Liberty's Torch: groups

Showing posts with label groups. Show all posts

Monday, January 7, 2019

Privileges

A quick warning to those of Victorian sensibilities:

This post may contain:
1. Profanity,
2. Racial, ethnic, gender, and creedal epithets,
3. Uncensored references to sex organs and sex acts,
4. And whence.

This site is intended for adults capable of reasoning without having to cringe away from particular words. Accordingly, I shall no longer baby anyone. (Besides, Dad was a Navy man.) Read on at your own peril.

Over at The Declination, our esteemed Co-Contributor Dystopic recently penned an excellent column about “hot girl privilege” that excited quite a bit of interest (and interesting commentary.) I’ve been allowing it to ferment for a few days while I worked on the mechanism that powers it. Though it’s not exactly the same as the ones behind “black privilege,” “homosexual privilege,” et cetera, it does display certain markers that are useful in distinguishing an argument that employs facts and logic from one that’s just outright bullshit.

If you recall this essay, you’ll remember how I feel about persons who assert the power to tell others what they may and may not say. That set of convictions should be matched to a complementary set about what some people are permitted to say and do without being condemned or derided for it: the essence of privilege.

Who are these privileged persons? Whence (I did warn you) do their privileges arise?

Some acquire their privilege from a claim that they are (or have been ) oppressed.
Others acquire it from a claim of being (or having been) disadvantaged.
A third group has it because others want something they control.
A fourth group has it because of its propensity for violence.

Some such group characteristic, whether it excites sympathy, cupidity, or fear, can move others – not all and not uniformly, mind you – to grant the group the privilege of defying norms the rest of us would be condemned (at the very minimum) for violating.

In Dystopic’s “hot girl” case the distinguishing characteristic is the possession of an attractive body (by conventional male standards) that possesses a vagina. Many a man will grant such girls the privilege of doing as they please (including mouthing off) in the hope that permitting it will win sexual access to them. Or as a dear departed friend of mine once said, “God gave women cunts so men wouldn’t ignore them.” And with that you have a significant part of the explanation for the extraordinarily disproportionate amount of attention being showered on the (moderately) attractive but (totally) idiotic Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.

But the “hot girl” is only distinguished from other women in that she receives enhanced privilege. All women are privileged today. They claim many privileges, including preferences in hiring and educational access, on the grounds of having been “oppressed” for their sex – and they get them. They can get away with behavior that would get a man sued for damages or clapped in irons. Check the statistics on sexual harassment complaints. How often do women succeed in getting men punished after such allegations, as a percentage of all such cases? Now check how often men succeed in getting women punished for the same sort of behavior – and be sure to note how often the man is punished merely for lodging an accusation. This is the variety of prostitution – using sex for profit; think about it – that’s legally privileged today.

While the legions of the “oppressed” – e.g., Negroes, women, and homosexuals – have received most of the “privilege attention” (despite not having been “oppressed” in any objective sense for many decades), we must not overlook the “disadvantaged:” i.e., those who didn’t exert themselves sufficiently to become useful to others. After all, to be “disadvantaged” is a normal condition – when one wants to practice some trade or art for which one is inadequately equipped. But very few persons are “disadvantaged” at absolutely everything. In our time, the proliferation of technologies that can compensate for sensory disadvantages are many. The technologies that can compensate for mobility and manipulation disadvantages are swiftly catching up with them. Yet the “disadvantaged” continue to moan about their “condition” and wail that they “deserve” special, uniquely easier conditions – i.e., to be accommodated in the pursuit of occupations for which they aren’t suited.

I have only one question: On what grounds? What makes you think anyone owes you the least little thing?

Finally for today we have groups known to be appreciably more violent than the American norm. Young Negroes qualify, but the most feared group – ironically, owing to events not on this continent but in Europe – is Muslims, whose “religion” awards them the right and duty to use violence against “the infidel.” To a Muslim, anyone who isn’t a Muslim is “the infidel.” Indeed, Some Muslims regard other Muslims as “infidels” because of differences in doctrine between Islamic scholia.

Muslims’ propensity to violence is so well known that it’s routinely joked about: “Islam is a religion of peace and if you say otherwise we’ll kill you, you dirty kuffar.” Hell of a dark edge on that “joke,” isn’t there? But the sentiment is plain – and honest Muslims will admit that it’s commanded of them by their most sacred scripture, the Qur’an.

And so Muslims, whose “religion” forbids them to hold any allegiance other than to Islam, whose scriptures command them to eject all real and wholesome religions from the world by force, and to punish heresy, apostasy, adultery, homosexuality, and many other things with death, get an unnatural amount of “privilege.” In a sane era, they would not be permitted into the United States at all. Today, we have two of them in the House of Representatives. One has already disparaged the president of the United States as a “motherfucker.” Another has demanded that a longstanding rule of decorum – no headgear in the House – be set aside for her convenience. She’ll probably get her way.

As I’ve written before, what defines an aristocracy is its privileges. Today several groups are considerably privileged over the rest of us, whether legally, socially, or commercially. Moreover, to dispute their privileges is usually to be slapped down, and sometimes to be penalized in a material fashion. Only he who is self-sustaining, independent, owes nothing to anyone, and is utterly confident of himself dares to assail such arrangements.

The failure to challenge privileges of the sort discussed here could doom the United States. Even so, the risks are considerable. As has been said many times, if you want to know who rules over you, ask whom you’re not allowed to criticize...whatever the grounds.

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Episodes In Identity Politics, Part 1

We hear the phrase identity politics often enough. We’re told – mostly by persons in the Right – that it’s toxic, something that’s slowly but steadily destroying the social and political cohesion of our nation. However, we seldom get a clear explanation of why that is so.

Here’s one, from the Web’s favorite Bookworm:

I’ll start with a phone call I had the other day with another lawyer who is an ardent Progressive and a good friend. I usually find his Progressivism amusing because, both personally and professionally, his every instinct is conservative. It’s just that, being gay, he is marinated in a toxic Leftist soup and fails to recognize the cognitive dissonance that permeates his life. [emphasis added by FWP]

Bookworm has noted, en passant, the corrupting effect of submersion in a fully colonized and conquered group. Let’s call this lawyer Smith for convenience, since Bookworm didn’t mention his name. If Smith’s personal and professional instincts are conservative, how did he come to embrace Leftist political precepts and positions?

Through his identity group.

Homosexuals have been encouraged to make their sexual orientation and political concessions to it the heart of their existence. It’s been going on for a while, of course: since the Fifties at least. Just as with the “civil rights movement,” the Left decided that it would “own” the homosexual-rights issue and use it to colonize that group. Northern California homosexuals have been a particular target of the Left, as they’re disproportionately numerous in that region and tend toward close associations.

When a man begins to see one aspect of his life, character, or personality as central to his identity, and is regularly immersed in a group of similarly minded persons, he will tend to absorb the other postulates and convictions of that group. This influence in especially strong when the group is essentially uniform about its postulates and convictions. That makes the political subversion of an identity group a huge win for the Left.

I’ve ranted in the past about the dangers of joinerism. Consider this another link in that chain – a chain that can be used to drag the unsuspecting away from practices and convictions that are to his benefit, and toward an abyss from which escape is problematic at best. Verbum sat sapienti.

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

More Fun With Hugo

The science fiction reading / writing community once agreed, albeit tacitly, that the point of our beloved genre was entertainment. You know: fun. Diversion. Scope for the imagination. Maybe, once or twice a year, a get-together with others who share our enthusiasm for this special landscape of the mind.

Things have changed. The colonization and conquest of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) and of the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) at which the once-coveted Hugo Awards are given, by Social Justice Warrior (SJW) snowflakes has permanently marred what was once a thing of pure enjoyment. In brief, they own Worldcon and the Hugos, and no one who differs with their crabbed, self-righteous ideology shall be permitted to participate meaningfully in them. Indeed, the SJWs will do their best to hound out of the Con anyone they regard as inimical to their hard-left / gender-war / race-and-ethnicity-war / homosexualist / anti-capitalist / anti-white / anti-freedom convictions.

Not everyone who still regards SF as entertainment and a place where the imagination can roam freely is willing to accept that:

     A lot of what I do is point out that so much of these little cliques of Science Fiction writers focus their entire lives on (they certainly don’t focus on selling books) is how they make FAKE OUTRAGE stories out of something that shouldn’t be a story at all. The last week exemplified this as, incredibly, the community of internet science fiction writers collectively lost their minds when:

     A professional Science Fiction writer with the qualifications joined SFWA. This is a writer’s guild. I am a professional writer. It’s that simple. Not liking me doesn’t have anything to do with it. The entire point of the club in theory is to protect writers like me from suffering undue hate or illegal discrimination from the industry. Yet that didn’t stop File 770’s nasty hate brigade from going off the rails over my joining. A lot of the anger must have been because it very uncomfortable about themselves, as it really points to a LOT of ugly truths about them with some of the nasty things they said.
     A professional Science Fiction writer is attending a Science Fiction convention. Like with Diversity & Comics earlier this year, I was immediately targeted by low-level professionals to try to preemptively get me kicked out of the con for my mere presence. This is exactly why I have to wear a body cam to go to the con to begin with, some of these folk will almost certainly try to frame me for a crime, and I will have evidence to the contrary. Worldcon needs to step it up and make sure I’m protected from these crazies so my friends and fans can have fun.

Now, I don’t know Jon Del Arroz. I haven’t read anything he’s written. My interest in this matter was piqued by a Facebook entry that came to my attention via fellow writer Marina Fontaine:

Worldcon 76 has chosen to reduce Jonathan Del Arroz's membership from attending to supporting. He will not be allowed to attend the convention in person. Mr. Del Arroz's supporting membership preserves his rights to participate in the Hugo Awards nomination and voting process. He was informed of our decision via email.
We have taken this step because he has made it clear that he fully intends to break our code of conduct. We take that seriously. Worldcon 76 strives to be an inclusive place in fandom, as difficult as that can be, and racist and bullying behavior is not acceptable at our Worldcon. This expulsion is one step towards eliminating such behavior and was not taken lightly. The senior staff and board are in agreement about the decision and it is final. If you have any questions or concerns feel free to share them here or in email at IRT@worldcon76.org

The supposed violation of the Worldcon “code of conduct?” Del Arroz’s intention to wear a body cam, as he stated in the previous post. As I haven’t read the Worldcon “code of conduct,” I have no idea whether that’s prohibited by it explicitly or implicitly. However, if we accept Del Arroz’s testimony about what befell him at the Diversity & Comics convention, he has sound reasons to want the protection of an objective record of any encounters with hostile attendees. And we know from experience how hostile SJWs can be toward us Normals...especially en masse.

Frankly, if I were involved in staging Worldcon, I’d be hurrying to distance myself from the idiocy of their decision to exclude Del Arroz. I’d be far more interested in getting the full scoop about what happened to Del Arroz at Diversity & Comics, with as many eyewitness confirmations as possible. But it appears that Worldcon is now “wholly owned” by the SJW snowflakes, who deem it their privilege to harass, threaten, vilify, and generally offend anyone they dislike without fear of any adverse consequence.

However, the first error belongs to Del Arroz: He shouldn’t have announced his intentions. He gave those who despise him a rationale under which to exclude him. That was stupid. He ought to have known from previous events that they would be watching his site for any such.

Of course, I could argue that joining SFWA and attending Worldcon are equally unforced errors. “Don’t be a joiner!” I cry once more. ("And stay away from crowds," choruses Ol' Remus.) Especially if the organization at issue is already as completely ruined as SFWA or Worldcon. But chacun a son gout.

Monday, November 27, 2017

Trust And Joinerism

I keep saying it, yet it seems no one believes me:

Don’t Be A Joiner!

Always maintain your independence of judgment – what a Randian might call the integrity of your mind. It’s the essential difference between the thinking man and the Joiner.

Now, to be perfectly clear about the above, it is possible to align oneself loosely with certain groups without becoming a Joiner. But there’s an attitudinal requirement for maintaining one’s personal independence. Here’s an example:

JOINER: What political alignment are you?
FWP: When I vote, it’s usually for a Republican.
JOINER: (sneers) Oh, one of those.
FWP: Excuse me? One of what?
JOINER: A Republican.
FWP: (loudly) Oh, I’m so sorry for you! Is it congenital?
JOINER: Huh?
FWP: (even more loudly) Your hearing defect. I didn’t say that I’m a Republican. I said when I vote, it’s usually for a Republican. You must not have heard me correctly.

JOINER: (slowly) No...I did. But—
FWP: No buts, asshole. Either you have a hearing defect or you’re incapable of understanding simple English.
JOINER: (draws himself up) Well, what’s the difference?
FWP: A Republican is a partisan, one who allows the Republican Party to decide whom he’ll support. I will only vote for a candidate I personally approve, and I don’t automatically approve of a candidate just because he’s the Republican nominee. I suppose you let the Democrat Party make your decisions for you?
JOINER: Well—
FWP: Got the idea now, or should I have used shorter words?

The counter-sneer at the end is absolutely required. You want the Joiner, once he’s revealed himself, to walk away feeling bruised. Joiners submerge themselves in the collective. They surrender their independence of judgment to a group – and it’s seldom a group over which they have much influence. It is right and proper to leave them feeling ashamed.

Identity politics is toxic for that reason.

We’ve had endless demonstrations of a critical sociodynamic theorem: that persons who prize power over others will pursue it more effectively than persons who don’t. Along with that goes an observation that far too few persons have made and even fewer have respected: that any group more formally organized than the Friday night slosh-and-gripe at the neighborhood tavern will offer the prospect of power over others. Together, these tendencies guarantee the deterioration of formally organized groups – to be clear, that refers to groups that have a hierarchy of authority over pooled resources – away from their original purposes and toward the purposes of those who rise to command them.

Fortunately, most formally organized groups can’t compel their members to remain members. For example, a book club taken over by zealots for some Cause will eventually lose all the non-zealots. Thus the club will mutate from a book club into a Cause club – if, that is, there are enough zealots to keep it going.

However, a group in the process of being transformed that way can do quite a lot of damage before its membership disintegrates.

The environmental-action groups provide a choice example. When nuclear power first became technologically and economically feasible in the late Fifties, it was plainly the cleanest and safest form of electrical power generation available to Mankind. As such, the environmental-action groups, nominally concerned with reducing the production of wastes that pollute the air and water, should have embraced it. Unfortunately, they were already well into the process of being subverted by socialist zealots who saw in them a prospect of undermining America’s capitalist economy. Those zealots could not embrace nuclear power; by the very nature of their real aim, they had to condemn it. So it is today.

Many sincere environmentalists will tell you that there’s nothing wrong with nuclear power from an environmental perspective...at least, once you get enough alcohol into them. However, those who have remained loyal to one of the big eco-fascist groups, such as the Sierra Club or Earth First, will at best be tormented by the admission. They’ve been sending their dues checks to a Group controlled by anti-capitalist zealots. Those zealots have another aim in mind and would pillory them for their statement.

Pick a group, any group, as long as it has size and profile enough to command at least the specter of political influence. You’ll find the dynamic operating in every one of them.

Identity politics was on my mind when I started this diatribe. It’s still there. I spent a good bit of the early morning collecting links to recent stories that illustrate where it leads. But as I did so, it occurred to me that there were other stories relevant to the damage groups can do that aren’t explicitly political:

Explaining the motives behind any of the linked stories requires Joinerism: both its promotion and its effects. How many persons sincerely concerned about environmental degradation would endorse the article about “climate change” causing volcanoes? You can bet the zealots who control the environmental groups would do so, and would be wroth with members who would laugh it aside. How many people who have resolved to tolerate (however grudgingly) adult homosexuals, bisexuals, and transgenders would approve of that Times article? Yet the activists who control the directions and resources of organized LGBT groups would glare sternly at any member who dared to speak a word of protest.

Feel free to complete the exercise for yourself.

Men of independent judgment, determined to assess all questions of importance according to evidence and reason, are never comfortable as members of a Group. They exhibit a certain social reserve: they’re not unfriendly or aloof, but they lean away from extensive disclosures of their opinions. When asked for their opinions on some current controversy, they tend to change the subject. They back away from activists of whatever stripe. They swiftly come to despise those who seek power over others, regardless of the seeker’s espoused motivations.

These are the men we need for the century ahead of us to be better than the one behind us. We have far too few of them, in large part because membership in a strong group is too widely seen as the best possible defense against the predations of other strong groups.

Food for thought.

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Eye Openings

Perhaps this Year of Our Lord 2016 will bring us more than just broken New Year’s Resolutions.

1. Muslims.

The Swedes are pulling in their “welcome” mat:

     ...after taking in more asylum seekers per capita than any other nation in Europe, Sweden’s welcome mat now lies in tatters. Overwhelmed by the human tide of 2015, the center-left government is deploying extraordinary new border controls and slashing benefits in an unmistakable signal to refugees contemplating the long trek to Sweden in the new year: Stay out.
     “We’re willing to do more than anyone else,” said Swedish Migration Minister Morgan Johansson. “But even we have our limits.”
     Those limits can be readily seen in a tent camp where dozens of migrants are bedding down in the frigid Nordic winter and at the train station where many new arrivals are turned back within minutes of setting foot on Swedish soil.

If Sweden, that most tolerant of the nations of the Old World – tolerant of everything except individual freedom, that is – can see the writing on the wall, can the rest of Europe be far behind?

2. “Black Lives Matter”

Large cities have borne the brunt of this outlaw gang’s depredations. That’s no coincidence, as most of America’s large cities suffer under Democrat administrations. However, the Democrats may have had enough:

Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel is starting to feel the bite of the political machine he spent decades protecting as more calls come for his resignation. When poverty pimp Al Sharpton calls for you to resign, you know it’s time to leave your vacation in Cuba and handle the powder keg set to explode in your city. Maybe Emanuel could pick up a few pointers from Fidel Castro on how to handle protesters before returning to the Windy City....
Rahm Emanuel isn’t cutting his vacation short to address the concerns of Chicago citizens. He is returning to Chicago to discipline his army for speaking up against him. Specifically, Al Sharpton. I predict those that have paid patronage to the Chicago machine will get Al Sharpton served on a political platter, the equivalent of finding a horse head in your bed.

A rift between the Democrat Party and black racialist activists would badly wound Democrats’ electoral prospects in 2016. The Negro vote has been a critical component of the Left’s coalition for four decades at least. Without it, the Democrats’ large deficits among whites and married women would finally outweigh their successes at harnessing identity-group politics.

3. Black Racists.

White Americans may have had enough:

Suspiciously overlooked in the disgusting "Dear white America" was the fact that charges of racism were leveled in the same pages as acknowledgements of black crime. Who would dare mention robbers and then demand indifference to robbery? Who has the audacity to bring up rapists and then pretend that raping is irrelevant? If there's a problem with black crime, then let's deal with the crime before dealing with our disgust for criminals. If there's a problem with character, then let men rise in our estimation before demanding that we re-estimate them. To ask the other way around isn't to ask for peace; essentially, it is a covert declaration of war. It holds forth an olive branch in one hand while hiding a dagger in the other.
The undeniable gist of the piece in the New York Times was that black people cannot any longer live in black society and are jealous of the stability, success, and harmony of white businesses and neighborhoods. It was a cry for inclusion masked in the unsociable language of the excluded.

Ann Coulter wrote in Mugged that the acquittal of O.J. Simpson was a turning point for white Americans’ attitudes about race. After a majority-black jury refused to convict Simpson despite overwhelming circumstantial evidence, millions of whites were finally moved to say “Enough. No further consideration on account of race!” That caused black race hustlers to bear down for a Battle-of-the-Bulge-like push. However, if the reactions to that scrofulous letter are any indication, the push has fizzled and the bills are about to come due.

4. Militant Homosexuals.

This unmasks the true agenda of the Sodomite Army:

     For over the past decade, [Dr. Paul] Church has expressed concern to his colleagues about [Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s] promotion of homosexual events. He has commented both via email and on the hospital’s internal portal that it is improper to promote lifestyles that are contrary to the goals of the healthcare community, and has been met with allegations that his comments constitute “discrimination and harassment” and are “offensive to BIDMC staff.”
     “The evidence is irrefutable that behaviors common within the homosexual community are unhealthy and high risk for a host of serious medical consequences, including STD’s, HIV and AIDS, anal cancer, hepatitis, parasitic intestinal infections, and psychiatric disorders,” Church wrote on the portal on one occasion....
     In September 2014, a formal investigation was launched against Church, and findings were turned over to a 25-member Medical Executive Committee for consideration. In March, the committee decided to expel Church for his “unsolicited views about homosexuality that were offensive to BIDMC Staff” and for violating the hospital’s discrimination policy.

I’ve written about the health consequences of homosexual sodomy myself. I’ve made no secret of it – and it never caused me the slightest fear for my occupation, my reputation, or the esteem of my friends and neighbors. Dr. Church has been grievously wronged. Worse, the very people who most need to listen to and act on his message are the ones who’ve wronged him. We should watch – and hope – for a recoil against this odious action.

5. What Does It All Mean?

As we can see from the citations above, not only are those groups determined to secure group privileges becoming steadily more demanding and militant; persons outside those groups are becoming more aware of the injustice of what they seek. Even prominent Democrats will occasionally allow that some group is asking for far more than its due.

The Era of the Group hasn’t ended yet, but there are some hopeful signs, both above and in the day-to-day exchanges of views among ordinary Americans. There’s a sense of resistance rising – of a renewed determination among the law-abiding to assert American principles and demand that they be honored...and when necessary, enforced.

Is the trend definite and positive? Unclear...but the fog of self-deception normal people have wrapped around themselves about the agendas of activist groups, including the groups mentioned above, might just be lifting. We shall see.