Category Archives: Classical Liberalism

NEW COLUMN: Kamala’s Collectivist Values Village

Argument, Classical Liberalism, Conservatism, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Justice, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Morality, The State

NEW COLUMN is “Kamala’s Collectivist Values Village.” It’s now on WND.COM, The Unz Review and Townhall.com.

An excerpt:

Sen. Kamala Harris talks a lot about “our American values.” Ditto the rest of the female candidates who’ve declared for president in the busy Democratic field. They all lecture us about “values.”

“Our American values are under attack,” Harris has tweeted. “Babies are being ripped from their parents at the border …”

As her own proud “know your values moment,” the Democrat from California pinpoints the U.S. Senate Supreme Court confirmation proceedings inflicted on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

To manipulate Americans, politicians have always used the values cudgel.

With respect to immigration, the idea is to impress upon gullible Americans that the world has a global Right of Return to the U.S. Fail to accept egalitarian immigration for all into America; and you are flouting the very essence of Americanism. (Or, to use liberal argumentation, you’re Hitler.)

When politicians pule about the importance of preserving “our values,” they mean their values: Barack Obama’s values, Hillary Clinton’s values, Angela Merkel’s values, Chucky Schumer’s values, Jeff Bezos’ values, the late John McMussolini’s values, Lindsey Graham’s values, and Jared and Ivanka’s values (but not Trump’s).

When a politician preaches about “the values that make our country great,” to quote Mrs. Clinton, chances are they mean multiculturalism, pluralism, wide-swung borders, Islam as peace, communities divided by diversity as a net positive, and the Constitution (it mandates all the above, just ask Ruth Bader Ginsburg) as a living, breathing, mutating philosophical malignancy.

For them, “protecting” the abstraction that is “our way of life” trumps the protection of real individual lives. “We must guard against a weakening of the values that make us who we are,” dissembled Obama in the waning weeks before he was gone. The empty phrase is meant to make the sovereign citizen—you—forget that government’s most important role, if not its only role, is to protect individual life.

In his last few addresses, Obama promised to speak up on “certain issues,” in times when he imagined “our core values may be at stake.” Likewise, in delivering her Control-Alt-Delete speech against the Deplorables, Clinton had asserted that “our country is great because we’re good. … Donald Trump disregards the values that make our country great.” The two’s groupthink, notwithstanding, only individuals can be virtuous, not collectives.

Self-government, and not imposed government, implies that society, and not The State, is to develop value systems. The State’s role is to protect citizens as they go about their business peacefully, living in accordance with their peaceful values. …

… READ THE REST. NEW COLUMN is “Kamala’s Collectivist Values Village.” It’s now on WND.COM, The Unz Review and Townhall.com.

Yes, The Left Stole Liberalism & Sold Out The West

Classical Liberalism, Communism, IMMIGRATION, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Nationhood, Old Right, Socialism, The West

NEW COLUMN IS “Yes, The Left Stole Liberalism & Sold Out The West.” It’s now on WND and on The Unz Review.

An excerpt:

Liberals have taken to promoting socialism, which is the state-sanctioned appropriation of private property. Or, communism.

In communism’s parlance, this theft of a man’s life, labor and land is referred to as state-ownership of the means of production.

Liberals are less known for misappropriating intellectual concepts. But they do that, too.

Take the term “liberal.” It once belonged to the good guys. But socialists, communists and Fabians stole it from us.

Having originally denoted the classical liberalism of the 18th and early 19th century, “liberal” used to be a lovely word. However, to be a liberal now is to be a social democrat, a leftist, a BLM, antifa and MeToo movementarian; it’s to be Chris and Andrew Cuomo.

A French classical liberal, Benjamin Constant (1767-1830), explained what liberalism stood for:

“Individuals must enjoy a boundless freedom in the use of their property and the exercise of their labor, as long as in disposing of their property or exercising their labor they do not harm others who have the same rights.” This is the opposite of communism aka socialism.

By harm, classical liberals mean aggression, as in damage to person or property. To contemporary liberals, “harm” encompasses anything from Donald Trump’s delicious tweets to the economic competition posed by a kiddie lemonade stand.

In the UK, those in-the-know still use the word liberal in the right way. The august Economist—essential reading for, unlike American news outlets, it covers The News—has recently lamented that democracies are drifting towards “xenophobic nationalism,” and away from liberal ideas.

At the same time, the magazine allows that “liberalism is a broad church.” It mentions the “Austrians” as being among liberalism’s “forerunners”—a mention that gave me, as a devotee of economist Ludwig von Mises, the opening I needed.

So, let me ask the following:

Have the Economist’s left-liberal editorializers (excellent writers all) read what liberal extraordinaire von Mises had to say about nationalism vis-à-vis immigration?

Mises was a Jewish classical liberal in the best of traditions—a political economist second to none. He escaped the Nazis only to be treated shoddily in the American academy, by the Fabian “forerunners” of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s teachers.

Another formidable, younger classical liberal thinker is David Conway (a friend). Dr. Conway has argued most convincingly and methodically—he’s incapable of arguing any other way—that nationalism is in fact a condition for the emergence of liberalism.

To that end, Conway invokes Mises. In  “Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition,” published in 1927, Mises warned that …

… READ THE REST. “Yes, The Left Stole Liberalism & Sold Out The West” is now on WND and on The Unz Review.

UPDATED (10/10/018): ‘Conservatives’ & Classical Liberals Can’t Help Contradicting Themselves

Classical Liberalism, Conservatism, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy, Race, Racism, Reason, Secession

Trying to play nice politically can result in a very confused message. Paul Joseph Watson of Prison Planet (he works with Alex Jones and InfoWars) has a list of what he’s for and against–a list intended to make him sound like a middle-of-the-road classical liberal.

Check out his list and tell me this: What about the right of ethnics to voluntarily form a collective? Classical liberalism is not in contradiction to nationalism (see David Conway’s work in this regard). Mr. Watson’s politically pleasing logic, below, makes difficult a vital, peaceful secessionist project like the Afrikaner Orania Movement, for instance.

Mercer Facebook readers explain the nuances of political theory:

Comments
Todd Frank
Todd Frank Who is Paul Joseph Watson and why should I care?
 
· Reply ·
Kerry Crowel
Kerry Crowel: He works with Alex Jones and InfoWars.
Reply · 1h
Todd Frank
Todd Frank Hmmmmm…k
Reply · 1h
Kerry Crowel
Kerry Crowel Todd Frank Politically, he’s a cross between Jordan Peterson and Dinesh D’Souza and he subscribes to the “Dems are the real racist” line of thinking.

 

UPDATE (10/10/018):

Comments Off on UPDATED (10/10/018): ‘Conservatives’ & Classical Liberals Can’t Help Contradicting Themselves

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Neoconservative Charles Krauthammer Came To Define American Conservatism

Classical Liberalism, Conservatism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy

Charles Krauthammer was the quintessential neoconservative. As the scholar of American conservatism, Paul Gottfried, puts it, Mr. Krauthammer “worked to reconstruct the American Right as an extension of the Left.”

It’s rather telling, then, that a former leftist, who was hardly distinguished by his hard-right positions, has come to define the American Right.

Inadvertently (or not), Rich Lowry brought the conservative canonization of Mr. Krauthammer somewhat under control by comparing him to William F. Buckley and Irving Kristol. (Although they seemed to have been far more prolific on the book-writing front and had taken tough positions on thorny issues.) But, mercifully, NOT TO intellectual giants like Russell Kirk and James Burnham.

Whether he meant to or not, Mr. Lowry provided a slightly more sobering reality check, although Lowry still sold Mr. Krauthammer’s philosophical predecessors short.

A consummate neoconservative, the late Charles Krauthammer, nevertheless, came to define American Conservatism.

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