Category Archives: Critique

UPDATED (9/29): Interview: Ilana Mercer, Part 2: Lady Paleolibertarian

Argument, Conservatism, Critique, Ilana Mercer, Neoconservatism, Paleoconservatism, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy

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Interview: Ilana Mercer, part 2: Lady Paleolibertarian, By Dissident Mama on Monday, September 28, 2020.

Dissident Mama, aka Rebecca Dillingham, is my kind of lady, too. She writes:

So we got to know Ilana Mercer a bit in part 1. Now, the paleolibertarian wordsmith takes full command of her keyboard and her craft, and takes no prisoners in this explosive followup. Simply put, she ain’t skeered.

Even though I’m a recovering mainstream journalist by trade, I’ve only been at dissident blogging a few months shy of four years. And here’s my big takeaway: there is no point to alternative political writing and cultural criticism unless you’re willing to ruffle tail feathers and call a spade a spade. Anything less than connecting the dots, calling out your conclusions (no matter how socially unacceptable), and vehemently smashing sacred cows is just rhetorical masturbation.

Forgive my colorful language, but really, time is of the essence, and if truth is not your game but caring about fashionable opinion is, well, I’d personally rather watch paint dry. THAT is why I admire Ilana Mercer. She writes with bang, not a whimper. She’s my kinda lady. …

… READ Rebecca’s interview: “Ilana Mercer, part 2: Lady Paleolibertarian.”

Part 1 is “Ilana Mercer, part 1: Roots, writing, & resistance,” By Dissident Mama on Friday, September 25, 2020.

UPDATED (9/29):  Southern gentlemen know a thing or two.

Fred Cummins, a reader for A LONG TIME:
I have been following you, Ilana, since you started writing articles for WND, then here on your blog, etc. You once said in answer to some statement of mine that, “I could be a southern belle.” Well, from one old Southern guy, “You are a southern belle in my book. True southern women will never be democrat or republican as they are too strong and too independent in their personalities to be.
They know what and who they love and who they don’t and their husbands have to tread lightly with their demands. I am eighty three now and still a follower of your wit and truth. Keep at it, my friend, what you say is worthwhile. High schools and Universities have stolen a few generations of young southern women, so you light up my day. Maybe you can wake some of them up also, I pray so.

Interview: Ilana Mercer, Part 1: Roots, Writing, & Resistance

Canada, Conservatism, Critique, Ethics, Etiquette, Family, Ilana Mercer, Journalism, Paleoconservatism, Paleolibertarianism

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Interview: Ilana Mercer, part 1: Roots, writing, & resistance, By Dissident Mama on Friday, September 25, 2020.

I gave an interview to an up-and-coming young star, Dissident Mama, aka Rebecca Dillingham. She writes:

“It’s been a long time in the making, but here it is: the first installment of my two-part interview with the always provocative and poignant Ilana Mercer. Part 2 should be published on Monday. Keep your eyes wide open for that – it promises to be explosive!”

The tagline at Ilana Mercer’s website is “Verbal swordplay for civilization.” Ain’t that the truth. The self-described paleolibertarian has been wielding words and fighting the good fight since well before I even thought about fleeing the clutches of feminism-atheism-socialism. She’s both provocative and poignant – a difficult thing to pull off anytime, much less in our postmodern dystopia.

I remember first stumbling upon Mercer at World Net Daily back in my neocon “daze” in the early 2000s. I recall being moved by not only her tenacity, but her cerebral style. Being such a prolific essayist, I then found her articles during my libertarian/ancap phase. And again, her writing spoke to me. Now, I’m what you’d call a paleoconservative/Southern traditionalist, and yet, there she is again: writing articles that say things we all want to say but don’t know how, or planting seeds for new thinking.

Now, I don’t always agree with Mercer. I’d say she speaks my language on most matters, but that’s really not what draws me to her work. When you read Mercer, you know that she’s coming to her conclusions through principled inquiry, deep research, a passion for justice, and an impatience with the insanity. In other words, she’s rational but on fire!

And Mercer can see through so many of the charades. Perhaps this is due to her years of experience or because, as Jack Kerwick says, “Ilana is in much greater supply of that ‘manly virtue’ than are most male writers today.”

As Southern stalwart Dr. Clyde Wilson explains of Mercer, “This is one libertarian who knows that the market is wonderful, but it is not everything.” Intellectual honesty like that is hard to come by these days, and that’s why Mercer’s writing is so damn good: it’s fearless and succinct. Bold and challenging. Accessible and engrossing.

Moreover, anyone who’s forever banned from Facebook, pegged as a hater by the SPLC, and given accolades by everyone from Peter Brimelow and Vox Day, to Tom Woods and Paul Gottfried, well, they’re pretty cool in my book. Plus, Mercer has become what I would call a mentor and a friend. So, for those of you who don’t already know her, please meet the never-to-be-duplicated Ilana Mercer. And folks who are already familiar with her and her independent streak, get ready to have your socks knocked off.

MORE… Ilana Mercer, part 1: Roots, writing, & resistance, By Dissident Mama on Friday, September 25, 2020.

 

 

UPDATED (9/23): Americans Importing Black Babies

Celebrity, Critique, Culture, Ethics, Family, Race, Relatives

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Mitt Romney’s son did it. So did Madonna. Angelina Jolie pioneered the social art of color-coding her family, even disclosing her intention to acquire a designer, United Colors of Benetton family. About her quest for color-coordinated couture kids she said this to Anderson Cooper:

We don’t know which—which country. But we’re looking at different countries. And we’re—I’m just—it’s gonna be the balance of what would be the best for Mad[dox] and for Z. right now. It’s, you know, another boy, another girl, which country, which race would fit best with the kids.

Clearly, some of the most sanctimonious, white, virtue-preeners around us go abroad in search of black kids to adopt. It’s almost as though these people seek an amulet with which to elevate and immunize themselves against any fault-finding. Look at me: I’m perfect.

There is so much poverty in the US, in general. There is so much child poverty in the US, in particular. There is so much poverty among white American children. On the facts, adopting across racial lines often proves to be fraught for both adopted and adopting parties. A minefield of sorts.

Amy Coney Barrett, a much-touted candidate for the Supreme Court, has a child or two from Haiti. Is one ever permitted to question public figures who sidestep their country’s poor, and go in search of kids with more exotic identities? Can we even ask?

UPDATE (9/23): Our reader below instructs that we dare not pose questions about a cohort that is distinguished by its phoniness. No can’t do.

I doubt very much that Madonna is able to love anyone but herself. Check out the demeaning way in which she displays the poor kid. The black child looks like a gangster, not like a girl, tongue hanging out, gesturing, while Madonna decks herself up to look feminine. Unkind. Horrid.

 

COVID-19 UPDATES

America, Business, COVID-19, Critique, Healthcare

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Assistant Secretary for Health admiral Brett Giroir said, July 30:  “We can’t test our way out of this.”

Testing: This column put the testing-testing tic in perspective months before the bozo Fauci deduced the same. From “Kung Flu Is A Killer, All Right, But So Are The Bureaucrats“:

The hype over testing will be the next contagion of illogic on matters related to coronavirus.

The testy twits are treating COVID testing as though it were an amulet against the dreaded disease. It isn’t. All testing does is give an individual a snapshot in time of his COVID status. As soon as he drives out of the testing facility, a COVID-free person could become infected.

Unless they engage in prevention, a single testing in time doesn’t in any way give individuals a clean bill of health.

Prevention protects people.

Testing is, however—at this stage of spread—helpful in giving medical researchers a grip on the symptomless-sick phenomenon, as well as an idea of how the disease is disseminated and distributed in the population.

Test and keep testing large enough representative samples, and you’ll get good prevalence data.

Kids: No point denying COVID. It’s a virulent, effective RNA strand. Treat it with respect or, it will show you a thing or two.

Other COVID news:

“The pandemic led to ‘one of the greatest wealth transfers in history’: The stock market is rising as big business rebounds from state-ordered stoppage of nonessential activity, while small businesses drop like flies …”

Still, “Trump says he’s in favor of plan to give $25 billion more to struggling airline industry.”

Small business has been stuck in the back by this admin. BUT anyone with shareholders is getting a bailout, living high on the hog. ALL GOOD BROKERS WILL TELL YOU airlines are a BAD investment. Why must taxpayers prop ’em up, throw good money after bad?

Hydroxychloroquine: If Harvey A. Risch, MD, PhD, Writing in Newsweek, is correct, heads should roll. But they won’t. Nobody pays in America and nobody outside The Establishment is ever praised for getting there first. About hydroxychloroquine he writes:

When this inexpensive oral medication is given very early in the course of illness, before the virus has had time to multiply beyond control, it has shown to be highly effective, especially when given in combination with the antibiotics azithromycin or doxycycline and the nutritional supplement zinc.

On the other hand, via a friend who is a doctor comes this information from the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. The study’s samples were reasonably large:

Among patients hospitalized with mild-to-moderate Covid-19, the use of hydroxychloroquine, alone or with azithromycin, did not improve clinical status at 15 days as compared with standard care.

On Wednesday, July 29: “One person in the United States died about every minute from COVID-19 as the national death toll surpassed 150,000, the highest in the world”