Thursday 27 January 2022

America: Country Or Idea?

Traditionally Americans have been noted for their patriotism, even for being overly patriotic. But since at least the 1880's 'America' has had multiple meanings. It's popular meaning is that America is a country, a geographical area with it's own sovereign government. The other more 'intellectual' meaning is that America is a great experiment with no borders or limits, one that is destined to succeed. 

That 'experiment' first began with the republican form of government, before the French Revolution there were only two republican governments, the Swiss Confederation and the Venetian Republic. Everywhere else where republics had existed they had become monarchies. So to consciously choose to be a republic was quite radical. Americans became quite proud that their system of government survived when so many said that it wouldn't. Which lead to a further point were by Americans can to see that it's survival meant that it was a superior form of government. The next step in human development.

But the American system of government was not formed from whole cloth. It had an ancestry and that ancestry was British. So many of the 'unique' features of the American system were British. The separation of the Executive (King), the Legislature (Parliament) and the Judiciary  (Courts), two chambers of Congress, elections and so much more. But they also took the underlying political philosophy, Liberalism, in both it's political and in it's economic thinking.   

In politics Liberalism was about greater freedom, because free people will make the right choices, so give people more freedom. Which is why today Liberalism is becoming tyrannical because giving people choices has meant that people are now making what it regards as wrong choices. 

In economics Liberalism meant the free flow of money, goods and people. Right from the start America supported the free flow of money, Britain invested heavily in the new American republic because it could take it's money in and out as it pleased. The free flow of people enjoyed great periods of success, while at other times that flow was curtailed. The one thing that it did not embrace until quite recently was free trade, traditionally America was a high tariff country. 

America the idea came into being from a combination of these, the republican form of government as superior, America the land of the free and America the land of business and money making. Then in the late 1800's it was joined by two further ideas, that America was not just a land of opportunity but also the last refuge of the oppressed. which lead to the idea of the melting pot. The second idea was that America was the land of the future, free and becoming freer, rich and becoming richer, being American meant being rich and free, who could be against that?

The popular meaning remained for most people, America was a country with it's own people, Americans. It wasn't an idea, or abstract, it had a clear and distinct meaning, it was a real place with real people. 

What I find interesting is that these two meanings so often overlap, often without the speaker really understanding that they overlap. The modern Democratic party talks about America the idea but still cannot separate it from it's geography. The modern Republican party is even more confused, often alluding to America the country and America the idea in the same sentence. 

Which is why they cannot see the contradiction. Allowing mass immigration shows the greatness of America, illegal immigration also shows the greatness of America. Bizarrely it makes many people proud, see how good America is, people will break the law, even lose their life just for a chance to get in. The needs of the actual American people come a distant second, because if America is an idea then how can they contribute to it's greatness?

The fact that they built America isn't enough for America the idea, America is the land of the future and past achievements are past, over, best to move on to the future. This is coupled with money, how can something that makes money be a bad thing for America?

The thought that maybe there are things that are more important than money is something that they find hard to justify. 

America the idea has a firm place in America's foreign policy, the idea that anyone can be an American is one thing, but an even more radical idea is that everyone should be an American. Maybe 8 billion people cannot live in a such a small area as the United States. So how about everyone on Earth, no matter where they live becomes an American. We saw this quite clearly in Afghanistan, although it was present in Vietnam, Iraq and in other places America has fought in. The attempt to turn them into Americans. Of course after WWII many Americans were proud of how Germany and Japan were made more American. The European Union is inspired by America the idea.

America is a county with a people, a people that deserve loyalty, but like every other White country is being shown less and less. Yet the people who show us little loyalty always expect that we will continue to be loyal to them. Loyalty to a belief can be admirable, but not when that idea means being disloyal to your own people. 

That is treason.


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Friday 14 January 2022

Seduction And Politics

When a man seduces a women, he doesn't tell her the truth, because she doesn't want to know the truth. Instead the man tells her what she wants to hear. That is the secret of seduction, to work out what the person you are seducing wants to hear. 

That is true in romance and in politics. 

Liberalism is brilliant at seduction, the Right is absolutely hopeless because we are too honest, too blunt to be good seducers. There comes a point when a man finds it insulting to have to seduce his own wife. Liberalism rarely makes that mistake, it's a player, an eternal seducer. All good seducers know that truth is the enemy of lies, because lies work. Promise the moon and the stars, don't tell her that only an idiot would want to go somewhere you can't even breath. 

That's why every election we are given promises, which may or may not be kept. We can dream of a better world, a better life, of a more optimistic future. The electorate wants to be lied to, just as a women does. Don't tell the truth, give them a dream, tell them that their desires will be fulfilled, that the future will be better than anything that they can imagine. The truth is not wanted here.

Promise them a new hospital, higher wages and lower taxes with more spending on services. They know your lying, but it's all in how convincing you are. If you sound like it's true then they won't feel guilty when they vote for you. She won't feel bad for being tricked by you. After all how can you feel bad when you've been lied to by a silver tongued devil.

On the Right we look on and wonder how can people not see their lies, but it's easy when you want to be lied to. It only becomes a problem when you resent being lied to. The seducer will move away from you once he knows that you don't like his lies. Occasionally one will give you a knowing smile, because they know you have not been deceived, they think you are a fellow seducer. But if your on the Right you probably aren't.

People tell you that they hate lies, but that is itself a lie. The person they are mostly lying to is themselves, they think that they are one type of person when they are really another. The truth is that life is to harsh to live without lies, we need lies, lies make life easier, they sooth our hurts and our conscience. Most of those lies are directed inwards, but of course not all. Lies also make life simpler because there are some truths that we never want to know, we not only like these lies, we insist upon them.

But if we on the Right are men of truth where does that leave us?

It leaves us with a great strength and a great weakness, honesty. Because when the lies fail people look for the truth, they learn to value honestly. It can provide certainty and faith in the future, it can provide a solid bases upon which to build. Something that lies cannot do. 

Honesty is harsh, blindingly harsh, that is it's great weakness, people are not strong enough to face only honesty. They need it tempered with empathy and wisdom. 

That is why we fail and that is how can can win!


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Covid, January 2022AD

Wednesday 12 January 2022

The One Hundred and Sixth Month

I should have written this an hour again when it was still the 11th, ohhh well. It's one of those months when it seems like I have only just written last months update, even though I have done a lot in the past month. 

In the past month I have had 2000 visitors, unfortunately Blogger no longer gives precise numbers but rounds things off, or up, not sure once they get over a 1000. Although if I add up all the numbers below it comes to 1,997. I had two equally worst days, the 19th and 20th December when I had 39 visitors each day. My best day was the 26th December when I had 163 visitors.

Blogger tells me that this week exactly 500 visitors have come to the site. It is also unusual for my Australian numbers to be so close to the American ones, At one point I thought it might be one of those rare months when I have more Australian than Americans visit the blog.

United States
718
Australia
542
Japan
257
Germany
83
France
55
Bulgaria
45
Canada
29
United Kingdom
29
Belgium
27
Indonesia
23
Netherlands
22
Greece
18
Russia
11
Romania
9
India
8
Finland
7
South Africa
7
Ireland
6
South Korea
5
Other
96

Sunday 9 January 2022

Covid, January 2022 AD

Here we are in early January 2022 and it's a wet day today in Melbourne, even though it's summer. Which somehow seems fitting as things being out of order seem to be the way things are with Covid. We currently have mask restrictions and in the Northern Territory there is an even more draconian lockdown then we had in Victoria. When I have been asked for my opinion I have said that we will be free to have summer and then we will go back into lockdown in March. But maybe I'm wrong.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) for the 6th January 2022, the most recent data available, Australia has the following statistics.

New cases in the last 24 hours: 64,747

Cumulative Cases: 612,106

Cumulative Deaths: 2,289

So according to these figures, more than 10% of all cases in the past two years were found in one day!

On Friday 7th January 2022, 21,728 cases were recorded in Victoria, However at 9.18am on Saturday 8th January 2022, the Victoria Department of Health twitted out that the number of new cases was 51,356. The above numbers came from the same article on news.com.au

Over at worldometers we find some different numbers.

Coronavirus numbers: 762,500

Deaths: 2321

Recovered: 351,637

Currently infected patients: 408,542

Active Cases, mild: 408,273 (99.9%)

Active Cases: serious or critical: 269 (0.1%) 


The question is what has changed in the past few weeks to have lead to this large increase in cases?

1. To go on holiday, particularly interstate, people have been required to get tested.

2. A new test, the 'rapid Antigen' test which can be done at home has become available.

3. A lot of people have gotten one or more of the various vaccines.  


Any one of these things could have lead to the increase in numbers, together they are leading to big numbers. Which in normal times would mean nothing as Covid is not really any different from the flu. But of course we are not living in normal times, everything, including the flu, is now politized. 

All of which makes me wonder if we are heading towards a summer lockdown. Until today I had not thought that that was a serious option, now I'm reconsidering. 

It may be a new year but the lies and the fight against them goes on!


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Dictator Dan