Thursday 31 December 2015

Destroying the Family

In the last 50 years the Family has gone from strong to weak, from being the bedrock of society to being seen by many as just one of many options in life.(The Family Versus Liberalism) The destruction of the Family continues today and will continue into the future. The way that it has been destroyed is an interesting look at how Liberalism operates in practice.

First of all Liberalism pushed the idea of personal liberty, your you're own person, you can do as you want, don't let anyone tell you what to do. Not your parents, not your teachers or your church, don't obey the law if you feel it is unjust. Do as you want, do as you feel because that is what makes you free. When people try to bring you back into the fold they are oppressors and Fascists, you cannot let people like that run your life, be free, don't allow them to restrict you. Coupled with this was a very old idea that made a comeback in the 1960's, that idea was Free-Love. Which is not about love at all but about lust. This idea is much older and has a spotty history with Liberalism. But under Left Liberalism it became official. Today we live in a Free-Love society.

Along with that went the idea that marriage should not be a sexual prison, people within marriage should be free to express themselves. If someone committed adultery they shouldn't be punished, it was a problem between two people, only those within the marriage could have any problem. It was not something that society, the church or the Government should have any say in. Of course that rewarded the adulterer and punished the innocent party. But if marriage is not to remain a sexual prison then that is the price that must be paid.

Liberalism has talked about equality since the 1830's, that people were all the same under the skin and that nothing really divide's the Human race. In line with that came Feminism, it was roughly the same again as Equality within Liberalism. But it really came into it's own under the patronage of Left Liberalism. As a part of Identity Politics it was perfect, it helped break up the natural bond between men and women by saying to women "You know all the things in life that upset you? Well they're the fault of men and we can fix them!" Fix the problems or fix men, Feminism likes to be a bit ambiguous on this point. But it did nothing to encourage men and women to be caring and supportive of each other. Instead Feminism encouraged women to become Bachelors

Allied to Feminism was another form of Identity Politics, Gay Liberation. Or as we Conservatives call it the Homosexual Agenda. What was so destructive about the Homosexual Agenda was the idea that there was nothing normal. Everything was normal, everything was natural, everything should be allowed and once it is allowed it becomes endorsed and supported. It was not homosexuality itself that was so much the problem as the ideas that came attached to it. The idea that everything is normal is very destructive.

At around the same time Governments began to provide financial support for women who became pregnant out of wedlock. This encouraged women to be promiscuous, it discouraged marriage because if a women married she would lose her benefits, it stopped men from being proper fathers as poor men cannot compete with the resources of the Government and this lack of stability has an impact upon men, women and children. While it provides short term relief, it causes long term problems. (How Socialism Helped Destroy Marriage)

But the most damaging of all was No Fault Divorce. The rest might have faded away over time but No Fault Divorce is the plague that just keeps on giving. The idea was that people trapped in a loveless or harmful marriage should be able to divorce, okay maybe thats right, maybe they should be able to. But No Fault Divorce goes that step further and says it might be embarrassing for people to have to admit why they want a divorce so it is better if we ask no questions and just grant the divorce. Before this if someone wanted a divorce they needed a good reason, but now any reason would do. So instead of people trying to make their marriage work because they had too, they now could get divorced. It destroyed marriages, it destroyed families, it destroyed lives and it still does. But maybe worst of all is that it destroys the idea that marriage is permanent, that marriage is a real commitment. It destroys the idea that marriage is forever.

And this list is only those things that the Left Liberals brought to bare, it doesn't include the economic consequences of Mass Immigration or Free-Trade. The Family is under threat, the very idea of the Family is under threat. People have grown so used to the way the world is today that they think things are normal. But nothing about these times is normal. We need to remember that and to let others know, we need to wake people up.

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Friday 25 December 2015

The Family Versus Liberalism

The Liberal attitude to the family has changed over time. Classical Liberalism was supportive of the family, in practice if hostile in theory. But modern Liberalism is hostile in both practice and theory. Why did this change?

Classical Liberalism was hostile to the family in theory, it believed in liberty over tradition, it believed that Priests, Kings and Fathers had too much power and they did much to reduce the power of all three. They believed in equality, they liberalised divorce laws, gave women property rights and extended the electoral franchise, first the Middle class, then the Working class and then Women. They sort to destroy the old world of certainty and to create one of opportunity. But at the same time they were very Socially Conservative. Religion played a big part, both for those who were devout and for those who saw religion as a tradition. They saw marriage as the logical and as the moral place for men and women to congregate. They rejected such Radical ideas as Free Love, Polygamy or Group Marriage. They believed in marriage being between one man and one women for life, except in extreme circumstances.

Furthermore they were big supporters of privacy, in the doctrine that a mans home was his castle. That the law had to have a valid reason to enter the home. And Liberal law was very strict in this regard. It was proof of their strong commitment to property law and to personal liberty.

But what should be obvious is that much of these ideas were at cross purposes, in Lawrence Austers phrase, they were Unprincipled Exceptions. An Unprincipled Exception is where Liberalism proclaims a grand idea, usually a Universal idea and then decides that their are exceptions to their universal idea, exceptions that are entirely unprincipled. So they simultaneously support the institution of marriage and reducing the power of Fathers, the granting of divorce and giving women property rights, which came at the expense of these womens Fathers and Husbands.

Around 1900, Liberalism moved into a new phase, Socialism, which ironically came into being as a reaction and as a rejection of Liberalism, came to be very influential within Liberalism. In fact it worked both ways. Liberalism came to influence Socialism, just as Socialism came to influence Liberalism. But this Socialist Liberalism was still Socially Conservative. It was primarily in economic matters that things changed and while society was slowly becoming less religious the older standards still stood. Marriage was regarded as an institution, one that didn't need any reforming.

That all changed with the death of Classical Liberalism in the 1950's. Once the idea of Class Warfare entered Liberalism from Communism then everything started to change. Within Communism, Class Warfare says that there are two kinds of classes, the Oppressor Class and the Oppressed Class. You are either in one class or the other class, there are no neutral people, everyone is either oppressed or the oppressor. And Class Warfare is perpetual, it never ends until true Communism arrives. Class Warfare destroys both the Oppressor Class and the Oppressed Class and results, according to Communist theory at least, in a Classless Society.

Once this idea entered Liberalism, Liberalism split and the part we are interested in here is Left or Social Liberalism. Because it is upon this part that this idea fell. Within Liberalism, Class Warfare came to be known under many different names, but behind each one is this core idea. It was known as Civil Rights, Womens Rights, Indigenous Rights, Gay Rights. What has come to be called Identity Politics. In each case a coherent argument could and was made that these were not Radical causes they were simply a plea to give Liberal freedoms to people who had unfairly been denied that freedom. But Liberalism believes something that Communism doesn't. Communism believes that there is only so much power to go round, something Conservatives agree with. However Liberalism believes that power is unlimited. So a Communist understands that if one man has power that power has to come from somewhere, it came at someone elses expense, and because their belief in Class Warfare they approve of that. Liberalism believes that if one man has power then he has joined everyone else who has power. Power has a magical ability to be unlimited.

With that in mind, giving power to groups who believe they have been denied power is expanding the amount of people who are free and have power. Liberalism see's this as a great advance, as all positive and no negative. But sadly as a Conservative I think the Communists are right (I bet that sentence has never been written before!). That power is limited and that if you give it to one group you must take it from another. That is most obvious when you look at what Women as a Class have obtained, it has come at the expense of Men as a Class. It has never been portrayed that way, it is always portrayed as all good, but taking away a man's ability to gain employment and promotion has serious consequences, for men, for women and for society. But Liberalism ignores all of these things, because it believes in the Individual and not in Society.

Left Liberalism is no longer Socially Conservative and Right Liberalism even denies that there is such a thing as Society. The Family is something they do not respect or believe to be important. The idea of preparing for the future has left them as they can see their perfect society coming into form. It is an illusion, they think that the destruction of Society, of the Family will lead to a Classless Society. A World without Racism or Discrimination, they believe that such a world is close. But without the Family there can be no future.

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Thursday 17 December 2015

Was Ronald Reagan a Conservative?

Ronald Reagan was a movie actor, Governor of California and most famously the 40th President of the United States. His policies helped end the Soviet Union and the Cold War, historically he is a very important man. But my question is, was he a Conservative?

The short answer is no.

But you probably want the long answer.

When Ronald Reagan was an actor he was a Liberal, very Liberal. He supported many of the fashionable Leftist causes of the 1930's. He supported the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, he supported civil rights, he was a stock standard Liberal. Although he was very Patriotic, in 1937 he became a Reserve Army Officer and served during WWII, first in the Cavalry and from May 1942 in the Army Air Force. He never served overseas due to his poor eyesight, instead he made movies, mostly training films for the Armed Forces.  

Between 1941 and 1959 he was the President of the Screen Actors Guild 7 times, the only US President to have be a member of a Union. It was during this time that he started to become more conservative or maybe as many Liberals complained they didn't change but their party did. In fact he often said "I didn't leave the Democratic Party. They left me."Certainly during this time the Democratic Party was changing. But three things drove Ronald Reagan from being a Democrat to becoming a Republican.

The first was a strike in the late 1940's when he saw violence on the picket lines and Communist organisers organising it. He may have been Liberal but he was never a Communist or a fellow traveler.

The second was the huge tax bill's that he paid during the 1950's. The 1950's were a time of large Government expenditure and unlike today were we have large Government expenditure and low tax and high debt, back then it was paid for by tax. As much as 90% income tax, which meant that he sometimes didn't work because he didn't make enough money. It showed him that Socialism didn't work and turned him against high taxes.

The third was his becoming the spokesmen for General Electric, in the 1950's Businessmen were much more Conservative than now. They believed in free enterprise, they were patriotic and they were socially Conservative. As he spent more time with General Electric he came to see that they shared much more in common than he had first thought. It was his involvement with General Electric that lead to his political career.

In 1964 he support Barry Goldwater, another Conservative who was always a Classical Liberal, for the Presidency. His campaigning for Mr. Goldwater saw him recruited to be the Republican candidate for Governor of California. In 1966 he won the election, he supported the death penalty, but only used it once as there were legal problems with the California Supreme Court. He was very anti-Hippy and he was against the welfare state. I should also add that he was very much in favour of the war in Vietnam, unlike most who started by supporting the war and turned against it, he never changed his mind in private or in public.

However he also legalised abortion and no fault divorce. In fact he was the first Governor to do either. He later said that he regretted making abortion legal and that he was inexperienced as a Governor when he signed it into law, if he had been given the law later on in his career he wouldn't have signed it.

He also let his personal feelings get in the way by passing into law No Fault Divorce. He is the only President to have ever been divorced. Before No Fault Divorce you had to prove to a Judge that there was a valid reason for the divorce and he found it humiliating. So he thought it would be better if you did not need to show a reason in court. He also came to regret this decision.

In 1980, on his third attempt he became the Republican nominee for President of the United States and of course he won. He was very good on Foreign policy, mostly. He stood up to the Soviets, he built up America defence, he invaded Grenada and stopped it from becoming a smaller Cuba. He set out to win the Cold War, something every other President had decided was too dangerous, and he did.

On the flip side his policy in Lebanon resulted in the US Marines seeing their worst single day since Iwo Jima in WWII. It was so bad it was really a non-policy. He allowed Pakistan too much room and we are still paying for that today. It wasn't the US who armed the Islamist's in Afghanistan but Pakistan, with Americas money.

On the economic front his policies defeated inflation, the great destroyer of wealth and living standards. In the 1970's it seemed unbeatable, so his achievement was great.

However he also supported Free Trade and trade liberalization, he supported Wall Street over Main Street and he never balanced a budget. He left America with a massive debt.

Now in time of war it is acceptable for a Government to get into debt, even massive debt. The Cold War was a war and President Reagan used debt as a weapon to help defeat Communism. He believed, correctly, that the Soviet Union as a country that had a Socialist economy simply could not find the money to build up it's military, particularly in technology. He outspent the Soviets and bankrupted them. It was a brilliant strategy, to use money to destroy Communism. And if during the past 25 years the US Government had paid off that debt, America would be unbeatable, however it has gone into ever greater amounts of debt.

But his greatest mistake as President was the Immigration Amnesty of 1986, or to give it it's proper name the Immigration Reform and Control Act 1986. The idea was that an amnesty would be signed to make illegal Immigrants legal and in return to make Congress enforce the law more vigorously. The Act did legalise the illegal Immigrants, but it did not lead to more vigorous enforcement of the law. It was a total victory for the left. After he left office President Reagan said it had been a mistake and he regretted it. But how could he not know that rewarding illegal activity is wrong? He not only rewarded it but he praised it to the skies when he signed it into law at Ellis Island.

Now lets get back to whether President Reagan was a Conservative, here are the five criteria for a Conservative:

1. Socially Conservative

2. Fiscally Conservative

3. Economically Conservative

4. Loyal to your own People

5. Loyal to your own Heritage

Now lets look at each.

He legalised Abortion and No Fault Divorce, Socially Conservative, No!

He got America into massive debt and he never balanced a budget, or even tried too, Fiscally Conservative, No!

He saw Wall Street replace Main Street, the financial economy replace the real economy and he approved of it. He supported trade liberalization over American manufacturing, Economically Conservative, No!

He granted Amnesty and rewarded illegal activity and America has paid a massive price for that. He did nothing to stop legal Immigration. Was he loyal to his own People, No!.

Was he loyal to his own Heritage, Yes!

No Conservative could ever support No Fault Divorce or Abortion on demand, there may be arguments for either in limited circumstances but never as a right. These are Liberal ideas and he made them law, Ronald Reagan was a Classical Liberal, not a Conservative, but as the modern meaning of Conservative seems to mean "not a Socialist"", he was called a Conservative and even believed he was one. But he was not and we should not keep calling him one.


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Friday 11 December 2015

The Thirty-Third Month

This has been a very good month for the blog, this has been my second best month ever!

What makes it even better is that to my knowledge I have not had any of my posts linked too by any other site. In the past my best months have been when I have been linked to by another site, so that is a big step in this blogs history.

The fates have been very kind to me as the number of posts I have done is low. I apologise for my lack of postings as I have been extremely busy with work. In late November I worked 88 hours in 7 days, this week I have 1 day off, today. I don't know what my future holds but somethings got to change, how dramatically I don't know.

My best month was March 2015 when I had 4523 visitors after The Thinking Housewife linked to a post I had written around 6 months earlier. This month, November 2015,  I have had 2828 visitors, still a way to go before I beat the number one position, but I'm very happy to both beat second place and to do it myself with your help of course!

My best day was the 9th December when I had 232 visitors and my worst was the 2nd December when I had 41 visitors. This month I have only had 3 days under 50, a lot better than I deserved.

EntryPageviews
United States
1318
Australia
323
Russia
212
United Kingdom
111
France
98
Germany
59
Ukraine
50
China
49
Canada
31
India
27

11th October-11th November

EntryPageviews
United States
1443
Australia
408
Russia
123
United Kingdom
102
Canada
79
India
60
France
54
Germany
47
Netherlands
35
Romania
31


Russia is nearly double, sometimes I get no one from Russia and then I get a big group as happened yesterday when I had 47 visitors from Russia.

France is also nearly double, it has been moving around the 100 mark for a few weeks now, moving over and the back down again.

The United Kingdom and Germany are up.

With the Ukraine and China coming back into the top 10.

The United States, Australia, Canada and India are all down, with the Netherlands and Romania leaving the top 10. 

I have also had visitors from the following countries Ireland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Portugal, Greece, Belarus, Lithuania, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Oman, U.A.E., Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Tunisia, Kenya, New Zealand, Mexico, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Peru.

I look forward to seeing you all again.
Mark Moncrieff
 

Thursday 3 December 2015

Should a Conservative Think Such a Thing?

In March 1918 during the First World War,  the Germans launched an offensive that broke through the Western Front. The Allies convened a Conference to decide what to do. At the Conference French Prime Minister Clemenceau heard General Petain (the victor of Verdun, Marshal of France and leader of Vichy France in WWII) say "the Germans will beat the English in open country, then they'll beat us as well". Clemenceau would later tell this story to the French President, Poincare where he would ask the rhetorical question"surely a General should not speak or think like that?"

I often think of that quote, but I ask "surely a Conservative should not speak or think like that?"

Have you ever thought something along those lines?

How can someone be a Conservative or think they are a Conservative if they say or think that? It is one of the more frustrating parts of being a Conservative. Finding that people that you hoped really were Conservative aren't.

In Australia, like most of the world, very few journalists call themselves Conservatives, at least their honest for once. But one who does call himself Conservative is Andrew Bolt. Mr. Bolt is the most read columnist in Australia and has been for years, he also has a TV show called The Bolt Report. And on most issues he's quite good, sometimes I'm surprised by how good, but then he reveals his other side. The side where he supports civic patriotism and says race doesn't matter, such as when he opposed putting a foreword in the Australian Constitution, his argument was that it would introduce race into the document and divide Australians along racial lines. So he was on the right side but for the wrong reason. The reason Conservatives should oppose such a thing is that such a change to the Constitution will have unforeseen consequences, consequences that no one can see and that it is always better to be safe than sorry.He also supports soft feminism and free trade. Things that are not Conservative at all, What he is is a Classical Liberal.

In the November 2015 issue of Quadrant, in the article The Birth of a New Conservative Age by Peter Murphy, on page 13 we get this quote:

"...there is a spectrum of conservatives. There are free-market, classical liberal, libertarian, national security, anti-totalitarian, Christian, evangelical, reform, futurist and traditional conservatives".

Wow what a list!

So basically your a Conservative if your not a Socialist. Well that explains how the Liberal party of Australia can exist, and the British Conservatives and the American Republicans!

The absurdity of the list should be obvious but sadly isn't, how can a Liberal, classical or otherwise be a Conservative? How can a Libertarian be a Conservative? And what exactly is a reformist reforming? Just to point out the most obvious.

I would have thought that a Conservative should be well, Conservative, like nearly all the time, not some random percentage. If a Conservative doesn't fit this criteria just how Conservative  are they?

1. Socially Conservative

2. Fiscally Conservative

3. Economically Conservative

4. Loyal to it's own People

5. Loyal to it's own Heritage

When you hear a Conservative talk ask yourself if a Conservative should speak or think such a thing?

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