0 comment Friday, June 27, 2014 | admin
More ''lighthouses in a foggy world'', with some wisdom on these subjects.
Liberty, equality, fraternity -- and democracy:
"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people... Be not intimidated, therefore, by any terrors, from publishing with the utmost freedom...nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberty by any pretenses of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice."
-- John Adams
"When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers, just men who will rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty; if the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made not for the public good so much as for the selfish or local purposes. Corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the Laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded. If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the Laws." - Noah Webster, History of the United States
"The destiny of any nation at any given time depends on the opinion of its young people, those under twenty-five." - Goethe
''If men use their liberty in such a way as to surrender their liberty, are they thereafter any the less slaves? If people by a plebiscite elect a man despot over them, do they remain free because the despotism was of their own making?" - Herbert Spencer, The New Toryism, 1884
"I could see how 'democracy' might do very well in a society of saints and sages led by an Alfred or an Antoninus Pius. Short of that, I was unable to see how it could come to anything but an ad-hocracy of mass-men led by a sagacious knave. The collective capacity for bringing forth any other outcome seemed simply not there. To my ideas the incident of Aristides and the Athenian mass-man was perfectly exhibitory of 'democracy' in practice. Socrates could not have got votes enough out of the Athenian mass-men to be worth counting, but Eubulus easily could, and did, wangle enough to keep himself in office as long as the corrupt fabric of the Athenian State held together. As against a Jesus, the historic choice of the mass-man goes regularly to some Barabbas." - Albert Jay Nock, Memoirs
"A democracy is a state in which the poor, gaining the upper hand, kill some and banish others, and then divide the offices among the remaining citizens equally, usually by lot." - Plato, The Republic, VIII
"Democracy arose from men thinking that if they are equal in any respect they are equal in all respects." - Aristotle, Politics
"A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments." - Aristotle, Rhetoric
"If there were a nation of gods they would be governed democratically, but so perfect a government is not suitable to men.'' - Rousseau, Du contrat social, III
"Equality may exist only among slaves." - Aristotle
"Equality is a slogan based on envy. It signifies in the heart of every republican: 'Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I.� - Alexis de Tocqueville
"Political equality is against nature. Social equality is against nature. Economic equality is against nature. The idea of equality is subversive of order.'' - Edmund Burke
''There is nothing more unequal, than the equal treatment of unequal people.'' - Thomas Jefferson
"It is inequality that gives enlargement to religion, to intellect, to energy, to virtue, to love and to wealth. Equality of intellect stabilizes mediocrity. Equality of wealth makes all men poor. Equality of religion destroys all creeds. Equality of energy renders all men sluggards. Equality of virtue suspends all men without the gates of Heaven. Equality of love stultifies every manly passion, destroys every family altar and mongrelizes the races of men. Equality homogenizes so that cream does not rise to the top. It puts the eagle in the hen house so that he may no longer soar." - R. Carter Pittman
"The acceptance of democracy by all European nations is deadly for the proper governorship, freedom, law, order, respect of authority and religion, and at the end will lead to chaos, out of which will appear the worldwide tyranny" - The Duke of Northumberland
"Democracy does not exist for a long time - it wastes, exhausts and destroys itself. There was never a democracy that didn't kill itself" Samuel Adams
"The American form of government is the republic. The true freedom does not exist either under despotism or excesses of democracy" Alexander Hamilton
"Democracy always leads to conflicts and instability, but never provides for the security of the citizens or their property. Usually it is very short at life, and very bloody at death" -- James Madison
"Between republic and democracy there is the same difference as between order and chaos" - John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
"Democracy is the rule of mobs, tempted by newspaper editors" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
''Enforced fraternity destroys liberty.'' - Frederic Bastiat
Labels: Democracy, Egalitarianism, Equality, Founding Fathers, Politics, Quotations
0 comment Friday, June 13, 2014 | admin
Here/s a rather interesting post at What's Wrong With the World, having to do with today's 'conservatism' and its relation to the dominant liberalism of our time.
"Conservatism" is in our time not conservatism but right-liberalism: political liberalism with a few 'conservative' unprincipled exceptions. The exceptions are unprincipled in the sense that they are not founded in our liberalism, and we for the most part don't recognize their incompatibility with our own liberalism. For a while that meant that 'conservatism' was classical liberalism; now it means, for the most part, culturally 'big tent' neoconservatism. In general it means 'whatever liberalism was about 30 or 50 years ago'.
So looking beyond the election of this very moment, the way to beat the Left politically, and (among other things) effectively save the children being massacred by the acolytes of Moloch -- the only way to beat the Left politically, as an eminently practical concern -- is to stop becoming the Left, through a quasi-Hegelian process which seems to take about two generations.''
In this post, Zippy Catholic decries the lack of an ''anchor political conservatism" which would be an effective counter to the dominant core worldview of the liberal.
The first commenter on the thread asks for a definition of liberalism, and then asks ''What is the antithesis of liberalism?"
I've read the existing comments, and there are several, but it seems no one has come up with a solid definition as requested.
We've covered similar territory on this blog, as my longtime readers will remember. So I won't attempt to re-plow that same ground, but any of you who can offer a good definition of liberalism are welcome to do so.
The whole discussion also brings into play the idea of liberty vs. equality, which has also been a recurring discussion on this blog, and it is an important idea that is not discussed or considered as it should be today. It is very much at the heart of what distinguishes liberals and 'conservatives', though of course I will reiterate that even 'conservatives' these days are imbued with the core ideas of liberalism. And the idea of liberty and freedom are constant themes on both ends of the political spectrum, though each side has differing ideas on what actually constitutes 'liberty' or freedom. Both sides constantly evoke 'liberty' and 'freedom' and yet they are not saying the same things when they use those words.
Do liberals, for example, support freedom of association? Their support of anti-discrimination laws, which deny freedom of association, show that they ultimately don't believe we have freedom of association.
Do they support our freedom to arm ourselves? .
Or our right to freedom of speech and freedom of thought? Only if we use that 'freedom' to say politically correct things, or to think the correct liberal thoughts.
And on it goes.
But the liberal worldview is terribly flawed in that it believes that 'equality' can coexist with freedom or liberty.
The discussion makes me think of this statement by Alexander Hamilton:
Inequality will exist as long as liberty exists. It unavoidably results from that very liberty itself. ''
Liberals don't see, or refuse to see, that we cannot ever have equality without some kind of strong hand to enforce it, which inevitably restricts freedom and liberty.
'Equal housing opportunity' means that landlords lose their right to rent to people of their choosing. And landlords are allowed to discriminate based on credit ratings, income, employment and various other things, but they are forbidden to discriminate on racial/ethnic/religious grounds, because ''all men are created equal.''
(Jefferson obviously lacked prescience when he insisted on that phrase; he obviously didn't foresee the perverted uses to which that phrase has been put.)
Equal opportunity in employment has come to mean affirmative action requirements, filling slots with people of the requisite color or ethnicity, or gender.
The illusory goal of equal outcomes in education has meant the dumbing-down of the schools nationwide, as well as the denial of the right of the majority students to get a good education. The many are being sacrificed in the name of the self-esteem of the few -- all for the sake of preserving this fallacy that we are all equal, if we only 'level the playing field' and rig the system to help the less able to 'excel'.
The recent sub-prime mortgage debacle (which is still playing out) was in large part likely traceable to the misguided effort to create 'equality' in home ownership and to bring minorities into more 'exclusive' neighborhoods previously dominated by Whites.
The effort to stamp out all vestiges of 'discrimination' has meant the stamping-out of standards in every area of life -- so as to try to establish an unnatural 'equality' which can only be maintained, if it is ever achieved, with more coercive government action and more propaganda to keep people from thinking inappropriate thoughts or holding politically incorrect ideas which question 'equality,'
Lord Acton said, many years ago, ''The deepest cause which made the French Revolution so disastrous to liberty was its theory of equality."
It seems obvious that if the utopian idea of creating absolute equality between peoples is paramount, as it is in liberalism, liberty will suffer, as in fact it is suffering.
And it follows that if Obama is elected, this obsession with enforcing 'equality' will be carried to even greater extremes than it is at present.
The consequences for liberty and for our American freedoms will be considerable, especially when we now live in a society in which ethnic/racial groups contend fiercely to further their own interests only, without regard to the general welfare.
Kinsman John Randolph long ago said:
"The principle of liberty and equality, if coupled only with mere selfishness, will make men only devils, each trying to be independent that he may fight only for his own interest."
And to return to the subject of 'core beliefs' of conservatism, one of the ways in which today's conservatives have been subverted by liberalism is the embrace of a kind of faux-populism or egalitarianism. Just wander over to any of the big Republican forums and notice the great number of comments disparaging any kind of social hierarchy; everybody professes to be a hard-core egalitarian and (small-d) democrat and disparages the idea of social ranks. Because our forefathers rejected British royal rule, we tend to jeer the whole idea of aristocracy or royalty. However, the idea of a monarchy in this country was considered, and we've probably all heard that George Washington was offered the crown, though he declined it.
But it seems that most American conservatives embrace the idea of 'democracy' although our forefathers rightly disdained that idea, and they embrace 'equality' as an abstract idea, often without really considering what that ideal implies if followed to its extreme, as with the liberals and leftists.
As to some kind of conservative credo or set of core principles, it seems that every now and then, even here on this blog, somebody calls for a 'conservative credo' or manifesto, and decries our lack of an ideology. But it seems to me that 'ideology' as such implies a set of abstract principles, which, by their abstract nature, tend to become disembodied and lacking a grounding in real human experience. Liberals are very ideological, which is the reason for their disconnect with human nature, and for their perpetual attempt to re-make human nature after their ideological pipe-dreams.
Russell Kirk was adamant that conservatism and ideology don't go together.
His 'Ten Conservative Principles' can be found at the link.
The cry of the Obamanistas is 'Change' and transformation. This is typically liberal: change for its own sake, seeking change without regard for the consequences to the larger society, the rush to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Kirk says, of 'progress' and permanence:
Therefore the intelligent conservative endeavors to reconcile the claims of Permanence and the claims of Progression. He thinks that the liberal and the radical, blind to the just claims of Permanence, would endanger the heritage bequeathed to us, in an endeavor to hurry us into some dubious Terrestrial Paradise. The conservative, in short, favors reasoned and temperate progress; he is opposed to the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old.
Change is essential to the body social, the conservative reasons, just as it is essential to the human body. A body that has ceased to renew itself has begun to die. But if that body is to be vigorous, the change must occur in a regular manner, harmonizing with the form and nature of that body; otherwise change produces a monstrous growth, a cancer, which devours its host. The conservative takes care that nothing in a society should ever be wholly old, and that nothing should ever be wholly new. This is the means of the conservation of a nation, quite as it is the means of conservation of a living organism. Just how much change a society requires, and what sort of change, depend upon the circumstances of an age and a nation.''
As to a manifesto or a plan which we need to counter the left, or as to a plan for restoring what has been lost to liberalism's manic quest for utopia, we have an adequate blueprint in the traditional society that existed in America over the last few centuries. Look to the past for the core values and principles on which we sustained this country. Our ancestors were wise people; they weren't perfect, and no perfect society exists. Traditional American ways served us very well, up until the upheavals of the 50s, 60s and thereafter. What has happened since then has been a disaster; first, in rather slow motion, but now accelerating to a dangerous speed.
And there are too few ''standing athwart history, yelling 'stop'!' these days.
"Conservatism" is in our time not conservatism but right-liberalism: political liberalism with a few 'conservative' unprincipled exceptions. The exceptions are unprincipled in the sense that they are not founded in our liberalism, and we for the most part don't recognize their incompatibility with our own liberalism. For a while that meant that 'conservatism' was classical liberalism; now it means, for the most part, culturally 'big tent' neoconservatism. In general it means 'whatever liberalism was about 30 or 50 years ago'.
So looking beyond the election of this very moment, the way to beat the Left politically, and (among other things) effectively save the children being massacred by the acolytes of Moloch -- the only way to beat the Left politically, as an eminently practical concern -- is to stop becoming the Left, through a quasi-Hegelian process which seems to take about two generations.''
In this post, Zippy Catholic decries the lack of an ''anchor political conservatism" which would be an effective counter to the dominant core worldview of the liberal.
The first commenter on the thread asks for a definition of liberalism, and then asks ''What is the antithesis of liberalism?"
I've read the existing comments, and there are several, but it seems no one has come up with a solid definition as requested.
We've covered similar territory on this blog, as my longtime readers will remember. So I won't attempt to re-plow that same ground, but any of you who can offer a good definition of liberalism are welcome to do so.
The whole discussion also brings into play the idea of liberty vs. equality, which has also been a recurring discussion on this blog, and it is an important idea that is not discussed or considered as it should be today. It is very much at the heart of what distinguishes liberals and 'conservatives', though of course I will reiterate that even 'conservatives' these days are imbued with the core ideas of liberalism. And the idea of liberty and freedom are constant themes on both ends of the political spectrum, though each side has differing ideas on what actually constitutes 'liberty' or freedom. Both sides constantly evoke 'liberty' and 'freedom' and yet they are not saying the same things when they use those words.
Do liberals, for example, support freedom of association? Their support of anti-discrimination laws, which deny freedom of association, show that they ultimately don't believe we have freedom of association.
Do they support our freedom to arm ourselves? .
Or our right to freedom of speech and freedom of thought? Only if we use that 'freedom' to say politically correct things, or to think the correct liberal thoughts.
And on it goes.
But the liberal worldview is terribly flawed in that it believes that 'equality' can coexist with freedom or liberty.
The discussion makes me think of this statement by Alexander Hamilton:
Inequality will exist as long as liberty exists. It unavoidably results from that very liberty itself. ''
Liberals don't see, or refuse to see, that we cannot ever have equality without some kind of strong hand to enforce it, which inevitably restricts freedom and liberty.
'Equal housing opportunity' means that landlords lose their right to rent to people of their choosing. And landlords are allowed to discriminate based on credit ratings, income, employment and various other things, but they are forbidden to discriminate on racial/ethnic/religious grounds, because ''all men are created equal.''
(Jefferson obviously lacked prescience when he insisted on that phrase; he obviously didn't foresee the perverted uses to which that phrase has been put.)
Equal opportunity in employment has come to mean affirmative action requirements, filling slots with people of the requisite color or ethnicity, or gender.
The illusory goal of equal outcomes in education has meant the dumbing-down of the schools nationwide, as well as the denial of the right of the majority students to get a good education. The many are being sacrificed in the name of the self-esteem of the few -- all for the sake of preserving this fallacy that we are all equal, if we only 'level the playing field' and rig the system to help the less able to 'excel'.
The recent sub-prime mortgage debacle (which is still playing out) was in large part likely traceable to the misguided effort to create 'equality' in home ownership and to bring minorities into more 'exclusive' neighborhoods previously dominated by Whites.
The effort to stamp out all vestiges of 'discrimination' has meant the stamping-out of standards in every area of life -- so as to try to establish an unnatural 'equality' which can only be maintained, if it is ever achieved, with more coercive government action and more propaganda to keep people from thinking inappropriate thoughts or holding politically incorrect ideas which question 'equality,'
Lord Acton said, many years ago, ''The deepest cause which made the French Revolution so disastrous to liberty was its theory of equality."
It seems obvious that if the utopian idea of creating absolute equality between peoples is paramount, as it is in liberalism, liberty will suffer, as in fact it is suffering.
And it follows that if Obama is elected, this obsession with enforcing 'equality' will be carried to even greater extremes than it is at present.
The consequences for liberty and for our American freedoms will be considerable, especially when we now live in a society in which ethnic/racial groups contend fiercely to further their own interests only, without regard to the general welfare.
Kinsman John Randolph long ago said:
"The principle of liberty and equality, if coupled only with mere selfishness, will make men only devils, each trying to be independent that he may fight only for his own interest."
And to return to the subject of 'core beliefs' of conservatism, one of the ways in which today's conservatives have been subverted by liberalism is the embrace of a kind of faux-populism or egalitarianism. Just wander over to any of the big Republican forums and notice the great number of comments disparaging any kind of social hierarchy; everybody professes to be a hard-core egalitarian and (small-d) democrat and disparages the idea of social ranks. Because our forefathers rejected British royal rule, we tend to jeer the whole idea of aristocracy or royalty. However, the idea of a monarchy in this country was considered, and we've probably all heard that George Washington was offered the crown, though he declined it.
But it seems that most American conservatives embrace the idea of 'democracy' although our forefathers rightly disdained that idea, and they embrace 'equality' as an abstract idea, often without really considering what that ideal implies if followed to its extreme, as with the liberals and leftists.
As to some kind of conservative credo or set of core principles, it seems that every now and then, even here on this blog, somebody calls for a 'conservative credo' or manifesto, and decries our lack of an ideology. But it seems to me that 'ideology' as such implies a set of abstract principles, which, by their abstract nature, tend to become disembodied and lacking a grounding in real human experience. Liberals are very ideological, which is the reason for their disconnect with human nature, and for their perpetual attempt to re-make human nature after their ideological pipe-dreams.
Russell Kirk was adamant that conservatism and ideology don't go together.
His 'Ten Conservative Principles' can be found at the link.
The cry of the Obamanistas is 'Change' and transformation. This is typically liberal: change for its own sake, seeking change without regard for the consequences to the larger society, the rush to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Kirk says, of 'progress' and permanence:
Therefore the intelligent conservative endeavors to reconcile the claims of Permanence and the claims of Progression. He thinks that the liberal and the radical, blind to the just claims of Permanence, would endanger the heritage bequeathed to us, in an endeavor to hurry us into some dubious Terrestrial Paradise. The conservative, in short, favors reasoned and temperate progress; he is opposed to the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old.
Change is essential to the body social, the conservative reasons, just as it is essential to the human body. A body that has ceased to renew itself has begun to die. But if that body is to be vigorous, the change must occur in a regular manner, harmonizing with the form and nature of that body; otherwise change produces a monstrous growth, a cancer, which devours its host. The conservative takes care that nothing in a society should ever be wholly old, and that nothing should ever be wholly new. This is the means of the conservation of a nation, quite as it is the means of conservation of a living organism. Just how much change a society requires, and what sort of change, depend upon the circumstances of an age and a nation.''
As to a manifesto or a plan which we need to counter the left, or as to a plan for restoring what has been lost to liberalism's manic quest for utopia, we have an adequate blueprint in the traditional society that existed in America over the last few centuries. Look to the past for the core values and principles on which we sustained this country. Our ancestors were wise people; they weren't perfect, and no perfect society exists. Traditional American ways served us very well, up until the upheavals of the 50s, 60s and thereafter. What has happened since then has been a disaster; first, in rather slow motion, but now accelerating to a dangerous speed.
And there are too few ''standing athwart history, yelling 'stop'!' these days.
Labels: Conservative Principles, Creeping Liberalism, Egalitarianism, Equality, Faux Conservatism, Liberty
0 comment Monday, April 28, 2014 | admin
After 20 years, Obama has decided to cut his ties with his Afrocentrist 'church.'
Obama quits Trinity
...announced Saturday evening that he had resigned from his controversial Chicago congregation, Trinity United Church of Christ, "with some sadness."
[...]
The move completes Obama�s slow walk away from a church that began receiving huge scrutiny late in the campaign�s primary season.
Obama has said he was not present for the most controversial sermons, and said he did not know about them until he began running for president."
Meanwhile, did you know that we Americans elect two presidents, one for us and the other for The World?
So says Simon Jenkins in a piece from the UK Times, dated March 9, 2008:
One belongs to domestic America but the other belongs to the world.
The first president is America�s business. While those who know and love that country may be concerned at its economic and political health - and therefore intrigued by the contest - this president is the one most voters have in mind.
The globalised president is a different matter. This leader must represent America�s values - and consequent actions - everywhere that is touched by American policy. His or her decisions benefit or afflict millions of people, rich and poor, in dozens of countries on every continent. Yet they have no vote.
Iraqis, Afghans, Palestinians, Israelis, Pakistanis, Colombians, Brazilians, Russians, Chinese have no means of saying yes or no to decisions taken in Washington that may intimately affect their families, their security, their jobs and prospects. Nobody accounts to them or invites them to any caucus. Few of them enjoy democratic privileges even in their own countries. Yet the next president of the United States can mean life or death.
[...]
All three presidential candidates have qualifications to be this global president. In public statements they have acknowledged the strategic mistakes made in America�s attempt to police the world through a "war on terror". All have proposals for restoring America�s relations with the world.
[...]
The candidates for the global presidency will not be judged by experience, programme, oratory or novelty. They will not be judged by the prospect of likely success in office, which is always unknowable in foreign affairs. Few American presidents are seen to have been successes on leaving office. The art of presidency is that of managing perceived failure. The candidates will rather be judged by what they symbolise, by the package of expectations that they carry with them to the White House. Here it is simply incontrovertible that the election of Barack Obama would transform, indeed electrify, America�s image worldwide.''
The Jenkins piece is referenced in The Week magazine, in a piece called How they see us: What a black president would mean for Europe
I don't think this piece is online; it's in my hard copy which just arrived in the mail.
The piece also quotes Francois Durpraire in the Paris Libération as saying that the 'disaffected youths' who were 'venting their frustration and hopelessness' in the recent riots and car burnings are now inspired by Obama, so much so that they now have "something to smile about." Obama, we're told, has the ''power to inspire pride and hope even in the slums of another continent. Think about that. Much has been written about what an Obama presidency could do for race relations in the U.S., but only now are people starting to realize that a win by Obama could even improve race relations here in Europe."
Next, the same piece in The Week tells us that Thomas Klau in Germany's Financial Times Deutschland finds this an uncomfortable thought -- but only because it would dismay Germany that 'barbarous, immature America'' could be the first to elect a black President. He says it would force Germans "to ask ourselves questions we have never asked before....We Germans pride ourselves on our social tolerance and progressive thinking, but come election time we take it for granted that all major candidates will be white-skinned.'' This would lead to some kind of crisis of conscience, apparently, and the appearance of 'cracks' in Europe's self-image. Painful soul-searching in Europe will ensue, so he says, if we barbarous Americans elect a black President first.
Now, Germany has a population of 82 million plus. 91.2 percent of the population is German.
2.1 percent are Turkish, and 6.7 percent are ''other'', including other European nationalities. So why on earth should Germany feel it's necessary to elect a black President?
And why should France concern itself with how the rioters feel about having a black President of the United States?
More to the point, why should we Americans concern ourselves with what others want, especially non-Europeans occupying Europe?
There should not be a 'global presidency'. Unfortunately, that seems to be what we have now, and the candidates we are being told to choose between are all globalists who will, in fact, not be representing our interests in any meaningful way.
But to return to the Simon Jenkins piece, despite the obvious fact that he neither knows nor ''loves'' the America that I know and love, he does touch on something that I've emphasized here: the symbolic significance of a black President. He implies that the non-white world everywhere will see Obama's election as a triumph for them. He puts it in syrupy liberal terms, referring to ''hope" for these poor underprivileged "youths'' in Europe, but it's evident that they will see it as a sign that the sun has set on whitey's ascendancy, and their day will have come.
This idea that we ''ought'' to have a black President is another one of those contradictory liberal ideas. Race doesn't matter, and it's wrong to choose based on racial criteria, so we've heard for 50 years and more. Now, suddenly, it's right to choose Obama because of his race.
And the idea implicit in this cheering for the election of a non-white President is that he is superior based on his race. His racial makeup qualifies him in a unique way to be President. So race does matter, the liberals are now admitting; and not only that, but it appears that the black race is superior in some way to the White race. And all these years we've been hearing that the races are absolutely equal. So Obama can do what a White President could not do; only a President with African genes and sufficient melanin in his skin can 'inspire' and 'give hope.'
Monochrome would become colour. A drone of antagonism would turn into a cry of pleasure. With the genes of an Irish-American and a Kenyan, and the nurture of Hawaii, Indonesia and Chicago, Obama has personal roots in four continents.''
What a load of multiculti claptrap and self-abasing Afro-olatry Mr. Jenkins dispenses. And by the way: why should some sort of rootless cosmopolitan outsider be preferred as our President?
In choosing a president for a world half of which America seeks to evangelise, voters could hardly find a candidate better cast. He embodies a yearning expectation of a new contract and a new beginning.'
The fact that Jenkins and all the other servile White liberals yearn for their own people to be overthrown and displaced in favor of resentful outsiders is an appalling commentary on our age. Much of the world seems to have gone collectively insane.
Obama quits Trinity
...announced Saturday evening that he had resigned from his controversial Chicago congregation, Trinity United Church of Christ, "with some sadness."
[...]
The move completes Obama�s slow walk away from a church that began receiving huge scrutiny late in the campaign�s primary season.
Obama has said he was not present for the most controversial sermons, and said he did not know about them until he began running for president."
Meanwhile, did you know that we Americans elect two presidents, one for us and the other for The World?
So says Simon Jenkins in a piece from the UK Times, dated March 9, 2008:
One belongs to domestic America but the other belongs to the world.
The first president is America�s business. While those who know and love that country may be concerned at its economic and political health - and therefore intrigued by the contest - this president is the one most voters have in mind.
The globalised president is a different matter. This leader must represent America�s values - and consequent actions - everywhere that is touched by American policy. His or her decisions benefit or afflict millions of people, rich and poor, in dozens of countries on every continent. Yet they have no vote.
Iraqis, Afghans, Palestinians, Israelis, Pakistanis, Colombians, Brazilians, Russians, Chinese have no means of saying yes or no to decisions taken in Washington that may intimately affect their families, their security, their jobs and prospects. Nobody accounts to them or invites them to any caucus. Few of them enjoy democratic privileges even in their own countries. Yet the next president of the United States can mean life or death.
[...]
All three presidential candidates have qualifications to be this global president. In public statements they have acknowledged the strategic mistakes made in America�s attempt to police the world through a "war on terror". All have proposals for restoring America�s relations with the world.
[...]
The candidates for the global presidency will not be judged by experience, programme, oratory or novelty. They will not be judged by the prospect of likely success in office, which is always unknowable in foreign affairs. Few American presidents are seen to have been successes on leaving office. The art of presidency is that of managing perceived failure. The candidates will rather be judged by what they symbolise, by the package of expectations that they carry with them to the White House. Here it is simply incontrovertible that the election of Barack Obama would transform, indeed electrify, America�s image worldwide.''
The Jenkins piece is referenced in The Week magazine, in a piece called How they see us: What a black president would mean for Europe
I don't think this piece is online; it's in my hard copy which just arrived in the mail.
The piece also quotes Francois Durpraire in the Paris Libération as saying that the 'disaffected youths' who were 'venting their frustration and hopelessness' in the recent riots and car burnings are now inspired by Obama, so much so that they now have "something to smile about." Obama, we're told, has the ''power to inspire pride and hope even in the slums of another continent. Think about that. Much has been written about what an Obama presidency could do for race relations in the U.S., but only now are people starting to realize that a win by Obama could even improve race relations here in Europe."
Next, the same piece in The Week tells us that Thomas Klau in Germany's Financial Times Deutschland finds this an uncomfortable thought -- but only because it would dismay Germany that 'barbarous, immature America'' could be the first to elect a black President. He says it would force Germans "to ask ourselves questions we have never asked before....We Germans pride ourselves on our social tolerance and progressive thinking, but come election time we take it for granted that all major candidates will be white-skinned.'' This would lead to some kind of crisis of conscience, apparently, and the appearance of 'cracks' in Europe's self-image. Painful soul-searching in Europe will ensue, so he says, if we barbarous Americans elect a black President first.
Now, Germany has a population of 82 million plus. 91.2 percent of the population is German.
2.1 percent are Turkish, and 6.7 percent are ''other'', including other European nationalities. So why on earth should Germany feel it's necessary to elect a black President?
And why should France concern itself with how the rioters feel about having a black President of the United States?
More to the point, why should we Americans concern ourselves with what others want, especially non-Europeans occupying Europe?
There should not be a 'global presidency'. Unfortunately, that seems to be what we have now, and the candidates we are being told to choose between are all globalists who will, in fact, not be representing our interests in any meaningful way.
But to return to the Simon Jenkins piece, despite the obvious fact that he neither knows nor ''loves'' the America that I know and love, he does touch on something that I've emphasized here: the symbolic significance of a black President. He implies that the non-white world everywhere will see Obama's election as a triumph for them. He puts it in syrupy liberal terms, referring to ''hope" for these poor underprivileged "youths'' in Europe, but it's evident that they will see it as a sign that the sun has set on whitey's ascendancy, and their day will have come.
This idea that we ''ought'' to have a black President is another one of those contradictory liberal ideas. Race doesn't matter, and it's wrong to choose based on racial criteria, so we've heard for 50 years and more. Now, suddenly, it's right to choose Obama because of his race.
And the idea implicit in this cheering for the election of a non-white President is that he is superior based on his race. His racial makeup qualifies him in a unique way to be President. So race does matter, the liberals are now admitting; and not only that, but it appears that the black race is superior in some way to the White race. And all these years we've been hearing that the races are absolutely equal. So Obama can do what a White President could not do; only a President with African genes and sufficient melanin in his skin can 'inspire' and 'give hope.'
Monochrome would become colour. A drone of antagonism would turn into a cry of pleasure. With the genes of an Irish-American and a Kenyan, and the nurture of Hawaii, Indonesia and Chicago, Obama has personal roots in four continents.''
What a load of multiculti claptrap and self-abasing Afro-olatry Mr. Jenkins dispenses. And by the way: why should some sort of rootless cosmopolitan outsider be preferred as our President?
In choosing a president for a world half of which America seeks to evangelise, voters could hardly find a candidate better cast. He embodies a yearning expectation of a new contract and a new beginning.'
The fact that Jenkins and all the other servile White liberals yearn for their own people to be overthrown and displaced in favor of resentful outsiders is an appalling commentary on our age. Much of the world seems to have gone collectively insane.
Labels: Anti-White Racism, Equality, Europe, Political Correctness, Presidential Candidates