Category Archives: Argument

UPDATED (7/22/019): ‘That Shapiro Meltdown: What It Says About Him—And Conservatism, Inc.’

Argument, Conservatism, Neoconservatism, Pseudo-intellectualism, Republicans

An excellent piece on Ben Shapiro is “That Shapiro Meltdown: What It Says About Him—And Conservatism, Inc.“

            • Shapiro was expecting to promote his new book The Right Side Of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made The West Great, the latest in the long series of Beltway Right slop defining the West and/or conservatism as post-Enlightenment prattle about “individualism” or “liberty” or “Judeo-Christianity” or anything other than a people (white, by the way) with a real culture and civilization.
            • Shapiro expected to appear in his traditional American role as gatekeeper, eager to condemn populist nationalism and to portray himself as an “intellectual conservative.” But Shapiro’s popularity, such as it is, depends on titillating a conservative audience. Like every would-be celeb in Conservatism Inc., he must simultaneously push and enforce boundaries. This inevitably leads to problems.
            • [B]aiting transgenders is edgy on campus, while safe (for now) within the general conservative movement.
            • Shapiro claims to be part of the “Intellectual Dark Web” (IDW), which has emerged as sort of faux Dissident Right. And in a 2016 interview with one of its supposed members, Dave Rubin, Shapiro declared,”Of course, there are legitimate racists and we should target them and we should find them and we should ruin their careers because racism is unacceptable.”
            • Shapiro has a platform precisely because he is allowed to have a platform. He complains about campus protests and online abuse he suffered during the 2016 campaign, but I can confidently predict that Ben Shapiro will never lose his Stripe account, his PayPal account, his checking account. He will never lose his Twitter—while his critics (some undoubtedly abusive but definitely not all) mostly have.
            • He is “New Media” only insofar as he is promoted by Legacy Media, and because any competition to his right, including the grassroots activists who drove the 2015-2016 Trump insurgency, is being persecuted and purged by Big Tech.
            • Neil was right when he identified the lack of intellectual energy coming from the Beltway Right. Again, partially this is because most of the incisive critics have been deplatformed, cut off from financial resources, or simply intimidated via direct threats. Yet it’s also because the Beltway Conservative Movement is fundamentally a product of corporate donors. Not surprisingly, they aren’t coming up with anything except the usual calls for tax cuts and deregulation.
            • Ben Shapiro has no stake in political success, no skin in the game. His job is to remain in the political sweet spot of triggering the hysterical campus left, while gatekeeping for the Beltway Right. This allows him Main Stream Media access, fundraising, and bookselling opportunities, while repeating the same tired slogans like it’s still the Reagan years.He and those like him love to mock Leftists for staying in their safe spaces. But as we’ve now seen, once Shapiro is out of his Conservatism Inc. safe space, he really has nothing to say.

      MORE @VDARE: “That Shapiro Meltdown: What It Says About Him—And Conservatism, Inc.“

      UPDATED (7/22/019):

      “While Shapiro finds Trump supporters “vile” and “disgusting” for chanting “send her back,” he himself openly advocated for ethnically cleansing all “5 million Palestinians and Israeli Arabs” from Israel in a column titled, “Transfer is not a dirty word.”

      https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet/status/1152941294714597381

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Oy Vey, Owens: Candace’ Nationalism Arguments Are Confused

Argument, Europe, Fascism, Logic, Nationhood, Political Philosophy, Reason, Republicans, War

As appealing as she is as an activist, Candace Owens is no clear thinker. She certainly manages to confuse with her default definition of nationalism vis-a-vis the Trump Revolution.

The setting: Some moronic, white-nationalism Congressional hearings.
There, Owens roughly asserted that “Hitler killed his own people hence he was not a nationalist,” which is a non sequitur.

Ms. Owens here is proceeding from the asserted premise—for she doesn’t argue it—that nationalists do not “kill their own people.” This may be true (but would further depend on definitions; what is meant by “own people”), although I very much doubt it. Nevertheless, it appears that Owens’ thought process is something like,

“I like nationalism [check], and, therefore, Hitler, whom I most certainly don’t like, and who was a monster, could not have been a nationalist.”

Consider: Like all Republicans, Owens, no doubt, adores Lincoln. But would she call Honest Abe a nationalist? Why not? I mean, nationalism is a good thing and Abe, say Republicans like Owens, was a good guy.

Well, there is the pesky fact of Lincoln having killed “his own people” … hmmm. By Owens’ seemingly dogmatic definition of nationalism (not killing your own people), Lincoln, at least, does not qualify as a nationalist.

Just so we’re clear.

What preceded Owens’ odd assertion above was an even stranger comment, again, about Hitler. (This was at the same moronic, white-nationalism Congressional hearings.)

“If Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well — OK, fine,” she says. “The problem is … he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalize. He wanted everybody to be German.”

The problem with Hitler? Heavens! Where does one start? It was not that he was a “globalist.” (Is that the kind of “globalist” George Soros Citizen of The World is, Candace?)

How about that Hitler is synonymous with conquest, subjugation, slavery and industrialized mass murder in the service of world hegemony, which, he truly believed, would make Germany  indisputably the greatest power?

the presumed successor of the medieval and early modern Holy Roman Empire of 800 to 1806 (the First Reich) and the German Empire of 1871 to 1918 (the Second Reich)

 

UPDATED (4/7/019): How To Lose To The Left On Immigration

Argument, Critique, Donald Trump, IMMIGRATION, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim

If Tucker Carlson’s producers were serious about immigration—they would not continue to give such a formidable platform to Enrique Acevedo. Enough with the Left’s facile case for eradicating America. By definition, that position lacks seriousness.

Patience with puerile nonsense is not a serious meta-perspective.

To answer the contention that TV hosts “have to show the opposing view”—Yes and no. There comes a time when you have to quit congratulating yourself sanctimoniously on your perfect impartiality. “Jolly good old chap. Don’t forget, when your ship is sinking, the band must play on. And the conductor must conduct.”

There comes a time to fight evil with the best of minds. Acevedo is nothing but a pretty face.

Puhleeze. Give me a break.

UPDATE (4/7/019): Blue Texas

Going, going, gone! Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo is a 28-year-old immigrant; a progressive, whose victory in November put her in charge of governing Texas’ most populous county.

Is The Economist Bewailing That America Is Becoming A Minority-Majority Country?

America, Argument, Conflict, Europe, IMMIGRATION, Multiculturalism, Race, Racism

The transatlantic relations are worth fighting for, laments the Economist, a progressive news magazine. Europe and America must work to stop their relationship from unraveling.

Just about in every issue, the same progressives (excellent journalists, for sure) celebrate that America is on its way to becoming a minority-majority country.

It’s inexplicable, then, that the economist proceeds to bitterly bewail the fact that, “America is becoming less European. A century ago more than 80% of its foreign-born population came from Europe; now the figure is only 10%. Surging economies in Asia are tugging America’s attention away.”

AND,

Europe inevitably counts for less in American eyes than it once did. The generation that formed bonds fighting side-by-side in the second world war is passing away and even the cold war is becoming a distant memory.

READ: “Europe and America must work to stop their relationship unraveling.”

Trump is certainly not retarding the trend: