Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum -- Again

It is imperative we begin emulating the left in its tactics.

A couple of years ago, I suggested a completely different strategy: I wanted to pursue a kinder path. I wanted an end to the speech wars and social media mobs and boycotts and all the rest of it.

But that path has been tried, and it has failed. Passive resistance -- moral resistance -- can only work when dealing with opponents with morality and honor, or who, at least, see you as more than subhuman.

Gandhi's tactics would not have worked had India been colonized by, say, China.

Many on the right, or even liberals who lean to the left but who still hold to classic liberal traditions, have called, endlessly, for an end to the Speech Wars.

That failed.

We've been trying this for years. Two or three years in my own case.

Has this sweet music of reason had any positive effect of soothing the passions of the beast?

Well, watch this video of the Empowered Mob demanding more firings at Evergreen college last week, and tell me the path of merely condemning mob lunacy is having any effect at all.

The Empowered, Privileged Mob demanded -- demanded! -- that white people absent themselves from their space, and this is what happened to those who said, "No, that's racist, and teaching class is my job."

Embarrassed by their own repulsive behavior, the Privileged Mob is now demanding -- demanding! again, like emotionally unstable toddlers -- that this video be taken down and that consequences be visited on whoever "stole" it.

This is not working.

People calling for an end to the Speech Wars have a good end in mind -- most people would just love it if not every single minor consumer transaction were not politicized, if not every single public faux pas were not a call to the Social Justice Wolves to come and feed -- but the current strategy, championed by most who want to get to this end-point, is not working.

The dispute I have with them now is not over their preferred end-state -- I deeply desire the end-state they seek, where people actually have freedom to think and speak as they want, and not every fucking mundane movie-ticket purchase is either a Cause or a Crisis -- but the current policy of "unilateral disarmament, and hope that the Monster Babies will learn from our example" is a total, dismal, catastrophic failure.

In order to learn at all, it is required that someone first believe that he has anything to learn at all, and we know that progressives do not see conservatives as people from whom anything can be learned -- they see us as subhumans to be re-educated and reconstructed into civilized savages who at least won't embarrass them as we tend their gardens.

Leftist students cannot be taught anything -- they now routinely scream at professors (you know, the people they're allegedly paying to learn from) that they must SHUT UP AND LISTEN. They come to the university already knowing all there is to know, and in fact are only present to teach their professors; one wonders, then, why it isn't the students being paid, and the professors paying tuition to learn their collective, shouty, expletive-filled wisdom.

(By the way, don't be fooled: None of these people will pay the massive debts they're acquiring while passing time at university; you will.)

The most we are "winning" is not losing as much: We chalk it up as a "win" that USAA has been counter-pressured to resume buying ads on Hannity, overlooking the fact that nine other companies were protested by the left into boycotting him, and remain in full boycott.

We overlook the fact that corporations routinely -- some might say "eagerly" -- join Social Justice War-Bands to curry favor with them and to improve their "brand image" in the eyes of the progressives, which make up about 20% of the country, but seem to be the only demographic that matters.

Rather like the Brahmin class of India. But more on that later.

We don't seem to notice that we are always defending, and even the best possible outcome for our attempts at defense only means that we have avoided harm -- for a month.

Then they start up again, demanding this corporation boycott this public commentator, demanding that this writer have his advanced canceled, demanding that this Random Citizen of No Particular Public Interest be fired for the crime of giving spoiled, stupid Monster Babies something to #Occupy their shriveled brains for a morning.

But they never stop. And why would they?

Just as the best possible outcome for us is that we avoid the harm they intended for us for one short month, the worst possible outcome for them is they will not get This Twitter Cycle's Designated Scalp -- for now.

But there'll be another scalp ripe for the tearing in a few days.

In short, the worst penalty they suffer is not being able to make anyone else suffer-- for a short period.

They are never made to suffer themselves.

Thus, they have absolutely no incentive whatsoever to ever stop.

If you're a sadist, and an insecure individual with little credit to his name, you can build yourself up into a Social Justice War-Fighter by constantly attacking others and making them miserable and afraid.

The worst outcome is that you don't get your scalp -- this time.

But you have in fact caused your enemies to fear you, and to always worry what might upset you next.

Which is a major psyops victory in itself -- the best, and easiest, form of censorship is self-censorship, and if you've put your enemies into terror of being the next to face the mob, they will self-censor, and they will become, against their will at first, but then according to their habit as time goes on, your personal censorship enforcers, patrolling their own minds for thoughts the mob has deemed impermissible.

The second-best outcome in war is to take an enemy out. But the very best outcome is to Shanghai an enemy to be one of your own marines.

The worst outcome for them is basically... the best outcome for them.

Do they ever actually suffer for their own choices? Do they ever experience a setback larger than just not getting their way, this week?

No.

And it's time for that to change.

If a sadistic, insecure, submediocre individual enjoys tormenting those he deems enemies, like a child who enjoys pulling the wings off flies, he will not stop -- ever -- unless he is made to feel the same pain himself.

If he subscribes to a racist cult that says all outside the cult are Fair Game for abuse, and abusing them is actually a sacrament -- how can he be made to stop?

If you're in a fight with someone, and you never do anything but parry blows and dodge, you can at least hope for him to tire himself out.

But he'll have regained his endurance by the next morning. And, as he actually enjoys just throwing blows at you, and you've done nothing to convince him this is a counterproductive idea -- he will be back.

If you never actually hit him right the fuck back -- when is he ever going to learn that fighting is not a good idea?

Many of us -- and I blame myself here -- have been pushing an idea of unilateral disarmament in this arena, hoping they would just learn how awful and venomous they are.

But they don't. I think they take a rather different lesson from our passive resistance than the one they intended.

We intended that by passively resisting, they would see us as showing moral courage and would learn from us that ceaseless violence and bullying and collectivized political campaigns run against everyday citizens pursuing no public office are wrong.

But they didn't learn that.

What our self-restraint has taught them is quite the opposite--when we refuse to fight back, they take that as signalling that deep down, we know they're right and that we are the monsters, and thus, our refusal to engage them in the fight they've started does not prove our moral rightness, but instead our moral corruption.

We think: We are showing them a better way by acting in a manner that is morally superior.

They infer: They are submitting to us as if they are our inferiors, therefore they must know that they are in fact our inferiors.

We cannot keep deluding ourselves into pursuing a course of action which, while appearing morally righteous and principled on paper, is in fact bringing more suffering upon ourselves and only encouraging the behavior we thought our peaceable approach was actually discouraging.

This path is not stopping the Social Justice Warrior Cult of Racist Hatred -- it's fueling it.

We shall have One Law in this country, or none at all.

If these tactics are permissible -- and effective, as they certainly appear to be -- then they are permissible for all, not just a special privileged group of Empowered Snowflake Warriors.

If it's permissible to pressure corporations into firing people and cancelling appearances for leftist groups, then surely it is permissible for the right to do likewise.

Only when they start seeing themselves blacklisted for employment will these morally senseless people learn that blacklisting is bad. They do not have moral sense, but I trust most of them are not so stupid that they don't possess a basic practical regard for their own self-interest.

If you want the Culture of Ceaseless Social War to stop -- which i dearly do -- then I propose it is necessary to engage in it ourselves, until they sue for (at long last!) peace.

We must insist on equality before the law -- and before the media, as well.

The progressives are in the final stages of a decades-long campaign to make us a Lower Caste, with fewer rights and privileges than the Ruling Caste (and the sad courtiers to the Ruling Caste, who hilariously believe themselves to be members of that caste).

When we demand that the "rules," such as they may be, must be enforced equally as to all, this is no minor cavil: If a social order exists in which some groups labor under additional legal and social burdens than others, then that social order is, by definition, a caste system.

If we accept this caste system, and we accept that we belong to a lower caste by submitting ourselves to the special burdens reserved for those of our station, we confirm our place in the lower caste and we also confirm the special privileges of the higher caste.

It is social codes like these that make a caste. In England, back when it was more class-stratified (and who knows, maybe today), a "gentleman" could refer to a commoner just by his last name, or his first name. Tom. Upton. Whatever.

But the commoner was expected to only refer to the gentleman as "sir" (or "ma'am,") or, if named, with the title of dignity "Mister" (or "Miss").

Anyone who followed that convention was confirming his own place in the hierarchy.

Another man can only tell you you belong to an inferior caste.

But when you begin acting like you're part of an inferior caste -- following his rules and his preferences, substituting them for your own -- then you actually are now part of that inferior caste.

The man posing as a lord only asserts you are a serf. When you begin bowing to him, you confirm his claim.

The same rules must apply to all, the same laws. The same dignities.

For everyone.

Or else you have a hardening caste system.

What do I want? I want a world in which angry mobs do not form up and begin screaming at people or pressuring companies to fire people just to fill their empty, pathetic lives with something shabby and mean they can pretend is grand and noble.

But we're not in that world. We're not in that world of Social Peace.

And refusing to acknowledge that we are in a state of Social War does not bring Social Peace any closer; it just encourages the Monster Babies to wage even further war, making more demands, demanding more submissions, concessions, and ritualized confessions.

If you want peace, prepare for war.

You may not be interested in Social War, but the Social Warriors are deeply, deeply interested you, and bringing you to heel, and making you confess that you are indeed a creature with fewer rights and privileges than they possess.

No one's ever going to put them in a position of authority over others -- which is why they desperately need you to accept they have authority over you.

I didn't particularly want Kathy Griffin fired -- but it was necessary.

I actually envy her lack of inhibition and total feeling of freedom. She felt she could do whatever she wanted, so long as it broke no laws.

I'd like to feel that way. But I can't.

I can't feel that way, because I know the progressive mob is always scalp-hunting, and that I am not free to say or think as I might like.

They rule part of my brain -- my very fear of them limits my thoughts, creates inhibitions and limitations in me which I did not choose for myself, but were forced upon me from without.

I have become, partly, a recruit in the Social Justice Warrior army. Their dicta, their demands, their fury is always alive inside of me.

I know to fear them. And so I must self-censor.

My fear of their power makes part of my own brain their appointed warden for the rest of my head.

So a big part of my anger is in seeing Kathy Griffin act as a totally free spirit and free agent, able to do what she likes just because she thinks it's funny, or "edgy," or whatever.

It makes me angry to see her living a life where she can just do something without fearing the consequences -- but I can't.

And neither can you.

My hatred of Kathy Griffin isn't a hatred of her -- it's a hatred of the vicious caste-based system which says she has more rights than Sean Hannity, and more rights than you, and more rights than me.

If keeping some of my diminished amount of freedom means that I have to thuggishly begin taking it from others -- so be it.

I didn't make the rules.

I'm just trying to survive them.

I don't want her to have less freedom -- but the only way to make sure I keep the limited, constantly-eroded freedom I currently have is to insist that I am not a serf, and I will not be held to different laws than the Lords.

As I cannot accept that -- and as I will not accept that -- I must insist she pay the same cost I would be expected to pay if I were to do what she did.

Otherwise, I'm saying Sir/Ma'am to the Ruling Caste, and confirming that I accept my lower position.

Hillary Clinton called half of the country "The Deplorables."

It's really not so different from the lowest caste in India -- the "Untouchables," is it?

They're not even attempting to turn us into serfs covertly any longer -- it's now just pretty much out in the open.

No more.

No more.

posted by Ace at 06:27 PM

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