In his post entitled “Inbred Liberals” the Traditionalist named Zippy argues that Nazism is a form of Liberalism and not (as is commonly conceived) a far right political movement. Specifically he states:
Nazis are through-and-through liberals in the sense that they are strongly committed to political liberty, which begets equality…
He supports this statement with a quotation from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf:
I had always hated the Parliament, but not as an institution in itself. Quite the contrary. As one who cherished ideals of political freedom I could not even imagine any other form of government. In the light of my attitude towards the House of Habsburg I should then have considered it a crime against liberty and reason to think of any kind of dictatorship as a possible form of government.
The National Socialist state knows no ‘classes,’ but politically speaking only citizens with absolutely equal rights and accordingly equal general duties, and, alongside of these, state subjects who in the political sense are absolutely without rights.
Zippy has a pretty impressive and substantial blog where he articulates his political philosophy. What makes his blog impressive is that each post articulates a particular point within his philosophical structure and also links to other posts articulating other related points. Together these posts create a web of beliefs. At this point in my journey I have not read enough of his posts to form an opinion as to whether all these ideas fit together consistently in a comprehensive manner. My overall impression is that it seems both well thought out and based at least in part on scholarly research. I say at least in part because there is seemingly a great deal of his personal opinion in the mix.
For the purposes of this blog post I am interested to ascertain whether his ideas on Nazism and Liberalism hold up. To explore this argument I read a number of his posts starting with the links he considerately provided me in the comment section of Part III of this series. Those links in turn led to other links. Specifically, what I was looking for was the logical process whereby Liberalism leads to Nazism in his way of thinking.
I found this path most clearly articulated in Zippy’s post entitled “Political freedom is a concentrator of government power,” wherein he argues,
… making freedom a political priority (that is, liberalism) inherently concentrates government power.
It does this because,
… the presumption in favor of individual freedom against [traditional aristocracy and patriarchy] creates an imperative for an ever more centralized government to override those authorities, in order to reduce constraints on individual freedom.
He then provides the example of,
… the increasing intervention of government in marriage, since the traditional authority of a husband does in fact constrain the equal freedom of wives.
This example is a microcosm of the Liberal macrocosm (argues Zippy) whereby the centralized government authority must interfere to protect individual liberty and equality against traditional power structures.
It is in this concentration of government authority (argues Zippy) that gives rise to the potential of the police state in order to protect the equal rights of the individual. Here I must emphasize that it is not my impression Zippy is arguing that Liberalism necessarily results in the extremes of Nazism (or Communism for that matter) rather that Nazism cannot result but for the existence of Liberalism.
Let us be clear however. To say that Liberalism creates Nazism is to imply (if not to make the outright declaration that) Liberalism creates the conditions for racial genocide. This is further to imply (if not to make the outright declaration that) Traditionalism somehow avoids this potential outcome. Otherwise why else make the comparison between Liberalism and Nazism?
Here are the reasons why I tend to doubt this line of thinking. I question whether the Nazism as described by Hitler in Mein Kampf is the same Nazism that actually existed under the Third Reich. True, the full citizens of the Third Reich may have theoretically enjoyed equal political rights under the law but can it really be said that they were free under the structures of the Nazi police state? And if the citizens of the Third Reich were not free can it be legitimately argued that Nazism is a form of Liberalism? I understand the counterargument would be that Liberalism created the environment for Nazism to develop but can it not also be argued that there is nothing to stop a Traditionalist form of government from committing similar acts of barbarism? The inquisition and the Crusades come to mind as easy examples of brutality that were committed by “Throne and Altar” conservative governments.
Again, it is not my purpose here to present a counter argument to conservatism. My purpose in this series of blog posts is simply to document my thought process as I explore conservative political philosophy. Accordingly, I welcome all non hostile comments which I intend to digest with as open a mind as I am able.
Winston Scrooge 
Winston:
What do you mean by “free?”
Can it be legitimately argued that Americanism is a form of liberalism if it can be shown that American citizens are not free? If neither of us is free to yell “fire!” in a crowded auditorium (and etc.), then how is our “freedom” materially different from that of a German citizen living under Nazism? But the fact is we’re both free to do so. We’re also free to face the consequences for doing so, as were citizens of Nazi Germany. So again, what is meant by the term “free?”
Traditionalism repudiates liberalism as such; it teaches the repudiation of liberalism as such. Whereas Nazism basically says ‘we believe in and wholly embrace liberalism’s core principles (liberty and equality) for full citizens, but we reject its excesses and deny that non-citizens are entitled to liberty or equality.’ That is why Zippy denominates Nazism “inbred liberalism.” Traditionalism gets to the root of the problem, which is to say liberalism itself. Traditionalism answers, ‘we don’t believe the establishment of liberty and equal rights is a primary or legitimate function of politics for anyone at any time or anywhere.’
So you’re saying the Inquisition and Crusades equate to Nazism?
When I use the word “free” to describe a society I am referring to a society that protects the rights that are generally repected in a free society. To make it easy let’s use the freedoms articulated in the bill of rights to the U.S. Constitution. An unfree society, by contrast, is a police state where these rights are not protected by the state such as in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union for example.
“Freedom” is what I say it is. If a constitution of government agrees with me (or, rather, I it), then “freedom” is what the Constitution says it is – because that’s what I say it is.
Winston, I could (literally) give you hundreds of examples of the prohibition against “illegal searches and seizures” being violated in America (at the federal, state, and local levels), just in recent decades, as well as governmental violations of every other protection in the Bill of Rights. This is because liberty (freedom) and equality are completely incoherent conceptions. You can’t possibly create “equality” where none exists. Same with liberty – liberty means nothing more nor less than license when you boil it all down – ‘so you want to restrict my liberty to do whatever the hell I want to do? To hell with you, and your Constitution!’
I think this what I described as freedom is a pretty generally accepted definition. Whether or not our government correctly implements the first 10 amendments to the constitution is debatable. What is not debatable is that our system of government is much more free than was the government of Nazi Germany. With all due respect, it seems a little silly to me to argue otherwise.
Winston:
I know. Don’t worry, you can’t offend me by calling my notions “silly.” I used to (twenty years ago – fifteen years ago, in fact) adhere to the same beliefs.
The U.S. Constitution (and the DoI) has always been one of my abiding interests, fyi – I can quote from it (the Constitution) extensively, as well as recite the entirety of the DoI verbatim, and on command. And as well a whole sleuth of passages from the Federalist Papers. But all of that is totally beside the point.
Back to the point, “Congress shall make no law,” and blah, blah, can only mean something – anything – in context of the people and government proclaiming it; hence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident” means absolutely nothing (or everything) outside the historical context in which Jefferson penned the phrase. This principle is universally applicable, or otherwise it’s not applicable at all. So when it comes to Nazism, you can’t just wrench the whole thing out of its historical context and automatically declare it to be altogether bad, or altogether good for that matter. See what I mean?
In other words, Winston, “freedom” and “equality” and these sorts of subjective concepts, only mean something in reality to those living under the broad conception of them. I feel like I’m pretty “free” to do basically whatever I choose to do in America, … so long as I “choose” to do that which is culturally acceptable to do. Otherwise, not s’much.
Okay, but it is culturally acceptable to assemble in public and protest the regiem in the USA whereas it was not in Nazi Germany. Surely this example demonstrates a difference between the two, no?
Well, Hitler and the Nazis denied the right to “peaceably assemble for the redress of grievances” on the back of their assertion (on numerous occasions) to … peaceably assemble for the redress of grievances. That some of these instances turned violent is neither here nor there, nor necessarily the fault of the Nazis. 🙂
Terry, I really want to understand you. Are you seriously trying to make the argument that United States is equally as repressive a society as Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia?
Not yet. But soon to be *if* liberalism isn’t repudiated as such in the near future.
What would such a repudiation look like?
When it comes to the matter of ‘repression’ and the like, it may be worth pointing out that (e.g.) feminism (which is as American as Rosy the Riveter) has slaughtered far more innocents than the Nazis and the Stalinists combined. Borrowing from liberal philosopher John Rawls, whether or not you consider a particular society ‘oppressive’ generally depends entirely on who you happen to be in that society and (adding the part that Rawls carefully avoids) what you think it is good to enforce.
A ‘free society’ is – the question is begged – one which sends the right sort of people to prison.
Relevant:
This one also may be relevant:
Winston:
Good question! Fundamentally what is liberalism? If we can agree (if only for the sake of argument) that liberalism is what Zippy says it is, then what does his definition mean that liberals are at their core? Are they not revolutionaries of one sort or another by definition?
To the extent a person embraces liberalism, to that extent (s)he is a revolutionary, and part of the (broad) revolution. So the question really answers itself if we understand what liberalism is and, perhaps more importantly, what liberalism does.
What liberalism does is keep its adherents in a perpetual state of revolution. What do revolutionaries do? They revolt. Against who, or what? Against whatever happens to be the popular “injustice” at a given place at a given moment in history. What (to a liberal) defines an “injustice?” In a word, inequality, real or perceived. Where does inequality exist? Everywhere, all the time, and ever shall it be so.
Liberalism’s appetite is insatiable because, as Zippy and others have been at pains to point out for years, it’s quite impossible to satisfy its requirements. So to answer your question, what a repudiation of liberalism would look like initially is that this tendency of modern people to perpetual revolution would cease. Over the longer haul the counter-revolution would commence and ultimately wipe out hundreds of years of social, cultural and economic liberalism.
Now, would all of this be messy? Of course it would. But that’s a whole ‘nother discussion. Is there a chance in hell it’ll happen in our lifetimes? I certainly don’t expect everybody to all of a sudden wake up in the next several decades and go ‘oh, crap!, liberalism is destroying everything; time to go full-on traditionalist.’ (Lol) No; what we’re basically getting at is that (more than likely) liberalism will ultimately die of natural causes, albeit it may be a violent death nevertheless. But in any case whenever, and how ever, liberalism dies, traditionalists will have to step in and reorganize society and government on principles that at least do not war against nature and nature’s God.
But if this world view is correct can it not be said that Traditionalism gives rise to Liberalism in the same way that you and Zippy believe Liberalism gives rise to Nazism?
winstonscrooge:
Political modernity (liberalism) is rationally incoherent: self contradictory. It has also murdered far more innocent human beings in cold blood than all other political philosophies combined.
I suppose one might propose that it is impossible to avoid self contradictory incoherent mass-murdering political philosophy, and embrace despair. The philosopher David Stove for example seemed to suffer from a sort of existential despair when he realized that the modern project can never work, and he ended up hanging himself in his garden. His son ended up becoming Catholic and wrote a lovely little book about music history.
Alternatively one could conclude that what has been shown is just that liberalism specifically is incoherent, and set about looking for a coherent understanding of the reality of authority from there.
Relevant:
I reject the assertion that liberalism is responsible for more murder than any other political philosophy.
As to that, ultimately it is a question of fact.
But you label things to be liberal that are not such as Nazism and Soviet Communism that did not allow for FREE societies.
Even if you disagree that Nazism and Stalinism are forms of liberalism, feminism has murdered far more innocents than both of its modern cousins combined. And putting “free” in all caps doesn’t change the question begging nature of the assertion: that by “freedom” you substantively mean that the right sort of people (by your lights) are put in prison and murdered for the right reasons. You have not grasped that all politics is necessarily authoritarian: politics which proposes to make “freedom” a priority no less so, just hypocritically and sociopathically so.
But everyone gets that a free society is not 100% free. It is “free” relative to more repressive forms of government. maybe “Freer” would be a more accurate term. That does not necessarily make it sociopathic. Moreover, I don’t see anything about Traditionalism that would prevent it from becoming sociopathic and murdersome either. So all things being equal I (at this phase in my education) would tend to side with the form of government that leaves me alone to a greater degree.
I would encourage you to keep thinking about it, and to question your own assumptions. The notion that modern liberal polities don’t bureaucratically micromanage everyday life the way those evil medieval polities supposedly did, for example, doesn’t pass an even modestly historically informed laugh test.
Also, and again, whatever it is you may have in mind as an alternative political philosophy has no bearing on the validity of criticism of liberalism. There are many different kinds of traditionalist thought, and my own views are probably not representative in any case. The point is that if my criticism of liberalism is valid – if liberalism is incoherent and therefore produces the triumph of the will in the way I have described – then talking about whatever alternatives you may or may not dream up has no bearing on that result. The four humours theory of disease was wrong independent of the state of knowledge about germs. Admitting to having no theory at all is better than insisting that a disproven theory is true just because you don’t want it to be false or can’t see an alternative theory that you find satisfactory.
I will most definitely continue to think about it and I appreciate you and Terry taking the time to explain your views.
Winston:
Only if you take a purely secular (non-religious) approach to the traditionalist world view. But, see, traditionalism rejects purely secular incantations as, well, purely ridiculous and false.
More specifically (or more to the point), nothing in particular “gives rise to” liberalism. Why? Well, because liberalism is, in no uncertain terms, rebellion against God and His authority – yes, even when it is claiming His authority as its basis.
But what are you really getting at – are you saying that we can’t become traditionalists because, if we do, Nazism or Communism might ensue as a result? Are you saying, in other words, that rejecting evil and embracing the good in its place, can’t (or shouldn”t) be done for fear that the Devil might react with a counter-movement?
I keep coming back to the idea that Traditionalism was rejected for a reason. I am not at the point where I can accept that reason as rebellion for the sake of rebellion.
Whatever is true of liberalism is true of liberalism, period. Whether some other political philosophy is or is not acceptable is a distinct question. We would never say “well, I can’t think of an obvious alternative to Nazism and there must be a reason why what came before Nazism was rejected.”
More generally speaking the lack of an obvious alternative to X that makes us happy does not make X itself acceptable for all arbitrary X’s.
Even more generally, a theory is not confirmed by the absence of intuitively (to whom?) plausible alternatives.
Yet more generally still, positivism is false.
Fine. But there must be something about liberalism (i.e., freedom and equality) that speaks to the soul of mankind otherwise why would it have taken root to the extent it has?
There is no question that human beings like believing that what they want is the same as what is moral, and that anyone who proposes to tell them otherwise with authority is an evil tyrant. Liberalism appeals to base desire and at the same time flatters the ego, reassuring man that the triumph of his will simply is the good.
It is true that liberalism can be exploited by evil intent but so can Traditionalism. But Liberalism can also be an environment where morality and love of neighbor can reach its fullest expression, not through coercion but through a whole heart.
It isn’t an exploitation or distortion of liberalism to invoke it to justify the triumph of the will in politics. Liberalism is the triumph of the will in politics.
Relevant:
Winston:
Winston – Nazism in particular only lasted about 20 years start to finish (give or take). A significant proportion of which time was primarily devoted to the war effort.
Now, independently of whether Hitler was right initially to thumb his nose at the Versailles Treaty and all that, how in the world is the standard of [individual] “freedom” held up as the measure for whether or not Nazism was authentically liberal? Obviously the citizens of a nation at peace are going to enjoy much more “freedom” than their counterparts engaged in all-out war with the entire civilized world, no?
Again, this all has to be kept in historical context – when we lose context we lose focus; when we lose focus everything becomes a blur.
The definition of liberalism per our agreement is a political philosophy that values the freedom and equality of its citizens as a primary purpose of government. It is my assertion based on everything I have ever read about Nazi Germany that the government functioned as a police state and did not present itself as one that valued the freedom of its citizens. As such it cannot be liberal per the definition. Seems pretty straight forward to me.
So a nation (or the nation that gives rise to the regime) that suspends the Habeas Corpus Writ, or otherwise enacts “Homeland Security” initiatives (etc, etc, etc.) is, by definition, not a nation primarily concerned with liberty and equal rights? In this we would agree – whatever a given regime is primarily concerned with vs. whatever it says it’s primarily concerned with, may well be two different matters altogether. But liberalism is what it is nevertheless.
I understand why no person would want to lay claim to Nazism as a form of whatever political philosophy they espouse. But the facts are, Nazi Germany was a police state (not free), with a state sanctioned policy of racial supremacy (not liberal) and nationalism (also not liberal). Based on these facts I think that it is a pretty tough sell to claim that Nazism is a form of liberalism per our agreed definition.
And once again you ignore (as meaningless and totally irrelevant) the fact of Nazi Germany in historical context. I keep reiterating that you can’t do that and keep an open mind.
The context (which I am not ignoring btw) does not make Nazism any more liberal.
Winston, you’re either ignoring the hostorical context, or you’re completely missing significant pieces of it. The whole idea of Nazism was to establish freedom and independence in Germany and to dissolve class distinctions (between the herrenvolk) by reorganizing the government and bringing various industries, the economy and finance, under stricter government control. Nazism is inbred liberalism, but it’s still liberalism.
Your definition of liberalism seems overly broad to me if it can apply to a police state that revokes citizenship and murders people on the basis of race. That seems neither free nor equal to me.
It seems to me that the attempted rebuttal is substantively empty. We can say that Nazism was produced by liberalism when it faced existential threat and turned inward – without abandoning liberalism for the herrenvolk specifically. Or we can say that Nazism is a form of liberalism. But the distinction seems rather academic. It is a fact that liberalism gave us nazism, and nazism did not reject liberalism in principle.
Winston, you may find this book interesting:
https://books.google.com/books/about/What_We_Knew.html?id=UOCxQgAACAAJ&hl=en
All you’re saying is that inbred liberalism – that form of liberalism disillusioned by outbred liberalism is not authentic liberalism. The Nazis themselves made the exact same sorts of arguments about authentic vs. inauthentic democracy and “freedom,” “equal rights” and that sort of thing. I encourage you to look deeper into it in the source documents – it’s there, believe me.
*Somewhat relevant: I gave a speech some years back to a gathering of “Oath Keeper and Tea Party Patriots” (these people are, by and large, well meaning dedicated liberals who deny they’re liberals) in which I took to the podium with me two documents – a pocket copy of the U.S. Constitution, and my (well worn) copy of the Federalist Papers. Holding the pocket Constitution up in my left hand, I said to the group “you can’t possibly understand this, if you haven’t studied this” – raising the Federalist Papers up in my right.
What is the point? Well, the point is that original source documents are a light bulb, as Zippy points out. If you care to know what someone is really thinking (as opposed to what someone else says he’s thinking), it’s best to get it straight from the horse’s mouth.
winstonscrooge:
This is an interesting assertion which needs to be unpacked in its own right.
Liberalism – as an objective well-defined political doctrine functioning in the context of concrete reality – has in fact produced certain consequences. Objecting that no authentic liberalism would produce those consequences simply begs the question: if liberalism as we understand it in historical fact actually did produce nazism, our understanding of liberalism must by definition be wrong.
In effect this says that if X had terrible consequences then X cannot, by definition, be authentic Y. Authentic Y by definition can have no terrible consequences: it resides in an impregnable tautological motte in which it can never be subject to critique. Whatever it is that causes mass murder and other terrible destruction in the bailey of concrete reality is, by definition, not liberalism.
This sort of question begging makes it impossible to subject any political idea to critique. One might as well argue that the Third Reich was not authentic nazism because it produced bad consequences, that Stalinist Russia was not authentic communism because it produced bad consequences, and American feminism is not authentic feminism because it has produced and continues to produce more murdered innocents than Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany combined. Authentic versions of these political doctrines (all variants of liberalism by the way) would not have produced terrible consequences, by definition.
I’m saying the definition of something cannot be equal to its opposite.
Relevant:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion
Relevant:
Also relevant:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion
It all depends by what you mean by “definition?”
The “opposite” a square, by definition, is square, too.
Just put a square to a mirror to see what I’m writing. The definition is equal in the square opposites.
I’ll allow this comment since it was written coherently and without undefined terms.
I don’t see how liberalism can be in support of freedom and equality (per Zippy’s definition) but at the same time manifest itself in a government that is strictly against freedom and equality (as in the case of Nazism).
Nazism wasn’t ‘strictly against freedom and equality’. If you drop the false premise you at least have some chance of perceiving the reality.
Nazism was (like all liberalisms, including Stalinism, feminism, etc) against those whom it perceived to be the subhuman enemies of or clinical impediments to freedom and equality. It was (like all liberalisms) against the oppressor-untermensch, that problem in search of a Final Solution, which inevitably stymies all liberalisms in their confrontation with reality.
Would you say Traditionalism is against freedom and equality or merely unconcerned with freedom and equality as a political priority?
I don’t claim to speak for ‘Traditionalism’ in general or any particular traditionalism. Many illiberal traditions have their own problems. I myself am against all falsehoods and lies, especially unprecedentedly murderous ones, which is why I criticize liberalism specifically. Liberalism though certainly isn’t the only error when it comes to authority, and in fact a comprehensive nosology of errors is impossible in principle.
But liberalism (and modernism in general) are our errors, and must be rejected unequivocally. Rejecting liberalism doesn’t sign you up for any particular alternative, any more than rejecting the Four Humours theory signs you up for a particular theory of disease.
Possibly relevant:
And so by rejecting liberalism are you rejecting freedom and equality outright or simply as political priorities?
As political priorities, or principles of political action.
Freedom (and its concomitant, equal rights) are self contradictory as principles governing the exercise of authority (politics), because the exercise of authority always, necessarily, and essentially discriminates and restricts freedom based upon that discrimination.
One of the usual moves at this point by right liberals is to say that this would be self contradictory if freedom were the only priority, but nobody other than crazy anarchists think that freedom is the only priority. I’ve explained in a number of places and ways why this objection does not work. Here is one:
But if certain degrees of freedom exist within a political structure that does not hold freedom to be a priority… you would not object to that would you?
There are always material degrees of freedom in every political structure; which is just to say that political structures always involve certain human beings making concrete choices from available alternatives (and other human beings having their options restricted by those choices).
As I’ve described it before, a ‘free society’ in this vacuous sense is just one in which the right people are obeyed in the right circumstances, the right people are obedient in the right circumstances, the right people are put in prison for the right reasons (etc).
Of course people don’t like cherished ideals like freedom to be vacuous: to mean nothing more than that the right people should be empowered to make the right choices, everyone else should obediently play along, bad people should be in prison, and can’t we just all get along? So even the most minimalist embryonic conceptions of liberalism are inherently unstable and give rise to the murderous kind of liberalism.
I would say it’s more of a relative term. That is certain societies or more free than others. As such, a free society would be one that relatively speaking allows for more freedom.
That’s true if by “more free” you mean that particular persons in the “more free” society are free to do what you think they ought to be free to do, and not free to do what you think they ought not be free to do. In other words, if “more free” refers to the authoritative rules and constraints that you prefer then of course there are “more free” polities and “less free” polities, because presumably you do prefer some sets of rules over others.
But this label “more free” just begs the question in favor of the authoritative discriminations you prefer. We can interpret “more free” to mean “with rules that winstonscrooge likes, and absent rules he doesn’t like”.
Relevant:
Yeah but there are generally agreed upon ideas of freedom. We can use those freedoms articulated in the bill of rights for example. It’s not as arbitrary as you describe it.
winstonscrooge:
In an already long thread I’ll prescind from exploring the question of whether the bill of rights is even coherent. But I’ll point out that you are dangerously close to suggesting that authority over life and death in human affairs should be governed not by doctrines of freedom and/or equality but by inherited tradition and custom: that the latter always trumps appeal to the former.
In any case, good luck with your further ruminations.
And here is another:
If it helps, you can think of Auschwitz as a “Planned Citizenhood” clinic.
Zippy:
Well, I brought the term “traditionalism” into the discussion initially because I was trying to show Winston where ‘traditionalism’ differs from the alt-right movement of Richard Spencer, et al.
Winston:
Kinda like my state – Oklahoma – is “conservative” relative to, say, Massachusetts. Your thoughts are moving in the right direction.
Winston: what exactly (to your mind) are the “freedoms” articulated in the Bill of Rights?
They speak for themselves, no?
Of course they do. Which is why, of course, there are innumerable court cases in American jurisprudence describing what and what not an ‘establishment of religion’ is, or the ‘free exercise thereof.’ And etc.
Right. We’re talking generalities here.
You’re talking generalities. I’m not. When I say things about my state being “conservative” relative to Massachusetts, et al, I’m being facetious. Under the liberal paradigm “conservatism” is just a metaphor for … some semblance or other of classical liberalism. At the end of the day, everything is held up to the “freedom” light bulb. Which is why the courts continually (and ever shall) contradict themselves.
I don’t see courts contradicting themselves as necessarily a bad thing. Our legal system is dynamic and complex.
And it is because you will not conceive an “equal freedom” as the “right to self-annihilate” while simultaneously conceiving a “liberal” government willing to squash all freedom equally to maintain this perpetuating self-annihilation.
This is EXACTLY the paradigm “we” exist within.
What does “equal freedom” mean and how does it annihilate the self?
“Equal freedom” memes “the right to self-annihlate” and a LIBERATED government willing to violently enforce said “right to self-annihilate.”
Self-annihilation is the ideologically-induced process of annihilating the self. Literally, political dogma teaching suicide.
This ^^^ is “liberalism” in the act.
Traditionalists have been saying this for centuries, perhaps a millennia or two.
Nazism was just a particular aspect of “liberalism” perpetuating self-annihilation. So physically, Nazism is almost dead because it is self-annihilating. As an ideology, Nazism cannot “die” and so it perpetuates. Nazism will ALWAYYS BE a liberationist movement.
How does it perpetuate self annihilation?
By “preaching” nondiscrimination (indiscriminate thought and action) and tolerance (acceptance of pain) as “equality.”
Indiscriminate thought and action + acceptance of pain = desire for annihilation, i.e., Final Liberation.
Then…
The unprincipled exception…
To LIVE and beat a fellow self-annihilator by being last.
Thereby, perpetuating self-annihilation.
But how does it actually lead to self annihilation. Explain it to me without all the mumbo jumbo.
The wages of sin is death. Traditionalists have understood, dating back to Rousseau and the French Revolution *at least*, that the point of liberalism has always been to liberate mankind from the bondage of Christian morality and the authority of the church.
So this annihilation occurs after death?
E.g., consider the following excerpt from pg. 529 of E. Michael Jones’s book, The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and its Impact on World History.
See also the Wiki article on Barruel:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoirs_Illustrating_the_History_of_Jacobinism
The desire is radical autonomy… The empirical reality is a shortened life. The metaphysical reality IS NOT total annihilation… But the original, incarnated desire for radical autonomy. A total detachment from God for all eternity. This is all that is known from those desiring radical autonomy and why they seek a total annihilation.
They hate The Father.
How did you come to possess this knowledge of the partial post death annihilation?
The concept of spiritual death is nothing new or particularly insightful. The basic lie told by modern liberalism is the same lie told in the beginning – dabbling in sin (disobedience, rejection of authority, etc) is ‘liberating,’ ‘enlightening.’ Liberalism is just the political philosophy that encourages and applauds sinful behavior. It appeals to man’s basest nature.
Right. Thordaddy seems to have very specific inside information about how all this plays out. I’m interested to know how this was revealed to him.
It’s in the Logos.
“The concept of spiritual death is nothing new or particularly insightful.” — Terry Morris
But gosh darn it if convincing the Orthosphereans that “liberalism” is a perpetuating self-annihilation hasn’t been the most difficult of tasks. It seems they barely believe the wages of sin to be death in any particular instance. Yeah, it’s an universal truth with relativist implications, but it is most particularly, absolute at the worshipper level.
“The basic lie told by modern liberalism is the same lie told in the beginning – dabbling in sin (disobedience, rejection of authority, etc) is ‘liberating,’ ‘enlightening.’” — TM
Yes… Self-annihilation is FREEDOM. Perpetuating self-annihilation is “equal freedom.” “Liberalism” is transgression dressed in poly-tricks.
“Liberalism is just the political philosophy that encourages and applauds sinful behavior. It appeals to man’s basest nature.” — TM
Yet, “God is dead” to the dull masses and so the above is truly mumbo jumbo in the minds of the masses. The modern neither possesses a true concept of sin nor an identifiable archetype of man. So “liberalism” really is an “equal freedom” to be enjoyed by a mass of self-annihilators.
The real question goes to the willingness of one to transcend this perpetuating self-annihilation? It’s more than just mental and physical and not just strictly metaphysical. And it cannot be without spirited effort.
But more explicitly, there is the modern who genuinely believes in total annihilation at death and therefore a perpetuating self-annihilation is entirely normal to him and there are those moderns who have done deals with the devil in persuading others of annihilation at death when they know that damnation actually awaits those falsely persuaded. The former is merely pathological possessing a disease with ideological origin. The latter group is diabolical with origins irrelevant in the face of an Evil that is manifest in their very existence.
And you know all this how? Did you just extrapolate this from “the wages of sin is death”?
Originated and immersed in radical autonomy for over fourty years… Almost twenty-two years as a bouncer in SoCal… Twenty years on the internet… And nearly twenty years of raising children.
Okay so you made it up. Got it.
I’m not following your implication?
Are you claiming that one cannot see that “the wages of sin are death?”
Are you claiming that one cannot see that the cost of “equal freedom” is a perpetuating self-annihilation?
Then…
“God is dead,” to you, winstonScrooge.
I’m saying I doubt your job as a bouncer gives you specific knowledge of the afterlife.
Well, even though I never made such claim, my job still has given me great insight into the radical autonomy of a mass of diverse self-annihilators who give the afterlife no consideration. These insights do not lead one to the conclusion of a successful secular assault, but a paltry Christian aggressiveness for a prevailing Truth.
On what do you base your specific knowledge of the afterlife then?
A desire for a perfect perception of reality resulting in the grasp of a solid metaphysical truth.
What about you?
Got it. You just made it up.
I don’t claim to have specific knowledge of the afterlife.
Can you actually provide a quote of what I’ve “made up?”
In this thread you have spoken as if you have authority on what happens after death:
More generally, all the mumbo jumbo you babel seems made up to me. Prove me wrong by supporting it with scripture.
I don’t know Scipture well enough to provide quotes that after death the formerly incarnated soul is not annihilated and will receive what he desired in life. Ergo, he will get Heaven or Hell.
So those who desire a perpetuating self-annihilation in life will get such thing after death and “it” is called Hell… A “conscious” oblivion… “You” can “see” with “nothing” to see… Taste everything with zero to eat… Hear all things and not a single noise prevails… Smell a universe and no scent present… Touch galaxies and feel lifeless… This is genuine radical autonomy after death for the formerly imcarnated soul which desired such in life. God will.
So how do you know that?