Clown World Chronicles: Politics In Clown World

In The Republic, Plato laid down the facts about the political cycle. The political cycle begins with the introduction of an aristocracy by a class of educated philosopher-kings, then degrades into timocracy, then degrades into oligarchy, then degrades into democracy, which finally degrades into tyranny. It is at the junction between democracy and tyranny that we find ourselves in Clown World.

By 2020, the enlightened aristocracy is long gone. The timocracy ended with the World Wars. Oligarchy reigned for some decades, perhaps up until the 1990s, and since then we’ve been firmly in democracy. With the intensification of Clown World after the Global Financial Crisis, we’re arguably now in a state of tyranny.

Tyranny is when the rulers work to enrich themselves instead of working to enhance the common good. This state is characterised by an absence of reason among the ruling class. Not being reasonable, the rulers make decisions based on crude lusts and impulses. Usually these relate to gratifying their egos in some way, often at the expense of others.

When the ruling class gratifies their egos at the expense of the common man, the common man comes to feel as if he lives in a Clown World. He can’t find a job that pays enough to buy a house and raise a family, but political discussions in the mainstream media ignore such issues, focusing instead of trivialities. It all seems so callously absurd.

Callous absurdity is the hallmark of tyrannies throughout history, and that’s exactly what Clown World is – a kind of tyranny.

As Plato anticipated in his famous Analogy of the Cave, people who figure out that it’s Clown World are treated with violent contempt by those who think that it’s Normal World. Anyone who has a problem with the current order of things is marginalised. Although the numbers of the marginalised are growing, the Normies are still in control.

The general rule of Clown World politics is that everything is either the opposite of how it should be or a grossly corrupted form of it. Politics may have always been corrupt, but only in Clown World has it reached such a shameless, venal and shallow intensity.

In Clown World, we’re led by the worst of us. The American Presidential Election of 2020 will be contested by two very old men, both of who are very much past it. The challenger, Joe Biden, was the Vice President during the Barack Obama era, and so helped to oversee the destruction of Libya. This unprovoked war led to the murder of Muammar Gaddafi, the deaths of 100,000 Libyans and the reintroduction of slave markets to the Libyan capital – and Biden is painted as the good guy in this election.

In Clown World, politicians no longer have to know what they’re talking about. Obama constantly read from a teleprompter, relying on it so much that if it broke down he didn’t know what to say. Clown World politicians in general are barely better informed than the population they’re ruling over – and are frequently worse informed. They are no longer orators, performing feats of wit and memory. Instead they speak in soundbites aimed at the lizard brain.

Because Clown World politicians don’t work towards the greater good, they have no philosophical grounding, and therefore no principles. As such, they are whores who will jump into bed with whoever’s paying. This has led to some exceptionally strange alliances.

One such strange alliance is the one between fundamentalist religious Muslims and left-wing social justice warriors. The social justice warriors are strong supporters of homosexual rights, but the Muslims are strong supporters of homosexuals being thrown off rooftops. They appear to have allied on the basis of having a common grudge against middle-class white men.

Another strange alliance is between Antifa and the corporate elite. Antifa’s great enemies are the Nazis that supposedly lurk around every corner, and their strongest ideological point of difference relates to immigration. Antifa believe that the working class is international and should not be restricted by borders – but the corporate elite have exactly the same opinion. They love to be able to import cheap labour without restriction.

Yet another strange alliance is between feminists and the so-called transphobic. In Clown World, it’s possible to have your cock and balls chopped off and then play for a woman’s sports team. Many right-wingers are disgusted by trans culture, and in getting accused of transphobia they find themselves on the same side as the devotedly left-wing feminists, who want to keep trans people out of women’s spaces.

Perhaps the weirdest of all is the alliance between the fundamentalist religious who want to ban cannabis and the criminal gangs who currently supply the black market with it in the places where it is illegal. Fundamentalist Abrahamists, in particular, are against cannabis because it is a spiritual sacrament, and here they stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the criminal gangs who need it to be illegal to profit from it.

It can be observed, as Plato did so many centuries ago, that democracy leads to widespread bickering and resentment. Eventually this gets so bad that people come to support a tyrant in the hope that unlimited power will make it possible to clean away all the filth. Clown World is at the stage where people might support a charismatic dictator, should one arise. Our political situation is a tinderbox.

Unfortunately there’s no easy solution. A revolution of philosopher-kings seems unlikely owing to the fact that there’s no widespread agreement as to who the philosopher-kings would be. Although Plato described the philosopher-king as being motivated primarily by the love of wisdom, people don’t agree on what constitutes wisdom.

In Clown World, life has become so deeply politicised that every philosophical or scientific question is now divided by political camps. If a person identifies with the left, it can be confidently predicted that they agree with the climate change science but deny the human biodiversity science. If a person identifies with the right, the exact opposite is true. So every question of philosophical wisdom or the nature of reality is corrupted by political influence.

The only solution to the political problems of Clown World might be waiting for it all to collapse.

Politics is now total war, permeating every level of society. No-one can escape the new social justice Inquisition, which scours everyone’s mind for any sign of wrongthinking. Everyone must maintain a state of high alertness and watch over their every word, lest they inadvertently give their political enemies a boost. This anxiety can’t last forever – and it won’t – but it will last as long as Clown World does.

This article is an excerpt from Clown World Chronicles, a book about the insanity of life in the post-Industrial West. This is being compiled by Vince McLeod for an expected release in the middle of 2020.

If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2019 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 and the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 are also available.

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VJMP Reads: Free Speech Under Attack V

This reading carries on from here.

The 13th chapter in Free Speech Under Attack is ‘Speaking Controversially’ by Robert Stanmore. This essay begins by looking at the controversy over Israel Folau when he quoted a Bible verse promising eternal punishment to sinners. Stanmore cites Mark Latham as stating that corporate elites are intruding upon workers’ rights by punishing them for what they say on social media outside of work hours.

This also happens in New Zealand, as shown by the example of Ray White Real Estate, who sacked two of their agents for social media posts critical of Islam. Given that a large proportion of the population is critical of Islam, and for very good reason, this seems like an excessive and callous response. Stanmore concludes by claiming that the possibility of offence being taken is a fair price to pay for free speech.

Chapter 14 is ‘Free Speech and Universities’ by David Round. Here, Round recounts how the Education Act guarantees academic freedom. The primary concern of universities is to develop intellectual independence. But the general societal trend is towards intolerance of free speech and free expression. Round wisely points out that today’s generation is both tolerant in some ways and intolerant in others when compared to their grandparents.

Round details the social media attacks against himself and his reputation for supposed racism, and the efforts made by cancel culture to shut down the Canterbury University Law Revue and Don Brash’s scheduled speaking appointment at Massey University. He also discusses the attempts made by Muslim and Chinese interests to buy influence in Western universities through making donations.

Chapter 15 is ‘Silencing the Public on Immigration’ by Robert Stanmore. This is another short essay, at only five pages. Stanmore begins by noting the unprecedented increase in Third Worlders moving to the West, and by pointing out that these moves are happening without the consent of the local populations.

Stanmore states, correctly, that the United Nations is inescapably opposed to the interests of individual Western nations. Free speech is, unfortunately, far from a universal human value. He also discusses the evil of the United Nations Compact on Migration, and how our Government kept it secret from us. He ends with an appeal to learn from the experience of Europe and only allow immigrants who are compatible with our way of life.

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If You Think National Will Roll Back “Hate Speech” Laws, You’re Stupid

Libertarians across New Zealand were dismayed by news last month that Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Government intends to press ahead with so-called “hate speech” legislation. This is widely expected to entail European-style restrictions that could see a person imprisoned for saying that mass immigration is like an invasion, as French author Renaud Camus was earlier this year. But those putting their hopes in the National Party to fix it will be disappointed.

Right-wingers, in general, were also dismayed at Ardern’s confirmation that the Sixth Labour Government will introduce “hate speech” laws if they are re-elected on the 17th of this month. The conservative argument is that free speech is a fundamental part of New Zealand culture, and there’s no good reason to throw this away.

Judith Collins responded by saying that National “would not add further” to the loss of free speech, but would not commit to rolling back any free speech violations that the Labour Government might commit. Neither did she affirm that free speech was a fundamental Kiwi value that needed to be defended.

The reality is that National can sense a political advantage in acting as if they are in favour of free speech, but they don’t really care about it, for two major reasons.

The first is that they’re not, in any sense, a libertarian party. In fact, they are transparently authoritarian in several ways. National likes to pose as if they’re against government interference into the private lives of citizens, in contradistinction to Labour, who want a nanny state. But if they were libertarian they would work to legalise cannabis.

Being in favour of legal cannabis is no longer a radical position for a right-wing party in the Anglosphere. 55% of American Republicans are in favour of cannabis legalisation, and even a state as Republican as Alaska, where Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton 51%-37%, now has legal cannabis. Part of the reason for this is the libertarian streak possessed by American right-wingers.

This libertarian streak doesn’t exist in New Zealand conservatism, which is why we are some 20 years behind America when it comes to cannabis. But the absence of these libertarian sentiments among New Zealand conservatives suggests that they won’t make an effort fighting for free speech either. Why would someone who thinks you should be in a cage for growing medicinal cannabis fight for your right to free speech? They wouldn’t.

The second major reason why National don’t care about free speech is because they are influenced by people who are against it.

British Conservative Leader Boris Johnson is bringing in draconian anti-free speech laws under the guise of child safety. The proposed bill will make it illegal to cause “online harms”. The Centre for Policy Studies declared their opposition to the bill, stating that it was wrong to let an unelected communications regulatory body decide what people were allowed to write on the Internet.

If the British equivalent of the National Party is restricting free speech in the same way that the New Zealand Labour Party intends to do, that is evidence that the moves are not inspired by left-wing or big government sentiments but by globalist ones.

Because the National Party is just as beholden to globalist interests as Labour is (even if those interests are slightly different), there’s no reason to think that they would be much different to Labour when it comes to free speech. Globalist interests want few things more than to shut down criticism of mass immigration – the less resistance, the higher house prices can be pumped, the more mortgage profits can be raked in.

In fact, one can predict that even if National wins the election this month they will introduce some kind of free speech restrictions anyway. There is transparently a wider globalist agenda to abolish free speech and, with it, dissent and criticism in general. This agenda has arisen because we are in the democracy to tyranny part of the political cycle.

No matter who wins this month’s election, New Zealand will lose our rights to free speech, as we have already lost our firearms rights and our rights to use spiritual sacraments. And in the same way that neither Labour nor National rolled back firearms restrictions or restrictions on the use of cannabis and psilocybin, nor will either party roll back any restrictions on free speech that might get passed in coming years.

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VJMP Reads: Free Speech Under Attack IV

This reading carries on from here.

Chapter Ten in Free Speech Under Attack is ‘China’s Sinister Influence’ by Robert Stanmore. In this essay, Stanmore describes the Chinese influence on free speech suppression in Australia and New Zealand. China is even worse than Islam, in Stanmore’s estimation. China has the money to buy off the Western free press. It has already bought the New Zealand National Party.

Stanmore recounts how China uses their network of Confucius Institutes to influence university culture in China’s favour. They also use a scheme called the Confucius Classroom Program to bring propaganda to primary and secondary students. New Zealand is in a dangerous situation because both National and Labour are beholden to China, although National more so.

Chapter Eleven is ‘”De-platforming” speakers’ by Tim Wikiriwhi. He defines deplatforming as when a speaker is prevented from using a platform because those in authority don’t want to let that speaker expound their views. Wikiriwhi recounts how Bruce Moon, Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern were deplatformed by authoritarian leftists afraid of criticism of their immigration policy.

Wikiriwhi quite rightly points out that censorship achieves little but introduce darkness and ignorance to a political discussion. He also, quite rightly, draws attention to the immense scale of Muslim rape gangs in the Western World, an issue that should be discussed. The essay ends with an appeal to the fundamental value of free speech and how governments should not interfere with what the people say or hear.

Chapter Twelve is ‘The Thug’s Veto’ by Peter Cresswell. This is easily the shortest essay in this book, at only four pages. Cresswell defines the Thug’s Veto as when people use the threat of violence or chaos to get an event they disapprove of shut down. This is a small part of what is more generally known as cancel culture.

Cresswell here points out that laws against “hate speech” are tantamount to laws against criticising evil. Moreover, it’s apparent from the beginning that such laws will not be applied evenly. Left-wingers will escape censure for levels of hate that right-wingers will be hammered for. Those pushing for hate speech laws are fighting for irrationality, and are against reason.

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