Volunteer John Badersire cleans the streets after several days of looting following the imprisonment of former South Africa President Jacob Zuma in Durban, South Africa, July 15, 2021. REUTERS/Rogan Ward
One has to stay wise these days. One needs to decide for themselves how proactive to be as well as to self-educate in the ways of protecting one’s self, family and property.
While it may not be natural as a US citizen to pay attention to what the innocent people in other countries are going through to learn from their wisdom AND mistakes, I contend that y’all give it some thought in the days and weeks to come. A lot of history has happening very fast these days and having the wisdom to see the red flags can help.
An article from Alt. Market US by Brandon Smith helps us fast-track today’s learnings .. here is his summary:
South Africa is a warning to Americans: Do not get too comfortable. Do not get complacent. Be ready for the next shoe to drop. Prepare accordingly, and understand that a fight is coming.
The establishment will place its bets that the unrest and economic disaster will create manufactured consent. They believe that the public will be sufficiently desperate and will beg for totalitarianism as a solution. Do not find yourself among the desperate, and if you can, organize your community to weather the storm.
Finally, always remember who the people are that caused this mess in the first place. Rioters and looters are going to be a problem, but they are not the true enemy. The people behind the curtain need to be dealt with if we are ever going to find peace again.
If you haven’t seen the pictures and videos from South Africa .. you might want to acquaint yourself:
Just know this is not a recent occurrence. Back before Covid in 2018 the ANC (African National Congress) was already “legally” (by way of altering laws) confiscating land and ensuring the minority white population bore the brunt of the struggles this once prosperous country is now going through. Even then there were blacks in South Africa who understood that racial based land expropriation was not honorable:
The largest ethnic group in South Africa, Zulu, has spoken out against the racial expropriation of land without compensation in the country. Zulu is ready to cooperate with the country’s white farmers, known as “Afrikaners” or “Boers” to prevent the seizure of their land
So this past month’s violence has a familiar ring to it .. try this insight and see if you don’t agree:
South Africa’s government under the ANC (African National Congress) was already going full communist in 2018-2019 before the covid pandemic. Under proposed amendments to the constitution, they demanded that “reparations” be taken from white farmers in the form of land grabs, which would then be redistributed to black citizens.
This is the classic critical race theory argument – That because colonialism once existed, all beneficiaries and their supposed descendants owe dues to the descendants of indigenous people who lost their lands. The problem is, only the descendants of WHITE colonists are required to pay dues.
So how is this Antifa/BLM-like violence in South Africa supposed to make a difference here in the USA?
This is on top of South Africa’s already high poverty level and the fact that, unlike the US with its world reserve currency, South Africa does not have the same ability to print stimulus checks from thin air to placate the masses and hide the damage.
Not surprisingly the ANC refuses to acknowledge that the primary cause of the riots has been their own lockdown policies. Instead, they have blamed the the crisis on the arrest of former president Jacob Zuma for contempt of court charges as the trigger. This may have added gasoline to the fire, but it was not the cause. When the government is actively sabotaging the ability of millions of people to work and feed their families the only other option left for most is theft, or revolution.
Supply chains in the country have been completely disrupted and the only retail outlets with stock are those protected by the military or those protected by business owners armed with guns and baseball bats. Only 6% of the population is allowed to own firearms under South Africa’s gun control bureaucracy and red tape. The government has a near monopoly on force and it is unlikely that the mobs will change much in terms of policy, but they do make life hell for the rest of the population.
The civil unrest in this region is, in my opinion, a preview of what is to come in the US and other western nations. We have already seen riots in France, Italy and other parts of the western world over legislation that would make the experimental mRNA vaccines mandatory through vaccine passports.
The unrest the US saw in the summer of 2020 will return. Time will tell what components of our various societies will take part in the city streets and beyond.
Personally, I do hope that the concept of nation-states reemerges like it did with the original 13 colonies became sovereign and came together in a confederation in 1781 against the British Empire. The efforts by those who love ONE nation/empire to wage war on the 7 southern states in 1861 will initially make people think to split the US is a pipe dream. But there is nothing like loss of property and life to transition one’s thinking to this realm of thinking ..
I plan to read this 120 page book by Hans this weekend and will get back to you.
Yeah right! I did not get far. Why? Distractions, and not just the ones that come with everyday life, work, marriage, family, travel, groceries, cleaning, etc. These distractions include Facebook, Twitter, Gab, MeWe, e-mails that bombard us with news. Just sorting out the real news from fake news can be exhausting (however, if one just refuses to turn on the TV, refuses to get their news-feed from FB, Google, Yahoo, Fox, MSNBC, CNN, etc .. you can cut down on the effort).
CSI is hard work, and the elites know that. Their hope is that you just accept what they are spoon-feeding you through main stream and main social media OR that you just give up and ignore the fact that Rome is indeed burning. Both options have pretty serious consequences.
How far did I get in Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s book? Only 25% in Kindle language. But far enough to see how this particular line of thought on “niceness” weaves in with what others are seeing.
I have been following The Burning Platform as one of the places that highlights articles that MSM will not touch. Sometimes is is easier than searching on my own with my other news sources line Lew Rockwell, Bionic Mosquito, Moon of Alabama, RT, Mint Press, Fort-Russ, Woodpile Report, Armstrong Economics and more. Just know that no one site mirrors my own life-views as I believe we are all unique, not just by the individual, but also based on where we are at on our life’s journey. The 1980 me would look at some of the sites and say “what?!?!?!”.
So in my reading of Hans’ book “Getting Libertarianism Right”, I found this gem that just might cause you to say “what?!?!?!”. First off, Hans paints the reality of the world we live in in 2019:
“Everyone and every conceivable group is a ‘victim,’ except that small part of mankind composed of white (including northern Asian) heterosexual males, living traditional, bourgeois family lives. They, and especially the most creative and successful ones among them (excluding interestingly only rich sports or entertainment celebrities), are the ‘victimizers’ of everyone else.”
Fact. You can’t escape knowing this in these days. It has come to that.
Next, Hans shows the difficulty the “left-libertarians” have in achieving their other goals of leveling the playing field:
“Both groups only differ on the cause of this similarly identified, described and deplored ‘structural state of victimization.’ For the cultural Marxists, the cause for this state of affairs is private property and unbridled capitalism based on private property rights. For them, the answer how to repair the damage done is clear and easy. All necessary restitution, compensation and redistribution are to be done by the State, which they presumably control.
For the left-libertarians this answer does not work. They are supposed to be in favour of private property and the privatization of State-property. They cannot have the State do the restitution, because as libertarians they are supposed to dismantle and ultimately abolish the State. Yet they want more restitution than only that resulting from the privatization of all so-called public property. Abolishing the State is not enough for them to create a just society. More is needed to compensate the just mentioned huge majority of victims.”
More is needed? Obviously, if one has proof of victim-hood like being the target of a theft, one has their own country’s judicial system to work that out as long as there is evidence. (NOTE: The US justice system is very unjust as we are approaching a time when what one posts on social media can alter some state score that therefore determines what if any justice they might grant you.)
The left-libertarians actually give an evasive answer that Hans sums up this way:
“From all I can gather, it amounts to little more than an exhortation. As a keen observer of the intellectual scene has summarized it: “Be nice!” More precisely: You, you small group of ‘victimizers,’ must always be especially ‘nice,’ forgiving, and inclusive vis-à-vis all members of the vast majority of ‘victims,’ i.e., the long and familiar list of everyone except white, heterosexual males! And as for enforcement: All ‘victimizers’ not demonstrating proper respect to some victim-class member, i.e., victimizers who are ‘nasty,’ unforgiving, or exclusive, or who say ‘nasty’ or disrespectful things about them, must be publicly shunned, humiliated, and shamed into obedience!”
This is reality in 2019. This is the reason for Diversity and Inclusion efforts across this land. It is no longer “fair” to let merit determine advancement or even retention at a corporation or government position, there has to be a victim rating/quota applied.
Hans has strong words for this:
“Why should anyone be particularly nice to anyone else—apart from respecting ones’ respective private property rights in certain specified physical means (goods)? To be nice is a deliberate action and takes an effort, like all actions do. There are opportunity costs. The same effort could also be put to other effects. Indeed, many if not most of our activities are conducted alone and in silence, without any direct interaction with others, as when we prepare our meal, drive our car, or read and write. Time devoted to ‘niceness to others’ is time lost to do other, possibly more worthwhile things.
This is a fact. Being nice takes energy, and to be authentic, it takes a heart action towards prioritizing the other at this point in time. What comes next had me “take a step back”:
Moreover, niceness must be warranted. Why should I be nice to people who are nasty to me? Niceness must be deserved.
My recoil has to do with my life-view that we are all made in the image of our Creator and are all loved by Him regardless of our performance. At the same time, being the perfect Father, He does not let our bad decisions from having their consequences in this broken world. In fact, many times it is just the fact that it is a broken world that has bad things happen to people who don’t deserve it, and in these situations, although He could intervene, He might opt out as any father of adult children might do as well. We love our adult kids, and we don’t want them hurting, but sometimes these things can down the road make you stronger and a better person, able to help others that have the same experiences. A perfect, all-powerful Father, not acting to prevent something is a stumbling block for many atheists and believers. However, as a Father, knowing what I know, I trust His judgement just as I would the Prodigal Father (The Bible, Luke 15:11-32), who let both his sons come to the end of their ropes because in the end he just wanted a relationship with him.
But I digress, basically, being “nice” is not always required. Yes, you have heard of “turn the other cheek” (not holding a grudge) and “pray for your enemies”, but this same perfect Man did turn tables on the religious temple police and speak truth (in love) to the religious elite of His day. His anger, his words (calling the religious elite blind guides) and His actions say that there is a time for not being “nice”. Even to one of His closest earthly friends He said: “Get behind me Satan” (The Bible Matt 16:23) as well as “Let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one.” (for self-protection in a broken world).
Hans goes on to share what happens in the long run:
Indiscriminating niceness diminishes and ultimately extinguishes the distinction between meritorious and faulty conduct. Too much niceness will be given to undeserving people and too little to deserving ones and the overall level of nastiness will consequently rise and public life become increasingly unpleasant.
Moreover, there are also genuinely evil people doing real evil things to real private property owners, most importantly the ruling elites in charge of the State-apparatus, as every libertarian would have to admit. One surely has no obligation to be nice to them! And yet, in rewarding the vast majority of ‘victims’ with extra love, care, and attention, one accomplishes precisely this: less time and effort is devoted to exhibiting nasty behaviour toward those actually most deserving of it. The power of the State will not be weakened by universal ‘niceness,’ then, but strengthened.”
We have seen this. As the Zman on The Burning Platform shares:
.. the principled conservatives, who are always ready to create a new set of conservative principles to excuse the excesses of the Left .. It’s not hard to see why normal middle-class white people find this appealing. They live ordered lives and just want to be left to live those ordered lives in peace. What they don’t want to see is violence in the streets and they certainly don’t want to be asked to confront those violent crazies on their streets. ..
This cycle where the Left commits outrages against civility and the white middle-class accommodates it, has led to where we are now. The people calling themselves the defenders of democracy tried to subvert the last Presidential election. The so-called social justice warriors celebrate a black movie star walking free after perpetrating a blood libel against white people. The defenders of open debate on the college campus, rush to suppress any opinion not on the increasingly narrow list of approved opinions.
The link from CBS that set Zman off was this one .. know that this message is being propagated far and wide:
Zman concludes:
The blood lust of the ruling class for whites not obediently walking into the void, is now undeniable. Their response to the 2016 election was to declare war on white America. In their minds, it is a defensive war and they are fully justified to use any means necessary to win. There will be no point where they pull back, fearing they have gone too far. Instead they will always seek to go further.
Again, America is a land where books are banned, people are given long prison terms for holding unpopular opinions and the livelihoods of contrarians are destroyed. This is a land where gangs of roving mobs, financed by billionaires, commit violence against citizens without consequence. Now we have a major television network calling for violence against whites and celebrating violent acts against a specific person. All of this was thought to be impossible ten years ago. What impossible thing will tomorrow bring?
That is a downer. All one has to do is look at South Africa as a place that is only a few years ahead of the US as far as victims demanding property.
But Hans’ summary (long but very worth the read) hits the nail on the head and places things in their proper perspective and not in the fantasy land that the global elites / Marxists would like everyone to believe for their own agenda:
“And why is it in particular the small minority of white, heterosexual males, and especially its most successful members that owes some extra-kindness to the vast majority of all other people? Why not the other way around?
After all, most if not all technical inventions, machines, tools, and gadgets in current use everywhere and anywhere, on which our current living standards and comforts largely and decisively depend, originated with them. All other people, by and large, only imitated what they had invented and constructed first. All others inherited the knowledge embodied in the inventors’ products for free. And isn’t it the typical white hierarchical family household of father, mother, their common children and prospective heirs, and their ‘bourgeois’ conduct and lifestyle—i.e., everything the Left disparages and maligns—that is the economically most successful model of social organization the world has ever seen, with the greatest accumulation of capital goods (wealth) and the highest average standards of living?
Great question. Although the family has been under the attack of government types for generations (because without a daddy in the family, government can fill that role and have the mom and kids become dependent on him), there is a hint of jealousy and envy ramping up across various sub-cultures not only in the USA but in Europe and elsewhere as well.
And isn’t it only on account of the great economic achievements of this minority of ‘victimizers’ that a steadily increasing number of ‘victims’ could be integrated and partake in the advantages of a worldwide network of the division of labour? And isn’t it only on account of the success of the traditional white, bourgeois family model also that so-called ‘alternative lifestyles’ could at all emerge and be sustained over time? Do not most of today’s ‘victims,’ then, literally owe their lives and their current living to the achievements of their alleged ‘victimizers?’ Why not the ‘victims’ giving special respect to their ‘victimizers’? Why not bestow special honor to economic achievement and success instead of failure, and why not give special praise to traditional, ‘normal’ lifestyles and conduct rather than any abnormal alternative that requires, as a necessary condition of its own continued existence, a pre-existing dominant surrounding society of ‘normal’ people with ‘normal’ lifestyles?”
Ouch, truth hurts. The fact that government itself loves the idea of segregating society into victims and victimizers is that it can profit from being the arbitrator, the judge and in some people’s mind, a god.
Ok, enough distractions for the day, back to my book ..
In summary, it is important to know where people are coming from. The illusions they carry keep them from any foundational truths that might help them escape being used by the system to enrich the evil entrenched in the swamp in Washington DC as well as in many governments across the globe. Empathy is great, being nice is over-rated and comes will undesirable long term effects.
Remember:
“Religion killed Christ. Or I might add religion partnered with politics. History shows that when religious and political establishments come together for a cause, it often involves violence, war, and death.” – Bruxy Cavey in The End of Religion
“wise as serpents and harmless as doves“
PLUS
“Let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one.”
The latest attempt at further fracturing race relations towards ensuring politicians are employed well into the future is the idea of reparations for blacks in the US. Just like the Republicans of the late 1860s and early 1870s, the Democrats of today want to use blacks in the US to enrich their future to provide a government service in the form of money to offset past wrongs. It isn’t that politicians want every black person in the US to get a check, oh no, it is that they would “manage” this enormous fund and determine who is worthy to receive other taxpayer’s money.
Walter E. Williams in a 2014 piece (yes, this subject has been cycling thorough the US for many decades) explains the complexities involved:
One of the most ignored facts about slavery’s tragic history — and it’s virtually a secret today — is that slavery was a worldwide institution for thousands of years. It did not become a moral issue until the 18th century. Plus, the moral crusade against slavery started in the West, most notably England.
By worldwide, Walter means that blacks AND whites were slaves at one time or another. Even Alphonse-Louis Vinh noted in this recent post that:
Yes, slavery is evil, but this was something that was universal. Slavery was the backbone of our ancestral civilisation, the Greco-Roman World. Slavery has been universal for at least 5,000 years. Slavery still exists in the Muslim world. The monstrous evil of sexual slavery, which is a major concern of mine, exists everywhere, and I want to help destroy it.
To be specific, a decade ago there was NO slavery in Libya, but today, thanks to the US/NATO overthrow of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, this horrible practice is again thriving in this region. Bombing the world for “democracy” should be the US Empire’s tagline!
So lets get back to Walter E. Williams list of complexities to consider.
First and foremost:
.. let me say that I agree with reparations advocates that slavery was a horrible, despicable violation of basic human rights. The gross discrimination that followed emancipation made a mockery of the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution. I also agree that slave owners and slave traders should make reparations to those whom they enslaved. The problem, of course, is that slaves, slave owners and slave traders are all dead. Thus, punishing perpetrators and compensating victims is out of the hands of the living .. What moral principle justifies punishing a white of today to compensate a black of today for what a white of yesterday did to a black of yesterday?
Exactly. Great question. However, there is more!
Government has no resources of its very own. The only way for government to give one American a dollar is to first — through intimidation, threats and coercion — confiscate that dollar from some other American .. A large percentage, if not most, of today’s Americans — be they of European, Asian, African or Latin ancestry — don’t even go back three or four generations as American citizens. Their ancestors arrived on our shores long after slavery. What standard of justice justifies their being taxed to compensate blacks for slavery? For example, in 1956, thousands of Hungarians fled the brutality of the USSR to settle in the U.S. What do Hungarians owe blacks for slavery?
Another great question. How on earth is government going to do this “fairly”? DNA testing? Even that has issues in trying to determine the descendants of both white slave-owners and black slaves. But wait, there is more!
During slavery, some free blacks purchased other blacks as a means to free family members.
But other blacks owned slaves for the same reason whites owned slaves — to work farms or plantations. Are descendants of these slaveholding blacks eligible for and deserving of reparations?
Exactly. How does one determine the motive of people that lived in the US states of MD, KY, MO, DE (yes, these were slave states too) as well as TX, LA, AK, MS, AL, TN, GA, SC, NC, and VA prior to December 1865 when chattel slavery was abolished?
Adding to the complicated nature of this issue is the way slaves were captured in Africa (by African blacks) and placed on US New England slave ships, financed by US New England investors to get the slaves to Washington DC (yes, slave auctions were a thing there), Richmond, VA and Charleston, SC.
When African slavery began, there was no way Europeans could have enslaved millions of Africans. They had no immunity from diseases that flourished in tropical Africa. Capturing Africans to sell into slavery was done by Arabs and black Africans. Would reparations advocates demand that citizens of Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Kenya and several Muslim states tax themselves to make reparation payments to progeny of people whom their ancestors helped to enslave?
The final thing Walter corrects is the myth that the slave system made for
Reparations advocates make the foolish unchallenged argument that the United States became rich on the backs of free black labor. That’s nonsense that cannot be supported by fact. Slavery doesn’t have a very good record of producing wealth. Slavery was all over the South, and it was outlawed in most of the North.
Buying into the reparations argument about the riches of slavery, one would conclude that the antebellum South was rich and the slave-starved North was poor. The truth of the matter is just the opposite. In fact, the poorest states and regions of our nation were places where slavery flourished — Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia — while the richest states and regions were those where slavery was absent: Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts.
Basically, the only reason the North could do what it did in 1861 when it commenced a war on Southern civilians was because it had prospered much more than the South from 1820s on to 1860. It was not always that way as from 1775 to the War of 1812 it was the South that was the most prosperous section of the young nation. So strong was the South that the North considered secession in 1798 and again in 1814 but never pulled the trigger.
Lastly, do we really want to open up this can of worms in the 21st century as to reparations for past slavery? The fact is that every nation in the world owes REPARATION to somebody ELSE.
Case in point is in this 2002 post about a case for reparations that was filed here in the US by Jack Kershaw of Menphis, TN:
[Jack] wants to file a class-action lawsuit against the US government for reparations. Not on behalf of the descendants of slaves but on behalf of Southerners of all races whose ancestors were the victims of the US government’s rampage of pillaging, plundering, burning, and raping of Southern civilians during the War for Southern Independence [so-called American Civil War]
While the Southerners of 1865-1877 and beyond were undoubtedly trashed by the vindictive Northern army and later Republican politicians, should we go back multiple generations across this globe and transact billions or trillions of dollars IF there is evidence to do so?
To be honest, the South took it on the chin for only wanting out of the marriage to this psycho partner called the Yankee/Northerner/Defender of the Union. Not only was this a legal move constitutionally (Lincoln was very careful to never acknowledge that secession took place), it was the right thing to do as it was well known by 1860 that the North got rich in part due to the tariff revenue generated in the South being REDISTRIBUTED to Northern “improvements” (steel industry, railroads, etc).
Some examples of wartime atrocities abound. To start with, the specific targeting of civilians was outright illegal when the North started the war against the “insurrection” (Lincoln’s word) in the South:
In 1860 international law — and the US government’s own military code — prohibited the intentional targeting of civilians in war, although it was recognized that civilian casualties are always inevitable. .. The kind of wanton looting and destruction of private property that was practiced by the Union army for the entire duration of the war was forbidden, and perpetrators were to be imprisoned or hanged. This was all described in great detail in the book, International Law, authored by San Francisco attorney Henry Halleck, who was appointed by Lincoln as general in chief of the Union armies in July 1862.
Early on in the war, frustrated Union officers took war to a new level and outside the bounds of law:
Unable to subdue their enemy combatants, many Union officers waged war on civilians instead, with Lincoln’s full knowledge and approval. Grimsley describes how Union Colonel John Beatty warned the residents of Paint Rock, Alabama, that “Every time the telegraph wire was cut we would burn a house; every time a train was fired upon we would hang a man; and we would continue to do this until every house was burned and every man hanged between Decatur and Bridgeport.” Beatty ended up burning the entire town of Paint Rock to the ground.
Note that this vengence was not aimed only at white civilians in the south (only 5% of them actually owned slaves since in a typical family of 5 at that time, the father generally owned the slaves), …
Slave states NOT in the Confederate States of America (CSA):
DELAWARE
112,216
1,798
18,966
110,418
587
3%
2%
KENTUCKY
1,155,684
225,483
166,321
930,201
38,645
23%
20%
MARYLAND
687,049
87,189
110,278
599,860
13,783
12%
13%
MISSOURI
1,182,012
114,931
192,073
1,067,081
24,320
13%
10%
… but the targeting included the slaves themselves. This actually makes more sense as post-war there was NOT a mass migration of blacks to the Northern states. Blacks may have initially thought that the white army from the North was there to free them, but the fact is, most Northerners did not want blacks competing for their jobs. The very potential for this mass migration was what prompted Lincoln, a “free-soil” Republican, to seriously consider sending blacks back to Africa or to the Caribbean.
In October of 1864 Sherman even ordered the murder of randomly chosen citizens in retaliation for Confederate Army attacks. He wrote to General Louis D. Watkins: “Cannot you send over about Fairmount and Adairsville, burn ten or twelve houses . . ., kill a few at random, and let them know that it will be repeated every time a train is fired upon . . .” (See John Bennett Walters, Merchant of Terror: General Sherman and Total War, p. 137).
The indiscriminate bombing of Southern cities, which was outlawed by international law at the time, killed hundreds, if not thousands of slaves. The slaves were targeted by Union Army plunderers as much as anyone. As Grimsley writes, “With the utter disregard for blacks that was the norm among Union troops, the soldiers ransacked the slave cabins, taking whatever they liked.” A typical practice was to put a hangman’s noose around a slave’s neck and threaten to hang him unless he revealed where the household’s jewelry and silverware were hidden. Some slaves were beaten to death by Union soldiers.
It is no doubt that black slaves knew that the North was not their true friends. The “Underground Railroad” went to Canada, not to any particular northern state. Only Wisconsin ever nullified the Fugitive Slave Act which mandated that escaped slaves were required by law to be returned to their owners in the slave states.
The fact that when both Indiana (1816) and Illinois (1818) abolished slavery upon statehood, they also ensure that black immigration was minimized by requiring blacks to produce legal documents proving they were free and posting bond of up to $1000 (in 1860 dollars – approximately $30,000 today!). Additional anti-immigration legislation was enacted (and supported by Lincoln) in Illinois in 1819, 1829 and 1853 and in Indiana in 1831 and 1852 as well as in the Michigan Territory in 1827. The bottom line was that Northern whites, and politicians themselves, feared black immigration!
In summary, reparations are best applied in real-time, within the generation of the offense. This is why even an author who suggests that Southerners are hard on General Sherman and Sheridan would state on the record:
Historian Lee Kennett, author of ‘Marching through Georgia: The Story of Soldiers and Civilians during Sherman’s Campaign’ page 286:
“Had the Confederates somehow won, had their victory put them in position to bring their chief opponents before some sort of tribunal, they would have found themselves justified (as victors generally do) in stringing up President Lincoln and the entire Union high command for violation of the laws of war, specifically for waging war against noncombatants.”
