QUORA : Do the pro-capitalists here honestly think that the system is fair? How are people at the bottom of the food chain, realistically speaking, expected to break the poverty cycle without government intervention?

 QUORA : Do the pro-capitalists here honestly think that the system is fair? How are people at the bottom of the food chain, realistically speaking, expected to break the poverty cycle without government intervention?

I posted this answer:

It is actually government intervention that creates a poverty cycle. When the welfare state subsidizes the poor, then removes the subsidies if their incomes rise, it disincentivizes work and upward mobility and incentivizes the breakup-up of families, leading to a low-income trap of handouts, stagnation, and/or idleness—the poverty cycle. 

In a fully free—that is, Capitalist—society, there is no “poverty cycle.” Poverty is the natural state of man. Nothing man requires to live, survive, and thrive is provided by nature. Everything must be created by the productive work of individuals, together with teamwork and trade—but always starting with the efforts of individual initiative. 

How does anyone rise from poverty? Through self-responsibility and self-respect, she takes it upon herself to become productive. The great fairness of capitalism is that it leaves people free to work, trade, and earn property, and then protects the rights of people to keep and use the product of their work as they judge best. Capitalism clears the political way for and protects people who rise from poverty by their own efforts. It is the Enlightenment values of individualism, freedom, and limited rights-protecting government that capitalism embodies. The result; after thousands of years of grinding, stagnant poverty, the impediments on the common individual were swept away. They’re rights to act secured, upward mobility became the watchword, clearing the way for anyone willing to try. The resulting industrial/technological/economic explosion—The Great Enrichment—in turn opened up vast new opportunities for each new generation to rise farther and farther above poverty, thus establishing a cycle of prosperity based on “You can’t stop progress.” 

And the fountainhead of this enrichment is individual initiative, enabled by liberty and the universal practice of individual rights, and motivated by the pursuit of personal happiness.

There are basically only two ways to achieve a life up from poverty. The first and honorable way up is to take responsibility for one’s own life and work one’s way up. Not everyone is willing to try, though. These are the people who choose the path of taking control of productive people’s lives and to seize the product of their labor. The question above can only be asked by the second type of person—the parasite who believes the world owes him a living, and thus turns to government intervention into the economy—and their political cronies who champion the myth that “the poor” are too lazy and incompetent to make it on their own effort in a social setting of voluntarism and trade. 

It is sad to say that the anti-freedom policies of the socialist/regulatory welfare state interventionists are slowly reestablishing the lid on upward mobility that capitalism abolished, eroding the cycle of prosperity. But to the extent we have capitalism, there is no one to stop, or disincentivize, any poor person from rising as far as his own efforts will carry him. People starting out in life do not need to shackle people who have already made something of their lives. If they’re willing to try for success, they only need the government’s non-discriminatory, universal protection of their individual rights to freedom of production and trade and property rights. They don’t need government impediments placed on others. We need government, not government intervention. That’s what defines a fair system.

Related Reading:

A "Liberal" Newspaper Acknowledges the Welfare State Dilemma

Pre-Medicaid ‘System’ Points to the Moral Alternative to Medicaid: A Free Market Safety Net

America Before the Entitlement State—Yaron Brook and Don Watkin

The Moral—and Ultimately Real—Chains of the Welfare State

On ‘Rugged Individualism’ and the Welfare State

From Middle Class to Welfare Class

A New Textbook of Americanism — edited by Jonathan Hoenig

QUORA: ‘How would you describe Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism?’

 QUORA: ‘How would you describe Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism?’ [sic]

I posted this very succinct answer:

I describe Objectivism as a philosophy of life before death.

For a little more detail, see Crawford’s answer.

For more depth, visit Introduction to Objectivism.

Need-Based Morality Penalizes NJ’s Self-Supporting

Back when New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy was pushing for a so-called “millionaires tax” to help fund his Progressivist state budget, a NJ Guest Columnist, Rob Duffey, argued in defense of Murphy on 3/27/19, Don’t worry about the rich; N.J. needs millionaires tax. Need I elaborate? The title says it all.

In response, another guest columnist, Philip Perinelli, explained This is why I’m leaving New Jersey:

I have contemplated writing a letter to the state government of New Jersey, including the Governor, Senate President, Assembly Speaker, and all members of the legislature. The article by Rob Duffey that appeared in the March 27 Star Ledger, titled “Don’t worry about the rich; N.J. needs the millionaires tax” prompted me to write.

Much has been said about a millionaire’s tax. Some say tax them and they will leave. And they well may. Of course, as Mr. Duffey points out, they may not. The fact is that the truly rich can decide to stay or leave. They can afford to do either. Mr. Duffey also points out that the state needs the money. I am not a millionaire. And that is why, while there is much to love about living in this town and this state, my wife and I plan to leave New Jersey in the next several years.

Perinelli is heading for Pennsylvania, where taxes are lower, including on retirees. But he demonstrates something else: It’s not just “the rich” who can be victimized by Progressivism. 

I posted these comments:

“New Jersey needs the revenue,” so we’ll just seize it from those who earned it, at gunpoint. If you don’t like it, you can uproot your life, and leave. 

What can “justify” such an unjust “political argument” as “credible policy?” The morality of altruism, which holds that one person’s need is an automatic claim on others’ wealth. When need is the moral standard, need becomes a political license to steal.

Need is the natural state of life, including human life. Wild animals satisfy their needs by seizing whatever they need. Primitive humans did basically the same, hunting and gathering as needed. The rise of civilization gave rise to wealth production, changing the equation to require justice. 

Altruism is a carryover from primitive man, manifested in “progressivist” politics. It’s not just about millionaires, unfair as a “millionaires tax” is. Gary Sudol asked in a recent letter* why he cannot opt out of the Family Leave Act, which recently quadrupled the payroll tax on workers (4/13/19). Answer; because other people need it, even if Sudol doesn’t.

There are basically two ways for people to satisfy their needs--earn it yourself or prey on others. Progressivism sides with the predator. Do not confuse altruism with generosity, charity, or compassion. There is nothing generous, charitable, or compassionate about Progressivists’ policies, which forcibly redistribute from people who earned it to people who didn’t. They are barbaric and unjust. 

I sympathize with Mr. Perinelli. We can’t escape Progressivism. But we can escape the most unjust states, like NJ. We won’t have completely achieved a fully just and civil society until we make our government protect each individual’s right to what he has earned, rather than some “right” to other people’s earnings.

* [Since I cannot link to the letter because the Star-Ledger no longer publishes its letters-to-the-editor online, I post it here:

Family-leave payroll deductions are unfair--letter 4/13/19

Once again the workers of New Jersey will take another hit. This time we face a big increase in contributions to expand the family-leave program. Some people will see their payments increase fourfold. I have worked over 40 years, have never used this program and will never want to. I would like to know why I don’t have the option to opt out of this program. There are many companies that do offer family-leave programs. If someone wants this benefit, they are free to secure a job with one of these companies. This expanded program is one more step in making New Jersey a bad place for business and taxpayers. I’m looking forward to the day when I will vacate this tax-happy state and relocate to a more taxpayer-friendly state.

Gary Sudol West Orange

The new law greatly increases the payroll tax, while making it more “progressive”--hitting middle and high income workers. It also makes it illegal for a company to replace a worker who takes advantage of the 12-week leave. And proving once again that socialist programs, once enacted, and no matter how small, will inevitably grow like a cancer. This new law expands on a previous law, because the original law was “woefully underutilized.,” with only “The overall participation rate among eligible workers in 2015 [being] less than 1 percent.”

If a program is “underutilized”—meaning, few people  want it—why not eliminate it? Instead, the injustice is expanded, and taxpayers like Gary Sudol are left picking up the tab against their will. Once we accepted the malignancy of forced redistribution of wealth, the cancer aggressively grows. Why? Because someone “needs” the loot. This has been termed The Tyranny of Need. 

Related Reading:

QUORA *: ‘Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism?’

Reply Responses to QUORA *: ‘Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism?’

People Don’t Want ‘Paid Family Leave’ in NJ, So Let’s Expand It [?]

End, Don’t Expand, NJ’s Paid Family Leave Coercion

Family Leave Insurance No “Success” for Those Who Don’t Want It

“The Decline of American Liberalism”—Six Decades Later By Lance Lamberton

Excerpts from this review:

The most disappointing aspect of The Decline is that it offered no reason for why it took place other than to agree with Jefferson’s observation that “[t]he natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”

I would argue that the Founders’ acceptance of the morality of altruism, where self-interest is regarded as immoral and self-sacrifice is the highest moral ideal, was the root cause for the decline of American liberalism. Until classical liberalism embraces rational self-interest as the highest moral ideal and can build a society upon that foundation, then further decline will become the order of the day until, indeed, the well of freedom becomes almost completely dry.

QUORA: ‘Did Ayn Rand support the idea of giving to charity or donating your own money to help other people?’

QUORA: What does Ayn Rand think about vitrues [sic] such as charity, selflessness, and friendship?

Norcross’ Message to Graduates: Shut Up and Submit to the Elites

When I came across a New Jersey Star-Ledger guest column by George E. Norcross III, I perked up. The title is Norcross: You need a tough skin to be a responsible adult … and citizen | A 2022 commencement essay. I thought, great: Norcross’s message to college graduates would be an attack on cancel culture. 

Not so.

Instead, Norcross wants to strangle their expression by strangling their means of expression.

After admonitions to be treated like, and to act like, an adult, Norcross says

My advice to you is come into it with your eyes wide open to what our society is becoming — in New Jersey. In the United States and throughout the world. Being blunt — you need to have a thick skin because the culture we live in is increasingly unforgiving, even for minor errors — even for those who are just moving forward with their lives.

True. This is what we broadly call “cancel culture''. I’m not sure how much worse, if it is worse, our society has been in past eras compared to “what our society is becoming.” But it is horrible, especially since so many people are intellectually shallow, and allow themselves to be governed by emotion over reason. Of course, human culture has never been particularly forgiving. When has it not been good to have a thick skin? But at least Norcross is calling on young people to deal with it and fight back. Or at least I thought.

Why is it getting tougher out there? Maybe it’s because people are meaner, but I think there’s more to it than that. Social media platforms have made everyone a critic where there is no barrier to entry. It’s easy. It’s free. It’s immediate. And, it can be anonymous.

Yes. And that’s great. Social media has given the average person a platform from which to criticize powers-that-be, from politicians to mainstream media. More than that, people can advocate, express themselves, participate in national debates on the issues of the day, before wide audiences, like never before. Yes, some abuse that new-found power. But it is power—power to the ordinary person to call out politicians, big traditional media, and other prominent voices whose big megaphones allowed them to control the intellectual narratives. The free-wheeling intellectual discourse now open to untold millions of ordinary folks threatens that power of the elites.

And that’s what Norcross wants to stifle.

News organizations are held to a correctly high libel standard under the law. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. Both as a subject of the media’s attention and as a publisher as I used to own The Philadelphia Inquirer. In let’s call it the mainstream media, it is very hard to attack with no basis when there is a libel standard.

But the protection isn’t there on today’s social media platforms. It’s a terrible mistake that Congress made in 1996 to exempt online platforms from liability based on content that people post on their sites. This must be corrected.

Social media platforms are not traditional newspapers. They are platforms, not publishers. Publishers are responsible for what they publish. On social media, the user is the publisher, not the company. What makes social media such free-wheeling free speech platforms is that the platform companies cannot be held liable for what the users—the actual publishers—say. And that’s how it should be. That’s justice.

Norcross says treat graduates like adults. But if social media loses its liability protection, it will be forced to police all content published by their users, for fear of being sued for what the supposed adults say. This will have the effect of stifling the free expression of ordinary folks, including the college graduates Norcross is addressing. “Why,” Norcross asks, “must this be corrected?” 

Because Facebook, Twitter and YouTube by not taking responsibility for the content posted on their sites are undermining democracy and making the lives of so many people truly miserable.

So freedom of expression, dissent, criticism, and public debate is “undermining democracy” if posted by ordinary people. What about those mainstream news organizations that Norcross sheds tears over? Have you ever seen the kind of viscous rubbage that they publish? And that’s fine, too. Just leave the rest of us the freedom to counter-speech.

Yes, ordinary people being able to express themselves is now easy, free, immediate, and, yes, anonymous. And that’s great. How in hell does that “undermine democracy?” True, it may undermine the political incumbents and mainstream media domination of the intellectual discourse. That’s great, too. And true, people post mean thoughtless stuff. Ignore it, or fight back with counterspeech--or libel lawsuits. Contrary to Norcross’s implication, social media publishers are subject to the same libel laws as traditional publishers.

Norcross laments that “Too often commencement addresses offer platitudes of leading a good life, seizing the opportunity and blah, blah, blah.” So what does he do? Worse. He uses his opportunity to push an anti-free speech political agenda, even citing former president Barack Obama’s call “for regulating these social media platforms to help save our democracy,” and which I critiqued as Obama's Disingenuous ‘Defense’ of the First Amendment. 

The 1996 law that Norcross deplores is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. That law shields internet companies who merely supply the platform for publishers from liability for what the users publish. That protection must be maintained if we are to protect the new-found freedom of expression average people now enjoy. That’s how you treat new college grads as adults. Let them express themselves -- and take responsibility for what they say. Don’t silence them. Leave them to be the tough skinned responsible adults and citizens you wish them to be.

To be fair, Norcross does finish with some sound advice. In the absence of social media regulation, he urges, take on “the responsibility to act as adults in a democratic society.”

You don’t need to agree with my political views or those of your friends. But… you do need to behave responsibly. Being critical of policies you oppose is the duty you have as citizens. 

That means you’re going to need to have tougher skin and at the same time understand the difference between news and vindictive personal attacks on these platforms.

You also need to distinguish real news on your feed. . .

Know, too, that you can’t be afraid of attacks. You will need a tough exterior to bat away anonymous criticism that your friends and family will see as well. Be a responsible citizen. Use social media as a form of connecting with people but don’t confuse that content for news.

I would be more blunt, and say what Norcross should have said. Don’t think about silencing people you disagree with by, for example, neutering Section 230. That's what the elites want. Instead, use your own internet freedom constructively. For those who might be tempted by Norcross’s and Obama’s calls for government involvement in this country’s intellectual discourse, I urge, “Instead, get off of your lazy mental ass and do the work of fact-checking, consulting of experts, considering of all opinions no matter how outrageous or offensive you may deem them, doing your own thinking, fighting back when necessary with your own counter-speech, and focussing on ideas.” 

That’s what “democracy”—or more precisely the democratic process in a constitutionally limited republic based on inalienable individual rights—actually demands. The government has no role in regulating the intellectual discourse of its citizens. Don't grant them that power.

Related Reading:

Obama's Disingenuous ‘Defense’ of the First Amendment

Trump Joins Biden in War on the Average Person’s Newfound Power to be Heard

Internet Free Markets and the false claim of Social Media Monopoly Power

Politicians Want to Destroy Section 230, the Internet's First Amendment: Four myths about the law that made the modern internet possible. -- ELIZABETH NOLAN BROWN AND PAUL DETRICK for Reason

Social Media and the Future of Civil Society -- Jon Hersey for The Objective Standard

Many of the bureaucrats and commentators behind these laws and initiatives against social-media companies share essentially the same tactic. They blame social-media companies for not doing what governments are supposed to do—protect individual rights—and then rationalize that this supposed failure is grounds for doing what governments are not supposed to do—violate individual rights.

Juneteenth, the Offspring of the Fourth of July

Today, June 19th, we celebrate Juneteenth as a National Holiday—and justly so. This is the holiday celebrates that, in June 1865, Union soldiers reached the last enslaved Americans in Galveston, Texas, with the news that slavery had been abolished and that they were now free.

The abolition of slavery, an evil institution that American inherited at its Founding, is a major cause for celebration and among America’s finest hours. The day the last slaves were liberated certainly rises to the level of deserving of a national holiday. But it must be remembered that the principles of the American Founding made possible the end of slavery. If not for the Fourth of July, we’d have no Juneteenth. Professor Jason D. Hill, author of We Have Overcome, aptly calls the abolition of slavery America’s Second Founding.  

By all means, celebrate Juneteenth, also known as Emancipation Day. But put it on a par with Constitution Day, which celebrates the document that Frederick Douglass called “a glorious liberty document.” Like The U.S. Constitution, Juneteenth owes its existence to the Declaration of Independence and the philosophy behind it. 

It’s a damn shame that it took almost a Century for the promises of the Declaration of Independence to reach all Americans of African descent. But it did, finally erasing America’s most glaring birth defect. 

Happy Juneteenth.

Related Reading:

The ‘1619 Project’ Fraud Begins its Poisonous Infiltration into American Politics

A New Textbook of Americanism — edited by Jonathan Hoenig

QUORA: ‘Why do law schools teach constitutional law but not the Declaration of Independence as an animating principle?’

The 'New American Socialists' Dilemma: The Declaration is as much anti-Socialist as anti-Slavery

Biden Cancels America

On Juneteenth, Let’s Celebrate the Atlases of Abolition by Jon Hersey for The Objective Standard

WHAT SHALL BE DONE WITH THE SLAVES IF EMANCIPATED? By Frederick Douglass' Monthly, January, 1862

What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? by Frederick Douglass | July 5, 1852

NJ Governor Murphy’s Immoral Scheme to Violate Rights Under the Guise of Abortion Rights

This is a follow-up on my post of 5/15/22, in which I called out the self-defeating hypocrisy of abortion rights advocates who conflate the right to abortion with the right to access abortion. To further drive home the point, I want to draw attention to a New Jersey Star-Ledger article by NJ.com reporters Susan K. Livio and Brent Johnson titled Murphy announces new push to expand abortion access as N.J. gears up as a sanctuary state.

Intending to “send a message to women across the nation that we simply will not go backwards,” Gov. Phil Murphy on Wednesday announced proposals that would make abortion care cheaper in New Jersey and train more clinicians to treat people traveling from states where the procedure is expected to be illegal.

Cheaper? For whom? 

In January, the Democratic governor signed a bill that enshrined abortion rights into state law.

As I’ve noted before, that characterization is very misleading. That bill is not just about abortion rights. The law actually says something quite different. It “codifies the constitutional right . . . to freedom of reproductive choice, including the right to access contraception, to terminate a pregnancy, and to carry a pregnancy to term.” My emphasis. “Access” here means to get contraception, abortion, and pre-natal care at someone elses’s non-concentual, coerced expense—a clear violation of the rights of individuals who want to exercise the choice not to pay for those services.

Before Murphy signed the law, it was stripped of a provision that would have required state-licensed insurance plans to cover the cost of abortion care.

This is clearly good. But it was not done to protect rights. It was taken out because “Socially conservative Democrats . . . didn’t want to make it ‘too easy’ to terminate a pregnancy.” What this does show is that “access” means some people—in this case, insurance premium rate payers—would be forced to pay for services provided to others.

”Abortion is health care and health care decisions should be left up to the individual,” [Murphy] added. “Your body belongs to you. I do not know how to be more clear.”

Yes, it’s clearly true. Unfortunately, that’s not a principled defense of individual rights.That’s merely the bait. One would think that what health care to pay for would be included in “health care decisions should be left up to the individual.” You’d be wrong.

Murphy proposed legislation that would mandate that insurance plans in New Jersey cover abortion with no out-of-pocket costs.

“A person’s ability to access abortion care should not depend on how much money they make,” the governor said.

Of course it should. Otherwise, whose money should it depend on? If a person can’t afford the care, then accessing that care should depend on the voluntary consent of those who agree to foot the bill. For those who can’t afford it, there is only the right to the procedure if others are willing to provide it free of charge, or pay for it as voluntary charity. A right to abortion is a guarantee of the freedom of action to pursuit an abortion, not the right to pick others’ pockets to cover the expense through government-imposed higher insurance premiums—which is the only way for insurance companies to meet the government’s mandate to provide that coverage. 

Murphy was joined by Assemblywoman Mila Jasey, D-Essex, and Assemblyman Raj Mukherji, D-Hudson, the lawmakers who are expected to sponsor the legislation he described.

“Equality demands not just the availability of services but access to services, and it cannot be predicated upon the size of one’s paycheck and the scope of one’s insurance coverage,” Jasey told the packed room of supporters. “It is a moral imperative. We won’t go back.”

A “moral imperative?” No. It is a moral atrocity. The American concept of equality means non-discriminatory protection of our rights—all rights, property as well as reproductive—under law, not the monstrosity of equality of outcome enforced by discriminatory legal coercion—Egalitarianism. The “equality” that Jasey demands necessitates unequal treatment against people who do not want reproductive health coverage and/or do not want to pay for others' treatment through their taxes or insurance premiums. There is no equality in which one party “wins” a free abortion at the expense of another party losing their freedom of choice regarding their money at the hands of state coercion.

As an uncompromising defender of individual rights, properly understood—including abortion rights—I do not stand with Murphy, Jasey, Mukherji, and their ilk. They are imposters. They are phonies. They are frauds. You cannot support one right at the expense of another, since there is no right, and can never be a right, to violate the rights of others. A right is the sanction of freedom of action to pursue one’s values, not a guarantee of successful achievement of any particular value. There is no right to any material good or service that others must be forced to provide.

Leftist abortion rights advocates kill their own case when they turn on the other rights. They lose all moral backing. But their agenda is not really abortion rights. Tactics like equating rights to material access obliterate all rights, including the rights to conscience and property. But such tactics fit seamlessly into a socialist agenda. 

This is how Leftists sneak socialism into the American nation—and under cover of actual individual rights, of all things. We who genuinely support individual rights, which means rights held equally by all people at all times, must not fall for the rights violating bait-and-switch gimmick of equating a right to pursue with a “right” to access.

Related Reading:

The Self-Defeating Disingenuousness of Abortion ‘Rights’ Supporters

The End of Roe Heralds the Rise of Pro-Abortion, Big Government Policies by CHRISTIAN BRITSCHGI: Liberal states don't want to treat abortion as a personal, private choice either. 

Instead, blue state policy makers want to spend tax dollars subsidizing and promoting it.

Constitutional Distortions: Free Speech vs. Freedom of Speech

Right to Abortion vs. the "Right" to Abortion Services

Abortion and Individual Rights - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Defending Reproductive Rights Depends Upon Upholding All Rights

HHS Secretary Nominee Tom Price Whiffs in Confrontation With Bernie Sanders Over a ‘Right’ to Healthcare

Karen Cherins’s Confused Understanding of Reproductive Rights Threatens Reproductive Freedom

A Common Enemy: How Right Wing Racism is Rooted in Left Ideology

AP NEWS reporter David Bauder offers up a piece ostensibly explaining how White ‘replacement theory’ fuels racist attacks. That theory apparently drove the racist motivations of the 18-year-old shooter in the May 2022 attack on a supermarket in a predominantly black Buffalo, New York neighborhood. Bauder offers:

A racist ideology seeping from the internet’s fringes into the mainstream is being investigated as a motivating factor in the supermarket shooting that killed 10 people in Buffalo, New York. Most of the victims were Black.

Ideas from the “great replacement theory” filled a racist screed supposedly posted online by the white 18-year-old accused of targeting Black people in Saturday’s rampage. Authorities were still working to confirm its authenticity.

Certainly, there was no mistaking the racist intent of the shooter.

What's missing from this whole allegedly explanatory article? The deeper roots of its origin. It's clear that Replacement Theory is explicitly collectivist. And from which end of the spectrum has collectivism entered the political landscape? From the Left. Downstream of collectivism, racism is obviously collectivist, and Replacement Theory is obviously racist. Racism has become endemic to Leftist ideology. In fact, so ubiquitous is racism to the ideological DNA of the Left that it is rarely acknowledged, even though it is hidden in plain sight.

As an example, consider Trenton must do more to help N.J.’s hungry, a NJ Star Ledger Editorial Board op-ed. In bemoaning the alleged widespread “food insecurity” problem in New Jersey, the SLEB writes:

Start with the math. More than 285,000 households lacked access to affordable food at the height of the pandemic, and it hit hardest along racial and ethnic lines. In 2021, 14% of Black households and 18% of Latino households in New Jersey indicated that they sometimes or often did not have enough food, compared to 5% of white households.

Leaving the hunger issue aside, one would ask, Why divide this issue along racial "lines"? Groups don't experience hunger. Only real live individual human beings do. Black, Latino, White: It makes no difference to a hungry individual. They're all hungry just the same. But that is the Left’s racist identity politics “seeping into the mainstream.”

Another example relates to the way auto insurance rates are calculated in NJ. NJ Spotlight News reports

Social and consumer advocates say the use of nondriving factors like credit scores and education history to calculate insurance premiums is leading many New Jerseyans, especially those who are Black and brown, to pay hundreds of dollars more in premiums. Advocates want the state’s Department of Banking and Insurance to prohibit these practices.

Would credit scores and education be less problematic if they mainly affected non-black and brown folks? Would these “advocates” think it less unfair? If these insurance criteria are unfair, an individual’s skin color makes no difference to folks paying the higher insurance rates. But again, race collectivists don’t care about actual individual people. They see only groups based on skin color; i.e. these so-called advocates are racists, whether they choose to acknowledge their own racism or not. But that is the Left’s racist identity politics “seeping into the mainstream.”

Collectivists of whatever political stripe always forget the smallest minority, the individual. That’s why the Left can be racist without seeing the obvious—that they themselves are racist. This is what I mean when I say racism is endemic to Leftist ideology. Almost every issue includes some obligatory reference to ethnic minority groups or “people of color,” as if color is essential. This highbrow endemic racism, masquerading as concern for the “disadvantaged”, was evident during the looter riots of the George Floyd “protests” when that violence was minimized, excused as “protest”, and sometimes even justified because the thugs were black. It was evident in the Democrats’ 2021 COVID “relief” bill. The examples go on and on.

But every action, in politics no less than in physics, triggers an equal and opposite reaction. This type of race-framing grows out of the Left’s racial identity politics. And it is everywhere in the mainstream. And it doesn’t end there. Bauder reports: 

A more mainstream view in the U.S. baselessly suggests Democrats are encouraging immigration from Latin America so more like-minded potential voters replace “traditional” Americans, says Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism.

To some of the more extreme believers, certain white supremacist mass killers — at a Norway summer camp in 2011, two Christchurch, New Zealand, mosques in 2019, a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015 — are considered saints, Pitcavage says.

Those “accelerationist white supremacists” believe small societal changes won’t achieve much, so the only option is tearing down society, he says.

The italicized passage is mine. Where have we heard that “solution” before? That is straight out of Karl Marx’s Communist ideology. Marx, too, saw the tearing down of society through terror as the only path to achieving his social/political goals.

Once again, we see the Leftist roots of Great Replacement Theory. But that’s only an “extreme” view, not to be pinned on the more “moderate” “mainstream” believers, you say? Well, Marx’s extreme call for violent revolution came to fruition, did it not? Societies from Russia to China to Cuba were literally torn down to make way for Marxian socialism.

The fact is, any ideology can only be understood by focussing on its most extreme—that is, most philosophically consistent—adherents. That’s where you can trace out the logically realistic end result, if the ideology is not discredited and destroyed first. The Great Replacement Theory is straight out of the same Marxist/collectivist roots of the modern Left. 

Is it any wonder that collectivist racism is growing on the Right? The Right Wing racism of Replacement Theory in America did not arise in a vacuum. It’s been around a while at the lunatic fringes. But why is it now “seeping into the mainstream,” as some now put it. I believe it is a reaction to the long-established mainstream collectivism and racism of the Left. On the political surface, Replacement Theory is ridiculous. Its danger lies in its collectivist orientation, because collectivism, having taken over the Left, is now taking over the Right. Individualism—the only antidote to collectivism—is increasingly being squeezed out of American politics and culture. 

Yet this article evades the ideological/historical roots of the racism that underpins Replacement Theory. Historian Andrew Bernstein called out the Left's collectivism in his piece The Left Pushes America Toward Race War. Bernstein warned of the coming of Buffalo-style atrocities three and a half years ago:

When identity politics and racial victimization becomes a dominant cultural trend–and especially when it is maintained that character and identity are determined not by individual choice but by racial membership–it is logically inevitable that members of every tribe and racial sub-group band together into political gangs seeking protection from the other. One need not be a genius to discern the end game of such a trend.

Indeed, we have already seen a microcosm of it in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August, 2017. The bloody street battle between rival gangs fighting race/class war should be sufficient to give all thoughtful Americans pause. We must re-think our fundamental philosophic, moral, and political principles. Otherwise, we inexorably stagger toward the horror of race war.

If you've been following the news, you know that he is right, not hyperbolic. That piece was published three and a half years ago. Is it any wonder that Replacement Theory may, as AP reports, be going "mainstream" today? The Left's collectivist/racist/sexist/class warfare ideological worldview has long been mainstream. Why should we be surprised that it's triggering an equal reaction on the Right?

Mainstream media, mostly oriented Leftward, misses or doesn't want to see the connections. But they are there. My point here is not to in any way deflect blame, or minimize or in any way justify the Buffalo culprit, or to engage in whataboutism. Great Replacement Theory is evil. My point is to highlight the real enemy—collectivism. As long as the vampire of collectivism lives on in people’s souls, racism will keep resurfacing under new guises. Collectivism—the idea that the group is the standard of moral/political concern and the individual is to be judged by his group affiliation rather than individual character and choices—is our common enemy, regardless of its source. This fact, plus the truth that individualism is the only antipode to collectivism, shouldn't be ignored if Americanism is to be saved. 

Related Reading:

Critical Race Theory’s new disguise by Ayaan Hirsi Aly

‘Anti-Racism’, or the re-Mainstreaming of Racism

Biden’s Racist Education Trial Balloon

Booker’s Racism Charge Against Trump’s ‘Go Back’ Rant is Rich

SEC’s Boardroom ‘Diversity’ Rule Is Racist, Unnatural, and Politically Motivated

DelBarton Student’s 'Diversity' Initiative, Though Well-Meaning, is Based on Counter-Productive Premises

 

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’

 

Starbucks/USA Today’s Racist “Race Together” Campaign

Don’t Allow the Left to Own ‘Diversity’

AMERICA: A RACIST NATION? BY ANDREW BERNSTEIN

Clark, NJ: ‘Systemic’ Racism, or just Random Racism?

We Have Overcome: An Immigrant’s Letter to the American People by Jason D. Hill

The Racism of the ‘Anti-Racists’

Great Replacement Theory Is a Grand Delusion by Ramesh Ponnuru for Bloomburg

Related Viewing:

 

John McWhorter: America Has Never Been Less Racist -- Reason interview

Replacement Theory, Buffalo Shooter, Leftists and Conservatives -- The Yaron Brook Show