Meditations on

Thursday, November 19, 2015

5 misunderstandings evangelicals have about the Syrian refugee crises

Much of the Republican party is united on the issue of whether the U.S. should bring Syrian refugees into the nation and resettle them. However, within the evangelical Christian block of the party there is great division and many evangelical writers (or liberals looking to manipulate evangelicals) are pushing the Church to show the attitude of "the Good Samaritan" towards these refugees in the midst of the debate.

As an evangelical myself, I'm concerned that the trend within the demographic is to be vulnerable to getting yanked around by the heartstrings and thus be vulnerable to manipulation. I do not believe that the U.S. government should be bringing in Syrian refugees and have identified five misunderstandings that I think are leading Christians to be drawn in by the compassionate-sounding rhetoric of the President and evangelical leaders calling for a welcoming response.

Misunderstanding 1: This is going to end happily


The parallels being made to the parable of the good Samaritan and many other arguments for how Christians should welcome in refugees, show them love and healing, and allow them to become productive members of American society all tend to assume that easy, happy ending.

You'll notice that in one breath, people will talk about how the refugees will become grateful people who love this country and its values. In the next breath, they'll dismiss concerns about refugees by noting that most of the Paris attackers were French Nationals.

In other words, the attackers were people who had already been settled in the West and rather than embracing the culture ended up becoming radicalized and determined to try and destroy it.

Given all of America's struggles with race relations even amongst the diverse groups of people already living in the country, to assume that these people are all going to integrate happily, come to love the West and it's various values, and not be any more likely to shoot up locals then Joe Schmoe is frankly ridiculous. Wasn't that already made clear in the Boston Marathon bombings?

Importing Muslims from areas where radical Islam is popular is dangerous. Period. We shouldn't be having this debate without considering how these migrants are likely to integrate within the U.S. There's a reason people across France and Europe weren't shocked that some of the Muslims in their midst would prove to have murderous intentions.

Misunderstanding 2: The state of the union


Evangelicals are often accused of trying to impose religion on the state and force the state to make decisions based on their religion, which is probably a fair charge overall. Of course, everyone tends to vote and seek to influence the state and culture based on their most deeply held beliefs.

The real problem with many evangelical proposals is obfuscation between the role of the state and the role of the Church. Just as many Christians will readily agree that the job of a minister is not to prosecute criminals, the role of the state is not to serve as the good Samaritan for the foreigner.

In fact, this is the very opposite role of the state, which is to make sure that its own people are not beat up and left for dead in the streets.

What's more, this role of the state cannot be transformed by the wishful thinking of Christians or anyone else. A state that does not protect its citizens will cease to exist.

The state already has a major crises of legitimacy for its failure to protect the border, serve the interests of the non-rich, maintain economic growth that provides jobs, or maintain financial responsibility. It's not a wise decision to stack more burdens on that house of cards.

I wrote about this recently.

Misunderstanding 3: The state of the Church


It's not like the U.S. government is the only entity with a lot on its plate right now. The struggle for controlling influence over Western culture and politics is a major one for evangelicals right now and it's far from an established victory.

It'd be a dream if evangelicals could shape the West into a series of states that could be united, multicultural, and work well together with alliances, trade, and shared underlying values. Right now that's a goal of white Western liberals and it's going rather poorly because bringing in foreigners who don't share those same values tends to muck up the works.

What has happened is that we have a largely post-Christian society across the West that is increasingly decadent, mistrustful, and unequal. While it is appealing to think of the Western Church as being this entity that can be a beacon that absorbs all these problems and welcomes new challenges, it's simply not realistic at this time and attempting to proceed as though it were is not loving towards our current, actual neighbors.

If the parable of the good Samaritan was retold to accurately depict what's going on with the Syrian refugee crises it would be that the Samaritan has been slowly trying to summon up the courage and raise the funds to finally help the man who's been beaten and robbed when he hears that other people have been beaten and robbed elsewhere. So he runs, finds them, and then tosses them in the ditch with the robber's victim.

There's a lot of good intentions here without the capacity or will to actually understand or take on the issue.

Misunderstanding 4: How we got here


Assad's regime is a terrible one. Maintaining law and order in today's Middle East generally requires some very unpleasant policies quite different from what we see in the West. From the article linked just above:

"In Arab countries, except sometimes during the Arab Spring, disorganized street crime is surprisingly rare. That’s because Arabs know how to police Arabs. It’s not a pleasant subject to look into, but they don’t achieve law and order purely through police brutality. Besides using torture, police forces in Arab countries target criminals’ elders. When the senior members of the clan stand to lose from their grandsons’ viciousness, they find ways to keep them in line."
Oh...

So yes, Assad is a brutal dictator, but those are types that are generally capable of maintaining the kind of law and order needed in the region for people to have a hope of building productive lives. You'll notice that the apparent alternative to his regime is ISIS, hardly a peaceful and Western group of folks.

So why has the West been seeking to take down Assad? Even (probably) arming ISIS before it was realized that they aren't "al-qaeda's JV team"?

Because Assad was blocking the building of oil pipelines into Europe that would have made Europe less dependent on buying oil from Russia, the West's geo-political rival.

Without really involving the American people, the U.S. government has been acting to destabilize the Middle East in order to win an economic war against the Russians. When the result is disaster, civil war, and refugees, the American people are asked to pick up a bill they weren't aware they were accumulating. If they aren't interested in doing so they are guilt-tripped with evangelical Christians as a primary target.

Misunderstanding 5: How to beat ISIS and radical Islam


The overlap between today's issues and the Crusades of the past are numerous and stark.

The first classical error of both Christians and Western states in trying to figure out how to deal with violent, expansionist Islam is to go invade the region and try to establish a state there. This has never been done successfully unless you count Israel, which required importing millions of colonists and has been fraught with difficulty, tension, and expense.

In either instance, the West has been seduced by the valuable resources in the Middle East (either the Holy Land or the oil) and attempted to do something which it hasn't had the stomach, will, or knowhow to do. Just re-read the above section on how law and order is typically maintained in Arab states, it isn't accomplished through educating women, establishing Western-style democracies, and trying to re-make the culture in our own image.

The second classical error has been to compete and try to overthrow our Eastern Orthodox brothers (then Byzantium, now Russia) who should be considered a valuable ally and shield.

There were two sides to the Crusades, which represents the first time the West encountered violent, expansionist Islam. The first was to produce the mistakes mentioned above, the other side of the Crusades was what happened on the home front.

The West slowly pushed Islamist regimes out of traditionally Western nations and defended the eastern border carefully, diligently, and to the best of their ability. Knighthoods and hospitals were established to protect people and offer care across Europe.

Defensive warfare and cultural change has typically been what Christians have been able to effectively argue are "righteous causes" and not coincidentally that's also where Christians have tended to see the most success.

The answer to beating ISIS is not to invade the Middle East but to stop destabilizing the region as part of geo-political games, to stop welcoming the invaders into the West, to start protecting borders, to stop undermining our allies, and to re-shape our society around Crusader-values (chivalry) where men make it a priority to protect and care for the poor and helpless in our midst.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Four reasons that Christians should oppose the resettling of Syrian refugees within the West

As a people who are expected to be the "salt of the earth," Christians have a deeply felt responsibility to be on the moral high ground on every major public issue.

However, the influence of social media is such that the popular opinion that resonates most easily and rhetorically online is generally the one that will carry the day. Christians feel a compulsion to be seen on the side that is easy to stake out on the moral high ground.

The power of rhetoric is enormous in these discussions, much more so than careful, reasoned dialectic that is hard to articulate in 140 characters or in a Facebook status that people are simply glossing over.

Today the major debate is over what to do with Syrian refugees fleeing from a war-torn country. The easy moral high ground has generally been found in saying, "we must welcome these people and show them Christ's love in the midst of their brokenness!"

Then a few refugees were involved in the Paris attacks and things changed.

Today multiple US governors are flatly denying refugees access to their states in the name of protecting their citizens. This has been a divisive issue amongst the Church and it's for the simple reason that while fear and caution are very powerful motivators, it's hard to give a pithy reason for denying help and safety to people leaving a place of savagery and devastation that can be reconciled with the Church's call to be compassionate.

It's my belief that this is actually a very simple issue that is made murky by the difficulty in elucidating an argument for denying the refugees access to the US that is rhetorically effective at sounding Christ-like. If Christians can't be convinced that a position is in line with something that a follower of Christ should do then they are in a state of cognitive dissonance and division follows.

So here's a little bit of help to those that think wisdom or prudence would caution against welcoming Syrians into the west but are struggling to explain how this could possibly be the caring or loving response to what is a tragic and broken situation.

1. Accepting refugees is not the primary role of the state


Romans 13 lays out the importance of submission to governing authorities while laying out exactly what those authorities are primarily responsible for, which is maintaining law and order for their people. That is their God-given authority.

Much like a father has responsibility for his own family first, and a pastor has responsibility for his own flock first, the state is responsible for its own citizens above all else. In the same way that a father may be totally justified in not welcoming a young male vagrant who might be dangerous into his home where his wife and children sleep, a state is completely justified in not welcoming in an invasion of hundreds of thousands of young men from a violent and war-torn nation.

One of the more frustrating aspects of the refugee debate is that many of the voices calling for resettling are those of people who will be largely unaffected by their admission. The refugees aren't going to be settling into expensive neighborhoods where guilt-ridden white people live but into rougher areas in the inner city.

In that sense, many people calling for the welcoming of refugees today are much like a person shouting at a poorer man that he has a duty to welcome in the potentially dangerous young vagrant and put him up in his daughter's bedroom.

2. Accepting these refugees presents a danger to the state


If the people don't have security they aren't going to trust their government because that is the primary reason that it exists. A state's legitimacy is entirely based in fulfilling it's God-given duty to maintain order.

What liberals today don't understand is that the expansion of government services has not undermined the primary role of the government to provide security for its citizens, instead it's been an expansion of the types of security a government needs to offer in order to have legitimacy.

Americans and Westerners now have a greater expectation that their government provide retirement insurance, healthcare, and a robust economy. That means that the Western state is more vulnerable now than ever as it must maintain multiple types of security to maintain legitimacy with the people.

Welcoming in new dependents, many of whom have already proven to be dangerous law-breakers, makes it harder for the state to provide the forms of security that it must provide to be legitimate. The collapse of the Western state would be an international disaster and result in the spread of violence and disorder. If welcoming in millions of Syrians could contribute to that end it'd be best to avoid it.

3. The lessons of history say this is unwise


Of course the big issue is whether or not welcoming in potentially millions of Syrian refugees is actually a risky venture or whether this is just base fear. It's popular right now for people to discuss the history of refugees around the globe, and many of these takes seem to consider the movements of large groups of people avoiding conflict to be a modern phenomenon. Of course it isn't.

Let's talk about a group of people known commonly as the Goths.

The Roman empire was largely done in by external pressure from various Germanic groups, and was ultimately even sacked by the Vandals, but what is less commonly known is that many of these groups were welcomed into the empire as refugees, fleeing the brutality of the Huns.

The lessons of history are clear that when a large group of people migrate into a new land with vastly different people and values that things don't tend to end well. This was clear enough before radical Islamists from Syria and other Muslim nations decided to shoot up Paris.

It's common for people to readily believe in "magic soil," the idea that if you move large groups of people from any other region into the West that they will become Westerners and cease to hold the same values and views they held before. This is false and completely unsubstantiated by history. Welcoming in large, unassimilable groups of Syrians is going to have the effect of importing chunks of Syria into Western cities.

4. This is a military invasion


What's more, it's by an army that the West may not be able to defeat.

The nature of modern conflict is to tend towards 4th generation warfare, which is war between the state and non-state actors. While ISIS is attempting to build a state in Syria and surrounding country, their most effective form of fighting is with 4th generation fighters working against the state.

As we've seen in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere, Western militaries do not know how to win wars against 4th generation fighters. Sure they can take down a regime and collapse another state, but they struggle mightily to maintain order and rebuilt the state in the face of resistance from 4th generation forces.

That means that the most dangerous thing that can happen to the West is to invite 4th generation fighters from enemy soil into our own backyard. It's commonly being bandied about right now that all that is necessary for the west to beat ISIS is to try, which is complete hubris and flies in the face of everything we've witnessed to be true in the last several military conflicts in the Middle East.

Muslims attempted to conquer Europe once before, in the wake of Rome's collapse, and it took the Spanish several hundred years to "reconquista" their soil back and they didn't even have to deal with these modern tactics. Byzantium eventually went down and exposed Eastern Europe to invasion and brutal subjugation from the Turks, carefully driven back and kept at bay in part by ruthless and savage men such as Vlad Dracula. Yes, that Dracula. These are not experiences that the West should be eager to experience again.

Is every Syrian refugee a terrorist? Of course not! But importing the Syrian people into the West necessarily imports their problems as well and there can be no doubt that ISIS fighters or future ISIS fighters are in their midst and there is simply no way to filter them. Some of the Paris attackers were citizens, the Tsarnaev brothers were the sons of a non-hostile Chechen immigrant, it's inevitable that many of the Syrians who were not terrorists will find themselves unhappy in the West and become a pool of potential recruits for ISIS. This has already happened.

It's simply not realistic to believe that the West can absorb all these people into the population without exposing themselves to serious risk. It's not in the state's interests to do this.

Is there a solution?


No doubt a big issue for many Christians is the need for a positive and hopeful answer, a solution that can at least attempt to address the trauma and brokenness inherent in the situation.

The most obvious solution is not to topple and de-stabilize any more states in the Middle East. The U.S. undoubtedly contributed to this mess by trying to help Syrian rebels destroy the Assad regime in a power play against Russia (Syria controls oil pipelines into Europe that Russia wants closed so they can sell their own oil to Western consumers).

The West has played games in the Middle East for too long and are now expecting their citizens to pay the price for their mistakes. Let's not double down on foreign policy failures of the past.

The West would do well to yield to the Russians and help Assad re-establish control and order within Syria while encouraging and equipping the young men fleeing the state to stay and do their part to build a future for their own women and children.

There's also the fact that many of the surrounding states in the Middle East have been refusing to accept refugees. What's a better solution for the Syrian refugee crises, that they be moved across to the West where there are major cultural differences, inevitable divisions and violence, and consequently a huge strain on the state? Or temporarily to a neighboring Arab or Muslim state while the West helps to re-establish order in Syria?

Welcoming an invasion that will be used by ISIS to weaken the West, while easy to promote in compassionate-sounding rhetoric, is not the best solution for anyone involved. So if you agree that this is a bad solution and that the west should not welcome the refugees, you can argue that you oppose the resettling of refugees because Godly and just governance needs to be cautious and wise.

ISIS has hidden wolves amongst the sheep and there are those unwittingly doing the same with compassionate-sounding arguments that cloak and justify disastrous policy ideas. Let's be gentle as doves but wise as serpents in how we approach this immensely complicated issue.

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

The irony of the anti-patriarchy movement

One of the main aims of modern "progressives," particularly the social justice warriors who work hard to advance the cause of cultural marxism and destroying traditional authority structures, is to "take down the patriarchy."

The idea is to take down a male-dominated society, which would seek to keep women down and away from power. Complaints about traditionalist patriarchy would include men treating women as sensitive and shielding them from certain responsibilities or hearing harsh things.

The expression, "there's a lady present," used to indicate that someone should avoid using profanity or harsh language would be a classic example of the kind of patriarchy that modern feminism is seeking to destroy.

An example of the progressive move to replace the patriarchy has to include things like President Obama's "life of Julia" ad from the 2012 campaign in which voters are taken on a hypothetical journey with a woman in her life in which the state provides all of the protection and benefits she needs to thrive that would normally be provided by her father and then husband.

Naturally, the University system plays a major role in this as well, yet progressives never seem to catch the tremendous irony from a scene such as this one:



That's a young feminist at Yale unloading on a professor who suggested that responses to Halloween costumes were overly sensitive and that adults shouldn't try to dictate what other adults wear. The student screams at this professor, explaining that "creating a safe home" for students should be the goal of Yale University, not creating an intellectual climate in which different voices are allowed to be heard.

"Trigger-warnings" and "safe speech" are now common buzzwords at Universities where young women outnumber young men and are expecting the University to provide for them in the way that young men or their fathers aren't. These measures are really no different from saying, "hush, there's a lady present," all that has changed is the politics behind the sentiment.

You see, apparently the aims of "The Patriarchy," which were to protect and shield women, aren't the problem for these people. The problem seems to be that absentee fathers and emotionally/mentally-weak young men are failing to fill the role society needs them to fill and the result is a generation of bitter children who have a deep mistrust in traditional authority figures.

It's a huge problem, and the failure of both the state or the University system to fill the gap is going to become increasingly apparent.

Monday, November 2, 2015

Jeb and the desperation of the Republican establishment

Jeb's campaign is desperate right now to take down Marco Rubio, which if you examine the polls would seem like a pointless thing to attempt to do given that Rubio is not exactly at the top of the field.

It all begins to make more sense if you read this. The upshot is that, out of fear of the anti-establishment movement and Ted Cruz's potential for uniting it, the establishment did all they could to rig the primary to allow Jeb Bush to win.

Their goal was to use a wide field and "winner takes all" voting rules to set up Jeb to survive the early rounds and then surge to the top at the end, particularly after he (surely!) won the Florida primary.

It's worth pausing to note how extraordinary and ridiculous it is that both parties would insist on forcing a Clinton and a Bush as the choices for the voters. Sheer hubris.

On the GOP side they have two external problems and one internal problem.

The external problems are Marco Rubio and Donald Trump. The Donald is a problem because he's the perfect foil to the insecure and weak Jeb who happens to be strong on an issue that the party's base cares deeply about whereas Jeb couldn't be weaker thanks to his deep connections with Mexico (both business and personal).

Rubio is a problem because the same process of rigging the nomination for Jeb could work equally well for Rubio if the establishment decided to roll with him instead. Trump is a problem, but if you assume that he won't win enough votes to get the nomination, or that he'll run out of steam, he's less of a problem than Rubio taking Jeb's place as the anointed candidate.

The internal problem is that Jeb is a weak candidate. He may have been an effective governor in Florida and a policy wonk, but he's poor for the role of being the figurehead leader of either the nation or the power broker who's interests he represents. Every time he tries to confront Trump or Rubio it becomes more apparent how weak he is, imagine him trying to stand up to Clinton or Putin...

He also very transparently represents a style of governing and power brokers that no dominant faction in America is remotely interested in seeing put in charge. The Republican base deeply distrusts the establishment and particularly the establishment figures behind the disastrous Bush presidency. The Democrat base might hate them even more.

While the Democrats may be successful in ramming Clinton down the throats of their constituents, I don't think the GOP is going to be able to convince their base to accept Jeb.

When you watch the Bush attempt to say that he was totally oblivious of his campaign's recent attempt to take down Rubio you can tell that this has all gone horribly wrong for the GOP establishment. And then you have to shake your head and chuckle.

Saturday, October 31, 2015

The 4 different paths the Republicans could take in this election

The Republican party has one obvious aim for the upcoming primary, to settle on a candidate who can defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election and establish the party in both houses of Congress as well as the White House.

The goal for any party is to win elections and offer their people a chance to wield power and authority in the country, the primary is a process for determine which people will be the ones to do so.

In a nation of 322 million people, there are many different demographics and factions that are vying to wield power. In the 2008 election, 131.3 million people voted, in the 2012 election that decreased to 126.8 million. You can probably expect the 2016 election to big turnout numbers again as both sides will be antsing to take charge of the most powerful position in the country.

All of that is front and center in the minds of the GOP, but the bigger issue right now is the direction this party is actually heading. Which factions and interests are going to lead this party to try and grab a bigger share of the electorate and offer the Republicans control of the government?

There are two main directions the country could go in with four primary options.



Direction 1: Rebuke the establishment and reset the course


The infuriating thing for GOP voters about the last several victorious elections is that tea party and conservative elements within the party have turned out and carried the party to power only to see their candidates refuse to take any risks in order to protect their positioning as the party in power.

There are now movements within the party to label various establishment figures as "cuckservatives" meaning conservatives who would see the nation cuckolded by immigration that changes the demographics and values of the nation.

Voters who want to see the party reeled in and brought firmly under the control of the factions that put them in power in the first place have two good options in the primary, and each one would take the party in a different direction.

Option 1: Donald Trump and nativism


Donald Trump is a pre-cursor to what's already happening in Europe as nationalist/nativist parties are winning more and more elections by offering to protect a given nation's values and ethnic identity against the demographic changes in the region.

All of Trump's platform issues are about putting American interests first and American voters first, and for that reason he actually represents a potentially new coalition and political party than what the Republican party has become. Lower middle-class white American voters love Trump, as do many of the country's more Americanized minority elements who want to see the government protect what they have rather than offering the nation's resources to new migrants and populations.

The problem with nativism in the U.S. is that the country's basic values and identity don't fully rest in one ethnic identity. It's hard to have a party or leader that can fully capture the Anglo-American identity and bring everyone aboard into that identity without coming across as racist or exclusivist.

Trump has the right kind of personality and story to do this, but you wonder what the future of the party would look like if it went in that direction. Are there other nativist leaders that could win office within the GOP? Could the party's other leaders successfully pivot in that direction?

Viability


As I mentioned, Trump has a better shot than many want to admit at winning the election against Hillary for a few reasons.

First of all, the coalition of voters he could build by expanding on the typical GOP base (who are unlikely to go with Hillary and the likely discontents too power-hungry to choose a 3rd option) is actually fairly strong. Trump has the personality the draw in hispanic and black Americans who will be drawn to his success and plain-sense policy ideas.

Secondly, Trump is likely to do quite well in head-to-head confrontations with Clinton, who prefers to take subtle jabs that Donald would easily see through and readily counter. Republicans have long set themselves back by refusing to match fire with fire when confronting Democratic candidates. Trump isn't going to fall into that trap.

Problems


The biggest problem Trump would have is in garnering the needed money and support from various establishment elements within the Republican party. The neo-con faction in particular, which is eager to use the Republican party to have the means to project American power around the world, might actually prefer to take their chances with a true neo-liberal like Hillary rather than hoping they could suck up to Donald enough to gain access to his White House.

Another problem is whether Trump could survive with value voters after team Clinton shines a light on all of his various comments and deeds over the last few decades. If Evangelicals and values voters aren't turning out then no Republican is going to win an election.


Option 2: Ted Cruz and western Christendom


Ted Cruz is THE dominant figure fighting the Republican party and pushing it to actually serve the constituents they have relied on for winning elections rather than the bigger donor factions of the party that promise money and cushy living in D.C.

His primary strength is his understanding that war is determined on three levels: The physical, the mental, and the moral level.

The physical is the least important, the mental level has more influence on victory, and the moral is the most powerful. Cruz wields legitimate moral authority and understands that fighting and losing IS powerful and often actually brings victory.

Really that's a primary lesson of Christianity, where Christ laid down his life and absorbed evil and defeat only to be exalted and made king. Incidentally, Cruz represents evangelicals and classical conservatives.

The rise of this faction is something of an inevitability, I think and hope, as the nation's current descent into godlessness and excess is unsustainable both demographically and financially. The likely historical counter-swing is going to look something like Ted Cruz or Donald Trump whenever it happens and in the U.S. where the demographics are more multi-cultural it's more likely to look like Cruz.

Cruz would also likely appoint the kinds of people into judicial and executive offices that would have a big impact on the country, much like Obama has done.

This is the most underrated aspect of the Presidency and it's one where Cruz is stronger than most other candidates.

Viability


Cruz has been bringing new donors into the Republican party and is basically an example of Evangelical culture, which is becoming the dominant force in American Christianity, realizing that we can actually produce our own businesses and leaders to represent us rather than trying to have a seat at the table with other interests.

Of course, Evangelicals aren't numerous and strong enough to do that on our own yet but Cruz is looking to bolster the ranks with small government/liberty minded folks of the type who were supporting Ron Paul in 2012 and with nativists that just want the government to fight for American values.

He's also a staunch supporter of Israel, participating in the GOP's attempt to woo Jewish voters into the fold after they felt betrayed by Obama's Iran deal and their inability to convince Democrats to stop it. Jewish-Americans don't have many votes but their high number of billionaire donors and media platforms make them a powerful group within the country. What's more, they are starting to question whether the multi-cultural Obama coalition seizing more power in American politics is actually going to be in their interests.

Overall, Christianity is a stronger and more uniting flag to get people behind than the selfish-interests of pure nativism.

Problems 


While he has strategies and ways in place to build a coalition of typical Republican elements while bringing in disenchanted or unengaged small-government folks and Christians, Cruz is also despised by the typical establishment figures whom he has built his reputation by bashing. It'd be hilarious to see how Republicans responded to Cruz sitting in the bully pulpit and dictating the agenda for the country and I imagine many of them are eager to avoid that outcome, even to the point of betrayal.

There's also the question of whether the classic conservative elements that Cruz represents are still numerous enough to win a general election against Hillary. His hope would have to be that he can get much better turnout than McCain or Romney (almost certain) while also making inroads with minorities and moderate suburbanites and I'm not sure how he'd attempt to do that.

Clinton would pound him on the gay rights issue, although I'm not sure what either of them would do to change the trajectory the nation is already on, and he could lose moral authority there with suburban voters.


Direction 2: Consolidation within the establishment


Don't expect the establishment to give up easily, they've fought hard to appeal to the nativist, small-government, and evangelical elements within the party that Trump and Cruz represent and are going to do all they can to find a palatable conservative to appease those elements while giving them a chance to continue things as they've been going.

Their problem is that they don't fully understand that they are rapidly losing legitimacy with Americans who see the country changing with new demographics and values and want their political leaders to fight like mad to prevent their country from being transformed.

The establishment doesn't want to stop the nation from being transformed, they just want to be positioned to help steer the ship while that happens. While the Democrats are guided largely be a desire to transform the country into one with their own values and where they can govern and rule the state, the Republicans are often more motivated by preserving the state and their position in it. That's going to become increasingly divergent from the goals of their constituents who want to see the country transformed back.

This goal of theirs is actually a more laudable goal than it sounds like but the result is a gradual ceding of values and direction within the country as they are sacrificed at the altar of stability.

Another problem is that the establishment isn't producing the leaders that are inspiring the voters. They were all-in early on JEB without realizing that he lacks the alpha-male personality of his brother and his weak personality has been brutally exposed by going up against the likes of Donald Trump.

Worse, in Jeb's death-throes he's been doing damage to Marco Rubio who is one of the better establishment fallback options. Anyways, here are the establishment's two best options for maintaining control of the party and beating Hillary in 2016:

Option 1: Marco Rubio and the New American Century


Marco Rubio's greatest strength is articulating what conservatism could look like in the 21st century when America is increasingly changing into a multi-cultural empire that isn't defined primarily by Anglo-American values and culture.

He was elected as a tea party guy but his attempt to pass immigration reform that didn't include deportation or even increased border security got him lambasted as another "cuckservative." Even still, he has a lot of conservative bonafides as an adamantly pro-life voter, a proponent of limited government and private sector solutions, and an advocate of aggressive, neo-conservative foreign policy which is still popular within the party's base for some reason.

His plans to overhaul education to allow Americans to have a chance at joining the skilled labor workforce, breaking the power of liberal Universities, and making family formation more affordable are all home-run issues both for drawing in voters as well as for setting up the Republican party for long-term success.

Viability


Marco Rubio would likely get strong base turnout running against Hillary provided that Trump or some other anti-immigration 3rd party candidate wasn't on the ticket. In that event he'd be exceptionally vulnerable.

He could somewhat counter the "first female president" Clinton platform with the "first Latino president" and "a successfully immigration story" narratives and also has policy ideas and the personality to appeal to suburban and minority voters that Republicans struggled to win over against Obama.

Finally, Rubio is a guy the establishment could get behind with all of their guns. Granted, some of their ordinance seems to be off these days, but the sheer money and numbers would be enormous if backing the right candidate.

Problems


Jeb has outlined some of Rubio's problems, namely that he's a young man with a questionable record of being organized and disciplined with his personal life. On the other hand, he has a "every day guy" quality about him that all of those lines of attack might just highlight.

Immigration is the biggest problem, as many GOP voters aren't going to want to hear about how the GOP can pivot and change with the times but how electing Rubio will mean victories for classic conservative values.

Hillary would try to make this about experience and a proven record vs a young, inexperienced guy who doesn't know what he's doing but ask McCain how that argument went against Obama.

Option 2: Chris Christie and law and order


The biggest weakness of the Democratic party is the potential fracturing of Obama's coalition without Obama being present to unite them.

In particular, the #BlackLivesMatter movement is the albatross around the party's neck and it's quietly the biggest problem for Hillary's campaign. When Clinton was president he looked to protect Americans from inner city criminality with "mass incarceration" policies to clean up the streets. Now Hillary is trying to distance herself from that part of her record and stay on the good side of this movement or else risk not benefitting from the massive black turnout that ushered Obama into office.

The first and more important priority for a state is preserving order and security for its citizens and if it appears that the GOP candidate will do that better than the Democrat that's going to be a huge deal for the Latino, Asian, and even black voters that don't want to live in cities where black criminals always get the benefit of the doubt against the police and where cops began to retreat and allow things to get bad...as is happening in many locations where #BlackLivesMatter protests have occurred.

It's also a majorly losing issue with white American who are living in suburbs or trying to re-gentrify cities but don't want to raise their families in crime-ridden areas. None of these groups may admit this is a major issue, but you'll see it reflected in their voting choices in November, I promise you. Take a look at Republican share of the Asian vote in 2014 after the Ferguson riots compared to how they did in 2012 or 2010 and you'll see what I mean.

This should be a subtle but major issue for whichever Republican wins office but it would be a majorly winning issue for Chris Christie, a former U.S. Attorney and governor. I'm not sure he's realized this, or that the establishment, ever eager to avoid being labelled as racists, realize it either. But it's there and it's true.

Viability


Christie is currently lower in the polls than Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, and maybe Jeb so why am I including him?

Fiorina is simply not viable. Her record at HP would see her destroyed running against Clinton, however tough she talks now, and she was unable to seize on any of her momentum after the 2nd debate. She's going to fade into the background and perhaps end up in someone's cabinet.

Carson is not a serious candidate and his endorsement of that "autism-cure" and things of that ilk are going to see him drop like a rock soon enough. Evangelical voters have a much better and more viable option in Ted Cruz that they'll be rallying around soon. I suspect much of his popularity is that he'll say things as a black man that white voters want to be said but which they feel nervous to say aloud. He's a token, helping to push forward both evangelical values and the idea that a black man in American could theoretically be a conservative Republican.

Jeb is done, everyone is saying so which is when you know it's all over. There's also Kasich, but he doesn't have the "law and order" credentials of Christie and has foolishly pissed off the base with his lines of rhetoric of late. He already wasn't popular with the establishment so infuriating the base was probably the dumbest thing he could have done.

If the establishment determines that Rubio is unready or not strong enough that leaves Christie as their best bet for bringing in the guns behind. He's not especially conservative but he's capable of making a case for stronger borders and a pro-life agenda that could rally the troops while bringing the law and order angle to bear with swing voters and crushing Hillary.

Problems


His issue with the bridge and his people possibly abusing their power to punish political rivals...that's not going to play well with national scrutiny even if he is cleared and it's going to make it harder to press the Benghazi/email scandals that the GOP is currently intending to use to disqualify Hillary with swing voters.

I think the law and order angle would trump that and is secretly a stronger tactic, but I'm not confident that the GOP will recognize that and properly press it to their advantage.

He's also not especially popular with the party base and was perceived as swinging the election to Obama when he hugged him on the Jersey shores after Hurricane Katrina and he is not known for being a small government candidate but more of a establishment figure that would work with what the country has.

Also, he's overweight and something of a loud-mouth, which may not play well when lined up across a small blonde woman, however much of a nag she can sound like in her own right.

Seriously, he might be one of the strongest leaders and best candidates but I'm not sure that will be clear to everyone which is a major weakness.

So which direction will the party go in? I'd rank them in order of likelihood as:

1. Rubio
2. Cruz
3. Trump
4. Christie

Which direction do you think the party should go in?

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Why the pro-choice movement is logically bankrupt

With the aid of their partners in the media, planned parenthood has managed to keep 70% of Americans from exposure to the recent string of films made detailing how Planned Parenthood has been committing a variety of federal crimes, most notably harvesting aborted babies for organs that were then sold for profit and delivering whole alive babies to make this process simpler.

Democrats have rallied around planned parenthood in these troubling times for the "non-profit" organization and conspired with cynical Republicans in Washington to prevent PP from losing federal funds. Planned Parenthood bankrolls Democrats for this reason and Republicans love using the abortion issue to get it's voters up in a frenzy to go elect them into office...they're not eager to actually end the evil when it is so useful to them for staying in power.

However, while the videos have been useful for showing the nasty underbelly of an exploitative industry and framing the abortion issue in a way that makes it difficult (nearly impossible really) for the pro-choice movement to hold the rhetorical high ground, they still don't do the work of undercutting the logic of the pro-choice movement. The logic that abortion itself, whether the babies are harvested for profit or simply tossed aside, is morally ok.

That's okay, it's not that difficult to do.

The pro-choice movement has philosophers across the world working on how to justify the murder of infants, I'm sure it must frustrate them at times that they have to do so at all as they all could have been born (ironic) in other times in human history when child sacrifice was allowed, but alas.

I've identified two main arguments that have come out of all that hard, intellectual work that are typically used to justify abortion on demand.

1. The fetus is not a human person, therefore it doesn't have rights.


And,

2. The fetus is a human, but it doesn't have the right to use the mother's body to sustain itself.


While no. 2 rightfully seems absurd even from the outset, it's actually somewhat tricky, so we'll start with no. 1 which is more common because it's an easier rhetorical pill to swallow and thus used more commonly.

The fetus is not a person, therefore it doesn't have rights.


To deny that the fetus is a human life is frankly untenable. What else could it be? It's clearly alive and it's preposterous to frame it as a different species of animal. Pro-choice arguments rarely go down that path, but they will embrace this argument which is virtually the same but deals with abstractions.

The idea is that the fetus is not a human person because it's not fully developed yet or because it doesn't meet some other requirements for personhood. What those requirements are is unclear and largely inconsistent. That inconsistency reveals why this whole argument is a giant crock of ****.

You see, much like how there is no reason to dub the fetus a different species of animal there is zero reason to invent a sub-set of human beings which are "non-persons." Actually there's one reason that is always present when people declare other humans to be "non-persons," they simply want a justification for killing them or treating them poorly.

Indeed, can you think of a single reason why it would be useful or necessary to try and invent a category of humans that don't qualify as persons? No other reason exists other than to justify denying them rights that we don't want to offer them, such as the right to life. You start counting a fetus, a woman, or a black man as person with equal rights and then you start having to go through all this trouble to protect and secure those rights.

One of planned parenthood's founders, Margaret Sanger, was a feminist who determined that securing equal rights for women was going to be very difficult unless feminists could also find a way to deny rights to the "non-persons" she perceived as their main competition: black Americans. She pushed abortion to help "cleanse" the American population of black people and her abhorrent mission is largely being carried out today by Planned Parenthood.

This whole argument reeks of the gulag and the third reich, there simply isn't any reason to accept the notion that we should categorize people into groups so we can justify killing them...unless we really want to be able to kill them. It may be the simpler path to rhetorical success but it's also clearly and excessively evil.

The fetus is a person, but it doesn't have the right to use its mother's body to sustain itself.


I find this argument is growing in popularity, probably because argument no. 1 is so ludicrous and can clearly be demonstrated to mimic arguments made by evil totalitarians of the past or to be applied to other groups of people that a majority of Americans aren't willing to be convinced are eligible for murder, such as babies who have escaped the womb, the sick/mentally disabled, or the elderly.

So you'll find this argument come up, often amongst the more intellectual pro-choice person who is undoubtedly in a state of cognitive dissonance about argument no. 1.

The idea here is that just because the fetus is a human baby with a right to life doesn't mean it has the right to demand the use of the mother's body in order to secure it.

Now this argument is fairly silly from the outset, it's often framed as if the baby had made a random or unfair choice about which woman it was going to inflict itself on. It also is a very unheroic hill to plant your flag on, "defending the rights of people who don't want to be Good Samaritans." In light of the rest of the progressive agenda, which is all about forcing people to do the right thing to help the oppressed, it's a pretty ironic argument.

All that said, it's often used with a degree of rhetorical skill.

One example pro-choice debaters will use is that pregnancy is like this; you've stumbled upon a person who was drowning and you know that if you dive into the waters there's a good chance that you could die yourself. They say, "well if you want to dive in and try to save them, bully for you, but you can't put a legal expectation on the rest of us to do the same."

Fairly tidy, no? Here's the problem.

Virtually none of these people have any compunction whatsoever about demanding that parents be accountable for their children. You want to make laws that require that mothers and fathers take care of their own children, to house, feed, and protect them? Very few of these pro-choice people will argue the point, most will be in full agreement.

So why are mothers not also accountable to the fetus inside of them?

"She was raped!" This is rarely the case, but what if we granted an exception for women who were raped?

"No! Uh...well, the fetus is not a person anyways! No one should be obligated to care for it!"

But of course...back to no. 1 we go.

Much of the culturally marxist (politically correct) modern liberal movement is, in essence, an open rebellion against nature. 

-People should enjoy the procreative and complementarian act of sex with whomever they wish! Even if the partner isn't complementary! You need to approve of this and call it good!

-Men should be allowed to consider themselves as women!

-Mothers shouldn't have a moral obligation to their pre-born children!

Sometimes this school of thought is described as "trans-human" with the idea that this is the stage in evolution where humans evolve into something more free and more grand. Personally I doubt it as most of these arguments seem to favor the interest of the individual over that of the species. More likely, these are all just the temper tantrums of a spoiled generation and not evolutionarily adaptive behaviors, but I digress.

The pro-choice movement has no good arguments, they are logically bankrupt, and they rely on one key fact: the unborn are unseen and unheard.

Simply put, they picked an easy victim. They're bullies who wanted lunch money for twinkies and found the smallest kid in a hallway with no one around them.

This is why everyone needs to see the films made by The Center for Medical Progress about what's going on at Planned Parenthood. If everyone could see them beating up the tiny kid in the hallway, and then giving them an extra kick to the face before taking their lunch money to buy the twinkie, none of these ridiculous arguments would carry much weight any more.

Friday, February 13, 2015

Star-Lord: Guardian of Western Civilization?

There's a re-occurring theme amongst many popular movies these days but it's not one you tend to hear much about, mainly because it doesn't suit the popular philosophies of our times.

Namely, it's the story of a disaffected young male taking on the responsibilities of a man after watching a young lady (often a princess like in Disney's "Tangled" or "Frozen") attempt to take on life's challenges without him and falling for her as he realizes his place in life is defending and supporting her in that task.

This is essentially the story of the Millennial generation.

Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy" took that story a step further and essentially wrote a story in which their disaffected young hero, Peter Quill or "Star-Lord," serves as a stand-in for young men across all of Western Civilization facing challenges from within as well as from the east.

Quill dreams of being a legendary outlaw, but in reality he's often just mocked or marginalized despite his real skill. Shades of #GamerGate here, imo.

The first interesting theme of Guardians of the Galaxy, although it's not at all rare for a Hollywood film, is that Gabriel is the hero:

Theme 1: The "privileged" white male hero

"White privilege" is a commonly used term in American society today to marginalize the opinions and roles of white males. The idea is that white people in the West enjoy privileges that non-white folks don't benefit from. It's an expression of cultural marxism used to cast white males as the oppressive villains of the world and to justify their overthrow at the hands of ethnic or cultural minority groups that represent the minority in the West.

In reality, the "privilege" that white people tend to enjoy in the West is what occurs as a result of middle class white males marrying, having children, and working sacrificially every day of their lives to protect and support their families. Remove that discipline and you won't see white people enjoy as many privileges regardless of surrounding cultural context. Add that discipline in the inner city and you'll see black Americans start to find considerably more opportunities available to them.

Of course, Peter Quill doesn't enjoy white privilege since his dad wasn't around for his early life and sent some barbarians to fetch him when his mother dies who fail to deliver him to his true father.

Instead he grows up amongst outlaws, and if he's not exactly "100% a dick" he is primarily motivated by self interest.

His growth into becoming the hero is not the typical message that the media or culture today likes to bring. Rather, they'd prefer to see him thrown into prison for no doubt "date-raping" the red alien girl in his ship while Gamora works to help the Nova Corps realize that their own aggressions against Ronan's people in the past are to blame for his reckless behavior.

While it's still common for a white male to be the blockbuster hero, the enemy in the "Guardians of the Galaxy" is not your typical enemy in either the cultural marxists story of history nor the typical Hollywood film of today. They typically bend over backwards to avoid this:

Theme 2: The Islamic terrorist stand-in villain

Ronan the accuser is presented immediately as a religious zealot, infuriated by his people making peace with an advanced, pluralistic civilization who's culture offends him deeply. Although his own people aren't terribly eager to stop him, much like many of the states in the Middle-East and their attitudes towards al-qaeda, he represents more of the radical fringe than the mainstream of the "Kree" people.

Ronan's language is largely religious (he orders for the "cleansing" of the prison, meaning to kill all the prisoners and guards) and his tactics include suicide-bombing the civilians of Xandar.

He's an obvious stand-in for the radical fringe of Wahhabist Islam, that wants to see the world submit to Allah and observe sharia law in a global Caliphate. While this isn't as much a threat in the US, it's a growing concern for Westerners in Europe and will likely become an increasingly important issue in the US.

Ronan's strong belief and commitment to it are what make him strong and dangerous. He's willing to burn through his whole army and execute the questionable plan of destroying an entire planet that he's on, as well as the ship he got there on, in order to see a culture destroyed. It's a perversion of the type of self-sacrifice that men should naturally demonstrate in defense of their homes and community.

So you have a hero that is typically villainized confronting the external enemy who is normally ignored and who's aim is to burn down the stand-in for Western culture. The only problem is, does the hero even care to be the hero?

Theme 3: The white male takes responsibility, saves the day

The messages of cultural marxism, which were designed to collapse Western civilization after recognizing that it was in implacable foe to traditional marxism, often serve to marginalize white males. To rob them of their purpose (leading and defending their families), and break their influence within society.

This is all true for Star-Lord, who's simply a petty thief who accidentally falls into something bigger. However, a few major events occur that convince him to finally "give a shit, for once, and not run away."



First there's his romance with Gamora, who as a woman has a particular attachment to civilization which serves to protects women and children from suffering at the mercies of wild and violent men like the ravagers or fanatical control-freaks like Ronan. As someone who grew up under the tyranny of Thanos, Gamora aspires to something greater for others.

Quill falls for her and adopts her mission as well, to protect the people of Xandar rather than simply looking out for himself, even though it means risking his own life first at the hands of the barbarians he has now renounced then against Ronan himself.

He ultimately realizes he can't live in an insulated bubble and be unaffected anyways. Rocket the Raccoon, similarly emotionally-scarred by a hard life origin, asks Quill:

"Why do you want to save the galaxy?" To which Peter hilariously and aptly responds, "Because I'm one of the idiots who lives in it!"

Very often people in the West buy into "white guilt" or "privilege" and start to buy into critical theory claims that Western Civilization is evil and needs to be shaken at its foundations. People frequently say "just because we've always done something a certain way doesn't mean it's necessary."

Although this is undoubtedly true, one might also respond that "if you don't understand why we've always done something a certain way perhaps it's not a good idea to change it."

Ultimately Quill understands that, whatever their flaws are, the people around him are his community and he has a duty to protect them. Allowing the foundations to be destroyed is not in his best interests.

The next event is interesting but perhaps not unique in Hollywood blockbusters, to the chagrin of cultural marxists. When Peter Quill, stand-in for white males of Western Civilization, takes leadership the diverse collection of "losers" as well as the de-civilized barbarians in his midst follow his guidance and stand up to defend the culture from the external radical.

What's more, due to his ingenuity and sacrifice and the strength of his bond with his friends, they overcome their foe. Of course, first he had to overcome a marginalized role in society along with an unwillingness to accept responsibility.

The stories that resonate

There's a reason that movies like this, or like Captain America that emphasize the hero's moral authority rather than compromising him with bad decisions, are performing well with audiences. The themes of the movie, even if somewhat unrecognized, resonate with people who are a part of Western Civilization and are staring at similar challenges.

That story, plus fun dialogue from an excellent cast, can allow a Marvel no-name with a talking raccoon, tree, and green woman to dominate the box office.

If the Academy Awards are likely to represent the direction in which Hollywood's elite would like the country to go in, the success of movies like "Guardians of the Galaxy" demonstrates that classical values are still alive and well.