Authored by Jeff Deist via The Mises Institute,
The political violence in Charlottesville yesterday was as predictable as it was futile. One person was killed and dozens badly injured, marking a new low in the political and cultural wars that are as heated as any time since in America since the 1960s.
This relentless politicization of American culture has eroded goodwill and inflamed the worst impulses in society. Antifa and the alt-right may represent simple-minded expressions of hatred and fear, but both groups are animated entirely by politics: the perception that others can impose their will on us politically. The only lasting solution to political violence is to make politics matter less.
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We’ve allowed politics to invade every aspect of American life, from religion and family life to sex and sexuality, from bathrooms to ball fields to the workplace. But what has it gotten us besides identity politics on steroids? The “personal is political” is hardly the rallying cry of a free and confident nation. Even as we enjoy historically unparalleled material prosperity, we are dispirited by the 2016 election hangover and looking for scapegoats to explain the American malaise.
It’s easy to decry Antifa and its violent leftwing rhetoric. It’s easy to decry the alt-Right, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and fascists. It’s more important to understand them as exemplars of a new political age. Progressives demanded permanent revolution; conservatives responded by becoming permanent reactionaries. And the media bias (overwhelmingly anti-right) makes things worse: one “side” becomes convinced of its moral superiority, while the other becomes convinced the fix is in.
We suspect, without knowing, that a Hillary voter is just a step or two removed from a bandanna-clad Antifa, while a Mitt Romney voter is but a few degrees removed from an alt-Right nationalist marching in the streets. This may seem farcical, but the political society promoted by Clinton and Romney encourages it. Everyone must take a side, and live with the excesses.
What we saw this weekend was a demonstration of the horseshoe effect, where both groups begin to sound and act like the other– both illiberal, both demanding omnipotent state solutions to problems mostly created by government in the first place.
To be sure, Antifa and the alt-right represent only a tiny fraction of the population and have little economic, social, or political power. But they serve as perfect fodder for a media narrative that benefits from a sky-is-falling narrative to ratchet up viewership. The narrative is fed by our vanity and desire to imagine easy solutions to complex problems (e.g. more “education,” hate speech laws, welfarism, etc.) And we play along, assuming the worst of others and issuing smug affirmations of our own superiority on Facebook and Twitter.
In 2018 we will suffer through a round of mid-term congressional elections which will only intensify the political and cultural divide. Both political parties will use events like Charlottesville to serve their shameful partisan goals. The need for each side to vanquish the other, to punish and repudiate the other’s existence, demonstrates why politics is termed war by other means. It’s not a peaceable process. Yet underneath it all the “policy” differences between Democrats and Republicans are laughably small. Theirs is a turf battle, nothing more.
In a winner takes all political world, elections are weapons. Unless and until we learn to reject politics as the overarching method for organizing society, hatred and fear of “the other” will remain pervasive. Americans understand viscerally that government has far too much power over who wins and loses in our society, but haven’t fully grasped the degree to which the political class benefits from division. We still want to believe in grade-school notions of democracy and voting.
People of goodwill don’t impose themselves on others politically any more than they do militarily. Libertarianism, with its goal of radically diminishing the scope of government and politics in our lives, offers a path to a more peaceful future. Only libertarians can claim the mantle of anti-authoritarianism, because only libertarians would deny government the power and size to become authoritarian. The political world isn’t working, so why do we insist on more politics to fix it?
If we return to the Constitution and the 14th Amend (equal under the law) then the government caused race problems go away.
I agree with a lot of what Jeff says but I don’t agree that Libertairianism is the way to fix the problem. Jeff suggests that we substitute a bunch of big government fascists with a bunch of small government fascists. I can’t see how that would make anything better. But I do think that he is correct in the rest of it. A system such as ours, a constitutional representative republic, is in no way a democracy. It was never intended to be a democracy. Your vote, right from day one, was shielded from the seats of power by long election cycles and great distances. The electoral college was not placed there by accident. It was to take the reigns of power out of the hands of the stupid rabble…you, me, us. The obvious purpose was to disabuse you of the great injustice that has always been the u.s of a. They rule. They decide. They cause the wars. You get to fight them though. That’s your part.
It’s not fair to suggest this without offering some alternative so here goes one. Now that we have the interwebs it is actually possible for all of us to participate in the representative democracy that we were promised all those years ago. Every vote by every corrupt politician can be placed before his constituents for their demands. If he does not vote according to the demands of his constituents then he is recalled and replaced. Immediately.
How do you think that would work? I don’t know but I do know that it is possible. One clear problem that a system such as this does no solve is the oppression of the masses. If everyone in merika demands that the muslims have to go back to where they came from…then they have to go back. How you moderate the demands of the unwashed masses in a system such as this is hard to see. What do you think?
Huh?
“If he does not vote according to the demands of his constituents then he is recalled and replaced. Immediately.”
How would this be accomplished… immediately? Keep the voting booths open 24/7/365? Maybe we could have a chosen “incorruptible” panel of “experts” or delegates at call centers to say yay or nay?
“One clear problem that a system such as this does no solve is the oppression of the masses. If everyone in merika demands that the muslims have to go back to where they came from…then they have to go back. How you moderate the demands of the unwashed masses in a system such as this is hard to see”
Who gives a fuck? Non-citizens have no say.
Iceland did something like this after their bankster crisis, the people were allowed to chime in via internet with ideas and solutions.
The simple problem with libertarianism is that it is an idealist’s ideal,
and people are never ideal.
Here’s a great article on Charlottesville
I get so sick and tired of idiots say there is very little between the parties.I will name a few Gun control , homosexually , affirmative action , Godlessness , abortion , Feminism , culture Marxism and on and on but you get the picture.
BB
Once they get in office, it’s one big happy party.
Nope. What is actually happening is this: people are starting to wake up to the impending genocide. Young white men are mostly because the brunt is currently falling on them. TPTB are trying to squash them so they can finish us off. They will sanitize our history and wipe us away if they succeed. The mistake they made was dancing on our grave before we’re quite dead. The boomer “conservatives” are content to be wiped out with nary a murmur lest they be called “racist”. The alt-lite (Milo, Loomer, Watson, Cermovich et al. are controlled opposition and/or trying to make a buck. I knew what Milo was about the first time I saw him. Amazingly, they’re failing to kill this. This is the beginning of an existential struggle. Libertarians want legalized drugs, sexual hedonism and laissez-faire capitalism. The real war entirely escapes them. I don’t blame you if you don’t see it yet. I’ve been following politics and culture wars for over twenty years, and I’ve just begun to realize the end game five years ago. I repeat: if you don’t see this yet, you will. This ain’t going away. (Admin wants to save his blog, so he keeps deleting things. That’s understandable. This is my Swan Song, if you will. I won’t be bothering anybody here anymore.)
Fuck you douchebag. I ain’t deleting shit you fuckwad. Go fuck yourself as your fucking swan song. I hate fucking whiny pussies like you.
What was deleted?
What a fucking tool! The white supremacists have been itching for a fight for a long time……..probably longer than you’ve been alive. While YT may in fact be waking up to what is going on, allowing or associating with scum that demonstrates with Nazi & KKK symbolism kills their efforts before they even build a head of steam.
The big takeaway I got was a bunch of scum using universally hated symbolism to destroy what might otherwise have been a legitimate message. The alt-right kicked their own asses and played right into the typical leftist traps. It’s like shooting ducks in a barrel for them.
For the alt-right, what’s the goal? What’s the plan? Who are the leaders? Where do we go from here? I’m a white guy with white guy interests but they don’t include associated with Nazi’s, Hitler, The Klan or wanna be Confederates regardless of how well intentioned they may be. N O T G O N N A H A P P E N . Not in my name.
Me thinks the left AND the right has you right where they want you……..being set up for further losses of freedom by ALL! Fucking ASSCLOWNS!
Sounds like some pent up impotence frustration coming out of you. And I’m not talking about your wiener.
“Not in my name.”
It’s fine to sit on the sidelines and rage.
@IS — spot on. This weekend was very powerful across most of the nation — people suddenly seem to have realized that both the left and the right are equally despicable. This is were Regeneracy has a place to grow — people will come together to take these marginalized groups and stick them further into a black hole. Both are fighting the inevitable — complete rejection of everything they stand for.
During the preparation ritual to Satan getting ready for the big charade you put on this weekend, did you take it up the butt from McAuliffe or was it the other way around?
IndenturedServant… are you with Ted Cruz and the left using violence to silence speech, or are you a genuine defender of speech even if you don’t like it?
“What has happened here is the left is establishing that some speech is able to be deemed unacceptable by the left, and then can be attacked violently, with government support. Now Ted Cruz is supporting them on that front by helping them attack someone who they are using as a proxy for the right. That will only increase leftist violence at conservative events in the future, probably even including Ted Cruz rallies.
If White Nationalists can’t speak their views in public, the left will assume that now they can determine other ideological ideas are also verboten. I don’t care if it is Nazis, socialists, or simple conservatives. If you use violence to shut down free speech, that is a grave threat to freedom.
What is egregious is the extent to which it has been going on. Hillary never had a violent attack on any of her rallies. Bernie never had anyone tell him he couldn’t espouse communism or socialism, even though they go exactly against the very spirit of American freedom. Our side innately accepts the idea of free speech and the rights of others to espouse differing viewpoints.
And yet every rally Donald held, featured violent leftists crashing it and starting fights. No right-wing speaker is allowed to speak at certain venues, because the protests against them will be so violent. That is an attack on the most foundational freedom in America. Ted should have treated it as such, and at least sought the same investigations of Antifa.
Had these White Nationalists been allowed to protest, in the same way they would have allowed the left to protest, there would never have been any problem with them. But just like at Berkeley, or a Donald Trump rally, the violent left swarmed in, and started the fight. Where is Ted Cruz on that?”
and it’s gonna get worse-from The Daily Caller,
“Left Wing Agitators Call 4 Escalated Tactics In Response To Charlottesville”
http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/14/left-wing-agitators-call-for-escalated-tactics-in-response-to-charlottesville/
Actually, Nazis were Socialists, so they shouldn’t have been at an Alt-right rally to begin with. Probably plants from the left.
Following culture wars and politics a whopping twenty years, eh?
Please…
Trump just made the most ass-kissing statement yet: He said: “Racism is evil and those that cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs – including the KKK, Neo-nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to eveything we hold dear as Americans”
The ‘white supremacist’ organizations were having a peaceful rally. I’m sure they had a permit. The violence came from the Left counter demonstrators (probably bused in by Soros).
Yes, whites have much higher IQ’s – have invented everything under the sun, including laws, government, sewer, water, electricity, medicine. I understand the supremacist’s point of view – all we hear about is social justice, BLM, rights of illegal aliens, and on and on.
Then one leftist said this morning in a press interview: Hate speech is not free speech – this is a large part of the problem – the media loves to pedal this kind of inflammatory rhetoric. Sells more news = ad revenue.
The funny thing is there really was no left as presently incarnated when this country was founded. There were the moralists/ strong central government types like John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall and the like (i.e. the federalists) and then there were the more libertarian founders like Thomas Jefferson (in writing only; not as President), James Madison (early on; not as President), John Calhoun, John Tyler and the like (i.e. the anti-federalists).
The federalists thought the end of government was justice; that is, certain men of superior moral quality should be imbued with the authority to dispense and enact that which is determined to be just. When everyone generally agrees on what is just, this type of political philosophy may work. When the definition of justice changes, this philosophy fails.
The anti-federalists on the other hand thought the end of government was liberty. They felt that justice was a bridge too far and would lead down the slippery slope to tyranny when and if the definition of justice morphs. This was not really a concern for the ani-federalists because the government would not be heavily involved in much of anything — if at all. They foresaw a future in which morals would slip (because they read history and understood human nature better) and thought it too great a risk to make bed fellows with the government.
The federalists thought otherwise and squandered the liberty of this country from the very get go; handing the modern day leftists the tools that would not have otherwise been available if the anti federalists prevailed.
This is not even considering the morally dubious foundations of the very concept of the state. It requires stealing in order to function (violating a Commandment if I am not mistaken) And it claims the right to forcibly coerce someone to comply with what you consider to be just. Once you get past murder, rape and stealing, almost everything else gets murky. This is why if government is valid at all, it must be inconspicuous, small and concern only those things that are unanimously (or nearly) agreed upon.
As it stands now, the morals and cultural norms of this country are so splintered that there appear to be two main option. The multiple sides can fight each other for the supremacy of their ideas (which is what we saw this weekend) or the multiple factions can be given their freedom and then they can associate with each other as they see fit.
Why would you fight if you can just disassociate and live the way you want to live anyway (which is what libertarianism offers by the way?) It must be because you are not confident that you can persuade the other party that your way is the truth. Hence you need the gun. Liberty is the very feature that makes us worthy of being the object of God’s affection and love. Toss it away at your own peril and be careful of who you make bedfellows with.
“It must be because you are not confident that you can persuade the other party that your way is the truth. Hence you need the gun.”
You also need the gun to defend against those who can’t persuade YOU to their way and will resort to the gun to try to force you.
Libertarianism has so far refused to pull out its gun in self defense in order to defend libertarianism against those using their guns to silence libertarianism.
“You also need the gun to defend against those who can’t persuade YOU to their way and will resort to the gun to try to force you.”
“Libertarianism has so far refused to pull out its gun in self defense in order to defend libertarianism against those using their guns to silence libertarianism.”
That is a good point, though I do not believe self defense violates the libertarian principle of non-aggression. It may very well violate the example of JC, but not one’s natural right to self defense.
Self defense is definitely supposed to be part and parcel with libertarianism.
The problem with most people identifying as libertarian is that there has been a distinct lack of self defense emerging. Thus the emergence of the alt-right which is heavily populated by libertarian/”Freedom” conservatives who have realized that there won’t be anything left at all if the right to self defense isn’t finally invoked.
he problem is self defense looks to many people like white supremacy. That’s because instinctively those on the left know what will happen if libertarian whites realize they really are in a legitimate self defense situation, not just a “let’s discuss ideas and let the ideas win in the marketplace of ideas” situation.
Self defense is definitely supposed to be part and parcel with libertarianism.
The problem with most people identifying as libertarian is that there has been a distinct lack of self defense emerging. Thus the emergence of the alt-right which is heavily populated by libertarian/”Freedom” conservatives who have realized that there won’t be anything left at all if the right to self defense isn’t finally invoked.
he problem is self defense looks to many people like white supremacy. That’s because instinctively those on the left know what will happen if libertarian whites realize they really are in a legitimate self defense situation, not just a “let’s discuss ideas and let the ideas win in the marketplace of ideas” situation.
Correct. The problem is that libertarianism hasn’t been pulling the gun in self defense.
Thus the pulling out of the alt-right. The alt-right is all the former libertarians and freedom conservatives who finally acknowledged that things had reached the point of justifiable self defense.
The problem is that to many people, even many libertarians, whites engaging in self defense feels a lot like white supremacy after so long of white guilt.
I thought it was deliciously ironic when the leftist fascists went full retard and named themselves anti-fa. Now the new alt-right has gone full retard as well by associating with the one thing guaranteed to bring them failure and they did it knowing full well that the media is owned and controlled by jews who WILL dictate the message THEY want to the masses.
Never in a million years could you have dreamed up such a fantasy scenario of idiocy prior to it actually happening.
This shit is like watching cartoons……and not in a good way. Squeak and squeal all you want the left owns the new alt-right movement and it was delivered on a silver platter.
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2017/08/stupidity-is-no-substitute-for-strategy.html
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2017/08/neocons-20.html
Get it through your head Mr. Frustration… the alt-right is a LOT bigger than the hitler memes and nazi flag wavers.
Now you can sit there and stew in your own putrid weakness freaking out everytime something doesn’t go your way, or you can pick your chin up and start to look at the bigger picture happening around you and figure out who are the only people building alternative platforms to leftist dominated businesses and showing some actual stones to defend the things you supposedly care about regardless of the problems that come with doing so… including having to deal with some people joining in that they don’t agree much with.
Someone recently coined a phrase, “cosmopolitan bias”. It captures a mindset not limited to the big cities but largely started and found there, “I’m more special than you are”. Because I’m a liberal New Yorker, I’m better than those hicks in Kansas or Alabama; because I’m a liberal Los Angeles denizen, I’m better than those hicks in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that cost Hillary the election. Not only am I better,
but I know better than you do.
Know better how society should function, be organized, should THINK.
Know better how the world works, how societies work, how EVERYTHING should work.
And not only that, I get to tell you how you should live. At regulation-point, money-point or GUN-point, if you refuse to listen.
And you don’t get a say. However you lived before I came along is irrelevant; I know the truth, all you have is lies, hatred and racism-sexism-homophobism-badism of every stripe and flavor; YOU have to listen and obey.
I OWN YOU, mind, soul and body.
THAT is what Antifa, SJWs, BLMs, MSMs and FedGovs think.
YOU will have to disabuse them of these notions, if you are to live freely in your own ways with your own ideas. Choose how, when and where; or become their slave.
Fact is the alt-right…….new and old got fucking pwned this past weekend. Perfectly destroyed.
I sincerely doubt they’ll recover with the media now fully in charge of directing the message.
Tea Party – 0
Alt-right – 0
New alt-right – negative 1,000,000
Anyone who’s been here long enough will likely recall that I called this shit years ago………some fringe group would go full retard and bring down hell on all the good being attempted.
No goal. No Plan. No leadership. = Full on fail. Enjoy assclowns!
IndenturedServant falls for leftist narrative about the weekend.
IndenturedServant, supposedly an anti-leftist… couldn’t be more happy.
IndenturedServant right now:
Alt-Right right now:
political party = dangerous cult
apolitical makes you the enemy of political cults
dangerous cults do not hold rational beliefs but dangerous cult beliefs
get the picture ?
Ol’ Rip’s awakened! The South will rise again!
IS has it right. KKK is captured by the left(at the top). Their leadership is using the rank and file ,who are toothless dumbasses, to discredit the legitimate and rational right. The same goes for the Nazi’s. Except they were created by George Lincoln Rockwell for the same reason stated above.
Eighty percent of what they advocate is good and true. That is just to suck in the dupes to Hate Jews and commit violent acts to discredit the whole alt right.
IS is currently behaving as a virtue signalling keyboard larper who is afraid of being called a nazi the way shitlib whites are afraid of being called racists, even though just by posting here he’s gonna be lumped in with nazis whether he wants to be or not.
So long as someone is afraid of being called a nazi then the left still owns them.
Example: Being unafraid of being called a racist and not losing your shit if you do hear a racist comment doesn’t make a person a racist… but being afraid of being called a racist guarantees you will always be licking the gender-queer boots of the left.
“discredit the whole alt right.”
You say this as if there will ever be a single moment the left won’t be trying to discredit the right using lies.
pull out the stopper
let’s have a whopper
but get me to the church on time..
I think that this weekend helped our side,Nazis or not.
People seeing and reading about this who are not already biased against us will come around to our side.
That is especially true if Antifa gets more violent,as they are talking about doing.
More left wing violence planned–
and why don’t the republicans investigate soros?
http://investmentwatchblog.com/the-radical-left-funded-by-george-soros-planning-more-racially-fueled-attacks-in-seattle-baltimore-and-kentucky/
this is a partial article from tothepointnews-i only subscribe to the free side but look at the tweets from this reporter–
http://www.tothepointnews.com/