True Believers

Ew, Canada!

I recently recorded a radio show for Canada Day, on historic patriotic poems. One participant said he would have to bow out unless we allowed him to read poems critical of Canada. Pressed, he was not prepared to say that Canada itself was a good thing; he was content to live here because there was no war.

It seems to me that we have come to a dangerous point when we cannot all agree on the essential idea of Canada. What then do we have in common? How can we function as a society?

Islam and the woke, neoMarxist left pose a grave and increasing danger to our democracies; and it is really in both cases the same problem. These two organized groups have substituted politics for religion. They have made their politics their religion, or vice versa.

Religion is at its core the assertion of supposed ultimate truth. Seeking truth is admirable; it is what we are here for. In response to these perceived truths, you bind yourself to a set of rules. They govern your actions. But the common sense of the matter, in liberal democracies, is that you do not impose these rules on others: religion must be entirely voluntary.

When politics is your religion, or your religion is political, that no longer holds. Politics is the exercise of power over others. So this means imposing your religion on others.

Can this actually ever be avoided? Since religion is definitionally the assertion of a perceived ultimate truth, mustn’t what is ultimately true automatically be the basis of all decisions, including all political decisions? Our current concept of religious liberty and the separation of church and state may be an illusion: it has been apparently possible because our true religion, over the past few centuries, has become liberal democracy rather than Christianity.

Granted that this is so, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism have found themselves capable of continuing within this liberal framework. They are at their core, perhaps for different reasons, “mystical” faiths. They do not expect to achieve a paradise in this world, and so they are generally content to leave this world to its own devices.

Political matters can therefore be discussed politely, in liberal terms. 

But Islam and woke neoMarxism, because they involve a specific political agenda, are not reconcilable with liberal principles.

This happens whenever a creed emerges that believes that heaven, a state of perfection, can be achieved by specific human political action here on earth; what might be called “millenial” movements. It then becomes a matter of ultimate importance to impose those specific political measures as soon as possible, a whatever possible cost.

Nazism is an obvious example: it believed it was creating a new species, the “superman.”

Marxism similarly believes that by following its precepts, we can achieve an Edenic state where there is no restriction on our natural desires, and we can all do whatever we want.

Islamism believes that we have an obligation to bring the entire world under the laws of Islam, which come from God himself.

Wokery, apart from Marx, is influenced by the postmodern idea that we create our own reality. Therefore the task of life is to force everyone else to accept our own reality.

I similarly fear Christian movements that focus on the “end times” and the apocalypse; at least as something dependent on any political action.

How to deal with such groups is an existential problem for a liberal democracy: for they reject the principles on which a liberal democracy functions. 

Such movements can be tolerated so long as there is no chance of them coming into power and ending liberal democracy. But I fear we are past that point, and the danger is clear and present.

Immigration Causes and Effects

The tide is swiftly and surely turning in the developed world against mass immigration. That pendulum is swinging hard.

This puts Western governments in a pickle. 

In Canada, the government has so far only taken modest measures to reduce the flow of immigrants. And the population of Canada has already actually declined over the first quarter of this year. Enumerating for the census, I find many of the apartments I have been assigned unoccupied—despite our supposed housing shortage.

Without mass immigration, the population of the developed countries is going to shrink. We knew that—it was one of the arguments for mass immigration all along.

What might that mean? It had governments panicked. No new workers to cover pension obligations; labour shortages; a shrinking economy unable to cover massive government debts. Government borrowing has been a Ponzi scheme that may soon hit the wall.

Despite that, I am delighted to see popular opinion turn against mass immigration. If rioting in Belfast is needed to stop it, I say the rioting is justified. It was never an acceptable solution. You cannot preserve the Canadian nation, the British nation, or any other nation, by flooding in foreigners. A nation is more than a government. A nation is the people and their culture. A new population with a different culture or cultures is no longer the same nation.

Moreover, I do not believe the depopulation panic is justified. Governments tend to panic. We got into the crisis of depopulation through relentless government warnings of overpopulation—at its extreme, the Chinese “one child policy.” Our leaders are blind, and become leaders in large part because they crave power. They will always overreact and want to intervene in the course of events. 

Elon Musk and others with their fingers on the pulse of technology are predicting that medicine is on the cusp of conquering many diseases, and significantly lengthening the human lifespan. If so, no pension funding problem, no labour shortage, perhaps no population decline. No longer any upside to large-scale immigration.

We also have the rapid development of AI and robotics. Less need for human labour, and an exponential increase in productivity. Musk, Yang, et al warn we may have nothing for most people to do. Any population increase will only be a burden on the public purse.

All things considered, the worst choice bet on the future governments could make right now is to let in many new immigrants from very different cultures. 

Which is, of course, exactly what they have been doing.

What Liberalism Means

 

A Locke unpicked.

It is a scandal that most people today, and certainly most young people have no idea what liberalism is all about. Despite the fact that it is the philosophy on which the U.S.A. is founded. I think it is fair to say that it is also the philosophy on which the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand is founded. It is what unites us. Whereas most nations are united by ethnicity, we are historically united instead by our shared embrace of this philosophy. Accordingly, it is disastrous, almost traitorous, not to make it the core of our educational system.

Here is a quick primer for the uninformed. 

First, a list of some of its key figures, with a bit of a Canadian bias: John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Baldwin, Lord Acton, Wilfred Laurier, William Wilberforce, William Gladstone, Daniel O'Connell, John Stuart Mill, Martin Luther King Jr.. With a hat tip to such older thinkers as Thomas Aquinas, Ibn Khaldun, and the New Testament.

The most famous and succinct statement is in the American Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

This is Jefferson’s take on Locke; I think Locke’s formulation is better. I paraphrase:

“We hold these truths to be sacred and inviolable, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the possession of Property.”

Human equality and human rights are not self-evident—that is false in philosophical terms. Locke derives this from the Bible. It is an article of the Judeo-Christian faith. Forgetting this has had disastrous consequences, and may lead to worse in future. Nevertheless, it is God’s truth. Given that God loves us all as his children, we are all equal in moral worth, and due respect. Other religions and philosophies do not necessarily agree. Hinduism has the different castes emerging from different parts of Purusha’s body—the manual labourers from his feet. Shintoism has the emperor a direct descendant of the sun; an entirely different class of being from mere mortals. Roman Emperors were worshipped as gods. I’ve seen Mao Zedong worshipped as a god in temples in China.

And Jefferson wrongly swapped out “property” for the meaningless “pursuit of happiness.” Pursuit of happiness is included in the right to liberty; and it is a vain pursuit. “Property” means we have a moral right to the products of our labour. That is a critical right, often currently dishonoured.

Another crucial document is John Stuart Mill’s explanation of freedom of speech, in “On Liberty.” 

Other helpful quotes: 

Lord Acton: “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

MLK: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

The modern Marxist left seems to work against all of these principles. And it is the modern Marxist left that has seized control of our educational system.

The abolition of slavery, for example, was the great liberal project of the nineteenth century. The modern left ultimately endorses slavery, at least in principle, for they expand compulsion whenever possible. Historically, more completely articulated Marxism has led to the reimposition of slavery in states like Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Kampuchea, or China today. 

The modern left also opposes human equality, giving special rights to one group over another. This has become mass genocide when pushed to its logical conclusion in places like Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, China, or Kampuchea. 

The modern left opposes freedom of speech, freedom of association, and even the right to life.

To be clear, if we lose our shared commitment to liberal values, the US collapses into civil war; as does Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. We are seeing this happen.

Controlled Opposition and the Left

 The general rule is, the further left you go, the more you are supporting the agenda of the ruling class: that is, the clerisy, the bureaucrats. Supposedly subversive movements like BLM, Idle No More, Me Too, No Kings, Occupy Wall Street, are really controlled opposition, often astroturfed by the clerisy itself, and always demanding more power for the state. They are not suppressed by the bureaucracy, but pretty openly supported by it, promoted in the press and allowed to run riot—and the rioters themselves are often public servants. 

Unions are another bit of illusory opposition to the status quo. Unions in the private sector are mostly hype and window dressing. They cannot do much. Push up the cost of labour, and the company just goes bankrupt because they can no longer compete. Unionize the entire industry, and the industry just moves abroad, to China or Vietnam or Mexico. And the ordinary labourer is screwed. It only works for the clerisy. Seventy-six percent of public sector workers are unionized in Canada. Only thirteen percent in the private sector are unionized. The clerisy, with their unions, make a show of negotiating with themselves for better conditions, more power, and higher wages at the expense of the general public. Because they run a monopoly, they can get pretty much whatever they want.

The left pretends to be for the little guy, but shows open contempt for those who work with their hands, the working poor. They call them “rednecks,” “hillbillies,” “clinging to their guns and religion,” “deplorables,” “an unacceptable fringe.” They mock them in characters like Archie Bunker.

And they work against their interests. Mass immigration is the program of the left. This is obviously against the interests of the working poor. More competition for jobs, driving wages down. Minimum wage laws are also directly against the interest of the poor, forcing them into welfare by denying them the right to work, and into permanent dependency on the clerisy.

The clerisy, the “experts,” the bureaucrats, are the scribes, Sadducees, and Pharisees Jesus unambiguously condemns in the Bible.

The Real Ruling Class May Not be Whom You Think

Con artist, or just dumb?

Marx misidentified the ruling class. He claimed the bourgeois were in control, and before them the landed gentry. Neither were ever in charge. They were just the wealthy class. The ruling class, the class that governed, and had the highest social authority, was always the educated class—the clerisy. The aristocrats and the bourgeois were subject to the law; even the king, since Magna Carta. And while kings might sometimes issue edicts, for the most part, who made the laws and stood in judgement? The clerisy—that is, the lawyers and the judges and the bureaucrats. Even the aristocrats were under their control. The bureaucrats always run the government—any government. If anyone else has power, either in an aristocracy or a democracy or a monarchy, they act only as a partial check on the clerisy, who manage most things day by day.

In pre-revolutionary France, when Louis XVI was required to summon the Estates General—required by the law, which he too had to obey-- who was the First Estate? Who was acknowledged as the top of the social scale? Marx’s bourgeoisie was jumbled in with the peasants in the Third Estate. The landed aristocracy was the Second Estate. The First Estate was the clerics, the clerisy, the educated class. 

Do not assume this meant just priests in the modern sense. Anyone who graduated university, in those days, was ordained. Cleric = clergy, but also clerk. Most of them spent little of their time in church. They held all the desk jobs; they were the civil service. They were the ones who knew how to read and write, how to keep accounts, how the system worked. Cardinal Richelieu, Cardinal Mazarin, Cardinal Wolseley, Thomas More, Cardinal Cromwell, and so on down.

In India, with its rigid caste system, who was the highest caste? Same as in France. Not the bourgeoisie; they were Vaishyas, third rank, above the Sudras, who were the manual labourers. Not the aristocracy, the Kshatriyas. As in Europe, they were second class. Highest caste was the Brahmins, the priestly, the educated class. They ran everything, and had to be deferred to by everyone else.

In pre-revolutionary China, the aristocracy was barely a thing. They were usually looked down on as uneducated boors. It was the Mandarins who ran the show.

This educated clerisy is the same group that form the backbone of the “progressive” movement in North America, which emerged in the early 20th century—the core “progressive” idea was rule by “experts.” The clerisy formed the backbone of the Nazis and the Fascists in Europe—it was the universities and the civil service, promoting state power: meaning power to the bureaucracy. In Russia the clerisy formed the Bolsheviks, as a supposed “vanguard of the proletariat”: like Marx, mostly well-educated pencil pushers. 

The continuing program of the clerisy in modern times is to consolidate power, to suppress any rival authority. For power is their coinage; telling others what to do, controlling them, governing them. By contrast, the capitalists are mostly only interested in making money. 

Why the Media is Left-wing

Rich Capitalist

 A left-wing friend asked me recently how it was that the media could have a left-wing when they are owned by rich capitalists.

Here is a relatively systematic answer, concentrating on the Canadian situation:

1. The media are not usually owned by rich capitalists. In Canada, they are generally owned by government (CBC) or large publicly-traded corporations: Bell, Rogers, Corus, Postmedia. Ownership is diverse—do you own any mutual funds? Are you a rich capitalist? Lots of shots are called by government bureaucrats, on the one hand, and by hedge fund managers, on the other. These folks are all from the same class: the managerial-professional class or clerisy. The managerial class or clerisy is strongly left-wing; it always wants more management, which is to say, more government. More government means more money, more status, and more power for them. It is the same class that became the “vanguard of the proletariat” and ran everything in the old Soviet Union. In Canada, it is the base of the Liberals and NDP.

2. Rich capitalists, even when they do own or control a media outlet, are no more likely to be right wing than left wing. Bill Gates is left wing. Mark Zuckerberg aggressively supported the left wing with Facebook and his other social media holdings. Jack Dorsey aggressively supported the left wing when he ran Twitter. George Soros is far left. And so on. Self-interest commonly drives rich capitalists to the left, because the left calls for more government regulation, and more government regulation reduces competition. Government regulation is almost necessarily written in collusion with big business, so big business is on the left. If you are on top, you want lots of hoops and restrictions any start-up must jump through, to keep you on top: the rich get richer, and the poor can’t move up.

3. Some rich people, generally entrepreneurs who built their own businesses, are constitutionally right wing and resent government interference and control. But even when media are owned by rich capitalists, and the rich capitalists are themselves right-wing, rich capitalists are generally most interested in making money. That’s why they became rich. They are not likely to spend their time closely managing the details of their business. They hire people to do that, and let them do as they like with the politics so long as the business generates good profits. So even in this case, the editorial tone of the medium is likely to be set by the clerisy, the managerial class, the guys who graduate from journalism school, not the people who own shares. You pretty much cannot graduate from journalism school without at least pretending to be left wing.

4. Media generally depend for most of their revenue on advertising. And the single biggest advertiser in media is .... government. Next to that, of course, is publicly-traded corporations. Therefore, the bottom line in media, if they want to stay in business, is that they have to keep government and the bureaucratic clerisy happy—meaning a left-wing, pro-big government bias. And on top of this, we have in Canada massive direct government subsidies to approved media. 

Where to Source Immigrants

 

An American

There is much backlash now against mass immigration to the various countries of the developed West. The argument is that these large numbers of outsiders are not assimilating, nor augmenting, the resident culture, but introducing incompatible cultural differences.

The solution seems simple. The developed West is built on Judeo-Christian values and assumptions. What we now call “Western civilization” is simply what was previously called “Christendom.”

If we arguably need immigrants to keep the social services solvent, and to keep us economically competitive, there are ample sources available for Jewish and Christian immigrants who would, by this logic, fit in easily and become contributing Canadians, or Americans, or Englishmen, or Germans.

Perhaps most obviously, the Philippines. Although Filipinos have already come to Canada in large numbers, there are no Filipino ghettos. Filipinos assimilate readily, attend the local churches, and keep the laws. So too with Korean Christian immigrants. So too with Lebanese Christians. You do not see street riots, or demands for special treatment, or the changing of laws.

And note, importantly, that these groups are racially diverse, not “white.” Skin colour or race is not the issue. 

Another large group available: Central and South Americans—historically Christian, and interested in emigration for economic reasons. The US is concerned, legitimately, about illegal immigration, but, that said, Hispanics or Latinos do seem to assimilate within a couple of generations.

Regrettably, Christian immigrants from the Caribbean or from Africa do not seem as readily assimilable. But it is not because of race per se. It is because they tend to have a chip on their shoulder against “white” people due to the popular narrative about slavery, colonialism, and the struggle for racial equality in the US and South Africa. Their self-identity is deeply involved with the “African” group identity and with being alienated from “whites.” They import racism. 

So, if we must have large-scale immigration, it should be from historically Christian lands, or of historically Christian or Jewish minorities elsewhere. “Historically,” because otherwise it would be easy for desiring economic migrants to convert nominally to Christianity to gain entry.