Liberalism

Satan Lives in Moscow

The Ukrainian crisis has instigated an effort by the West to get into Putin’s mind, and this has inevitably led to his advisor, Prof Alexander Dugin, a leading Eurasianist and the architect of Putin’s geopolitics.

Inevitably, Dugin’s anti-liberalism has been a source of grave concern for American commentators. His book, The Fourth Political Theory, has been read with interest by a minority of them, who, though not necessarily in concert with Dugin’s geopolitical aims, do share his negative conclusions regarding liberalism and do recognise the need for something better. Needless to say, these commentators are outside the American mainstream.

Those inside the mainstream, being liberals to a man, have felt very threatened. For them, liberalism and Americanism are one and the same, and Dugin must therefore be a mad philosopher calling for the end of the world.

Among those most threatened, apparently, are the folk at the National Review. They have not only felt the need to publish multiple hit pieces about Dugin, but they have also enlisted a rocket scientist to write them. Enter Robert Zubrin. Read more

David Cameron on Muscular Britishness

In the wake of Operation Trojan Horse, the plot to Islamicise Britain by co-oping schools and then running them according to Islamist ideas an beliefs, British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has now written an article for The Daily Mail, expressing his commitment to promoting “muscular” Britishness in schools.

Muscular Britishness? This sounds very similar to Cameron’s call for “muscular liberalism”, made in 2010, when he concluded, decades too late, that “multiculturalism has failed”.

With such an antecedent, readers could certainly justify a measure of scepticism. And, indeed, when one analyses Cameron’s piece, there is much to comment on.

His central thesis is that “we”—an inclusive euphemism for “the British political establishment”—have been far too tolerant, effectively saying that if you don’t like democracy, or can’t get excited about equality, or would rather not be tolerant, it’s all good, nothing to worry about, we’re happy to live and let live. And this, he says, has got to stop. Particularly since it has led to division, extremism, and violence. Instead, the British government should use the system of education to promote British values and pride in Britishness, so that the “diverse nation” can be unified. Read more

A Tale of Two Trials: What the George Zimmerman and O.J. Simpson Verdicts Reveal About Racial Denial

One transparent outcome of the “not guilty” verdict in the George Zimmerman trial is the racial disconnect between the average American and the nation’s powerful elites (the mass media, politicians, and “civil rights” leaders). The ever-widening gulf between racial reality and racial fantasy—the daily repetition of Black violence in contrast with the media-driven narrative of nonstop injustices of an oppressed minority—seems more pronounced in the wake of the Zimmerman verdict.

We live in an era of extreme racial denial. The nation’s media and political elites—what Joseph Sobran termed the “hive”—live in a fantasy realm that dismisses latent racial differences, an existence defined by unrealistic egalitarianism and hyper-liberalism; racial disparities are merely symptomatic of the lingering impact of slavery, racism, and discrimination. The emphasis is always on some inanimate object—“mean” streets, “gun” violence, “epidemic of violence,” “crack” cocaine, “heat waves,” “underfunding” of Head Start, the lack of upward “middle class mobility”; or the fault of law enforcement—“police brutality,” “deficient” law enforcement strategies, “racial profiling,” or “Stand Your Ground” laws.

The crux of the Zimmerman case is fundamentally about holding Blacks accountable for their own actions. The jury of six females—five Whites and one Hispanic—reached a reasonable conclusion that the defendant acted in self-defense in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. The evidence presented at trial countered the prosecution’s claims that Zimmerman was the aggressor, stalked Martin, initiated the altercation, and as a “wannabe” cop shot Martin—an innocent “unarmed” 17-year-old bystander. Most of the media coverage in the wake of the verdict reinforces the unfounded assumption that Trayvon Martin was innocently preyed upon—nothing more than a victim of “profiling,” who was just an “unarmed” teenager, a kid, trying to get home. This is the fantasy that our elites are hyping and one the jury simply rejected outright.

The Zimmerman jury, after a careful assessment of the evidence, concluded that Martin was the aggressor. After an initial encounter, Martin forced Zimmerman to the ground after sucker-punching him, pounded Zimmerman’s head against the concrete sidewalk, and after 45-seconds of screaming and fearing for his life, Zimmerman shot Martin to save his own life.

The verdict has produced a predictable tsunami of racial demagoguery from beltway pundits. Chris Matthews, Al Sharpton, Tavis Smiley, and Jesse Jackson have exploited the jury decision to project their own warped views about the endless suffering of Blacks from White oppression. Read more