft copy of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty which, as usual, did not contain any reference to Israel, as per the 62+ year policy of America. Then, behind their backs, he had a reference to Israel needing to disarm inserted in the treaty.
Has this man no shame?
http://jewishdailyreport.wordpress.com/2010/07/04/obama-betrays-israel-changes-us-policy/
great post, Bill. Thanks for doing it.
Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering. — Seneca
Bravo, Bill.
Whether the elitists (not elite–that would imply that they had actually achieved something) hate themselves or not is irrelevant. They do hate and despise the rest of us, though, and wish to control every aspect of our lives. From what we can drive to how we can educate our children to how we have to get our healthcare to what constitutes free speech, the elitists are convinced that they know better than we do and that that gives them the right to dictate how we spend our money, our time, and our efforts. Now is the time to take back our country from these descendants of the Frankfurt School, with the first major opportunity coming up in November. Let’s not blow it, folks. As Bill notes, there are windows of opportunity here, for us and for them. We must use ours wisely and ensure it doesn’t close on us forever.
Marquess of Queensberry rules, Colleagues on the other side of the isle, the spirit of bi-partisanship and we must maintain “civil” discourse nonsense must stop. We are not attempting with the Party of Evan Bayh but the Party of Lenin and Stalin. It is not enough to be “Better than they are” we must be better AT IT than they are.
not attempting to defeat
Although I’ve sometimes despaired of ever being rid of this horror, I’m now becoming more and more optimistic that a reckoning, as described in “…and the sharks will come.”, is not only possible but maybe even inevitable.
He’s not a chameleon like Bill Clinton, and appears psychologically incapable of changing anything about himself to prevent such an outcome.
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McCrystal proved his weakness is his vanity.
If I could offer some observations, from outside the US:
Over here in the fair land of Oz, we just recently had a small victory. Our own version of Obama, the Maoist, glass-jawed, empty suit control freak known as PM Kevin Rudd was thrown out very unceremoniously by his own party from the top job (unfortunately they replaced him with something almost as bad but you take what you can get).
Just so that I’m clear on this, this was a man who less than a year ago couldn’t set a foot wrong in the polls no matter what half-baked policy he came up with. Now he is famous as the first Prime Minister in this country’s history to be thrown out by his own party before completing a full term.
The man’s popularity nose-dived after he was seen to be all talk and bluster (do you notice any similarity here?), to the point where his own party tossed him out rather than face a shellacking in an election (due later this year).
People do wake up eventually, to the fact that they have been conned. My prediction is that your own elections in November are not going to be pretty for Obama and his stooges.
Have hope, guys. I’m watching your politics with a great deal of interest…and excitement.
thank you friend from OZ.
it has occurred to me with all the recent goings-on that the Left is utterly imploding. All of their long cherished fantasy-based, authoritarian, ideological, cultural and political programs and policies are falling apart. and falling apart so quickly, so dramatically, and all at once.
the juan williams episode is just the latest symptom of this.
obama was supposed to be the savior of the globe, and has turned out to be a disaster.
this has made them crazy and they are lashing out and acting stupid.
no wonder they bitterly cling to NPR, academia, and Americaphobia.
Hello Bill, I am very happy to read an essay from you again, thank you very much.
You raise a good question: if the left is an iceberg slicing into our mighty ship of state, just how hollow is it, and how can we best defeat it?
One of the beauties of the American system is its dynamism. Any party or faction wedded too dearly to its policies and ideology tends to get left behind by a more nimble competitor.
President Clinton understood this, and stole some of the best ideas from his political rivals after the Republican revolution of 1994. He did this, as he did all things, shamelessly. And with great success.
The truth cannot be denied forever. The leftists who crave power and success must either learn to shift the position of their iceberg or be popped or otherwise left behind. The only reason they have gotten as far as they have is because, as you point out, they have used salesmanship past the point of dishonesty.
But actions have a way of speaking louder than words. Our current contender in Washington for the Wizard of Oz is losing the curtain battle with Toto.
So how can we best defeat the leftists?
By getting off our posteriors now and fighting back: talking, petitioning, making phone calls, doorbelling, donating money, writing, making music and videos, and living well while doing it all. Tea party, Republican party, fiscally conservative Democrat — whatever is available to you to support, whatever seems to make the most sense.
I personally am supporting the Republican candidate, John Koster, who is challenging my Democratic congressman, Rep. Rick Larsen; and I will be supporting other Republicans in my area as well. But supporting my family and educating my son (and myself) are even more important than any of that.
Thanks again, airman Whittle, for helping us see and remember the big picture.
One more thing:
You say the situation is dire, but not hopeless. I agree the situation appears to be on cruise control to “dire”, and it is certainly dire for the chronically unemployed, for severely ill people without insurance, for families who have lost their homes, and for retirees who have lost their savings.
But people have always had dire problems in this country. The crisis of our economy makes the dire cases more numerous and more prominent and much more intractable than normal. But as long as there is hope to turn things around, as long as the last window of opportunity has not closed, I’m not sure we as a people have reached “dire” as a destination yet.
Perhaps this is me talking semantics, but I do believe we’re a spectacularly wealthy nation, that our most serious problems are of our own doing (as opposed to, say, from a giant asteroid trashing the planet), and that we still have the werewithal to make things right. I know you agree with me, so maybe I just have a different emphasis on the half-empty versus half-full spectrum.
All the best, Matthew.
Bill,
Excellent and thought-provoking essay, as always! One tiny, microscopic quibble: The Titanic was British-flagged, and her home port was Liverpool. So going “home” to New York isn’t technically correct. But nonetheless, the allegory works well. That’s probably where repairs would’ve been performed. The shipyards there may even have discovered the (reported) issues with substandard steel.
Bill
A minor quibble; the problem is not an AMERICAN problem – it is rife throughout the Anglosphere. I sometimes think we need to unite across borders to exterminate these evil bastards
Aussie Pete:
Progressives, even communists, are NOT evil bastards. Not only are they not evil, quite often they have good useful ideas to contribute to society.
Now, you probably disagree with me on that, and I respect your disagreement. But I don’t respect your call for exterminating anyone who isn’t actively trying to exterminate you or me. Even if you meant it tongue in cheek.
So lay off the violent rhetoric, please — we live in constitional democracies and republics, not dictatorships. Thank you!
Matt, there is an elaboration to be made to your statement: CommunISM, the ideology, the practice, IS inherently evil. CommunISTS, the practitionERS, aren’t necessarily so. Some of them truly believe the world will be a better place, and can offer coherent, factual arguments. I should know; sadly enough, my own brother is one of them. But even he questions some of it, and we can have a civil debate that lasts for hours without the racist card ever coming into play. I know people like him are in the minority, though, but I’m with you: That’s no call to advocate violence. However, I do fear that some of our commenters here are right: It is coming, whether or not we want to see it, and maybe it’s not as paranoid as some would have you believe to prepare for the Second American Revolution/Civil War – call it what you will.
JMC, thank you for commenting on my comment. I like the points that you raise.
“[ Violence ] is coming, whether or not we want to see it, and maybe it’s not as paranoid as some would have you believe to prepare for the Second American Revolution/Civil War – call it what you will.”
I believe you are correct to feel the threat of potential violence.
We have two factions, with competing visions. The two competing visions are connected, respectively, to two competing sets of interests which appear, on the surface at least, to be irreconciliable with each other.
If one side refuses to capitulate to the other at a moment of particular tension, desperate partisans of the losing side might be strongly tempted to violence to force the issue.
One of the great strengths of our constitution is the way it guarantees a political process to fight out fundamental disagreements such as the one we are in now. The leaders of both sides need to be vigilant about ensuring that folks don’t tune out of the political fight and resort to violence when it isn’t necessary or justified.
So far, however, that is exactly what our leaders have done, and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon. And that is why I made a point of asking Aussie Pete to reconsider his heavy-handed use of the word “exterminate”. A little self-discipline can go a long way.
“CommunISTS, the practitionERS, aren’t necessarily [ evil ]. Some of them truly believe the world will be a better place, and can offer coherent, factual arguments.”
I strongly agree with you.
“CommunISM, the ideology, the practice, IS inherently evil.”
I understand your point, but I don’t agree with you.
Communism, in theory, is not evil. In fact, it is remarkably similar in many ways to the preaching of Jesus in the New Testament, and I don’t believe you can say one is evil without subjecting the other to a similar judgement.
What is evil is when you take a theory, such as communism, and try to force it upon people. It is evil to make people live an ideology unwillingly.
Since communism is spectacularly unsuited to general human nature, any attempt to implement it will quickly become de facto evil. And the more you try to implement it, the more evil and bloody the policy will become.
On the other hand, if a group of like-minded folks set up a commune somewhere and live life voluntarily according to some communist ideals, there is nothing evil about that at all.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Your wise words have again lifted me up, as they have done so often in the past. (I understand you have other things going on that you can’t devote 100% of your time to uplifting, educating and giving America direction, but damn Bill, we need MORE! ;o)) Here in SE Michigan, when I hear daily of unemployment woes, foreclosure woes, etc., etc., it can get damned depressing. You give me hope. That’s an awesome thing, and I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate it. I too, believe in the greatness of this country, the ideals and values it was founded on that made it great, and despair that it it slipping away because a lot of Americans have not been taught, or have forgotton. It makes me sad and scared. I have used your words to de-indoctrinate my child (14) and am so grateful that I have such an eloquent source to turn to.
Thank you again.
From my latest “the bottom line” …
So, DON’T defeat yourselves before you even start. If all you can envision is futility and hopelessness, please go somewhere else to psych yourself down. The rest of us have a lot of work to do, and it damned well wont be accomplished by those who believe it impossible in the first place.
And, do not excuse yourself with George Wallace’s 1968 assertion that, of the two parties, “There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between them!”
There truly is a difference; the type of arrogant snots who feel they must control every aspect of our lives (because we’re too damned stupid to do so ourselves) seem to infest the Democratic party far more than they do the Republican party.
That difference is worth preserving, worth fighting for. Always!
But especially during the Nov 2010 elections.
Thanks Bill for posting this. There is a problem facing America right now. But it is not too late to resolve things and put us back into our place…
“The biggest problem facing America today is that no one looks to freedom as a solution to problems anymore. They look to government.” – Glenn Kimber
That was quite excellent. I did garner some hope from your essay. The comparisons were on the spot. When we turn the corner in November our culture will regain a footing. Right now the roller coaster is making me dizzy. Thank you.
Yes!
The hollow iceberg is this. The progressives are at war with reality. That is a war that cannot be won. To start the war is to grantee losing. We are watching the exponentially accumulation of lies, misdirections, and desperate attempts to win. Each lie, each misdirection, and each desperate attempt only begets more extreme lies, misdirections, and desperate attempts. This leads to overreaching. Overreaching leads to failure that breeds still more failure.
This process can appear to be successful only as long as there is productive wealth to steal and willing victims to sacrifice. They hang on to their blind faith that those things are endless. They are not.
For wealth to continue to be productive, it must remain in the hands of the people who are themselves productive and who actually produced it in the first place. By taking the wealth, it is no longer productive and ultimately becomes the destroyer of the thieves. The most powerful cause of this that the productive have no choice but to “go John Galt” resulting in no more wealth being produced. If you don’t have it, they can’t steal it. If you don’t produce it, they can’t tax it.
Notice my use of the phrase “willing victims”. This can be defeated by simply not being willing victims. Do NOT give them that comfort. Pronounce them evil as they attempt to sacrifice you. It is surprising how effective even this slight feedback can be. Yet the evidence that it is effective, can be measured by their attempts to silence their victims.
In the final analysis, he who is free never surrenders and he who surrenders was never free.
Stay free!
Nice metaphor Bill. But really, you need to explain
how to perform the “ramming of the iceberg.” Something
tells me you are meaning that we should do more than
simply vote in November. I’m guessing that you don’t
really know what to suggest. And let me say that the
progressive ideology is so infused within our society,
that there really ARE two Americas and either side in the
cold war is absolutely incapable of communicating with the
other side in any way that will lead us off this course.
I basically agree with you, but…umm, what does ‘ramming the iceberg’ mean? And sacrificing the lives of 10% of the passengers – how does that work? Like I say, I don’t disagree with your outlook, but the iceberg/ship metaphor you use has disturbing implications.
Whether you mean “war” literally or metaphorically, and “sacrifice” ditto, there is always going to be collateral damage. We don’t like it, we try to minimize it wherever we can, but it is utterly impossible to eliminate it entirely without rendering yourself impotent. I’ve had to learn that lesson the hard way; now, as far as I’m concerned, it’s the first law of reality.
And this means….umm, competing with the government to see who can inflict the greatest amount of violence? Or am I missing something?
I second Mike’s comments.
Taking something head-on like ramming an iceberg as a metaphor for what?
Certainly that is asking more than simply wanting to “get the vote out.”
Please address this. While I think there are a lot of reasons to want to take direct action, we need to be careful and more specific as to what we are advocating.
Bear in mind that there is such a divide in thinking between left and right that there is little one can do to convince someone of changing their opinion after age 30 or so — even if facts and dispassionate data support one view or the other.
Yet it can be achieved slowly. You cannot eventually win if you always play defense. This is why we need to support one another as the left makes attempts to demonize many of us using divisive tactics. There must be effective ways to not only counter these methods, but also to initiate and open new fronts against the left (which is almost never done).
Ever notice how McDonalds maintains such a hold on the minds of young children? They market their future customers early in life.
The left has mastery of this early intervention using Schools (grade through college) , Hollywood, T.V. shows, on and on. Even nice little kid shows that my kids love like “The Wonder Pets” on NickJr have a major communist theme in that individual effort always fails and collective action is the only way to succeed in anything).
We gave up nearly all these influential media, with the possible exception of churches, and STILL the liberals cannot manage to convince the majority of Americans that they are right. That should give some hope, but also a warning that things have progressed to such a dire state that we must examine where and how we go on offense to take back key institutions that will allow us to educate our future generations in the founding principles of this country.
The Solution is cyclical too. Moses set it up after leaving Egypt, under the council of his wise and inspired Father-in-law. The Republic was born in Deuteronomy, when judges were set up over groups of families. They had groups of 50, 100, 1000. Things were pretty good in Israel, until they decided to switch to kings.
The Anglo-Saxons again established a Republic, that thrived until they were taken over by the Normans. They had a volatile history of Parliament fighting the Kings to restore the power to the people.
What allowed America to be so successful was the addition of vertical and horizontal elements that exerted pressure against the executive branch of government, to avoid allowing it to overtake the others. Progressives have almost completely removed the State’s powers, eliminating the vertical pressure. They are working hard on eliminating the relevance of the Legislative powers and the effectiveness of the Judicial powers.
Thank you for your voice against the tyranny and usurpation of power over the people.
Someday you’ll back up one of your sweeping statements with a fact and I will have a heart attack. You should try it, it would mean one less horrible, self-hating librul in the world.
I’ve signed up for Declaration. Godspeed.
Cloward & Pivin reminds me of that South Park Meme.
1: Destroy the economic base of the country through confiscatory taxes and contradictory regulation
2: Destroy the labor pool by turning everyone into welfare sponges.
3: …
4: Prof… er, Socialist Worker’s Paradise!
The question is, how can you build a country, Socialist or otherwise, out of the wreckage left by the plan? How can you have a Workers Paradise when there are no workers, nor jobs for them anyway, and you’ve already run out of Wealth to confiscate just GETTING to this point.
Far from flying into the arms of the Socialists who destroyed the country, Americans would be far more likely to lynch them, knowing that they were the ones to blame for this mess.
As is typical for the Left, it’s a plan full of wishful thinking that is contrary to both human nature and logic.
I believe this is true; that Americans are different. I think the American spirit is still strong enough to fight back. I come from the West; we are different. But we do have to do something. Do you have any ideas?
Comparing the situation to the Titanic certainly is apropriate, especially when you consider that the line, “God Himself couldn’t sink this ship” was not just a dramatic line thrown into the movie, but a true historical quote. You don’t double-dog-dare the Almighty like that, but that’s exactly what we’ve done by suppressing public expressions of faith. Let us pray…PLEASE!
“And they figured out that capitalism – damn it! – was providing enough comfort and material gain, enough of an increase in the working man’s standard of living – that it just simply wasn’t going to happen. Ever.
Now, one kind of person might look at this and say, hooray! People’s lives are getting better – guess we weren’t needed after all.
But not these guys. These guys felt they had to bring heaven to earth.”
And that, boys and girls, is why the perfect must never be the enemy of the good, and why for the past 70 years, incrementalism in pursuit of the Marxist goal was acceptable as “a step in the right direction”, yet any liberty-directed effort was flawed as “not providing a real solution”.
Thanks
I doubt if the Frankfurt School was the origin of the current mess. Collectivism had already become entrenched in the United States by the 1930s. The process had started with the “Progressive” (also known as Liberal Fascist) era. (You can think of the “Progressive” era as a time when a self-styled elite tried to turn the United States into a fake European nation.) The standards of the 1930s said “these people are the wave of the future” and that turned them from mere cranks into the shapers of young minds.
The Cultural Marxists may have even been beneficial. They gave leftist ideas that were formerly acceptable to the American public a foreign taint. (The sort of voter who might be prejudiced against “the rich” was even more prejudiced against anything foreign.) It’s worth noting that they became loud enough to be heard by voters in the late 1960s, the time when increasing socialism started to slow. The tenured radicals achieved something resembling actual power in time to see Reagan halt their version of progress and Clinton to reverse parts of it.
The more they tightened their grip, the more we slipped through their fingers…
As much as I have enjoyed your writing over the years, and your stint on PJTV, it has become clear that you have moved on. I wish you well and miss your writing.
Does anyone know what Bill Whittle is busy with these days? I too really miss his writing and videos.
I spoke too soon lol I just checked out Declaration Entertainment again and now I see what he’s been up to!
Also checkout billwhittle.net