Finding our way back

Recently I discovered the blog called A True Progressive. Blogger Jemison Thorsby's choice of a blog name is from this quote by C.S. Lewis, (which I've used in the past here on this blog)"

We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive."

That is exactly the kind of progressive approach we need now, more than ever before.
In this blog entry, Thorsby diagnoses what is wrong with our system, in the context of the present political situation.

One of our biggest challenges is we recognize symptoms of a problem but not the systemic issues that cause them. We have a sense we are overtaxed/over-regulated yet ill-served by government, but we don’t ask how we got here. Frustrated, people tend to fall into two camps. One shrugs, says we live in the best of all possible worlds, and accepts the flaws and flubs as the price of doing business. The other rages against the machine, wanting to tear down the system and start fresh (ah, the tonic of youth known as revolution!).

There is another way, however. We are so indoctrinated with the idea of “progress” we have a bias against the past. If yesterday’s gadgets and gizmos were inferior, and people harbored silly ideas like segregation, the past has nothing to teach us, right? This arrogance-of-the-now cuts us off from generations of lessons learned through hard knocks, as we throw out babies with the bathwater.''
[Emphasis mine]

These two paragraphs cut right to the heart of it, especially the second one, above. Thorsby is making a point that I have often tried to make here: the 'arrogance-of-the-now', the idea which seems to pervade our society, the idea that the past is worse than irrelevant. The past is one long dark age, only redeemed by the liberal revolution of the 1960s. The implication is always that our forefathers were benighted, backward, moral deficients. We are the first people, we post-moderns, to have seen the light. "Nothing like us ever was."

In a series delineating the history of conservatism, Fred Hutchison wrote an article called 'What went wrong? The bad seeds sowed from Bacon to Kant'. In it, Hutchison describes this mindset, tracing it back some centuries.
He is mostly discussing science in this piece, but the attitude he describes permeates Western culture generally.

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) laid the indispensable empirical foundations of Western science, enabling science to become the glory of European culture. He also introduced a handful of logical fallacies in which many Western scientists still believe.

Bacon was the father of Western skepticism. He greatly damaged Western culture by providing philosophical grounds for brushing aside the cultural and intellectual heritage of the West.
[...]
Bacon proposed that we should cancel all the knowledge of the past and start from scratch, using a method for acquiring knowledge that he would teach us. We should expunge from our minds of all preconceptions, prejudices, assumptions, theories, and old knowledge. He claimed that all knowledge brought forward from the past is tainted and should be expurgated.

This alone should have made Francis Bacon public enemy number one to all conservatives from that day forward. However, Bacon's contribution to the empirical foundation of modern science was so great that he has generally escaped the censure of future generations. Yet, even Bacon's most important contributions were laced with fallacies. The man who would cure all our old fallacies was a great sower of new fallacies and new myths.

Western culture after 1800 A.D. declined in direct proportion to the extent to which Western man cut himself off from his cultural past. Those who were most persuaded by Bacon and his philosophical heirs went the furthest in cutting themselves off from the Western cultural heritage. Great thinkers such as Descartes, Locke, Rousseau, Diderot, and Hume were among Bacon's heirs and gave weight and momentum to his program of cutting us off from the past and building a new world on the ashes.''
[Emphasis mine]

In another article in the series, Hutchison elaborates on how the traditionalism that led to the Renaissance is at odds with progressivism, historicism, and multiculturalism:

a) Progressivism looks upon the cultural past with contempt, lionizes the mediocrities of our present day, and idealizes an unknown future.

b) Historicism values only the present culture and finds cultural history and traditional morality irrelevant to the needs and values of the present moment.

c) Multiculturalism demeans the works of "dead white European males," and exalts contemporary works that are chosen for praise with no regard for innate merit, but valued solely on whether the works are authentic expressions of favored cultures.''

And in this piece, relating the history of the 'five kinds of conservatism', Hutchison names those five kinds as:
1) Traditionalism, 2) Christian Conservatism, 3) Natural Law Conservatism, 4) Neoconservatism, and 5) Libertarianism.

And he says:

Looking back is the way forward

The seminal ideal of Western Traditionalism in the ancient world was the belief in a golden age of the mythical past. Societies that had glorious visions of their cultural past tried to recover and preserve as much of it as possible. They wanted to conserve precious old cultural treasures and hence were called conservatives. Tradition was valued as a means of embracing the wisdom and blessings of the past and preserving the culture from decay.

Liberals have long argued that looking back to the past blocks "progress." This essay's walk through history indicates that where culture is concerned, almost the opposite is true. Every cultural renaissance we shall encounter in Part 1, was inspired by "backward-looking" conservative ideals. My counterintuitive hypothesis is that for the cultural improvement of a society, looking back is often the way forward.''

I think this is a crucial point. We are so accustomed to hearing that 'we can never go backward', 'you can't turn the clock back' and 'people who look to the past are reactionaries' -- that last being considered a slur rather than a neutral descriptive word.

But what is the good of conserving when there is little left, after the liberal demolitionists have had their way, that is worth conserving? We have to be able to acknowledge that we are on the wrong road, and that it is necessary to correct our course, and seemingly 'go backward' if we want to truly go forward. It's either backward or downward.

Conservatives these days are rather like the comic figure of the man who is hopelessly lost on an unfamiliar road, but who is too proud or arrogant to stop and ask for directions, or better yet, to consult a map and follow the known way home. There are some men who are more afraid of looking inept or admitting to being lost than they are of finding themselves out of gas on a remote road, far from their destination.

And we do have the maps provided by our forebears; they left us a wonderful set of maps to guide us through life; a whole set of traditions, a record of experiences, a body of knowledge and wisdom, that is Western culture. We in America are doubly blessed in that we have our own set of maps in our Founding documents. And we are too proud or too obtuse to rely on those maps, preferring to blunder down dangerous side-roads toward our doom on our own foolish initiative.

This arrogance and self-willed stubbornness is a profoundly un-conservative attitude; it doesn't get much more un-conservative than this. As long as we continue to disregard and look down our noses at our forefathers, at all those who went before us, we will never be able to get ourselves back on the right track; we will continue to wander off into uncharted territory without a compass. To be really 'conservative', to conserve the republic our Founding Fathers created for their posterity (that's us), we have to find our way back to the trail they blazed for us. Trying to be 'conservative' while disregarding the past and treating this present order of thing as not only inevitable but worth preserving, will only lead us further astray. We've got to find our way back before night falls.

To return to Jemison Thorsby's post,

The quote from which this blog draws its name refers to “progressive” as sometimes being the person who backtracks to the point he began down the wrong road. To me, America started down that road almost immediately after its birth.''

Thorsby describes how the original desire of the Founders to minimize and distribute power in a balanced way has been thwarted by those who destroyed the barriers between the branches of government. Now there is little to impede the will of those who have got control of this hypertrophied state power, and the people have been shut out of the process. Many of us wonder why 'our government' seems to have gone rogue and to be operating not only independently of our will, but in direct violation of our will.

We need to be the kind of 'progressives' who are willing to recognize that we are lost and heading in the wrong direction, who are then willing to turn back and find the good paths, as in Jeremiah's words:

Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where [is] the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.''

Conservatism should be synonymous with 'asking for the old paths, the good way', but unfortunately for us and for our Republic, it no longer is. The very name 'conservatism' has been so corrupted as to be devoid of meaning these days; maybe we who really are seeking the old paths, the known, tried-and-true ways, should name ourselves something more meaningful.

Forum comments here.

TV and our decline

In response to a recent blog entry of mine, on pop culture and politics, the subject of television and the role it has played in the dumbing down of our culture, including our politics, was brought up.

I had been thinking of the huge role that the advent of television had in the social revolution that we mostly associate with the Sixties, and with my generation, the baby-boomers. While I acknowledge the foolishness of my generation and the responsibility we bore for some of the social destruction which was in full swing in the 60s and thereafter, I have argued that the changes we all recognize were in fact already well under way when my peers and I were children in the 50s, and even before.

Television, which began regular national broadcasting in the late 1940s, was a huge factor.

Television became an incredibly influential medium, which truly revolutionized the world.

This piece by Hereward Lindsay, called On the Decline of Our People, deals with the changes wrought by television, and the deleterious effects on our culture.

A friend recently sent me an email that concluded:

The cathode ray tube was the most powerful invention of the 20th century. I defy anybody to prove that wrong.

He didn't get any defiance from me. The malevolent impact of television is a subject I have thought about a lot. I have come to the reluctant conclusion that my hyper-Calvinist ancestors were right in their suspicion of drama and actors. (Socrates, by the way, had somewhat similar ideas. Read Plato's dialogue the Ion and you will be astonished at how timely it is with its warnings about actors trying to influence government policy and their inherent bad character as people who are professionals at creating illusions and fantasies, i.e. trained deceivers and people whose minds are not grounded in the concrete and real.)

All of us American dissidents (or "thought criminals", as might be more appropriate) have lain awake at night throughout our adult lives trying to figure out how our race and civilization have collapsed. There is no subject more important and more entitled to consideration.''
[Emphasis mine]

Lindsay goes on to tie together certain trends in our society, factors such as decline in the number of self-employed individuals, and the concomitant decline in the thinking skills and independence of mind of Americans. I am not clear, actually, how he correlates the advent of television with, say, the dwindling number of small independent farmers, but I agree with his argument that television has wielded enormous power in spreading a uniform set of ideas, which have become a stultifying orthodoxy. Received opinion dominates the national discussion, such as it is, thanks to the ubiquity of television, and the monolithic party line which is handed down mostly by that medium.

Newspapers are less and less influential; subscribers are fewer with each passing year, and many newspapers have disappeared because of dwindling readership. But cable news (and to some extent, the internet) are taking over the role once played by newspapers.

Lindsay writes about how the domination by the means of images rather than the printed word has made for more passive, less engaged, less imaginative citizens. It used to be said that radio, in its heyday, was the 'theatre of the mind', requiring considerable powers of active imagination and concentration on the part of its listeners. The visual media like TV, movies and videos, relying on pictures rather than words on a page, tend to 'dumb down' the populace, and literacy declines, along with the attention span.

Lindsay also mentions how political debates have become more simple-minded and devoid of serious content. This is obvious, however it may be less apparent to those who don't remember any other state of affairs. In the past, after some of the early ''debates'' in our present campaign, I drew my readers' attention to a website which contains transcripts of past presidential debates and of course there are now video clips of such debates.

The debates, even as recently as the 1960s, were true debates, and not merely 'panel discussions' and staged, scripted events which our recent debates are. However, the first series of televised presidential debates, in 1960, was the beginning of the trend of focusing on appearance, as Richard Nixon appeared nervous and sweaty on camera, while Kennedy appeared composed and confident.

I've blogged before, too, about our present society's obsession with 'image' and style, and the apparent preference for the telegenic and media-savvy candidate, no matter how inconsequential his ideas or his message. There are limitations to this analysis; if looks were all, John Edwards would be the Democrat candidate (even though some Republicans like to ridicule his looks or hairstyle, he is a telegenic, attractive man). And surely McCain would not be a frontrunner ,as he appears to be, if looks were all. But the truth is, being telegenic and glib, and facile with sound bites and one-liners counts for more these days than it did back in the days of Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson, or Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey.

One of the criticisms most frequently made of Tom Tancredo, who has now dropped out of the Presidential race, was that he was a 'poor speaker', too hesitant, not confident enough. On the other hand, we hear that Barack Hussein Obama's voice is supposedly a great asset. Personally, I think his voice is reminiscent of actor Ted Cassidy's.

Again, critics (most of whom, I would say, are already against Ron Paul) criticize and ridicule his 'nerdy' demeanor and his less-than-commanding voice. I say this is a shallow criticism. It is said that Thomas Jefferson had a very weak speaking style, despite his great facility with language in the written form.

Of his first Inaugural Address, it was said that

The speech was delivered in so low a tone that few heard it. Mr. Jefferson had given your Brother [Samuel Harrison Smith, editor of the National Intelligencer] a copy early in the morning, so that on coming out of the house, the paper was distributed immediately.

The second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1805, like the first one, "was only partly audible."

Jefferson was by all accounts a shy and retiring man, hardly one of those back-slapping, smarmy politicians who are considered the ideal today. If today's superficial standards had applied in his day, we would have been deprived of his great genius in shaping our country.

The emphasis on looks, style, and image over substance and character are in some part a legacy of television.

Mitt Romney is considered by most to be the most 'attractive' Republican candidate (which is not saying much, considering the pickings). However I find him rather artificial and false, and I usually have a very good nose for insincerity. I was warning people about Bill Clinton from the git-go, and few were willing to be wary then; he seemed so friendly and warm, and people are so easily gulled these days.

But this is the result of looking only at the surface of people and things.

The way the primary season is shaping up, it looks as though Americans are gearing up to elect themselves another silver-tongued deceiver of whichever party, and to give a cold shoulder to principle and character.

The political campaign is just one manifestation of how television has deeply affected our society. The overall picture is that television has ensured that a single set of very liberal beliefs dominates our society, and this set of beliefs was in reality revolutionary, overturning the mores and habits of old America. The pernicious system we call 'political correctness,' which paralyzes us when it comes to protecting our territory and our people and culture, would not be possible without the role played by television in establishing 'respectable' opinion. One need not watch the cable ''news'' channels to be indoctrinated by the pundits and political hacks; one can get the party line via the favorite sitcoms, crime shows, reality shows, MTV, and even Country Music Television. And even if you manage to avoid all those, the commercials also carry the required memes. There is literally no escaping the 'message', the agenda.

And if you don't recognize that there IS an agenda and a message that is relentlessly pushed by television (and movies, and the music industry, etc.) then you are merely so used to it that you no longer see it. It is so ingrained in most Americans (and all Western peoples) these days that no one even notices it, or thinks it to be propaganda. It just 'is.' And for the younger generations, it's all they've known. So it becomes invisible, and second nature to most of us.

Lindsay correctly describes the entertainment industry in general as being about deception. And yes, some entertainment is innocuous, but few today have the discernment to sift the wheat from the chaff.

So we are easy prey for 'whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.'

It's facile to blame the 'liberals' or the baby-boomers for all that is amiss in our world, but the fact is, the process has been under way for some time, and it is not merely 'the liberals' or 'the hippies' who created the monster. It has been a process of collusion, unwitting or witting, between the ideologues who have set out to remake the world, and the people who are out to make a buck via the bread and circuses of television and the entertainment industry. The latter are happy to present subversive material if there is profit in it, and if revolution and transformation of Western society are good for their bottom line, they will happily collude. I don't know who is using whom in this strange alliance of leftists and corporate interests; I think they are both manipulating us.

As I've said, we have to free ourselves from the paralyzing effect of the prevailing orthodoxies and opinions, and as long as we are glued to the mass media, whether it's 'entertainment' or junk news on the cable news channels, we cannot extricate ourselves from the snares laid for us.

Fortunately we do have a choice; we can become aware of these destructive influences, and we can walk away, and we can create alternatives. It will be a long-term effort, and distressingly, we have a short time frame in which to try to reverse course, but we really have no choice but to try. The present course is taking us perilously close to a point of no return.

Forum comments here.

Liberal dilemmas

Here's a rather interesting situation: author Orson Scott Card is the cause of some liberal handwringing among librarians. It seems he is being given an award by the American Library Association, but this can't be, because the 'library community' (liberals love that word community, don't they?) is in a tizzy over his homophobia. What to do?

This is a difficult issue, as librarians (supposedly) believe that information, in all of its forms, should be available to everyone, regardless of how repugnant we may personally or politically find it to be.

Especially in academic libraries, it behooves us to select things with which we disagree on occasion. The question then becomes, what message does giving Card this award send? I've drawn a couple of conclusions from this whole thing.

1) It is vitally important, when deciding to give someone a really big award, to know as much about that person as possible. Remember, in this case, the award was given to the person, not the work. Librarians involved in this particular award didn't do their homework, which has caused some serious problems for them, as well as a major public relations hit for ALA.

On the other hand, we cannot know that the committee would have decided any differently with the information in hand. 2) Awards for children's and young adult literature are particularly thorny, because there is always a struggle between those who wish to protect children from "bad things" in the world, and those who acknowledge that "bad things" exist, and wish to help their children navigate them through reading and discussion. These two groups, often, also disagree rather violently about which things are defined as "bad."

3) Card's internal, personal feelings about homosexuality are not necessarily the issue; his public statements condoning hatred of homosexuals are. As Karen Schneider pointed out, if Card's statements about homosexuals had replaced the word "homosexual" with any number of racial epithets, there is no way that Card would EVER have been considered for the award. Period. While I try very hard to separate the person from the work when I can, and often do read fiction by folks who are politically different from me, in this particular case, I admit I am less than enthusiastic about the prospect of picking up one of Card's books to read. On the other hand, I firmly believe that his materials belong in our SFWA Collection, if only so that some scholar might, 20 years from now, write a lovely dissertation about this whole event, and how it relates to his work.''

Another liberal librarian blog tsk-tsks over Card's 'homophobia':

Jolly and righteous teen author, Orson Scott Card, is the topic of much discussion as honor bestowed by the ALA’s YALSA has brought to general attention Card’s views against tolerance for homosexuals.

Card is quoted as follows:

We Latter-day Saints know that we are eternal beings who must gain control of our bodies and direct our lives toward the good of others in order to be worthy of an adult role in the hereafter.–Orson Scott Card''

Here is Card writing about tolerance:

Tolerance is not the fundamental virtue, to which all others must give way. The fundamental virtue is to love the Lord with all our heart, might, mind, and strength; and then to love our neighbor as ourself. Despite all the rhetoric of the hypocrites of homosexuality about how if we were true Christians, we would accept them fully without expecting them to change their behavior, we know that the Lord looks upon sin without the least degree of tolerance, and that he expects us to strive for perfection.–Orson Scott Card

I am sure this is especially confusing for the poor dears in the 'library community' because Card otherwise hews to all the politically correct shibboleths when it comes to race and immigration. Oddly, or perhaps not so, considering Card's Mormon beliefs, he has nothing but tolerance for tens of millions of illegal 'immigrants', while withholding 'tolerance' toward homosexuals. The rather surly piece Card wrote in defense of illegal immigration was titled 'Ethnic Cleansing or ''Amnesty'', if that hints at his beliefs.

I hate to link to the source of this insulting piece by Card, but here it is.
Read it, if your blood pressure can stand it.
I suppose, as always, race trumps everything. If white Canadians were hopping our Northern border in droves, I suspect Card would be in favor of deporting them en masse, but because illegals are overwhelmingly non-white, they are automatically to be given special consideration.

Here is an excerpt of Card's hit piece on old-stock Americans Needless to say the 'liberal' seems to represent the sanctimonious Card:

"So lawbreakers don't deserve to live here. Have you ever had a speeding ticket?"

"I'm an American. And I pay my traffic fines."

"But you broke the law."

"I was born here."

"But your ancestors weren't," says the liberal. "Your ancestors, somewhere along the line, were born somewhere else."

"But they came here legally."

"No sir, they did not," says the liberal. "I knew we'd get to this point, so I had your genealogy researched. Here's a list of your German ancestors who broke the law of their German-speaking state by emigrating."

"Those weren't American laws, so they weren't criminals here."

"And here are your Puritan New England ancestors, who came here as criminals because of their defiance of the laws concerning religion in England."

"They wanted freedom of religion."

"But they broke the law. And look – here are your Scotch-Irish and German ancestors who settled in Pennsylvania and North Carolina without getting legal title to their lands. They were all law-breaking squatters, and they kept getting caught farming on other people's land and had to move on."

This, quite honestly, infuriates me. Religious dissent is quite different than breaking and entering, and living a life of chronic lawbreaking as most illegals do. Every day, their whole way of life involves lying, defrauding, and otherwise deceiving, exploiting, and plain old stealing. To compare our ancestors with these unprincipled people, who often commit quite egregious crimes in addition to illegal entry and fraud, is insulting to our forefathers.

Card purports to be a religious man and Mormons protest that they believe in the Bible. Where is his honoring of his fathers and mothers? Card, as a Mormon, must know his own family ancestry; Mormons are quite obsessive about genealogy. Does he consider his ancestors as lawbreakers, on a par with the drug-smugglers and sneaks who enter via our Southern border? Apparently so. Apparently he has no honor for his ancestors, or he foolishly (and quite unbibilically) believes that all 'sin' is equal in the eyes of God; he thinks that people who commit crimes such as smuggling and drug dealing are on a par with people who do not worship as their government insists that they should. He is a moral illiterate if he believes such things.

But let's go back to his nasty little rant against patriotic Americans:

It was wide-open country then, and the laws were different –"

"And look – here are your ancestors who crossed over the Appalachian Mountains like Daniel Boone, into areas that the federal government absolutely declared off-limits to white settlers. Then when the Indians attacked them for illegally trespassing, they demanded that the US Army come and kill Indians so your ancestors could keep their illegally occupied land."

"I know the Indians were badly treated, but –"

"In fact, through most of the territory of the US, the first settlers were illegal immigrants, weren't they? US treaties supersede all other laws except the Constitution. So what about it? Do you favor the expulsion of all these white illegal immigrants to restore the land to the legal titleholders by US treaty?"

I am sick beyond description of this lie that the first settlers were 'illegal immigrants'. How can a supposedly educated, intelligent man promote such rank nonsense? To say that the first settlers or colonists were 'illegal' is idiotic; in order to be illegal, they had to be in violation of some legal code or in defiance of some ruling authority -- which did not exist.

I just want, frankly, to slap people upside the head when they say such imbecilic things; the very fact that they say these things indicates that they are not capable of reason and common sense. You may as well reason with a mule. The only response to idiocy like this is a slap upside the head.

Whose permission did the colonists or settlers need to obtain before immigrating? There were a lot of squabbling tribes and clans scattered across the continent; there was no centralized ruling authority, no king (despite what you read in history books about various Indian chiefs who styled themselves 'Kings'). There were no codified laws. What 'laws' did the settlers break? Who had the authority or the power to forbid them to come here? Whose permission should they have sought, and how, considering that there was no means of communication by which to ask? Could they have written a formal request? To whom? To Indian tribes who had no written language and who, in any case, spoke no English? So all this talk of illegal immigration in that context is just ignorant and obtuse, probably willfully so.

And if Card wants to talk about 'illegal' settlers, my settler ancestors who came to Texas were INVITED by first, the Spanish and then the Mexican officials to settle. They had an invitation. They had paperwork and official documents. There was nothing remotely illegal about their presence in Texas.

And by the way, Mr. Card, whose permission did the Mexicans' ancestors obtain to settle in what is now Mexico?
Whose permission did the so-called 'Native Americans' who came from Asia obtain before they took up residence in North America? If you want to play this game, we are all 'illegal' if you go back some generations. Nobody is really indigenous to their present countries. Not even the hallowed Native Americans. When there was no organized government, whoever was strongest took possession.

But in Card's tendentious diatribe on amnesty, this is supposed to be his blockbuster zinger at the end, with which he thinks he can mortally wound the xenophobe racists:

No, sir, you are the traitor. You're the one who declared that America was no longer a nation built around an idea, which accepted all who embraced that idea. Now it's just like any other nation on Earth. It stands for nothing except for holding on to what we've got and making sure there's no room for the people most desperate to come and join us."

Here we go: the old 'nation built around an idea' nonsense. No, America was not a nation built around an idea. It was a nation built around a group of English colonists, who possessed certain ideas as part of their culture and part of their heritage. Somehow, though, the foolish notion became widespread that we could bring people from many peoples and cultures together and pretend that the 'idea' was all that mattered, and that anybody could be 'American' by giving lip service to that 'idea'. But as it turns out, that hasn't worked at all well; the people who cling desperately to the 'America as an idea' are people, generally, not of the original stock, and because they feel no kinship to the founders of this country, they insist that the Idea is everything. The 'idea' is become an idol for them; the proposition is an empty substitute for kinship to the founding people of this country. Blood is thicker than ideas.

But the 'idea' around which this nation was supposedly built is never clearly defined by these liberals; is the hallowed 'idea' supposed to be freedom? Democracy? Equality?

If we bring together people from drastically different cultures and heritages, we will have many conflicting definitions and interpretations of what 'freedom, democracy, equality' mean to them. To the Latino illegals, 'freedom' means the freedom to sneak into our country and demand special treatment and privileges, paid for by American taxpayers. Freedom seems to mean, to them, their right to disregard the laws of the land, and to trespass on others' property as they trample the border areas. Freedom means the right to speak Spanish and demand that we provide interpreters at our expense and learn their language.

Moslems, in their turn, have their own definitions of 'freedom', as Andrew Bostom points out.

So it's foolish and vain to try to make this country a country based on an idea. What idea? Whose idea? Whose definition? Whose interpretation? We have the Babel situation all over again, when we try to unite the whole world and erase borders. If Card reads and believes the Bible, he knows that God confounded the language of the human race after the hubris of Babel. We now no longer speak the same languages, in more ways than one. Interpreters and translators all do an imperfect job of bridging the linguistic gulf between us. The language barrier only reflects the differences in thought and perceptions among various peoples.

And when we talk about linguistic barriers and thought barriers, Card's diatribe only reminds us of the fact that even among ourselves, we have been divided hopelessly, and our language confounded. When Card talks about 'tolerance' and sin and virtue, it's obvious that those of the liberal persuasion, especially those liberals who are obsessed with re-creating the Tower of Babel in the West, speak a different language that only sounds like English.

I can certainly understand their meaning, although I find their ideas dishonest, spiteful towards their own people, and sanctimonious. However I am convinced that liberals do not understand our side. They have completely rejected the old meanings of words and the traditional understandings underpinning those words. They no longer speak the language of their forefathers, of all the past generations. This is made abundantly clear by the way in which they condemn the morality and the ways of thinking of the past. They have made themselves orphans and strangers in the West because they have disowned the past and their forefathers.

Only by having done so can Card and all others who think as he does believe that wanting to preserve our nation is bad and sinful. Only by cutting themselves off from tradition can they convince themselves that they are the moral betters not only of their traditional contemporaries and countrymen, but the moral superiors of their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, who assuredly believed in 'America for Americans', and who believed -- imagine! -- that borders were essential to a nation, and that wholesale violation of laws was not acceptable.

Still Card is in an odd position; on the one hand, the liberal PC police are about to haul him in for failing to hold the correct beliefs on hallowed homosexuality, but on the other hand, how can they condemn him for being a 'right-wing bigot' when he is clearly on their side as regards that other hallowed victim group, illegal 'immigrants'?
I suppose this must cause considerable cognitive dissonance on the part of the orthodox leftists, who studiously follow the party line on who is owed deference. To be a liberal in good standing, one has to truckle to homosexuals but also to people 'of color.' Card is not being consistent.

On the other hand, I think there are quite a few politically correct Christians who think much as Card does: homosexuality bad, but illegal border-jumping good.

But if the leftward trend continues, these little dilemmas will be solved, as the liberalizing churches decide that homosexuality is just another lifestyle choice, just as illegal invaders are making a lifestyle choice in seeking a better life by lawbreaking.

But I can't help feeling a little smug schadenfreude about Card running afoul of the pharisaical PC brigade. He is really a friend, if they but knew it, but for now, he's a transgressor. PC bites.

Forum comments here.

What happened to our American diversity?

Recently on one of the History channels, in between the obligatory Hitler episodes, was a program about 'hillbillies.' The program, the beginning of which I missed, was titled 'Hillbilly: The Real Story'.


The program was hosted and narrated by country singer Billy Ray Cyrus of all people, and focused on Appalachian history and culture. It did deal with some of the stereotypes: moonshiners, feuding clans, and snake-handling churches, for example. It was fairly interesting; I learned a little about the history of NASCAR, for example. Another segment of the program had to do with the history of violence, and occasionally actual warfare, between coal-miners and mine owners in West Virginia. The 'Battle of Blair Mountain' is apparently covered in depth in this book and it seems worth reading, although the subject matter is grim.

The Battle of Blair Mountain covers a profoundly significant but long-neglected slice of American history - the largest armed uprising on American soil since the Civil War. In 1921, some 10,000 West Virginia coal miners, outraged over years of brutality and lawless exploitation, picked up their Winchesters and marched against their tormentors, the powerful mine owners who ruled their corrupt state. For ten days the miners fought a pitched battle against an opposing legion of deputies, state police, and makeshift militia. Only the intervention of a federal expeditionary force, spearheaded by a bomber squadron commanded by General Billy Mitchell, ended this undeclared civil war and forced the miners to throw down their arms. The significance of this episode reaches beyond the annals of labor history. Indeed, it is a saga of the conflicting political, economic and cultural forces that shaped the power structure of 20th century America.''

These are chapters of history which are not dealt with much in our educational system, although they may be taught more today than they were when I attended school. That era was a troubling time in our national history.

The History Channel documentary seemed to make much of the culture of the West Virginia miners, and the fact that they were largely of Scots-Irish descent. The suggestion overall seemed to be that those of Scots-Irish or Ulster Scots descent are more warlike by nature. Now, isn't that stereotyping? I thought there were no innate differences based on ethnicity or genes. But then again, discussion of innate differences is taboo only in the case of minorities; white people can be stereotyped with impunity.

The documentary states that the term 'redneck' originated with the red scarves or bandanas worn around the necks of the coal miners. I had never heard that explanation given before, and I was somewhat skeptical.

This website, dealing with Scots History, has a different etymology for the terms 'hillbilly' and redneck, tracing the terms to Scotland or Ulster.

HILLBILLY (Hillbillies)

The origin of this American nickname for mountain folk in the Ozarks and in Appalachia comes from Ulster. Ulster-Scottish (The often incorrectly labeled “Scots-Irish”) settlers in the hill-country of Appalachia brought their traditional music with them to the new world, and many of their songs and ballads dealt with William, Prince of Orange, who defeated the Catholic King James II of the Stuart family at the Battle of the Boyne, Ireland in 1690.

Supporters of King William were known as “Orangemen” and "Billy Boys" and their North American counterparts were soon referred to as "hillbillies". It is interesting to note that a traditional song of the Glasgow Rangers football club today begins with the line, "Hurrah! Hurrah! We are the Billy Boys!" and shares its tune with the famous American Civil War song, "Marching Through Georgia".

[...]
REDNECKS

The origins of this term Redneck are Scottish and refer to supporters of the National Covenant and The Solemn League and Covenant, or "Covenanters", largely Lowland Presbyterians, many of whom would flee Scotland for Ulster (Northern Ireland) during persecutions by the British Crown. The Covenanters of 1638 and 1641 signed the documents that stated that Scotland desired the Presbyterian form of church government and would not accept the Church of England as its official state church.

Many Covenanters signed in their own blood and wore red pieces of cloth around their necks as distinctive insignia; hence the term "Red neck", (rednecks) which became slang for a Scottish dissenter*. One Scottish immigrant, interviewed by the author, remembered a Presbyterian minister, one Dr. Coulter, in Glasgow in the 1940's wearing a red clerical collar -- is this symbolic of the "rednecks"?

Since many Ulster-Scottish settlers in America (especially the South) were Presbyterian, the term was applied to them, and then, later, their Southern descendants. One of the earliest examples of its use comes from 1830, when an author noted that "red-neck" was a "name bestowed upon the Presbyterians." It makes you wonder if the originators of the ever-present "redneck" joke are aware of the term’s origins - Rednecks?

*Another term for Presbyterians in Ireland was a "Blackmouth". Members of the Church of Ireland (Anglicans) used this as a slur, referring to the fact that one could tell a Presbyterian by the black stains around his mouth from eating blackberries while at secret, illegal Presbyterian Church Services in the countryside.

CRACKER

Another Ulster-Scot term, a "cracker" was a person who talked and boasted, and "craic" (Crack) is a term still used in Scotland and Ireland to describe "talking", chat or conversation in a social sense ("Let’s go down to the pub and have a craic"; "what's the craic"). The term, first used to describe a southerner of Ulster-Scottish background, later became a nickname for any white southerner, especially those who were uneducated.

And while not an exclusively Southern term, but rather referring in general to all Americans, the origins of this word are related to the other three. ''

Scroll down the page for an explanation of the Mexican term 'gringo.' It's all rather interesting.

As for the origin of the word 'cracker', which is now a widespread epithet applied to whites in general, not just poor Southron whites, this page gives a number of conflicting explanations. Your guess is as good as mine as to which is the true origin of the word; what is not in doubt is that the word is used pejoratively by those with anti-Southern biases, or more broadly, with anti-White feelings.

I am inclined to believe in the Scottish or Ulster origin of some of these terms, given the prevalence of this heritage among Appalachian people.

The 'Hillbilly' program also touched on the traditional music of the Appalachian region, from which developed bluegrass and eventually modern country music, although the latter has strayed considerably from its roots. This web page outlines the development of American country and folk music from Ulster and Scottish origins:

The Appalachian mountain people, where Scots-Irish culture is so strong, have maintained a folk song culture for several centuries. Leading balladeers and folk historian from the early 20th century Cecil Sharpe related how he discovered nearly every one he met in the mountain region, young and old, could either sing or play an instrument.

The ballads which Sharp collected in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Carolinas and North Georgia were in the traditional vein, with Scots-Irish influences a very dominant strain.

Popular Appalachian folk songs and times like The Girl from Knoxville, Barbara Allen, The Irish Washerwoman, Haste to the Wedding, The Virginia Reel, The Green River March and Turkey in the Straw are in that tradition. The music of the American frontier was primarily vocal, through the singing of hymns and folk songs. In the very early settlements in Pennsylvania from the 1720s, the fiddle provided the musical background for the reels and jigs which the Scots-Irish enjoyed.

In the austere, and at times lonely surroundings of the frontier, music was the source which brightened the lives of the settlers.

Fiddle styles varied from state to state, even within states. Individual fiddlers differed in the way they held the instrument, the emphasis which they devoted to noting and the manner in which they bowed.

Some fiddlers stuck resolutely to the melody, while others improvised freely or employed their own prepared techniques -all a very Scots-Irish trait! Richard Nevins, in his Book Old-Time Fiddle Classics, notes that since fiddling was a Celtic art, modern aficionados strain to establish a direct link between Celtic styles and Appalachian in renditions.

Nevins maintained it is likely all the countless variations in southern fiddling are traceable to seven or eight different styles brought over to America by the predominant Celtic-cultured immigrants from various sections of the north of Ireland, southern Scotland and, to a lesser degree, parts of England. While yodelling has its origins in the Swiss mountains, many performers of a Scots-Irish background in states like Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia, were adept at raising the tone to a falsetto head voice.

Gospel music was very dear to the Godfearing Scots-Irish and many colloquial hymns, later adopted in mainstream Christianity had origins in the Appalachian region, Methodist evangelical hymns of Isaac Watts, John Newton and John and Charles Wesley struck a chord with those moving along the Great Wagon Road to the frontier.''

Here I will digress for a minute and note that a few years ago, it was claimed, surprisingly for some people, that Gospel music came from Scottish roots and not from 'African-American' traditions, as has been claimed since the 1960s. The connection to Celtic roots is obvious to anyone familiar with the traditional singing styles of Scotland and Ireland; the free-flowing, ornate style which involves bending and 'worrying' the notes is a prominent feature in Scottish and Irish vocal traditions, whereas it has no counterpart in African music.

This article explains how Yale professor Willie Ruff made the connection between Scottish a cappella hymn singing and black gospel styles.


I believe it; it's obvious to me, although political correctness insists that blacks influence whites, whites copy blacks, but never vice-versa.

But to return to the article on Scots-Irish influences on country and folk music:

Bluegrass music is strongly linked to the Scots-Irish folk of Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee and leading Nashville performer Ricky Skaggs is very proud of his roots. "My family on my mother's side were Scots-Irish - they were the Fergusons who left Limavady and East Donegal in the 18th century. They eventually moved to Kentucky, where I grew up with a real taste for bluegrass music, which has its origins in the north of Ireland and Scotland. To me traditional country music had a value in it, a wholesomeness and warmth that some of the other kinds of music don't have. It's our heritage, our roots, it's everything that we're about," says Ricky.''

The above article mentions British ballad collector Cecil Sharpe who traveled the Southeast during the early 20th century collecting folk songs. He noted that many of the centuries-old English ballads which were dying out in England were still preserved in the Appalachian region.

Although it's often claimed that the Appalachian people were mostly Scottish or Ulster Scots, the ballads Sharp collected included many English ballads too, indicating that there was considerable English heritage in the American South.

I tend to be somewhat skeptical of the claims that the culture of the South is mostly 'Celtic'; I think this is an exaggeration, and it downplays the English genetics and culture which also contributed to the American South. I sometimes wonder if the slighting of English heritage is a politically-motivated tendency; the Scots-Irish had an age-old animosity towards the English and there is a grudging attitude toward England that is deep-rooted among Americans of Scots or Irish heritage. In my family tree we have a few Scots-Irish or Ulster Scots ancestral lines, however, little information exists tracing some of these lines back to their origins in Scotland and Ulster. Our English and Welsh roots are far better documented, for many centuries.

Still, there is no separating out the strains of British Isles ancestry in the South; the different cultures have all played a part, and mingled together to make up a rather colorful whole. Unfortunately, the stereotypes still live on. Stereotypes, as I've said, do tend to have a basis in fact, and there is that strain of Southron culture which includes moonshining, and the reckless streak which makes NASCAR popular, and which makes Southern men good warriors. Even now, the South contributes more men (and these days, probably women) to the military than other regions of the country.

The Southern Military Tradition

The South is overrepresented among military recruits. It provided 42.2 percent of 1999 recruits and 41.0 percent of 2003 recruits but contained just 35.6 percent of the population ages 18?24. How­ever, other regions also provide a higher proportion of enlistees. The states with the highest enlistment propor­tional ratings by far are Mon­tana (1.67), Alaska (1.42), Wyoming (1.40), and Maine (1.39). (A proportional rating of 1.00 means that a state?s enlistee and general popula­tions ages 18?24 are exactly proportional to their respec­tive national populations.)
[...]
In addition to confirming the strong Southern military tradition, we also found an exceptional ten­dency for lower than average military participation in New England. The West was underrepresented among 1999 recruits, but its 2003 proportion was equal to the population. For example, the East North Central Census region, conventionally known as the Great Lakes states, had a proportional rating of 0.86, which rose to 0.93 after September 11, 2001. This implies a lower than average interest in joining the military in the region compared to the nation, but it may reflect other variables as well (e.g., relative health and fitness of potential recruits).''

There's no doubt there are regional differences; we have not all been homogenized and blended away yet, although our elites are working night and day to effect that homogenization.

This is something that I've given considerable thought to lately: why is our government seemingly bent on eliminating regional diversity, while preaching to us about the benefits of Holy Diversity on an international, interracial basis? What on earth was wrong with the American diversity we had a few decades ago, in which each region, each state, each little corner of this country, had a recognizable and unique quality? Traveling was then a source of pleasure and the variety which existed made travel fascinating. I vividly remember the first cross-country trip with my family, in the days before freeways existed, when we meandered through many little towns and hamlets and sampled the local color. America was once rich in American diversity. Texas was Texan with its own culture, which was a part of the South; cross the Sabine River into Louisiana and you were in a very different place. Each state had its own history and character. Now it's all freeways, convenience stores (run by Third Worlders), motels run by people named Patel, Mickey D's, and Wal-Marts, from sea to shining sea.

While we are 'celebrating the diversity' of the Iraqis and Burundians and Hmongs who now reside in our little heartland towns, the unique character of those towns becomes monotonously similar all over the country, and in fact, all over the Western world. Small-d diversity, our old American diversity, which included canny down-East Yankees, independent Texans, lively Louisiana Cajuns, laid-back Californians, taciturn Northwesterners, Norwegian bachelor farmers from Minnesota, and hillbillies from Appalachia, has been homogenized and replaced by a disconnected, random collection of strangers, united only by consumer culture.

Still, there is a small remainder of our real American diversity that has not yet been stamped out by the diversity kommissars, so we would do well to savor it and enjoy it and truly celebrate it while we can. Enjoy our NASCAR races and bluegrass festivals and fais-do-dos, and Highland games and rodeos and county fairs before it all vanishes into the one-world memory hole.

Forum comments here.

Liberty, equality, fraternity, and democracy

More ''lighthouses in a foggy world'', with some wisdom on these subjects.


Liberty, equality, fraternity -- and democracy:


"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people... Be not intimidated, therefore, by any terrors, from publishing with the utmost freedom...nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberty by any pretenses of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice."
-- John Adams

“When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers, just men who will rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty; if the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made not for the public good so much as for the selfish or local purposes. Corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the Laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded. If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the Laws.” - Noah Webster, History of the United States

"The destiny of any nation at any given time depends on the opinion of its young people, those under twenty-five." - Goethe

''If men use their liberty in such a way as to surrender their liberty, are they thereafter any the less slaves? If people by a plebiscite elect a man despot over them, do they remain free because the despotism was of their own making?" - Herbert Spencer, The New Toryism, 1884

"I could see how 'democracy' might do very well in a society of saints and sages led by an Alfred or an Antoninus Pius. Short of that, I was unable to see how it could come to anything but an ad-hocracy of mass-men led by a sagacious knave. The collective capacity for bringing forth any other outcome seemed simply not there. To my ideas the incident of Aristides and the Athenian mass-man was perfectly exhibitory of 'democracy' in practice. Socrates could not have got votes enough out of the Athenian mass-men to be worth counting, but Eubulus easily could, and did, wangle enough to keep himself in office as long as the corrupt fabric of the Athenian State held together. As against a Jesus, the historic choice of the mass-man goes regularly to some Barabbas." - Albert Jay Nock, Memoirs

"A democracy is a state in which the poor, gaining the upper hand, kill some and banish others, and then divide the offices among the remaining citizens equally, usually by lot." - Plato, The Republic, VIII

"Democracy arose from men thinking that if they are equal in any respect they are equal in all respects." - Aristotle, Politics

"A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments." - Aristotle, Rhetoric

"If there were a nation of gods they would be governed democratically, but so perfect a government is not suitable to men.'' - Rousseau, Du contrat social, III

“Equality may exist only among slaves.” - Aristotle

“Equality is a slogan based on envy. It signifies in the heart of every republican: ‘Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I.’ - Alexis de Tocqueville

"Political equality is against nature. Social equality is against nature. Economic equality is against nature. The idea of equality is subversive of order.'' - Edmund Burke

''There is nothing more unequal, than the equal treatment of unequal people.'' - Thomas Jefferson

“It is inequality that gives enlargement to religion, to intellect, to energy, to virtue, to love and to wealth. Equality of intellect stabilizes mediocrity. Equality of wealth makes all men poor. Equality of religion destroys all creeds. Equality of energy renders all men sluggards. Equality of virtue suspends all men without the gates of Heaven. Equality of love stultifies every manly passion, destroys every family altar and mongrelizes the races of men. Equality homogenizes so that cream does not rise to the top. It puts the eagle in the hen house so that he may no longer soar.” - R. Carter Pittman

"The acceptance of democracy by all European nations is deadly for the proper governorship, freedom, law, order, respect of authority and religion, and at the end will lead to chaos, out of which will appear the worldwide tyranny" - The Duke of Northumberland


"Democracy does not exist for a long time - it wastes, exhausts and destroys itself. There was never a democracy that didn't kill itself" Samuel Adams

"The American form of government is the republic. The true freedom does not exist either under despotism or excesses of democracy" Alexander Hamilton

"Democracy always leads to conflicts and instability, but never provides for the security of the citizens or their property. Usually it is very short at life, and very bloody at death" -- James Madison

"Between republic and democracy there is the same difference as between order and chaos" - John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

"Democracy is the rule of mobs, tempted by newspaper editors" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

''Enforced fraternity destroys liberty.'' - Frederic Bastiat

What can be done?

I was preparing to write a post in response to a question that is asked with some regularity, that question being: in light of what is happening to our country and to the Western civilized world, what can I do?

The question has been posed here on this blog a number of times, and people ask it in the 'real world.' And it is hard to come up with a concise and relevant answer to those who ask. Once having come to an awareness of the seriousness of our situation, the patriotic and concerned person naturally wants to do something.

Far be it from me to dissuade or discourage anyone from traditional political activism: calling, faxing, writing old-fashioned letters to representatives and to your local paper; attending city council meetings and county council meetings when possible, generally becoming involved in local affairs, networking with others in your locality. At times it's easy to succumb to the feeling that such activism avails nothing, but it may be that citizen efforts foiled the attempt to pass the Amnesty bill last year. Not that the idea of amnesty has gone away; it will be tried again, and we have to do what we can to defeat it as many times as it takes. Somewhat cynically, though, it might be said that the bill was a mere formality; the inundation of our country by illegal (and legal) immigration is still ongoing. As I said at the time the Amnesty bill was being pushed, even if the bill dies, the country is still being swamped by immigration, so the open-borders cabal gets its way regardless, amnesty or no amnesty. Nothing has changed since the amnesty bill was thwarted, at least as regards the demographic transformation of our country.

I've questioned before whether the political process is the only way to effect change. Obviously I don't think it is. Change happens in a number of ways, and politics is often merely a way of validating or formalizing an accomplished fact. If amnesty ever becomes a reality, it will merely be a way of formalizing and legalizing the accomplished fact of the invasion and Hispanicization of America. It will merely put an official seal of government approval on it.

Some desirable changes start at the grassroots level, and occur somewhat spontaneously, as certain ideas and trends sweep through society. The sixties counterculture ideals started with a small fringe group of young people and percolated throughout society, among all age groups and demographics. Unfortunately, the ideas which swept into society in that wave of change were mostly destructive ones, bringing the weakening and near-destruction of the traditional family, of traditional sexual mores, of religious faith, of sex roles, of education, and of standards in general, in all areas of life. These changes caught on because they appealed to the more selfish and baser urges which are present in all of us, so they may be seen as working with human nature. Any change which is counter to old human nature is less likely to spread without coercion.

Political correctness and all the other aspects of liberalism are counter to human nature, and as such, they require much more social pressure and constant indoctrination and enforcement to maintain their hold. PC is therefore not as strong as it may appear to be; it is merely being propped up by an elaborate structure of enforcement.

So liberalism is a high-maintenance kind of system; it conflicts with normal human nature. Egalitarianism, enforced altruism and coerced niceness do not come naturally to people.

All the same, one thing PC has working for it is that it appeals to the vanity of human beings; those who ostentatiously practice liberal attitudes, towards minorities, for example, have the reward of 'feeling good about themselves'. Our liberal society counts racial liberalism as the highest virtue, and people want to be seen as enlightened. Post-modern westerners no longer value sexual virtue, for example, or religious piety, but they value racial piety as manifested in PC and multiculturalism.

So there is an incentive for people who buy into the secular religion of liberalism to maintain their egalitarian, politically correct postures. Many rewards accrue to those who toe the PC line, and conversely, punishments and social ostracism await those who rebel against the liberal orthodoxies where political correctness is concerned. Think: Don Imus, John Rocker, and countless others who fell afoul of the PC code.

But much of the enforcement of political correctness is not in the hands of the authorities, at least in America; it's democratically enforced. Our fellow citizens will often react to punish offenders or to make an example of them. We censor ourselves, and if we don't, someone is ready and waiting to pounce if we don't censor ourselves adequately.

I think, therefore, that one of the most important things we can do is to work, first, to free ourselves from the crippling effects of PC. All of us are, by virtue of living in this society, steeped in PC, and some of us are less aware of how much of it we accept unthinkingly. It pervades our whole society, even in innocuous guises like entertainment and commercials. It's part of the air we breathe.

So the first thing, I believe, is to become more aware of the insidious liberalism that permeates everything, and to weed it out of our thinking and our discourse. All of us are affected by it, even those of us who have been conscious of this issue for some years.

But when I was preparing to write this, I came across a link to a post from Tom's Big Picture, in which Tom gives his very sound suggestions. The whole post (which is one of a series) is worth reading, but here are some of the suggestions:

Tom’s Practical Suggestions for Recovering Victims of Political Correctness to Heal Psychological Wounds and Break the Cycle of Guilt and Oppression for Your Children

1. The media’s main distribution vehicle for mass-consumed politically correct propaganda is television. Turn off the TV. Cancel the cable. Your cable bill sends about 25 to 50 cents per month to every channel on the dial, whether you watch it or not. So you’re subsidizing the filth whether you want to or not. There’s not a whole lot of downside to getting rid of cable once you get over withdrawals: higher quality family time without the tube on all the time (I’ve noticed some people who mute the TV and leave it on all the time, like a security blanket or something), higher SAT scores for your kids since they’ll have to read for entertainment, and more sex. Seriously, studies have shown that TV’s in the bedroom reduce sex frequency between husbands and wives.

2. Ok, I realize most of you won’t implement #1. I’m a hypocrite as well on it, but I thought I’d throw it out there as an ideal. Here’s what we did: we cancelled our cable in 2005. We signed up with Dish Network; there’s even a “family friendly” package that is $20 a month (though not all of the channels, like Nickelodeon, are necessarily healthy). We also got a DVR, where we record shows like a TIVO. Second, and most importantly, we put the Dish Netword receiver on one and only one TV: the one right in front of our exercise equipment. In our house, you must at least be building your temple while you rot your mind.

3. Ok, so maybe #2 is not something you want to do either. At least do the following. Get a DVR, whether Dish or Tivo or whatever. I think a lot of our consumption of unhealthy propaganda is due to mindless viewing of whatever’s on. Now, most people don’t want to watch propaganda, but they will watch it if it’s the best thing on at any given time. A Tivo or digital video recorder allows you to record hours and hours of relatively harmless content (like my wife’s decorating shows, or my shows about “Modern Marvels”, exciting documentaries about concrete, plastic, metal and the like). My recorder has more shows of pretty harmless content than my wife or I could ever watch. In addition, you can skip commercials pretty easily, which will reduce your credit card bill by reducing your exposure to want-inducing messages of materialism (believe me, advertising works- I spend a lot of money on it, and not for my health). Now remember, I said the content is relatively harmless, but it’s not edifying either. So instead of consuming media toxins, you are now consuming the equivalent of table sugar, not healthy for sure, but not harmful in moderation. Even some of the “harmless” content will have trace levels of toxin- for example, a documentary about Texas had the obligatory politically correct hand-wringing about slavery. At least in that situation, with a DVR, you can hit the pause button, explain to your children the problem with what they just heard, and start again. If we talk back to our TV’s in our children’s prescence, the damage is mitigated; in fact, being a critical consumer of media content is an important skill to teach to our children.

4. Never, ever let your children watch content from television without your supervision. Even with a DVR, your children may be tempted to watch the commercials. And for goodness sake, don’t let them watch “children’s” programming. Media mogul Sumner Redstone, born Murray Rothstein, owns Viacom, which in turn owns Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and MTV. Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network are designed to produce future consumers of MTV. Do not be so gullible as to trust an anti-Christian corporation to determine appropriate media content for your children. Your preferred medium for children’s content should be the DVD, where you are in absolute control of a closed circuit on the content. There’s no way they’re going to see a Spongebob commercial while watching Veggietales.

5. Build an extensive DVD collection of healthy content and share your content with others (I leave the means for the latter deliberately vague). I will soon start a project of building a list of appropriate DVD’s on this site.

6. Much of the “science” of psychology is actually pseudoscience. However, there is one psychological therapy technique that is almost universally useful: exposure therapy for curing phobias. If someone is afraid of snakes, they can be cured by handling snakes, almost guaranteed. Similarly, political correctness has made us afraid of our past as a people and culture. We need to dig around in the past, particularly in those areas deemed “forbidden” and “evil” by the media, to discover the truth. As a Southerner, this means, for example, I need to know everything I can about The War Between the States, Reconstruction and the Redemption (i.e. the overthrow of the Reconstruction governments) that I can, from original sources, or at least older sources. I need to know the past as it was, from the people who lived in it, and not from self-appointed censors in our current age.

7. We need a general exposure to our civilization’s heritage. Read good literature, listen to good classical music, and enjoy poetry from the past when poems were real art instead of self-indulgent raw feeds of randomness and obscenity from some idiot’s subconscious.

8. In regards to #6 and #7, it is apparent that we must read to accomplish these things. In music and reading, there is a somewhat painful process of stretching the mind that is required before finer things can be appreciated. It’s worth it. Once you begin to enjoy the “higher bandwidth” cultural offerings of our past, you’ll feel like something’s missing in mass-marketed media. But it does take some effort to read. I will also start media lists of music and books on this site. ''

I heartily agree with his suggestions, especially on the recommendation to turn to old sources, classic works (meaning pre-PC works).

I have also been especially conscious lately that the mainstream media, so-called, are absolutely pernicious in their bias and blatant indoctrination. The content of the news they present, the dumbing-down, the multiculti 'affirmative action' news anchors (are women becoming dominant in the cable news medium these days? It appears so), the suppressing of stories that don't fit the template, the emphasis on 'junk news' and trashy gossip -- really, the cable news channels are worse than useless.

Newspapers, of course, are just as bad, if not worse. And needless to say, there scarcely exists one conservative newspaper in America; one monolithic PC viewpoint dominates all major news outlets in America.

Surely Pravda and Izvestia in the old USSR could not have been more obviously propagandistic than our news media. Sometimes I have to absolutely tune out the TV news channels for the sake of sanity. Even Lou Dobbs, who is supposedly a nativist populist, bows his knee to PC with guests like Janet Murguia of La Raza, and the whiny Miguel Perez who is a regular 'panel' member.

Tune out, turn off, and drop in - to the real world.

I can't stress enough the importance of cleaning out the PC cobwebs that cloud our minds, and of absorbing some of the sanity from the older sources of knowledge and wisdom that still exist. Our predecessors and our ancestors left us a legacy; there is so much we might learn from what they had to say. And these old books are being lost and going out of print in so many cases. I personally collect old books, especially textbooks, history books; almost anything is of value. Those books are our connection to the past. Even old movies have something useful and soul-nourishing to offer.

This is conservatism 101, and yet so many people who claim to be conservatives neglect the past, neglect our centuries-old traditions. That is no kind of conservatism at all.

And once having de-toxed ourselves by avoiding the PC junk food, we can work on helping others throw off the conditioning. Our children and grandchildren, all those closest to us first, and then work outward. Each one, teach one.

This, I think, is as important or more important than the political activism at this point. We need to clean house at home first, and then move outward. That's the best start we can make. We all influence or affect somebody in our circle, and they in turn can go out and do the same. It has to start with each individual and ripple outward.

Forum comments here.

Another blogroll addition

I would like to call my readers' attention to a new link added to my blogroll: Mostly Cajun, All-American, and Opinionated.
I've been a regular visitor there for some time and I just now got around to adding the link. By all means, drop over there and visit.

A little history

For a change, I am going to write a little about a couple of subjects that I really enjoy writing about: Cajuns. And history.

Part of my childhood, a very happy part, was spent in South Louisiana. And one of the best things about 1950s South Louisiana was the people there, who were mostly Cajun.

I have a special fondness for Cajuns and their way of life. Who wouldn't like Cajuns? They are known for their joie de vivre, their joy of living, and for their easy-going, open ways, their down-to-earth attitude, their sense of humor, and their wonderful food. And their music.

But despite all this, they are a group of people with rather a sad history.

Cajuns are a group of people of mostly French descent, whose ancestors settled in Canada, and who were displaced in a tragic event referred to as Le Grand Dérangement.

Le Grand Dérangement ("The Great Disturbance") is the name given to the Acadians’ 1755 mass expulsion from their homeland by the British military. An illegal action undertaken during peacetime without approval of the British government in London, the expulsion was devised by Major Charles Lawrence, a professional British soldier who in 1754 took command of the colony as its lieutenant governor.

Later appointed full governor, Lawrence feared that the Acadians, despite their claims of neutrality, would become fifth columnists in the event of another war with France. The Acadians’ numerical advantage over their British overseers magnified his fear. In addition, Lawrence desired the Acadians’ fertile farmlands for loyal Anglo-Protestant settlers. Failing to acquire from the Acadians an ironclad oath of allegiance to the British crown, Lawrence summoned Acadian males to fortified posts under false pretenses and arrested them while soldiers burned homes and boats and rounded up women and children. Herded into ports, Lawrence divided the Acadians into groups according to age and sex, loaded them onto overcrowded vessels, and scattered them across thousands of miles in a deliberate attempt to wipe out the Acadian identity. (Numbering some 12,000 to 18,000 total, only 6,000 to 7,000 Acadians were actually expelled on British ships, the remainder fleeing to neighboring regions.) According to some estimates, about half the pre-expulsion Acadian population died from disease, exposure, and starvation brought about directly by the British operation (which by modern standards arguably constituted an incident of genocide or "ethnic cleansing"). ''

As usual, in these historical accounts of 18th century colonial North America, the British are cast as the bad guys. I will overlook that for now. It certainly does seem as though the Cajuns suffered some real ill-treatment in this event. But Canada's loss was eventually Louisiana's gain.
From the Wikipedia entry on Cajuns:

Cajuns are an ethnic group mainly living in Louisiana, consisting of the descendants of Acadian exiles and peoples of other ethnicities with whom the Acadians eventually intermarried on the semitropical frontier. Today, the Cajuns make up a significant portion of south Louisiana's population, and have exerted an enormous impact on the state's culture.
[...]
The Cajuns retain a unique dialect of the French language and numerous other cultural traits that distinguish them as an ethnic group. Cajuns were officially recognized by the U.S. government as a national ethnic group in 1980 per a discrimination lawsuit filed in federal district court. Presided over by Judge Edwin Hunter, the case, known as Roach v. Dresser Industries Valve and Instrument Division (494 F.Supp. 215, D.C. La., 1980), hinged on the issue of the Cajuns' ethnicity. Significantly, Judge Hunter held in his ruling that:

"We conclude that plaintiff is protected by Title VII's ban on national origin discrimination. The Louisiana Acadian (Cajun) is alive and well. He is “up front” and “main stream.” He is not asking for any special treatment. By affording coverage under the “national origin” clause of Title VII he is afforded no special privilege. He is given only the same protection as those with English, Spanish, French, Iranian, Portuguese, Mexican, Italian, Irish, et al., ancestors."

From the Encyclopedia of Cajun Culture:

Dictionaries generally define Cajun as "a Louisianian who descends from French-speaking Acadians." However, many common Cajun surnames — for instance, Soileau, Romero, Huval, Fontenot — are not Acadian in origin, but rather are Spanish, German or French Creole. Some are even of Anglo or Scotch-Irish origin, as in the case of famed Cajun musicians Lawrence Walker and Dennis McGee.

For this reason, contemporary scholars of Cajun history and culture tend to offer a more complex, comprehensive view, attributing the traits of modern-day Cajuns to a dynamic, unending process of ethnic interaction. Although modern Cajuns are largely homogenous, their ancestry consists of a mixture of many ethnic groups.

Most early Acadians originated in the Centre-Ouest region of France, but others came from families of Spanish, Irish, Scottish, English, Basque, and, in a few instances, American Indian heritage. After their 1755 expulsion from Nova Scotia, Acadians seeking refuge in South Louisiana again intermixed with other ethnic groups, particularly with French, Spanish, German, and, later, Anglo-American settlers, as well as Indians (albeit to a lesser extent). Historian Carl A. Brasseaux has shown, for example, that after the Civil War over fifty percent of brides and grooms with Acadian surnames were marrying persons with non-Acadian surnames.''

From another source:

In July 1632 three hundred French settlers arrived in Acadia to carve out frontier homes near the community of Port Royal. Fifty-five percent of these Acadian "first families" hailed from the Centre-Ouest region of France (Poitou, Aunis, Angoumois, and Saintonge); of these, eighty-five percent came from the La Chausée area of Poitou. These families included Doucet, Bourgeois, Boudrot (Boudreaux), Terriault (Theriot), Richard, LeBlanc, Thibodeaux, Comeau(x), Cormier, Hébert, Brault (Breaux), Granger, and Girouard.

Most of these and later Acadian settlers derived from Old World peasant stock, shared similar cultural traits, and on the frontier developed a common Acadian identity.

According to historian Carl A. Brasseaux, the Acadian pioneers were characterized by individualism, adaptability, pragmatism, industriousness, egalitarian principles, and an ability to pull together when threatened. They also possessed extended families, and distinctive language and speech patterns. The Acadians were also typically non-materialistic, seeking only economic independence and a decent standard of living through an agrarian way of life. Some ethnic diversity did exist among the Acadians, however: a few were of English, Scottish, Irish, Spanish, Basque, and even American Indian origin.

Those of French origin, however, dominated the cultural landscape, and as intermarriage occurred the Acadian population quickly became homogenized. Studies indicate that between 1654 and 1755 the Acadian population grew from 300-350 colonists to about 12,000-15,000 (despite a fifty-percent child mortality rate). Sources: Ancelet et al., Cajun Country; Brasseaux, Acadian to Cajun; Brasseaux, "Scattered to the Wind"; Domengeaux, "Native-Born Acadians"; Dormon, People Called Cajuns.''
[Emphasis mine]

So despite their fewness in number and the centuries that have passed since their arrival in North America, the Cajuns have maintained their identity as a distinct group of people. For the first century or so of their life in America, they lived side by side with various other settler groups in Louisiana, but kept their distinctivness as a people. It was not until the upheavals of the War Between the States and Reconstruction that their identity was somewhat threatened by social change.

Of that era, Julie Elizabeth Hebert says:

Several stereotypes which still accompany the idea of “a true Cajun” developed in these eras: lazy, ignorant, illiterate, and simple. Able to remain unassimilated for the most part, Cajuns continued to act in the ways they had before the war. Like all good Southerners, they still loved card games, parties, and communal get togethers, but unlike the Americans, Cajuns continued to work at their own pace, a work ethic which stood in complete contrast to the American idea of progress. James Dorman, in his work on the ethnicity of the Cajun culture, quotes several journalists of the day who described the Cajuns as follows: “a Utopian dreamer and idler...—one who sits on the skirts of progress,” “the Acadian who overworks is indeed a rara avis [rare bird],” and “most of them are mere squatters on the Prairies.” Southerners, in general, thought little of the Cajuns and their culture because their values negated the closely held American values of material wealth, the Protestant work ethic, and progress. Cajuns, themselves, thought little of American standards including those regarding education, and Cajun folk wisdom summed up the Cajun opinion on education: “My son is rascal enough without an education.” Cajuns reveled in their illiteracy, and this attitude concerning education served as another reason why the Americans looked down upon the “poor,” “stupid” Cajuns of south Louisiana.

Despite these qualities which fostered a negative stereotype of Cajuns, observers of Cajun communities repeatedly remarked upon two distinct Cajun ethnic qualities in a positive light: hospitality and family ties. Travelers in the South during the post-Civil War era commented upon the friendliness with which the Cajun family welcomed strangers into their home and their willingness to share what little they had with those in need. Motivated, not by a conscious sense of charity, but rather by an inherited trait of hospitality, Cajuns opened their homes to all who graced their doorsteps. Continuation of the strong family ties among the Cajun communities, the second positive quality of Cajun culture, survived through the institution of marriage. Cajun youth often married among their own kind. Women of Cajun descent usually married men of similar heritage; however, if a young Cajun woman decided to marry a German or Creole, the family ties, although slightly altered, still remained strong within her own family. According to most historians of this culture, the Cajun culture continued to flourish mainly because of the female population and the roles mothers played in childrearing and in the preserving of family customs and traditions. Cajun women reared their children while the men worked, and if the woman was Cajun, she reared her children to appreciate and respect their Cajun traditions and heritage.

Hebert describes how the expansion of railroads reduced the isolation of the Cajuns, and increased the trend toward cultural homogenization. However, those Cajuns who did not choose the urban lifestyle became the keepers of Cajun culture in their rural small communities.

Huey P. Long, the governor of Louisiana from 1928-1932 (and later Senator), also did his part in discouraging the isolation of the Cajuns by means of his road improvements.

Those influenced by these improvements most likely did not realize the extent to which these improvements functioned as infiltrators of their isolationism and their ethnic culture. Despite all the necessary changes brought by the Long administration, one piece of legislation issued a substantial blow to the Cajun ethnic identity: the Louisiana Constitution of 1921. Through this document, the legislature denied public schools the right to instruct children in both French and English. Most Cajun rural folk and children were monolingual and able to speak very few words of English. Louisiana legislators through this law in essence denied Cajun children the right to education in their primary language forcing them either to learn English or remain illiterate.[...]
As the ethnic ties of the community as a whole continued to unravel, the negative stereotype in regards to French speakers remained a constant on the Louisiana social landscape. Through all of this, rural Cajun culture survived almost untouched, and observers of these decades described the rural Cajuns in much the same way as others had described them in previous decades:


“Their homes are always spotless, and there is always a welcome and a cup of black coffee for any caller, even though he be a stranger,” a typical Cajun “lives in his own home, usually with several relatives, besides his immediate family. He keeps a cow, some chickens, and raises a few vegetables which he sometimes sells. Sometimes he helps keep a store in the nearby village,” and “an unsophisticated agrarian people who have clung tenaciously to their old customs and traditions.”

Because of their “geographic, occupation, and language isolation,” the rural Cajuns achieved a social isolationism “greater than that of any other American ethnic group.” People in the 1920s and 1930s identified this Cajun ethnicity and began to describe the Cajun culture based on its ethnic qualities. While the urban Cajun assimilated, the rural Cajun in his isolation preserved his cultural traditions.

Later on, World War II, which took many young Cajun men far from home and heritage, further encouraged their assimilation into the larger society. Following the war, the Rural Electrification Administration brought the 'modern world' into rural Acadiana, and the spread of television in the 1950s was a further blow to traditional Cajun ways.
Other modernizing trends took their toll:

With the advent of supermarkets, the need for boucheries deteriorated, and the variety of foods available in these markets expanded the Cajun palate which undermined the traditional cuisine. The bals de maisons found their replacements in the radio, the television set, and the movie theater. Cajun music came under attack, as well, and in the 1950s others called this music “Chanky-Chank” music “suggesting the simplicity of instrumentation and rhythm as well as the characteristically reiterative harmonic line.” Modernization resulted in a definite decline in the rural Cajun ethnic culture.''

And then came the 1960s, which was the beginning of a wholesale tearing-down of traditional mores in general, including those of Cajun country. But one benefit of the 1960s and 70s was a new interest in ethnicity and roots. 'Folk music' enjoyed a wave of popularity. At first, most of the 'folk music' craze was a dilettantish dabbling by academics and college students looking for something quaint and different and 'authentic'. The result was manufactured 'folk music' like that of the Kingston Trio and the college 'Hootenanny' craze. However, it did eventually lead many people to explore genuine roots music and honest-to-goodness traditional music from many sources. Cajuns benefited from this, as Cajun music became respectable and respected again, rather than being disparaged as 'chanky-chank' music. And not only Cajun music, but Cajun history, culture, and the Cajun dialect of French gained new attention.

With all this, however, the Cajun people are unmistakably part of America. There is something quintessentially American about their character along with their distinctiveness as a people. They, to my mind, are an example of a healthy ethnic group which is nonetheless part of America. There is none of the chip-on-the-shoulder, outsider victimhood mentality among Cajuns, in my experience. There may be some individuals with such attitudes but I have not encountered them.

Do I contradict myself? I now and then rail about unassimilable ethnic groups who have a stand-offish, us-vs.-them attitude towards the rest of us. I remember a discussion at Free Republic a few years ago involving Cajuns and their language, and somebody made a snarky comparison between Cajuns and Mexican immigrants who speak Spanish. The comparison incensed me; the attitudes of Cajuns and Mexicans are not comparable. At all. Cajuns love Louisiana, and they love America. Cajuns carry no residual allegiance to France or to Canada, their original home in the New World. This country, specifically Louisiana, is their home. They have no centuries-old grudge against Anglo-Americans as have Latinos. I remember no hostility in school between kids of Cajun descent and those of Anglo or other descent. Everybody got along famously; the Cajun kids were the most accepting and agreeable of all the classmates I had during my school years, despite my 'Texan' origin. There was a kind of jocular rivalry with Texans at that time, but no animosity. (And maybe it helped that I had a surname that, despite its non-French origin, was a surname borne by some Cajun families in the area.)

And somehow, along with their distinctiveness, Cajuns seem to be very much a part of the South. Their ways, although identifiably 'Cajun' are also part and parcel of the South. There is a compatibility there. There is no sense of disharmony or cultural clash between south Louisiana and, say, Texas. They differ, but there are commonalities. They are part of a larger whole: America, and the South specifically.

But the thought that crosses my mind most often these days in connection with the Cajuns is that they represent a group of people who might have disappeared centuries ago, but who have survived, despite being a small and rather vulnerable group of people, who were displaced and harried by historical events. Yet they have maintained their identity while still becoming part of the United States of America. It proves to me that if the sense of belonging to a group, and a pride in that group, is strong enough, the people and their culture can survive even if greatly outnumbered. That may be a lesson we will have to take from the Cajuns, we or our children and grandchildren, as they become an outnumbered and displaced group of people in the new 'America' or whatever takes its place.

From the website of the wonderful Cajun band, Balfa Toujours, this passage seems apposite:

Today the Cajun people are standing tall. After 400 years of almost constant pressure to conform to the larger cultures surrounding them, they have proven that their identity is too strong to be eradicated. This challenge has been increased greatly by the developments of this century, which have taken their toll on many subcultures. It appears that these challenges have largely been met in Louisiana, with many young people now taking pride in their heritage. A clear example of this is with the language. In the 1950's and 1960's, many people were punished in school for speaking French. Today, there are French immersion schools in which all classes are taught in a language that was considered shameful only a few decades ago.

This cultural revival has brought the Cajun people a lot of attention. While this is good for the Cajuns, certainly, it is perhaps not enough. It was Dewey Balfa's sincere hope that the further effect of his work would be to inspire other cultures as well. He hoped that others would see his pride and begin to feel it more strongly about their own heritage. If the story of the Cajuns can help to accomplish this, it will truly have done something marvelous.''

We who are the sons and daughters of Anglo-America can learn from the Cajuns a pride in their heritage, their people, and culture. If we can regain that, we will have half-won the battle.

However, one advantage the Cajuns had which is denied us in our 21st century America is isolation and freedom of association. They were able to have their own little area of South Louisiana in which their culture could persist and thrive, and they had the strength of community and kinship ties to sustain their culture. Our mass Tower of Babel culture does not afford us this luxury, as our communities are being purposely broken up.

Can we Americans survive as a distinct people, possibly even a minority people, in the face of the forcible multiculturalizing of our country, and despite the attempt to discredit our history and our culture? I think it will be an uphill journey unless we return to a more manageable, decentralized way of life with local control, and regain our freedom of association. Think small'; think local. Remember how destructive the mass media can be, and re-create a genuine way of life apart from the pernicious effects of television and mass pop culture.

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