Enemies
Foreign and domestic
This is the reason why the most important conflict in the West is not between Democrats and Republicans. It’s between liberals and progressives. Progressives are hiding behind liberal ideas. And in order to live out the promises of liberalism—equality, freedom—progressives are willing to destroy our world for the sake of building a new one with absolute justice. That’s communism. It’s destruction.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a liberal, not a progressive. He wanted African Americans to be integrated into society. Instead of dismantling the world he was born into, he fought to reform it. — Natan Sharanksy
I remember the moment when I almost defriended someone on Facebook. He’s one of the oldest online guys I knew, from back in the 90s on The Well. I understood his political sentiments, his lifestyle and a bit about his background. What I didn’t understand about him and folks he agreed with was why he felt he was so obviously morally superior. I’m like, how do you come off like the rest of us are idiot children? Especially because I know he has no actual children. But rather than take it out on him, I decided to read Orwell, the most intellectual socialist I could name. I wanted to get to the philosophical root of all this conviction. So I read The Road to Wigan Pier, and Orwell’s own collection of essays. This was in 2013.
The veil was lifted.
It wasn’t the point of socialism, it was all of the personal energy and continuous betting that these folks like Raymondo (I’ll call him) put into their alternative lifestyles. I understood, but I recognized as well that it wasn’t just capitalism, racism, fascism, conformity, religious fundamentalism, corporate power, war, colonialism, sexism, homophobia, x-phobia, drug prohibition. It was all of it, together and the bulk of us normies who just didn’t get it.
I recently remembered that there is a big difference between communism and international communism. What Raymondo wants is not international communism, but national communism, meaning he’ll settle for a local commune. That what his raves, underground clubs, secret alliances and tactical Progressive activism is all about. The closest he can get is a culture war which turns the Democrat Party inside out. That’s where all these unconventional asymmetric fighters are coming from. They have a moral certainty built on their determination to be weird and stay weird, but rather than actual friendship, they want to play power games, domestically.
Mounk asks who is responsible for the Woke. I have a very short and concise answer. It is the self-distrust of the elites and their masochistic desire to be appropriately punished. They aver to the political equivalent of the rape fantasies of Eldridge Cleaver and subject themselves to such rhetorical allyship, fund and encourage those who would be their dominatrix. It is the cosplay of the bored affluent. It is the fantasy mask of the frustrated underlings who smell the masochistic fear of their sponsors. It is the affect of fear, guilt and exploitation. It is a macabre dance whose beats and rhythms vibrate through society. Until a third party kicks over the DJ booth. Whoops. They thought they owned the whole club, but they were only shareholders.
Tiresome Understanding
There is a part of me that wants to understand, to theorize and analyze. I want to believe that there’s an abstract set of categories that I can compose or synthesize that allows me to bucket everything I perceive. That’s where this is coming from. At the same time, as a peasant writer I will never have enough time to navigate the garden of forking paths that is human experience.
My cosmology won’t allow me to accept the supernatural even though I’d place a wager that the laws of physics bend in some distant corners of the universe. So I don’t even have enough faith for a consistent pessimism. We exist in order; we don’t have the luxury to question that order even if 7 billion of us lose our minds or our lives.
C.S. Lewis writes:
When once one had dropped the absurd notion that reality is an arbitrary alternative to ‘nothing’, one gives up being a pessimist (or even an optimist). There is no sense in blaming or praising the Whole, nor, indeed, in saying anything about it. Even if you persist in hurling Promethean or Hardyesque defiances at it, then, since you are part of it, it is only that same Whole which through you ‘quietly declaims the cursings of itself’—a futility which seems to me to vitiate Lord Russell’s stirring essay on ‘The Worship of a Free Man’. Cursings were as futile, and as immature, as dreams about the western garden. One must (like Carlyle’s lady) ‘accept’ the universe; totally, with no reservations, loyally.
Lewis, C. S.. Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (pp. 250-251). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
I know that I am an animal, born and bred in slowly evolving dimensions, yet adaptive to rapidly emerging circumstances. My instincts are defensive. I may be distracted by cyber squirrels. Squirrels of all sorts. Squirrel! I need to obey my emotions and seek my homeostasis. I need to maintain the walls of my fortress of solitude, stare into my dram let the music wash over me.
So I straddle a self of two minds. I needn’t live for one perspective. Is this a contradiction? Are stoic observations inherently persuasive? I’m not going to engage the metaphysics of that. Either I have my health and I produce, or I don’t. I can’t even guess when.
I know what makes me lose sleep. It is the loss of productive relationships, in family, in work, in writing, in friendship. I am my own biggest motivator but I also know when to stop lashing myself despite my losses. I accept the fact that everything dies. It either ceases in itself to exist or is lost to our migrated attention. I’m suffering from the pain of loss these days and proper sleep has been elusive, but it is not from disappointments in the alignment department.
I stay distracted by watching war movies and reading spy novels. Because as much as we talk about banks and corporations and crypto and journalism and universities, none of them matter for shit when compared to armies. Terrorists, soldiers and gangsters are the real enemies. All the rest is just protocol, and very few of us understand the Moscow Rules. Our only real allies are medics and farmers.
Actually, it’s not that bad. I never forget that it may become that bad. Today I am going to watch more football, which despite Kaepernick, we never stopped actually playing. I don’t lose sleep over citizenship in America because football is still football and war is still war. I understand who my enemies are, but I’m not sure they matter.
Liberal, not progressive.... 💯
After the election the Democratic Party (my party) must rethink many of its policies as it ponders its future.
To be entrusted with power again Democrats must start listening to the concerns of the working class for a change. As a lifelong moderate Democrat I share their disdain for many of the insane positions advocated by my party. We are no longer the patriotic, sensible party of FDR and JFK.
Democrat politicians defy biology by believing that men can actually become women and belong in women’s sports, rest rooms, locker rooms and prisons and that children should be mutilated in pursuit of the impossible.
They believe borders should be open to millions of illegals which undermines workers’ wages and the affordability of housing when we can’t house our own citizens.
They discriminate against whites, Asians and men in a futile effort to counter past discrimination against others and undermine our economy by abandoning merit selection of students and employees.
Democratic mayors allow homelessness to destroy our beautiful cities because they won't say no to destructive behavior. No, you can’t camp in our city. No, you can’t shit in our streets. No, you can’t shoot up and leave your used needles everywhere. Many of our prosecutors will not take action against shoplifting unless a $1000 of goods are stolen leading to gangs destroying retail stores. They release criminals without bail to commit more crimes.
The average voter knows this is happening and outright reject our party. Enough.