#WalkAway from Identity Politics

There were three outstanding themes experienced by attendees of last month's #WalkAway March. There was the sense of freedom that comes from escaping the Democrat’s plantation. There was the excitement of meeting new people and making new friends. But there was also an element of sadness over the family and friends lost due to the issues that riven our country.

One man I met there was a U.S. Army veteran of the Vietnam War. He became estranged from his two sisters, the only family he has, partially over Trump and the whole Kavanaugh media circus.

There’s also a friend (who wasn’t at the march) that became alienated from a person she knew for 30 years. They met while in high school, and he was her first gay friend. She walked away, he didn’t. Something similar happened with her mother’s cousin, who knew her since birth, who “changed her diapers” as she put it. Because of various family events, they had to remain in contact, but their interactions became infrequent, their conversations became terse. A mutual friend told me about how much grief she was experiencing over this. The description reminded me of the AIDS crisis writ small.

These same stories are repeated all across America.

Why is this happening?

This is partially due to the changing definition of friendship. We all have online friends, most of whom we’ll never meet. What is the basis of these friendships? It’s not two good people who share similar virtues and who wish each other well, but rather two people clicking the “like” button – not the same thing!

Other types of friendships, like those based on utility or pleasure – are by definition transitory. That’s all that online friends are – friendships based on utility or pleasure. Yet we equate them with real friendships, in their importance and in their permanence.

All types of friendships require time and effort and real-world interaction to cultivate and maintain. Given the number of social media “friends” that people have, it is simply not possible to maintain them all! Once the “friendship” has outlived its usefulness, or is lost in quantity, we either allow it to fade or we terminate it in the most brutal way possible - online interactions allow people to be rude to each other without any real-world consequences.

This somewhat explains the plight of the Vietnam veteran mentioned earlier: he lives in Buffalo, New York, while one sister lives in Florida, and the other is in Arizona. They maintained contact only via social media. There was no real-world interaction, so the friendships withered.

This does not explain the other person mentioned above. In her case, and I think most cases, the dissolution of friendships was solely over ideological differences. The ideology in play is identity politics.

Here’s how it works:

• People belong to identity groups, either by birth or choice or assignment. These identities are artificial, and two members of the same group frequently have nothing in common except for that identity – yet there is an expectation of solidarity.
• Membership in an identity group is not the same as a gym membership. Membership defines and determines their whole existence, and to doubt this is blasphemy.
• Current and historical events are seen by members of any class through the lens of their identity. Doubting the identity or the veracity of its history is an offense to the very core of their being, and to do so makes you ableist, misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, racist.
• Each group has its own cultural norms. These norms must be respected by other groups, because it is taken on faith that all cultures are equal. They are skeptical of some religions, yet they accept items like this on faith. They are true believers.
• People are encouraged to interact only with other members of their identity. They exist in a bubble yet claim that they are living rich and full lives. They do not go outside their comfort zone, yet they consider themselves brave.
• People are to be loyal to their identity class. They are expected to favor their own, yet they wonder why the world is suddenly so racist.
• People are expected (in most cases) to be proud of their identity.
• To shore up this pride, each identity has its own history. Events that do not fit with a particular group’s history can be safely ignored, or revised, or destroyed. This results in an ever-shifting narrative.
• There is one group that acts as an oppressor, and that group is the white male (either heterosexual or homosexual). Their culture is not to be respected, and pride in that identity is considered to be the very height of racism.
• The degree that an individual is oppressed depends on the number of intersections that this person belongs to. For example, a black disabled lesbian crossdresser is more oppressed than your average lesbian. It’s sort of like a food pyramid of victimhood.
• Those who aren’t oppressors are victims. But not only are they victims, they are helpless, since self-defense is considered wrong.
• Being helpless victims, they are subject to fear, uncertainty, and doubt inflicted by anyone who wishes to manipulate them.
• Since they live in a bubble, they are in no position to verify that they should really be afraid of any particular current event, or whether they are just being manipulated.

Identity politics provides a convenient excuse to prune one’s real-world friends list. And when people indeed end a friendship over identity politics, instead of being angry or upset, they have the warm glow of smugness that comes with virtue signaling. From their standpoint, the friendship was based on a mistaken identity – you fooled them, until they became “woke”.

Identity politics is designed to divide and conquer. It is working.

What can be done? We must begin with a dose of reality.

First, realize that “Hallmark moments” almost never happen in the real world, and it is not possible to hold one’s breath until they do happen. If you doubt this, ask any draft resister or gay man who has been estranged from his family.

Next, look at the pretense under which the friendship was ended: one side believes that the other is a heretic who engages in wrongthink. Ask yourself: why hold on to people who aren’t adult enough to understand that individuals can have different opinions or principles?

Believing in identity politics requires that one suspends their sense of reality. Anybody with an ounce of integrity would reject the theory rather than reject the facts. Ask yourself: do you really want to be friends with a person who trusts their identity group’s agitprop over their own lying eyes? Can you trust someone who outsources their sense of judgement?

Look at the extent the other side is willing to go to purge wrongthink: they are willing to fire you from your employment, to deny you ways of earning money via online activities, to destroy your career. Ask yourself: in good conscience, would you be able to do this?

Finally, ask yourself: is the person who terminated your friendship over identity politics experiencing the same sense of loss?

The situation appears even more intractable when you realize that social justice is a kind of cult, and people who advocate identity politics are not just fervent believers, but the fundamentalists of this cult.

Again, what can be done?

It is tempting to retreat, hole up, and wait for this to pass. It won’t pass. In fact, retreating makes things worse, since everybody will then ask themselves: why not take whole what others propose to divide?

We cannot forget what is at stake: our country, our home. They demand that we relinquish our sovereignty as individuals and as a country. All these are too important to abandon for the social justice warriors’ obvious and vulgar games.

We also cannot forget that we hold the upper hand. The funding of their universities, their affirmative action programs, and their welfare state, depends on us. We can live without them, but not vise versa. Further, we have the element of stability that their narrative du jour precludes - and they know it.

The solution lies in more engagement, not less. It requires that we break down the bubbles which identity politics requires people to inhabit. Even then it will not be easy, since it is far harder to make a believer into a skeptic than to make a skeptic into a believer.

#WalkAway

Introduction
Brandon Straka started the #WalkAway movement in response to the Democratic Party’s abandonment of Enlightenment ideals and the values exposited by classical liberalism. He began the campaign with an extremely compelling video and encouraged others to make and share their own videos.

Having never been a Democrat, walking away is not possible for me. The best I can do is explain how my distrust and scorn of liberalism has changed to absolute contempt.

Here we go…

Walk Away, From What?
All of the values of John Locke, Voltaire, Adam Smith, Jefferson, Madison, and the other minds that gave us the Age of Enlightenment and the American Revolution have been either betrayed or forsaken by the modern left and the Democratic Party. For them:

• Science has been replaced by dogma
• Rationality has been replaced by intimidation
• Speech is no longer free
• There is no longer a presumption of innocence, and guilt is not something that needs to be proven; mob justice is the norm
• Rugged independence has been replaced by conformity to the herd
• Individuality has been replaced by racism
• Forget equality – all people are equal, but some are more equal than others
• Self-determination has been coopted by dependence on government
• Government is to be omnipotent
• Finally, freedom of thought is no longer seen as an absolute – you are free to think anything you want, as long as it fits the narrative du jour.

The contemporary Democratic Party is simply not your father’s party.

I distrust and scoff at liberalism and the Democratic Party for all of this, but two events completely soured my opinion of liberalism: the Pulse Nightclub terrorist attack, and the protests over Trump's travel ban.

I didn't learn of the Pulse Nightclub attack until the next afternoon. I was meeting with the state commander of the militia I'm in (yea, more as we go along), and he informed me of it.

CDR: "You better watch out, Klepper, they're coming for you!"
Me: "I didn't spend all this time and money on training for nothing."
CDR: "They're fucking with the wrong homosexual!"

The following Monday, I approached the LGBT employee group at Comcast (I worked there at the time) and offered to teach them firearm safety and usage. The result was... crickets.

While the LGBT group as a whole ignored my offer, some members approached me in private for a trip to the gun range. They did so furtively: they were afraid, but not of an attacker. They knew that at a liberal big tech company, coming out as conservative entails higher risks than coming out as gay.

Pink Pistols, a LGBT gun rights organization, had a large uptick in membership after the attack, as is well known.

What is not well known are the number of gun enthusiasts that made the same offer to their friends as I made to Comcast. One hundred percent of the people I know who have the skills and the means offered to teach LGBTs how to defend themselves. One NRA-certified instructor "came out" to me. Another one, the NRA instructor who first taught me handgun usage and safety, told me that his son is gay, and it was clear that he was genuinely proud of him.

Absolutely none of this made it into the mainstream media. The left and the MSM stereotypes gun owners in one way, and they stereotype LGBTs in another way, and these stereotypes are designed to put us in conflict. Anything that shatters that narrative is verboten.

The Democrats' response was to blame the terrorist attack on gun owners in general and the NRA in particular; the attacker’s religious motivation was ignored. Two months after the event, Hillary Clinton invited the Pulse terrorist's father to stand behind her during a campaign speech.

The second event that fueled my contempt of the left was the manufactured outrage over Trump's travel ban. The airport protesters were told to hate the travel ban - they didn't reach their own conclusions. Indeed, the protesters didn't even take the time to read the executive order. After all, Orange Man Bad.

Had the protesters read the order, they would have found that one of the reasons for implementing the ban was to protect women, minorities, and LGBT people from those who condone and are willing to repeat the Pulse Nightclub massacre. This was explicitly stated in the order:

“The United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including "honor" killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.”

Here then are the consequences of liberalism for Americans in general and LGBTs in particular: you have no right to protect yourself or that which you value. Further, Democrats will happily import people that will murder you and other gays. All cultures are equal and must be respected, right?

To advocate this is criminal. To practice it is suicidal.

We have gay pride parades every year, and proud people will not permit themselves to be sacrificed upon any altar, including the altar of diversity. Gays have the same rights as everybody else, and self-protection is the fundamental right. Rights mean little if you cannot defend them, and dead men have no rights.

For these reasons my disdain of liberals escalated to contempt and disgust. The Democrats are worthy of nothing else.

Walk away? No, run if you have to. Run. Like. Hell. Better yet, fight like hell.

Walk Away, Towards What?
What are the alternatives to the Democrats and their collectivism?

The Libertarian Party is irrelevant when it comes to issues besides drug legalization. They have no fundamental principles beyond the fact that they like pot with their milquetoast.

Republican politicians have been rightly called "cuckservatives" and “RINOs” (Republicans in name only), and the GOP has been rightly called the "right wing of the Democratic Party." This is because they were willing to use the exact same tactics as the left. They were indeed almost identical when it comes to "issues" like property rights, privacy rights, etc.

We see this every November. People decry election returns that are incredibly close to 50-50 as proof that America is Balkanized to the point of fragmentation. While the latter is true, the convergence of the Democrats and the RINOs explains the close election returns equally well. In 2012, for example, we had the choice of Obamacare and Romneycare. You might as well flip a coin when you go into a voting booth, for the outcome would be the same: 50-50.

But the contemporary Republican Party is not your father's party, and this goes far beyond Peter Thiel speaking at the 2016 Republican National Convention. It is being transformed, starting with the Tea Party and continuing with Trump’s MAGA platform.

The Republican Party is on its way of becoming an America First party, and we America Firsters love the Constitution! This is the difference between the Demopublicans and America Firsters: for them, the Constitution is an anachronistic document that is selectively applied – it is used only when it suits their agenda and it is ignored when inconvenient; for us, the Constitution is written protection for the smallest minority: the individual. For Demopublicans, rights are government gifts, subject to change. For America Firsters, rights are inherent in us as individuals. The Constitution doesn't grant rights, it recognizes rights and it establishes mechanisms to protect those rights. The Constitution embodies the Enlightenment ideals that the left rejects, and for that reason the Democrats reject the Constitution.

So, when some cuckservative denigrates gays for wanting “special rights,” all you have to do is ask him to show you where their beloved “culture war” issues are found in the Constitution. He will not be able to point to anything, because they are not there.

Should you contemplate leaving the Democratic Party, they would say "but, but, but... Trump is a racist, homophobic, sexist, racist, Islamophobic, raaaacist. He'll put you gays into concentration camps!"

Concentration camps, like the WW2 Japanese internment camps set up by Franklin D. Roosevelt, the darling of the Democratic Party?

The Democrats' alarmism is intended to evoke fear, uncertainty, and doubt, with the goal of instilling guilt and the sense of victimhood necessary to keep people subservient. But it backfires, for if there were a real likelihood that Trump would go full FDR, then that's certainly reason to learn basic firearm usage and to join a neighborhood protection team or other militia. In other words, it is a reason to do the things that the Democrats decry and oppose.

A rifle goes better with your wardrobe than a pink triangle on any day.

While the Republican party is on its way to becoming an America First party, it has miles to go. Some RINOs are still there, and they are willing to resort to their culture war shenanigans – that’s how Milo Yiannopoulos got disinvited from CPAC.

Is the Republican Party the right party? That's the wrong question to ask. A better one is this: do conservative people hold the right principles, and do they live in accordance with those principles?

Individual conservatives want to be treated just like anybody else. If you are walking away from the Democrats, you must eliminate the preconceptions you have of conservatives, and you have to work to disprove the stereotypes they have of you. Even when that has been accomplished, there will be teasing and what people call "ball busting."

Here's something that happened with me and a fellow militiaman named Pete at a training event a few years ago. We were up very late one evening, and as we were walking back to our tents, we decided to wake everybody up.

Pete (yelling): "Oh no, Mike is going to rape me in the ass!"
Me (also yelling): "Don't worry Peetie, I'll be gentle this time!"

This was not harassment. There was no animosity nor malicious intent on either side. It was just (rough) banter, and that comes with the First Amendment. Freedom of speech is not for the thin-skinned or spineless. You have to be willing and able to give back just as hard as you get, for in that way mutual respect is earned and maintained.

What lies beneath this gruffness is a strong moral compass, and the intelligence to realize that bad outcomes are the consequence of bad ideals. No single party has a monopoly on these qualities, but the conservatives have adopted the principles that the Democrats have rejected. If you value those ideals, follow them to where they lead, and do not be afraid to become a modern conservative in the process.

A Survivalist for All Seasons

The theme of JC Dodge's essay "The Importance of the Right Label" is exactly what the title says: the importance of integrity and honesty in thinking about ourselves and others, how labels are perverted by nefarious people for nefarious purposes, and what our choice of labels says about ourselves during crunch time.

In the process of explaining all this, JC answers the question: what is the difference between a survivalist and a prepper? He has very interesting things to say there, and it is worth reading three times over to absorb it all. The following is what I gleaned from having done just that. All quotes, except for one, are from that essay, and are used with his permission.

First, what is a survivalist?

"A “Survivalist” has a mindset that makes preparing for bad times a lifestyle and looks forward to the training, education, and acquiring of the means to accomplish that goal."

He takes this further by outlining a survivalist manifesto...

"A “Survivalist” is one who isn’t afraid of the task ahead. Even though those tasks appear foreboding. The “Survivalist” is optimistic about the outcome of any future calamity, and realizes that being prepared for anything is a lifestyle, not a hobby. A “Survivalist” doesn’t give two shits about being politically correct, since reality dictates that “The politically correct” will be the first to die. This is true, when you consider their lack of foresight and the unending need for their “perception of things” to be real, and that perception will always override the true “reality of things” in their mind."

The best part of that paragraph is the realization that a man lives by his mind. Appearance is irrelevant, perception is irrelevant; what matters is that reality exists and that we are capable of understanding it. This is the absolute key to survival. A man who lives by his mind, lives; a man who ignores his mind, thereby ignoring reality, dies. Simple.

Second, what is a prepper?

"At the end of the 90’s, we started hearing a term describing those that were getting ready for the Y2K event, and that term was “Prepper”. The term “Prepper” was apparently politically correct, at least as much as a term describing a self reliant individual could be. My take on the “preppers” of that time frame was that they wanted to be ready, just in case, but they generally didn’t want people around them to know they were “nutty” preparedness types."

JC goes on to affirm the first and reject the second: "I AM A SURVIVALIST, not a Prepper! I don’t need to use a politically correct term to describe my less than politically correct mindset and actions."

Later, JC must be credited for coming up with a new name for when the SHTF: TEOTWAWKISTAN, heh! Courage wants to laugh, and you can tell he was having the time of his life when he invented that!

Finally, we have this very telling sentence: "Learning to survive alone and planning to survive alone are two different things. The difference is similar to the difference between “Living” and “Existing”." In other words, a survivalist wants not simply to live but to live as a man.


So, is the difference between a survivalist and a prepper simply that the former "has grown a set" and the latter never will? Is a prepper a "survivalist in the closet" at best? I think there is more to it.

Everyone's heard the saying that begins "Give a man a fish...". What that phrase means is that knowledge is more valuable than the immediate consequences of applying that knowledge. JC applies this to milquetoast survivalism, the prepper movement: "A lot of the “Preppers” I’ve met... seem to have a mindset similar to 'If I acquire enough stuff, I’ll be fine.'"

Bingo!

Let's play devil's advocate, put ourselves in a prepper's shoes, and apply Pascal's Wager to the "prepper lifestyle": either there's a ________ coming, or there isn't (fill in the blank with whatever catastrophe you want). If it does come, and I have acquired enough stuff, great! If not, I spent a lot of money and I look like an idiot. The former outcome is favorable, the latter is inconvenient or irrelevant; so I should be a prepper.

There is so much wrong with that approach, but you hear this type of spineless utilitarianism all the time. Let's start at the start, and staying with JC's theme of the importance of integrity, all of the problems that preppers have - and that survivalists don't - stem from that blank spot in the above argument.

The goal of the survivalist is just that: to survive as a man. By "as a man" I mean that the survivalist wants to protect the ideals, people, and things he values - in a manner appropriate to men, not savages nor animals. Whatever the catastrophe, the survivalist's goal remains the same. For the survivalist, it is the goal that determines the means.

For the prepper, it is the catastrophe that determines the means. The prepper focuses almost exclusively on the means to get through a calamity, and any goals beyond that are left nebulous. The prepper wants a lifestyle, not a life. He will end up having neither, for no prepper's hyper-detailed plan will survive contact with reality: change the details of the catastrophe, and the prepper is caught off guard.

(You can also see the consequences of this omission of goals in prepper fiction: their novels frequently read more like how-to manuals than fiction. The goal of fiction is to show, not to teach. Besides, any good how-to manual must have an index.)

There's also a problem of magnitude: many preppers fill in that blank with huge and sudden natural disasters, such as: Yellowstone volcanos, solar flares, asteroid strikes, etc. What about events that aren't huge? What about events that are gradual rather than sudden? What about man-made disasters?

February 2010 Snowstorm in Frederick, MD: Not something a prepper would consider worthy.

By being stuck in the mechanics of prepping for a particular large-scale event instead focusing on the goal (to survive as a man), the prepper is missing the opportunity to apply his "preps" to small and/or gradual events. Instead of worrying about Yellowstone volcanos, think of major snowstorms. Instead of solar flares, be concerned about the impending layoffs at your company. Instead of a sudden asteroid impact, prepare to fight creeping socialism.

From that standpoint, the S has already HTF, repeatedly.

Going back to Pascal, and back to JC's essay, there is another problem that preppers have and that survivalists don't: the "if not" part. What happens if the catastrophe never comes? As a solution to this, JC quotes Robert Heinlein's Lazarus Long character (in "Time Enough for Love"?) as epitomizing the survivalist:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

The particular list of skills is not as important as the contrast between that variety and the single-mindedness of an insect. Taking this quote in isolation, one must ask of each of those activities: to what end? For Heinlein's answer, read any of his novels.

Notice not only the breadth of those skills, but also the depth to some of them. Most of those skills are nontrivial tasks, and require serious effort and discipline to complete. What Heinlein is saying here is the ideal man is not to be just a "competent man" or a "generalist", but an "exceptional man". He won't know how to do all of those things, but he has the ability to learn and adapt, and he knows that he must do so in order to survive.

One last thing about those skills: all of them are worth doing outside of catastrophic situations, and many of them pay quite well. This, I think, is a key difference between a prepper and a survivalist: the prepper wins Pascal's Wager only if a catastrophe happens; a survivalist wins either way.

In summary: a prepper is prepared to live through a disaster; a survivalist lives as a man, regardless of whether a disaster happens or not.