DeCantoring the GOP

This is interesting: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost to some Brat from the Tea Party. Cantor outspent Brat by 25 to 1 and still lost.

It is rare for senior political leaders to lose their primary challenge to outsiders; so the election took everyone by surprise.

Personally, I had considered Cantor to be one of the better GOP leaders. But, on listening to Cantor's concession speech, I am glad for the change.

Like so many people in power, Cantor appears to have developed a top down view of the economy in which the governance is the principle actor in life and the people are just workers.

Just a note on terminology. The idea that the wealth of the nation flows from God through kings and lords is the heart of classical conservatism.Classical liberalism holds that the wealth of the nation bubbles up from the people.


The talking heads on TV are making hay about conservatism when Cantor seems more in line with the classical conservative view than Brat.

I watched several YouTube videos featuring Dave Brat. I couldn't really wrap my head around the meaning of Brat's win.

It seems to me that the driving force in this win is that people know that there is something dreadfully wrong in Washington and are looking for an answer.

Although I liked Cantor, I am thrilled with this turn of events.

Sacred Wilderness

Here in the Western US, mountains are considered sacred wilderness. Most mountains are government owned and considered public domain.

Young kids from Idaho, especially those on the fringe of society, grow up seeing mountains as a sacred sanctuary. No matter how bad things are in town, anyone can simply walk up into the sacred mountains for solace.

Bowe Bergdahl was a home schooled kid in the Sovereign Redeemer Presbyterian Church growing up in Hailey, Idaho with a population under 8,000.

In Afghanistan, the mountains are a military stronghold that tribal warlords have held for millennia.

A confused home-schooled kid from Idaho fighting a war in Afghanistan is likely to see the military strongholds of Afghanistan and harken back to his ideals of a sacred wilderness.

BTW, I happen to be a big supporter of home-schooling. IMHO: People who are home-schooled have a delightful independent streak that adds to the diversity of this nation.

That a home-schooled kid from Idaho ends up separated from his platoon and is captured by the Taliban does not surprise me in the least. That a kid has empathy for the Taliban doesn't surprise me either.

Empathy is a good thing.

What disappoints me is the viciousness with which the right-wing press is attacking Berghdahl.

I happen to think that Obama fumbled on this prisoner exchange.

But when I look at the viciousness with which the right wing press is going after this poor home-schooled fundamentalist Christian, I find myself sympathetic to Obama's position.

Surprisingly, the argument for releasing prisoners from Gitmo at this point in time are largely the same arguments for holding prisoners without trial at Gitmo in the first place.

The detainees at Gitmo are prisoners of war. One holds prisoners of war, without trail, during the war to prevent them from returning to the battlefield.

Prisoners of war are held in relation to the war. In normal circumstances one would expect a release of prisoners of war at the end of the war. The problem we face is that the Gitmo prisoners are terrorists who are likely to engage in a civil war against the elected government of Afghanistan or who might engage in international terrorism.

As we exit Afghanistan, we should be looking for ways to release the prisoners of Gitmo.Obama fumbled this process by not seeking advice of Congress.

Even worse, by negotiating a hostage release with the Taliban has revitalized and relegitimized a terrorist organization.

Pointing out the pathetic job done by Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry did on this issue is not a bad thing.

The vicious attacks on a home schooled kid who foolishly went into the mountains is showing the right is as out of touch as the left.

Photoshopping People Out of the Community

First on the international front: A CONSERVATIVE family in Pakistan stoned to death their pregnant daughter for marrying outside the family's wishes.

Yes, Standing in a circle and throwing stones at your daughter until she dies is an active of CONSERVATISM.

Anyone who is standing up waving CONSERVATISM as the answer is either a troglodyte or an idiot.

There are good answers in this world.


Liberty is an answer. The ideals of US Founders make for a  good answer. There are many great answers found in religious traditions. I, myself, am quite fond of forcing ideas through the rigors of logic, mathematics and science.

As for CONSERVATISM; I've never seen anything there beyond senseless reaction.

There are two possible ways for coming to the worst possible answer. The first is POGRESSIVISM and the second CONSERVATISM.

For example, Health Care is an extremely important issue. I argue that it is the most important issue of our generation.

For the last hundred years, health care has been dominated by progressive thinking. People have fallen for the line that group funding of health care is the only possible way to fund health care. Progressives want the collective owned by the state (socialism) and conservatives want the collective owned by big business (fascism).

Both sides of this argument are wrong.

The VA is one of the best implementations of group funded health care going, and we routinely see people thrown out and dying.


I believe that a free market could give our veterans far better care than received in the VA, but, since the single minded issue of Conservatives is the preservation of the social order, there will never be a day when Conservatives discuss free market health care reform.

Conservatives are such a cowardly and pathetic lot, they will not even discuss the issue of free market health care reform.

If Conservatives are unwilling to discuss free market health care reform, what are conservatives willing to do?

 I live in Utah. Utah is the most conservative state West of Iran. Because Utahans are constrained by the Constitution, Conservatives have not been able to institute the time honored practice of stoning women, but folks in this state are really good at publicly humiliating and casting people out.

A case in point happened at Wasatch High School up in Heber City. The Modesty-Nazis at the yearbook took it upon themselves to photoshop away exposed shoulders and raise the necklines of the senior girls.

Does anyone seriously believe that these conservatives who photoshop girls' photos in the yearbook to meet their personal aesthetics would ever actually do anything to advance liberty in this nation.

I've lived in the most severely conservative state  West of Iran. I've never personally witnessed a conservative defending freedom. The idea that Conservatives will deliver freedom is about as far fetched at the idea that Progressives can deliver social justice.

Both sides of the left/right split are poisonous. I am happy that our nation was founded by truly great men who attempted to reject this base partisanship to craft a Constitution that takes a stab at defending liberty. Because of the founders, Conservatism in America is just petty acts like photoshopping out shoulders and ostracizing people and not stoning.

This is Conservatism. Is This Really What You Want?

I've been asking the question: "Can Conservatism save America?"

The answer is a resounding "no."

Conservatism is a belief in a class society held together by a systematic moral condemnation of the underclasses.

It is exactly the system of thought thought that the US Founders fought against.

A prime example of conservatism is taking place in Sudan. According to Al Jazeera a Sudanese Court ordered a pregnant woman to be hung for apostasy along with 100 lashes. Mariam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag's crime was to convert from Islam to Christianity. The execution was ordered for the Conservative cause of defending the faith.

A large number of people are protesting the verdict and want to see Mariam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag liberated. This desire to see this person liberated is called "liberal."

To all those people who call themselves conservative, do you really believe that this young woman should be put to 100 lashes and executed.

Beating and killing a woman to defend the faith is an act of Conservatism!

The Judge who ordered the woman to be beaten and murdered is a conservative. His verdict is a Conservative judgment. To all of those people who call themselves "conservative," do you really love standing with this judge?

I am horrified by the judge and find his self-righteous condemnation more abhorrent than the alleged apostasy.

My guess is that most Americans who call themselves "conservative" abhor this verdict as well, and that most conservatives have failed to spend time thinking through the meaning and history of conservatism. Quite frankly, I think that most of the people calling themselves conservative would stop if they simply thought through and researched the history and meaning of conservatism. Conservatism is not the ideology of the US Founders.

The Left/Right split came after the US Founders. The US founders had a classical liberal arts education steeped in classical logic. They applied their liberal arts education to the question and came up with a system with a limited government and unlimited people. I like to call this system "Classical Liberal."

The Left/Right Split came from the the French Revolution. The Right sought preservation of the social order of the ancient regime and the left sought radical social change. Both sides of this split adopted forms of Modern Logic (Hegelian Dialectics). This dialectics is simply a conflict driven approach to governance. Conflict driven politics necessarily leads to conflict driven governance. We see both the left and right doing terrible things to their partisan foes when they get power.

I stand with the liberals who wish to see Mariam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag freed, and detest the conservatives who wish to see her executed.

Conservatism in Action

I live in the most "conservative" state west of Iran. Utah is unique in that the first big wave of pioneers were people who left the United States to establish a totalitarian theocracy. Utah Territory and California were acquired by the United States after a war with Mexico. The US Army invaded Salt Lake City and forced on the people the ideals of a limited government and individual freedom (aka Liberalism).

"Conservatives" in Utah still aspire to a totalitarian state like Iran. So it's always fun to look East to see Conservatism in action.

The big news in Iran is that six people used their iPhones to create a tribute video to a song called "Happy" by Pharell Williams. The young videographers were promptly arrested and imprisoned.

There was a huge social media campaign to free the dancers. The Conservative regime of Tehran finally let up and freed the happy dancers with stark warnings about their behavior.

Anyway, here is the video.



I wish to challenge anyone who believes in "conservatism" to tell me why these people should be arrested?

Roots of Conservatism

Modern Conservatism is as problematic for lovers of liberty as modern progressivism.

In someways modern conservatism is worse than modern liberalism because so many people these days confuse "conservatism" with the ideals of the US.

Conservatism is a partisan dialectical ideology that traces its roots to Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, Edmund Burke and incorporates the modern logic of Hegel.

This reactionary philosophy holds the US Founders as naive. Conservatives have carefully constructed a partisan thought system in which one plays to the image of liberty without actually advancing liberty.

The US Founders despised Machiavelli and the partisanship of Europe. The partisan conservative has whole-heartedly adopted the very form of discourse the the US Founders sought to shed.

The key to understanding both the US Founders and the American Experiment in Self-Rule is that the Founders had a classical liberal arts education steeped in the classical tradition of Aristotelian logic. They applied classical logic to the question of liberty.

NOTE: Conservatives of 1776 had the same Liberal Arts education which they had applied to the class society of feudalism.

Conservatives of 1776 stood shoulder to shoulder with the British and leveled their musket fire at the US Founders. The claim that the US Founders were Conservatives and the monarchy was left wing progressive is absurd. Conservatives of 1776 opposed the Founders and immediately set in to undermine the American experiment in self rule.

The key to restoring the American Experiment in Self Rule is not conservatism. The key to restoring America is to rediscover the classical liberal ideals of the US founders.

The shrill Hegelian Dialectics of Sean Hannity, Limbaugh and Beck does not lead to a promising future. It leads to greater division.

Yes, it is true that Conservatives wave flags and play to the image of the US Founders. But when one looks beyond this thin facade one finds the underlying structure of Conservatism (ie, Machiavelli, Hobbes,. Burke and all) is not only incapable of restoring liberty. Conservatism, as it was envisioned by the reactionaries of 1776, is apt to undermine the American Experiment in Self Rule and return America to serfdom.

Those seeking to restore liberty must learn to stand against both the Left and Right, for the liberty envisioned by the Founders is not a partisan ideology and one cannot restore this beautiful vision with partisan bickering.

Modern Conservatism will lead us down as dark a road as Modern Liberalism. The Left/Right split did not come from the US Founders. It came from the parliaments of Europe. Both sides of this negative partisan divide lead to dark ends. We are foolish to seek our restoration on either of these paths.

Business Ownership a Privilege

The Don Sterling scandal is important in that it highlights a theme being developed by the left. The theme is that business ownership is a privilege, and that the ruling elite should have the power to yank ownership at a political whim.


In this case, Don Sterling's personal secretary made a secret recording with remarks that inflamed outrage. The case ends with political authorities banning Sterling from the NBA and an attempt to strip Don Sterling's ownership of the LA Clippers. (which presumably will end up in the hands of politically favored billionaires).

In my last post, I listened to the Don Sterling tape on YouTube. V. Stiviano, who was recording a private conversation, appeared to be baiting the conversation. The things she was saying about skin were as inflammatory as Sterling, but she said them in a mild tone. Don Sterling was clearly exasperated about the conversation.

The political fire-storm from this tape led NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to ban Mr. Sterling's from the NBA and to seek taking Mr. Sterling's business away.

IMHO, this issue of whether or not the ruling elite should be able to strip businesses from people they find politically incorrect is an extremely important question.

A week ago, I broke down and read Mein Kampf. In Mein Kampf, Hitler frames as race of people as the people's enemy. Once in power be began the process of stripping the Jewish people of their businesses and their property. He finally devolved into committing genocide.

BTW, Mr. Sterling is Jewish. This act of stripping a person of a business for being judged politically incorrect is a sterling case of history repeating itself.

The important issue in the Sterling case is: Should the ruling elite have the ability to strip people of their business when they are judged politically incorrect?

There is a possibility that Don Sterling is a racist. Is this sufficient cause to strip someone from their business?

The tape that led to the seizure of Sterling's business was recorded privately by a person who was having an argument with Mr. Sterling. Arguably, the tape was made to bait Mr. Sterling into making a racist comment.

The debate about whether or not Mr. Sterling should be stripped of his business is made even more compelling by the possibility that he was set up? When we have a society where the ruling elite are able to strip people of their business, then we have a situation where players can set up people for a fall. If you pretend that you are Perry Mason and that Don Sterling was your innocent client who was being baited, you will see this possibility in the tape.

The fact that Mr. Sterling is Jewish makes the debate even more interesting because the case appears to be one in which history is repeating itself. Just last century ago, Jews were having their businesses and property stripped from them for political reasons.

I am inclined to see business ownership as a right and not a privilege. I believe that stripping a person of his business is wrong even if the person is an ugly 80 year old Jewish man. I fear that our country is headed into an ugly era if we revive the notion that the political elite should strip people of their business if they are politically incorrect.

Donald Sterling Tape

It appears that Americans are losing the ability to distinguish image from substance.

Talking heads on TV are outraged by a tape of a conversation between a person called Don Sterling and V. Stiviano. The NBA actually demanded that Don Sterling give up ownership of his team because of this conversation. People were making such a big deal of the recording that I decided to listen to it. I knew nothing of Don Sterling other other than the feigned outrage and that he is losing millions because of the tape. Here is a YouTube of the conversation:

The conversation involves the topics of age and race; so the age and race of the speakers matters. I Googled the names. Don Sterling is 80 (born in 1934). He was born Donald Tokowitz. He is of Jewish descent. V. Stiviano is thirty-something and of mixed race. She changed her name from Maria Vanessa Perez.

The two had some sort of relationship in which Don Sterling, a billionaire, was getting companionship and V. Stiviano was getting things and access to people. The conversation was apparently preceded by an argument about pictures posted on Instagram. It appears that the conversation was recorded secretly by V. Stiviano.

While listening to the conversation, it is important to understand that Ms Stiviano knows about the recording. Mr. Sterling does not. The recording starts with Mr. Sterling recognizing that they were currently in a fight. Ms. Stiviano's claim that she is not fighting is obviously untrue because she is recording the conversation. The rest of the conversation is simply one in which Ms. Stiviano calmly throws out bait with Mr. Sterling deflecting.

If you think about the words of the conversation, the bait that Ms. Stiviano calmly tosses out is actually much more incendiary than the gruff deflections of Mr. Sterling.

Much of the conversation is about the irony that Jewish people, who were clearly victims of persecution, treated black people claiming to be Jewish poorly. People in the House of Israel claim to be descendents of a given family. There is natural skepticism of people who appear to be a different race making claims to that heritage.

Here in the United States, people in the Navajo Tribe are dubious of white people who walk onto the Reservation claiming to be Navajo. Quite frankly, I find more fault with white people who falsely claim to be Navajo than with Navajo who react to such claims with resentment.

A primary theme of the conversation is about changing culture. Ms. Stiviano says that she wants to change culture. Mr. Sterling says that he has no desire to change culture and is content to leave people as they are.

Which of the two views is more racist: A person who is content with letting people have their cultures with all their cultural faults or people who set forth to change the culture of others?

The persecution of the Jewish people was punctuated with well-intentioned people who took it upon themselves to change the Jews.

I am inclined to see those who set forth to change the culture of others as "cultural imperialists." I see cultural imperialism as a deeper form of racism than those who are willing to let people be with all of the faults that people have.

The terrible part of the conversation comes at the end. Apparently Mr. Sterling had been giving Ms. Stiviano tickets to invite personal friends to the games. Mr. Sterling had not been clicking with those friends. It is not uncommon for people to dislike the friends of their friends. Ms. Stiviano had made race the focus of the conversation to this point, and Sterling takes the bait.

There is an important question here: Does a person have to automatically include people of different races into their network of personal friends to prove non-racism? Mr. Sterling had included Ms. Stiviano in his network of friends. She was mixed race.

Judging solely on this conversation, I find that I am more offended by the baiting done by Ms. Stiviano than with the gruff deflections of Mr. Sterling. IMHO, the people who are raising this conversation as an example of "racism" are doing the world a disservice. Mr. Sterling might be a racist, but the form of the conversation does not prove it.

The person who is recording the conversation and who is controlling the conversation with baited statements is using a very simple tactic. She is using a calm tone while making baited statements. The person who does not know the conversation is recorded is deflecting the bait with a gruff voice. I fear that the pundits who pounced on this conversation confused tone with substance. The tone of the person recording and controlling the conversation is clearly contrived.

I find the media and political reaction to the tape far more troubling than the substance of the tape. If the media is incapable of recognizing an obviously baited conversation, then we are all in trouble.

Mein Kampf == Conservatism on Steroids

I suspect that most self-described "Conservatives" in the United States associate the term "Conservative" with the US Founders. Such American Conservatives want to conserve the ideals of the US Founders.

The problem, however, is that conservatism does not come from the US Founders. The Left/Right split which dominates modern politics came from Europe. In the French Revolution, the Left sought radical social change. The Right sought to preserve the social order of the ancient regime which they saw as the Natural Aristocracy.

The partisan thought that developed in the United States in the early 1800s is equally ugly. In the early nineteenth century America reactionary thinkers sought ways to preserve the peculiar institution of slavery. So, even here in America there was already a great perversion of thought going on as groups sought to preserve unjust social institutions.

The US Founders despised the partisanship of Europe. The Constitution does not mention the Parties.

It is absurd to claim that one party represents the ideals of the US Founders while the other does not simply because the Founders abhorred such partisan nonsense. You, as an individual thinker might support the ideals of the founder. Your party, however, is a souless entity that does not think.

I happen to believe strongly in the American Experiment in self rule and have been trying to find ways to preserve this experiment. I believe that health care is the absolute most important issue of our day, and that if Americans do not act to replace PPACA with free market reform that this experiment will come to an inglorious end.

It just so happens that I live the most conservative section of the United State. One has to travel to Iran to find a more conservative place than Utah. Here in the most Conservative place West of Tehran, I've found zero interest in defending health freedom. The arch conservatives that run this state like a dictatorship will not even talk about health care.

It is not just that Conservatives won't talk to me. In six years of actively looking, I've found only one public event specifically addressing health care. This was the national Stand Up For Freedom Rally which was poorly attended (See Photo).

I am not surprised that people ignore me. Being a free-thinker in a Conservative state, I am accustomed to being kicked down at every turn. I would expect nothing less.

What bugs me is that Conservatives, who claim to support the ideals of the Founders, are doing nothing to defend health freedom in this time of great need.

So, for this last year I've been reading "conservative" literature to try and figure out just what is wrong with the Conservative movement. My sad conclusion is that Conservatism is as inherently evil as progressivism.

Conservatism and Progressives simply mirror each other. All of the faults of the Left exist on the Right and all the flaws of the Right exist on the left.

As you see, the Left/Right Split is a false dichotomy. Both sides of a false dichotomy are false. It is the nature of partisanship that the parties simply mirror each other. The two sides of a coin are made of the same metal.

The moderate position in a false dichotomy is also false. The proper response to a false dichotomy is to reject the dichotomy itself. This is not as hard to do as we imagine. It does entail challenging both sides of the dichotomy.

So, I've been reading Conservative literature with a critical eye and decided to conclude this endeavor by reading on peculiar piece of right wing literature titled "Mein Kampf" by Adolf Hitler.

American Conservatives tend to balk when they see Mein Kampf categorized in with right wing literature. Such conservative have forgotten that the lauded Left/Right split came from Europe. The radical left in Europe sought radical social change. The reactionary right sought to preserve the social order of the ancient regime. Hitler was a reactionary thinker who witnessed the collapse of the Austria-Hungary Empire and the defeat of the German Empire in World War I. Hitler's dream of a Third Reich was a revival and expansion of these empires.

So, Mein Kempf is not just conservative. It is conservatism on steroids. The book I read was a PDF published by Noontide Press. I have no desire to link to this book.

Before writing this review. I want to emphasize that most people in the US who call themselves "conservatism" are people who want to preserve the ideals of the US Founders and the Western Christian Tradition. Both the Western Christian Tradition and the US Founders came before the modern Progressive/Conservative split.

If you are standing out in the street calling yourself a "conservative," I beg you to please reconsider your position. Conservatism is not what you think it is. It is an ugly reactionary movement set on preserving a class society. What we need to do in America is defend freedom. Conservatism is the wrong way to do this.

What one finds in Mein Kampf is Conservatism in its rawest form divorced of Christian ethics and void of the common sense of the US Founders. In Mein Kampf, Hitler presents a racially based world view claiming that there is a Natural Aristocracy. His goal is to restore that order through total war and racial genocide.

Hitler, like many Conservative pundits, is a dot-connector. He does strange things like connect the ancient tradition of Judaism with Marxism. Judaism is an ancient religion from the Middle East. Marxism is a modern ideology in the line of Kant and Hegel.

As a youth, Hitler moved through leftist circles learning the dialectics and connecting the dots. He finally concluded that the only solution to the mess made by the Social Democrats was for a great leader to rise and stand opposed to Marxism.

"If Social Democracy is opposed by a doctrine of greater truth, but equal brutality of methods,
the latter will conquer, though this may require the bitterest struggle."

The idea of using the tools of one's enemy to destroy the enemy is as old as the hills. This idea is in both Sun-Tsu and Machiavelli. Using the tools of one's enemy to destroy one's enemy is the heart and soul of Marxism. Marx spent most of his life penning a tome called "Das Kapital." The goal of Das Kapital was to create a top heavy version of the free market destined to tumble to a social revolution. Marx's tactic was to destroy the free market by redefining it in a way that would collapse. Marx sought to use the tools of his enemy to destroy his enemy. The great irony here is that Karl Marx is the father of Modern Capitalism.

Just as Marx sought to use the tools of the capitalist to destroy capitalism, Hitler sought to use the tools of communism to destroy communism.

As a youth Hitler was confronted by Left Wing labor movement. Hitler realized that standing against labor was futile; so he took a more cunning tact of capturing labor and turning it into a nationalist movement.

"In my Viennese years I was forced, whether I liked it or not, to take a position on the trade unions."

Hitler saw that the anti-labor stand of the bourgeoisie was alienating a vital component of the economy; so he sought to create a right wing alternative to left wing labor.

"For to call the trade-union movement in itself unpatriotic is nonsense and
untrue to boot. Rather the contrary is true. If trade-union activity strives and succeeds in
bettering the lot of a class which is one of the basic supports of the nation, its work is not only
not anti-patriotic or seditious, but 'national' in the truest sense of the word."

Hitler's strategy was to use the trade unions as a tool to rebuild the empire.

Hitler was a dot connector. He saw that several left wing writers were Jewish. So, he connected dots and framed Marxism a Jewish conspiracy. This dot connecting allowed Hitler to disassociate Marxism from Germany, as Marx was German.

Hitler had a really deep hatred of democracy and the parliamentary process which he saw as an affront to the natural Aristocracy. (Most conservatives I've met share disdain for Democracy and repeat the meme that the US is a Republic not a Democracy).

He realized that it is easier to unite people against a foe than to solve problems: "In general the art of all truly great national leaders at all times consists among other things primarily in not dividing the attention of a people, but in concentrating it upon a single foe." (Of course, both parties in the US are guilty of this flaw.)

This next little gem is the anthem of all "dot-connectors": "It belongs to the genius of a great leader to make even adversaries far removed from one another seem to belong to a single category, because in weak and uncertain characters the knowledge of having different enemies can only too readily lead to the beginning of doubt in their own right."

Hitler then goes on to say: "Once the wavering mass sees itself in a struggle against too many enemies, objectivity will put in an appearance, throwing open the question whether all others are really wrong and only their own people or their own movement are in the right."

BTW, I should insert here that I personally am a firm believer in objectivity. The converse of this statement is that one can encourage objectivity in a society by pointing out that there is not one single evil player that we must struggle against but a complex world with good and evil in all people.

Hitler wanted to create a single enemy to fight against; so he created a fantasy in which Marxism and Judaism were some how linked and that he was fighting to save the German people from this two headed monster:

Hitler was not a Left-wing Marxist. In Munich Hitler declared Marxism his enemy (page 117): "In the years 1913 and 1914, I, for the first time in various circles which today in part faithfully support the National Socialist movement, expressed the conviction that the question of the future of the German nation was the question of destroying Marxism."

Page 127 provides an example of how Hitler combines two of his declared enemies into one: "Marxism, whose goal is and remains the destruction of all non-Jewish national states, was forced to look on in horror as, in the July days of 1914, the German working class it had ensnared, awakened and from hour to hour began to enter the service of the fatherland ..."

During World War I, Hitler set out to become a master of propaganda. On page 137 he states: "The function of propaganda is, for example, not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly."

Hitler fought in WWI. He loved the military and disliked cowardly civilians. This is what he wrote of peacenik-liberals on page 144 after his return to Berlin: "Here for the first time I heard a thing that was still unknown at the front; men bragging about their own cowardice! For the cursing and 'beefing' you could hear at the front were never an incitement to shirk duty or a glorification of the coward. No! The coward still passed as a coward and as nothing else;"

He also spat out these words: "to be a slacker passed almost as a sign of higher wisdom, while loyal steadfastness was considered a symptom of inner weakness and narrow-mindedness. The offices were filled with Jews. Nearly every clerk was a Jew and nearly every Jew was a clerk."

The darkest moment of Hitler's struggles came when the German Monarchy was transitioned from a monarchy to a Republic. He describes this event on page 152: "I, too, was present at the short speech. The dignified old gentleman seemed all a-tremble as he informed us that the House of Hollenzollern should no longer bear the German imperial crown; that the fatherland had become a ' republic ' [...] everything went black before my eyes; I tottered and groped my way back to the dormitory, threw myself on my bunk, and dug my burning head into my blanket and pillow."

To Hitler, the transformation from a monarchy to a republic was a moment of great darkness. This brings me back to this stupid ideology called "Conservatism." People pretend that "conservative" has some sort of universal meaning when the term "conservative" is simply relative to what one is trying to "conserve," just as progressivism is relative to what one is trying to progress.

Conservatism is such an ugly ideology. Here in Utah, I routinely hear the brown-shirts of the Conservative movement denouncing the moral relativism of progressivism, when conservatism shares the exact same relativism. Conservatism is relative to what one is conserving.

Hitler's entry into politics was prompted by the transformation of a monarchy into a republic. He launched into his study of political-economics. He realized that he could do so by capturing the labor movement and turn it into a nationalist movement: "I began to study again, and now for the first time really achieved an understanding of the content of the Jew Karl Marx's life effort. Only now did his Capital become really intelligible to me, and also the struggle of the Social Democracy against the national economy, which aims only to prepare the ground for the domination of truly international finance and stock exchange capital."

NOTE: Marx was of Jewish lineage but baptized Lutheran. Clearly, Marx was more into Hegelian philosophy than he was into religion.

But back to Hitler's struggles. The conservative nature of his ideology shines in the section on the collapse of the German Empire (which he called the German Reich). Hitler blames this collapse on Jews, the Parliament weak intellectuals and the press. Here is a little section on education and the press on page 179:

"The state, therefore, has the duty of watching over their education and preventing any mischief. It must particularly exercise strict control over the press; for its influence on these people is by far the strongest and most penetrating, since it is applied, not once in a while, but over and over again. In the uniformity and constant repetition of this instruction lies its tremendous power. If anywhere, therefore, it is here that the state must not forget that all means must serve an end; it must not let itself be confused by the drivel about so-called 'freedom of the press' and let itself be talked into neglecting its duty and denying the nation the food which it needs and which is good for it;"

Notice how Hitler ties the Liberal Press, Marxists and Jews into one tight package: "The so-called liberal press was actively engaged in digging the grave of the German people and the German Reich. We can pass by the lying Marxist sheets in silence; to them lying is just as vitally necessary as catching mice for a cat; their function is only to break the people's national and patriotic backbone and make them ripe for the slave's yoke of international capital and its masters, the Jews."

In Mein Kampf, we find numerous bursts of moral outrage such as: "Our whole public life today is like a hothouse for sexual ideas and stimulations. Just look at the bill of fare served up in our movies, vaudeville and theaters, and you will hardly be able to deny that this is not the right kind of food, particularly for the youth."

One page 196, Hitler shows a strange contempt for religion while promoting religious dogmatism: "Also noteworthy is the increasingly violent struggle against the dogmatic foundations of the various churches without which in this human world the practical existence of a religious faith is not conceivable. The great masses of people do not consist of philosophers; precisely for the masses, faith is often the sole foundation of a moral attitude." Essentially, because the masses are not philosophical like he is, we need religious dogmatism to keep the masses in check.

Hitler spews forth with a bunch or racist nonsense on page 207. The racism is based on the idea that there is a natural order to things in which the master races must subjugate inferior races for the good of all. He gives warnings to those who deny the natural order of things. It turns out that Jews and Marxists are the ones guilty of denying this natural order. This is the type of garbage spewn: "The man who misjudges and disregards the racial laws actually forfeits the happiness that seems destined to be his. He thwarts the triumphal march of the best race and hence also the precondition for all human progress."

Progress is dependent on a racial hierarchy with the Aryan race being the bearer of culture. In Hitler's fantasy, being the bearer of culture is a great altruistic thing. "This state of mind, which subordinates the interests of the ego to the conservation of the community, is really the first premise for every truly human culture. From it alone can arise all the great works of mankind, which bring the founder little reward, but the richest blessings to posterity."

BTW, this idea that there is a natural order to things was fundamental to the ancient regime. This set of ugly ideas in Mein Kampf can be labeled as "conservative." What he is doing is conserving all of the top-down thinking that dominated Europe during the Dark Ages.

This is why the term "conservative" is so problematic. The effect of "conservatism" is dependent on what is being conserved.

I suspect that most American "conservatives" want to conserve the American Experiment in Self Rule. Unfortunately, I fear, the American conservative movement has undermined these ideals through their methodology. The left/right split came from Europe and the dialectical methods used by both Modern Liberals (progressives) and Modern Conservatives come from the Kantian/Hegelian tradition.

Hegelian dialectics (modern logic) is a paradoxical system of thought in which the two sides of the conflict end up mirroring each other. To be blunt, Stalin is the natural outcome of left wing thinking and Hitler the natural outcome of right wing thinking. Both corrupt methods of thinking end up in brutal dictatorship.

As a society, we cannot get to where we want to be by following this dialectical path. The Left/Right split is a false dichotomy. Both sides of a false dichotomy are false. The middle of a false dichotomy is as irrational as the extremes. The way out of this mess is to recognize the false dichotomy as a failed and to reject the whole ball of wax: left, right and center.

Well, I got to the end of volume one of Mein Kampf. I just can't take it any more. The right is clearly not the remedy for the left. Fortunately, Americans are blessed with a way out. We have the American Experiment in self rule started by the Founders of this nation coupled with a rich Judeo/Christian heritage. I say we dump this foolish notion that the Right side of the French Parliament of 1787 had the right path to follow and follow this American Experiment in Self Rule instead.

A Note on Notovitch

This is amusing. Apparently a BYU professor named Alonzo Gaskill just published a book which cited a 19th Century Russian named Nicholas Notovitch who claimed to have discovered lost writings of Jesus Christ in India.

To an untutored layman, Gaskill's work appears to be on par with most of the stuff streaming out of BYU.

What I find interesting is the fervor with which LDS pundits are denouncing Notovitch and Gaskill. Many of the LDS apologists denouncing Notovitch would go apoplectic if anyone used the same words in regards to Joseph Smith.

BTW: I recently I discovered that LDS Apologists get upset for seemingly benign statements like "Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Moses." Apparently, the LDS claim is that Joseph Smith was channeling Moses, Enoch and Abraham when the Pearl of Great Price, the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mosses flowed from Joseph Smith's pen in the 1830s.

The seemingly benign statement that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Moses is considered blasphemy and a vile attack on the LDS Faith and must be shouted down.

Anyway, here's a link to "The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ" by Nicholas Notovtich written circa 1887.

I quickly scanned Notovitch's text and decided to render my unlearned judgment of its authenticity. So, here goes:

The first thing I noticed was that the book is written in a narrative style akin to HG Wells.

As everyone who's read the King James Bible knows: God speaks with an Old English Accent.

If "The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ" were authentic, it would be written in King James style Old English. Dag-nabbit!