If your in Melbourne, Australia, the Melbourne Traditionalists will be meeting up on Tuesday the 10th February at 7pm.
Its important to move from the internet to the real world, to start meeting other Conservatives and to start making contacts. The Liberal world we live in can only be challenged by grouping together. To talk, to complain, to laugh, to get support in a world that can often feel as if we have no support.
I advise all Traditional Conservatives no matter where they are to meet others with the same outlook and to band together. We meet, we talk, we eat, we have a drink and we talk about the mad world we live in. Don't do this alone, band together.
For anyone who is able and interested in coming along, contact me uponhopeblog(at)gmail.com
Mark Moncrieff
Upon Hope Blog - A Traditional Conservative Future
Friday, 30 January 2015
Sunday, 25 January 2015
Housewives, Good for the Economy and Society
When I was born in 1970 most women were housewives, but from as early as I can remember being a housewife was under attack. Housewives were frivolous, they didn't pull their weight, they were a burden to society, especially to their poor husbands who had to provide for them. So young women were encouraged to build careers, not families and many women answered that call. Then a new problem arose, women wanted husbands and they wanted children, so in the late seventies stories started to appear saying "women can have everything!". They can have a job, a husband, children, an exciting powerful life, all they needed to do was not become housewives.
Here was an inversion of what being a housewife once was. A housewife wasn't frivolous or a burden, she was instead a valuable member of a partnership. Someone who wasn't unemployed or unemployable as she has sometimes been portrayed. No, she was an expert, it was her job to turn a house, whether it was a shack or a Palace, into a home, it still is. It was her job to provide nourishment for her family, to look after from day to day of child, home and any other family member who needed care. She wasn't frivolous and she certainly wasn't a burden. She was a vital and needed member of her family and if she left or died it was not uncommon for the family to fall apart.
It was also a reversal of past Feminist practice. In the past Feminists(as well as many others) had supported and Campaigned for a "living wage", that a man should be paid enough to support himself, his wife and his children. Its one thing we should be grateful to them for. It was the dismantling of this policy in the 1960's and 70's for "equal pay for equal work" that pushed the next wave of Feminism into power. Because it made the lives of husbands and wives harder, it encouraged people to see the problems of marriage and not the virtues.
There are still housewives, I link to two The Thinking Housewife and Adventures in Keeping House, but it is harder to be one than it used to be. Not only is it less fashionable than it once was but it's harder to live on one wage than it was when men were paid a "living wage". This is often portrayed as a good thing, something that grew the economy, but allow me to put a spanner in the works and show a different view.
To best illustrate this let us imagine an island, in essence a closed economy, and on that island are 100 men and 100 women, every man is a husband with one wife. Every man works in paid employment and every women is a housewife. And every man gets paid the same, in real life of course that wouldn't be the case, there would at least be one foreman who would get paid more, but to illustrate this better we will keep it simple. 100 families with one husband employed and one housewife in every family and every family bringing in the same amount of money, people would have a very similar standard of living.
Now lets have one wife start in paid employment, that family has an enormous financial advantage over every other family. Now lets say ten wives are in paid employment, what effect does that have? It has two, first these families will still all get an enormous financial benefit and it will encourage more wives into the workforce.
But when 20 wives are in paid employment the economics start to change, now two things start to happen. First business starts to notice that there is alot more money out there and families can afford more than they used to, so from now on prices start to go up. Secondly the next generation starts to find it harder to obtain employment.
When between 30 and 40% of the wives are employed then prices rise quite high, particularly in housing and other family expenses. It now becomes expected that women will be employed or can be employed if they wish to be employed. When only a few wives were employed it was a great boost to those families, but now they are trapped, they have to work to get the things they have come to expect. Things that only a few short years ago they didn't have and probably didn't need. Sadly not only are they trapped, but it now pushes more wives into paid employment just to meet expenses.
From this point on there are no economic benefits at all to be gained, from this point on all the gains are negative. There is no such thing as infinity jobs, there are instead a very finite amount of jobs, that number may go up or it may go down but it is never unlimited. So wives in paid employment contribute to unemployment, particularly for the young. Mothers are in effect taking their childrens jobs.
Men without paid employment do not have either wealth or prestige with which to attract a women and remain unmarried. This means that both men and women, for different reasons, are now lonely.
Not only does all of this have economic costs but it also leads to problems within the family. Children still need care, but if their mothers are not at home what happens? Children are sometimes expected to look after themselves without adult supervision. Children are sometimes given to older family members to look after, an option their daughters are unlikely to have available to them. Children are sometimes put into childcare, which costs money and is very rarely cheap. But in all of these options the parents are not raising their own children, the purpose of working for money is not the family but instead becomes luxuries. Things the family doesn't need are in abundance, but the things they do need are absent.
Nourishment, one of the basic jobs of a housewife has been neglected. In its place, fast food and processed food has taken the place of proper home cooked meals. Fast food and processed foods have their place, but that place is not in the wholesale replacement of fresh food. But as time is precious, as parents must rush from place to place it is fresh food that has been pushed out of family meals. If you want to seriously stop obesity in the Western world then housewives are the answer. Housewives who have the time to cook real meals from real ingredients.
The absence of housewives is also evident in making society more lonely, women are not at home, making it hard to connect with neighbours. Anti-crime programs have been dropped because housewives aren't in the home to even look out for anything unusual. Many tasks once done by housewives are now done for money, childcare, looking after the elderly or sick relatives or neighbours, schools now pay people to provide lunches for students instead of mothers doing it. Charities which once relied on housewives to run shops, sort deliveries, visit the sick or elderly, must now pay people to do these tasks. Wonder no more about why you get called by charities so much.
Finally, but certainly not least is the effect of trying to be all things to all people and what it does to women. Time is the first casualty, there just isn't enough, not for a husband, children, parents or the women herself. Sleep often suffers and with that come testiness, short tempers and frustration. Is there a single marriage that has ever benefited from these things?
I know a women who recently stopped working to look after a new addition to the family. She was amazed at how much her personality changed, she wasn't yelling at her children as much, she was calmer and more relaxed, she had more time to look after her home, her family and to do those extra things that she never had time for before. She isn't bored, she's lucky, and she knows it.
Upon Hope Blog - A Traditional Conservative Future
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Liberalism Versus Religion
Here was an inversion of what being a housewife once was. A housewife wasn't frivolous or a burden, she was instead a valuable member of a partnership. Someone who wasn't unemployed or unemployable as she has sometimes been portrayed. No, she was an expert, it was her job to turn a house, whether it was a shack or a Palace, into a home, it still is. It was her job to provide nourishment for her family, to look after from day to day of child, home and any other family member who needed care. She wasn't frivolous and she certainly wasn't a burden. She was a vital and needed member of her family and if she left or died it was not uncommon for the family to fall apart.
It was also a reversal of past Feminist practice. In the past Feminists(as well as many others) had supported and Campaigned for a "living wage", that a man should be paid enough to support himself, his wife and his children. Its one thing we should be grateful to them for. It was the dismantling of this policy in the 1960's and 70's for "equal pay for equal work" that pushed the next wave of Feminism into power. Because it made the lives of husbands and wives harder, it encouraged people to see the problems of marriage and not the virtues.
There are still housewives, I link to two The Thinking Housewife and Adventures in Keeping House, but it is harder to be one than it used to be. Not only is it less fashionable than it once was but it's harder to live on one wage than it was when men were paid a "living wage". This is often portrayed as a good thing, something that grew the economy, but allow me to put a spanner in the works and show a different view.
To best illustrate this let us imagine an island, in essence a closed economy, and on that island are 100 men and 100 women, every man is a husband with one wife. Every man works in paid employment and every women is a housewife. And every man gets paid the same, in real life of course that wouldn't be the case, there would at least be one foreman who would get paid more, but to illustrate this better we will keep it simple. 100 families with one husband employed and one housewife in every family and every family bringing in the same amount of money, people would have a very similar standard of living.
Now lets have one wife start in paid employment, that family has an enormous financial advantage over every other family. Now lets say ten wives are in paid employment, what effect does that have? It has two, first these families will still all get an enormous financial benefit and it will encourage more wives into the workforce.
But when 20 wives are in paid employment the economics start to change, now two things start to happen. First business starts to notice that there is alot more money out there and families can afford more than they used to, so from now on prices start to go up. Secondly the next generation starts to find it harder to obtain employment.
When between 30 and 40% of the wives are employed then prices rise quite high, particularly in housing and other family expenses. It now becomes expected that women will be employed or can be employed if they wish to be employed. When only a few wives were employed it was a great boost to those families, but now they are trapped, they have to work to get the things they have come to expect. Things that only a few short years ago they didn't have and probably didn't need. Sadly not only are they trapped, but it now pushes more wives into paid employment just to meet expenses.
From this point on there are no economic benefits at all to be gained, from this point on all the gains are negative. There is no such thing as infinity jobs, there are instead a very finite amount of jobs, that number may go up or it may go down but it is never unlimited. So wives in paid employment contribute to unemployment, particularly for the young. Mothers are in effect taking their childrens jobs.
Men without paid employment do not have either wealth or prestige with which to attract a women and remain unmarried. This means that both men and women, for different reasons, are now lonely.
Not only does all of this have economic costs but it also leads to problems within the family. Children still need care, but if their mothers are not at home what happens? Children are sometimes expected to look after themselves without adult supervision. Children are sometimes given to older family members to look after, an option their daughters are unlikely to have available to them. Children are sometimes put into childcare, which costs money and is very rarely cheap. But in all of these options the parents are not raising their own children, the purpose of working for money is not the family but instead becomes luxuries. Things the family doesn't need are in abundance, but the things they do need are absent.
Nourishment, one of the basic jobs of a housewife has been neglected. In its place, fast food and processed food has taken the place of proper home cooked meals. Fast food and processed foods have their place, but that place is not in the wholesale replacement of fresh food. But as time is precious, as parents must rush from place to place it is fresh food that has been pushed out of family meals. If you want to seriously stop obesity in the Western world then housewives are the answer. Housewives who have the time to cook real meals from real ingredients.
The absence of housewives is also evident in making society more lonely, women are not at home, making it hard to connect with neighbours. Anti-crime programs have been dropped because housewives aren't in the home to even look out for anything unusual. Many tasks once done by housewives are now done for money, childcare, looking after the elderly or sick relatives or neighbours, schools now pay people to provide lunches for students instead of mothers doing it. Charities which once relied on housewives to run shops, sort deliveries, visit the sick or elderly, must now pay people to do these tasks. Wonder no more about why you get called by charities so much.
Finally, but certainly not least is the effect of trying to be all things to all people and what it does to women. Time is the first casualty, there just isn't enough, not for a husband, children, parents or the women herself. Sleep often suffers and with that come testiness, short tempers and frustration. Is there a single marriage that has ever benefited from these things?
I know a women who recently stopped working to look after a new addition to the family. She was amazed at how much her personality changed, she wasn't yelling at her children as much, she was calmer and more relaxed, she had more time to look after her home, her family and to do those extra things that she never had time for before. She isn't bored, she's lucky, and she knows it.
Upon Hope Blog - A Traditional Conservative Future
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Liberalism Versus Religion
Thursday, 22 January 2015
Why Blaming the Jews is Wrong
While I have always been a Conservative I have never been partial to the idea that everything can be blamed on the Jews. It has never made any sense to me and the more I look at it the more in opposition I am to the idea.
The idea is that Jews are responsible for much, if not most Liberal and Communist ideas as well as predatory Capitalism. That without the Jews, the rest of us wouldn't have so much to worry about. And behind all of these ideas is the biggy, that it's all a Conspiracy for Jewish control of the world. Not everyone who blames the Jews believes in the Conspiracy, but far too many do.
But just as Anti Racism is at heart about whites being superior and not about other races, so is the idea that the Jews are to blame for everything a perverse idea that Jews are superior. Those who criticize Jews are in reality saying they are so brilliant that there is no defence against them. They're so clever and devilish how can we fight them, they ask themselves.
The reality is that this is simple thinking and our problems are not simple. If only it was all the fault of the Jews we could do something about it. The thing I object to the most is it gives a free ride to those whites, Christians and Atheists who have done most of the damage. That damage wasn't done by any "other", it was done by our own people against their own people. Because unless you believe that the Jews are so clever that they can put words into other peoples mouths, it remains the fact that the Jews have never had the numbers in any country, excepting Israel of course, to implement any policy on anything. That some Jews are pure poison simply shows that Jews are Westerners, because the poison that we see all around us wasn't imported, its homegrown. Liberalism, Multiculturalism, the Homosexualist Agenda, Feminism, Political Correctness, all grown in the West.
Lets fight the real enemies!
Upon Hope Blog - a Traditionalist Conservative Future
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Unified Liberalism
The idea is that Jews are responsible for much, if not most Liberal and Communist ideas as well as predatory Capitalism. That without the Jews, the rest of us wouldn't have so much to worry about. And behind all of these ideas is the biggy, that it's all a Conspiracy for Jewish control of the world. Not everyone who blames the Jews believes in the Conspiracy, but far too many do.
But just as Anti Racism is at heart about whites being superior and not about other races, so is the idea that the Jews are to blame for everything a perverse idea that Jews are superior. Those who criticize Jews are in reality saying they are so brilliant that there is no defence against them. They're so clever and devilish how can we fight them, they ask themselves.
The reality is that this is simple thinking and our problems are not simple. If only it was all the fault of the Jews we could do something about it. The thing I object to the most is it gives a free ride to those whites, Christians and Atheists who have done most of the damage. That damage wasn't done by any "other", it was done by our own people against their own people. Because unless you believe that the Jews are so clever that they can put words into other peoples mouths, it remains the fact that the Jews have never had the numbers in any country, excepting Israel of course, to implement any policy on anything. That some Jews are pure poison simply shows that Jews are Westerners, because the poison that we see all around us wasn't imported, its homegrown. Liberalism, Multiculturalism, the Homosexualist Agenda, Feminism, Political Correctness, all grown in the West.
Lets fight the real enemies!
Upon Hope Blog - a Traditionalist Conservative Future
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Unified Liberalism
Saturday, 17 January 2015
Is Growing the Economy Necessary?
We often hear the argument that the economy needs to grow, that without growth the economy will die. But is that true?
First lets define what the economy is, it is the management of the money, property and goods of a country, community or household.
In this context we are talking about countries not only one country. I should also point out that money is not wealth, it is a token or representation of wealth. Wealth is the increase created through Agriculture, Fishing, Forestry, Mining and Manufacturing, in other words an increase is a surplus. With Transport being a multiplier which takes good from places where it is common to places where it is uncommon. Most economic activity does not create wealth, what it does is transfers money from one person to another. So for example when you get paid you are not receiving wealth, instead you are paid money, a representation of wealth. Then when you go shopping you give that representation of wealth to the shopkeeper. That transfer of money between people is vital to the health of the economy, but it is not wealth.
Over time the economy has changed and we can divide the economy into 4 great stages:
The Prehistoric Economy
The Agricultural Economy
The Industrial Economy &
The Post-Industrial Economy
Lets start at the start with the Prehistoric Economy. Growth is very slow as there is no way to secure property. People must move to get enough food to eat and it is very hard to keep food for very long. The domestic animals and plants that we take for granted are either rare or do not exist yet. There is trade in hard to find or in hard to create items and slowly in some parts of the world people learn to domesticate animals and plants, leading to the next economic stage.
The Agricultural Economy sees the spread of Agriculture across the world, very quickly in some parts, slower in others. During this time we see the rise of the great Ancient Civilizations and their fall. Then the rise of new nations to replace them. Economically the production of food is the defining feature, no longer is hunting and gathering enough as the stable production of food allows large increases in population. Sometimes that system fails and famine results, but as time goes on even that becomes rarer and rarer. The increase in food production also increases the production of non food Agriculture. The increase in population and food allowed for large workforces to work on large projects, creating the Ancient Civilizations and maintaining them. Economic growth allowed manufacturing to emerge in certain areas. While those Civilizations didn't last, the Agricultural Economy they were based on did. And when they ended people didn't return to a Prehistoric Economy, they remained within the Agricultural Economy.
By the 1700's came the next great economic change, the Industrial Economy. Agriculture is still important and it still employs the majority of people. But now the manufacturing of goods and the trading of such goods creates the most wealth. Just as being able to produce food lead to an increase in living standards, so over time did the Industrial Economy.
We now live at the start of the Post-Industrial Economy, the United States became the first in 1956 to have most workers being in the Service area, instead of being Agricultural or Industrial workers. In fact everyone who is not in agriculture or industry is a service worker, cleaners, doctors and astronauts are all Service workers. Was economic growth necessary to get to where we are today? The answer is yes.
But now I'd like to look further at the Post-Industrial Economy. For most of history economics was organic, it grew or failed based on real world economics. It either had very little or no theory behind it. But over time that has changed and today economics is a major field of study. Economist's are often called upon to plan the future and many expect that they will success. But the further a theory is from reality the less likely it is to work, no matter what the subject. Over time there have developed many different and often contradictory theories about how the economy works and about how it should work. One idea that is very popular is the idea of growth, that like a shark the economy must keep moving or it will die.
Growth is a method to measure the economy by, if it's bigger than it's good, if it's smaller it's bad and as a general rule that's fine. But growth has become a mantra, bigger is better, but thats not true. Or to be more correct it's not always true. Under the Agricultural and the Industrial Economies wealth was created. But where does the wealth come from in the Post-Industrial Economy?
There is still Agriculture, many countries have Fishing and Mining and some have Forestry and Manufacturing. But the majority of the economy is the Service sector and that includes everything that is not Agricultural or Industrial. But the Service sector cannot create wealth as it produces no surplus. Instead it consumes, which wasn't a problem until it became the majority of the economy. So now we are told that building houses is growth and that as growth is good building more houses is also good. But that is to confuse the needs of society with the needs of the economy. Society may or may not need more houses, but it becomes an economic necessity as we must always have growth. Houses are important because people need them to protect them from the elements, but they are not an economic necessity. They have been made an economic necessity because the economy needs growth.
If all house building stopped that would leave large numbers unemployed. But that's not the real problem, the real problem is that there are no other jobs for them to do as we are now a Post-Industrial Economy. The truth is that while economists list this as growth, it is not. It produces no wealth and instead creates debt. Debt is not growth, it is a burden that eats away at wealth. Only Agriculture, Fishing, Forestry, Mining and Manufacturing with the multiplier of Transport create wealth and any growth in the economy that isn't in these areas isn't growth, it's ultimately debt, the destroyer of wealth.
Upon Hope Blog - A Traditional Conservative Future
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Sunday, 11 January 2015
The Twenty Second Month
December was my second best month ever!
The best ever was January 2014 when I had 1,946 visitors, last month I had 1,923 visitors, I just cannot get over that 2000 mark....here's hoping. Sadly things have slowed down since the start of the year. Just another month on the blogging roller coaster.
Although I must take some of he blame for that as my last post was on the 17th of December. I wanted to do another post just before Christmas but my computer screen decided it was going to die on me, so I had to wait until after Christmas to get another one, which I'm using now. Then I decided to have a rest and start in the new year, which I've done, but that means I might have to pay a price in lower visitors because of that.
I had two worst days, the 3rd and 6th of January when I only had 33 visitors, my best day was the 17th of December when I had 117 visitors.
11th December-11th January
11th November- 11th December
France was the big increase, more than doubling, which was amazing!
The Netherlands has also increased.
Russia, Taiwan, Japan and New Zealand are either back or in the Top 10 for the first time.
The United States is down in numbers, but not dramatically. Australia has fallen even further than it seems as the numbers went over 400, even so it is higher than it was two months ago. The United Kingdom has nearly halved and the Ukraine is 1/3rd what it was a month ago.
Germany, Poland, India and Canada have all left the Top 10.
I have also received visitors from the following countries Ireland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, Italy, Poland, Serbia, Albania, Romania, Georgia, Saudi Arabia, India, Macao, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Egypt, Canada, Brazil,
I look forward to seeing you again.
Mark Moncrieff
Wednesday, 7 January 2015
Multiculturalism and the Holocaust
When Australia became independent in 1901 her population was 98.5% white, and nearly all of that was British in origin. Now that number is around 70% and with mass immigration and a low birth rate that number will continue to decline. But how did such a thing come to pass?
We were not defeated in war nor has there been a natural disaster that has compelled people to flee here. No, this came to pass because the Australian Government decided to make it policy. That policy is called Multiculturalism and this policy now exists in nearly every white country. But why was Multiculturalism adopted?
To answer that we must go back to the 1800's and look at the Cult of Progress. Liberalism in the early 1800's began to see a very bright future for it's self and a big part of that was the rapid rise of technology. With technology no problem was beyond solving, if not today then certainly tomorrow. And the rate of technology was increasing, the future couldn't help but be better. With this idea grew another idea, that not only technology was progressing, but so was man. Man couldn't help but be better, man would become more humane, more intelligent, just better. War would end, man's inhumanity to man would end, things would just get better and better.
And there was some evidence to back this up, in the 1700's there had been lots of major wars in Europe, the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Polish Succession, the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years War and the Wars of the French Revolutions. Each of these wars involved most of Europe on one side or the other. But the 1800's were different, there had been the Napoleonic Wars, but once they ended at Waterloo, peace came to Europe. There were still wars, but not major Continent wide conflicts. It genuinely seemed as if war was becoming something that belonged to the past. The century even saw the beginnings of International justice as nations sort to settle disputes via International Tribunals instead of by war.
But the Twentieth century was to see a number of these assumptions badly broken. The first was in 1914 when the first general war in Europe broke out in 99 years. What a war it was, massive in every way. The idea of progress took a big hit, but it wasn't out. Many saw the Cult of Progress alive and well in Socialism and Communism. The second great crisis of the Twentieth century, the great depression saw further faith put in these twin ideals. The third great crisis was the Second World War. A war that saw the mass bombing of cities and civilian populations. And it saw the Holocaust.
Mass deportations of people, the mass killing of civilians, these the Nazi's did all over Europe. From Crete to Norway and from France to the Volga. But their most infamous action was their attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe.
This would have far reaching consequences as it created the biggest challenge to the Cult of Progress. Mankind was supposed to be more evolved than this, how could a civilized European people do such a thing?
Of course a civilized European people hadn't carried out the Holocaust, the Nazi's did and they did it because of their political beliefs. But not only did the German people get the blame, so did all of Christian Civilization, the civilization of the West. Because the Nazi's made a mockery of the Cult of Progress. They showed it up for the false God it was, a God just as false as the Nazi's God.
Liberalism wanted an answer as to why the Holocaust had happened, but the answers they got didn't have anything to do with Nazism. They decided that what was to blame wasn't the Nazi's, it wasn't a political ideology and it wasn't a conspiracy theory, They were only the surface, but underneath was the real answer. What did the Nazi's want? Whatever they wanted must be to blame. Whatever they wanted had to be destroyed.
The Nazi's talked alot about white supremacy, the supremacy of Christian Europe and the purity of race, These things were to blame for the Holocaust, To stop another Holocaust these things must be stopped, they were responsible, they must be punished for the past and they must be stopped from carrying out another Holocaust. Nazi's didn't kill the Jews, ideas did. In a sense, yes, ideas can inspire people to kill, but in the end it is not words that kill people, it is actions. Without the Nazi's to carry out these actions there would not have been a Holocaust.
When the Second World War ended Europe was in chaos with millions hungry and homeless. With the Communist take over of Eastern Europe many of those homeless people couldn't return home. The United Nations asked Western nations to take in these refugees and over the next decade most found homes in new countries. Here was the beginnings of Multiculturalism. People who didn't really want to go to new countries being received by people who didn't really want to receive them. And overwhelmingly both sides made do, But Liberalism saw this differently, they saw a chance to promote the brotherhood of man, to get the Cult of Progress back on track, If people mix together, live next to each other, then people will learn to understand that people are the same all over. Prejudice will end and humanity can get back on the path to the Cult of Progress.
But of course people already lived in these countries, they had their own communities and histories. Liberalism wasn't that interested in them, it was as always, interested in Liberalism. Liberalism had a plan to fix the world and they weren't going to let anything get in the way. So when someone complained about what came to be called Multiculturalism, they were often met with the word "Nazi"! Your not allowed to interfere with Liberalisms plan to save the world, they don't care about your life or your objections, all they care about is their intentions. As all major political parties are Liberal, Multiculturalism became policy. The concerns of ordinary people don't matter. Liberals are convinced that they hold the answer to stopping another Holocaust, to ending war and to stopping mans inhumanity to man and that answer is Multiculturalism, and they are absolutely wrong.
Upon Hope Blog - A Traditional Conservative Future
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Sunday, 4 January 2015
Feminism and Rape Culture
Like most Conservatives when I hear talk about rape culture I roll my eyes. Rape is a crime and very few people think it shouldn't be and it has been a crime for quite some time now. Most people think rapists should be harshly treated. So when Feminists talk about a culture that supports rape it doesn't really ring true. But then I read this article, the meaning of no, and I went away and thought some more about it.
Within Feminism there are two thoughts about women and sex, the dominate one is the "girls just want to have fun" school of thought. Feminism is Liberalism applied to the lives of women, not men and not society, just women. But the Liberal ideals still apply, Liberalism is about the Autonomous Individual, maximum freedom for the individual, coupled with the idea that life shouldn't have consequences. So sex for women in this context is about freedom, freedom from the consequences of sex. Legal contraception, abortion, freedom from shame, freedom to choose and of course freedom to experiment. They even have a name for this, they call it sex positive.
The other school of thought is "all sex is rape", to be a women is to be a victim. Women should be Autonomous Individuals but one of the things that stops that is sex, sex is a weapon of the enemy. Sex is about male power, it is an act whereby the male violates the female, it is an act of violence and aggression by men, against women. When you start to think like this than a women making love to her husband of 50 years, a man buying sex from a prostitute or a man molesting a child all start to look like the same thing.
Now most people, including most Feminists, think this is crazy. However this "all sex is rape" is a very strong undercurrent within Feminism. And this undercurrent takes ideas that should be pretty straightforward and pushes it in strange and bizarre directions. So for example, what happens when you live in an environment where "sex positive" is the accepted view of sex, but a women finds that sex is not that positive? That sex is not just a physical act, that sex does in fact have consequences. For some women seeing the consequences, either for themselves or in others, turns them towards the "all sex is rape" camp. Bizarrely rape culture isn't directed at main stream society as most of us think, but it is directed at sex positive Feminism.
Feminism says either that there are no differences between men and women or that the differences are so small that they don't really matter. Further it believes that those differences that do exist, shouldn't. Ironically such a belief implies that women do not have any special issues or concerns. Sex positive Feminism certainly believes this. Sex is the same for a man or for a women and only sexism holds women back from enjoying sex in the same way that a man would. However the reality keeps getting in the way. Women continue to view sex as more than just a physical act. This disconnection between the ideal and reality leaves space for "rape culture" to exist. Sadly neither Feminist school of thought is correct and as the "girls just want to have fun" school is the dominate view within our society, that leaves us all with some problems.
Upon Hope Blog - A Traditional Conservative Future
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Thursday, 1 January 2015
How Socialism Helped Destroy Marriage
Socialism is
the idea that there should not be extremes of wealth, that extreme wealth and
extreme poverty shouldn’t exist. Instead everyone should have more or less
equal access to wealth. This should not be confused with Communism which
believes the same things but also believes that Socialism can only exist within
Communism. Socialist’s however believe that Socialism can, and should, exist in
any political system. It seems a long way from Marriage and to be honest most
Socialists never thought about how Socialism would affect Marriage, they simply
assumed that it wouldn’t. And at first glance it shouldn’t.
Socialism is
concerned with making society more equitable, it’s concerned with economics.
The effort behind Socialism was made because people could see the vast gap that
had developed between the Industrialists and the working class in the 1800’s.
The working class was often from the countryside or from foreign countries and
when hard times came they often hit harder, as these people had next to nothing
to fall back on. Socialism suggested a way out of this problem. A way of
stopping human greed and corruption and a way of stopping hunger and
destitution. It wanted common ownership of businesses so that the rewards could
be shared. However Socialism also believes in Progress, the idea that history
is advancing in one direction and that the economy is marching in that
direction also. Socialists believe in growth just as much as any Capitalist
does. Which means that they see an idealised version of what the future economy
will look like, they see endless growth. But of course that never happened and
the great flaw in Socialism is that while it can work in good times, it fails
badly in bad times. As while it is happy to share out the rewards it isn’t
happy to share out the losses.
Over time
Socialists came to see the Government, just as Communists already had, as the
perfect way to organise the economy. Communists believe that the Government
should control and direct the entire economy, what they call Central Planning.
But Socialists thought of Government differently, they wanted the Government to
act as a Castle, when things got bad then everyone could retreat into the
safety of the Governments Castle. In this case the Castle wasn’t physical, but
financial.
Socialists
always believed that Socialism would cover the entire economy and that meant
the whole of society. That every member of society would enjoy the benefits.
But in practise Socialism started small and only over time did it come to cover
the whole of society. Age Pensions, Disability, Unemployment all of these over
time became the bedrock of the modern Welfare State. They are now so accepted
that it is sometimes hard to imagine that once upon a time non of them existed.
But as the
Welfare State grow in power it took Socialism into areas it had never thought
about. And one of those areas was Marriage.
Nearly
everyone accepted that Marriage was between one man and one women for life and
that children were to be borne in wedlock. But of course not all children are
born in wedlock and it is here that Socialism did something that most
Socialists in the past would not have been happy with. The Welfare State
decided to pay single mothers. While there were exceptions, most Socialists
were very traditional in regards to family and Marriage. They simply assumed
that Socialism would not have any bearing on normal human relationships. But
Marriage is not just about love, Marriage is also about much more practical considerations.
How do people live? How do they pay for food and shelter? How do they provide
for the future? All of these are very practical and reasonable concerns.
In the past
men competed against each other to show that they could provide for themselves
and a wife and a family. But because people fall in love and they talk about
love it can hid the reality and that reality is that love often comes
afterwards, after the man has proven that he can provide. It’s not the only
thing a women looks for, but it is a thing. So what happens when the Government
comes along and gives women money for falling pregnant?
In effect
these women end up “marrying” the Government instead of marrying a man. The
Government provides for her and poor men simply cannot compete. A man who
cannot find work, or who hits hard times is now competing against the
Government.
For men who
are better off this isn’t a problem. The Government is rich compared to even
the richest man, but unlike the richest man who only spends his money on one
wife. The Government has countless “wives” it must provide for. So even men of
modest means can compete because he can still provide better than the
Government. It is only poor men and those who hit hard times that need worry
about this. Once, not that long ago, even most poor men could marry, but that
is now lost. Now men and women live in separate houses, both provided for one
way or the other by money from the Government. Lonely houses, Socialism wasn’t
supposed to make lives lonely.
Upon Hope
Blog – A Traditional Conservative Future
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