Category Archives: America

South Africa Through Old World, South-African Eyes

America, Democracy, History, Ilana Mercer, Race, South-Africa

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How much of an old-school South African is this writer?

Consider the image appended to this short, lyrical post. It is a rare picture of P.W. Botha, South African prime minister, later president, with his second wife, Barbara Botha (nee Robertson), also the person who sent me this image.

This dear lady contacted me after the publication, in 2011, of Into The Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons For America From Post-Apartheid South Africa. We corresponded. I felt we spoke the same language.

Yes, Americans rabbit on about the “Boers, Boers, Boers,” but in truth, it was the Boers, the Brits and the Bantu, in South Africa, locked in a struggle, as Into The Cannibal’s Pot honestly chronicles.

South Africa, it seems to me, is only ever refracted thorough uniquely, New World, American lenses. To me, most young South Africans sound as though they have no connection to the old South Africa in any real sense. And why would they? As detailed in Into The Cannibal’s Pot, the country’s history has been expunged or rewritten:

… landmarks in the country’s founding history are slowly being erased, as demonstrated by the ANC’s decision to give an African name to Potchefstroom, a town founded in 1838 by the Voortrekkers. Pretoria is now officially called Tshwane. Nelspruit, founded by the Nel Family (they were not Xhosa), and once the seat of the South African Republic’s government during the Boer War, has been renamed Mbombela. Polokwane was formerly Pietersburg. Durban’s Moore Road (after Sir John Moore, the hero of the Battle of Corunna, fought in 1809 during the Napoleonic Wars) is Che Guevara Road …. (p. 80)

It’s a strange thing to say, but, again, to me, young South Africans sound more American. They sound like they are more likely to know Candice Owens than to have heard of Gatsha Buthelezi.

I am a South African by birth. The sources  I used in Into The Cannibal’s Pot reflect my being an older South African, who had been steeped in the place prior to democracy; having known South Africa and the characters at play on the political stage well before democracy.

People like the brilliant commentator Dan Roodt, the famous musician and activist, Steve Hofmeyr, and patriot Cuan Elgin: These people know of what I speak. They understand the Old South Africa.

I don’t mean this unkindly, but honestly, Americans don’t have a feel for the place as it was—yet so many South Africans look to American writing about South Africa to set the tone of the narrative about the region.

And they seem to have no value for an older generation of their own sons and daughter who did know the old South Africa.

 

UPDATED (4/9): Member Of The Meritless McCain Dynasty Pans Duty-Bound British Monarchy

America, Britain, Crime, Democracy, Federalism, Paleolibertarianism, Race, Republicans, THE ELITES, The Establishment, The West

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If forced to choose between mobocracy and monarchy, the latter is far preferable and benevolent.–ilana mercer

To spout received opinion, Fox News, neoconservative at heart, hired Ben Domenech, the unremarkable husband of the irredeemably awful Meghan McCain.

At the conclusion of a wishy-washy Fox segment about the wanton Meghan Markle, the man who had married into the meritless McCain dynasty declared:

“There is nothing more American than hating the British Crown.”

The correct perspective is in my “Mobocracy Vs. Monarchy“:

The Queen of England might be a member of the much-maligned landed aristocracy, but she has acquitted herself as a natural aristocrat would. Elizabeth II has lived a life of dedication and duty, and done so with impeccable class. The Queen has been working quietly (and often thanklessly) for the English people for over half a century. Elizabeth Windsor was 13 when World War II broke out, which is when she gave her first official radio broadcast to console the children who had been evacuated “from Britain to America, Canada and elsewhere.” Still in her teens, Elizabeth joined the military, “where,” according to Wikipedia, “she … trained as a driver, and drove a military truck while she served.”

If forced to choose between the mob (democracy) and the monarchy, the latter is far preferable and benevolent. This thesis is anatomized in Democracy: The God that Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order, by libertarian political philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe. In his seminal work, Hoppe provides ample support—historical and analytical—for democracy’s inferiority as compared to monarchy:

‘… democracy has succeeded where monarchy only made a modest beginning: in the ultimate destruction of the natural elites. The fortunes of great families have dissipated, and their tradition of a culture of economic independence, intellectual farsightedness, and moral and spiritual leadership has been lost and forgotten. Rich men still exist today, but more frequently than not they owe their fortune now directly or indirectly to the state.’

“[I]n light of elementary economic theory, the conduct of government and the effects of government policy on civil society can be expected to be systematically different, depending on whether the government apparatus is owned privately or publicly,” explains Hoppe. “From the viewpoint of those who prefer less exploitation over more and who value farsightedness and individual responsibility above shortsightedness and irresponsibility, the historic transition from monarchy to democracy represents not progress but civilizational decline.”

UPDATE (4/9): A relative of the VP, Kamala Harris, white-hating Meena Harris, is another future “View” host. Every bit as banal, privileged and intellectually dispensable as imbecile Meghan McCain.

She tweeted:

I deleted a previous tweet about the suspect in the Boulder shooting. I made an assumption based on his being taken into custody alive and the fact that the majority of mass shootings in the U.S. are carried out by white men.

The hate crime in Boulder Massacre was by a Muslim refugee: #AhmadAlAliwiAlissa

Counters Steve Sailer: “According to the New York Times study of all 358 mass shootings in the US in 2015, the mass shooters were black over 70% of the time.”

East Asian Countries Believe In, OMG, Ability (IQ, Too), Not Equity

Affirmative Action, America, Asia, China, Education, Egalitarianism, Government, Human Accomplishment, Intelligence

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While America is working at propelling the dumbest people to the top, in the name of equity, the latest buzzword for such an idiotic endeavor; while the US is cultivating a slumdog culture—the East Asian countries are sticking to more Confucian principles, like … merit.

Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and China have “one feature in common.” Via The Economist:

… a belief in strong government institutions run by the best and the brightest. This emphasis on meritocracy also has deep roots in Confucian culture. The entry bar to the Chinese Communist Party is set very high: only the top graduating students are admitted. Equally importantly, the rising levels of competent governance are both fuelled by, and contribute to, rising levels of cultural confidence. All this is gradually eroding the deference to the West that used to be the norm in Asia.

Government is always coercive. America’s has the added “benefit” of being both dumb and coercive. See this week’s column: “Systemic, Institutional Rot: From Big Freeze In Texas To Fires In Cali.”

MORE by KISHORE MAHBUBANI (Apr 20th 2020)

UPDATED (5/7/021): Prager University’s Propositional-Nation Creed

America, Conservatism, Culture, Europe, Multiculturalism, Nationhood, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy, Republicans

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“Race and ethnicity have defined every nation on earth, except one: The United States of America. It is defined by values.”—PragerU

Prager U, here, articulates the propositional-nation perspective, propounded by the neoconservatives and neoliberals. It is a false creed.

So how is the US doing as a nation united by “values” upon which nobody can agree? As well as a Walmart with missiles can do. We shop and we war, with others and among ourselves.

Notice the Schadenfreude tinged with a sense of American superiority with respect to the Europeans.

To her credit, France has no institutionalized multiculturalism. Integrating individuals, not communities, is how the French have approached their émigré population. They say their republican values proscribe affirmative action. But since America’s republican values haven’t hindered racist quotas here, says our neoconservative troika, the French should get with The Program.

MORE.

Oh, by the way, which “nation” has held onto its historic monuments, America or the “cheese-eating surrender monkeys”?

President Emmanuel Macron evinced the resolve the Anglo-American surrender monkeys are too feeble to feel, much less display:
Said Macron, “The [French] republic will not erase any trace, or any name, from its history … it will not take down any statue.”
Bravo, Monsieur Macron.

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UPDATES (5/7/021):

Charlie Kirk swear allegiance to propositionalism.