Tag: Paleocons

Anarcho-Tyranny in the Spotlight

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As I’ve mentioned many times in the past, I may not agree with all of the conclusions that the dissident right draw but without a doubt many of the observations and inferences they make about the world around us are completely correct.  For instance:

Sam Francis (April 29, 1947 – February 15, 2005) was a paleoconservative whose views would put him solidly amongst the dissident right today.  He coined the term anarcho-tyranny which refers to armed dictatorship without rule of law, or a Hegelian synthesis when the state tyrannically or oppressively regulates citizens’ lives yet is unable or unwilling to enforce fundamental protective law.  Commentators have invoked the term in reference to situations when governments focus on weapon confiscation instead of stopping looters.

This concept has been discussed very often on the ZMan’s site and it seems transparently clear that the current federal government and many state and local governments use this policy to punish some of their constituencies and reward others.  Essentially it sets up two separate systems of law.

In the recent past there are many examples of this concept in operation.  And in fact, it is the hallmark of the post George Floyd policing and prosecution strategies in most American cities.  Basically, blacks can commit an assortment of violent and non-violent offenses with impunity.  While if white people attempt to resist these crimes, they will be prosecuted with extreme severity.  The most well-known case was Kyle Rittenhouse who defended himself from Antifa attackers in Kenosha WI.  He was charged with murder but miraculously was exonerated in court.

I’ll give a few other examples.

I guess the general case would be to compare the government’s treatment of two groups.  The groups that were given preferential treatment would be the BLM and Antifa rioters during the 2020 riots.  These people were allowed to riot, loot and commit arson and even murder without the police or FBI using their considerable powers and capabilities to either stop it or arrest the perpetrators.  For weeks and across most of the large cities in the United States a reign of terror was permitted and in some cases like Minneapolis encouraged by government officials.

The contrasting group would be the January Sixth protestors.  For what amounts to peaceful trespass these United States citizens have been denied due process, imprisoned in some cases for years without trial and tried in kangaroo courts with sentences sometimes measured in decades of prison time.

Now if we were to look at specific cases, I think the case of subway good Samaritan Daniel Penny and the homeless lunatic he subdued is a perfect example.  Penny was on a subway car when a deranged homeless man named Jordan Neely began threatening random women passengers because they wouldn’t give him the money he demanded.  He went so far to make death threats.  Penny restrained Neely in a chokehold and unfortunately Neely died from this action.  Penny is a marine veteran and white, Neely was black and a homeless mental patient who had been arrested 42 times and punched a 62-year-old woman in the eye, and broke her eye socket.

So here we have anarcho-tyranny incarnate.  Jordan Neely was a creation of a system that would not arrest a black man who had broken the law over forty times.  They just released him to continue creating fear and hurting innocent people.  And when a white man protects the public from this menace he is charged with murder when what he was doing was defending himself and the weaker individuals being harassed by Neely.  He tried to do the job the prosecutors refused to do.

And so, this individual case showcases the intended effect of this anarcho-tyranny.  The law will defend those it favors who break the law and at the same time will force those it dislikes to suffer the crimes being allowed without even the chance for self-defense.  They just have to suffer and take it.  Or be sent to prison where even more of their humanity will be stripped away.

The dissident right gets a lot of things right.

Michael Anton, Paul Gottfried and the Z-Man – A Fractured Spectrum on the Right

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I have been an advocate of dialog on the Right.  And recently there has been quite a bit of it.  And now I think I can see the present limits of what can be achieved by dialog.  Based on what I have seen I would say that at the point on the Dissident Right where Civic Nationalism starts to be viewed as anathema, then from there on, common ground can no longer exist with the more mainstream right.  The level of hostility is too extreme to allow for civility or even meaningful communication.

So be it.  But that still leaves plenty of latitude for dialog.  After all, the Z-Man and Paul Gottfried have several times shared the stage on various podcasts and they have been extremely cordial.  And Gottfried and Anton have debated on the pages of various right-wing publications with clearly evident collegial respect and politeness.  So, there is a bridge across the chasm but it is more of a shuttle that on its own can visit the two sides.

I can see the point of view of both these sides.  But I will say I have more sympathy for Anton because he has extended himself to try to communicate across the divide in a friendly manner.  The Z-Man was far from friendly.  In fact, he was pointedly hostile and rude.  And maybe that’s the requirement of the position he has staked out.  He has readers who exceed him in their anger toward any moderate figure or group in America.  Maybe politeness toward someone like Anton is a disqualifying act.  But maybe I’m wrong about that.  Maybe he truly feels that Anton is part of the enemy he faces.  And that is every man’s prerogative; to select his own friends and enemies.  But I give the moral high ground to Anton.  He wasn’t demanding any concessions, only extending an olive branch or a flag of truce for a parley.

Almost equally I think I know why the Dissident Right resents the Civic Nationalists.  They see them as the descendants of the mainstream conservatives who allowed themselves to be led along by the Buckleyites and the Neo-Conservatives and never did anything to prevent the takeover of the country by the Left.  They see the egalitarianism of the Civic Nationalists as the stepping stone to all the evils we see today; the LGBTQ madness and the destruction of personal freedoms in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion.  And there’s some truth in that.  In fact, I feel I was one of the pawns who believed in men like George Bush Jr. and his endless wars that accomplished nothing but killing Americans.

I see myself as someone who sees both sides of this divide.  But even though I have sympathy for the dissidents I think Anton’s side is where there may be a chance to take constructive action.  Someone like Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis will reach out to a Michael Anton or a JD Vance because they are interested in practical steps that can actually be accomplished.  Anton has reached out to people on the fringes of the Right like Curtis Yarvin and BAP in order to try to understand their point of view.  And while his viewpoint is still quite different from any of these people he is at least engaging in dialog.  And if nothing else it allows for some measure of coordination on practical things like supporting political candidates and networking.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised at how this contact between two worlds ended up.  But I am a little disappointed.  I wasn’t hoping for rapprochement but some kind of dialog and détente with a little glasnost thrown in for good measure.  Oh well.

But something was learned and nowadays that’s the first step to constructive actions.  Apparently, it’s not yet time for the opposite ends of the Right to talk to each other.  Whatever coordination gets done it will not include the Dissident Right.  At least not yet.