Ilana Mercer
“Adios America” is the apropos title of Ann Coulter’s latest book. It details how mass immigration is killing America, as Bill O’Reilly would say (or still will). Adios means farewell in Spanish. Hola is the opposite. Immigration patriots bid a hearty hello to Ann Coulter, as she takes over and takes the battle to the enemy.
The big gun has arrived.
Ms. Coulter had managed to avoid the mass immigration vexation until recently. CPUKE 2013 was when she, I believe, first came out as “a single-issue voter against amnesty.” This Sally-come-lately stand, Ms. Coulter has rationalized with reference to Peter Brimelow, on whose work immigration patriots piggyback. Ann acknowledged as much during an interview with Chronicles’ Thomas Piatak. Since Brimelow had made the definitive case against the duopoly’s “plan to turn our country into a third world hellhole,” there was nothing more for her to add.
A reader expressed a different opinion. He writes: “Ms. Coulter is spot on but a decade late. That’s a big and calculated ‘mistake.’ Unless you recognize how politically cautious she’s been—you cannot appreciate how professionally suicidal the folks at VDARE, NumbersUSA; Michelle Malkin, Pat Buchanan and yourself have truly been all along.”
Then again, Ann herself conceded in the same interview that “Adios'” first seven chapters were a rehash. If it’s now safe to say stuff “everybody knows,” why the wait?
Like our reader, I worry that the indispensable Ann may be too late, and that we’ve passed the tipping point. For years, those of us who’ve warned about demographics have been dubbed racists. But “the D-Bomb has already dropped,” as this column noted in 2012. Demographics need not have become destiny, but they have.
Both factually and analytically exhaustive, Brimelow’s seminal “Alien Nation” remains the definitive text on centrally planned mass immigration. Peter and I are both immigrants. We came to the U.S. via Canada—and before that from countries whose national fabric is in tatters. An attachment rare among the current crop of immigrants to the American ideas of limited government and self-governance, and a recognition of the importance of the bonds that unite members of a civil society in common purpose: these prompted Peter and myself to take up the cudgels on behalf of an adopted country—America—that is still second-to-none, and an oblivious people—Americans—whose heritage is being squandered for a mess of pottage.
With first-hand experience in the visa labyrinth, I’ve been able to lift a corner of the curtain to reveal, for example, that the O-1 visa program is an open-ended one, allowing unlimited access to individuals with extraordinary abilities. If the traitors in D.C. were truly trawling for the world’s limited pool of unique talent, the O-1 visa gives them unlimited access to it. The H-1B program is anything but. Theoretically, the H-1B swindle could be abolished and all needed Einsteins and supermodels imported through the O-1 program.
A discussion in 2003 with black immigration patriot Terry Anderson, of blessed memory, prompted this warning against “selling out black Americans”: “It’s all very well to disenfranchise meek, guilt-ridden WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants). But by encouraging the displacement of black Americans, promoters of unfettered immigration—black leaders included—may have slipped-up strategically. Given their history, blacks are less inclined to fade into the night. They’ve already been sold down the river once before.”
As a libertarian immigration restrictionist, it has been vital to point out that “we are [not] the world” (2006). Free trade is glorious. America needs and wants to remain the first and most mighty consumer society. But “the free flow of people across borders is not to be confused with the free flow of goods across borders. Free trade is a positive-sum game. Contrary to immigration, it is always invited, consensual and hence mutually beneficial to the parties involved.”
Some things are metaphysical. Again, we are not the world: “The purely economic argument about the price at which American workers will perform menial work is meaningless without a reference to borders and to the thing they bound—a nation. Render asunder the idea of a nation, make borders obsolete—and the world is your labor market. Sure, supply and demand must determine the price of labor. Once the borders are shut to the deluge of laborers, the supply of cheap labor (as well as the steady ‘supply’ of crime and welfarism) will no longer be limitless. A smaller pool of workers will allow wages for ‘menial work’ to rise—all the more so as employers, no longer seduced by the interminable flood of cheap labor, begin to bid for the most productive workers. The resulting higher wages, in turn, will induce more Americans to do ‘menial work.'”
Going by “the ‘logic’ of La-Raza libertarians,” “living at the public’s expense does indeed violate the rights of American taxpayers, but there is no reason to single out non-nationals.” Oh yes there is. Such illogic was defeated in 2006: “From the fact that you oppose taxpayer-funded welfare for nationals, it doesn’t follow that extending it to millions of unviable non-nationals is financially or morally negligible. (Or that it comports with the libertarian aim of curtailing government growth.) The argument is akin to saying that because a bank has been robbed by one band of bandits, arresting the next is unnecessary as the damage has already been done.”
As to “the exclusive emphasis in the immigration debate on border security”: What a relief it is that Ms. Coulter is finally dispelling this distraction. According to “The Immigration Scene” (2006), this fetish “has helped open-border evangelists immeasurably. Everyone (and his dog) currently concurs that we have no problem with legal immigration, only with the illegal variety. It’s now mandatory to pair an objection to the invasion of the American Southwest with an embrace of all forms of legal immigration. The sole emphasis on border security has, in all likelihood, entrenched the status quo—Americans will never assert their right to determine the nature of the country they live in and, by extension, the kind of immigrants they welcome. The security risk newcomers pose is the only permissible topic for conversation.”
Immigration into the U.S. is a statist and inorganic affair; a result of manipulation for on high. A 2002 tract, “The Problem With Immigration,” explained why: “In previous decades immigrants assimilated. Now they are encouraged by politicians and identity-politics activists to cling to a militant distinctiveness. The state-enforced ideology of multiculturalism and diversity has thus become a double-edged sword, deployed by government at once to make newcomers more subversive and the host population more submissive.”
Not enough can be said about the hypocrisy of environmental lobbies! They “abhor all by-products of human existence, unless generated by illegal aliens. In that case, the vast latrine and land fill created along the border with Mexico, as millions of migrants defecate and despoil their way to their destinations in the U.S., are just dandy.” (From “In Defense Of The Fence.”)
Alas, it might be too late for Annie to get her gun. Recounted in “Immolation by Immigration” (2002), our family witnessed the following at the American Immigration and Naturalization Service headquarters in Montreal, where we waited to complete the final leg of the immigration odyssey: “Small extended families like ours were not the norm among immigrant families. Birth rates being what they are in the Third World, one qualified legal immigrant from, say, Africa is a ticket for an entire tribe. The initial entrant—the meal ticket—integrates and pays his way; the rest remain, more often than not, unassimilable and welfare dependent.”
To paraphrase the old nursery rhyme, When she’s good she’s very very good. Ann Coulter is perhaps the most powerful ally the immigration patriot movement could hope to recruit. We can now stand down as she stands up.
**
ILANA Mercer is a paleolibertarian writer based in the United States. She pens WND’s longest-standing, exclusive paleolibertarian column, “Return to Reason.” Ilana’s latest book is “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons For America From Post-Apartheid South Africa.” Her website is www.IlanaMercer.com. She blogs at www.barelyablog.com.
Says the person who lived in at least three countries before the US and whose main concern seems to be that her American husband might have to compete in an open labor market that includes Indians.
“Immigration patriot,” my ass. The proper terminology is “whiny, entitled, hypocritical Know-Nothing statist.”
The venomous American puff-adder, Thomas Knapp, has hissed. This foulmouthed, unaccomplished, unmanly (as Sean Gabb would deem him) libertine, and on-and-off cyber stalker, libels my husband. For that I will not stand! Dr. Mercer got his Ph.D. in electrical engineering at age 25. He works for the greatest company in the world (or so it is considered) and heads a team that makes one of the most fantastic pieces of technology. (http://barelyablog.com/team-surface-on-top/.) He entered the US on a genius visa (O-1), and he likely supports your lazy ass with his tax dollars. No: Just as I’ve never been concerned that the likes of Knapp would outsmart me; I’ve never had to fear my spouse’s unemployment. (Or that an H-1B would outsmart him.) Sean has added this sort of value in whichever country lucky enough to have him.
1) I’m so “libertine” that I’ve been monogamously married for 15 years, can’t remember the last time I even SAW an “illegal” drug, and have to remind myself to keep up with an aggressive schedule of two alcoholic beverages a week for cardiac health.
2) You’re welcome to your opinion that I’m unaccomplished. At least I’ve accomplished more than moving from country to country no less than three times, stamping my foot at each port of entry and loudly demanding that the customs checkpoint be closed behind me.
3) You’re also welcome to your opinion that I’m unmanly. But please take responsibility for that opinion instead of trying to hang it on Mr. Gabb’s neck. I don’t try to blame him for my opinion that it’s been saddening to watch your descent from promising libertarian/woman of the right to witless termagant who’s reduced herself to a couple of cheap tricks to sell your book (Trick 1: Throw in the word “libertarian” now and again; Trick 2: Put a cover on the thing that you hope will increase sales among the hood-and-sheet crowd and among illiterates who assume that they’re buying a volume of interracial porn).
4) Not even sure where you get the “on-and-off cyber stalker” nonsense. By this you presumably mean that I comment on something you’ve written every year or three?
5) I’ve never said a bad word about your husband. I’ve just noted that you (both privately and publicly) have wailed that he shouldn’t have to compete with foreign labor.
6) There is no “likely” about he, or anyone else, “supporting [my] lazy ass with his tax dollars.” I do not receive, nor am I interested in receiving, “government assistance” payments of any kind.
Well I’m a libertine, and also anti-immigration. So please be careful about slagging off us anti-Calvinists. I’m not even sure Thomas is a libertine anyway.
I’ve often argued with Thomas about immigration, and for all the high-faluting purist arguments, there is an inevitable reality that neither liberty nor libertinism will flourish in a population who are culturally committed to the opposites. To take a simple example, if a population is predominantly muslim, they are not going to allow legal porn or even legal beer.
People talk an awful lot about “Western civilisation” being Judaeo-Christian and Greco-Roman. Neither of those two cultures were even Western. Western civilisation is pubs and not getting beaten to death for shagging somebody if you’re in the mood. Until people get that that’s what we’ren fighting for (or should be fighting for), we’re not going to get anywhere.
I was a completely open borders anarchist until the early 2000s. I can name the person responsible for changing my mind: Pim Fortuyn. Listening to Fortuyn’s arguments, I realized that preventing Islamist parties from becoming competitive in Western elections is worth the price of having to show a passport or get a visa to engage in international travel.
I understand all the arguments about how immigration would be a non-issue if the welfare state, anti discrimination laws, and mass democracy were eliminated. But that’s not going to happen any time soon, if ever.
And yet you don’t advocate for retaining the welfare state, anti discrimination laws and mass democracy until immigration is eliminated. Only the other way around. Immigration is the one, only, single issue that we’re supposed to be anti-libertarian on until the Jubilee.
It isn’t anti-libertarian. It might be anti-anarchist, but that is different. Liberty is about the relationship between some collective and the individuals who comprise it; a nation, family, church, business, vegan free love commune or any other group can be libertarian or authoritarian, but one thing that they all have in common is the right to choose who is a member (even families can disown people or admit new members by adoption, marriage, etc).
A vegan free love commune probably won’t last long if it has to admit puritan carnivores who can come in and ruin it.
Exactly.
Nice try, IanB, but I’ve caught you at that one before. “The right to choose who is a member” of a voluntary collective is not the same thing as “a power to decide who may or may not travel over arbitrary lines not demarcating legitimate ownership of property.”
Libertarianism is about non-initiation of force.
If a policy requires initiation of force, as state immigration restrictions does, it is anti-libertarian.
That’s not to say that the people who advocate the policy are necessarily anti-libertarian. They could just be libertarians in error. But it’s one or the other.
The Athenians managed a compromise between radical democracy and open immigration by classifying the immigrants and their descendants as metics – that is as people allowed to live and do business in the territory while having no say in the government of the territory. The problem with modern immigration is that it brings, after at best a few years, membership of the political community.
In England, mass-immigration has provided an excuse that might not otherwise have existed for political censorship and endless meddling in what were always agreed to be private choices. It has provided the excuse and constituencies of support. It seems also to have brought us local bans on the teaching of proper science in the schools, and increasingly alien rules on “decency of dress” in swimming pools. It will soon, in all probability, bring local prohibitions of alcohol and pork.
Let me give a personal example of the swimming pool changes. All my life, the custom has been for men to wander about changing rooms with their willies on view. At the council swimming pool in Dover, attendants advise men not to offend recent immigrants with displays of casual nudity.
I will agree that immigrants often come with ambitions to enrich themselves by peaceable trade, and have no interest in upsetting established ways. But many others come as members of pushy voting blocs. These voting blocs have no interest in retaining or extending traditional freedoms.
Sean,
Yes, government-pushed-and-rewarded mass migration has a deleterious effect on a state political system.
Since having deleterious effects on state political systems is my business, I can’t really get myself worked up about that.
Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. You want a libertarian society, but you don’t want to let the state kill itself.
Mass immigration seems to be rather positive for the State at the moment, which presumably is why Western states all support it and suppress as best they can any criticism.
Much of the orthodox libertarian position on open borders actually seems to contain some non sequiters. They will argue that private property owners, including mass corporations as well as individuals should have unlimited rights of discrimination, but public property should be considered a non-man’s land open to all. By this logic, the entire destitute population of Asia, Latin America, or Africa should be allowed to simply squat on public streets,lands, or in public buildings in Europe or America with the caveat being they can’t engage in any actual violence. This seems to me to be a recipe for political, economic, and cultural suicide.
But the real question is one of sovereignty. Specifically, who or what has jurisdiction over what might be called the “means of immigration.” These include highways, waterways, public streets and sidewalks, airways, airports, sea lanes, seaports, railways, airlines, coasts, borderlands, public lands, public parks, and other such forms of property or territory. In most contemporaries societies, jurisdiction over these is maintained by the state, or by corporations aligned with the state. But it is certainly easy to envision how such resources might exist without the state or state-allied institution. Any of these could be theoretically owned by private communities, non-state collectives, communes, anarcho-syndicalist workers federations, autonomous municipalities, churches, tribes, families, individuals, neighborhood associations, non-state universities, consumer organizations, and many other types of decentralized, voluntary associations or federations of such associations. Would not individuals, groups, or associations of this kind not have sovereign jurisdiction over who may or may not enter their territories or facilities? And would not the specification for right of entry vary significantly from place to place?
Within the context of the state system, it seems more reasonable to regard nations as the collective property of their native born and officially naturalized inhabitants who then have the right to democratically and collectively set whatever standards for entry they wish. I don’t have clearly defined views on what an optimal immigration policy would be, but within the context of the US federal system, I’d probably just leave it up to the individual states and localities. Presumably, more liberal or Hispanic-majority areas might have something approaching open borders and sanctuary cities, while more homogenous or conservative areas might have more restrictive immigration policies.
“Within the context of the state system, it seems more reasonable to regard nations as the collective property of their native born and officially naturalized inhabitants who then have the right to democratically and collectively set whatever standards for entry they wish.”
Well, yes, it does seem more reasonable … IF your goal is to maintain the state and its prerogatives in perpetuity with an ever more firmly established base of power and perceived legitimacy.
That’s not my goal.
Perhaps, but I don’t know that anti-statism is the only value. The survival of civilization needs to enter into the equation at some point.
“I imagine criticizing privilege theory at C4SS could make you in to a persona non grata PDQ. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’ve been told that any reference to my name or ATS is banned from their forums, even for the sake of expressing criticism or hostility, lol.”
I’m not persona non grata at C4SS. I’m still a senior fellow there and an advisor at Molinari. But I am definitely in the minority among active C4SS participants in rejecting “privilege theory,” identity politics, etc. Or at least I was a minority, possibly of one, among the “active day-to-day” group when I was part of that (media coordinator and senior news analyst). I’m under the impression that at the advisor level, I’m not quite as much in the minority.
As far as you and ATS are concerned, my recollection of the few discussions concerning your work resulted in a consensus that looks something like this:
1) On the one hand, “national anarchism” and similar phenomena are unproductive cul de sacs. They lead nowhere and solve nothing, therefore they’re not worth spending time exploring positively;
2) Engaging them (and, by implication you) negatively would also be a fail, because you’re very good at turning “mutual exchanges” into interminable mud-wrestling matches; we know where we’re going and don’t want to waste time on such detours.
Then of course there’s my minority opinion: That “national anarchism” and such are no different in substance than other identity politics projects, “privilege theory” approaches and so forth. I reject your approach for exactly the same reason as I reject those other things.
As far as the “survival of civilization” is concerned, a lot turns on what you mean by “civilization.” I’m no primitivist by any stretch of the imagination, but most definitions of civilization incorporate centralism/statism as essentials, and I’m not interested in preserving those things.
I’m also not a system-builder. While I occasionally take an interest in the bigger philosophical/theoretical picture, I’m personally happy to focus tightly on one project — fighting the state with an eye toward abolishing it. On the off chance that I should accomplish that, I’m more than willing to accept whatever follows, instead of obsessing beforehand about what MIGHT follow.
Well, my point was that the collapse of states is often followed by either the rise of even worse states, or the disintegration of civilization generally into civil war, chaos, and violence. There are far too many historical examples of that to treat it as a trivial matter or merely a far-fetched possibility. A lot of times a “failed state” is accompanied by a failed society.
I tend to be rather disdainful of the “let it all fall apart” attitude I frequently encounter among anarchists and libertarians, along with the emphasis on lifestyle “politics” that also abounds (and I’m not saying you, Thomas, do any of this).
Real world political, economic, and social change of an effective nature involves organization and struggle, and like Sean I tend to disagree that worse is better. Often, worse is simple worse.
Keith,
I can’t say I disagree with any of that, except for the hubris involved in believing that one can fight evil WITH evil through some process of calculating net gains or losses among non-commensurable units.
Thomas, would you favor or oppose the anti-austerity protests such as the one in London yesterday? http://rt.com/uk/268597-austerity-major-london-protest/
I tend to be supportive of such actions, even if I don’t share the politics of many of the participants. I would regard “austerity” as merely the ruling class trying to shift the costs of its own recklessness onto the masses of workers, unemployed and taxpayers. “Balance the Budget!” often amounts to “Let Them Eat Cake!”
Keith,
I haven’t studied “austerity,” UK-style, closely. I suspect that my goals and the goals of the protest organizers are not at all alike (although there might be some similarity depending on what “privatisation” means in the UK context — if it’s just handing over some contracts to corporate cronies while maintaining state control, I oppose it; if it’s actually the state selling off and/or getting out of something, I support it).
But whether I support the purported goals of the protest organizers or not, I recognize that some of the people DRAWN TO the event are receptive to, perhaps even actively looking for, anti-state ideas. So I’d consider the protest a good outreach venue. Over here in the US, I did libertarian and anarchist outreach at both Tea Party and Occupy events before those settled into complete party astroturf phenomena.
Well, not exactly. I don’t hold to the anarcho-capitalist “plumb line” view that the elimination of any kind of state activity is always is a good idea, no matter what the circumstances. For example, I generally agree with Noam Chomsky, Sean Gabb and (if I understand him correctly) Kevin Carson when they say that eliminating social welfare systems would be a bad idea without first eliminating the corporate state, central banking, etc. because the only effect that would have is to create an ever more entrenched plutocracy while grinding down those on the bottom level still further. I think Chomsky gets a bit carried away with this idea when he endorses full-on Keynesian social democracy, but the basic premise is correct, IMO.
As for anti discrimination laws, as long as we have a state and corporate dominated society, there needs to be equal protection under the law within the context of the state. The state should not be allowed to discriminate when it comes to public sector jobs, education, healthcare services, trash collection, and all the other stuff government is involved in. Nor do I have a problem with the idea that the new manorial system of the mass corporations cannot discriminate (for example, if Wal-Mart were to say that it doesn’t want to hire or serve black people, I would be willing to say to Wal-Mart, “No, you can’t do that.”). I do object to anti discrimination laws that impede on individual and family enterprises, attack religious liberty, etc (such as the recent gay wedding cake brouhahas). It’s regrettable that more libertarians do not recognize the distinction between corporate-feudal empires and actual private businesses and associations.
As for mass democracy, as long as we have the centralized nation-states we have at present, the “one-person, one-vote” principle should stand. Otherwise, we would get what America had in the 19th century, a oligarchy of wealthy elites where everyone else is a step above serfdom. I would much rather that the USA be a collection of Murray Bookchin/Karl Hess townhall democracies, or a Swiss canton system, or something comparable. Democracy is workable on a manageable scale among people with common cultural values. Mass democracy in a multicultural society is just a war of each against all.
I generally like Bakunin’s idea of federalism: local communities united in broader federations like provinces, nations and transnational federations, but in which only the local community has authority over the individual, and hopefully there only for the purpose of upholding the NAP.
The above post was intended as a reply to Thomas, not Ian.
“because you’re very good at turning “mutual exchanges” into interminable mud-wrestling matches”
I’m not sure if that’s a testimony to my debating skills, or just my general assholiness, lol.
Keith,
Possibly both 😉
One of my arguments against C4SS engaging ATS in general or you in particular was very particular to my view of C4SS’s role:
Among other things, C4SS is a “media center,” with a mission to produce anarchist op-ed pieces and get them published in “mainstream” and “non-libertarian” media. That mission was my baby for five years — I created the op-ed operation from scratch, building media lists, researching guidelines to maximize publication likelihood, submitting the material, etc. At present, we’ve cataloged more than 2,500 media pickups of our material.
Since that operation addresses itself to “the general audience” — newspaper readers who are likely not anarchists or libertarians — my view was (and is):
1) That we should largely avoid “inside baseball” and concentrate on promoting OUR program to that audience, not on arguing with other groups, doctrines, etc. that cover anything like the same range of the political spectrum. Most of the people who are anywhere in that same range as us are generally already highly informed and radicalized individuals who are fully convinced of their own program; we’re after people who haven’t yet been informed and radicalized. More bang for buck, basically; and
2) That to the extent that we DO occasionally engage in “inside baseball” — essentially telling the general audience “what those guys are saying isn’t the REAL libertarian/anarchist line, ours is” — we should also never “punch down.” That is we should only attack groups/orgs/doctrines that are at least as or more, but not less, well-known to the general public than we are. So we might occasionally throw a punch at Cato, Reason, Mises, the Libertarian Party or the Ron Paul cult in the GOP. But we’re not going to intentionally call “general public” attention to — and in doing so, promote, whether that’s our intention or not — ATS.
Riffing on that last sentence:
I don’t have any particular reason to believe that anyone at C4SS *fears* ATS and wants to avoid drawing attention to it or to you because that might result in driving people to your program. But if such fears did or do exist, they would presumably lead to the same approach — “let’s not talk about the Preston.”
Since the LA is subject to the same kind of imposed silence from within the British end of the movement – though usually from organisations far less active and influential than we are – my sympathy is with Keith. I have a settled dislike of anything resembling sectarianism.
Even if we don’t agree, we should always try to be polite.
I think you misunderstand me, Sean.
If C4SS tried to “take on” ATS, *that* would “sectarianism.”
C4SS doesn’t use its media center operation to engage with ATS because the purpose of that media center operation is to spread our ideas to the general public.
We only engage other ideas in the general libertarian/anarchist range if those ideas are in genuine competition with ours for mindshare *among* the general public and if we think it’s important to help that general public distinguish between our ideas and those competing ideas.
To put it bluntly, if ATS wants the attention of C4SS at the media center level, it will have to start competing with us for general public mindshare such that we perceive some need to distinguish ourselves from ATS in the mind of the guy who reads the op-ed page of [insert newspaper running a C4SS op-ed here] on his lunch break.
I’m not implying that ATS is incapable as such of competing for mindshare with C4SS. My impression is that that’s not what it is interested in doing, that it is simply more internally focused. It plays “inside [sectarian] baseball” with the rest of the broadly defined libertarian/anarchist movement, proposing strategies for a united front and so forth. That’s not what C4SS — at least with respect to its media operations — does.
My own view is that too many libertarians et al have their eyes focussed on an ideal end point which has no possibility of occurring any time soon, and ignore that we live in history and have to deal with the world in the now and the short term. The most important thing for every human community (and indeed every animal and plant community) is to just keep going for now.
This was a reply to Keith.
I think a healthy balance is to have a long term vision for what you’re trying to achieve in a more ultimate sense, while having lots of short term and intermediary goals. It gets back to the the standard “reform vs revolution” dichotomy. I’d say most of my ultimate objectives are very radical (often extremely so), but I am also for a very wide range of reforms and intermediary changes in the meantime.
In war, you need a grand strategy on the macro-level, but lots of micro-level battle plans as well.
I’ve become increasingly wary of the long view, I have to admit. The human condition and situation even fifty years from now is radically unknowable. Not one futurist or science fiction author predicted mobile phones, texting or Facebook. I don’t think anyone predicted that in 2015, Islam would be a major challenge, even, and looking back that should have been quite predictable. My time preference in political terms has risen a lot of late.
So are you now willing to put up with my voting Tory last month as an attempt at damage limitation in the here and now?
Sean: no, it was a bad short term decision IMO. 🙂
“Among other things, C4SS is a “media center,” with a mission to produce anarchist op-ed pieces and get them published in “mainstream” and “non-libertarian” media. That mission was my baby for five years — I created the op-ed operation from scratch, building media lists, researching guidelines to maximize publication likelihood, submitting the material, etc. At present, we’ve cataloged more than 2,500 media pickups of our material.”
I actually think C4SS is a very good project. I frequently re-post material from there on ATS and on my personal Facebook page.
The impression that I get is that many of the folks around C4SS wish for the Center to be specifically regarded as a left-wing organization, and to be seen as such by more conventional leftists and progressives. It also seems like the idea is to provide a further-to-the-left alternative to more “mainstream” versions of libertarianism like the ones you’ve mentioned. This also includes relating libertarian philosophies to issues of “social justice” that appeal to leftists.
I get the difference. My approach and the ATS approach is more oriented towards the entire spectrum of anarchist and libertarian ideas, along with alternative political ideologies, alternative economics, oppositional subcultures, and anti-imperialist movements generally. For instance, one of our associates recently held a public forum in Ecuador that included participation from the left, right, and third position alike. I’ve spoken to gatherings of everything from the “alternative right” to anarcho-capitalists to conspiracy theorists and 9-11 truthers.
Our target audience tends to be less oriented towards the general public and more towards other radicals that are already against the system, and are interested in new directions.
“The impression that I get is that many of the folks around C4SS wish for the Center to be specifically regarded as a left-wing organization, and to be seen as such by more conventional leftists and progressives. It also seems like the idea is to provide a further-to-the-left alternative to more ‘mainstream’ versions of libertarianism like the ones you’ve mentioned. This also includes relating libertarian philosophies to issues of ‘social justice’ that appeal to leftists.”
I wouldn’t say that impression is necessarily incorrect. I frequently have to remind myself that the “media center” function of C4SS is only one part of it. I tend to treat it as the whole thing, for the simple reason that, like I said, the media center stuff was my baby. For right at five years, it was a near-full-time job for me. There are other aspects of C4SS — parts of it have an academic focus and there’s a sort of emergent “inside baseball” area called “mutual exchange” — but those parts fade into the background from my perspective.
I would say that the “inside baseball” part of C4SS is double sided — talking to more conventional leftists with a view toward getting them to see libertarianism as the consistent implementation of leftism, and talking to more right-leaning libertarians with a view toward getting them to see leftism as the consistent implementation of libertarianism.
And yes, I am atypical of the Center, at least of the Center’s most active participants. Most of them are “thick” libertarians; I’m “thin.” Most of them accept one degree or another of “social justice,” identity politics, “privilege theory” and other right-deviations from pure leftism, also known as libertarianism.
My new project, the Garrison Center, isn’t specifically left-libertarian or anarchist. In fact, it tends toward the nearly “mainstream.” But in terms of function, it is all “media center” and none of the other stuff. Three op-eds a week, all submitted to lots of newspapers, with some kind of libertarian perspective on some current event “news hook.” Not as “moderate” as, say, Cato, but a little less “all smash the state all the time” than C4SS, and it seems to be doing pretty well on the “get picked up by newspapers” front.
I’m certainly a diehard “anti-Calvinist.” I grew up in hard-core fundamentalist and Calvinist circles, and I know what all that looks like up close and in-person. I came to be such a hard-core critic of PC because it was obviously a secular progressive variation of the same impulse. In the 80s and 90s I used to rail against the U.S. religious right as much as Richard Dawkins ever has. But the left-progressive puritans have since eclipsed the religious right as the leading anti-libertarian force.
In fact, I think it is a mistake to single out Islamic immigrants as a leading retrograde force, when the left-progressive totalitarian humanists are a much, much more pervasive and immediate threat. The existential threat posed by Islam is localizes, abstract and hypothetical: http://www.timesofisrael.com/eurabia-fears-rise-after-terror-strikes-myth-or-reality/ But the threat posed by totalitarian humanism is here and now, and increasingly embedded in the state. Indeed, the Islamic threat is largely the result of the handiwork of the totalitarian humanists, whether in terms of generating terrorist blowback due to their foreign interventionism, or their opening to doors to mass immigration in the name of multicultural ideology.
In fact, while I think there are reasons for criticizing immigration from Latin America into the US on other grounds, the possible dilution of WASPish American culture with its Calvinist roots is not one of them. American WASPish neo-Calvinism could use a good dose of Latin Catholicism.
I agree with all that. Which is why I’ve been making the case for some time that the thing you call Totalitarian Humanism is the latest form of Puritanism, and that the two sides in the “culture war” are not Left and Right, or socialists and capitalists, etc, but rather the two post-mediaeval English philosophies of Liberalism (us) and Puritanism. It is whether a government is appointed by the people to carry out certain tasks which are appropriately collective (such as perhaps defence or perhaps sweeping the roads, etc) or whether government is moralist structure which controls the people to prevent their sinful behaviour (the current round of sins being things like racism, transphobia, smoking and the rest of the PC suite).
It’s whether you have Church and State or Church as State, as I see it. I do think also there is an element in the liking for Islam as more than just the Sin Of Racism; the Proggies, as puritans, see in Islam’s moralitarianism something akin to kindred spirits.
I’ve come late to an interesting discussion. By all means, feel free to ignore me, but I’d like to ask Thomas if he believes in the immediate abolition of all state welfare – while leaving all else in the present order of things unchanged?
The question follows from a point Keith makes above. It’s worth emphasising, because we doubtless all agree that state welfare is a bad thing and should be eliminated in the long term. But Thomas might also agree with his old C4SS friends that some state welfare at the moment is an intervention in the market process needed to correct the ill-effects of other interventions. If this is the case, we have the beginnings of a general case for pragmatism that might include immigration control.
“I’d like to ask Thomas if he believes in the immediate abolition of all state welfare — while leaving all else in the present order of things unchanged?”
The question is phrased in rather a leading manner and is fallacious to the extent that it assumes that abolishing any one particular state function would “leave all else in the present order of things unchanged.”
With respect to immigration controls, there are precisely two plausible outcomes to eliminating them:
1) The welfare state would also have to be eliminated because it could not be made economically feasible to maintain it; or
2) The state itself would collapse under the effort of ATTEMPTING to maintain it.
To favor immigration controls is to favor the indefinite continuation of state welfare, because immigration controls are what make that indefinite continuation possible.
With respect to the overall question, I am not a Rothbardian per se, but I do agree with him on “no particular orderism.” If I could push a button to abolish the state, I would. If I could push a button to abolish any particular state function, even if that button would not shut down other state functions, I’d press that button too.
Statism is, in a way, fractal: Its manifestations repeat at every scale. From this it follows that changes or damages to one of its manifestations will tend to ramify through the other manifestations. If you have immigration controls you also end up with a welfare state, a warfare state and a police state. Likewise, eliminating any one of those four eliminates, or at least severely damages, the other three.
Worse is not always better. Authoritarianism takes many forms. The discrediting of one will often lead to another, and this may be worse. On present demographic trends, the collapse of PC will be attended by ethnic cleansing and the creation of authoritarian ethno-states.
“On present demographic trends, the collapse of PC will be attended by ethnic cleansing and the creation of authoritarian ethno-states.”
Quite possible. Why assist that outcome by empowering the state’s ethnic cleansing machinery in adavance?
Worse may not always be better, but evil is always evil, and you don’t get to good by embracing evil.
I can’t really buy the idea that the elimination of food stamps, Medicaid, unemployment compensation, and labor standards while leaving the military-industrial complex, corporate welfare, central banking, prison-industrial complex and the police state in tact would be a net gain for liberty. I suppose it could be argued that grinding down the lower socioeconomic orders to the level of Third World poverty while strengthening the plutocracy might trigger a revolt, but this would seem to be wishful thinking as much as anything else. More likely, Western societies would begin to mirror those of the traditional “third world” (or traditional societies anywhere) with an opulent leisure class at the top of the socioeconomic pyramid, a small middle class, and masses of poor people, some of whom are barely above the starvation level.
Indeed, this seems to be precisely the economic model that our neoconservative/neoliberal overlords wish to implement, and they’re doing a pretty good job at it if present day trends in terms of wealth distribution and class divisions (at least in the US) are any indication. The support of the corporate class for mass immigration fits well with this paradigm because it is a means of creating a permanent helot class of foreign workers (the same kind of arrangement we see in the fiefdoms of the Gulf States). The Left goes along with this for ideological reasons and for reasons of political self-interest (i.e. the hope that immigrants will provide the left parties with a permanent electoral base, and allow the social democratic parties to effectively rule as one-party states while selling their souls to the right-wing plutocrats as means of achieving this).
California is probably the U.S. state where this model has been most thoroughly implemented. It has some of the greatest concentrations of wealth in US society in places like Silicon Valley and Malibu. It has also an expansive upper middle class of urban, cosmopolitan bureaucrats, technocrats, and professionals. It has the highest immigration rate in the U.S. and was the first state on the mainland where whites became a demographic minority. California also has the widest class divisions in the US, and there are sections of California where poverty rates rival those of Africa. Meanwhile, the left-leaning West Coast elements and the plutocrats seem to have made common cause with one another in state politics. The result has been a “new feudalism” as Joel Kotkin explains: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/05/california-s-new-feudalism-benefits-a-few-at-the-expense-of-the-multitude.html
As is often said, California is often the bellwether for the rest of the nation, and this does indeed seem to the general paradigm that our ruling class is trending towards. It seems to work in a similar was in the European states.The fostering of mass immigration gives every indication of being built into this paradigm.
“I can’t really buy the idea that the elimination of food stamps, Medicaid, unemployment compensation, and labor standards while leaving the military-industrial complex, corporate welfare, central banking, prison-industrial complex and the police state in tact would be a net gain for liberty.”
1) Since food stamps ARE corporate welfare — “feeding the poor” is the excuse; the PURPOSE is to subsidize Big Ag — eliminating them would reduce corporate welfare rather than leaving it intact.
2) The expression “net gain for liberty” is key to understanding the fallacy you’re under the spell of here. The problem of trying to game “net gains for liberty” or “net reductions in force initiation” or whatever is directly analogous to the calculation problem in central economic planning. Here’s a piece I wrote in 2006 on that exact fallacy:
http://knappster.blogspot.de/2010/11/blast-from-past-without-net-compromise.html
Interesting article.
“Since food stamps ARE corporate welfare — “feeding the poor” is the excuse; the PURPOSE is to subsidize Big Ag”
I think that’s a bit of a reach. Food stamps might be “corporate welfare” in the sense that food stamp recipients use them to purchase the products of corporations that dominate the food market. But that’s about like saying the wages paid to workers are really just a donation to other corporations because the workers will use their wages to buy products from corporate entities.
“The expression “net gain for liberty” is key to understanding the fallacy you’re under the spell of here. The problem of trying to game “net gains for liberty” or “net reductions in force initiation”
We may disagree on the definition of liberty. I’m a traditionalist anarchist, not a modern libertarian. I appreciate Rothbard’s zealous anti-statism and the good John Stuart Millian classical liberals here at Libertarian Alliance, But I’m ultimately with Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, and the classical anarchist position that capitalism is simply the economic arm of the state (or the state is the political arm of capitalism, whichever way you want to frame it).
Provisions like food stamps are crumbs thrown by capitalism to the lower orders. These crumbs can be the result of bottom up struggling or begging, or from top down enlightened self-interest or pacification efforts, but they’re still crumbs. Saying the beggars should give up their crumbs and wait to see if the leisure class gives up its fiefdoms seems a bit counter intuitive.
I also think that simply wanting the state to collapse without having any organized alternatives in place or any plan for what will happen next is a less than elegant idea. Yes, I’m aware of the hopes that “spontaneous order” will arise that many libertarians have. But more often than not, the collapse of states is followed by a power vacuum that is soon filled by the most ruthless or deadly. See Russia 1917 (or 1993), Cambodia 1975, Iran 1979, Yugoslavia 1992, or present day Iraq and Syria, to name but a few.
“Food stamps might be ‘corporate welfare’ in the sense that food stamp recipients use them to purchase the products of corporations that dominate the food market. But that’s about like saying the wages paid to workers are really just a donation to other corporations because the workers will use their wages to buy products from corporate entities.”
Not at all. I’m not speculating here. I’ve studied the history. Food stamps were first implemented as part of, and remain part of, the perpetually renewed US “farm bill,” and their biggest supporter has always been the agriculture lobby, especially the state-level “Farm Bureau” organizations.
The whole idea was “instead of giving poor people taxpayer cash to spend on whatever they need, give them taxpayer cash in the form of coupons that they can only use to buy OUR products.”
“We may disagree on the definition of liberty. I’m a traditionalist anarchist, not a modern libertarian. I appreciate Rothbard’s zealous anti-statism and the good John Stuart Millian classical liberals here at Libertarian Alliance, But I’m ultimately with Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, and the classical anarchist position that capitalism is simply the economic arm of the state (or the state is the political arm of capitalism, whichever way you want to frame it).”
Doesn’t look like we disagree at all. I am an ultra-thin paleo-left libertarian, and I define capitalism pretty much exactly as you do.
“Not at all. I’m not speculating here. I’ve studied the history. Food stamps were first implemented as part of, and remain part of, the perpetually renewed US “farm bill,” and their biggest supporter has always been the agriculture lobby, especially the state-level “Farm Bureau” organizations.”
That doesn’t really come as any surprise, just like the most zealous advocates of healthcare reform are private interests that hope to profit from it, and the bureaucrats who see a jobs program for themselves in the works.
My actual perspective on the welfare state is to eliminate these myriads of programs, and distribute living subsidies directly to the poor in the form of the UBI or NIT and ideas like that, and doing so by means of local claimants’ unions.Of course, that’s just a step in the game towards abolishing state-capitalism altogether.
I think the general economic meta-analysis and paradigm Carson presents is his “Political Program for Anarchists” is a good general plan and agenda for a 21st century anarchist/libertarian socialist/left-libertarian/anti-plutocratic movement, with the broader details left to individual regions, communities, popular organizations, and private associations. Carson has also fleshed out some of the theoretical questions a great deal in some of his subsequent work.
Ron Paul was something of a gateway drug for many people towards more radical forms of anti-statism, I’m hoping Bernie Sanders will be a gateway drug towards more radical forms of anti-capitalism, and that these two will ultimately converge into a full fledged anarchist revolutionary movement.
“I am an ultra-thin paleo-left libertarian,”
That sounds like a pretty good thing to be.
As everyone probably knows, I don’t really have any disagreements with the left-libertarians on economics, foreign policy, or legal theory. Where I disagree is their insistence on bringing so-called “privilege theory” in its most fanatical form into the mix as well. I think that stuff is based on a dubious set of presumptions, and it has dubious origins (i.e. 1960s American Communist Party members and Western Maoist groups). Already, political correctness has gotten out of hand even in the mainstream society, and on the left-wing margins it has drifted into the Twilight Zone in a way that establishes the foundation for a genuine totalitarianism. It shifts the focus away from the state and capitalism as a focal point of opposition, and simply becomes about promoting demographic conflict, i.e. blacks against whites, males against females, gays against straights, atheists against religious believers, immigrants vs natives, trees vs bulldozers, vegans vs meat eaters, poor Appalachian whites against Jewish bankers, etc. (well. maybe not that last one in the eyes of the left, Lol).
The theory behind this idea is supposed to be “solidarity of the oppressed” but what it becomes in practice is merely a “who’s most oppressed?” pissing contest. Not only does it promote the demographic conflicts described above, but it also degenerates a situation where the “oppressed” start to cannibalize each other, e.g. blacks vs. Hispanics, feminists vs gay men, gays.vs transexuals, feminists vs transgendereds, vegans vs. vegetarians, etc etc etc. Already, it’s becoming impossible for left-anarchist groups to hold public meetings because everything soon degenerates into a squabble (or even a literal fist fight) over these things.
“Where I disagree is [alleged left-libertarians’] insistence on bringing so-called ‘privilege theory’ in its most fanatical form into the mix as well. ”
We’re in agreement there as well. In fact, to the extent that I’ve had any frictions with my comrades at C4SS, it has been over that particular issue, which I consider an unjustifiable right-deviation (libertarianism being the ultra-far-left position, Marxism the first major rightward corruption of the libertarian class theory of Comte/Dunoyer et al, and “privilege theory” being a subset of the further right-deviation of Frankfurt School critical theory/postmodernism).
If Libertarianism is on the “Left” with Marxism, I see no value in such terms as Left and Right. I’m not sure they have much utility anyway, these days.
Perhaps I am unusual here in seeing Libertarianism- or certainly Liberalism- as a moderate position, struggling against extremists, rather than being “ultra” anything. I consider the actions of the modern State, both in the social and economic spheres, to be extremely extremist.
“If Libertarianism is on the ‘Left’ with Marxism”
It isn’t.
Libertarianism is the left. Everything else, including Marxism, is to the right of libertarianism.
The primary problem with the phoenix-from-the-ashes idea is that a libertarian “natural order” has never arisen before from such conditions. I’m not buying it that it will do so in the future either.
You won’t get to be good or free by being killed in a “civil” war with islamics either–and that is the way its heading. America is a big place–you could fit the entire world population in Texas/Oklahoma quite comfortably. The UK isn’t.I and many others am not going to live under the oppression of any religious nutters esp aliens brought here deliberately by the scum of the left. Metics sounds just right but only for those already here. No more allowed in and economic pressure to keep them to 2 kids so their numbers gradually decline along with the rest of the population.Migrants may live and work, own property but have no vote and thus no power base. With that gone the left would lose all interest in “helping” them anyway.
“(libertarianism being the ultra-far-left position, Marxism the first major rightward corruption of the libertarian class theory of Comte/Dunoyer et al, ”
I tend to agree with that, and that’s close to Rothbard’s position as well.
I imagine criticizing privilege theory at C4SS could make you in to a persona non grata PDQ. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’ve been told that any reference to my name or ATS is banned from their forums, even for the sake of expressing criticism or hostility, lol.
My view of cultural and demographic conflict is that whenever possible these questions should be resolved by means of individual autonomy, voluntary association, pluralism, and peaceful co-existence. To the degree this is not possible, there are wider traditional anarchist values of decentralism, secession, local sovereignty, mutual aid, and federalism.
Look how many different kinds of anarchists there are. Look at how many differences there are among the general Left, and the many supposed constituent groups of the left. Look how many contentious issues there are even among libertarians or libertarians with left-leaning values. And this is before population groups with any kinds of conservative values enter the picture, let alone ethnic groups and religions with centuries-long histories of mutual antagonism.
The above reply was to Thomas, not Mr Ecks.
I think the only way any kind of metic policy can work is if citizens and metics don’t interbreed, perhaps due to a powerful social convention as in Athens. Otherwise you’re going to end up with kids whose parents are one of each.
Anyway, in practical terms nobody is going to consider second-class citizenship acceptable in Britain in this day and age, and for what it’s worth I certainly wouldn’t.
Knapp fibs. He writes:
“I’ve never said a bad word about your husband. I’ve just noted that you (both privately and publicly) have wailed that he shouldn’t have to compete with foreign labor.”
This habitual liar and libeler says he never spoke ill of this writer’s husband, yet continues to lie about his work capacity and conduct. Why would I demand Sean not compete when he competed to get into the US, continues to compete with the best of them in the US, and is still competing and … WINNING. Dr. Sean Mercer entered the US based on competition with a narrow cohort. You don’t listen, Knapp (and you know nothing about immigration into the US): The O-1 is reserved for the gifted. It takes mettle to take your family across the ocean and make a life for them, while creating immense value for your new countrymen, and never taking a dime from anyone. He’s a wealth creator.
Knapp is an egalitarian: Immigration laissez-faire is a libertine affair. Only a libertine would insult Sean’s abilities, education, and competitive edge while, at the same time be all sweetness and light about the influx of individuals without any of those essentials.
Incidentally, I’ve watched the steam of LA comments flood into my In-Box. But even I, a lowly scribe, have been too busy working to reply. I’ve steered clear and focused on work. The occasion to respond has arisen only because my new column is now featured @ The Libertarian Alliance.
That it has become necessary to swat the fly again goes to my contention that Knapp does very little REAL work. Hanging out on a blog’s comment’s thread and cussing is a pastime; not work. I can see how, psychologically at least, Knapp does need a lot of deadwood around him to feel less useless.
I’d be interested to know how you define “libertine”, why you seem to think that “libertine” is a bad thing, and what “libertine” has got to do with open borders.
“This habitual liar and libeler says he never spoke ill of this writer’s husband, yet continues to lie about his work capacity and conduct.”
Now I’m confused. I’m not certain whether you’re being dishonest, can’t apply logic/reason, or lack facility with the English language (I tend to discount the last possibility). But it’s one or more of the three.
To repeat myself: I have noted that YOU complain that your husband shouldn’t have to compete with Indian labor in his field. That isn’t saying anything bad about your husband. It’s saying something bad about YOU. I don’t know your husband from Adam and for all I know he’s perfectly confident in his ability to compete in a free labor market. I have no interest in trying to shift the blame for your irrationality and hysterics onto him.
“my contention that Knapp does very little REAL work”
… is something that you just made up because you don’t have a real argument to make. Which seems to be par for the course for you lately. The Brimelow/Hoppe cult’s Kool Aid seems to rot brain cells.
I’ve never belonged to any cult. Would that I could be more like Idiot (T. Knapp), who marches in lockstep with the libertine faction of libertarianism.
Idiot claims that I’ve advanced no argument for my positions. More demeaning lies from Idiot, who knows full well that this writer is in the habit of advancing analytical arguments in defense of her positions—many more, perhaps, more than those advanced by the individuals Idiot conflates me with.
Idiot, aka liar (alias Knapp), is banking on the fact that others on this thread are unfamiliar with the aforementioned work. (Search under Immigration in this archive, going back to 1999: http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_search.php?Search+by+Category=Search+by+Category.)
How curious that the likes of Idiot malign “work” done by immigrants like myself and will seldom advocate for immigrants who are NOT poor, NOT brown, and NOT uneducated. There’s your libertine egalitarianism, again.
Above, Idiot wrote: “I can’t say I disagree with any of that, except for the hubris involved in believing that one can fight evil WITH evil through some process of calculating net gains or losses among non-commensurable units.”
This is never my position. My position is that, “The free flow of people across borders is predicated not on the negative, leave-me-alone rights of the individual, but on the positive, state-manufactured right of human kind to venture wherever, whenever.” (http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=495).
Where there is private property, there is no natural Right of Return for humanity to a territory. Simple! (http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=495)
The left, libertine-libertarian conflates a border with aggression. Since when? A territory you can’t enter is akin to saying “Stop!” to a child. Idiot, who is libertine, conflates, “No, you can’t go there” with violence and aggression. On the contrary, a border is the definitive, non-aggressive method of defense. You don’t attack, arrest or otherwise molest undesirables; you keep them at bay, away.” You turn them back. You lift your hands to your face, creating a shield against a blow. (http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=495)
“Whether they are armed with bombs or bacteria, or intend on waging welfare against the host population—stopping weaponized individuals from harming others, intentionally or unintentionally, falls perfectly within the purview of the ‘night-watchman state of classical-liberal theory.'”
I have work to do (in addition to house, yard, husband and parrot husbandry). I’ll sigh off with advice from an immigrant: Idiot, commit your ramblings to a pamphlet and flog it on Amazon. Sell your ideas in the marketplace of ideas. That’s the American Way. What you’re doing now, waffling into the ether, is of a piece with dilettante, European cafe society.
ILANA
http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_search.php?Search+by+Category=Search+by+Category
“[Knapp] claims that I’ve advanced no argument for my positions.”
Tip: Lying is usually stupid. It’s even more likely to be stupid when all anyone has to do to establish that you’re lying is hit the little button with the up-pointing arrow and scroll up to see what was actually said.
“a border is the definitive, non-aggressive method of defense”
In what universe? In THIS universe, a border is an imaginary line drawn on the ground by a street gang, “defended” against non-aggressive acts by aggressive means (including but not limited to theft to finance the “defense”).
Hoppe’s conceit is that in the case of borders — and ONLY in the case of borders — we should, in order to get the outcome that he wants, rather than the outcome that libertarianism implies, pretend that the state is a legitimate property owner rather than a violent criminal conspiracy.
As far as selling my ideas in the marketplace of ideas is concerned, you write one column a week for an audience which already agrees with you. I write three columns a week for the general public, and at present seem to be averaging about 50 newspaper publications per month. That’s not counting the blog, the podcast, one 400-page book, and a number of pamphlets. And that’s BEFORE we get to the unbylined material and the ghost writing.