#Paleoconservatism

[omegaphilosophia]

Types of Conservatism

Conservatism, like liberalism, encompasses a broad range of ideologies and perspectives. These types vary significantly across regions and historical contexts but generally emphasize tradition, social order, and skepticism toward rapid change. Here are some primary types of conservatism:

1. Traditional Conservatism

Core Beliefs: Traditional conservatism values established customs, institutions, and social hierarchies. It stresses the importance of cultural continuity, the wisdom of past generations, and a gradual approach to social change.

Historical Figures: Edmund Burke, Michael Oakeshott.

Key Elements: Respect for tradition, social stability, authority, and moral order.

2. Social Conservatism

Core Beliefs: Social conservatism emphasizes the preservation of traditional family structures, religious values, and moral standards. It often involves resistance to cultural changes seen as undermining societal cohesion or moral integrity.

Key Elements: Pro-family policies, emphasis on moral education, opposition to liberal social policies, and preservation of traditional gender roles.

3. Fiscal Conservatism

Core Beliefs: Fiscal conservatism prioritizes limited government spending, low taxes, and free-market capitalism. Fiscal conservatives advocate for reducing the national debt, minimizing public welfare programs, and maintaining a balanced budget.

Key Elements: Limited government intervention in the economy, support for a free-market system, privatization, and reduction in government spending.

4. Libertarian Conservatism

Core Beliefs: Libertarian conservatism combines a conservative approach to social issues with a strong emphasis on individual freedom and minimal government interference in personal and economic affairs.

Historical Figures: Barry Goldwater, Ron Paul.

Key Elements: Individual freedom, limited government, economic libertarianism, and personal responsibility.

5. Neoconservatism

Core Beliefs: Neoconservatism originally emerged from liberal roots, focusing on an assertive foreign policy to promote democracy and defend national interests. It combines conservative domestic values with an interventionist foreign policy.

Historical Figures: Irving Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz.

Key Elements: Promotion of democracy abroad, support for military strength, a strong national defense, and foreign policy interventionism.

6. Paleoconservatism

Core Beliefs: Paleoconservatism emphasizes nativism, cultural preservation, and limited international involvement. It is skeptical of globalization and often advocates for a return to traditional values, strong borders, and limited immigration.

Historical Figures: Patrick Buchanan, Russell Kirk.

Key Elements: Nationalism, cultural preservation, isolationism, and opposition to globalism.

7. Religious Conservatism

Core Beliefs: Religious conservatism focuses on integrating religious principles, often rooted in Christianity, into public policy and society. This type of conservatism seeks to uphold religiously based moral standards in areas such as marriage, education, and bioethics.

Key Elements: Influence of religious values on politics, pro-life policies, advocacy for prayer in schools, and opposition to secularism.

8. Cultural Conservatism

Core Beliefs: Cultural conservatism emphasizes the preservation of a shared national or cultural identity. It supports policies and values that maintain cultural heritage and resist influences that could dilute or change traditional norms and practices.

Key Elements: Cultural nationalism, preservation of heritage and customs, and resistance to multiculturalism.

9. National Conservatism

Core Beliefs: National conservatism focuses on the importance of national sovereignty, patriotism, and a strong, centralized state to protect national interests. It often advocates for immigration control and protectionist economic policies.

Key Elements: National sovereignty, patriotism, economic protectionism, and restrictions on immigration.

10. One-Nation Conservatism

Core Beliefs: Originating in Britain, one-nation conservatism advocates for a balance between free markets and social welfare policies, aiming to unite different social classes under a shared national identity. It emphasizes social cohesion, support for public institutions, and moderate reforms to reduce inequality.

Historical Figures: Benjamin Disraeli.

Key Elements: Social welfare, unity across classes, economic moderation, and gradual reform to prevent class divisions.

11. Green Conservatism

Core Beliefs: Green conservatism emphasizes environmental conservation and stewardship within a conservative framework. It advocates for protecting natural resources through personal responsibility, market solutions, and sometimes government regulations that align with conservative values.

Key Elements: Environmental conservation, sustainable development, market-based ecological solutions, and conservation ethics.

12. Populist Conservatism

Core Beliefs: Populist conservatism appeals to ordinary citizens, often positioning itself against elite or establishment institutions. It is skeptical of big government, promotes nationalism, and typically advocates for policies that reflect the interests of "the common people."

Key Elements: Anti-elitism, populist rhetoric, economic protectionism, and skepticism toward establishment institutions.

Each form of conservatism addresses different aspects of society, from fiscal and economic policies to cultural preservation, environmental issues, and religious values. While united by a preference for tradition, stability, and a cautious approach to change, these conservative strands reflect a diverse array of beliefs on the role of government, culture, and social structure.

[utilitymonstermash]

On the Matter of the TikTok Ban

There's a lot of motte-and-bailey stuff going around about the TikTok ban. (And I probably have some out-group homogeneity bias too.) For the record I'm mostly against the ban but am more sympathetic to some arguments than others. I thought I'd break down some of the reasons and why I think they are weak.

Probably the biggest umbrella reason for supporting a TikTok ban is espionage. Senator Cotton called it a "spy app."

The biggest, baddest version of the espionage argument I've heard is the app itself is hacking our phones. "Hacking" in that the app is going outside of its sandbox and collecting data not normally available to it. This would be a huge bombshell if true. However, I've seen no real evidence backing this claim. It seems like criminal law would be a great vector for tackling this. As far as I can tell we haven't seen a warrant served against ByteDance US offices. Even if criminal justice is too slow and we need more immediate relief over such a threat, making some evidence public would bolster that argument.

The weaker form of the espionage act is TikTok engages in surveillance capitalism and sells or gives the results to folks we don't like (Chinese Intelligence). This one feels like a nothing burger. I guess it is possible TikTok lacks the strong moral fiber of folks like Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, and Evan Spiegel. It seems like the data is already out there. It transits a wide network of entities via multiple real time market places. I guess it would be marginally better if Chinese Intelligence would have to spend more to place ads and get data that way. It seems like the real solution to data privacy is a combination of technical safeguards to make less data available and strong legal protections (where again one can build a legal case) and not just naming and banning unpopular actors.

After espionage, the next most common justification I hear for TikTok is that it boosts Chinese soft power by spreading anti-American memes and/or social contagions that make American children unwell. I'll deal specifically with mental wellness in the next section and focus on Anti-American memes here.

As far as I can tell, the USG is a big booster of anti-America memes at home via how domestic status games and politics intersect into the arts world and into NEA funding. I suspect that the content NEA has funded over the past 50 years has a net negative valence on American history. I'd suggest the USG stop doing that if they are concerned about Anti-America memes.

I'm sure part of this must be my filter bubble, but very little I've seen on TikTok is overtly Anti-America. NYT's The 1619 Project sends much more of an America is a nation founded on sin and needs to atone message than anything I've ever seen on TikTok.

Beyond content that makes people overtly hate America, TikTok has been accused of promoting content that makes Americans unwell: social contagion, lionizing bad behavior, etc. The classic version of this is anorexia/bulimia content and pro-shoplifting content (looking at you Tumblr). A more modern right-wing take on this is pro-trans content being a social contagion (for the purposes of this post I will assume it is, sorry Trans friends and readers).

It's hard to say TikTok promotes this content any more than Instagram. It's possible that being owned by Evil Chinese Corporation boosts these categories beyond market demand for it, but has anyone actually proved that out. Up until about a week ago (long after the TikTok ban process started), Meta (Instagram) was one of the most pro-LGBTQ (and specifically pro-trans) big businesses on Earth. Or maybe TikTok's sin is being insufficiently pro-queer (a la Red Book).

I saw quite a bit of pro-trans and pro-queer content on TikTok, a tiny bit of pro-shoplifting content, and quite a bit of anti-cop content peaking in 2021 and declining from there. On the flip side, I saw a ton of pro-natalist content (beautiful moms, beautiful babies, heartwarming parenting videos). I also saw a ton of fitness content. I didn't see any eating disorder content but probably am not in the right demos for that.

Outside of a few banned content categories, it doesn't seem like TikTok is putting its thumb on the scale to make Americans unwell by showing them maladaptive strategies.

Aside from the content itself, some argue that the app’s design creates dopamine-driven addiction for both adults and children. It has been called Digital Fentanyl somewhat hyperbolically. (I've never seen someone passed out on the street at midday scrolling TikTok, but maybe their phones get scooped up too quickly). I’m somewhat sympathetic to this concern, but divestment (the USG’s preferred remedy) doesn’t really address it. It also doesn't seem like TikTok is the sole offender here, Instagram is a huge app with similar patterns. I'm not sure why Mark Zuckerberg profiting off this addiction is substantially better than ByteDance. It seems like a better remedy to scrolling addiction are things exclusion lists, age limits, parental controls, and if it really has to come down to it, rules about interfaces and content, rather than rules about ownership.

Outside of any app content, sometimes I see banning TikTok promoted as retaliation for China providing insufficient market access to its country by western companies. I am actually pretty sympathetic to this argument. China puts up big barriers to the access to its markets by outside companies, often requiring the use of joint-ventures with Chinese companies with Chinese staff which act as defacto technology transfer programs.

I think this is a bit ham-fisted towards that approach but ultimately not unreasonable. Instagram has a product not unlike TikTok, that ultimately degrades into a video scroller. YouTube Shorts is also awfully similar to TikTok. These apps seem to struggle with GTM and network access and not technology though. There's hardly any technology TikTok has that they lack. In terms of stealing technology, robbing part of a drone company, or part of Hauwei would give a bigger boon. In terms of local apps vs foreign apps, I think better localization and a sense of Chinese patriotism have given Chinese companies a leg up in their domestic markets, while an off putting censorship regime has caused foreign companies to stumble (only in the past decade have we really been able to begin to catch up on political taboos).

It's pretty clear that China is for the Chinese people. It doesn't reflect this perfectly, but a supermajority of Chinese seem to believe this. But “Who is America for?” is much less clear; it sometimes feels like it’s just for USD holders. I don't think it's really clear to Americans why Instagram winning is in their best interest. In fact Instagram's owners and staff weigh in on a lot of domestic disputes that ByteDance seems disinterested in.

I think in a healthier country, the local good-enough product would win. When was the last time "buy American" was anything but a punchline for rubes? We've dissolved the ties that bind us and are playing too many zero sum games at home.

As Sam Hyde puts it: "Wouldn't that be interesting if China makes it to Mars first. It would be great for Humanity why don't we do it. Let's do it. China makes it to Mars before America does that sound like fun? It's just humans; they're just interchangeable economic units. Why wouldn't we want that? I think we do do."

Lastly, resistance to divestment (choosing to dissolve rather than sell) has been used as a cudgel to "prove" that TikTok is up to something nefarious. I don't really buy it. This is an iterated game and there are a lot of players with their own agendas. If TikTok sells, it's open season to start swallowing-up Chinese foreign subsidiaries left and right. Making the US shut it down, makes US lawmakers pay a heavy price in terms of popularity for killing such a popular app. Meanwhile there are a bunch of staff at ByteDance Corporate (in China) who will likely circulate through a number of Chinese companies, who may be better off being viewed as standing up to America than capitulating. Sometimes it’s better not to pay the Danegeld.

[collapsedsquid]

Prominent figures in the Off Leash crew are well known for their paleoconservative political views, but the private opinions expressed in the group chat are even more extreme and jarring than we normally see voiced publicly. Participants chirpily discussed the desirability of clamping down on democracy to deal with their enemies at home and regime change, bombings, assassinations, and covert action to take care of those abroad. The group’s overall bloodlust periodically proved to be too much for a few more judicious individual members, who in almost any other setting would be considered ultraconservatives but in the context of Off Leash sound like hippie peaceniks‎. One of the dissidents—a National Rifle Association firearms instructor who runs a weapons company—joked that he was worried about an “unsupervised” subgroup of especially enthusiastic military adventurers that formed to discuss topics too “hot” for WhatsApp, saying, “I imagine their ‘to be bombed’ list is over 49 countries and growing.”

No but you see paleoconservatism is about non-interventionism

[jyndor]

begging people to stop spreading the tweets and posts of fascist grifters. palestinian liberation is not antisemitic. but no movement is free from people in it who may have bad politics or be bigoted. do not platform fascist grifters who really do actually just hate jews - I'm talking about jackson hinkle, I'm talking about censored man or whatever that guy is called, etc. do not engage with them except to call them the grifters and fascists they are.

frankly listen to and platform PALESTINIANS. first off it's the right thing to do because this is their genocide we are seeing but also because it's safer and you're less likely to platform fascists.

in the west this movement is a largely leftist movement, which differs from how it is seen as like a universally agreed upon issue in the arab world for instance. we do not need western racist antisemitic islamophobic bigots making money off of palestinian liberation. we do not need their input - if they actually cared they'd be pro-refugee, they'd be anti-racist, they'd be silent and reflective. change their politics.

yes now most conservatives including fascists are pro-israel bc it's a western-aligned fascist white supremacist nationalistic state that murders brown people who are largely muslim. but do not forget that there are MANY fascists who aren't neocons - the return of paleoconservatism is nothing we need to be associated with.

paleocons are just straight up vile antisemites and nazis. we do not need their ideological descendants. remember that red brown alliances are not only immoral and antithetical to everything we should care about but have never historically worked out for leftists either.

[alphaman99]

Paleoconservatism, Civilization, and Europa

John Valdez  ·

Oh my...

[chrisabraham]

After witnessing the U.S. use 9/11 as a carte blanche to destabilize the Middle East, I shifted my political perspective. In the early 2000s, I transitioned from being a progressive liberal to a paleoconservative, largely due to its emphasis on non-interventionism.

Paleoconservatism advocates for restraint in foreign policy, traditional values, limited government, and national sovereignty. It often critiques the interventionist and globalist agendas of neoconservatives and neoliberals, favoring a cautious approach to preserving cultural heritage and national identity.

[eightyonekilograms]

Yeah this post is just nuts to me. Even if you set aside the immense suffering of the Iraqis themselves, which you absolutely should not do, off the top of my head I can name three colossal impacts of the Iraq War plus a fourth probably-colossal one.

It killed neoconservatism stone dead. The neocons had steadily built their prestige and influence over the 80s and 90s, and with the second Bush Administration they had finally graduated to being the official ideology of the Republican Party, to the point where even plenty of liberals at the time were at least flirting with it. Then Iraq completely shattered their credibility, the GOP has pivoted hard to Burnhamist paleoconservatism, and now the seven or eight remaining neocons in Washington are at their sad little #NeverTrump parties, the most marginal of the marginal.

Related to this, since OP is not exactly a young Democrat I don't think he understands just how deeply disillusioned and cynical a lot of young American leftists became towards the Democratic party specifically because of Iraq. In a couple swing states, Hillary Clinton only lost by a few tenths of a percent, where Democratic turned plummeted compared to Obama in 2012. Could Hillary have won in 2016, completely discrediting Trumpism and vindicating all the predictions that it would be the suicide of the GOP, if not for her support of the Iraq War? We will never know, but it is crazy to not even consider the possibility.

It was directly responsible for the Ukraine war. Prior to Iraq, Russia was not exactly a friendly state but at least somewhat tried to participate in the legitimacy of the international order. Iraq firmly convinced them that the international order was bullshit, which is why South Ossetia was annexed in 2008 as warmup to Ukraine in 2014 and the war today.

See "the decade of concern" by the Scholar's Stage. tl;dr, armed forces have to do a complete overhaul every 10-15 years, the Iraq War hit pause on the overhaul of that process for the US military and so now they're scrambling to complete this overhaul in the 2020s, during which time we are extremely not ready for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. If that invasion does happen this decade, Iraq will be a major part of why.

So if we're all doing our retrospective takes on the Iraq War, mine was… it wasn't that big a deal? In scale, direction, and costs borne and imposed it was basically well within norms for what the country might get distracted with over a two-decade period.

Already within my lifetime the specter of the Vietnam War, once much more significant in national affairs, looms not nearly as large as I remember it doing in the '80s (indeed, the easy victories of the "Desert Shield/Storm" Iraq excursion of the early '90s were specifically hailed for dispelling this "Vietnam Syndrome"), as colorful but not particularly important chapter of 20th Century American history.

While the action did not serve to renew America's post-Cold War unipolar "hyperpower" moment, I honestly don't think it accelerated its end any, which looks to be more a product of the development of China and reassertion of Russia than any "Clash of Civilizations".

[the-funtime-autocrat]

The more depressed and maladjusted you are, the more likely it is that you are seeing things right, with minimal bias.

John Derbyshire, "Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism" (2009).

[diarrheaworldstarhiphop]

Maxime Bernier launches People's Party of Canada 

-------------

OTTAWA -- Maxime Bernier has debuted the People's Party of Canada, the federal political party the former Tory MP is leading, with a promise to put "Canadian people first."

Bernier—who is keeping his seat in the House of Commons— launched his new party, party logo, and headquarters in Gatineau, Que. In French the party is called "Parti Populaire," and the acronym is PPC.

"Why this name? Because it is time that the government put Canadian people first when they make decisions and policies. It is time to put the power back into people's hands," Bernier told reporters at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa Friday morning.

In August, the once-Conservative Party leadership hopeful defected from the party to form his own more populist, libertarian version. Since then, Bernier said he’s not spoken with any of his longtime caucus members, saying he’s been too busy reaching out to the grassroots.

Among his political positions: supply management should go; "more diversity" is bad for Canada; and that the case for spending on foreign aid is "extremely weak."

On Friday, Bernier said his party’s values will include pushing for a smaller and less meddling government; championing individual freedoms; and denounced the corporate and lobby interests that he says hold too much power in federal politics.

He said that the "old parties" are not speaking for Canadians, and decried political correctness.

Bernier said he wants to have a debate about current immigration levels and making sure that newcomers share Canadian values, which he said including respecting diversity, the rule of law, and the equality of men and women.

"The people's party will respect the taxpayers, will respect our constitution… and respect our traditions, our history, and what makes Canada a unique place in the world."

His decision to form his own party came after ongoing tension between him and Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, who Bernier has slammed as a "more moderate" version of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Leading up to the announcement, Bernier has been using social media to reach out to his "Mad Max" supporters across the country, asking them to share what riding they are in and communicate with each other about building up and organizing teams in ridings throughout Canada.

Bernier said he's received thousands of messages from supporters who want "a real choice in October 2019" and said that he’s been in touch with hundreds of people who want to volunteer or run as candidates. He said his party intends to have 338 candidates running in October 2019.

While it will take weeks more before the party is registered with Elections Canada, Bernier said he's already received $140,000 in donations. He currently has two people on the payroll: Martin Masse, a long-time friend and adviser to Bernier who was collaborating with him on the now-stalled Bernier book about doing politics differently; and Maxime Hupe, who was at the helm of Bernier’s communications during the Tory leadership race.

Bernier said his challenge in the next few months is to prove that his party is a real alternative to Trudeau, and to continue to build on his policy planks, some of which are already posted on his new website.

The website includes a disclaimer that while the platform is still being finalized, the site is showcasing his policies from the leadership, and that "the PPC's platform will be mostly based on the same policies."

For example, in the foreign policy section the text reads: "As leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and Prime Minister, I will ensure our country’s foreign policy will be refocused on the security and prosperity of Canadians."

Bernier also wants to be invited to participate in the 2019 leaders’ debates.

"The politicians, they try to please everybody, and when you want to please everybody, you don’t please everybody, that’s not my way of doing politics. You like the ideas, you like the principles that we are fighting for? That’s OK. You don’t like it? That’s OK, don’t vote for me."

[magnoleigha]

[anonymoustalks]

I mean, not to be rude to other countries, but America is somehow one of the most free countries in the world. I believe this has a lot to do with the right to bear arms

(6-23-20) You both like politics.

You: hiyaa

Stranger: hi

Stranger: Where from?

You: us east

Stranger: California

You: mhm

You: anything you care about?

Stranger: Wdym?

You: oh, just things that you're interested in

You: what do you think of affirmative action? I think it's on your ballot in november?

Stranger: Instead of Affirmative action, I support a UBI for all citizens

You: okay

You: they're sort of different though haha

You: so for a yes/no ballot question, which would you be?

Stranger: I'd say no

You: okay

Stranger: How would you describe yourself politically?

You: moderate left

Stranger: Nice. I'm a Paleoconservative/civic nationalist

You: paleoconservative...?

Stranger: Yeah it means I'm a conservative but I think dinosaurs are cool

You: really?

Stranger: Jokes :)

You: >.>

Stranger: Paleoconservatism is basically fusionism with very little foregein intervention

You: fusionism?

Stranger: Fusionism is social conservatism combine with free market capitalism

You: I think it's interesting that you're fond of UBI even though you consider yourself paleoconservative

Stranger: Yeah, I can't really think of an exact label for myself. But I think UBI is the best form of social welfare

You: I thought paleoconservatives were opposed to most forms of social welfare

You: at least, that's what wikipedia seems to say

Stranger: Like I said, I don't fit into one exact label.

You: right

You: so what you do mean my civic nationalist?

Stranger: Maybe civic nationalist isn't the best word, but I'm definitely some kind of nationalist. I basically believe that members of a nation should share similar values.

You: mhm, I was googling wikipedia and it seems to mostly differentiate between ethnic vs. civic nationalism

You: so does that mean you differentiate yourself from the alt right with less of a focus on ethnicity?

Stranger: I'm definitely not an ethnic nationalist. I'm a brown immigrant living in America. And yes, I do differentiate from the alt right because I don't really care about ethnicity

You: right

You: so as an immigrant, you favor immigration restrictions?

Stranger: Yeah. I think some restrictions are necessary, because like I said members of a nation must share similar values.

You: mhm so it sounds like you care particularly about culture?

Stranger: WDYM?

You: mhm I guess to me it sounded like you were saying that members of a nation should have a similar culture?

You: or do you distinguish between values and culture?

Stranger: Not necessarily similar culture. Values are ideals you hold true regardless of your culture. A muslim from Dubai can immigrate here just as easily as a catholic from Italy, as long they share similar values to the nation.

You: mhm "similar values" being?

You: I feel like I've encountered people on omegle who would argue that islamic culture is incompatible with western values, for instance

Stranger: I would define values as ideals. Ideals such as the notion that every individual should be able to dictate their own lives free from governmental authouity (but neccesarly from social consequences) , ideals such as the ideals of justice and virtue

Stranger: And I don't think there is anything inherently in compatible about islam and the west

You: mhm, I just find it curious because I feel like I've encountered people with differing opinions about this subject

Stranger: there are a lot of different opinions on this subject for sure

Stranger: Pro-life or pro-choice?

You: pro-choice

You: so secretary of state mike pompeo is planning to issue a human rights panel that prioritizes freedom of religion over the other rights

Stranger: How? I'm not familiar with this

You: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/08/pompeo-panel-unalienable-rights-1400023

You: there was also a nytimes article

You: in a sense it's the US taking a stance that religious freedom is a "human right" in essence more important than the other ones

Stranger: So they're prioritizing the right to freedom of religion over LGBT and women's rights?

You: yes

You: there's criticism that this has broad repercussions internationally

Stranger: Good

You: because in a sense it runs in counter to the UN's definitions of "human rights"

Stranger: I'm bisexual, and I don't believe the government should have a say in what is marriage and what isn't

You: and would limit UN and other countries of criticizing nations like saudi arabia on women's rights

Stranger: That's a violation of free speech as well

You: what is a violation of free speech?

Stranger: Oh nvm. I thought you meant limiting citizen's rights to criticize those countries

Stranger: Still fucked up

You: I also don't believe governments should say what is marriage and what isn't

You: that said, many places have laws explicitly banning homosexual marriage

You: so imo that's sort of like governments trying to have a say

Stranger: That's true. My point is they shouldn't

You: what was your position on abortion?

Stranger: I'm conflicted tbh

You: ah why?

Stranger: I understand that most women want to get an abortion for very legitimate reasons like not being able to afford to raise one, or being the victim of rape, ect. But I also don't think it's fair to take a life because of something it has no control over

You: at what point do you consider an embryo/fetus to be "living"?

You: because I mean, most pro-choice advocates obviously aren't in favor of infanticide

Stranger: At the point it can feel pain

You: so if you define it that way, I think you could prob be in favor of abortion in the first trimester

You: before the embryo develops major organs

Stranger: Yeah I guess that's fair

You: mhm I think most pro-choice advocates aren't so extreme to believe in abortion of full-term babies -- that's kind of a ridiculous position

You: rather I think many pro-life advocates are sort of against abortion as a principle

Stranger: Yeah obviously

You: I think I talked to someone who felt that the "potential" for life was sacred -- like even a single cell zygote after a sperm as fused with an egg

Stranger: I'm an agnostic, so I don't really consider anything to be sacred

You: yeah

You: or well, some people are spiritual enough to believe in souls too

You: and I think some people believe that the soul enters as soon as conception happens

Stranger: opinions on gun control?

You: pro, but I think it should be determined by state

You: I don't like the 2nd amendment lol

Stranger: MADATORY👏TRIGGER👏DISCIPLINE👏CLASSES👏IN👏HIGH👏SCHOOL

You: mhm what do you mean?

Stranger: I think that schools should be required to teach their students basic trigger discipline

You: what does that mean?

Stranger: Like how to handle a gun, different kinds of guns, how to avoid accidents, when to use it ect.

You: oh, but isn't that taught when you get a firearm permit?

Stranger: Make getting a permit mandatory is what I'm saying

You: oh, it's not mandatory?

You: well idk gun laws in other states

Stranger: No, not "If you want a gun you have to have a permit". I mean, "everyone should have a gun, so everyone must be required to get a permit at a certain age"

You: ohhh

You: why should everyone have a gun?

Stranger: Switzerland had a similar law, so it's not that crazy. People shouldn't be forced to get a gun, just a permit. I think firearms are important to protect us incase the government got too powerful, and obviously for people to defend themselves.

You: oh okay

You: I think this is the main "american" value that I don't personally believe very much in

Stranger: I think the second amendment is the second most important amendment, next to the first

Stranger: maybe even more important than the first

You: interesting...

You: I just don't really personally recognize it as a universal as a human right or anything

You: and only a small handful of countries in the world have a "right to bear arms" as a constitutional right

You: there's actually a wikipedia article on this

Stranger: I mean, not to be rude to other countries, but America is somehow one of the most free countries in the world. I believe this has a lot to do with the right to bear arms

You: hmm... I kind of contest that statement, in the sense that I think Canada and Australia are in many circumstances ahead of the US

Stranger: I don't know too much about those countries. Most countries are not in the west, and most eastern countries don't have nearly as much freedom

You: Well to quote wikipedia: "Constitutions which historically guaranteed a right to bear arms are those of Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Liberia, Mexico, Nicaragua and the United States of America."

Stranger: Interesting...

You: basically all other countries don't recognize gun rights as a constitutional right

Stranger: I'll have to look into this later

You: although many countries have laws pertaining how you can get a gun permit though

Stranger: One core American principle I oppose is the concept of democracy

You: hm what do you mean?

Stranger: I don't believe every citizen over certain age should be allowed the right to vote. I'm also a constitutional monarchist

You: ohhh

You: constitutional monarchist?

Stranger: Monarchy with a strict constitution to keep it from abusing it's power

You: ^^ I just had the funny thought that if you don't support democracy you ain't american, so based on your immigration ideas you shouldn't be allowed to immigrate (jkjk)

Stranger: Damn it, I can hear ICE at my door

You: idk, I like having a diversity of ideas

Stranger: Sure, but once you allow unrestricted immigration, your nation over time will loose the same values that made it so great

You: mhmm I believe the US has always being a melting pot

You: I'm still not always clear about what "values" btw

You: I feel like I hear many evangelicals worried about christian values for instance

You: but I think that is tinged through a religious lens

Stranger: True, I'm saying different ideas are bad, I'm saying certain principles must be shared by the citizens of the nation. The values I believe in are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiniess

You: mhm and you think there are immigrants who don't believe in that?

Stranger: Yes. Immigrants that do believe that absolutely should be able to immigrate here

You: it's interesting because I feel like many immigrants tend to lean relatively conservative

You: at least, more conservative than (white) progressive liberals

Stranger: Yeah, I've noticed that as well. Most people that have been rude to me on the basis of my sexuality or skin color have been immigrants

You: in either case, I do think many immigrants strongly supportive of capitalistic values, like right to property and not wanting much social welfare or taxes

You: at least, that's just based on what I think I've noticed

Stranger: yeah that's true as well

Stranger: what do you think of the LGBT community?

You: I'm fine with them

You: why?

Stranger: I support people being LGBT (I am one) but not the community

You: I think that's fine

Stranger: Yeah, I feel like stuff like pride month are only hurting the cause

You: mhm I feel like I had heard someone say something similar

You: although I think freedom of expression is important

Stranger: Of course it is, the government should have no right to ban pride parades and such, but I personally feel like it's harming the cause

You: I think many ppl have different ways of perceiving their own experience and things

Stranger: wdym>

Stranger: 8wdym?

Stranger: *wdym?

You: oh I mean, some people feel like it's beneficial and others thing it is not so

You: we live in a subjective world lol

You: although I think conservative lgbt folks I've talked to don't seem to like the idea of pride as much

You: I wonder if it's because they don't want to be seen as radical by their friends

Stranger: I mean people who oppose the LGBT community oppose it because they think it's not normal, or that we're trying to shove to down their face. Pride months and trying so hard to stand out on the basis of your sexuality or gender which you can't control, makes the people who already oppose it dislike it even more

You: mhm I understand what you're saying

Stranger: I think I have to go no. It was nice talking to you

You: alright have a good evening!

Stranger: you to!

Stranger has disconnected.

[the-world-annealing]

If your ideal society is one without coercive enforcement mechanisms, it will be one without coercive enforcement mechanisms. Thus, arguing for those states comes with implicit claims about the type of life that humans will pursue in absence of such mechanisms.

Fascism, or authoritarian flavors of communism, or bare-bones liberalism, or an increasing number of 'libertarians' can just say "Many people might dislike our system, but My Side will be strong enough to beat them into submission, so who cares". That's not a shining endorsement of their desirability, but at least it stands on its own, it showcases that if a maoist system happens it'll be able to stay maoist for a good amount of time, and if you think maoism is good then that's a point in your favor.

But a right-anarchist who wants utterly free markets and a left-anarchist who wants egalitarian communes and an anarcho-syndicalist and a christian anarchist and an anprim all reject a centralized authority that can enforce its will upon society; they just differ in their belief about the human response to that lack of enforcement!

If these people weren't making implicit claims about human nature, you'd expect a lot more missing moods: "Society would be optimal if it were ungoverned and left to the market, but sadly people will instead prefer to cluster in tight-knit communities that eschew modern tech" is not a common opinion, even though different people will support either half!

So anyway, every time I see an ancom and an ancap argue, I can't help but wonder... is there a real, resolvable disagreement about politics going on here? Or do these people want the exact same enforcement mechanisms gone, and simply disagree about whether private property or democratic governments will survive that social change?

(I'm worried that 'getting rid of anything that lets the powerful enforce their will' is an overly reductionist view of anarchist revolutions, but 'we win the revolution and then everyone destroys their electronics' is still a claim about human nature in the absence of coercion, right? Anything that you view as an innate part of your victory must either be enforced on the unwilling or willingly accepted by most)

[collapsedsquid]

With @morlock-holmes and @discoursedrome talking about the weirdness and un-appealingness of this modern far-right conservatism, been thinking back to the history of US paleoconservatism in general.  There was the sense in the 90s that their anti-NAFTA anti-globalization stance made them the ones with “real popularity“ that was out-of-power only though their subversion by the neocons’s control of institutions and meant they feel optimistic about their future power, but they had a bunch of weird ideas about the “real american national tradition” (less catholic, more confederate, probably equally weird) that I think were never actually popular but nobody cared when the anti-globalization stuff had attention, and then they took a position that made their popularity take an absolutely nosedive on the right, they opposed the Iraq war and ate shit for 10 years.

Anyways I think this is a way to contextualize their relationship to Trump, Trump sanded off their rough edges and now he’s no longer front-and-center you have catholics and incels who could think they were popular learning that they are not.

[hazardous-waste-containment]

Do you have any good readings about fascist anti-imperialism in the US? You've mentioned it a couple times but I have a hard time understanding where it comes from. I get why fascists in Europe or elsewhere would resent US imperial power, but not so much why fascists in the US itself would reject it. Is it because empires are implicitly multicultural (albeit on an unequal basis)? Is it because US empire is so deeply tied to liberalism? Something else?

I’ve heard very good things about Insurgent Supremacists by Matthew Lyons but I have not read it yet. See also Lyons’ essay “Two Ways of Looking at Fascism,” Hamerquist and Sakai’s Confronting Fascism which Lyons draws on heavily, and Lyons’ article “Trump, Iran, and the right-wing anti-interventionists”.

As far as where it comes from, I don’t have a single all-encompassing answer and there are many dimensions to it, some very recent and/or distinctly American, others more generalized and dating back to the interwar era. I won’t be able to cover everything (Sakai has an elaborate Marxist theory of fascist anti-imperialism as a kind of lower-middle class revenge against globalization and deindustrialization, that I couldn’t fit in), but to highlight some key points:

First of all, I should clarify that not all fascists oppose multicultural empires as such: Mosley is a classic example of a fascist imperialist who fully endorsed the multicultural, multiracial composition of the British Empire; that said, this obviously wasn’t true of Nazism, and it especially isn’t relevant to American white nationalism.

In many ways fascist anti-Americanism in the U.S. and Europe works basically the same way; the rejection of everything the existing American state and its global hegemony stands for, or is seen as standing for: globalism, degeneracy, Zionism, the ‘melting pot’, and what Eurofascists have taken to calling ‘McDonaldisation’, the spread of a soulless and homogenizing consumerism that chews up national cultures and spits out Golden Arches. It’s not necessarily the U.S. in particular they have a problem with (though in the European context it’s easier to frame it that way, as an American invasion), but a certain poisonous neoliberal worldview seen as flowing primarily from the contemporary U.S. (and often ultimately out of Israel), whatever side of the Atlantic they’re on.

The other, interlocking, element which I already implied is antisemitism, the conspiracy theory among neo-Nazis everywhere (though in the U.S. it has a particular flavor of resistance to the ‘Zionist Occupation Government’) that global capitalism and the American empire are the work of a Jewish cabal. This leads many American white nationalists, such as Matthew Heimbach, to see Arab nationalists and Islamists as comrades in a common fight against Jewish occupation.

In the past I’ve called this an ‘anti-imperialism of fools’, fascists buying what U.S. propaganda is selling, so to speak. @soul-hammer made a meme that communicates this really succinctly, specifically wrt pinkwashing (who remembers that tumblr tradcath who made reference last year to the “homosexual American military”?):

American and Israeli propaganda assert that Israel speaks for Jews and that imperialist military interventions are carried out in their name, and antisemitic conspiracy theorists take it at face value.

In this context it’s significant that contemporary white nationalism grew in large part out of a revolutionary revision of paleoconservatism by people like Greg Johnson and Richard Spencer, and that there’s already a paleocon tradition of antisemitic conspiracy theories demonizing their neoconservative rivals as puppets of the ‘Israel Lobby’. This came to define the way that the alt-right positioned itself in relation to mainstream conservatism, so that aggressive, interventionist foreign policy in general is seen as 1) simply the military arm of broader ‘globalist’ world domination, and 2) a distraction from domestic racial issues. It wasn’t uncommon during the Trump years for alt-rightists to attribute Trump’s militarism in Syria or Iran to Jewish influence in the administration. Figures like Tucker Carlson echo the same themes without the overt antisemitism.

Though since I mentioned Spencer it’s worth noting that he’s actually a Zionist who sees Israel as a role model for a white ethnostate, albeit still accusing Jews of having outsized influence on American politics and taking a firmly anti-interventionist stance on foreign policy (which ties into his advocacy of a white empire in Europe as a bulwark against American power; then we get back into Eurofascist anti-Americanism and Spencer’s debt to the Identitarians, which isn’t what you asked about).

What’s really interesting is the recent emergence of an idiosyncratic Trumpian far-right, people like Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Witzke, that synthesizes paleocon anti-interventionism (e.g. on Ukraine) with evangelical Christian Zionism. This is weird and new (though I suppose presaged by Steve Bannon in the 2010s) and it isn’t directly relevant to fascism, so I won’t say too much about it here, but suffice to say it’s a major realignment of forces on the American right.

All of this said, fascist anti-imperialism in the U.S. obviously predates the alt-right; neo-Nazis already thought the Bush administration was controlled by Jews years before Counter-Currents or AlternativeRight popped up, and they thought Clinton was ushering in a globalist ‘New World Order’ years before that and so on. To bring in two last themes that hopefully get to the heart of the issue:

Pseudo-imperialism

So, I once saw a fascist website, can’t remember which, refer to American neoliberal imperialism as “pseudo-imperialism” and I thought it was really telling. While some fascisms have always been anti-imperialist (e.g. the Romanian Legionaries), there is a clear fascist tendency toward Empire as a sort of righteous spiritual crusade for civilisation and hierarchy. At the same time, they denounce international capitalism as ‘usury’, the abstract pursuit of profit for profit’s sake, corrupting and exploitative whereas a true Imperium is heroic and ennobling. This roughly corresponds to Moishe Postone’s insights about the way antisemitism functions in Nazi ideology.

The confused reaction fash have had to modern imperialism, then, seems logical enough: there’s nothing fairytale-heroic about dying in a forever war for an oil company, or about the endless march of McDonaldisation. Surely this isn’t true imperialism, it’s just nihilistic ‘usury’ at the greatest possible scale (they call the IMF the “International Usury Fund”). For an older example see Pedro Albizu Campos, who distinguished between traditional Hispanic empire (civilized and spiritual) versus the decadent and godless neocolonialism of the United States.

There’s actually a point in Mein Kampf in which Hitler sounds a bit ‘anti-imperialist’: he mocks Wilhelmine German colonialism in Africa, asking why so much money and energy were naïvely spent on civilizing an inferior race in some far-away country while Germans in Europe suffered under the Habsburg and Jewish yoke. It’s a critique of liberal empire that rhymes with right-wing anti-interventionism in the U.S., in which the question runs something like “Why are we off trying to ‘spread democracy’ in Iraq or Afghanistan while whites suffer under multiculturalism and immigration back home?”

History

Then there’s the history, unique to the U.S., which I know much less about than I should. One of the most innovative U.S. neo-fascist projects of the postwar years was Francis Parker Yockey’s call for a pan-European “Imperium” and a tactical alliance with the Soviet Union and Third World national liberation movements against Jewish-American decadence. His brand of Third Positionism didn’t really catch on at the time but in retrospect it laid the groundwork for decades of fascist anti-imperialism.

Coming from a wholly different place, there was also the Patriot movement that formed from disillusioned Vietnam vets in the 70s/80s/90s and saw Pax Americana as the sinister prelude to a totalitarian world-government that would persecute white Christians, basically fearing the loss of traditional culture, stable jobs, and national sovereignty to neoliberal globalization in a way that’s familiar to us in the era of Brexit and Trump. This is most of what Sakai talks about in The Shock of Recognition.

[alphaman99]

[theradical-outlook]

Review: The Fourth Political Theory

Review: The Fourth Political Theory

Alexander Dugin Nature and the Nation During the first 29 episodes I was calling the show ‘The Neofusionist Book Review’. I proposed neofusionism as the merging of naturalism– nature, and paleoconservatism– the nation.) In this episode, I look at Russian philosopher and geopolitical strategist Alexander Dugin’s vision of a new political order to replace both liberalism and its natural…