National Conservatism: A Statement Of Principles

Over at The American Conservative website, prominent American conservatives have written a statement of principles. It lays out conservative grievances in view of their perceptions of American reality today and their vision of how things ought to be (grounded in their version of the past), whether we like it or not (and we don't). The statement reads in part:

A world of independent nations is the only alternative to universalist ideologies seeking to impose a homogenizing, locality-destroying imperium over the entire globe.

We are citizens of Western nations who have watched with alarm as the traditional beliefs, institutions, and liberties underpinning life in the countries we love have been progressively undermined and overthrown.

We see the tradition of independent, self-governed nations as the foundation for restoring a proper public orientation toward patriotism and courage, honor and loyalty, religion and wisdom, congregation and family, man and woman, the sabbath and the sacred, and reason and justice. We are conservatives because we see such virtues as essential to sustaining our civilization. We see such a restoration as the prerequisite for recovering and maintaining our freedom, security, and prosperity.

We emphasize the idea of the nation because we see a world of independent nations—each pursuing its own national interests and upholding national traditions that are its own—as the only genuine alternative to universalist ideologies now seeking to impose a homogenizing, locality-destroying imperium over the entire globe.

Drawing on this heritage, we therefore affirm the following principles:

2. Rejection of Imperialism and Globalism. We support a system of free cooperation and competition among nation-states, working together through trade treaties, defensive alliances, and other common projects that respect the independence of their members. But we oppose transferring the authority of elected governments to transnational or supranational bodies—a trend that pretends to high moral legitimacy even as it weakens representative government, sows public alienation and distrust, and strengthens the influence of autocratic regimes. Accordingly, we reject imperialism in its various contemporary forms: We condemn the imperialism of China, Russia, and other authoritarian powers. But we also oppose the liberal imperialism of the last generation, which sought to gain power, influence, and wealth by dominating other nations and trying to remake them in its own image.

4. God and Public Religion. No nation can long endure without humility and gratitude before God and fear of his judgment that are found in authentic religious tradition. For millennia, the Bible has been our surest guide, nourishing a fitting orientation toward God, to the political traditions of the nation, to public morals, to the defense of the weak, and to the recognition of things rightly regarded as sacred. The Bible should be read as the first among the sources of a shared Western civilization in schools and universities, and as the rightful inheritance of believers and non-believers alike. Where a Christian majority exists, public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision, which should be honored by the state and other institutions both public and private. At the same time, Jews and other religious minorities are to be protected in the observance of their own traditions, in the free governance of their communal institutions, and in all matters pertaining to the rearing and education of their children. Adult individuals should be protected from religious or ideological coercion in their private lives and in their homes.

5. The Rule of Law. We believe in the rule of law. By this we mean that citizens and foreigners alike, and both the government and the people, must accept and abide by the laws of the nation. In America, this means accepting and living in accordance with the Constitution of 1787, the amendments to it, duly enacted statutory law, and the great common law inheritance. All agree that the repair and improvement of national legal traditions and institutions is at times necessary. But necessary change must take place through the law. This is how we preserve our national traditions and our nation itself. Rioting, looting, and other unacceptable public disorder should be swiftly put to an end.

7. Public Research. At a time when China is rapidly overtaking America and the Western nations in fields crucial for security and defense, a Cold War-type program modeled on DARPA, the “moon-shot,” and SDI is needed to focus large-scale public resources on scientific and technological research with military applications, on restoring and upgrading national manufacturing capacity, and on education in the physical sciences and engineering. On the other hand, we recognize that most universities are at this point partisan and globalist in orientation and vehemently opposed to nationalist and conservative ideas. Such institutions do not deserve taxpayer support unless they rededicate themselves to the national interest. Education policy should serve manifest national needs.

8. Family and Children. We believe the traditional family is the source of society’s virtues and deserves greater support from public policy. The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization. The disintegration of the family, including a marked decline in marriage and childbirth, gravely threatens the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations. Among the causes are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life. Economic and cultural conditions that foster stable family and congregational life and child-raising are priorities of the highest order.

That scares the jeebus right out of me, assuming I had any in me to start with. This statement is first rate propaganda. It tries hard to sugar coat and deflect from the intolerance and authoritarianism it stands for. In terms of foreign policy, it is America first Trumpism. This is Christian nationalism openly declaring war on democracy, secularism and pluralism. Christian intolerance and hate are clear in it. 

Instead of calling for withdrawing pubic support for secular universities they hate and would love to cancel out of existence, how about calling for withdrawing pubic support for religion, including religious schools and universities? That seems fair and balanced.

Update on China's dictatorship

CONTEXT

“.... society not only controls our movements, but shapes our identity, our thought, and our emotions.” [Social institutions] are structures of our own consciousness. .... Sociologists speak of ‘ideology’ in discussing views that serve to rationalize the vested interests of some group. Very frequently, such views systematically distort social reality in much the same way that an individual may neurotically deny, deform or reinterpret aspects of his life that are inconvenient to him. .... the ideas by which men explain their actions are unmasked as self-deception, sales talk, the kind of ‘sincerity’ that David Riesman has aptly described as the state of mind of a man who habitually believes his own propaganda. .... The same process [of intentional identity change via propaganda] occurs whenever a whole group of individuals is to be ‘broken’ and made to accept a new definition of themselves. .... This view tells us that man plays dramatic parts in the grand play of society, and that, speaking sociologically, he is the masks he must wear to do so. .... Unlike puppets, we have the possibility of stopping in our movements, looking up and perceiving the machinery by which we have been moved. In this act lies the first step toward freedom.” --- Sociologist Peter Berger, Invitation to Sociology, 1963

In my opinion, China is the most important country to watch for a possible dark future of a perpetually enslaved mankind. It's pervasive, aggressive technology-based dictatorship is unsurpassed anywhere else on Earth. It is efficient and ruthless in its intelligent reliance on human cognitive biology and social behavior to control perceptions of reality and to literally control thoughts. In his book, Invitation to Sociology, Peter Berger discusses how society and social institutions can shape and control human perceptions of reality and thinking. That was known in 1963. It is still true today. Humans are social creatures. Demagogues and tyrants exploit that normal human trait to their own advantage, usually to the detriment of society and at least those civil liberties that present potential threats to tyrants.

Berger's short little book, a masterpiece in my opinion, is basically optimistic. That's probably due in no small part to the fact that he wrote in 1963. There were no cell phones, social media, AI face recognition software, or mass consumer electronic commerce that presented tools for demagogues to exploit. And, there was no demagogic neo-fascist Republican Party acting in open opposition to democracy, in large part by firmly rejecting inconvenient fact, truth and reasoning. In Berger's day, the flow of information in mainstream America was far less poisoned compared to the rot we get now, especially from the radical right. Facts and truths still commanded reasonable respect by most political leaders. There were good reasons to be optimistic.

China's tyrants are exploiting all of the new technology tools to build an impenetrable dictatorship. The tyrants' intent is crystal clear: They want a dictatorship that cannot be overthrown by the people. Maybe external forces could someday topple what the Chinese tyrants are doing, but it is increasingly hard to see how the Chinese people could ever do it on their own. One of the most brilliant tactics the tyrants use is subtle social pressure. That is used to get average Chinese citizens to voluntarily opt in to China's pervasive digital dictatorship. Once they are opted into the system via their cell phones, they are closely monitored for everything they do. If they do not opt in, their lives are derailed and they live in poverty and oppression. If they do opt in, they are socially graded for everything they do. They are punished for bad behavior, e.g., having friends with low social acceptability scores. Bad behavior derails lives and careers. The opted in bad people live in poverty and oppression, just like the bad people who do not opt in.

Chinese policewoman using facial-recognition sunglasses linked to artificial intelligence data analysis algorithms while patrolling a train station in Zhengzhou, the capital of central China's Henan province

The update

One way to keep people from, as Berger put it, looking up and perceiving the machinery by which we have been moved, is to remove inconvenient facts, truths and reasoning from public access. That is a classic demagogue tyrant tactic. The Chinese machinery of tyranny simply obliterates all inconvenience. The New York Times writes on a current instance of China simply rewriting history to protect its people from truth:

In These New Textbooks, Hong Kong Was Never a British Colony

The books are part of China’s effort to instill a particular historical narrative and to stress patriotic education in a city where a pro-democracy movement was crushed.

HONG KONG — Many schoolchildren around the world have long been taught that Hong Kong was once a colony of the British Empire. But students in Hong Kong will soon learn a different lesson: It wasn’t.

Beijing has steadfastly maintained that historical view of the city’s status, long before Britain returned the territory to China in 1997, and years before a sweeping crackdown crushed a thriving pro-democracy movement in the once-semiautonomous territory.

Now, as Hong Kong prepares to commemorate 25 years since its handover to China on July 1, 1997, that narrative — which rejects how the British saw their relationship to the city — will be explicitly taught to Hong Kong high school students through at least four new textbooks that will be rolled out in the fall.

The textbook material is still under review by principals, teachers, scholars and employees of Hong Kong’s Education Bureau, but it seems destined for classrooms. Local news websites published draft excerpts this week, and The New York Times viewed teachers’ proof copies. The material is part of a wider campaign by China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, to overhaul Hong Kong’s schools, “protect young minds” and raise loyal, patriotic citizens. 

Jeffrey Ngo, a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and a doctoral candidate in history at Georgetown University, said that the government’s position “is a shorthand for saying, ‘Hong Kong was always a part of China, thus Hong Kongers never could claim a right of self-determination.’”  

“It’s about trying to make sure the next generation of young kids are going to be supportive or at least sympathetic to what the government is saying,” Mr. Ngo added. “This is part of the remake of Hong Kong in the national security era.”

The Chinese dictators really do understand human cognitive biology and social behavior. They are using that knowledge to build a deep surveillance state dictatorship that average Chinese people simply cannot escape from. Social monitoring and grading is everywhere. That is why China has pushed so hard to get people to buy everything using their cell phones. The more that daily life is conducted digitally, the more the government sees those people and becomes aware of possible threats long before they mature into a significant threat.

China appears to be in the end stages of building and perfecting its national dictatorship infrastructure. It should be built out and mostly perfected in the next ~6 years or thereabouts. Its international behavior is now openly supportive of dictators and demagoguery, while being increasingly hostile to democracies and inconvenient truth. In my opinion, China is transitioning from a national tyranny to a global totalitarian political movement, with China at the top. War with China is increasingly plausible, maybe unless the Republicans take control, kill democracy and make nice with the tyrants in China. 

China exports its dictatorship technology to authoritarians 

everywhere for "law enforcement" purposes

 

Intelligence agencies and state police 

wind up using it to find threats to dictators and 

to suppress civilian political activities

 

This is Ecuador’s system built by two

Chinese companies controlled by the Chinese government

The Republican Party parade of rot proudly advances on all fronts

The Hill writes:

Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) called on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to resign on Thursday after news that his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, emailed with conservative lawyer John Eastman, who was central in former President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

In a statement on Thursday, Pascrell said Thomas “cannot possibly be seen as a neutral actor,” labeling him “a corrupt jurist.”

“Over the last few years, we have become numb to bad acts by powerful actors, but Clarence and Ginni Thomas have participated in one of the worst breaches of trust ever seen in our court system,” Pascrell said.

“Clarence Thomas cannot possibly be seen as a neutral actor but instead as a corrupt jurist who has poisoned the High Court. Clarence Thomas should have dignity and final respect for our democracy and resign,” he added.

CNN writes in an article entitled, New Mexico county commissioner who refuses to certify recent election results sentenced for role in January 6 attack:

Couy Griffin, a New Mexico county commissioner, ardent election-fraud conspiracy theorist and founder of Cowboys for Trump, avoided more jail time on Friday for his role in the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack.

He was sentenced to 14 days with time served, fined $3,000 and given one year supervised release with the requirement that he complete 60 hours of community service.  

Griffin, an Otero county commissioner, is still relentlessly pushing claims of election fraud, going as far as refusing to certify the recent primary results in his county, which the Justice Department cited to bolster its argument that Griffin should spend several months in jail. 

Cuoy, the happy boy, Griffin celebrates his non-sentence for 

treason outside a federal court house in New Mexico

Mental rot alert: See the hat on the right side there

Prosecute Fauci!!!

LOCK HIM UP!!

Prosecute Fauci!!!

LOCK HIM UP!!

There we have it rot fans. There's veritable a cornucopia of Republican Party moral, intellectual, judicial and law enforcement rot on display for your fun and entertainment. Clarence Thomas thinks he and his wife are valiant patriots instead of ethically-challenged traitors. That's moral rot. Griffin believes the 2020 and 2022 elections were stolen. That's intellectual-mental rot. The judge sentences Griffin to a paltry 14 days in the slammer, a $3K fine and some community service for treason. That's judicial rot. The DoJ asked for "several months" in the slammer for Griffin's treason. That's law enforcement rot.

This is more than a wonderful trifecta. It's a magnificent quadfecta, not to be confused with a quadrella, of Republican Party rot. Yes, that includes the DoJ under the thoroughly rotted rotter Attorney General Garland -- so far, he looks a lot more like a Republican than anything else. 

Republican Messaging

 

Ethan Grey

@_EthanGrey

This is a thread on Republican messaging. The press doesn’t want to have a direct conversation with you about this. So as a former Republican who is now a consistent Democratic voter, I will.

https://twitter.com/_EthanGrey/status/1534024357957230594?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1534024357957230594%7Ctwgr%5Ehb_0_10%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdefendingthetruth.com%2Fthreads%2Frepublican-messaging.134606%2F

The Message of the Republican Party: 

What follows is the text of my viral Twitter thread posted on June 7th, 2022 regarding the messaging of the Republican Party. Minor changes were made to the original wording. As for the title of this piece, inspiration for this came to me from somebody else. Twitter user StringsNoTrump pointed out that what I discussed in the thread goes nicely with the spirit of the Gadsden flag, hence the accompanying visual (although I do not think that user was alone in this observation, this is the first case I saw).

The press does not want to have a direct conversation with you about what’s really at the heart of Republican messaging. As a former Republican who now consistently votes for the Democratic Party in US elections, I will. When I came to realize what the true message of the Republican Party was, I was out, and have been voting Democratic ever since.

Here is the Republican message on everything of importance:

1. They can tell people what to do.
2. You cannot tell them what to do.

This often gets mistaken for hypocrisy, there’s an additional layer of complexity to this (we will discuss this later in the piece), but this is the basic formula.

You’ve watched the Republican Party champion the idea of “freedom” while you have also watched the same party openly assault various freedoms, like the freedom to vote, freedom of choice, freedom to marry who you want and so on.

If this has been a source of confusion, then your assessments of what Republicans mean by “freedom” were likely too generous. Here’s what Republicans mean:

1. The freedom to tell people what to do.
2. Freedom from being told what to do.

When Republicans talk about valuing “freedom”, they’re speaking of it in the sense that only people like them should ultimately possess it.

So with this in mind, let’s examine some of our political issues with an emphasis on who is telling who what to do. And hopefully there will be no confusion about what the Republican Party message is ever again.

Let’s start with the COVID-19 pandemic. We were told by experts in infectious diseases that to control the spread of the pandemic, we had to socially distance, mask, and get vaccinated. So, in a general sense, we were being told what to do. Guess who had a big problem with that. All Republicans saw were certain people trying to tell them what to do, which was enough of a reason to make it their chief priority to insist that they will not be told what to do. Even though what they were told to do could save lives, including their own.

As you can see, this is a very stunning commitment to refusing to be told what to do. So much so that it is not in fact “pro-life.” But Republicans will nevertheless claim to be the “pro-life” party. That is because they recognize “pro-life” can be used to tell people what to do. The reason they say they are “pro-life” when they are trying to tell pregnant women and other pregnant people what to do with their bodies is not out of genuine concern for human life, but because they recognize that in this position, they can tell pregnant women and other pregnant people what to do with their bodies.

That’s why when you use that same appeal — “pro-life” — when you ask Republicans to do something about gun violence in schools, it doesn’t work. Because you are now in the position of telling Republicans what to do. That’s precisely why they don’t want to do anything about it. So gun violence in schools is not a problem, but their children having to wear masks in schools is. Because somebody is telling their children what to do. Dead children don’t bother them, but telling their children what to do? Only they should do that.

They claim to be for “small government”, but that really means a government that tells them what to do should be as small as possible. But when the Republican Party recognizes it has an opportunity to tell people what to do, the government required for that tends to be large.

The reason Republicans are so focused on the border isn’t because they genuinely care about border security, it’s because they recognize it as the most glaring example of when they can tell other people what to do. This is why it’s their favorite issue.

“You want in? Too bad. Get out.”

If Republicans could do this in every social space — tell the people who aren’t like them “Too bad, now get the fuck out” — I’m here to assure you that would be something resembling their ideal society.

Now, there are economic policies that we’ve proposed that we can demonstrate would be of obvious benefit to even Republican voters. So how do Republicans leaders kill potential support for these policies? Make the issue about who is telling who what to do. They focus on the fact that Democrats may raise taxes. Even when it’s painfully obvious that Democrats aren’t going to raise taxes on everyone (or on very few people), what’s important here is that Democrats are the people telling certain people what to do. If you want to know why Republicans can easily be talked out of proposals from the Democratic Party that are shown to be of benefit to them, it is precisely because they have to entertain the idea of Democrats telling certain people what to do.

What you didn’t understand from the very beginning is that Democrats should not ultimately be in the position to tell anyone what to do. Only Republicans should be in the position to tell people what to do.

On the issue of climate change, a lot of them don’t regard it as a serious issue to the extent that they think it is a hoax. This is because when you tell Republicans to do something for the sake of the planet, you are still ultimately telling them what to do. Furthermore, you are conceiving the planet as a thing that all human beings should have to share. I am here to assure you that the Republican Party’s main concern with the planet is to ensure that they don’t have to share it.

Now here’s where things get interesting: when you explain to Republicans you want them to do something and explain it’s on the basis of benefitting other people. Now you have really crossed a line. Not only did you tell them what to do, you told them to consider others. The whole point of an arrangement where you can tell people what to do, but you can’t be told what to do, is precisely to avoid having to consider others. This is why this is their ideal arrangement: so that they don’t have to do that.

As you can see, this is a very toxic relationship with the idea of who can tell who what to do. So much so that it seems like the entire point is to conceive of a “right” kind of people who can tell other people what to do without being told what to do. Yep, that’s the point.

So let’s add one more component to the system for who tells who what to do:

1. There are “right” human beings and there are “wrong” ones.
2. The “right” ones get to tell the “wrong” ones what to do.
3. The “wrong” ones do not tell the “right” ones what to do.

As you can see, I’ve just been talking about white male supremacy and the accompanying caste system structure it enforces all along. And I’m talking about this because the message of the Republican Party is that they quite like it. But I realize that we are operating in an environment where white male supremacy is so entrenched that the press doesn’t want to treat the Republican Party’s agenda of sorting the “right” human beings from the “wrong” ones as maybe presenting a “messaging problem.”

This is because the press has chosen to accommodate the Republican Party in a very specific way:

1. It normalizes the Republican agenda.
2. It normalizes framing the responsibility for stopping that agenda as ultimately being on Democrats.

Think about it: white supremacy is not allowed to be viewed as a “messaging problem.” Even when it’s a threat to democracy. Because if it’s a “messaging problem”, to Republicans, that sounds like you’re telling them that’s a problem they have to solve.

Anyway, I composed this piece mostly because I realize that the press has a “messaging problem.” Namely, in the sense that they seem extremely averse to explicitly identifying the message of the Republican Party. It’s called white male supremacy. Thanks for reading.

https://medium.com/@_EthanGrey/the-message-of-the-republican-party-dont-tread-on-me-i-tread-on-you-936037958bce