Sounds to me like a state that is deeply afraid of actually hearing what the people want. Makes me think perhaps the current rulers call themselves democratic but in reality are actually closer to being authoritarian than they themselves realize. Sounds to me like it is them who should be put under the microscope, not the AfD
That is not how Power works. AfD represent a threat. It happens to come from popular sentiments, like closing the borders and repatriating unwelcome foreigners. But that is incidental.
AfD are dangerous for the same reason Trump and the MAGA people are. They are real and have not been manufactured by the Regime to further their ends. Almost everything else is, either created by them or coopted along the way.
This is just a glimpse of how well trained the midwit class is by the elites. They are generally oblivious to what is really going on. Many of the bureaucrats mentioned by Eugyppius will sincerely believe they are saving Germany.
Well, I can tell you that to hold opinions against the mainstream, even if the mainstream consists entirely of two girls ganging up on the third, is a rough place to be. All of politics these days is just two girls ganging up against the third, exponentially multiplied.
And this forces me back to my basic thesis always--no matter where you are, no matter your culture and its particular belief system, you are not allowed to dissent. This is the history of the world and we are not modern people, we are just living in *now.*
Perhaps you listened to JD Vance's acceptance speech at the RNC and how his referencing the seven-generations' filled cemetery where he hopes someday to have his own bones--and those of his wife--resting in drove the lunatics of MSNBC into a whirlpool of hysteria. To be rooted in a specific place, no matter how far away you've moved from it, is to be a monstrous purveyor of the concepts which will sunder the universe, or something. And the hilarity here is that his wife's bones are, living or dead, those of a Hindu woman whose long line of ancestors are from India.
This is on every one of us now. If we cannot clearly and with simple well-chosen words define the value of freedom of thought and choice, the rare shining gifts of the Western Enlightenment and why every succeeding generation must understand and then defend them, we have failed ourselves and our children. To be unable to refute idiocy is the worst slavery.
"...no matter where you are, no matter your culture and its particular belief system, you are not allowed to dissent. This is the history of the world and we are not modern people, we are just living in *now.*"🎯
"his wife's bones are, living or dead, those of a Hindu woman whose long line of ancestors are from India."
Everyone but Europeans are allowed to feel and celebrate a connection to their actual homeland and feel pride in their ancestors, culture and traditions.
Europeans are supposed to only celebrate vague abstractions like "Equality" and "Progress" etc and if they don't, they're some species of Nazi.
It might just be the Enlightenment itself that's created the post-Christian post-national deracinated Westerner with no attachment to place, people, or culture, or at least a strain of it pushed to the extreme.
In Canada, "equality" today means writing legislation to promote and protect certain identity groups. It legalizes the contradictory notion of being "equal" but also "special".
I understand the prevailing party led by Trud-eau and his ever twitchy deputy is based around grift. It is grift that drives the whole machine - either taking tax cash for spurious Unicorn projects or stealing cash from hopeful 'donors' to obtain yet more tax cash.
This is pattern is common across what remains of the 'West'.
Indeed, this era will be known as 'the lie age'.
Nothing is what it seems, nothing is of any substance, thinking as well as actions are superficial. Plus grift.
it's the Social Justice definition of "Equality", which means that all "underrepresented groups" or anyone w a conceivable claim to being stigmatized under the old dispensation needs to receive "Equity" aka compensation for past pain by being moved to the front of every line.
Canadians are guilty of the crime of Whiteness and must atone for the crimes of their ancestors, even if they were only guilty of not centering the marginalized and prioritizing the needs of their own people.
All Good Europeans know that they need to publicly atone for both the crimes and successes of Western Civ. It's the line separating Good Whites (who deserve to reign based on their enlightened compassionate wisdom) and Bad Whites (who need to be punished for refusing to accept the new One True Faith).
You think Christianity is a Western religion? It was adapted to local conditions as all ideas are always adapted everywhere. Japanese now eat cheese ramen.
I can meet you half way here, of course Christianity was grafted onto Roman religion and ritual etc with a healthy dash of Neo-Platonism, but it has pretty much been the shared root of this thing we call "The West" for almost 2k years, and its universalism and constant renewal/reformation is part of the reason why Europe conquered the globe and why Japanese etc eat our tasty snacks, use our calendar, wear suits and ties etc.
More importantly though (I think) is how we've arrived at this time where the West is essentially secular and skeptical of place and of patriotism—these things I consider unprecedented and causes of possible social collapse/dissolution.
I thank God to live in a nation founded on secular ideals. The most hysterically Christian of this nation are true enemies of patriotism because they do not understand the foundational values and ideals of America and want, essentially, to live in a sort of Afghanistan with Midwestern and Southern inflections.
"I thank God to live in a nation founded on secular ideals..."
I'm just not sure there's ever been a country "founded on secular ideals"...every single one of our Western ancestors, from Voltaire to Tom Paine to Chris Hitchens, lived and were raised in countries where everyone and everything was Christian, and even the Enlightenment project called the USA is rooted in (post-Reformation Protestant) Christianity and was written by and for Christians.
And I don't say this to pimp Christianity! (I'm not even Christian.) Of course there will always be zealots and the average person can't really achieve any sort of Platonic ideal of tolerance, but (as I said before) a secular society etc strikes me as dangerous uncharted territory.
I agree. There are no "secular ideals." There is only religion, and ideology. The US Constitution states that our ideals and freedoms come from God, not the government -- that there is something bigger and better than our human self. Our "rights" come from above, from God, and are not privileges granted by any government. A "secular ideal" is whatever you want it to be, and is necessarily relativistic, agnostic and ultimately nihilistic.
Think: the "ideal" of "democracy" that the Democrats keep chanting over and over, while they trample all over it.
I've read that the Founding Fathers were not really Christians, but rather deists. Gotta say their writings mention God quite a bit but not a whole lot (if any) of Jesus. I've always rather resented the way many Christians kind of co-opted the Founding Fathers.
I'm not interested in debating the point, just wanted to offer that perspective.
How far back you want to go? This is a Jewish nation by these arguments since the most ferocious Bible-thumpers are addicted to Old Testament rage.
And yes--exactly--this is a solitary and unique nation but human beings are all alike and behave invariably like people. Hence all hell breaking loose by the time of the second Presidency. Every generation must fight down to their bloody fingernails to maintain our foundational strengths.
Pure coincidence, didn't look to see it, had seen parades in Europe where multiple 8 ft tall krampus related costumed creatures were terrorizing their children. I have no context for that holiday, just filed it under odd shit that others do. Spain still has parades where it's kill the Jew day, Europe be odd. Just learned that Belgium is a bogus country and the two populations speak two languages and have two newspapers and hate each other, yet it's NATO headquarters. On a further tangent look up what NATO headquarters looks like for a WTF moment, gargantuan.
Since you have krampus as an avatar can you give me insight on its origins? Thanks
The social 'prohibition' on dissent irked my late father. We reckoned that our family motto should be 'disagree on principle', as that was the best way to obtain an interesting conversation. Sadly, doing so has become much more hazardous than it used to be.
My father was very much a 'small c' conservative, and one of his best friends was an ardent socialist, who at one point turned down the invitation to stand as a Labour candidate. Whilst they disagreed on political issues, they were united by a love of learning, ideas, discussion, and a profound respect for the culture of the place that had nurtured them. That rootedness was part of the the glue that held them together. Without it - I give you modern politics, where one's opponents are simply evil.
Is it more appropriate to say perhaps, "hold opinions against Palantir"?
Clearview AI is not the only Thiel-linked company willing to target Trump’s base, as Palantir’s co-founder and current CEO Alex Karp is obsessed with his long-time fear that the “far right” is going to murder him for his ethnic background. That fear, per Karp, “propels a lot of the decisions” made at Palantir. “I still can’t believe I haven’t been shot and pushed out the window,” Karp told New York Times reporter Michael Steinberger in 2020. Steinberger added that “if the far right came to power, [Karp] said, he would certainly be among its victims. ‘Who’s the first person who is going to get hung? You make a list, and I will show you who they get first. It’s me. There’s not a box I don’t check.’”
Then, in 2023, Karp stated during an interview at the World Economic Forum annual meeting that “We built PG [proprietary software], which single-handedly stopped the rise of the far-right in Europe.” Given that the labels “far right” as well as “far left” are often misused to describe those on either side of the political spectrum that do not subscribe to or support official narratives, it’s worth asking if the “far right” Karp claims to have stopped referred to people who actually deserve the label, or right-leaning populism, given populism of any flavor is a threat to Palantir’s benefactors in the corporate world and in the US National Security community.
I know it's trite and has been stated many times, but this is "justice" in the manner of the Inquisition and the Hammer of Witches; suspicion of guilt is proof of the same, and denial of sin (thought-crime) is a sin itself - so therefore, you are guilty no matter what.
We are part of nature. All creatures have language/communication systems and they will destroy the outlier. It's equally bad to be pecked to death by your fellow hens as to be beaten senseless in a middle school hallway by 13-year-old girls.
but hens are hens. Do hens in nature pick each other to death, or are that hens in overcrowded hen houses? I would think humans had brains to think, and moral code, to not do that. Obviously I am wrong there !
In nature don't animals turn on the odd one? Why are there lone wolves? What happens to a chick--offspring of any wild bird--if it has the misfortune to be born with aberrantly-colored feathers? We are still creatures of instinct and primal reactions.
Oh yes, chickens don't need to be overcrowded to pick on one that, for whatever reason, they have deemed unworthy. Anyone who has kept chickens knows this.
On the other hand, chickens are not really a natural wild breed, but I think other species that live in groups have similar behaviors.
the worst behavior I have seen (on film) in the wild was from hyenas, who are truly bad. Most other bad behavior seems to be from domesticated animals - cats in the wild are hungry and kill and eat, but house tigers play with their catch. I remember indeed how dads chickens picked at each other, I think he nipped off the tip of their beaks to avoid it.
I'm not so sure about that - it is certainly true for some cultures/civilisations, and seem to appear when a society establishes the need for some kind of orthodoxy of thought/belief to maintain cohesion, but I will dispute its universality.
To compare, there's no evidence that Alexander or the romans he inspired demanded conformity of thought/beliefs, nor did the greeks as a culture (if they had, how then could all the world's philosophy have come from there?), while at the same time, other cultures - especially of the Levant and the Golden Crescent - did enforce religious-tradition-based orthodoxy of thought and norms.
Or the Nordic, Finnish and Slavic sagas; while there's certainly no lack of kings or chiefs demanding obedience in the form of levies or taxes, there's zero evidence of any kind of social structure demanding all be equal in how or what they believe, and I do think it hold true for all the various celtic peoples too, from Iberia to Hibernia.
Whereas China takes the cake, from antiquity and the days of Chi Huan Ti to today, the kingdom and later empire and now Communist Dynasty resting almost solely on orthodoxy and conformism.
The /capacity/ for it may be universal or may be due to logistics of communication, and/or mono- or multi-culture within a realm, but the expression I'd argue is not a given nor a must-be. The USA is, from a certain point of view, more or less proof of that.
The Greeks and Romans were pretty pragmatic about handling conquered peoples they wanted to persuade into long-term alliance but didn't, for example, the Greeks--or a few of them in power anyway--demand that Socrates off himself for corrupting the young with scary new ideas?
The formal charge against him was impiety; that he had failed to worship the gods of Athens in the proper manner. The other charge was indeed that he was corrupting the minds of young athenians.
It was obvious even in his day that both charges were trumped-up for political reasons Funnily enough, part of the charge of impiety was that he had denied that the gods of the greeks were capable of and did bad things, and that he believed in an "inner voice" guiding him when choosing between right/wrong (alt. good/evil); both charges were more or less bogus as they could in no real way be proven. F.e., he was also accused of atheism, which would be logically impossible if he argued the gods did /not/ do bad (i.e. human) things.
So before it even went to trial, the group out to get him spent two months whipping people (potential jurors and others with influence) into a frenzy where the bogus charges were repeated again and again until it seemed a moral obligation to condemn him.
I recommend Platos "Apologia" for a more in-depth, if obviously biased in favour socrates, retelling of it.
Noteworthy is, that the trial itself stands out as out-of-place/sorts. There were plenty of weird (to us) laws in Athens at the time (such as a ban on eating in the market place, which Diogenes made a point of flaunting publicly without ever being charged for a crime), and the process against Socrates was wholly political in its nature. Whereas Diogenes who had zero influence in such matters were simply left to his own devices.
Perhaps that is the common thread, where a society turns to enforced conformity of thought: the need/development of politics and politicians as a societal institution in its own right, rather than something temporary created out of periodic necessity and afterwards dismantled?
It would hold true, when cultures are compared - the Bronze Age chiefs of Northen and Western Europe had no more power than the men of their tribes let them have, while their contemporary kings, emperors, hierophants and prophets of the Near Orient had administrations and bureaucracies.
I think christianity ruined itself when it went from a cult where anyone could step up a preach, or testify to experiencing the divine, to a state church of the Western and Eastern Roman Empire.
From the 5th century to the Black Death, the church of Rome became increasingly monodominant, militaristic, (fascist we'd say today) and outright murderous, to say nothing of the rampant corruption (plenary indulgences being only the tip of the boil).
It parallels nicely with today's post-Cold War developments, though our communication technology and logistic capabilities means what took centuries then (Enlightenment) takes decades now: a decaying regime covering multiple nations with a broad shared cultural heritage fights desperately to ban anything it perceives as a threat to its rule.
That sentence could be the Imperia Americana et Britannia of today, or the catholic church post-Black Death until present day; it fits equally well.
As I wrote in a previous essay the true paradigm is between globalists and Anti-Globalists and not "right" vs "left." The globalists are trying hard to make sure this paradigm shift does not occur BECAUSE it would expose the entire globalist agenda: which includes mass migration to foment division in societies: from the US to the EU. And while I'm writing from across the pond it seems to me that AfD members are more accurately described as Anti-Globalist and not "right wing nut bags."
The Anti-Globalist Revolution is gaining traction in the US, EU and around the world
Why Globalist Corporate Media refuses to adopt the Anti-Globalist Paradigm
I mean... Just based on the name, it's exactly the sort of thing we need in the USA, and have needed in the USA since the very foundation. Except for the fact that like everything else, it would have been corrupted. As, I suspect, the BfV has been.
> "The reading and understanding of the Constitution protects it"
How's that working so far?
I'm certainly not saying the BfV is doing it correctly, but if the Founders had set up a fourth branch of government dedicated strictly to making sure the actions of the government were in line with the Constitution, I think America would be in a much better place.
Admittedly, I'm saying this on the blog of a German, so possibly not the right place. Still, it's not so horrible of an idea. Not that there would be any way to implement it now. I think we're way too late for that.
As I have pointed out before, the concept of this agency would be just fine, were it pointed at elected officials and bureaucrats rather than at the citizenry. *That* is where the real danger is coming from.
As a skeptical old Beltway Bandit every mention of "Intelligence Agency" is automatically translated to Banksters. Folks forget Edward Snowden was a Booz Allen contractor running outsourced NSA system.. we all know CIA/OSS plucked the ranks of Brown Bros Harriman for Yale Bonesmen to be trusted keepers of National secrets.. before that the Red Cross ran spy ops for Wall St. One thing holds true across time.. secrets only protect their keepers!
The E.U. Parliament has already banned right wing factions from participation in -their- government. Like the AfD, they represent 30-40% of the people. The Communists and their stealthier allies, the Socialists and Greens have never intended to tolerate a Democratic process. This is just another brick in their wall of Totalitarianism.
The one thing that seems to unite Europeans is their insatiable demand for unlimited social services and military protection as a 'divine right.' This plays perfectly into the hands of the Totalitarians. Anyone who grows a spine will be demonized and marginalized. If not imprisoned.
It’s like here in the USA where Heir Biden and the Democratic Cult tell us that a Trump victory in a free election would be the end of democracy. Trump is Hitler. Though he didn’t imprison any political prisoners in his first term, this time he’s gonna setup concentration camps and gas chambers for his political enemies. AfD is obviously of the same ilk, and even more dangerous in the homeland of the real Hitler. AfD and the US Republican Party are the new Axis of Evil that must be crushed before they implement their evil nativist and Luddite policies, such as deporting illegal immigrants, restarting nuclear power plants, and most heinous of all declaring that, aside from rare birth defects, there are only two genders and men should be forbidden to enter women’s restrooms and to participate in women’s sports.
> "That clearly shows it is truly time to overthrow the current political establishment."
*gasp!*
Such horrifying contempt for the state order! Look, a clearly dangerous person! We must defend democracy by taking away his right to speak and to vote!
You ask to overthrow the establishment and then wait for the election. It's a contradiction. (s)election is not overthrowing anything it is an 'entertainment' for the masses and false belief in free choice.
Warning: Having a Dissenting Viewpoint could lead to dangerous conditions such as critical thinking, questioning the government, and actual accountability, consult your doctor if symptoms persist more than four hours.
Leave the bureaucratic state to do what they do best, go and gather a bunch of statements and make a list and then make a special rule banning what the people said on the list. “The AfD is the parliamentary arm of a much bigger conspiracy, a revolutionary conspiracy.” So its a conspiracy that they want to win elections? Incredible.
Yes. The AfD might win power in a legitimate democratic contest, and thereby take it away from them. Therefore they are incredibly dangerous... to them.
above is the Alternative for Deutschland website. Your computer can translate the webpages; I don't see an English version of the website. I read their 9-point program; you click the boxes on the home page. Basically the same platform as MAGA.
since Trump indeed they've been inspired in various ways by MAGA. at a concrete level they're basically EU sceptics, they want politicians to see to the material advantages of actual Germans, and they propose more direct democracy. within them there are different strains, a more nationalist strain (with which Höcke is most closely associated), a more market-liberal/libertarian strain, best represented by current leadership.
I think the biggest lie humanity has been told since the end of WWI is that nationalism is inherently bad.
If these nations aren't great... why do so many people want to move to them? And if they *are* great, why is it such a sin to want to preserve that greatness?
It baffled the hell out of me when the left got so bent out of shape over the MAGA slogan, when it's essentially the claimed goal in many ways of the Democrats of many years. "Bring back the days when a blue collar worker could, on his own, support a family and buy a house." I think that if I were to try and sum up "MAGA" in one phrase, it would be that. Maybe it's just that MAGA happening when it did showed exactly how the Democrat Party had moved away from that very position?
I've told this bit in other places before, and possibly here, but: Last year I went on a road trip to go visit my father and stepmother for a while in their house near Atlanta, Georgia. I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and I'm a car guy, so somewhat by osmosis I've become interested in old Route 66. Since I was making this trip quite literally on my birthday (well, as one o the days of the drive, at least) as a birthday present to myself, I turned off Google Maps and followed signage in order to travel as much of Route 66 as I could before it turned off to go away from my direction of travel.
A bunch of this was on essentially just the frontage road for Interstate 40, but there were definitely some good solid chunks that went on for dozens and dozens of miles, and on occasion, some of those chunks would pass through towns. And in the vast majority of those towns, you could see that they were in bad shape. 50, 75, 90 percent of the buildings boarded up and vacant. Only thing open was the gas station, and maybe a grocery store. Towns of reasonably decent size, so we're talking maybe as many as 30 former businesses closed along the main drag through town, i.e.: Route 66.
Now sure, some of this is from the same effect as the movie "Cars" was about, just being bypassed by the interstate. But nevertheless, it was made *very* obvious to me why the slogan "Make America Great Again" might resonate *really* hard with those folks.
Sounds to me like a state that is deeply afraid of actually hearing what the people want. Makes me think perhaps the current rulers call themselves democratic but in reality are actually closer to being authoritarian than they themselves realize. Sounds to me like it is them who should be put under the microscope, not the AfD
That is not how Power works. AfD represent a threat. It happens to come from popular sentiments, like closing the borders and repatriating unwelcome foreigners. But that is incidental.
AfD are dangerous for the same reason Trump and the MAGA people are. They are real and have not been manufactured by the Regime to further their ends. Almost everything else is, either created by them or coopted along the way.
This is just a glimpse of how well trained the midwit class is by the elites. They are generally oblivious to what is really going on. Many of the bureaucrats mentioned by Eugyppius will sincerely believe they are saving Germany.
cmon they're not just saving Germany, they're saving the Earth! (and a few million "climate migrants")
AMEN
The bureaucrats have no interest in saving Germany. The bureaucrats are implementing a final solution on a party they do not like.
Superb comment.
No one who has once been voted into any office, no matter how lowly, ever likes a democratic challenge ever after.
agree
Correct.
We Deserve What We Tolerate.
Stop Tolerating bad systems!
https://joshketry.substack.com/p/we-deserve-what-we-tolerate
YES!!!!
Modern day witch hunt.
I think the rulers realize, their supporters not so much
Sorry, wrong thread. Thought you were talking about the American democrat party and deposing our puppet.
Well, I can tell you that to hold opinions against the mainstream, even if the mainstream consists entirely of two girls ganging up on the third, is a rough place to be. All of politics these days is just two girls ganging up against the third, exponentially multiplied.
And this forces me back to my basic thesis always--no matter where you are, no matter your culture and its particular belief system, you are not allowed to dissent. This is the history of the world and we are not modern people, we are just living in *now.*
Perhaps you listened to JD Vance's acceptance speech at the RNC and how his referencing the seven-generations' filled cemetery where he hopes someday to have his own bones--and those of his wife--resting in drove the lunatics of MSNBC into a whirlpool of hysteria. To be rooted in a specific place, no matter how far away you've moved from it, is to be a monstrous purveyor of the concepts which will sunder the universe, or something. And the hilarity here is that his wife's bones are, living or dead, those of a Hindu woman whose long line of ancestors are from India.
This is on every one of us now. If we cannot clearly and with simple well-chosen words define the value of freedom of thought and choice, the rare shining gifts of the Western Enlightenment and why every succeeding generation must understand and then defend them, we have failed ourselves and our children. To be unable to refute idiocy is the worst slavery.
great comment SCA.
Here's a big, fat clue staring us in the face, the Communist UN's plan dating back in this document for 'Population Replacement', hiding in plain sight. Can anyone confirm this is genuine, looks it to me: https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/unpd-egm_200010_un_2001_replacementmigration.pdf
"...no matter where you are, no matter your culture and its particular belief system, you are not allowed to dissent. This is the history of the world and we are not modern people, we are just living in *now.*"🎯
"his wife's bones are, living or dead, those of a Hindu woman whose long line of ancestors are from India."
Everyone but Europeans are allowed to feel and celebrate a connection to their actual homeland and feel pride in their ancestors, culture and traditions.
Europeans are supposed to only celebrate vague abstractions like "Equality" and "Progress" etc and if they don't, they're some species of Nazi.
It might just be the Enlightenment itself that's created the post-Christian post-national deracinated Westerner with no attachment to place, people, or culture, or at least a strain of it pushed to the extreme.
In Canada, "equality" today means writing legislation to promote and protect certain identity groups. It legalizes the contradictory notion of being "equal" but also "special".
I understand the prevailing party led by Trud-eau and his ever twitchy deputy is based around grift. It is grift that drives the whole machine - either taking tax cash for spurious Unicorn projects or stealing cash from hopeful 'donors' to obtain yet more tax cash.
This is pattern is common across what remains of the 'West'.
Indeed, this era will be known as 'the lie age'.
Nothing is what it seems, nothing is of any substance, thinking as well as actions are superficial. Plus grift.
Excellent summary.
As a taxpayer, however, it is infuriating.
It is the stuff of protest by the masses against the few.
it's the Social Justice definition of "Equality", which means that all "underrepresented groups" or anyone w a conceivable claim to being stigmatized under the old dispensation needs to receive "Equity" aka compensation for past pain by being moved to the front of every line.
is atonement in action...
For some reason, Canadians need to apologize for black slavery that never existed in this country.....
Canadians are guilty of the crime of Whiteness and must atone for the crimes of their ancestors, even if they were only guilty of not centering the marginalized and prioritizing the needs of their own people.
All Good Europeans know that they need to publicly atone for both the crimes and successes of Western Civ. It's the line separating Good Whites (who deserve to reign based on their enlightened compassionate wisdom) and Bad Whites (who need to be punished for refusing to accept the new One True Faith).
As it is in South Africa, we have to keep apologizing for what our ancestors have done and it has to keep on for all eternity!
Shall I repost what Teresa of Avila said?
You think Christianity is a Western religion? It was adapted to local conditions as all ideas are always adapted everywhere. Japanese now eat cheese ramen.
I can meet you half way here, of course Christianity was grafted onto Roman religion and ritual etc with a healthy dash of Neo-Platonism, but it has pretty much been the shared root of this thing we call "The West" for almost 2k years, and its universalism and constant renewal/reformation is part of the reason why Europe conquered the globe and why Japanese etc eat our tasty snacks, use our calendar, wear suits and ties etc.
More importantly though (I think) is how we've arrived at this time where the West is essentially secular and skeptical of place and of patriotism—these things I consider unprecedented and causes of possible social collapse/dissolution.
I thank God to live in a nation founded on secular ideals. The most hysterically Christian of this nation are true enemies of patriotism because they do not understand the foundational values and ideals of America and want, essentially, to live in a sort of Afghanistan with Midwestern and Southern inflections.
"I thank God to live in a nation founded on secular ideals..."
I'm just not sure there's ever been a country "founded on secular ideals"...every single one of our Western ancestors, from Voltaire to Tom Paine to Chris Hitchens, lived and were raised in countries where everyone and everything was Christian, and even the Enlightenment project called the USA is rooted in (post-Reformation Protestant) Christianity and was written by and for Christians.
And I don't say this to pimp Christianity! (I'm not even Christian.) Of course there will always be zealots and the average person can't really achieve any sort of Platonic ideal of tolerance, but (as I said before) a secular society etc strikes me as dangerous uncharted territory.
I agree. There are no "secular ideals." There is only religion, and ideology. The US Constitution states that our ideals and freedoms come from God, not the government -- that there is something bigger and better than our human self. Our "rights" come from above, from God, and are not privileges granted by any government. A "secular ideal" is whatever you want it to be, and is necessarily relativistic, agnostic and ultimately nihilistic.
Think: the "ideal" of "democracy" that the Democrats keep chanting over and over, while they trample all over it.
I've read that the Founding Fathers were not really Christians, but rather deists. Gotta say their writings mention God quite a bit but not a whole lot (if any) of Jesus. I've always rather resented the way many Christians kind of co-opted the Founding Fathers.
I'm not interested in debating the point, just wanted to offer that perspective.
How far back you want to go? This is a Jewish nation by these arguments since the most ferocious Bible-thumpers are addicted to Old Testament rage.
And yes--exactly--this is a solitary and unique nation but human beings are all alike and behave invariably like people. Hence all hell breaking loose by the time of the second Presidency. Every generation must fight down to their bloody fingernails to maintain our foundational strengths.
Europeans still have their krampus holiday to terrorize their children
u might be first person to recognize my avatar
Pure coincidence, didn't look to see it, had seen parades in Europe where multiple 8 ft tall krampus related costumed creatures were terrorizing their children. I have no context for that holiday, just filed it under odd shit that others do. Spain still has parades where it's kill the Jew day, Europe be odd. Just learned that Belgium is a bogus country and the two populations speak two languages and have two newspapers and hate each other, yet it's NATO headquarters. On a further tangent look up what NATO headquarters looks like for a WTF moment, gargantuan.
Since you have krampus as an avatar can you give me insight on its origins? Thanks
The social 'prohibition' on dissent irked my late father. We reckoned that our family motto should be 'disagree on principle', as that was the best way to obtain an interesting conversation. Sadly, doing so has become much more hazardous than it used to be.
My father was very much a 'small c' conservative, and one of his best friends was an ardent socialist, who at one point turned down the invitation to stand as a Labour candidate. Whilst they disagreed on political issues, they were united by a love of learning, ideas, discussion, and a profound respect for the culture of the place that had nurtured them. That rootedness was part of the the glue that held them together. Without it - I give you modern politics, where one's opponents are simply evil.
One's opponents are always painted as evil. Every religion says so.
Is it more appropriate to say perhaps, "hold opinions against Palantir"?
Clearview AI is not the only Thiel-linked company willing to target Trump’s base, as Palantir’s co-founder and current CEO Alex Karp is obsessed with his long-time fear that the “far right” is going to murder him for his ethnic background. That fear, per Karp, “propels a lot of the decisions” made at Palantir. “I still can’t believe I haven’t been shot and pushed out the window,” Karp told New York Times reporter Michael Steinberger in 2020. Steinberger added that “if the far right came to power, [Karp] said, he would certainly be among its victims. ‘Who’s the first person who is going to get hung? You make a list, and I will show you who they get first. It’s me. There’s not a box I don’t check.’”
Then, in 2023, Karp stated during an interview at the World Economic Forum annual meeting that “We built PG [proprietary software], which single-handedly stopped the rise of the far-right in Europe.” Given that the labels “far right” as well as “far left” are often misused to describe those on either side of the political spectrum that do not subscribe to or support official narratives, it’s worth asking if the “far right” Karp claims to have stopped referred to people who actually deserve the label, or right-leaning populism, given populism of any flavor is a threat to Palantir’s benefactors in the corporate world and in the US National Security community.
https://unlimitedhangout.com/2024/07/investigative-reports/the-man-behind-trumps-vp-pick-its-worse-than-you-think/
Excellent comment SCA
Great comment.
I know it's trite and has been stated many times, but this is "justice" in the manner of the Inquisition and the Hammer of Witches; suspicion of guilt is proof of the same, and denial of sin (thought-crime) is a sin itself - so therefore, you are guilty no matter what.
absolutely right.
This has been true since humans invented spoken words to enable their thoughts to be visible to others.
unseen anywhere in nature. Even if seemingly cruel, nature just lets things go.
We are part of nature. All creatures have language/communication systems and they will destroy the outlier. It's equally bad to be pecked to death by your fellow hens as to be beaten senseless in a middle school hallway by 13-year-old girls.
but hens are hens. Do hens in nature pick each other to death, or are that hens in overcrowded hen houses? I would think humans had brains to think, and moral code, to not do that. Obviously I am wrong there !
In nature don't animals turn on the odd one? Why are there lone wolves? What happens to a chick--offspring of any wild bird--if it has the misfortune to be born with aberrantly-colored feathers? We are still creatures of instinct and primal reactions.
We have Paleolithic hardware trying to get by in a 21st-century world.
Oh yes, chickens don't need to be overcrowded to pick on one that, for whatever reason, they have deemed unworthy. Anyone who has kept chickens knows this.
On the other hand, chickens are not really a natural wild breed, but I think other species that live in groups have similar behaviors.
the worst behavior I have seen (on film) in the wild was from hyenas, who are truly bad. Most other bad behavior seems to be from domesticated animals - cats in the wild are hungry and kill and eat, but house tigers play with their catch. I remember indeed how dads chickens picked at each other, I think he nipped off the tip of their beaks to avoid it.
I'm not so sure about that - it is certainly true for some cultures/civilisations, and seem to appear when a society establishes the need for some kind of orthodoxy of thought/belief to maintain cohesion, but I will dispute its universality.
To compare, there's no evidence that Alexander or the romans he inspired demanded conformity of thought/beliefs, nor did the greeks as a culture (if they had, how then could all the world's philosophy have come from there?), while at the same time, other cultures - especially of the Levant and the Golden Crescent - did enforce religious-tradition-based orthodoxy of thought and norms.
Or the Nordic, Finnish and Slavic sagas; while there's certainly no lack of kings or chiefs demanding obedience in the form of levies or taxes, there's zero evidence of any kind of social structure demanding all be equal in how or what they believe, and I do think it hold true for all the various celtic peoples too, from Iberia to Hibernia.
Whereas China takes the cake, from antiquity and the days of Chi Huan Ti to today, the kingdom and later empire and now Communist Dynasty resting almost solely on orthodoxy and conformism.
The /capacity/ for it may be universal or may be due to logistics of communication, and/or mono- or multi-culture within a realm, but the expression I'd argue is not a given nor a must-be. The USA is, from a certain point of view, more or less proof of that.
The Greeks and Romans were pretty pragmatic about handling conquered peoples they wanted to persuade into long-term alliance but didn't, for example, the Greeks--or a few of them in power anyway--demand that Socrates off himself for corrupting the young with scary new ideas?
The formal charge against him was impiety; that he had failed to worship the gods of Athens in the proper manner. The other charge was indeed that he was corrupting the minds of young athenians.
It was obvious even in his day that both charges were trumped-up for political reasons Funnily enough, part of the charge of impiety was that he had denied that the gods of the greeks were capable of and did bad things, and that he believed in an "inner voice" guiding him when choosing between right/wrong (alt. good/evil); both charges were more or less bogus as they could in no real way be proven. F.e., he was also accused of atheism, which would be logically impossible if he argued the gods did /not/ do bad (i.e. human) things.
So before it even went to trial, the group out to get him spent two months whipping people (potential jurors and others with influence) into a frenzy where the bogus charges were repeated again and again until it seemed a moral obligation to condemn him.
I recommend Platos "Apologia" for a more in-depth, if obviously biased in favour socrates, retelling of it.
Noteworthy is, that the trial itself stands out as out-of-place/sorts. There were plenty of weird (to us) laws in Athens at the time (such as a ban on eating in the market place, which Diogenes made a point of flaunting publicly without ever being charged for a crime), and the process against Socrates was wholly political in its nature. Whereas Diogenes who had zero influence in such matters were simply left to his own devices.
Perhaps that is the common thread, where a society turns to enforced conformity of thought: the need/development of politics and politicians as a societal institution in its own right, rather than something temporary created out of periodic necessity and afterwards dismantled?
It would hold true, when cultures are compared - the Bronze Age chiefs of Northen and Western Europe had no more power than the men of their tribes let them have, while their contemporary kings, emperors, hierophants and prophets of the Near Orient had administrations and bureaucracies.
It sure ruined freedom for Europe when it Christianized.
I think christianity ruined itself when it went from a cult where anyone could step up a preach, or testify to experiencing the divine, to a state church of the Western and Eastern Roman Empire.
From the 5th century to the Black Death, the church of Rome became increasingly monodominant, militaristic, (fascist we'd say today) and outright murderous, to say nothing of the rampant corruption (plenary indulgences being only the tip of the boil).
It parallels nicely with today's post-Cold War developments, though our communication technology and logistic capabilities means what took centuries then (Enlightenment) takes decades now: a decaying regime covering multiple nations with a broad shared cultural heritage fights desperately to ban anything it perceives as a threat to its rule.
That sentence could be the Imperia Americana et Britannia of today, or the catholic church post-Black Death until present day; it fits equally well.
agree
As the Cheka and all other thought Police used to instil terror and remove the “enemies of the State”…
Outlawing political parties is the hallmark of state tyranny; It’s right up there with censorship or state religion.
YES!!! They're "saving" democracy by totally destroying it.
It's happening in white countries world wide. Like "diversity is our strength" in white countries only world wide.
Geez, these countries need to open their eyes to the absolute destruction they're facing"saving the planet".
What a banal path towards the authoritarian state, one near-sighted emotion-laden pushback after another.
As I wrote in a previous essay the true paradigm is between globalists and Anti-Globalists and not "right" vs "left." The globalists are trying hard to make sure this paradigm shift does not occur BECAUSE it would expose the entire globalist agenda: which includes mass migration to foment division in societies: from the US to the EU. And while I'm writing from across the pond it seems to me that AfD members are more accurately described as Anti-Globalist and not "right wing nut bags."
The Anti-Globalist Revolution is gaining traction in the US, EU and around the world
Why Globalist Corporate Media refuses to adopt the Anti-Globalist Paradigm
BRUCE CAIN, JUN 23, 2024
https://brucecain.substack.com/p/the-anti-globalist-revolution-is
AMEN
"Office for the Protection of the Constitution" comes of as an Orwellian device to explain why a bureaucracy is doing a job meant for a federal judge.
I mean... Just based on the name, it's exactly the sort of thing we need in the USA, and have needed in the USA since the very foundation. Except for the fact that like everything else, it would have been corrupted. As, I suspect, the BfV has been.
"Office for the Protection of the Constitution" is the MOST Orwellian label yet.
The reading and understanding of the Constitution protects it, not some lame, faceless "office".
> "The reading and understanding of the Constitution protects it"
How's that working so far?
I'm certainly not saying the BfV is doing it correctly, but if the Founders had set up a fourth branch of government dedicated strictly to making sure the actions of the government were in line with the Constitution, I think America would be in a much better place.
Admittedly, I'm saying this on the blog of a German, so possibly not the right place. Still, it's not so horrible of an idea. Not that there would be any way to implement it now. I think we're way too late for that.
As I have pointed out before, the concept of this agency would be just fine, were it pointed at elected officials and bureaucrats rather than at the citizenry. *That* is where the real danger is coming from.
As a skeptical old Beltway Bandit every mention of "Intelligence Agency" is automatically translated to Banksters. Folks forget Edward Snowden was a Booz Allen contractor running outsourced NSA system.. we all know CIA/OSS plucked the ranks of Brown Bros Harriman for Yale Bonesmen to be trusted keepers of National secrets.. before that the Red Cross ran spy ops for Wall St. One thing holds true across time.. secrets only protect their keepers!
I asked elsewhere if Senator Vance, prominent in his class at Yale Law, had made his bones.
I have no way to discover this on my own.
https://nakedemperor.substack.com/p/the-fellowship-of-silicon-valley
https://nakedemperor.substack.com/p/the-fellowship-of-silicon-valley-8c2
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/commentary/aint-that-america/
Some takes on Vance. He also wrote a memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, that was made into a Netflix series, with Glenn Close.
Thank you. I sporadically read the NE, this puts it together.
"[S]ecrets only protect their keepers!"
Great aphorism.
It’s like watching a real life demonstration of the Streisand effect.
Except in this case, Streisand has authority and power. :-/
truth
The E.U. Parliament has already banned right wing factions from participation in -their- government. Like the AfD, they represent 30-40% of the people. The Communists and their stealthier allies, the Socialists and Greens have never intended to tolerate a Democratic process. This is just another brick in their wall of Totalitarianism.
The one thing that seems to unite Europeans is their insatiable demand for unlimited social services and military protection as a 'divine right.' This plays perfectly into the hands of the Totalitarians. Anyone who grows a spine will be demonized and marginalized. If not imprisoned.
agree
Any party in the eu parliament is a dud. Being banned is a theatrical act at best.
It’s like here in the USA where Heir Biden and the Democratic Cult tell us that a Trump victory in a free election would be the end of democracy. Trump is Hitler. Though he didn’t imprison any political prisoners in his first term, this time he’s gonna setup concentration camps and gas chambers for his political enemies. AfD is obviously of the same ilk, and even more dangerous in the homeland of the real Hitler. AfD and the US Republican Party are the new Axis of Evil that must be crushed before they implement their evil nativist and Luddite policies, such as deporting illegal immigrants, restarting nuclear power plants, and most heinous of all declaring that, aside from rare birth defects, there are only two genders and men should be forbidden to enter women’s restrooms and to participate in women’s sports.
lol, like....alot
Superb!
That clearly shows it is truly time to overthrow the current political establishment. The next election can't come soon enough
Time to:
- stop senseless mass immigration/invasion
- start deporting people that don't want to integrate or are criminal
- stop funding corrupt and totalitarian Ukraine
- stop the climate change insanity
- start going after climate terrorists
Sadly, only about 35-40% of European voters have the common sense to agree with you.
> "That clearly shows it is truly time to overthrow the current political establishment."
*gasp!*
Such horrifying contempt for the state order! Look, a clearly dangerous person! We must defend democracy by taking away his right to speak and to vote!
(/s, for the sarcasm impaired 🤪 )
OK, you're on a list-as of right now.
PS-couldn't agree w/ you more.
GREAT-now I'm on the list!
Better than being a dumb liberal that has no common sense and can't think for themselves.
You ask to overthrow the establishment and then wait for the election. It's a contradiction. (s)election is not overthrowing anything it is an 'entertainment' for the masses and false belief in free choice.
Warning: Having a Dissenting Viewpoint could lead to dangerous conditions such as critical thinking, questioning the government, and actual accountability, consult your doctor if symptoms persist more than four hours.
lol, like
Leave the bureaucratic state to do what they do best, go and gather a bunch of statements and make a list and then make a special rule banning what the people said on the list. “The AfD is the parliamentary arm of a much bigger conspiracy, a revolutionary conspiracy.” So its a conspiracy that they want to win elections? Incredible.
Do they really sincerely believe the afd is dangerous? I can’t understand it, it’s delusional.
Yes. The AfD might win power in a legitimate democratic contest, and thereby take it away from them. Therefore they are incredibly dangerous... to them.
It's about power, and neutralising threats. Not threats to the German people, obviously.
Yes, they are very dangerous. They are refusing to accept lies.
https://www.afd.de
above is the Alternative for Deutschland website. Your computer can translate the webpages; I don't see an English version of the website. I read their 9-point program; you click the boxes on the home page. Basically the same platform as MAGA.
since Trump indeed they've been inspired in various ways by MAGA. at a concrete level they're basically EU sceptics, they want politicians to see to the material advantages of actual Germans, and they propose more direct democracy. within them there are different strains, a more nationalist strain (with which Höcke is most closely associated), a more market-liberal/libertarian strain, best represented by current leadership.
I think the biggest lie humanity has been told since the end of WWI is that nationalism is inherently bad.
If these nations aren't great... why do so many people want to move to them? And if they *are* great, why is it such a sin to want to preserve that greatness?
It baffled the hell out of me when the left got so bent out of shape over the MAGA slogan, when it's essentially the claimed goal in many ways of the Democrats of many years. "Bring back the days when a blue collar worker could, on his own, support a family and buy a house." I think that if I were to try and sum up "MAGA" in one phrase, it would be that. Maybe it's just that MAGA happening when it did showed exactly how the Democrat Party had moved away from that very position?
I've told this bit in other places before, and possibly here, but: Last year I went on a road trip to go visit my father and stepmother for a while in their house near Atlanta, Georgia. I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and I'm a car guy, so somewhat by osmosis I've become interested in old Route 66. Since I was making this trip quite literally on my birthday (well, as one o the days of the drive, at least) as a birthday present to myself, I turned off Google Maps and followed signage in order to travel as much of Route 66 as I could before it turned off to go away from my direction of travel.
A bunch of this was on essentially just the frontage road for Interstate 40, but there were definitely some good solid chunks that went on for dozens and dozens of miles, and on occasion, some of those chunks would pass through towns. And in the vast majority of those towns, you could see that they were in bad shape. 50, 75, 90 percent of the buildings boarded up and vacant. Only thing open was the gas station, and maybe a grocery store. Towns of reasonably decent size, so we're talking maybe as many as 30 former businesses closed along the main drag through town, i.e.: Route 66.
Now sure, some of this is from the same effect as the movie "Cars" was about, just being bypassed by the interstate. But nevertheless, it was made *very* obvious to me why the slogan "Make America Great Again" might resonate *really* hard with those folks.
MDWG. "Mach Deutschland Weider Grossartig!"
Not quite as easy to pronounce the acronym as with "MAGA", though... 🤪