As an American I think that I always assumed, as I imagine
many others do as well, that since the United States of America was culturally and philosophically
derived from the Classical Liberal values of the Enlightenment, and in general, born of the "Anglo-sphere", that many, if not most of our two nation's laws were shared.
Obviously this assumption was based more on notion rather than an exhaustive
study of English legal code, but regardless, I think that the idea of
Anglo-American "same-ness" is embedded fairly deep in the
consciousness of my fellow countrymen.
I have to admit that over the last couple of years, this
perception has been shattered for many of us who have been keen on studying, at
the very least, how cultural shifts in the US
have been paralleled by similar if not identical ones around the rest of the
world. The skeptic rebellion against "Gamergate", Intersectionism vs.
Free speech anti-PC culture, and the mounting dichotomy between the globalists
of the left and the sovreignists of the right has forced these issues to the
forefront of internet lifestyle and legacy media polemic, especially since the
highly contested elections of 2016.
In America this was overtly reflected, of
course, mostly by the election of Donald Trump, and in Great Britain, not so much by
the re-election of Theresa May, but more so by the Brexit referendum.
While Trump's style is a bone of contention, even to many
of his most ardent supporters, the issues with Theresa May run a lot deeper. Unlike Trump, who for all his
bravado, accomplishes his agenda piece-meal, Theresa May is perceived as a feckless mouth-piece who does
not reflect what the Tory party and its voters actually want. Even in the push
and pull of Brexit, May is in essence a "remainer" who only moves
forward with her parties agenda because she must.
The Conservative impulse is
strong in Britain,
but it must be wielded by the right leader, and May is not that ideal
helms-person. This phenomena of right party-wrong personality was made
demonstrably clear in the last election, where May was barely able to maintain
the slightest margin of a majority (with the aid of a coalition) against the
her Trotskyite anti-Semitic Labor Party foil, Jeremy Corbyn, who I wouldn't
trust to cat sit, let alone run a party and nation. The American equivalent of
Theresa May in the 2016 election would have been if instead of Trump, that the anointed
candidate was a Republican-in-name only, Neo-Con Corporatist like Lindsey
Graham receiving the nomination.
In the US, there is a reason why Neo-Cons, like war-hawk
John McCain, legacy scion Jeb Bush, flunky-stooge Chris Christie, and mealy-mouthed
Graham ranked at the bottom of the pack, and were firmly trounced by actual
Conservatives, Libertarians, and in the end, by a Socially Liberal "rabble
rousing" Populist. This was of course because of the Tea Party, and the
slow reformation of the Conservative movement in the US
over the last decade. As the rightist spectrum widened to take on a diversity
of platform, this forced the "factions" to move to acknowledging their
shared policy, rather than enforcing an outdated pecking order and forging yet
another coalition of "frienemies". The right in essence came together
to combat the left's dominion of the media, academia, and in general, in our
society at large. Due the far left's increasing radicalization, embrace of
Intersectionalism, and their abandonment of our once shared Classical Liberal
ideals for the greener pastures of Marxism, the mantle of these values fell
firmly to the right.
But, in Great Britain,
this was not so obvious.
Brexit certainly reflected the desire of a portion of the
voting public to escape the micro-globalism of the European Union's circular
economy, and the left predictably framed those who vied for sovereignty as
"old", "nativist", and of course, "racist" - as
if British citizens would no longer be able to call their friends in France, or
visit Ibiza for summer vacations if Brexit came to pass.
Regardless, the predictable tropes of the identitarian left
rang out as they accused everyone but themselves of racism, an ironic phenomena
as they focus almost exclusively on the subject of race, class, and gender
warfare, like the well-meaning, and for the most part unknowing, Marxists they
have become.
This media backlash was highlighted a few months prior in
Luton, when after years of internet activism, the press decided it was now time
to turn their guns on the "Britain First" movement, and the bile soon
followed.
For those of you who don't remember, or don't know, Britain
First is a Christian and nativist group that intentionally baits England's
Muslim community by marching through their neighborhoods. Conversely, the
Muslims of Luton are very adversarial and abusive to the group, claiming in
response that "England
is theirs", and regurgitating almost ISIS-like Caliphate rhetoric. All in
all an exercise in tension building and so, well, un-English.
For me, this situation vexes me in that the group, or at
least their leader, Jayda Fransen, was brought up on hate speech charges - a
not so minor offense in England,
suitable of substantial jail time. Now, I may not like the adversarial nature
of the group, and I might be suspect of their racism, or religious zealotry,
but to make cast their protest as illegal is just too authoritarian for me. But
this is the case with May's Britain, as humorous YouTube videos, what I would
call "light trolling", and even just expressing an opinion that
someone else does not agree with, has brought police into many a home.
Oh yes, didn't I mention? The police are not required to
have a warrant to do that in England
- they can just waltz right in. Oh, and they also don't have what we something
else we have in America,
a Constitution that guarantees our right as citizens to free speech. Who'd have
thunk it?
Discourse has been historically open in Great
Britain due to tradition, and one's right to
express one's opinion has always been insured by the sensibility of
"fairness" that is part and parcel of "British-ness". But
as I said, Marxists trade their natural born traditions and natural rights for
what they feel is a better code, that of an unrealistic future utopia, that has
of yet has had sketchy results at best, and has led many a nation in
Totalitarian Communism and caused the deaths of over 100 million persons in the
twentieth century.
But back to Fransen and her little group. To draw another parallel, I find the equation of Britain
First's marches quite similar to an intentionally immodestly dressed woman
walking through a Chasidic neighborhood in the US
or Israel and
having stones thrown at her. As a staunch secularist, I believe religious
extremists have no right to impose their way of life, be it guided by Sharia or
Halacha, on communities who do not share their religion or culture. However, on
the other hand, while I believe that the woman has the right to dress any way
she pleases, I guess I also feel that she should have known better than to
"push it in their face".
In my opinion, religious minorities who settle in other
nations must adjust to some extent to the dominant culture. They are free to
practice their faiths and to speak their languages, etc., but national secular
law must be viewed as transcendent of their personal religious code. In this
the majority or Christians, Hindus and Jews have accepted this Post-Napoleonic
paradigm, though I must add that a great number of Muslims, worldwide, have not
reached that cultural and philosophic level in their development yet.
If a certain percentage of the Muslims in England
continue to envision their dominance in Britain
as a means to coalesce it into "Pakistan North", they will eventually
be faced with much harder push back than a handful of Christian-nativist
activists carrying
a few placards
through "their" enclaves. Perhaps it will not be a "V for
Vendetta" future, but if Britain
continues to turn a blind eye to literally some 30,000 known ISIS
devotees and "grooming gangs" who live within their borders, I'm sure
that the British people from the ground up will not fail to oblige nationalist
expectations in the future. If the largest surveillance state in the world is
unwilling to take action, except for censoring internet opinion of its native
born citizens.
In the aftermath of the group's attention in England,
President Trump, for some reason felt the need to re-tweet the video, which of
course, triggered the anti-Breitbart / anti-Bannonite media, and ushered
renewed cries of "the sky is falling" Trrump-race-apocalypse. I for
one was not surprised by Theresa Mays placation of the media and moderate
Tories by condemning Trump's twittering, but then again, she is a feckless mess
of a PM.
Obviously, as is said in every case involving any Muslim, I
agree - "It's not all Muslims". However, I must point out that
historically, when Muslims achieve a certain population level within a dominant
society, including lands that are now Muslim dominant, they start to push their
agenda in a very overt way. Islam, as a machine, was designed as a community
conforming vehicle that only truly understands the inevitable outcome of its
own numerical domination. Because of this factor, there is always the danger of
a Muslim society coalescing into a theocracy.
Even though Judaism and Islam share many facets of belief,
practice and cultural sentiment, there is a good reason why Israel
is an intentionally secular state. Jews understand all too well the danger of
letting "the beards" run the show. The religious impulse dragged them into several wars with Rome that led to a massive decrease in their population. The same goes for Italy.
In the middle ages no one thought there was anything odd about a Pope leading military
campaigns. Now pretty much any Catholic would find that notion literally insane.
Objectively, I must point out that Muslims are only 1300 or
so years into their development and, if you parallel that with where Judaism or
Christianity were at that same point, both were massively violent.
Islam, in my opinion, presently requires a
"reformation" of a sorts, but that shift must spring from within their
community, not from without. Until this occurs the radical "jihadist"
element will continue to be problematic. It took the Romans beating down on the
Jews for half a millennia, and about the same amount of time with Christians
killing one another in Europe till they both said enough
is enough.
As stated, Islam and Judaism possess many culture and
legalistic similarities, and if you look at the Roman period, the distinction
between what defined a Jew as politically nationalist was tethered to local
family bonds and the faith. In many cases this was extreme and even eschatological,
such as in the Bar Kokba War, and Jesus' movement. Christians generally envision
JC as the prince of peace, but in a larger cultural context, and I'm sure to
Romans at the time, little difference between he and a member of ISIS
would have been discerned. After all, Jesus' second in command, Judas, was a
leading "Sicari" or "Iscariot", who were political
assassins that targeted Judean "collaborators" with Roman rule.
Around the time of the events in the gospels his group had just succeeding in
murdering the High Priest who ruled in conjunction with Herod and Pilate.
So,
what I'm saying is that Muslims in general possess the same inward, romanticized
view of their "activists" that Jews and Christians possessed in the
past and which pretty much does not match how non-Muslims view them.
Over the course of being diminished to a minority through war and dipersal, Jewish
halacha (religious law) came to state explicitly that national secular laws
takes precedence over Jewish religious law. Jews in one country can expect to
be in an army and fight and kill other Jews who are citizens of the enemy nation.
Christians also grasp this paradigm. But I expect that though Islam does state compliance, the more extreme a Muslim is in practice, the more they would have a problem with this notion, as their concept of community vis-a-vis
separation of church and state is extremely limited. At best the Islamic world
has only embraced toning down their both their sectarian violence by way of
pumping up military nationalism, as in Egypt and Turkey's case, or Ba'thist
Socialism, as under Saddam Hussein and Assad Sr. And Jr. in Iraq and Syria.
To the left, someone like Jayda Fransen, SHOULD be
imprisoned, and "white" people in England
should be no longer free to propound their opinions. Yet, they turn a blind eye
to Islamists who spout hatred toward
Christianity, because in their Marxist identitarian hierarchy, and cultural
imagination, Muslims rank very high, and they must be afforded "special
allowances".
Sadly, from the truly indoctrinated leftist perspective, Muslims in
Luton should be free to desecrate church statues of the
Virgin Mary, harass native English girls for their western dress, or worse, but
it's absolutely horrible when one British pro-Christian woman gets in their
face about it! Imprisoning Fransen for her activism, which I imagine is drawn
from her sense of the impending doom that her culture is dying does not seem
like the fair-play the for which the English are reputed. Is not free speech
for people of all religions? I firmly believe that Fransen's group should not
be sacrificed on the alter of political correctness in the number one
surveillance state and controlled internet outside of China and North Korea,
especially when both sides are equally belligerent to one another.
Unlike in Britain, according to the US Constitution I am
free to say, for example, that I think Mormonism is at best a religion based on
a 19th century sci-fi fantasy book, and unless I attempt to blow up a Mormon
church, then who the hell cares what I say? By the same litmus of May's
internet censorship initiative, then such statements would be a jail-able
offense.
If the English just bend over for the Islamo-fascists and Britain
"takes it with a stiff upper lip" then I truly think that they are
not fully grasping the socio-cultural dynamics and realities of middle-eastern
and Asian populations. Step one should be that the Koran should be required reading,
well, everywhere.
My personal historical specialty is in the ancient near east
and medieval Spain.
I have family members who hail from Egypt
and Iraq, and
obviously, Israel.
I have Christian friends from Iraq
who families lived under harsh Muslim oppression, and I have Muslim friends
from Algeria, Morocco
and Tunisia. I
have written award-winning scripts that feature Muslim subject matter and have I
been lauded for my deep understanding of Muslim culture. So, once again, while
I dislike the conflict between the "factions", there must be parity
in how both sides are treated in the media and in regard to free speech.
Of course this is not really about Islam, Christianity or
Socialism, per say, it's really about extremists. Muslim extremists, Christian
extremists, and Marxist extremists. However, at present, a Christian extremist
won't bake a gay wedding cake, a Marxist extremist concocts street brawls with
assumed "nazis", and a Muslim extremist blows up British children at
Ariana Grande concerts, or throws gays off of roofs. Not quite the equivalent
we're looking for.
This sort of problematic Christian-Muslim cultural
interaction is by no means solely an English problem. It is an European
problem. French women are now being chased out of Muslim owned cafes in Paris
if they are not accompanied by a man, just like back at home. Problem is they
are not at home, these immigrants chose to come to France,
a country where women are free to go where they please.
Let's not even get started on Sweden.
After the Manchester
bombing, provocative singer, Morrissey, simply stated that perhaps its time for
Britain to
review its immigration admittance policy. No shock that the left ate their own
and turned on him on a dime. Always considered a firm leftist and anti-Tory, he
was, no surprise, accused racism by even raising the questionable policy of
admitting immigrants who might be ISIS operatives. Sorry
Morrissey.
But this all flows from the font of Marxist deconstructionism
of classical liberal values of the enlightenment. It is entirely propagandist, anti-American, anti-free speech, and for me, is very painful to
watch or read. Marxists trade exclusively in Class, Race and Gender Warfare.
However, the disconnect occurs because they do not function in a world of
Religious Warfare. Marxism is an exclusivist ideology and thus it is
structurally at loggerheads with Islam, another exclusivist ideology. Marxists
think that they can convince Islamists that they possess shared goals, and that
Islam and Marxism can function together, but Marxism can not or will not
compete with other ideologies and attempts to destroy all religion, since their
very existence threatens their ideology. Ironically, Islam proposes the same.
Make the state subservient to the ideology of Islam.
So take care United Kingdom, you'll have to suffer Theresa
May and the European Union a tad bit longer, but I expect that the unassailable
Jacob Rees-Mogg will soon step up and straighten out Brexit, the economy, and
infuse some core "British-ness" back into the cultural milieu and
public discourse of our brothers across the pond.
Till next time.
Welcome back to another installment in the 391 & the Army of Astraea Bandcamp hosted Electronic Music Piece of the Day Give Away.
