See below “An inside job: Western liberal rejection of liberal values and policies”, and much more on elite domination of commoners…
The comments below probe the endless struggle against the elite/commoner divide in human societies. Classic Liberalism was created to liberate us from that primitive animal-like shaping of human societies and to protect the equal freedoms and rights of every individual. Classic liberals formulated systems of common laws and institutions to keep government institutions oriented to serving the will of commoners- “the people”, to prevent elites from using governments to meddle in, dominate, and control the lives of common citizens.
The struggle against the impulse of elites to dominate and control others is the struggle for equal freedom and rights for all.
Among other articles summarized below, this from Jesse Kline of National Post…
“Jesse Kline reviews Brendan O’Neill’s new book ,”After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation”, that “sheds light on the morally bankrupt ideology that has caused many of our elites to turn their backs on liberal values and forge an unholy alliance with religious extremists”. Kline says that O’Neill blames the current worldwide eruption of virulent antisemitism on “modern progressive ideology, which is a complete bastardization of the values that liberals once held dear.”
“Western support for the genocidal terrorism of Hamas is, according to O’Neill, “the logical inhumane conclusion to a pseudo-progressive politics that judges people’s moral worth by their skin colour, their presumed privilege and their placement on a racial hierarchy fashioned by the unaccountable overlords of western opinion.”
Kline comments on the “hysterical hatred” once again being widely incited against Jews, with Canada leading the way. So also, we see the base tribal impulse stirring “hysterical hatred” against political opponents, illustrated notably in US society, but also across most Western nations and elsewhere.
This, by C.S. Lewis, deserves a reposting for nailing the sickness of the busybody personality that we are all currently suffering under. Relate this to the contemporary eruption of elites re-establishing the “elite/commoner divide” in our societies.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to heaven yet at the same time make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals”, C.S. Lewis.
What is this busybody impulse to meddle in the lives of others, to dominate and control others? What is this mind that believes it should “righteously” meddle with and dominate others for “their good”? Where is the Classic Liberal mind that embraces and promotes “Live and let live” as in respecting individual freedoms and rights to self-determination?
See also below, Libertarian Kat Timpf’s comments on John Kerry’s recent advocacy for neo-totalitarianism, his demand to set aside the First Amendment so he can “hammer out of existence” all dissent to his “consensus”. As Timpf said, “This is scary”.
The totalitarian impulse to dominate now being unleashed in Western societies, from within, Wendell Krossa (PS. This writer is a proudly independent “commoner”.)
And comment on the Jesus insight that deflated entirely the elite appeal to the validating myth of God as dominating Lord or king.
The contemporary leftist crusade for societal domination in the 21st Century is the latest crusade by power-mongering elites to re-establish the “elite/commoner” divide in societies, what Richard Landes (“Heaven On Earth”) terms the “prime divider” in societies, as opposed to democratic society. This mother of all pathologies- i.e. the elitist lust to dominate others- has wreaked incalculable destruction across human history.
I have posted before the research of pre-historian John Pfeiffer (“The Creative Explosion: An Inquiry into the Origins of Art and Religion”) how early shaman elevated themselves over fellow tribe members with the claim that they knew the secrets to the invisible realm (i.e. what angered the gods, what sacrifices were demanded, etc.). The earliest emergence of religion in human societies (metaphysical speculations) included this element of some people positioning themselves above others, to manipulate and control others.
This site tackles pathologies like domination by probing the origins and subsequent historical development of primitive ideas/myths, notably myths that have long validated elite domination of commoners. Our ancient ancestors began to validate the domination of commoners by elites when they started creating myths of kings as divine beings (e.g. one line of historical descent of such ideas is through Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and then Christian mythology).
The myth of primitive elites as divinely appointed then fed the offspring mythology in Western history of leaders/kings as divinely appointed to rule commoners.
Buttressing this myth of elites as divine, or God-appointed to rule others, are the similarly primitive myths that common people were “created to serve the gods”, to do the work of the gods, to feed the gods. Add that the submission of commoners to divinely-anointed rulers would be mediated through submission to the self-proclaimed representatives of deity- i.e. submission to the kings and their co-elitist priesthoods.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_of_life_from_clay#:~:text=The%20Sumerian%20myth%20of%20Enki,
Priestly elites from the beginning have employed the totalitarian’s formula- i.e. “fear=control”. Early shaman/priests quickly mastered the skill of using complexes of terror-generating myths to subject susceptible commoners to elite domination.
Among the most effective and prominent examples of early elite fear-mongering in order to manipulate others into submission, is the claim that the gods who were believed to be behind the all the elements of the natural world, those gods were punishing people’s sins through natural disaster, disease, accident, and death. That “threat theology” was among the earliest tools of elite control.
The logical complement to such threat was the natural question that arose in primitive minds of how to appease the angry gods in order to survive? How to atone for human sin that caused such misery and suffering from the natural world? Hence, the corollary to “humans were created to feed the gods (i.e. offerings)” was the offering of blood sacrifices to appease the gods as in atonement.
Some historians deny that offerings were of the nature of atonement to appease divine anger but then admit that if offerings were not made, the gods would become angry and punish the negligent people. Duh, eh.
Early shaman/priests were humanity’s first experts in creating monster gods to terrorize commoners into unquestioning subjection to priestly salvation schemes.
Little has changed over subsequent millennia. “There is nothing new under the sun”. The ideas and practices that the earliest elites formulated to manipulate and control populations continue to function today with contemporary political and environmental elites terrorizing people to submit to their latest salvation schemes in order to “save the world, save life”.
Yes, I view the “climate crisis” apocalyptic narrative as another “profoundly religious” crusade. Its core themes would resonate comfortably with ancient minds.
Note, for example, the contemporary prominent version of threat theology to enforce submission to an elite salvation scheme in the climate alarmist narrative where we are told that God is angry with our enjoyment of the good life in industrial civilization, based on using fossil fuels. The pissed deity now demands the sacrifice of abandoning our profligate use of energy to penitently return to the “moral superiority of the simple life”.
Again, that Japanese lady nailed this mythology in rhetorically stating after the 2011 tsunami, “Are we being punished for enjoying the good life?”
We are urged to sacrifice the good life by returning to primitivism via “de-growth, de-development” and thereby placate some imagined nature deity and atone for human sin. And note that such sacrifice is presented as obligatory for commoners while elites are excused to continue to enjoy the good life- i.e. the elitist escape clause of “rules for thee but not for me”. Because elites view themselves as members of an “enlightened class” who are leading us commoners on the path of righteousness toward the restoration of a lost paradise, toward utopia.
Elitist politician Nancy Pelosi exemplified this when she used the totalitarian’s formula, i.e. “fear=control”, to coerce commoner submission to her climate salvation scheme of Net Zero decarbonization. She threatened commoners with the claim that Mother Earth was angry and expressed that anger at the human sin of using fossil fuels through the California wildfires of 2020. Same old, same old as ever before. The full contextual meaning of her statement was obvious to all listening.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pelosi-on-wildfires-in-california-and-west-mother-earth-is-angry
These primitive themes (i.e. the validation of elites as divinely appointed) are endlessly reframed in new versions and given expression in new movements across history. They were exposed as driving Marxism and Nazism, and continue now as the basic drivers of environmental alarmism, notably in the “climate crisis” apocalypse narrative.
Elitist narratives of domination as divinely authorized, distort and bury entirely our modern realization, emerging and developing since Magna Carta, that every individual in human society has the “natural right” to full freedom and equality, with every other citizen, under common law systems. This freedom and equality of all people has been the great discovery of Classic Liberalism, liberal democracy, or libertarianism.
The right of every individual to full freedom and equality is the only true “divine appointment”. Without such freedom and equality there is no “God is love”, as in Bob Brinsmead’s insight that “where there is no authentic freedom there is no authentic love”. God as “ruler, king, lord” is a primitive perversion of the reality of deity as love, a rejection of the true nature of deity as defined by historical Jesus (i.e. God as “no conditions love”).
Matt Taibbi recently said, “defy authority”. Yes. And I would also add- defy this primitive nonsense that God appoints rulers to dominate commoners, that the elite/commoner divide is the right and true way to organize human society, an expression of the divine pattern or model. That is nonsense squared.
Here is Matt’s statement in his speech to the “Rescue the Republic” rally…
https://www.racket.news/p/my-speech-in-washington-rescue-the
“I’m not encouraging you to be skeptical of authority. I’m encouraging you to DEFY authority. That is the right word for this time.”
Matt further protests the “reflexive siding with authority” that seems too prominent a response today among the US population. He discusses this with Walter Kirn in the latest “America This Week”.
https://www.racket.news/p/transcript-america-this-week-october
“America This Week: Biden’s Hurricane Katrina?- Elite America responded with sympathy to the revelations of Hurricane Katrina. Is it the same this time?”, Oct. 4, 2024, Matt Taibbi, Walter Kirn.
Again, I would add to Matt’s statement urging defiance of authority, so also defy the background mythology that has long validated human narratives and thought on authority- i.e. the God of elites that validates domination of commoners. That mythology has always undermined human appreciation of the natural rights (i.e. “God-given”) of every citizen to full freedom and equality under common law and Classic Liberal institutions (i.e. representative parliaments that exist to actually serve the will of the people).
Historical Jesus corrected the great lie of elites that their domination of commoners was the divine order of things, when he rejected the scrambling and jostling among his followers to be the considered the greatest.
Note Matthew’s account of this: “Jesus called his followers to him and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles (i.e. the pagans) lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave’,” Matthew 20: 25-27.
Jesus was arguing to his followers that if they claimed to believe that he represented God in some manner, then they needed to understand that true divine greatness was not to dominate others like the pagans do, but to serve. Meaning- If “God is great” and “God is love” then God will respect the freedom and equality of all individuals. Where there is no such freedom and equality then there is no love, there is no “God is love”. (Yes, I am filling in the blanks of what the wisdom sage Jesus was communicating.)
This profound anti-domination statement of Jesus is tucked away, “buried” as Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy would say, in the larger New Testament context that contradicts the core themes in Jesus’ message and repeatedly affirms Paul’s contrary myth of “Lord Jesus”, as in affirming domination as divinely approved.
The Jesus insight on non-domination reframes the nature of deity entirely by rejecting the long history of gods as “rulers, lords, kings” who appointed elites (i.e. kings, lords, priesthoods) to dominate and tell commoners how to please and placate deity, how to live in subjection to elite control.
Marinate your minds on how profoundly transformational this is to our views of the true nature of deity. It is another insight into the greatest potential liberation ever proposed- i.e. liberation of mind, spirit, and life at the deepest levels of consciousness.
God, as humanity’s highest ideal and authority, and contrary to all previous mythology, is a street-level God, not an elitist dominator of people, validating elite domination of commoners.
Illustration:
Remember the story of the priest who climbed a tower to get closer to the God that he believed ruled from the heavens above, praying that God would reveal himself to him from the high heavens? Apparently, God responded to his prayer, stating, “I am down here among my people. Not somewhere in the heavens above.” Deity as street level, ordinary, common, affirming the freedom and equality of all.
Added notes:
I would add that Bob Brinsmead recently had me read Helmut Koester’s “History, Culture, and Religion Of The Hellenistic Age”. Koester recounts how the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans developed these ideas of kings as divine persons, appointed to embody and mediate the rule of gods over commoners.
Again, the liberating message of Jesus has been buried in a New Testament context that teaches the very opposite, contradicting his core themes. The New Testament emphasizes the “Lord Jesus” of Paul, framing deity as all about ultimate King/Ruler, ultimate and eternal domination of subservient humans. And that, according to Paul, is the divine will or model. Domination forever.
I would further add this non-domination theme of Jesus to his other central themes that have been deformed and buried by Paul’s Christ myth: i.e. (1) Paul claiming that Jesus was the ultimate divine sacrifice in contradiction to Jesus saying nothing about coming to offer himself as a sacrifice for sin in his original message (i.e. Q Wisdom Sayings gospel), (2) Jesus’ non-retaliatory message in Matthew 5:38-48 as opposed to Paul’s message of ultimate retaliation through apocalypse and hell, (3) Jesus’ no conditions message as opposed to Paul’s gospel of supreme conditions (i.e. blood sacrifice demanded as condition for salvation in Romans), among other contradictions.
Get clear that domination of others is animal and not human (i.e. alpha male/female). Domination is certainly not divine. It is one of the most destructive of the evil triad of inherited impulses. Do not defame and deform deity by claiming that God is an ultimate Dominator, more animal than human.
Understanding how elites manipulate us commoners with primitive and deformed narrative themes is an essential first step to freedom, to resisting elite meddling and control, to fighting back and protecting our freedoms and rights, our equality, inclusion, our right to diversity as in disagreement and dissent to elite messaging and control.
Yes Matt, “Defy authority”.
Further notes:
Paul in Romans 13 urges people to submit to governing authorities as appointed by God. Paul appears to overreach in this passage to communicate too generally that any dissent to governing authority is to be punished. This obfuscates the nature of “governing authority” with the myth of elite domination as divine will- “The authorities are God’s servants”.
More correctly, much “governing authority” is the result of domination-obsessed elites scrambling for power among themselves and very little of “government exists to serve the people and protect their freedom and rights”. Too much governing authority results from self-appointment, not divine appointment. The outcome (Thomas Sowell’s “test of facts”) affirms the true nature of governing authorities. Do state elites and their bureaucracies actually exist to protect and promote the supremacy of the will of all free and equal individuals? Do they actually “serve” the citizens?
Paul’s statement:
“Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. So anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished. For the authorities do not strike fear in people who are doing right, but in those who are doing wrong. Would you like to live without fear of the authorities? Do what is right, and they will honor you. The authorities are God’s servants, sent for your good. But if you are doing wrong, of course you should be afraid, for they have the power to punish you. They are God’s servants, sent for the very purpose of punishing those who do what is wrong. So you must submit to them, not only to avoid punishment, but also to keep a clear conscience.”
Yes, one element in Paul’s statement argues for a common-sense position- i.e. that there are natural and social consequences to bad behavior and all of us accept systems of law and criminal justice systems that uphold public order with such consequences. But Paul generalizes beyond that common-sense fact to urge a more general submission to state authorities as representing God. That has to be defied.
While we all agree to affirm the common law systems and institutions of Classic Liberalism, we do not “submit to governments” or state leaders in any general sense. We support government leadership where they actually protect and promote the equality and freedom of all citizens- the supremacy of the commoner’s will over governing authorities. State “authorities” must submit to and serve the will of the people, not the other way round as Paul appears to propose.
Governing authorities are only “God’s servants” in a very limited sense, in the Classic Liberal sense of serving commoners.
There is so much to tie in here to properly and fully understand the impulse to dominate. For example, the deformation of the hero’s quest, where those wishing to validate their own impulse to dominate, will use that story framework to portray themselves as righteous activists opposing evil monsters, fighting enemies that need to be exterminated in order to save something good that is threatened. Their enemies deserve to be dominated and vanquished in the crusade for some greater good.
The elite deformation of the hero’s quest ends with people locking themselves into bubble narratives that feed a personal satisfaction (virtue-signaling, deformed compassion) to be framed as righteous in opposition to evil.
The test of true heroism- Does it fight for the equal freedoms and rights of all people? Does it affirm Classic Liberal principles and institutions?
Remember, that those we label as “enemies” are still family. Hence, “love your enemy” is the fundamental human obligation, the obligation of authentic love.
More to come…
Presenting as righteous conqueror of evil enemies- Understanding how a totalitarian’s mind functions and the narrative that affirms their domination impulse, Wendell Krossa
Exemplifying left-wing compassion, and virtue-signaling of noble intention and righteous cause, Hilary Clinton presents as defending children against harm. This from the same lady who would put children into collectivism as in her “it takes a village to raise a child”, affirmed by her subsequent push for more state supervision of children. Similarly, Justin Trudeau presents as nobly advocating for protection of children with his “Online Harms” Bill C-63 that would allow for open-ended application to far more than just protection from harm.
The terms used by these neo-totalitarians frame their endeavors as righteous cause- i.e. “content moderation… stop harmful disinformation, misinformation, mal-information” etc.
But the “test of facts” again- Twitter Files revealed a political party shifting into totalitarianism (70% of Democrats now want censorship of opponents). The same party had state agencies- i.e. FBI- censor opponents, even censor comedy as Mark Zuckerberg admitted in his recent letter. Totalitarians hate the mockery of their power-mongering. So also Gov. Gavin Newsom is criminalizing and banning parody.
Add here the CIA and other intelligence officials who lied to hide the inconvenient truth of the Hunter Biden laptop and thereby interfered in an election where follow-up surveys showed some 1 out of 6 Biden voters would not have voted for him had they known the laptop was true, among varied other true things that were hidden from Biden voters.
I had to use the search engine “Brave” to find this report as biased Google will not show it, only presenting rebuttals of this survey as “right-wing conspiracy theory”.
https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2020/nov/26/cooper-biden-voters/
Yes, Jimmy Dore, we are the most propagandized people, most lied to people, and we often don’t know it.
And then there was the suppression and censoring of true facts about Covid. Highly respected scientists (epidemiologists John Ioannidis, Jay Bhattacharya, and others, e.g. Bret Weinstein) were censored, deplatformed, demonetized, and outright banned on social media. They were accused of promoting “harmful disinformation, misinformation” that was actually true but contradicted state-approved narratives.
The danger in these “content moderation… protect from disinformation, misinformation” projects, is that “concept creep” enables totalitarians to use the cloak of righteous cause and virtuous concern for victims to unleash their domination impulse and to extend “hate speech… harmful speech” categories to include opponent’s political/ideological views and speech, even criminalize such differing opinions and speech.
Hilary’s claim that they must not “lose total control” is a confession of her party’s totalitarian impulse to entrench their domination. They frame that as noble cause to protect the innocent from harm, but extend that to disagreeing others in more general terms.
“Illiberal progressivism” has now gone whole hog to legitimize the censorship of differing others. They have locked themselves into the view that their ideological positions are the only right and true ones for human society, and it is therefore necessary to maintain those ideas and policies as dominant in order “to save democracy” from all who differ, dissent, or disagree. All others (healthy democratic diversity) are framed as “threats to democracy”, to civilization. Dissenting others are even demonized as “existential threats” to all good. Hence, Progressives now believe that it is legitimate to censor and even criminalize opponents, to actually lock them up, not just chant that mantra.
Again, this illustrates the deforming of the hero’s quest to fight a monster and vanquish an enemy in order to save something. The leftist crusade for domination even plays dangerously with the later-phase shift to “exterminate or be exterminated” extremism that resulted in mass-death under Marxism and Nazism.
Remember, Hilary Clinton is the lady who sponsored the lies of the Steele Dossier that initiated her attempt to overturn the 2016 election that she still insists was “illegitimate”. She refuses to accept the outcome of a democratic election, as do other Democrats.
As with all such crusades to “moderate content, to protect from harmful disinformation/misinformation, and hate speech”, who gets to decide what falls within these categories and definitions? What are the protections then for freedom of speech? Even the protection of offensive, upsetting, disgusting speech (a highly differing categorization in the eyes of differing beholders).
“Hilary Clinton says social media companies need to moderate content or ‘we lose total control’: Clinton called for section 230 of the Communications Act to be repealed”, Landon Mion, Fox News, Oct.5, 2024
Clinton demands social media companies must moderate content or “we lose total control”. She frames her crusade for censoring content as protection against “threats to our children”. She wants “guardrails to be implemented”. If only she were one of Plato’s “noble and wise rulers”, unbiased, objective, fair, who could be trusted with running such a project.
And she wants opponents, whom she claims interfere in elections by spreading propaganda, to be criminally charged. Sheesh. Talk about projection of one’s own crimes onto others, eh. Hilary- “spreading propaganda”? What about the Russiagate lies? And financing the Steele Dossier? And more…
Oh, and I forgot all those buried bodies that Joe Rogan, Jimmy Dore, and others repeatedly joke about.
An inside job: Western liberal rejection of liberal values and policies, Wendell Krossa
What Jesse Kline points to below, in his comments on Brendan O’Neill’s new book, is the great perplexation of today- How those among us who recently identified as liberals have now outright abandoned true liberal ideals, principles, and institutions for collectivist totalitarianism in extreme leftist “Woke Progressivism”.
On one hand, this speaks to the success of neo-Marxist indoctrination of recent generations of university students who have graduated to populate all sectors of our societies. And it speaks to the failure to ground our citizens, especially students, in Classic Liberal principles and institutions that protect the freedom and rights of all citizens, equally.
I have again posted the basics of Classic Liberalism below- i.e. the supremacy of free and equal individuals over state elites and their bureaucracies that should exist to serve the people. Socialist experiments also claim to operate “for the people” but never do so as concentrating power and control in enlightened elites, who run the collectives, unleashes the domination impulse with no Classic Liberal checks on the concentration of power in collectivist systems.
The abandonment of Western liberalism, by US liberals, erupted notably with Trump’s election and his moves to dismantle the very institutions and programs that dominating liberal elites lived to defend and promote- i.e. the big government elite positions, bureaucracies, and supporting agencies (intelligence and military), along with the elite control mechanisms of ever-increasing taxation and ever-expanding regulatory regimes.
Trump’s threats to end “military industrial complex” domination with his anti-war stance, and his talk of going after the corruption of the intelligence agencies supporting the state elites, antagonized those agencies. As Chuck Schumer warned Trump, you better not antagonize or threaten those agencies as they have “six ways to Sunday to get back at you”.
The response of the entrenched elites, bureaucrats, and their supporting agencies (along with their propagandizing “news” media) was to demonize Trump beyond anything seen before. They incited a spasm of hysterical hatred of the man with endless smears to dehumanize him as “Hitler, Nazi, racist, dictator, threat to democracy, etc.”.
Few will acknowledge that Trump actually did something profoundly “anti-dictatorial” by eviscerating the concentrated power of state elites, through weakening the two common tools by which elites control populations- i.e. by decreasing taxation and regulations. He did the very opposite to collectivist elites who centralize power and control and subject individuals to state-run programs.
Elites take power from citizens by confiscating their property via taxation in order to redistribute that property according to elite agendas (the elite arrogance of “we know better how to spend your money”), and they take power from citizens by expanding government regulatory control over people (increasing regulations). Trump gave that power and control back to citizens in tax relief and a significant decrease in the regulatory burden. He acted the very opposite to how elite dictators would.
Trump, with his “bull-in-China-shop” approach, blew elite domination and control programs apart. And if Elon Musk is appointed to dismantle government, just as he has “unburdened his companies from what has been” in terms of excessive regulations, then power will be further returned to the people (see “Elon Musk” by Walter Isaacson).
We have also heard rumors of RFK possibly being appointed to head up the CIA and expose corruption there. I would caution- Watch out. Because when the monster feels threatened, it will likely strike back in order to survive. It may also shift into the dangerous phase of “exterminate or be exterminated”.
Here is Kristian Niemietz again on the concentration of power in state elites and the lie of elites to governing on behalf of the people:
“Socialism in the sense which self-identified democratic socialists define it… a democratized economic planned collectively by ‘the people’, has never been achieved anywhere and could not be achieved. Economic planning can only ever be done in a technocratic, elitist fashion, and it requires an extreme concentration of power in the hands of the state. It cannot ‘empower’ ordinary workers. It can only ever empower bureaucratic elites.”
This from Jesse Kline of National Post on woke progressivism’s antisemitism resulting in abandoning liberal values to forge an alliance with genocidal Hamas.
“How woke progressivism drove a surge in antisemitism in the West: A new book explores how an irrational hatred of Israel led the left to betray its most deeply held values following the October 7 massacre”, Jesse Kline, Oct. 6, 2024
Kline says that Hamas’s October 7 massacre “was shocking, not just due to its barbarity, but the reaction it elicited on the streets of liberal democracies, with masses of westerners actively cheering on the slaughter of innocent civilians and siding with a genocidal terrorist organization”.
He reviews Brendan O’Neill’s new book, “After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation” that “sheds light on the morally bankrupt ideology that has caused many of our elites to turn their backs on liberal values and forge an unholy alliance with religious extremists.”
Kline notes that O’Neill blames the current worldwide eruption of virulent antisemitism on “modern progressive ideology, which is a complete bastardization of the values that liberals once held dear.”
Western support for the genocidal terrorism of Hamas is, according to O’Neill, “the logical inhumane conclusion to a pseudo-progressive politics that judges people’s moral worth by their skin colour, their presumed privilege and their placement on a racial hierarchy fashioned by the unaccountable overlords of western opinion.”
My inserted point here (Wendell Krossa): Others have also spoken to the new tribal dualism in progressive ideology (really the same old Socialist/collectivist division of humanity) that simple-mindedly assigns all people to one of two opposing classes- i.e. victimizers versus victims. One is all evil and vilified. The other is all virtuous and honored. Elon Musk noted the insanity in this simple-minded perversion of the dualism of good versus evil. He said that Hamas are considered “victims” according to Western Progressive dualism, hence “virtuous”. Even after the Oct.7 savagery.
Kline continues: “Not only did many feminists ignore or downplay the atrocities, some pretended the whole thing was fabricated to make Hamas look bad. And this is from a crowd that spent years telling us that something as innocuous as a flirtatious glance or a hug in the workplace was evidence of “rape culture” run amok.”
Kline interacts further with O/Neill’s points on how progressives have abandoned their former liberal values for the insanity of today: “How did we get to a point where a supposed anti-war movement is preaching violence; where self-styled “anti-racists” are espousing antisemitism; where so-called anti-fascists are actively supporting Islamofascists; where feminists are turning a blind eye toward mass rape and defending some of the most misogynistic regimes on the planet; and where LGBTQ activists are advocating for governments that criminalize homosexuality?”
He then notes O’Neill’s chapter on the “perverse political marriage between secular leftists and the religious extremists of radical Islam,” arguing, “It was the left’s turn against the principles of Enlightenment that made it so lethally susceptible to the ‘charms’ of radical Islam.
“Having replaced class politics with identity politics, and its old anti-capitalism with a myopic anti-westernism, and its one-time commitment to civilizational ideals with a heavy-hearted angst over the ‘sins’ of our civilization, the left found itself drawn ever closer to those other haters of everything the West stands for: Islamists.”
Kline quotes O’Neill a bit more: “A left that thought it could make just the occasional alliance with fascism now finds itself at the service of fascism, dutifully doing Hamas’s and Hezbollah’s bidding on the streets of our cities.”
Kline ends, noting that today’s antisemites are motivated by hysterical hate that has led to woke progressivism enabling “the re-emergence and normalization of antisemitism and provided cover for western elites to side with theocratic mass murders… their hatred toward Israel has created a blind spot that has allowed them to violate all the values they claim to hold dear.”
My added note:
And this same hysterical hatred, incited against Trump, has led many liberals to now reject liberal values and practises to affirm censorship of opponents (“content moderation… fighting disinformation, misinformation”, interfering in elections as the CIA did with Hunter Biden’s laptop, the Russia collusion lie, etc.), actually condemning free speech and freedom itself, because freedom allows people to elect opponents that the liberals do not approve of. “Hysterical hatred” that has led liberals to deny the very Classic Liberal values that they once claimed to hold dear.
A reposting of Classic Liberal ideals, systems of law, and institutions
A ‘sitesplainin’ clarification: Wendell Krossa
What do I mean when I refer to “Classic Liberalism”? And as people talk about creating a “safe AI” why not ensure that safety by programing AI with Classic Liberal principles?
The basic principles, systems, institutions of Classic Liberalism, liberal democracy, or Western liberalism.
Daniel Hannan in his Introduction to “Inventing Freedom” provides the following lists and descriptions of the basic features of a truly liberal society or civilization:
“A belief in property rights, personal liberty, and representative government…
“Three irreducible elements. First, the rule of law…Those rules exist on a higher plane and are interpreted by independent magistrates…
“Second, personal liberty: freedom to say what you like, to assemble in any configuration you choose with your fellow citizens, to buy and sell without hindrance, to dispose as you wish with your assets, to work for whom you please, and conversely, to hire and fire as you will…
“Third, representative government. Laws should not be passed, nor taxes levied, except by elected legislators who are answerable to the rest of us… the rule of law, democratic government, and individual liberty…
“The idea that the individual should be as free as possible from state coercion… elevate the individual over the state…
“Elected parliaments, habeas corpus (see below), free contract, equality before the law, open markets, an unrestricted press, the right to proselytize for any religion, jury trials…
“The idea that the government ought to be subject to the law, not the other way around. The rule of law created security of property and contract…
“Individualism, the rule of law, honoring contracts and covenants, and the elevation of freedom to the first rank of political and cultural values…
And this full summary:
“Lawmakers should be directly accountable through the ballot box; the executive should be controlled by the legislature; taxes should not be levied nor laws passed without popular consent; the individual should be free from arbitrary punishment or confiscation; decisions should be taken as closely as possible to the people they affected; power should be dispersed; no one, not even the head of state, should be above the law; property rights should be secure; disputes should be arbitrated by independent magistrates; freedom of speech, religion, and assembly should be guaranteed”.
Hannan’s book is invaluable for tracing the historical emergence and development of Western freedom down through the English tradition, from pre-Magna Carta to the present.
Definition of habeas corpus (varied online definitions):
“A habeas corpus application is used by persons who feel they are being wrongfully detained. Upon application, the individual is brought before a judge who will determine whether the detainment is lawful.”
“A writ requiring a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or into court, especially to secure the person’s release unless lawful grounds are shown for their detention.”
“The literal meaning of habeas corpus is “you should have the body”—that is, the judge or court should (and must) have any person who is being detained brought forward so that the legality of that person’s detention can be assessed. In United States law, ‘habeas corpus ad subjiciendum’ (the full name of what habeas corpus typically refers to) is also called “the Great Writ,” and it is not about a person’s guilt or innocence, but about whether custody of that person is lawful under the U.S. Constitution. Common grounds for relief under habeas corpus—”relief” in this case being a release from custody—include a conviction based on illegally obtained evidence; a denial of effective assistance of counsel; or a conviction by a jury that was improperly selected and impaneled.” (Miriam Webster)
One of the best at defining and articulating Classic Liberal ideals and principles, notably in the US version- Full interview of Vivek Ramaswamy on Lex Fridman podcast. Vivek for president. Note how Vivek frankly acknowledges and responds to deformities of Classic Liberalism on the right side of US society.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Qk_3a3lUw
And this on the battle for free speech
“The Censorship Industrial Complex is US Government Counter-populist blowback: Mike Benz on the U.S. government’s role in creating the global war on free speech”, Michael Shellenberger, Oct. 6, 2024
https://www.public.news/p/the-censorship-industrial-complex-3c1
Shellenberger notes that the Biden-Harris White House has been engaged in the large-scale censorship of information related to elections, vaccines, etc.
He says, “preventing people from criticizing elections on the Internet undermines our democracy. The public’s ability to exercise free speech and question election results or procedures is something that ensures our elections are free and fair.”
He then details points made in a speech by Mike Benz, the founder of the Foundation for Freedom Online.
Benz revealed that the CIA created the “National Endowment for Democracy” to pry open foreign societies to US propaganda projects and rig foreign elections in favor of the US and its policies.
Benz notes that a key player in US foreign propaganda and interference projects was George Kennan, who said,
“We have to inaugurate a doctrine of organized political warfare to achieve our national objectives, further our influence and authority, and weaken those of our adversaries. We have to do this in ways that are both overt and covert. This includes clandestine support of friendly foreign elements, black psychological warfare, and, yes, even encouragement of underground forces.”
Benz goes on to show that internet freedom began to undermine US state propaganda and control efforts and resulted in the populist movements of Brexit and Trump’s election that were both viewed as disasters and loss of control by US state agencies.
Consequently, “The National Endowment for Democracy said Benz, “embarked on a formal quest to get censorship laws passed around the world, which touches on what everybody in this room is concerned about, which is this sort of mysterious homogeneity of all these censorship laws, from Australia to Brazil to Europe with the EU Digital Services Act. They have one thing in common: USAID’s National Endowment for Democracy program.”
Shellenberger continues:
“As such, what is behind today’s demands for censorship around the world” is a pushback against populism movements that is “waged by US government “deep state” agencies, namely CIA, abroad.”
He notes that “the Censorship Industrial Complex has faced significant and growing resistance since 2022. It was that year that the DHS announced a “Disinformation Governance Board,” which both Democrats and Republicans denounced as Orwellian and un-American. It was dissolved a few weeks later. Then, Elon Musk bought Twitter. Reporters, including us, released the Twitter Files, exposing deep state agencies including FBI, DHS, and CIA, and their intermediary NGOs, demanding censorship.”
He concludes:
“As a result of Benz’s work, millions of Americans have what the US Intelligence Community calls “situational awareness” of the deep state Censorship Industrial Complex and were able to understand Republican vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s claim that Vice President Kamala Harris “is engaged in censorship at an industrial scale.” Many of them will understand that supposedly “neutral fact checkers” like Politifact are in fact highly partisan, counter-populist, and agents of spreading disinformation as a pretext for demanding censorship. And the international free speech, as our meeting in London in June showed, is gaining power through mutual aid.”
This affirms my argument to program AI with Classic Liberal principles and practices.
“The fatal flaw in Artificial Intelligence: Climate change?”, by Leigh Haugen, Oct. 6, 2024
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/10/06/the-fatal-flaw-in-artificial-intelligence-climate-change/
Haugen begins, noting, “The development of large language models (LLMs) has transformed our world in many ways, making artificial intelligence (AI) a powerful tool capable of generating and interpreting massive amounts of information. These models, however, are fundamentally shaped by the data that feeds them—data taken from the internet, which is itself a collection of human input. While AI has the potential to aid in a variety of fields, there is a glaring flaw inherent to its very design: its reliance on human data. If this data is corrupted, biased, or fundamentally flawed, then the AI simply echoes and amplifies those same distortions.
“One of the clearest examples of this issue is the topic of climate change. Whether you use a search engine or consult AI for information on climate change, the overwhelming majority of the data you will find supports the concept of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change (CACC). This is no coincidence—it is a reflection of the sheer volume of information that has been generated by those who have accepted this hypothesis, compounded by the biases of institutions and corporations that build the algorithms responsible for curating and ranking this information.”
He continues, explaining that AI is designed to draw conclusions from existing data and if such data is biased then AI becomes “a tool for amplifying misinformation rather than a mechanism for critical analysis. In the case of climate change, AI is unlikely to offer nuanced perspectives or promote healthy skepticism. Instead, it mirrors the consensus-driven model that has been artificially constructed by political, financial, and globalist interests.”
Haugen states that this flaw in AI design becomes a threat to freedom. He argues that “The ability to challenge prevailing wisdom and to question powerful institutions is fundamental to a free society. However, if AI consistently promotes only one perspective, it serves to stifle dissent, limit critical thought, and bolster the authority of those in power.”
As with similar biases built into Google’s presentation of information to searchers, so AI, shaped by such data bias, will marginalize, deplatform, censor, and reduce any virality for the many scientists who challenge climate alarmism.
Haugen then explains “The Origins of the Climate Change Scam: A Tool for Control.”
He says, “The origins of the climate change agenda trace back to the 1950s and 1960s, when powerful organizations like the Club of Rome and the Club of Budapest began to lay the foundations for what would become one of the most effective tools for controlling humanity. These elite organizations, composed of influential politicians, business leaders, and academics, sought a way to unite the world under a common cause—a cause that could justify unprecedented levels of government control, wealth redistribution, and societal restructuring.”
Haugen presents the Club of Rome declaration that stated, “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine, and the like would fit the bill… All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”
As Haugen explains, the motive behind the climate alarmism narrative was to justify control of populations, not to save the environment. He says, “these organizations laid the groundwork for a global environmental crisis that would allow governments and powerful elites to increase their influence over virtually every aspect of life—from energy production and consumption to economic policies and personal freedoms….
“By presenting climate change as an existential threat, they have created a justification for implementing sweeping economic and political changes that benefit the global ruling class while imposing new burdens on ordinary citizens.”
He continues, “The climate change agenda, far from being a grassroots movement to protect the planet, is a carefully orchestrated scam designed to redistribute wealth, consolidate power, and generate massive profits for a small group of global elites. From the Club of Rome’s early declarations to the admissions of modern-day climate profiteers, it is clear that the climate change narrative has always been about control—control over the economy, control over political systems, and ultimately, control over people’s lives….
“This is not about saving the planet; it’s about exploiting a manufactured crisis to create a market that benefits a select few at the expense of the public.”
Haugen warns that the climate change alarm as viewed through AI is a great threat to human freedom because it is increasingly relied on to shape public opinion but only produces information that “aligns with entrenched narratives”. It suppresses skepticism of climate alarmism and that is an issue of “freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the ability to hold power to account.”
“In a world where AI dominates the production, and dissemination of information the control of data becomes the control of truth itself. Those who feed the AI their data, whether through search engines, research institutions, or government bodies, hold immense power. If that data is biased, incomplete, or misleading, the AI will echo those distortions to an unsuspecting public. This is the fatal flaw in AI—it cannot rise above the limitations of the data on which it is trained, and as long as that data is influenced by corruptible human interests, AI will remain a tool that mirrors and magnifies the errors, biases, and deceptions of its human creators.
“In the case of climate change, this flaw is especially dangerous. The powerful interests that have built the climate change narrative are not only distorting science but also restricting our freedoms.”
Haugen concludes:
“In summary, the climate change scam is not only a scientific and political farce; it is also an economic disaster with staggering opportunity costs. AI bias is playing a pivotal role in propping up this narrative, influencing both people and the media to accept and promote a one-sided view that serves the interests of the powerful. But climate change is just the beginning. The same inherent flaws in AI—its reliance on biased data, institutional agendas, and consensus-driven information—will extend into many other major subjects that directly impact our freedom and future. From public health and economic policies to energy production and social governance, AI’s role in amplifying dominant narratives will continue to stifle dissent, limit open debate, and impose restrictive controls on society. If we allow this to continue unchecked, AI will become a tool for shaping thought, controlling discourse, and eroding the very freedoms it was meant to empower.”
And another from National Post on “progressive illiberalism”.
“The lessons we should have learned from October 7: Canada has not taken the threat of Islamic terrorism seriously enough”, Colin May, Oct. 6, 2024
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-lessons-we-should-have-learned-from-october-7
“Even the ultimate antisemitic act of the Holocaust is thrown back at Israel, with claims that its defensive actions against Hamas constitute a “genocide.”
“The old lesson we need to remember here is that this is exactly what antisemitism is. Since the time of the medieval blood libel, Jews have been repeatedly dehumanized by those who diminish their humanity while expanding the scope of their imaginary treachery.
“Today in Canada, as elsewhere in the West, the return of antisemitism is justified by the ideology popularly called “wokeism,” though it is better labelled as “progressive illiberalism.” This doctrine was born in our universities from a mixture of postmodernism, post-colonialism, critical theory and neo-feminism.
“Over the last decade, it has made immense gains throughout our society. It now expresses itself explicitly through theories of anti-racism, gender ideology and in the settler-colonial narrative that’s used to attack Israel.”
“This is scary” (Kat Timpf of Gutfeld), Wendell Krossa
Libertarian Kat Timpf says around the 33-minute mark, after the comments by John Kerry against the First Amendment protecting free speech, “This is scary”.
Soured with rage at the public resistance to his apocalyptic climate crusade, Kerry is a leading voice of neo-totalitarianism. The First Amendment, argues Kerry, gets in the way of his “hammering the differing opinions and speech of others out of existence”, so only his views and speech get to rule the public space in our so-called liberal democracies.
Listen to Kat’s response to that “scary” demand for totalitarian control of public messaging, as the other Gutfeld panel members remind us of how often the government has lied to us over past years- i.e. the Russian collusion lie, the Hunter Biden laptop lie (Russian disinformation) and Biden family corruption, Covid and vaccine lies, the Charlottesville lie, and more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON7asJBU1r4
Timpf nails this point- that it bothers her “how comfortable these people are talking like this”. Advocating for their totalitarian control of our democracies. People who once identified as “liberal, Democratic”, a branch of politics that not long ago stood zealously for free speech, for freedom in general, for inclusion, diversity, and equality (not collectivist equity), and other Classic Liberal principles, but now rejects those ideals and practises to advocate for a developing and strengthening totalitarianism.
I use the term “totalitarianism” as Michael Shellenberger and others now correctly use that to define the extreme leftist Woke Progressivism that has infected our societies. It is now out of the closet and unabashedly totalitarian.
With Timpf, I am repeatedly disturbed by how so many of these people who only recently identified with the liberal side of society now support authoritarian positions, like the 70% of US Democrats that favor censorship of opponents. What has happened? So also, Trudeau here in Canada with his new “Online Harms” bill that will criminalize the speech of any who disagree with his extremist and cultic Woke Progressivism. Jordan Peterson talked about this in his speech at the rally for “Rescue the Republic”.