The Expanding Theater Of Political Warfare

     About ten days ago, Kurt Schlichter wrote thus:

     [T]he terrifying truth is that liberals and their Never Trump enablers actually think this kind of tyranny is a good thing. You see, they think Normal Americans are so transcendently awful (and, even more importantly, that the elite’s power [is] so precious) that all is fair in order to stifle their opponents’ collective voice.

     Considerably before that, Robert Conquest formulated his Second Law of Politics:

     Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.

     About three weeks ago, I wrote thus:

     It’s most significant that the Amanda Green article about Larry Correia’s disinvitation from the Origins Gamers Convention is titled “It’s Time to Fight Back.” Yes, it most certainly is. But fighting back means more than merely repelling an assault. It requires the will to counterattack, to make the attacker pay a huge, disproportionate price for his insult. To this point, we in the Right have hardly even defended ourselves, much less mounted the sort of counterattacks that would have been appropriate.

     It takes more than the willingness to write baleful blog posts. And yes, I’m aware that that’s what this is. I’ve written it because it’s all that I, a lifelong recluse, can do. I can only hope that event organizers – perhaps those for DragonCon and similar gatherings – will hear the clarion.

     At the time, DragonCon appeared not to be colonized nor infiltrated by aspiring SJW tyrants. But just three days ago, Francis Turner noted that DragonCon has come under SJW attack. I can’t usefully excerpt his piece; please click over and read it for yourself.

     They’re not going to leave us alone.

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     My Gentle Readers already know me for a crank. (There’s a reason I was appointed Curmudgeon Emeritus to the World Wide Web.) Cranks are best left alone; they respond to being prodded in...unfortunate ways. The reason, of course, is that being left alone – i.e., not being prodded, prompted, nudged, or otherwise interfered with – is what a crank most values. For this reason cranks avoid clubs, groups, crowds, professional associations, and gatherings of their relatives, especially the impecunious ones.

     Because of my cranky preferences, until I first began to follow contemporary political intercourse I would not have imagined that there’s an exact opposite to the crank: i.e., someone whose whole reason for living is to poke, prod, and generally puncture the tranquility of others. But there is. They’re known as “social-justice warriors,” or SJWs for brevity. And they won’t exempt anyone from their harangues.

     Neither will they permit us who differ with them, or who have other things than politics on our minds (on occasion, at least) a forum for the mutual enjoyment of a shared interest. Francis Turner’s piece illustrates that to perfection.

     The irony, considering how they harp on “safe spaces” for every sort of deviance from normality or rationality, is of cosmic magnitude.

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     Tyranny cannot be firmly fastened upon a people accustomed to saying and doing what they please. The whole point of a tyranny is to suppress such sayings and doings. For many decades the Constitutional guarantees seemed to protect Americans from tyranny by emphasizing, as part of “the supreme Law of the Land,” that an American’s rights to say and do what he pleases are not to be infringed, abridged, or otherwise trodden upon by any level of government.

     But an aspiring tyrant – an intelligent one, at least – won’t try to excise those rights at a single snip. He’ll take the approach Mark Steyn illuminated in America Alone:

     If it were just terrorists bombing buildings and public transit, it would be easier; even the feeblest Eurowimp jurisdiction is obliged to act when the street is piled with corpses. But there's an old technique well understood by the smarter bullies. If you want to break a man, don't attack him head on, don't brutalize him; pain and torture can awaken a stubborn resistance in all but the weakest. But just make him slightly uncomfortable, disrupt his life at the margin, and he'll look for the easiest path to re-normalization. There are fellows rampaging through the streets because of some cartoons? Why, surely the most painless solution would be if we all agreed not to publish such cartoons.

     Steyn was speaking of Islamic terrorism, of course, but the tactic generalizes to any and every sort of incursion upon one’s rights to say and do as he pleases. To disrupt our lives at the margins is exactly what SJWs strive to do:

• By harassing us when and where we gather;
• By harassing us when we express ourselves;
• By harassing those who employ us for doing so;
• By harassing those who would assist us in finding one another.

     The SJW Left has made those tactics its principal tools. Harassment capitalizes on the commonplace distaste we have for confrontation. He who dislikes confrontation and fears that it may portend more can be bullied that way. Restaurateurs, publishers, media companies, colleges and universities, employers, and organizers of events intended to turn a profit tend to be pusillanimous in the face of such harassment. They give in as if by reflex.

     In this connection, we are strangely fortunate that “AntiFa” has gone from chosen to employ open violence. Clearly, violence must be met with greater violence; the organizers of conservative, libertarian, and free-speech gatherings are now aware of this. The SJW harassers have the more viable long-term approach.

     And they are using it to degrade and destroy virtually all of social life.

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     We cannot abide this. Freedom cannot endure it. We must fight – and there is only one way to fight: no holds barred. Mere deflection will not suffice. We must punish our harassers so severely that they become permanently unable to harass or threaten us further:

• We must be utterly intolerant of SJW interference in our pursuits.
• We must rigidly exclude anyone who exhibits SJW opinions or behavior from our circles.
• Anyone who forms an organization of any sort, or who has authority within such an organization, must apply Conquest’s Second Law without exception.
• Harassment must be met with extreme counteraction. This is critical as regards attempts to silence and exclude us. Businesses, publishers, and organizers who fold in the face of SJW harassment and threats must suffer loss of profit and prestige greater than they feared they would suffer from the SJWs’ displeasure.
• Violence must be met with greater violence.

     If you value your freedom to say and do what you like – especially if what you like involves gathering with like-minded others – you are a front-line combatant.

     Take it seriously.