A Modest Proposal

Politics
#1

I would like to propose a couple of ideas for things that members of this forum could do to advance the conservative cause. I would be grateful for comments and criticisms.

First, some background:

(1) We’re in big trouble. The assault on Western Civilization is unremitting, and takes place at many levels: from opening us up to massive Third World immigration, to the sexualization of children in our schools. The ‘woke’ Left has succeeded in capturing most of the ‘intelligentsia’ – journalists, lawyers, professors, teachers, NGO employees, government employees – and making its political views seem to be just basic moral views. Thus the Orwellian language of ‘gender-affirming care’, which means slicing off body parts from children with mental problems.

(2) Most conservatives are passive observers of this process. They hate it, they vote for the lesser evil (or even for a positive good) on election day … they might contribute to various good causes… but that’s it.

This is not some moral failing on their part. In a normal society, government would just provide a minimal framework – defense, police, perhaps infrastructure maintenance, perhaps compolsory insurance programs – allowing us to get on with our private lives. Elections would be for the purpose of choosing the most competent people to administerd things, or would be contests over issues that were not existential – whether to fund a new highway program. We could largely ignore politics. Even if our side lost an election, it wouldn’t be a catastrophe. (When JFK beat Nixon in1962, it still meant putting a patriot into the White House.)

Conservatives who are active on the internet – like the good people who post on this forum – are a partial exception to this rule. They’re clearly concerned about what’s happening, are more knowledgeable than most about it, and are moved at least to talk about with like thinkers.

But just reading and writing about the depradations of the Left, in and of itself, does little to stop them. It’s a good thing to do, because it means we have taken the first step to effective opposition – we’ve linked up with like-minded people.

(3) There are things that even a small group of people can do, that could help in the fight against the destruction of our country (and of Western civilization)… Here is one of them:

Background: most conservatives are religious, and most non-conservatives are not. We’re an exception. The details of this difference suggest something we might do:

[A] Not only are most non-conservatives non-religious, but most actively secular groups – like the Center For Inquiry in the US – are reflexively progressive/liberal. However … there are two kinds of liberals/progressives
---- : **[1] **ones who have bought into, or are afraid to oppose, the ‘woke’ craziness and ‘post-modernism’…
---- [2] Those who have not, who still believe in Free Speech, and who are committed to reason, believing in an objective reality.

A split is now opening up among these people. In Germany, it has gotten quite severe.

My proposal, which I won’t give details of at the moment, is this: we can help open up this divide, and pull some of the pro-Reason, pro-Free Speech people towards us.

If anyone is interested in how this might be done, we can discuss it further. Some of the details shouldn’t be made public, however.

[B] A large proportion of American conservatives consider themselves ‘Christian Nationalists’ – in the 2017 Baylor Survey of Religion, about 28% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, The federal government should declare the United States as a Christian nation.

We may assume that virtually all of these people were conservtives, which means that the great majority of conservatives (about a third of the country) agree with it.

This is not only unconstitutional, but extremely stupid, as – just like the phrase “Christian nationalism” it will win no one to our side, and repel a great many.

We should undertake a campaign to persuade our theistic friends that “Christian nationalism”, especially if it manifests itself as a desire to make Christianity ‘official’ – is self-defeating idea.

So there you have it: I’m proposing that we start doing some things on the internet to (1) Weaken the Left by pulling some of its members towards us and (2) strengthen our side by persuading our Chrstian co-thinkers that “Christian nationalism” is an idea that can only make us weaker.

Doing this would require those who wish to undertake it, to spend fifteen or twenty minutes on the internet, several days a week.

Doing what exactly? I’ll lay out some ideas, and solicit others, IF people think this is worth talking about.

If you think it’s mad, or not your cup of tea, I won’t take if any furher.

2 Likes
#2

Until you specify the activities you have in mind, Doug, no one can say whether they will or won’t perform them, or whether they think your strategy will work, or even whether they share your aim.

1 Like
#3

Okay, here are some ideas to consider.

(1) We’re in a war. Not a shooting one, but a struggle that has all the other aspects of ‘real’ war.
Now, in a war, one thing you want to do is to try to divide your enemy. Look for disagreements and contradictions within the enemy camp, and try to exacerbate them. See if you can bring some of your enemy’s supporters over to your side, or at least into a posture of neutrality. In a crude sense this is what American elections are about: Left and Right try to win the votes of the Center.

(2) Most people who are secularists are also political progressives. We’re unusual. But because we are secular, we have a chance to reach and influence other secularists who are not (now) conservative, in a way that religious conservatives do not.

People don’t arrive at their political views, and do not change them, on the basis of cold logic alone. Secularist progressives who begins to doubt the wisdom of their Leftist beliefs is more likely to begin to abandon them, if they know personally some secularist conservatives.

(3) There is a split opening up within the secular progressive community. This split is basically between those who believe in the existence of objective truth, and those who do not. The latter subordinate truth to their leftist political goals.

This is not a new development. Over thirty years ago, the Portland Oregon school board began teaching Black children that they were the descendants of ancient Egyptians who flew around in gliders and had psionic powers. But now this tendency has grown much stronger.

There are progressive secularists who are resisting this tendency. We should follow this fight closely and try to take part in the arguments. We have a chance to pull some of these people in our direction.

Exactly how to do this is something we should discuss.

In the meantime, please read these articles:

More here: Our Association with Atheists for Liberty - #8 by Doug1943

1 Like
#4

Do go ahead, Doug, and do what you propose.

And please let us know how many atheists you win to conservatism, and how many conservatives you win to atheism.

1 Like
#5

I couldn’t care less about ‘winning conservatives to atheism.’ What I want to win Christian conservatives to is not driving people into the camp of the Left by proclaiming ‘Christian nationalism’.

As for ‘winning atheists to conservatism’, we shouldn’t adopt the view of some religious people that ‘conversion’ is a Saul-on-the-road-to-Damascaus, all-at-once-thing. People change their views slowly, over time, as the result of acquiring more and more knowledge about the world. We can help in that.

There are a significant number of prominent people who are left of center, who are uneasy about the assault on free speech coming from the Far Left. Some of them are Leftist icons, like Noam Chomsky. We should publicize their existence on forums and other online platforms which are frequented by non-conservatives.

About a third of Americans are in between the serious Right and the Serious Left …we can pull some of them in our direction. (The Free Speech issue is not the only one which can work in our favor, of course. It’s mainly an issue of interest to ‘the intelligentsia’. Even more Americans are concerned about immigration and crime, and these too are issues we need to raise – for example, by letters to the editor in local papers.)

In other words, we should wage political war. (There are also other things we should be doing: we should be organizing local ‘Community Protection Teams’, which take the necessary action in the wake of disasters, man-made or natural.)

Of course, if you think 2024 is really, just basically like 1954, and everything will be fine for the next 20 years, then by all means, sit back and relax. Be a member of the ‘October 6th Club’.

2 Likes
#6

Doug, I appreciate the fact that you are a member of this forum. It exists, as all forums do, for discussion, for the airing of views, whether in agreement or disagreement. I disagree with you on many points, but that does not mean that I want to stop you expressing your views. It does mean that I will probably go on disagreeing with you.

Here are my disagreements with this post of yours.

Noam Chomsky is one of the most famous people in the world. He does not need his existence publicized. He is also one of the great villains of the world - ie. the most infamous. He is an intellectual leader of the Far Left. The fewer there are like him, the better.

Explain to me why you want people to come “in our direction”. Politically we are conservatives. Donald Trump is our candidate. If you mean we need more people to vote conservative, I agree of course. Whether they are believers in the supernatural or not is immaterial. Yes, conservatives are patriots. The Left calls patriots “nationalists” because they think that word has bad connotations. But patriots are nationalists, and the nation state is not bad per se. Depending on how it is governed, each nation state can be good or bad. We certainly don’t want a theocracy, but how many Americans do?

Immigration and crime fill all the news outlets 24/7.

I do not understand what you mean when you speak of my or anyone’s thinking “2024 is just like 1954”.

I do not think everything will be fine for the next 20 years. I do not think everything is fine now. I think the outlook for the late Free World is appalling. But I don’t see how our writing to editors would change that.

I have published books which have affected some people’s views. One of them - Hitler’s Children - is nearly fifty years old and is still available from retailers in many languages and still having influence on people’s thinking. It goes on selling well, especially in Germany. It is to be found in most university libraries and many public libraries. Very few letters to the editor have had any influence on the way people think, act, or vote.

There are well-equipped well-trained organizations that bring the necessary help to disaster sites.

What is the “October 6th Club”? I have never heard of it.

1 Like
#7

Jill, I bought and read Hitler’s Children not long after discovering this forum. And learned from it. (Mainly, the fact that the leaders of the German terrorists were deeply disturbed psychologically. Also, as I recall, that some of them had deep contempt for their own working class … like our ‘woke’ brats today. )

We face a new generation of “Hitler’s children”, this time Americans – mainly privileged young people who have grown up in complete physical security and economic prosperity, indoctrinated in our education system by two previous generations of people from similar backgrounds. We need an equivalent of Hitler’s Children for American ‘woke’ kids today, to understand what makes them that way, the better to counter it. [ Although I use the word ‘American’ here, the phenomenon is present to one degree or another all across the liberal democracies of the West. ]

Most Democratic voters are not ‘woke’. But the ‘woke’ Left is able to wield influence far beyond its actual numbers, to the despair of old-fashioned liberals, as demonstrated here: [ The Bankruptcy of the Democratic Party Left ] The author, Ruy Teixera, is mainly concerned with the fact that the ‘woke’ Left is an electoral liability to his party. The reality is, they are an existential liability to any healthy society.

The ‘October 6’ club is one I belonged to, with respect to Israel, up to October 7th. That is, I believed that although Israel would always have to deal with acts of individual terrorism, a mass co ordinated assault such as we saw on October 7th was just not possible: Israel’s superb security services would learn about any such plans long in advance. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

In America ‘October 6’ thinking is the belief that once Mr Trump is elected, all will be well. I don’t believe this is the case, even if he were far more competent than he actually is. I won’t go into the reasons for my belief here – anyone who thinks this will probably not be persuaded, especially since the implications of my belief imply that we must leave our comfort zones.

As for Noam Chomsky, there is nothing we can do to add to, or diminish, his fame. When I taught Computer Science, I necessarily acquainted my students with Chomsky. You can’t teach formal language theory without mentioning him [ Chomsky hierarchy - Wikipedia ].

However, we can use Mr Chomsky to pry open the Left. Whatever else about him, he is a principled supporter of Free Speech, which is now one of the main battlefields between the Right and the ‘woke’ Left. By showing that support for Free Speech does not automatically make you a conservative, we make it easier for people on the Left to support it. This is a good thing in and of itself. It also opens up a split between them and the ‘woke’ Left.

Here are some links that ought to be publicized wherever we can do so:

A Letter on Justice and Open Debate | Harper's Magazine
Quote by Noam Chomsky: “If we don't believe in freedom of expression fo...”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjoAmkonH50

In particular, we ought to try to get them read by non-conservatives. We want to plant the gnawing worm of doubt in their minds, and this is one method of doing so. People change their minds over time, as evidence accumulates against their previous beliefs. We can contribute to this process.

Doing this would involve systematically finding the liberal/leftist equivalents of this forum, and other online platforms (such as the comments section of YouTube videos), registering there if required, and posting these links, and similar ones.

It’s waging political war. I know that this is not going to be to everyone’s taste. But if anyone is interested in doing this, or has suggestions for other activities along these lines, let’s talk about it.

(This isn’t the only thing I would like to talk to fellow conservatives about – for one thing, we need to start organizing at the local level, now – and we need to try to reach ‘red-pilled’ young people who are not registered to vote and persuade them to register, and then to vote – but one subject at a time.)

1 Like
#8

Thank you for your thoughtful reply, Doug. You make it clear that you are on our side of the great political divide (Freedom versus Government Control). But here are my disagreements - or at least my criticisms.

What is the explanation for the popularity of statism (Communism, Socialism, Big Government) in what we are used to calling the “free West”? I cannot explain it, can you? After its catastrophic failures! After the fall of the vast and mighty USSR! Have you tried reading Derrida? Or even somewhat more comprehensible Foucault, Adorno, Marcuse? Do they make sense to you? How can the propagators of obscure nightmares gather any acolytes at all? Yet they are the all-too-successful preachers of woke.

It has often been pointed out that if a person has formed his opinions without reason, there is no point in using reason to change his mind.

Ruy Teixera’s article provides ample proof that the woke Democratic Party is a failure. The reasonable thing for him to do is to leave it. But he hasn’t, has he?

I never believed Israel was safe from “Palestinian” terrorism. The Prime Minister and all those who underestimated the savage hatred of Israel forever on the boil in Gaza, and - ignoring warnings - left that flimsy border unguarded, were much at fault, and when Hamas has been destroyed they should all go and never be given responsibility for the nation’s protection again.

Trump has proved himself extremely competent throughout his life. He came without experience to supreme national power. He did amazingly well despite that - and despite being constantly blocked, sabotaged, disobeyed, positively persecuted by the immoral opposition.

I cannot begin to understand the esoteric thesis summed up in the Wiki article titled Chomsky hierarchy. I do know that his theories have been debunked, as explained in this Scientific American article:

What a heavy, ineloquent, muddled dialogue it is in that video you link to! Who can bear to listen to it all through? I survived a few minutes of it. If you put people on to it, as soon as it starts you will have lost their attention to your case. And if Chomsky is really for free speech, he is highly inconsistent. What cause has he supported that tolerates free speech?

You are keen to proselytize. You are, it seems, an activist by instinct. Am I wrong? But members of a forum, as such, are thinkers, not activists. Some of them may be activists, but not as members of a forum. We are not a community. We are opinionated individuals. I for one am instinctively against taking orders (except when it is obviously necessary, as - say - in a hospital.) Opinionated individualists by definition are not the type to submit to being organized.

1 Like
#9

Jill … I in turn thank you for your thoughtful reply. Just a few points:

Chomsky’s theory of language learning – the idea that grammar is innate – is something different from his classification of grammars, which is not, to my knowledge, controversial…

Yes, I know that many people who post on forums are not activists by nature. Temperament has a lot to do with it. (Unfortunately, the Left has a lot more people with the temperament to be activists than our side does.)

I’m not proposing that the Atheist Conservative ‘community’ (a good word spoiled by the Left) take up my proposals, as a collective. (Another useful word they’ve ruined!) I was just hoping that a few people here might be interested in doing battle with the Enemy. (And people change under the pressure of circumstances.) They don’t have to ‘take orders’ (although, as you note, there are situations when ‘taking orders’ is a requirement for survival – and we may be approaching one.)

As for reading the post-modernist theorists. Either I’m too dumb to understand what they’re saying, or what they’re saying is gibberish. Of course I believe the latter. Unfortunately, impressionable young college students are not so well-armored against this nonsense.

I have a nice collection of material to torment Lefties with regarding the post-modernists: a famous Judith Butler quote, which I ask them to translate for me, and summaries of a couple of books written by non-conservatives which demolish the whole post-modernist project. You probably know about ‘the Sokal Hoax’. (If anyone reading this doesn’t know about it, look here**: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair**

And here: Fashionable Nonsense - Wikipedia

The secularlists at Skeptical Inquirer are on the Left side of the political barricades, mostly, but they do a good job of demolishing the academic Left’s pretensions here:
https://www.csicop.org/si/show/e_war_on_science_anti-intellectualism_and_alternative_ways_of_knowing_in_21

And this fellow – someone widely admired on the Left – also is merciless in his dismissal of the idea that there is no objective truth: Noam Chomsky on Post-Modernism

I think it would be useful to make this material known to lefties, especially the young ones who have been or are being indoctinated in college. (It’s also fun! They can’t answer, and you get some really hilarious reactions. On one forum, I pointed out that the very liberal Portland Oregon School Board indoctrinates Black children to believe that they are the descendants of ancient Egyptians, and that the latter flew about in gliders and had psionic powers. I quoted from articles in the non-conservative Skeptical Inquirer. They couldn’t answer, except to say that this School Board was run by … conservatives!)

As for the popularity of ‘statism’. That would be an interesting discussion, but … I think America’s current problem – the growth of ‘woke’ nonsense on the Left – is something different. I’m not even sure it’s a direct result of the uptake of postmodern nonsense among our academics, although probably related.

The new ‘woke’ generation aren’t really socialists, although they like to use that word to epater le bourgeois. What they mean by it is they want someone besides themselves to pay their college tuition and healthcare insurance. They don’t want to see the nationalization of the means of production under a National Plan, much less the equalization of wages.

As for Ruy Teixera, no, I don’t think he’s become a Republican, and in fact I hope he doesn’t. He’s far more valuable inside the enemy camp, waging war against their ‘woke’ component. (But he has left the liberal thinktank he was in, and has become a Fellow of the American Enterprise Institute.) https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/07/15/capital-city-ruy-teixeira-american-enterprise-institute-00045819 )

Well, if no one wants to sally forth and do ideological battle on foreign fields, perhaps people here could turn their thoughts to a second task: how to convince our Christian friends not to use the term ‘Christian nationalism’, and, even more, not to endorse the idea that the Federal Government should officially declare the US a Christian nation.

1 Like
#10

Much of what you say is in harmony with what I say.

Yes, the post modernist theorists write gibberish.

I know the Judith Butler quote you mean very well and sometimes refer to it. No one - not even Judith Butler - can say what it means.

I much enjoyed the Sokal hoax.

Yes, real science is one of humanity’s greatest achievements. Doubt is a skeleton key.

A few disagreements - or quibbles:

That fellow Mike is too long-winded for me. I don’t say his contentions are wrong, just too long. (And - definite quibble here - he should know when to use “whom” rather than “who”.)

Chomsky’s classification of grammars is controversial. Easy to find serious criticism of it on the net.

I like your paragraph containing this:
“The new ‘woke’ generation aren’t really socialists, although they like to use that word to epater le bourgeois. What they mean by it is they want someone besides themselves to pay their college tuition and healthcare insurance.” Makes sense.

I don’t think there is a threat that any federal government will declare the US “a Christian nation”. How many people do you know who would do that? The Left sees Christianity as an enemy. Trump’s family is partly Jewish and he is not religious (though he prays when asked to, for sound political reasons). More likely some Western nations will become Islamic - much worse than Christian!

We should have a government so small, and so attentive to its prime duties - protecting the individual citizens with the law and the nation with the military - that we don’t have to think about it at all, but can go about our lawful personal business without being annoyed by official interference. Activism is a regrettable last resort. Yes, we might all be driven to it. We are right to arm ourselves.

2 Likes
#11

Quote:
Presented with endless potential lines of attack against the GOP’s court-convicted-nominee and his bottomless well of sycophants, lefties are instead sounding the ooga-booga alarm against a menace that does not meaningfully exist: Christian nationalism.

Trump is both the reason for, and one-man argument against, the Christian nationalist scare in the first place. [But] - personalized Bible sales notwithstanding - it’s doubtful anyone not being paid to say otherwise could argue with a straight face that the 45th president was a particularly religious figure.

2 Likes
#12

If that’s the worst thing they can come up with…
That’s what they always do - just keep throwing crap until something sticks. But the Nazi/ Christian Nationalist crap is especially ridiculous, coming from idiots who support actual Jew hating, genocidal Muslim Nazis.

1 Like
#13

You and I think very much the same about all of this. Especially important is your recognition that very religious conservatives (the religious right) have no idea about how many moderates and independents are driven into the voting block of the left by the perceived religious orientation of the right and Republican Party. I say “perceived” because the media exaggerates the severity of the real situation, and often the perception is largely the caricature of a Christian theocrat. A lot of conservatives who identify as religious, Catholic or Christian or Jewish, do not wear their faith on their sleeve and are not even necessarily very religious.

The problem is that those who do are blinded by their faith, and believe it is or ought to be a perfectly natural thing to fuse their religion and their politics. Such people believe in the real power of prayer as a political weapon, for instance (“Prayer Warriors” - yep, that’s a real thing they do and identify as) and they say that all Americans need to get down on their knees and ask God for redemption, etc. (Prayer and 5 dollars will get you a 16 oz latte at Starbucks.) It’s not going to be easy to change their minds. It may be more effective to make some kind of appeal to the less religious conservatives or less religious fence-riders who can be be brought back to the anti-communist voting block, with the appeal made on non-religious grounds.

2 Likes
#14

My only contact with conservative Americans is Twitter, where I waste an hour or two a day. From what i see on Twitter (reading peoples Tweets, I mean ‘posts)’, the majority of conservatives are pretty devout Christians. This matches what the polls say as well. Perhaps ‘strong’ rather than ‘devout’.

These are the people we have to work with. Most of what they do is harmless. It hurts no one to be a ‘prayer warrior’. Praying for the victory of a good cause won’t hurt it, and may even help, if the praying one receives increased resolve from the idea that a supernatural power is allied with him.

It hurts no one to believe that an invisible man in the sky is concerned with your welfare. It might be the case that the frequently-seen (and utterly meaningless) slogan “God Wins!” could be harmful, if it persuaded people not to vote, because whatever happens is God’s will. . But I doubt that it does that. The Crhistians grappled with this dilemma 500 years ago and very few of them became quietists.

So, in working with our fellow conservatives who are Christians, we should just avoid the topic of religion altogether, if possible. If we’re asked, or if it’s necessary for some other reason to declare one’s non-belief, just say “I’m not religious”, or perhaps add that you are “culturaly Christian” (like Richard Dawkins), meaning that you are a supporter of the liberal democracy that Western Christian societies evolved into.

If America were a healthy society, and not on a downward spiral, it wouldn’t be necessary to be ‘tactical’. If we found ourselves among a crowd of Christian conservatives, we could argue about miracles, the existence of God, why it took him so long (half a million years) to send us his Son to save us, by requiring that we just take someone’s word for it… etc etc.

But at the moment, there is just one task: to defeat ‘wokeism’. And to do that we have to work closely with Christian conservatives.

Here’s how I try to persuade them to separate their religious witnessing, from their political work. (And I solicit more suggestions for how we can do this — this is just what I’ve come up with.)

I try to avoid confronting them directly, although if the issue ‘Christian nationalism’ does arise, my argument is that if you’re a Christian, and a patriot (I use the word ‘nationalism’ to mean ‘patriotism’ taken to the extreme, but I don’t argue about its use), then fine … you’re a ‘Christian nationalist’. But if you make that your main identity and broadcast the phrase – instead of just being a conservative, and/or an American patriot – you play into the hands of the Left, who have persuaded many good people that ‘Christian nationalism’ is a synonym for fascism-light.

This may not be ‘fair’. But words and symbols have no intrinsic meaning. They ‘mean’ what people think they mean. if I turn up at a patriotic demonstration carrying a sign with a swastika, and argue that to me it means what it originally meant to the old Hindus – a sign of peace and prosperity – I will still, rightly, be expelled from the demonstration – I hope. (The same goes for the Confederate flag.)

We’re in a war, and we have to be smart tactically.

1 Like
#15

Doug, it seems you are mistaken when you say “the majority of conservatives are pretty devout Christians”.

Go here, and you will see that the maximum of self-designated Christians among conservatives is 32%. That is the figure for mature but not old conservatives. Interestingly, quite a lot of old conservatives apparently lose their faith:

Among those who are Christian, whites greatly predominate.

I don’t think it is useful to draw sweeping conclusions from Twitter posts. I am surprised you read no conservative websites, get no conservative newsletters. (Or by “contact” do you mean interchanges?)

Most but by no means all church-attending Christians vote Republican, yes, but if they did not vote at all, few Republican candidates would feel the difference.

2 Likes
#16

Doug, do you consider yourself to be a conservative?

If so, why?

1 Like
#17

And please tell me what you understand “socialism” to mean? (Please no dictionary definition.)

1 Like
#18

I’ve called myself a ‘conservative’ for at least 40 years, by which I mean that, in the liberal democracies, I believe the political parties of the ‘democratic Right’ have usually got, overall, the best policies for advancing the welfare of humanity. [Sorry if this triggers any Randians.]

However, I don’t have a list of points all of which you have to believe in before I’ll use the term ‘conservative’ to describe you.

Conservatism, and liberalism, are terms which, in my way of thinking, describe dispositions, not elaborated ideologies. And this is the way it should be, since I don’t believe the human condition is analyzable in the way other subjects are. We can see some good heuristics – don’t give the state too much power; don’t try to build Utopia, especially in societies with deeply different histories and cultures from ours ; genuine education is a good thing; don’t expect people to be consistent altruists, keep an eye on the dark side of human nature.

To go any further we’d need to discuss human social evolution – why we have evolved from being just intelligent chimpanzee hunter-gatherers, and in particular, why the West evolved as it did. Maybe another thread?

‘Conservatism’ and ‘Liberalism’ are not terms like those of biological taxonomy. A whale ‘is’ a mammal’ a spider ‘is not’ an insect. But most of the the time, we have to be cautious in using the ‘to be’ verb. (Here’ I’m influenced by Alfred Korzymbski – you seem to be very well versed in philosophy so I’ll assume you know about him.)

I’m also, I hope, someone who thinks like Karl Popper suggested we think: for all of my beliefs which are beliefs about matters of fact, I try to ask, “What evidence would prove me wrong?” Any other approach to matters of fact, at least in politics, is just a reproduction of the mentality of religious fundamentalists.

In particular, I totally approve of some socialism, which I define as ‘state ownership’. The USMC, the highways, the National Parks … keep them in government ownership/control.

I’m also not against income re-distribution in principle: for instance, I think education should be subsidized by taxation, which means people with no children will be paying to educate the children of others. (We can argue about what levels of education should be state-supported, and the level of support – it’s the principle I believe in. I would like to see it implemented by School Choice, but where we can’t get that, we need to re-take the government schools and return them to being pro-civilization, which in the US means being pro-American, in Britain, pro-British and so on for all the liberal democracies.)

We’re facing an existential crisis, independently of the attack of the ‘woke’: we’re undergoing a population implosion. I think government intervention will be necessary to attack that problem – and I’m not sure that even that will work.

Above all, I am against the approach, which is really a reversion to a certain kind of religious sectarianism, which hunts for heretics within what should be a common movement. We’re going to disagree on things like Ukraine and Israel and abortion and capital punishment etc etc etc. That’s because we’re a real ‘movement’, and not a little purist sect.

What holds us together is the deep belief that what we can recognize as ‘Western civilization’ – ‘ordered liberty’ – is a huge advance on any alternatives, that it is worth defending, and that it is now under serious internal attack. All our energies should be focussed on this.

1 Like
#19

Thank you, Doug.

No, I had not heard of Alfred Korzybski. I have now looked him up. A quibble about the verb “to be”? As with Bill Clinton? No guiding light there for me.

I agree with some of what you are saying - in the parts I understand. I agree that we must defeat wokeism.

I don’t understand why you think Randians would be “triggered” by your praise of the “democratic Right”.

In what sense do you “work with” Christians? You vote conservative, they vote conservative - how would a need to discuss religion arise?

Isn’t the Left itself fascism-heavy? It needs to be outvoted. Or defeated in hot battle. Arguing with it is futile. Surely that’s been well proved over the last 100 years?

Your political - or political philosophical - views strike me as eccentric to a degree.

Well, as long as you vote for Trump - and Republicans (however much the Republican Party may annoy you) - your eccentric politics will probably do no harm.

Though I criticize your opinions I do not want to discourage you from expressing them here on the forum. Many may find them interesting.

1 Like
#20

I read those Pew charts wrongly.

They do show that a majority of conservatives are Christian. As you said. (How devout they are is another matter.)

So Republican candidates would feel the difference if a lot of the Christian conservatives did not vote for them.

I think the rest of my arguments remain valid. At least I hope so.

1 Like