Phillip Ellis Jackson takes on the far Right — and lives to tell the tale.
Okay. Maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment, and like the guy who knows the twelve-day-old carton of milk in the fridge is probably bad, I still have to take a swig just to make sure.
Or maybe I grew up believing that it’s better to confront ignorance and duplicity wherever it is than let it slide just to avoid a fight.
Either way, I’ve been having a little conversation the last few days with so-called “Real Conservatives” that absolutely needs to be shared with everyone who visits this website. It says a lot about the Conservative movement in America, and a lot about ourselves, much of it disturbing. But it’s something we need to recognize and confront and call it for what it is, rather than pretend it isn’t there, or we risk going the way of present day Liberalism where the inmates have taken over control of the asylum.
So for those of you who haven’t been following the great Macaca controversy, or dropped in on the Racial Purity Quiz that came out of the discussion of that essay, please spend a few moments perusing some of the “Enlightened” political philosophy we’ve all been treated to by the whack jobs on the far, far Right who claim they speak for genuine Conservative principles. Everyone else is either a fool or a Marxist. You can see the full expression of their beliefs by visiting "Off to the Races: The Perplexing Politics of Political Correctness" and "The True Conservative Racial Purity Quiz." These are just the highlights, or rather lowlights, of what these people say they believe, and what they actually stand for. And it’s all in their own words. [Editor's note: many of these comments have since been deleted.]
To set the stage, the offending notion that started this all was the proposition I put forward that it’s better to know whether the person you’re dealing with is what has been euphemistically described as a “jerk,” rather than to embrace, support, avoid or oppose them simply because of their race, sex, age, religion or some other secondary characteristic.
So who’s going to argue with that? I thought. It’s one of those common sense notions that’s immediately apparent to anyone who stops and thinks about it for a moment or two. Maybe someone on the far, far Left would drop by and offer their own brand of insanity that would be good for a laugh, but other than that I figured the conversation would focus on Senator Byrd vs. Senator Allen, and we’d fight over the moral equivalency of “Macaca” vs. “white nigger.”
But then I did something very wrong in the eyes of The Radical Right That Wants Us To Believe They Are The Only “Real” Conservatives. I clarified a point I made in my original essay by saying, “I don’t judge the intrinsic value of a person by the color of their skin, their gender, their attractiveness, etc., which is why I said ‘in the final analysis I don’t really care about a person’s color, sex or other qualities’.”
This is where it started, when the first Real Conservative informed us all that, for "Traditional Conservatives . . . Race does matter. So does loyalty to one’s family, ancestors, region, blood and soil, kin and kith."
Kith and kin? I hadn’t thought about that phrase since I heard grandpappy Amos on The Real McCoys hollering for “Little Luke” to fetch him a lantern back in the early 1960s. And race does matter? Sure, to the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of the world who’ve turned it into a weapon for their own personal political objectives. This was precisely the point of my original essay. Only instead of some clown on the Left trying to tell us we should all make our decisions based on race, I’ve got some guy who says he’s a “Real Conservative” saying the same thing.
And it didn’t stop here. It opened up the floodgate for a series of comments on why we needed to focus on race, bloodlines, DNA, etc. as the determining factor in any decision. They were all coming out of the woodwork, but it wasn’t the wacky Left. It was the people who said that they, and only they, spoke for True Conservative Values, and anyone who didn’t share their view was a Commie-lib apostate.
Like I said before, you can visit the comment sections of the two essays and see the full quotes from all the Real Conservatives, so all I’m doing here is hitting the key points. But what I want you to see for yourself in this essay is how the overt racism of this merry little band of True Believers is disguised at first in lofty, “intellectual” principles. When pressed, these principles begin to give way to personal claims of genetic superiority. And when the discussion is fully engaged, the true motives and intent of these miscreants is fully exposed.
So here it is in their own words — what it means to be a one and only Real Conservative:
● Unlike you, I am a real conservative. I’d never support a “color-blind society.” Obviously you have been brainwashed by crackpot Leftists. Not only does race matter, but I think that whites should promote their own racial interests. All other races do it, but whites think that it is wrong for themselves to do it.
● Like my hero T.S. Eliot, I support segregation. And there is not a damn thing wrong with this.
● If you look at traditional philosophical conservatism (e.g. Weaver, Kirk, et al), there is much allowance for distinctions made on race, etc. Kirk, Weaver and Eliot all supported segregation – a very wise concept.
● Conservatives should rail against the meaningless abstractions of the Enlightenment (such as “we are all equal”), and harbour a more traditionalist outlook: kith and kin / blood and soil. As Cicero said of natural law in De Legibus, it is based upon traditions of the “ancestors.”
● Traditionally, blood and soil / kin and kith have been central to conservatism. Aristotle supported such a concept, borrowing the very phrase “blood and soil” from Plato. St. Augustine supported this as well.
●Blood lines are important and so are their proximity. In modern terms, the more DNA you share with someone, the more your obligation will be to this person.
● Only a left-wing ideologue or utopianistic neoconservative would say that race is unimportant. Race is important, and so is a proud and strong defense [of] segregation. If God wanted one race, he would have made us all beige. But he in fact created different races – distinct – and we should respect his divisions.
● According to recent DNA studies (see U. Penn Genetics Survey), about 95% of “white Americans” are of pure European blood. Probably about 5% would have one African ancestor out of about 256 ancestors. True, many blacks and whites had babies together, but there was the “one drop rule” and these kids would have been considered black, and never would have “crossed the racial line,” which is why you only have about 5% of whites with African blood.
● I know I am of pure noble blood. I have DNA proof, and I have my genealogy back to the 14th Century Europe, tied to noble homes. I suspect Phil Jackson to be of an inferior blood line – hence his anger and frustration. You can’t help but pity him. Poor guy.
● Like Kirk and Weaver (the “fathers of American conservatism”), I think that race does matter. It is natural for races to want to keep to themselves. It has always been this way (think of mandatory ethnic segregation in Ancient Greece or Rome, or in Jerusalem, or in Medieval or Modern Europe). This is God’s plan. I do not want to interfere with it.
● If all other races promote the interests of their race (you see blacks and Asians doing this every day), and whites do not, won’t this put whites at a disadvantage in the long run? This seems very straightforward to me. It is a matter of survival.
Note: This is where the Real Conservatives began to move away from Plato and Locke and traditional values that "demanded" racial segregation as a constituent part of Real Conservatism, and started to drift into some equally important (to them) related issues. We already had a brief foreshadowing of this in the need to talk about inferior blood lines and noble parentage — all validated by proper DNA testing, of course. But even when we were treated to the “one drop rule” to accurately classify “African blood,” it was still treated as a cerebral exercise.
● Trying to integrate with segregationist blacks leads to absurdities. After all, not even Martin Luther King, Jr. believed his own line about “the content of their character,” which he, after all, uttered in a speech in which he elsewhere demanded race-based affirmative action and reparations.
● Phil is even more of a saint, if that is possible, than MLK was. He manages to remain color-blind, in spite of having been singled out for brutal beatings and robberies; and having been arrested on false charges, and gang-raped in prison, based on the color of his skin; the women in his life having been singled out and raped, robbed, and murdered; and his young children having been cursed, threatened, their bones broken, and robbed; all based solely on the color of their skin.
Note: Uh, just to be clear here, to the best of my knowledge I’ve never been gang-raped in prison. It’s something I think I’d remember, just like I’d remember being in prison in the first place if that actually happened.
However, I did call for these anonymous Real Conservatives to actually identify themselves (as I do by using my full name) rather than hide behind a fictitious code name while taking their principled stand. I mean, if they’re so proud of their 14th-century genetically pure bloodline, and this is a critical element in their decision process about how to understand and implement Real Conservative values, shouldn’t we all at least know who our superiors are who are instructing us?
A few people accepted this challenge, including Sir Anthony who I’m sure was attracted to this philosophy because he’d given it a lot of critical, independent thought; the fact that it keeps the lower classes in place just a coincidental side benefit. But for the most part everyone still hid — including the guy with noble DNA-certified Class A white European blood.
● But I do have one question for St. Phil. Given that whites who publicly make statements (e.g., that race matters or even much milder ones, such as “we should teach all black children Standard English”) using their real names that show less saintly enlightenment than he does risk being fired from their jobs and whitelisted from their professions, while blacks who make the same sort of statements are rewarded with prestigious, high-paying jobs and book deals, why does he reserve his ire for whites? After all, I know that given his own moral purity, he would never call on whites to sign their real names to a defense of segregation, while hoping – and helping – that their lives will be destroyed. Right?
● I definitely support segregation. It is a part of human nature. Only a utopianist tries to undo human nature with Big Brother projects (racial integration, busing, etc.).
Note: I guess some of the Real Conservative opinion leaders were becoming Real Concerned at this point that the naked face of racism was beginning to peek out from beneath their lofty political rationalizations, and the only way to maintain the fiction that they were acting on principle was to redefine the argument. So the noblest of the noble blood spokesmen jumped back in to, as they say in Congress, "revise and extend my previous remarks."
● I never said that a belief in segregation is a necessary condition for being a conservative. On the contrary, I meant that opposing segregation cannot be a necessary condition for being a conservative, especially if you recognize that many of the “godfathers” of conservatism were supporters of it.
● NeoMarxists created the charge of ‘racism.’ They realized that they could not win the war on ‘class’ alone so many in the Frankfurt School decided that using the charge of ‘racism’ to attack whites would be a good way to break up European solidarity. Phil, to use your NeoMarxist classification of ‘racist,’ I am not a racist at all. I just find pseudo-intellectuals like you amusing.
● I do not support Locke, who is mostly a rights-based theorist. I question any strong reliance of “rights” because they are largely a fiction of the liberal Enlightenment.
● [Regarding] the importance of kin and kith / blood and soil when considering tradition. Yes, Phil, tradition. Since these concepts have been very important for the past 2,000 years at least, probably since the beginning of time, it would be (as Burke would say) a little dangerous just to dismiss them.
Note: Well, the memo didn’t get circulated in time to steer the discussion back to Classical literature, although even that was beginning to fall apart from its own weight. When the only way you can support your position is to say that the notion of “rights” are a pre-Communist plot to mix the races, you’ve already taken the first sip of kool-aid, and are now asking for seconds. So it wasn’t much of a surprise to see the following comments rally to support the Real Conservative Cause. Not factoring in race from the outset when assessing the intrinsic value of another person or their ideas, as my original essay proposed, now meant “hating white people.”
● Avoiding race/skin color as the singular means of determining ‘intrinsic worth’ would be foolish on massive scale, ignoring it altogether is equally foolish if not stupid and ignorant.
● Whenever did being ‘tolerant’ require self-hatred and denigration of one’s own racial identity, and history? Why does it only become a requirement if you’re white? Why is the reverse encouraged (if not mandated) for one is anything but white?
● Is it not sad that being PROUD TO BE WHITE nearly always earns one a title of ’supremacist’ or ‘bigot’?
● IF one evaluates EVEN JUST A SMALL PORTION of the copious data in articles such as the one titled “The Color of Crime: Ground-Breaking New Study Released” … (there are many such articles [and research] by the way …) then attention to — and respect for — DIFFERENCES IN RACE must be recognized.
● Being ‘created equally’ and ‘endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights’ DID NOT MEAN, and SHOULD NOT MEAN that patterns of speech, behavior, family interaction; appetites and inclinations to conduct one’s self in a respectful/ respectable, law-abiding, civilized, and dare I say patriotic (?) COULD NOT or WOULD NOT correlate generally to race or that there WOULD NOT or MIGHT NOT be ‘interference’ to behaving in such a manner because of one’s ethnicity
● Traditional conservatives (paleoconservatives) reject the abstractions of the Enlightenment. They reject Enlightenment “rights theories,” and prefer a tradition modus vivendi of “natural hierarchies.”
● I am in agreement with folks like TS Eliot and Richard Weaver that Western Civilization made a wrong turn during the Enlightenment and we still have not recovered from it. The very fabric of our civilization is being ripped apart by cancerous abstractions such as “equal rights.”
● I work in computer programming and I’ve worked with a ton of Asians and Indians, and it’s amazing how racist they are. They are always talking about how they are racially superior to whites and how one day we’ll be their slaves.
● The other day I heard some Asians talking about how they are going to eventually “wipe out” all the whites. All other races do it. It’s about time whites get their act together.
● Whites have been trained by PC goons not to promote their interests. If all other races promote their interests, but whites do not, you might as well put the white man on the endangered species list.
● Today racial identity among whites is stronger than it was in the 1960s / 1970s. And when whites become the minority in 2030 – 2045, the identity will be very strong. I am not saying this for hyperbole, but there really are a ton of non-whites looking forward to “the year” (2040?) when it will be “payback time.” Some racial identity among whites might actually be a healthy thing.
● Regarding race and philosophers, I just dug up these quotes by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant:
– “strong smell of the Negro which cannot be avoided through any hygiene”
– “the Negro is strong, fleshy, agile, but under the rich supply of his motherland, lazy, indolent, and dallying”
– miscegenation “gradually extinguishes the characters, and is, despite any pretended philanthropy, not beneficial to mankind”
● Listen, folks. A great race war is coming. Each race will fight for its own survival. Each race will fight bravely. But in the end, only one race will survive.
Note: Fearful that their message was not getting out, Sir Anthony directed his cohorts in an open post to archive the comments and place them on the website of American Renaissance. This way the world would not be denied access to the wisdom and knowledge imparted by Real Conservatives in their replies to those of “inferior blood” like myself.
I visited the site, and wholeheartedly concur that this is a must-read for everyone who has even the slightest doubt that all the talk about tradition and classical views of politics is nothing more than a subterfuge for their racist, self-promoting agenda. This is exactly what these people are – and what they want you to be as well.
● You can see that [Phil Jackson] really hates the white race with every breath he takes.
● This Philip Jackson guy is some left-winger / neocon who thinks that whites should not be proud of their own heritage. He’s a real nutcase from what I can read.
● This guy (Phil Jackson) thinks that we should be shut down for discussing race at all.
Note: Unfortunately, I only made three of the five comments posted as of the date I wrote this essay. The remaining two were devoted to an urban legend I first heard back in the 60’s. “Didn’t someone mention a few weeks ago that he or she knew a schoolteacher who was accused of being a racist by one of those screeching project mamas because the classroom world map had on it a country named ‘Nigeria’ whose main river is called the ’Niger.’” This was followed by the compassionate statement on another topic, “Thanks be to God Jackie is a lesbian who never adopted so her evil causes will die with her.”
This, ladies and gentlemen, is a practical application of Plato and Aristotle, as interpreted by Eliot, Kirk and Weaver, and all the other “Traditional” intellectual sources that provide a foundation for believing that God has ordained that you all look at race first and foremost, except when the “one drop rule” lets you have a little impure blood in an otherwise noble bloodline.
You literally can’t make this stuff up!
We are defined by our enemies. And I can’t thank these people enough for telling the world I am definitely not one of them. But it isn’t enough to simply shake our head and wonder at the idiocy and hidden motives behind their beliefs. I’ve been taken to task by some people for using that term a lot — idiot — in replying to many of the comments above. My only explanation for this offensive word is that the editors kept deleting the words I really wanted to use, and I had to settle on this. These people want to tell you, and the world, what it means to be a “Real Conservative,” and if we let them define the movement for us through the prism of race, we’ll be no better than the lunatic Left I so often mock. These people are idiots — and worse — and we need to state this clearly, not shy away from it for fear of hurting their feelings.
These so-called “Real Conservatives” aren’t interested in the hallowed past when they quote Plato and Aristotle. Do they also support infanticide, believe that women are inferior beings who lack the rights men do, seek to impose governmental restrictions on the right to bear children, want to abolish all private property, and advocate bringing back the practice of slavery — not just racial segregation? Maybe they do, but they’re not promoting these same “principled” ideas publicly, even though these ideas flow from the same classical source.
They are simply looking for a good-sounding excuse to justify their segregationist bigotry. How many people reading this essay have ever had a DNA test performed on them to validate the genetic purity of their bloodline? And who in the 21st century gives even a moment’s thought to the “one drop rule” that allows you to rationalize away any impure blood you might find in your own family’s history?
Is this the “Conservatism” we all aspire to?
The truth is, these whack jobs want to hijack conservatism, and they mask their true motives in a reverence for “tradition.” But they have been completely exposed by their own words. I didn’t have to invent any silly-ass statements and apply it to them. All that was necessary was to let them speak, and watch how a reverence for Plato transformed into a White Pride rally to deal with “cancerous abstractions such as ‘equal rights.’”
Real Conservatives, if we even need to use this term, are not the same kind of self-serving bigots you find on the extreme Left. I’m happy to let our dirty laundry air for the world to see just how perverse these people truly are. It only shows the world that we are not them.
So each of us has a choice. We can either stand up and tell these people, and anyone else who’s listening, that we have no more interest in their brand of “Real Conservatism” than we do in any of the racist theories on the Left; or we can just allow pseudo-intellectuals with superior blood lines to tell us all what to believe because T.S. Eliot and God told them to.
The Left lost its moral compass to the bigotry of its extremists. Now it’s our turn to join that club, or expose these people for who and what they really are. If we allow Conservatism to be defined by the worst examples of humanity, we’ll end up where Liberalism is today.
Maybe, then maybe, I can get back to making fun of Liberal lunacy. But until we look under our own rug and apply the same standards to those who purport to speak on our behalf, we have no right to criticize anyone else if we, fundamentally, are no different from them.
This all began with a simple observation: it’s better to judge a person by their character, than by their age, sex, religion, or the color of their skin.
Now we’re being asked why any supposedly True Conservative shouldn’t automatically embrace segregation as the law of the land.
The burden isn’t on me to justify my position. It’s on others to demonstrate why segregation — or something even worse — is both principled AND moral.
Citing individuals who claim status as “the founders/fathers” of Conservatism proves nothing. What is needed is to cite their reasoning, which is based on the belief that the white race is inherently superior to all others:
** Russell Kirk: “The White community is ENTITLED [to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically], because, for the time being, IT IS THE ADVANCED RACE. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but IT IS A FACT that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists.”
** Richard M. Weaver: "Some of the means, for example the Ku Klux Klan, were irregular, but essentially it was the political genius of Jefferson, of Washington, of Madison, and of Pinckney expressing itself in times of trouble and oppression.”
So Kirk and Weaver are “correct” about segregation because white skin color is a clear-cut sign of racial superiority; (a determination made, coincidently, by white skinned people based on the criteria established by white skinned people.) Moreover, the only problem with the KKK is that some of their methods were “irregular” (not “wrong”). What, then, was the “regular” way to lynch a man simply because he had the wrong color skin?
These are intellectually and morally bankrupt positions. You can’t be thought of as conservative. You have to be a paleoconservative, or a neoconservative, or a Real Conservative, etc. You can’t be seen as a human being. You must be black, white, brown, Asian, “Persian”, etc. Why? Because each classification is assigned a value by them to elevate their own self-worth.
Continuing to cite Kirk and Weaver as evidence that Kirk and Weaver define all things “Conservative” is a classic tautology. It’s much like the circular reasoning that can arise from misapplying Aristotelian logic. All men are made in the image of God. We KNOW God is not a black/Asian/Hispanic, etc. Therefore everyone who isn’t “white” isn’t really a man. The only conservatism allowed is their brand of conservatism. Everyone else who thinks differently is a fraud.
Citing Aristotle as the intellectual soul of segregationist-conservatism proves even less. Aristotle supposedly provides the philosophical foundation for justifying slavery. But when you actually read his works, you see that support for “natural” slavery is not based on skin color, but on other human factors. It was a culturally-based application of logic to a “natural order” that believed in multiple gods, thought the earth was flat, that soil, wind, fire and water were the four basic elements, and arose in a time where people lived and died within miles of where they were born (apart from military expeditions), which also explains the focus of classical theorists on family ties and bloodlines. Supporting slavery wasn’t a principle as much as it was a judgment about certain aspects of the human condition based on various assumptions that, by the very nature of Aristotelian logic, would be overturned when mankind’s understanding of nature grew more sophisticated.
The process of logic and reasoning taught by these classical scholars is still the basis today for much of the way we scientifically evaluate information. But the conclusions arising from this process are only as good as the information upon which it is based. Modern day racists ignore the scientific method that today would factor in a wealth of more sophisticated variables, and rely only on 2000 year old “conclusions”. The modern day white supremacists pay homage to Aristotle’s conclusions, not the process he taught us to help decide an issue.
So we come now to the modern day disciples of white supremacy who want to tell us that they are the True Conservatives, because their ideas are “validated” by thousands of years of history. And they come to this website seeking to proclaim the “truth” and engage in “honest debate”.
Well, here are the guidelines to their website that “Sir Anthony” was kind enough to point us to, as I noted in my essay. Take note of the last sentence. "Commenting guidelines: We welcome comments that add information or perspective, and we encourage polite debate. Statements of fact and well-considered opinion are welcome, but we will not post comments that include obscenities or insults, whether of groups or individuals. We reserve the right to hold our critics to lower standards."
Their website commentary is filled with hate speech and personal attacks. Below are four quotes from the reader comments to different posts, and one quote from the website “White Supremacy”. Can you tell which one is from the overtly racist website?
1. "Just as the skunk cannot escape the stench of his own body and takes it with him wherever he goes, the Mexican cannot escape stench of his own culture and takes it with him wherever he goes"
2. Do you think that when most 'Americans' are actually Mexicans, Asians, or Africans, that the country will remain the same?
3. "Personally, I would love to walk into Axworthy’s office and surrender one of my ‘priliges’: My fist right into his face!"
4. "The Black Insurgent types will always whine and gripe. Without EVER having the mentality to come to grips with their own problem —"
5. "White race-traitor elites are selling out our futures, non-whites hate us, the only people white working folks can rely on are themselves and other like minded whites."
Quote #2 is from the overtly “White Supremacy” group.
These people come here seeking honest and open discussion, but they want neither. They want to use the cover of legitimacy this website has to promote their belief in racial superiority. When pushed by ridicule and sarcasm, they can’t help but speak about “noble blood” and inferior classes. Then when left alone to make their case, they tell you who they really are. “Oh yea, Phillip, have you read Aristotle? Book I of this Politics is a complete justification for slavery. Well, you better avoid it. It probably will offend your PC sensibilities.”
I treated these people seriously at first, not knowing who the anonymous code-named people really were until their comments began to reveal their true character. Once it was clear what they believed and who they really were, I decided to simply let them make my case for me, which they have.
If you remember the first of the two essays I wrote that talked about how to properly categorize another person by their proximity to the exit point of a human being’s waste disposal mechanism, you’ll also see why any conversation with them is pointless. I’m quite happy to be known as a traitor to my race, as a person from inferior stock, as a poorly educated man, or however else they wish to express themselves. It’s simply an outgrowth of their professed desire for “polite debate [based on] statements of fact and well-considered opinion.”
This is who these people are. And they want you to be just like them. Remember this when you see them try to sound reasonable and thoughtful in other posts. What they say, and what they actually believe, are not the same thing.
And look for the same speech pattern when new names suddenly appear as they change their email identity to mask who they are.
I wrote at length on a previous occasion about the existence of a universal moral code, and I used the example of a child to help demonstrate my arguments. I spoke at length about the innate immorality of those who see a “Jewish” child, or an “Infidel child”, and make a different judgment about its worth than one of “their own kind”. Would any of the people supporting Kirk and Weaver’s view of Conservatism see a “child”, or only a “white child”?
The answer to this question tells you everything you need to know about who they are. And it will help you decide if you want to be one of them too.
The basic position of neoconservatives today is one of a “color-blind society.” It is basically the position of 1950s liberals. I ask you this: If it did not work for 1950s liberals, what makes you think it will work today? It is naive utopianism.
Paleoconservatives by and large reject nationalism. (Buchanan is an exception.) It is a construct of the 18th Century. Prior to the rise of this abstract nationalism, people had more loyalty to their immediate land, family and clans. Nationalists undermined this immediate loyalty by changing allegiances to abstract principles.
A more accurate term felt by paleoconservatives would be ‘patriotism’. As the etymology suggests (cf. Latin, Pater), it involves the relationship to one’s father, to one’s distant relatives, to one’s clan, to one’s neighboring clans, to one’s region. The original meaning of ‘nationalism’ (cf. Latin, natio) indicated something like this too, but that meaning was lost in the camps of Napoleon.
The reason I brought up bloodlines (which eluded poor Phil) was to show that one’s obligation would be stronger to an immediate relative, and even to a distant relative over a complete stranger in another land. It is a natural inclination for a mother to save the life of her child over the life of an unknown child in a distant foreign land.
White nationalists believe in a national bond between whites. Although paleoconservatives do not deny that such a bond may be felt, they argue that one’s more natural allegiances are to one’s local clan / tribe / region, etc. People should be able to live in small communities, as they see fit, without the interference of Big Brother.
I agree with Red’s estimation above, but I also think that influences for paleoconservatives are Aristotle and Cicero.
In the essay, “What is Paleoconservatism?,” Chilton Williamson defines it as:
“Paleoconservatism is the expression of rootedness: a sense of place and of history, a sense of self derived from forebears, kin, and culture—an identity that is both collective and personal. This identity is missing from the psychological and emotional makeup of leftists of every stripe—including “neoconservatives”—and is now disavowed by mainline conservatives of the Republican variety, seemingly bent on eradicating as much of the primeval stain as they can from their consciousnesses while apologizing for the faint discoloration that remains.”
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/Chronicles/January2001/0101RoundTable.htm
The left defines Conservatism as the residing place of racism. It’s too bad that these people you’ve quoted
tend to prove them right, instead of showing racism as crossing all political boundries: it is as prevalent on
the left as it is on the right. One of the things we all need to get straight is what defines racism. If I diagree with a black person on some philosophical or political point, am I a racist? Or if I believe each race has certain physical and psychological traits (not the stereotypes), does that make me a racist? Many would belive so, and thus goes the war. I do not believe in segregation, I do not belive a white man is inherently better than a black or latino man, yet many would paint me with the racist brush because I am a conservative and I believe I have the right to disagree with a black person on the basis of his beliefs or stands, and I believe each race has racial characteristics that define them.
I am the son of a man who hated all black people and who called them “N!&&#$” every time he spoke of them. I grew up in a lilly white school district. I rejected out of hand hating persons just because of their race.
That said, I have noticed that black Americans share more characteristics than white Americans. Stereo-types do carry more weight. They tend to be better athletes, they tend to have lower morals, they tend to have less developed work ethic, they tend to be more emotional, they tend to be better jurors for the defendants in criminal cases, and for injured persons in personal injury cases. And, to confirm my true racism in some people’s eyes–shocker here–they commit more crimes on a percentage basis. Some call it racism if I avoid black neighborhoods after dark. I call it common sense. Do I struggle not to give in to the tendency to pre-judge black citizens? Every day. Am I pleasantly surprised every time a stereo-type is proved incorrect in the specific person? You bet! Am I just as bad as my father? I don’t think so. I don’t think we need to throw away our common sense just to avoid the tag bandied about by liberals that we are “racist.” If this disqualifies me from public office, no big deal.
Dave:
The people who paint you as a racist for disagreeing with a person of a different skin color are the racists on the Left who use skin color/ethnicity/sex, etc as a weapon, and the racists on the right who say that you must agree with their definition of conservatism or you “hate their own race”. Their characterization means nothing.
It’s been easy for those on the Right to see the racism of those on the Left who use high principled words (“equality”, “rights”, etc.), but really only advocate special favors, or promote personal agendas, or make other distinctions based on race. What’s been harder for us on the Right to see is the dishonest slight-of-hand that disguises racism of a different kind by employing equally high-minded principles (“kith and kin”, “tradition”), etc.
The Left calls the Right racist because the Right opposes special favors for all situations, for all times. The Extreme Right calls the “Left” (that is, anyone who doesn’t buy into kith/kin/tradition) a racist of a different kind — a self hating white.
This talk cheapens the definition of, and obscures the understanding of true racism, but it doesn’t make racism go away. We need to recognize racism for what it is, and decide whether our philosophy looks first to race (however masqueraded by other words) or to other principles to guide our actions.
If we do, the charges of the Left will ring hollow, and be revealed for exactly what they are. If we join the Left with our own brand of racism, we become no better than they are. Take back the language, and act in a moral, principled way, and our ideas will ultimately succeed. Men and women have differences, young and old have differences, and ethnic groups have differences between one another. Some are superficial, some are culturally based. It’s not racism to understand and even acknowledge these. But it is racist to assign genetic superiority or inferiority to those differences, and this is what the so-called basis of Conservatism purports to do.
Mr. Johnson:
You are no more a racist than I am. Much of what you described is common sense, not racism. Certain places are dangerous not because of the color of someon’s skin, but because how those people act. The same skin-colored person could be a middle class person with middle class values, and you wouldn’t run away in fear. It’s the situation, not the person that you judge, just as I do. The fact that more people of one group do X or Y than another is also a function of many factors (including just how an issue is “defined”), not skin color. It’s only when you assign across-the-board status based on race that you fall into the racist trap.
You have obvious honesty, and obvious integrity. And I’d vote for you in a heartbeat.
Phil,
It was unpleasantly surprising when your first article got hijacked with an off-topic “discussion” on racism. It was amusing when you quoted the perpetrators of the original hijacking and they proceeded to have the exact same rantings all over again. But this third time I think might be a little overkill. How many more articles are you going to write “outing” the couple of, how you say, “jerks” who’ve antagonized you? I think we’ve all got a pretty good idea who they are now – since they are generally the only people to take part in the discussions following your articles since the first one was hijacked – we know very very well what their position is, so I say let us ignore them. That’s not to say we should “dodge the issue”, but I think the “issue” as it were has been sufficiently dealt with: we have identified for ourselves and for the world a rare few folks on this website who have some very radical ideas about racial superiority/inferiority. They obviously have no intention of abandoning their views (as evidenced by the fact that the very first response to this article was by one of the “jerks” in question), and no one (aside from themselves) really seems to take them seriously at this point, so what more can we accomplish here?
Dr. Jackson,
It is amazing to me that you generated any controversy at all by suggesting that DNA doesn’t matter. I guess you touched a sensitive spot in your adversaries.
You know, you can’t reason with hatred. To me, that is the definition of an extremist: One Who Hates. Whether on the left or on the right, doesn’t matter. Hatred blinds a person to reason and logic, so your sensible, level-headed analyses will only be met with hysteria, rage, and vileness.
So what is a true conservative (“TC”)? On the fiscal side, that is pretty easy: In my opinion, it is someone who believes that government is prohibited by the Constitution from taking money from one citizen and giving it to another. A TC believes that success comes to people who work hard, live an honest life, and are left to themselves to make their own decisions without being coerced by government. Of course, there’s a lot more to it, but this is the basic concept.
Social conservatism is all about the moral choices one makes. It doesn’t have to be a Christian worldview, but often is. Social conservativism values innocent life and traditional moral choices. These morals have served mankind well for thousands of years. It acknowledges that we have all been “endowed with our Creator with certain unalienable rights,” which makes us products of God. This gives us intrinsic worth, apart from what government does or doesn’t do.
Therefore, we are viewed from the lens of heaven, not man. Each one of us is valuable, no matter our skin color, DNA, or nationality. “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body–whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free–and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13)
In my opinion, one cannot be a TC and hate. One cannot be a TC and not regard each person as a blessed creation of God. One cannot be a TC and not have compassion on those less fortunate, meet the needs of the poor, and love the unlovable.
In fact, one cannot be a TC and be an atheist, because that denies the underlying central principle of the Declaration. Hate is much easier when you’re an atheist, but there are many theists out there who are functional atheists because they deny their faith by hating. One cannot love the Creator and hate His creation.
Anyway Dr. Jackson, keep up the good fight. Also, try not to let them get to you. I sense some exasperation at times.
Patrick and everyone:
This is the last column on this subject. I felt that these people needed to be exposed for who and what they are, and to do that I needed to give them an opportunity to fully vent their ideas, and satisfy myself from the reaction of those who frequent this website that this did not represent the vast majority of your views. Many of the comments have come from people rallied to the cause by another website, as I suspected. But they profess to speak for you as well, and I wanted everyone to really understand how dangerous the extreme Right can be since like most of you, I tend to focus on the excesses of the Left.
In fact, I myself am just going to leave the commentary to what I’ve already said, and not jump back into this anymore. The points that I needed to illustrate and make have been made. I have no interest in debating what a good neo-, or paleo- or whatever-kind-of-conservative is or isn’t based on the world view of many of those who seem to think labels of all kinds are more important than character and individual actions.
To those of you who have written me off line, I had to take down my email address courtesy of some of the “Enlightened” individuals who are just looking for an honest debate. Some of the stuff off line was even more virulent than what you read on line. I’ll be putting a new one up in the coming weeks once I’ve adequately protected my computer system. Again, so much for honest, intellectual debate.
Regards, Phil Jackson
I read the articles and most of the comments and I was tempted to just roll my eyes and keep walking. I’m not in the same league with most who write comments here but I enjoy reading this site and I believe I leave having found at least one excellent thought most of the time.
I start my online reading by seeing if Thomas Sowell has anything new up. Don’t you people read him? Well I suppose there are some who think he’s an aberration to a genetic predisposition.
I just don’t get at all the idea of profound racial distinction.
Sure, there are tough statistics with unwed teenage mothers and disproportionate crime rates, but how can you reasonably conclude racial predisposition? I believe most of that was caused by trying to ‘end poverty as we know it,’ when we blundered in pragmatism and began programs that paid for and therefore got more fatherless children.
Kids need fathers and men benefit from the sacrificial effect of raising kids and we paid good money to short-circuit that. I’m sure disproportionate crime is not that simple but it makes a whole lot more sense than genetic predisposition.
I don’t care about Bill Cosby’s politics – I’m glad he’s out there and being so outspoken.
I wouldn’t want my car to break down in some areas. There are areas in northern Europe that are at least as dangerous even though they have good racial pedigrees. What happened there?
I also did my very best parenting before I had kids. Maybe the folks writing about the strange world views don’t know anyone but whites.
Anyway, I really just wanted to weigh in. Outspoken and abrasive people sometimes drive out the ones in the middle or the ones who don’t have the skill-set or the inclination to be so very tactical.
Dr. Jackson,
I am a bit disappointed that none of my statements got included in your laundry list. The “… Far, Far, Far Right.” Do you think that adding fars constitutes an intellectual argument? Why not six or seven fars? Wouldn’t that make your argument stronger?
That said, I congratulate you on your first post. There you at least tried to engage in an intellectual debate instead of just demonizing and caricaturing those who deviate from your lock-step Enlightenment liberal racial egalitarianism.
But the problem with your argument is that it is riddled with straw men. I am speaking for myself, and I believe for paleoconservatives in general. I have already gone into great detail about how paleos differ from white nationalists. The Amren site, while often serving an important function of skewering political correctness, is more indicative of white nationalism than it is of paleoconservatism. (Yes, characterizations and names do matter.)
Paleos in general place great emphasis on respect for our Christian heritage and many (I include myself) are religiously orthodox. (Some, not all, white nationalist are neopagans and openly antagonist to Christianity.) As an orthodox Christian, I place great importance on the intrinsic worth of the individual. That is why it is largely Christians who oppose abortion and stem-cell research, for example. You don’t see Christians and/or paleos opposing abortion and stem-cell research only for White embryos. I have never said, nor have most (any?) of your critics, suggested that Whites have more “intrinsic” worth or that intrinsic worth should be judged by race. Christian doctrine states and I agree that all men are fallen and equally tainted by Adam’s sin. All men are equally in need of a Savior. In that respect it is true that “all men are created equal.” There will be all races in Heaven and all races in Hell. But nothing in history, culture, science, Christianity suggests that the races do not or can not differ beyond the obvious. The notion of White “superiority” is also a straw man. It is a matter of difference, not a subjective assessment of general superiority. Blacks are obviously superior in their ability to survive the harsh environment of Sub-Saharan Africa for example.
What I am suggesting is that race/ethnicity has historically mattered a great deal and hence is not illegitimate or beyond the pale to consider. What you and some neocons are suggesting goes well beyond that. You are suggesting that race is not ever a legitimate factor and should never be considered. (Some head burying ostriches like Doghouse even pretend to use science to prove race doesn’t even exist.) But your pristine, untainted racial egalitarianism is less than 50 years old although it has its roots in the Enlightenment. Even the most ardent abolitionists weren’t racial egalitarians in the modern sense. That is why the home State of Lincoln, Illinois, banned the immigration of free blacks into their State following the War for Southern Independence. So you, as a self professed conservative, can just categorically declare the received wisdom of the ages as wrong and out of bounds and your new found realization that race never matters, is now the only allowable dogma.
You state, “The burden isn’t on me to justify my position. It’s on others…” Oh really. That is the height of hubris. For conservatives the default assumption should be for the traditional belief and the “burden of proof” is on the person supporting the new idea. That is not to say that new ideas are not sometimes correct. They may be. But it is up to you to prove why your new knowledge is superior to the traditional. To generally or uncritically accept the new over the old is not conservative. It is progressive.
I think that almost no one believes the liberal egalitarian dogma they spout. As Jared Taylor at Amren has written, in one of the moments when the white nationalist have been helpful, “tolerance” and racial egalitarianism is the “cheapest bought virtue” in history. (Rough paraphrase I think.) Everybody spouts it. It can be very dangerous to challenge it. But, as Ned Brainard on another thread inconveniently pointed out, no one lives their life that way. Not whites. Not blacks. Not Mexicans. The very real phenomenon of “white flight” demonstrates that whites will go to great lengths to avoid integration. But they all get to feel better about themselves and look down on the throwbacks since they mouth egalitarian and tolerant platitudes. This has essentially become about politeness. No one believes the egalitarian platitudes, but it is impolite to say otherwise.
The left uses race cynically. They suggest that race is a significant social factor because they want to use it as a club to beat the White “oppressors.” But at base they are egalitarians because their ultimate goal is to destroy the institutions of “oppression” so they can usher in their totally leveled Egalitarian Utopia. The modern right attempts to outdo the liberals in their liberalism. Their argument amounts to “we are the more pure egalitarians and seek a color-blind society,” even though one has never existed just like no classless society ever existed. “The liberals are actually less pure egalitarians than we are since they consider race.”
See here. http://etherzone.com/2006/phill051906.shtml
Fine. If that is how you want to argue, so be it. It certainly keeps you out of trouble with the thought police. But it is a radical, Utopian vision. Hence it is leftist and progressive. It is not conservative. Please at least respect the English language and allow words to continue to mean something.
For the record, is anything I wrote above or before “racist” by your definition? I would like to know.
The DNA argument is idiotic. People, genetically, are people. No more nor less. If you want to make it a nurture/nature debate, fine. Do lazy, self-obsessed couples have kids that turn out that way? Sometimes. Do intelligent, insightful couples give birth to prodigy? Maybe? Maybe it’s culture, struggle, or the lack or enormity of love in one’s life that determines success. What’s success? Financial? Fame? Courage? Sensitivity? Charity? Self-denial? Sublime Interests? Who knows, but it’s not a Calvinistic done deal. It’s a work in progress. A Conservative believes in God’s abundant blessings for every family and nation, so all are able, with work and prayer, to provide for one’s citizens progeny. All Peoples at All Times for Every Nation. Amen.
as i said previously… the majority of scholars now believe that the Greeks and Romans invented the categories of ‘race’, whether it was proto-race, race-ethnicity, or just race, people argue, but they know that the Greeks and Romans invented the concept of race.
what happens in the 17th Century is that the theories just become more scientific and complex. But they did not invent them in the 17th century. They actually got the idea of ‘race’ from reading Greek and Roman commentators, Aristotle, and others.
http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/chapters/i7737.html
A few valid points that seem to have skipped everyone:
1. Real conservatives don’t have to “face” this brand of racist to validate their own principals, anymore than real Christians don’t have to “face” the evils of the Spanish Inquisition. If someone wants to take my legitimate position and warp it, that’s their folly, not mine. And anyone who wants to use some whack jobs position to try and measure it against mine has no interest in hearing me out anyways. This is ridiculous.
2. These are not “conservative” prinicpals. The left has always been the party of racism. These people hold leftist principals. This is the case of walking like a duck, sounding like a duck, acting like a duck…yet calling yourself a goose.
3. Segregation is a part of our modern culture…though it is self-imposed. People need to face the reality that we are not a color blind culture. Stop talking about it…it’s not real. We have a black culture, a white culture, a mexican culture…etc. Not only is there nothing wrong with segregation (as long as its voluntary), but it’s time that we look out for eveyone’s interests, including whites. If a white person feels they are being unfairly discriminated against, and they act in their own best interests, they are not racists, they are self-preservasionists. Anyone who doesn’t take care of themselves is a fool.
4. The thing that has always distinquished us from the left is our ability to face down our idiots, rather than embrace them. So by not acknowledging…or at the least not celebrating them, we are already different from those on the lieral side of the aisle.
Just a couple of thoughts.
Nice article.
I am glad that some one has finally stood up to the crap that has recently been spread across this site. Unfortunately, as the extreme right racist seem to mimic the response of the far left racists, or is it vice versa. They have so many similarities at times it is scary. The sooner people accept the fact that other people should be judged on their actions and skills, and not their skin colour (yes, I'm English, hence the correct spelling :) ), the better. People the world over share many of the same values regardless of skin colour. It is a shame that there are groups who choose to exploit visible differences for their own gain.
As an FYI, I am "white" married to an "asian". I have seen first hand the crap dished out by extreme lefties and righties who only see the colour of a person, not who that person is.
POST:
Phil,
It is very easy to create little strawmen and then knock them down.
I set out to show that opposing segregation is not a necessary condition for being a conservative by showing that many of the first conservatives supported segregation. I proved this. I won my point. This is really all I wanted to argue.
I never said that race is “ALL that matters.” Of course it isn’t. Many other things matter (family, religion, locality, history, culture, etc.). Only an idiot would think that race is the only thing that matters. However, among the many things that do matter, race does indeed matter. Just look around. Turn on the TV.
As I said before, neoconservatives believing we should create a “color-blind society” is essentially the position of 1950s liberals. Guess what: it didn’t work. Go to any cafeteria of any integrated NYC public school and you will see all the whites sitting together, all the blacks sitting together, all the Mexicans sitting together, etc. We’ve had 50 years to create this “color-blind society,” but yet things are the same. If a “color-blind society” did not work for 1950s liberals, what makes you think it will work today?
I said that race is important and whites should promote their own interests, well, because they should. As shown by a few recent studies, open any scholarship book for your average college and you will find that minority scholarships outnumber scholarships for which whites are available by about 8 to 1. Geez, as a white man, I think that whites should get more. This is only natural. Am I a racist for thinking this? If I am, so be it.
Regarding American Renaissance, as with any forum, there are smart people and there are dumb people. Of course there are idiots there. I certainly do not agree with those who think that a “great race war is coming.” And whether whites are “superior,” I don’t know. But I do know that all other races do look out for their own.
But as I said before, I am not a white nationalist. I am a paleoconservative. I think there are natural hierarchies, and there is a natural traditional order. I support localism, blood and soil, kin and kith, a stronger loyalty to people of fellow tribes, and the traditional European way.
Mountain Man,
In the spirit form, we are one body. However, in the here and now were are not – unless of course you think we are not flawed and thus are perfectible on Earth.
What separates pre-Enlightenment Christianity for the modern liberal variants is a view of man. I think that many do not realize how much the liberal Enlightenment has shaped how we view Christianity today, especially with much “rights talk.” It has been liberalized through and through. Cognosco non haec mutata.
Paul also says: “If anyone does not take care of his own, and especially of his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8) . This is a classical kith and kin view of the world. We have special obligations for those more closely related to us.
This is the view too of the early Christians. St. Augustine argued: “Since you cannot give aid to everyone, one has to be concerned with those who by reason of blood, time or circumstances are by some chance more tightly bound to you” (De Doctrina). In short, one has stronger obligations for those who have a closer proximity.
The whole notion of “universal obligations” would have been alien to early Christians.
The simple fact remains that God created distinct races / ethnicities. If he wanted us all to be the same color, he would have made us all beige. You may mock God’s creations. But I do not dare.
Dr. Jackson seems to hold this position
Kirk and Weaver held segregationist positions
No true conservative holds segregationist positions
Therefore, Kirk and Weaver are not true conservatives
This is, of course, nonsense.
It is simply wilful ignorance to believe that kith and kin have not been a large part of conservative thought. If Dr Jackson wishes to call himself a classical liberal, fine, but I reject his redefining conservatism to fit the supposed philosophy of Locke (who, I venture to say, would have found the racial egalitarianism of today ridiculous).
What is interesting is that there is simply no attempt to answer facts. For example, while I would have phrased it more mildly, the fact is that when Mexicans do immigrate in large numbers, they do bring an alien culture with them. Ditto when a neighborhood turns black — the culture is alien to me. While there are no doubt fine people of every race, we live in societies — man is the polis animal after all. I for one believe that I am better off living in a polis where most of the people are closely genetically related to me.
The topic is conservatism.
One side argues about terminology.
The other side speaks about morality.
That about says it all.
This is all very ugly, thought not surprisingly so, and only goes to prove that the paleocons need to be exposed for what they are, and as Ann Coulter said of Trent Lott and the Dixiecrats, we need to be more selective about who we let in the party.
Politics today, both middle, left and right, appears to have converged into a hopeless vaccum of
self-piety and even self-denial regarding the recognition of human group differences.
The sooner we acknowledge that these differences are, in fact, real and natural, the sooner the
present day glut of pseudo-intellectual self-proclaimed experts (egotists) shall be marginalised and
silenced once and for all.
It is they who wish to skate over the very essence of the nature of man in futile attempts to
solve the unsolvable, ie, that of group differences within the human species and who then proceed
to indulge in verbal counter accusations against those who disagree with their sterile thesis and
theories.
They persistently rail against the scientific evidence so painstakingly produced by others engaged in
the business of actual fact-finding research, complete with evidence to back it up. Rather, the self-
proclaimed pseudo prefers to dismiss such evidence as being somehow biased against particular
ethnicities’ interests, etc, etc. Of course, there will always be isolated examples of group individuals
who rise above the norm characteristic of their kindred group brethren as a whole, but that does
not nullify the evidence gleaned, good and bad, relating to a group’s predominant traits.
My conclusions, having read up extensively on statistical and scientific data emanating from all
quarters and shades of opinions, are that man is comprised of separate racial/tribal groups with
resultant cultures, traditions and belief systems sufficiently enough as to rule out the fantasy of
mutually beneficial and peaceful coexistence inside the same living space.
Actually, the burden of proof is on the desegregationists!
People naturally segregate. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t need the force of law, backed up with rifles and bayonettes! They never had to send in the 101st Airborne to break people apart.
Most of the people you quoted are throwbacks to another time
(most probalbly live in the deep South; isolated from modern society),
but they did make one interesting point: racial organization.
If our society allows other races to organize to defend their interests,
I see no reason why caucations can’t.
I myself am not a racist, but there are powerful racist societies being
formed by radicalized minority groups (note: this doesn’t apply to
minorities in general) that would seek to strip the “white man” of his
rights. In the interest of keeping these groups in check, we do need
to form a white version of the NAACP or American Negro Collage Fund.
I know: such organizations can become just as corrupt as the current
radical minority-dominated ones, but what choice do we have?
Until our society evolves to the point where the very concept of race
is ridiculous, this is how it must be…
“In the interest of keeping these groups in check, we do need to form a white version of the NAACP or American Negro Collage Fund.”
These already exist. They’re called the American Nazi Party and the Aryan Brotherhood.
Technically, the dinosaur-conservatives are correct. There is a brand of conservatism that is older than that which is unique to America and based on its founding principles. It’s called ‘tribalism’ and is as old as those flee-bitten, proto-societies that clawed their way out of caves. That would tend to give them a better pedigree.
Christopher,
Watch it with that ‘throwback from the Deep South’ crud. I’ll have you know my ancestry includes throwbacks from Georgia AND Massachusetts! :D
But really, we southerners are no more misanthropic than you yankees. The South has no more bigots than the North, West, or Alaska; and the north has no particular monopoly on virtue nor intellect. We got us some nifty gadgets, TV, talk-radio, and an internet that are every bit as hip as you yankees pretend. We have some good schools too, where we can go and act just as snooty as any yankee. We have one other thing which you Northerners lack … an appreciation of fine country music; much nicer than that rap and head-banger noise some folks listen to.