Category Archives: Ilana Mercer

Theatre of the Absurd

Barack Obama, Democrats, Elections, History, Ilana Mercer, libertarianism, Political Philosophy, Private Property, Republicans, The State

A couple of hours ago I filed this week’s WND column with my editor (I file on Wednesdays). I have just heard Judge Napolitano deliver his editorial on Freedom Watch. Uncanny. The theme of my new column tracks with the Judge’s editorial. I had titled my column “Who’s It To Be? Teddy # 1 Or Teddy # 2?” (My good editor will often find better, more pithy titles.) In any event, I wrote this:

“What are the odds that a Democratic commander-in-chief and his chief Republican rival declare their philosophical fidelity to the Progressive Theodore Roosevelt on the same day? And I replied, “The dice were loaded in Teddy’s favor. The sitting Democratic president (Obama) and the Republican odds-on favorite for president (Gingrich) are in TR’s corner…”

Our heroic Judge, in his December 7 segment (not yet posted), asks and answers similar questions.

Hopefully, many more people beyond the libertarian orbit will come to experience the same gut reaction at this theatre of the absurd.

UPDATE II: Alternative Right Reviews ‘Into The Cannibal’s Pot’ (A Lemming’s Lunacy)

Ilana Mercer, IMMIGRATION, libertarianism, Multiculturalism, Nationhood, Paleoconservatism, Political Philosophy, Private Property, Race, South-Africa, The West

Writing for Alternative Right.com, “an online magazine of radical traditionalism,” the illustrious Derek Turner, editor of the UK-based Quarterly Review, has reviewed Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa. “Unusually amongst” paleoconservatives, plain conservatives, and left-libertarians, Derek has engaged with the material in the detail and depth his fans have come to expect from him, starting with the distillation of this writer’s paleolibertarianism:

“Ilana Mercer is a well-known controversialist on the American right, who writes a deservedly popular WorldNetDaily column and somehow finds time to maintain both a website and blog.

Her views are probably best described as paleo-libertarian. The book’s provocative title, which probably cost her potential readers, is borrowed from Ayn Rand, but the author tempers capitalist principles with respect for national identities and cultural traditions. Unusually amongst conservatives, she combines Israelophilia and dislike of Islam with trenchant opposition to American military adventurism. Unusually amongst libertarians, she is an outspoken critic of current US immigration policy as subversive of social order as well as fiscal responsibility. She has now turned her sights on her former homeland of South Africa – both for its own sake and because she feels its tenebrous present contains urgent indicators for America.”

Read the complete review, “RSA-USA—Beloved, Benighted Countries,” on AltRight.com.

In it, Derek zeroes in on the book’s salient statistics—the murder, rape, unemployment, food production (or lack thereof), emigration, ratio of taxpayers to tax consumers, etc—that characterize “the nouvelle regime.” Mr. Turner, a most sensitive writer—has also picked up on the things that vex and pain this author: the pathos and paradoxes inherent in Afrikaner—and, by extension, western—identity, “the fraught final days of apartheid,” and “the unresolved tension,” the consequence of “fleeing from a once-beloved country, and leaving behind … fine people, black as well as white, who had not the Mercers’ good fortune of possessing a second passport and remittable funds.”

[The author’s inner-conflict and sense of privacy have, obviously, resulted in some confusion. To clarify: My (WASP) husband, the consummate individualist, was the force of nature that yanked me away from South Africa. I had wanted to remain in that country; my husband could not wait to get out. He was right. He suffers no survivor’s guilt; his wife does, which is what our perceptive reviewer has picked-up.]

Mr. Turner also knows how to make a South African smile by throwing in a fitting Afrikaans bon mot: “the most verkrampte variety of bigot.”

Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa is available from Amazon.

UPDATE I: “She does not offer any SA solutions,” writes Derek. I believe there are no quick-fix “solutions,” as we in the West like them served. But in the final chapter, “Conclusion: Saving South Africans S.O.S.,” the propositions of emigration and secession are explored. (“Look Inside” the book.) And, in particular, emigration under the refugee program is spelled out, with reference to the value of an influx of Afrikaner farmers to the US, in the context of the economic depression: To go by Austrian analysis, farming is one of the nascent industries that is expected to thrive.

“South Africa’s commercial farmers are among the best in the world, if not the best. They have to contend with a plethora of problems—the vagaries of the weather, constant drought, rising taxes on everything from the rain on their trees to municipal levies (for which they receive nothing), and excessively high toll road costs. South Africa’s land tenure laws make it difficult to dismiss workers, let alone remove these workers from their properties, and they are besieged by land invasions and squatters. They are the victims of crop and stock theft, more murders per capita of their group than any other community on earth. They are burnt out, their fences are destroyed, and they are intimidated to the point where many have abandoned their farms.12
Despite a life of graft and grief, most persist and persevere. These are just the kind of men and women whom America, once a frontier nation, needs on its road to ‘financial sobriety.'”

[Page 249.]

Immigration will probably fail to “save South Africans S.O.S.,” not because I have not offered up such a solution—I have—but because of the ill-will and malevolence infesting Western powers, including the American government, whichever the party.

Granted, my exploration of secession is theoretical, rather than a pragmatic. This is because, as I state somewhere in that chapter, it is not for those of us who are safely ensconced in the West to draw up the boundaries of a viable (not landlocked) Anglo-Afrikaner state in that part of the world. The reader should note, moreover, that the kind of solution that would comport with a respect for individual liberties, and the sanctity of life and property are unlikely because of the lemming’s lunacy evinced by left-liberals, both in that country and without it. These are the suicidal sorts who infest the institutions of state and civil society—they are unwilling to entertain the manifest evils of democracy, especially in societies riven by race. This reality is spelled out in the book.

UPDATE II (Nov. 29): Here is an example of the liberal lemming’s lunacy of which I wrote above. Read EUSEBIUS MCKAISER’s “When the Walls Come Down,” published (approvingly) in the New York Times. A South African liberal, MCKAISER’s bit of whimsy offers no analysis, only lamentation over the reality dictated by crime in South Africa.

What can one do when left-liberals, who believe in crying and turning the other cheek, are at the helm? I speak to these philosophical problems in the book. More about this repulsive mindset, pervasive across the West, in “Sacrificing Kids To PC Pietism.”

UPDATE III: On The Political Cesspool: Argument Über Alles (The White Al)

Free Speech, Ilana Mercer, Ilana On Radio & TV, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Old Right, Propaganda, Race, Racism, Reason, South-Africa

I will be talking Pat J. Buchanan, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot,” flash mobs and the Occupy Wall Street “sleepover,” with Keith Alexander and Bill Rolen of The Political Cesspool. Time: 4:00 Pacific. Day: Oct. 29.

The hard left is baying for Mr. Buchanan’s blood for his recent appearance on the controversial show. Buchanan is standing his ground. He’s no Imus. Boy, is Patrick J. Buchanan refreshingly forceful.

In my prior visit with these broadcasters, I found them to be intelligent and courteous. If James Edwards and Bill Rolen were hostile to an individualist’s perspective, they did not let on. Both Bill and James addressed the arguments advanced in my book. That’s the sum-total of a good interviewer.

Ultimately it’s all about the argument. My position is that one cannot properly undermine a claim by undermining the motives, character or associations of its claimant. To undermine my book, the politically correct (left, libertarian, etc) will have to deal with its arguments (which the paleo establishment has so far conveniently skirted). The rest amounts to smear tactics, a variant of the ad hominem fallacy.

UPDATE I: ROUTE TO FREEDOM. Sorry to disappoint, but it was a terrible interview. I was handed over to a gentleman who wanted to emphasize a racial angle in the conversation, in crude terms too. I did not cope well. I think I reflect Western man’s disdain for race as an organizing principle, and for broad generalizations. Good luck with organizing modern westerners around race. I prefer to beat back the state so that individuals regain freedom of association, dominion over property, the absolute right of self-defense; the right to hire, fire, and, generally, associate at will. That’s the route to freedom.

UPDATE II: It’s just not in a civilized person’s nature to speak as though he were a negative image of Al Sharpton. Would you not agree?

UPDATE III (Oct. 31): To the kind comment below: On his MSNBC show, Al Sharpton behaves just like my host conducted himself. The white Al talked over me constantly, went with his own angle, rather than with the book’s tack, and made it virtually impossible for me to defend my perspective or speak to individualism and to the points made in my book—a grisly, gory book which glosses over nothing in terms of the color and cure for crime in SA and beyond. I’ve been re-reading sections such as “Racial Voting Coming to a Polling Station Near You.” The well-sourced, analytical points made in that section deserve to be elicited by an intelligent interviewer. The same holds for other sections.

I’m done with intellectually incurious dim bulbs who want to promote their perspective, rather than explore another. How is that edifying? And how is it civilized to railroad an invited guest? And how like Al that is.

UPDATED CONTINUALLY: Independent Against The Establishment

Barely A Blog, Ilana Mercer, IlanaMercer.com, Liberty, Media, Reason, South-Africa

IF YOU ARE new to IlanaMercer.com and its sister site, BarelyABlog.com, welcome! Read a better rounded biographical and professional exposé here.

In brief:

I am a US-based, classical liberal writer. I pen WorldNetDaily.com’s longest-standing, exclusive, paleolibertarian, weekly column, “Return to Reason.” With a unique audience of 8 million, WND.COM has been rated by Alexa as the most frequented “conservative” site on the Internet. I also feature on RT, ranked 999 on the WWW, with the “Paleolibertarian Column.” (Here are some thoughts on RT’s overall excellence as compared to the malfunctioning American media.)

Formerly syndicated by Creators Syndicate, I contribute to London’s Quarterly Review, and am a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies, an independent, non-profit economic policy think tank.

Dare I say that millions have read this writer’s work over the years on WND.COM (ranked 1,874th on the internet rater, Alexa)?

Nevertheless, I am forever being peppered with patronizing notes from readers—hardly patrons, for a patron is “one that supports, protects, or champions; a sponsor or benefactor.” This persistent condescension (usually from older, authoritarian males, some in position of influence) necessitates that I remind reality bound readers of the following: The age of the Internet guarantees the futility of energetic efforts to marginalize myself and others, who like me, write outside of accepted orthodoxy. In my case, for almost two decades.

BELTWAY LIBERTARIANS
A recent exercise helped me to appreciate just how much the libertarian establishment, much like its mainstream cohort—and desperate to sustain its sinecured monopoly over the marketplace of ideas—will forever opt for the “statist quo” (to use a Jeff Tuckerism), in the face of popular trends to the contrary.

I was asked to attend a workshop and deliver an address at a local chapter of a property rights organization. Closer to the time, however, I was informed that I had been dropped in favor of an individual from a well-heeled think tank.

(Poor me. Instead, I got to travel to Manhattan Le Magnifique, to feature as speaker for the month of May, 2012, at the libertarian-cum-Objectivist New York City Junto gathering.)

You see, this writer is an independent, one-woman band, whose fidelity is to the truth alone. As such, or so I was told, I lacked name recognition. Since I had never heard of the individual who was to fill my much-smaller shoes, I did a few Internet searches. I discovered that the group had opted for establishment, not for name recognition.

GOOGLE threw up 245,000 results for the establishmentarian to my name’s 1,310,000 results.
FACEBOOK had me at 3400 Friends (and no time YET to vet the rest). Mr. Establishment was stuck at … 4. (Here is my FACEBOOK “FRIENDSHIP” POLICY.)
MY BOOK’S FACEBOOK FAN PAGE garnered 594 Likes; Mr. Establishment’s Author Page had all of 25 Likes. Amazon was as dismally populated.
TWITTER: Mr. Name Recognition had 67 followers to my modest 771.
WND & RT, as mentioned, carry my weekly column. They rank, respectively, 1,874 and 999 on the WWW by Alexa, the premier website ranking site. I presume that Mr. Establishment produces the occasional ponderous, desiccated, extremely well-concealed position paper. If so, he does it on a site that ranks 47,094th on Alexa.

How long can these Beltway based think tanks and their patrons delude themselves about their reach or appeal? They excite as much passion as a wet blanket during the perennial, Washington State power outage.

As mentioned, a year on Facebook finds me communicating with a community of over 3400 Facebook Friends and growing. Expanding too is the Facebook following on Into the Cannibal’s Pot’s Fan Page.

Not too shabby for one woman.

Please log-in to, or join, Facebook in order to “Like” The Cannibal. To read The Cannibal is to love it. Guaranteed. To review this book on Amazon is to support what will prove to be a prophetic text.

In a gracious note to this writer, the one and only Patrick J. Buchanan wrote: “I believe your book is being sold [or bundled on Amazon] along with my new book, ‘Suicide of a Superpower: Will America survive to 2025.’ … my 18,000-word chapter on ethnonationalism and tribalism and the surge of both throughout the Third World—as well as our own declining world—tracks pretty much with what you wrote…”

Every bit as gratifying to this writer was a courtesy copy of “Suicide of a Superpower,” thus inscribed: “To Ilana Mercer: Fellow Columnist and Fellow Conservative, with The Respect and good wishes of The Author.”

Still and all, to say that the publication process of Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons For America From Post-Apartheid South Africa has been punishing would be an understatement. …

Read on about these travails, but return to this page.

All in all, patrons are preferable to the patronizing. I thank my patrons—you know who you are.

Speaking of patrons, as was announced in July of 2012 , Barely A Blog (BAB) Comments Section was closed down by necessity. (Related are the posts, “The Closing of The American Mind? What Mind?” as well as “Barely A Blog (BAB) Closes Comments (& Says ‘So Long’ To Cowards).”

For years, I’ve moderated this forum, hoping to educate visitors. The goal was noble, but naive. The labor-intense effort involved considerable opportunity costs, and few returns (Comments do not drive traffic to BAB or to IlanaMercer.com).
Time is scarce and thus precious.
With the exception of a few valued voices (who may, like Myron Pauli, submit editorials), this public-minded forum attracted a lot of maladroit, often maladaptive, men and women who, for the most, hadn’t the faintest idea how to behave on private property (BAB).

THE PALEO-PROBLEM
For over a decade, I’ve written a quality, consistently hardcore, paleolibertarian column, which no paleo site carries. Not one. This is quite astonishing, if you think of it. It says a great deal about the ossified mindset within this community. Assorted sites will feature, year-in and year-out, the same establishment columns. Or choose more malleable mediocrities. But they avoid like the plague even mention of the weekly output of this hard-right writer. Does the paleo practice of ignoring reality, highlighted in the post “The Paleo Problem: Intellectual Dishonesty Or Senility?”, amount to a child covering his ears and humming loudly, in the hope that reality will magically change?

Yes, and worse.

In his Foreword to Nonsense, Robert J. Gula’s handbook of logical fallacies, Hunter Lewis cautions that it is, in “a broader sense” (“broad” being Gula’s genius and sensibility), a logical fallacy to inject information or arguments that are … incomplete, or to omit some important fact, point, or perceptive, … whether intentionally or unintentionally.

PARSING PALEOLIBERTARIANIMS
In “Ilana Mercer and the Paleolibertarian Ideal,” columnist and political philosopher Jack Kerwick parses paleolibertarianism as “the conviction [first] … that a world in which men and women are free to order their lives in accordance with their own moral purposes, not those of the governments under which they live, is an ethical ideal worth aspiring toward.”

But that’s not all:

For years, Mercer has authored a weekly column — ‘Return to Reason’ — at the very popular WorldNetDaily website. The most casual perusal of her archives there readily reveals that she is as ardent a champion as any of that tradition … applauded for affirming ‘libertarian principles while opposing open borders, libertinism, egalitarianism, and political correctness.’
…It is this conviction that explains why everyone who is familiar with Mercer’s thought locates it squarely within the classical liberal or libertarian tradition. Yet to look at it more deeply — though not much more deeply — is to see why it just as solidly compels us to locate it within libertarianism’s paleo strain.
…Whether addressing a broad range of issues in an equally broad range of arenas — as she does in Broad Sides — or shedding blood, sweat, and tears to draw the Western world’s attention to the systematic injustices to which her native South Africa is daily subjected — as she does in Cannibal — Mercer is forever cautioning readers against succumbing to the contemporary Western temptation to indulge in abstractions. To put it another way, she has been laboring tirelessly to remind us of something that this generation of liberty’s defenders are all too ready to forget: Liberty is as dependent upon historical and cultural contingencies as is any other artifact. And it is just as fragile.

MORE.

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And/or Contribute to my efforts.

Yours,
ilana