#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.

Two More Minutes of Hate

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. This maxim holds not only in geometry, but in business as well. In that situation, the two points are the producer of goods or services, and the customer. The transactions between the two, for it to be "businesslike", must not involve any interference by any agency, government "service", third party, or side issues. No diversions must come on the shortest path between producer and customer.

This singlemindedness is the hallmark of a good businessman, and a similar thing holds for any person with any talent: no irrelevancies allowed.

Unfortunately, American businesses have forgotten that: they allow distractions to enter. Like politics, for example.

We've seen National Football League player Colin Kaepernick kneel at the playing of the national anthem. He's protesting "a country that oppresses black people and people of color". In 2016, he had a base salary of $11,900,000, a roster bonus of $2,000,000 and a workout bonus of $400,000, according to SpoTrac. Poor Colin. Poor, poor Colin.

We've read Starbucks promise to hire 10,000 refugees over the next five years in the 75 countries in which they conduct business. Will these include the Starbucks that anti-Trump protesters destroyed during the inauguration? How about the Starbucks destroyed by the rioters at UC Berkeley?

These issues are nothing but distractions from the respective purposes of the NFL and Starbucks, yet they are allowed to happen.

On Thursday, February 2nd, Comcast held protests over Trump's executive order limiting immigrants from seven countries known to breed terrorists. Those protests took place at several Comcast offices, including the Philadelphia one.

The organization of these protests started in the Comcast Silicon Valley (CSV) office located in Sunnyvale, CA. The organizers created a Slack "channel" (a chatroom) that soon included over a thousand members. As plans were evolving, a VP from that office sent the following email to a list of current and former CSV workers:

Hi folks,

As many of you know, a group of Comcasters in Philly and CSV are organizing a walkout for tomorrow (Thursday) at 11 Pacific to protest the Trump administration’s immigration policies. The organizers were inspired by the walkouts at Google campuses around the world on Monday.

If you want to participate or learn more about this, join the #walkout Slack channel.

I’m personally extremely supportive of this action. As a grandchild of immigrants, I understand the contribution immigrants from all over the world have made, and continue to make to this country. And I deeply appreciate that our country, at its best, has extended the opportunity for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to people in need.

I want to emphasize that this action is being taken by a group of individuals, motivated by their own social and political views. This isn’t a company-sponsored event, and the participants aren’t making any demands of the company. If your views are different, or if you don’t agree with the action for whatever reason, you shouldn’t feel any pressure. We’re supposed to be “the land of the free” so let’s all respect each other’s rights to speak our minds, or stay silent if that’s what feels right.

-A-

I learned of this chatroom from that email. There were various informal and heated discussions of this protest by my coworkers, and there seemed to be a concerted effort to exclude me from such discussions. Which is fine by me.

Organizers of the protest had consulted with management and Comcast legal services. They determined that protesters were not allowed to use the Comcast logo or name on any of their signs.

The protest was not mandatory. It was not an official Comcast event, though employees were allowed to take one hour of paid time off to participate.

I decided to counter-protest.

The night before the protest, I finished the essay called "Two Minutes of Hate" in response to the protests at various airports (and soon, Comcast) over Trump's order. About a half-hour before the protest was to start, I posted it to this blog, as well as to that chatroom. I also sent it in response to that email from the CSV VP.

Almost immediately, people began talking to me about the protests, and the consequences of either boycotting or counter protesting. Typically, my response to them was that they should be resolute, and to remember that they are correct on this issue. Here's an atypical response...

Fellow employee who was afraid to counter-protest: "You think the police will protect you?"
Me: "You think the police can protect them from me?"

The protesters gathered at the plaza in front of the Comcast Center building, as shown in this photo:

The man on the right with the megaphone used to be my manager. His parents were Vietnamese Boat People. They started a highly-respected restaurant, and are living the American dream. Their son didn't learn.

I stood with a sign that read "#RememberTheVictims" and also held a photo of a man with whom I used to do business, and who was killed in the Orlando night club shootings. I stood in a place where people could see those signs as the left the plaza and headed to City Hall.

I followed them to City Hall, listened to them chat, then again stood in a place where the protesters could see the signs as they returned to Comcast. It was a short protest, management gave them only one hour of PTO.

Of course, my manager, most of my teammates, as well as everyone with whom I sit were against Trump’s executive order, so they were protesting, and they saw me with my signs.

The next day, I was fired. My contracting company said they wanted to continue to work with me, and that Comcast was willing to rehire me for another team.

The reasons for my termination are becoming muddied, and I've already received two different excuses for my termination: one was that I was "unhappy" at my current position, the other that my team wanted an operations person instead of a software developer.

I've been a contractor at Comcast Philadelphia for approximately two years. Near the end of my first year there, they tried to hire me full time, but we were unable to agree on the salary. Before my contract ended, my old manager worked to move me to another team. That new team was dissolved a few months later, and that manager found me a spot with what used to be my current team.

Comcast was happy with me and I was happy with them. Until the counter-protest, that is.

I'm uncertain about working with Comcast in the future. Like all corporations, the chicken choking left hand does not know whom the right hand is wanking. For that reason, I hold no ill will towards the company as a whole.

But I am certain that I can no longer trust them. This is the first consequence for employers who become political, when they stray from the shortest path: doubt is introduced into the employee's mind about any action that management takes. Management undermines themselves, thus revealing their own incompetence.

Two Minutes of Hate

Trump's "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States" implemented a temporary ban on immigration from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, and Libya. The text of that executive order is available at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/27/executive-order-protecting-nation-foreign-terrorist-entry-united-states

Based on the level of vitriol in the reaction to that order, people would rather spend hours protesting something they did not spend 30 minutes reading. After all, why take 30 minutes out of your day to determine what to think when the media will do that for you in two minutes?

What is this executive order about, and what are the protests about?

The executive order is not about immigration
Most everybody is from someplace else, therefore there is nothing special about immigration, regardless of how much immigrants are apotheosized. America is not a country of immigrants, we are a country of pioneers. What is important about immigration is how immigrants arrived and what the individual immigrants do with their lives after arriving. Do they open a restaurant or other business, do they provide for their family, do they integrate into the larger community - in essence, do they become proud Americans? Or do they try their hardest to stay "economic migrants" or "hyphenated-Americans"? Or, at worst, do they attempt to convert America into the countries from which they escaped? Becoming American is commendable, and should be supported, but there are no provisions in that executive order excluding immigrants who merely wish to stand on our soil.

It is the right of every sovereign nation to determine who can and who cannot legally enter within its borders. Of the 196 countries on this planet, only seven were excluded by this executive order. So, the order isn't about immigration. Nor is it an absolute ban on immigration from those seven countries, since there are exceptions made for people from those seven countries "traveling on diplomatic visas, North Atlantic Treaty Organization visas, C-2 visas for travel to the United Nations, and G-1, G-2, G-3, and G-4 visas" as well as explicit provisions for case-by-case review.

Lest we forget, Trump's wife is herself an immigrant.

It is not about Islam
The order not only bans Muslims from the seven countries covered by the order, it bans all people, with the exceptions listed above. In fact, two of the families stranded at Philadelphia International Airport were Christian families fleeing from Syria - and they were not returned to Syria.

None of the five countries with the largest Muslim populations are on the list. The words "Muslim" or "Islam" appear nowhere in the EO. The references to Islam are indirect, like this paragraph from section 1 of the EO:

"In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law. In addition, 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."

There can be no justification for harboring those who enjoy the benefits of living in our republic while trying destroy it, so why not deny entry to those who harbor ill will to our Constitution and our founding principles? We are not obligated to aid and abet our own destruction.

Further, why shouldn't we keep out anyone who would "oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation"? We have fought too long and too hard to win the rights of minorities and women and gays and lesbians in this country, and it makes no sense to reverse those gains.

What else isn't the executive order about?
It isn't about racism, since there is no such thing as the "Islamic race" or the "immigrant race". It isn't about free speech, either. If you think this is a "free speech" issue, look at what happened yesterday at UC Berkeley, home of the Free Speech Movement. So much for Michelle Obama's "when they go low, we go high" policy.

What, then, is the executive order about?
The executive order is an attempt to protect America against foreign terrorism. The seven countries are not even specified in the executive order itself, but were identified in the Terrorist Prevention Act of 2015 and its 2016 extension as being current fomenters of terrorists. The order limits entry to people from only those seven countries, requires that the vetting process be improved, requires the completion of a biometric tracking system, and requires public reporting of immigration statistics.

These are the types of actions that should have been taken following the terrorist attacks on 9-11, or at Boston, Ft. Hood, San Bernardino, Orlando, or Mumbai, or multiple places in Pakistan, or Paris (two times), or Berlin, Cologne, or at a whole host of other attack locations.

Finally, what are the protests about?
When Obama banned Cuban immigrants from arriving here, there were no protests. When the Obama administration chose that list of seven countries in 2015 and 2016, where was the outrage? It is easy to say that the root cause of the protests is the election of Trump, or rather, Hillary Clinton's loss. While this is true in part, it is also about the abrogation of the individual's responsibility to determine beliefs based on his or her own observations, research, and reasoning. The protesters are being told what to think, rather than figuring it out for themselves. And they see no problem with this.

The protests are nothing but "Two Minutes of Hate."