Category Archives: Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim

Beware Of Little Men With Big-Man Mania

Africa, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, South-Africa, The West

Big-man mania: All those effete Anglo-American, left-liberals (and lite libertarians) suffer from it. I call it the homo-eroticism of left-liberalism. The great Dan Roodt, South Africa’s finest polemicist, suspects “all this talk of ‘Madiba magic’ might be code for some supernatural, Harry Potter-like influence.” He writes:

…I have often thought that Mandela had bewitched a good portion of the Anglo-American ruling class that in turn infected the stupid Europeans who are progressively losing the capacity for independent thought. All this talk of “Madiba magic” might be code for some supernatural, Harry Potter-like influence.

As everone knows, some forms of muti are taken as a cure for an evil spell, while others are used precisely to bewitch the victim. A black man who has designs on a woman who is rejecting him could buy some muti from a sangoma to ensure that she falls in love with him.

In Europe, Nietzsche and others wrote about the “twilight of the idols”. However, in Africa the idols are thriving, with the messianic Mandela being the biggest idol of them all. It seems only a few cantankerous Christians still refuse to bow to him, but not the Clintons, the king of the Netherlands or Barack Obama. Even George W. Bush came as a pilgrim to South Africa this week.

During his speech at Soccer City on the outskirts of black Soweto, Obama cast himself in the role of Mandela’s understudy, a humble disciple to the famous Xhosa.

I suppose in the days of the Roman Empire, people were also nonplussed about the seemingly inexorable rise of a strange new cult, Christianity. In the face of global grief over Mandela’s “exchanging the temporary for the eternal”, as the local Afrikaans saying goes, most mainstream conservatives have joined in eulogizing Mandela. British PM David Cameron, who had wanted to “hang Mandela”, together with other Young Conservatives, reacted to Mandela’s death with …

… How do we explain such empathy, nay admiration, for a card-carrying member of the South African Communist Party in so-called Western conservative leaders? After all, I cannot recall similar expressions of sorrow when Georges Marchais of the French Communist Party or the East German stalwart, Erich Honecker, expired in 1997 and 1994, respectively.

The answer is that, unlike the venerable European leftists Marchais and Honecker, who had also waged a life-long struggle against fascism and racism – both leaders were among Mandela’s staunchest allies – Comrade Mandela assuages white guilt. …

READ “Mandela: muti for white guilt”

UPDATED: Apartheid South Africa: Reality Vs. Libertarian Fantasy

Free Markets, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Liberty, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy, Private Property, South-Africa

“Apartheid South Africa: Reality Vs. Libertarian Fantasy” is the new essay, now on WND. It tackles the “economic reductionism, typical of the impoverished analysis of South Africa, offered so authoritatively by libertarian economists stateside.” Excerpted below are two sections therefrom:

… LITE LIBERTARIANISM VS. THE RIGHT KIND

Herein lies the difference between the paleolibertarian analysis and what this column has termed the lite libertarian one, philosopher Hans-Hermann Hope being the finest example of the former. The rest fall into the latter, lite category.

A crucial difference between lite libertarians and the Right kind is that to the former, the idea of liberty is propositional–a deracinated principle, unmoored from the realities of history, hierarchy, biology, tradition, culture, values.

Conversely, the paleolibertarian grasps that ordered liberty has a civilizational dimension, stripped of which the libertarian non-aggression axiom, by which we all must live, cannot endure. “The pursuit of the … paleolibertarian ideal,” explained Catholic philosopher Jack Kerwick, Ph.D., “is the pursuit of an ideal of liberty brought down from the clouds to the nit and the grit of the history and culture from which it emerged.” …

… FREEDOM VS. EGALITARIANISM

Contra the economic reductionism of the lite libertarian, free-market capitalism is a necessary but insufficient condition to sustain freedom in a country of South Africa’s complexion.

The truth absent from the phantasmagorical formulations critiqued is this: Economic freedom does not necessarily reduce so-called wealth inequality. Inegalitarainism is a feature of a free economy. If history is anything to go by, certain minorities will achieve prosperity from poverty, no matter how gravely the state and society impede them. Jews did it in Europe. Levantines and Indians in Africa and the Middle-East. Chinese in southeast Asia and everywhere else they go. Europeans in South Africa.

Moreover, “While all people want safety and sustenance for themselves, not everyone is prepared to allow those whom they dislike and envy to peacefully pursue the same.” (P. 4.) Free-market capitalism is not enough to safeguard ordered liberty in racially riven societies like South Africa, where the majority will always covet the possessions of immensely wealthier minorities and associate these riches with racial privilege.

Ultimately, the rights to life, liberty and private property will forever be imperiled in a country whose constitution has a clause devoted to “Limitation of Rights,” and where redistributive “justice” is a constitutional article of faith. (P. 101)

This, paleolibertarians (all three of us) know too well.

In “The Cannibal” chapter entitled “Saving South Africans S.O.S.,” secession is explored as one solution, it being a species of the private-law society delineated by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Hoppe, of course, has never been afraid to speak to the “unequal civilizing potential” (in James Burnham’s coinage) of different people and peoples. …

Read the complete essay. “Apartheid South Africa: Reality Vs. Libertarian Fantasy” is now on WND.

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UPDATE (12/22): INTERESTING DISCUSSION @ PRAGG.ORG, to which I have replied.

Why I Miss Lawrence Auster, RIP

Conservatism, Critique, Intellectualism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Paleoconservatism, Political Philosophy

Brilliantly did the late Larry Auster dissect the demise of Russel Kirk’s conservatism at The American Conservative (TAC) magazine. Division of labor being part of a natural intellectual order that arises, Auster would have likely left it to me to point out the pimped intellectual principles this AC “writer” evinces in her meandering Mandela entry, in which “Madiba” is contrasted, in a manner, with George Washington. (Compare that AC crap with “Mandela Mum About Systematic Murder Of Whites.” You can’t!)

Auster was at his rhetorical best when deconstructing the “typically shapeless pieces”—or “weird and solipsistic” was another of his wonderful coinages—that this unthinking “conservative” crowd disgorged. About the American Conservative’s pipsqueak writers, Mr. Auster wrote with the studied contempt they deserve.

I won’t lie. Larry could be incorrigibly and unforgivingly deceptive (as detailed here). Other than to respond, when he took license with the truth (as I did in said post), I always uttered a silent “thank you” for the dirty work Larry did. (As did I donate to his account, in appreciation of the originality of a “View From The Right.” Its author was always most gracious.)

UPDATED: ‘What’s Up With Peter Lavelle’s Treatment of Ilana Mercer?’

Feminism, Ilana On Radio & TV, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, South-Africa

Writes Robert Wenzel, editor of Economic Policy Journal:

“Earlier this week EPJ contributing columnist Ilana Mercer appeared on RT’s show “Crosstalk,” which is hosted by Peter Lavelle. After seeing an earlier edition of “Crosstalk,” I gave Lavelle and the show an enthusiastic endorsement. But, a funny thing happened on the way to Ilana’s participation on the show.

Lavelle provides brief but detailed background introductions of the two other guests appearing on the show with Ilana, when he gets to Ilana, he merely states that she is a paleo-libertarian journalist and writer. He fails to mention her important book …”

Read the complete Wenzel post.

Here’s what happened on the way to the show: Participants are required to return brief answers to questions to indicate their positions. I complied promptly and with brutal honesty. As did I twice provide producers with a bio.

At the studio, I was told by Mr. Lavelle not to worry. He had prerecorded our credentials. Right away I suspected the worst when he proceeded to wax about the other two’s affiliations (but not mine), and their yet-to-be published books (but not my own published work). I have some experience with media’s reaction to my opinions. This is precisely why I mentioned my book first up. I had the feeling that it would go unmentioned.

Except for the “paleo” appellation, 100% of my bio was left off.

As I mentioned in discussion with Robert, it is not my affiliations RT had a problem with (WND, Economic Policy Journal, Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies), but my position and book (published in 2011) on the topic.

Mr. Lavelle intended to present me as a voice from the (Pacific Northwest) wilderness. Had the other two panelists not been the unsharpened pencils they were—I would not have gotten to speak up about the little I did.

The TV embed is reproduced in this EPJ article.

Not that I want feminists on my side, but were they in the habit of standing up for ALL women, they might have protested the marginalization of the only woman on this panel (even though my gender had nothing to do with my marginalization, not that that would have mattered to these generally intellectually dishonest fems, provided I was parroting politically pleasing opinion).

UPDATE: Granted, Mr. Lavelle may never intend to invite me on “Crosstalk” again for reasons noted above. However, he risks not getting controversial guests with whom he disagrees to revisit his set. Who would go through that exercise again for such shoddy treatment? Not me. It is, moreover, dishonest to lure guests to a studio (at the early AM), when there is no intention to treat their work with respect. When you make the effort, you expect that your work, which has gotten you the invite, will be at the very least mentioned.