Notes on Survival Amid the Madness

Posted on | July 26, 2015 | 282 Comments

We live in an Orwellian dystopia, where the Thought Police constantly monitor our every word for evidence of any tendency we might have to think for ourselves. We are supposed to think only what government school officials teach us to think, and expected to believe whatever the Democrat-controlled entertainment/media industry wants us to believe. If we begin to doubt — if we “Question Authority” as the old hippie bumper sticker urged us to do — we find ourselves confronted with insanity. Without a quasi-religious faith in liberalism, an hour’s worth of watching CNN becomes an ordeal, psychologically traumatizing, and MSNBC is like shock therapy, or perhaps a lobotomy.

Mental toughness is necessary to withstand the constant psychic assault we must daily endure in a world gone mad. Having spent years diving head-first into the swirling cultural vortex of a society descending into chaotic lunacy, I’ve learned the secrets of survival:

Focus — Keep your mind on your chosen or assigned task. You cannot cover every story or worry about every problem in the world. If you let yourself be constantly distracted by whatever Big Story is headlined on the Drudge Report or getting wall-to-wall coverage on CNN, you will find yourself whiplashed back and forth, and risk becoming disoriented and overwhelmed by it all.
Objectivity — No one is ever actually objective about anything. We all have our opinions. However, if we are to survive inside the 21st-century asylum, we must maintain some kind of emotional distance from the events and people we write about. I once said that, in the news business, objectivity is just a way of saying “I don’t actually give a damn about these people.” You have to imagine the daily work I did as a news editor years. Six people killed by tornados in Oklahoma? Grab the AP story off the wire, cut it down to two paragraphs, stick it in the National Briefs column and move on to the next story. “File it and forget it,” as they say. There is no time to mourn the dead or become emotionally involved with the suffering of those Oklahoma tornado survivors. Your job is not to care about them, your job is to put their stories in the newspaper. Murder, mayhem, war, famine, disease — these are just so many column-inches of news copy with which to fill the pages. Fit the headlines, write the captions, crop the pictures, and get it all done by deadline. The news business is not the Red Cross. It’s not the Peace Corps. Learning not to care is part of the job.
Reality — The problem of the 24-hour news cycle and the constant connection of the online environment is that we are easily tempted to think of that (the stories in the news) as “real life,” so that our own actual flesh-and-blood existence seems unimportant. More than once during the 2012 presidential campaign, I noticed how reporters at rallies were glued to their iPhones. Instead of observing the event they were assigned to cover, they were checking their emails or scrolling their Twitter feeds. To be at a major rally and see political reporters all staring into their phones was disturbing to me. What’s the point of being “on the scene” if you’re not paying attention to the scene? By the same token, now that I’m back home doing the blog thing, I find it necessary to remind myself that real life (my home, my wife, my children) is actually more important than, for example, the problems of queer feminist artists on Tumblr. That is to say, blogging is what I do to pay the bills, thus enabling me to enjoy real life. It’s important to be able to tell the difference, or else you can’t enjoy real life at all.

All of this is preamble to discussing the #cuckservative furor that has erupted in online warfare in recent days. This is a distraction to me — at a time where I’m racing a book deadline next month — even though, on the other hand, it involves subjects which I am perhaps uniquely qualified to address as a conservative journalist. I am personally familiar with many people on what is called the “New Right” or the “alt-right.” In the past couple of days, I’ve made phone calls to some of these sources/friends, and one of them informed me of the proximate origins of the #cuckservative swarm. In the past six months, there was a bitter schism among the so-called “neo-reactionary” (NRx) online community, with purges and counter-purges. It was a multi-faction quarrel. Certain ultra-traditionalist Catholic/Orthodox activists were involved, as were various European nationalist types and futurist “singularity” devotees.

After months of this factional infighting, somehow the Donald Trump presidential candidacy — especially Trump’s controversial remarks about immigration — became a rallying point for many of these “alt-right” people and, amid this, the slur “cuckservative” was coined to describe the cowardice of mainstream Republicans.

Frankly, I’ve been paying as little attention as possible to the 2016 campaign, because (a) I spent 18 months covering the 2012 campaign so it’s “been there, done that,” (b) I’ve been busy working on the Sex Trouble project, and (c) my gut hunch is that, when the dust settles, Scott Walker will be the Republican nominee. I like Walker, who thrice defeated the full power of the Left in Wisconsin, and think he will be good enough to beat to Hillary next fall. If my hunch is correct, therefore, it will not be necessary for me to become directly involved in the fight for the GOP nomination. Walker obviously knows a thing or two about winning tough campaigns, so that if he wins the 2016 Iowa caucus, it should be green lights all the way to the nomination for him, and I don’t have to worry about it at all.

So I’ve made up my mind to ignore the campaign to the greatest possible extent and, if my hunch is correct, the Trump candidacy will ultimately prove to be a flash in the pan except for this: By proving how popular a blunt-talking “get tough” approach to immigration enforcement is among GOP primary voters, Trump is pushing the borders/sovereignty/culture discourse onto center stage. The sheep will be separated from the goats, and the Open Borders candidates (e.g., Jeb Bush) will be flushed out of their hiding behind vague talk about “comprehensive reform.”

Well done, Mr. Trump. Well done, I say.

This has happened without me having to lift a finger, and I’ve barely even commented about it. Yet this #cuckservative thing sprang up, Ace of Spades commented on it, and when I took notice, people started attacking me, as if I were some kind of Chamber of Commerce shill or RINO Establishmentarian. So I blogged about it, and the comments exploded with trolls, and among the comments I offered this explanation:

You see that racialists (of whatever persuasion) must always impute dishonorable motives to their critics. This is a mirror-reverse of the way that the Left is forever accusing the Right of racism. The fact that I have been hate-listed by the SPLC does nothing to defend me from the accusation by racialists that I am, somehow, insufficiently aware, lacking “racial consciousness.”
Caught between the Devil of the SPLC and the “deep blue sea” of racialism, I have no answer except to say that (a) I am profoundly interested in facts, and (b) I consider the conservative cause to be a defense of American liberty. On the latter point, I consider that our liberty is threatened both by cultural decline and by the remorseless expanison of federal authority. These are related, because as immorality flourishes, the people are less able to govern their own passions and to provide for their own material needs, so that government expands to fill the vacuum created by the collapse of organic institutions, i.e., faith, family and community.
As to point (a), we ought to be able to candidly discuss the facts regarding human behavior without being required to endorse any particular theory to explain these facts. For example, liberals look at facts about racial groups and attribute observable differences to discrimination, prejudice and historical oppression. Conservatives, while not denying that any of the factors cited by liberals are relevant, insist that what is important are the (equally real) opportunities available to individuals in a free and prosperous society. Even before the civil-rights revolution of the 1960s, many black Americans were remarkably successful, even in the segregated South. As a matter of fact, Thomas Sowell has pointed out that many socioeconomic measures show the black community was (generally) advancing more before the mid-1960s than afterwards. Sowell attributes the problems that affected the black community after the 1960s to the vast expansion of the Welfare State that began under LBJ’s “Great Society.”
Of course, Sowell’s analysis is more complex than that brief summary suggests, and we are under no obligation to endorse Sowell’s analysis. My point is that the Left/Right argument over the causes of racial problems in America is about ideas — it is a debate over public policy — and is not (as the Left claims) a matter of the Right’s “racism.” And really, why should it matter whether or not anyone is “racist” in any sense of that word? This word has become a mere epithet, a slur used to silence critics of liberalism, so that liberal policies can be enacted without any real debate over the efficacy of those policies.
Perhaps I am more “racist” than some people and less “racist” than others, but what does this have to do with anything in terms of debating public policy? Why are we expected to subject ourselves to a sort of public psychoanalysis where it is to be determined (by whom?) whether we pass the Not-a-Racist Test?
The attempt to debate public policy (or to discuss social and cultural problems) is not helped when you have a swarm of avowed white racialists insisting that any conservative who does not adopt racialist rhetoric (and subscribe to whatever theorythis rhetoric expresses) is a coward, a “race traitor.”
Three words: Bull. Fucking. Shit.
Just as I will not let feminists dictate to me what I can or cannot say about sex, neither will I let anyone (Left or Right) tell me what to think about race. I will say, in concession to the “New Right” (or “alt-right” as they sometimes style themselves) that they are essentially correct that discourse about race is hemmed in by artificial constraints imposed by Cultural Marxism. Anyone attempting to talk about race relations is required to tiptoe around a minefield where any false step produces explosive accusations from the Left that one has exposed his own racism. The mainstream Right frequently cooperates with the Left in this project by periodically purging someone (e.g., Sam Francis, Trent Lott, John Derbyshire) who has transgressed the boundaries of permissible racial discourse. I myself was targeted for such destruction, and miraculously survived, because I had watched what happened to Sam Francis (whom I knew personally) and learned a lot about the tactics of the Left.
Notice this: I have never apologized for anything, and this drives the Left insane. How could someone hate-listed by the SPLC manage to continue a career in conservative journalism with such remarkable success? The Left’s theory, of course, is that my success proves that everybody on the Right secretly endorses the racism of which I am accused. Yet the truth is that my friends on the Right know I was unjustly accused — that I am not the hateful bogeyman depicted by the SPLC — and so the Left is confronted with its failure to destroy me. Grant that I have been harmed by the Left’s attack, it was my destruction they had in mind, and I am manifestly not destroyed. This example of the Left’s impotence might encourage others to defy the Thought Police, and I hope this possibility troubles their sleep.

People need to calm down and get a grip. Either we are doomed, or else the American people will come to their senses. Either way, the Cuckservative Crisis is a controversy ginned up by people with too much time on their hands, and my plan is this: File it and forget it.

I am an objective journalist. I don’t give a damn about these people.

Category: Immigration, Neutral Objective Journalism, Racism

Comments

282 Responses to “Notes on Survival Amid the Madness”

Benschachar
July 27th, 2015 @ 2:17 pm

To be fair a LOT of those people in the previous comment thread WERE in fact doing just that. This was made obvious to me by the way they literally called it “white culture” and some of them were explicitly grossed out by just the idea of America becoming non-white majority.
Benschachar
July 27th, 2015 @ 2:20 pm

Thing is ideas aren’t racial. If we can have our own march through the institutions we can change minds.
Benschachar
July 27th, 2015 @ 2:21 pm

I think you will find that immigration is only one issue of many and that there are quite a few here who oppose the illegal version.
Finrod Felagund
July 27th, 2015 @ 3:09 pm

Is the short version of the four color map proof in that book too?
Finrod Felagund
July 27th, 2015 @ 3:10 pm

Only cowards and leftists hide their posting history. Which are you?
CaptDMO
July 27th, 2015 @ 3:47 pm

where the Thought Police constantly monitor our every word for evidence of any tendency we might have to think for ourselves.”
HEY! Apparently,” there’s an APP for that…”
CaptDMO
July 27th, 2015 @ 4:05 pm

Well, elementary, or junior high School Social Studies would be a NICE start for “credentials” on what one is being Conservative TO, , but then, how long has it been since THAT (AND Home Econ., AND Shop) has been supplanted by disingenuously “sponsored”, and tax paid, by HALF “Anti-bullying” classes, beginning in Grade school.
I think it safe to say that “higher”, and “credentialed” academic attendance, or appointment to subsequently “instruct”, in…say…The Constitution- has NOT proved to bestow the mantle of elite, “expert”, status in ones “debate”.
Daniel Freeman
July 27th, 2015 @ 5:46 pm

My dad’s first degree was in education (then he moved on to business). In one of his education classes, they took an IQ test; the average was 100, and that was with him dragging it up. (His retirement hobby is studying physics.)
Quartermaster
July 27th, 2015 @ 6:20 pm

jeb jeb doesn’t stand a snowballs chance in a steel mill of getting the nomination.
Quartermaster
July 27th, 2015 @ 6:30 pm

This thread doesn’t look quite so Mad Max as the last one. We have Wombat to thank for that.
Quartermaster
July 27th, 2015 @ 6:34 pm

I think it’s after the Dana Sexuality Uncertainty Principle and right before the clown parade equations.
Quartermaster
July 27th, 2015 @ 6:41 pm

Yah just gotta know that it’s all the fault uh da jooooos!

I am compelled to say that there are many Jews in this country who have a baleful influence on things. Most of the are of the so called “Reform” camp, which means they are rank heretics. Chucky Shumer and his lot are a cancer on this country. Conservative and Orthodox Jews tend to be a much better lot, but as Medved has shown a time or two, he can be problematic as well.

Frankly, most of the Jewish contribution to the country has been filtered through the Protestant Reformation. It’s still important as Jews were the original recipients of what Paul called “The Oracles of God.”
Quartermaster
July 27th, 2015 @ 6:47 pm

Yeah, and I already denounced you to the KGB.
Quartermaster
July 27th, 2015 @ 7:02 pm

The Cuckservative meme has debuted at Chateau Hartiste and among the dark ilk.
DeadMessenger
July 27th, 2015 @ 9:01 pm

Could be. I have tons of time to kill.
DenisetheCelt
July 27th, 2015 @ 10:44 pm

I am a racist. I believe that the White Race is better than any other.
History proves me right.
ANY White that is not a Racist is a Race Traitor, and deserves to be Kevin Sutherlanded ASAP
Let’s see how long thispost lasts before I am censored, and banned.
DenisetheCelt
July 27th, 2015 @ 10:45 pm

You are an Anti White cuckold pussy. run along and suck off your rabbi now, Go.
DenisetheCelt
July 27th, 2015 @ 10:47 pm

Whites ARE the Creative Race.
Jews are parasites. They are simply clever Negroes.
Race. ALWAYS Race.
DenisetheCelt
July 27th, 2015 @ 10:49 pm

Yes. Polite conversation IS the foremost consideration, when one’s Race is being systematically genocided, eh wot?
DenisetheCelt
July 27th, 2015 @ 10:50 pm

The Transceiver correct. You should jump in an oven. Now. Go
Quartermaster
July 28th, 2015 @ 5:23 am

You miss the point. Many in the commentariat here are sympathetic, but when you come in like a run away freight train and insult that commentariat, there is going to be a backlash. The owner of said blog will not be sympathetic either, particularly when he’s accused of being a wuss after he’s already been marked by the other side.

Go over to Vox Day’s blog, act the same way and see what happens. The reaction will be no different.
Gunga
July 28th, 2015 @ 6:08 am

Well then, count me one happy race traitor! There are worse people than racists, but damn few of ’em. That said, I doubt that you’ll get banned for merely self-identifying honestly as someone with an inherently flawed belief system. I suspect that you can comment here until you get into someone’s grill and they have to start wiping your stray spittle from their face… I hope that not getting banned doesn’t make you sad. Also, is it true that gingers don’t have a soul? I used to think that was just a joke, but…
Ben Garrison
July 28th, 2015 @ 6:12 am

But you see, White Americans that have their racial interests at heart should do so explicitly. Take that away and you’ll get a lot of angry and disillusioned Whites who are rightfully justified in their anger.
Finrod Felagund
July 28th, 2015 @ 9:20 am

Wombat, we’ve got another rabid white nationalist here.
Finrod Felagund
July 28th, 2015 @ 9:21 am

Vile hater.
Finrod Felagund
July 28th, 2015 @ 9:38 am

I got one of the idiot white nationalists to deny the Holocaust over on the Daily Caller. They’re truly brain-dead.
Finrod Felagund
July 28th, 2015 @ 9:41 am

There’s plenty enough racism on Team Blue, we don’t need any of it on Team Red. Go away.
OK Colin K
July 28th, 2015 @ 9:57 am

Why do you think every racist has the same ideology as you and consumes the same political propaganda as news that you do? Don’t think too hard.
OK Colin K
July 28th, 2015 @ 10:01 am

You have no idea what we have planned for you, Truth speaker. If you survive the gulags, and gay partner you are paired with, your skin color will be blacked, so that there are no more “whites.” Muahahahahah! Emperor Obama shall make an example of those who know the truth first.
RS
July 28th, 2015 @ 10:29 am

And so we see the trolls popping into old threads to try to smear more feces around in the hopes they will be ignored.Then, of course, down the road their comments can be used as an example to dismiss anything written by the author of these pages or any of the regular commentariat. The bottom line regarding the relative merits of the human race is adequately expressed in Roman 3:23:

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Wombat_socho
July 28th, 2015 @ 11:16 am

On it.
Finrod Felagund
July 28th, 2015 @ 11:19 am

Thank you very much, sir.