Category Archives: Individualism Vs. Collectivism

Socking It To The SEALs

Bush, Criminal Injustice, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Military, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy, Republicans, Terrorism

Another of the many stories covered and analyzed on BAB for its significance ahead of the rest was that of Petty Officers Matthew McCabe, Jonathan Keefe and Julio Heurtas. The three Navy SEALs stand accused by Ahmed Hashim Abed—thought to be behind the premeditated murder and mutilation of four U.S. contractors in Falluja in 2004—of punching him. The real scandal is that our bloated behemoth of a military, the Navy in this instance, is acting like the state bureaucracy that it is and proceeding at full throttle against the these patriots.

Read “Make Me Thankful: Don’t Enlist!.”

The common refrain you’ll hear from your garden variety neoconservative is that Obama is to blame.

Please! Bush was every bit as hateful when it came to unleashing his bloodhound, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, on Border-Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, to give but one example of Bush’s many betrayals.

“The state’s ‘rules of engagement’ rule-out any meaningful defense of American lives and property; they are rigged against America’s defenders and favor her infiltrators.”

Don’t expect the megaphones for the Republican-cum-neocon cabal to be capable of articulating this reality. At core, they are tribalists and collectivists who cleave to their own no matter what.

Update II: What Conservative Chicks ‘Care’ About (Not Individualism)

Conservatism, Feminism, Gender, Individual Rights, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Republicans, Sarah Palin

The salient thing about “conservative” chicks is how unconservative they are. Sexism, racism, homophobia—these concepts are engraved in their inherently liberal minds. The concepts are, of course, poisonous arrows in the quiver of left-liberal identity politics.

So it was that The View’s Elisabeth Hasselbeck was a prime mover behind the persecution of Imus, for politically unpalatable speech, alongside race hustlers Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, neocon sister Amy Holmes, and other sundry sorts of the left (Whoopi Goldberg, Maya Angelou, Naomi Wolf).

Palin is always shouting sexism, and has intensified her hissing ever since Newsweek published an appealing cover of her in running gear. Hasselbeck has been complaining about the sexism to which Palin is allegedly subjected. She did so recently on The View. Clearly, a liberal worldview is not the only malady to inflict conservative women. They are never original (other than Coulter, who is sui generis, and I have a soft spot for the Michelles Bachmann and Malkin).

Update I (Nov. 18): Another of these harpies’ trade marks is to conflate a love of war—any war waged by the US—with the conservative position. Does this pertain equally to neoconservative and so-called conservative men? You tell me.

Wait a sec, I already “told me”:

“… never once have the war harpies and their hombres in the ideological trenches indicated they comprehend how and who is paying for all this. I know they believe we’re not being taxed in lieu of the debt, a faith they base on Bush’s promise not to raise taxes. [A “promise kept by Barack, Bush’s loyal successor.]

Pro-war pundits, women especially, think that government can spend what it doesn’t have without any economic repercussions. They’re a lot like babies prior to acquiring object permanence: what isn’t visible doesn’t exist. However, government spending more than it collects in revenues is the cause of the deficit.

And ultimately of inflation.

However, there is no question in the small minds we’re discussing that a blind support for the experiment in “Eyeraq” is as American as apple pie. Ditto Democratizing our toothless, poppy-smoking Pashtun with smart bombs. The women of the neoconnerie have been instrumental in keeping their fans “tuned-out, turned-on, and hot for war.”

Don’t expect an understanding of economics with your “conservative” harpie/hottie of choice. Palin was given a pass by the equally compromised Bawbawa Walter when she said that the bailout bill she supported in her capacity as a VP candidate didn’t work out well. Who would have known!!

Bachmann and Malkin have firm positions for fiscal conservatism; the rest go with the financial flow.

Update II (Nov. 20): Some comments posters have alluded to my mention of first principles in the new WND column, “Weapons For The GOP Punditocracy.” I note that first principles and GOPiness do not mix.

Even less so do first principles and foxettes go together. Individual rights are subsumed in FP. You would be hard pressed to find a woman who thinks less of the paramountcy of the individual over the collective than a foxette.

She got uncontrollably (and repulsively) hot for “Murder with majority approval”—i.e., the war in Iraq—and oversaw the decimation of the population there (including an ancient Christian community).

She promoted through the argument from cleavage the specious, wicked, individual-averse idea of collateral damage. That collectivist calculus was a feature of the war cheerleading done by the freedom-loving Fox New foxes.

All the networks were complicit, but no where was the morally repugnant zeal more pronounced than on Fox New where words like “Breaking Baghdad,” “Decapitation,” and “Shock and Awe” were the order of the day.

So far war.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard Martha MacCallum, one of the more rightist ladies, mull over the need for national healthcare and a national data base where bureaucrats can access private healthcare information. I’m sure readers who understand liberty (which is inseparable from philosophical first principles) will provide more examples (accompanied by hyperlinks) for Foxette fascism.

With few exceptions, Fox News generally favors the rights of the police—backed by the power of the state—in altercation with helpless individuals. When “Andrew Meyer, a journalism student, was pounced upon by campus police, tasered, detained overnight, and charged with violently resisting arrest (a felony), and disturbing the peace (a misdemeanor),” Fox beaus and bimbos had a good laugh at his expense. O’Reilly was in stitches.

The Drug War: It is the very crucible of the fight for individual liberties. Show me a Foxy Lady who sympathetically covered any prominent case (such as the one of the granny gunned down in her home by DEA agents because of alleged “drugs”). And don’t start me on the medical marijuana fear mongering at Fox.

Update II: What Conservative Chicks 'Care' About (Not Individualism)

Conservatism, Feminism, Gender, Individual Rights, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Republicans, Sarah Palin

The salient thing about “conservative” chicks is how unconservative they are. Sexism, racism, homophobia—these concepts are engraved in their inherently liberal minds. The concepts are, of course, poisonous arrows in the quiver of left-liberal identity politics.

So it was that The View’s Elisabeth Hasselbeck was a prime mover behind the persecution of Imus, for politically unpalatable speech, alongside race hustlers Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, neocon sister Amy Holmes, and other sundry sorts of the left (Whoopi Goldberg, Maya Angelou, Naomi Wolf).

Palin is always shouting sexism, and has intensified her hissing ever since Newsweek published an appealing cover of her in running gear. Hasselbeck has been complaining about the sexism to which Palin is allegedly subjected. She did so recently on The View. Clearly, a liberal worldview is not the only malady to inflict conservative women. They are never original (other than Coulter, who is sui generis, and I have a soft spot for the Michelles Bachmann and Malkin).

Update I (Nov. 18): Another of these harpies’ trade marks is to conflate a love of war—any war waged by the US—with the conservative position. Does this pertain equally to neoconservative and so-called conservative men? You tell me.

Wait a sec, I already “told me”:

“… never once have the war harpies and their hombres in the ideological trenches indicated they comprehend how and who is paying for all this. I know they believe we’re not being taxed in lieu of the debt, a faith they base on Bush’s promise not to raise taxes. [A “promise kept by Barack, Bush’s loyal successor.]

Pro-war pundits, women especially, think that government can spend what it doesn’t have without any economic repercussions. They’re a lot like babies prior to acquiring object permanence: what isn’t visible doesn’t exist. However, government spending more than it collects in revenues is the cause of the deficit.

And ultimately of inflation.

However, there is no question in the small minds we’re discussing that a blind support for the experiment in “Eyeraq” is as American as apple pie. Ditto Democratizing our toothless, poppy-smoking Pashtun with smart bombs. The women of the neoconnerie have been instrumental in keeping their fans “tuned-out, turned-on, and hot for war.”

Don’t expect an understanding of economics with your “conservative” harpie/hottie of choice. Palin was given a pass by the equally compromised Bawbawa Walter when she said that the bailout bill she supported in her capacity as a VP candidate didn’t work out well. Who would have known!!

Bachmann and Malkin have firm positions for fiscal conservatism; the rest go with the financial flow.

Update II (Nov. 20): Some comments posters have alluded to my mention of first principles in the new WND column, “Weapons For The GOP Punditocracy.” I note that first principles and GOPiness do not mix.

Even less so do first principles and foxettes go together. Individual rights are subsumed in FP. You would be hard pressed to find a woman who thinks less of the paramountcy of the individual over the collective than a foxette.

She got uncontrollably (and repulsively) hot for “Murder with majority approval”—i.e., the war in Iraq—and oversaw the decimation of the population there (including an ancient Christian community).

She promoted through the argument from cleavage the specious, wicked, individual-averse idea of collateral damage. That collectivist calculus was a feature of the war cheerleading done by the freedom-loving Fox New foxes.

All the networks were complicit, but no where was the morally repugnant zeal more pronounced than on Fox New where words like “Breaking Baghdad,” “Decapitation,” and “Shock and Awe” were the order of the day.

So far war.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard Martha MacCallum, one of the more rightist ladies, mull over the need for national healthcare and a national data base where bureaucrats can access private healthcare information. I’m sure readers who understand liberty (which is inseparable from philosophical first principles) will provide more examples (accompanied by hyperlinks) for Foxette fascism.

With few exceptions, Fox News generally favors the rights of the police—backed by the power of the state—in altercation with helpless individuals. When “Andrew Meyer, a journalism student, was pounced upon by campus police, tasered, detained overnight, and charged with violently resisting arrest (a felony), and disturbing the peace (a misdemeanor),” Fox beaus and bimbos had a good laugh at his expense. O’Reilly was in stitches.

The Drug War: It is the very crucible of the fight for individual liberties. Show me a Foxy Lady who sympathetically covered any prominent case (such as the one of the granny gunned down in her home by DEA agents because of alleged “drugs”). And don’t start me on the medical marijuana fear mongering at Fox.

Update II: Dumb Down, You Uppity (Intelligent) Bitch!

Human Accomplishment, Ilana Mercer, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Intellectualism, Intelligence, Israel, Paleoconservatism, The West, The Zeitgeist

No, “Dumb Down, You Uppity (Intelligent) Bitch!” is not the title of my new WND column, now on Taki’s, but a reaction to it. In the Age of the Idiot people take pride in their ignorance, and seek to shame and humiliate those who do not reflect their own impoverished state-of-being. On encountering someone they might learn from, they recoil, and out come the Id and the Ego all in one ball of fury.

Personally, on encountering my betters, I seek to learn from them. In fact, I actively seek out my intellectual betters. But not the average member of the Idiocracy. If the Little Woman makes him feel bad, he lashes out in an attempt to take her down a notch or two, and salvage his own ugly, aggressive emptiness.

I urge you: Rather than lash out at someone for using her gifts, at the very least examine yourself first: Ask yourself why you are behaving in such a transparent, disgraceful manner. Get onto yourself. And then work hard to submerge your demands for replicas of yourself.

The letter that prompted these thoughts arrived in response to the not-quite-new, originally titled “Paleos Must Defend the West…And That Means Israel Too.” A version of the essay was first published on VDARE.COM. Barely A Blog readers had discussed the topic extensively, so I did not post it again.

OVER TO IVAN The Terrible (and proud of it):

From: Ivan Poulter
Sent: Friday, October 02, 2009 12:40 AM
To: imercer@wnd.com
Subject: Re: Paleo….:Dumb Down

Ilana,

Compared to you, I’m a total ignoramus. I’d admit to lacking your intellectual quotient. Not meaning to be insulting, you also appear as some kind of dumb-ass in your exaggerated intelligence.

You’re far too clever for you own good. Or better still, you far, far exceed the ability of most you write to. I am constantly accused of being too intellectual, and in my ‘intellectualism’ speaking or writing way above people’s heads. However, Ilana, you take that award away from me, hands down. If you want to reach a few more people, for heaven’s sake, dumb yourself down a little. Then, even as I write that to you, I’ll attempt to remember my own advice. Except, I’m very dangerously down there, too close to the ranks of stupidity, sometimes. You certainly could afford to dumb down just a little, as least in your attempts to communicate to all of us. Unless, of course, you have a very limited target market. Then do as you please!

Ivan Poulter

[Ivan: cheer up, there is no chance of you being too intellectual. Absolutely none. I’m glad you did not live back in the days of our Founders. The Federalist Papers would have driven you to distraction. Or worse.]

Update II (Oct. 3): Young Brett is right about the dumb-down shtick being an insult to our readers. First, I write as I think. I can’t change that. I don’t know how to. Second, the reason I won’t make a concerted effort to parrot O’Reilly’s erroneous, ugly prose is that I have respect for my readers. It’s patronizing to talk down to people. Yes, it is inevitable that I will enjoy fewer readers than the other crowd pleasers becasue, for the most, people wish their views confirmed. However, those who want to be challenged and have minds that seek interest and humor; something extra—they will find their way here. I hope.

To follow the medical profession’s recommendations, Mercer columns can help ward off Alzhemier’s later in life. Staying within your comfort zone mentally will do nothing to force those dendrites and synaptic connections in the brain to branch out well into old age. The brain is very plastic; but if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it. I know of what I speak; I once awoke in a sweat mumbling: “Oh, my G-d, I think I made a circular argument in my last column.” Yeah, I often argue my case in my dreams. You want to stay alert well into old age, so stick around, boys and girls. Let the other lazy minds atrophy and fill-up with plaque, the hallmark of senility.

Anyhoo, read “Athens & Jerusalem,” and the rest of the intellectual gymnastics on Taki’s.