Category: politics

VJMP Reads: Anders Breivik’s Manifesto V

This reading carries on from here.

This section (pages c. 286-415) is entitled “Europe Burning” and details a deliberate strategy, on the part of Breivik’s enemies, to destablise the European continent. This is achieved through a variety of political and sociological means.

Breivik appears to be an ardent believer in the Eurabia theory. This theory has it that the elites of the European and Muslim spheres have secretly agreed to come together in order to act as a counterweight to the influence of America and Israel.

The Eurabia theory sounds plausible on the face of it. But much of the rhetoric around it is misleading. A cynic might argue that the Eurabia rhetoric was deliberately dishonest.

Mass Muslim immigration to France happened not because of a conspiracy but because of economic reasons. We can surmise this because other Western nations also saw an influx of poorly educated third-worlders to work the jobs that the natives had become too highly educated to want to do.

Likewise, European prejudice against Jews and Israel did not arise as a consequence of Muslim and Arab leverage on European politicians. Anyone with so much as a passing knowledge of European history will be aware that native Europeans were more than capable of hating Jews without outside encouragement.

This document exhaustively references antisocial actions taken on behalf of certain Muslims and explains them in terms of collective Islamic anti-Western action. It’s certainly true that if a person would read a several hundred page list of crimes committed by Muslims they could come away thinking that such an agenda existed, but the document does not make an effort to determine whether such a list of crimes is unusual.

Another place in which the document makes implausible assertions is with regards to the sentiment that Judaism and Christianity are traditional European religions and Islam is not. Why Christianity and Judaism should be considered any more European than Islam, when all three Abrahamic sects come from the same place and exhibit similar characteristics, is not discussed by Breivik.

Neither does Breivik explain why he can so ardently attack Communism, Marxism, liberalism, globalism and feminism, but defend the very same Judaism that is most commonly associated with those ideologies.

This unusually benevolent stance towards Judaism is underlined by the multiple references to the work of Bat Ye’or, – who is the most energetic proponent of the Eurabia conspiracy theory – and the claim that Israel is a “cultural cousin” to Europe.

It is, true, however, that Breivik’s grasp of history is much deeper than those of the mainstream commentators whose political opinions inform the masses. He points out that the advent of the nation state, this enemy of the globalist, was itself a reaction to the religious wars that plagued Europe until the mid 17th century, and that wars predated the nation state by thousands of years.

Therefore, there is no reason to agree with the lazy consensus pushed by mainstream leftists that the end of the nation state will bring about a greater level of peace.

Ironically, Breivik “the neo-Nazi” comes across as decidedly less totalitarian than some of his enemies in certain regards. His dislike of the European Union is based in part on the phenomenon of unelected Eurocrats having more power than elected representatives of national governments.

He is correct to point out that critics of the unelected Eurocrats are often dismissed as “anti-democratic” elements – an absurdity on its face.

Although Europe has many enemies in Breivik’s analysis of the world, from the European Union to the mainstream media to mainstream academia to right-wing libertarians who deny the pull of culture, the major enemy is undoubtedly Islam: “The Islamic world always has been our enemy and always will be.”

Throughout this section, Breivik demonstrates an acute historical knowledge on the one hand, and a tendency to rapidly jump over several logic steps on the other. This leads to a number of uneasy conclusions.

Why Anarcho-Homicidalism Is Not Terrorism

The obvious reaction of someone trapped in a slave mindset, when told that they have the right to kill anyone who is trying to enslave them, is to protest that such a thing must be “terrorism” or some other crime against good order. Learning to think like a free person means learning when your rights have to be defended, and an anarcho-homicidalist has taken steps to ensure that his actions are legitimate resistance and not terrorism.

They might overlap in a lot of ways, because both use violence to bring about a vision of correct order in the world, but anarcho-homicidalism is very distinct from terrorism.

The primary difference is that anarcho-homicidalism, being a branch of anarchy, does not tolerate either hierarchy or forced collectivism. This means that, not only is the anarcho-homicidalist forbidden from killing on command, but he is also forbidden from justifying an act of anarcho-homicidalism on the grounds that his target merely shared a demographic category with someone trying to enslave him.

Both of these qualities are distinct from terrorism. Although there are terrorists who act on their own initiative, the majority of terrorist deeds are carried out by individuals who have been coerced, intimidated or tricked into action.

Also, a clear majority of terrorist actions are carried out to further one side in some “us vs. them” narrative. The Muslims who kill themselves in suicide bombings are able to motivate themselves to take action by rationalising that the collective benefit to Islam of killing many of Islam’s enemies outweighs the individual loss of life.

The anarcho-homicidalist is different from these in that he must arrive at the decision to kill out of his own philosophical reasoning, and that his efforts must be targeted upwards at an authority figure, not sideways at the lackeys of one.

The secondary difference is that anarcho-homicidalism leads to less violence – in contrast to terrorism, which leads to more violence.

In fact, a crucial element of anarcho-homicidalism is that the action ought to decrease the amount of suffering in the world. Therefore, it is legitimate to kill a politician whose actions are causing suffering, but not to start a blood feud between one group and another group that the politician just happens to belong to.

The usual example given when arguing for the merits of anarcho-homicidalism is that of conscription. It’s trivially easy to see how widespread anarcho-homicidalism would make raising slave armies impossible, because an anarcho-homicidalist would simply shoot any conscription officer that came to their house.

A terrorist, by contrast, is unlikely to shoot a conscription officer. This is because nothing about terrorism explicitly goes against the idea of hierarchy. A terrorist is more likely to bend the knee and take orders from a conscription officer, in the hope that they will get the chance to kill the enemies of whatever collective the terrorist considers themselves part of.

Another stark difference is that a terrorist is usually happy to create collateral damage. Bombing a civilian airliner is a common terrorist act, for the reason that it makes people afraid to get into planes, and because the targeted country tends to waste enormous resources on security in the aftermath.

All of these terrorist actions have the effect of causing more violence to happen, because they will either provoke the authorities into crackdowns or provoke the groups whose members were killed to violently retaliate.

An anarcho-homicidalist, by contrast, will not cross the boundary into terrorism. His action is surgical, clinical, unpredictable, unstoppable. The only terror created by the anarcho-homicidalist is in the hearts of those who would rule, and the effectiveness of his action is not determined by the destruction of an enemy but by whether it persuades the ruling authorities to treat their subjects correctly.

How Well Did The Economy Do Under John Key?

John Key: made New Zealand wealthier compared to other nations, but not by as much as Helen Clark did

This article starts with a very straightforward proposition: that the prosperity of an economy and of the people in that economy is primarily a question of GDP per capita. Given that, we can measure the increase in New Zealand prosperity (if any) under John Key’s tenure by looking at the change in GDP per capita during that time.

The figures that this article uses are taken from the International Monetary Database. Here we calculate GDP on a price purchasing parity basis because we are ultimately trying to measure the change in standard of living.

In 2009, the GDP per capita of New Zealand was USD30,572. This placed us 37th in the world, just behind Italy, Japan and Spain, and just ahead of Greece, South Korea and Israel.

In 2016, the GDP per capita of New Zealand was USD37,294. This placed us 35th in the world, just behind South Korea (who leapfrogged us), Japan and Finland, and just ahead of Italy and Spain (who we leapfrogged) and Israel.

This makes for an increase of 22% over 7 years, which is about 2.9% per year if calculated on a compounding basis.

2.9% over a seven-year period can rightly be considered a decent effort of national economic stewardship from Mr. Key. That level of growth is far from remarkable, but it was enough to move us past a Southern European level of wealth and close to a Far East Asian level.

By way of comparison, the GDP per capita of New Zealand in 2000 was USD21,807, which makes for a 40% increase over the nine years of Helen Clark and Michael Cullen. This works out to just over 3.7% per annum.

Measured that way, the performance of the John Key economy was markedly poorer than the Clark/Cullen economy. However, one has to take into account that Key inherited a global financial crisis, and so it’s worthwhile comparing New Zealand to other nations instead of looking at absolute growth.

In the year 2000, New Zealand was considerably less wealthy than Italy (which had a GDP per capita of USD28,602), Japan (USD26,850) and Spain (USD24,053). It was also less wealthy than Australia (USD28,801), Britain (USD26,425) and America (USD36,433).

By 2009, the GDP per capita of New Zealand had increased from 76% of that of Italy to 89%; from 81% of that of Japan to 92%; and from 91% of that of Spain to 96%. Against other Anglo nations, the GDP per capita of New Zealand had decreased from 76% of that of Australia to 75%; had increased from 83% to 87% of that of Britain; and increased from 60% to 65% of that of America.

This means that under the Fifth Labour Government, New Zealand improved its position strongly against comparable countries, with the exception of the booming Australia.

By 2016, the GDP per capita of New Zealand had increased from 89% to 101% of that of Italy; had decreased from 92% to 90% of that of Japan; and had increased from 96% to 102% of that of Spain. Against other Anglo nations, the GDP per capita of New Zealand had increased from 75% of that of Australia back up to 76%; had increased from 87% to 88% of that of Britain; and remained at 65% of that of America.

This tells us that under the Fifth National Government, New Zealand improved its position against the Southern European countries but stayed the same compared to other Anglo ones.

Ultimately, therefore, we can see that New Zealand’s economic standing in the world is marginally better, in relative terms, after the Key Administration. Apart from the decline of Italy, New Zealand didn’t really improve in relative wealth. This contrasts sharply with the years under Helen Clark, during which time New Zealand improved strongly.

Social Justice Warrior Culture Is The Totalitarianism of Our Age

Every age has its evil. The last century gave us Nazism and Communism, the century before that gave us colonial genocides, the centuries before that gave us horrific religious persecutions and mass murders. This essay looks at the totalitarianism of the early 21st century: SJW culture.

Totalitarianism is defined by a striving to regulate every aspect of both public and private life wherever possible. It’s the antithesis of freedom. Benito Mussolini, one of history’s most infamous totalitarians, declared that even the spiritual life of the citizenry is to be controlled to the finest detail.

According to Hannah Arendt, the appeal of totalitarianism lies in its ideology, which, like religions, provide “a comforting, single answer to the mysteries of the past, present, and future.”

Theocracies achieve this with an ideology about the nature of God and the inevitable triumph of the followers of that God. Nazism achieved this with an ideology about race struggle and the inevitable triumph of the Aryan race, and Communism achieved this with an ideology about class struggle and the inevitable triumph of the proletariat.

The essential point that distinguishes these ideologies from free thought is that an ideology offers an easy, pre-packaged answer to any question that might arise. Because of this it is never necessary to actually think about anything, much less discuss anything with another person – all answers derive directly from reference to the ideology.

Much like a religious scripture does for a religious fanatic, an ideology forms the basis of reality for political fanatics. If a person has a powerful desire to remake the world in their image for political reasons, there will be an ideology at the bottom of it.

Social Justice Warrior culture is a form of Communism, in that it is explicitly horizontalist. Like all other horizontalist ideologies, anyone who distinguishes themselves, for any reason, is assumed to have done so by immoral means. The logic behind this lies in the ideological assumption that all are equal.

Because the belief in the equality of all people is fundamental to SJW culture, a natural corollary is that anyone who has achieved an outcome that elevates them above the masses must have necessarily done so by immoral means.

And so, the higher standard of living in the West, when compared to the Middle East and Africa, cannot be explained outside of the template of colonial oppression. All Western wealth is considered stolen; a crime that needs to be redressed by horizontalist action.

There is no room in Social Justice Warrior culture for anyone to put effort into bettering themselves – everything that betters a person is considered to be the result of unfair privilege. As this column has previously pointed out, this ideology is what Nietzsche would have called a slave morality, in that it is fundamentally based in resentment and a desire to rip everyone down to the lowest level.

Where this ideology really goes wrong – and where it is in danger of becoming a totalitarianism akin to Nazism and Communism – is its utter failure to accept that certain mentalities and cultures create poverty among their victims of their own accord.

And so, the sorry state of the Middle East cannot be explained by the legendary unwillingness of Middle Easterners to live in peace, and neither can it be explained by the extremely high rates of religious fundamentalism, nor the appalling human rights record of their rulers, nor the cultural indifference to education and free thought, nor the widespread practice of infant genital mutilation.

It’s all the fault of colonialism, or America bombing them.

Likewise, the near-infinite hatred that some disadvantaged groups have for other disadvantaged groups is all blamed on influence from the West. The utter contempt that Muslims have for homosexuals cannot be blamed on Muslims themselves, because to do so would be to imply that a disadvantaged group can be less moral than an advantaged one – and this is in direct opposition to SJW ideology.

All of this would be just another half-arsed theory were it not for the demonstrated ability and willingness of this ideology to destroy the lives of anyone who opposes it. The most striking recent example was the sacking of a Google employee for questioning the social engineering practices of his company. James Demore wrote a manifesto that made the assumption that biology trumps SJW ideology, and this was decreed to be wrongthink punishable by the destruction of his career.

Believing that biology is real is a thoughtcrime when it is considered to advance “harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace” – in other words, biology is what we tell you it is, and any disagreement is grounds for retaliation.

The firing of one engineer is not comparable to the historical crimes of 20th century totalitarian states, true, but this example shows how far SJWs will go to deny reality where it conflicts with their ideology, and this bodes poorly for a peaceful 21st century.

The simmering powderkeg is the tens of millions of Muslims who now live in the West, and who can never integrate. The mass resettlement of Muslims into the West was never carried out with the consent of Westerners, and it was never carried out with reference to any study that demonstrated improved social or economic outcomes for Westerners.

This social engineering was, and continues to be, forced on Westerners by people who have adopted SJW ideology. If it leads to a civil war in Europe, then this ideology will be justifiably ranked alongside Nazism and Communism as one of humanity’s greatest mistakes.