From jk Sat May 29 12:52:34 1999
Subject: Re: War Crime and Punishment
To: ra
Date: Sat, 29 May 1999 12:52:34 -0400 (EDT)
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> sooner or later this "court" is going to start indicting Americans.
> Perhaps in other military ops. This court is official mob rule.
Not mob rule, really; it represents an international managerial class.
Even if the American branch of that class gives up a little it gets a
lot more.
> This "international law/court" thing is going to be used to remove
> any de-facto rights that Americans are still allowed to exercise.
I agree that the intent is to do an end run around the need to get the
locals to agree to whatever it is that the i.m.c. agrees ought to be
done.
> Precedent is the only thing that is protecting American rights. And
> as time goes by precedents contrary to 1776 are being established.
There's an obvious campaign to debunk precedent. What kind of
common-law or for that matter self-governing system is it, in which
saying something is an "ingrained social stereotype" counts *against*
that thing? When did being "resistant to change" become a sign of
mental illness?
> > In other words, they're ours, we pay for them, they can't exist
> > without us, so *obviously* it's our opponents who are going to get
> > indicted.
By "we" I meant not Americans as such but NATO, a transnational
managerial organization.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk Sat May 29 13:04:14 1999
Subject: Re: Berlin Wall falls, Dems lose Congress, and...
To: He
Date: Sat, 29 May 1999 13:04:14 -0400 (EDT)
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Anything is better than nothing, I suppose, but these people sound like
such unbelievable lightweights.
To act on any intention whatever is to act on values. If you think
you've avoided the issue you just aren't thinking very much.
Presumably what's going on is that you've identified so thoroughly with
the interests and outlook of a class and you've given up so totally on
independent thought that you can't see yourself as having a particular
outlook -- how things look to you is simply and undeniably how they
are.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk Sat May 29 22:57:49 1999
Subject: Re: Re: Berlin Wall falls, Dems lose Congress, and...
To: He
Date: Sat, 29 May 1999 22:57:49 -0400 (EDT)
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> It may not like a big deal for Brown to admit that, but believe me,
> even that's a step forward for them.
Oh, you're right of course. It's just so bizarre that people whose
claim to special consideration is that they're thought things through
more than most of us should be so mindless.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk Sat May 29 23:04:38 1999
Subject: Re: Brown addendum
To: He
Date: Sat, 29 May 1999 23:04:38 -0400 (EDT)
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> Time will tell.
I agree. It's interesting. A basic problem is that any actual system
of morals must be particularistic -- can't be based on universal
perspicuous demonstrable reason but must have obscurities and mysteries
and fundamentally involve loyalty to a particular group of people and
its ways. Liberalism can't admit that though which causes impossible
contradictions. Especially since liberalism claims to welcome endless
questioning and criticism. So will Brown's new departure be the start
of something or is it only one step back after 20 forward, to be
followed by more "progress"?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk Sun May 30 08:28:25 1999
Subject: Re: Re: Brown addendum
To: He
Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 08:28:25 -0400 (EDT)
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> I'm hoping Brown, politically-concerned people of all stripes, and
> the world in general will move toward a sort of two-tiered approach
> (not that I'm naively suggesting any tidy, clear-cut division),
> believing that (1) there are some transcultural, common themes we all
> have to agree on to survive--like not killing each other, not
> completely hamstringing the economy, etc. (the sort of broad topics
> that I think a diverse group like Brown can safely discuss)--and (2)
> there are also more detailed, rich approaches to the good life that
> are better left to the tight-knit groups you speak of.
It's an interesting issue and one that deserves extensive treatment.
Some thoughts:
1. My own prejudice is to say that an altogether non-particularist
morality would be too weak to tell you much that is concretely useful,
and unlikely to have enough grip on men's sense of what they are to
motivate sacrifice. Since a social order can't exist if no-one's
willing to die for it that's a problem.
2. Past systems of international order and order among free equals
have been based on something rather substantive -- the Greek leagues
had religious, ethnic and cultural unity, the Roman Empire had a common
religious understanding intertwined with an authoritative culture and a
quasi ethnicity (Roman citizenship), "Europe" had Latin Christianity
and, since the movements of peoples were long over, few ethnic issues,
medieval Iceland had religious and ethnic unity -- the Irish were
slaves, and the introduction of Christianity brought them close to
civil war so they chose an arbitrator to decide which religion they
would all adhere to.
3. The content of the common cultural and religious understanding can
to some extent sink out of sight, since after all it's common and what
people notice are differences. That only lasts until it's questioned,
and it's not always easy to isolate and silence questioners.
4. People will always want to pack their own stuff into the upper
tier. Social justice is an obvious example -- everyone except a few
libertarians seems convinced it belongs in the upper tier but the
concept is obviously radically centralizing and a goverment authorized
to define and enforce social justice necessarily has plenary authority
over all social relations. How do you get people to be contented with
having just a little in the upper tier? It's not so obvious what the
limits of purely rational morality are, and there will always be a
strong class interest in putting more there since whoever the
international managers are who look after the upper tier will always
want to increase their jurisdiction and they'll always have lots of
hangers-on, who will find it easier than their opponents to unify and
manipulate things to their advantage.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Jun 7 08:35:46 EDT 1999
Article: 13772 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Call to all counterrevolutionaries
Date: 6 Jun 1999 14:59:06 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Last month I added a pep talk about preparation of counterrevolutionary
etexts to the introduction to the a.r.c. resource lists.
Do think about it. It's hard to get most of the materials, and many of
them are either out of copyright or hopelessly out of print. Web pages
are free. Scanners are cheap and OCR software constantly getting
better. The one I use (Visioneer OneTouch 7600) cost $140 and on an
unmarked text makes very few errors.
The NWO is intended to be a self-contained social reality. It follows
that not just specifically counterrevolutionary texts but *any* old
book that appeals to moral realities outside contemporary liberalism is
a blow against the Empire. To scan one and put it on the net is to
strike the blow repeatedly, and to keep striking with every download
until the Empire falls. It is our equivalent to a NATO bombing
campaign, only with smarter bombs that detonate again and again
wherever they find a weakness.
If you're going to be reading something closely anyway it doesn't add
that much time or detract that much from comprehension to scan it and
then read it in the form of raw scanned text, cleaning it up as you go.
I've put up two books myself so far, a collection of Paul Elmer More's
essays and Newman's _Grammar of Assent_. See
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2125/p_e_more
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2125/newman_grammar
A thousand more are needed. Get a scanner and launch cruise missiles,
laser bombs and B-52s of the spirit that can't be shot down and never
wear out.
The Evil Hegemons to the scrapheap of history, and long live the
victory of people's war!
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jun 8 07:00:23 EDT 1999
Article: 13775 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Call to all counterrevolutionaries
Date: 8 Jun 1999 06:58:32 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <1dt0o4w.1welel6ya21cwN@pmdeco1-28.rconnect.com> wmcclain@salamander.com (Bill McClain) writes:
>When I first heard of the World Wide Web I presumed it would be a
>collection of etexts, the contents of all the great libraries online,
>with optional annotations and commentary by scholars. It hasn't worked
>out that way
The sociology of scholarly recognition isn't set up that way. The
scholars already have all the texts they want and no special
professional interest in making them available to others. When they
produce etexts they usually put them on CDs and sell them for thousands
of dollars a copy, at least that's been true in the cases I know about.
The presumption is that the purchasers will all be institutional.
>Life would be simpler if we could ignore copyright laws. I hear
>contradictory information regarding the law: is it true that any
>edition older than 75 years is in the public domain?
Yes, at least in America. And even if the edition is newer you can use
it if you strip out new material (footnotes, introductions) or if some
doctrine of "fair use" applies. For my own part I wouldn't much worry
about the law if the material seems hopelessly out of print. There
wouldn't be any damages, no one would be interested in enforcement, and
fair use might even apply. For more info see
http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/index.html
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jun 8 19:34:05 EDT 1999
Article: 13777 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Call to all counterrevolutionaries
Date: 8 Jun 1999 15:40:20 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <1dt2poe.1kaasu318wocbjN@pmdeco1-38.rconnect.com> wmcclain@salamander.com (Bill McClain) writes:
>> The Evil Hegemons to the scrapheap of history, and long live the
>> victory of people's war!
>"It is idle to talk about preventing the wreck of Western civilization.
>It is already a wreck from within.
If all institutions have fallen to the Evil Empire then people's war is
what's left. Still, history is a very long time. I just establish
general policy, other people can work out administrative details like
timetables.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jun 8 19:34:07 EDT 1999
Article: 13779 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Call to all counterrevolutionaries
Date: 8 Jun 1999 19:33:02 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <928877033snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> raf391@hormel.bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
>It is of course commercial publishers, not scholars, who put the texts
>on CDs and charge thousands of dollars a copy. Scholars presumably
>share the public interest in keeping them as cheap as possible.
The ones I've run into are university presses. Actually it makes sense
if you're basically a branch of a university doing something that you
see as of interest only to other universities to try to recover your
costs from the others.
>For free etexts you might have a look at Project Gutenberg ... Oxford
>Text Archive
There are a great number available from various sources and of various
qualities, for some authors more than others. Any is better than none.
It would be nice to have much more. I recently finished writing
something on Emerson that would have been much more difficult if most
of his better-known works weren't freely available on the web as
etexts. Emerson would be very little affected if everything he wrote
were reshuffled randomly, sentence by sentence. As a result the only
way to find anything is by electronic search.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk Fri Jun 18 04:26:47 1999
Subject: Re: Hi
To: t
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 04:26:47 -0400 (EDT)
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> What I'm really interested in is less the transition from
> color-blindness to equal results than in the way a free and healthy
> society functions and how antidiscrimination law destroys it--the
That's the right focus of course. The color-blind=>equal-results stuff
as I see it is subsidiary to that. The point is that there is no
reasonable moderate or conservative interpretation of the equal
opportunity laws. The laws are necessarily at odds with intelligent
action and therefore necessarily make a mess of things.
Since ethnicity is mainly a historical and cultural construction --
biological race may matter, but it's far from the whole picture -- to
forbid ethnic discrimination is necessarily to forbid discrimination on
the things that make up ethnicity, including habits and attitudes, and
thus to require people who are unequal in relevant ways to be treated
as equals and so given preferences.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From paleo-return-315-jk=panix.com@returns.egroups.com Tue Jun 22 01:12:55 1999
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From: Jim Kalb
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In-Reply-To: <376E4295.6FD2EB72@salamander.com> from "Bill McClain" at Jun 21, 99 08:48:05 am
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Bill McClain writes:
> (1) What happens when black children want to pray in public school?
> Couldn't one present the church as integral with black culture and
> insist they be allowed to express it?
Neat idea, to the extent one wants to play games with existing weird
attitudes. You actually might get some mileage out of this one. The
prohibition on prayer ought to take precedence though if I am right
about the ultimate basis of antiracism as denial of transcendence
(hence of universals).
> (2) The notion that some groups are over quota is a clever one. Ought
> we to insist that affirmitive action specifically requires the
> numbers of Asians and Jews to be reduced in certain occupations?
Buchanan floated the idea, as a _reductio_ of AA, and was roundly
denounced as a racist. Logic chopping in favor of whites gets nowhere.
It's just another proof of racism.
> (3) Why do the Japanese get a free ride on having no immigration in
> their country?
Japanese racism is a local issue. Worldwide, whites are on top and
abolition of white hegemony is therefore the main current concern in
the project of abolishing all racial dominance everywhere.
> (5) Conscience, as choice which is not freely made, is also an
> individual attribute, but not one that can be respected by the new
> regime.
It can't really count for more than any other preference. Actually,
it's now antisocial since it suggests binding standards of universal
applicablility and is thus less tolerant, more resistant to change,
etc. than other preferences.
> (6) The tie to realist metaphysics is very good. You would think that
> this must be a winner, because it is compatible with untutored common
> sense and also with the scientific world-view.
That's the point of the essay, really, to understand how antiracism is
integral to something much vaster, and why opposition to it seems so
incomprehensible and monstrous, when it has so many irrational aspects
and within living memory no-one much cared about it. It must somehow
be a direct consequence of something very fundamental in how people
look at things now and it ought to be possible to show that antiracism
and other recent transformations are all of a piece.
A problem with writing about racism is that there's so much trash on
the subject and one must somehow plow through it to get to any
interesting issues. The superficial reasons for antiracism are very
bad, which means the interesting questions are things like why now, and
what deep down makes any reasoning or factual claims whatever appealing
as long as they have antiracist consequences.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
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From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jun 22 14:27:56 EDT 1999
Article: 13787 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Maarten van 't net (vnet) gearresteerd !
Date: 20 Jun 1999 09:21:18 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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By absolute chance I noted the following article (my news software
automatically displays new newsgroups until I unsubscribe, and this was
at the top the first time nl.misc came up). It appears that Maarten
has been arrested for racism and antisemitism, and is going to get
fined 10,000 guilders.
>From nl.misc Sun Jun 20 09:14:19 1999
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From: "Zsjoske"
Newsgroups: nl.politiek,soc.culture.netherlands,nl.misc,be.politics
Date: Sun, 20 Jun 1999 12:59:35 +0200
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Jackal ) heeft geschreven in bericht
<377104f6.9424151@news.brabant.chello.nl>...
>On Sat, 19 Jun 1999 15:10:30 GMT, fustigator@guindaille.com
>(Fustigator (I.C.O.N.E.)) wrote:
>
>
>>>Bovendien is dit gewoon struktureel geweld jegens de joden.
>>>Dat dit aangepakt wordt is alleen maar toe te juichen.
>>
>>Mar daar ben ik niet tegen, hoor. Een straf is wel op zijn plaats!
>>Ik vind een arrestatie niet juist: laat liever die vent 10.000 gulden
>>aan een Joodse caritatieve instelling storten als smartegeld.
>
>OK hier ga ik in mee, wellicht is arrestatie een te zwaar middel.
>10.000 gulden boete lijkt me een mooi bedrag om van z'n uitkering in
>te houden voor een joodse instelling.
Prima maar dan ook elke onterechte beschuldiging van racisme en anti
semitisme beboeten met 10.000 gulden !
En te storten in een fonds voor slachtoffers van deze praktijken die m i net
zo vaak voorkomen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
& Mvg. Zsjoske.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>>Fusti
>>Member of the Official Kees van den Doel Fanclub.
>>http://132.181.210.220/keesclub
>>join it U2!
>
>
>
>
>---------------------------------------------
>
>Franc
>
>Lid van de Officiele Kees van den Doel Fanclub.
>http://132.181.210.220/keesclub
>
>Reply: dhrroula@hotmail.com
>ICQ: 37249679
>
>http://www.whitetrash.com/mo/mcbmw/r1100r.html
>http://www.ashlandbmw.com/Bmws/r1100r/r1100r.htm
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Jun 27 21:06:57 EDT 1999
Article: 13795 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maarten van 't net (vnet) gearresteerd !
Date: 27 Jun 1999 06:59:11 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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This all seems quite bizarre. I suppose though that one aspect of
antiracism is the abolition of common sense (a.k.a. "deeply rooted
social stereotypes"), which can't easily exist apart from the network
of implicit attitudes, beliefs, dispositions etc. that constitutes the
specific (ethnic) cultures that antiracism is to deprive of public
authority and therefore abolish.
On a different but related matter -- I understand the German law Le Pen
was convicted of violating forbids downplaying the importance of the
Holocaust. Does anyone know what that means? It seems that saying
something else is more important would violate the law, so apparently
Germany has a new established religion, that is to say a new
enforceable doctrine as to the things that are most important.
Anyway, good luck, Maarten. Do let us know what happens.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Jun 27 21:06:58 EDT 1999
Article: 13799 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maarten van 't net (vnet) gearresteerd !
Date: 27 Jun 1999 20:50:38 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <37765de9.1388757@news.3web.net> 731591054@3web.com (T.J.) writes:
>As Locke noted, there is a difference between tolerance and
>intolerance (to put simply, intolerance does not mean the opposite of
>tolerance--but it represents hatred and resentment). Ergo, it has
>been a basic doctrine in liberal theory that one cannot tolerate
>intolerance
Just as Lockean negative freedom has been replaced by positive freedom,
even so has negative tolerance -- live and let live -- been replaced by
positive tolerance -- the demand for a social order that insists that
to the extent possible all modes of life have equal status.
Antiracism is not nonracism, the absence of racial hatred. It's not
even opposition to racial hatred, although it tries to pass itself off
as such by distorting other views. Rather, it's either the demand that
the significance of ethnicity be forcibly abolished (what in the US is
called the conservative view of civil rights) or that social relations
be centrally controlled so that even the most informal of ethnic
hierarchies are abolished. Both demands are quite at odds with how
people tend to organize their lives, so both are intolerant as
tolerance was conceived until quite recently.
>if a group of people are living in fear, are they not justified in
>trying to limit the impact that their persecutors and spreaders of
>intolerance have?
Such abstractions can be applied to almost anything. The great
majority of innocents murdered for political reasons in living memory
were murdered by left-wing regimes, and the extreme left has lots more
public respectability and historical prestige than the extreme right,
so presumably right-wingers, fundies, racists, what have you have most
reason to live in fear. Public opinion and the legal order plainly
don't like them. Nazis are no doubt living in fear in Holland, so very
likely they would think themselves justified in seizing power by force,
if it were possible, and throwing all their opponents in concentration
camps, because that would limit the impact of those who attempt to
silence them, publicly denigrate them, throw them in the slammer for
their political views, and otherwise make life difficult for them. (I
assume such things happen to Nazis in Holland because they happen to
non-Nazis like Maarten there.)
>But one of its more unique aspects is that it places the sanctity of
>each individual as being foremost in the law
What does that have to do with treating calling the gas chambers an
historical footnote as criminal? It's a literally true statement --
presumably the broad sweep and lessons of history would be the same if
it had been all firing squads and planned starvation rather than gas
chambers. The murders committed by communist regimes don't get much
play. Suppose someone said the Holocaust should only get 6% as much
play as that, because that's the relative proportion of corpses?
Should that be a crime? It would basically mean that the Holocaust
would never be mentioned at all.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Jun 28 14:12:00 EDT 1999
Article: 13802 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maarten van 't net (vnet) gearresteerd !
Date: 28 Jun 1999 14:10:30 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <37777B81.CC64A2@zap.A2000.nl> vtnet writes:
>I think that what Tom means is that there's a triangular relationship
>between on the one hand tolerance and intolerance with regard to
>rational opinions that are in the realm of human thought and therefore
>potentially open to rational debate. And on the other hand there's
>intolerance with regard to (negative) feelings that are not open to
>rational debate: and as one cannot deal with irrational intolerance by
>(direct) rational discourse, some other mode of confronting it has to
>be found.
Can the test really be irrationality? I wouldn't think there's much
danger from actual lunatic ravings. It seems to me the usual test is
"wrong and dangerous to the established order," with the accent on the
second part. What's odd is that liberalism preens itself on tolerance,
while (at least in its current advanced form) applying the same test as
others for what it will tolerate. PC is real, and it's no more
tolerant than say communism or radical Puritanism because like them it
is an attempt to reconstruct human nature against the grain.
Locke himself wanted to suppress infidelity and Popery, as I recall.
The Dutch police, it appears from what you say, suppress the view that
homosexual conduct is wrong and much else besides. Maybe Locke or the
Dutch cops or both are right, but I don't see why it's *rationality*
that's the issue. Popery seems more rational to me than Locke's
religious outlook, and the view that homosexuality is bad than its
contrary.
It's always seemed to me for that matter that the purely rational
argument for Naziism is about as good and shares a great deal with the
argument for liberalism -- e.g., reduction of the good to what I will,
the consequent tendency to make the _infimum malum_ (the absolute
thwarting of the will, slavery, torture, extermination etc.)
politically pivotal, a tendency toward social constructivism, a
tendency to collapse individual into society or the reverse, etc.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Jun 28 19:46:50 EDT 1999
Article: 13806 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Notes of a Disinformation Analyst: You, Hypocrite!
Date: 28 Jun 1999 19:31:49 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 20
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In <7l8eu5$qc9$1@sunnews.cern.ch> kly@rsplus01.cern.ch (Gregory Kozlovsky) writes:
> Ethnic cleansing and forced migration are not exactly unknowns to
> Russians. ... And Nikita Khrushchev forcibly moved so many
> Russians to Kazakhstan that by 1959 native Kazakhs made up less
> than a third of the population. From Stalin on, Soviet policy was
> to dilute the Soviet Union's 80-odd ethnic groups by moving
> Russian citizens onto their territories, evicting them from
> homelands and drawing borders so as to split large ethnic groups
> in two.
Interesting that Mr. Wines writing in the _New York Times_ treats
dilution of ethnic dominance and forced diversity as bad things when
talking about Russia. I wonder if he or they have ever reflected on
whether the point could be generalized?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Jun 28 19:46:50 EDT 1999
Article: 13807 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Notes of a Disinformation Analyst: You, Hypocrite!
Date: 28 Jun 1999 19:39:16 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 16
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In <3777C7AF.3DB6F19C@innocent.com> Kevin Alfred Strom writes:
>The current elite care nothing for "human rights" or "human life,"
>except as propaganda-totems to fool the boobs
I think they really believe in it. Their theory of things may not
stand up when you think it through but they really do hold it.
One of the more intelligent things Hitler said, it was in his area of
expertise, was that violence requires a firm spiritual foundation. Our
rulers have that.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Jun 28 19:46:51 EDT 1999
Article: 13808 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maarten van 't net (vnet) gearresteerd !
Date: 28 Jun 1999 19:45:10 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <3777D166.D291B7CD@zap.A2000.nl> vtnet writes:
>the liberal state can't prosecute the utterances of its critics since
>that would constitute a breach of liberal principle
The current tendency seems to be to blur the boundaries of speech and
action. Saying "homosexuality is a bad thing" constructs a social
environment in which homosexuals are at a disadvantage, therefore it's
an act of aggresion against them and can be prosecuted.
I agree that turning speech into conduct destroys liberalism but it
respects the deeper impulse behind liberalism, the equal liberation of
desire, and so can be viewed as a legitimate development in which
liberalism transcends itself.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Sat Jun 26 17:45:07 1999
Subject: Re: Advice
To: hd
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1999 17:45:07 -0400 (EDT)
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How to make a living and what to do generally depends partly on tastes
and talents. You haven't said what you like to do, so I can't be very
concrete.
If there is something you love, would it be best first to pursue it and
then decide how to support your pursuit? You could start by thinking
about the life you want to lead as a reactionary Catholic, live that
way, and then think how to support yourself. For example, you might
have some idea of a contribution you could make to the cause, it could
be anything at all, it's not as if everything is already taken care of.
Start making it, treat it seriously as your life's work, and then worry
about how to pay for the groceries. Or if you aren't sure what you can
do then talk to people, there must be traditionalist Catholic priests
and others who have ideas about what the laity can add, think about
what's lacking, try things, and see where they lead. Or you no doubt
want to live among other reactionary Catholics. You may also have
family and friends you want to live near. So go where you want to be
and then see how to keep a roof over your head.
I think it would be difficult for you to work for a large organization,
except perhaps in an utterly subordinate or purely technical capacity.
Large organizations today demand, and as a practical matter are legally
required to demand, a personal committment to "diversity" that is
inconsistent with moral integrity unless your outlook is the established
one or unless you are someone whose views don't matter.
There are always ways to make a living of some sort, though, and if you
stick with things and have courage and faith one thing eventually leads
to another. That's true even if things look bad at the moment. One
possibility for the long term would be a portable skill you could
exercise without reliance on a large organization. That could be
anything from medicine to auto repair or word processing, the specifics
depend on individual talents and circumstances.
I don't know if anything I've said helps at all. Uninformed advice
often seems to miss one's particular circumstances. I suppose my
suggestion is to start with what you love and pursue it, treat what
pays as secondary, and have courage and faith that the world will not
prevail.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Sun Jun 27 20:10:44 1999
Subject: Re: Thank you for advice
To: hd
Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 20:10:44 -0400 (EDT)
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> However, a have laso been contemplating studying medicine. You are
> absolutely right that some skills or professions allow one greater
> freedom from the growing totalitarian system.
Medicine too is becoming more centrally organized and more controlled
by government. Also, it deals with basic moral issues, and those who
control and fund it are going to want to be able to determine how those
issues come out. So there could be problems. Suppose you work for an
HMO that believes in euthenasia, does abortions, advises teenagers
about safe sex, etc. What then? Maybe the practical difficulties
depend on specialty. Podiatry for example seems to avoid the big
issues.
> So, having said all this, I am literally agonizing whether it makes
> sense at all in this age to be in academia out of a love for humane
> letters.
It may depend on the specific department and program. In general there
seem to be big problems but you know more than I. Humane letters can
exist outside academia though.
> I have come to adopt, by force, a more pragmatic approach. If I do
> go to law school (any advice on particulars would be welcome--I'm
> thinking about Columbia and Tulane universities, since they offer
> joint degrees with Latin American and Iberian studies)--I will view
> as a certication process, which is what higher education in this age
> has become.
American law is of course permeated with the ideological outlook of our
rulers. A lot of it's hard to take. Remember that all respectable
authorities agree that abortion at will is fundamental to the American
public order. That's just an example. In general law has a great deal
of interest from the standpoint of understanding how things work. If
things have gone awry it shows that too.
>From a practical standpoint, the more prestigious a school you can go
to the better. Certification is the word. Think about what you want
to do with a degree though. If you don't have concrete goals that are
realistic it's easy to lose yourself in the process.
> You are absolutely right about following one's longing for an
> integral existence. But, as I'm sure you know, it is an increasingly
> heroic thing to do.
At your age you should be thinking about how to arrange your life so
it's not quite so heroic. You'll be happier if you set up your life so
you think the things you do are pointed in the right direction. I
think you would be better off choosing a place to live that has a
strong traditionalist Catholic community that you can hook up with.
The world is becoming more grossly antiChristian and to live a
tolerable life I think people more and more will end up separating
themselves from it. Most of us aren't hermits and mutual support is
important. Also I think it is important to have a clear idea of what
one wants other than worldly success. Otherwise one becomes raw
material for a very efficient machine that turns everything including
human character into money.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jun 29 14:30:49 EDT 1999
Article: 13810 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maarten van 't net (vnet) gearresteerd !
Date: 29 Jun 1999 06:10:20 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <3778958B.68BFD970@zap.A2000.nl> vtnet writes:
>> I agree that turning speech into conduct destroys liberalism but it
>> respects the deeper impulse behind liberalism, the equal liberation of
>> desire, and so can be viewed as a legitimate development in which
>> liberalism transcends itself.
>It is the unchecked liberation of desire in which each man becomes a
>law onto himself that gives way to superior force only, that turns the
>liberal state (or any state for that matter) into tyranny under the
>banner of liberty.
As definitively set forth in _Republic_ viii-ix, and today made
possible in perfection through the development of technology.
"Legitimate development" and "transcends itself" were intentionally
somewhat provocative, but I think justified. In a mathematical
_reductio ad absurdum_ one takes the proposition under investigation
and legitimately derives A=~A or something of the sort from it.
History I think is doing the same with liberalism. The sticky part of
course is that liberalism has become the moral content of our
civilization and in fact of world civilization.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Jun 30 04:00:22 EDT 1999
Article: 13815 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maarten van 't net (vnet) gearresteerd !
Date: 29 Jun 1999 15:11:36 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Xref: news.panix.com alt.revolution.counter:13815
"Tony W. Frye" writes:
> >> It's always seemed to me for that matter that the purely rational
> >> argument for Naziism is about as good and shares a great deal with
> >> the argument for liberalism -- e.g., reduction of the good to what
> >> I will, the consequent tendency to make the _infimum malum_ (the
> >> absolute thwarting of the will, slavery, torture, extermination
> >> etc.) politically pivotal, a tendency toward social
> >> constructivism, a tendency to collapse individual into society or
> >> the reverse, etc.
> So, the tendency of a liberal state to thwart the will (a rather
> Nietzschean term for a rational based argument) is comparable to
> Nazism (an organic, power-of-the-will-based ideology) in that you
> both consider this will-debasing a basic tenet of liberalism and
> Nazism?
No. To make something politically pivotal is not necessarily to favor
it, and to share a great deal is not necessarily to be identical. 5
shares a great deal with -5 (compared with what either shares with say
the smell of rosewater) but the two aren't the same.
The point is that the moral universe of Naziism and that of liberalism
overlap a great deal. Therefore the understanding of things that makes
one a Nazi has a lot in common with the understanding that makes one a
liberal. That does not mean the two are identical. It is why many
liberals tend to identify a huge variety of non-liberal views -- those
held by Pat Buchanan or set forth in _The Bell Curve_ say -- with
Naziism. If someone rejects liberalism they think Naziism is the other
possibility.
Above I list specific points in common. One is that both Naziism and
liberalism tell us that the good is the same as the triumph of the
will, and another is that both consequently give an important role in
their understanding of things to the absolute thwarting of the will.
That doesn't mean thwarting the will plays the same role in both. It
does however distinguish both from political philosophies that base
themselves on totally different issues.
I should add that I find the phrase "organic, power-of-the-will-based
ideology" paradoxical. The willed and the organic seem to me rather at
opposite poles.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Jun 30 05:08:34 EDT 1999
Article: 13821 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maarten van 't net (vnet) gearresteerd !
Date: 30 Jun 1999 05:08:29 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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"Tony W. Frye" writes:
> I've always seen liberalism, in its European sense of the word
> (parliamentary, scientific, modern, and laissez faire in the economic
> sphere) was more of an inverted form of Marxism
1. Contemporary American liberalism strikes me as a legitimate
development of classical liberalism. So when I say "liberalism" I
sometimes mean the current American form and sometimes the tradition as
a whole, from Locke to Rawls and beyond. I hope the context usually
makes it clear which I have in mind.
2. The various modern ideologies clearly have a great deal in common.
My point was that liberalism is related to Naziism (how else explain
the liberal obsession with Naziism?), not that it's related to nothing
else.
> organic in the sense that it rejects a rational based society and
> government.
I agree that the "organic" is not rational through and through, at
least not in any clear apparent way. However, the irrational is not
necessarily "organic", which is what your usage seems to suggest.
Militarism, the mysticism of violence, and absolutizing the will of a
single man don't strike me as things that typically have analogues in
living systems. To me they seem like byproducts of a failed attempt to
rationalize society through and through. They also appear in Marxist
systems. Rhetorical appeals to the organic shouldn't be mistaken for
reality.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Jun 30 06:24:41 EDT 1999
Article: 13821 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maarten van 't net (vnet) gearresteerd !
Date: 30 Jun 1999 05:08:29 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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"Tony W. Frye" writes:
> I've always seen liberalism, in its European sense of the word
> (parliamentary, scientific, modern, and laissez faire in the economic
> sphere) was more of an inverted form of Marxism
1. Contemporary American liberalism strikes me as a legitimate
development of classical liberalism. So when I say "liberalism" I
sometimes mean the current American form and sometimes the tradition as
a whole, from Locke to Rawls and beyond. I hope the context usually
makes it clear which I have in mind.
2. The various modern ideologies clearly have a great deal in common.
My point was that liberalism is related to Naziism (how else explain
the liberal obsession with Naziism?), not that it's related to nothing
else.
> organic in the sense that it rejects a rational based society and
> government.
I agree that the "organic" is not rational through and through, at
least not in any clear apparent way. However, the irrational is not
necessarily "organic", which is what your usage seems to suggest.
Militarism, the mysticism of violence, and absolutizing the will of a
single man don't strike me as things that typically have analogues in
living systems. To me they seem like byproducts of a failed attempt to
rationalize society through and through. They also appear in Marxist
systems. Rhetorical appeals to the organic shouldn't be mistaken for
reality.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Jun 30 06:24:42 EDT 1999
Article: 13822 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: all men are NOT created equal
Date: 30 Jun 1999 05:17:09 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 26
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Kevin Alfred Strom writes:
> The idea of human "equality" is a religious delusion.
Some ideas of equality are false and delusional. Why think they all
are? A pebble and a boulder equally qualify as rocks, so there is
equality even there. Why not among men?
For example, all men (not grossly defective) are capable of prudence
and moral choice. All men therefore qualify as moral agents. So
whatever follows from the simple fact of being a moral agent, for
example the obligation of obeying just laws or the right not to be
treated merely as raw material for the goals of another, belongs to all
men. That is a sort of equality, if only the formal equality of common
possession of a important quality. It doesn't imply nearly as much as
egalitarians would like, but it's not trivial either.
The important point here is that it is modern egalitarianism, not its
rejection, that is extremist. You can have a definite role for
equality, freedom, tolerance, what have you without coming anywhere
near what many people today think those things demand.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Jun 30 15:21:14 EDT 1999
Article: 13826 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maarten van 't net (vnet) gearresteerd !
Date: 30 Jun 1999 07:33:41 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Xref: news.panix.com alt.revolution.counter:13826
"Tony W. Frye" writes:
> >1. Contemporary American liberalism strikes me as a legitimate
> >development of classical liberalism.
>
> American liberalism is the more grown-up version of the anachronism
> of classical liberalism
We are in total agreement!
> Being obsessed with something hardly makes it related or alike,
> particularly in governance.
What makes for obsession? I'm constantly talking about liberalism, for
all I know it's an obsession. Certainly it's always seemed to me that
if I were a better person with a finer mind and sensibility I wouldn't
pay much attention to it, I'd talk about the Divine Perfections or
Southern Sung landscapes instead.
It seems to me the reasons for my (obsession?) are that:
1. All roads lead to liberalism. It's inescapable. It's impossible
to carry on public discussion in other than liberal terms. Liberalism
has become the moral substance of Western Civilization, which is
becoming World Civilization.
2. Man is a social animal and can't easily separate himself from what
his upbringing and surroundings make him. I grew up subject to the
same influences as other people. My formal education is the same as
the Clintons', except for Oxford. I live in New York City, belong to
the professional class, look at the _New York Times_ every morning,
drive a Volvo, know all about dim sum, etc.
3. Liberalism seems to me patently incoherent and personally and
socially destructive.
So my own case suggests to me that people become obsessed with things
that have to do with some conflict at the heart of what they are. They
don't become obsessed with things that are truly alien.
> American conservatives were pretty obsessed with communism during the
> Cold War, much more so than pre-WWII liberals were with the Nazis.
> That doesn't make Reagan a Bolshevik, or related to Lenin.
I had the present situation in mind, when there are no Nazis and
haven't been any for 50 years, just antinazis.
Antifascism was pretty strong pre-WWII. There were antifascist
leagues, antifascist demonstrations, antifascist writers and artists,
"fascist" was a curse word, etc. It seems to me on a par with Cold War
anti-communism -- there was a real threat but the role it played in
political symbolism and people's emotional lives often went beyond what
the situation demanded. Reagan doesn't strike me as an obsessive, by
the way, any more than FDR.
> The Enlightenment was hardly a bastion of the romantic racism popular
> with Volk-minded protofascists like de Lagarde, but it did sprout the
> French Revolution, which incited nationalism that, after its brief
> liberal period in the mid 19th century, became increasingly racialist
> by the 20th.
Identifying Naziism with "racism," which covers a huge variety of
things, obscures the close resemblance to communist regimes. It seems
to me more sensible to view it as a racist version of something more
fundamental, a combination of immoderate rationalism and patent
insanity, that is characteristically modern.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Wed Jun 30 19:57:13 1999
Subject: Re: Equality and liberty
To: na
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 19:57:13 -0400 (EDT)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
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Status: RO
> Didn't those Enlightenment philsophers advocate equality and liberty?
> Is the state of our society today an inevitable outcome of such
> philosophy? Can we reasonably expect any principle to remain
> unaltered through the generations?
That was the tendency of their thought. It's developed over the years
since principles don't remain altogether unaltered and today's society
corresponds to the way it's developed. I think the best discussion of
how political principles develop as society evolves is in books viii-ix
of Plato's _Republic_. My own theory is in "PC and the Crisis of
Liberalism" to which there's a link on my publications page, linked on
the page referenced below.
> I am 24 years old and recently graduated from college with a degree
> in political science. It is now my belief that 95% of what I learned
> is garbage. Counterrevolutionary ideas have no hope of
> developing--let alone winning--in courses like "Civil Rights/Civil
> Liberties." So thanks for all the informatin you have posted on the
> Net. I hope to re-educate myself with some of it.
Thanks for your note. It seems to me a lot of the problem is that with
the development of academia thought has become bureaucratized and
therefore mechanized, which makes it easier for it to remain altogether
out of conduct with reality. It all becomes self-referential, so truth
can't possibly leak in.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Fri Jul 2 07:08:15 1999
Subject: Re: exaggerated Kosovo numbers
To: gh
Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 07:08:15 -0400 (EDT)
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Such an outrage. It's silly to say the purpose of Nato aggression was
to prevent things that happened as a result of the aggression. Why do
people put up with it? And I wonder if the view that the world ought
to declare war on the north when the south is trying to secede and
northern armies are engaging in war crimes like marching around burning
houses will find its way into the next revision of the U.S. history
standards.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Fri Jul 2 13:09:26 1999
Subject: Re: July 1 issue of NYC Right
To: lr
Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 13:09:26 -0400 (EDT)
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> Have a happy 4th!
Actually at my son's graduation during the Yugoslav war I found I could
not say the pledge of allegiance or sing the SPB. It seemed odd
listening to the song. After all it has to do with the resistance of a
brave and free people to an imperial aggressor and the failure of an
air raid to break their spirit. Something has gone wrong somewhere.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jul 6 07:17:24 EDT 1999
Article: 13836 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maarten van 't net (vnet) gearresteerd !
Date: 5 Jul 1999 23:10:05 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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731591054@3web.com (T.Asquith) writes:
> >one cannot deal with irrational intolerance by (direct) rational
> >discourse, some other mode of confronting it has to be found.
> Thank-you Maarten. You've hit the nail right on the head.
> In essence, then, the question is whether people's actions pose a
> disturbance to the community
All this seems to me to to settle very little. Suppose A goes about
persuading people using inflammatory language that multiculturalism,
feminism and homosexuality are utter outrages not legitimately part of
any acceptable social order, and B does the same with respect to
racism, sexism and homophobia. Which poses a disturbance to the
community can not it seems to me be separated from substantive
questions of public morality -- whether the cultural Left or the
cultural Right has the better grip on how people should in general
live.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jul 6 07:17:26 EDT 1999
Article: 13839 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maarten van 't net (vnet) gearresteerd !
Date: 6 Jul 1999 07:14:32 -0400
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"Tony W. Frye" writes:
> And which society is going to be more apt to tolerate the other to
> express themselves and live freely, even in an environment where
> their opponents want to silence them?
The Left is stronger on social constructivism as state policy, and on
social justice (uniform universal enforcement of comprehensive abstract
norms), so in general I would expect large-scale comprehensive
intolerance of thought and action to be stronger there. Communist
societies are the model example. Right wingers are more likely to try
to maintain an existing system, which is normally a less obtrusive
undertaking, and besides maintenance of the system is a necessary
function in every society.
Naturally, one can find particular rightists who are more intolerant
than particular leftists.
> It seems rather odd to hear traditional folk sticking up for cultural
> homogeneity and tradition, and then criticize liberals as closet
> totalitarians because some of them want to silence David Irving when
> every one of their past societies that paleocons glorify were much
> more authoritarian than present.
There are lots of people and lots of criticisms. Neocons and
libertarians often maintain traditional liberal positions on free
speech and therefore criticize PC etc. on traditional liberal grounds.
Others, who relativize freedom to other more fundamental concerns,
complain that contemporary liberals do so as well while claiming
freedom as an absolute that supports their position. Many who protest
that inconsistency also complain that the particular fundamental
concerns to which contemporary liberals subordinate freedom (abstract
universal equality, say) are not the proper fundamental concerns of
politics and lead to tyranny mixed with chaos when pursued in the
single-minded way toward which contemporary liberalism tends.
My comments of course had to do with internal problems of a particular
kind of liberalism. My claim was that if liberalism gives up free
speech absolutism then in order to decide which speech to suppress it
has to make substantive decisions as to the good life and so stop being
liberalism. Which is OK with me, but it's good to be clear what's
going on and to think about whether the substantive decisions are good
ones.
Traditional folk don't really stick up for cultural homogeneity, by the
way. The coherence needed for function is not the same as homogeneity.
That's especially true if you oppose bureaucratic centralization and
allow ethnic distinctions and regional and class differences, which
traditionalists do. Also, I'm not quite sure what you mean by
"authoritarian."
> I think I would take my chances distributing pro-Confederate
> literature on the streets of Skokie over being a public supporter of
> John Brown in South Carolina in 1857.
You might try distributing white supremicist literature in Harlem.
> Culturally speaking, I oppose any group forcing me to live their way.
Since man is a social animal, how you can live depends on how other
people live. Do you see a radical difference between economics and
other aspects of culture, such that strict libertarianism is bad in
economics and good everywhere else?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jul 6 19:22:15 EDT 1999
Article: 13842 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maarten van 't net (vnet) gearresteerd !
Date: 6 Jul 1999 16:42:52 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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"Tony W. Frye" writes:
> The Left is by far the weakest in the US than in any industrialized
> country on earth.
So what, if true? For all I know in 1968 the Left might have been by
far the weakest in Canton than in any city in China but that doesn't
mean I should be happy with the 1968 Canton situation. I do think
though that we're somewhat in advance of the Europeans in some aspects
of cultural leftism, for example enforcement of inclusiveness ideology.
> What do you think sodomy laws are? Hardly rugged individualism.
They don't have much to do with cultural homogeneity. Major cultures
-- European, Hindu, Muslim, Chinese, classical -- have usually had a
problem with sodomy, and few have scrupled at illegalizing things they
have thought bad.
For cultural homogeneity you should consult the civil rights laws,
which require all significant public institutions to be equally
hospitable to members of all cultures and thus demand that no
particular culture have authority anywhere. The necessary consequence
of the practical public abolition of all particular cultures is
cultural homogeneity.
> My watching someone's cleavage on a beach without fear of having
> Andrea Dworkin castrate me is a lot different than a 19th century
> coal mine operator slave-driving illiterate 10 year olds 60 hours a
> week to get blown up while using their little fingers to jimmy the
> sticks of dynamite through the cracks and crevices of the mine.
Your point is that one could conceive of economic regulations that seem
more reasonable than social regulations one could also conceive. Very
true, and it's the kind of point you make.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Jul 7 05:53:17 EDT 1999
Article: 13848 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maarten van 't net (vnet) gearresteerd !
Date: 6 Jul 1999 19:32:31 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 16
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In <37827B27.B2BA19F3@zap.a2000.nl> vtnet writes:
>> People who are political fascists that admire Hitler and Mussolini
>> who try to wrap themselves around the flag of free speech look like
>> hypocrites.
>Right.
I'm not sure why this need be so. What's wrong with holding the
existing regime to its own theory, even if you don't believe the
theory?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Jul 7 05:53:18 EDT 1999
Article: 13849 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maarten van 't net (vnet) gearresteerd !
Date: 6 Jul 1999 19:58:02 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <931300666snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> raf391@hormel.bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
>A counter-revolutionary rightist is going to seek the implementation
>of some abstract idealization of the past (since the past cannot be
>known in full any proposal to restore it must necessarily be based on
>some degree of abstraction).
I don't think this need be so. If the revolution has already
established the universal bureaucracy to enforce the theoretically
correct order as a substitute for the historically evolved order, then
a CR might want to abolish the instrumentalities of planning and
enforcement not to substitute new instrumentalities that would
implement his own theory but to let a new evolved order arise out of
human nature, experience, traditional survivals, what have you. He
might make various efforts to promote evolution in one direction or
another but that need not be the same as an administered order of
things based on abstract principle.
>But why should it be good in economics and bad everywhere else? Surely
>both kinds of inconsistency are questionable.
I don't consider strict libertarianism good in economics. I'm inclined
to favor tariffs, restrictions on migration of labor, and probably lots
of other things if the discussion ever got that fine-tuned. I haven't
had to worry about it much because that's not where the issues are. I
don't approve of central bureaucratic administration of economic life
any more than other aspects of cultural life, and vice versa. So far
as I know no right wingers want a National Culture Board, Federal Sex
Adminstration, what have you, establishing detailed regulations,
setting standards and goals and so on in the manner of one of the
government economic regulatory agencies.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Jul 7 05:53:18 EDT 1999
Article: 13850 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maarten van 't net (vnet) gearresteerd !
Date: 6 Jul 1999 20:04:14 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <931302473snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> raf391@bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
>I've never fully understood the desire of the neo-Nazis to deny the
>Holocaust
Presumably it has to do with the quasi-religious significance of the
Holocaust in liberal thought and public discourse. It's annoying to
play an opponent who has all the trumps. It's worth noting though that
the Left has not been eager to admit the reality and scale of Communist
atrocities either, so denial is not an idiosyncrasy of neo-Nazis.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Jul 7 12:23:05 EDT 1999
Article: 13861 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maarten van 't net (vnet) gearresteerd !
Date: 7 Jul 1999 12:19:46 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <3782ACF0.1FC33782@infinet.com> "Tony W. Frye" writes:
>Imposing a cultural norm (sodomy laws to prosecute people for
>committing an act society may deem sinful) is a form of cultural
>homogeneity
That makes sense if the norm is idiosyncratic. A norm against (for
example) discrimination on the basis of sexual conduct, race, what have
you seems a great deal more idiosyncratic than a norm against sodomy.
The latter is far more widespread historically and geographically.
>Affirmative action does many things, but it does not abolish cultures.
>If anything, it delineates by culture.
Culture is a system of shared habits, understandings etc., and so is by
nature public. It exists as a collection of common standards and the
like or not at all. To deprive a culture of public authority is to
abolish it, although bits and pieces may hang on as personal quirks.
The point of multiculturalism is to deprive all particular cultures of
public authority. That is to abolish them, and of necessity to replace
them with a new authoritative public culture fabricated by dominant
elites -- bureaucrats, advertisers, pop entertainers, media people,
"experts," and so on.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From upstream-list-request@cycad.com Thu Jul 8 06:04:01 1999
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Subject: Re: [Upstream] More on discrimination against blacks in lending
To: upstream-list@cycad.com
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 05:59:31 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <002b01bec8e1$13f0d660$030f8ad1@sba.oakland.edu> from "Howard Schwartz" at Jul 7, 99 09:27:44 pm
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Howard Schwarz writes:
> I have an idea that, just beneath the PC radar, a tremendous amount
> of resentment is being built up.
It's hard to know. Our rulers know what they're doing. Or maybe it's
not that they're smart personally but some sort of implicit
intelligence in the current system of things. What's successful gets
preserved and refined and liberalism is on a roll.
The current system attacks the principles of cohesion that make a
people a people capable of acting as such. It multiplies those who
depend on affirmative action and other government programs, or
otherwise feel threated by their fellow citizens. Feminism is helpful
because it tends to divide sentiment in every household. At the same
time the increasing importance of "expertise" and the mass-media
centralization of public life make it impossible to dissent seriously
from PC without sounding insane. So build-up of resentment doesn't
become a problem because it remains a matter of scattered inarticulate
individuals.
So it seems to me the current line of development will continue for
much longer than you'd think if you let thoughts of common sense enter
your head. In fact it already has.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
---
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Subject: Re: [Upstream] More on discrimination against blacks in lending
To: gbracey@erols.com
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 10:37:04 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: upstream-list@cycad.com
In-Reply-To: <007c01bec933$64f5d4a0$1f76accf@oemcomputer> from "Gerald W. Bracey" at Jul 8, 99 07:16:57 am
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> > "If the treasonous (hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in
> > the White House gets to have nuclear weapons to play with, why
> > can't the rest of us who happen to be aliens, children, mentally
> > ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
> Because you weren't ELECTED, hence, designated, to play with such
> toys.
True enough, but then the question becomes the distribution of control
over instruments of deadly force. Should they all be put in the hands
of one guy who (it seems) we all trust, or is it safer to introduce
some checks and balances and allow the possibility of effective
resistance in extreme cases?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
---
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From upstream-list-request@cycad.com Tue Jul 6 18:11:50 1999
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> My trouble with both the article [in the NY Times about lagging
> middle-class black achievement] and the Murray/Seligman discussion
> [from The Underclass Revisited] is that they both make an assumption
> which I do not accept, namely, that there is a clear and sharp
> dichotomy between who is "black" and who is "white".
>
> Is there any succinct reply to this objection that does not get into
> differing allele frequencies, etc?
One could have similar trouble with discussions of "nutrition," "world
hunger," "restaurants," "school lunches" etc. -- they seem to assume a
clear and sharp dichotomy between "food" and "nonfood." In fact, of
course, what consitutes "food," "a meal," etc. varies enormously by
class, culture, time, place and personal idiosyncrasy. In the 19th c.
tomatoes, which now are thought to constitute "food," were considered
"decorative plants" with "poisonous berries." The Russians and French
refer to hunks of flesh cut from the bodies of dead horses as "food,"
the Americans and Hindus do not. Beer isn't called "food," bread is.
There are products (saccharine, imitation fat) designed to function as
"food" socially but not biologically. Others ("salt", "sugar") are
often considered helpful or necessary parts of food but can be harmful
when ingested. The confusion might lead some to give up on the whole
business. Others find expressions like "food" and for that matter
"race" helpful in organizing information, even though not razor-sharp,
and so keep on using them.
Is there some special problem with "race" that makes it a necessarily
vacant conception, so that for example when skeletal remains are said
to be "caucasoid" or discrimination is said to exist against "blacks"
literally nothing is being said? If so, what's the problem?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Fri Jul 9 07:06:24 1999
Subject: Re: Thank you for advice
To: hd
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1999 07:06:24 -0400 (EDT)
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> I wanted to ask you if there are any particular publications or
> groups you suggest that can offer a reactionary Christian worldview.
I don't have anything to recommend. Go to some of the traditionalist
Catholic sites linked on my traditionalism page and see if you can get
on some email discussion lists, and then ask.
> Pope John Paul II seems bent on apologizing for the very existence of
> Western Civilization and filling the Church hierarchy with Thirld
> World clerics.
The Pope tries as hard as he can to agree with everyone in sight, at
least everyone who seems to represent the likely future of events.
It's partly because he's an intellectual and it takes more time and
effort than a man who after all is responsible for running a huge
organization can spare to be an intellectual without buying on the
whole into the purposes and attitudes implicit in the existing
organization of intellectual and cultural life.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Fri Jul 9 14:14:01 1999
Subject: Re: Simone Weil
To: ol
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1999 14:14:01 -0400 (EDT)
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> I've been reading George Grant, the Canandian nationalist, and,
> through his books got interested in Simone Weil. What do you think of
> her personally?
I admire her very much. She's an extremely penetrating thinker. She
has an excellent logical mind -- her brother Andre, who died just
recently, was one of the world's great mathematicians -- and everything
she wrote and did was honest and absolutely heartfelt. I've read most
of her things that have been put into English.
Her name is pronouced "vay".
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Jul 10 08:53:23 EDT 1999
Article: 13882 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: French Revolution
Date: 9 Jul 1999 17:55:08 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Stijn Calle writes:
> I've recently joined this newsgroup. Im very interested in
> revolutions and so called counter-revolutions. One question: is the
> French Revolution (1789) the mother of all evils in modern days?
To me it seems there is no isolable mother of modern evils. They're
the outcome of the process described in _Republic_ books viii-ix. You
can't pick a stage of the process and call that the problem, except
maybe the initial turn away from the Good.
A problem with mother-of-all-evils theories is that they all differ. A
European might say the French Revolution, a Catholic might say John
Calvin, and an American might say the 60s, Franklin Roosevelt or
Abraham Lincoln depending on when he thinks things should have stopped.
(A few have even been driven to doubts about the American Revolution,
although that puts them in a rather awkward position given the nature
of American national feeling.) Then there are those who think it was
late medieval nominalism, or for that matter Christianity.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From upstream-list-request@cycad.com Sat Jul 10 16:56:19 1999
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Subject: Re: [Upstream] Race and computer use
To: upstream-list@cycad.com
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 16:54:29 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <3787A4A6.AE6ADF1F@cycad.com> from "Gavan Tredoux" at Jul 10, 99 03:53:10 pm
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> *access* to the internet
What is the point of describing a situation in which blacks use the
internet less than whites as one in which blacks have less "access"
than whites? My internet connection costs me $165/year and since it's
non-graphical any computer will do the job. I use an old 386 that I
could replace for less than $50. So that is what access costs in NYC.
Is the point that blacks typically don't have that much money and
whites do?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
---
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From: Jim Kalb
Message-Id: <199907110110.VAA05061@panix.com>
Subject: Re: [Upstream] Profiling and Affirmative Action the same?
To: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 21:10:52 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <199907102214.SAA13355@enterprise.fuse.net> from "Timothy Smith" at Jul 10, 99 06:21:36 pm
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> http://www.slate.com/Features/profile/profile.asp
I don't see why the problem can't be solved easily. The New York Times
and the author of the article say "racial profiling" means stopping
drivers or whatever "solely" or "simply" because they're black. So
apparently little old ladies with their little hats on are getting
stopped Sunday morning on their way to church, since blackness is the
only consideration taken into account. That is surely indefensible.
Why not make race only one of a number of considerations, and add other
things (e.g., youth, maleness, car model, route, whatever) to the
profile? Brent Staples hasn't said anything that suggests he thinks
that would be a problem, and I'm sure the cops would be happy with it
too.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Jul 11 19:59:27 EDT 1999
Article: 13886 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
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Subject: Re: French Revolution
Date: 11 Jul 1999 08:56:27 -0400
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In <7m9ve1$1rm$1@cfs2.kis.keele.ac.uk> Andy Fear writes:
>doesn't Plato's view that mankind is a tabula rasa on which to write
>also part of the problem. It's hardly a CR viewpoint. There is some
>modification of the position in the Laws, but it's the Republic that
>has been remembered and acted upon...
It's true he invented the notion of the tabula rasa. Also, he seemed
to think, and it was important for him, that the Republic could
actually exist. Otherwise I suppose it would just have been a fantasy
rather than a real standard of justice. He says (499d):
If then, in the countless ages of the past, or at the present hour
in some foreign clime which is far away and beyond our ken, the
perfected philosopher is or has been or hereafter shall be
compelled by a superior power to have the charge of the State, we
are ready to assert to the death, that this our constitution has
been, and is -- yea, and will be whenever the Muse of Philosophy
is queen. There is no impossibility in all this; that there is a
difficulty, we acknowledge ourselves.
He didn't underestimate the difficulties of setting up the Republic,
though, and it's hard for me to imagine the work giving serious support
to an actual utopian movement. Naturally it could be used by such a
movement in the same way such a movement uses other things. None of
that makes the Republic less helpful as political analysis.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Mon Jul 12 04:19:33 1999
Subject: Re: Kvetch and Retreat, Stupid Party, or What You Will
To: la
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 04:19:33 -0400 (EDT)
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> "the last 6 1/2 years" of Clinton-Gore using the military for
> sociological experimentation, pushing women in combat, and now
> proposing putting women in the crews of nuclear submarines. Under a
> Bauer presidency, he said, this nonsense will stop.
> The syndrome we've discussed so often--of yielding everything to the
> left that it's already won and only opposing the latest leftist
> advance
How does politics work, though? The leftists didn't get their way by
running candidates articulating and demanding a clear PC vision. It's
mostly been one step at a time, and direction is everything.
The right has a lot of disadvantages today. One advantage that we
should use is the essential fanaticism of the Left. The "civil rights"
point of view is that traditional distinctions between men and women,
various ethnicities, alternative developments of human sexuality, etc.
are wholly illegitimate and must be extirpated. Under present
circumstances clear public acceptance of the view that men and women
are different and have different appropriate roles in *any* setting
would be a huge victory.
I agree that it's helpful if somewhere there are people articulating a
clear vision and its implication. Also people proposing a bastardized
version that doesn't violate existing expectations as much. Also
people working on fundamental principles with specific practical
consequences pretty much up in the air. It takes all kinds. Bauer
can't do everything but from what you say he's doing something that
needs to be done. Or so it seems to me. If circumstances are such
that what he starts can't develop I don't think it would help if he
started by demanding the world. It's no doubt true that *someone*
should demand the world and explain why, but it doesn't have to be
Bauer.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Mon Jul 12 15:40:53 1999
Subject: Re: Kvetch and Retreat, Stupid Party, or What You Will
To: la
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 15:40:53 -0400 (EDT)
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> I don't think you have appreciated the core of my argument--the lack
> of intellectual seriousness, the illusoriness, and (in my view) the
> ultimate impotence of Bauer's and other conservatives' opposition to
> the feminization of the military in particular and the Revolution in
> general.
It's hard for a presidential candidate to be intellectually serious.
He has too many other things to do. In order to function he has to
take almost all theoretical points for granted, as presented to him by
other people, and to get anywhere at all the views he accepts have to
be already supported by substantial networks of respectable people and
acceptable to the mainstream at least if the mainstream can be brought
to view things slightly differently on one or two points. People after
all don't understand things or even hear them unless they almost
believe them already.
The result of course is that if established intellectual life is in bad
shape a presidential candidate isn't going to be able to do much about
it. The most he can do is make certain lines of public thought
somewhat more possible and perhaps moderate intolerant excesses a
little. That can be a contribution. If the world starts to shift a
little he can further the shift. Most likely what he does will do no
good but that's probably true of what anyone does when conditions are
catastrophically bad.
> Do you really think that a successful Revolution, which has taken
> over and distorted the whole of our social and spiritual reality, can
> be stopped or turned back in the absence of any principled opposition
> to it?
No. Much more has to be done though before principled opposition can
make a figure in national politics. No one can even articulate
opposition to the Revolution. So first thing people who think they're
smart should go ahead and articulate it. Those who oppose the
Revolution should give their opposition concrete reality in their own
lives. Nothing can be forced. If they're on to something real it can
catch on.
What Bauer does isn't the most important thing to do just now. All I
would say is that it seems to me beneficial nonetheless. *Someone*
should do it.
> Solzhenitsyn didn't oppose the latest Five Year Plan. He opposed the
> Revolution itself.
Agreed. He opposed it by thinking through things until he touched
reality and then presented the reality to others through his writings.
I think it helped his writings have effect that there were people who
weren't deep thinkers but on some level were doubtful of the Five Year
Plans and so on, felt obscurely there was something fundamentally amiss
with them but could only come up with minor modifications, who made
complaints that missed the mark but nonetheless raised issues, etc.
> You say it's ok if Bauer doesn't raise first principles, so long as
> other people do. But can you name _any_ major American conservative
> figure who opposes the Revolution itself? Or who even opposes the
> feminization of the military in itself?
Someone who fundamentally opposes the Revolution or radical feminism
(there is no other kind) can not at present play a major role in our
public life. From the standpoint of our public life he would be a
hatefilled bigot no-one should listen to who can and should be abused
and misrepresented. Still, men are not consistent and the Revolution
and radical feminism are by nature incoherent. To the extent there
comes to be public concern with things essentially inconsistent with
them it's a plus even though everyone naturally continues to pay lip
service. Those who promote that concern do a service and maybe it's
the only service anyone in national public life can perform at this
time.
I'm not sure what the discussion is about. Would things be better if
there were no Gary Bauers, just Bill Clintons or maybe at most Bob
Doles? Suppose Bauer tomorrow announced he thought the Revolution was
an outrage root and branch and gave details as to what that included.
Would his sudden disappearance from public life be a plus?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Mon Jul 12 15:55:00 1999
Subject: Re: more on kvetch and retreat etc.
To: la
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 15:55:00 -0400 (EDT)
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> Because deep inside all of them is a fear to question whatever
> leftist dogma motivated the original reform. In this case it is the
> absolute equality of the sexes.
> By doing what he does Bauer leaves the dogma undebated and just
> claims that its latest manifestation is "too much". A tactic,
> logically, doomed to failure. The left simply asks, "why is it too
> much?" and the right, so-called, has no answer.
OK, but the dogma is insane. If circumstances are such that it can't
be questioned directly by those allowed to play a role in public life
it seems to me good that some of them raise concerns with its
applications. The objections will be incoherent, but incoherent
thought that includes some truth is better than incoherent thought
(feminism) that excludes truth in a more organized way. If that's the
most that can be introduced into the discussion I'd rather someone
introduced it. Eventually with shifts in ways of thinking such things
weaken the dogma itself. Nothing is forever in politics.
Again, what's being said? The mainstream right can't make its case
with integrity, assuming its representatives have a case that can be
made with integrity. So is it better that no case at all be made?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Mon Jul 12 21:29:15 1999
Subject: Re: Kvetch and Retreat, Stupid Party, or What You Will
To: la
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 21:29:15 -0400 (EDT)
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> Now according to your reasoning, if Bauer, a minor candidate running
> for president, were to suggest even retrenching some of the actual
> policies in this area--e.g., getting women out of navy ships, getting
> them out of quasi combat positions, dropping the military's massive
> encouragement and subsidization of illegitimate births caused by
> integration of men and women--that even that relatively modest
> position would be seen as so extreme that he would never be heard
> from again, that C-SPAN wouldn't broadcast his speeches, and so on.
A good example that I think gets to the heart of the matter. It's no
accident that prominent conservatives don't say such things. Men who
are successful in risky and competitive situations usually know their
business. If Bauer said such a thing there would be an uproar. He'd
be unable to talk about anything else in connection with his campaign.
The press wouldn't drop the issue and wouldn't let him change the
subject.
Established thought can tolerate some foot-dragging, but not opposition
on fundamentals. Foot-dragging doesn't really need to be explained
because it's just an ordinary human weakness and a necessary aspect of
social change. But if Bauer wanted to get the women off the ships and
out of harm's way, if simply because of gender he wanted to cut short
the careers of all those woman warriors who'd suddenly appear on the
screen, he'd have to explain why, and that would lead to more
questions, rebuttals from experts, denunciations from opponents and
moralists, head-shaking from former allies and commentators, etc., and
very shortly he'd either have to retract his views or reject the
Revolution and for that matter the whole political culture
categorically.
To do the latter *would* I think get you dropped from C-SPAN. You'd be
the new David Duke, and your views would get about as much play as _The
Bell Curve_ did in the recent front-page article in the New York Times
on the baffling differences between black and white academic
performance. The Republican Party would denounce you, funding sources
would dry up, and you'd drop out of sight. You'd be a total fizzle as
a candidate, so C-SPAN would be *right* to drop you.
Or so it seems to me, and I gather to those for whom the matter is a
live issue. If you disagree with the dominant view in principle,
people notice it, and at least if your principles are right-wing and so
identified with the enemy they want to know just what they imply. You
can't stick with them unless you want to alienate all respectable
institutions. I don't think the problem is the flawed character of the
particular men who happen to be prominent conservatives. If the
problem is not that but general American moral cowardice then it seems
to me those aspiring to a career in public life are, as a pragmatic
matter, right to be cowards as well. A democratic leader can not get
too far ahead of his followers.
I could as always be wrong. But if so I would expect chance if nothing
else to throw up examples showing I'm wrong. Where are the examples?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Tue Jul 13 06:41:35 1999
Subject: Re: Kvetch and Retreat, Stupid Party, or What You Will
To: la
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 06:41:35 -0400 (EDT)
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> First of all, I want to thank you for such a strong statement, which
> knocked me over when I first read it.
I'm glad you didn't object to the style. Haranguing seems to be a
family trait. My older daughter is much worse, actually. I usually
end up hiding under the table.
> First, I don't think the response to a second-tier conservative
> candidate saying such things would so extreme and killing as you
> suggest.
If it's unimaginable that the second-tier guy could become a first-tier
guy is he even believable as a second-tier guy?
I suppose the issue is what a protest candidacy can do. A candidacy
can advance a perspective because it makes it concrete by putting
forward someone who supports it and can be imagined holding the office.
If it's obvious someone couldn't conceivably be president, if he just
wouldn't fit in at all because what he says is comprehensively at odds
with everything you see on TV, everything your kids learn in school,
everything experts say, everything praised by reputable people, if he
rejects the public vocabulary of praise and blame for one of his own,
if he favors what everyone agrees is the devil, then I'm not sure how
much sense his candidacy makes.
> How can one build a movement without taking any principled positions
> opposed to the established orthodoxy?
Such things are necessary. It seems to me presidential politics is not
the place to start defining and propagating them. Look at the enormous
institutional and cultural backing the Left has. The serious Right has
nothing or close to it. Without that kind of backing it's very hard
for someone in active public life to articulate positions and make them
seem even comprehensible let alone plausible. Are there many
periodicals that take principled positions opposed to established
orthodoxy? Many scholars, historians, critics and so on? Journalists,
even second-tier journalists? How large and intelligent is the
audience for such things? Those who are somewhat critical and count as
conservatives are almost always moderate liberals who want to preserve
democratic capitalism, the social gains of the post-1945 period, or
whatever by avoiding excess. So a more principled Bauer couldn't even
rely on the recognized keepers of conservative thought.
> No one can say anything in public challenging any aspect of the
> established orthodoxy (once that aspect has become established) or he
> will be destroyed.
Part of the problem is that the mass media flatten out public life so
that intelligent discussion becomes harder and fewer things can be
said. I think that if you seriously challenge established orthodoxy
you will be excluded from what for most people constitutes public
discussion -- the mainstream press, TV, and so on. You will be on the
fringes because what you say is not only wrong but beside the point and
incomprehensible to boot, and if you become prominent enough to notice
you will find yourself turned into the devil.
On the other hand, things that seem quite rigid over short periods
shift as time goes on. Even dissent that's non-principled enough to
remain in the mainstream can help that process. So if you have better
ideas I do think it's worthwhile developing them and communicating with
others. Better days may come and you should prepare for them. In the
meantime everything you do can have some effect on the correlation of
forces.
> Why would a Gary Bauer or someone like him, if he were seriously
> opposed to women in the military or a host of other established
> horrors, want to run as a candidate if he knew he couldn't even talk
> about the very things he cares about most?
Practical men are usually more interested in tendencies than absolutes.
Their concerns tend to be concrete. If marginal defeminization looks
like a possible point of resistance that's what they'll talk about.
> (I'm leaving out the strategy of a rightist candidate concealing his
> true agenda, getting elected, and then working a counterrevolution,
> an approach favored by some people.)
That one just seems silly to me. It's not politics.
> Conservatives have never made a principled case opposing the existing
> cultural leftist order, or even any small aspect of that order such
> as women on navy ships, and proposing how to get out of it.
Actually, I agree that conservatives tend to be short-sighted. It goes
with the aversion to ideology and utopianism and the appreciation of
the actual. I agree that under present circumstances we have to
struggle against the tendency.
> It is my way--the way of principled opposition--that has never been
> tried.
It just seems to me that principled opposition has to start as an
intellectual movement. There has to be a lot of intelligent discussion
of the principles, their application, why they are good and necessary,
etc.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Tue Jul 13 14:16:59 1999
Subject: Re: Kvetch and Retreat, Stupid Party, or What You Will
To: la
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 14:16:59 -0400 (EDT)
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> We _were_ talking about Bauer or someone like him, i.e., someone with
> no prospect of becoming a first tier guy.
But if the miscasting is too gross a candidacy seems pointless. What
the guy does has to make public sense. It has to be treated as
"running for president" by people who aren't his sympathizers. If it
isn't, because it's either ignored or grossly misrepresented and
reprobated and in any case thought wholly to lack reality because it's
too thoroughly at odds with established politics, why call going around
and giving speeches etc. "running for president?" I have no objection
to the former. It seems though that to present itself as the latter
conditions of dramatic verisimilitude have to be met.
> I feel that you keep missing the essential position that any serious
> conservatives would be coming from: we know we are a "moral
> minority," as Weyrich has called it. We are speaking to and building
> up that minority part of the country that does not accept the
> established things. We are alternatively a counter voice to the
> dominant culture or a separationist voice.
I suppose the issue is how big and how aware the moral minority is, and
the extent to which the unaware or partially sympathetic can be drawn
in and the committed made more committed by the dramatization of
possibilities a presidential candidacy would provide. The more self-
aware the movement, the more able to present its concerns in language
to which hearers are accustomed, the more its concerns can be shown in
soundbites or maybe something a little more extended to be consistent
with widespread concerns recognized as legitimate, the better. It
seems to me traditionalists are rather undeveloped on those points.
The rank and file say "it says so in the Bible" and leaders tend to be
concerned with showing that it's really all consistent with feminism or
Martin Luther King or whatever with a few modifications. Under such
circumstances a principled candidacy seems to lack necessary support.
A dramatic run for president could also set things back, by the way.
The spectators would include left/liberals as well as rightists. They
might be the more energized. Stealth and Fabian tactics can pay.
Leftists have successfully used moderates and moderate rhetoric as a
front, and principled Leftists have generally been dissatisfied with
actual politicians.
A basic problem I have is that it seems to me that principled
traditionalism has to demand very big changes. For example, it has to
view repeal of the equal opportunity laws as a basic necessity.
Tradition after all has a strong ethnic component, and if the law says
that in most important social relations you have to deprive ethnicity
and for that matter sex of any effect then tradition isn't going to
play much of a role in ordering society. I don't think though that
there was an opportunity missed when Buchanan failed to demand repeal
of the '64 Act, assuming he would favor such a thing. The groundwork
had not been laid to make such demand even comprehensible.
> Your way of thinking precludes any strong and principled and daring
> statement by any conservative ever.
I don't think so. It just seems to me that for a candidate to make
sense as such he should speak from a platform that a great many people
already support and that could accommodate a great many more. People
can make strong, principled and daring statements who aren't candidates
for president. What you want I suppose is a position from which such
statements can be made and be attended to by the world at large. That
seems to me a long process that is hard to short circuit. It's very
hard to force people to listen.
> Imagine speeches by Buchanan after the 96 New Hampshire primary
> laying out a radical conservative program.
One issue I come back to is that people who campaign with any success
normally aren't theoreticians. They have tendencies but the specifics
are determined by circumstances. They respond vividly to people and to
concrete situations, and the ideology is mostly implicit. Also, they
can't do much of their own thinking so they can't lay out much of
anything unless there's a well-defined and widely-respected body of
thought to draw on.
> The worst problem from my point of view is not the power and evil of
> the existing orthodoxy, it's the lack of any real opposition to it on
> our part. What you are doing through this correspondence, it seems
> to me, is justifying that lack of opposition, finding one reason
> after another why it's impossible for conservatives not only to do
> anything, but even to say anything.
I think all I've said is that at present all you can expect from those
running for president and otherwise attempting to engage in mainstream
public life at the national level is marginal help -- complaining about
excesses, making certain lines of argument somewhat more possible etc.
To me that shows that a lot has to be done. There are no obvious
shortcuts to make bad things go away.
> Yes, one does contact people and put forward ideas. Usually one gets
> nowhere because of the lack of seriousness, as I see it, of
> conservatives.
But if conservatives don't even support anything serious why expect a
political campaign to be able to put on a showing that impresses people
by attempting to do so? How can you get converts when your own people
don't much care?
> You keep acting as though the conservative leaders I'm criticizing
> are following some wise, prudent course. I'm telling you that they
> have simply surrendered to the left in every way that counts,
> including the feminization of the military.
So now they're leftists whose hearts aren't in it and complain. All to
the good. There should be such people, and at present it's hard to
expect much more in respectable public life.
> The aversion to utopianism only makes sense when you're living in a
> traditional order, or at least an order that has not lost all
> connection with tradition, and you are threatened by some utopian
> scheme.
Not quite. The threat of utopia makes comprehensive rational thought
necessary to show the limits of comprehensive rational thought. That's
not the same as utopianism even though it aims at a social order
radically different from the existing one. Utopia, the notion that
social order is constructed, remainst the enemy.
> Thus you argue in effect that it would be "utopian" for someone to
> call for ending the policy of women on navy ships.
Why call for that rather than any of a hundred other things? The women
on ships policy seems an odd one to make a special issue of in a
presidential campaign. Dragging your feet (kvetch and retreat) is
comprehensible. It lends itself to one-liners. Picking a live issue
that affects a lot of people and undercuts PC, and pushing that issue,
is comprehensible. I suppose that's something worth thinking about.
This one seems harder to understand though except as part of a more
general attack on radical sexual equality. From the standpoint of a
presidential campaign it seems a somewhat abstract complaint. That's
why I thought that if raised in a campaign anyone was paying attention
to it would soon either be dropped or develop into a full-scale
rejection of the Revolution.
> You say that nothing can be done or even said about it until an
> entire intellectual counter-establishment has been put in place. It
> is a philosophy of complete defeatism.
I just said it's not the issue to raise in a presidential campaign. If
you're writing on public affairs you can talk about it. If you're a
congressman on a relevant committee you can pursue the issue. However
I do think it's of the utmost importance to build up intellectual
backing for the radical right. There's a huge amount that has to be
done.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Tue Jul 13 18:24:17 1999
Subject: Re: Kvetch and Retreat, Stupid Party, or What You Will
To: la
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 18:24:17 -0400 (EDT)
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I'm really not sure how much our views differ as opposed to our mode of
expressing them. Anyway:
> There is no possibility in the foreseeable future of a genuinely
> conservative movement winning in the mainstream. The existing
> conservatives have all more or less surrendered to the left even when
> they don't realize it.
I would put it a bit more strongly and say there is no possibility at
present of a genuinely conservative movement existing as part of the
mainstream, taking part in what is recognized as the national political
discussion, or getting the kind of somewhat assured sometimes somewhat
neutral attention that a major party candidate can look for. So your
idea of new party based on a coherent platform makes far more sense to
me than the idea of a principled conservative going for the Republican
nomination, which is what Bauer would be doing if he were principled.
A one-man campaign like Bauer's has to accept what goes with what he's
campaigning for (the status of representing one of the two major
parties). A separate party wouldn't have that baggage. It could write
on a clean slate and maintain the clarity of view and long-term
continuity needed to coordinate thought and action and start bringing
people around to its view of things.
> women in the military (I don't know why you dislike that example
It's great as an example of how bad radical sexual equality is but a
bad defining issue for a national presidential campaign that's trying
to make sense in a mainstream institution like the Republican party.
If you're a presidential candidate talking about grand national policy
it would make sense to raise it as part of a much larger attack on
feminism and beyond that egalitarian ideology generally but not
otherwise. And the larger attack would make a campaign for a
mainstream nomination a bad way of dramatizing what you want to do.
> And this counterestablishment would not have to proceed in the
> cowardly and incoherent way that you seem to think is the only
> rational and mature way for a public conservative to conduct himself
> in contemporary America, because it would be stating its principles
> clearly right from the beginning. It would have nothing to lose.
"Nothing to lose" would include no recognized position in public life.
So it could do things someone (a "public conservative") couldn't do who
desired to maintain such a position. I never asserted having such a
desire and acting on it was "rational and mature," only that only so
much can be expected from people who do so and that it's better for
there to be "public conservative" footdraggers than not. In time of
course the new party might acquire a recognized position.
Thanks for the exchange, by the way. It has been very helpful to me.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From upstream-list-request@cycad.com Mon Jul 12 03:57:03 1999
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Subject: Re: [Upstream] A legitimate question?
To: upstream-list@cycad.com
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 03:54:09 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <378985F6.5909@earthlink.net> from "thumber@earthlink.net" at Jul 11, 99 11:06:46 pm
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> Kalb's comparison about food is just silly, in my estimation. Food
> is like race? Ridiculous!
The point was not that food is like race but that the arguments that
"race" is an imaginary category could just as well be used for food.
> The whole discussion of genes assumes that people who self-identify
> as "black" have purely African genes.
I've never seen anything that assumes this. It seems to me all that's
needed is that those who self-identify as "black" have a different
average genetic heritage than those who self-identify as white. Then
the difference in average genetic heritage would become available as a
conceivable explanation for differences in average other things.
Your friend's point seems to be not that all such explanations are
false, but that they aren't even comprehensible, a point that seems to
me quite clearly wrong.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
---
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> Your friend's point seems to be not that all such explanations are
> false, but that they aren't even comprehensible, a point that seems
> to me quite clearly wrong.
I should add -- I've never gone to the trouble of learning much about
genetics and racial differences, mostly because other things interest
me more. I accept that the link is there and is important, though.
What clinches the matter for me is the prominence given arguments like
your friend's.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
---
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From paleo-return-337-jk=panix.com@returns.egroups.com Wed Jul 14 13:03:44 1999
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Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 08:19:22 -0400 (EDT)
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> Wither the paleocon movement? There are few recent books, no new
> periodicals or organizations and only a sprinking of web sites.
Was "paleocon" a movement or a general description, in contrast to
"neocon"?
I suppose the word suggests awareness of neocons as different and in
some ways inimical. Also "paleo" seems to refer to an alliance between
non-libertine libertarians and conservatives who reject MLK, FDR and
probably Lincoln and so aren't neocons, who admire all three.
I'm not sure any of that is enough to constitute a movement. The views
and those who hold them remain. How much they prosper is anyone's
guess. The fall of communism and growing triumph of the NWO is turning
a lot of people toward particularism which has to help.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
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From jk Wed Jul 14 07:29:37 1999
Subject: Re: Kvetch and Retreat, Stupid Party, or What You Will
To: la
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 07:29:37 -0400 (EDT)
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It's a good question what sorts of organizations might be useful. New
publications? Discussion societies? Think tanks? Clearing houses?
World congresses? Political parties? Websites? I've tried
constructing websites, discussion groups etc. with mixed success. All
very small scale.
One could consider precedents -- committees of correspondence,
socialist and libertarian parties in America, the Communist
International, the Fabian Society. I admit I usually take an
evolutionary/invisible hand approach -- people are always trying all
sorts of things, and those that turn out to be useful grow. Maybe more
thought is called for.
You of course propose a political party. An issue is formulating the
right set of principles. It seems to me questions like interpretation
of the American Founding might turn out to be important. Also the
connection between the American future and white protestant origins.
Also figures like Abraham Lincoln and FDR. It's easier for a socialist
or libertarian party to ignore all that stuff or not take it seriously
because they believe that it is present human will that creates
society. Or maybe the need for a radical break from utopian radicalism
means tossing recent history (since 1960? 1932? 1860? 1775? the Middle
Ages?) which is the history of the Revolution on the scrapheap. What
would the party say it *favors* though? Possibly it could set an
abstract goal of a general state of social relationships and then say
that there's no preordained royal road but what clearly has to be done
right now is XYZ. Other questions are leadership and support from
existing groups. How would one get started?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Wed Jul 14 18:02:56 1999
Subject: Re: Kvetch and Retreat, Stupid Party, or What You Will
To: la
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1999 18:02:56 -0400 (EDT)
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> A political party appeals because it's active, it takes stands and
> puts them before the public, and it is an organization that people
> can join. To me it is desperately obvious that what the right in
> America needs is a political party to organize and express itself.
It needs something, that's for sure. Maybe a party could provide a
focus, if it had a compelling vision.
I think it has to be strong on the vision thing. If you present a
complex of very radical and mostly destructive proposals I think there
has to be an understanding of what good is going to come out of it.
There has to be a great hope to keep people going. Socialist parties
had a vision of what human relations should be like and a general sense
of the institutional arrangements that would promote them, as well as
specific practical policies. I think radical minor parties who aren't
going to deliver anything tomorrow or next year need that.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Thu Jul 15 20:25:59 EDT 1999
Article: 13904 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: French Revolution
Date: 15 Jul 1999 20:19:35 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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731591054@3web.com (T.Asquith) writes:
>>doesn't Plato's view that mankind is a tabula rasa on which to write
>It's true he invented the notion of the tabula rasa.
> My word, Jim--are we now confusing Descartes' invention with the
> Master's paideia? (Hint: 'tabula rasa' is Latin, and the Master's
> educational system suggested in his Politeia bears no real
> resemblance to the meaning denoted by this phrase).
Thanks for the hint, and for the classical learning. "Tabula rasa" was
Andy Fear's phrase, and since it has passed into English it seems
strange to quarrel about it. To me it seemed to the point; at 501a
Plato describes the philosophers' way of proceeding: "'They would take
the city and the dispositions of human beings, as though they were a
tablet,' I said, 'which in the first place they would wipe clean...'"
(Bloom trans.)
> Might I also add that this is truly a unique translation?
I'm sure Jowett would take that as a compliment.
> I cannot recall the Greek ever mentioning "asserting to the death" or
> the mention of a "constitution" (a closer translation would be
> "debate" and "argument" respectively).
The Bloom translation, which I understand is intended to stick close to
the literal sense, says "do battle for the argument" and "regime." I
assume that as usual in Bloom the latter translates _politeia_. I'm
not sure why you think "constitution" is a bad translation. Perhaps
you can debate the issue with Jowett via ouija board.
> Also, the foreign place is more accurately described as a "less
> civilized" or "barbaric" place (the Athenians were a bit snobby :-) ).
It seems reasonable to me to think that in context the point is
distance rather than inferiority.
> The "compelled by a superior power" is also inaccurate--guided by a
> superior purpose perhaps ("the Muse"), but the translation is a bit
> odd to say the least.
Bloom's "there has been some necessity," which I presume is close to
the literal sense, seems strangely vague in English. I'm not sure
there's a difference in meaning.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Thu Jul 15 20:26:01 EDT 1999
Article: 13905 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Countering Revolutions (was Re: Maarten van 't net (vnet) gearresteerd !)
Date: 15 Jul 1999 20:24:04 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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731591054@3web.com (T.Asquith) writes:
> Of course, this begs the question as to whether there can be a
> counter-revolutionary leftist.
Not unless the rightist/leftist distinction has become incoherent. My
discussion depends by the way on a rather grandiose conception of "the
Revolution" as the political process working toward a self-contained
world order constructed by man for the satisfaction of desire.
> we tend to forget that the idea of the counter-revolution must rely
> on an idealized version of the past.)
Why? Does all action rely on an idealized goal? If so, what's the
point of raising the issue specially in connection with
counterrevolution? If not, what's special about counterrevolution that
it requires idealization when other things don't?
> many right-wingers, with the exception of the utopian libertarians,
> do tend to favour: censorship; some public funding of operatic
> companies and symphonies; the introduction of morality and/or
> religion and/or high culture into educational curricula; and so on.
Such things don't normally require detailed administration of religious
and cultural life in the way government regulates industry. Consider
the relative number of administrators and volume of regulations.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Fri Jul 16 16:59:55 EDT 1999
Article: 13908 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: American conservatives
Date: 16 Jul 1999 16:58:19 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In kly@angara.olsen.ch (Gregory Kozlovsky) writes:
>Please, Mr. Kalb, explain us what is the connection of American
>"conservatives" with counter-revolutionaries. I don't see any.
The connection between "conservatives" and CRs is that both side -- in
context -- with traditionalism, the view that society is not a human
construction for human ends. For the American situation read my
"Traditionalism and the American Order" at
http://freenet.buffalo.edu/~cd431/american_tradition.html.
The basic idea of the essay is that traditionalism is a necessary
feature of any society. In a liberal society like America the
necessary implicit traditionalism is in tension with public liberalism.
The former is unable to make its case explicitly so the balance can
only be maintained by a certain general blinkered obstinacy. That can
only last so long, and it has now broken down, creating a very severe
crisis for not only American conservatism but the American public order
generally.
Which brings us to a second connection between American conservatism
and CR thought. Since foot-dragging, idealization of previous stages
in the development of liberalism, refusal to think etc. can no longer
preserve the conditions of a tolerable way of life something more
radical is called for. So in order to be true to its reason for being
American conservatism will therefore have to become
counterrevolutionary.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Jul 18 17:46:40 EDT 1999
Article: 13910 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: American conservatives
Date: 18 Jul 1999 06:48:08 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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> Even a "conservative" is a liberal in America, for what he seeks
> to conserve is merely the liberalism of the past.
That's not really so silly. Conserving the liberalism of the past is
not liberalism, it seems to me, because liberalism is a line of
development toward a goal. The chief difference between the liberalism
of the past and that of the present is that the latter applies to more
of social life and corresponds to a more thorough transformation of
inherited conceptions and practices. To reject it in favor of that of
the past is therefore in context conservative.
American conservatism has I think suffered from a certain incoherence
of doctrine but coherent doctrine isn't everything. Very little
political doctrine is coherent and actual contemporary liberalism is
incoherent as well. I don't see anything more conservative or
traditionalist for example about the centralized state than state's
rights. It seems much less so, actually, since its origin and tendency
is more rationalizing and antiparticularist. And in any event
conservatism by nature adopts and makes use of things that began for
quite different purposes.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Jul 19 08:41:39 EDT 1999
Article: 13918 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: American conservatives
Date: 19 Jul 1999 07:15:48 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <3792AE9A.9CEEF9FD@infinet.com> "Tony W. Frye" writes:
>American conservatives love Burke for one reason and one reason only:
>he was the only real political figure in Europe who favored the
>American Revolution while opposing the French Revolution, which gives
>American conservatives the leeway they need to pimp the fiction that
>somehow these revolutions were fundamentally different.
Mr. Frye's language and tone display his usual qualities of mind and
spirit. Nonetheless, Burke's attitude toward the American War of
Independence and the French Revolution does raise interesting issues.
One is the long-term prospects of Burkean conservatism. When and to
what extent can it play a critical role with regard to established
long-term tendencies?
Things may be clear enough when literary types and provincial lawyers
announce they want to abolish the established order of things and then
proceed to invent a new form of government, a new religion, a new
calendar, chop the heads off the previous governing class, etc., but
what if there's far more continuity than that, so that there's no
violent break in ruling class, no extreme upheavals in property,
considerable continuity of political forms, little change in a
religious establishment that mostly supported the changes are, etc.?
The issue is very much a live one today. Neocons like Irving Kristol
are made very nervous by fundamental complaints about the political
regime that actually exists in the United States in 1999 for Burkean
reasons -- the regime grew up step-by-step with the support of
established institutions and ways of thinking, it's supported by most
people and settled authorities, so it becomes difficult to argue with
it on Burkean lines even though it is destructive of so much that Burke
and conservatives generally value.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Jul 19 20:46:11 EDT 1999
Article: 13924 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
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Subject: Re: American conservatives
Date: 19 Jul 1999 14:54:57 -0400
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> If you want counter-revolution, I would think Calhoun or de Maistre
> would be much better models to follow than Burke, whose conservatism
> did not seek to roll back society, just slow down change.
I don't see anything specially counterrevolutionary about Calhoun. And
I don't think Burke can be reduced to "slowing down change." His
interest isn't specifically change or no change, but good government
and the good life and how those things are practically approximated. I
think it follows that his fundamental concerns lead to a
counterrevolutionary approach when the times require.
Burke's basic point against the French revolutionaries is that it's a
big complicated world, with a lot of very different people in it, each
with gifts and weaknesses, and the good to which their actions should
tend is itself enormously complex, at least as a practical matter. It
can't be captured in a formula or administered into existence.
Knowledge of the good life and its conditions and means of attainment
is only in part conceptual or quantifiable. Such things depend on
largely inarticulate habits, attitudes and understandings that grow up
socially. It follows that there are severe limits on the role of
abstract theory in politics. Since a very large part of the knowledge
and habits necessary for the good life are those of ordinary men in the
ordinary relations of life, the institutions and practices that provide
the stability that permits knowledge and skill to accumulate are mostly
small in scale. Hence Burke's "little platoons," his opposition to
imperial oppression, and the modern concern with "family values,"
states' rights, particularism, opposition to rule by bureaucrats and
experts, etc.
Burke is more concerned with how to preserve a social order he thought
good than reform one that had become radically misdirected. He
therefore proposes to accept the genius of major institutions and when
needed pursue a policy of moderate reform.
In a time in which major institutions by tendency and even design
destroy the importance and stability of small-scale local social order
it seems to me a misapplication of Burke's thought to say that you
should accept the political process society generates and the outcomes
the process generates without fundamental criticism. That would be to
give up his best insights for the sake of a part of his thought that
depended more on particular circumstances. To base action on theory is
risky but if it were always illegitimate there would be no point to a
book of political theory like Burke's _Reflections_.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Jul 21 08:14:35 EDT 1999
Article: 13939 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
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Subject: Re: American conservatives
Date: 21 Jul 1999 06:48:43 -0400
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In <37952364.3375@interlog.com> Alan Stewart writes:
>The adherence that North American conservatives give to Burke is
>ironic in view of the fact that he was not professedly a Conservative
>at all but a Whig--i.e., a liberal.
The reason he's read of course is that his importance -- his
understanding of how social life and politics works -- is not exhausted
by his party. What Burke supplies to modern American conservatives I
think is an articulation of a side of political life that American
political rhetoric and official American belief have always tended to
obscure. It's certainly possible that the same understanding could
support different parties, different positions on the political
spectrum etc. at different times. Take for example the view that you
shouldn't push abstract principles too far.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets nuclear
weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be aliens,
children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Jul 21 19:55:12 EDT 1999
Article: 13944 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
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Subject: Re: American conservatives
Date: 21 Jul 1999 17:11:51 -0400
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In "Tony W. Frye" writes:
>>I don't see anything specially counterrevolutionary about Calhoun.
>He's probably the only real counter revolutionary this country ever
>produced.
You seem to think of a counterrevolutionary as Marx with the sign
reversed rather than someone who opposes the Revolution because it
destroys what it doesn't understand in the name of a utopia based on a
grossly inadequate conception of human life.
To me it seems that the Revolution is more a matter of the categories
in which human life is conceived than the direction those categories
are given.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets nuclear
weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be aliens,
children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Sun Jul 18 17:23:09 1999
Subject: Re: Medieval Iceland
To: bo
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 17:23:09 -0400 (EDT)
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> Did this equality extend to women as well? Was there sexual
> egalitarianism? In short, was Medieval Iceland a feminist utopia?
Not really. Without a state it's hard to go against nature. In line
with Germanic custom women had high status and a great deal of freedom
but public life was for warriors which left women out. There are a few
incidents in the sagas in which women assault men. It would have been
disgraceful to retaliate directly but it could get their menfolk into
trouble. Women also participated in affairs indirectly, by advice or
goading their men into action.
Women managed the household and were admired for skill in such things
and for spiritedness, presence of mind etc. They could divorce their
husbands. There was one woman among the founders of Iceland, Aud the
deep-minded, a noblewoman who left Sweden with her retainers after her
husband died and took lands in Iceland, who was generally admired for
being able to bring it off in such difficult circumstances. A woman
could be married for the first time against her will, although it was
usually a bad idea -- the plot of a couple of sagas revolves around
that happening to a beautiful and spirited woman.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets to have
nuclear weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be
aliens, children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Wed Jul 21 14:57:53 1999
Subject: Re: Traditionalism and the American Order
To: ka
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 14:57:53 -0400 (EDT)
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> First of all, you should keep Reagan's record distinct from his
> epigones' and second, you should compare these years to what came
> before.
My comment was not about Reagan but about overall trends. If you want
you can read what I said as "even the wonderful Reagan wasn't nearly
enough." Someone might be the greatest doctor in the world in the
middle of a plague and do a lot of good but the situation might still
be very bad and getting worse.
> The Reagan presidency turned us around, economically and
> strategically, and even to some extent in pop culture--for example,
> the '80s were the glory days of Right-wing action movies.
The move away from state socialism and the destruction of the Soviet
Union were I agree unmatched achievements. I have no special fondness
though for Right-wing action movies except by comparisons that have to
do with the general trend of things, which is what I'm complaining
about.
I say that the:
Reagan, Bush and Gingrich years [were in fact] marked by
large-scale third-world immigration, the strengthening of
"affirmative action" and spread of political correctness,
continued degradation of popular culture and sexual standards,
growth in welfare expenditures and regulatory intrusiveness,
reaffirmation by all respectable authorities that abortion is
integral to the American regime, and aggressive construction of
the New World Order.
Do you disagree with that? Under such circumstances is the Right
overall gaining ground?
> Thanks to Reagan, we won the Cold War abroad. Sure, we haven't won
> the Cold War at home; but do you really expect one administration to
> solve all our problems at once? We have to do our own bit.
The essay wasn't a complaint about Reagan, it was an attempt to
describe how enormous our problems really are. It seems to me the Cold
War at home is now and always has been the basic problem. What kind of
country are we? How shall we live together?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets nuclear
weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be aliens,
children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From paleo-return-362-jk=panix.com@returns.egroups.com Fri Jul 23 14:14:55 1999
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From: Jim Kalb
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In-Reply-To: <3796ED5D.59D0A3B@ix.netcom.com> from "Justin Raimondo" at Jul 22, 99 03:07:25 am
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Justin Raimondo writes:
> Well, it seems to me that the main theoretical questions have been
> solved: the paleos have pretty much defined themselves in relation to
> the rest of the Right
I defer to your expertise on what constitutes the paleo movement and
what it needs to realize its purposes.
Overall though the Right has been losing for quite some time. There
have no doubt been lots of reasons for that. One I think is that as
Mr. Wilder suggests the Left has benefited from a more coherent
fundamental understanding of things. As a result cooperation has come
more naturally, strategy and tactics have meshed better, and it has
been easier to present a vision people could find inspirational. The
view that rightwingers are basically "againsters" has I think been
mostly true.
By "theory" I mean dealing with such issues. You can't beat something
with nothing. What, in the end, are we trying to do and why? The
answer to that question has to be something that can ground a social
order that makes sense to people generally. It seems to me the current
situation, in which the Left is thoroughly institutionalized, makes
such issues unavoidable by making necessary a radical break with the
current state of affairs.
> In the hierarchy of paleo principles, anti-imperialism, I would
> argue, rates pretty high, and is furthermore increasingly relevant.
I admire the work that's been done at antiwar.com. I wonder though
whether anti-imperialism is an example of a American rightwing tendency
to build a coalition among incompatibles based on common opposition to
something overseas. Such coalitions are good and necessary, they
deserve praise and support, my only point is that they're not
sufficient.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets nuclear
weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be aliens,
children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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From jk Thu Jul 22 16:04:33 1999
Subject: Re: Antiracism article
To: la
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 16:04:33 -0400 (EDT)
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> It's not rational to insist that race is both irrelevant to and
> definitive of the human individual.
Or maybe it *is* a rational system. If race is constitutive of who a
man is then "all men are equal" implies "all races are equal." And if
my experience is that race makes me what I am, but my aspiration is for
my own choice to make me what I am, then a resolution would be to make
race irrelevant to my ability to make choices -- that is, to make all
choices and social positions equally open to persons of all races and
thus to persons with qualities that characterize blacks, whites,
Chinamen, whatever.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets nuclear
weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be aliens,
children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Fri Jul 23 09:27:52 1999
Subject: Re: [Re: Traditionalism and the American Order]
To: ka
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 09:27:52 -0400 (EDT)
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> 1964 was a milestone; 1980 was a milestone; 1994 was a milestone;
> they bring us closer to the goal.
I just don't see that they've brought us closer. The most basic issue
is what kind of people we are, how we live together, and I think at
each of those milestones things on the whole have been worse on that
point than at the previous one.
The point I suppose is that it takes time to reverse the course of an
oil tanker and for quite a while it will still be going in the same
direction. I agree that much has been done, and that the positive
should not be forgotten. My emphasis in the article was on how very
much more needs to be done, how radical the necessary changes would be,
which I think is also necessary to bear in mind.
It seems to me the forces transforming the world on liberal lines are
still extremely powerful and the battle is quite unequal. I agree that
it's not over until it's over, and in the long run liberalism will lose
if only because it is essentially parasitic and ends up killing its
host.
Anyway thanks for your comments. I'm glad you liked the essay on the
whole and hope you found it useful.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets nuclear
weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be aliens,
children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From jk Fri Jul 23 09:47:57 1999
Subject: Re: Antiracism article
To: la
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 09:47:57 -0400 (EDT)
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> >And if my experience is that race makes me what I am, but my
> >aspiration is for my own choice to make me what I am, then a
> >resolution would be to make race irrelevant to my ability to make
> >choices -- that is, to make all choices and social positions equally
> >open to persons of all races and thus to persons with qualities that
> >characterize blacks, whites, Chinamen, whatever.
> I'm sorry but don't understand what you're trying to say here.
I was afraid you would say that. It's good to be called to account on
these things though.
The background thought was that the Left aspires for man to create
himself and also has a wholly this-worldly conception of man. The two
are in conflict. If man is wholly contained in the general pattern of
events in this world, a pattern which is predictable enough to
manipulate, then how can he create himself?
The conflict is found everywhere in the thought of the Left, for
example in the Bolshevik combination of historical determinism and the
myth of the Revolution, and gives it an inner irrationality. In
different branches of the Left the conflict takes different form and is
resolved in different ways.
In the civil rights movement the conflict takes the form of the
conflict between race as something to be abolished, because it limits
the individual will, and race as something that constitutes the
individual by giving him social reality, a particular point of view,
whatever. The resolution is to accept that race constitutes the
individual but eliminate it as a limitation on the will by arranging
the world so that everything one might choose can be chosen equally
easily by anyone of any race. A quota system is intended to bring
about that result.
It's possible that the foregoing makes no sense as an isolated point
apart from a larger theory about the Left which I haven't presented or
for that matter developed.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets nuclear
weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be aliens,
children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From paleo-return-354-jk=panix.com@returns.egroups.com Thu Jul 22 14:24:09 1999
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In-Reply-To: <74547532.24c7ca13@aol.com> from "CraigPreus@aol.com" at Jul 21, 99 09:12:51 pm
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Some thoughts:
1. The paleo tendency is too intellectual to be a mass movement.
It's more a source of analyses and ideas that can be picked up by
politicians and popularizers. I suppose on particular issues like
anti-imperialism and immigration reform and in discussions among people
who think of themselves as conservatives or libertarians it could play
a practical role. Regarding the latter it does seem that strategy
should be useful, to choose the points on which the Left,
neoconservative deviationalists or whoever are weakest and the best
methods for pressing those points.
2. There's plenty of room for different people to do different
things. Theory is necessary for example. Overgrown means/ends
rationality is a basic problem with the modern world is so if you don't
like the direction of things the first thing needed may be to cultivate
a more comprehensive perspective not immediately connected with
stategies for success. Americans on the whole haven't been great
theoreticians and the most prominent American thinkers (Emerson, John
Dewey, whoever) haven't been right-wingers so there's a definite place
for grand reactionary speculations.
3. Part of the problem is that there aren't enough paleo-minded
people scattered around to keep paleo ideas in view. So purely
intellectual persuasion is I think important. Also, I sometimes get
the impression paleos are antisocial by nature. I suppose the Left was
always prone to schism, though, and maybe contentiousness is good for
generating and testing ideas.
4. The web *ought* to be useful, but I think it's more useful for
reaching the few than the many. There are obvious problems with the
latter. The more messages bombard people the more they deal with them
by shutting out everything uncertified and everything they aren't
already used to. Hence the success of the "extremism" strategy for
dealing with everyone to the right of Bob Dole and also the
unreflective nature of a lot of net conservatism and libertarianism.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets nuclear
weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be aliens,
children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
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From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jul 27 13:08:36 EDT 1999
Article: 13954 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Dead Kennedys
Date: 27 Jul 1999 08:21:56 -0400
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In <19990726210345.25206.00002464@ng-cr1.aol.com> ddavis8570@aol.com (DDavis8570) writes:
>doesnt anyone think that they really missed with JFKjr? They should
>have emabalmed him in a shrine like Lenin so the boobs could come to
>pray and worship. They then could create and order of nobility where
>the worthy could be made honorary Kennedys and be allowed to assume
>the sacred surname. doesnt this show how easily a demagogic dictator
>could whip up a frenzy to lead him to power.
For electronic ectoplasm embalming and orders of nobility seem too
institutional. Maybe sightings and mailorder relics? Seems doubtful
to me but who knows.
Does anyone think JFKjr will have the staying power of Elvis or even
Diana?
It seems less demagoguery than froth that occupies the people while the
real work of reconstructing society goes forward semiautomatically.
Public life is being deconstructed by breaking symbolic and functional
aspects apart. Modern tyranny like modern everything else is more
impersonal than in antiquity.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets nuclear
weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be aliens,
children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Fri Jul 30 04:41:35 EDT 1999
Article: 13959 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Democracy v. Republic
Date: 30 Jul 1999 04:40:28 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <933286044snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> raf391@hormel.bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
>The growth of the rate of growth of the rate of growth of economic
>inequality (no, the duplication is not a typo: I mean the second
>derivative) suggests that we are in for the global rule of one family
>within a generation or so. Of course they will be new tycoons, not old
>royals, and their rule will be indirect. The media flummery about
>'celebrities' is part of the preparation that is needed for people to
>accept it.
Seems unlikely we'll have one-man or one-family rule. Universal
empires are hard to maintain without a reliable principle of moral
cohesion in the ruling class and it's not clear what that would be in
this case.
Mutual rivalries supply the missing principle of cohesion, so corrupt
empires tend to break up into several pieces. Think of the Hellenisic
period, or periods of warlordism in China. Military rivalry as a basic
principle of political order means that control of the army becomes a
source of wealth at least as much as the reverse. So I really don't
see the New Order as constituted on neoliberal principles. That's
quite apart from the general significance of the separation of
ownership from control and the dematerialization of property rights in
recent times, both of which tend to transfer power and therefore wealth
>from owners to managers and manipulators.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets nuclear
weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be aliens,
children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Jul 31 08:04:54 EDT 1999
Article: 13964 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Democracy v. Republic
Date: 31 Jul 1999 07:57:11 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 27
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>I guess a true monarchy would then be an absolute monarchy
More likely one in which the king plays a serious role in governing as
well as serving as head of state. Traditional European monarchies were
not absolute; other persons, classes, corporations etc. had rights that
did not depend on the king's will.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe, a follower of Murray Rothbard and I think an
anarchocapitalist, wrote an interesting article on the advantages of
monarchy in comparison with election for short periods. Monarchy seems
to be his second-best system. His main point is that long-term
possession -- ownership -- gives an interest in the well-being of the
possession that short-term does not. A man does not normally loot his
own property as a temporary occupant often would.
I seem to recall that Tocqueville also commented on the tendency of
democratic governments to become tyrannical because they have the moral
force of "vox populi vox dei" on their side. There's no one of
sufficient stature to stand against them. Hoppe develops the point.
There seem to be a few other libertarian monarchists around. The
evangelist R.C. Sproul I am told is one.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets nuclear
weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be aliens,
children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Jul 31 08:04:55 EDT 1999
Article: 13965 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: New From Nyquist
Date: 31 Jul 1999 08:00:19 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 14
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References: <933279293.25566@www.remarq.com>
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In kly@angara.olsen.ch (Gregory Kozlovsky) writes:
>>May I suggest you view the current (July 29, 1999) column of John
>>Nyquist in the current edition of WorldNetDaily.
>Can you please provide URL? I was unable to find it immediately using
>a search engine.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_nyquist/19990729_xcjny_why_left_w.shtml
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets nuclear
weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be aliens,
children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From owner-class-69@Dartmouth.EDU Fri Jul 30 04:20:20 1999
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From: Jim Kalb
Message-Id: <199907300812.EAA18388@panix.com>
Subject: Re: AIDS: The Epidemic Continues
To: tmcwhorter@earthlink.net (Tom McWhorter)
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 04:12:32 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: GunnardJ@carp.vno.osf.lt, class-69@Dartmouth.EDU
In-Reply-To: <37A0CAAE.EF7D462D@earthlink.net> from "Tom McWhorter" at Jul 29, 99 05:42:06 pm
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Tom McWorter writes:
> I don't have the answer, but here is a radical thought. Would it be
> possible to encourage low-risk sexual outlets for young people rather
> than try to swim against the tide of hormones?
I suppose there have been times and places when prostitution was
allowed as a relatively harmless outlet. That was an indulgence
withing a generally repressive system though. It seems to me that if
sex is *overall* a matter of prudence instead of tabu then people
aren't going to be prudent either. The motives aren't of the same
force.
Reminds me of when Kemeny wondered aloud why people couldn't be
sensible about sex ...
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From owner-class-69@Dartmouth.EDU Sat Jul 31 09:39:49 1999
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From: Jim Kalb
Message-Id: <199907311337.JAA08934@panix.com>
Subject: Re: AIDS: The Epidemic Continues
To: tmcwhorter@earthlink.net (Tom McWhorter)
Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 09:37:40 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: GunnardJ@carp.vno.osf.lt, class-69@Dartmouth.EDU
In-Reply-To: <37A1E4D0.87C83037@earthlink.net> from "Tom McWhorter" at Jul 30, 99 01:45:52 pm
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Tom McWhorter writes:
> I am appalled at [Gunnard's] call for "parental, social, and
> governmental policy to discourage in the strongest terms premarital
> and extramarital sexual relations." Look at the damage caused by that
> approach to America's war on drugs. And look at the success or lack
> thereof.
There are lots of possible analogies. Think of lying -- people think
it's a bad thing and say so, parents tell their kids not to lie and
punish them when they are caught, people don't like or trust liars,
they look down on them socially, it's extremely insulting to be called
a liar, some lies (fraud, perjury) can get you put in jail, others can
get you fired etc.
The effect I think is that people lie less than they would if lying
were thought of as a wholly individual thing, a strategy for dealing
with life that is immune from criticism or comment by third parties.
We think of honesty as part of what it is to be a good person, so we
feel our own lying as a violation of what we truly are. If there's
someone who thinks otherwise, who truly sees no problem with lying, we
think there's something wrong with him.
Until quite recently sexual morality was like that. The issue I think
is whether it should be like that, whether sexual rectitude more or
less as traditionally conceived should be understood as part of what it
is to be a good person. One possible reason for understanding it that
way is that sex is so closely tied to fundamental and irreplaceable
family relations that have to be stable and reliable if life is to be
at all tolerable. If sex is what you make of it, a matter of
individual choice, then the same tends to be true of sexual ties like
that between man and wife.
> banning or regulating sex has never worked and never will? (It has
> been tried often enough).
Why has it been universally attempted then? Has everyone been stupid
up till now? If we're all so smart how come we're not all happy?
Also, do you think the sexual regime that existed when you were in high
school had no effect at all on sexual conduct?
Illegitimacy rates are a crude measure but they must show something.
In England they had been around 5% for centuries. Then about 1960 they
began to shoot up and now are somewhere between 30 - 40% and climbing.
That's with abortion and contraception freely available. I can't help
but think that changing attitudes toward sexual morality had something
to do with the situation.
> Wouldn't it make sense to encourage our kids to enter a "trial
> marriage" with effective birth control?
Sounds rational, which is what's wrong with it. Life, especially
things like sex that touch us closely, isn't a matter of correct
technical arrangements. It's a matter of fundamental orientations and
understandings that precede all the particular things we do. Those are
the things that have to do with morality -- with shall I be a liar?
etc.
"Trial marriage" etc. means that there's nothing special about living
and sleeping with a woman. What it amounts to depends on the parties'
intentions. Those can change of course. So it's not surprising
divorce rates are substantially higher among those who do trial
marriage than those who don't. Bad for the kids. Not so good for
their elders either.
> I suspected that in this abstenance campaign (as with most morally
> driven campaigns) there is a hidden agenda for reshaping the world
> and all its people into the behavior that God personally told you is
> correct.
AIDS has certainly been used opportunistically by the sexual Left and
Right, more successfully by the former. To that extent there are
hidden agendas. I don't understand the "God personally told you"
comment though. It's not as if traditional sexual morality is some
private fantasy Jerry Falwell made up in 1977. American traditional
sexual morality has a lot more in common with traditional sexual
morality elsewhere -- in China or wherever -- than current progressive
morality has with anything. If one complains about attempts to reshape
the world based on new revelations from unknown and uncheckable sources
I think it's the Left and not the Right that should be the target of
the complaint.
> I am used by, or a user of, hundreds of people weekly with whom there
> is no serious commitment for a lasting relationship. So far it has
> not led to emptiness, alienation, and hopelessness. Unfortunately,
> none of this use is of a sexual nature.
True. This of course is the question, whether there is something about
sexual relations that makes them different from buying a newspaper.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets nuclear
weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be aliens,
children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
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From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Jul 31 21:42:21 EDT 1999
Article: 13967 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Democracy v. Republic
Date: 31 Jul 1999 14:25:23 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 28
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References: <379DF5EE.3FA21E69@deleteme.my-deja.com> <933286044snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <37A2FD9F.F374E619@zap.a2000.nl>
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In <37A2FD9F.F374E619@zap.a2000.nl> vtnet writes:
>The popular demand for (alleged and/or trivial) information about
>celebrities might well have found its prime source in the popular
>demand for the demystification of these people; that is, to bridge the
>societal empty space that tends to surround the rich and famous that
>are no longer respected.
But celebrity has been separated from function. It seems to have less
connection with actual power than in the past. And the demand for
information doesn't seem to suggest demystification any more than the
demand for relics of the saints, their hair or shoes or whatever, does.
Is the separation a sign of illegitimate government, of a political
order that has no special connection with what people feel is right or
good or important? Partial precedents include Nils' long-haired
Merovings, displayed to the people once a year while government was
carried on by the Mayor of the Palace, and Lord Shang's policy of
punishing the people for praising the government (what the government
did, whether it was good or bad, was none of their business).
It seems to me the function of celebrity is to keep people's mind of
what is none of their business and they can't affect anyway.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets nuclear
weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be aliens,
children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Jul 31 21:42:22 EDT 1999
Article: 13971 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Monarchy - true and false
Date: 31 Jul 1999 18:57:02 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In kly@angara.olsen.ch (Gregory Kozlovsky) writes:
>According to both Hebrew and Hindu teachings, the best form of
>government is a theocracy, the rule of hereditary cast of priests,
>Levites and Brahmins, respectively. The second best form is monarchy,
>the rule of warriors, Kshatriyas. The lowest form of government is the
>rule of Vaishas, the businessmen, the form which has become dominant
>today under the fraudulent name of "democracy."
This of course is rather like the Platonic scheme in _Republic_
viii-ix, except in that scheme rule by philosophers and timocracy are
not followed simply by oligarchy (rule by businessmen) but by democracy
(rule by Sudras) and then tyranny.
Would it be forcing things to say that tyranny is rule by chandalas?
The tyrant, after all, is the man who wholly lacks a principle of moral
order, which I suppose would put him outside the caste system if the
caste system is the embodiment of moral order.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets nuclear
weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be aliens,
children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Aug 1 15:23:36 EDT 1999
Article: 13974 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Democracy v. Republic
Date: 1 Aug 1999 07:43:49 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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References: <379DF5EE.3FA21E69@deleteme.my-deja.com> <933286044snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <37A2FD9F.F374E619@zap.a2000.nl> <7nvf2j$2cv$1@panix.com> <37A42180.CC15F8EB@zap.a2000.nl>
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In <37A42180.CC15F8EB@zap.a2000.nl> vtnet writes:
>Therefore it seems reasonable to assume that celebrity is only the
>second line of defense in the protection of weakened power-structures,
>and that institutionalized religion and the like is the first.
But the current equivalent of institutionalized religion doesn't touch
people deeply or comprehensively enough. That's why people have
visions of Elvis not of Martin Luther King.
To my mind there's something self-consciously virtuous about
pilgrimages to the National Holocaust Museum. I suppose that's why
there was the fuss when JFK jr killed himself -- he had offered hope
that the world of sex and money and glitz could be combined with that
of bureaucratic egalitarian hedonism into a more appealing overall
package. It's not going to happen, so I think we'll stick with
celebrity.
>controlled by the people of the power and not by celebrities, we may
>assume a gradual increase in the demand for privacy as there is a
>gradual strengthening of oligarchic or plutocratic structures -- as in
>turn is reflected by increasing income-differentials.
But rich people are already able to avoid celebrity. If George Soros
walked down the street no one would notice. Why wouldn't he prefer
having Madonna to satisfy the mob's craving for excitement?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets nuclear
weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be aliens,
children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Aug 1 15:23:37 EDT 1999
Article: 13981 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Democracy v. Republic
Date: 1 Aug 1999 15:11:17 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <37A44A45.99DE1FBC@zap.a2000.nl> vtnet writes:
>> To my mind there's something self-consciously virtuous about
>> pilgrimages to the National Holocaust Museum.
>For those that identify themselves as Jews, of course.
The reason we have the museum on the Washington Mall is that the
Holocaust is a fundamental symbol of our established religion. It is
understood, not just by Jews, as a revelation of ultimate reality, as
an utterly incomparable event that at the same time has overwhelming
significance for all political, social and moral life.
The "self-consciously virtuous" comment means that it seems to me
equality, which is what the Holocaust in the end has to do with as a
symbol, can't really function adequately as a religion. It's too
vacant and formal. Hence the need for the cult of celebrity.
>I understand that the man was well outside of the power-structure and
>was just another convenient celebrity when he died of reckless
>behavior.
It doesn't matter that he had no special personal power. He was a
symbol of bureaucratic egalitarianism made sexy and adventurous.
>I feel that hedonistic tendencies are found in all of US popular
>politics; but that they are mostly little more than a thin veil to
>conceal the hook from the fish in the democratic pond.
The justification presented for US popular politics is giving everyone
what he wants, as much and as equally as possible. What people do, the
effect of policies etc., naturally varies from the justification
presented. That's especially true when the justification, like
egalitarian hedonism, is incapable of arousing personal devotion and
sacrifice. Still, what people think is the proper goal of politics is
important.
>Because Madonna might conceivably cause serious controversy that rubs
>of in the power structure itself. And worse, she might use her
>celebrity to actively oppose vested interests -- like Michael Jackson
>did with his "Earth Song".
Seems unlikely. Madonna wants the people to be self-indulgent and
easily manipulated and so does the power structure. Where's the clash
of interests that could make Madonna a steady opposition force?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk) "If the treasonous
(hence alien), childish, mentally ill felon in the White House gets nuclear
weapons to play with, why can't the rest of us who happen to be aliens,
children, mentally ill or felons possess assault rifles?"
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