Someone I Know Just Admitted They’re a White Nationalist
And that the Bill of Rights doesn’t work with “uncivilized” people
This is going to be a difficult read for most people.
I need you, the reader, to be aware that the individual in question is not just some garden variety Trump supporter or Reagan conservative. The conversation I had with this individual, someone who I met a long time ago thought valued rational thinking, the value of the markets, and healthy patriotism just admitted to me that America would work better under a white ethnostate. It shocked me to my core but I’m discovering now I’m also not that surprised.
His justifications for his worldview are numerous and intellectual, or rather “intellectual sounding”, with a lot of personal anecdote that paints a grim picture. I can only review some of them here as I don’t recall all of his points. Needless to say, there is a lot, and I couldn’t possibly counter them all.
He observed and learned of the evils of communism across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. He observed as Jews time and again sided with communism and the left, even when communists killed Jews, and how it destroyed their cultural identity, how it led them to hate their homeland Israel, thus creating the basis for why he agrees with anti-semitism directed at left-wing Jews. No matter that anti-semitism eventually engulfs all Jewry. Jewish participation in communism is regrettable but there are many Jews who are also capitalist. That’s kind of the whole stereotype, isn’t it?
Israel is a much trickier topic, but it is undoubtedly a success story, albeit a controversial one. Of the people in my generation I’ve talked to, most consider Israel just that: a controversial success, with the ability and drive to do better if given the opportunity.
He hates how the left, ALL of which he considers to be communists or useful idiots for communists, have corrupted higher education, art, movies, and culture to reject the refined arts and culture of classical Europe. Vast marble architecture, exquisite painting, and beautiful classical symphonies have devolved into brutalism, post-modernism, and rap music. No matter then that just because he doesn’t see it, doesn’t mean its not there. Carnegie Hall was packed in attendance when I went for a classical concert about a year ago. Art museums with the great works continue to get lots of foot traffic (pre-virus of course). The great classics are not dead, they’ve been iterated upon or formed into their own cultural niches as is natural for historical subcultures to do. Rap music can also be really fun but that’s opinion.
He personally experienced racial hatred and bigotry from minorities towards him. He observed how the character of the country and city he lived in changed over time to be more dangerous, more hateful, more disorganized, more criminal, and more anti-free market as the country got more diverse and as people of African descent in particular gained influence. No matter that these diverse cities are the ones driving innovation and growth in the country still, even with their myriad social problems. Crime has also been steadily decreasing since its peak in the 90s. His personal anecdotes are likely true, as far as I can tell, and they are an unfortunate driver of his ideology. All the more reason why fighting racism from EVERYWHERE is important. Racism drives more racism. Extremism drives more extremism.
His mother and aunt used to be able to take the subway to their violin lessons from one borough in New York City to another, crossing through dangerous Irish and Italian mafia territory during the height of the Great Depression. They were fine. No parent would dare take that chance today in New York through certain minority neighborhoods. My Japanese cousin could walk the streets of Tokyo at night. Modern American cities with their diversity and multiculturalism can’t hope to compete against this type of safety, according to him. No matter that the very presence of Irish and Italian mobs meant that the city wasn’t actually safe and that the police were ineffective against organized crime. No matter that Japan has an entirely different set of historical, geographic, cultural, and political circumstances separate from the genetic characteristics of the Japanese race that have led to such low crime rates.
He hates that communist and left wing forces have destroyed any concept of the free market in the country, instead opting to replace meritocratic free market forces with communist equality to force incapable people into places where they’ll fail, like college. Generally I agree tax dollars should be used more effectively to build infrastructure and social services for African American communities instead of being used as a toxic government crutch. Every American should have the opportunity to pursue their purpose in life, and this doesn’t have include college or working a government job for low pay and benefits. The African American community’s attitudes to the free market and politics are actually quite nuanced. View this video to see this in action. Bottom line: African Americans are not some monolithic communist force.
He listens to right wing radio show hosts and ancap and right wing podcasters (most of whom are very well studied in philosophy, economics, and history), and Zero Hedge, which definitely reinforce his views, but among most of the people he watches or listens to, I have heard few state that the races should be separated and the Bill of Rights reserved only for those who are civilized enough to follow it. Well, at least not explicitly. Most are actually willing to give minorities, immigrants, and lefties a fair shake given they are willing to assimilate to American culture, end their support of socialism, and whatnot, with the caveat being that they have very specific American culture in mind.
That’s the thing that really blew my mind: he stated the Bill of Rights doesn’t work, at least not anymore. His justification for this belief was that the founders had “civilized” people in mind when they crafted the Bill of Rights. Only Europeans have the capacity to engage with such a document and such a rule set in society.
Unlike most familial political debates around the country, there is no common ground here. The arguments he makes are extremely difficult to counter because they are grounded in factual history and personal anecdotes. He also has a counter to every point I made (some of which are highly questionable of course but nonetheless, this discussion was exhausting). I just happen to think the conclusions he jumps to are way too far fetched. The divide is unbridgeable.
This man does not see people of African, South American, South East Asian descent to be intelligent enough to organize into European-style societies. All other issues are secondary to that “fact”. Naturally then, they will ask for government assistance instead of working their way up, as all of the other European and East Asian immigrant groups did. Naturally then, they will devolve the cultures and peoples they touch. Naturally then, they will lead to increases in crime and general societal dysfunction.
His solution is a white nationalist state that (somehow) isn’t also a white supremacist state. This utopian white nationalist state will have all the freedoms and rights guaranteed of the current United States but with small restrictions in place, like making sure journalists maintain the difference between news and editorial writing as well as current restrictions to free speech like yelling fire in a crowded theater. He envisions the existence of the right to peaceably assemble and the right to freely practice religion, so long as it respects the Judeo-Christian tradition (he did not explicitly state this but he hates Islam so…)
He states this vision is not unrealistically utopian because he states he lived it during the 1950s. This is perhaps a statement that is, in a tragically comic way, a confirmation that 1950s America was at least reminiscent of a white ethnostate. Undoubtedly, that was a decade of incredible prosperity for the United States, one he would credit to white Americans doing what they apparently do best in his view: innovating, building, creating, and being free. The social pathology of the lesser races, particularly Africans, prevents them from accomplishing anything. Why did the Cubans succeed in Miami when they immigrated from Fidel’s regime? Why did the Irish, treated so harshly when they first arrived, succeed? Why did all of the European races succeed, and Africans and Latinos didn’t?
Nevermind that the United States got rich off of rebuilding Europe in the 50s and gaining all of the world’s gold reserves during the Bretton Woods agreement when the dollar became the world’s reserve currency. Nevermind that the baby boomer generation is the perfect example of the notion that a bigger labor pool means a bigger economy. And nevermind that African Americans were actually improving their lot in life, perhaps not as fast as others and not in certain regions of the country, but improving nonetheless.
No, everything must be about race, genetics, and IQ. No matter that the most avid supporters of the IQ test like Jordan Peterson and Stefan Molyneux (controversial figures in their own respects) have specifically stated that one can not judge an individual by the greater racial IQ statistic. No matter that the Ayn Rand Institute, the think tank left behind by the founding matriarch of Objectivist philosophy he so admires, explicitly states that racism is one of the worst forms of collectivism imaginable. No matter that he also personally admires Thomas Sowell, one of the staunchest African American defenders of free market thinking, but would throw him out of the country if it meant getting the white nationalist state set up. No matter. They are all either misguided, or never had to run a society, or are a necessary casualty for the ethnostate vision.
No matter that he has done the very thing the founders feared: traded freedom for order. No matter that he doesn’t realize freedom for all is supposed to be dangerous and chaotic and conflicting to some degree. Live in dangerous freedom than secure slavery? Nope, sign this man up for authoritarianism, for order, for stability. Its a wonder why he doesn’t support Russia and China. Their authoritarian and ethnic systems seem to be a perfect fit for him.
No matter that his personal experiences were common for a New York City struggling with racial tension throughout the second half of the 20th century, and that they perhaps don’t reflect realities in the New York City of today which, while gentrifying, still remains incredibly diverse and also still remains the source of about 20% of the nations GDP, making it an incredibly important economic engine for the economy.
No matter that the news sources he listens to have their own agendas to peddle and money to make. Anti-establishment and populist nationalist rhetoric have become big money makers these days. Anyone can gain some margin of success spouting out such thought. Do they believe it truly? Are they perhaps telling their truth with the same editorialized slant that main stream liberal media tells their truth?
No matter then that the younger generations in this country are perfectly capable of rational discourse and political and economic nuance. All, and I mean ALL, of the deep conversations on economics and politics I’ve had with my friends (most of which are at the very least college educated, and some of which are minorities) have very centrist and perhaps even libertarian left leanings on things. Our generational philosophy boils down to: let people do what they want as long as they don’t harm anyone. Non-aggression principal, anyone?
Our generation also recognizes the need to keep a lid on government power and government waste but also on the excesses of a crony capitalist system that destroys free market competition and individual prosperity under the guise of being “pro-business”. It’s the best of “bottom unity” for anyone familiar with the political chart meme.
This individual and I have agreed to disagree. There is no way either one of us is adopting the other’s worldview. Our experiences are too different. Our base assumptions about the nature of man are too different.
The individual I have described here has lost all faith in the American experiment, in Enlightenment values of humanism, rationalism, and freedom that America was based on, in the unchanging nature of man to be free.
That’s tragic, but its okay.
I’ll take up that mantle. I’ll take up that faith. I’ll continue to treat my fellow humans of any race, gender, nationality, religion, and identity with dignity and respect. And every time they treat me the same in return, we will both prove him wrong. I will continue to be a staunch defender of the freedoms provided to all Americans. I will continue to wrest ideological control of free-marketism from toxic traditionalist philosophies. I will continue to fight against the authoritarian and anarchist impulses of ideologies of all kinds from the 20th century and the misguided paternalist impulses of ideologies from the 21st.
I’ll be free and I’ll continue to ensure my fellow Americans will be free.
Congrats on making it through this article. I think we could all use some humor. Here’s a video from one of the greatest political satirists of our time.
