Blog Archive

Sunday, May 8, 2016

Devolution



The more I have learned about the American Right, in my long study of the matter, the more I've refined who I'm worried about.
I've worried the most about what can now easily be labeled the Cruz Wing...specifically, that nest of NAR(new apostolic revival), Dominionists and Reconstructionists all under the billowing tent of Fundyvelical My Way or the High Way-ism that would impose Biblical(or Noahide(!!) Law upon us, stone the gays, burn people like me and make America into an inadvertent carbon copy of what they think Hell is like.
Think David Barton and Sarah Palin...think Duggars...and that preacher guy that Cruz buddied up with who yelled a lot and had meltdowns about gay people.
Sure, they're ludicrous...but they're also dead serious about what they want to do.
But for now, Cruz and his Iron Hordes are out.

Now it's Trump.
One of the groups of loonies that constitutes his “base” is something called Alt-Right...including some real crazy people who advocate a literal End to the Enlightenment and Neomonarchism.
(http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2013/11/neo-reactionaries-drop-all-pretense-end.html)
To be fair, they are rather diverse...some only want Corporations to be the new countries, of which we will be “citizens”, ruled by a Board and a CEO(king-like).
They like Hans-Hermann Hoppe(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Hermann_Hoppe#Expulsion_of_homosexuals_and_political_dissidents_from_Hoppe.27s_libertarian_order)
and Joseph de Maistre, and many of them seem to really, non-ironically, dig Hitler and Il Duce. There are White Nationalists, “Digerati”, Open Misogynists, virulent hatred of all things gay, and an almost universal opposition to Democracy and just about everything else that came from the Enlightenment(but they sure dig computers and the web and death rays and sech, which contradiction is as yet unexplained).
Petty and Vile:(http://therightstuff.biz/)
These people truly frighten me( meaning, I want them nowhere near Power, and would likely shoot them if I found them on my porch).
I've been aware of them for several years, but paid them little mind, as they seemed to be isolated people in far flung basements(neckbeards and cheeto-dust) who mostly hung out on 4-Chan and only occasionally came into the more or less civilised parts of the web in order to troll so they could (presumably) get their rocks off.
Now, I'm not so sure.
One of the first major conclusions(prime computations in mentat) I arrived at in my long term field study of the Right, was that there was a definite sense of wanting to undo the Enlightenment.
I think it's fundamental to the whole enterprise, from Edmund Burke all the way to Glenn Beck. Modernism scares them...change scares them...especially change that involves social hierarchies and “tradition”. They much prefer to pine for an ill-defined “Golden Age”(many of them, actually), and long for a mythical time where everyone knew their place and mores and folkways were rigid and understandable.
Of course, none of my subjects ever once expressed this deep desire in so many words...I often wondered if they knew this about themselves.
But it was evident in the rhetoric and mythopoesy , the sturm and drang, the sound and fury. A few years ago, I came across one of these neomonarchists, on Townhall(now I don't remember his name)...he was allowed a dusty corner of the place to rant. Nobody paid him any mind.
He was obviously disturbed, and I soon forgot about the whole diversion.
Now, however, with the rise of Trump, these folks are emerging from subspace.
Although they seem to be descended from that good ol' Randian Libertarianism(including all the subspecie like anarchocapitalist and austrian economics,minarchists and corporatists), they have gone all the way.....and unashamedly.
I suppose it was inevitable, that the Right would go here.
...and, once again, our Tolerance will probably put us at a disadvantage(System Selects for Psychopathy, but it's a logical extension of our own worldview that we must tolerate even the intolerable(please see Karl Popper to help dispel this fallacy)).
The Endarkment is beyond “fairness”, and even have numerous manifestos ridiculing such namby pambyism.They seem to hate just about everybody, including themselves(at least unconsciously).Mencius Moldbug looks like he might be their John of Patmos, or Augustine.(http://moldbuggery.blogspot.com/)...and Hestia appears to be their nascent Lyceum(sic)(http://neoreaction.net/)
They are very verbose...much like Ayn Rand...on and on and on....using big words like sex toys.
I would still discount them as an unusual and quite interesting mutation...something to study...if not for Trump.
Trump is the quintessential wild card.
I cannot even venture a prediction as to whether or not he can win...or what he will do if he does.
Post-Ideology, Post-Politics.
Ad hoc, seat of his pants-ism.
He seems to have blundered into the role of Hero for the Endarkment/Alt-Right....I really don't think he intended to.
But there he is, nevertheless...and they are emboldened.
This is something to keep an eye on, if you reckon(like me) that it's a good idea to keep an eye on one's enemies.
I don't think that they're going away...especially now that the “conservative” coalition is in shambles, and the GOP looks likely to split into as many as 6 factions/sub-parties.
This means that there's no establishment with any smash on the right, anymore...and the rubes will (while fighting among themselves) begin wandering away from the pasture...”finding themselves”.
I predict that Alt-Right is the RWNJ of the future.

(here's the go to takedown compendium for this disturbing troll forest:http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/20/the-anti-reactionary-faq/)

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Myopia



(or, why the GOP is Toast)

http://www.speaker.gov/confidentamerica

Wow, Paul...I hope you didn't break anything coming up with this little “plan” of yours.

Are you frelling Blind?
This is the same, exact anti-empirical lunacy that got us to this point in the first damned place. We've been doing all that since St. Ronnie the Befuddled saddled us with “Morning in America”.
This set of “ideas” is the Reason for the Malaise.
...and nowadays, after trying for 35-40 years, you have several states to look at, as well, where all of your “Bold New Policies” have been implimented.
Look at Kansas...and at Louisiana...and Texas.
Look at Michigan, Wisconsin.
When you run an experiment, it's prudent to stick around and pay attentian to the results of that experiment.
Otherwise, why run the experiment, at all?
All of those states are perfect examples of why your continuing insistence on more of the same is a bad idea.
The GOP...with the help of the Clinton Wing of the (formerly)Democratic Party...has destroyed the Country with all the Tax Cuts and Deregulation and Privatisation and Market Worship.
Your Base has figured this out, too...at long last.
Trickle Down is Piss on our heads.
Yet here you are ….again...like cicadas emerging from holes in predictable cycles...bringing out what amounts to a poster board with glitter and six inch bubble letters, saying the same damned thing that you all have been saying for most of my life.
It has failed, Paul!
Trickle Down, Supply Side, Corporate Fellation is a Failure!
Please, please, please, pick another career.
Take your friends with you.
We can't afford any more of your experiments.