Where are we now?

Richard W. writes:

Your coverage has been outstanding. I was wondering if you could write a little essay explaining what we should do now, or how we should feel, or what we should be hoping for and working for.

I’m left feeling pretty depressed this morning, and really clueless about what to do next.

LA replies:

You’re up in the air, I’m up in the air, and we don’t know where we are yet. We’ve entered into a new situation, in which our relationship with our government and society and our fellow Americans, how we feel about them, and even what our own identity is as Americans, has become, to an undetermined extent, undetermined. How that will sort out we don’t know yet, and may not know for a long time.

For years I’ve wrestled with the question, how does a conservative relate to a social order that has already been radicalized? How does an American feel about his country—and about himself as an American—when it has been largely changed into a different country? My answer has been stated in part in my Traditionalist’s Credo:

I declare that this government is no longer a constitutional and moral form of government. I will deal with it, and I will obey its laws, and I will support it when it is defending our country from foreign and domestic enemies. I will vote in its elections and participate in its political debates. But I will never accept it. I aim at a restoration of constitutional and moral order.

That was the way I found of negotiating the contradiction between the fact that America has radically changed, and the fact that I am an American, living in this country and a part of it.

Another way of putting it, is that while there is much in America that is bad and that we cannot accept, there is still much of it that is good and that is ours. So we fight against the bad and try to bring back the good.

But at a certain point, a society may change so much that it changes its very form. What is our relation to an America which is not just bad in numerous respects, but which has become bad at its core, an America which has become hostile and threatening to us—at its core? An America whose Constitution has not just been distorted in profound ways, but has ceased in the most fundamental way to be operative? An America in which the government can do whatever it likes to us, and this is ok with at least half the people?

At that point, the Traditionalist’s Credo becomes harder to maintain and may have to be revised, or even abandoned. How it would change, I don’t know.

As for the health care bill, the fact is that we are at the beginning of a struggle that will go on for years, since conservatives can no more accept this supposed law than they could accept the imposition of a Soviet government in this country. Not that Obamacare is the same as a Soviet government, but that both are completely outside our historic society and Constitution. The government overseeing every person in the country to require him to purchase health insurance? The government controlling every transaction between doctors and patients? A government out of Atlas Shrugged, which demonizes entire industries and seeks to bankrupt them? I’ve noticed on the Web today that even mainstream conservatives, such as at Powerline, will never accept this and are prepared to fight for years to repeal it. Powerline calls it National Socialism. That’s strong stuff. And various Republican politicians say that they are set on repealing it. So this is going to go on for years.

However, it could be defeated much sooner than that. I assume the individual mandate will go before the Supreme Court within months. If it’s found unconstitutional, the entire bill becomes unworkable. And perhaps this nightmare stops right there. That would be the most hopeful scenario. If the bill is not found unconstitutional, then the Constitution is lost—lost in a much more consequential way than has happened under the step by step judicial re-writing of key parts of the Constitution over the last hundred years. If the government can do what Obamacare mandates it to do, then there are no limits on the government’s power over the individual, and we really are no longer living under the Constitution or in a recognizable United States, and at that point we either surrender and die and become subjects of some post-American order, or we enter some kind of revolutionary or rather counterrevolutionary situation. And mainstream conservatives, even neocon establishment types like the Powerline writers, will become counterrevolutionaries along with us.

Or perhaps the counterrevolution takes the more moderate form of seeking to repeal Obamacare. In that case, what is left of America will still be alive and asserting its will to life, through membership in that campaign. The American identity and loyalty will not be lost, but will have become a counterrevolutionary force against Obama’s America.

And what if the repeal campaign finally fails? That possibility is farther off, we don’t have to think about it yet.

Finally, returning to the short-to-medium term, we can say that two parallel tendencies that already exist will become much stronger as a result of Obamacare’s passage:

(1) The re-awakening of conservative resistance to leftist statism and anti-Americanism that has developed over the last year in response to the Obama presidency will now become much greater, with the campaign to repeal Obamacare at its center. I think that part of this awakening, though not the major part, will be the growing recognition that the left is against white America and seeks to dispossess it, and therefore that whites must begin protesting and pushing back against the anti-white campaign that is being directed against them. Naturally, some readers will be distressed that I said even this much about the racial dimension of the Obama Revolution. But if Jews were being targeted for dispossession and destruction, would they even be able to speak about what was being done to them, let alone defend themselves, without reference to the fact that they are Jews? In the same way, how can white Americans understand and oppose the leftist and nonwhite assault on their property, their liberty, and their historical identity as a people, if they are not allowed even to speak of the fact that they are being targeted? So this crisis may spur a return of that rational and moderate degree of white racial consciousness which white Americans used to have, and which, I believe, is a sine qua non of Western survival. And no, liberal reader, this is not code for the restoration of Jim Crow or for any kind of racial hatred. It is exactly what I’ve said it is: a recognition that the Obama Revolution is not just a campaign of economic leveling, but is also, in part, a campaign of racial revenge and racial leveling directed against the more successful and productive race, or at least against the non-liberal members of that race.

(2) Emotional detachment from America; thoughts and plans, some inchoate, some not, of seceding from America; and actual attempts to secede from America in some form and build new quasi independent communities, perhaps even an entire state, will increase.

Finally, the radical transformation of our country brought by Obamacare will make it emerge more and more that we are two nations, with two mutually incompatible belief systems, locked in unending conflict and mutual animosity over what kind of country we are and should be. And how that conflict can be resolved, I do not know.

- end of initial entry -

Doug B. writes:

How would you answer the argument that it is not anti-white sentiments of the Left that are pushing America towards socialism but that the answer lies in deeper philosophic premises; premises such as egalitarianism. If there were no blacks or Hispanics in America, the American Left would still be crusading for advancing the welfare state but their “victims” would be along class or gender lines. They are doing that now. Also, an all white country abandoned its traditional values and embraced total communism. That country was Russia and they were a white people. I’m not disputing that racial egalitarianism is part of the pathology of the Left. But I don’t see it as the fundamental principle that you do. The Left, true to its egalitarian worldview, seeks to eliminate differences of outcome; they seek to minimize the difference between the haves and have-nots. They would do this no matter what the racial makeup of the country. My point is that, in the end, I think race and racial differences are irrelevant to understanding the deepest philosophic truths about the Left.

LA replies:

I agree with almost everything you say. I had doubts about including that section about race in my reply to Richard,, and almost took it out, because the main issue here is the issue of socialism, government control, transfer of wealth from haves to have nots, destruction of constitution, etc. At the same time, given that the “haves” and “have-nots” in America are so much a matter of race, and given that the intention of dragging down whites for the sake of reducing the differences between whites and nonwhites is absolutely part of the left’s agenda, and given that the actual transfer of wealth under this bill will to a very large extent be a transfer from productive healthy-living whites to unproductive unhealthy living blacks and Hispanics, I felt my comment would not be complete without that point.

Also, consider how leftist columnists periodically erupt in accusations that conservatives are racists simply by virtue of being conservatives: that people lining up at a Palin book signing are racist, simply by virtue of being at a Palin book signing; that people who oppose Obamacare are racist, because they oppose Obamacare; that the Republican party is racist, because there are few blacks in the party—as though blacks’ own preference for the Democratic party because of its racial socialism didn’t have something to do with that.

The points that I made about race in that comment I have made many times, so the question is not, for me, the correctness of the statement itself, but whether it fits in that comment, whether it strengthens it or distracts from its main point and seems like a gratuitous insertion of the race issue and therefore would offend some readers unnecessarily. I was uncertain on the point, but made the decision to keep it in.

March 23

LA to Laura Wood:

A question. While the part about race in my latest entry that you linked, “Where are we now?”, is nothing new by itself, I wasn’t sure about its inclusion in this entry; because this entry is primarily about the socialism, the government takeover, the coup. Do you have any opinions about it?

Laura Wood replies:

Could the same thing happen in America if it was entirely white?

Yes, it could. On the other hand, given the racial character of the country, this is much more disastrous.

I don’t think it is unreasonable to mention race, because the further dispossession of whites is the consequence of this. But socialist economic ideology is the motivating factor. It’s not necessary to mention race.

John Hagan writes:

As to the question of where are we now I would suggest we are right where we should expect to be after 40 years of non-white immigration, affirmative action, endless tax increases, and allowing so-called free-trade to gut the middle class.

If it takes a catastrophe like Obamacare to awaken Americans so be it. It’s better we fight these people in the light of day when we still have much of the old American nation intact, and I still believe much of what we were is still intact, though deeply wounded and confused.

I’m convinced that only something as invasive, an catastrophic as Obamacare will shake Americans out of their passivity.

Jim C. writes:

Well written and well argued—I can add nothing to the brilliance of this. (I’m still waiting for the post about how to solve our “affirmative action” problem, which, of course, is an assault on whites—and Asians.)

Tori D. writes:

Last night during the debate and vote on the House floor I was on a live “Scribble” chat with many bloggers and citizens across the country. Before the vote was final the consensus among the group appeared to be that if the health care bill passed and was deemed constitutional by our Supreme Court than it was likely people would start to cluster in states which were likely to secede from the union. Pretty much everyone was in agreement that whichever state left the union first is where most people would end up. It was unreal because this was what you would consider a more “neocon” website where pronouncements such as these are rare. Two top candidates for secession were Idaho and Texas, with Wyoming bringing up the rear. I can tell you this; beyond a shadow of a doubt my whole family would head to the first state with the courage to stand up to our federal government and there we would stay until the day we died. I think your option two is the most likely scenario because I just don’t think the U.S. Supreme Court has any further moral authority to turn back the usurpations of the federal government. In fact, the legal experts I have read on the internet and seen on TV think every section of this travesty will stand constitutional muster. We will see. But my whole mindset has changed towards the United States of America in the past year. I feel uncomfortable saying the Pledge of Allegiance (as it has that compulsory feel to it) and I don’t get all warm and fuzzy feeling when the anthem plays. America no longer exists as far as I am concerned. Not the America of the heart and of our history.

LA replies:

What you say about that phone call is amazing.

Charles T. writes:

Thank you for the coverage yesterday. I echo Richard W.—you did an outstanding job of keeping the infomation up-to-date.

I do not think this is over; it will be a continual point of contention politically. I attempted to call Stupak’s office. The voice mail on his phone system is full, as it was yesterday.

Mrs. K. writes:

I appreciate your coverage of the last few days’ events. Throughout Sunday I snatched a few moments, sometimes seconds, whenever I could, to check in with VFR.

It was a difficult day for all of us. I came down with a cold Sunday evening and am convinced that Sunday’s ups, downs, false hopes, and last-minute sharp turns were what pushed my immune system over the edge.

A source of comfort has been staying up to date via VFR and reflecting on the truth as well as words of encouragement found there. I like that you refuse to give in to bitterness, face the present with honesty, and consistently look to the future. We must discover what we can control, and then focus on those things.

Thanks again for setting a good example.

Jillian J. writes:

No, Obamacare could not happen in an all-white America, not unless we further fantasize that, like Russia, we had a food shortage, a large peasant population, and an unpopular war. With an all white America we would not have high crime, high illegitimacy, affirmative action, or white guilt, not to mention a black president. The socialism that has advanced in this country has been motivated and legitimized by the claim of white discrimination against blacks; feminists rode the coattails of the Civil Rights Act. Otherwise they would have remained a fringe group. What’s left——poor whites? It’s hard to believe the Left could muster the same egalitarian passion for poor whites in America and be convincing. What socialist economic argument could replace the anti-white crusade? Therefore, the answer is no, no blacks=no Obama, and no Obamacare. Thus the issue of race was a crucial, absolutely relevant point that needed to be made.

LA replies:

You write: “It’s hard to believe the Left could muster the same egalitarian passion for poor whites in America and be convincing.”

That is a telling argument. At the same time, the demand for universal health care, for health care as a right, so that no one would ever do without it, has been around for a long time, long before the problems of nonwhites were a central preoccupation. But, as you say, without nonwhites and their health problems and their lower socioeconomic status and their constant claim of victimhood at the hands of heartless whites, could that demand for universal coverage ever have gained the force to push the thing through into law?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 22, 2010 05:13 PM | Send