In Defence of the Enightenment

There is is a peculiar strain within nationalism which sees the enlightenment as the root of all of our current woes, the beginning of the end. By so doing, many confuse the enlightenment view of liberalism with the modern interpretation of that word. Others confuse classic liberalism with civic nationalism, as many of their modern day advocates overlap, but the two are not ideologically connected.

 

 

The enlightenment was our gradual emergence out of many centuries of superstition, theocracy, and near absolute monarchy, which followed the fall of Rome. A world of papal indulgences and witch burnings. A world of subsistence farming, grinding poverty, widespread illiteracy, slow technological progress, ignorance and want. 

 

How did we lift ourselves out of these desperate circumstances? By observing the world through our senses and applying our God given reason to it. By carefully studying nature to discover how the world works, and then using this knowledge to bend the natural world to our will. To harness the power of nature, and set it to work for us.

 

Once our superpower had been unlocked the speed of advance was exponential.We went from Newton's Laws of Motion to the first steam engine in under a century. From Faraday and Clark-Maxwell's work on electromagnetism to the telegraph and then the mobile phone and Wi-Fi in a century or two more. After millennia in the doldrums, Western man had finally found his true calling. No more would our finest minds scribble away in monasteries grappling with obtuse and unprovable questions of theology. Instead they would be set to work making material improvements to the physical world. 

 

 

Hand in hand with the scientific enlightenment was the intellectual enlightenment. Great minds applied themselves to the creation of a freer and more prosperous society. Adam Smith theorised on how best to structure the economy to achieve maximum prosperity. Other thinkers concerned themselves with balancing maximum personal freedom with the maintenance of an orderly society. 

The zenith of the political enlightenment probably lies in the US constitution. A document which comes as close as any to setting out the ideal principles for the maintenance of a free, prosperous, and orderly nation. America's greatest blessing was to be founded at the peak of the enlightenment. I dread to think what a constitution written today might look like. The BBC's equality and diversity plan most likely. 

 

The unifying thread in all of these endeavours was reason and empiricism. The furtherance of knowledge through experiment. The scientific method applied to matters of man as well as nature.

 

It is the wise application of these values, in conjunction with his inherent physical and mental traits, which allowed Western man to dominate the globe. These values predominated, as did Western man, until the mid 20th century when they began to be replaced by the more woolly minded, feminine, values of equality and kindness. Of the rejection of empirical evidence if its conclusions might hurt someone's feelings. The move away from enlightenment values was the beginning of western civilisation's decline. 

I despair of "scientism" being decried as a negative.  Science confirms racial differences. Science knows that the sexes are fundamentally different.  The problem is the corruption of science to meet the political orthodoxy of the day. This is the opposite of data driven empiricism. Fearless, empirical science is the solution to our current problems. We need more science, not less.

 

Another, misguided, charge commonly raised against the enlightenment is that its version of liberalism, meaning  maximum personal freedom under the law, is somehow analogous with modern day liberal progressivism. Notions of racial or sexual equality would have been viewed as utterly absurd by these 17th and 18th Century gentlemen. When they spoke equality they meant equality of opportunity and dignity for white men, and white men only. 

 

It must also be remembered that notions of liberty in the 17th and 18th Century were tempered by religion, social morality, and a sense of responsibility to one's family and duty to one's country. Liberty set in this strong social framework does not lead to the extreme degeneracy we see today. It is the failing of these other pillars of society in recent times which have caused our problems, not liberty itself. 

 

The ideal of liberty sought by the enlightenment was not the opportunity for wanton personal degradation. It was free speech, free conscience, and the free exchange of ideas.  Liberalism does not mean libertinism. What we have done now is to replace classical liberalism with libertinism. We have lost our freedom of conscience and expression and had them replaced with a torrent of filth and obscenity. The regime under which we now live is thoroughly illiberal and would have horrified the bewigged gentlemen who promulgated the enlightenment.  

 

 

Another, related, complaint is the that the individualism attendant to personal liberty is somehow undesirable. I find this to be a strange complaint. If you do not want to be free to make your own choices, just who is it you want to make those choices for you? Are you really asking for some king, bishop, or dictator to make your personal decisions for you? What if he makes choices you dislike or are contrary to your best interests? Such a position is, to my mind,  absurd.

There are even some who appear to wish to return to pre enlightenment times and live a life of agrarian poverty under feudal oppression, untroubled by technology or modernity. If that is the lifestyle they would prefer it remains freely available throughout much of the third world.

 

The fact that modern society has become corrupt does not mean that its philosophical underpinnings were misguided or doomed to fail from the outset. These values created the greatest period of progress and prosperity humanity has ever experienced. We need to go back to what has been proven to work, not attempt to concoct some new societal foundation out of whole cloth.

 

The British are fundamentally an individualist and freedom loving people. From Magna Carta, to the Declaration of Arbroath, to Brexit, it is baked into our DNA. We are not like our collectivist cousins on the continent who are prepared to sacrifice their freedoms in the interests of conformity and cohesion, far less the ant people of Asia. Daring to be different is why we innovate and why our record of achievement is unsurpassed. 

 

For all of the criticisms that have been raised against the enlightenment and classical liberalism, I have yet to hear anyone set out a preferable alternative. These values are not for everyone of course. They are certainly not universal.  They require a population with a high IQ, good moral character, and self discipline. They have taken centuries of work by our greatest minds to create. They are the cornerstone of our civilisation. They are of our people, by our people, and for our people.

Morgoth: Mass Psychosis or Mass Obedience?

 

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Christmas is Ours

 

Lana Lokteff of Red Ice TV provides a fascinating insight into the Northern European origins of our beloved Christmas traditions. 

 

 

 

 Merry Christmas and Happy Yule to all of the patrons of The Crow's Nest. 

 

God bless us, every one. 

How Gender Ideology Will Destroy the US Military

During the 2016 US Presidential election some wag produced spoof Hillary campaign ads claiming that she wanted to "draft our daughters". At the time this idea was considered patently absurd. Ricky Vaughan, a popular pro Trump twitter account which is now banned, is currently being prosecuted by the Department of Justice for "election intrerference" for, among other things, spreading the draft our daughters meme. Presumably because such a proposal would be so unpopular it could have swayed voters against Hillary. 

 

Of course, as we all know, you can't spoof clown world. What was created as a silly and amusing meme a mere five years ago is close to becoming law. All American men between 18 and 26 are required by law to register with the Selective Service System. This is the list of names from which draftees are selected should the government order conscription.

 

There is currently legislation before Congress which would require women to register with the Selective Service System and be eligible for any future draft. The justification for this legislation is that requiring men, but not women, to register from the draft amounts to discrimination on the basis of sex and is therefore unconstitutional. In the politics of the current year this seems inarguable and the bill appears likely to pass. 

 

In the event that it does not pass, this would effectively nullify any future draft. Now that anyone can change their legal sex at will, if any future draft applied only to men, any man who wished to evade it could do so simply by claiming that he believed he was a woman. As transgenderism is accepted on the basis of mere self declaration, there would be no way to defeat such a claim. While this is currently being pushed in the USA, the same logic applies to any Western nation which accepts  transgender ideology, which is basically all of them. 

So we have a position whereby either women are subject to the draft, or any man could avoid the draft at will. You might think "What is the harm in subjecting women to the draft? There are plenty of jobs they can do which wouldn't involve front line combat". However, the same logic would apply.  Any man who would prefer not to risk life and limb dodging bullets on the front line could earn himself a cushy, low risk, deployment serving in the kitchens or the stores simply by declaring that he felt a bit feminine all of a sudden. Either women are put into front line combat or any man could avoid front line combat at will.

 

 

Of course the overwhelming majority of women do not want to be drafted, far less be sent into front line combat, and all but the most crackpot of SJWs understand that women are physically weaker and more emotional than men making them less suited to military service. However, under the current paradigm, if the military does not go fully co-ed across all areas of operation it will be unable to compel fighting age men into combat in time of national emergency. In either case the military will be catastrophically weakened. 

 

 We are now at the point where subversive left wing ideology is doing real and recognisable harm to America's ability to defend itself and its allies. This is not by accident, it is by design. The Marxists never pushed this destructive nonsense on the Soviet Union. They do not push it on China and North Korea today. They want those nations to survive. The want America to perish.

 

America foolishly welcomed the Marxists into its bosom during and after World War II. They went on to take over its universities and mass media and are now close to using the various societal poisons they have cooked up to achieve their ultimate goal of destroying the host who they have despised from the outset. Destroying the military is but one small front in this all out civilisational assault. There are many others. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Defence of Empire

One of the many great calumnies against European peoples, and the British in particular, is the mistelling of the history of Empire as some great criminal enterprise, raping and plundering the Earth for booty to bring back to Blighty. Stripping countries of their natural resources and condemning them to decades, or even centuries, of poverty thereafter. We are told that we "colonised" their lands making it only fair and proper that they should colonise ours now, which simultaneously represents payback, revenge, and an unalloyed blessing.

 

We are told that all of the world's current conflicts were caused by European Empires arbitrarily drawing lines on maps, with no regard for the composition of the ethnic and tribal groups who lived within them, by the same people who tell us that diversity is our greatest strength. If diversity is a strength in our countries, why is it not a strength in theirs?

 

Empire is given as the sole reason as to why we have more wealth than third world countries, and that we therefore have a duty to transfer some of that wealth back to them. The legacy of Empire will be used to explain and excuse failure in all third world countries from now until the end of time. This is, of course, hogwash.

 

 

Firstly let us address the issue of colonialism, which is often wrongly used as a synonym for Empire by those who like to use tricks with words to beguile people. To colonise is to send people from your ethnic group to a foreign land, with a view to forming settlements or colonies, in order to take demographic and political control of that land. The essence of colonisation is the transfer of people to achieve demographic change. The only significant countries colonised by the British were those which form the Anglosphere today. Namely, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Some of  the richest and most desirable nations on Earth. We did this by sending settlers to conquer what had been barren wildernesses, sparsely populated by painted savages who had progressed little past the stone age and were armed with no more than spears and arrows. .Every  country we colonised contained nothing worthwhile when we arrived. They were effectively vacant and there for the taking. It is absurd to suggest that our presence resulted in anything other than a considerable improvement over what had gone before. 

One thing the British unquestionably did better than other colonial powers was to take our women with us. By doing so we were able to produce ethnically British children who were capable of building and maintaining a near perfect recreation of the motherland with its laws, customs, and values. Compare this to the Spanish, who largely left their women at home and simply bred with the natives, leaving behind a mixed race or "mestizo" people who struggle to maintain a recognisable facsimile of a European civilisation.

 

 

The bulk of the British Empire, i.e. everything other than the four countries listed above, was neither extensively settled by the British nor conquered by military force. Sure, we had to put down the occasional rebellion, but by and large the British Empire was a commercial rather than a martial enterprise. We did not seek to displace the native populations of India or Africa and replace them with our own. We provided a small governing and managerial elite to ensure that things could be run smoothly and that trade would not be hindered by the nepotism, tribalism or corruption endemic in those societies. We brought stable governance, law and order, and technology. We built infrastructure such as roads and railways. We gave them all the tools required to build a functioning country, things which took us millennia to develop and perfect. They embraced and welcomed British rule because it was infinitely preferable to what came before it.

At the height of the British Raj there were fewer than 100,000 Britons in India to govern a population of over 300 million. They could have kicked us out any time they wanted. They chose not to.  As Afghanistan has proved, you cannot govern without the consent of the governed. We had that consent. Similar small British populations governed vast populations of natives throughout the Empire.Their rule was consensual.

 

The Pax Britannica ensured global peace for 200 years, We kept the Islamic world in check. No one starved in Africa when we ran it. Investment in Africa was higher during the British Empire than it is today, because law and order and property rights are of greater commercial appeal than idealistic nonsense from NGOs and a corrupt government that could seize your assets at any moment. The fall of the British Empire was the greatest calamity of the 20th Century. The direct cause of much of the global chaos we see today.

 

African countries which belonged to European Empires are richer today than those which were not. This is the true legacy of "colonialism". The former British colonies of Hong Kong and Singapore are some of the most prosperous places on Earth. When people try to blame the current state of Africa, without evidence, on the legacy of European Empires, I say there is a far more logical explanation.

Today we see teeming millions fleeing from Sub Saharan Africa and the Islamic world, clamoring to seek better lives in the countries which once colonised them. What they crave is good and stable governance, security and prosperity.  This model is unsustainable. Our small nations cannot hope to absorb the billions who desire to live under our beneficent rule. I suggest that the only way to solve this seemingly intractable problem is to take up the white man's burden, to provide them with stable governance in their own countries, using the model which worked well for centuries, that of Empire. 

 

 

The Enemy of the People

On Friday, we learned that Kyle Rittenhouse had been acquitted on all charges relating to the three people he shot in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year.  In the run up to every shooting Kyle was running away, pursued, and then attacked, by the person he went on to shoot. He did not shoot anyone who was not attacking him at that precise moment. All of this was captured on video and confirmed by every witness. This was as clear a case of self defence as you will ever see. However, this is not the impression you would have got from watching the mainstream media. 

 

Their consistent and clear narrative was that Kyle was a white supremacist (false), militia member (false), who traveled across state lines (false and irrelevant), carrying an illegal weapon (false) with the intention of hunting people who were only there to demonstrate peacefully for the safety and dignity of black lives (false).

 

After the true and just verdict, they ran with the narrative that this was an example of white privilege and the unequal justice system in America. That if a black man had acted in lawful self defence, as Kyle did, he would have been convicted of murder, or more likely just shot dead by police in the street. This is absurd. Every element of their narrative is demonstrably false, but they ran with it anyway. They are not negligently dishonest, they are fraudulently dishonest.  A white man shooting three white and Jewish men in self defence has nothing to do with race or with black people. But the media made it all about race, and look what happened. This happened. 

 

 

A black man, with ties to the Black Lives Matter movement, drove an SUV through a small town Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, containing High School marching bands and groups such as the Milwaukee Dancing Grannies. Five people are dead so far. Around forty are injured, some seriously.

 

In this age of all too frequent atrocities it is easy to become hardened to it all. Most terrorist outrages barely even register anymore. But, like the Berlin Christmas market truck attack in 2016, there is something about this slaughter that has really struck a chord. Christmas is a time of wholesomeness and decency. A time when we try to be the best version of ourselves. It is the setting of so many of our most treasured memories. It goes right to the heart of the European psyche and soul. An attack on Christmas is an attack on our very essence. 

I do not hate the man who committed this attack. He was a gullible fool, a useful idiot, an empty headed simpleton, who carried out his subliminal programming. He is not capable of the manifest evil of the people who really caused this with their abominable lies. The people who programmed him. The kind of people who have little regard for Christmas, or the sacred customs of the country in which they live, and see an attack on them as an ironic joke. 

 

 

And how do the media liars who caused this carnage face up to it? How do they account for the death and devastation they have caused? They bury it on page A-22. You may have to click to enlarge to even see the headline. It is right at the bottom in tiny font. Clearly far less important to the staff of the New York Times than the lead story about Israel.

These are the same people whose lies about Mike Brown having said "hands up don't shoot" led to weeks of violent riots in Ferguson, Missouri. The same people whose lies about the circumstances of the shooting of Breonna Taylor, who was caught in the crossfire after her drug dealer boyfriend opened fire on police during a raid, led to violent riots in Kentucky last year. The same people whose lies about the shooting of Jacob Blake, an armed black man shot by police in the act of attempting to escape arrest, caused the Kenosha riots which were the scene of the  Rittenhouse case. The same people who turned the death of George Floyd, in which there was not even an allegation of a racial motive, into the greatest race hate crime of the century causing months of riots, billions of dollars of property damage, and dozens of deaths.

 

The Father of Lies

These are people who maliciously foment strife and mayhem for their own profit and political advantage. These are the people who really do incite racial hatred, and do so to an audience of millions, in exchange for a seven figure salary. These are the people who instigate mob violence to pervert the judicial and political processes, who intimidate jurors, who dox and smear their opponents, who make the ancient Anglo Saxon values of fairness and impartiality near impossible in the modern age. The media. The children of the father of lies. These people are an unspeakable evil and I hate them with a burning passion. They are, the enemy of the people. 

Morgoth Guest Video: Paradise Lost and the Birth of the Left

I must apologise for shamelessly ripping off Morgoth's content for the second week in a row. It was not my intention to do so. However, this thought provoking piece really caught my attention. It is the most interesting thing I have seen in quite some time and it is certainly better than anything I could have come up with this week. I believe it merits thorough consideration and thoughtful discussion by the best comment section on the right side of the internet. Please watch this video as I would very much like to hear everyone's opinions on it before we go off on our usual tangents to discuss everything under the sun.

 

As I am pilfering Morgoth's content yet again I think it is only fair that I should ask you to like this video on YouTube and subscribe to his channel if you haven't already done so. If you feel inclined to give him at tip for all his sterling work you can do so at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/morgoth