On Buchannan

  I’ve been aware of the Left’s intellectual shortcomings since I first turned my attention to such things, an awareness hardly unique to me individually. I, like others on the Alt. Right, have been equally aware of its increasingly totalitarian nature. One observation I have not seen advanced in this milieu is that of the connection between the two; the Left’s growing inclination towards repression as the direct end result of its socially driven and anti-intellectual nature. The recent dismissal of Pat Buchannan from MSNBC programming, in my view, exemplifies this.



  Prior to addressing the issue, I would like to outline the current status of public expression and the Left’s role therein. While persistent in their portrayal of the “Right” (i.e. movement conservatives) as would be moral regulators, it’s worth noting the actual absence of such intentions within that milieu. In this regard, the Left appears to still be living in the 1950’s, where “obscenity laws” and “decency standards” (whose abolition I retroactively support) were the law of the land, and comedians were martyred for using four letter words. In 2012, this is not the case; conservatives have seen speech regulation for the waste it is, and have passed the baton to its former victims, who’ve turned it on them with a pious moralism just as nauseating as the Moral Majority before them.



  As this milieu is painfully aware, speech repression, all of it leftist in imposition, is the norm throughout the contemporary West, with the same set of laws (“hate speech” “Holocaust denial”) present in Oceana, Europe, and Canada. By virtue of the first amendment to its constitution, the U.S. has been graciously spared these legal transgressions; the impermanence of this grace period is woefully obvious, as the American Left salivates over the legal accomplishments of its overseas brethren with a lust unseen outside an 18 yr olds’ first visit to the local strip club. To their dismay, their ability to dictate expression is limited to “speech codes” at public universities. This will change, however, with the increasing consolidation of their institutional power, and with the state’s already negligent attitude towards the constitution.



  Predictably, the rationale for such legislation is weakly fortified and easily destroyed. “Hate speech” laws are routinely packaged with the subtitle “incitement to violence”, the logic being that racially inflammatory speech will awaken the inner Manchurian candidates of its recipients, who will proceed to march directly to the nearest racial minority and carry out his pre-programmed assault mission. This argument ignores the fact that purveyors of “hate speech” preach exclusively to their own choir, with attempts at community outreach nonexistent. It ignores also the fact that the average adult human being is not immediately going to take up arms and commit an act of violence because of something they recently read. The Left’s oblivious to common rationality is eerily reminiscent of that of social conservatives who just knew one listen to Judas Priest’s Stained Class was sufficient to today’s normal adolescent into tomorrow’s suicide headline.



  The second argument (if thy ideological nemesis hath two unrelated arguments for the same position, ye need worry little about defeat) is even weaker, and yet from that derives its insidiousness. This second defense asserts that the right to free expression needs to be limited lest it “harm” others. This here would be laughable if it weren’t dangerous; only a child would consider emotional equal to physical harm, the potential of the latter considered. Unlike the other argument, which is the hand wringing of a hysteric, this view is a manifestation of cultural decay. That there are many who nod approvingly in its direction cannot be explained otherwise. Regardless of origin, both defenses end with a caveat differentiating “hate speech” and “free speech”, the former, as we’re always reminded, is “not a part of” the latter. This line is a curious sleight of hand, as it allows them to pay lip service to a concept while subverting it, but it too is easily smote: if speech is at all restricted, then “free” is redefined as only what is publicly permitted, undermining the original concept in the first place.



  The application to Buchannan is an intricate one. This being the U.S., Buchannan’s penalty for his digression from socially sanctioned opinion is bearable; exile from a glorified entertainment network, where his sole purpose was to provide ammunition for its liberal overlords, is no loss. One could contend that we lost an outlet for disseminating our views, but MSNBC’s viewership is most infertile ground for this, as they mainly either muted or changed the channel the moment of his appearance. Being an antagonist within the mass media is a pleasurable hobby, not a position exploitable for serious purposes. It does, however, clarify our modus operandi for us: the mainstream is to be avoided until we have amassed ground level support sufficient to force their attention, regardless of how unsavory our views are perceived. Not to pander to populism, but the old adage regarding power in numbers is not only correct but useful in rendering irrelevant established dogma.



  Said dogma is what drives the liberal response to Buchannan, and to his firing, and, it must be said….nothing else. The messages attached by signers of the online petition are well worth reading. As has become characteristic of the Left, the usual barrage of isms and phobias were unleashed, each epiphet repeated to a degree of ad nausaum. The endless repetition of the same terms, and the complete dearth of originals, turns the message board into a virtual echo chamber. The posters are unbothered by the fact that they’re merely restating the previous comment, and that this does not stimulate a real discussion. This is fine, however, as such is not their goal, which is self satisfaction through the shared pointing of fingers of an approved target. Mob psychology at its lowest ebb, easily destructible if not for the sheer numbers it appears in. The recurring assertion that Buchannan’s views are invalidated by their age, and the claim to have changed the channel upon Buchannan’s MSNBC appearances, bear this out; my views are superior to his so I need not confront and debate them on rational grounds. I shall instead relax and feel validated knowing the number of others who share my views.



  This, in essence, explains the growing fondness for repression on the Left….it’s not what they feel obligated to do, but entitled not to.