A couple of posts back, I mentioned the expression: The Constitution is the White Man's Ghost Shirt (original source unknown, seen originally on Usenet back in the 90s, feel free to step forward and claim it if it is yours).
My wife asked me about this expression, so perhaps I should explain it in a bit more detail. The Ghost Shirt was an item that a number of Indian factions believed would protect them against the White Man's bullets and other weapons during an uprising. Typically such shirts would be covered with all sorts of mystical symbols and writing. Needless to say, confronted with naked force (specifically, the bullets and sabres of US cavalrymen), they didn't work terribly well.
The Constitution has a similar talismanic property in the minds of lots of White People, especially conservatives. This is a mistake, both tactically and strategically. The tactical mistake is that as a conservative, or, God forbid, a reactionary or counter revolutionary, you will pretty much never win a position on the strength of the Constitutional argument for it. You'll find instead that your Constitutional position will only be grudgingly recognized by the courts once you've won the position in the court of public opinion or at least made the issue totally radioactive for the politicians who would oppose you. This, for instance, is how the gun control battle has been largely won in recent years. For years gun advocates appealed to the courts about how utterly clear their case was in the plain language of the Bill of Rights. This didn't work---the courts will rule how the hell they want to rule with little regard to such considerations as the literal meaning of the text. However when the NRA started seriously going after its enemies in the electoral process, claiming scalps and picking on the weakest of their enemies in earnest in the 90s, things began to change. Once the issue became radioactive to the Democratic party, all of the sudden, the courts started taking the 'Embarrassing Second Amendment' somewhat seriously. Did the meaning of the text suddenly change? Was it amended? No, nothing changed except the political calculus. This is why it is a tactical mistake to attribute the powers of a talisman to the US constitution.
The strategic mistake is this: The Constitution and Bill of Rights can best be described as constituting a set of rules of engagement for political conflicts within the US. At least that was the intent. Rules of engagement have this universal property: They only 'work' when both sides generally abide by them. When only one side obeys those rules, it tends to suffer pretty massive disadvantages in the conflicts that the rules theoretically govern. If you have a massive advantage in a conflict, you can sometimes afford this, either because the rules of engagement represent some moral principle that you're willing to suffer greatly for, or because you believe that the peace after your victory will be more liveable if you do. But when you're at a significant disadvantage, you can't afford this sort of thing, especially if your conflict is existential. Simply put, reactionaries, conservatives, and counter revolutionaries should never shelve a particular desire for the mere reason that it wouldn't be constitutional. The rules of engagement are breached and you'd better get used to that. If you had the ability to have violators of the constitution hanged from lamp posts, especially those who 'interpreted' it beyond recognition, things might be different. But at present you don't, so don't feel bound by anything for such reasons, especially when they're not even in the plain text (the words separation of Church and State do not exist in the document, it rather forbids the Establishment of a Church, which meant nothing more than that the US would not have an official Federal church, like many nations in Europe, which would be supported by mandatory tithes--several states, did in fact have State churches, and this was considered perfectly kosher) but rather in the interpretation that some guy in a black dress dreamed up.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Besieging Moldbug's Cathedral: Help From Inside the University System
http://mangans.blogspot.com/2011/09/minorities-up-to-1500-times-more.html
In short, the University of Wisconsin-Madison was sued successfully by the Center for Equal Opportunity to release its admissions records, which they then mined to produce the jewel of legitimate grievance Mangan has so generously shared with us. Now, everyone who isn't a total idiot knows that racial preferences exist in the university system. But what everyone DOESN'T know is just how massive said preferences actually are. None of this surprises anyone with a basic knowledge of HBD and Statistics. For instance, around 1 in 6 black people in the US is of above average intelligence. One in 50 has more than a 115 IQ, which is the basic ante for a real degree program at a school with real standards---and which used to be the average IQ for college graduates (presently that number is closer to 105). However this creates massive representation ratios---because for a white person, approximately 1 in 2 are above average intelligence, and 1 in 6 have the 115 IQ mentioned previously. Those familiar with the normal distribution recognize, of course, that the representation ratios just get nastier and nastier as you move up the sigmas.
Our friends inside the Cathedral admissions department have done us a yeoman service here, by being so egregiously blatant about discriminating against white people in favor of hispanics (many who are probably the white people with Spanish surnames I posted about earlier this month) and blacks (many who are probably recent immigrants or foreign nationals). A better publicity coup to undermine the support of the Cathedral I would have difficulty devising myself.
Now the naive approach is to try to simply deny the admissions departments the knowledge of the race of the applicants. Don't count on this working. There are all kinds of ways the two motivated groups (the ones with a burning desire to get their diversity brownie points and the ones who have a flaming desire to bestow them) can coordinate implicitly. There's the infamous essay, the high school they graduated from, the name of the applicant, and now...google and facebook. Anyone who thinks they won't attempt to game any such regimen is smoking something really good. The only approach with half a chance would be to strip them totally of all discretion and use a European-style examination admission system. But honestly, we reactionaries really don't want to solve the affirmative action injustice so much as to use it as a club with which to destroy the Cathedral. Successive good faith attempts by the voters and their representatives to fix this problem subverted by the dark powers of the admissions department which inspire further rage in said voters is EXACTLY what we want. Praise God for his hardening of the hearts of our adversaries.
In short, the University of Wisconsin-Madison was sued successfully by the Center for Equal Opportunity to release its admissions records, which they then mined to produce the jewel of legitimate grievance Mangan has so generously shared with us. Now, everyone who isn't a total idiot knows that racial preferences exist in the university system. But what everyone DOESN'T know is just how massive said preferences actually are. None of this surprises anyone with a basic knowledge of HBD and Statistics. For instance, around 1 in 6 black people in the US is of above average intelligence. One in 50 has more than a 115 IQ, which is the basic ante for a real degree program at a school with real standards---and which used to be the average IQ for college graduates (presently that number is closer to 105). However this creates massive representation ratios---because for a white person, approximately 1 in 2 are above average intelligence, and 1 in 6 have the 115 IQ mentioned previously. Those familiar with the normal distribution recognize, of course, that the representation ratios just get nastier and nastier as you move up the sigmas.
Our friends inside the Cathedral admissions department have done us a yeoman service here, by being so egregiously blatant about discriminating against white people in favor of hispanics (many who are probably the white people with Spanish surnames I posted about earlier this month) and blacks (many who are probably recent immigrants or foreign nationals). A better publicity coup to undermine the support of the Cathedral I would have difficulty devising myself.
Now the naive approach is to try to simply deny the admissions departments the knowledge of the race of the applicants. Don't count on this working. There are all kinds of ways the two motivated groups (the ones with a burning desire to get their diversity brownie points and the ones who have a flaming desire to bestow them) can coordinate implicitly. There's the infamous essay, the high school they graduated from, the name of the applicant, and now...google and facebook. Anyone who thinks they won't attempt to game any such regimen is smoking something really good. The only approach with half a chance would be to strip them totally of all discretion and use a European-style examination admission system. But honestly, we reactionaries really don't want to solve the affirmative action injustice so much as to use it as a club with which to destroy the Cathedral. Successive good faith attempts by the voters and their representatives to fix this problem subverted by the dark powers of the admissions department which inspire further rage in said voters is EXACTLY what we want. Praise God for his hardening of the hearts of our adversaries.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Our Adversaries: Encouragment and Morale to Reaction
Today I'd like to offer some encouragement to my fellow reactionaries. We've got a lot of challenges, perhaps partly because to be a reactionary, practically by definition in the current climate you need to be pretty low in the 5-factor model Agreeableness. That is simply the cross we must bear, but take heart, Reaction is not achieved by Agreeable men.
The biggest thing we have going for us in truth is our adversaries. Our present day adversaries are, if more numerous than they were in the past, of distinctly inferior quality. Gone are those who would embrace martyrdom. The SWPL of today has probably never even been in a mere argument wherein he was outnumbered or fighting the cultural zeitgeist. No, he is terribly spoiled by the fact that, despite his protestations, he IS the establishment, and a lazy one at that. He has no stomach for a real fight, even if it is strictly rhetorical, at anything other than many to one odds. In general he lacks even any honest to goodness principles, he simply does what gets the most plusses to social status. He has few if any children, and sends them to schools that are curiously non-diverse despite his loud profession of faith in diversity.
Come the Reaction he will strive to gain social status by demonstrating his prodigious knowledge of Antediluvian geneologies. All that is necessary to bend him to our will is to change the status incentive structure that he faces. He is not the would-be crusader of years past that faced a powerful Klan with his life in the balance. No, truth be told, a present day member of the Klan---if it still has a nontrivial number of members that are not federal or state informants, is far more courageous than he. For he, at least, is willing to place SOMETHING above the mere aggrandizement of social status. Take this as a gift: There is absolutely nobody more easy to manipulate than the one who is concerned with social status uber alles.
So take heart in this comrades. Should the Establishment begin to waver, it will fall quickly. Far more quickly, I think, than you or I could possibly imagine. And, indeed, the SWPL will proclaim that he was with us all the time.
The biggest thing we have going for us in truth is our adversaries. Our present day adversaries are, if more numerous than they were in the past, of distinctly inferior quality. Gone are those who would embrace martyrdom. The SWPL of today has probably never even been in a mere argument wherein he was outnumbered or fighting the cultural zeitgeist. No, he is terribly spoiled by the fact that, despite his protestations, he IS the establishment, and a lazy one at that. He has no stomach for a real fight, even if it is strictly rhetorical, at anything other than many to one odds. In general he lacks even any honest to goodness principles, he simply does what gets the most plusses to social status. He has few if any children, and sends them to schools that are curiously non-diverse despite his loud profession of faith in diversity.
Come the Reaction he will strive to gain social status by demonstrating his prodigious knowledge of Antediluvian geneologies. All that is necessary to bend him to our will is to change the status incentive structure that he faces. He is not the would-be crusader of years past that faced a powerful Klan with his life in the balance. No, truth be told, a present day member of the Klan---if it still has a nontrivial number of members that are not federal or state informants, is far more courageous than he. For he, at least, is willing to place SOMETHING above the mere aggrandizement of social status. Take this as a gift: There is absolutely nobody more easy to manipulate than the one who is concerned with social status uber alles.
So take heart in this comrades. Should the Establishment begin to waver, it will fall quickly. Far more quickly, I think, than you or I could possibly imagine. And, indeed, the SWPL will proclaim that he was with us all the time.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
White People with Spanish Surnames, Affirmative Action's Weakest Link
There are a fair number of people out there who are visibly and culturally quite white, but who have Spanish surnames and accordingly are able to reap lots of affirmative action goodies. My half-sister is a good example of this (my stepfather being Spanish/German and having the most common Spanish surname of them all)---visibly probably whiter than 80% of white people but the recipient of preference, scholarships, and the like on the basis of being 'Hispanic/Latina/whatever gets the most pluses'---being, in this case, operationalized by checking the relevant box. I could have done this myself back in the day, there was talk of changing my last name when I was a youngster, but such blatant gaming of the system was considered distasteful by middle class people back then.
Nevertheless, this group is one that could be fairly easily wedged free from the existing non-Asian minority coalition. The smaller the coalition becomes, the easier it is to fight it and to remove the perks of being diverse that come at the expense of the non-diverse, like, say, my own little ones (nobody would mistake a pair of very fair little redheads with bright blue eyes for anything but the descendants of Vikings and other presently disfavored groups). Doubtlessly, the coalition would see this as an effort to divide and conquer, as in fact it is, but I have a little secret to tell you.
You don't have to convince minorities if that is your objective, you have to convince overly nice white ladies that they're not being 'mean' by advancing their husband's interests. There's of course the obstacle of the judiciary, but that is a battle that has to be fought anyway and I've outlined a plan in previous posts for delegitimizing it progressively in the eyes of the population. The short form is that as reactionaries, we are long (in the stock market sense) anger---anything that pisses off the population, like blatant legislation from the bench, works in our favor. It is to our advantage to fight anytime doing so costs us less resources than it does our opponents and when even losing bleeds the present elite's perceived legitimacy. In this case, much of the left will even agree---people like my sister have no business getting such goodies and God forbid, a system gaming version of myself getting Hispanic preferences would be an abomination.
Nevertheless, this group is one that could be fairly easily wedged free from the existing non-Asian minority coalition. The smaller the coalition becomes, the easier it is to fight it and to remove the perks of being diverse that come at the expense of the non-diverse, like, say, my own little ones (nobody would mistake a pair of very fair little redheads with bright blue eyes for anything but the descendants of Vikings and other presently disfavored groups). Doubtlessly, the coalition would see this as an effort to divide and conquer, as in fact it is, but I have a little secret to tell you.
You don't have to convince minorities if that is your objective, you have to convince overly nice white ladies that they're not being 'mean' by advancing their husband's interests. There's of course the obstacle of the judiciary, but that is a battle that has to be fought anyway and I've outlined a plan in previous posts for delegitimizing it progressively in the eyes of the population. The short form is that as reactionaries, we are long (in the stock market sense) anger---anything that pisses off the population, like blatant legislation from the bench, works in our favor. It is to our advantage to fight anytime doing so costs us less resources than it does our opponents and when even losing bleeds the present elite's perceived legitimacy. In this case, much of the left will even agree---people like my sister have no business getting such goodies and God forbid, a system gaming version of myself getting Hispanic preferences would be an abomination.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Rational Economic Man Strikes Back
http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2011/08/court_decision_denigrates_marr.html
Back last year, I wrote of the consequences of the desacralization of marriage and the outcomes we should expect to see as Rational Economic Man increasingly shows up on the scene.
http://chariotofreaction.blogspot.com/2010/05/rational-economic-man-marriage-and.html
At the time, some of my predictions seemed a bit far-fetched to some, but the advance of history seems to be bearing out my thesis.
In essence, what happened in this case is a number of airline pilots and their wives saw the following circumstance:
1. The pension plan they were in was underfunded
2. Underfunded pension plans are not allowed to give accelerated or lump-sum distributions because doing so would capsize the plan early and create a prisoner's dilemma among the participants
3. There is an exception to this rule for the case of a divorce because of the logistical hardships and public sympathy.
So what did they do? They conjured Rational Economic Man and did something nearly unthinkable to most people, especially neurotypicals.
They divorced, got a skewed settlement, transferred the entire pension more or less to the wive, who rolled it into her IRA without creating a taxable event, and then they remarried. Sounds an awful lot like the scenarios in my previous post does it not?
Now they were very blatant about it, which is why there was a court case. In practice marriage and divorce are incredibly messy. My father and mother, for instance, were married, to each other, twice and divorced, from each other, also twice, before they both married other people. It would be terribly difficult to adjudicate whether a given divorce is a 'sham' or not when ordinary reality deals up such a dog's breakfast as a matter of course.
Of course every time this sort of thing actually occurs, it makes it more thinkable to others. At some point you may see ad hoc dissolution of civil marriages almost considered a due diligence issue in financial, tax, and estate planning. This of course will require the rules of society to change as those who game the system less are outraged.
I predict we've not seen the last of Rational Economic Man. His hour is come at last.
Back last year, I wrote of the consequences of the desacralization of marriage and the outcomes we should expect to see as Rational Economic Man increasingly shows up on the scene.
http://chariotofreaction.blogspot.com/2010/05/rational-economic-man-marriage-and.html
At the time, some of my predictions seemed a bit far-fetched to some, but the advance of history seems to be bearing out my thesis.
In essence, what happened in this case is a number of airline pilots and their wives saw the following circumstance:
1. The pension plan they were in was underfunded
2. Underfunded pension plans are not allowed to give accelerated or lump-sum distributions because doing so would capsize the plan early and create a prisoner's dilemma among the participants
3. There is an exception to this rule for the case of a divorce because of the logistical hardships and public sympathy.
So what did they do? They conjured Rational Economic Man and did something nearly unthinkable to most people, especially neurotypicals.
They divorced, got a skewed settlement, transferred the entire pension more or less to the wive, who rolled it into her IRA without creating a taxable event, and then they remarried. Sounds an awful lot like the scenarios in my previous post does it not?
Now they were very blatant about it, which is why there was a court case. In practice marriage and divorce are incredibly messy. My father and mother, for instance, were married, to each other, twice and divorced, from each other, also twice, before they both married other people. It would be terribly difficult to adjudicate whether a given divorce is a 'sham' or not when ordinary reality deals up such a dog's breakfast as a matter of course.
Of course every time this sort of thing actually occurs, it makes it more thinkable to others. At some point you may see ad hoc dissolution of civil marriages almost considered a due diligence issue in financial, tax, and estate planning. This of course will require the rules of society to change as those who game the system less are outraged.
I predict we've not seen the last of Rational Economic Man. His hour is come at last.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Labor Day Special, Held Over from May Day
http://chariotofreaction.blogspot.com/2011/05/special-offer-for-unions-on-may-day.html
Dear Unions of America,
Back in May we talked, and I presented my offer to you. In the spirit of Christian charity, I'd like to inform you that said offer is still good. You retain the ability to act in your own best interests without facing withering criticism from the reactionary quarter. Ask yourselves this, is your position improving or worsening? Judging by the various economic numbers (e.g., the substantial fall in tax receipts, a number that is much harder to game than the happy-clappy U3 numbers the MSM tries to convince you mean something---if they didn't love Obama so much, they might remember just how crappy a metric U3 is and tell you about U6, and if they hated his guts, they'd tell you about total employment ratios, labor force participation rates, and the like), I'd have to say your position is worsening by the quarter.
Last time I told you that you desperately needed to stop the bleeding caused by illegal immigration (and legal immigration, for that matter). Said policies cut your collective throats. That's still true. But I'd also counsel you that you need to think seriously about what prompts outsourcing as well. Honestly speaking, you need to think seriously about what you want to push insofar as corporate taxation is concerned, as well as the various regulations that make the US such a popular place to outsource from.
Dear Unions of America,
Back in May we talked, and I presented my offer to you. In the spirit of Christian charity, I'd like to inform you that said offer is still good. You retain the ability to act in your own best interests without facing withering criticism from the reactionary quarter. Ask yourselves this, is your position improving or worsening? Judging by the various economic numbers (e.g., the substantial fall in tax receipts, a number that is much harder to game than the happy-clappy U3 numbers the MSM tries to convince you mean something---if they didn't love Obama so much, they might remember just how crappy a metric U3 is and tell you about U6, and if they hated his guts, they'd tell you about total employment ratios, labor force participation rates, and the like), I'd have to say your position is worsening by the quarter.
Last time I told you that you desperately needed to stop the bleeding caused by illegal immigration (and legal immigration, for that matter). Said policies cut your collective throats. That's still true. But I'd also counsel you that you need to think seriously about what prompts outsourcing as well. Honestly speaking, you need to think seriously about what you want to push insofar as corporate taxation is concerned, as well as the various regulations that make the US such a popular place to outsource from.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Behold the Awesome Power of Demographic Hegemony
http://traditionalchristianity.wordpress.com/2011/09/01/when-minorities-discriminate
Essentially the Cherokee nation just decided, and their Supreme Court confirmed, to eject all of the descendants of slaves that were previously considered official members of the tribe.
No doubt this raises the reader's hackles. There is of course a substantial amount of money involved (their casinos earned the tribe over 25 billion back in 2009).
But this is what a group that has demographic hegemony can do. By their vote, they concentrated their share of the tribe's loot. It shouldn't surprise anyone that race is used as the point of coordination. It is, after all, one of the easiest Schelling Points to use in such games, and it has the most history of use. If another group has the demographic hegemony, you're at its mercy in such matters. Also, it doesn't matter what you identify yourself with---many of the freedmen doubtlessly identified themselves as Cherokees first. What matters is who the other identify YOU with. Groups that are heavily atomized and individualistic will always have a major handicap in such status competitions, and the stakes are often very high indeed. This case is just an abnormally clear object lesson. One can't even expect a constitution to take such issues off the table, because even if a constitution is abundantly clear, there has to be an official arbitrator, and that means somebody (i.e., not you) gets to vote, and such things are amendable anyway, even though the modern preference is to simply interpret them into uselessness.
I've heard it said that the Constitution is the White Man's Ghost Shirt. I tend to agree.
Oh, but I hear you saying, I'd NEVER do that to them, so they'd NEVER do that to me. Get this through your head right now---the Golden Rule is a command, not an if-then conditional promise.
Essentially the Cherokee nation just decided, and their Supreme Court confirmed, to eject all of the descendants of slaves that were previously considered official members of the tribe.
No doubt this raises the reader's hackles. There is of course a substantial amount of money involved (their casinos earned the tribe over 25 billion back in 2009).
But this is what a group that has demographic hegemony can do. By their vote, they concentrated their share of the tribe's loot. It shouldn't surprise anyone that race is used as the point of coordination. It is, after all, one of the easiest Schelling Points to use in such games, and it has the most history of use. If another group has the demographic hegemony, you're at its mercy in such matters. Also, it doesn't matter what you identify yourself with---many of the freedmen doubtlessly identified themselves as Cherokees first. What matters is who the other identify YOU with. Groups that are heavily atomized and individualistic will always have a major handicap in such status competitions, and the stakes are often very high indeed. This case is just an abnormally clear object lesson. One can't even expect a constitution to take such issues off the table, because even if a constitution is abundantly clear, there has to be an official arbitrator, and that means somebody (i.e., not you) gets to vote, and such things are amendable anyway, even though the modern preference is to simply interpret them into uselessness.
I've heard it said that the Constitution is the White Man's Ghost Shirt. I tend to agree.
Oh, but I hear you saying, I'd NEVER do that to them, so they'd NEVER do that to me. Get this through your head right now---the Golden Rule is a command, not an if-then conditional promise.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
