Your Other Left: Freedom is Gross and Racist

(Originally published in April 2016)
It came and went without notice.April 6th was the tenth anniversary of the Euston Manifesto, the declaration of left liberal principles by British academics, journalists and intellectuals spearheaded by the late Norman Geras and co-written, signed and promoted by a coterie of principled lefties, Marxists and liberals.The most vocal proponent and signatory besides Geras was the original first principles left opposition writer, Nick Cohen.Now, after a decade of regressive masochism spreading through the left like termites on PCP, it is impossible and inexcusable for liberals and anti-totalitarian leftists to ignore the mass felones de se of the anti-West reactionaries commonly mistaken for the liberal left these days.

The Euston Manifesto is an excellent statement and I hope it is rediscovered over time since it, sadly, made few waves in 2006.There is another document which is more widely known and available to every person in any somewhat free society.In fact: your country is probably a signatory of it.The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December of 1948. This Declaration is an excellent guide for deciding where you stand as a human.If we distill it just a bit, we can make these complicated political and ideological questions simple for folks.

If you believe that tolerance of different cultures, regardless of how brutal and oppressive they might be, is more important than recognizing equal rights, equal protection under the law, inherent dignity and inalienable rights of each and every member of the human family, then there is no need to read on.You can proceed to the Intercept, the alt right message board, the ISIS twitter feeds, or join whichever orthodox collection of paranoiac righties, regressive lefties or Putin blog trolls you engage in victim group therapy and rage boner Saturnalia with this month.

If you are willing to tolerate theocratic fascism, female genital mutilation, antisemitism, racism and genocide in the name of political correctness, moral relativism and your anti-capitalist fantasy, then grab your Cliche Guevara t-shirt and your issue of adbusters.That'll be $50.

If you really believe that barbarism is subjective, that freedom of speech and belief are not paramount to justice, that the collective interest of identity groups trumps individual liberty, then grab a number and wait to receive your privilege score.Be prepared to apologize to people you've never met.

If you believe that all geopolitical, ethnic and religious conflicts are always to be blamed on colonialism, western imperialism and/or Israel, that acts of terror can be only attributed to the foreign policy of the United States despite the assertions of the terrorists themselves, then pass along your resume. I hear the chief British lobbyist for the Islamic Republic of Iran, Jeremy Corbyn is hiring a new Minister of Truth.

If you believe that we need to maintain separate standards of ethics based on culture, race, religion and nationality, and that freedom of speech is a scourge that only serves to hurt fee-fees, if you embrace moral equivalence rather than distinguish orders of magnitude when peering through the lens of history, if you can no longer pretend to support fundamental rights and freedoms, if you place a higher value on aesthetic frippery and ideological orthodoxy than on intellectual honesty and objective truth, if you are ready to sever any commitment to common standards of freedom and equality and abandon the notion that truth is sacred and noble, or that all people are created equal and derive inherent and inalienable rights, if you are ambivalent or hostile to the preservation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness........

You are not alone.There are millions of these masochistic regressive cuckolds out there.You can join them in the bacchanalia of cultural self loathing at your nearest University or wherever regressive leftists, antisemites, Chomskyites and social justice worriers congregate near you.

Your Other Left: Micro-Aggression Re-Education Begins After Recess

Some students at Brown University are meeting in secret to practice their first amendment privilege.

In related news: All Bolsheviks, brownshirts, and Salon readers should meet in the quad beneath the black standard emblazoned with the white shahada to receive your throwing rocks and torches.

The first 50 students to arrive will receive a complimentary copy of Noam Chomsky's latest pamphlet: 1000 Years of American Genocide, now available in paperback with a new foreword by Supreme Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei.

Note: Don't forget to look in the back of the latest issues of Adbusters and Dabiq for your Guy Fawkes cut-out mask.

After protesting the secret society of microaggressors, all students* are welcome to play with legos in the campus safe space.Gluten free, non-GMO, organic cookies and soy milk will be served.If you suspect that your skin, height, genitalia, weight, GPA or bank account balance might invalidate the experiences of other students then please stay in your dorm. Someone will be by later to call you names.

* Excluding white cisgendered male heterosexual atheists, Jews and anyone listed on the student union list of oppressors and offenders.

Your Other Left: Magna Carta Liberalism VS Regressive Left & Reactionary Right

The phenomenon of Donald Trump is the product of the way both the left and right in this country have obsessively placed tribal identity ahead of principles.  When ideological orthodoxy trumps intellectual honesty, when social justice trumps personal liberty, when ideas no longer matter because our minds are already made up that's when our fringe elements become mainstream. That's when we get Trump.

 Fascism and Stalinism won't appear waving copies of mein kampf or pravda.  They'll seep into the mainstream through the eyes of regular people who are frightened and angry at a political rally for a populist celebrity stoking fear and arousing bigotry, and they'll be young college students snapping their fingers and hysterically shouting about their need for a "safe space."  We have to start countering this sinister folderol now by promoting our principles.  If we don't promote our enlightenment values: democracy, pluralism, freedom of expression, the rule of law, then the definitions get confusing for people and they will gravitate to the charismatic angry people who are speaking to them.

Dogmatism and orthodoxy stifles debate and leads to a bleak place.  Fascism comes in many flavors, but whether it's Nazism, Stalinism, Klanism, Nationalism, or Theocracy, it has these constants: it promises answers that cannot be questioned and a perfect society or paradise that cannot be achieved, and it provides people with enemies both inside and outside to keep the paranoia and barbarism perpetually boiling.  These ideologies are sadistic and suicidal.  The enlightenment revolutionaries did not promise utopia.  All they promised they demanded for themselves: freedom under law.  The open societies that adopted the enlightenment principles are not paradise.  They are not intended to be perfect, because people and ideas are not perfect.  The promise of the open society is only that my freedom and your freedom are one and the same and as long as we demand this, we have a chance at justice and we have a chance at a functional society where equality is inherent.  It is this delicate balance of freedom under law that holds up the center and keeps the radical fringe at bay.

 The progressive movement, the regressive left, the libertarians, modern conservatism and academia have failed us.  Today we have allowed the fringes in to our homes and they got drunk and won't leave.  The right is drunk on xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, conspiracy theory and idiotic tribal rage. The left is drunk on their own sense of superiority and their concept inherent injustice. They're both redefining words to suit their philosophy and insisting that only they may debate issues on their terms and by casting everyone who disagrees with them into one group of "racists" or "socialists" they devalue the meaning of words.

All across the political spectrum, there are true liberals who care about liberal principles and intellectual diversity.  Some if them call themselves conservative, some call themselves liberal or progressive.  Some are atheists and some are religious.  It matters that these people do not agree on everything because what they agree on is made stronger by their differences.  In the months since Ben Affleck appeared on Bill Maher's show calling both Maher and writer Sam Harris gross and racist for criticizing ideas like female genital mutilation, and since the privileged students at universities across the US and Europe have begun attacking free speech, there has been an awakening of sorts.  We who reject the regressive left and the reactionary right are not going to be silent.  It is time to defend our principles.  It is time for Magna Carta Liberalism.

  Magna Carta Liberals who value enlightenment principles must challenge and ridicule this shit every single day.  Freedom under the rule of law and intellectual pluralism  is necessary for humans to have dignity, equality and justice.  What matters is not your tribal identity, but your ideas.  We should not apply different principles to different people.  We must begin with principle.