019): Did Stefan Molyneux Fail To Properly Credit Ideas From My Book, ‘Into the Cannibal’s Pot’?

Energy, Ethics, History, Ilana Mercer, Intellectualism, Logic, Morality, South-Africa

The implication in this Southern Poverty Law Center article is indeed that, in a 2015 video, vlogger Stefan Molyneux liberally used the material from my book, “Into The Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa,” published in 2011.

The authors at SPLC hate me just as much, so they don’t care to harp on unethical use of material they had traced to me (“Into The Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa”), if there was any. Still, their facts imply that no attribution was made or direct credit given to me for a Molyneux podcast based on the rather idiosyncratic ideas that came from a chapter in Cannibal titled “APARTHEID IN BLACK AND WHITE: A Strategy for Survival” (pp. 65-70).

Writes the Southern Poverty Law Center:

In 2015 Molyneux published a video wherein he quoted an unnamed historian who claimed that “Apartheid wasn’t an expression of racism but concern over the survival of the white population.” The source for this quote is Ilana Mercer, a paleolibertarian writer and pro-Trump activist. Mercer’s 2011 book, which forms the basis for Molyneux’s YouTube video, is entitled “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa.” The tome received a glowing review from Jared Taylor’s American Renaissance website. “Apartheid was never based on a theory of racial supremacy; rather, it was a survival strategy for the badly outnumbered Boers,” the review reads. This is a mirror image of Molyneux’s sleight of hand: a decontextualized racism is deemed immoral but it is argued that Apartheid makes sense. The real message Molyneux and Taylor are delivering to their audiences is that the application of racial discrimination in South Africa was essential to ensure white survival (read: dominance) and that force and laws should be applied to keep different races apart.

Of course, the ideas in my chapter, “APARTHEID IN BLACK AND WHITE: A Strategy for Survival” (pp. 65-70), are not quite those expressed by the second-handers.

In any event, one gets accustomed to such lowly practices in this business. But if this is indeed true, and Stefan Molyneux had failed to fully credit this author for ideas that are nearly verbatim from “APARTHEID IN BLACK AND WHITE: A Strategy for Survival” (pp. 65-70)—then this is a new low.

Citing one’s sources is the very essence of ethical thinking and writing. If you don’t, you can’t claim to be an ethical thinker, much less a thinker. You lose all credibility.

It’s also so unmanly—and oh so very common. Yuk.

UPDATE I (11/27):

As was said, “Citing one’s sources is the very essence of ethical thinking and writing. If you don’t, you can’t claim to be an ethical thinker, much less a thinker. You lose ALL credibility.”

Ever wonder why Stefan Molyneux, and many men on the so-called hard right (some of whom came well after me), have never asked me (one of the few people who knows the ins-and-outs of apartheid South Africa) on their shows to speak to matters South African (or to any other matters)?

A LOT OF men are simply uncomfortable with certain women. (Hint: Young blondes showcase them better and are easier to best.) As a result, libertarian men (or mini-men) end up mouthing crass, historically wrong, right-wing talking points, on their shows, about my birth place. Coming from libertarians, this laxness is a disgrace.

At least credit your sources if you don’t want to engage the writer! Before Into the Cannibal’s Pot, nobody spoke about South Africa in any meaningful way in the US, other than the praiseworthy WND reporters, and one or two others liberally credited in my book. You see, I cite my sources (primary and secondary) religiously. Again, many of the johnny-come-lately sorts whom the Mini-Men aforementioned (or hinted at) interview on their limited shows speak a load of right-wing crap about South Africa.

Still and all, some ideas are too idiosyncratic to be generic—which is the case with a hell of a lot of what’s in Into the Cannibal’s Pot.

UPDATE II (11/28): “The Art of the Ego: Review of Stefan Molyneux’s Stupid Book”

If you can get past the author’s redundant liberal preening (it sullies a solid piece), Alexander Douglas makes short work of Stefan Molyneux’s short-on-logic book.

… Molyneux’s first few chapters outline some basic principles of logic. His explanation of ‘logic’ is as terrible as you might expect from someone with neither qualifications nor natural talent (see this review). Molyneux is one of these people who thinks that (barely) being able to do the First Figure Syllogism is ‘knowing logic’?—?the logical equivalent of the Astonishing Human Calculator who can add single-digit numbers in mere seconds or Sir Andrew Aguecheek who can speak languages without book. The really telling thing, however, is how Molyneux deals with his own ignorance. …

… Here is what he says about abduction, for example … Now, many people don’t know what abduction is. Nothing wrong with that. And you might find yourself in an exam, where you’re asked to define abduction, and maybe you missed that lecture, or you drifted off, or you just can’t remember. Then you might just write some bullshit, hoping to get a few marks. Perfectly acceptable behaviour. But if you’re writing a book on reasoning, and you remember that abduction is a form of reasoning but you can’t quite remember what it is?—?can you imagine in that circumstance just writing down some bullshit and hoping to get a few marks? Wouldn’t you just google it or something? Imagine being so devoid of intellectual humility. …

… It does help to show that, while logicians have no claim to be any better at informal reasoning than anyone else, there is such a thing as being godawful at informal reasoning. I’m not sure I knew that before looking at this book. But Molyneux is as bad at reasoning as he seems to be at everything else. Yet somehow, through some Dunning-Kruger pathology, he seems to regard himself as good enough to educate others. He is desperately in need of education himself, although I wouldn’t blame you if you preferred to put him ‘through the fist’ (“There are only two ways to resolve disagreements: through The Argument, or through the fist”). …

Myself, I’ve never been able to get through anything Molyneux writes. Other libertarians, systematic thinkers all, have said the same. My favorite, David Gordon, calls Molyneux’s arguments “often preposterously bad.”

“A (Tiny!) Bit More on Molyneux,” also by Alexander Douglas, delves into the problems of logic.

UPDATE III (11/29/018): On crap output and arrogant overreach. As someone who labors over every sentence she puts out (to the best of my abilities, which are respectable but far from infallible), these points, as made by a professional logician, are good.

Alas, and as noted by Tocqueville in the 19th century and Solzhenitsyn in the 20th, conformity of thought and anti-intellectualism are powerfully prevalent among Americans (the kind who follow Stefan Molyneux type Svengalis) .

Molyneux on logic just humiliates himself. And frankly it’s irritating to have spent years of hard study trying to master some elementary logic and then have some pontificating fraud claim the right to lecture others without doing any work at all

“An Open Letter on Jordan Peterson and Stefan Molyneux” By Alexander Douglas.

UPDATE IV (4/4/019):

Even #Loadshedding—and the pyramid of #AffirmativeAction that has led to everyday power outages in South Africa—was chronicled in 2011 in "Into the Cannibal's Pot": https://t.co/lIMkYEv3lE https://t.co/XroEHVI6CF

— Ilana Mercer (@IlanaMercer) April 4, 2019

Ann Coulter Kneecaps Jared Kushner; Here’s Hoping Ivanka’s Next

Ann Coulter, Democrats, Donald Trump, Family, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim

In the “What Ivanka Wants, Ivanka Gets” (April, 2017), Jared Kushner was described as looking “low T—like he might one day go the way of Bruce Jenner, now Caitlyn Jenner.”

In other words, Kushner looks like he’s transitioning.

Recently, Ann Coulter went one better and called Jared Kushner “THE BIRDBRAIN OF ALCATRAZ,” a moron, and a “a wispy little fellow.”

For that Thanksgiving gift we must be thankful.

However, Jared is second fiddle to Ivanka. The silly woman (Steve Bannon’s assessment) is The Boss. And Ivanka believes—again, in Steve Bannon’s estimation—that she and Jared are First Couple in waiting. She wants to be president. Or, at least, make it onto the celebrity circuit at Davos.

More than anything, Ivanka and Jared crave respectability. Both have been scarred by the scandals of their fathers. Befitting young Democrats in high society, the Kushners would like to be able to press flesh with local and global elites. There will be none of that—no warm welcomes from the gilded and the glamorous at Davos—with Donald’s unsexy America First agenda.

URGENT: Ivanka needs to be neutralized. Let’s hope Ms. Coulter doesn’t take too long to dispatch Ivanka. Behind every weak, bloodless man there’s a mightily ambitious woman.

INTERVIEW: ‘Writer Ilana Mercer Takes On The Cato Institute’s ‘Left-Libertarianism’

Culture, Ilana Mercer, libertarianism, Neoconservatism, Paleoconservatism, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy, The West

INTERVIEW: Big League Politics interviewed me on my paleolibertarianism under the headline: “Writer Ilana Mercer Takes On The Cato Institute’s ‘Left-Libertarianism.’” I didn’t think I took CATO on, but was just pointing out sharp distinctions, in reply to correspondent Seth Segal’s sharp questions. But OK. <g>

BIG LEAGUE POLITICS: Being a preeminent paleolibertarian thinker today, how would you define paleolibertarianism and how does it differ from standard paleoconservatism?

ILANA MERCER: First, let’s define libertarianism. It’s concerned with the ethics of the use of force. Nothing more. This, and this alone, is the ambit of libertarian law.

All libertarians must respect the non-aggression axiom. Libertarians don’t initiate aggression against non-aggressors, not even if it’s “for their own good,” as neoconservatives like to cast America’s recreational wars of choice. If someone claims to be a libertarianism and also supports the proxy bombing of Yemen, or supported the war in Iraq; he is not a libertarian, plain and simple.

As to paleolibertarianism, in particular. And this is my take. It’s how I’ve applied certain principles week-in, week-out, for almost two decades. So, some will disagree. In my definition, a paleolibertarian grasps that ordered liberty has a civilizational dimension, stripped of which the just-mentioned libertarian non-aggression axiom, by which all decent people should live, will crumble. …

… Read the rest. “Writer Ilana Mercer Takes On The Cato Institute’s ‘Left-Libertarianism’” is on Big League Politics.

Posse Comitatus? You’re Being Told That America Doesn’t Have Borders, So No Law Can Defend Her

Federalism, Homeland Security, IMMIGRATION, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Military, Neoconservatism, Secession, States' Rights

The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act: It’s the excuse parroted by almost everybody, Republicans included, for lack of vigorous military action against invaders on the border.

It took Ann Coulter to point out the obvious: “You can’t shoot … AMERICANS. You can shoot invaders.”

What on earth is The US Army for?

In effect, what you’re being told is, there is no law that’ll defend American borders.’

Or, America doesn’t have borders. Therefore, there is no law that can defend a de facto and de jure borderless country. And certainly some laws even prohibit a defense of America’s borders.

In truth, and according to the Congressional Research Service, as relayed by the Military Times, the Act means that “the U.S. military is not used to control or defeat American citizens on U.S. soil.”

The hordes amassed on the border with Mexico, rushing the port of entry in San Ysidro, Calif., are not Americans. They are not even very nice.

Posse Comitatus sets “limitation against active-duty U.S. forces conducting law enforcement on U.S. soil,” but watch how quickly military force will be used “to suppress insurrection or to enforce federal authority.”

Feeling free?