UPDATE1:- And here’s a little bit of circumstancial evidence for my case: they bastards don’t even rate their own slaves, let alone us, who don’t acknowledge them as our masters.
David Davis
This is going to be an unpleasant posting for me. Indeed it may perhaps mark the point of my break with mainstream libertarians, who favour nothing at all but peaceful engagement with the Enemy Class. But the battle between liberty and evil indivuals who wish it to be suppressed has gone on too long, it is now inconvenient and irritating, the Cause of Liberty is being held up, and I want to trigger some discussion about our desired results.
Libertarians ought to have well-articulated and widely-trawled plan of what to do about members of the Enemy Class. They ought to start to be told that they are identified as inimical to personal liberty in all areas of a person’s life.
The stupid FDR’s stuff in 1943 about “unconditional surrender” was at the time an unproductive and costly mistake, directed accidentally as it was against a people who would probably – just like the Italians – in the mass have been pleased to accept “terms”, being civilised individuals unlike the junta which they tragically failed to not elect in 1933. We could stillhave tried and hung trash like Frank, Frick, Rosenberg, Seyss-Inquart, Himmler, Goebbels, the other chappies, even the Führer himself if it had come to a deal. The Jews and all the rest of those exterminated would still have been vindicated, and Stalin might not even have got his unjust deserts.
We might also not even have needed to have been tricked into destroying Dresden on Stalin’s orders, and thus not have trodden into seemingly eternal and embarrassingly deep shit because of it. (It riles me, you can see. Germany did NOT need to elect Hitler in the first place. We are equally at fault for allowing our Enemy Class to gain ascendancy while we had been busy. We have even less excuse for our negligence than Germans in 1933, for we live in a nominally-liberal society.)
Nurtured in the bosom of benign capitalism, yet schooled in the dark perverted lights of false science, the Enemy Class of today is sadly not like the semi-hezitant-Nazis of 1933 at all. It is far, far more confident and hubristic.
We libertarians are too fixed on the universal provision of Natural Rights and individual liberty for all. In pursuing this admirable goal, we neglect at our peril its mortal enemies, who have pursued their own “Project” for centuries, are doing so now, are now extremely able communicators and media-mobsters, and will continue so to be and to do.
They have “learned lessons” from the fates of their friends, in Germany in the 1930s to 1945, in the USSR from 1917-1989, from Red-Ted Heath their friend, from Harold Wilson who was not serious enough, and from Ceaucescu whose fate they do not want to undergo.
They will, from this day forward, never change, never apologise, and never surrender. Living and recently-dead-examples in no special order? Polly Toynbee, George Monbiot, Al Gore, Michael Moore, Baroness Scotland, Douglas Hogg, the BBC top brass, Castro (who at least died), Madeleine Bunting, Sunny Sandalwood, Kim Long-Il (ditto), that woman in the EU who wants to shut “right wing” political blogs down, the other guy who forces toxic defective lighting on us, and so on. Form an orderly queue, chaps, to convert one of more of these to liberalism, starting now.
Can you do it?
Can you?
Our objective can’t be cleanly reached in any even vaguely reasonable timescale, if there are intelligent, highly-educated and well-resourced humanoids who openly and sincerely mean to impose the opposite case by force if need be. What, after all, is “choice-editing”, for God’s sake?
These buggers are in it from times primeval in their lives, probably from swaddling-clothes in fact: they are collectivists deliberately, and they deliberately do collectivist things to masses and masses of unwilling or too-busy-to-do-anything-about-it-people. And then, when parts of the Project go pear-shaped, they get parachuted out to other parts less exposed to our ire. Sacked Prime-Monsters who go on $100,000-speechmaking junkets are another case in point.
We can hold conferences till we are blue in the face. In fact I will raise this very matter at a frnge-meeting which I will try to set up on 24th/25th October at the Libertarian Alliance’s annual binge in London.
We can publish stuff till the Finnish paper-forests are razed. (Indeed, you ought to weigh the tonnage of paper which the Libertarian Alliance alone produced from the 70s to the 2000s, until http://libertarian.co.uk came fully on-stream.)
Libertarians have blogs – there are probably hundreds out there, mostly talking to each other. Libertarian blogs’ blogrolls are among the longest you will find anywhere in the internet. They are usually a good read, unlike the collectivists’ attempts: perhaps we are cleverer or wittier or better educated (I doubt it) writers, or we read more things faster in wider areas, and so write better.
But all the while, the collectivists and other GramscoFabiaNazis seem to gain ground. They now openly flaunt the levers of State Power, brandishing joyfully and exultantly the hammers-and-anvils-of-compulsion, dressed warmly and cuddlily in the clothes of caring, security, safety, community-concern and the like. They will never admit they are unfathomably evil by design, nor will they ever backtrack.
I do not, any more, believe that even a minority of them are capable of honest conversion to liberalism and liberty of humans all as sovereign individuals. Their potential rewards for the successful completion of their “Project”, of total and eternal human enslavement, to the benefit of the chosen Honestiores and believers, exceed in their eyes the importance of the general destruction of Man’s prospects in The Universe.
After all, why ought they to care about that? They think we all die in the end, and that there Is Nothing After. If they get to be Earthly Lords – for even a little time – to whom we always and everywhere bow the knee: and if we are forced to offer our sexiest daughters (and sons?) for their shagging, in return for our paltry rations of saltless boiled vegetables and water, eaten and drunk in the freezing darkness: then, what is it to them? Nothing.
They will have taken /revenge/ – for what? Here are five reasons for vengeance ‘pon the rest of us that incense the Enemy Class. And I could go on after…
(1) Revenge for the slow but sure concatenation of events that followed Magna Carta –
(2) Revenge for the Rennaissance -and for printing –
(3) Revenge for the Industrial Revolution (a wrong name) which took millions of us out of their mud-bound, sword-flatting, oak-hard-grip –
(4) Revenge for agricultural-surpluses -which meant that 98% of us didn’t have to spend more than all our lives simply trying to grow food and eat some –
(5) Revenge for towns and cities where poverty first became hideous at last, for scientific and medical progress, with Christian Charity (not fake ones, they’d have been appalled, specially the “poor”) showed what would be achieved instead –
If they’d thought harder about it, they’d even have been decrying and execrating the invention of the WHEELED PLOUGH. This brought the rise of the “New Towns” from about AD 1050 to 1400. Newport, Neustadt, Neuville, Newton-le-Willows, Newcastle, Novgorod. Clearly hotbeds of anti-Righteous sedition and revolution, all of them. I don’t however see George Monbiot and Paul Ehrlich criticising it though.
I have said before that we have to have a serious, and published plan about what is intended for those of the Enemy Class who do not recant, and who will not recant. There will be many. Furthermore, many will recant who are not sincere, and who will intend to prosecute their evils after recantation. These will need specially to be identified.
People who oppose liberty for sovereign individuals – the utterly individual, contractual, trust-based, one-to-one, fully-atomised kind of libery that Lords so hate and fear, must be made to feel that we are as serious about promoting this kind of liberty as they are about demolishing it and replacing it with collective liberties for masses, handed out by said Lords as acts of dispensation.
The time has come to draw the line.
One of the things i have a problem about Libertarianism is the way dislike of the policies of people such as Roosevelt leads to the the taking of revisionist positions on the Second World War.
I see it on the LewRockwell blog and now i see it here.
Yes, Roosevelt was a Statist, yes, his ‘New Deal’ was a massive socialist extension that has been incorrectly lauded. That antipathy then extends to the extent of criticising Roosevelts efforts against Nazi Germany, which is frankly ridiculous.
If to be a Libertarian means taking an ideological position that is so opposed to the State that i have to oppose the war against Nazi Germany then i am afraid you will have to count me out. If it means that i have to be automatically opposed to all wars against foreign barbarian religious fanatics who actively seek to destroy Western civilisation then you can also count me out.
Western civilisation is worth defending and that means fighting, and killing, those who wish to destroy it. Trying to pretend that such a threat doesn’t exist or that if we just sit back and mind our own business we will be left alone is, at best, absurd naivety.
Yes, there are huge numbers of commited enemies of liberty in our societies, yes, much of what the State does is parastical, yes, most of the socalled ‘progressives’ promote ideas that are actively damaging for those they claim to care for.
That does not mean that everything the State ever does is absolutely wrong, up to and including fighting Nazis and Jihadists.
Individual Liberty is the absolute bedrock of Western Civilisation, but to think that ‘sovereign individuals’ are going to completely replace the function of sovereign nations is to argue against the reality of basic human nature. There will always be a certain social grouping that leads to power structures developing. In small groups that leads to tribal social organisation, in larger ones, national social organisation. It is part of our nature.
Instead of arguing for an absolute abolition of the State, instead Libertarians need to recognise that the State needs to be organised so that its primary function is protecting individual liberties and all its actions should flow from that.
Or else Libertarians can stand aside from reality and congratulate themselves on their ideological purity while the enemies of liberty run unrestrained and rampant.
It’s the unrestrained and rampant Enemy Class that I’m objecting to.
I thought I’d made it clear that Hitler’s rampage was the result of sentient people failing to not elect him.
I’m also fucked off because of, being British, having to pretend to apologise for the Dresden raid, which would not have come about if either Germans had not elected Hitler 12 years previously, or Stalin had not cleverly run rings round stupid FDR at the expense of Churchill and Harris, who did not want to do it.
I am also not a “revisionist”, which you will find if you read a few more of my history-directed posts here.
You may even be horrified to learn that I back Haig against Lloyd-George AND Foch, in the previous 1899-1921 episode of this same war.
Frankly, I think we should all go round with pickaxes and beat up the homes of people like Polly Toynbee, and especially take steps to burn what passes for her library. On Christmas Eve. Every year.
And run over her husband and children, twice, with a large bus at the same time, and make her watch.
But I’d get arrested for even thinking it, let alone doing it. Even though she is unfathomably and irremediably evil.
Other libertarian blogs spend too much time indulging people who talk of lamp-posts and ropes and piano-wire. It is counter-productive for rightly, nobody believes them or that they would do such a horrible thing.
But we really must put some sort of fear into the hearts of GramscoFabiaNazis. Such that, perhaps, if we were to defeat them, their lives would not be so great after all.
.
David Davis,
I’m not actually calling you a revisionist, the point i’m making is that there is a tendency in Libertarian circles towards revisionism, based on the dislike of such characters as Roosevelt. This dislike is then pushed so far that it encompasses even such acts as assisting Britain against the Nazis.
I do agree that the ultimate responsibilty for WW2 lies with the German people for electing Hitler. (not failing to not elect him, that is a circumlocution too far). I am tired of reading articles in Libertarian blogs about how it was Britain which was somehow responsible for WW2 and how America was wrong to take a stand against Hitler. I don’t suggest that you actually hold those opinions, but i do point out that those opinions are becoming a mainstream part of Libertarianism and that when i see you start to criticise Roosevelts conduct over the War i see some of that intellectual nonsense seeping over here as well, i would be very sad to see British Libertarianism infected by the sometimes weird obessions of the American Libertarians. Apart from anything else, our traditional understanding of the nature of personal and political liberty is more rooted in an understanding of human nature and historical reality. We need to rediscover that heritage, not import Randian/Buchananist nonsense.
As for dealing with people like Polly Toynbee, if people are serious about opposing such scum (sorry to use such language) then we should be doing everything possible to disrupt them and their activities. Lefties have no hesitation in persecuting, smearing and seeking to imprison their opponents. Nice pamplets are not going to stop them, political street fighting and being prepared to get hands dirty rather than worrying about staying perfectly ideologically pure might.
(As for Dresden, that bombing raid saved countless millions of lives. It finally knocked the militarism out of the Germans, without it i doubt we would have a pacific Germany today (however irritatingly patronising and smug it might occasionally seem). So, no apologies there.)
I have always made a point of _never_ apologising for Dresden in particular, (or Hamburg) and for the British (and American later) strategic bombing campaign.
I agree that british libertarians have too much time on their hands possibly, and are this prone to being infected with revisionist nonsense. But I would counsel Americans to be more critical of FDR’s war role specifically, in regard to his belief that the sun shone out of Joe Stalin’s arse (sorry) and that poor old Churchill was a dreaming brandy-soaked romantic and could be ignored safely.
At our conference, I will be specifically raising matters such as how we can legally hurt lefty gramscoFabians who freely trumpet what should happen to liberty.
It seems to me that we don’t actually need to get stuck into the enemy at all.
Being as we are interested in what we perceive as being reality, the truth, then “truth rules” apply. The first truth rule is that you don’t have to fight for it. The liars have to fight because they are trying to maintain what is, truthfully, an untenable position/situation. All that truth requires is that it be simply presented. The presence of truth causes lies to evaporate, sometimes in shrieking, tormented, stinking horror, but basically, simply to evaporate.
To get into fighting lies is an engagement trap of the enemy. You are then on his terms.
All we need to do is present reality, which is of course already there, so what we do, in fact, is just remind people of what, truthfully, they already know.
That’s the principle. In practice one can get into an awful lot of disagreement or discussion about the facts on the ground. What, actually happened. Such as whether FDR and friends actually planned Pearl Harbour, etc.
But, again, truth rules apply so one just has to get all the facts and lay them out.
The truth maxim is: Reality cannot be broken. It can be distorted (which distortion must be compensated to bring the whole back to reality) but it cannot be broken.
John B, if you really believe that ‘The first truth rule is that you don’t have to fight for it.’ Then i am afraid you are, at best, a naive fool.
The Left actively criminalises dissenting opinions. It infiltrates and directs the tone of public discourse through, amongst other things, control of the BBC. Local Authorities actually take children away from people who have non-left wing opinions, teacher training colleges openly ‘train’ teachers to propagate left wing politics in the class room.
Entire classes of the British people are reduced to infantilised welfare dependence as part of a systematic plan to create a permanent client base. The voting system is being debased, the judicary and police are increasingly politicised, more political decisions are taken by unelected, foreign officials while the governments policies are created as a result of behind the scene collusion between favoured business interests and corrupt politicians.
People in Britain, today, right now, are in prison for the ‘crime’ of expressing illegal opinions.
All the evidence of history proves that lies, deceit and corruption can take over and control entire civilisations. The truth needs constant defending and fighting for. To take the attitude that all you need to do is ‘lay out the truth’ is to invite slavery.
I’d suggest that you check out the Canadian ‘Human Rights Commisions’ and see how they have been persecuting people for their opinions, then see how it was only by harsh pushing back that people like Ezra Levent and Mark Steyn made a difference, after years of completely ineffectual ‘laying out of the facts’ having been completely useless.
Reality is rough and dirty, the Lefties fight highly effectively, trying to maintain some sort of holier than thou attitude about just having to lay out the facts and expecting them to be simply accepted is a perfect recipe for complete irrelevance and defeat.
Hiya C Ingoldby, Yes, well you are indeed being engaged by the enemy on his terms so you have already lost if you persist in that vein.
I didn’t say you wouldn’t be criminalised for having a dissenting opinion. In fact I said that: “The presence of truth causes lies to evaporate, sometimes in shrieking, tormented, stinking horror, but basically, simply to evaporate.”
So if your controllist enemy decides that the presence of the truth to his lie is sufficiently offensive he/she may well criminalise whoever is perceived as the source. They used to burn people at stakes. Standing on the truth can often take a lot more nerve and courage than waving one’s arms about. But it is the most effective way. And in fact the only way that truth will be served.
How would you advocate fighting for it, by the way?
Every single situation you indicate in your post above would be dealt with by the effective presentation of facts. They may be unwilling to accept the facts you present but I can assure you from personal experience that one truth effectively communicated can destroy a thousand lies. They may even try push you under a tube train. It can be fairly uphill with all sorts of temptations to digress. But what they need the whole of the MSM to achieve a person armed with reality/the truth can overcome with a few honest words effectively placed.
John B
The idea that ‘every single situation you indicate in your post above would be dealt with by the effective presentation of facts.’ is a simple nonsense.
The presentation of the truth is not sufficent. You can present the truth all you want, if MSM is perpetuating lies and the education system is distorting the truth then you are just going to be whistling in the wind.
The ‘presence of truth’ does NOT cause lies to ‘evaporate in shrieking horror’ It would be lovely if it we so, but it is not so. As we can see from any elementary consideration of reality, lies and tyranny can easily control and direct entire societies and civilisations.
Try telling ‘The Truth’ to a Canadian Human Rights Commissar who is fining and censoring people for having the wrong opinions. Try telling ‘The Truth’ to Iranian Ayatollahs calling for Holy war against Jews and Westerners. Try telling ‘The Truth’ to Social Workers taking a child away from parents because they have traditional Christian opinions. Try telling ‘The Truth’ to police officers arresting a street preacher for the ‘crime’ of quoting the Old Testament in public.
Just thinking that you can simply lay out the truth and watch as lies vanish is a fantasy that might make you feel good but means that politically speaking you are basically nothing more than a pointless eunch.
Hi again C, You didn’t mention how you would fight for the truth, by the way.
As far as politics is concerned I rather would be a eunuch, politically speaking, because politics is about deceiving and controlling. It is a con game mostly aimed at defrauding those afflicted by it. It is almost pointless to touch on it other than to allow the truth to work, if possible.
And again, I didn’t say they wouldn’t try and stop you, by whatever possibly painful means, presenting the truth. It, seriously, is all one needs to do.
Here’s a quote (AJ Nock) where I would combine the concepts of truth and intelligence:
“An equally useful distinction comes out in M. Renan’s use of the word “intelligence.” To most of us, I think, that word does not mean the same thing that it means to a Frenchman, or that the word Intelligenz means to a German. To a Frenchman like M. Renan, intelligence does not mean a quickness of wit, a ready dexterity in handling ideas, or even a ready accessibility to ideas. It implies those, of course, but it does not mean them; and one should perhaps say in passing that it does not mean the pert and ignorant cleverness that current vulgar usage has associated with the word. Again it is our common day-to-day experience that gives us the best possible assistance in establishing the necessary differentiations. We have all seen men who were quick witted, accessible to ideas and handy with their management of them, whom we should yet hesitate to call intelligent; we are conscious that the term does not quite fit. The word sends us back to a phrase of Plato. The person of intelligence is the one who always tends to “see things as they are,” the one who never permits his view of them to be directed by convention, by the hope of advantage, or by an irrational and arbitrary authoritarianism. He allows the current of his consciousness to flow in perfect freedom over any object that may be presented to it, uncontrolled by prejudice, prepossession or formula; and thus we may say that there are certain integrities at the root of intelligence which give it somewhat the aspect of a moral as well as an intellectual attribute.”
John B
You can be a self righteous eunch if you want. No doubt that will preserve your sense of purity and superiority as liberty is trampled all around you.
It also makes you a pointless and essentially worthless human being.
Liberty has to be vigourously defended and fought for. Abdicating from the struggle because you don’t want to get your hands dirty in the grubby business of politics is basically a morally contempible cop out.
As for what should be done. Ok, here are a few initial thoughts. When politicians deliberately pervert the voting system, when the police ignore actual victims for politicalally correct considerations, then to actively pursue private prosecutions rather than rely on the CPS.
To dig up dirt and expose the hypocrisy of leading enemies of liberty. Find out embarrassing things from their past and use the tabloids to hurt them.
To catch out political figures by ambushing them with telegenic victims of their ideology.
Just a start and it might start to have some results.
Don’t worry if you don’t want to get your precious clean hands at all dirty, i’m sure there are people prepared to fight for your liberties will you polish your sanctimonous self rightousness to a higher gleam.
I was going to leave this but I think it’s only fair to point out. If the truth is not your anchor, and the simple presentation of that your only weapon, sooner or later you will be deceived and then you will be defeated.