Conservatism Versus Traditionalism

When I first became aware of and interested in politics as a teenager I always thought and called myself a Conservative. As I look back at that time I see that I was a Classical-Liberal. In fact by that time, the late 1980's the two things were basically the same, not quite but nearly. When I started this blog in 2013 I still called myself a Conservative. It was Mark Richardson from Oz Conservative who suggested that we should call ourselves Traditionalists, I was very resistant. Now I call myself a Traditionalists.

I realised that I, like everyone else, had spent my entire life surrounded by Liberalism and that it would be impossible to entirely escape it's influence. But that didn't mean that I had to be entirely influenced by it. That I should reject those things that worked against the things that I loved and that I should reject those things that didn't make sense. Particularly the 'unprincipled exceptions', the things that Liberalism said were universal laws but that it make exceptions for, exceptions that were entirely unprincipled. 

Over the past 5 years or so I have completely changed my thinking about Conservatism. To be honest it has been a very slow and reluctant change, I, like many on the Right thought that we were the majority, that most people agreed with us and that all we had to do was have politicians who were brave and sensible enough to stand up and that things could change. But I am now on the other side, I am in the minority and while there are many fellow travellers, we are pioneers starting a new philosophy. Not from scratch, all pioneers come from somewhere.

 Conservatism originally meant to conserve, to protect the best of our past. That is what I thought it meant, that's why I was happy to call myself a Conservative. But I noticed that so many Conservatives were happy to fight for something, an idea, a tradition, a building, and they were just as happy to forget that they had once fought. The Left never gives up an issue, but Conservatives did it all the time. I thought that it was a personal failing, that once the right man was in place, or the right team of men, then it would change. I thought that for a long time. 

Slowly I came to realise that Conservatism was the rear-guard of Liberalism. That the Radicals were the Avant-Garde (Advance Guard) of Liberalism, testing the way forward and in the rear were the Conservatives. Not protecting the best of the old order, but using it as cover as it abandons it's positions to do it's real job, to protect the rear of the Liberal army. That explains why it is so ready to fight and then to move on. It explains why it never seems to be confused or annoyed when they have to say the opposite to what they said they supported a short time ago. They are not being disloyal or inconsistent as we so often accuse them of being. They are being very loyal and very consistent, to Liberalism.

Those of us who do not support Liberalism must be able to identify between those who are on our side and those who claim to be on our side. It's not a problem fighting alongside Conservatives, but we must always be under no illusion about what they really believe. We also need to be on the lookout for those who, like many of us, thought they were joining one thing and found out that they were really in another. Last but not least we must hold a mirror up to them so that they can see what they really are. 

Once the rear-guard has been defeated things can really change!

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Feminism, Just Another Branch Of Liberalism II

Answers Create Problems

Problems are eternal.

That is something that is easy to forget, because we want to forget that. We want our problems to go away and for us to live trouble free lives. It is entirely natural to feel that way, but we should also understand that it is an illusion. Because the fixing of every problem leads directly to the creation of other problems.

Your country is attacked but you are victorious, problem solved!

Yes that problem has been solved. 

What about the prisoners you captured, the rebuilding, the lost income, the debt you incurred to win?

Victory has lead to new problems, just as defeat would have. Although generally victory leads to more options than defeat does.

But that is not just applicable to war, it exists in every situation. Everywhere answers create new problems. Those problems may be better than the last set of problems but they still exist. Being poor has different problems than being rich, but problems still exist. We often like to think that money will solve our problems, in reality it provides the opportunity to experience new ones. 

Certainly problems can be mitigated, not every problem is of the same severity. Managing problems should always be our guide, because we will always have problems. It is a mistake that other political philosophies make, that they can destroy problems, that they will be able to devote more and more resources to the big problems as they will eliminate the smaller ones. That is naive, even foolish. 

High interest rates will hurt some people and help others, low interest rates will also hurt some people and help others. Poverty will always exist, so will war and economic uncertainty. It is not about destroying problems, but about managing them. Trying to stop the extremes from getting out of control and accepting that even when problems are solved that has not stopped new problems from arising. I certainly do not want to imply that no problem can ever be fixed or that it is not worth trying to solve problems. I merely want to warn that that will not be the end of your problems.

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What Do Traditional Conservatives Believe?

Controlling The Churches - The Unintended Reformation - Third Chapter Review

Chapter Two: Relativizing Doctrines

Before the Reformation the Catholic Church was a rival, at least in terms of power and legitimacy, to every Kingdom. Here was another power that could and at times did challenge the power and authority of Kings. Princes and Emperors. Sometimes this lead to war, it certainly lead to a believe that the church was more worldly then it should have been. But the church also kept the governments in check. It reminded them of their obligations and encouraged learning. When the relationship between church and state worked well it was good for all. When it did not it lead to chaos.

When the Reformation arrived, Martin Luther was protected by Princes. They financed and used these religious difficulties to increase their own power. It is easy to see this cynically, but many felt as they did otherwise they could not have had any chance of success. As others came about to challenge the Catholic church, the ones who had any chance of success were also supported and financed by Princes. The State began to take over the responsibilities that were once the realm of the church, not all at once but over time.    

But religion continued and the new churches were now beholden to the state. They became official religions. One people, one state, one religion. The church still had influence, but it was now unmistakably subordinate to the state. This also meant that religious division was supressed by the state. To be of a different faith wasn't a religious problem it was a criminal and civil problem. Could someone of a different faith be loyal to the state if he couldn't be loyal to the official state approved religion?

The Reformation also changed the relationship between church and state in Catholic countries. The church now needed the protection of the state in a way it had never needed before, officially it was equal but in reality it was also subordinate to the state. The church lost much prestige, power and authority in the centuries after the Reformation. The church of 1750 was a much weakened creature then it had been in 1500, that decline continued.

Today even official religions have lost out to the state. They continue to exist because to destroy them would reveal the real power of the state in all it's raw ugliness. 

Another point that Professor Gregory makes is that the loss that has been suffered has had real repercussions upon our society. Most people, even those who attend church, are not religious as people in the past were. Today believers believe that God is good, basically that he's a good guy, and that is how they think of their religion. God is nice and he doesn't judge people. That is not what the bible teaches but increasingly it is what churches teach. 

No one in the Reformation wanted these outcomes, but here we are!

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Right-Liberal Socialism

New And Old Links

 I have increased the number of blogs that I link to this month and I thought I should introduce you to them all, new and old.

Adventures in Keeping House aka http://athriftyhomemaker.blogspot.com/

I have linked to Sanne from the early days of the blog, she provides a housewives perspective on the modern world from the Netherlands.

http://www.amerika.org/

A very prolific site that normally has a handful of articles up each day.

https://www.clownworldau.com/

A new site that has been around for about 6 months, some great commentary on Australian issues.

http://ozconservative.blogspot.com/

Mr. Richardson has been at his site since 2004 and a Co-Convenor of the Melbourne Traditionalists. Not as prolific as in the past but when he writes it's well worth checking out.

The Politically Incorrect Australian aka http://anotherpoliticallyincorrectblog.blogspot.com/

An older site that I've put back on, well worth a read.

https://thronealtarliberty.blogspot.com/

A site that I've been meaning to link to but never had, Mr. Neal's output this past year has been great. Check out his most recent, I thought it was great: https://thronealtarliberty.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-left-abandons-liberalism.html  

https://xyz.net.au/

Last but not least, Mr. Hiscox hosted the podcast with me and he is a regular poster, particularly on Australian issues.

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"Explosions of Bullshit" - President Trump And What's Happening

Watch this 40 second video, it's one of the most extraordinary thing I think I've ever heard from a US President!

What makes it so extraordinary is that it has vanished from the news cycle already and that it's true!

I'm going to write about what is going on and why things have come to this point. Lets start with President Trump. He is a great man, but like most he is also a flawed man. His flaws are as important to who he is and to his achievements and failures as are his strengths. He is egotistical, stubborn, inflexible, trashy, blunt, combative, he thinks loyalty only flows one way, it seems he is not a great judge of character and maybe worst of all he thinks America still works as it did 50 years ago. But his egotism has made him immune to criticism and his stubbornness has made him stay the course. But he also has strengths, he really does have a vision for America, he has a plan to make America great again, it was not just a slogan. He is intelligent and witty, passionate and patriotic, he understands economics better than any President in a long time and he has a strong grasp of Americas strategic situation. 

It is clear to me that he, like so many of us, is on a political journey. I do not think that he has reached his destination. He entered this race with the idea that he had spent his entire adult life around politicians and bureaucracy and that meant that he understood these things. But that was wrong, he was an outsider looking in. Certainly he had experience with these things but not any intimate knowledge and he saw the charlatan nature of most politicians. Something that he has been accused of and sometimes is guilty of. But at the heart of politics is 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours', but President Trump was and remains an outsider, he has nothing to give that someone more experienced in politics couldn't already give them. He knows that these people are hollow men, takers, not givers and he, like us, holds them in contempt....and they know it.....which is a big problem.

But he also failed to understand that the America that he grew up in no longer exists. The reason he supports Make America Great Again is because he thinks America is basically the same but it has taken a few wrong turns and all it needs is to be guided back to the right path. I wish that were true, I wish that was true of my own nation also, but it's not. Over the past 50 years so much has changed, the relationship between men and women, mass immigration, and the moving together of the major political parties until they are effectively, the uniparty. So much has changed that it requires radical surgery, not just a change in direction. He also believed that he could count upon the support of his own party. That Republican politicians would support a Republican President. But they knew the contempt that he held for them and that he could not give them anything that they couldn't get elsewhere. 

His experience as a CEO was good experience for leadership and getting things done, but bad experience for creating alliances with politicians and political power structures. He often accepted bad advice and he could not see that it was bad. He failed for example to get rid if the DREAMERS, which he promised to do on day one. That was a constant theme of his Presidency. It did not help that he was sabotaged right from the start, the establishment held him in the same contempt that he held for them. He threated them in a way they never felt possible. Remember back to 2015 when he was being dared to run for President, they thought it was a joke, they thought he was a joke. Remember Hillary Clinton and her 'Basketful of Deplorable's!'. They never seriously thought he posed any threat to them and then he won. They didn't know what to do. Here was someone who hated them and he was now President, but it went even further than that. It showed them something that was as shocking as Brexit, it showed them that the Liberal victory that they assumed was in sight, might not happen...ever!

That's what this is all about, this is why they have been hysterical for 4 years, this is why they cheated, this is why they are still hysterical. The certain safe world that they thought was coming into view has been threatened. Actually it has been more than threatened, they are right, they are facing an existential crisis. They now feel as you and I feel. That everything that they love, value and cherish could be destroyed and taken away from them. Their vision of the future, that they will reign supreme and that their values will reign supreme, that every nasty thing they have ever done or believed will be justified because it will usher a better world into existence. All of that is under threat.

Which is true. Liberals believe that everyone is secretly a Liberal, they just haven't heard the right argument yet, but once they do. But that's not true and as they push they vision onto us they will scare the people that they think that they are saving. Some will rush to join them, but many will rush away. The world of give and take is going away and in it's place is the idea that the winner can take all, that's not true, the winner cannot take it all. But the belief in that is true and it means that in the future there will be less and less tolerance for anything but the party line. President Trump was an interlude, but now things are hotting up again. 

Personally I think that he still has a role to play, the question is as hero or martyr?

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Free- Trade Versus Protectionism

The Ninety-Fourth Month

Last year I had 150 posts, admittedly that included a fair number of videos, but in two separate years I wrote 75 articles, which means that I have doubled those two years!

On New Years Day I wrote three articles, which I think is a record for me, but when I posted the second article blogger said that I posted it on the same day. I did not, I posted it 4 days later, so I have to watch out for that. The third article I copied and pasted and that worked as it should.

The last month was particularly bad, 2730 visitors compared to over 5000 the month before, although I didn't write much at all. My best day was the 17th December when I had 228 visitors, my worst day was the 26th December when I had 40 visitors.

My visitors by country over the past 30 days.

United States  1290

Australia          394

Sweden            219

Canada               99

Saudi Arabia      82

Portugal              72

Germany             59

Russia                 59

United Kingdom 51

Singapore           48

Romania             43

India                   33

U.A.E.                19

Egypt                  19

Indonesia            17

Belgium              15

Bulgaria              15

Netherlands        15

Philippines         15

Other                166

(Other means every other country)

 

Free Association

In the early 1800's belonging to a Trade Union was against the law. Trade Unions were seen as organisations that were one step away from being clubs for revolutionaries. In Britain many were transported to Australia as convicts. But Liberals fought to change that, Liberalism did change that. Today it is very rare for an organisation to be illegal, or to be a member of an organisation. 

Terrorism has changed free association, but something else changed it even more Civil Rights. Within Liberalism there are two ideas that are both quite well known and in opposition to each other. Freedom and Equality. They are in fact mutually exclusive, if you are free then you are not equal, but if you are equal you are not free. Freedom means that people are different and that difference is celebrated, or at least under Liberalism it should be. But equality means that people are the same, interchangeable even.

Before the 1960's Liberalism believed that freedom was the highest ideal that it possessed. That more freedom meant more Liberalism and more Liberalism meant more freedom. It was mutually supporting. But the civil rights movement put a spanner in the works, it said that freedom caused some people to be unfree, that freedom was achieved for some by making others unfree, by limiting their rights. sometimes by violence. Some Liberals rejected that idea, but for others it fit into what they had started to think, that equality was more important. That equality was the highest ideal within Liberalism. 

Today that is the majority of Liberals, freedom has been cast down and has been replaced by equality. But on the way from there to here there had to be a price and that price was free association. Liberalism had brought free association into being, the idea that you should be free to join any organisation you wanted to and that you were the best judge of who you should associate with. But that meant that you did not have to join or associate with people you did not want to. Which means that you can and maybe even should, exclude people. That ran right smack bang into the civil rights movement. 

Freedom or Equality? 

Free Association or Civil Rights? 

Liberalism decided quite quickly which one it supported, within a decade it had chosen equality over freedom. Which meant that Liberalism became something that it had once been against. This is where Classical Liberalism ended and Left and Right Liberalism re-emerged. This is where Cultural Marxism merged with Liberalism and changed the course of Liberalism and of our Civilization.

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The Individual Versus Individualism

Destroying The Next Generation

Liberalism has always proclaimed great and grand ideas, ideas that it claims will improve, well everything. In the past fifty years or so equality has been one of those ideas. That the more equal everyone is then the better the world will be. In effect they were saying that equality means better.

Since the 1960's more and more laws have been made in more and more places that state that it is a crime not to enforce equality. The powers that be had decided that mere influence was not enough, people could not be trusted to do what they regarded as the right thing. What is most remarkable about these laws was that many people didn't need these laws, they believed and supported the arguments. Equality made things better, there was no downside to them. 

Here we encounter a conundrum, if equality makes things better then wouldn't those people who implemented more equitable workplaces be more successful?

Wouldn't that in turn confine those who did not support equality to the dustbin of history?

But instead of allowing what they believed to be inevitable to happen, they instead made it compulsory. But here is something that has mostly been overlooked, while equality became compulsory it was not done all at once. It was spread out over decades and that means that the men who made these decisions were largely immune to the effects of these laws. 

How often have you seen someone get up and say "we need more women" or "we need more diversity" in this company, industry or institution and that person is a White man?

My thought has often been, "well if that's the way you feel why haven't you resigned?".  But they never did, instead they put in place some type of program that will not affect them, but that will impact massively on the next generation. These programs actively discriminate against White men, which is always denied. They actively discriminate in favour of everyone who is not a White man. But our equal society were discrimination is always described as wrong say that these things are not wrong because they right an historical wrong. The future man must be punished because of the past man and they call this fair and they call it just. 

Today that voice is often a women's, but it is the same old tired rhetoric as before, more of them and less of us. But it has recently taken another turn, the screw has been tightened and it is also been speeding up. White men have been resigning and soon you will see White women doing the same. The way must be made for more diversity but that is stripping the veil from many eyes, something that Liberalism has been able to hide for centuries. It has been able to hide it's true aims behind something that smelt much sweeter. The destruction that it has inflicted is coming more and more into focus.

Destroying the future has consequences and they are becoming harder to ignore all the time.

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New Year, New Australian Anthem?

I read today with no prior indication that there has been a change to the Australian national anthem!

It took place on the 30th of December without any notice or public consultation, another 'Captains Call' by Prime Minister Morrison.  Here is the link to the proclamation signed by the Governor-General https://www.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/proclamation-australian-national-anthem-signed.pdf

So what has changed?

The second line has been changed from "For we are young and free" to " For we are one and free". 

Now one word might not seem like much of a change but it does for two reasons

The Left have been encouraging Aboriginals to attack the national anthem because of the word "young", Aboriginals have been here for tens of thousands of years so it's an "insult" to them that we are described as young. However the Commonwealth of Australia is only 120 years old so we are young. However the word has always had an additional meaning, that Australia had, like anyone who is young, great potential and a long time to experience and enjoy that potential. It was not simply about chronically but about hope. The young have hope, they have dreams, they have the entire future before them. Australia was young and it had hopes and dreams, the entire future before us. But that has now been taken from us! 

Secondly it is about pretending that mass immigration and multiculturalism have worked, that the old White Australia has been consumed by the new diverse Australia. We are one they say, you cannot tell anyone apart, nothing divides us. Ohh but it does, we have imported new races and ethnicities and new conflicts. New ways of thinking and doing things, we are not one at all. However we once were one, 98% of Australians were of British origin or descent. Today we are around 2/3rds and decreasing. Our chief enemy, the general behind our decline, the Australian government. 

The very people who changed the anthem. 

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What Is More Important The Past, The Present Or The Future?