The Alinsky Judo

Exit, voice and Alinsky on how and why Obama and the Alinskyites are currently getting the Alinsky treatment from the right:

We suffer from monopoly in many places. Because our government grows larger and stronger, and because we do have an option to exit (in a Hirschman sense), we are left with voice. Ways to make voice more effective will be preferred, and that is what Alinsky offered his followers. The right has simply adopted George C. Scott’s line from Patton: “Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!”

The key point: "there’s nothing inherently left-wing in Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. It’s a schematic for running popular opposition" The right can run the same plays. The right HAS run the same plays, in townhalls and Tea Parties and other activist activities. And so far, the right-wing "truth to power" is running rings around the Obama Machine. Fancy that.

Defeating Political Ridicule

Kyle-Anne Shiver has an article about Saul Alinsky and Defeating political ridicule: "... anyone who stands in defiance of this [Obama] Administration's policies will be ridiculed without mercy." Quoting Alinsky:

The fourth rule of tactics: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.

The fourth rule carries within it the fifth rule: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.

- Saul Alinsky; Rules for Radicals; 1971; p. 128

The art of political debate can be called 'meme warfare' - the application of pushing particular memes and defeating or deflecting other memes. Alinsky's rules are attempts to use what is in effect the ad hominem - a logical fallacy but effective technique - to bear in 'meme warfare'. If you recognize it, you can defeat it. In the case of ridicule, don't stoop to consider it serious; it isn't.

Patriotism, Liberty and Tolerance

An exchange on NextRight on Defining patriotism. I originally said:

Finally, I believe strongly that America is the greatest nation on earth. This is not a blind faith, but one based on the experience of living in another country and visiting two dozen other countries in my lifetime. We are the best nation on earth because of the greatness of our people, and our people are great because of our traditions of Judeo-Christian faith and morality, liberty, and self-reliant individualism. Should we lose those cultural traditions, or turn away from God, our national greatness will fade away. That knowledge motivates me to support the continuation of our liberty and traditions in our nation.

My explanation of the use of the term Patriot and what it means to me: I had specific and good reasons to use that term Patriot. It came out of a realization that PATRIOTS in the American Revolution were actually PARTISANS to a particular cause, the cause of maintaining a particular relationship between peopleand Government, in one word that relationship is - freedom. IN two words democracy and freedom. I am really speaking of allegiance to America, but "America" has to have some meaning and I see that meaning as the America that has had 200+ years as a land of freedom and democratic rule.

I got the following response, and the rest of this article is that exchange:

I'm sorry, but when you define patriotism as a judeo-christian thing, you exclude those who are not judeo-christian. Claiming that atheists, muslims, hindi, and all who hold values not rooted in judaism or christianity are unpatriotic is not very patriotic in itself.

There you go again. A strawman. I did NOT state that anyone was unpatriotic. I simply explained what MY patriotism meant to ME and I was asking YOU how you define it for YOU. Still waiting for an answer.

It IS clear that our founding fathers were for the most part Christians. It is clear that our heritage is Judeo-Christian. I simply am stating clear historical fact. Muslims, Hindus etc. had almost zero impact on our culture or history and have not been a part of US until recent immigrations. Yet those who are here can be and are pattiotic Americans now, and you do not have to be Christian to appreciate how our Judeo-Christian heritage laid the groundwork for religious liberty in America.

Actually, it's just another example of bigotry.

No, its an example of me being historically accurate. This country has been founded and based on Judeo-Christian mores, culture, values and faith. It is unique in its heritage of religious liberty that sprang from diverse Christian faiths co-mingling. Name a Muslim-heritage country with that legacy of long-standing liberty and religious freedom. Name a Hindu one. You cant.

The commenter challenged:

The reason our founders demanded a separation between church and state was because they wanted a tolerant society.

Our founters wanted a separation of church and state to protect the moral and religious people of the United States from persecution of their beliefs by government. They wanted to correct the errors of the European states where the state would establish one religion and force another Christian sect underground. The colonies has catholics, quakers, puritans, congregationalists, anglicans, ana-baptists and others who came to the colonies to practice freely their religion. Though they had religious liberty at the Federal level, many states had established churches in the early days, and almost ALL had a religious test to serve in public office. They were gradually removed over the next 100 years.

They wanted a moral and Christian society, and 'tolerance' is but one of MANY virtues - compassion, respect, integrity, prudence, diligence, propriety, righteousness, piety, love, gratitude, courage, etc. - that they felt made for a moral people.

“Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the priveledge and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.” -First Supreme Court Justice John Jay (served from 1789 to 1795)

John Jay authored the Federalist papers.

The commenter challenged: So please let's not pretend your intolerant positions are somehow part of an american tradition, and let's not pretend they have anything to do with patriotism.

Tolerance is an emotion and belief-set as well as a virtue. Demanding 'tolerance' out of a person or calling them intolerant is actually an aggresive act since you are demanding them to hold to certain beliefs about something or be considered morally inferior. Tolerance is abused and over-rated when used as a club to browbeat those to thought-conformity. To use it against those who adhere to appreciation of America's traditions is an ironic and harmful act.

Our founders wanted liberty not tolerance. Tolerance is a virtue (one of many), but liberty is a fundamental right. Our rights are inalienable, not subject to whims of what others think or not. One fundamental aspect of that is freedom of conscience, which incorporates religious liberty but also incorporates freedom of conscience. It's a great legacy but one liberals are throwing in the garbage can by using the 'bigot' card against someone and trying to turn patriotism into a kind of ThoughtCrime.

Samuel Johnson's "The Patriot":

A patriot is he whose publick conduct is regulated by one single motive, the love of his country; who, as an agent in parliament, has, for himself, neither hope nor fear, neither kindness nor resentment, but refers every thing to the common interest.

An American patriot is someone who loves this country for what it once was, what it today, and what it can be tomorrow, and is willing to work to make that better America a reality.

The Roots of Political Correctness

The Origins of Political Correctness is worth reading to understand the radical roots of political correctness (related YouTube video part1, part2, part3):

Political Correctness is cultural Marxism. It is Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms. It is an effort that goes back not to the 1960s and the hippies and the peace movement, but back to World War I.

... (Addressing the problem of why workers resisted Marxism were) Antonio Gramsci in Italy said the workers will never see their true class interests, as defined by Marxism, until they are freed from Western culture, and particularly from the Christian religion – that they are blinded by culture and religion to their true class interests. Georg Lukacs, who was considered the most brilliant Marxist theorist since Marx himself, said in 1919, "Who will save us from Western Civilization?" He also theorized that the great obstacle to the creation of a Marxist paradise was the culture: Western civilization itself.

... radical feminism, the women’s studies departments, the gay studies departments, the black studies departments – all these things are branches of Critical Theory. What the Frankfurt School essentially does is draw on both Marx and Freud in the 1930s to create this theory called Critical Theory. The term is ingenious because you’re tempted to ask, "What is the theory?" The theory is to criticize. The theory is that the way to bring down Western culture and the capitalist order is not to lay down an alternative. They explicitly refuse to do that. They say it can’t be done, that we can’t imagine what a free society would look like (their definition of a free society). ... What Critical Theory is about is simply criticizing. It calls for the most destructive criticism possible, in every possible way, designed to bring the current order down.
...
Other key members who join up around this time are Theodore Adorno, and, most importantly, Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse. Fromm and Marcuse introduce an element which is central to Political Correctness, and that’s the sexual element.
... Herbert Marcuse remained in America when the Frankfurt School relocated back to Frankfurt after the war. ... Herbert Marcuse, who remained here, saw the 60s student rebellion as the great chance. He saw the opportunity to take the work of the Frankfurt School and make it the theory of the New Left in the United States.
One of Marcuse’s books was the key book. It virtually became the bible of the SDS and the student rebels of the 60s. That book was Eros and Civilization. Marcuse argues that under a capitalistic order (he downplays the Marxism very strongly here, it is subtitled, A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud, but the framework is Marxist), repression is the essence of that order and that gives us the person Freud describes – the person with all the hang-ups, the neuroses, because his sexual instincts are repressed. We can envision a future, if we can only destroy this existing oppressive order, in which we liberate eros, we liberate libido, in which we have a world of "polymorphous perversity," in which you can "do you own thing." And by the way, in that world there will no longer be work, only play.
...
Marcuse defines "liberating tolerance" as intolerance for anything coming from the Right and tolerance for anything coming from the Left.

The summary: Political correctness of today is rooted in the radical feminism, radical identity politics of the New Left of the 1960s, which in turn is rooted in a melange of Marx and Freud that became Critical Theory. Political correctness originated with cultural Marxism.

Rules for Patriots is a category label for items of interest to patriots to understand the way the world is and how patriots can save American civilization. Conservatives and patriots have lost so many battles in the 'culture wars' against the forces of political correctness in large part because they do not know what they up against. Political correctness is being used to change culture by deconstructing western civilization, and to save American civilization and oppose these trends we therefore need to deconstruct the deconstructors.

UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson you tube - Political Correctness, another God that died.

RFP (Rules For Patriots): The Case for Independent Conservative Activism

In frustration at the inability of the Republicans to fight back, some conservatives (or 'Right-wing extremists') call for 'building a new party' or going third party, as this comment: "Some would argue that its already finished and anything OTHER than building a new party and movement is a waste of time, money and effort." Thoughts on that:


One of the most important principles of success in democratic politics is unity. For conservatives, a key imperative to gaining power is to UNITE THE RIGHT. So long as we are divided, we will fail. Alas, third parties are inherently dividable entities whose main flaw as political strategy is that it violates coalition-building principles in winner-take-all democratic. Unless the party immediately replaces or displaces the main party, it would end up dividing those parts of the coalition along the lines dictated by the third party emphasis. precisely on those issues to which it most appeals.

The bulk of Republicans are conservative and the bulk of conservatives are Republicans. Thus the natural home for conservatives is the Republican party at this time. Such party/ideological connections are long, deep, and unlikely to change soon, as history of the political parties in the U.S. can attest.

The Republican party was in many ways the more 'progressive' party compared with the Democrats from its inception up until the 1896 election, but then the Democrats nominated populist fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan, who co-opted the Populist and Progressive agendas for the Democrats, fighting against the gold standard and for easy money. Teddy Roosevelt, the Republicans also were progressives. In 1912, liberal Woodrow Wilson, an academic, faced conservatives Republican Taft. Teddy Roosevelt split with Taft and the Republican Party over both personal and political differences, forming the Bull Moose third party. In many respects he ran to the left of Wilson even. After Wilson's election came the income tax, Federal reserve and more Government intervention in the economy than ever before (especially during World War I) - it was dry run for the New Deal. In the election of 1928, the Democrats nominated a northern, wet, catholic candidate. It flipped formerly Republican Massachusetts, which hasn't looked back since.

We see those trends persist to this day: The Republican Party is the party of main street, middle class, Protestant voters; it is more conservative, more free-market, more moral values-based. It has a remnant of progressivism. The Democrat Party is the party of the urban cores, working and underclass, non-Protestant; more Government interventionist, less moral values-based and more class and group-interest-based. It has a remnant of rural populism. The largest change in the past generation has been the Republican rise in the South, counterbalanced by further retreat from urban areas and also from the liberal Northeast. This was in mnay ways a reaction to the complete decapitation of the non-liberal wing of the Democrat party. The liberal Democrats have risen in new, small, urban University towns, like Madison, WI, Boulder, CO and yes, Austin, TX.

It's hard to imagine a third party displacing the whole Republican or Democrat coalition, unless a key driving issue would break a party apart. The two parties are durable, despite their flaws for precisely the reason that the coalitions they represent are durable demographic and ideological configurations. The Republicans face a long-term challenge on two levels: The demographic trend of increasing numbers of Hispanic voters (and other minority immigrant voters); the small but influential academic elites shifting sharply left.

Third parties in the U.S. today tend to be ideologically-driven, not coalition-driven, and so are in many cases precisely ill-adapted to replace the parties precisely because they are formed to shed the flaws of political compromise that are inherent in large national coalition parties. Two examples that exhibit this are the Libertarian and Green Parties. Both have an arguably large overlap in agendas with the main political parties (Republicans and Democrats respectively), but both have a more 'pure' ideological agenda (liberty and environmentalism respectively) that both unifies and limits the party.

If there were to be another party replacing the Republican Party, what would it stand for? What the Republican Party tried to stand for, but failed because the human beings in the party in office didn't live up the party agenda? To avoid repeating that failure would require understanding the cause of that failure and fixing it directly. Creating a new party under a new name with the same goals without fixing the problem of political power corrupting, an inherent systemic problem, will fail. However, if the problem is curable, it would surely be just as curable with the existing party as with a new one.

The ultimate problem is that the 'problems' people see in the party - elected politicians bending to political pressure - are not curable. One problem is the inevitable pandering to democratic masses, which causes politicians to fail to adhere to the organized political agenda of the party. Yet when it comes to democracy, it is expected that the politicians will to some extent follow the 'will of the people'. To use technical parlance: "It's a feature, not a bug." The question is: If so, why bother with party platforms? Some politicians might want to dispense with them, but party platforms and agendas are vital to getting Why are there political parties at all and not a single unity? In truth, part of the party duopoly's limitation is that when both parties are in agreement, in effect there is no space for dissent. An example is in the area of drug laws. Without serious movement in either party to legalize drugs, some go to third parties to express support for the notion.

The only cure for politicians who bend in ways we don't like to fire them. In short, to cure having a politician bend in one direction, push in the opposite direction. Term limits can reduce the level of careerism and opportunism, but that doesn't cure political pressures, which are inherent in democracy.

If there were to be a reason to replace the Republican Party, it would be if the party itself failed to take a stand or took the wrong stand on a serious issue of the day - one so vital it would change most people's votes. The Whig Party is an example of what happens when a party is unable to take a stand. The Whig party was split down the middle on slavery in the early 1850s and took no serious position. As a result, it became defunct, replaced by the Republican party in 1854 which took an anti-slavery stand. Slavery became the central political division of the 1850s, prior to the civil war, and the political earthquake shifted political parties. Yet today, there is no central issue like that, and the Republican Party suffers less from the lack of party positioning, but from a failure to communicate, market and execute on the core agenda and principles.

Thus, we are left with the dilemma: The Republican Party as a majority or wannabe majority party, will inevitably become compromised. At the same time, attempts to rebuild the GOP in a new umbrella are futile, as are third parties. None can overcome the central dilemma of democracy: The only way to win is to get the most votes.

That leaves another approach - of standing outside the party per se, but as a pressure group to change Republicans and the wider culture as well.

One problem we face is media bias. Republicans and conservatives are mocked by the media - "the media and pop culture long ago branded the party that freed the slaves a the party of slavery and racism. Somehow with our tendency to stoic silence we allowed that to happen." This has to do with the inherent inability of political parties, fighting for a majority, to fight and win culture wars. The biased media will stoke flames of division by picking and choosing cultural reference points.

What we need to do is liberate the GOP from the burden of carrying the cultural wars on its back, and fight the culture wars through other means. Successful groups have followed this model. The ACLU, the NAACP, others. The last time a putatively non-partisan group had such influence on the right side, it was the Christian coalition.

In the false dichotomy between '3rd party or GOP', neither of which is satisfactory, is the real answer: Independent conservative activism focussed on advancing the agenda through any legitimate means possible, and standing alongside the GOP without being swallowed up in it.

UPDATE: Redstate's Swamp Yankee has more on this concept, saying: "Liberals Know How to Separate Themselves from the Democratic Party".