They must be able to speak their anti-American sentiments, this is required. It is already illegal to act on anti-American ideas within America. All we need to do is enforce the law. All of the institutions that push the anti-American agenda benefit from the fed and the petrodollar system. This system is unconstitutional (I argue). If it were to be abolished, I think everyone would be astonished as to how quickly Americans could reassert political control over the USG. The principles are the entire point of being American. Let our enemies sully themselves by calling for anti-American means to justify their anti-American ends. It also makes it very clear cut who has principles. Remember, one of the reasons the dialectic is so effective is because conservative Christians were happy to shroud the Iraq war with allusions to biblical prophecy among other anti-American endeavors in the Bush years that paint an inaccurate straw man. This strategy will work as long as American ideals are demotic within the population. I think we have that now. If we lose that though, all is lost until the whole system comes crashing down. Just my .02, appreciate you writing on this important topic!
You are an instinctive Aristotelian, John, in your preference for the golden mean. One can only hope that the best of the American experience can be salvaged from the ruin of the Republic. It remains to be seen if any presently conceivable form of civic nationalism of the kind you believe in remains practical. Concepts of nationality are contestable and I do not pretend that mine are better than yours, but I'll give it a go.
Nations are formed in part by shared ancestry for at least a central, defining, core of the population, but are supplemented by a shared culture or a blend of cultures that has proven itself viable over time. The measure of this viability is the ability to coexist without collective rancour or violence over several generations. Nations are sustained by a degree of shared experience, a set of conditions common to all or nearly all, by shared understandings and at least some mutual sympathy. The expectation of a shared future or a common fate is essential.
The true test of a nation is its ability to survive in the absence of a state. A nation that cannot do that for several generations is no nation, merely a rabble defined by dependency on a political class.
My scepticism about civic nationalism is based on a simple prejudice against Leviathan itself. A nation is always more important than a constitution. A nation cannot exist for the benefit of ideals. Ideals exist in order that nations thrive, that they enable the realisation of their concept of justice. To put it another way, a constitution exists for the convenience and best interests of the people, not the people for the fulfillment of a set of ideas. Civic nationalism makes a nation into a cult. True nations contain cults, may even have an established state cult of one kind or another, but are not constituted as a cult per se.
In writing thus, I am not pleading for blood and soil nationalism or for any Romantic politics. Nationalism was confected in the modern era to manage people in the era of mass politics. That era appears over for good. Perhaps tribalism, the politics of sub-national groups defined by genes and culture, may be the way forward?
The US began as an association of sovereign states. Its future may well be as a federation of nations and tribes united by the constitutional equivalent of a pact of non-belligerency.
The above link plays for 18 minutes, but describes the five types of "citizenship" aka political statuses on America.
To the wonderful author, all you described is closer than you think. (And in actuality, there are 3 constitutions - these are our contracts as sovereign people with each of the three governments... Federation, Territorial, Municipal).
Watch Bobby Graves, type his name and Part 1 in YouTube, he'll take you through our honest, true history.
If we could all stop trying to reinvent the wheel and being dragged down into the constant war of divide and conquer they have put up on us, we the people could rise up, claim our real birthright status, and start reassembling our lawful, common Law government UnInc, holy crap... All this stuff would change in a heartbeat, swiftly and without violence.
And violence is an alternative, and many of us RED blooded Americans would certainly take out the woke freak show parade of sheeple, the corp government has friends in high places, amongst many are high ranking military and the ability to have the corrupt UN come on our shores and "help" fight an uprising of Patriots... The losses would be astronomical and leave a weakened America exposed to the other global powers.
We would do what we must for freedom, to honor America, and give our children a future free from slavery. But in the interim, it's time to join your respective nation state assembly, become a State National, and if you want to really help, become a State Citizen and let's kick these criminals to the curb.
And John Carter, excellent authoring, I'm not judging your writing, as it is a wonderful concept for sure. Uniting our people who hold the values of our Republic and comprehend the responsibility that goes with standing up for the rights of each other, is what is necessary to put this train back on track.
This said, you have quite a talent and all that you author is very well written and I thoroughly enjoy all that you write. So keep up the good work, always warms my heart to have a fellow Patriot, especially one North of the border who understands what true freedom should be and what it represents (and even more so than half our population, give or take.). And further, there is a parallel system on Canada too. Hit me up an email if you want links and such, happy to find and share them with you.
MaineManJB at protonmail dot com
Love and light and God Bless!
And happy Independence Day to all who celebrate. (I have stopped saying "4th of July" ironic that we allegedly won the war but then use the British way of saying this...sigh.)
I noticed someone asked you if you were Canadian and I knew you were because of other pieces you have written. A better question would have been, why does a Canadian have a better understanding of the U.S. constitution than most of the citizens in this country? Perhaps our friend "The Good Citizen" could jump in on the subject as well, as he is well versed in this area as well and could offer some great insights as well. Great job as usual and will be linking this tomorrow @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
Gonzalo Lira made a stream months ago discussing these issues. He insisted on the ''melting pot'' policy for the USA's state to work. Do you think is necessary? No doubt a great deal of conflict arises from racial agitators, but I'm not sure dealing with such people would be enough...
Thanks for your essay. I think, however, you might be over-complicating things or missing the target. The problems really began in the 60s with race and then sex (sexual revolution, the pill, you go girl, glass ceiling, etc.) . Blacks (and women) cannot so much assimilate as compete and they have huge, childlike egos. What's to be done?, asked the Quaker Nixon. Answered Daniel Patrick Moynihan, benign neglect. Nixon didn't listen and so he began forced busing. Everyone knows this doesn't work but we can't say it. Anyhoo, the lying began and it just gets worse.
So, you have two very aggressive and powerful groups, blacks and feminists, who cannot compete on equal terms against white men; throw in resentful incel men and there you go. Quotas, forced integration and loss of freedom of association, #metoo, insane rage at Trump and all he represents (i.e., unapologetic white men), hysterical worship of black thugs, weird racial pairings in ads and movies, virtual signaling idiots, gay pride and finally transvestites escaping white maleness. Also, at this juncture, out of control non-white immigration. Basically, the hysteria at Putin and Russians in general is an extension of this phenomena, this desire to compete against white men and the crushing fear that they never will, that life is unfair, in an increasingly crass, material world. Women and blacks aren't exactly noted for their soaring spiritual accomplishments now are they? It's always the body with them, and it always will be.
My own answer is that everyone in the Global Village is an American now. Who is for independence and who isn’t? Today is a good day to think about that.
I know, I know, once upon a time there was such a thing as an American citizen, and when I was a kid we all understood that.
But Joe Biden is subsiding anybody in our Global Village who wants to come in, so let’s get real.
Recite after me: LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS!
Yes, I know, the guy who wrote that owned slaves.
But I’m writing it on an electronic device made by slaves in China, and you’re reading it on one.
Jul 4, 2022·edited Jul 4, 2022Liked by John Carter
Very good job delineating the two real options. I vastly prefer the vision of America as an ideology committed to the ideals enshrined in the Bill of Rights. The Globalist project is doomed to fail (it is already collapsing), so unless Americans of goodwill conscientiously choose the ideological option, the ethnostate will be the default alternative into which our country will devolve, and it will be brutal and bloody. God help us to see that before it is too late and to instead pursue the ideology of liberty and justice for all, with a commitment to the spirit of Bill of Rights.
"America" is just a word to denote things associated with the United States, it means nothing really. Enforcement of the founding ideals will not happen because nobody believes in them anymore. If you don't like the result of the ideas, why cling to the ideas?
"The argument goes that a tolerant society can tolerate everything except the intolerant, who would if given free rein destroy tolerance. Therefore, the intolerant cannot be tolerated, and the tolerant are justified in using any and all means to shut down intolerance."
And since they reserve for themselves the exclusive right to define "intolerance," the "tolerate everything" crowd effectively bans all dissent and leaves only their own points-of-view as officially-sanctioned "tolerance." Therein lies the rub... if we were to apply the same standard to liberty or fealty to the Constitution, they would do as they always do, and redefine the terms in question.
The left has already defined "liberty" as requiring strict gun control, restrictions on speech that hurts people's feelings, curbs on "misinformation," confiscatory taxation and redistribution of income, along with Soviet-style rights to housing, food, gainful employment, medical care, and higher education.. and more recently, mask mandates, vaccine mandates, and prison-style lockdowns for everyone.
Or, as Orwell put it, "freedom is slavery."
This is the standard MO of the left. They favor free speech, so they say, but they add that "hate" speech has never been protected as part of "free" speech (which, of course, is as incorrect as it is possible for a mere mortal to be). All they have to do is declare that a given thing they don't want to hear is "hate," and bam! It's gone. That's been the excuse of all social media eradicating all viewpoints other than their own... tolerance for all except the intolerant, where they define what is intolerant. It's no different than having a handful of judges look at the Constitution in 1973 and claiming that somehow the right to abortion is in there. It clearly was not... everyone knows it was a "rabbit from a hat," but hey, if SCOTUS says it's in there, and SCOTUS is the final authority on what's in there, then who are we to say it's not?
We on the right mostly want to be left alone. We don't tend to endorse the total-war tactics of the left, where things like massive voter fraud and mass propaganda are just "part of the process." The left will redefine freedom to be slavery to get people into slavery. They will tell us that words don't mean what they clearly do. They have a mindset that denies objective reality and substitutes "the narrative." They can and will claim to adopt every principle we hold dear while twisting the very definitions to bring about the opposite of what the principles were meant to protect.
In other words, if we adopt "liberty to do anything except attempt to curtail liberty," they will (and have already) define the curtailment of liberty as what we do to advance it. They will define their own attempts to curtail liberty as efforts to promote it. Sure, people could figure all this out pretty easily if they would spend a few seconds applying some critical thought, but it is now abundantly clear, via simple observation of this whole COVID debacle, that precious few people have even the slightest bit of ability to think critically about anything. They will believe that being able to say hurtful things is not protected speech, and that banning hurtful things advances freedom (because "freedom from hurt feelings" sounds like a thing), if they are told to. And they will be.
I think civil war is inevitable. We need to be prepared for that and a rebuilding of our culture afterward.
There must be limits on who can vote. I think it should be limited to property owners, business owners, and combat veterans. Too many people without skin in the game are casting votes to set the rules.
Your argument is unassailable, your understanding and knowledge of history and human nature impeccable. Another good read, as always. I learn so much from you and your subscribers and commenters.
They must be able to speak their anti-American sentiments, this is required. It is already illegal to act on anti-American ideas within America. All we need to do is enforce the law. All of the institutions that push the anti-American agenda benefit from the fed and the petrodollar system. This system is unconstitutional (I argue). If it were to be abolished, I think everyone would be astonished as to how quickly Americans could reassert political control over the USG. The principles are the entire point of being American. Let our enemies sully themselves by calling for anti-American means to justify their anti-American ends. It also makes it very clear cut who has principles. Remember, one of the reasons the dialectic is so effective is because conservative Christians were happy to shroud the Iraq war with allusions to biblical prophecy among other anti-American endeavors in the Bush years that paint an inaccurate straw man. This strategy will work as long as American ideals are demotic within the population. I think we have that now. If we lose that though, all is lost until the whole system comes crashing down. Just my .02, appreciate you writing on this important topic!
You are an instinctive Aristotelian, John, in your preference for the golden mean. One can only hope that the best of the American experience can be salvaged from the ruin of the Republic. It remains to be seen if any presently conceivable form of civic nationalism of the kind you believe in remains practical. Concepts of nationality are contestable and I do not pretend that mine are better than yours, but I'll give it a go.
Nations are formed in part by shared ancestry for at least a central, defining, core of the population, but are supplemented by a shared culture or a blend of cultures that has proven itself viable over time. The measure of this viability is the ability to coexist without collective rancour or violence over several generations. Nations are sustained by a degree of shared experience, a set of conditions common to all or nearly all, by shared understandings and at least some mutual sympathy. The expectation of a shared future or a common fate is essential.
The true test of a nation is its ability to survive in the absence of a state. A nation that cannot do that for several generations is no nation, merely a rabble defined by dependency on a political class.
My scepticism about civic nationalism is based on a simple prejudice against Leviathan itself. A nation is always more important than a constitution. A nation cannot exist for the benefit of ideals. Ideals exist in order that nations thrive, that they enable the realisation of their concept of justice. To put it another way, a constitution exists for the convenience and best interests of the people, not the people for the fulfillment of a set of ideas. Civic nationalism makes a nation into a cult. True nations contain cults, may even have an established state cult of one kind or another, but are not constituted as a cult per se.
In writing thus, I am not pleading for blood and soil nationalism or for any Romantic politics. Nationalism was confected in the modern era to manage people in the era of mass politics. That era appears over for good. Perhaps tribalism, the politics of sub-national groups defined by genes and culture, may be the way forward?
The US began as an association of sovereign states. Its future may well be as a federation of nations and tribes united by the constitutional equivalent of a pact of non-belligerency.
Are you Canadian? That is my impression. I have been finding of late, some of the best writing about America comes from people who are not American.
I appreciate your ideas. My intention is to take this sort of thinking and expand on it in my new substack. Thank you for your inspiration.
We are kept purposefully ignorant of our real history and the truth about many things.
https://ugetube.com/watch/the-5-citizens-chart-the-georgia-assembly-coordinator-niko_h36vnievfZn8lTR.html
The above link plays for 18 minutes, but describes the five types of "citizenship" aka political statuses on America.
To the wonderful author, all you described is closer than you think. (And in actuality, there are 3 constitutions - these are our contracts as sovereign people with each of the three governments... Federation, Territorial, Municipal).
Watch Bobby Graves, type his name and Part 1 in YouTube, he'll take you through our honest, true history.
If we could all stop trying to reinvent the wheel and being dragged down into the constant war of divide and conquer they have put up on us, we the people could rise up, claim our real birthright status, and start reassembling our lawful, common Law government UnInc, holy crap... All this stuff would change in a heartbeat, swiftly and without violence.
And violence is an alternative, and many of us RED blooded Americans would certainly take out the woke freak show parade of sheeple, the corp government has friends in high places, amongst many are high ranking military and the ability to have the corrupt UN come on our shores and "help" fight an uprising of Patriots... The losses would be astronomical and leave a weakened America exposed to the other global powers.
We would do what we must for freedom, to honor America, and give our children a future free from slavery. But in the interim, it's time to join your respective nation state assembly, become a State National, and if you want to really help, become a State Citizen and let's kick these criminals to the curb.
And John Carter, excellent authoring, I'm not judging your writing, as it is a wonderful concept for sure. Uniting our people who hold the values of our Republic and comprehend the responsibility that goes with standing up for the rights of each other, is what is necessary to put this train back on track.
This said, you have quite a talent and all that you author is very well written and I thoroughly enjoy all that you write. So keep up the good work, always warms my heart to have a fellow Patriot, especially one North of the border who understands what true freedom should be and what it represents (and even more so than half our population, give or take.). And further, there is a parallel system on Canada too. Hit me up an email if you want links and such, happy to find and share them with you.
MaineManJB at protonmail dot com
Love and light and God Bless!
And happy Independence Day to all who celebrate. (I have stopped saying "4th of July" ironic that we allegedly won the war but then use the British way of saying this...sigh.)
John on Maine
I noticed someone asked you if you were Canadian and I knew you were because of other pieces you have written. A better question would have been, why does a Canadian have a better understanding of the U.S. constitution than most of the citizens in this country? Perhaps our friend "The Good Citizen" could jump in on the subject as well, as he is well versed in this area as well and could offer some great insights as well. Great job as usual and will be linking this tomorrow @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
Gonzalo Lira made a stream months ago discussing these issues. He insisted on the ''melting pot'' policy for the USA's state to work. Do you think is necessary? No doubt a great deal of conflict arises from racial agitators, but I'm not sure dealing with such people would be enough...
Thanks for your essay. I think, however, you might be over-complicating things or missing the target. The problems really began in the 60s with race and then sex (sexual revolution, the pill, you go girl, glass ceiling, etc.) . Blacks (and women) cannot so much assimilate as compete and they have huge, childlike egos. What's to be done?, asked the Quaker Nixon. Answered Daniel Patrick Moynihan, benign neglect. Nixon didn't listen and so he began forced busing. Everyone knows this doesn't work but we can't say it. Anyhoo, the lying began and it just gets worse.
So, you have two very aggressive and powerful groups, blacks and feminists, who cannot compete on equal terms against white men; throw in resentful incel men and there you go. Quotas, forced integration and loss of freedom of association, #metoo, insane rage at Trump and all he represents (i.e., unapologetic white men), hysterical worship of black thugs, weird racial pairings in ads and movies, virtual signaling idiots, gay pride and finally transvestites escaping white maleness. Also, at this juncture, out of control non-white immigration. Basically, the hysteria at Putin and Russians in general is an extension of this phenomena, this desire to compete against white men and the crushing fear that they never will, that life is unfair, in an increasingly crass, material world. Women and blacks aren't exactly noted for their soaring spiritual accomplishments now are they? It's always the body with them, and it always will be.
A superb question for Independence Day.
My own answer is that everyone in the Global Village is an American now. Who is for independence and who isn’t? Today is a good day to think about that.
I know, I know, once upon a time there was such a thing as an American citizen, and when I was a kid we all understood that.
But Joe Biden is subsiding anybody in our Global Village who wants to come in, so let’s get real.
Recite after me: LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS!
Yes, I know, the guy who wrote that owned slaves.
But I’m writing it on an electronic device made by slaves in China, and you’re reading it on one.
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
in/out dynamics are essential to identity formation, yes. good read, thanks.
Very good job delineating the two real options. I vastly prefer the vision of America as an ideology committed to the ideals enshrined in the Bill of Rights. The Globalist project is doomed to fail (it is already collapsing), so unless Americans of goodwill conscientiously choose the ideological option, the ethnostate will be the default alternative into which our country will devolve, and it will be brutal and bloody. God help us to see that before it is too late and to instead pursue the ideology of liberty and justice for all, with a commitment to the spirit of Bill of Rights.
Thank you so much for your excellent writing!
"America" is just a word to denote things associated with the United States, it means nothing really. Enforcement of the founding ideals will not happen because nobody believes in them anymore. If you don't like the result of the ideas, why cling to the ideas?
"The argument goes that a tolerant society can tolerate everything except the intolerant, who would if given free rein destroy tolerance. Therefore, the intolerant cannot be tolerated, and the tolerant are justified in using any and all means to shut down intolerance."
And since they reserve for themselves the exclusive right to define "intolerance," the "tolerate everything" crowd effectively bans all dissent and leaves only their own points-of-view as officially-sanctioned "tolerance." Therein lies the rub... if we were to apply the same standard to liberty or fealty to the Constitution, they would do as they always do, and redefine the terms in question.
The left has already defined "liberty" as requiring strict gun control, restrictions on speech that hurts people's feelings, curbs on "misinformation," confiscatory taxation and redistribution of income, along with Soviet-style rights to housing, food, gainful employment, medical care, and higher education.. and more recently, mask mandates, vaccine mandates, and prison-style lockdowns for everyone.
Or, as Orwell put it, "freedom is slavery."
This is the standard MO of the left. They favor free speech, so they say, but they add that "hate" speech has never been protected as part of "free" speech (which, of course, is as incorrect as it is possible for a mere mortal to be). All they have to do is declare that a given thing they don't want to hear is "hate," and bam! It's gone. That's been the excuse of all social media eradicating all viewpoints other than their own... tolerance for all except the intolerant, where they define what is intolerant. It's no different than having a handful of judges look at the Constitution in 1973 and claiming that somehow the right to abortion is in there. It clearly was not... everyone knows it was a "rabbit from a hat," but hey, if SCOTUS says it's in there, and SCOTUS is the final authority on what's in there, then who are we to say it's not?
We on the right mostly want to be left alone. We don't tend to endorse the total-war tactics of the left, where things like massive voter fraud and mass propaganda are just "part of the process." The left will redefine freedom to be slavery to get people into slavery. They will tell us that words don't mean what they clearly do. They have a mindset that denies objective reality and substitutes "the narrative." They can and will claim to adopt every principle we hold dear while twisting the very definitions to bring about the opposite of what the principles were meant to protect.
In other words, if we adopt "liberty to do anything except attempt to curtail liberty," they will (and have already) define the curtailment of liberty as what we do to advance it. They will define their own attempts to curtail liberty as efforts to promote it. Sure, people could figure all this out pretty easily if they would spend a few seconds applying some critical thought, but it is now abundantly clear, via simple observation of this whole COVID debacle, that precious few people have even the slightest bit of ability to think critically about anything. They will believe that being able to say hurtful things is not protected speech, and that banning hurtful things advances freedom (because "freedom from hurt feelings" sounds like a thing), if they are told to. And they will be.
Spot on.
I think civil war is inevitable. We need to be prepared for that and a rebuilding of our culture afterward.
There must be limits on who can vote. I think it should be limited to property owners, business owners, and combat veterans. Too many people without skin in the game are casting votes to set the rules.
Your argument is unassailable, your understanding and knowledge of history and human nature impeccable. Another good read, as always. I learn so much from you and your subscribers and commenters.
Matt Ehret and Cynthia Chung (Canadians of course). Book one of three:
https://www.amazon.com/Clash-Two-Americas-Unfinished-Symphony/dp/B099TQL46D
Really thoughtful piece…thank you.