Here’s an interesting article by noted American musician Charlie Daniels which is warning of the possibility for a second Civil War, over the protesting & rioting we’ve seen in recent weeks.
I find this an interesting thing to ponder. There certainly seems to be more civil unrest than there has been in my lifetime (I’m 34 years old, to give that statement some context). That’s obviously alarming, particularly with the emergence of the SJW contingent on college campuses, the bizarre radicalization of the BLM movement into some sort of neo-marxist drivel, and the recent wave of leftists who openly make the argument that freedom cannot be afforded to those who disagree with them.
On the other hand, things have been much worse in this country before, without a total societal breakdown of the type which Mr. Daniels is alluding to. In the late 60s and early 70s, a number of American cities burned. There were actual full-on race riots, anti-Vietnam War riots, anti-hippie riots, leftist bombings, all of which dwarfed the recent Berkeley fiasco. And yet, no civil war.
So my question to you, intrepid readers, is this: are we really headed towards an abyss, or is this a product of recency bias? Were the 80s & 90s actually so good, so stable, so peaceful, and so generally awesome (outside of a few well-known events, such as Waco & the Oklahoma City bombing) that it lulled us into a false sense of complacency, where any street level unrest looks far more alarming than it actually should be, given the historical context?
Who knows, but they need to read the actual, literal Riot Act when this sort of hooliganage breaks out. Let the peaceful participants/spectators walk away, then wade in and arrest the violent types who remain.
Do this consistently enough, and maybe rioting won’t be quite so fashionable.
I kind of want to stand on top of a SWAT van in front of these rioters some time and just spin my penis around like an airplane propeller, just to show them how little I actually think of them. That I can’t even be assed to hate them, because that would be giving them more thought than they’re entitled to.
The problem is that the SJWs are going to graduate college and go into government bureaucracies, and inflict this shit on the rest of us.
That’s a problem with libertarianism. People who want to be left alone, and would leave others alone, don’t gravitate to government positions.
Which leads to the important libertarian/small government conservative question of whether we should try to infiltrate academia and government bureaucracies to bring them to heel (in the way progressives did) or to continue to create alternatives outside of these institutions like we have been currently doing? Should more libertarians become public school teachers or continue to build private education alternatives?
I think many are pushed out of those systems. I can only think of a few obvious conservative teachers I’ve had. We should try to be a part of academia, and would say that the most obvious way has been as guest speakers. Which people are managing to shut down. Right now it’s Milo or Gavin, but maybe soon it’ll be Julie or Rand.
We always need more people at local office. any position can be made more libertarian.
I bet those teachers were teaching a STEM class too.
The progs will probably continue to outnumber the libertarians (and don’t forget conservatives!) in the bureaucracy. I suppose the best thing would be to have a few libertarians/conservatives seeded here and there in a bureaucracy so when a libertarian/conservative takes over the relevant agency there are moles sympathetic to the boss who can report on what the progs are doing to sabotage the boss’s policies. On the other hand, it’s not easy to find someone who is really into that kind of infighting.
Read something recently, can’t remember where off hand, that talked about how little people’s opinions are changed by the media and social pressure after they’ve formed their “philosophies”. They simply gravitate to sources that confirm their biases. Which, if true, would mean we should get them while they are young, which, as you said, is what the left has done.
If we are ever to have our “libertarian moment” it will happen because a large plurality of the population demands liberty. Exposing young people to critical thought and the benefits of freedom is the only, nonviolent, way that such a grassroots change can happen realistically. And then it will only happen over a long period of time.
So to answer your question…why not both? Find opportunities to expose the yutes to liberty and bring them on board, while at the same time provide alternatives to their current indoctrination.
But again, how many libertarians want to work as public school teachers until we can get enough people on board to abolish public education? And what happens to those libertarian public school teachers once the gubmint tit becomes their bread and butter? We are pushing on a rope.
“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” – TJ
I had planned for one of my first serious posts to be on this very topic. I was going to titled it “Why We Are Losing”. The reason we are losing is, in part, due to the false-dichotomy, Two Cultures pissing match bullshit that our dear friend Sloopy engages in upthread. So you can code or engineer a hydrostatic transmission? Good for you! But it means absolutely nothing for the advancement of liberty. The concept of self-ownership is not an algorithm, and freedom can’t be derived from fluid dynamics equations. Remember, the one thing the Soviet Union had was a metric shitload of engineers, doctors, and mathematicians.
While science and technology are an important part of a civilization, they are far from the defining aspect. What differentiates civilizations from one another are the values expressed in their art, literature, history, and civil institutions. If we retreat from the battlefield of ideas while muttering under our breath “college is for fags”, then we have no one but ourselves to blame. The fact is, to win the war of ideas, we need to explain the philosophical underpinnings of liberty. That requires libertarian philosophers. To spread that message, it also requires artists, historians, writers, and yes, cultural critics. Indeed, it requires a bold and vocal movement within the *gasp* liberal arts. Despite what some believe, no one became a libertarian because Δ • B = 0. Becoming a libertarian requires, at least, an understanding of ethics and knowledge of the many examples provided in history of the prosperity that comes from freedom over tyranny. And that understanding is usually imparted through literature, fiction and non-fiction. The sense of self-ownership and self-reliance that nurtures liberty is inspired by rhetoric and art. All this requires people to make these cultural artifacts.
If we want this understanding of the world to spread, this requires a full front assault on the walls of academe. I’m already on the inside, I’ll leave the door open and let you in when no one is looking.
As, I’ve said before it is impossible to draw up a blueprint for liberty in some CAD/CAM program. However, an author who penned a novel about architects spawned libertarians by the thousands.
Well said. HM.
Indeed, it requires a bold and vocal movement within the *gasp* liberal arts.
Absolutely! However, I think Sloopy’s point highlights something that is real. The humanities are held in such low esteem precisely because they are overrun by leftists.
It’s a very similar analysis to journalism. Do we give up because the MSM is intractably Marxist? Of course not. Do we infiltrate the existing journalistic outfits? Maybe, but people have been trying for 30 years without too much success. Instead, folks (like Drudge) have done an end run around the system.
Similarly, I don’t think it’s out of the realm of reasonableness to say that liberal arts at the modern university is lost, and try an end run around it. I see charter schools as a good first step for that.
Likewise, people who want to tell you what to do gravitate towards homeowners’ associations and government.
#notmyHOA
My understanding is that, after the Riot Act was read, any remaining rioters weren’t arrested, they were put to the sword. More Kent State than inauguration day. We’re not there, but I suspect we could get there and a lot of people would be looking around going “How did this happen”.
In the late 60s and early 70s, a number of American cities burned. There were actual full-on race riots, anti-Vietnam War riots, anti-hippie riots, leftist bombings, all of which dwarfed the recent Berkeley fiasco. And yet, no civil war.
I think that there was an aura of inevitability to the civil rights movement of the 60s and 70s that isn’t there today. While there was certainly a silent majority that didn’t much care for the protesters and rioters, there was some level of sympathy for the core tenets of their cause.
Today is different. There is no quarter given on the Right for SJWs. The Right has learned one lesson from the 60s and 70s, and it’s that if you give a Prog an inch, they’ll take a mile and then call you a bigot for not giving them two miles.
However, if I had to point to one thing that could light this whole tinderbox, unlike in the 60s and 70s, it’s the impending time bomb created by the higher ed bubble and the terrible job prospects for all the special snowflakes who just took on 5 figures in debt for a worthless degree. The social unrest of the 70s was just as much a product of stagflation as anything else, and a deep recession could be just the spark needed today to kick off something violent. I don’t think that the Right will have the restraint they had in the 70s if riots and bombings start up again.
I don’t think most Americans have any idea just how bad things have gotten. There’s work to get to in the morning, and if anything really bad were going on, it’d be on the news, right? Sure.
It’s bad. Name the scary fascist line-item – an American government employee is doing it. It’s just their job, see. Then they go home, hug their family, eat their supper and watch TV.
The horrible police states never start with those who can fight back, and it never seems like it’s really that bad until all of a sudden it’s journalists and teachers and scientists that are in jail or dying. That’s when people notice. By that time, the atrocity count is already in the millions, and the juggernaut will not be stopped without enormous pain and effort.
You know who else were just doing their jobs?
Death Star II contractors?
Me.
Papers, please.
IDE remember who it was, nor will I slander someone by guessing, but I was fucking floored when some tit pulled a Nuremburg defense argument, and then tried to defend it.
It’s not defensible. What the flaming fuck. Turn in your humanity card, you don’t know how this works.
There certainly seems to be more civil unrest than there has been in my lifetime (I’m 34 years old, to give that statement some context).
What do you mean? You don’t remember those racist, sexist, class warring Tea Parry people marching on D.C. and cleaning all their trash up after themselves and shit? Those people were terrifying!!!!!
-SJW
Jim, the left is the same always and everywhere. The behavior, rhetoric, terminology and strategies we see now in the US are identical to what happened in all of the socialist revolutions. Key to setting off the conflagration are the mobs and riots. In the end they are just thugs and bullies. That works for them everywhere else because the peoples of Russia, Germany, China, Cuba, Cambodia, etc. were not armed. It won’t work here.
I saw an interview with a rioter during the riots in Missouri and again with one in Boston. The head of the CPUSA went to Ferguson to try and get the rioters to move to white neighborhoods and various corporate headquarters. She was unsuccessful. In the words of the interviewed rioter “Hell no we aint going to the white neighborhoods. They have guns. White people have been buying the gun store shelves empty for years. We go down there we will get shot.”
That is why it won’t work here. That is why we have to fight tooth and nail to keep the second amendment intact. Without that, yes, we would have a full on socialist revolution. With the second intact nothing like that can happen. Why do you think the left has such a hard-on to take guns away? It sure aint for your own good, I promise you that.
I’m a 2A absolutist, as I’m sure many of us are, so no worries on that front.
I’ve got enough stashed away to hold off a mob for several weeks if my wife and I were to maintain good fire discipline.
If you haven’t read it before it is worth the effort.
http://www.davekopel.org/2A/LawRev/american-revolution-against-british-gun-control.html
There is a damned good reason the second amendment is there. The founders knew what they were doing.
Yep, I’ve read that before.
The typical retard/leftist retort is that Glocks won’t save you from the military.
Well sir, first off, if if you think a fucking 9mil is the biggest thing in my armory, I’ve got some bad news for you…
Second, I don’t think any of these fucksticks have actually been in the military. Half the goddamn units would refuse orders to put down wide-spread enough disobedience. If it was like one town in Bumfuck, Mississippi, sure. But if whole swaths of the country were to refuse to turn in their weapons for confiscation? No, I don’t think the military would force the issue. They may not actively help the resisters, but they wouldn’t just go full gestapo because some democrat president says so.
A mature person, one who is resilient and able to cope with life, will know how to cope with not getting his way.
Conversely, we associate an inability to accept that one will not always get one’s way with childish immaturity.
A mature person will accept responsibility for their actions, including recognizing when he or she has screwed up. If he or she happens to be oblivious to their error, and a friend points it out, the mature individual will, at a minimum, give their friend’s argument some consideration, and if convinced by it, will take corrective action. They certainly won’t end a friendship over a deserved criticism. Conversely, we associate people who refuse to accept responsibility for their actions, who reject criticism out of hand, who cut off friends for having the temerity to speak badly of their actions with childish immaturity or a personality disorder.
In an attempt to not make people feel bad, to encourage their self esteem, the left has sought to raised a younger generation that hasn’t experienced feeling bad. An unusually large cohort of this generation have not been taught maturity or resiliance. They don’t know how to cope with things not going their way. They are inexperienced with functioning in a heterogeneous environment of ages, interests, world-views, etc.
Worst of all, many of these people have been rewarded for poor work, with decent grades, promotion to the next grade, graduation and are utterly unprepared for the stress that accompanies tackling projects where failure or ruin is a real possibility.
And when they are out of school, and facing the harsh need to make a living, many of them opt to pursue careers in fields where they don’t really face the danger of failure. That is, I believe, a major reason why so many leftists seem to do nothing but participate in the societal cancer that is the NGO/environmental/welfare complex.
These people make a very fertile field to produce soldiers for the revolution, should the right seeds of ideas be sown among them. And they will be dangerous, since they will substitute the orders of their superiors and leaders for their internal moral compass.
But the field is barren when it comes to producing good leaders. I suspect the left’s struggles are due to the fact that they have a small number of mature, competent people drowning in a large number of immature people who struggle to cope. And so, I don’t expect a revolution. I expect increasingly unwanted vandalism followed by a police crackdown that is very popular with non-leftists.
Good to see you here tarran.
Same here. What with the commenting system providing a vastly improved experience over some other sites I’ve been to, and a good crew coalescing here, this exiles project is rocking it.
And so, I don’t expect a revolution. I expect increasingly unwanted vandalism followed by a police crackdown that is very popular with non-leftists.
I hope you are right. A revolution won’t end well.
I’ve seen this exact attitude in our youngest worker in the department.
He thinks he knows everything; we are reminded daily of this. But when faced with a real obstacle or doing something beyond his knowledge, he freaks out and throws a little tantrum. And when given more responsibility, it only makes him more anxious.
Again, a lot of talk but a little weak on the application.
But when faced with a real obstacle or doing something beyond his knowledge, he freaks out and throws a little tantrum.
Teachers and parents don’t let kids fail. When your first taste of true (“I’m going to fail if I don’t figure this out on my own”) adversity is in college, you don’t develop the coping skills required to emotionally persevere.
I have no worries – at least now – about the left in America. They aren’t exactly the types set up for guerrilla warfare. Say what you want about Maoists or the Bolsheviks, but they knew how to fight. The left here is a lot of talk and not so much real action.
Heck look at that footage of the FedEx driver taking away that American flag that was about to be burned. He was outnumbered but the flag burners (which is their right) were too afraid to do much about it.