Learning From Liberals

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Let’s acknowledge an unpopular but important truth. Liberals are – on average – more successful, more pleasant and more intelligent people than Conservatives. They ordinarily have better careers, better cars, better manners and more sophisticated philosophies than those on the political right. Though I can’t speak for you, I would much rather share an apartment with a liberal than with a conservative. Indeed, I have always shared properties with liberals, consciously and deliberately. They make for friendlier and less judgemental associates. They are also more likely to lend a helping hand than conservatives, to bail a friend out of trouble, to offer a patient ear etc… Why is this?

There is a well-referenced body of evidence to suggest Liberalism becomes more attractive the better off one is in society; that once a person is liberated from the brutish concerns of bread and shelter, they become more willing to turn their caring eye away from themselves and towards society as a whole. Liberalism in this sense is a luxury, an indulgence. It is not available to the majority, but can only be afforded by the privileged few.

This does (or should) count as a mark of illegitimacy for liberals, but despite it, despite knowing it, I still fundamentally prefer them as human beings. I can’t help it. There must be a reason they have scaled higher peaks than the majority, and that reason, since it usually precedes their liberalism, must be independent of it.

We are trained by our culture of egalitarianism not to speak of ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ human beings. To do so is the intellectual equivalent of swearing. By polite convention, all people are strictly equal, and all perceived ‘difference’ is a merely a dancing variation on a single, immovable baseline – a baseline from which we all begin and to which we all return.

Science is unfriendly to this theory and clashes with it frequently. Indeed, society only manages to prop it up with the same primitive tactics one uses to make any common lie seem true. Social thinkers simply ignore the findings of the laboratory, the G-test and the brain scan, offering in their place the produce of their own private goodwill. Let’s not do that here.

Let’s ask the question straight – Why are superior people more liberal? I don’t think the mystery is unsolvable. In fact, I think the solution is rather simple.

Conservatism has for a long time dallied in both great and stupid ideas – and the bad ones, being very bad, have obscured and discredited the good. When the idea that private property undergirds a democratic society is promoted in the same manifesto as the idea that Africans have no place in civilised society, or that homosexuals are trying to convert the young, or that scientists are lying to the public, it will be rejected. As it should be.

This idiot-conservative coalition was never inevitable. It is rather an unfortunate development of history; a quirk of fate. And since its basis is so flimsy, it can be undone.

How might we separate conservative logic from right-wing drivel? How might we attract intelligent people away from left-liberalism and back to the cause of freedom? For a start I would suggest ruthlessly cutting loose the crazies, pushing them to form their own political clan away from the mainstream. Cultural conservative leaders and intellectuals must publically reject (denounce) homophobia, colour-racism and the belittlement of women. They must cease fighting popular culture and embrace it (in order to attract dissenting elements in Western youth). Even if it exists, the influence of religious eschatology must be undetectable in policy and never endorsed by a candidate for office. More compassion should be displayed towards the poor. Arguments against abortion and gay marriage should be secularised. Candidates from urban environments should be sought over those from rural areas. And finally, perhaps most importantly, the right must rediscover its respect for worldliness and the intellect, no longer prioritising folksiness and the limited, small-town worldview.

In an age when liberalism has gone astray and allied itself to the enemies of freedom, conservatives must fill the void they have left. To do that successfully requires adapting to new realities and discarding unnecessary burdens. The defence of Western civilisation should be a friendly, positive and vibrant cause, not a moth-eaten and eccentric one.

D, LDN

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Orwellian England.

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American Liberty, BBC, CCTV, CCTV cameras, Civil liberties, Civilisation, Closed Circuit, Defend the modern world, George Orwell, Orwell, Orwellian, Policing in the United States, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Rights and responsibilites, UK politics, United Kingdom, United States

The fear of being watched is innate within the human condition, having been developed over millions of years of evolutionary time and experience. The right not to be watched when going about private or legal business has equally ancient roots, having been fought for from the earliest flickerings of human civilisation.

Despite that long struggle (and its success in other parts of the West) the amount of active surveillance in the United Kingdom remains a disgrace. Take this from someone who is coming to the close of an extended period working abroad – a period that has been marked by a strange and bracing sense of personal freedom and responsibility.

When British people complain of a nanny state or of a ‘Big Brother’ society, the popular tendency is to snigger and judge. Such people (others feel) are simply exaggerating, guilty or else unduly paranoid. To ruffle up this lackadaisical (not to mention extremely irresponsible) serenity, let’s rehearse some important figures:

According to the Guardian (a most un-libertarian rag) there is now one CCTV camera in operation for every 32 British citizens. This means that a total of 1.85 million cameras currently operate in the United Kingdom. There are more CCTV cameras operating in the London borough of Wandsworth than in Dublin, San Francisco, Boston and Johannesburg combined. In the capital as a whole (not the greater region), there are 7431. This compares to just 326 operating in the city of Paris. Indeed, there are more cameras operating in the town of Wigan than in the terror-hit French capital.

British people are watched to an extent that even Orwell’s famous dystopia would have found excessive. When this is added to other forms of surveillance, Britons are reckoned (by serious observers) to enjoy less privacy than East-Germans at the time of the Stasi.

Why is this the case? Of course, the government will reflexively claim that it is for ‘our own good’ – that it is to protect us from crime, terror and accident. But if this were true, why on Earth are the citizenry of Wigan considered to be at greater risk than the Parisians?

None of the official excuses make any sense. And while I don’t want to become a tin-foil hat-wearing type, (I don’t believe in the grand conclusions of Alex Jones et al) something does need to be done if we (and our posterity) are to retain the most basic levels of dignity and freedom of action.

As is well known, Americans are more naturally attuned to the barometer of liberty than we are. On occasion, they are rather too attuned to it. But we really need to take a leaf out of their book when it is necessary to do so. The UK government currently retains the power to read our private emails, to watch what we do in the street and (in urban environments) to film our own back gardens.

This isn’t natural. This isn’t necessary.

D, LDN.

I Know Jihadi John’s Swamp.

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Civilisation, Counter-Jihad, Counterjihad, Defend the modern world, Extremism in London, Hezbollah, ISIS, ISIS brits, Islamic Extremism, Islamism, Jew 9/11, Jews 9/11, Jihadi John, London Metropolitan, London University, Middlesex, Mohammad Emwazi, Muslims, Palestine, Religion, The Beatles ISIS, United Kingdom, Universities, Westminster

The revelation that the frozen-blooded ISIS executioner ‘Jihadi John’ was until recently a ‘normal, quiet’ student at Westminster University couldn’t have surprised me less. I am very intimate with the state of London Universities and the close, sinister relationship many of their students have with radical Islam.

I didn’t attend Westminster, but my own University was just a few miles from it. Along with Greenwich, London Metropolitan and my own, Westminster University is part of an ever-growing variety of crowded, multicultural colleges popping up around the English capital like Starbucks restaurants.

Given their demographic profile (the Islamic percentage of the intake is often as high as 50%) all of these institutions are sharply Left-wing in political orientation, with some of them allied to the wild extreme.

At my own place of study, I don’t remember a week going by without a demonstration for ‘Palestine’, against blasphemy or in favour of immigration. During these events, bearded enforcers in white dresses (some of whom came in from other colleges) would stalk the halls of the campus, its library and halls of residence. To have been openly critical of Islam at this time would invite the same consequences as in ISIS-controlled Syria.

It has been noted before (including in the excellent book ‘Londonistan’ by Mail columnist Melanie Philips) that the Muslim youths of London are particularly devout, even by the standards of other European cities like Paris and Berlin. Consequently, at demonstrations by my college’s Islamic Student Union, leaflets spoke openly of Jihad, ‘infidels’ and religious para-militarism. Some Muslim students blamed the Jews for 9/11, others took credit for it proudly.

The non-Muslim students were mostly shy and timid, bullied into silent acquiescence by a thick atmosphere of violent potential. Once, on my way to a lecture, I saw a student in front of me wearing a Hezbollah hoodie (‘Hezbollah’ in roman script, lest there be any confusion) and when I promptly pointed this out to a fellow non-believer from my class, he said he thought it was ‘cool’…

Despite having been established as places of free-thought and learning, the Universities of London have more-or-less adapted to suit the bigotries of the fanatics. The year before last, London Metropolitan University banned the consumption of alcohol on its campuses due to complaints from Muslim students, thereby radically altering the traditional student experience for those from other backgrounds.

At my own place, a harmless ‘Valentine’s Day Singles’ Ball’ at the local nightclub was abruptly cancelled after complaints from the Muslim Union alleged that it might ‘promote un-Islamic behaviour’. Never did it seem to cross the minds of the student office that non-Muslims still (at least officially) have rights in the UK; that the UK is a modern, secular country, and that Islam is foreign to it.

This atmosphere of censorship quickly developed to affect the process of education itself. During my first month of study, I noticed there was a small section of books in the library devoted to atheism (‘The God Delusion’, ”The End of Faith’, ‘Letter to a Christian Nation” etc…). As months turned into years, that section of books seemed to mysteriously disappear. Perhaps that attests to a booming atheism on campus; perhaps they were being borrowed continuously by eager secularists. Or perhaps something else was occurring… Perhaps unbelief was being rooted out, just like alcohol, pork and innocent social gatherings before it.

For all their faults, the Conservative Party has sought to address the London University problem in the last few years, albeit in a very light-handed and incomplete fashion. MPs, including cabinet members, have acknowledged that some places of study are functioning as immigration waiting camps, in which people from the worst countries in the world use their brief window of legal residence to apply for permanent residency, and failing that, a life of illegal settlement.

Certainly, many of the students in my accommodation professed a will to remain beyond their graduation, or even if that day never came. The countries of their descent were all plagued with sadness or barbarity – one guy was from Sudan, another from Pakistan, one hailed from Iran, another from Albania. What do we expect these people to do? Is it not fair to say that allowing a Black man from Sudan to study in Britain in the era of the Janjaweed is to make certain he never leaves? It is obvious what is going on in London and it is going on right under the noses of the powerful.

What can we do about it? Here are a few common sense suggestions:

• Close down any college or ‘language school’ that fails to attract students from inside the EU.
• Block (through legislation at the governmental level) any attempt to ban alcohol, pork or other Haram products at British universities.
• Rigorously enforce the intermingling of the sexes. Never allow sexual segregation in lectures, places of rest or in common areas.
• Expel any student who actively promotes terrorism or anti-Semitism.
• Ban the Niqab on all University grounds.
• Offer security services to Christian and Jewish student unions and provide guards at pro-Israel or anti-Jihad events.
• Create a branch of student services dedicated to helping the victims of Muslim grooming or intimidation.
• Redefine the talk of ‘infidels’ for what it is – hate speech.

Despite how bad all this must sound, it is still too early to despair. While Jihadi John is undeniably a product of London’s degraded environment, so – in many ways – is this author. I went into higher education as a damp liberal, but emerged as something different. Perhaps the swamp, as well as being a factory-line of violent Jihadis, will also turn out radicals of the other direction.

We must hope so.

D, LDN.