FReegards...
Posted on 12/04/2016 10:22:12 AM PST by Kaslin
During the last election campaign all of a sudden I kept hearing about the Alt-Right. Since I thought I was pretty well read and had never heard of them, I considered them to have the same social relevance as a Miley Cyrus song. I decided to investigate this supposed social phenomenon as soon as the election was over and I was done writing about real issues important to the campaign.
I started by sending emails to mainstream Republicans asking them if they knew anyone who considered themselves members of the Alt-Right. The answer was a universal no. Then I sent emails to my friends who consider themselves conservative Republicans. These are people I respect, but I consider a little more hardcore. The answer was again we don’t know any of these people.
I did get one positive response suggesting I contact Jon Fleischman, someone I have known for 20 years, who in the past five years or so has been the California editor for Breitbart. I have also written for Jon’s publication Flashreport.org.
Jon is Jewish and works for Breitbart which has been accused of being anti-Semitic. Jon is a pretty knowledgeable guy -- doing his own publication and working for Breitbart -- but was totally ignorant about the Alt-Right. I asked him what he knew about Richard Spencer (someone who has gotten recent publicity as supposedly a leader of the Alt-Right) and he said “Who is he?” He then told me that Breitbart has an intercompany communication system called a Slack Network where they exchange ideas about columns and items to be published at Breitbart. He stated “I have never seen once anything indicating any racist or anti-Semitic attitudes, not once.”
I did have an extended email conversation with a gentleman, who said he was a member of the Alt-Right. His name is John Preston though he told me that was a pseudonym. He is with the Council of Conservative Citizens. He stated he used a pseudonym (as most of the people he knows do) because a lot of people who are members of the Alt-Right are afraid of employment discrimination and other factors. John was very forthcoming and seemingly intelligent. He wrote in a very lucid manner and stated he has been part of this movement for 15 years. He also made clear he has no idea how many people are in the Alt-Right because so much of it is underground.
When I asked Preston why he believes his viewpoints are controversial and not just anti-PC, he answered with this statement: “We stick up for white people. We believe white people have interests, too. It's a big taboo to hold that position in our society. Jewish people can advocate for Jewish interests like a pro-Israel foreign policy. Black people can advocate for black interests. There is an LGBT community now with its interests and public policy agenda. White people though ... that's where the line is drawn. It's *racist* to identify as white, to have a positive sense of white identity, and to advocate on behalf of white interests like reduced immigration or, say, law and order. There are groups like the SPLC which exist to get people fired from their jobs for holding our views. That's why our cause is controversial and our movement has been driven underground. I'm not sure how much longer that can continue though.”
When I asked him about immigration he replied, “It's not because we *hate* foreigners - if they stay in their own countries and act like good neighbors, we are fine with them. I don't have a problem with Mexicans in Mexico. I don't mind foreigners coming here and studying at our universities. Personally, I admire Japan more than any other country in the world.”
“It is because we want to maintain the white majority. We don't want to be overwhelmed in our own countries. The cultural, economic and political consequences of mass immigration are disastrous for us. The Left has told us for 20 years now that White Christian America is being overthrown and washed away by their ‘ascendant majority.’ We take them at their word, believe that it is not in our interests to allow this to happen, and we are determined to stop it.”
I will leave that for you the reader to characterize. This is not necessarily representative of all thought from the people who call themselves the Alt-Right. I will say that he is correct that is not acceptable thought in most mainstream circles today. And I will say that I don’t agree with his positions.
Yes, it is racially biased toward people of European heritage, and some people believe that they cannot be prejudiced against them because of the historical fact that whites have been the majority in the United States. Some analyses have shown that it will not be long before white people are no longer a majority in America.
I am not going to dismiss the fact that there are bigots and anti-Semites on both sides of the political spectrum in this country. This is a country of about 325 million people and there are a lot of people who believe weird things. There are people who think graffiti is art. There are people who think Rap music has some social redemption. I live with that every day. This is a free country and people are free to think really stupid thoughts as long as they don’t act out on those stupid thoughts in a violent manner -- you know, like the “protesters” in Portland.
One political party does everything it can to segregate voters by identity group: Black, Hispanic, Gay, Asian, One-eyed monsters etc. Then those people who dislike those groups will identify naturally with the other political party simply because it doesn’t identify potential voters by groups, but simply suggests policy ideas that will hopefully benefit all.
If fringe people identify with the Republicans, then their candidates must spend their day disavowing ever-stupid thing that come out of these people’s mouths. And if Republicans don’t disavow them quickly enough and with the “right words,” the disavowing is discounted. Nice game the Dems and their friends in the press have going here.
I have no idea really who these people in the Alt-Right are and neither do the people I know who have been involved in Republican politics for many years. That includes people who I consider -- and even they themselves would consider -- pretty hardcore conservatives. To me identifying the people who are actually with the Alt-Right with the Republicans is akin to identifying Hillary Clinton with the Communist Party of America who did endorse her.
This is the United States of America; we are either a center-right nation (which I believe we are) or a center-left nation to which we veer occasionally. But extremism has no relevance on the left or the right of this country. So stop trying to pin extremist on either party. It is unbecoming.
I appreciate your take on it. I still can’t agree.
The Deplorable name was quickly thought up and tossed out. It was a clear attempt to denigrate us, but not with a lot of thought. It was easy to just pick up and wear proudly.
Agreeing you’re a racist, isn’t something you can sign on to in the same way. There’s no innocent form of racism.
Yes, they tried it with the Tea Party, but the Tea Party was a new group that folks could easily check out.
Conservatives have been thought by some folks to be racists for the long haul.
Thus the Alt-Right title focuses on the sub-set, that doesn’t exist other than in some folk’s minds.
If we agree we are Alt-Right, it will be an agreement that we are Alt-Right and proud of it. It will be an agreement we are racist, and proud of it, in effect saying, “So what!”
We could say laugh about being called deplorable.
We can’t laugh about being called racists.
It’s not the same thing. It will only serve to re-enforce what some folks think already.
We need to out this effort for exactly what it is.
It’s a fraud.
Take care.
FReegards...
No, the alt-right is real, and has been around for a while. It is like people who have never seen FR asking what is a freeper?
The alt-right is younger, more unctuous, and more focused on fighting the left with practical techniques than principles and ideology. It is allied together on twitter and in the blogosphere, the way Freepers group together here. Knowing all the players is kind of like knowing all the posters here.
In my opinion the primary focus is merely destroying the left, or SJWs as they call them (Social Justice Warriors), though a lot do believe immigration is death to everything good about our nations. But there is also an anti-feminist angle, an anti-equality angle, an anti- corruption angle, and anti-MSM angle, an anti-elite/establishment angle, and so on.
Most don’t deal much with race, save for the immigration thing, saying non-Americans make bad Americans, because they tend to continue to consider themselves non-Americans, and we always seem to import the sub-80 IQ ones and the Muslims ones, and expect them to fit in and carry on the American ideal.
Obviously the White supremacist’s see a window to try and squeeze in, but the alt-right is much deeper than any race thing, and I myself view it as insignificant.
That said, it is decentralized, like the tea party, so there are different ideas as to what it is depending on who you ask,
As a libertarian (or classical liberal), I see all things as a contest of authority versus Liberty.
Arbitrary or excessive authority should always be opposed on general principle, regardless of which "side" of the political spectrum it comes from. Why? Because such power inherently carries the potential for abuse, and that mere potential for misuse is what many Founders (specifically George Washington, for example) were most concerned with when the Constitution was crafted.
Since so many on both the Left and Right are perfectly willing to dispense with the principle of minimal government in order to fast track their way to their "ideal" America, I frequently find myself opposing both the Left and the Right, either alternately or jointly, on countless issues.
In any event, I categorically reject the notion that our choices must be made between competing (and equally invalid) versions of Tyranny. The true spectrum is between authority and liberty, and I will always have nothing but disdain for authority which cannot justify itself compellingly (as opposed to marginally). The more we "fudge" issues of arbitrary Law, the more we ensure a dystopian American future.
So many are willing to take self-righteous, illegitimate shortcuts through the inherent challenges which exist within a free and open society.
for waaay to many years the right and the left have simply been a noose at each end of the same rope
I think it is nothing more than the alinsky tactic to label and demonize and objectify, to get us conservatives on the defensive.
Last time it was NEOCON, and of course racist, sexist, homophobe, and like Alt right it is usually without a clear definition, but the name is just to objectify the enemy of progressives.
Count on the next election to have yet another ‘label’ to have slapped on us.
I have always thought that we could slap a label on the extreme left, like NEOCOM (neo-communist).
Much more truthful, realistic and applicable too than any label they have used on us.
The Alt-Right is small, and term itself was taken and used by Hillary and other leftist operatives as part of smear campaign, all that is true.
But your categorical statement "the Alt-Right does not exist" is simply false.
"Alt/right" is a computer key-stroke command.
"Alt/left" (arrow) will take you to the previously viewed page on your browser. Alt/right takes you back.
Please don’t use the term main stream media anymore. You only give credence to an extreme leftist ideology that has infested itself in you media organs everyday Americans have watched for years.
ABC, NBC, CBS are not mainstream anymore. They are Alt-Left in ideology and motivation. Their intend on brainwashing of the average viewer.
Trump has called them out and you will see a pitched battle over the next four years over exactly this issue. Main Stream Media is dead. We should stop using the term completely.
Please don’t use the term main stream media anymore. You only give credence to an extreme leftist ideology that has infested itself in the media organs everyday Americans have watched for years.
ABC, NBC, CBS are not mainstream anymore. They are Alt-Left in ideology and motivation. Their intend on brainwashing of the average viewer.
Trump has called them out and you will see a pitched battle over the next four years over exactly this issue. Main Stream Media is dead. We should stop using the term completely.
Or maybe Ctrl-Left
No, it's not. You are incorrect.
It was first used in Taki's Magazine, a spin off of The American Conservative (Buchanan and Taki were founders of that one) in 2009 by then-editor Richard Spencer in the title of an article about rightist dissident and intellectual Paul Gotfried.
The term continued to be used with increasing regularity in Taki's Magazine and among other strands of the dissident right. For instance here is another article from Taki Mag published in 2009: The Alternative Right.
In 2010 Spencer left Taki Mag to start his own on-line magazine/web-site named "Alternative Right", and hosted at alternativeright.com, a URL he has since retired. At that time he went on to found a new web-journal and site, Radix Journal, which is still publishing alt-right themed articles and podcasts weekly.
There was some falling out and change in Spencer's thinking around this time that made him want to move forward without the old site on line, I believe. Many of the writers who had contributed the most to Alternative Right started a blog under that name, using free blogging tool Blogspot. Here is that site: alternative-right.blogspot.com
Applying a real label, or the name of a real group that exists or existed historically, to another group that has nothing to do with that group is a Standard Leftist Tactic. After all we can just look at Trump and his supporters, who have also been continuously called: Fascists and Nazis, two groups that Trump has nothing to do with. The KKK has also been invoked endlessly.
To say Trump and his supporters should have nothing to do with the alt-right is a solid political opinion and tactic. But to claim the alt-right doesn't exist, or is a creation of the left is completely incorrect. Making that claim is destined to end badly for those making it. It is easily proven false, as I have demonstrated here.
The "Council of Conservative Citizens" isn't conservative--it's an out-and-out white racialist organization (the heir of the old White Citizens Councils) and is, of course, fanatically anti-Israel and pro-Arab.
When I asked him about immigration he replied, “It's not because we *hate* foreigners - if they stay in their own countries and act like good neighbors, we are fine with them. I don't have a problem with Mexicans in Mexico. I don't mind foreigners coming here and studying at our universities. Personally, I admire Japan more than any other country in the world.”
This position is known as "ethnopluralism" or "a planet of peoples." It holds that there is no single human race, that every ethnic group should have its own ethno-culturally inviolable country, and implies that the "gxd" and "religion" of each is going to be different. After all, a single G-d implies "race-mixing globalism." Some of these groups have adopted a position known as "kinism," in which each ethnic group gets the special regulations that objectively apply to the Chosen People; thus each nation is its own "Israel" with its own laws against miscegenation.
The Left has told us for 20 years now that White Christian America is being overthrown and washed away by their ‘ascendant majority.’
This is a very old trope, and its implication (for those who can't figure it out) is that chrstianity serves no purpose whatsoever but the utilitarian philosophy of people of European descent. Notice there is not even the hint of concern about the objective truth of chrstianity or its appropriateness for all people everywhere. It is merely white b*ddhism. Period. But at least it acknowledges (in a back-handed sort of way) that the Left isn't against all chrstianity, but only against some. The most fanatical troops on the Left are Black and Hispanic chrstians, and the same groups are practically worshiped by atheist leftist intellectuals in the same way that atheist white racialist intellectuals worship us rednecks.
These people aren't just mistaken; they are evil (since the One True G-d is eternally and indissolubly lined with the Jewish People). Anyone who opposes homosexuality but hates Jews is not opposing homosexuality because it violates the laws of G-d but for some other reason.
This is not an attempt to excuse the Left and the equally foul and despicable racialists on their side. But these people are here and are using the current moment to push their agenda. I argued with a couple right here on Free Republic just last week.
The fact that the Left resorts to such tactics is no excuse for us to do the same. Nor should any conservative fear that continuing to marginalize anti-Semites is in any degree to support the Left.
So long as we are focused on G-d rather than our cultures, civilizations, or chromosomes we will not go wrong.
These guys talked about “Conservative Right” and “Alternative Right” in the past.
The first use of “Alt-Right” appears to be this year. These guys claimed they first coined it, but they did not use “Alt-Right” when doing so. They used the above names until “Alt-Right” become prominent this year. Then they claimed they were the first to reference it.
I’m not buying into that.
“Alt-right” has been used this year in conjunction with seedy racist name calling. So thanks for the nice links. You made it easy for me to confirm this.
I used to be a member of the John Birch Society. Believe me, they deserve to be destroyed. They're nothing but the Liberty Lobby trying to look slightly more polite.
it’s older than that...
In November 2008, Paul Gottfried addressed the H. L. Mencken Club about what he called “the alternative right”.
Now you’re a member of #BLACKLIESMATTER. How times change.
Am Ren (American Renaissance), another site frequently considered Alt-Right (though it pre-dates the term) had a USA Alexa ranking of #13,384
This matches up with The Center for American Progress, which was rated #13,849.
Free Republic had a USA Alexa rank of #2,338.
Democratic Underground - #3,967.
So, bigger than a vanity blog, but still far behind sites like FR.
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