Hashtag activism and Identity Politics

If you haven't heard the story about #BLMKidnapping, I'm going to leave those links for you right here so you don't feel lost as to what I'm going to spend time talking about here.

NSFW:

Fair warning, this is really disturbing. I had to walk away from this story several times when it broke last night on Twitter.

Full Live Stream of alleged attack/kidnapping of a young white man while his four captives scream "F*** White People" "F*** Donald Trump."

You can read about it more here.

or here on CNN

We legitimately have an issue with identity politics in the west. Whether it's race, color, gender, or ideology. The way we choose to identify, creating artificial tribal ‘movements,’ is detracting from the legitimate issues that individuals within these movements have. With the Alt Right, it doesn't matter if it started out as meme-trolling and shit-posting - the label #AltRight is toxic now due to actual racists in the movement feeling legitimized after hiding out in the meme wars. The same way #BlackLivesMatter as a movement became toxic after the Dallas shootings.

This has happened repeatedly with political ideology as well, the Tea Party for example before Twitter was a huge platform, but it happens with Democrats and Republicans too.

There is strength in numbers and that is why we are so drawn to these activist groups because we feel like our voice can actually be heard in the mob’s call.

Here's the reality though: it can't.

Only individuals have messages and only individuals can express an idea with the nuance it deserves: no matter how memetic it may seem.

The Hashtag activism has driven the news cycle and we saw its effect in the Presidential Election. We saw it last night with the #BLMkidnapping. The story broke on Twitter hours before any main stream network began to cover it. It happened in the #AltRight. We saw it with #GamerGate. It's meme-marketing. How catchy and decisive a hashtag can I come up with and use my legion of followers to get it trending? Whenever this happens it's like winding up a nuclear bomb and then walking away! It obliterates the rational thinking of human beings and replaces it with mob-mentality.

My point here is that there is always something heinous happening in the world and we want to be able to do something about those things. The rise in hashtag activism and identity politics is largely due to a complete distrust of, not only the media, but each other. What was the purpose of #BLMKidnapping? Initially it was to spread it around so people could see what was happening but soon it became clear that, because of the political/racial nature of the video, that people were out for blood themselves. 

The issue here is that the Mainstream Media is no longer controlling the narrative to the extent that they have in the past. 

Now the mob is. 

Listening to Sargon of Akkad's live stream today, one of the members brought up a story in relation to the #BLMKidnapping in that something similar happened to a black student in Ohio which was reported on December 20th that received almost no media attention. You can read about it here:

Dietrich High athletes raped black, mentally disabled teammate, lawsuit claims

Are we more informed now than we where with a centrally controlled narrative? No, we're just differently informed. 

Evil exists in the world - I know this is an unpopular idea in 2017. Evil is real and it knows no race or intellect or ideology.  Let me hit you with another one. Evil doesn't happen in thought, it happens in action. We can push the narrative this way and that and cry foul at every instance of evil we see in the world but it will not stop evil from existing.

This is a metaphysical concept. Thoughts are not provable but actions are. One may argue that thoughts and words can influence action but it is indeed only the action that has any sort of tangible reality. Actions, you see, also have personal agency - the people who commit actions are themselves responsible for them. 

So when we blame #BlackLivesMatter, the #AltRight, #GamerGate or any other Hashtag activists we take away the personal agency from the people responsible. Would you take that away from someone who committed these atrocities against you personally? or would you blame an entire group?

Now Black Lives Matter Chicago have publicly denounced this crime which is good and appropriate - even given that there was nothing evident linking the alleged criminals with the activist group. They are covering their ass and disavowing violence. Many on the other side of the mob, however, argue that this could only happen in the culture that was created under the movement of Black Lives Matter. 

I heard a lot of people say the same thing about the culture that would be created under Trump.

Let me say it again, only individuals are capable of good or evil - collectives are metaphysical concepts and therefore have no moral authority. They are merely a collection of individuals. 

This is the Libertarian political reality - that only individuals exist. There is no collective because that's just a concept. Now a bunch of people in a collective do evil, of course the concept takes a beating, it is the aggregate of the individuals.

Now let's be clear: the reason there is so much backlash in the media about this being called a hate crime is to highlight the hypocritical, double standard. Were the races reversed in this case it would, without a doubt, be called a hate crime. With the race-bating climate of the news media, violence against minorities always is spun as being race related whereas it is impossible to be racist against whites. The whole #BLMKidnapping hashtag is a call to action to the media, If race bating are the rules of the game - you'd better be damn sure you play by your own rules.

So what's the solution?

Media is the real X factor here. I just showed two instances of evil in the world, one that wasn't on my radar and another that was in my face. Media consumption creates our narrative construction. While these two stories happened there are likely many more out there that go uncovered in the Mainstream Media because they don't align with the narrative being pushed. It is important to point out hypocrisy in so much as it breaks the cycle of insanity, not to up the stakes for each side. What we're seeing today, however, is a continued lack of self reflection in the media as they are doubling down on the "White racist" narrative - that some how the hashtag is a supremacist movement. It certainly is a reaction to race being the primary motivation as reported by media.

The definition of insanity is repeating a decision expecting a different result. In this case we're winding up that nuclear activist bomb and it's about ready to blow up in everyone's faces.

Be accountable to the people around you and make sure they are accountable to you. This is what community is. It is possible to vet your community - not your hashtag movement. Movements are looking for warm bodies, not individuals.

Love your neighbor.

An American Virtue

I call this blog Spiritual Voluntaryist for two reasons: the first because I noticed a frightening amount of people in the libertarian community speaking out against religion and any form of spirituality because it clouded objectivist thinking – how can you have an objective philosophy if you believe in a make believe man in the clouds who listens to your bedtime stories at night? I take issue with this culturally. First because my own hyperbole made me sick, second because society and social interaction in general are built on a foundation of values. Values come from two places, our family and our vision of the world (which is shaped by belief). Belief is neigh an unconscious act because it shapes our actions regardless of empirical evidence around us; this is why when someone says they believe that people are good they will always believe that no matter how many times they are proven wrong (or right). Without a vision, we are all blind but, if we do not recognize that vision for what it is we can never be freed of our own unconscious, dogmatic biases.

The second is because Voluntarism is something I practice as much as I can in every part of my life. Interactions between individuals should be voluntary at all times and because of this vision I see the immutable immorality of government.

I’ve thought long and hard about American virtue.

What is it? I tried to think of a list of ten virtues that were quintessentially American and every one I thought of always came back to the same idea.

Liberty.

Liberty, not freedom, is the essence of America. It’s why our forefathers came here and why millions still come each year. It’s that, “Don’t Tread on Me,” lifestyle of self-reliance – a virtue in and of itself. The essence of liberty is self-ownership – that everything you do, good or bad, is a product of the self and that no matter what, you will do what it takes to live the life you have always wanted. This in no way means a retraction from social connectivity; liberty reacts well to a strong community where neighbors are also self-reliant and when you work together there is a strong foundation of family and community to support the product of your labor that everyone involved in benefits from.

Liberty is what makes this country great.

We only have liberty through voluntarism.

The people who immigrate to America do so because of the promise of a better life: the American Dream. The only way to earn it is by grasping on to liberty.

You cannot give someone liberty who has never had it, who wasn’t brought up with it bread into their bones. Liberty is our culture – the same way I will never understand Gitano music the way gypsies do in Andalusia – it’s not in their bones.

Consider this: what would become the United States of America was governed by a monarchy that was literally an ocean removed they had to be completely self-reliant. In this realization, they knew that they didn’t owe their productivity (taxes) to someone else who provided nothing for them, or worse, things they didn’t want. Liberty and American Stoicism is born: a mixture of Greek philosophy and Christian values (you can read more about my thoughts on stoicism here).

With every new wave of immigrants that washed up on these shores we couldn’t give them liberty, they had to find it for themselves. In so doing, they formed a kinship with the American people and they too became American.

In the last fifty years things have gotten a lot different for America. We’ve stopped allowing people to find liberty and instead have given them freedom – freedom from responsibility, from accountability, freedom from bad consequences: all of these things that are essentially Anti-American.  

The soil of liberty that our forefathers so valiantly fought and died for is being desecrated not by new immigrants but by politicians and systemic policies that incentivize people to not embrace liberty. It is very important to reject this race-bating narrative: once you do and turn back around to see who your neighbors are it becomes obvious that they are not full of hate – it’s all been a lie to further clip your wings of liberty. Americans want more than anyone for other people to be as free as we are, we wouldn’t have been so easily swayed into war so many times without liberty for those in the darkest dungeon of tyranny as the light at the end of the tunnel.

Liberty is all that we have to give and it is the one thing that cannot be given. Like guiding a drowning victim back to shore with out-stretched arms we can only lead them to liberty; fore if the grab a hold of us while thrashing and sputtering we will both drown.

I’ve asked myself many times over the last few months if, when the time finally comes to lay my Father to rest, will I have done enough for him to know he can leave this world and his son will continue to tend the fires of liberty? Will I be able to look at the land around me and recognize what my Father and Grandfathers fought so hard to protect? Will I shame them by turning my back on what I know is right and let their blood, sweat, and tears be in vain?

No.

I will take the tools I have been given to act in accordance with my vision. To help my friends and family live in a world where they can exercise their liberty through voluntary exchange of ideas and commerce. Where corporations are not buying and selling politicians, enacting policies that benefit them and not the American people. Voluntarism and the democratic system aren't things that go hand in hand, as it requires the minority to follow the majority, but when the choice is between the slave morality of the current Democratic party or an anti-establishment, anti-corruption candidate who is universally hated by those in power, I see it as a clear sign on the path to liberty.

In this election, there is only one vote for Liberty and it is Donald Trump. It will be a hard liberty – one that will hurt – but liberty cannot be given only found. Rarely do the masses go in search of the hard truth, the purity of self-reliance and self-ownership, with the opiate drip of government warming their bellies. This election we have a chance to do just that. Do not turn a blind eye to your ancestors, whose vision of liberty is in your blood. Instead, turn away from Globalists who only think of us as resources to be soaked up and spit out as they move their pieces across the globe. Let’s believe in America first; because if you believe in nothing – you’ll believe anything.

The Enemy of my Enemy

This is a message to my friends and the public in general.

I am a very conservative man. This has only become more true with the birth of my son. I grew up conservative, I discovered libertarianism and was eventually brainwashed in the school of Marxism at university. I have worn every hat there could be in the realm of political ideology but I have always come back to my conservative, liberty minded roots. I have realized with growing anxiety and frustration that; I must share the things that I know. They’re readily available to anybody who’s looking. That’s the problem though, nobody is looking. We’ve all picked our sides and hid in our corners waiting for the general election to be over so that we could get back on with our lives. If the point of American public education is to create an informed voter base, why are we all so eager to hide from that which is so important?

This is a message to Anti-Republican, Libertarian/Anarchists.

Your best chance at a Libertarian President was Ron Paul and the establishment stopped him. I campaigned for Ron Paul in the state of Nevada. I attended the local and state caucuses, taking time off from the three jobs I had at the time to fight for a candidate that had integrity, American values and Libertarian policies. I fought at the Nevada caucus in 2012 to get as many pro Ron Paul delegates as we could to the RNC and we did it.

In the end, it did us no good. Mitt Romney still received the presidential nomination – a conservative who in his private life was a pinnacle of virtue in the Mormon community, too scared of the political establishment and PC culture to show his real values, was incapable of giving the American people the values they so desperately needed to see for fear of political suicide.

The Republican party used these exact strategies against Donald Trump. They used every political maneuver available to them to keep him from the party nomination including wave after wave of establishment Republicans tossing their careers off a cliff like political lemmings to slander him after his nomination. He refused the keys of power offered up by the party leaders to keep his integrity and so they attack him for it. He finances his own campaign to make himself beholden to no-one but the American people and so they attack him for it. Big government and establishment rhetoric are the enemies, not Donald Trump.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

This is a message to Bernie Sanders’ supporters.

The reason Millennials and Generation X liked Bernie Sanders was because he spoke truth to power. He captured audiences because of his principals and his ideas – that people should be able to see a brighter future ahead of themselves. He saw that his democratic colleagues were not following through on their promises to the American people and he acknowledged the anger people felt as the result of shit rolling downhill.

While I fundamentally disagree with Bernie Sanders’s ideas about how to solve these issues we see in America today, I recognize his rebellious rhetoric and his understanding that investing in America is the only way to rebuild our great country – not wasting our time in foreign wars and destroying lobbying groups that have so allowed the United States senators to be bought and sold like commodities to the highest bidding commercial monstrosity.

Much like Ron Paul, however; Bernie’s campaign ultimately failed regardless of how mobilized his followers were. He was undermined by the collusion within the DNC to get Hillary Clinton the Nomination. This was made evident in the Podesta E-mails acquired by Wikileaks. These E-mails are horrifying evidence of corruption and deceit on a massive scale to blind the American public and remove the choice that they actually wanted. This was pinned on the shoulders of Debbie Wasserman Shultz, the then DNC chairwoman but the reality of Hillary’s involvement even on the campaign level should be enough to show the American public just how wicked this woman is. It is a complete and utter slap in the face of our democratic republic which we inherited from the blood of our ancestors. Bernie played his campaign legitimately but lost because Hillary had already bought the keys of power.

The enemy of my enemy is also my friend.

This is a message to CNN and the Mainstream Media.

The Podesta E-mails also showed us something we’ve known for a long time. The vast majority of you are shills for Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party. You are protected under the First Amendment of these United States. Your responsibility is to truth. The nature of politics is that no one person can be an expert and continue with their everyday life. We trusted you to be a guiding force in our lives while we used our precious time to work, be with our loved ones, and make a slice of the American dream for ourselves.

You have lost that privilege.

Alternative media: Twitter, YouTube, Podcasts, and Blogs have surpassed you in impressions, scope, and reach. The people can look for sources they trust instead of being force-fed friendly faced, worm-tongs.

Wherein Glenn Thrush admits he’s a hack and pleads with HRC campaign for approval before it’s published:

http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/17/politico-reporter-sends-story-to-hillary-aide-for-approval-admits-hes-a-hack/

The American people will never trust you again because, as what happens with competition, people have a choice now.

Hillary Clinton wants to remove that choice from you.

http://yournewswire.com/hillary-clinton-vows-to-shut-down-alternative-media/

When people say that the media attacks Donald Trump; that the first debate was three vs. one. Now the Media is saying He is out to get them.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-updates-donald-trump-declared-threat-to-press-1476449591-htmlstory.html

The American people show a record low 6% trust in the media -  http://www.activistpost.com/2016/04/death-of-mainstream-media-6-percent-trust.html - while Gallup still puts it up closer to 30%, how could anyone take these accusations seriously? Podesta E-mails give us evidence of Media collusion with the Hillary campaign, Donald trump calls them out for their bias, yet somehow they think we’ll believe them when they try and play the victim?

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

This is a message to the anti-war Left.

Where are you? Do you not see, before your eyes, the woman whose State Department destroyed the Libya then appeared on national television and laughed about it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgcd1ghag5Y

And to so clearly have her goals revealed:

https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/6528. This is a woman who, along with her globalist allies within the European Union, created the instability that caused the refuge crisis that Europe is facing today.

I was with you in 2008 when Barrack Obama said he would bring our troops home. Yet, instead of following through on his anti-war platform he began indiscriminately using unmanned drones to bomb any gathering that intelligence showed had members in attendance with ties to al-Qaeda, slaughtering civilians, woman and children alike, with impunity; continuing to destabilize the region and; destroying any and all hope the people living there had of continuing on with a normal life.

Hillary Clinton wants war on a scale that we have only flirted with, in the history of the human race. Striving to control the air space over Aleppo will mean war with Russia. Not another cold war – a hot one. A war with two nuclear super powers where the stakes could mean the end of life on earth. She has already begun to pave the path to that war in the minds of the American people, claiming that Russia is behind the DNC email hacks with nothing but rhetoric to back up her claims.

All the while, Donald Trump believes we should be working together to defeat our common enemy, ISIS.

While Hillary Clinton received funding through the Clinton Foundation by the very people who fund ISIS: http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/10/hillary-in-leaked-email-saudi-arabia-and-qatar-are-funding-isis/ . This in light of the Clinton’s using their foundation for ‘Pay-to-play’ schemes: http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/tag/clinton-foundation/ .

If you are against war and the growing global conflict that seems to grow ever closer each day, Hillary Clinton is your enemy. It doesn’t matter if you are a peace-loving hippy; a hardline Libertarian espousing the Non-Aggression Principle; a human rights activist; a Husband; a Wife; a Mother or a Father: don’t allow Hillary Clinton to let Aleppo be the place we fight over to destroy the world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJZRvp6w4wc

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

To teachers and parents who continue to guide children in an effort to help them find a way to solve their conflicts with words and not violence. To conservatives who hide their opinions for fear of libel slander from social justice warriors calling you racist, sexist, homophobic, property destruction or even worse, physical assault due to your political beliefs; Hillary Clinton is your enemy.

Somehow, we have all arrived in an alternate reality where words have more weight than actions. Where once there was civil discourse now there is violence and it comes from Hillary Clinton’s supporters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJV41gS2c8M

This is a savage beating of a homeless woman. Beaten up by thugs for defending Donald Trump’s Star on the walk of fame after it was vandalized in the night. The thugs then go on to tell her that, “if you’re spreading hate, you get hate.” Words transmit ideas, and it is violence with which they will try and stop us. Hate is shown by action, not by words. Violence is the simple solution when you know the argument cannot be won. Maim and demoralize your enemy and they can no longer bother you with their dissenting opinion.

Celebrities have no class either: http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/10/08/robert-de-niro-slams-donald-trump-video.cnn – using ad homonym attacks, with no arguments. Celebrities continue to virtue signal that they are so much more intelligent than conservatives that they must immediately resort to the threat of violence to prove their point.

Project Veritas went undercover and found proof of DNC and Hillary Clinton collusion to destroy the moral of Trump supporters; ‘bird-dogging’ them into action or inciting violence themselves to create the illusion of a violent tendency within the Trump support base. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY .

Of course, a candidate cannot be held accountable for the actions of their followers. But they ought to be responsible for the party and campaign they lead. This massive outpouring of violence will only get worse as these anti-social behaviors prove again and again to have no consequences if done against conservatives. Enemies of violence must be enemies of Hillary Clinton.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Finally, the FBI has reopened its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s E-mail scandal. Where thousands of highly classified E-mails were mishandled and threatened national security. FBI Director James Comey initially did not pursue charges against the former Secretary of State. If you’re unfamiliar with the story you can find a work up of it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/06/us/politics/hillary-clinton-fbi-email-comey.html?_r=0

This is a person who has massively mishandled information and then has the audacity to blame the Russians as hackers?

Why didn't they pursue the charges initially? It has something to do with President Obama knowing about her breach in security protocol and doing nothing about it. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/31077

But an open FBI investigation didn’t stop her from running for President, it certainly won’t stop her from winning it either. With less than two weeks left until the general election nothing short of keeping her from office will make these charges stick.

Donald Trump is the enemy of my enemy. He has charged into this political race uphill onto a fortified position with no support from his party or the media, only the people – his future consistence. His criticisms of America’s foreign police over the last twenty years give me hope that he truly is an anti-war candidate. The reports of his business failings are greatly overshadowed by the action and accountability of his success. He has financed his own campaign, building no coalitions, leaving him responsible to only one group of people – the American people.

Make no mistake, if on November 8^th, your vote is cast for Hillary Clinton you are voting for War. You are voting for violence in the streets. You are voting for a world government where we have no hope of self-governance. You are voting for a 65% estate tax that will destroy the transfer of anything you may have built for your family after you die. You are voting your great grand children’s future productivity away, as we have already spent the money they will someday earn and added it to our national debt.

I pray that the U.K. has shown us the way. That, even under blinding pressure from the media, celebrities, and politicians that BREXIT was racist, it won out and that UK citizens will no longer be a part of the EU. The media today still calls for another Referendum because they can’t imagine after all their hard work trying to brainwash the people they are supposed to serve; they would vote against their corporate media masters. The United States must take their lead and take itself away from the globalist agenda where it can finally make itself great again.

For your family, for your children, for yourselves: Vote Donald Trump.