The Death of Democracy
by El Inglés
A Question About One of Our Foremost Democracies
The legislative branch of the United States federal government is divided, as are many such institutions, into an upper and a lower house. The lower house, the House of Representatives (Congress), currently has 435 members, with each state having a number proportional to its population. The upper house, the Senate, has 100 members, with each state having two senators. Why the seats in the two houses should be apportioned differently is an interesting question, whose seemingly innocuous answer is of great significance.
Seats in the lower house being distributed amongst the states on the basis of population is an intuitively obvious arrangement: 10 times the population, 10 times the amount of influence in Congress. This requires no particular explanation. It is the structure of the Senate that requires that. Why should the smallest of states have the same influence in the Senate as the largest? Given that the structures of the Congress and the Senate were devised at the same time by the same people, why should a principle considered sound for Congress not have been applied to the Senate?
In effect, Congress considers individuals to be equal and insists that each of their votes is weighted identically, whereas the Senate considers states to be equal and ensures that each of them has identical influence, quite irrespective of their populations. This means that states with small populations such as Maryland have, on net balance, disproportionately great political power and that states with large populations, such as California, have disproportionately little political power. Now, this is clearly somewhat undemocratic in at least some sense of the term. So how did it come to be the case at all?
What Is Democracy?
Upon reflection, it appears to this author that the following definition of democracy is rather a good one: democracy is an organizational mechanism for allowing parties a) with divergent interests, but who b) wish to function as part of the same polity, to reconcile the divergent interests in a) to such a degree that b) becomes possible. Having defined democracy in this fashion as a mechanism, I am forced to conclude that it is a means, not an end, and that it therefore possesses no more intrinsic moral value than a truck or a pair of scissors, themselves devices for achieving certain ends. This point, probably contentious for many, will be explored in greater detail throughout the rest of the essay. It is helpful, in this vein, to observe the sheer variety of organizations that are not organized democratically. Militaries, government bureaucracies, corporations, NGOs, families, sports teams - the list goes on and on. If democracy is intrinsically morally superior to other decision-making systems, are we to conclude that all these organizational types are immoral because they do not use it?
I do not mean here to do down democracy. The point is simply that all mechanisms, be they physical or organizational in nature, have only a finite ability to accomplish their goals and that, when the challenges they face are too great, they will fail. More obviously, they will also fail to do things that they were never designed to do at all.
Consider a society in which everybody agrees with everybody about everything, in which there is simply no disagreement at all. Democracy is not only not required by such a society, it is meaningless in such a society. Any conceivable decision-maker or set of decision-makers drawn from the population will arrive at exactly the same conclusion in response to any and all issues. It makes no difference, therefore, how these decision-makers are selected or how they are held accountable for what they do (which they will not need to be, as everyone will always agree with whatever decisions they make). Democracy has no advantages, moral or otherwise, over an absolute dictatorship in such a society.
If we start to introduce disagreement into this society, what happens? At first, not much. When only minor disagreements exist, most policies will be very close to what most people approve of most of the time, and citizens will be able to grin and bear those policies that are not to their liking. However, if we start to introduce major, deep-rooted disagreements on matters of great importance, then decision-making mechanisms and the selection of decision-makers start to assume crucial importance. If the absolute despot who was tolerated when agreement was complete is still in place, he is going to start encountering difficulties when this consensus collapses, and his opponents will simply no longer have any reason to accept his previously unquestioned power. Only now does democracy start to present itself as a decision-making mechanism worth the time and energy it requires. In fact, it now starts to look indispensable, for how else can people live in peace and prosperity with each other if they feel that the interests of others are being prioritized over their own?
We see that democracy is only meaningful in, and only possesses any utility in, the context of disagreement. Moving from complete agreement out into the uncharted wilds of gradually increasing disagreement, the utility of democracy becomes more and more apparent. However, unhappily for us, this relationship is not a linear one. On the contrary, as disagreement increases, democracy’s utility passes through a maximum, and starts to head towards zero. Eventually its utility will become negative, which is to say that it will a) fail to enable people to live in peace and prosperity, and b) hold them together in a state of conflict, in a single polity, when they would be better going their separate ways. Of course, if they do eventually go their separate ways and become independent, then any new polities may again decide to conduct themselves democratically, with all the benefits this tends to result in. The point I wish to make here is simply that democracy stretched out to breaking point to hold together mutually antipathetic groups is worse than useless. One could, in principle, squash (politically speaking) all five Scandinavian countries together into a single democratic country. But what would be the point? The status of these five countries as separate countries despite their similarities and very strong historic and cultural links suggests that even relatively minor divergences of interests are best handled by independence.
A Closer Look At the Functioning of a Democracy
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I would like to consider here how democracies operate from a very particular point of view. I am not interested in the relative strengths and weaknesses of representative vs. direct democracy, or proportional representation vs. first-past-the-post systems such as we have in the UK. Rather, I am interested in the natures (zero-sum, positive-sum, or negative-sum) of the games that the multitudinous players in any real democracy engage in. To oversimplify for a moment: people participate, and continue to participate, in democratic politics because they consider it to be in their interests (individual or group), to do so. They do not do so because of some morally elevated commitment to the wonder-that-is-democracy. When times are good, they may think that that is what they are doing. But they are mistaken.
A healthy democracy is one in which two things are true: a) interactions between different constituencies within the polity are positive-sum in the long term, and b) participation in the democratic polity is positive-sum for all constituencies in the long term. These conditions are crucial to an understanding of democracy, so we will explore them with a concrete example of a simple game.
Let us imagine a coin-tossing game played between two people, A and B. A coin is tossed. If it comes up heads, A wins 10 pounds and B loses 5, if it comes up tails, the result is reversed with B winning 10 pounds and A losing 5 pounds. However the coin lands, there is a net gain of 5 pounds between the two players, which means the game is positive-sum. This satisfies the first of the two conditions for a healthy democracy, that interactions are positive-sum in the long-term.
What of the second condition? Are interactions positive-sum for all players in the long term? They most certainly will be in the coin is a normal coin. Both A and B will win half of all games, with every two games resulting, on average, in a win and a loss and a net gain of 5 pounds. However, if B can replace the coin with a two-headed coin and contrive to call heads every time, then the game, though still positive-sum, will result in an unbroken string of benefits for B and costs for A. Assuming A is not so dense as to fail to notice this, he will quickly decide that he must do one of two things: a) reintroduce an unbiased coin, or b) quit the game. There is no first-principles moral argument that could convince him that he should stay in the game as it is. Why should he? Is he a slave, to sacrifice himself for the benefit of B?
This is democracy in a nutshell. The democratic process, whatever its exact manifestation in a given case, is an attempt to ensure that the players in the game can all be kept in a democratic ‘sweet spot’ in which both conditions above are met. If they are met for all players in a particular democratic game, it can be expected to continue in an amicable fashion until such time as these conditions change. Note that it is not necessary for all players to benefit equally, a point to which we must return later when we answer the question we posed earlier about the structure of the United States Senate.
It is a simple matter to stitch together the two threads we have introduced so far: 1) democracy as a reconciling of divergent interests between parties who wish to live together, and 2) democracy as the maintenance of participating parties in a positive-sum sweet spot. Consider the following: If I think the minimum wage should go up by 50p and you think it should go down by 50p, then we have a divergence of interests. If the issue is decided through a referendum, we will have reconciled our divergent interests through democratic means. It is crucial to understand exactly what this means. The referendum is a zero-sum game; if you win, I lose. However, let us say that I am confident that it has been conducted fairly, and that I will sometimes be on the winning side in future contests. Let us also say that I do not begrudge you your victory, nor does it represent catastrophic damage to me or my way of life. Furthermore, our ability to amicably resolve disputes in this manner sets the stage for further productive and peaceful cooperation between us, which is a huge benefit for us both quite irrespective of the result of the referendum itself. This creates benefits for us both, with my benefit outweighing my loss in the referendum, thereby creating what is a positive-sum game for all players in the long-term. The referendum is zero-sum, discrete, and what I will call local, while the entire background game of democratic politics of which it is a part is positive-sum in general, positive-sum for all participants, open-ended, and what I will call global.
From this example, we can see that our two seemingly distinct concepts of what democracy-as-mechanism is are simply two ways of describing the same thing. Now that we understand this, we can start to consider more rigorously when and why democracy will start to run into difficulty.
The Connecticut Compromise
I left unanswered above the question of exactly why the upper and lower houses of the legislative branch of the U.S. federal government are structured the way they are. Now we are in a position to understand. The answer lies in the Connecticut Compromise, hammered out at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, which sought to provide a more permanent constitutional basis for the United States than existed at the time.
The Connecticut Compromise was just that; it was a compromise between the larger and the smaller states over the nature of the U.S. constitution. It was not an attempt to create some theoretically pure and unsullied democratic polity that some alien super-intelligence could admire in all its perfection. It was not an attempt to realize democracy-as-ideal, which is what the common, reflexive notion of democracy always concerns itself with. It was an attempt, and an extremely successful one at that, to implement democracy-as-mechanism, which is to say democracy as a mechanism for reconciling the divergent interests of disparate constituencies by keeping them all in a democratic sweet spot.
The problem collectively facing the states in 1787 was as follows: implementing a ‘pure’ democratic system in which number of seats in the federal legislature was proportional to population would create a situation in which the smaller states (such as Delaware) would have virtually no influence at all. Though technically democratic, the resulting system could hardly be expected to be one favorable to Delaware, as essentially all decisions would be made by representatives of other states who had no particular reason to care about the interests of Delaware. This being the case, why should Delaware agree? The theoretical purity of the democracy so created would have no utility from the perspective of Delaware. Accordingly, unless we believe that the Delawareans had some sort of moral obligation to spend the rest of eternity as the doormat of the larger states, we must conclude that there would be no reason for them to accept such a system. And indeed they did not.
This ‘pure’ system was known as the Virginia Plan. The smaller states at the convention responded with the New Jersey Plan, which proposed to create a single house, with representation split equally among the states, each having the same number of seats. At this, the larger states baulked. If Virginia had, say, 20 times the population of Delaware, how could it settle for equal political influence in the single legislative house? How could individual Virginians? Each Delaware voter would have, proportionately, 20 times more influence than each Virginia voter, which could hardly serve the interests of Virginia voters. Such a system would be grossly unfair.
In response to this impasse emerged the Connecticut Compromise, in which the larger and smaller states effectively split the difference. There would be two houses, a lower house in which seats were distributed on the basis of population, and an upper house in which each state had equal representation, with each house having certain unique powers. This brilliant fudge has allowed the United States to boast one of the longest records of continuous democratic government in the world (we will sidestep the U.S. Civil War here out of deference for the sensibilities of our American cousins). However, the vote of a Delawarean is still worth, on net balance, more than that of a Virginian in determining the make-up of the two houses of the legislature. Is this not undemocratic in some sense of the term?
The answer is clearly yes, if one is concerned with democracy-as-ideal. But if one is concerned with democracy-as-mechanism, it is not obvious that this should be so. In terms of the local game between larger and smaller states, the smaller states won. Relative to population, Delaware has proportional influence in Congress, but disproportionate influence in the Senate. Virginia has proportional influence in Congress and disproportionately little influence in the Senate, and has therefore suffered a defeat of a sort. However, in the global game, both states have enjoyed the massive, long-term benefits of being part of a strong, politically unified state with a consensual politics and all the benefits that derive therefrom, resulting in all states being winners on net balance. Perhaps Delaware did ‘win’ in some sense. But the Connecticut Compromise kept all the players in the democratic sweet spot, and they are all, at least in this regard, still in it today.
We start now to see the problem with democracy-as-ideal. There is simply no reason to believe that, in any given case, a system created to implement democracy-as-ideal (however any given individual conceives of it) will even come close to implementing democracy-as-mechanism, and it is democracy-as-mechanism that allows democracy to work. Delaware was simply not morally obliged to sacrifice its interests to further those of Virginia. If Virginia wanted Delaware on board, then it had to give something up. This is real democracy. I can insist that Denmark and Pakistan should form a single democratic state with the Pakistanis winning every single election and referendum, and that the Danes are evil and undemocratic if they disagree. But unless the Danes are simply the dogs and slaves of the Pakistanis, there is no reason for them to accept this, however perfect a democracy some third party might believe would thereby be created.
Democracy-As-Mechanism and Tribalism
Democratic politics faces certain classic and acknowledged problems such as short-termism, slowness in decision-making, and the capturing of policy-making influence by special interests as described by public choice theorists. Ignoring these particular problems, I will continue to cut my own slice through this topic and ask how powerful democracy-as-mechanism is at accomplishing the goals implicit in our two (equivalent) definitions; reconciling divergent interests and keeping all constituencies in a democratic sweet spot.
Imagine we have two uninhabited tropical islands, and 2 million people to be distributed on them to create two separate countries. One million of these people belong to group X and one million to group Y. Groups X and Y are racially, culturally, religiously distinct, with quite different levels of technological, political, and economic achievement. We would like each of our two countries-to-be to operate on the basis of an amicable, democratic politics. This being the case, how should we divide our 2 million people up? Should we put half of each group on each island, thoroughly mixing up X and Y? Or should we keep the groups intact, putting X on one island and Y on the other?
If democracy-as-mechanism were infinitely good at doing what it is supposed to do, it would make very little difference how we split them up. However, I believe that no intellectually serious person could believe that to be true. We are fairly obviously going to improve our chances of having prosperous, functional societies if we put all of A on one island and all of B on another. Does this require explanation?
This brief thought experiment impresses upon us the limitations of democracy-as-mechanism. Reconciling divergent interests is obviously going to become more problematic the greater the divergence in question and the larger the sub-populations belonging to the divergent constituencies. Democracy-as-mechanism is not a magic wand, and there is no reason to believe that all divergences can be resolved in some amicable fashion, or that all, or even a majority, of constituencies in a democratic polity can be kept in the democratic sweet spot at any given time. This is why democracy-as-mechanism has the greatest potential to work well when the divergence of interests in a polity is minor, and the democratic sweet spot commensurately large.
The best way to maximize the chances of this being the case is to ensure that the population of the polity is indeed a demos, a group of people who feel themselves, on the basis of shared ethnicity, religion, language, culture, history, and narrative, to be a single people. I do not wish to romanticize such groups. There is no guarantee whatsoever that a polity inhabited by a demos will be prosperous, peaceful, or even democratic. The ever-present possibility of political, class, and economic strife should remind us that there is no panacea with respect to the human tendency towards division and conflict. My point is simply that many potential sources of strife are absent in a country-with-demos (such as, until recently, Denmark) that are worryingly prevalent in a country-without-demos (such as India), and that the task of would-be democrats in the former is proportionately easier than in the latter.
Note that this point is widely made and not considered controversial when the legacy of, for example, European imperialism in Africa is being discussed. Our unfortunate historical habit of splitting up huge chunks of territory by drawing lines on a map with a ruler has, we are told, created great difficulties for the states that have come into being as a consequence. Tribal groups have been thrust together and ripped apart at random, creating polities that, though supposed to operate democratically, have no chance of doing so in any meaningful way due to their lack of a demos. Taking mutually antipathetic peoples with no overarching civic identity, weak or strong, and expecting to reconcile their divergent interests with any set of policies at all seems absurd. Surely there will be no sweet spot at all on the democratic tennis racket, with all its strokes clunking the ball wildly out of court?
I am not qualified to form a conclusion as to the extent to which this problem is actually responsible for Africa’s troubles with democratic politics (and also not sure that African tribes are contiguous and concentrated enough to have their own states at all, though that is a separate matter). But it seems plausible that it is a very serious problem for these relatively young and fragile states, and theoretical considerations and the empirical evidence both suggest that it is so.
Why then, does this unobjectionable and relatively ‘right on’ argument (Africa’s problems were caused by the white man) become so politically radioactive when it is applied to European politics? Why is it that people who would be the most inclined to accept such an argument in the context of Africa will not accept it in the context of Europe? The reason is that the same idea cuts across two different taboos in completely different directions. For some, it is taboo to suggest that Africa’s problems are anything but the work of the white man, and such people will also be inclined to adhere to the taboo which states that the presence in Europe of ever-larger numbers of Third World peoples, most of them disproportionately criminal, parasitic, and ideologically subversive, can only be a blessing for the Europeans. Thus the schizophrenic conclusions, which make clear the unhappiness of the non-empirical mind.
For my own part, both political developments in Africa and in Europe (and, for that matter, everywhere else) are strongly suggestive of the weakness of democracy-as-mechanism in the face of disparate tribal actors in the same polity. With the same underlying dynamics, we would expect to see the same emerging problems. Are we not all human?
Third-World Tribalism in European Democracies
It is clear to even the most casual observer of human affairs that our species has a tendency to division and strife. I do not suggest that this is the totality of what human beings are; nor am I blind to the great cooperative efforts that we are capable of making. I simply claim here that any large grouping of human beings will find that it contains distinct constituencies whose interests are divergent and not always easily reconciled. Political stability and positive-sum interactions can hardly be taken for granted in any human context.
Sadly, their absence can be taken for granted under circumstances that are now prevalent throughout Europe. If an economically and technologically advanced country whose people enjoy access to great financial and social capital (capital they themselves created) starts to populate itself with racially, culturally, religiously, linguistically different people who hail from decrepit, miserable societies with little in the way of any sort of civilizational achievement at all, at a stroke a situation will be created in which democracy-as-mechanism will be incapable of reconciling the interests of all groups or maintaining all players in any sort of democratic sweet spot at all.
It will be intuitively obvious to anyone suffering from the contamination of untrammeled third-world immigration that this is so, but it is important to understand exactly why. The situation is clearest with respect to Muslims, so let us consider the influx of Somalis into Sweden. I must preemptively discount here the predictable objection that I am ignoring the huge ‘cultural enrichment’ enjoyed by the Swedes as a consequence of their rapidly-growing population of child-mutilators and tax-eaters. I would like to keep the discussion serious, and even the most mindless multicultural zealot will eventually realize that gang rape does not enrich its victims.
Every single interaction between Swedes and Somalis in Sweden is at best a zero-sum game, bar none. The enormity of the error the Swedes have committed in allowing Somalis into their country, the sheer mind-numbing magnitude of it, becomes clear when we consider this point carefully. Economically speaking, the Somalis are a huge drain, both in the sense of the direct transfers made to them and the costs of their crime and dysfunctionality. Their horrendous crime rates are part of a game which is zero-sum at best and negative-sum at worst. Simply by virtue of being in Sweden, the Somalis enjoy access to a degree of social capital that their compatriots will never, ever create in their ‘country’ of origin, social capital which has in effect been transferred to them from the Swedes, who now enjoy less due to the crime, pathology, and psychopathology the Somalis have brought with them.
This is bad enough. But even more terrifying is the fact that Sweden is slowly handing political influence to these people in the form of the franchise. Many Somalis are doubtless too far from the Swedish mainstream to consider voting, and others disqualified from doing so due to criminal records. Nonetheless, as the community grows larger and more organized, it will start to corral its votes more effectively. What can the Somali community be expected to vote for in Sweden? Why, the same things that any tribal and dependent population will always vote for: more welfare payments, more immigration from its country of origin, and more political concessions and ‘sensitivity’. Every single one of these things will represent a continuation of the zero-sum games already mentioned. And the ongoing immigration and higher birth rates of the colonizers will simply guarantee that the scale and severity of these games increase with time.
Note that each of these interactions is what I earlier called local. Strictly speaking, even a situation as hideous as this could keep the Swedes in the democratic sweet spot if there were some global interaction which was massively positive sum, with huge compensating benefits for the Swedes. But the exact opposite is in fact the case. Across Europe, mass immigration of hostile and subversive Muslim peoples is shattering the confidence Europeans hold in their elected representatives and political systems, destroying their sense of being in control of their own historic territories, and filling them with justifiable dread for what the future may hold. Muslims and Europeans are not exactly Delaware and Virginia, embarking on the great historical enterprise of building the United States of America together. All the global games are negative-sum in the long term for the Swedes, making Somali immigration an unmitigated catastrophe for them.
There is no democratic sweet spot between the Swedes and the Somalis. Nor will there ever be. The only remaining questions are how exactly things will get bad, and how bad exactly things will get. Democracy-as-mechanism is no more useful in reconciling the divergent interests in this system than a hammer is for sawing a piece of wood in two. If the Swedes had taken in large numbers of, say, South Koreans, who have proved to be model immigrants in the U.S., then the democratic sweet spot would have been large and easy to stay within. But they decided to be ‘compassionate’ with the world’s most degenerate people, and hurl their country out of a 10th-story window in the process. They may not have hit the ground yet, but they are approaching it fast. People who look at the massive influx of Somalis, Iraqis, and other Third World peoples into Sweden and see a happy ending for anyone should explain their reasoning.
The Death of Democracy
Needless to say, the franchise has been extended to alien and hostile peoples in European countries because this is the ‘right’ thing to do. By and large, universal suffrage is accepted in a completely reflexive fashion in the West today. It is one of the most important pillars of democracy-as-ideal as usually conceived. But as we have already established in detail, democracy-as-ideal is not what enables democratic polities to function and prosper. Only democracy-as-mechanism can do that.
Universal suffrage has worked thus far in the West because it has had a useful role to play in the democracy-as-mechanism that evolved to suit the political needs of Western countries. Smeared out to include alien, hostile, and tribal peoples, it will eventually force democracy-as-mechanism to fail. One cannot simply let political influence bleed away to civilizational incompetents who will suck all the marrow out of the bones of a country and then cry for seconds when the carcass is dry. The presence of parasitic Muslim peoples in Europe is an existential problem in its own right. Extending the franchise will simply hasten the death of the status quo, and democracy with it. When though, can we expect it to die?
It is important to understand that, though the status quo is being destroyed by the presence of Muslims, they will not be the ones who finally put a stake through its heart. Their presence destroys it, but they benefit from its continued existence, and will therefore try to maintain it. It will be the rage of Europeans that destroys it, so it will only be destroyed when a sufficiently intense rage exists. If the status quo is still in place, we must ask ourselves why a sufficiently powerful rage has not yet swept it away. There are several reasons for this, which we will consider in turn.
1. Costs per Person
The accumulated per-capita financial and social capital of European countries are, by and large, so huge that there is a great deal of ‘slack’ in the system. By this I mean that a fairly substantial degradation of that capital can take place before things will really start to bite on a personal level. We can be sure, even given the atrocious game structure between Swedes and Somalis as outlined above, that the Swedish people, on average, still enjoy a very high standard of living, even interspersed as their lives may now be with the occasional to-them-inexplicable piece of ‘cultural enrichment’. The withdrawal of the franchise from hostile Muslim aliens is the last thing on their mental horizons. The losers of a string of zero-sum games though they may be, they have still not suffered enough to want to change the system.
2. Switching Costs
The sheer scale of the upheaval that would be required to politically marginalize Muslim fifth columnists and devise a permanent solution to the problem they pose would be so vast that even many who understand the nature of the difficulties will tend to shy away from it. The unacceptability of a given state of affairs is not a guarantee that it will be changed. Just as an unacceptable utilities account (water, electricity, etc.) may go unchanged for some time due to the time and effort that would be involved in changing it (the switching costs, to use the technical term), unacceptable political developments will also go unchallenged for some time due to the costs that reforming the system would require. The costs of allowing the status quo to continue will have to become more severe than one might otherwise expect before a switch will occur.
3. Moral Intimidation
The initial response to criticisms of democracy-as-ideal on the part of a) those who really believe in it, and b) those who simply consider it to work to their advantage, will be to assert that the franchise is a fundamental right of all in a healthy democracy, and that it is fundamentally immoral to suggest taking it away from part of the population. As already explained, this is an assertion of the primacy of democracy-as-ideal, which will, in the long term, only ensure that democracy-as-mechanism fails. Intellectually serious people who propose to defend their countries against foreign invasion and infiltration will pay it little heed. But we are not all equally robust in the face of this moral intimidation, and its ability to cow and silence otherwise concerned individuals is considerable. Having your car incinerated by an Arab is annoying. But for many, being called a racist is a fate worse than death. I do not understand why such charges concern people one way or the other, but that they do is a reality that cannot be ignored.
4. Belief in a Turnaround
Lastly and most pathetically, we have hope and its eternal springing. Maybe ‘they’ (meaning the political class which created the problem) will now solve the problem. Perhaps the Somalis in Sweden will refrain from engaging in their usual criminal antics and perfect quantum computing technology instead. Perhaps the Iraqis will abandon the raping and molesting of Swedish girls and prove (or disprove) Riemann’s Hypothesis, thereby contributing to the general edification of mankind. Well, perhaps they will. But they seem to be getting everything they want out of Sweden already, despite their not-inconsiderable savagery and dysfunctionality. Why try to improve on a winning formula? A turnaround remains unlikely, but as long as people hold out for one, the rejection of democracy as it is currently constituted will not take place.
In Closing
Readers may wonder why I decided to write such a pessimistic essay. After all, I have identified a problem without suggesting that there is much of anything to be done about it.
The scale of the collapse awaiting us in Europe is so vast, and the measures that we will be required to take so severe, that we should be asking ourselves right now what, if anything, can be salvaged of democracy on the other side. It is a sad truth that the existential crisis that Europe has brought onto itself in the form of Islam has not been ameliorated in the slightest bit by democracy as practiced there in the last sixty years. Enlightened dictatorship has rarely looked better.
Whether democracy, in the very long term, is a good idea or not is a question that will be asked more and more frequently in Europe as the crisis worsens. A committed democrat myself, I would like to suggest here that democracy is still just about viable if it is understood rather than romanticized. The latter task seems to have been taken care of already; this essay is my attempt to carry out the former.
125 comments:
An excellent and engaging essay El Ingles. A fascinating look at democracy (and ultimately government) for what it truly is (or ought to be) in the most practical sense.
In theory, the United States was formed not as a democracy, but as a Republic with certain democratic principles. In theory, this republican form of government, guaranteed by our Constitution, protects the rights of a minority, no matter how small, against excesses and tyranny of a majority, no matter how large. With such Constitutional protections in place, diverse groups can coexist in one nation, provided they agree to abide by the law. (The Islamofascists do so only when it benefits Allah's faithful.)
By the way, this week (once again) the Constitutional guarantees for the minority were completely disregarded by our Constitutional scholar and godlike wonder President; I really believe this Obamacare represents the beginning of an American holocaust.
The Abandoned American Revolution
Clifford May has a thought-provoking op-ed this week which summarizes two recent conservative commentaries on America’s future: a speech by Charles Murray at the American Enterprise Institute on the implications of adopting the European model of social democracy, and an essay by John Bolton in Commentary magazine on the push for the U.S. to emulate the E.U. in determining its foreign policy. . . .
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adopting the European model of social democracy = unaccountable to the voting populace
A brilliant essay, as always El Ingles. Keep up the good work.
I would like to add that Law and Legal systems work in a similar way to democracy, though as a system the Law acts more to restrict the power of individuals over each other. Many people like to view the Legal System as a sort of Moral System and view it as the ultimate authority in life. Still, any real thought on the matter reveals that Law is little more than words and ideals, without someone to enforce them, and this has led to a great many problems in society. Paper, no how prettily inscribed with fancy words, has never succeeded in halting someone with the intent to do violence and force their will upon another. Often, it has only helped.
I can only wonder how long it will take to reach the negative sum level for democracy and law in the West.
You're right.
Democracy is dead.
Here in Europe there's an amazing petition which over 1,300,000 people have signed to.
The petition is titled "Internet for democracy. Shut down the euro parliament. Now."
These guys talk about ceasing representative democracy and to use "click-democracy" instead...
HAve a look @ the petition
The democratic system has been formally abolished for half a billion Europeans due to the EU. It is severely weakened in the USA and only used for implementing Socialism. The democratic system has failed spectacularly in dealing with immigration and is breaking down as we speak, actively aided by post-Western, Globalist oligarchs. We should start talking about how to deal with our post-democratic future.
While El Ingles missed is that senators weren't even elected by the people, but by the state representatives initially and this outlined that they serve the interests of the specific state. Also, in the US the two chambers
of the Congress don't do the same thing. For example, Congress approves spending, which is a lot more important and bigger states control more of that than smaller states. But again, the FedGov wasn't supposed to spend that much or do many things anyway and it should have been a thing for the states. I don't know what the 1964 Civil Rights Act has to do with interstate commerce, for example. The only legitimate federal actions are related to defense and interstate commerce, mostly. The rest are simply unconstitutional and any SCOTUS with moral integrity that isn't a judicial activist or defferant, would agree with me.
Another thing, democracy doen't mean universal suffrage. Democracy is simply the political system in which the supreme power lies in A BODY of citizens that elect their officials. If Europeans banned non-Europeans from voting, we would still be democract, we just wouldn't have universal suffrage anymore. In the same sense, I would ban people from voting that aren't in between 25 and 65, married with children, net taxpayers and that own a business or a home. As the egalitarian fundamentalists(since it's a frigging cult) changed the meaning of nation(which is a group of people with the same perceived ancestry, ethnic group, culture, values and so on, not a politically organized body of people under a single government), conflated the meaning of democracy too to the fit the universal suffrage thing.
About Africa. Africa is probably a net winner from colonialism, despite any sad excuses made by the left. I mean, every single invention they benefit from comes from their contact with European descent people. What is interesting is if all Sub-Saharian African tribes would have got the wheel by now without Europeans, since they failed to do so until the mid to late 19th century. I would still wonder if their tribal leaders would think that reducing their enemies to slavery is the pride and ruling principle of their people or if eating their enemies in order to defecate their remains is the most humiliating thing that one can do to an enemy. Africa is crap if we judge it through the values we have simply because it's not populated by black skinned Europeans, but by Africans(yes, yes, race is not just a social construct, shoking, isn't it?). If what El Ingles identifies as reasons for Africa's failure to have any flourishing civilization or country after their independence from Europe are relevant, then what explains them being a lot worse BEFORE the contact with Europe? I agree on the part that it's illogical for liberals to not use the same standard about splitting tribes and moving them around on Europe too - but again, liberals aren't logical beings, they're into their precious myths and narratives. And since cognitive dissonance is a strong factor, they don't see the truth or reality. And yes, the main principle behind the essay is right - the more differences in between people, the worse democracy is. This actually underlines why democracy as the greatest way of governance is a stupid fallacy - if it works only when people agree, then what's the point of it? And we get back at doing away with universal suffrage, limitations on decisions and so on. Still, I find democracy as a horrible way to govern, even with a culturally and racially homogenous society, unless you implement a lot of things that would prevent a lot of other things.
Besides this, I agree with most of the things in your op-ed. It's actually quite brilliant and I think Hans Hernan Hoppe wrote about this too in his essay the Fall of the City. I really like that you underlined that besides being a net drain on the welfare systems(who I abhor anyway), policing them costs. Also, infrastructure, healthcare and all the others are a drain on the Swedes. Everything El Ingles said since the Somalis were brought up until the death of democracy is REALLY SPOT ON. Just like the parts about the costs later in the essay - right now, most people aren't affected on a personal level by this, so the costs of supporing them here are small, yet the costs of sending them home are big. Obviously, this works on a short term basis and as El Ingles said, democracy is short sighted and nothing will happen until this will become a huge unmitigated disaster that affects a lot of people on a personal basis.
Oh, and by democracy being a horrible way to govern, I mean the current democratic system. I don't believe in absolute dictators.
I refuse to sign the petion and I recommend everyone else to do the same. Giving out your name and address could as well be a death sentence. Everybody who signs it is an enemy of the oligarchs and now they know who you are. You will be ripe for the plucking. I prefer the anonymity of the internet.
All societies are basically oligarchies in essence or at least tend towards oligarchy, despite the outward political form. Although oligarchs may cede their power to an absolute monarch or to the electorate, they never take their hands completely off the wheel. They can depose or assassinate a dictator - and dictators know that - or they constantly manipulate the electorate - and the electorate feels that.
The oligarchs wanted immigrants in Europe to compensate for the decimation of the workforce in WWII, then they wanted immigrants because it meant cheap labor. Then the Left realized they could use immigration - which they should have opposed as a danger to the native working class - as an instrument of remodeling the West culturally.
I don't think democracy is at fault here. It is irrelevant in this situation. In a dictatorship or any authoritarian regime, the economic elites would use coercion to force immigration down the throat of the protesting indigenous masses. In a democracy, the economic elites use the cultural elites they sponsor to manipulate the indigenous masses into accepting immigration. These elites will abandon immigration if the economic results disappear (paralyzing social conflicts and other things that affect the economy) or fail to materialize in the first place.
I’d like to hear El Ingles’s and others’ opinions about the really controversial issues. Democracy existed in its most perfect forms, in Greece and in America, in societies that were not merely relatively homogeneous and small, but in which the right of suffrage did not extend to women and to the poor. With apology to the woman who co-hosts this forum and the ones who post here – all of whom seem very bright and together -- is it possible at all in a gyneocratic society like Sweden or Norway to find the testosterone, the élan vital that must guide a society wishing to survive in a universal reality that still operates, no matter what prevalent Western gnosticism avers, by Darwinian rules?
Could Nancy Pelosi be anything but a female? Could Obama be anything but a metrosexual giving off hermaphroditic vibes? I have several friends in law practice who tell me hair-raising stories about the sort of “compassionate” justice dispensed by women from the bench. Recall the “Wise Latina” at the US Supreme Court, and her colleague there, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
And what about extending the universal franchise to those who are without means entirely by their own effort? Can the poor do anything but use their franchise to help themselves to wealth and stability earned by those who work, save and strive? What about extending the franchise to the under-21 who remain stupid and ignorant of life’s lessons unto the age of 30 at least, anyway? It seems that universal franchise democracy would be a self-terminating project even if there were not one Somali participating in it. That there are such Somalis, it’s to a large extent the result of votes by the aforementioned indigenous demographic segments.
A very insightfull essay.
Here in canada the idealism of democracy has long faded away except in the utopic mirage spouted by the state propaganda arm known as the CBC.
The cynical phrase "fifty percent plus one" is repeated consistantly during elections both provincial and federal.
On the left coast we have a perfect example of the result of multicultural influence on democracy. The huge influx of very different peoples have spawned "cultural ghettos" whose main interest is to expand their own numbers assuring a unasailable demograhic fortress to influence and eventually impose their demands. A perfect example is the pressure and intimidation exerted on the government by the Chinese and East Indians to have their respective people controlling the Canadian immigration agencies in the their countries of origin. Thus "Chinese canadians" and "Indian canadians" decide who and how many of their people fill the spots available to become "new canadians". There is little wonder why the percentage of the people who vote declines every election. Amusingly the state media attributed the historical low turnout of the provicial election in British Columbia to "hockey playoffs" keeping people away from the polls. Even though only one in five pay attention to "Canada's game".
Although its a historical truth that all multicultural states fail(Yugoslavia being the most recent example), the despair lies with the reality that the rusulting condition may be such a warped version of the present that it will be not worth inhabiting.
Maybe thats why many city states in ancient greece opted against democracy. They could reason the possible eventualalitis of the process. More conversation regarding varients of democracy would be beneficial.
Takuan Seiyo: As I mentioned in my previous essay, democracy in ancient Athens was NOT universal. They did not give the vote to every adult within the city limits, and certainly not to strangers who just happened to be there. And that was before modern technology made mass immigration of tens of millions of people possible. When one party can import a new electorate for its own short-term benefit then the whole system is worse than useless; it is outright harmful to our interests. Giving women the vote was arguably the single most important factor behind the rise of the nanny state.
@Fjordman
That's exactly what I meant. In Greece, in the early United States, and in Switzerland until astonishingly late, voting rights were restricted and democracy operated in a small-scale society where you pretty much knew personally whom you were voting for.
The restriction that interests me particulary, as do the effects of its removal, relates to women's suffrage.
In hoc signo vinces
What must also be looked at is the actual power value of the vote in a democracy such as the U.K. a vote does not hold much power value and a individual voter inter-facing with the state has no power at all - please may I have the right to bear arms.
@Fjordman
@Takuan Seiyo,
Since 'democracy' in Athens was not universal,Athens was not a democracy in any modern sense.How can a slave state where the majority of its inhabitants have no political rights be, in any sense a democracy.There was also a genetic basis to Athenian 'democracy' only individuals whose parents were Athenian citizens were entitled to citizenship.As a consequence most Greek city-states found themselves in a demographic dead-end,we should remember what happened to them.
You appear to prefer an oligarchical system, fair enough,please don't refer to it as 'democracy'.
For their part the Athenians and other Greeks would have sneered at our non-participatory,elective democracies.
Again, the tough question is, can the right to bear arms be established in any but societies governed by men, and once lost, can it be regained in a democracy where women are 50% of the voters.
@mace
Yor are shooting at straw dogs here. Neither I nor F. here or anywhere would ever commit such an elementary blunder as to assert that Athens was a democracy in the modern sense. Yet it was a democracy, demokratia, as the Athenians themselves called it. So please don't tell me when and how to use that word.
You forgot two addditional important elements of the Athenian democracy that we have lost: 1. People elected to public office were common citizens, not professional politicians. 2. You could not be a voting citizen unless you risked your life and limb to fight for your country when called upon.
Please see my essay at Gates of Vienna, about a possible post-democratic future.
The Baron introduced it as follows:
"Under the assumption that the welfare states of Western Europe cannot avoid collapse sometime in the next few decades, his essay explores the possibilities for rolling back Islamization within the context of a post-democratic Europe."
mace, the current definitions are irrelevant. Just like the current definition of a nation is. If I take your ideas like that, then any government is an oligarchy since the elected officials talk for all the electorate. But it takes more than that to be an oligarchy.
Takuan, I wouldn't mind not voting and having women stripped of their vote. In my country women vote pretty much the same as men do, but in the end, the vote is not an end, but a mean. And since without the female vote, the political decisions would be closer to what I want and long term sustainability, I could care the less about not voting. In the same sense, foreigners and immigrants shouldn't be allowed to vote since they have a vested interest in living off the society they move in(and also it's not theirs). As a person who wants to emigrate from her home country, I'd have no problem having no political rights where I move.
Fjordman, I agree about the nanny state. I mean, besides the 1996 elections in my country, I don't know of any other election in which the socialists got screwed by women. If evolutionary psychology has any truth, there's a basis for women not voting there too, since we are more prone to appeasing the foreigners due to being genetically conditioned to do so and that means we really shouldn't be able to vote(even though I'm not like that, if the average woman is...).
For example, I support the 1866 Constitution of my country related to elections over the current free for all one. You had to be a Christian to be a citizen, women had no vote and the men were divided in four colleges basedo n their wealth and social origins. I would change this to ethnic origins. Each college had a different voting power. It won't happen though.
Takuan Seiyo: The democratic system is dead or dying. We have no real choices, we can only choose from a preselected menu of right-wing and left-wing Globalists. We get Globalist Multiculturalism and mass immigration either way. We have just one ruling party throughout the Western world, and that is the Transnational Party for Anti-White Global Socialism, or perhaps we can simply call it the Transnational Party for Screwing Whitey. We only retain the right to vote for which figurehead the Party displays on TV at any given moment. If, God forbid, you actually constitute a real opposition to the status quo you will be beaten up by state-sponsored thugs like the Sweden Democrats, banned by the courts like the Vlaams Blok, demonized as a crypto-Nazi like Geert Wilders or executed as a Multicultural heretic like Pim Fortuyn.
I am absolutely convinced that in order for the white West to survive we need to inject a healthy dose of masculine pride into white men. Women can play supporting roles of vital importance in defending a civilization, but they cannot have the primary role. A civilization is always first and foremost established and defended by men. If a nation disarms its men, morally and literally, then it leaves itself and its women unprotected from external enemies. This is what is happening to us now.
Our Marxist internal enemies have spent generations trying to turn white women against white men, and thereby turning Western women into a weapon of mass destruction against their own civilization. They have been spectacularly successful in this regard. The end result is that Western women are less free and secure and more targets of violence and sexual abuse than ever before. Since a nation can only be defended by men who have pride in their people and the masculine will and courage to defend it, we need to restore these two qualities or we will perish. It's that simple. It's about survival, it's not a "conspiracy to keep women down."
Contrary to what some Feminists might claim there never has been such a thing as a matriarchal society, at least not among advanced civilizations. All cultures are patriarchal, and there is presumably a reason for that. It is true that some patriarchal cultures have been or are extremely cruel to women, but even among cultures that have a justified reputation for granting a high degree of respect to women, for instance the ancient Egyptians or medieval Germanic peoples, the political and military power still resided in the hands of men.
@Takuan
Your hypothesis about the role of women in the decline of democracy is an interesting one.
But in my opinion, the vote of those who GET from the system is responsible for the decline.
When people discover they can vote "goodies" for themselves (welfare/wealth redistribution), from those who produce, the decline is unstoppable.
I think we should study that link before the link between women vote and the decline of democracy.
What if the vote would be restricted to only who pay taxes?
If I remember correctly, the vote was at one point allowed only for land owners (property).
Not a bad idea, after all.
@Fjordman
You are right 100%. My only issue is with the nuance. To me, the situation with women is exactly the same as with Jews. Both, as groups, exert negative influence on Western society. The reason that both have ascended to positions of power is because of cruelties and injustices that Western society inflicted on them in the past, and for which it has tried to expiate. Thirdly, both groups have outliers vastly different from the mean and highly desirable from the point of view of their contribution to the West. For instance, in my judgemnt, it's not Ronald Reagan but Margaret Thatcher who is the most admirable conservative politician in modern times.
Lastly, and it's a tough one, when men last had a monopoly on power, which was 100 years ago, they proceeded to screw things up in such a foolish and typically male fashion that they have given patriarchy a bad name for many generations, if not centuries. I refer to the horrific blunder of World War 1. It's not coincidental that universal suffrage really took off from that time.
Some fine tuning is needed therefore, to leave governance of people and country in male hands with some exceptions for exceptional women and without repeating past injustices otherwise, and to leave the governance of men in female hands as it has always been.
@Cobra,
Your suggestion is one of my earlier three, plus the fourth one that's the basis of El Ingles's thesis. To summarize and try to incorporate the Greek lesson I'd state the "revised-democracy" voting requirements as follows:
1. Native or rigorously and discerningly naturalized male citizen.
2. Over-21.
3. Fully literate and numerate, evinced either by a high school diploma or an alternative test.
4. Registered for military service and with at least basic military training.
5. Owning some real property (even if in syndication) and paying income and property tax.
6. Those eligible to be voted FOR must, in addition to 1 -5 above, also be limited to no more than 5 years in public service
Once again, a great article by El Inglés.
I first want to say that I see us, people so to the right as people deserving some kind of lable. May it be waycist or Paleo... who cares?
So, I think that the most important thing for us is attachmen: To people, land, culture, History, religion, whathever. I'd say that most of us are exceedingly loyal.
Probabily we're also good people at heart, uncapable of much evil unless something we hold dear (feel attached to) is severily endengered.
And then, we are evil through our minds more than anything. We rationalise our evil, we rationalise our use of violence.
We also have vallues. I'd say that we have strong and consistent vallues. Those who have heard a leftie claim they have to go to the manif because they have to fight for what they believe and are incapable to say what they believe in succintly and why they do it, will understand how strong are our vallues. Strong and consistent. And we ususally see our vallues as prerennial instead of a mere fashion.
And still, all these things are sentiments. We are derived by irrational sentiments although we like to believe we are rational people. And indeed, we are much more rational than the average men. Probabily even then the average Leftist ideologue...
The problem is that we don't want an Enlightement wet dream society. We don't want a purely rational society don't matter how much we rationalise about it. Humans have a rational and an irrational hemisphere and we want to preserve both.
I said this because, my conclusion is that democracy-mechanism sucks as it would be taken over by people less attached and more rational than us, paleos and waycists. Indeed, people like the present day Eurocrats, and the current bastard European elite.
I like to say that the two greater philosophers of the XX century were the Italians Julius Evola and Antonio Gramsci. One in the extreme right and the other in the extreme left. The later a mechanic men, very rational, the former a men who rationalised the irrational and valorised it through rationalisation as no one did.
We have to join the two. Because both are needed: The Rational and the irrational attachment. Therefore, I strongly disagree. I want a nobility willing to help the people, like a father who wants to raise their sons well.
Beyond this I think your definition of democracy does not fit in the true definition of democracy, you rosy picked it.
This last comment was from AFONSO HENRIQUES. I AM AFONSO HENRIQUES.
@ Takuan Seiyo,
Your reply sounds like something from 'Alice in Wonderland' ie the word 'democracy' means whatever one chooses,so my original comments still stand. Without a generally accepted definition of democracy there is no polity.Now you're making straw man arguments,of course I understand the differences between modern and classical democracy.You either didn't understand or didn't read my last sentence when I mentioned modern non-participatory democracies,the contrast is explicit there.Your characterization of Athenian democracy as run by non politicians is naive,I could name plenty of professional Athenian politicians,Pericles being the most notable. The mass of Athenian citizens were probably as apathetic as modern Westerners,why else was the "red paint" technique used to compell citizens to the Pnyx?
You 'revised voting requirements' are half-baked,be bold.If you're restricting 'democracy' why not make the sole criterion (say)government by those with the top 5% of the IQ range,or those with postgraduate degrees.
Does a limited franchise imply limited human rights,ie does the leftist notion of universal human rights apply?
@ Super Turma,
Most of you posting on this site would still be serfs or slaves without the sacrifices of leftist agitators.
Many the suggestions proposed are worse than the disease.
mace,
"Many the suggestions proposed are worse than the disease."
One of my fears is that anti-democratic and various other ultra-reactionary forces will use this crisis to abolish democracy, women rights, gay rights, minority rights. Never let a good crisis go to waste, eh?
The main problem is that the West, or rather the right, let the far left take over academia and let the left completely dominate the media and popular culture. Ordinary people are not exposed to any ideological opposition or challenging ideas, instead they are indoctrinated and all opposition is demonized.
The rightists felt comfortable enough to allow themselves to be complacent and go about their personal businesses, while the left was burning for a revolution and was active in every front. The right trusted that common sense will prevail in spite of all the crazy professors teaching their children, the media becoming ever more leftist, the rockers making rebellion and subversion fashionable and idealistic and so on. The right just continued to live their lives without fighting for their ideas, without offering serious opposition, until they and their ideas were pushed out of every cultural sphere. Now we see the results of decades of totally one sided indoctrination and propaganda, so they blame the women, minorities, poor, gays.
In Israel we had a similar process in the ivory tower, but getting massive doses of reality regularly blowing up in your face does make a difference for the common people, so most Israelis vote conservative, even though women vote. Euros were living in a bubble with minimal contact with other cultures. We, on the other hand, live in the Middle East.
At some point Euros will have enough crap to change their minds, even the women. And then the right will have a chance again. And the lesson to be learnt is that in a democracy you must never leave the battle of ideas to one side, you must always be vigilant and never be complacent. When you don't use your free speech often enough to fight for your ideas you might lose it when the other side takes control over all the means of information.
Leftist human rights don't apply. Healthcare, food and housing or not being discriminated against aren't rights. Or not having your religion offended.
Takuan Seiyo,
I would make a slightly different version:
1. Native (Someone who has at least one parent as a citizen)
2.Over 21 (18 if he is doing military service)
3. Fully educated (High School Diploma) plus having an IQ of 100 or more
4. Having served in armed forces for at least 1 year
5. Having at least two childen (as a mean of forcing fertility, you could get provisory citizenship untill 25 or so)
6. Owning property.
7. Candidates should have no criminal record and should be allowed no more than 10 years (5 years is too little in my opinion)
If western civilization as we know it collapses due to the fact that women have mentally neutered the male members of the population and left them too emaciated and weak to stand up for themselves, then that is just another stage in the evolution of life. It’s called survival of the fittest. Darwin wrote a book about it and his thesis are defended vigorously by many of the commentators on this blog.
It’s the same thing with immigration. If immigrants at some stage in the future manages to become a majority in Europe and force their way of life upon the rest of us, then that’s just a clear indication that in the end they were more adaptable than the indigenous Europeans, and that they were better equipped to cope with this new challenge than the rest of us. In other words if this scenario ever were to become a reality it would simply mean that immigrants ended up as the strongest group of the two. Crying about it without being able to do anything about it is a sure sign of defeatism.
And just for the record, I don’t ever wish for Europe or America to fall into the hands of radical Islamists or any other kind of fascists, but what I’ve written above is still an undeniable fact.
Well, the thing is that women usually have a social approval mentality. If the society is leftist, they will support it due to that mentality. This besides having a vested interest since our societies became extremely individualistic so hurting their men is irrelevant. Also, the way women got the vote is important. In my country feminism was non-improtant was an ideology, yet women got the vote regardless. Also, probably due to how hard the times during communism were, people realized that their family is one of the few things they really have.
Rocha, I agree with most of them, except having 2 children by age 25. As I said, he should be married with kids to have voting rights. If a person does an year in the armed forces and then goes to have an education, when does he have the time for kids? I think my way is a lot better, including your point about having at least one parent that is citizen and the criminal record part.
kristic, 100 years can't change the genetics of a group that reproduces within itself enough for this. And survival of the fittest implies us cleansing Africa off the face of the Earth of its people since they're our competitors. Or us enslaving non-Europeans in Europe. Killing off the poor, infertile women and so on is also a legitimate thing to do. Since they're weakening us, right? This is what applying Darwin to our situation would imply. A dooming ideology doesn't represent anything related to Darwin. It's not like a meteorite hit the Earth and we are dying off because we are maladjusted.
rebelliousvanilla, it doesn’t matter how strong or superior western civilization is, or how capable Europe and America are of nuking Africa and the middle east back to the stone age, if the final outcome of this immigration trend is the extinction of the Caucasian race, and a new dawn for the Arabs and the Africans. If that were to be the end result, then one could only conclude that the strongest race won.
Anyhow, I’m not too worried about the current situation. I don’t believe that we’ll have to surrender Europe or America. Admittedly the current prognosis does not look too good, but when push comes to shove Europeans and Americans will rise to the challenge and deal swiftly with the opposition.
Things will get a lot worse before they get better.
kristic, your misunderstanding of Darwinism is of the same class of the religious people who say that "you really think you came from a monkey?!". In the same sense, our desire for sex is actually the way that nature is intended us to have us reproduce. The fact that we circumvented that through birth control is an unintended thing.
The strongest thing is based on different things, but I'm too lazy to explain adaptive and maladaptive theory. You would be right if we would be resisting this and fail. It's like saying that I'm a better shooter than a Navy SEAL if he would kill himself rather than shoot me.
rebelliousvanilla, no actually I’m not incorrect in making this claim. It doesn’t matter whether a species gain the upper hand by defeating the opposition in warlike hostilities or if they gain the upper hand by way of out breeding their opponents. In any scenario they win, and by winning they’ve proved that they’re better equipped to deal with their environment than the opposition. It’s that simple.
Survival of the fittest and Darwinism imply competition and the better adapted person wins out. We aren't competing right now, in case you didn't realize. Related to reproduction, we aren't reproducing not because of maladaptive genes to our environment, but because of socio-economic factors.
And the fitness of a person in the reproductive world comes from certain premises - that they are interested in maximizing the number of their offspring and that there is no birth control. For example, I have green eyes, auburn brown hair, I'm fair skinned and physically fit. According to cross cultural studies, I actually won the genetic lottery because I have the rarest eye colour and I have fair features and skin, which are the most selected for. This is irrelevant if I choose not to reproduce. Basically, I didn't get selected out of the gene pool. So natural selection leads to a population better adapted to the environment. Why are Muslims better adapted? They're worse by any measuring standard. And you can't say just because they reproduce more. In order for you to be right, their higher reproduction comes from a better adapted genetic heritage to the environment they are in, which leads to an increased allele frequency of those traits in the general population. You have to prove this in order to be right. For example, I will buy you a beer if you come up with a study that shows that Muslim women become infertile later in their lives or give birth to twins a lot more often or whatever. This isn't the problem. What is maladaptive is the way our society is structured and our present perverse values and these will collapse simply because of that.
rebelliousvanilla,
Sorry i think i did not express myself clearly. When you are a child you get derivative citizenship, your citizenship comes from your parent. As your enter the army (or something for women) you get some kind of expansion on citizenship on some premises that includes fertility, when you get your first child about 25 years (28, 30? it could be no later to women) you get another extension and after the second a permanent. Now there's one thing we should have in mind. Citizenship cannot be a burden it has to be a plus. Or people will try to get rid of it (Like Roman citizens tryng to become serfs [serf is slave in latin] in the late empire), non citizens (subjects) should pay MORE taxes, and have more downsides.
rebelliousvanilla said...
“Survival of the fittest and Darwinism imply competition and the better adapted person wins out. We aren't competing right now, in case you didn't realize.”
Oh yes we are, there’s a real demographic competition going on in the western world at the moment and it has been going on for the last 30 years or so. Westerners are currently incapable of a reproducing enough offspring and thus guaranteeing a positively geared reproduction surplus. Third world immigrants have no such problems, in fact they have a positively geared reproduction surplus and that’s why the odds are on their side. The consequence is, provided that the status quo is maintained, that they will outnumber us and be handed the fruits of our hard work on a silver plate.
One could also argue that their much lower participation rate in the work force is a very smart tactic. Not only are they multiplying faster than us, but they are also using us to their own advantage by having us work for them. All they have to do when we’re slaving away to earn a living is to collect their welfare checks. In the animal kingdom this would be the equivalent of an animal making sure that the prey comes to him rather than wasting valuable time, effort and energy in having to hunt the prey.
“And the fitness of a person in the reproductive world comes from certain premises - that they are interested in maximizing the number of their offspring and that there is no birth control.”
Not wishing to reproduce and pass on ones genes can only be classified as a negative trait. Some animals will fight to their death for the opportunity to do this.
“So natural selection leads to a population better adapted to the environment. Why are Muslims better adapted?”
Well at the moment they are.
Like I’ve mentioned above they don’t have to waste energy to stay alive (welfare benefits).
They’ve manage to manipulate the elites to first and foremost look after their interest, indigenous peoples interests are secondary.
They’ve managed to criminalize almost any legitimate critique directed towards them by the indigenous people, enabling them to maintain status quo and grow stronger.
They’ve managed to intimidate us into submission if we step out of line (Salman Rushdie / Motoons)
Their criminal gangs control the streets, which is limiting the free movement of the indigenous people (warfare/no go areas).
Their religion and way of life is gaining ground, ours is only getting weaker.
They are displacing the native populations as a result of white flight (gaining habitat)
But foremost and something which I have repeated several times already they’re out breeding us (actively working to get rid of us)
So yes at the moment they are stronger than us. Of course this could change if westerners were to stand up to them and fight them using their own methods, but this is not happening at the moment and it could even be too late by the time we finally do react.
Rocha, I suggest you go to my blog and read the reply I had to a thread on ConservativeSwede's blog about fertility. Your idea is complicated and futile. In order to make people have kids, you just have to give them tax deductions for them. When the US had the baby boom, if you adjust by the CPI(which is always understated) the tax deduction per child was $10,000 or so. Now it's about $3,000. So if a man would make $150,000 and he has 5 children and a wife he would pay absolutely no taxes. The incentive for reproduction should be done like this, while voting rights should be given to married couples with children, not because you need to encourage fertility, but parents have a vested interest in the future of a country.
kristic, there's no competition unless both sides know it's one. It's like me saying that I just beat Kobe Bryant at one on one basketball since I made 11 baskets and he made none. I agree though, not working and having kids on welfare is a smart tactic. It's funny but based on genetic distance, admitting a Bantu man to the UK is a bigger threat than losing your own child if you accept the genetic interests theory,while a Dane would provide a way smaller "discomfort" so to speak.
Anyway, I won't debate you because it's obvious that you're emotionally invested in your current way of thinking and I won't change your mind and I hate red herrings. I have a question though, have you studied genetics at school or read any books on the subject? Or you use scientific theories and terms for fun?
Well, since I've been called a troll by Baron, I wouldn't want to disappoint.
Basically, what some commenters here suggest is killing Western civilization before the Muslims do it. Implementing some sort of Salic law before Sharia takes over. We should disenfranchise women and the poor and institute some kind of Spartan militaristic machocracy that would supposedly save the West. We should overturn the founding principles of the US and Western democratic states and replace democracy with Islamic states without the Islam. May I remind you that women vote even in Islamic countries?
We talk about the emasculation of men, but not about the masculinization of women. You don't seem to understand the underlying factors that led to the emancipation of women and the overwhelming benefits thereof for the entire society.
Rebellious Vanilla would gladly give up her right to vote, but I doubt she truly understands where that would lead for women (hint: divorce rights, property rights, education, employment). Some people don't know the value of what they have until they've lost it.
So, with the risk of really offending people this time (and even being banned), these comments are nothing but jingoistic, sexist, reactionary drivel that display an almost complete lack of understanding and appreciation for the modern Western civilization some of you claim to defend. You do not understand what the real strengths of the West are, you chalk them all up to weaknesses and you blow the real weaknesses and excesses out of proportion. You're literally itching to throw the baby out with the bath water.
I'm a white heterosexual male who pays taxes, so I guess I would have everything to gain from this New Sparta envisioned by Fjordman, Takuan Seiyo and others. But I don't want to live in it. I am reminded of a Romanian proverb that goes like this: Apără-mă, Doamne, de prieteni, că de duşmani mă apăr singur i.e. Lord, guard me from my friends, for I can guard myself against my enemies.
linbetwin: You really don't know much about me if you believe that I would endorse Sparta.
glad people liked the essay enough to comment on it so much. the ideal solution, of course, is for the whole world to be a gigantic dictatorship run by me. but as that's not going to happen any time soon, i suppose we will need to rethink...
in response to takuan seiyo, i had given some meagre thought to how the franchise might usefully be restricted. but my thoughts are nowhere nearer advanced enough on this yet to say anything coherent, so i restricted the content of the essay to what i felt confident in saying.
of course, another possibility is that a country has a constitution with certain parts that can't be changed. in the US, one needs supermajorities in this and that to amend the constitution. but, for example, the structure of the senate can only be changed (i.e. that part of the constitution that guarantees the states equal representation in the senate can only be changed) with the consent of the states whose influence is being downsized. what these means in effect is that it *cannot* be changed.
of course, people will always try to invent ways around these things (see the United States and the interstate commerce dodge of the federal government). but it is another way of thinking about the problem.
and i am very torn on the subject of female suffrage. i need to read more.
@linebetwin
You also read only what you want to read in order to be able to say what you want to say. I did put in there that the last time men had sole governance power we had a little phenomenon called WW1 -- perhaps the greatest manifestation of particularly male stupidity of all time.
The issue is one of balance. The balance now is skewed so far into the negative with respect to women's influence, that for a while all that matters is how to push back the negative female impact. Maybe through limiting franchise, maybe not -- all that matters is thinking about it and doing it. 100 years ago and for a long time thereafter, it was the reverse.
You also don't understand the difference between being provocative and being a troll. The first writes to provoke thought, even in uncomfortable directions. The second writes to slap and grate.
Fjordman,
I would be interested to know what system you would endorse.
You've said that this is what we now need to think through, but I don't think I have ever seen you spell it out.
I would be grateful to see your ideas about what, in El Ingles's words, you think would be a good "system-as-mechanism", as opposed to "system-as-ideal". And our chances of getting there.
rebelliousvanilla,
We have a little disagreament here, i propose a mandatory citizenship clause about fertility because without it people will in these anticonceptional times avoid fertility. Since anticonceptionals are here to stay there should be a clause about it. But i do not have dreams about it, this is for long term results we in the next 30 years have more urgent matters to deal with.
Please understand that in the most basic sense we humans are divided in just two categories the warrior and the breeder. We preety much keep warriors alive with the army (as a essencially male institution) but since the 60's we are letting women forget that they are first and foremost breeders. We to become fuctional again must regain this trait.
We have to find a system that includes fertility, even in ancient times without abortion Greece and Rome got thenselves in fertility dead ends. Find another system but make sure that it states a compulsory fertility clause.
Takuan, you said:
The balance now is skewed so far into the negative with respect to women's influence, that for a while all that matters is how to push back the negative female impact. Maybe through limiting franchise, maybe not -- all that matters is thinking about it and doing it.
Do you seriously think that women have too much influence in society today? In the polity? It seems to me that men are still running the show at every level. I am not an adept of quotas, like when Barroso says we should have a certain proportion of women in the Parliament or the Commission. This is stupid, nobody should vote based on the candidate's gender. But I am curious as to how you have determined that women have too much influence and that this influence is negative. And what would be the right balance for you. Do you think we have too many female teachers, nurses, TV personalities ? Do you think that a woman cannot be a ferocious defender of her family or her country? What about Boudicca, Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great, Thatcher? I bet a lot of German women voted for Hitler and Ghadafi only trusts women to guard him.
What I'm trying to say is that women are not the problem. The "problem" is that we are a society of unprecedented affluence, we value our comfort bubble and that's why we seem to have become emasculated. But rest assured, under this thin crust of civilization lies the same blood-thirsty beast capable of cruelty and even genocide. It only takes a hig enough crop failure, a catastrophe, a crisis or a serious provocation.
Rocha, people are not having children for a reason and it's because they can leech on the children of others while being taxed to death to maintain old people. If the choices would be to pay taxes and starve to death at old age or reproduce, people would reproduce. And compulsory fertility doesn't work. It was tried in my country with even more serious things, like banning contraception and abortion. We just had a lot of women dying in illegal abortions and that's about it. The distinction in warriors and breeders is something really close to Islam, by the way.
linbetwin, I will give you another proverb from our country - Omul prost nu vede padurea din cauza copacilor(The stupid man doesn't see the forest because of the trees). I don't know your intelligence, but you are definitely ignorant. The founding principles you say? You realize that merely a century ago most countries in Europe weren't even democratic since they were constitutional monarchies? Did you even read the founding document of our country(1866 Constitution)? It excludes not only women from the vote, but also non-Christians. We were also a monarchy and we experienced the fastest rate of developement in our history. This was the case for all European countries and the US system had limited suffrage too. I don't really see how this is a foundational principle of anyone. Also, democracy is a stupid system to govern, you should read what the founding fathers of the United States wrote about it, since you think it's their foundational principle. All the problems started with the same principles that you treasure, non-discrimination and equality and the current system is a natural progression of that. Universal suffrage democracy is the biggest threat to freedom and property rights - or what, you didn't figure out that we Romanians work mroe for the Victoria Palace than for ourselves? Crunch the numbers a bit and calculate how much you pay in taxes in an year. You think anything will change with more people staying around than working? The country will go bankrupt in a decade tops.
And I don't defend modern Western civilization if you consider universal suffrage democracy, non-discrimination and equality the epitome of Western civilization. Out of curiosity, what are the strengths and weaknesses of the West since you have such a deep understanding of what the West really is.
Also, if you study political history, women got the vote last, after the property rights, education, employment and so on. I would give up my vote if that would take to prevent the vast majority of women from voting, but I didn't suggest excluding women from the political process, my idea would exclude most of the people. Also, there is no such thing as divorce rights if by divorce rights you think no-fault divorce is a right. Actually, divorce rights(child support, redistribution of assets, no fault) make marriage a joke. If you ever wondered why marriage is becoming something nobody gives a damn about, this is the reason. People should be allowed to divorce only if both agree or if one broken his or her vows and the spouse who did that would have to remunerate the other due to the breach of contract, so to speak. This is how things worked when marriage wasn't a disaster. I'll stop here since I don't feel like writing two comments as a reply to you, but besides out of wedlock pregnancy at absurd rates(which represents the new population of welfare dependents and criminals), the family system being destroyed, the nanny state and loss of freedom in exchange for dependence what were the benefits of women voting so far?
Linbetwin:
"the emancipation of women and the overwhelming benefits thereof for the entire society."
Among those benefits is the total destruction of that same society. I realize you don't believe that, you don't believe it actually is that bad, or that the cause-effect relation is that direct. All I can say is that if you go out and look at what is actually going on between men and women right now and what the implications are, that is what the evidence points to, the same way Islamic birthrates point to a certain conclusion for Europe. Neither is inevitable, but neither trend is imaginary either, no matter how emotionally attached one is to the opposite premise.
Until you can make that consequence of total destruction go away, female "emancipation" is a non-starter.
"these comments are nothing but jingoistic, sexist, reactionary drivel that display an almost complete lack of understanding and appreciation for the modern Western civilization"
You don't understand women at all. You, like many others, have been living in the bubble created by civilization, and have come to believe that it is all there is - just like liberals who cannot imagine a higher good than everyone being completely and exactly equal. Those of us closer to the edge - younger men in particular, and some younger women - see it more clearly. You are WRONG - desperately, disastrously wrong.
"Do you seriously think that women have too much influence in society today? "
You just have absolutely no freaking clue.
linbetwin, who is a politician is irrelevant. The people who vote get their way and women are the majority of voters. You are really showing that you don't understand Western European and Anglo countries politics. I really don't feel like having this debate, but you need to learn statistics and how you judge group trends and influence. It's like those people who give examples of Muslims who integrated when the majority of them didn't. You judge if Muslims are beneficial to Europe by their actions as a group, individuals are irrelevant in this.
One answer to the more fundamental question being discussed here:
Monarchy has been the norm through most of human history. European civilization was built and defended (and, in 1914, betrayed and destroyed) by monarchs.
If we're going to start admitting biologically based differences between races, and biologically based differences between men and women, it is not such a great leap to accept biologically based differences in ability to make wise leadership decisions, and to select and breed a small group of people for that purpose. That is effectively what the European nobility was. It fell apart at the end but there's a lot that can be learned from why it did, and why it worked for as long as it did. (Also from studying nobility under the Roman Empire, particularly as compared with the Persians.)
The obvious (and stupid) question to interject here would be "oh yeah ok who would you pick for king" and the answer is absolutely nobody. A group of people like that doesn't exist under present circumstances, it has to be made - forged, like a sword - over the course of multiple generations of stress and selection and probably quite a lot of violence. Clovis wasn't a Roman politician, much less Charles Martel or Hughes Capet.
Enlightened monarchy also lends itself much better to protection of property rights than does rule by the mob.
@linbetwin
I not only think that women have too much influence, but that it is an influence of an utterly disastrous kind. I respect your right to hold a different opinion. However, again you have not stopped to think before firing off a comment. I did state in this thread that I consider Margaret Thatcher to be the greatest conservative leader of modern times.
You bring in an argument here that's common to liberals' (and 90%of "conservatives" are liberals) treatment of all "sensitive" subjects, e.g. Jews, colored minorities, women, GLBT, group IQ differences etc. You deliberately or perhaps unthinkingly seek to challenge statements that are true and valid with respect to the mean and the preponderant majority of a group, by citing the statistical outliers in that group. This way you may drown in a lake the average depth of which is 20 cm.
So yes, I agree with you about the great women you cite. It in no way nullifies what I wrote about women as a group.
@rebelliousvanilla
Are you sure you are 19? I read your comment after posting mine, and you had said the same thing. Except I could be you grandfather and have four university degrees. Can we groom you somehow so that you can become a Prime Minister in the future?
rebelliousvanilla,
Yes peoples are doing that because they can leech on other peoples children but not necessally because of taxation. I do not know much about Europe but in Brazil and North America that is not the case.
So "they" do the same thing but use the argument better suited to the geographical location. You are Romanian, right? I do not have the specifics about Romania, but in Brazil it did work untill 1985 (when it was lifted), really it worked much more in the Brazilian Northeast (Mestiço country)than in the South (85% European) but even in the south we got a pretty good suplus permitting Brazil to colonise Mato Grosso do Sul, Parts of Mato Grosso and even exporting people to Paraguay. The northesasterns ended in São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro (darkening the states but permitting the 60's and 70's economic boom) and helping to occupie Amazônia. So it can work. But that's not what i'm writting about. I'm not writting about enforcing fertility not banning contraception that is far less effective. Do not want kids? OK, you lose your citizen status and pay double taxes.
About the abortion thing. I do not know how it worked in Romania, but i do know how it worked in Brazil and U.S.A., in U.S.A. femminists groups fabricated the numbers of deaths by abortion making a number that was in the low hundreds a year in a number as large as 15.000 deaths a year. That's the same thing in Brazil, between 2002 and 2004 the brazilian public system (SUS) had 78 deaths because of abortion (in a country where abortion is forbidden) that in a population of 190 million people.
The feminists number? 70.000 deaths a year! Beware of leftists numbers.
@rebelliousvanilla,
"Leftist human rights don't apply.."
Here's another problem with definitions,
Our fundamental human rights,such as the franchise,the right to a fair trial,the right to free speech were all once all 'leftist human rights' and were denied to the people by conservatives. I don't regard the loony multiculturalists and appeasers of Islam as Leftist,they're simply useful idiots,I'm sure the Old Left would have regarded them as anti-progressive.
@doom-and-gloom,
"One of my fears is that anti-democratic and various other ultra- reactionary forces will use this crisis to abolish democracy.."
I agree,
I suspect many people prefer 'law and order' to democracy,we really don't want 'strong men' in smart black or brown uniforms cleaning up society.
"Can the poor do anything but use their franchise to help themselves to wealth and stability earned by those who work, save and strive?"
Of course they can.
I grew up in poverty -- and quite conscious of it -- and I despise all leftism. My father, who grew up a share-cropper (and who thus, according to Dem mythology, should worship FDR) and he despised FDR.
@Ilion,
Yes, of course you are right. I grew up in worse than poverty because it was a poverty of people born privileged and wealthy from whom everything had been taken away. The issue is how to express BRIEFLY the kinds of ideas like in the statement you find objectionable. It’s the same issue with the person who took multiple exceptions to the statements I made about women.
These statements of mine are meant to be taken as characterizations of the majority and average of each group, rather than as the Absolute Truth that applies to each and every member of the group. In considering social phenomena, it’s these majorities and averages that we have to consider.
Another challenge I haven’t met, again because it would take a book, is in considering the impact that ideology propagated from above has on the values and behavior of groups. It could be argued that the toxic properties displayed by the modern poor (and/or black) existed far less in the past, when they still had their religious faith and before their indoctrination by the intellectual left.
Takuan,
The problem is culture, not economics, or economic class.
These days, even most of "the middle class" is greatly infected with, and animated by, the "gimme" culture.
@Ilion
Yes, it's culture. And you could add the upper class to your observation too. All the classes have rotted. The other phenomenon to ponder is that the upper aand lower classes have combined in a vise to crush the middle class. In the future, maybe there will be no middle, just like 1000 years ago.
Wow, this place is really hopping. El always has good stuff, but I'm surprised it's gone like this in the comments.
Personally, I'd lean towards a government like the Althing the Pagan Norse had, though I doubt anybody will be surprised by that. I don't know that I'd go so far as taking away womens' right to vote, but I don't see a problem with a basic system based on being 30 years old, a citizen, and self-supporting as far as democracy goes. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if something along the lines of the Feudal system appears in the next few dozen years should the government fall apart.
I will state that I do see where some people are coming from in saying that Women hold too much influence. I would like to state that what I believe is really the case is not Women have too much influence, but that Feminine Ideals have grown stronger than Masculine Ideals. That said, I don't think this is a problem inherent in Western Culture, as the pre-Christian era of Europe, at least among the Heathen Germanic and Scandinavian peoples, and to an extent the also Pagan Romans and Greeks(depending on which city-state you were in) showed a remarkable balance and equality of the sexes, much more than we have to day for sure.
Rather I would say the problem arises as an inherent problem with Eastern religions. With Islam we see far too much of the Masculine drive for for dominance, namely that of Allah over everyone else. In Christianity we see the opposite, too much of the Feminine drive of compassion to the point of self sacrifice, such as Christ sacrificing all the way to his own death to bring people happiness, regardless of cost.
It was the balancing of these drives that allowed the peoples of the West to accomplish so much in terms of culture and civilization.
I know many people will not agree with me on this, but that's my point of view. I think, if we wish to regain any form of democracy and survive in the face of Islam, we would do well to look back at the Pagan peoples who gave birth to us and how they structured their governments, most of which lasted much, much longer than any government since the advent of Christianity and Islam.
In a way, much of this ties into the economic situation we're facing. I humbly offer my latest blog post which is on the subject back at my blog if anyone wishes to look upon it.
I thank you for you time and such an interesting discussion.
Rebellious Vanilla,
"And compulsory fertility doesn't work. It was tried in my country with even more serious things, like banning contraception and abortion."
I agree with Rocha on this issue, although I differ in how it should be applied.
Nonetheless I believe that fertility must be taken into accoung, and I say this without taking credit away from your "sons take care of fathers" argument, which is also truth.
But I think that the citizens must have the right to opt if they want to reproduce or not. In the same line as they must understand that they own their own reprodution to the state.
I imagine a kind of inverted welfare system: One in which those who do not have kids are more and more taxed while those who commit to educate their own kids will be relaxed in some taxes. And that's it. It is simple and effective.
And you could arrange so that some undesirable groups (ethnic minorities, poor, tall people, you name it) have to face different taxes.
For instance, to stop the poor masses from reproducing sense and tasteless, we wouldn't relax the taxes of the miserables who can't provide for their descendents after the third son or so.
------------------------------
On another topic, it seems to me that Romania has risen from an obscure region South Eastern Europe in 1850, into a big country and a really major regional power which is very consolidated by 2000. I think this has demographical explanations, one of which is that of Ceausescu's 20 Million's Romania. As the project to "get" Transylvania.
And I mean, I am really "shocked" how much Poland and Romania have become the uncontested powers of Eastern Europe... Despite somewhat poor, Romania must be taken into serious account by all of its neighbours... and Ukraine is too sick a country.
I don't believe I explained myself right. Try to look for the substance of what I'm saying instead of the words I'm writing.
Afonso Henriques
Rebelliousvanilla,
"The distinction in warriors and breeders is something really close to Islam, by the way."
It's close to any healthy society on their primordial level (Islam is screwed on higher levels) and Europe had it very strong in the XIX century, France per example was mocked by all their neighboors ( Bar Spain who was screwed) because of her low birthrate (creating her decline as a european power in the late XIX century). It was only after the Great War that warriorness began to being questioned and after WWII discredited. After all Europe was destroyed in these two wars.
As for the breeding as i said that was preety natural to think in the XIX century but in a cultural or subconcious way. After the Shock of the Great War Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany and the various authoritarian states in eastern europe all tried to improve breeding, specially in areas with ethnic minorities (like transylvania or istria). After the war breeding began to fade, times were tough and abortion on eastern Europe and later in western europe restricted population inclease (France had a surprizing baby boom after WWII) but when the pill come out breeding become really outfashioned, this created the market for the immigration crises whe are now facing all over the west.
We are reaping the harvest of the 60's and the 70's. So
@Thorkell the Tall
I am not exactly on the same page with you and still believe in the value of Christianity, but agree with and defend some of your ideas. I see in the traditional Japanese culture the value of what you commented about here. Some kind of synthesis may work, and I’ll be writing about it soon.
The other thing is that the Norse emphasis doesn’t work me and for many others who read a blog like this. Our roots are in different parts of Europe. Some of those parts saw a less-than-wholesome side of the Norse culture already 1300 years ago, and for centuries thereafter.
Old hurts can be forgotten now, at least among Whites. There is nothing wrong with ethnic pride either. But perhaps some of what you write about is more appropriate for a Scandinavian-specific venue than for a general Save-the-West venue.
Christianity has value because Christianity is true.
We cannot really return to paganism. Even aside from the fact that it is false, it can provide no foundation for the sort of societies we want.
Even modern-day atheism (which also cannot furnish a real foundation for our societies) is closer to what we want than paganism can ever be -- this is because modern-day atheism is a Christianized denial-of-God.
@Ilion
Like with the other questions we debated, this too has two sides. The people on each side push their own side and few step back to take a more objective look from a little farther away. Also, it's a very large isssue, impossible to cover here. So I'll just lay out the two main points against your thesis.
1. European Paganism, like Shinto in Japan still now, American Indians once etc., connected between the people and their land. Not land as some semi-arbitrary patch on the map but the soil, the trees, the rivers, the mountains. Those were holy to the Northern Europeans, Slavs, Dacians etc. And Christianity, because it has its roots in Judaism, which has its roots in a people of shepherd-nomad traditions, does not have that kind of orientation toward the natural world. Moreover, because it also inherited the Middle Eastern religious fanaticism that survives to this day in Islam, Christianity extirpated by sword and fire almost all the nature-linked elements of European culture, except the few it changed and co-opted like Christmas trees, Easter eggs and bunnies, possibly Christmas and Easter themselves [No Islam apology here; the whole point is that Islam is where we were in the 7th century].
This is detrimental on two main counts. First, Christianity weakened the emotional and spiritual connection of the European and white person in general to his native land. You cannot colonize a land with foreign barbarians when the people's connection to that land is of such mystical intensity. You cannot subjugate such a people either, though you may be able to kill them. Second, love of the land has now become the province of atheist socialists, Greens and other compass-less wackos. And it's a powerful cause that appeals to the young. If Christianity were able to retain a proper balance, this love -- not love of abstract "Nature" but love of the trees that grow where you were born -- this love would have been properly a Christian conservative thing, with considerable implications relative to Christianity's drawing power.
2. Christianity has become a religion of suicidal socialist wimpism (except for Eastern Orthodox), though it's not inherent in its nature and may probably be pushed back. However, what I see in most Christian denominations now is disgusting. Maybe it's the inability to see God in the frogs and the pebbles, and the forfeiture of the vigor and energy that flow from that, that are one of the causes of this progressive anemia. So you would need to qualify the statement "Christianity is true," but it's simply too large a subject and I'll not be able to respond on this occasion.
Takuan Seiyo,
Paganism worked *then;* it cannot work *now* -- no more than Shintoism is (or can) work now in Japan. After all, the Japanese, too, are dying.
'Science' sometimes works, too, even when the ideas are false.
Japan is a Europe-like socialist country and it suffers from illnesses similar to Europe's. They are not dying, they are just diminished in vigor, and perhaps they have multiplied beyond the small island's carrying capacity so nature must do its thing. On the other hand, most have abandoned Shintoism and Buddhism too, except for some superficial tokens, so for most those do not provide nourishment. But I know some who belong to the other side of this reality.
Christianity not only gave the nations of Europe the coherence and continuity thay have had since their conversion, but created most of them in the first place.
Where are the Huns and the Pechenegs and Cumans/Kipchaks, on the one hand, and where are the Franks ans Saxons and Danes, on the other?
It is not "nature [] do[ing] its thing" in the on-going decimation of the Japanese nation; it is that Japanese are declining to reproduce.
... and a society which is not reproducing is, indeed, a society which is dying.
@Ilion
No quarrel with you there. Remember I specified that I'd be bringing up controversial points rather than those I am sure I share with you. The Pechengs are not the issue. The issue is that Christianity is dying now. And any serious attempt to revive it must start with tracing where and when it has taken wrong turns.
And, if paganism (whether in Europe or in America) was so good at connecting a people to its lands, why is it that most pagan peoples are migratory ... and short-lived?
No, Christianity is not dying.
Rather, formerly Christianized peoples/societies are dying.
There is a great difference between the two statements.
@Ilion
You are getting hot under the collar now and a rational discussion of this matter was probably impossible by definition from the outset. I'll sign off now.
Takuan Seiyo "The Pechengs are not the issue."
I disagree:
Takuan Seiyo "1. European Paganism, like Shinto in Japan still now, American Indians once etc., connected between the people and their land. Not land as some semi-arbitrary patch on the map but the soil, the trees, the rivers, the mountains. Those were holy to the Northern Europeans, Slavs, Dacians etc. ..."
In truth, few pagan societies are as attached to their lands as that same people after their conversion to Christianity.
Pagans may worship nature, Christians revere it as a gift from God.
Takuan Seiyo "You are getting hot under the collar now ... "
[visualize me rolling my eyes and "tkshing" through my teeth in disgust]
Takuan Seiyo "... I'll sign off now."
... as well you should, after that.
Mace
"Our fundamental human rights,such as the franchise,the right to a fair trial,the right to free speech were all once all 'leftist human rights' and were denied to the people by conservatives."
That's one of the most monumentally ignorant and completely counterfactual statements I have ever seen. John Locke was not a liberal. The very word franchise indicates its close identification with the Germanic tribes that were warring against Rome as early as the fourth century - even the Romans recognized it as a part of how the Germans lived. Are you just not thinking about what you type?
Ilion: if christianity is so true and correct, why is it dying in the places it started, where it should be strongest? Why is progressivism in the USA strongest among evangelicals?
Anyway this whole xtian-vs-pagan discussion is something of a red herring (and why is this turning into another religion advocacy thread anyway?) Christianity, as practiced today in the modern world (regardless of whether it is a true and correct form of christianity or not, about which there can be plenty of arguments) IS indeed a strongly feminine influence and as such a gigantic vulnerability. I saw a story a few days ago (here maybe? don't remember) about a church with a female pastor that was opening its doors to muslims to let them pray in the church twice a week as a gesture of compassion and love. The symbolism there needs no expounding. It seems to be common knowledge among christians that women are much easier to get into church than men; I've seen discussions online between christians about how to emphasize Jesus as a fighter, a man in the streets, hanging out with the guys, the heroic aspect, and so on, as opposed to the love'n'compassion thing, because L'n'C sells to women but not to men. Insisting that christianity is true until you're blue in the face won't change that people don't like how it's being sold today and aren't doing much to take it to heart.
Christianity, as it is today, is disastrously wrong and dangerous. Denying that denies one of the roots of the problem.
"Ilion: if christianity is so true and correct, why is it dying in the places it started, where it should be strongest?"
There is nothing which can compel a human being to admit truth; and truth is not determined by counting noses.
However, one does reasonably expect truth to lead to life and lies to lead to death.
make that:
"However, one does reasonably expect [the embracing of] truth to lead to life and [the embracing of] lies to lead to death."
Amazing, even the red herring arguments on Christianist vs Paganism.
I'm very glad I took the time to read this to completion.
@Siegetower
I wouldn’t call it red herring. To the contrary, all these are central issues, even within the context of an article about the ddeath of democracy.
The side that’s destroying us has a high degree of consensus relative to the Main Things, and decades of ‘Community Organizing’ and Slow March. We have nothing but individual values, impulses and reading habits. Some of us do take some action but that’s within frameworks such as the GOP or RCC -- and those are factions, non-conservative and gelded ones at that.
It is vitally important that we establish what our common denominator is, and whether it’s wide and deep enough. Whatever system we devise, democracy or otherwise, has to be built on that common denominator: the ability to row in cadence for a common goal.
I have already discovered that some potential crew mates are unable to row in cadence with a Jew, others won’t fit in because they alone know The Absolute Truth per their particular Christian denomination, and the third kind really can’t take anyone who “discriminates” with regard to gender, race or sexual orientation.
Establishing what we share and the limits of our tolerance toward what we don’t share will determine what we can do and how.
Takuan, yes, I am 19 and yes, I know I have curious interests for someone my age. And I wouldn't work into politics because I can't lie. I thought about going into politics because I'm a good public speaker and I'm smart, but I realized nobody would vote for me. I mean, I would say that I would privatise healthcare and education, do away with the protections for unions and make them like any other organization, reform the justice system and fire most of the judges(since most of them are corrupt idiots), do away with most of the agencies and ministers(I was going on the list of my country's ministers and I would have 4, not 15), slash welfare, increase spending on the military, withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan), reform the voting system and citizenship system, do away with most of the welfare, including the one for single mothers and do the changes I told ConSwede and posted on my blog. Really, you think I would get more than 3 votes from family members? lol
mace, the Old Left is the father of the New Left. They're not that different. And I don't want neither strong men in whatever nor the current democratic system.
Rocha, I would do that though. Basically, taxing young people and giving to the old is a moral hazard which makes children a liability, not an investment. Now, I would do the same thing as you, except that I would have people as citizen, they'd just have less privileges if they don't have kids(like voting) and the people who do have kids pay less taxes(not those who don't reproduce pay more). And no, the death in botched abortion numbers here are legit. We don't even have much of a feminist movement in my country.
Ilion, you seem to miss that a culture is enforced by a class. The traditional European system which gave birth to most of the culture in the last centuries was enforced by the bourgeoisie. I agree though, now the cancer is far enough to not matter as much, but the lower class is infected a lot more. Maybe it won't be in this way in the future, since they suffer more from immigration, for example.
Afonso, that's what I'm proposing though! Go to my blog and read what I commented on ConSwede's blog. And you don't need to arrange it for undersirable groups. It's like in the US, white people will always make more so they will be able to deduct more for kids. If you make $10,000 an year there, you already pay no taxes. And you are wrong about Romania. All the good things happened before communism, under the king. In 1960 we were 18.5 million and Ceausescu got us to 23.2 million at the end in 1990. We were 18million in 1930. We lost over 3 million people in WW2 though. The fertility rates weren't increased that much and the kids ended in orphanages anyway since it wasn't humanly possible to raise them.
Rocha, I got to your 2nd comment after I submitted the reply. You have a skewed way of things. I mean, sure, I would want women to have more kids and I would want European men to actually be men. Now, this doesn't mean reducing women to breeders and men to warriors. You can have national service(provided you do it right, not like my country) and emphasize birth rates. Now the world is more complex than it was. Still, I agree with you, motherhood needs to be fashionable again.
Funny enough, Ilion is yet another Christian who is proving ConservativeSwede right about Christianity. Christianity worked for Europe only as long as it was constrained inside a national paradigm, which mitigated the universalist nature of it. I won't go into it anymore since it's boring to me.
@Ilion
I recommend you do more research on Paganism before just listening to church leaders and tossing it aside.
You stated:
"And, if paganism (whether in Europe or in America) was so good at connecting a people to its lands, why is it that most pagan peoples are migratory ... and short-lived?"
This is not so. Yes, there were migrations, but that has always been so with humanity and doesn't deny an inherent connection to the earth. Where you went wrong was in claiming they were all short lived. Ancient Egypt lasted Five Thousand Years. The Greeks lasted almost as long. The Roman from its Kingdom stage through its Republic and Empire stages from 753 bce until 476 ce in Europe and 1453 in Asia Minor. It was Paga from before 753 bce through the 4th century ce.
Christianity isn't "True" and you've failed to prove otherwise.
Paganism isn't "False" simply because we have many gods and live symbiotically with nature. Nature isn't a Gift from God, it is the very our brother and sister, mother and father, son and daughter. As we live with it, so it lives with us, neither owning the other, but rather a partnership.
As for someone's comment that the Scandinavian way won't work for everyone, I understand where you're coming from. That is why I included the Greek and Roman, as well as the Germanic. The Germanic Tribes of Europe shared an almost identical culture with the Scandinavians and consisted of the Vandals, Franks, Visi-Goths, Ostro-Goths, Angles, Saxons, and more, all of which gave birth to the modern peoples of Europe. This is why I suggested them. They are a path given to us by our ancestors that can be traced back in the tens of thousands of years.
Thanks for the great discussion.
The point I was making is that an ideology that can't sustain itself in an area where it should have all the advantages has something wrong. Blaming the victims doesn't mean much. And you haven't actually employed any reasoning at all in this thread, just proof by vigorous assertion. The people you're arguing against have provided specific evidence for why they are claiming what they do. You just keep repeating, effectively "it's true and you're evil if you don't believe". What makes you think that is going to convince anybody? What exactly are you accomplishing here?
@Ilion
I fail to see where those who disagree with you have failed to use their Reason or their reading.
I have no intention of turning this into a Christian/Pagan war thread. We're trying to focus on Governmental systems that work. I merely mentioned those that our pre-Christian ancestors used were highly successful and fairly democratic or republican in many cases.
There is no need for you to begin a Holy Crusade against Heathen ideologies. Save that hate and violence for the Muslims.
Personally, for someone who claims Christianity is "Right and True" you have a broad definition, as Christians can't even agree on what the correct path in their religion is. Not to mention the historical and often violent debate between Jews, Christians, and Muslims over who's way to worship the Abrahamic, Monotheistic god is correct.
So forgive me if I fail to see how you have the right to tell me that my ways and the ways of my forefathers is false, wrong and evil. At least Pagan and Heathen peoples showed far greater tolerance for other ideologies and religions in their days of power. Yes, Rome persecuted Jews and Christians, but that was only after the Jews rebelled against the Empire (up until that point the Roman thought Jews were a little odd, but greatly respected their religious tradition and history) and Christians (who in Roman eyes were worshiping a convicted criminal and traitor to the Roman Empire).
Now, I ask that we all be civil and continue on with discussing the article and not get sidetracked by anymore religious stuff. I'm sure there will be another time and place for that soon enough.
Thank you everyone for you time.
Ilíon --
We do not allow casting aspersions on the intelligence, reasoning abilities, or other personal characteristics of those with whom one disagrees.
If you find their reasoning flawed, refute it. If you have facts that prove them wrong, display those facts.
If you simply disagree with them, say "I disagree."
Otherwise, forebear from commenting.
@rebelliousvanilla
I was being facetious about the Prime Minister thing. On the other hand, following a thread like this one can identify people who can think and people who cannot. Reasoning ability is more rare than being informed, even though being well informed at your age is already exceptional. So if you can follow a career path that will allow you to amass some power to use toward saving the West, it would be good that others who share the same concerns and who are in the position to help you on that path, do so.
Takuan, just because I'm really smart for my age doesn't mean that I know what to do with my life(I know only one person who is positive what he wants to do with his life). I have no idea what career I want or if I want one to begin with or just be a mother and homeschool. I don't know if I want to have kids based on the state of the world or if I want a large family. I'm in the decisions, decisions time of my life and it's really scary to think that you can make the wrong turn in life.
@rebelliousvanilla
You may not know for another 10 years. But if you identify at least what country you want to live in and what most interests you, you can ask people for advice, even if it's years from now. E-mail addresses of most authors posting here or linked are accessible.
@ Takuan Seyo
"I have already discovered that some potential crew mates are unable to row in cadence with a Jew, others won’t fit in because they alone know The Absolute Truth per their particular Christian denomination, and the third kind really can’t take anyone who “discriminates” with regard to gender, race or sexual orientation."
We don't really need to make a paleoconservative world government or another grand scheme.
What we ought to do is to rise to at least fight the cultural war against Multicultutalism, Marxism, Feminism, Socialism or whatelse. This is, if we can.
And in order to do this, I reccomend you to follow the advice of the great Virginia based Brazilian right wing Philosophe, Olavo de Carvalho (there's an English section in his blog):
"Once articulated around this centre, the various "right wing" sects could collaborate in an unified strategy instead of boycotting each other. When they realise the unity behind their isolated ocasional targets -- not to say that their apparent isolation is completely ilusory -- that they have tried to hit in vain, Religious and atheist conservatives, Classical and Modern Liberals and even right wing extremists can become a formidable organised army in defense of Western Civilisation, without ever giving up in nothing that concerns their individual speficif differences."
That's the true. We have to denounce what is really important and stay by it with whoever also stays by it.
Now, what's really important?
Afonso, we just have to do the way the left does things - or the Afghans. Me against my brother, me and my brother against my cousins and us together against the world. :)
The problem are all these people who have litmus tests on things and since everyone has a different litmus test, then unless we completely agree, we won't work together, which is completely idiotic.
@Afonso Henriques
You made some sensible points. I am not talking about a global government. In the short run, it's impossible to talk even of a national government. It would be a pipe dream.
I am talking about you, in your country, determining for yourself what's really important, and then having some means to locate other people who speak your language and think like you, and then form some sort of community with them. Maybe even through living in the same area of the same city and supporting each other in the physical sense, rather than just by reading the same blogs.The "global" comes into this through developing a concept of a white Euro-origin "ummah" that feels the same cultural-spiritual interlinks, if in a more enlightened form, as the Muslims feel. In other words, I would like to see a white Canadian care more about the rape of white women in Capetown than about Ann Coulter's "racist" speech in Ottawa.
What's really important -- that's the key question And in what order of priorities. There was a row here between a poster whose #1 priority was clearly Church and Christ, and neo-pagans for whom this wasn't on the radar screen at all, and me who includes Christ (Church too but modified, this is too complicated), but not in the 1st place. I'll be writing much more about this. Thanks for the link to Carvalho.
Takuan,
What you speak about already exists...
Orania
At least in South Africa.
Rocha, or something like this
Re: Orania
Thanks, I didn't know. On the other hand, if I sent you photos of So. African rape/murder victims that I have and of the rural white population including women and children drilling with firearms, the motivation for Orania would be clear.
The issue is that I want to see such towns in Holland, not BoerLand, and in Yankee-land rather than Africa. For those in the Third World it's a good thing, but it's too late. Nothing will save them. For most of the rest of us it's still not too late.
rebelliousvanilla,
Please do not offend me, the west is skewed not me. It just that i tend to look thing in the biological,antropological and historic way istead of in the moral and religious. I do value moral and i do have an interest in religion, i just can't have faith. It's beyond me. So when i speak of breeders and warriors i'm writting about the primordial layers of existence. A thing that is present even in worms but that we are losing in the last 60 years or so. That's why people are sometimes shocked, people even darwinists don't like to be compared with apes much less worms. Please note that some of these things were irrelevant 40 years ago (breeders) as they were taken as granted. As tehy are not granted anymore i do think about how to enforce what we don't let nature enforce anymore.
As for warriors. There was at leat one advanced warriorless society known. The Minoans just read about what the Dorians did to them.
I'm not tryng to force my way here. I just reached these conclusions, do as Paul said "Test everything. Hold on to the good" if you find anything good keep it.
My regards.
Takuan, I saw cases from South Africa too. I keep stressing how utterly creepy it is when people look at South Africa as a place where they did away with racism. As a white woman, I would rather appear/be racist than raped, have my son murdered and so on.
What I don't get is why these people aren't moving back to Europe and stay there.
Rocha, I agree that we need to have more kids and that men need to be men and women women again. But this doesn't mean that women are breeders and men are warriors. I know a lot of women in my country who had above replacement fertility rates and yet are engineers, doctors, teachers and so on or not have a career. Just like I know a lot of men who have served and yet they're not warriors.
I won't state again why you don't need to make having X kids mandatory for citizenship since it will get circular. Infertility is based on a few moral hazards. And I didn't mean to insult you, I just said that you have a skewed way of viewing this issue(and you don't really know the policies implemented in Eastern Europe, one of those countries being my own).
@rebelliousvanilla
It's connection to the land, what I wrote about before. They love their land, they and their ancestors were born there, everything that grows around them their people planted in some cases 350 years ago. But eventually they will have to move. I hope that for once the United States will send in the Marines to rescue white Christians when necessary, as it will be. Meanwhile, no white person with a brain ought to be at the SA World Cup, and the sight of no anti-World Cup demonstrations taking place anywhere in the world is enough to read as a symptom of how far we have fallen.
Takuan Seyo, of course I knew you didn't want the global government. I was exagerating on purpose.
But I actually am not fond of your little "puritanic experiment". I know I wouldn't like to live in a place where everyone thinks like me. I like the looks of people when I and another friend talk about unPC topics on the bus... how we refer to "Uncle Adolf" and "Uncle Lenine" to the great shock of the people... or when we hear a disscussion of deranged feminists...
And anyway, we all know how the leftists are super mega cool...
What I want is that those who govern to be thinking people, who do agree to what is natural... that is, what I think.
To give up society wouldn't bear fruits, I think. Unless you really can't live among "the people", which is not my case as the vast majority of my friends and family are amongst "the people", you shouldn't need to find your community.
I want the same as you though, which is the European peoples recognising that they share a Civilisaion. Which they already do. It is only sad that they think that that Civilisation is Marxism instead of European Civilisation.
Rebellious Vanilla,
I don't think we need to act like muslims. I really don't. But I am all for aplying a reverse Gramscian strategy to gain power...
About what to do with your life... Girl, I am about your age actually, and I'm not sure about what path to follow myself. However, let me insert you with a little of Western Nihilism and tell you that don't matter what you chose, it will not be the wrong way. When you mess things up, don't matter how much... you can always start from scratch.
Now, this is not an excuse to fail, or to avoid the right path... so don't screw up!
I know it depends on a lot of variations but I like your comments and reasoning and so here I am trying to help... I know it depends on a lot of variables and I know I don't know enough of Romania to talk about it but it really depends on what you like and on what you vallue.
I'd advise you not to burn oportunities... like I've done. I am smart, I know I am above average in Portugal... I'm pretty sure I am above average in the rest of Europe as well but I'm not as much certain... but I truly doubt that I am so much superior to East Asians. Although I made one of those phony IQ tests designed to Japanese and I beat them! So I guess my IQ must be 115 - 125. That beig said, I'd say I don't think I am really smart, I think I'm smarter but I really don't find a great gap to the average mortal... I don't think I am as smart as you think you are smart...
Because if you burn oportunities, you'll soon see yourself barred from elite status and will not pursue a good profession that makes you wealthy...
But you're a women and for you things are a little different. Okay you're an Eastern European women, for you things are much different!
For your questions about children, of course you want childre, not just yet. Wait more six or seven years... get a good man and have children, it will come naturally to you when the right time comes.
The most important, I think, is to define objectives, grand and small, and to try really hard to get them. It's very important not to lose focus or to become goal-less.
Considering your career, make an option that alouds you to do what you want, an honourable thing and that makes you earn not enough to make a living only, but enough for you to invest your money in whatever you want.
Well, these are just my two cents.
P.S. - White South Africans are indeed immigrating mainly to Australia and the United States.
Takuan,
It's not only that. These people cannot go back, they have their brittish citizenship revoked in the 60's or 70's. To go back they have to get in the line together with pakistanis and sudanese and since they are white they are target of "reverse" racism in their application.
South Africa. Heh. Last fall, the CEO of the company I work for - which as it happens gets most of its money from US govt employees - sent out a mail talking about how he was going to SA for some business deals. He then went into how his view was that the end of apartheid was South Africa's independence day and the modern-day leaders of the country are akin to America's Founding Fathers and the people who fought the War of Independence and it was such a joy to travel to a place so full of hope and promise.
I had to restrain myself. Part of my family tree goes back to 1600s New England.
But I came up with an appropriate solution to the moral issue. I don't work very hard for this man and his company. Maybe five minutes of actual work in an average day. The funny thing is I've been doing this for about four months now and nobody seems to have noticed.
I don't feel guilty about it at all.
"Meanwhile, no white person with a brain ought to be at the SA World Cup, and the sight of no anti-World Cup demonstrations taking place anywhere in the world is enough to read as a symptom of how far we have fallen."
Why Takuan??
I mean, I'm saving myself to 2014 in Brazil. Rio or São Paulo??
But, I am not against people going to South Africa, what is wrong is South Africa having been chosen. It has already happened. So, people ought to go.
And meanwhile, better South Africa than South Korea and Japan. I mean this because I believe that South African has a better climate for the sport...
But the truth is that I feel that Football World Cups should take place only in America and Europe.
And I don't follow the need for anti World Cup demonstrations.
Afonso, I'm not a moral purist, I do like to apply Alinsky to the liberals for my own amusement and I would actually do what the liberals do when voting. Conservatives are losing because they don't understand politics. They think politics is just elections, when it's a sustained effort to change people's mind and common sense doesn't have to prevail(which is what they expected as the 1960s revolution was taking place).
About my life, I won't derail this thread with it. lol
Rollory, I guess he missed on the fact that HIV positiveness is something relatively common there, that they are falling each year in HDI rankings and so on since the end of the apartheid, right? I had a friend who went there to help them learn business and he said that it's an unmitigated disaster full of stupid people(he was teaching the Africans since the whites are bad and evil). LOL
Afonso, it's simple. Because our own racial group is getting slaughtered there - this is why we shouldn't go and demonstrations should have happened. It's called protest.
Oh, I just remembered we were supposed to comment on the essay of El Ingles, not the frigging World Cup. This became a chatroom, minus the asking for pics and webcam, obviously. :P
@Afonso Henriques
"Wouldn't like to live in a place where everyone thinks like me."
But that's exactly what I meant. That’s the common denominator that I seek; not needing to have uniformity, except in the important things --the latter of course needing definition. I don't mind being in a community with conservative-reactionary neo-pagans or atheists or Jews or homosexuals or those who have nonwhite spouses of a similar conservative-reactionary orientation. There are some concerns that I'd have about each one of those groups, but I don’t see a need for a categorical rejection. Yet after watching some of the better conservative blogs for many months I see that many posters are fanatical Christians of one kind or another, Nazis including the genocidal kind, or dyed-in-the wool neocon Republicans who see you as traitor if you don’t share their view of America’s divine mission to save the world for multiculti democracy. So I started questioning whether it’s possible to determine a common denominator other than just “anti-jihad,” which is too narrow.
As to SA World Cup, our difference of opinion may be due to our different degrees of exposure to the horrors perpetrated on whites in that country. I continue being against this WC. BTW, if you are interested in the subject of the multiculti corruption in international football, FIFA etc., which rivals that of the UN, I recommend the writings of Andrew Jennings
About South Africa:
1) South Africa is 10% white. It is not a white state. Are we really in favour of appertheid??
(although I know what happened and think it is a sad case, the appertheid was not really "fair" and "sustainable" in a political point of view, although probabily that society was better for all, black and white alike.)
2) South Africans are indeed leaving the country, mainly towards Australia and the United States.
3) Some are leaving for Europe too, mainly England I guess. I for one know three South Africans, and they're all white. They all have dark features but I think one is from Northern European extraction.
4) I don't think the Afrikaans (of Dutch extraction) want to go back to Europe because their immigration wave to South Africa was in the early XIX / late XVIII century. They have lost contact with Europe.
5) The Portuguese community there is big and is leaving in considerable numbers, although not that much. They're leaving mainly to Angola and Australia.
6) Many of the Portuguese there are such "rednecks" (people with vulgar habits and low culture and education, usually from the poor classes of the Atlantic Islands) that they have a much higher quality of life in South Africa than they would ever have in Portugal.
Just for fun: Redneck from the Atlantic Islands
7) The Portuguese in South Africa are murdered by the tenths every year. We don't year about the rapes. We just year "X was the twelveth Luso-descendent killed this year in South Africa". If it was not for this, we'd never know there's a sizeable Portuguese community down there.
Afonso, I'm not in favour of apartheid. I think Europeans need to completely ignore Africa from now on, except trading with them. No more welfare, aid, sending people there to teach them. Now, it's a completely different thing when members of your ethnic/racial group get killed off. If Americans and Europeans started to kill blacks, I'm sure everyone would be pissed off.
Takuan, the white people of South Africa actually voted to end the Apartheid policies, yes sure the embargos probably had an effect in that regard, but you could still buy American and foreign products during apartheid so it wasn’t a very effective embargo.
Regarding giving refugee status to South African, does this also involve coloured South Africans or just white South Africans?
Yes, life can be hard in South Africa with a rampant out of control crime, but that is also the case with Brazil and other countries with white populations. Are we to accept these people as refugees as well? I recon if a white person in South Africa can’t manage to organize a working visa for Europe, NZ, AUS or America/Canada, he’s probably not going to be a resource for his new adopted country.
I know the FIFA is corrupt!!! I hate them!!!
I wish that one on the next Friday the 13th they get all genocided like what happeed to the Knights. I really hate them!
I mean, I support Benfica, there's no club which is more prejudicated than that!
And then we have the Euro 2000 game with France in which the black defender, who move to America to play in Becham's team and converted to Islam and went to Turkey... where Abel Xavier touched the ball with the hand in the penalty zone... but I "saw" back then that it was not penalty! It was just to help France!!
And then they punished many of our players... and, and...
Seriously, there was a game of a small Portuguese Team from Northern Portugal to the Champions League in whch they robbed us like crazy.
Come on, let's not talk about football!
One more thing, you know that adorable South African blonde that remrked "Ireland!" during the World Cup lottery when France came out in the lottery? She did that in the presence of Platini himself.
And then is that thing with the leaches: Platini, Pele, etc... I only like the drug adict Maradona and the always humble and "Benfiquista" Eusébio. Did you know Eusébio was considered State Property by the Salazar? Did you know that at first he treated his whites collegues always with Sir, as he was used to do in Africa... did you know that he once uttered that his favourite seafood was olives? Did you know that some believe he killed a goalkeeper while shooting a penalty?
Well, he shure diserved his statue in the entry of the Cathedral.
Although I prefer Cristiano Ronaldo, Rui Costa, Luís Figo and, the golden boy: João Pinto.
João Pinto was also a great Benfiquista, he was father at 16 and married a beautifull women to a mere mortal, but a women that was not a model. He was very loyal to all.
Untill one day that he's betrayed by the corrupt president of Benfica. He went to a rival club, won the championship, and finally married a model.
I just wanted to say that we should have opposed South Africa winning vehemently. We didn't so it seems to be hypocrital to protest now.
I won't comment more on this thread. It was a nice discussion, but I don't discuss football without a beer.
P.S. - I'll comment once more.
Recently I went to a conference with the Secretary of State about the relationship with Portugal and Africa.
It was fun to see the blacks asking for "support" and "help" and the whites asking for more conditions to "support" and "help" them...
Oh! And those of the far, far left talking about the "hypocrisy of European and Portuguese policy".
And I'd talk about the attempt sedution technique of Turkey to be accepted as an European Member in campus.
They focused on belly dancing and smoking oriental rooms.
At least they were very nice.
To those who are racist: I thought one guy was Japanese... no kidding.
kristic, white South Africans are of European descent, Iraqis aren't. Why do we bring Iraqis to Europe and we leave the white South Africans there? And obviously we would bring only the white ones - last time I checked, the whole anti-apartheid movement and liberation thing was for the blacks to have their own country? And I think these people would be a better resource for us than bringing Haitians, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Morrocans... You get the picture. And what is happening in SA isn't happening in Brazil.
Afonso, in 2003, my country was leading Denmark going into the 94th or 95th minute when there were only 2 minutes or so of extending time. They tied and qualified, instead of us. They were gifted a penalty too in THAT GAME. I cried after that game ended. :(
There were 2-3 minutes of extra time if I recall right(I was 13 then) and in the 94:30 we missed our last scoring opportunity with 2-1 up and the commentator said that it doesn't matter anyway since we won. Then they score. I remember that the referee got tens of thousands of death threats over this saying that we will lynch him if he ever steps in Romania again. lol
I do think that we would have played until the next morning, until Denmark would have eventually tied.
kritisk_borger
I am glad that we are able to return to the issue of democracy. Not being in the 53% of American voters who went to Obama, I have to ask myself every day what did I do, what did my country do, to deserve this horrible punishment. It’s the same with SA anti-apartheid vote. Many of those who voted for it were Anglos with education and means, who are not there now to eat the consequences of their noble impulse. Those who are getting punished are the rural Boers who did not go along with that vote.
Anyway, there was considerable wrong with apartheid, so I am not necessarily defending it. But I want people to know more what has become of SA society since the apartheid ended, which is more revolting than apartheid was. Perhaps an even better case is Ian Smith’s Rhodesia, which was a decent and prosperous country, versus Zimbabwe now.
I believe that the uniqueness of the Canadian case, last year, is that for the first time white South Africans were being recognized as a group qualified for refugee status.
Rebelliousvanilla, Takuan advocated giving white South Africans refugee status now that implies that the situation in South Africa is so dire that the majority of the people living there are eligible for asylum. Coloured people are also victims of crime, not just whites. I should perhaps also mention that my wife’s cousins are South Africans living in SA and that my in-laws are Rhodesian and South African.
And yes crime is just as rampant in certain parts of Brazil as it is in SA. Most of my wife’s relatives have also got firearms for their own protection.
Takuan said..
“I am glad that we are able to return to the issue of democracy. Not being in the 53% of American voters who went to Obama, I have to ask myself every day what did I do, what did my country do, to deserve this horrible punishment.”
Well that’s what democracy is all about, the majority rule. I’m sure that the democrats would be equally outraged if it was the other way around.
Yes but the difference is they are wrong.
That is the fundamental flaw with democracy. It presumes you can decide truth by a vote. In fact it encourages that belief. And so we come to the natural conclusion of such a principle, where the vote is considered the ONLY requirement for deciding truth.
Democracy is immoral and unethical by its very nature.
kritisk_borger,
Brazil while dangerous is not close to South Africa. In first place we do not have the rape spree that South Africa have. In second murder rates of S.A. is 37 (it was 50 in 2000) per 1000 the Brazilian one is 25.7. Third Brazil is a country with continental dimensions while in the Northeast Maceió has a homicide rate of 104.01 São Paulo where i live in the southeast has a homicide rate of 10.44. Just for compare Moscow has 9.6, Dallas 15.8 and Detroit 42.0. So i just discovered that it's way more secure to live in São Paulo than in Detroit, Memphis, Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, Columbus, Milwaukee, Los Angeles or Dallas.While in the overhall U.S.A. is 5 times more secure it's only 2 times more secure than where i live. And way more dangerous in many cities.
rebelliousvanilla and Afonso, it's awesome to find out you two are my age, it makes me feel better to know I'm not alone in my age group.
I can sympathize with your difficulty making choices RV, because it does seem that the ones we have now are a lot more complicated than they were a few years ago. We face problems and choices now on the level of our grandparents and great-grandparents, if not even more difficult ones.
Rollory, Democracy isn't about voting on the truth, it's about voting on what most people can live with, be it true or false.
Takuan, the reason we face this horrible punishment is because we forgot the history of America and that it was initially meant to be a collection of independent states that worked in harmony on international issues but had autonomy in local ones. That's what the American Civil War was about, does the Federal government command the states, or do the states command the federal government. To put it the way my history class did, it was a fundamental question of which term was right: The United States of America or The United States are America. The founding fathers wanted it to be The United States are America, but along the way people who got power decided it would be the United States of America. Slavery was the catalyst, because it was the Federal Government declaring that States had to obey Federal law, regardless of what the State law held as legal (irregardless of the morality of any law.) I hope that answers at least part of your question.
Rocha, I didn’t say that Brazil was more dangerous than S.A. I said that in certain parts of Brazil the crime is just as rampant as it is in S.A.
I’m by no means an expert on crime in Brazil, but I would imagine that crime in some of the more notorious favelas in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, where BOPE in reality is conducting urban warfare against the criminal drug cartels, is just as bad as any of the crime found in S.A.
Kritisk,
I will repeat myself here, Brazil is a continental country. I'm 430km from Rio de Janeiro and things differ much from here to there. The thing in Rio is populists/leftist thinking plus a geographical nightmare making Rio's favelas fortified highground. I don't know what makes the Northeast so dangerous but it's not geography. Now even the kind of police changes from place to place (like in U.S.A.) in São Paulo we don't have BOPE here we have GARRA wich isn't a military police battalion, that makes GARRA a more brainy special police opposed to the more firepower special police they have in Rio. Now no offense was taken, but please do not compare Brazil with Africa.
Rocha, if you read my post again, you’ll find that I didn’t say that Brazil is a replica of S.A. I simply pointed out that certain parts of Brazil also has a lot of crime, which is true.
Baron: "Ilíon --
We do not allow casting aspersions on the intelligence, reasoning abilities, or other personal characteristics of those with whom one disagrees.
If you find their reasoning flawed, refute it. If you have facts that prove them wrong, display those facts.
If you simply disagree with them, say "I disagree."
Otherwise, forebear from commenting."
Your quite interesting assertions are quite untrue ... and the untruth of them can be seen in this very thread. We don't even have to go into the topic of the aspersions you two cast in other threads, just seeing how comfortable you are with the aspersions being cast in my direction is sufficient.
And that's OK ... for quite I've lost interest in the two of you.
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