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A little something for those partaking of TOO MUCH Christmas spirit.

(Warning: Do Not Try To Read While Inebriated)



(HT Modern Mechanix)

Her Majesty's Christmas Broadcast

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=4iHGmVd82Aw]

Merry Christmas

Handel's Messiah HWV 56 -- For Unto Us a Child is Born
[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=OQVQOW1c0DQ]

Multiculturalism as Treason

Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.

~~ Sir John Harrington (1561–1612). Epigrams, Book iv. Ep. 5.

Whenever anyone points out the undeniable fact that multiculturalism is a cancer slowly killing Western culture, it is customary for left liberals to angrily demand to know why that individual hates people from other cultures. But one need not hate anyone to prefer the continued existence of one's culture and society. A much more relevant question should be directed at the proponents of multiculturalism and immigration: Why do you hate Western society so much that you wish to see it destroyed?

~~Vox Day. Cultural Cancer

"You know," the Consul went on, "there's a very old word that describes the kind of men you are. It's 'traitor'. That's all, you're nothing new. There have been all kinds. We've had bishop traitors, knight traitors, general traitors, statesmen traitors, scholar traitors, and just plain traitors. It's a species that the West abounds in, and it seems to get richer and richer the smaller it grows. Funny, you would think it should be the other way around. But the mind decays, the spirit warps. And the traitors, keep coming. .... But I can tell you this: I may be wrong about your results, but I find your actions beneath contempt."

~~Jean Raspail. The Camp of Saints (PDF). (1973)

A Defence of Generalisations and Unflattering Criticism

From the preface of The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage by Sir Almroth E. Wright KBE, CB (1861-1947):

IT has come to be believed that everything that has a bearing upon the concession of the suffrage to woman has already been brought forward.

In reality, however, the influence of women has caused man to leave unsaid many things which he ought to have said.

Especially in two respects has woman restricted the discussion.

She has placed her taboo upon all generalisations about women, taking exception to these on the threefold ground that there would be no generalisations which would hold true of all women; that generalisations when reached possess no practical utility; and that the element of sex does not leave upon women any general imprint such as could properly be brought up in connexion with the question of admitting them to the electorate.

Woman has further stifled discussion by placing her taboo upon anything seriously unflattering being said about her in public.

I would suggest, and would propose here myself to act upon the suggestion, that, in connexion with the discussion of woman's suffrage, these restrictions should be laid aside.

In connexion with the setting aside of the restriction upon generalising, I may perhaps profitably point out that all generalisations,and not only generalisations which relate to women, are ex hypothesi [by hypothesis] subject to individual exceptions. (It is to generalisations that the proverb that "the exception proves the rule" really applies.) I may further point out that practically every decision which we take in ordinary life, and all legislative action without exception, is based upon generalisations; and again, that the question of the suffrage, and with it the larger question as to the proper sphere of woman, finally turns upon the question as to what imprint woman's sexual system leaves upon her physical frame, character, and intellect: in more technical terms, it turns upon the question as to what are the secondary sexual character[istic]s of woman.

Now only by a felicitous exercise of the faculty of successful generalisation can we arrive at a knowledge of these.

With respect to the restriction that nothing which might offend woman's amour propre [self love] shall be said in public, it may be pointed out that, while it was perfectly proper and equitable that no evil (and, as Pericles proposed, also no good) should be said of woman in public so long as she confined herself to the domestic sphere, the action of that section of women who have sought to effect an entrance into public life, has now brought down upon woman, as one of the penalties, the abrogation of that convention.

A consideration which perhaps ranks only next in importance to that with which we have been dealing, is that of the logical sanction of the propositions which are enunciated in the course of such controversial discussions as that in which we are here involved.

It is clearly a precondition of all useful discussion that the author and reader should be in accord with respect to the authority of the generalisations and definitions which supply the premisses for his reasonings.

Though this might perhaps to the reader appear an impractical ideal, I would propose here to attempt to reach it by explaining the logical method which I have set myself to follow.

Although I have from literary necessity employed in my text some of the verbal forms of dogmatism, I am very far from laying claim to any dogmatic authority. More than that, I would desire categorically to repudiate such a claim.

For I do not conceal from myself that, if I took up such a position, I should wantonly be placing myself at the mercy of my reader. For he could then, by merely refusing to see in me an authority, bring down the whole edifice of my argument like a house of cards.

Moreover I am not blind to what would happen if, after I claimed to be taken as an authority, the reader was indulgent enough still to go on to read what I have written.

He would in such a case, the moment he encountered a statement with which he disagreed, simply waive me on one side with the words, "So you say."

And if he should encounter a statement with which he agreed, he would in his wisdom, censure me for neglecting to provide for that proposition a satisfactory logical foundation.

If it is far from my thoughts to claim a right of dictation, it is equally remote from them to take up the position that I have in my arguments furnished proof of the thesis which I set out to establish.

It would be culpable misuse of language to speak in such connexion of proof or disproof.

Proof by testimony, which is available in connexion with questions of fact, is unavailable in connexion with general truths; and logical proof is obtainable only in that comparatively narrow sphere where reasoning is based--as in mathematics--upon axioms, or--as in certain really crucial experiments in the mathematic sciences--upon quasi-axiomatic premisses.

Everywhere else we base our reasonings on premisses which are simply more or less probable; and accordingly the conclusions which we arrive at have in them always an element of insecurity.

It will be clear that in philosophy, in jurisprudence, in political economy and sociology, and in literary criticism and such like, we are dealing not with certainties but with propositions which are, for literary convenience, invested with the garb of certainties.

What kind of logical sanction is it, then, which can attach to reasonings such as are to be set out here?

They have in point of fact the sanction which attaches to reasonings based upon premisses arrived at by the method of diacritical judgment.

It is, I hasten to notify the reader, not the method, but only the name here assigned to it, which is unfamiliar. As soon as I exhibit it in the working, the reader will identify it as that by which every generalisation and definition ought to be put to the proof.

I may for this purpose take the general statements or definitions which serve as premisses for my reasonings in the text.

I bring forward those generalisations and definitions because they commend themselves to my diacritical judgment. In other words, I set them forth as results which have been reached after reiterated efforts to call up to mind the totality of my experience, and to detect the factor which is common to all the individual experiences.

When for instance I propose a definition, I have endeavoured to call to mind all the different uses of the word with which I am familiar--eliminating, of course, all the obviously incorrect uses.

And when I venture to attempt a generalisation about woman, I endeavour to recall to mind without distinction all the different women I have encountered, and to extricate from my impressions what was common to all, --omitting from consideration (except only when I am dealing specifically with these) all plainly abnormal women.

Having by this procedure arrived at a generalisation--which may of course be correct or incorrect--I submit it to my reader, and ask from him that he should, after going through the same mental operations as myself, review my judgment, and pronounce his verdict.

If it should then so happen that the reader comes, in the case of any generalisation, to the same verdict as that which I have reached, that particular generalisation will, I submit, now go forward not as a datum of my individual experience, but as the intellectual resultant of two separate and distinct experiences. It will thereby be immensely fortified.

If, on the other hand, the reader comes to the conclusion that a particular generalisation is out of conformity with his experience, that generalisation will go forward shorn of some, or perchance all, its authority.

But in any case each individual generalisation must be referred further.

And at the end it will, according as it finds, or fails to find, acceptance among the thoughtful, be endorsed as a truth, and be gathered into the garner of human knowledge; or be recognised as an error, and find its place with the tares, which the householder, in time of the harvest, will tell the reapers to bind in bundles to burn them.

Patriotism versus Multiculturalism

Dear Readers--

In the following passages you may see the difference between old ideal of Patriotism and the new ideal of Multiculturalism.

Firstly, from Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832):

Innominatus

BREATHES there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
'This is my own, my native land!'
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.

Secondly, from Rupert Murdoch (former Australian citizen):

From the First Boyer Lecture 2008

Finally, Australia will be strong only if it is open to immigration. Thank goodness we are beyond where we were a few decades ago. After World War Two, we opened our doors to Southern Europe and other non-Anglo populations. And after the Vietnam War we began welcoming our neighbours in the region. In a relatively short period of time, we have buried 'White Australia', and in its place have raised a modern, diverse society.

This does not mean we are neutral or valueless. We must expect immigrants to learn our language and embrace the principles that make Australia a decent and tolerant nation. At the same time, Australia needs to recognise that immigrants bring energy, skills and enthusiasm. They often better recognise the virtues of Australian society, virtues that we are too shy or embarrassed to laud.

In my view, Australians should not worry because other people want to come to our country. The day to worry is when immigrants are no longer attracted to our shores. We should be a beacon to all. To our region in particular, we should be a living, happy, civil and contesting democracy that is a model for the emerging democracies around us.

Yes, Readers, Australia will be a better place if we bring more foreigners in, who will shed their old cultures, languages and ways like an old set of clothes. Mr Murdoch apparently doesn't comprehend (or contemplate) the idea that some immigrants might hold on to their old cultures and that these cultures might be incompatible with the current Australia. He also fails to understand is that Australia's culture springs organically from it's people - and therefore if you change the People you change the Culture.

Truly, Thomas Jefferson was right.

"The selfish spirit of commerce... knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain." --Thomas Jefferson to Larkin Smith, 1809. ME 12:272

"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains." --Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814. ME 14:119

Mr Murdoch truly is a man who's soul is so dead that he cannot understand that People are attached to their native Land in ways that cannot just be shrugged off as unimportant.

Yours Sincerely,
Mild Colonial Boy, Esq.

The first attempt at a Multicultural Society

Genesis 11:1-9 (KJV)

11:1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

11:2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

11:3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.

11:4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

11:5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

11:6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

11:8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

11:9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

A Political Satire Interlude

Dear Readers--

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation showed on Friday evening the first episode of The Thick of It. The Thick of It is a British political satire made in 2005 and can be described as a sort of a modern day "Yes Minister" with rather copious swearing. Frankly, it is better acted and scripted than the ABC's political satire The Hollowmen.

Please enjoy the first episode courtesy of You-tube. (WARNING: Contains frequent use of foul language and a Scottish accent)

Part one
[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=wIzx_Z-TGe4]
Part two
[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=0w-DgVoE2AY]
Part three
[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=YsfFLH6FSp4]

Yours sincerely,
Mild Colonial Boy, Esq.

An Important Public Advisory - No to Daylight Savings

(HT to The American Monarchist)

Patriotic Musical Interlude

Men of Harlech (from the final battle in Zulu)
[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=YrZbUS0MaY4]

Men of Harlech (complete Zulu) version
[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=qpA4bomEcOI]

Also

Royal Regiment of Wales' Band singing "Men of Harlech" (2.68MiB MP3) — recorded, using John Guard lyrics, in the church at Rorke's Drift, South Africa on the 120th anniversary of the Battle of Rorke's Drift.

Cambria ne'er can yield!

An Interview with Russell Kirk

Dear Readers--

Here is a segment of a 1993 interview with Russell Kirk, the author of seminal work of American conservatism, The Conservative Mind.

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=P5JeMuNBZBY]

(HT to The Spartan Spectator)

For a further elaboration of what Conservatism is, read (for example) Kirk's Ten Conservative Principles at The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal.

It is a great shame, that he is not better known in Australia. One Australian (apart from myself) who bemoans this state of affairs is R.J. Stove, who in a book review of a collection of Russell Kirk's essays wrote:

The case of Russell Amos Kirk (1918-1994) forces upon America's foreign well-wishers an all too urgent question: why does the United States export so diligently, and take such pride in, its very worst modern literature? There is a whole alternative canon of worthwhile recent American author - including Kirk himself - whose names mean virtually nothing abroad; whereas every deadbeat psychopath, deadbeat drunk, deadbeat drug-fiend, deadbeat thug, deadbeat adulterer, deadbeat homosexual, deadbeat communist, and deadbeat plagiarist who ever drew breath on American soil appears assured not only of reverential Hollywood treatment but (if he did not commit suicide first) of the Nobel Literature Prize.

This small post is a small attempt to correct the present sorry state of neglect of this Great Author.

Yours sincerely,
Mild Colonial Boy, Esq.

Christopher Lasch on The New Elite

In The Revolt of the Elites (New York : Norton, 1996, p. 5-6) Christopher Lasch wrote a telling description of the rootless, cosmopolitan New Class that dominates America (and the rest of the Western world):

Ambitious people understand, then, that a migratory way of life is the price of getting ahead. It is a price they gladly pay, since they associate the idea of home with intrusive relatives and neighbours, small-minded gossip, and hidebound conventions. The new elite are in revolt against 'Middle America," as they imagine it: a nation technological backward, politically reactionary, repressive in its sexual morality, middlebrow in its tastes, smug and complacent, dull and dowdy. Those who covet membership in the new aristocracy of brains tend to congregate on the coasts, turning their back on the heartland and cultivating ties with the international market in fast-moving money, glamour, fashion, and popular culture. It is a question whether they think of themselves as Americans at all. Patriotism, certainly, does not rank very high in their hierarchy of virtues. 'Multiculturalism,' on the other hand, suits them to perfection, conjuring up the agreeable image of a global bazaar in which exotic cuisines, exotic styles of dress, exotic music, exotic tribal customs can be savored indiscriminately, with no questions asked and no commitments required. The new elites are at home only in transit, en route to a high-level conference, to the grand opening of a new franchise, to an international film festival, or to an undiscovered resort. Theirs is essentially a tourist's view of the world - not a perspective likely to encourage a passionate devotion to democracy.

Inspired by Obama

Dear Reader--

Following the ascension of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States - a certain piece of doggerel from Frank Herbert's Dune Messiah came to mind:

Here lies a toppled god -
His fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal,
A narrow and a tall one.

- Tleilaxu epigram.

Let us see how well in maintains his popularity now he has to make good on the extraordinary expectations that he has aroused in his followers.

Yours Sincerely,
Mild Colonial Boy, Esq.

Robert Filmer on Democracy

If we will listen to the judgment of those who should best know the nature of popular government, we shall find no reason for good men to desire or choose it. Xenophon, that brave scholar and soldier, disallowed the Athenian commonweal for that they followed that form of government wherein the wicked are always in greatest credit, and virtuous men kept under. They expelled Aristides the Just; Themistocles died in banishment; Miltiades in prison; Phocion, the most virtuous and just man of his age, though he had been chosen forty-five times to be their general, yet he was put to death with all his friends, kindred, and servants, by the fury of the people, without sentence, accusation, or any cause at all. Nor were the people of Rome much more favourable to their worthies. They banished Rutilius, Metellus, Coriolanus, the two Scipios, and Tully. The worst men sped best; for as Xenophon saith of Athens, so Rome was a sanctuary for all turbulent, discontented, and seditious spirits. The impunity of wicked men was such that upon pain of death it was forbidden all magistrates to condemn to death or banish any citizen, or to deprive him of his liberty, or so much as to whip him, for what offence soever he had committed, either against the gods or men.

The Athenians sold justice as they did other merchandise, which made Plato call a popular estate a fair, where everything is to be sold. The officers, when they entered upon their charge, would brag they went to a golden harvest. The corruption of Rome was such that Marius and Pompey durst carry bushels of silver into the assemblies to purchase the voices of the people. Many citizens under their grave gowns came armed into their public meetings, as if they went to war. Often contrary factions fell to blows, sometimes with stones, and sometimes with swords. The blood hath been sucked up in the market places with sponges; the river Tiber hath been filled with the dead bodies of the citizens, and the common privies stuffed full with them.

If any man think these disorders in popular states were but casual, or such as might happen under any kind of government, he must know that such mischiefs are unavoidable and of necessity do follow all democratical regimens; and the reason is given, because the nature of all people is to desire liberty without restraint, which cannot be but where the wicked bear rule; and if the people should be so indiscreet as to advance virtuous men, they lose their power; for that good men would favour none but the good, which are always the fewer in number, and the wicked and vicious — which is still the greatest part of the people — should be excluded from all preferment, and in the end, by little and little, wise men should seize upon the state and take it from the people.

I know not how to give a better character of the people than can be gathered from such authors as lived amongst or near the popular states. Thucydides, Xenophon, Livy, Tacitus, Cicero, and Sallust have set them out in their colours. I will borrow some of their sentences:

There is nothing more uncertain than the people; their opinions are as variable and sudden as tempests; there is neither truth nor judgment in them; they are not led by wisdom to judge of anything, but by violence and rashness; nor put they any difference between things true and false. After the manner of cattle, they follow the herd that goes before; they have a custom always to favour the worst and the weakest; they are most prone to suspicions, and use to condemn men for guilty upon any false suggestion; they are apt to believe all news, especially if it be sorrowful; and, like Fame, they make it more in the believing; when there is no author, they fear those evils which themselves have feigned; they are most desirous of new stirs and changes, and are enemies to quiet and rest; whatsoever is giddy or headstrong, they account manlike and courageous; but whatsoever is modest or provident seems sluggish; each man hath a care of his particular, and thinks basely of the common good; they look upon approaching mischiefs as they do upon thunder, only every man wisheth it may not touch his own person; it is the nature of them, they must serve basely or domineer proudly; for they know no mean.

Thus do they paint to the life this beast with many heads. Let me give you the cipher of their form of government: as it is begot by sedition, so it is nourished by arms; it can never stand without wars, either with an enemy abroad or with friends at home. The only means to preserve it is to have some powerful enemies near who may serve instead of a king to govern it, that so, though they have not a king amongst them, yet they may have as good as a king over them; for the common danger of an enemy keeps them in better unity than the laws they make themselves.

~~Sir Robert Filmer. Patriarcha (1680) (HT to Craptocracy)

A Reformation Day Musical Interlude

In honour of the upcoming Reformation Day This Journal presents the "95 Theses Rap" (discovered courtesy of Aardvark Alley)

95 Theses Rap Project -- 95 Theses Rap



'95 Theses' Rap Lyrics

If you havin' Church problems then don't blame God, son...
I got ninety-five theses but the Pope ain't one.
VERSE 1

Listen up, all my people, it's a story for the telling
'bout the sin and injustice and corruption I been smelling:
I met that homie Tetzel, then I started rebelling
Once I seen the fat Indulgences that he been selling.
Now the Cath'lics of the world straight up disgracin' me
Just because I waved my finger at the papacy.
My people got riled up over this Reformation...
That's when Leo threatened me with Excommunication.
I warned y'all that Rome best agree to the terms.
If not, then you can eat my Diet of Worms!
You think you done something spectacular?
I wrote the Bible in the vernacular!
A heretic! [What?] Someone throw me a bone.
You forgot salvation comes through faith alone.
I'm on a mission from God. You think I do this for fun?
I got ninety-five theses but the Pope ain't one.
Save me!
CHORUS

Ninety-five theses but the Pope ain't one.
If you havin' Church problems then don't blame God, son...
I got ninety-five theses but the Pope ain't one.
VERSE 2

One Five One Seven... that's when it first went down.
Then the real test was when it started spreading around.
Sixty days to recant what I said? Father, please!
You've had, what? Goin' on fifteen centuries?
"Oh snap, he's messin' with the holy communion."
But I ain't never dissed your precious hypostatic union!
"One place at one time." Well, thank you Zwingli.
Yeah, way to disregard that whole "I'm God" thingy!
Getting' all up in my rosary... you little punk.
Your momma shoulda told you not to mess with no monk.
What you bumpin' me for? Suddenly you sore.
Keep that up, you'll have yourself another Peasant War.
You blame common folk for the smack they talkin'...
You ain't even taught them proper Christian doctrine.
With my hat, my Bible, and my sexy little nun,
I got ninety-five theses but the Pope ain't one.
Save me!
CHORUS

VERSE 3

When I wrote the ninety-five, haters straight up assailed 'em.
Now they only care whether or not I nailed 'em or mailed 'em.
They got psychoanalytic. Now everyone's a critic,
And getting on my case just because I'm anti-Semitic.
I've come back from obscurity to teach y'all a lesson,
Cuz someone here still ain't read their Augsburg Confession.
I said Catholicism brings a life of excess,
And we all remember what went down with Philip of Hesse!
But you forgot about me and my demonstration?
Like you can just create your own denomination?
"We don't like this part, so we'll just add a little twist."
Now we Anglican, Amish, and even Calvinist.
I gave you the power, you gone and abused it.
I gave you God's truth, you just confused it.
Don't you never underestimate the s*** that I done...
I got 95 theses but the Pope ain't one.
Save me!
CHORUS

Shout out to Johann Gutenberg... I see you baby.

A response to the French

Dear Readers--

A recent conference of "revisionist" French historians who claim that at the battle of Agincourt:

... the extent of the feat of arms was massively exaggerated, with claims that the English were hugely outnumbered a lie.

More controversially still, they will say that the foreign invaders used numerous underhand tactics against an honourable enemy.

These included burning prisoners to death and setting 40 bloodthirsty royal bodyguards on to a single Gallic nobleman who had surrendered.

has frankly got up the nose of the Mild Colonial Boy.

These claims can be only responded to by any Red-Blooded Briton in the following way:
[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=s_t_oCGc2s8]

and

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=OAvmLDkAgAM]

and also with this gesture.



Yours sincerely,

Mild Colonial Boy, Esq.

Proud to be a Queenslander

Dear Readers--

Here's a little story from the Cairns Post about the delightful wildlife that can be found in Queensland:



Giant Spider Eats Bird (HT to Boing Boing)

I can see a new Australian Tourism advertisement in the near future.

A Literary Interlude

THE DIFFICULTY
by Peter Kocan (HT Club Troppo)

“It is difficult to eat well outside the capital cities.” — Food writer Cherry Ripe on ABC Radio, 1/10/97

It’s a heartrending thing to see
A gourmet who’s been caught peckish
And who knows he will never make it back
To the capital by dinner time.

There’s the look of mute despair in the eye,
The slack lips and distended belly,
The hand clutching the empty champers bottle,
The weak voice crying out for caviar.

We found a whole car-load of them once,
Their BMW stalled by the roadside.
We somehow got them back to the homestead
And offered what we could for pity’s sake.

There was nothing appropriate in the house,
Just Mum’s Sunday roast with the trimmings,
Followed by the apple-pie and cream.
Of course they couldn’t swallow muck like that.

We had to watch them wasting away.
We buried the pitiful bodies by the creek.
You blame yourself, thinking they might’ve lived
If only you’d had a French chef standing by.

Now we brood continually upon
Hardships that we have never known,
The endless compassion that we owe
To palates more exquisite than our own.

[Reprinted from 10/10/2006]

Anarcho-tyranny in the U.K.

Dear Readers--

Some years ago the paleocon Sam Francis used the term "anarcho-tyranny" in an article to describe a system of government that is:

a combination of anarchy (in which legitimate government functions—like spying on the bad guys or punishing real criminals—are not performed) and tyranny (in which government performs illegitimate functions—like spying on the good guys or criminalizing innocent conduct like gun ownership and political dissent).

The result of anarcho-tyranny is that government swells in power, criminals are not controlled, and law-abiding citizens wind up being repressed by the state and attacked by thugs.

Anarcho-tyranny is the perfect description for the following article from THE TELEGRAPH (UK) brought to this Journal's attention by Ambush Predator:

A £3,000 blank wall built for teenage graffiti artists by a council was painted by a disgruntled taxpayer with the slogan: "I paid my tax and all I got was this lousy wall".

The 6ft high by 30ft long wall was installed so youths could practice their graffiti artwork without vandalising local property.

But ahead of its opening on October 31 a fed-up resident sneaked behind a security fence and daubed a protest about the use of taxpayer's money.

This heinous act of a taxpayer writing on a graffiti wall and spoiling it for the juvenile deliquents has caused the local Constabulary (who came up with the idea to build the graffiti wall in the first place) to threaten:

"But it is now going to cost the taxpayer, as we will have to crime it, investigate it and paint over it.

"We have been working hard to try to provide something positive for the community and this coward and their juvenile delinquent act has set a terrible example to the youth of the town.

"All residents were given the opportunity to raise objections during the planning process. This person could have come and spoken to us instead of committing this petty act.

"To paint graffiti on the wall and remain anonymous shows this person has no courage, I would have more respect if he or she came forward and admitted responsibility."

Words fail me.

But not commenter Ross at Ambush Predator:

If they were capable of investigating graffiti vandalism, then they wouldn't need the wall would they?

Couldn't they just build a second wall for angry taxpayers to express their dissatisfaction with building the first wall?

Yours Sincerely,
Mild Colonial Boy

A French Musical Interlude

Mes Aïeux - Dégénération (English Subtitles)

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=cKCRHhmHvjg]

(HT to Charles A. Columbe)

An Amusing Comment at Fulham Reactionary

At the article Immigration and the Birth Rate, the commentator "Billy Bragg, the Bard of Barking" said...

As I have said many times before, it's clear that we are experiencing levels of immigration unprecedented in our history. The make-up of this country is being changed before our eyes.

Racist, reactionary, crypto-nazi rubbish. "Britain" is a nation of immigrants and always has been. We'd collapse as a "nation" if it weren't for immigrants doing jobs that "natives" won't do -- like suicide bombing, gang rape, mob stabbing, electoral fraud, consanguineous marriage, infecting people with drug-resistant TB, etc, etc. Race doesn't exist, everyone's the same under the skin and you wouldn't believe how hard it is for me to live in hideously white Dorset rather than some vibrant, ethnically enriched area of London. But, unlike some on the left, I live my principles and I've always believed that socialism's about personal sacrifice.

Deogolwulf on Britishness

I am not sure what Britishness means, but, from what I hear, it has something to do with celebrating diversity, embracing and empowering communities, and working together for a vibrant society of respect and equality and democratic values — from which ugly rash of words I am led to imagine that it is some frightful disease engineered and released by a committee of sociologists, Fabians, and women with “ethnic” earrings.

~~Deogolwulf on The National Day at The Joy of Curmudgeonry.

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Haven't we all asked this question one time or other?

(HT Neatorama)

Wisdom from the Past

(Click on image to view it fully)

A Bail-out Musical Interlude

Annie -- It's a Hard Knock Life

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=LR80EEsWauU]

Truth told in Jest

(HT to lowercase liberty)

Burke on the Jacobins

... these pretended citizens treat France exactly like a country of conquest ... The policy of such barbarous victors [is] ... to destroy all vestiges of the ancient country, in religion, in polity, in laws and in manners; to confound all territorial limits, to produce a general poverty; to put up their properties to auction; to crush their princes, nobles and pontiffs; to lay low everything which had lifted its head above the level, or which could serve to combine or rally, in their distresses, the disbanded people, under the standard of old opinion.

~~Edmund Burke. Reflections on the Revolution in France. (1789). (qtd. in Why Manners Matter by Lucinda Holdforth)

A Novelty Song Interlude

Dear Readers--   If you enjoy Country and Western here is an oldie but a goodie that was playing on my local country station as I went to work this morning.

Little Jimmy Dickens -- May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=euIveeUFV9Y]

The Comedic Stylings of Turnbull and Rudd

Dear Readers--

As Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd have recently attempted a version of a Monty Python skit , The Boy's Own Paper would like to present the original:

Four Yorkshireman
[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=HSQeMBzHR0o]

Bartitsu : the Gentlemanly Art of Self Defence

From Tony Wolf of The Bartitsu Society a Most Excellent Tribute to the Neglected Art of Bartitsu and its Creator :

A Christian Kitsch Musical Interlude

Dear Readers,

Don't let anyone tell you that Christians can't be cool. The Boy's Own Paper presents:

Sonseed --- Jesus is My Friend



"He taught me to turn my cheek when people laugh at me" - in that case the singer's head should be turning like Linda Blair's in the Exorcist.

(HT Weird Universe)

Ve have Vays of Making You Talk

Dear Readers,

The Government and its Agencies in their infinite wisdom seem to feel that People must submit to their obnoxious surveys without hesitation. In Friday's Adelaide Advertiser there was this disturbing story:

AN 85-year-old stroke victim and his 80-year-old wife have been threatened with fines of $110 for every day they refuse to be part of an Australian Bureau of Statistics employment survey.
[HT to Peter Martin]

Yes Readers, apparently some clipboard waving goon feels quite comfortable threatening an elderly invalid couple with fines for failing to answer questions in a largely irrelevant survey. The article goes on with the officious ABS jobsworth stating:

ABS assistant director of population surveys Rod Smith told The Advertiser the Van Den Berg circumstances were still relevant to the survey because some octogenarians were still in the workforce.

Mr Smith said he would obtain more information about their circumstances and try to make the information collection less intrusive.

"The survey is one which gives us the monthly unemployment figure and it is a stocktake of people who could work," he said.

"So we go out and ask people if they are looking for work and with the ageing population the people who are past the retirement age and looking for work is growing."

Mr Smith said the questions could be answered by a family representative and he had been made more aware of the couple's medical circumstances after his letter threatening the fine.

"We are not a big-stick organisation and we don't prosecute willy nilly," he said.

No but you do seem to threaten people willy nilly, don't you Mr Smith? And I notice that there is no option to opt out of the survey all together. When exactly did the Public Service become our Masters? Did we lose a War?

And the attitude of Peter Martin, economic commentator at The Age is also noteworthy, when he entitled his post : "Meanwhile the ABS is doing its best... ...to get good statistics" and in his comments stated that: "But it is very important that the ABS gets complete co-operation, even from 80+ year olds. Otherwise the results will get even less meaningful."

For the technocratic New Elite who dominate us in our Government and in our Media - "co-operation" means unquestioning obedience to whatever mad, Utilitarian schemes they have planned for us and woe betide anyone who asks why or questions the necessity of their Great Plans and their unending Need to quantify and control all aspects of Our Lives.

Question: Readers please say to what extent you agree or disagree with the preceeding statements:
Responses: 1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=neither agree nor disagree, 4=agree, 5=strongly agree.

Yours sincerely,
Mild Colonial Boy, Esq.

On the Evils of Socialism 2

Another old election poster from The Daily Mail.:

Promises, Promises

They don't make election promises like they used to:





(Old British Election posters taken from The Daily Mail.)

Don't blame me - I voted for Kodos

Luther writing on Women in Public Office

From Lutherans and Procreation Web Journal:

This seems a good time to introduce the following quote from Luther's commentary on Ecclesiastes:

Ecclesiastes 7:26. "And I found more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets and whose hands are fetters; he who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her."

"Among the things I have noticed about fools is this one, which has to do with women. For when he was writing a catalog of vanities, it would not do to pass over this. What happens to fools who try to keep hands off and to do nothing and to be free of everything is that they fall into the hands of women and are obliged to serve women. He is speaking about a woman who administers things and arrogates wisdom and ruling power to herself. He is not speaking about the wrath of women, although it is true that a woman has a more tempestuous nature than a man. This is not a condemnation of the female sex, which is a creation of God. For the sex must be kept distinct from its weaknesses, just as earlier he made a distinction between the works of God and the counsels of men. A human being is a work of God, but beyond this work he wants to follow also his own counsels and not to be controlled solely by God, by whom he has nevertheless been created and made. In the same way the sex must be kept distinct from its weaknesses. As a creature of God, a woman is to be looked upon with reverence. For she was created to be around the man, to care for children and to bring them up in an honest and godly way, and to be subject to the man. Men, on the other hand, are commanded to govern and have the rule over women and the rest of the household. But if a woman forsakes her office and assumes authority over her husband, she is no longer doing her own work, for which she was created, but a work that comes from her own fault and from evil. For God did not create this sex for ruling, and therefore they never rule successfully.

"In opposition to this one could cite the histories about the Amazons, celebrated by Greek writers. They are said to have exercised authority and to have waged war. For my part, however, I believe that what is said of them is a fable. The Ethiopians select women as both kings and princes, as is their custom; thus Candace, the queen of Ethiopia, is mentioned in the Book of Acts (Acts 8:27). But this is a foolish thing to do, as foolish princes are often put in charge of a kingdom. Never has there been divine permission for a woman to rule. Of course, it can happen that she is put into the place of the king and of the kingdom; but then she always has a senate of leading men, by whose counsel everything should be administered. Therefore even though a woman may occupy the king’s place, this does not confirm the right of women to rule. For the text is clear (Gen. 3:16): “You shall be under the power of your husband, and he shall rule over you.” The woman was created for her special purpose, namely, to use prudence and reason in the rearing of children. For everyone functions most efficiently in that for which he was created. A woman can handle a child better with her little finger than a man can with both fists. Therefore let everyone remain in that work to which he has been called and ordained by God."

Luther's Works (15:130)

A Celebration of Spring

Dear Readers--

Today is the Official first day of Spring in the Southern Hemisphere. So inspired by Kae's example - the Boy's Own Paper would like celebrate the Coming of Spring with a presentation of Tom Lehrer singing of Spring's wholesome pleasures.

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=yhuMLpdnOjY]

(via 6funswede)

Murder Ballads Musical Interlude

Doc Watson --- Tom Dooley

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=cMKqU9DVMS8]

Doc Watson ---Ormie Wise

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=hGRRwIAsoAE]

William A. Henry III on Egalitarianism

Egalitarians - or at least the sort who rile me - believe that all humans are equal ("men" being no longer a politically correct synonym for mankind), and, worse that they should be, on a more or less permanent basis, whatever the real-world differences in their performance and contribution. However much Karl Marx may have been rejected by the nations that once enshrined him and ostensibly followed his dicta, American egalitarians continue to believe Marxian romantic twaddle about the blamelessness of the unaccomplished. They argue that talent is distributed absolutely evenly along class and educational lines, in defiance of everything we know about eugenics. Consequently, they insist that differences in attainment are explained entirely by social justice. Egalitarians fear and detest the competitive impulse. They regard exploration, conquest and colonization as having been unrelievedly barbaric and destructive, thereby mulishly overlooking the impact those movements had in dispersing administratively and technologically superior cultures and compelling inferior ones to adapt. Egalitarians are the sort who are trying to end ability tracking in elementary and sometimes secondary education, on the theory that bright children ought to be helping slow ones rather than maximizing their own achievements and pulling ahead. (I'm not making this up. This is actually popular, if not prevailing, educational theory.) Not far below the surface, this attitude embodies a Marxian belief that the smart pupils' intelligence is not theirs alone to allocate and command but is instead a communal asset to be deployed for the whole class's good.

~~William A. Henry. In Defence of Elitism. (New York : Anchor Books, c1994) p. 17-18.

What is Socialism?

Now all we have to do is find an actual Conservative Party.

(Old British Election poster taken from The Daily Mail.)

Women Drivers Redux

Bob Newhart -- The Driving Instructor
[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=5aIi08pQtAQ]

Error has no Rights

From newly discovered Australian Lutheran Aethernet Journal, Acroamaticus :

Krauth on the Toleration of Error in the Church

When error is admitted into the Church, it will be found that the stages in its progress are always three. It begins by asking toleration. Its friends say to the majority: You need not be afraid of us; we are few and weak; let us alone, we shall not disturb the faith of others. The Church has her standards of doctrine; of course we shall never interfere with them; we only ask for ourselves to be spared interference with our private opinions.
Indulged in for this time, error goes on to assert equal rights. Truth and error are balancing forces. The Church shall do nothing which looks like deciding between them; that would be partiality. It is bigotry to assert any superior right for the truth. We are to agree to differ, and any favoring of the truth, because it is truth, is partisanship. What the friends of truth and error hold in common is fundamental. Anything on which they differ is ipso facto non-essential. Anybody who makes account of such a thing is a disturber of the peace of the Church. Truth and error are two coordinate powers, and the great secret of church-statesmanship is to preserve the balance between them.
From this point error soon goes on to its natural end, which is to assert supremacy. Truth started with tolerating; it comes to be merely tolerated, and that only for a time. Error claims a preference for its judgments on all disputed points. It puts men into positions, not as at first in spite of their departure from the Church’s faith, but in consequence of it. Their repudiation is that they repudiate that faith, and position is given them to teach others to repudiate it, and to make them skillful in combating it.

~~Charles Porterfield Krauth, The Conservative Reformation (Philadelphia, 1871) p.195ff.

Down in the Ghetto (Sesame Street style)

Courtesy of Neatorama:

Bert & Ernie go gangsta (M.O.P.'s Ante UP):

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=21OH0wlkfbc]

Quotations from Ichabod: the Glory has Departed

From Pastor Gregory Jackson's Web Journal, Ichabod : the glory has departed:

A Pastor Smites Wolves

"It is not enough that we preach correctly, which the hireling can also do; but we must watch over the sheep, that the wolves, false teachers, may not break in, and we must contend for the sheep against the wolves, with the Word of God, even to the sacrifice of our lives. Such are good shepherds, of whom few are found."

~~Martin Luther, Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, III, p. 34. Second Sunday after Easter. John 10:11-16.

Spineless Conservative Pastors Are Wolves

"For nothing can feed or give life to the soul, which is not the doctrine of Christ. Although the hireling does not himself slay and destroy, he does not restrain the wolf. Therefore, because you neither point out nor teach this shepherd, you shall not and ought not to be heard, but you shall be shunned as a wolf."

~~Martin Luther, Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, III, p. 58f. Second Sunday after Easter. John 10:11-16.

False Teachers and the Colored Filter

"They [the false teachers] fared like a man who looks through a colored glass. Put before such a man whatever color you please, he sees no other color than that of the glass. The fault is not that the right color is not put before him but that his glass is colored differently, as the word of Isaiah 6:9 puts it: You will see, he says, and yet you will not see it."

~~Martin Luther, What Luther Says, An Anthology, 3 vols.,
ed., Ewald Plass, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959, II, p. 644. Isaiah 6:9.

Adiaphora and Confessional Crisis

"We believe, teach, and confess that at a time of confession, as when enemies of the Word of God desire to suppress the pure doctrine of the holy Gospel, the entire community of God, yes, every individual Christian, and especially the ministers of the Word as the leaders of the community of God are obligated to confess openly, not only by words but also through their deeds and actions, the true doctrine and all that pertains to it, according to the Word of God. In such a case we should not yield to adversaries even in matters of indifference, nor should we tolerate the imposition of such ceremonies on us by adversaries in order to undermine the genuine worship of God and to introduce and confirm their idolatry by force or chicanery. It is written, 'For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.' (Galatians 5:1)."

~~Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article X, 10-11, The Book of Concord, ed. Theodore G. Tappert, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983, p. 612. Galatians 5:1.
Luther and Fellowship

"Dr. Luther, who understood the true intention of the Augsburg Confession better than any one else, remained by it steadfastly and defended it constantly until he died. Shortly before his death, in his last confession, he repeated his faith in this article with great fervor and wrote as follows: 'I reckon them all as belonging together (that is, as Sacramentarians and enthusiasts), for that is what they are who will not believe that the Lord's bread in the Supper is his true, natural body, which the godless or Judas receive orally as well as St Peter and all the saints. Whoever, I say, will not believe this, will please let me alone and expect no fellowship from me. This is final." [WA 54:155, 156]

~~Formula of Concord, Epitome, Article VII, Lord's Supper, 33, The Book of Concord, ed. Theodore G. Tappert, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959, p. 575.

Spoiling the Egyptian Garbage

"Is it possible that one who has such models as Luther, Walther, Stoeckhardt, Lochner, Sieck, C. C. Schmidt, and Wessel, etc., etc., should leave these rich pastures to feed upon such garbage heaps as those from whom I have quoted?"

~~Martin S. Sommer, Concordia Pulpit for 1932, St. Louis:
Concordia Publishing House, 1931, p. viii.

"It is the purpose of this volume to aid in displacing books of Reformed preachers. We would encourage the cultivation of distinctly Lutheran preaching. Therefore, we now appeal to our brethren always to consult Luther when preparing to preach. Quo propior Luthero, eo melior theologus! Let us who are called Lutheran preachers be sure that in every one of our sermons we preach God's Word and Luther's doctrine pure. It is that preaching which God demands of us, 1 Peter 4:11. It was that preaching which conquered the Roman Goliath, Revelation 12:11. By that preaching we shall truly build the walls of Zion, not with hay, straw, and stubble, but with such stones as all the powers of hell shall never overthrow, Luke 21:15."

~~Martin S. Sommer, Concordia Pulpit for 1932, St. Louis:
Concordia Publishing House, 1931, p. ix.

Proper Use of Love

"In like manner we will also do to our princes and priests; when they attack our manner of life, we should suffer it and show love for hatred, good for evil; but when they attack our doctrine, God's honor is attacked, then love and patience should cease and we should not keep silent, but also say: I honor my Father, and you dishonor me; yet I do not inquire whether you dishonor me, for I do not seek my own honor."

~~Martin Luther, Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed.,
John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983.

JibJab's U.S. Election Advertisement

(A Tip of the Hat to Snaggle-Tooth Jones of Colorado Confederatarian)

Rock & Roll Musical Interlude

Eric Burdon & the Animals -- When I was Young

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryeqvr_qCfY]

Sam the Sham & the Pharoahs -- Li'l Red Riding Hood

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=WZUfsmwaNoA]

Barry Macguire -- Eve of Destruction

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=bmysVoRBgyA]

It's funny because its true

From "The Simpsons - Trash of the Titans" (1998):


Ray Patterson: Here's your apology back, Mr Simpson, and I'm sorry we couldn't work this out.
Homer Simpson: Don't come off all high and mighty with me, Patterson. You can't scare me with your office and your desk and your lamp.
Ray Patterson: I'm not trying to scare you, I'm trying to get my work done.
Homer Simpson: Oh, oh, oh, I get it. Put on a big show for the cameras.
Ray Patterson: What cameras? Why are you still here?
Homer Simpson: I came to fight city hall. I want to shake things up, Patterson. Stir up some controversy, rattle a few cages.
[Homer rattles a bird cage]
Ray Patterson: Hey! Stop that!
Homer Simpson: You'll never silence me. I'm the last angry man, Patterson. A crusader for the little guy!
[Homer rattles the bird cage again]
Ray Patterson: Leave the bird alone!
Homer Simpson: Never!
Ray Patterson: Look, Simpson, I've been elected by the voters of this city 16 years in a row. So they must think I'm doing a damn good job.
Homer Simpson: You wanna know what I think?
Ray Patterson: No! Nobody wants to hear the nonsensical ravings of a loudmouthed malcontent!
Homer Simpson: Oh! Well, we'll see about that!

Musical Interlude for Barak Obama

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=uTCQSk2l8bc]

Update: (Music selection by Ilana Mercer)

[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=1ph7p7DT53Y]

Edmund Burke on The Death of Marie Antoinette

To commemorate Bastille Day, The Boy's Own Paper will quote the words of Edmund Burke on the murder of Marie Antoinette at the hands of French Revolutionaries; which was the bloody result of the events of this day.

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like the morning star full of life and splendor and joy. 0, what a revolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.

But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom! The unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone. It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.

Edmund Burke (1793)

Source

Murray Rothbard on Egalitarianism IV

We began by considering the common view that the egalitarians, despite a modicum of impracticality, have ethics and moral idealism on their side. We end with the conclusion that egalitarians, however intelligent as individuals, deny the very basis of human intelligence and of human reason: the identification of the ontological structure of reality, of the laws of human nature, and the universe. In so doing, the egalitarians are acting as terribly spoiled children, denying the structure of reality on behalf of the rapid materialization of their own absurd fantasies. Not only spoiled but also highly dangerous; for the power of ideas is such that the egalitarians have a fair chance of destroying the very universe that they wish to deny and transcend, and to bring that universe crashing around all of our ears. Since their methodology and their goals deny the very structure of humanity and of the universe, the egalitarians are profoundly antihuman; and, therefore, their ideology and their activities may be set down as profoundly evil as well. Egalitarians do not have ethics on their side unless one can maintain that the destruction of civilization, and even of the human race itself, may be crowned with the laurel wreath of a high and laudable morality.


~~Murray Rothbard. Egalitarianism as a Revolt against Nature.

Musical Interlude for Kevin Rudd

From the Courier Mail:

In a newspaper column on Thursday, former Labor leader Mark Latham claimed Mr Rudd was "fond of telling people that once you leave Brisbane and cross the Pine River you can hear the sound of banjo music".

"Prelude from Bach Violin Partitia #3" by Béla Fleck (HT to Cyberbrethren)

Musical Interlude for Mal Brough and the Queensland Liberals

From the Courier Mail (11/07/08):

A last-ditch bid by anti-merger Liberals to scuttle the plan failed last night with the party's powerful state council overwhelmingly voting in favour of proceeding with the convention on July 26-27 to unite the parties.

Their approval was a major rebuff to State Liberal president Mal Brough who had sought to kill off the merger if the Liberals were not assured the presidency of the new party.

Pete Seeger -- Which Side are You on

An American Independence Day Musical Interlude

May I wish all my possible American Readers (including C. Van Carter of Across Difficult Country, Snaggle-tooth Jones of Colorado Confederatarian, Rob at Pith Helmet and the Vanishing American) a Happy and Enjoyable American Independence Day as The Boy's Own Paper presents:

Merle Haggard -- America First
[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=WXw1SHy5IMc]

Robert Dabney Against Women's Suffrage & the Suffragettes

What then, in the next place, will be the effect of this fundamental change when it shall be established? The obvious answer is, that it will destroy Christianity and civilization in America. Some who see the mischievousness of the movement express the hope that it will, even if nominally successful, be kept within narrow limits by the very force of its own absurdity. They "reckon without their host." There is a Satanic ingenuity in these Radical measures which secures the infection of the reluctant dissentients as surely as of the hot advocates. The women now sensible and modest who heartily deprecate the whole folly, will be dragged into the vortex, with the assent of their now indignant husbands. The instruments of this deplorable result will be the (so‑called) conservative candidates for office. They will effect it by this plea, that ignorant, impudent, Radical women will vote, and vote wrong; whence it becomes a necessity for the modest and virtuous women, for their country's sake, to sacrifice their repugnance and counterpoise these mischievous votes in the spirit of disinterested self-sacrifice. Now a woman can never resist an appeal to the principle of generous devotion; her glory is to crucify herself in the cause of duty and of zeal. This plea will be successful. But when the virtuous have once tasted the dangerous intoxication of political excitement and of power, even they will be absorbed; they will learn to do con amore what was first done as a painful duty, and all the baleful influences of political life will be diffused throughout the sex.

What those influences will be may be learned by every one who reverences the Christian Scriptures, from this fact, that the theory of "Women's Rights" is sheer infidelity. It directly impugns the authority and the justice of these Scriptures. They speak in no uncertain tones. "The husband is the head of the wife" (Eph. v. 23). "Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as to the Lord" (v. 22). "The man is not for the woman, but the woman for the man" (I. Cor. ii. 9). "Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection: but I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence: for Adam was first formed, then Eve: and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression" (I. Tim. 2: 11‑14). They are to be "discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands," etc. (Titus ii. 5). How utterly opposed is all this to the levelling doctrine of your Radical. Women are here consigned to a social subordination, and expressly excluded from ruling offices, on grounds of their sex, and a divine ordination based by God upon a transaction which happened nearly six thousand years ago! The woman's sphere is expressly assigned her within her home, and she is taught that the assumption of publicity is an outrage against that nature with which she is endowed. Now the politics which denounce all this as a natural injustice and self-evident folly cannot be expected to reverence these Scriptures; they must and will flout their whole authority. We must then make up our minds in accepting Women's Rights to surrender our Bibles, and have an atheistic Government. And especially must we expect to have, presiding over every home and rearing every group of future citizens, that most abhorrent of all phenomena, an infidel woman; for of course that sex, having received the precious boon of their enfranchisement only by means of the overthrow of the Bible, must be foremost in trampling upon this their old oppressor and enemy. Its restoration to authority is necessarily their "re-enslavement," to speak the language of their party.

Second: these new excitements and temptations will utterly corrupt the character and delicacy of American women. It is indignantly asked, "Why should politics corrupt the morals of women more than of the `lords of creation'?" Suppose now we reply: American politics have corrupted the morals of the men? Suppose we argue that the retort is so true and just and the result has actually gone to so deplorable an extent, that were the female side of our social organization as corrupt as the male side has already become, American society would crumble into ruin by its own putrescence? It is better to save half the fabric than to lose all. And especially is it better to save the purity of the mothers who are, under God, to form the characters of our future citizens, and of the wives who are to restrain and elevate them, whatever else we endanger. Is it argued that since women are now confessedly purer than men, their entrance into politics must tend to purify politics? We reply again that the women .of the present were reared and attained this comparative purity under the Bible system. Adopt the infidel plan, and we shall corrupt our women without purifying our politics. What shall save us then?

But there is another reply to this retort. Political excitements will corrupt women tenfold more than men; and this, not because women are naturally inferior to men, but because they are naturally adapted to a wholly different sphere. When we point to the fact that they are naturally more emotional and less calculating, more impulsive and less self-contained, that they have a quicker tact but less logic, that their social nature makes them more liable to the contagion of epidemic passions, and that the duties of their sex make it physically impossible for them to acquire the knowledge in a foreign sphere necessary for political duties, we do not depreciate woman; we only say that nature has adapted her to one thing and disqualified her for the other. The violet would wither in that full glare of midsummer in which the sunflower thrives: this does not argue that the violet is the meaner flower. The vine, left to stand alone, would be hurled prone in the mire by the first blasts of that history. In the case of the Amorites there was also this wise wind which strengthens the grasp of the sturdy oak upon its bed: still the oak may yield no fruit so precious as the cluster of the vine. But the vine cannot be an oak; it must be itself, dependent, clinging, but more precious than that on which it leans or it must perish. When anything, animate or inanimate, is used for a function to which it is not adapted, that foreign use must endamage it, and the more the farther that function is from its own sphere. So it will be found (and it is no disparagement to woman to say it) that the very traits which fit her to be the angel of a virtuous home unfit her to meet the agitations of political life, even as safely as does the more rugged man. The hot glare of publicity and .passion will speedily deflower her delicacy and sweetness. Those temptations, which her Maker did not form her to bear, will debauch her heart, developing a character as much more repulsive than that of the debauched man as the fall has been greater. The politicating woman, unsexed and denaturalized, shorn of the true glory of her femininity, will appear to men as a feeble hybrid mannikin, with all the defects and none of the strength of the male. Instead of being the dear object of his chivalrous affection, she becomes his importunate rival, despised without being feared.

This suggests a third consequence, which some of the advocates of the movement even already are bold enough to foreshadow. "Women's Rights" ,mean the abolition of all permanent marriage ties. We are told that Mrs. Cady Stanton avowed this result, proclaiming it at the invitation of the Young Men's Christian Association of New York. She holds that woman's bondage is not truly dissolved until the marriage bond is annulled. She is thoroughly consistent. Some hoodwinked advocates of her revolution may be blind to the sequence; but it is inevitable. It must follow by this cause, if for no other. that the unsexed politicating woman can never inspire in man that true affection on which marriage should be founded. Men will doubtless be still sensual; but it is simply impossible that they can desire them for the pure and sacred sphere of the wife. Let every woman ask herself: will she choose for the lord of her affections an unsexed effeminate man? No more can man be drawn to the masculine woman. The mutual attraction of the two complementary halves is gone forever. The abolition of marriage would follow again by another cause. The divergent interests and the rival independence of the two equal wills would be irreconcilable with domestic government, or union, or peace. Shall the children of this monstrous no-union be held responsible to two variant co-ordinate and supreme wills at once? Heaven pity the children! Shall the two parties to this perpetual co-partnership have neither the power to secure the performance of the mutual duties nor to dissolve it? It is a self-contradiction, an impossible absurdity. Such a co-partnership of equals with independent interests must be separable at will, as all other such co-partnerships are. The only relation between the sexes which will remain will ,be a cohabitation continuing so long as the convenience or caprice of both parties may suggest; and this, with most, will amount to a vagrant concubinage.


~~Robert Lewis Dabney. Women's Rights Women

Robert Dabney on Democracy

Indeed, as De Tocqueville predicted, innovations in the direction of extensions of suffrage will always be successful in America, because of the selfish timidity of her public men. It is the nature of ultra democracy to make all its politicians time servers; its natural spawn is the brood of narrow, truckling, cowardly worshippers of the vox populi, and of present expediency. Their polar star is always found in the answer to the question, "Which will be the more popular?” As soon as any agitation of this kind goes far enough to indicate a possibility of success, their resistance ends. Each of them begins to argue thus in his private mind: "The proposed revolution is of course preposterous, but it will be best for me to leave opposition to it to others. For if it succeeds, the newly enfranchised will not fail to remember the opponents of their claim at future elections, and to reward those who were their friends in the hour of need." Again: it has now become a regular trick of American demagogues in power to manufacture new classes of voters to sustain them in office. It is presumed that the gratitude of the newly enfranchised will be sufficient to make them vote the ticket of their benefactors. But as gratitude is a very flimsy sort of fabric among Radicals, and soon worn threadbare, such a reliance only lasts a short time, and requires to be speedily replaced. The marvelous invention of negro suffrage (excogitated for this sole purpose) sufficed to give Radicalism a new four years lease of life; but the grateful allegiance of the freedmen to their pretended liberators. is waxing very thin; and hence the same expedient must be repeated, in the form of creating a few millions of female votes. The designing have an active, selfish motive for pushing the measure; but its opponents will without fail be paralyzed in their resistance by their wonted cowardice; so that success is sure.

~~Robert Lewis Dabney.Women's Rights Women

Murray Rothbard on Egalitarianism III

Women are another recently discovered "oppressed class," and the fact that political delegates have habitually been far more than 50 percent male is now held to be an evident sign of their oppression. Delegates to political conventions come from the ranks of party activists, and since women have not been nearly as politically active as men, their numbers have understandably been low. But, faced with this argument, the widening forces of "women's liberation" in America again revert to the talismanic argument about "brainwashing" by our "culture." For the women's liberationists can hardly deny the fact that every culture and civilization in history, from the simplest to the most complex, has been dominated by males. (In desperation, the liberationists have lately been countering with fantasies about the mighty Amazonian empire.) Their reply, once again, is that from time immemorial a male-dominated culture has brainwashed oppressed females to confine themselves to nurture, home, and the domestic hearth. The task of the liberationists is to effect a revolution in the female condition by sheer will, by the "raising of consciousness." If most women continue to cleave to domestic concerns, this only reveals the "false consciousness" that must be extirpated.

Of course, one neglected reply is that if, indeed, men have succeeded in dominating every culture, then this in itself is a demonstration of male "superiority"; for if all genders are equal, how is it that male domination emerged in every case? But apart from this question, biology itself is being angrily denied and cast aside. The cry is that there are no, can be no, must be no biological differences between the sexes; all historical or current differences must be due to cultural brainwashing. In his brilliant refutation of the women's liberationist Kate Millett, Irving Howe outlines several important biological differences between the sexes, differences important enough to have lasting social effects. They are: (1) "the distinctive female experience of maternity" including what the anthropologist Malinowski calls an "intimate and integral connection with the child . . . associated with physiological effects and strong emotions"; (2) "the hormonic components of our bodies as these vary not only between the sexes but at different ages within the sexes"; (3) "the varying possibilities for work created by varying amounts of musculature and physical controls"; and (4) "the psychological consequences of different sexual postures and possibilities," in particular the "fundamental distinction between the active and passive sexual roles" as biologically determined in men and women respectively.

Howe goes on to cite the admission by Dr. Eleanor Maccoby in her study of female intelligence "that it is quite possible that there are genetic factors that differentiate the two sexes and bear upon their intellectual performance.... For example, there is good reason to believe that boys are innately more aggressive than girls – and I mean aggressive in the broader sense, not just as it implies fighting, but as it implies dominance and initiative as well – and if this quality is one which underlies the later growth of analytic thinking, then boys have an advantage which girls...will find difficult to overcome." Dr. Maccoby adds that "if you try to divide child training among males and females, we might find out that females need to do it and males don't."

The sociologist Arnold W. Green points to the repeated emergence of what the egalitarians denounce as "stereotyped sex roles" even in communities originally dedicated to absolute equality. Thus, he cites the record of the Israeli kibbutzim:

The phenomenon is worldwide: women are concentrated in fields which require, singly or in combination, housewifely skills, patience and routine, manual dexterity, sex appeal, contact with children. The generalization holds for the Israeli kibbutz, with its established ideal of sexual equality. A "regression" to a separation of "women's work" from "men's work" occurred in the division of labor, to a state of affairs which parallels that elsewhere. The kibbutz is dominated by males and traditional male attitudes, on balance to the content of both sexes.

Irving Howe unerringly perceives that at the root of the women's liberation movement is resentment against the very existence of women as a distinctive entity:

For what seems to trouble Miss Millett isn't merely the injustices women have suffered or the discriminations to which they continue to be subject. What troubles her most of all...is the sheer existence of women. Miss Millett dislikes the psychobiological distinctiveness of women, and she will go no further than to recognize – what choice is there, alas? – the inescapable differences of anatomy. She hates the perverse refusal of most women to recognize the magnitude of their humiliation, the shameful dependence they show in regard to (not very independent) men, the maddening pleasures they even take in cooking dinners for the "master group" and wiping the noses of their snotty brats. Raging against the notion that such roles and attitudes are biologically determined, since the very thought of the biological seems to her a way of forever reducing women to subordinate status, she nevertheless attributes to "culture" so staggering a range of customs, outrages, and evils that this culture comes to seem a force more immovable and ominous than biology itself.

In a perceptive critique of the women's liberation movement, Joan Didion perceives its root to be a rebellion not only against biology but also against the "very organization of nature" itself:

If the necessity for conventional reproduction of the species seemed unfair to women, then let us transcend, via technology, "the very organization of nature," the oppression, as Shulamith Firestone saw it, "that goes back through recorded history to the animal kingdom itself." I accept the Universe, Margaret Fuller had finally allowed: Shulamith Firestone did not.

To which one is tempted to paraphrase Carlyle's admonition: "Egad, madam, you'd better."

~~Murray Rothbard. Egalitarianism as a Revolt against Nature.

Dennis Mangan on Being Offended

From Mangan's Miscelleny a Meditation on the Meaning of Being Offended (Inspired by a Reading of Schopenhauer) :

The book is Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays, the section is "Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life". In a discussion of the idea of "knightly honor", an idea abhorrent to him, Schopenhauer distinguishes knightly honor (or chivalry) from civic honor. Knightly honor says that one's honor and reputation can be damaged or even ruined by the public utterance of an insult. If the insult to oneself goes unchallenged or unavenged, one's (knightly) honor is forfeit.

More closely considered, the heart of the matter is that, whereas civic honor, as aiming at amicable association with others, consists in their opinion of us that we merit perfect confidence, since we respect absolutely the rights of everyone, knightly honor, on the other hand, consists in the opinion that we are to be feared, since we mean to defend absolutely our own rights.

Where lies the chief problem with knightly honor?

...it has risen to an over-estimation of the value of the person which is quite inappropriate to the nature, constitution, and destiny of man.*

*What does it mean when we say to offend someone? It means to cause him to doubt the high opinion he has of himself.

There you have it: when someone claims to be offended, it means, "I am so important, but my self-esteem so low, that you dare not cause me to think that someone, somewhere, thinks less than highly of me. To do that is pernicious and deserving of censure."

Offensiveness, at least of the type that is directly aimed at denigrating a person or group, is completely in the eyes of the offended. No one has the power to offend someone against his will.

A Very Moving Musical Interlude

The Soldier -- Harvey Andrew
[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=PLlDOOVZ1HQ]

(HT to Tommy English)

Murray Rothbard on Egalitarianism II

The horror we all instinctively feel at these stories is the intuitive recognition that men are not uniform, that the species, mankind, is uniquely characterized by a high degree of variety, diversity, differentiation; in short, inequality. An egalitarian society can only hope to achieve its goals by totalitarian methods of coercion; and, even here, we all believe and hope the human spirit of individual man will rise up and thwart any such attempts to achieve an ant-heap world. In short, the portrayal of an egalitarian society is horror fiction because, when the implications of such a world are fully spelled out, we recognize that such a world and such attempts are profoundly antihuman; being antihuman in the deepest sense, the egalitarian goal is, therefore, evil and any attempts in the direction of such a goal must be considered evil as well.

The great fact of individual difference and variability (that is, inequality) is evident from the long record of human experience; hence, the general recognition of the antihuman nature of a world of coerced uniformity. Socially and economically, this variability manifests itself in the universal division of labor, and in the "Iron Law of Oligarchy" – the insight that, in every organization or activity, a few (generally the most able and/or the most interested) will end up as leaders, with the mass of the membership filling the ranks of the followers. In both cases, the same phenomenon is at work – outstanding success or leadership in any given activity is attained by what Jefferson called a "natural aristocracy" – those who are best attuned to that activity.

The age-old record of inequality seems to indicate that this variability and diversity is rooted in the biological nature of man. But it is precisely such a conclusion about biology and human nature that is the most galling of all possible irritants to our egalitarians. Even egalitarians would be hard put to deny the historical record, but their answer is that "culture" has been to blame; and since they obviously hold that culture is a pure act of the will, then the goal of changing the culture and inculcating society with equality seems to be attainable. In this area, the egalitarians slough off any pretense to scientific caution; they are scarcely content with acknowledging biology and culture as mutually interacting influences. Biology must be read out of court quickly and totally.

Let us ponder an example that is deliberately semi-frivolous. Suppose that we observe our culture and find a common dictum to be: "Redheads are excitable." Here is a judgment of inequality, a conclusion that redheads as a group tend to differ from the nonredhead population. Suppose, then, that egalitarian sociologists investigate the problem, and they find that redheads do, indeed, tend to be more excitable than nonredheads by a statistically significant amount. Instead of admitting the possibility of some sort of biological difference, the egalitarian will quickly add that the "culture" is responsible for the phenomenon: the generally accepted "stereotype" that redheads are excitable had been instilled into every redheaded child from an early age, and he or she has simply been internalizing these judgments and acting in the way society was expecting him to act. Redheads, in brief, had been "brainwashed" by the predominant nonredhead culture.

While not denying the possibility of such a process occurring, this common complaint seems decidedly unlikely on rational analysis. For the egalitarian culture-bugaboo implicitly assumes that the "culture" arrives and accumulates haphazardly, with no reference to social facts. The idea that "redheads are excitable" did not originate out of the thin air or as a divine commandment; how, then, did the idea come into being and gain general currency? One favorite egalitarian device is to attribute all such group-identifying statements to obscure psychological drives. The public had a psychological need to accuse some social group of excitability, and redheads were fastened on as scapegoats. But why were redheads singled out? Why not blondes or brunettes? The horrible suspicion begins to loom that perhaps redheads were singled out because they were and are indeed more excitable and that, therefore, society's "stereotype" is simply a general insight into the facts of reality. Certainly this explanation accounts for more of the data and the processes at work and is a much simpler explanation besides. Regarded objectively, it seems to be a far more sensible explanation than the idea of the culture as an arbitrary and ad hoc bogeyman. If so, then we might conclude that redheads are biologically more excitable and that propaganda beamed at redheads by egalitarians urging them to be less excitable is an attempt to induce redheads to violate their nature; therefore, it is this latter propaganda that may more accurately be called "brainwashing."

This is not to say, of course, that society can never make a mistake and that its judgments of group-identity are always rooted in fact. But it seems to me that the burden of proof is far more on the egalitarians than on their supposedly "unenlightened" opponents.

Since egalitarians begin with the a priori axiom that all people, and hence all groups of peoples, are uniform and equal, it then follows for them that any and all group differences in status, prestige, or authority in society must be the result of unjust "oppression" and irrational "discrimination." Statistical proof of the "oppression" of redheads would proceed in a manner all too familiar in American political life; it might be shown, for example, that the median redhead income is lower than nonredheaded income, and further that the proportion of redheaded business executives, university professors, or congressmen is below their quotal representation in the population. The most recent and conspicuous manifestation of this sort of quotal thinking was in the McGovern movement at the 1972 Democratic Convention. A few groups are singled out as having been "oppressed" by virtue of delegates to previous conventions falling below their quotal proportion of the population as a whole. In particular, women, youth, blacks, Chicanos (or the so-called Third World) were designated as having been oppressed; as a result, the Democratic Party, under the guidance of egalitarian-quota thinking, overrode the choices of the voters in order to compel their due quotal representation of these particular groups.

In some cases, the badge of "oppression" was an almost ludicrous construction. That youths of 18 to 25 years of age had been "underrepresented" could easily have been placed in proper perspective by a reductio ad absurdum, surely some impassioned McGovernite reformer could have risen to point out the grievous "underrepresentation" of five-year olds at the convention and to urge that the five-year-old bloc receive its immediate due. It is only commonsense biological and social insight to realize that youths win their way into society through a process of apprenticeship; youths know less and have less experience than mature adults, and so it should be clear why they tend to have less status and authority than their elders. But to accept this would be to cast the egalitarian creed into some substantial doubt; further, it would fly into the face of the youth-worship that has long been a grave problem of American culture. And so young people have been duly designated as an "oppressed class," and the coercing of their population quota is conceived as only just reparation for their previously exploited condition.

~~Murray Rothbard. Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature.