Grey Ghosts, Part Four: The Way Home

In the previous post, I discussed the “non-violent” tactics of the Left to manipulate public sympathies for their pseudo-moral causes.

The Left specifically uses the abstraction of “equality” as the fig leaf for aggressive actions against its enemy, namely traditional Christian, European civilization. When conservatives today scratch their heads at the apparent contradiction between the supposedly race-neutral sentiments expressed in MLKJ’s (plagiarized) “I Have a Dream” speech and the overt racial discrimination later advocated by King himself and now by his ideological heirs, I can only be reminded of what the great Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto had to say about this notion of “equality”:

“[the so-called sentiment of equality] is not, in fact, a sentiment of equality and is not related to any abstraction, as a few naive ‘intellectuals’ still believe; but it is related to the direct interests of individuals who are bent on escaping certain inequalities not in their favor, and setting up new inequalities that will be in their favor, this latter being their chief concern.”

Properly understood as a tool of ideological aggression, the Left’s advocacy of equality makes perfect sense: the goal was never equality, but inequality in their favor.

The Left, then, is capable of a key strategic advantage: an ability to discern the difference between stated goals (e.g. “equality”) and actual goals (e.g. in this case, government regulation of private employment and housing, quotas, set-asides, etc). I see some signs of this level of sophistication developing on the right, but at a much more rudimentary level (an example of the Right’s naivety was provided by the example of Dr. James Dobson’s initial advocacy in favor of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, despite her being an unknown low-level crony of Bush with no paper trail of conservative jurisprudence- Dobson trusted Bush, and was later embarrassed when Miers’ pro-abortion views came to light- Dobson revealed his lack of political sophistication when he trusted Bush at his word simply because Bush seemed like an honest guy and claims to be a Christian- in politics at the national level, such Pollyanna-type trusting is fatal).

So the first step to freedom, if we are forced by circumstance to avoid the use of the violent resistance so nobly exercised by our ancestors, is to internalize the mindset of political war. Politics is not the art of convincing others in some autistic-libertarian fantasy of a “marketplace of ideas” (those days, if they ever existed, are long gone in the multicultural Battle Royale of modern America), but rather of using universalist language to deceive others into responding to one’s stated goals instead of one’s true goals. While this goes against our Western European culture (Tacitus, in his work Germania, admiringly describes the early Germans as being almost incapable of lying or deception), this is not a moral issue- indeed it is an imperative for our survival; open honesty is an asset in an isolated Scandinavian fishing village, but a huge liability in a multicultural morass like modern America. Many times in the Bible, we see Christ (Himself living in the multicultural stinkpot of Roman-occupied Jerusalem) giving misleading answers to his enemies, avoiding questions or even refusing to answer questions that did not serve His purpose. The important distinction is that He never crossed the line into outright falsehood- like Him, we should be “wise as serpents…innocent as doves”.

Some of us in this country do have an advantage, though. The Scots-Irish culture of the South is naturally more suspicious and cunning than the relatively simple and bland honesty of ethnic Germans and Scandinavians. Thus, we see a place like Minnesota (largely populated by Scandinavians) being much more a sucker for Leftist causes (their simple culture being unable to comprehend the distinction between the Left’s stated and real goals) than Mississippi, primarily populated by the Scots-Irish. This is why the South produces the best novelists and politicians, the culture being much more complicated and thus requiring much more skill to navigate successfully.

And so my task now is to communicate to those interested my humble proposal for redeeming the liberty-loving cause of our fathers and re-establish freedom and constitutional government for our people. Since I’ve been discussing generalities for a while, let me get down to specifics.

1. Our primary loyalty should be to blood and soil. This loyalty was once directed to one’s state and even to our nation, the United States. However, as mass immigration continues to convert our country into the world’s largest multicultural pyramid scheme, these loyalties need to transition away from the abstraction of our government (as the USA is no longer really a nation, the root of the word implying common birth) and back to the fount from which our current blessings flow, namely the founding peoples and their Christian culture.

2. Leaders of our people should acknowledge that the day has come, and indeed has already been past for decades, when the interest of the national government is more often that not separate and distinct from the interests of our nation, i.e. the founding peoples to whom we owe our primary loyalty.

3. As the national government continues to deteriorate, the interests of our people becomes increasingly divorced, even opposite, the interests of the national government. Leaders must acknowledge at some point that a divorce of interests requires formal acknowledgment and eventual independence- guided of course by a course of prudence that avoids unwinnable scenarios.

4. Before our people can be liberated, their loyalties must be divorced from the federal government, and especially from the most abusive part of that government, the judiciary. It is to our great fortune that the most abusive and illegitimate part of federal authority is also the most despised by the country at large. Nobody likes unelected tyrants.

5. State and local officials (in the executive, legislative and judicial spheres) must internalize and believe the fundamental illegitimacy of the federal judiciary. In addition, learning from the Left, conservatives must pick a sore spot, a flash point, as a platform to continually attack the judiciary’s perceived legitimacy in the eyes of the public. Thus, like all great strategists, we must concentrate our efforts not on the government as a whole, but on the weakest point of the weakest branch of the federal government. This is also spiritually satisfying because of its poetic justice, as the judiciary is used to do the dirty work of the feds, to enact the policies most odious to the public, thereby exempting the elected branches from their displeasure at the ballot box. Very little would bring more political joy to a true conservative’s heart than to see these little black-robed tyrants be defied and humiliated on the national stage.

6. The flash point for attacking the judiciary (at least in the regions of our country worth saving) is, plainly and clearly, abortion. Those who oppose abortion make up substantial majorities of many Southern and Midwestern states, and their opposition is deep, ideological, and almost literally religious in its intensity. Those who support abortion, except for the lunatic feminist fringe, are much less politically motivated on the topic.

7. The mistake of pro-life groups thus far has been a lack of vision. Abortion is so uniquely evil that ending its practice is not a mere game of tying up whatever legislative restrictions the federal judges deign to give us, while hoping that A) liberals will die on SCOTUS and B) Dubya won’t appoint a pro-choice crony in yet another effort to annoy his base. Issues like abortion are those that form nations, and mere overturning of Roe v. Wade is much too little. We must kill the tree at its root and end federal tyranny over our people once and for all.

8. Our mode of operation cannot be straightforward civil disobedience. Operation Rescue was one such attempt at this, and it failed. For one, our natural constituencies are not impressed by passive-aggressive techniques and we do not enjoy the luxury of favorable media coverage.

9. The solution, or at least an experiment that begs trying, is an exercise in confrontational federalism. This would involve elected officials at the state and local levels directly challenging the authority of the federal courts. One solution is to simply ignore federal court orders, as this local school board in Louisiana did (in an earlier case, the board called the bluff of the judge and dared him to send federal marshals to arrest local officials for an act of prayer- the judge backed down). Practical examples could include:

  • School board members should make overt references to Jesus Christ and the Christian religion as part of their official duties, daring the federal courts to make an example. If a federal judge does anything to attempt to enforce an unconstitutional court order, activists in the community should post the judge’s personal information on the Internet. The public should know his home address, where he goes to church, his family information. Others should protest in front of his home. Local activists can make life hellish for these unelected tyrants.
  • State legislators should move for outright nullification of Roe v. Wade as case law. Nullification is a concept endorsed by the Founding Fathers and is essentially the true “court of last resort” for state’s rights. Quite simply, as a co-equal partner with the feds in the Constitution, a state has the right to ignore federal laws and court orders it views as unconstitutional, and demand that a constitutional amendment be passed to explicitly allow the protested law or order before complying with it. Let the tyranny of federal troops enforcing the murder of children be a reality in at least one state- let’s make them make us, instead of humbly assenting to their evil.
  • Local sheriffs should refuse to seize property on behalf of the IRS until the federal government ceases its protection of child murder. Local judges should refuse to order sheriffs in the same way. Let us be as innovative in our legal doctrine for our ends as they are for theirs.
  • State executives should do everything in their power to harass and make compliance with the law an impossibility for abortionists and their federal enablers.
  • And finally, a brave governor somewhere must declare the personhood of the fetus in their state, and enforce the declaration without regard to federal court orders. In addition, those who perform abortions, thus operating outside of the law, must have the protection of the law for their person similarly removed. Gubernatorial pardons for those who enforce natural law against these murderers would end abortion overnight.

These sorts of actions, taken at the proper time, will accelerate the confrontation between the interests of our elites and the interests of the people. It would be most prudent at a time of financial crisis for the federal government, perhaps twenty years from now, when the paychecks are late and the Third World incompetence of our immigration policies will be fully felt. It is already undeniable, given the huge liabilities of government entitlements, not to mention “nation building” in Middle Eastern hellholes, that the federal government has already written trillions in checks it can never cash. We can wait until a convenient crisis of distraction before striking our unconstitutional chains.

There are several endgames to this- most preferable would be a regional government system with a common defense perimeter. Texas can be Texas, and Vermont can be Vermont. In the long-run, the increasingly meaningless bonds that hold the government together will dissolve.

As our ancestors needed then in 1861, so we need now of leadership. Who will answer the call, of prudence and patience with no compromise of the long-term goal of liberty, and claim the crown of greatness that goes to founders of nations?

5 Responses to “Grey Ghosts, Part Four: The Way Home”

  1. brian Says:

    Oops. I meant:

    “Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better.”
    Congressman Abraham Lincoln, in a speech before Congress on the Mexican-American War on January 12, 1848

  2. brian Says:

    So, let’s look at this.

    I’m gonna throw in some back-of-the-envelope calculations here, and try to tie together some of the topics you’ve touched on, Tom.

    In round numbers, I think the current population in the US is about 300 million. Suppose that a mere 10% self-identifies as Christian (30 million), and only 2% of those are conservatives (600,000) dedicated to honoring Christ and winning back our country. If 20% of those are married and of child-bearing age (120,000). That’s a base group — zero-generation — of 60,000 families.

    (Let me interrupt myself here to say that I think this is a low-ball — possibly extremely low-ball — figure. If the recent SETHSA convention is any indication, there are probably at least that many homeschooling families… While not exclusive, I think that’s a good indicator of socio-political outlook and family culture)

    Building on your Quiver Full and compound interest discussions, if each of the aforementioned families — not counting any children that for one reason or another either don’t survive to adulthood or don’t themselves reproduce — have the four kids that you advocate, and their kids have four each, and their kids have four each, and so on… after the fifth generation (roughly 100-125 years, based on a generation cycle of 20 to 25 years) each zero-generation couple (i.e., you) would have just over 1,000 descendants, or a total of over 61 million in the whole generation.

    Statistically significant? Make that six kids per couple per generation, and that number grows to nearly 8,000 descendants per zero-generation (us) couple (or just shy of half a billion for the group).

    SHAZAM!

    Of course, there would likely be significant endogamy (marrying within the defined group), so the absolute numbers would be lower than the projection. Seven or eight kids per couple would adjust for that, and then some — but that’s certainly not for the feint of heart. How many blessings from God can two people stand, anyway? ;)

    [By the way, a linear extrapolation of the current (as of March 2004) U.S. Census Bureau projections puts the total U.S. population around 625,000 by 2125... but that's assuming current population trends.]

    But how do we ensure the same values are passed from one generation to the next? I mean, really ensure this? The answer, to me, is self-evident.

    [My digression -- skip to the closed bracket if you like:

    There are 168 hours in a child's week. The average person sleeps seven to nine hours a night (call it eight); that's 56 hours gone. Of the 112 left, 40 will be spent at school, and call it an average of an hour's travel time to and from school for an additional five hours a week: 67 hours remaining. And that can quickly get whittled down by such things as homework (2-3 hrs/day = 12 hrs = 55); gymnastics, football, baseball, debate team, drama club, etc,etc, ad nauseum (10-20 hrs = 40); plus youth group activities (if your church is program-bloated), time "hangin' out" with friends, and whatever other pursuits the average bear fancies... and I heard a rumor that Mom and Dad like to spend time alone together, too. Leaves the parents with precious few hours to be a direct influence on their children.

    Homeschooled kids do not typically score significantly higher on entrance exams than do public- or private-schooled kids. The major difference is that homeschooled kids are more likely to engage their instructors in classes, complete undergraduate degrees in under five years, and perform well in their chosen professions, be that in Corporate America or as entrepreneurs. The reason? One word, three syllables.

    Character.

    Homeschooled kids have one-on-one (or close to it) face time with their parents the vast majority of every day. Numbers don't lie: it's highly unlikely you can deconstruct whatever negative influences (and you won't necessarily know who or what they are) are acting on your children in whatever time you can scrape together from, on average, three or four hours a day -- assuming you spent all that time focused on character-building.]

    Homeschooling is the best way to instill in your progeny your own values. The — at best — amoral State petri dish won’t do it, and all the well-meaning, good-hearted — even Christian — schoolteachers in the country can’t, couldn’t if they tried.

    Homeschooling — together with fulfilling the dominion mandate — is a multi-generational tool for sea change.

    By contrast, there are 16 million Southern Baptists in America today. About 75-88% of kids from Southern baptist homes leave the church by the end of their first year in college, never to return. Good kids, from Christian homes, lost. Taking the best-case scenario, that means that each successive generation of Southern Baptists (not allowing for evangelistic efforts*) will be one-quarter the size of the previous generation. That means that as things are going now, at the end of that same five-generation cycle, the entire Southern Baptist Convention will number a mere 15,625 souls. In a hundred years, that won’t be enough, statistically speaking, to change a light bulb.

    *[On average, there are about 40-45 professed Southern Baptists for every one of their evangelical conversions in the U.S. In case you're struggling with carrying the "2," this will not make up for attrition.]

    brian

    P.S.: Apologies for the heavy use of links to Vision Forum’s products… I was perusing their website as I was thinking and writing.

  3. Tom Says:

    Brian, my term for this kind of reasoning is Chinese Math. The reasoning is thus: an entrepreneur gets all excited because if he could sell all one billion Chinese people just one product with a profit of $1, he’d make a billion dollars. The point of the idiom is to point out the excesses of arithmetical reasoning and linear extrapolation.

    That said, the trends you identify are undeniable, though I’m not convinced it will be quite so dramatic. Christian conservatives and/or homeschoolers are the only civilized group of people with above-replacement level birth rates. Once demographic reality sheds the scales of egalitarianism from our eyes, that should make for quite a bit of Dominion for our descendants.

  4. brian Says:

    …but will it be a case of “too little, too late”?

    I intentionally didn’t mention the simultaneous effect of other groups on population… didn’t want to confuse the issue. [But, to stave off cries of "Overpopulation!," it does bear mentioning that, at the current 6.6 billion people, that means that the entire world's population could move to Alaska, and each individual would have over 2,600 square feet to himself -- that's about 10.5k people per square mile, or roughly the population density of Newark, NJ. (And bear in mind that the rest of the world would be completely empty)]

    My intent was to show that the status quo ain’t gonna cut it. Like with retirement funding or Democrat primaries, “early and often” is the key to promoting positive demographic shifts. Heck, I’d settle for minimizing negative drift at this point.

    But for either the straight-line increase or a conservative explosion to take place, one thing absolutely has to happen. People — fathers, especially — need to step up, knock (as you said) the egalitarian scales off their eyes, and invest some time and effort into their families (after some ground work)

    Our main stumbling block is that the modern American conservative is singularly unmotivated about anything outside his comfort zone. We tend to allow (or elect) our officials to come up with overly complex solutions to easily corrected situations, and assume that all will go well. Reminds me of something a reasonably well-known doctor said once…

    If you have an idea for motivating the conservative WHAMs, I’d love to hear it.

  5. Tom Says:

    I agree with you completely on the issue on influence. We have so precious few hours every week that are not already spoken for by default, i.e. work and sleep. Even in conservative rural school districts, where the teachers and staff do their best to extend a moral Christian influence, there’s not a whole lot either group (parents or well-meaning teachers) can do to counter the worst of the culture. The worst kids, with the least responsible parents, will try to influence others with their obscene media consumption habits.

    About fifteen years ago, I went to a rural public school, entirely Christian- my sixth grade teacher prayed in Jesus Christ’s name before lunch everyday and said she didn’t care what some court had to say about it.

    Yet even in such a community, the “best” arguably possible, there were fifth grade boys whose fathers supplied them with hardcore pornography (ironically, this was largely an underclass response to the assault on the family- many of the fathers wanted their boys to “turn out right” and thought this would ensure a straight outcome)- and of course the boys were then eager to share this, in lurid detail, with their classmates. Many of my classmates at this lily-white public school in a 100% Christian community knew lyrics, in their entirety, to at least three or four “2 Live Crew” raps. The assault of the culture, piped in on the sewage lines of the cable networks, is very hard to escape.

    I think women especially (never having been exposed to the vulgarity of little boy culture uncheckd by responsible parenting) can be naive about what exactly is in the public schools, and at what ages, even at the better schools.

    So the problem with school is the students and other parents; it is unwise and imprudent for high-investment Christian parents to allow their children to mix socially with the general population, who will not be raised up but will drag your kids down.

    The teachers, staff and the “system” are not generally the direct problem, except of course to the extent that they consume resources better spent on private education. But that’s not their fault, as they’re just doing the best job they can in a flawed system.

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