THE PARTY LINE VS. LIBERTY

      Over the weekend, I spent considerable time in the sunshine out in the hammock reading a book I'd looked for for a long time---it was written by a Dead White Male who'd written extensively on things like mob-psychology, the dangers of propaganda, and the need for an educated electorate. In virtual time, I've been reading some of the debates going on at InsanityBytes' blog. Over the last 3-4 posts, she's apparently deviated too far from the official Postmodern Conservative Party Line by suggesting that Conservatism (at least in its current incarnation) is failing because of its lack of concern for humanity in general.

    I can relate to this. I've been called a 'Liberal' many times for opining heresies like considering immigrants as human beings, stating that a Social Safety Net is moral, that American working conditions and wages should be a little higher than say, Bangladesh's, etc. Actually, we're not alone here. Both Pat Buchanan and William F. Buckley said during the 1990s that there really wasn't a Conservative Party left in Washington anymore. Any of the top GOP leadership of the mid-20th Century: Wendell Willkie, Thomas Dewey, General Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole---all of these would be considered 'Liberal Republicans' if they were alive today. So would Buchanan and Buckley, BTW. 

   The 'New Breed' of Conservatism is basically the mirror-image of the 'New Left.' Both are centered on waging effective propaganda campaigns instead of acknowledging that real problems exist; and like all propaganda campaigns, both appeal to the lowest common denominator. This is known in modern parlance as "controlling the narrative" but it comes down to debasing public discourse to the benefit of vested interests. 

   As the aforementioned Dead White Male (who happened to be a pastor) stated: "The crowd mind is essentially a conformist mind; and this is so even when the crowd is openly indulging itself in antisocial behavior. Crowds seldom interpret their motives correctly. Each crowd fabricates a system of obsessive ideas which serves to disguise its real motive, to disarm opposition, to justify its behavior in the minds of its members and to hold them together in 'the Movement.' The ideas of the crowd become stereotyped, standardized. Having made up its mind, it refuses to listen to dissenting opinions. Objectors are thrown out, howled down, thrust aside, and trampled. As the crowd thinks and acts in a pseudo-social environment created by its own rationalizations, it can sustain its purpose only by remaining deaf to the voice of conflicting reason. Dissent on the part of its members is disloyalty, treachery. Dissent of those outside the crowd, or any criticism of its noble experiments is devilish enmity of righteousness and truth. Every crowd, if it has the power, will resort to censorship and will ruthlessly destroy those who resist it."

   Does that sound familiar? Go to nearly any major 'Conservative' website and we see a perfect description of it right there. 

   Now we grant that there are issues on the Left which genuinely are evil and admit of no compromise (e.g. abortion, homo 'equality', 'woke' corporate social engineering); but it doesn't follow that every one of their concerns are without merit or justification. Likewise, the Left also engages in cultivating a Herd Mentality, but too many on the Right overlook the fact that that strategy is a weakness---not a strength---on their part. The Democrats' policy of pandering to the crowd during the 1960s and 1970s led to a powerbase within their Party of some of the most extreme Left-Wing crackpots imaginable---which in turn led to the Democrats being wiped out in five elections during the late 20th Century. 

   Unfortunately, in recent years, the Republicans have followed down the same path to the point where they are actually defending criminal behavior on the grounds that its based and red-pilled (the Right's antipode of being a 'Woke Liberal'); including---but not limited to---scammers, as well as architects of voter-fraud schemes and international Corporate crooks,  and corrupt Congressmen, and even convicted murderers. There has been nothing but effusive praise on the Right for Governors who take the inhumane action of forcing legal migrants onto buses and planes and dumping them in people's yards. During the recent baby-formula shortage there were calls to confiscate formulas from immigrant detention centers and presumably let babies starve. On at least two occasions---one in Arizona and one in New York, Conservatives have raised bail for two murder suspects who caused a loss of life under highly questionable circumstances. 

    These are not the attitudes of real Conservatives or, for that matter, even of civilized human beings. In the comments section to InsanityBytes' post, I mentioned the indifference Conservatives felt for problems that happen in so-called 'Blue States.' The answer I got was that it's basically our problem and of no concern to the nation as a whole. A genuine Conservative like Eisenhower or Reagan would say that problems like rampant crime, proliferation of tent-cities, and epidemics of drug overdoses were beyond the capacities of local governments to deal with them and that intervention at the Federal level was necessary. 

   The fact that both political factions appeal to the worst instincts of the Herd is having the double effect of creating political polarization around rigidly ideological lines and of marginalizing the better elements of society who could actually come up with solutions. It's obvious why vested interests promote a Herd Mentality and social division: they can hide their activities behind 'majority rule' or 'popular consensus' (which they themselves have largely manufactured). But what is the impetus for average, well-meaning people to fall in line with these trends? Ironically, it's for the same reason that the Elites promote them: the sanction of a crowd allows men to evade responsibility for the results of their own behavior. We saw this played out disastrously in Hitler Germany. In a situation like that, a fanatic with control over a crowd can effect the crowd's identification with himself, if he's a skillful enough propagandist. To quote our author again:

   "Let a man be convinced that he has a sacred mission in the execution of which he is accountable neither to his fellow-men nor to reason, but only to a god made in his own image, and he will practice the brutalities of a Calvin or a Robespierre if he has the power. Men who thus deify their own wills and give themselves divine prerogative {note: we would add today Scientism or Ideology alongside religious fanaticism here} are, I believe, the most dangerous people in the world. We have but to see the historic examples of this kind of self-righteous enthusiasm writ large in the biographies of those who have been most distinguished for it, to be convinced that nothing so completely destroys a man's moral sense. An ambitious realist like Napoleon will commit many crimes. But a man whose brain is on fire with a holy zeal will often stop at nothing. His passion places him beyond good and evil, as these concepts are understood by reasonable men. Beyond the outposts of sanity, morality at once degenerates into messianic delusion and homicidal mania."

    Herein lies the problem. While the above description is quite obvious when analyzing the Far Left, many on the Right are utterly blind to the fact that we are falling into the same pattern. That this description fits WEF-controlled thugs like Gates, Trudeau, Macron, and Zelensky is apparent: but there are Republican Senators, Governors, Candidates for President, and many pundits whom I have no doubt whatsoever would behave with just as much contempt for human rights and civil liberties than these 'woke' fanatics do if they ever got into a position of real power. 

    By and large, we have become a nation which has forgotten our founding principle: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." If any man made a statement like that today in certain Conservative circles, he'd be hooted down as a sentimental Liberal who puts his feelings ahead of rational thought.