Final Solution Merchants

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Nick McAvelly’s latest guest-essay is appropriate during a time when Antifa is ascendant in Western media and popular culture.

Final Solution Merchants

By Nick McAvelly

Mobs are marching through the streets: aggressive young men and women, waving banners and shouting slogans, who want to see our societies burned to ashes and a new world order established on the ruins. This future existence, from which there will be no escape, will be a multicultural utopia, so we are being led to believe. According to these young philosopher-thugs, there is no such thing as right and wrong because all morality is subjective and personal. In their utopian dream-world, all moral values will be human values — thoughts about morality that occur within someone’s mind, and which are relative to everything else that individual thinks and feels. This kind of thinking is problematic, to say the least.

Anyone who has visited the Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London understands that the moral term “evil” is meaningful, and it can be correctly applied to what the National Socialists did at Auschwitz. But if one of the new philosopher-thugs tries to condemn the Nazis, and insists that their condemnation rests on what they were taught to believe by other members of their society, then the problem they face is that an SS guard stationed at Auschwitz would have had another set of beliefs about morality, based on what they were taught to believe by other members of their society. And if the SS guard praised what they now condemn, then the philosopher-thug of today cannot say that one view is better than the other.

These so-called protesters may not believe in any objective moral standards, and their beliefs may not provide them with the means to roundly condemn that which every morally sane person regards as evil, but this does not stop them from continually making “moral” pronouncements about what other people say or do. The most that can be said about this is that the so-called protesters appear to believe that what they are saying is true. And that is neither here nor there.

Let’s look at this logically:

Premise 1:   The belief that an assertion is true is the same as that assertion being true.
Premise 2:   “The other person is bad” is an assertion that is believed to be true.
Conclusion:   “The other person is bad” is true.
 

This argument is valid, but if either of the premises can be refuted then the argument is a failure. And should someone make the following assertion: “The belief that an assertion is true is not the same as that assertion being true” and one of these philosopher-thugs wanted to maintain that the first premise of the above argument is true, then they would have to agree that the assertion made by the other person is true, because the other person believes it to be true. Therefore, the opening premise in the above argument, which their own condemnation of other people rests upon, must be… false! Clearly the argument isn’t sound, so even if we grant that the so-called protesters believe what they are saying, that is no reason for anyone else to think that any “moral” pronouncements they make are true.

The fact that their belief system is about as robust as a chocolate fireguard does not stop the philosopher-thugs of today from attacking anyone who disagrees with them. These so-called protesters have no objective moral foundation on which to base any condemnation of anyone else, and their opinions about morality are irrelevant. What they have done is cast around for a term which normal, morally sane people would regard as being worthy of condemnation. The result is their adoption of the term “Nazi” as a fallacious ad hominem term of abuse for anyone who disagrees with them. Nothing they say or do signifies that they employ the term because they understand what it means (Hitler was the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party) or because they have a properly functioning moral system, which they have employed to examine the actions of the National Socialists between 1933 and 1945. They are using the term “Nazi” to insult normal people who disagree with them, because they have nothing else to say!

The philosopher-thugs marching down your streets want everyone else to see them as profound thinkers who have managed to figure out the final solution to the question of how human beings are to live here on earth. In truth, they have no answers to anything. The fabulous notion that all cultures and values can somehow come together in a harmonious whole, so that everyone on earth will hold hands and live together as one, was exposed as a “metaphysical chimera” decades ago by Isaiah Berlin. The fact that a multicultural utopia can never exist has not stopped the new philosopher-thugs from doing everything in their power to make other people believe in it — just like the Nazis!

Instead of letting these so-called protestors think that they have the moral high ground and that other people need to answer to them, we need to see these people for what they are. These intellectually malnourished young people have no life experience to speak of. They don’t know that their political ideas will turn the world into a hell on earth, because they have never seen it happen. They need to be confronted with the fact that their worldview is poison, and that it is based on errors, fallacies and outright lies. If their “feelings” are hurt when they hear people saying things they don’t agree with or cannot understand, that is just too bad. When these so-called protestors threaten people or behave violently, they need to be held accountable for their actions. These youngsters may fancy themselves to be political philosophers who have a special insight into how human beings are to live, but the reality is, they are nothing more than ill-educated thugs.

I don’t care if the people screaming themselves into a frenzy on these marches call themselves “left” or “right”, because if they are final solution merchants who think they can tell me how I should live my life, because they know what’s best for everyone else, then they’re anti-freedom and that is all that matters to me. I will assign meaning to my own life here on this earth. And I will face the consequences of my own fully informed choices, both here and in the afterlife, thank you very much. Anything less than that is a betrayal of my own humanity. The thugs who are trying to take that God-given right away from everyone are the absolute dregs of society, no better than Hitler’s brownshirts or Stalin’s NKVD men. If you let the likes of that control you, and even tell you what you are supposed to believe in, then you deserve everything you get in this world — and the next.

84 thoughts on “Final Solution Merchants”

  2. Obviously these young and inexperienced people have neither wealth nor position in the societies in which they live and agitate in. So the question is, “Who sponsors and finances them?”
    The answer to that question should reveal the real traitors to humanity who should be exposed for what they are, doubly condemned for endeavoring to remake society after their own image and leading a generation astray.

    • “Who sponsors and finances them?”

      Errm … George Soros?!?

      And “doubly condemned” is a rude underestimation.

      Carry on.

      • if history is any guide, soros may be the moneyman but the FBI is pulling the strings.

        when since the 1950’s has the FBI not tried to control every new radical organization that’s come down the pike, and turn it against whoever they don’t like at that particular moment?

        take a look at what happened to the black panthers when richard aoki showed up. the question is..who is antifa’s richard aoki?

  3. Not really sure I can buy the major premise of this article. The author depicts antifa as a group of radical moral relativists with no willingness to declare a distinction between “right” and “wrong.” All moral systems are equal and none can be placed above another.

    This is simply not the case. Antifa has aligned itself thoroughly with the viewpoint that the cishet white male is unambiguously responsible for all human suffering. An SS guard is a Trump voter is a Parma bus driver. We shouldn’t kid ourselves that they can be “caught” in a contradiction.

    Nick says “they need to be confronted.” But here’s the thing: they won’t care. Any Rand used to say that emotions are not tools of cognition. She was wrong — the Left found a way to overturn that supposed ironclad rule of life. We are seeing in the streets the generation that was told: reason is evil, white and male (Martin Luther anyone?), and emotion is all.

    Ever wonder how The Long March Through the Institutions would end? Look at Charlottesville and nod in admiration at the Left’s tenacity.

      • Hi “RR”,

        Thanks for commenting. I always enjoy reading what people think of my essays. We are all in a bit of a pickle, that’s for sure. The hard-core fanatics may not care if they are caught in a contradiction, or if their ideas are exposed as lies, fallacies, etc. But some people might … maybe even some people who have joined up with “good” intentions but have begun to realise what’s really what with their new pals. The Baron spoke not long ago about infiltrating these groups (Doug Hagmann has been speaking about this recently as well.) If we can challenge these people’s ideas, such as they are, then who knows just how that might bear fruit, farther down the road …

        And big picture wise, I would say that we need to start defending ourselves, our societies, our own morality. Because if we don’t start challenging these people, then they are not going to go on a long, Gramsci-esque march through our institutions. We’re already at the endgame of that process, methinks. No, we’re already “backed against the Volga” and we need to fight for the same reason the Russians fought from inside each shattered building, in the ruins of Stalingrad, until the ground was on fire beneath them and their clothes were smouldering … We simply need to start defending ourselves more effectively, because of what will happen if we don’t.

        You’ll note that the conclusion of my essay is quite modest as well: if anyone is thinking about taking these people seriously as “philosopher-kings”, then don’t. They’re thugs, and their “thinking” doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. So that would be aimed at a relatively small group of people: those who might be tempted to think, oh how romantic and exciting, I can go on marches and give vent to the dissatisfaction I feel about my own life, and so forth … or even anyone who might be reading a blog like GoV, who might have the slightest inclination to take the whole “Nazi” thing seriously at some level. Again: Don’t.

        So modest aims, with the small possibility that it might make some small difference to someone farther down the line … I see my efforts as being like the GoV blog itself, we all do what we can, with the tools we have in our toolbox, and hope that it’s going to make a difference. And even if it doesn’t, then we will know that we have spent our time on this earth fighting the good fight, as best we can. That’ll matter one day as well.

        Kind regards,

        Nick.

        • With thanks and apologies to Martin Niemoller:

          First the Muslims came for the Jews
          And I did not speak out
          Because it was fashionable to hate the Jews
          Then the Muslims came for the Christians
          And I did not speak out
          Because it was fashionable not to be a Christian
          Then the Left joined the Muslims
          And I did not speak out
          Because it was fashionable to be a member of the Left
          Then the Muslims and the Left were joined by the ‘people of colour’
          And I did not speak out
          Because it was fashionable not to do so
          Then they came for white Europeans and Americans
          And I hesitated
          Because it was fashionable to be anti-racist and anti-slavery
          Then they came for any white they could find
          And I found I had hesitated too long…

          • Your update is spot-on. Fortunately, in America at least, whites who don’t agree with the Left are still in the majority. However, the roll-up of free speech is worrying.

          • As I often wrote, please qualify things from now. It’s not free speech, it’s PARTIAL free speech. It’s not freedom, it’s PARTIAL freedom. By not qualifying it, free speech and freedom is used by moslems to do the exact opposite. Use the qualifier PARTIAL in our narrative, please.

    • Nick
      thanks for this article. you might want to read this first person testimonial of a person who experienced Charlottesville. If this is true, this thing we are witnessing is not so much philosophic ideology in action but we are witnessing a highly orchestrated mob agenda designed to create the maximum amount of chaos and the appearance of clashing ideologies. What i dont understand is why the government and civil authorities do not shut this down by declaring the whole lot of them domestic terrorists.

      https://z3news.com/w/evidence-charlottesville-points-elaborate-plan/

  4. None of man’s knowledge is on unequivocally solid ground, including the STEM specialties. Mathematicians are worried about manipulating derivatives which are not zero, but are as close as we can get to zero. How can we divide by dx? if it almost equals zero? Physicists joke about no one understanding quantum physics and are forever perplexed about their impossibly wrong calculations of the vacuum energy….and where entropy accumulates in the universe and why the big bang must have had low entropy.

    If our best thinking is still not so solid, how can anyone pretend to have an ideology that means much?

    • “One belief, more than any other, is responsible for the slaughter of individuals on the altars of the great historical ideals – justice or progress or the happiness of future generations, or the sacred mission or emancipation of a nation or race or class, or even liberty itself, which demands the sacrifice of individuals for the freedom of society. This is the belief that somewhere, in the past or in the future, in divine revelation or in the mind of an individual thinker, in the pronouncements of history or science, or in the simple heart of an uncorrupted good man, there is a final solution. This ancient faith rests on the conviction that all the positive values in which men have believed must, in the end, be compatible, and perhaps even entail one another…”

      Isaiah Berlin

      • Thanks for the quotation, Nick! I was looking for it online, but couldn’t find it!

        Since my student days I’ve consistently offered the public lamentation that (il)liberals-leftists were perfectly willing to sacrifice all that’s good and commendable in western society on the Altar of some abstract notion of progress and inevitable perfection. I’d follow that up with the expletive, “[Engage in amatory activities with] them!”

      • In a way and to some extent; Isaiah Berlin was false in accusing the final solution. Judeo Christianity is the final solution for society. Some details may be changing, but the core remains the same, final. If any one of you don’t believe the presence of final solution, than what you propose? What you can do is just criticizing? Children can do that. I believe there are many variables, and there are few constants in life. The constants in life is Judeo Christiantity, the final solution that remains true. Read Ecclesiastes. And unlike what Isaiah Berlin said, Judeo Christianity as the final solutions does not kill people unnecessarily. In fact, if the history is our clue, Judeo Christianity society kills people in defending their society.

        • Despite Berlin, personally I never use the expression “final solution” unless I am referring to the Holocaust)

          My very favorite line of prose or epigram (or whatever one wishes to call it) is Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) 7:16:

          “Do not be exceedingly righteous and do not be overly wise. For, why should you destroy yourself?”

          It captures the predicament of the West perfectly–paralyzed and at the precipice of the Abyss.

          If I were to host a counterjihadist blog (to complement that of GoV), I’d call it “The Unsheathed Mind”, and Kohelet 7:16 would be my motto.

          “At the siege of Vienna in 1683 Islam seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe.We are in a new phase of a very old war”…is superb!

          • I meant to say:

            It captures the predicament of the West perfectly–PARALYZED BY ITS VIRTUES and at the precipice of the Abyss.

            Shall we call the Abyss…Allah?

            “A thinking that is not suspicious of thought does not yet approach thought.” –St.even the odd

        • My understanding of the point Berlin is making is this: He talks several times about his initial approach to political philosophy, which rested on the assumption that the question: how are we to live? – had a single, coherent rational answer.

          However, after he read Machiavelli, he came to understand that this was not so. There is more than one way to live life.

          By the time he was talking about “the final solution” he was elaborating on this point:

          By saying that the notion that all human cultures and values are NOT compatible, and they can NOT be brought together into a single, coherent & happy whole.

          “It is a commonplace that neither political equality nor efficient organisation nor social justice is compatible with more than a modicum of individual liberty, and certainly not with unrestricted laissez-faire; that justice and generosity, public and private loyalties, the demands of genius and the claims of society, can conflict violently with each other. And it is no great way from that to the generalisation that not all good things are compatible, still less all the ideals of mankind. But somewhere, we shall be told and in some way, it must be possible for all these values to live together, for unless this is so, the universe is not a cosmos, not a harmony; unless this is so, conflicts of value may be an intrinsic irremovable element in human life. To admit that the fulfilment of some of our ideals may in principle make the fulfilment of others impossible is to say that the notion of total human fulfilment is a formal contradiction, a metaphysical chimera.”

          Isaiah Berlin.

          So he is deliberately using the term “final solution” to make people aware of what can happen when some people believe that they have the one answer to the question: how are we all to live together here on earth? The one answer. The only answer. For everybody. The “final solution”.

          He’s saying there is no such thing, and that the people who think otherwise, and what’s more, they think they have found it, usually turn out to be very bad eggs indeed. Because they tend to think that any price is worth paying in order to bring their utopian dream-world about.

          People must be free to make choices – between incompatible views of the world, and ways of living.

          • By saying that the notion that all human cultures and values are NOT compatible, and they can NOT be brought together into a single, coherent & happy whole.

            That doesn’t mean that different cultures cannot exist in parallel, which they often did here in America. They mingled at the margins, sometimes causing initial great unhappiness – for instance in Boston, when a second generation Italian married a third generation Irishman. There was great unhappiness until the birth of the first grandchild.

            IOW, there were frictions but on the whole, people got along. I often visited East Boston to buy Italian meats and kinds of pasta I couldn’t get elsewhere.

            Perhaps these things worked here because there was no long history of war/animosity. And there was room…

            …what ruined it for urban America was FDR’s and LBJ’s socialism, which crippled black families. Under the burden of government largesse for women and children (none for men or unbroken families). Now seventy percent of black children are born to single mothers. The latter often mate with different men, increasing their brood while lessening cohesion. It is no place for adult men- they are shoved to the periphery where a life of crime seems the only outlet. SJW “warriors” often complain that black men get more severe sentences than white criminals. The only problem with their logic is that the black men have a long record of criminal behavior by the time that ‘severe’ sentence is meted out.

            Here in rural America crime is also more likely to be committed by black males. They were raised on that socialism which deftly removed fathers from the equation. Interestingly, white males raised similarly are likely to go the same way; it’s just that there are fewer of them.

          • Here in East Podunk, white and black enclaves live parallel lives. They interact peaceably in public and attend the same civic events and schools. But they go to separate churches and seldom intermarry. Those that do usually move to the city.

    • I do not think they are anarchist in the classical meaning of the term. A true anarchist wants to be left alone, wants nothing to do with state. These are just an opposite, collectivists and want totalitarian rule of the state. We may associate destruction with the word “anarchist” (destroying all institutions), but the similarity ends there.

  7. The cry of “Nazi” now hold second place to “racist”. People are terrified of that label and will go to any lengths to avoid it. Silence works.

    Using the term “white man” in an essay that sees white people as something good is as questionable as using the N word no one dare say, even in describing what black folk were once called. IOW, race reality is gone; there is no way to even have a discussion of the differences, even though they are obvious. That is partly due to the mistake of focusing on IQ as the summum bonum by which any (American or European) race is to be judged.

          • Beauty morality like art is not simply in the eye of the beholder (relativism) but objective in that certain measures of quantity and proportion are required.

            Even so there will always be those that will argue.
            I like to refer to the sublime standard of what constitutes th beauty and even morality. Nature is moral, as are animals. Rules are rules and if we disobey them we get Antifa and chaos.

            I also refer to the Intelligence behind Reality as the Divine Moral Imperative. The ancients understood this principle very wee indeed, especially the Egyptians. This is one reason Christianity has and is so successful- because it adheres to the rules or “Golden Rule” and why the Left cranks hate it. Even Christ is a self evident truth….

        • I see, what is present now has been added to what came before, which works as long as what came before was established on a sure foundation, unlike some high-rise condominium towers in San Francisco that I know of.

  9. This is not a deep comment.

    I loved the term “chocolate fireguard” though. Thanks for that.

    Acuara, my first guess would be George Soros (also known by me as szaros in Hungarian) — I will not translate that as this is perhaps a family site. I don’t want to teach any kids bad words, even if they are in Hungarian.

    Although I entered my email, it’s not working right now. I will have to take the computer in to the guru again. Sigh. Such a pain it is. But the poor thing is getting old and I will consult the guru on that as well.

    Be well.

    • George Soros is not the figurehead of these schemes. He simply has an unconventional demolition company. But this company not crushing cars or wrecking houses with a large metal ball. It destroys nations as the “dear customer” ordered it. Yes he is a despicable sociopath, but just a henchman.

      • So Soros is a well-paid demolition contractor. OK, now the $64 Trillion question is, “What will be built in the place of what Soros has demolished?”
        Of course you probably know the answer to that. Could you share it with us please?

        • I believe a neo-feudal World state will be created, where the population will controlled with Islam (do not require expensive police or military as the members attacking and eliminating dissent themselves). Of course for technology advancements the Muslims are not capable, so they will be consumers on low general income. They will be another class below the rulers: the technology class, purple haired safe space loving indoctrinated gender freaks. (Watch The hunger Games, the people of the Capital comes to mind). The two group will be kept in its place with each other: if a techies breaks their programming, the Muslims will kill them, Muslims will be controlled with technology: remote weaponry, drones.
          Above the groups will be the rulers: the present elite and banker families.

          That’s how I would do it, if I would be an evil elite overlord…

          • One wonders whether the “Hunger Games” was an advance script and a portent of things to come.

          • CrossWare-

            You think like me!

            The technology class you mention will be tasked with automating the production of everything, especially cell phones since the Ummah are as smart phone addicted as any other group.

          • The Christians, whom both groups hate, will not be present either as the result of slaughter by the two groups or removal or both. Those that remain will be judged for what they have done.
            The Elite know that the Chaos is coming and they think that they can survive it in their underground bunkers, but when they see that the scope is far beyond what they could have imagined they will ask the mountains to fall on them and hide them from, “The Wrath of the Lamb.” (the ultimate oxymoron as lambs are not given to wrath).

          • In responding to acuara, many Christians believe that they can just sit and pray, and Gods rapture them. So passive. I’m a Christian, but I don’t subscribe to that thinking. I will fight, fiercely.

    • Yes, “chocolate fireguard” struck me as a felicitous phrase as well.

      Regarding the destructive fabulists of Antifa: the aforementioned philosopher Isaiah Berlin, inspired by Alexander Herzen, would consistently condemn the tendency of idealist-ideologues’ willingness to “sacrifice human beings on the altar of abstractions” and “the subordination of the realities of present life to utopian dreams of the future.

      • Didn’t both Mao and Lenin sacrifice on that altar? Didn’t Uncle Ho call for routine slaughter so that the one counter-revolutionary would be allowed to survive? So, could that be the reason the parades were so well attended, it was either attend or be sacrificed?

      • Hi Steven,

        I still remember reading some of Isaiah Berlin’s comments about Machiavelli – this was many years ago now – and I remember feeling slightly lightheaded and even a wee bit unwell. Sickened, even. I could actually feel the software inside my mind re-writing itself. It kind of felt like drinking a pint of Skullsplitter. I was working in a hospital at the time, as it happened, and a doctor came in and asked if I was all right. I don’t know what I must have looked like, LOL

        I knew, even then, that I’d come upon something important – and you know, I still think about those ideas of Berlin’s today, all these years later.

        I think that anyone who is tempted by the notion that “multiculturalism” could work, because all ideas and values are compatible & if we all just believe that hard enough, and hang all the naysayers, then one day, we can all go around holding hands and singing Kumbaya – well I think those people should be made to study “The Pursuit of The Ideal” which is the opening essay in the collection of Berlin’s essays currently being sold as: “The Crooked Timber of Humanity”.

        That is some powerful stuff, if you take the time to think about it.

    • Hi Maria,

      Thanks for your comment. I’m really rather pleased that you enjoyed that one about the chocolate fireguard – I have to tell you that it came from my dearly beloved father, who passed away 12 years ago. I’ve been thinking about Dad recently, because of some other family things that have been going on, and the expression came back to me when I was writing that paragraph.

      As I was saying to “RR” elsewhere on this thread, in the context of what is going on in the world today, I’m simply trying to do what I can, with the tools I have, and part of the reason for that, if I’m being honest about it, is that I don’t think my father would think well of me if I could do something that might make a difference, & I didn’t do it out of laziness, or whatever.

      For years there, I wandered about in an amoral haze, got myself into Buddhism, studied “philosophy” and so forth. (Jack Kerouac has a lot to answer for – I was a real “dharma bum”.) After my father became ill, I spent a lot of time with him, we used to walk about the streets of our home town together, and he told me stories of how he used to do this & that, with all his friends. I realised, fairly late in the game, that if I really wanted to figure out what it mean to live a good life – if that was what all my antics were really about – then I had an example of how to do that in my father. And you know, the older I get now, the more I think of how Dad was usually right about the real important life stuff (didn’t think so at the time of course).

      So Dad may no longer be here, but you know what, he’s still around. Still plays a part in my moral thinking, and together with one or two other people I’ve been fortunate enough to meet in the course of my life – he’s still keeping me on the straight and narrow.

      Anyhow, I went off at a tangent there eh … the expression was one of my Dad’s so I’m pleased you liked it. That’s put a wee smile on my face. 🙂

      Thanks,

      Nick

    • About “chocolate fireguard”, for what it’s worth, I have never encountered the word “fireguard”. Is it a Briticism? I imagine a fireguard to be a piece of metal or ceramic to be placed between a fire and something to be protected from the heat of the fire. But is a chocolate fireguard a device to protect chocolate from the heat of a fire, or a device that is made out of chocolate (which would melt and be useless for protection against fires).
      To my surprise,
      https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fireguard
      says the primary meaning of “fireguard” is a *person* who watches for the outbreak of fire, or who extinguishes fires. The word “fireguard” also means “fire screen” (a protective screen in front of a fireplace) and “firebreak” (a barrier of cleared or plowed land intended to check a forest or grass fire).

      • Hello from England. Chocolate firegaurd. A firegaurd is a wire/metal frame, put in front of a fire to stop children falling in or touching it. We also use “Chocolate Teapot” which if used, would of course melt as soon as the hot water was poured in.

        Not all of the frogs are immune from the slowly warming water. We just need enough to wake the rest up, so we can all jump from the pot. Reason is lost. People disregard the inner voice that sees the world as it really is, and listen instead to the siren, pushing them towards the rocks.

      • This is an old expression, used in the frozen north, where in ye olden days, everyone had coal fires. And to stop the children falling in, and big bits of coal from rolling down and out and on to the carpet, and you know, burning the house down, one would have a fireguard. That is to say, a steel grill type of arrangement that sat along the front of the fire, and a couple of smaller sheets attached to it, at right angles going back towards the fireplace. A fireguard!

        And obviously, it if was made of a material that melted in the heat …

        So there you have it – a “chocolate fireguard” LOL …

        http://www.preciouslittleone.com/product-information/124/17639/clippasafe-extendable-fireguard/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIpp_5gqqG1gIVhL3tCh3xHQfFEAQYBCABEgIVrPD_BwE

        I remember watching an interview with Billy Joe Shaver (who I saw performing at the now-defunct Arches in Glasgow a few years ago) and he said that when he toured Europe he couldn’t understand why no one had a/c.

        Here in the frozen north, that’s not really a priority, LOL. Here we need big coal fires … and fireguards!

          • Great stuff! I’d never seen that before (shockingly!)

            I actually live about 300km away from Glasgow, up in “the frozen north”, & I drove down to see old Billy Joe.

            My elderly uncle had always liked the “outlaw” country boys, Waylon and Willie and so forth, and the two of us had got right into Billy Joe as well.

            And my uncle had always said that if he won the lottery, we would be heading off to Texas to see Billy Joe.

            So anyway, one of the guys at work contacted me and said he’d heard on Radio Scotland that Billy Joe was doing a gig in Glasgow, so I went right online & got tickets.

            Phoned my uncle the next day, & said, are you free on such and such a date? He said, aye. I then told him, ok, we’re going to see Billy Joe Shaver – the tickets are bought and everything …

            Course he thought I’d won the lottery, haha …. and we were off to Texas! No, I had to tell him, Billy Joe’s playing in Glasgow, I’ll meet up with you that afternoon & we’ll drive down … that must have been about ten years ago now.

            And it was a great gig, Billy Joe is fantastic, it’s such a shame what happened with Eddy.

            Billy Joe Shaver – Old Five and Dimers

          • Talking of the Old Grey Whistle Test, I remember seeing this performance by the Long Ryders (which I came upon just now checking out that earlier link.)

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAMmrCCaAoo

            They went on tour right after that, the first gig was at The Venue in Aberdeen and the last one was at the Hammersmith Palais – I was at both gigs.

            Those were the days, no question about it!

            (And no danger of getting blown up or beheaded by a rampant jihadist at either gig, eh!)

          • In the Spring of 1986, as a reward for completing my first university degree (History), I took myself on a two week “Whisky Tour” of Scotland. Made it all the way up to the Orkney Islands, discovering many great single malts along the way…and during the retreat to Glasgow and Edinburgh. A wonderful time!

            Did you support the devolution/independence campaign?

            Here’s another great one, with a Scottish theme.

            Richard Thompson’s “Devonside” (1983):

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJp_YIR-ipA

          • I think there’s something important that could be said about the OGWT back then. All this we hear about cultures being equal (in some mysterious way) is obviously not true.

            Just check out the musical archives …

            John Otway and Wild Willy Barratt – Really Free

            The Undertones – Jimmy Jimmy

            Dr. Feelgood – Roxette.

            Dire Straits – Sultans of Swing

            When I hear music like that coming out of the Islamic world, you know, something creative and life-affirming, instead of death, oppression and darkness, then and only then will I take the claims of the multi-cultists seriously.

          • Wow! I’d never seen Alex Harvey before, though I did see his late brother Les twice; once with Vinegar Joe, supporting Led Zeppelin, and once leading the rhythm section for Aretha Franklin!

            Brel wrote some brilliant songs. He’s a favourite of American expat Scott Walker, who was a regular at a London classical cd shop I worked in.

          • Thanks, NB (S). SW has the more beautiful voice, but Brel is almost unbearably intense.

            SW is a very private person; we knew him as “Mr Engel” (his real name), but a colleague recognised him. I hadn’t spotted the Shostakovich connection, but I recall that he collected dead pianists: Schnabel, Edwin Fischer etc.

            The shop was formerly Marks & Co, a secondhand bookshop immortalised by Helene Hanff in “84 Charing Cross Road” (it’s now a Mcdonald’s!) Leo Marks was a controller of secret agents for the British in WW2, including Violette Szabo (“Carve her Name with Pride”), and wrote the script for Michael Powell’s controversial 1960 film “Peeping Tom”. I never met him, but Helene Hanff came in; a very lively Jewish lady from New York.

            Being near several London theatres, we had a number of famous customers, including the recently deceased and much-loved actor Peter Sallis (“Last of the Summer Wine”, “Wallis and Grommit”); very quiet and unassuming. Also the director Ken Russell, who treated me with respect, some of my colleagues less so. I could mention one obnoxious Conservative MP, but he’s still alive, and that’s quite enough name-dropping!

    • Citation, please. Where is ANTIFA headquartered? Who are its principal officers?

  11. As a caption beneath the photo [see top] of the destructive fabulist Antifa rioters that accompanies the essay, I’d offer:

    “NO GODS BUT WE” (or “US” depending on your grammatical disposition).

    –Thus Spoke Zarathustra (St.even the Odd)

  12. Good article but mostly I disagree. There may be a few antifa who are in it for the struggle but I think they are mostly like Euroweenie soccer holligans. Just a bunch of loser wanna be tough guys who think because they wear black and hide their identities nothing can happen to them. One day they are going to be confronted by a group of men who will make them cry. Once they realise that there is a price to pay they will fade into obscurity.

    • I think a lot of them are in it for the adrenaline. This kind of thing is exciting to young people. Even better if you convince yourself you are standing up for justice. Few have thought through their positions, however, and the combination of their beliefs and methods is not credible. I doubt there are very many in the group who are actual leaders — most are followers, and I am pretty sure the `leaders`have been trained and get paid. Their real purpose is to be disruptive. The media has given them too much of the wrong kind of attention. They need to be called out as both terrorists and fools.

      • Surely, you are right about this LindaL. They have been called “marxists” and “anarchists” and (here) “relativists”. But, the overwhelming majority of them don’t know “nothing from nothing”. They few who have ‘substance’ (i.e. the leaders) are trained, paid and/or plants.

        The Struggle, then, must focus on:

        1. Their sponsors
        2. The accommodating police and their political overseers
        3. The MSM and elite intellectual class that endorse them
        4. Etc. (sorry, running out of steam)
        (5. ISLAM. Always!)

        The far right is recognized as evil. For, seemingly, there can be nothing more evil than Bigotry. The far left is seen as…Exceedingly Righteous. There must be an end put to this false dichotomy.

        • Sort of agree, but if you are persuaded that all sides are being played, sometimes inadvertently, then what is the synthesis and cui bono? Academia, globalists, money… you tell me…. but one thing that is clear is that the show is distracting and destabilising… a screen even. People are concerned about migration and they get antifa as a reply, for example… much more powerful once media amped than some misguided people venting whatever they feel like hating.

          To the author – worthwhile that you search up how the name Nazi occurred… apparently it was locally given to Germans considered uneducated who tended followed the NatSoc party, but based on the trend of them choosing Ignacio as a name, and basically to denote ignorance. This term was picked up by UK to condescendingly denote NatSoc/Germans , but was not used by NatSoc itself.

          So there is a slightly confused or translated common persons sentiment view tied into the name.

          The Nat.Soc. party was not stupid though, mad maybe, but ruthlessly efficient in its aims and methods. So maybe we should not reduce to common name calling, and discuss with genuine fear or concern, the political and social hierarchy that was able to form to such devastating effect. The same kind of attitudes still exists in the nature of some today , and also run through the hierarchies of many nations to some degree.

          We say NatSoc and anti Jew etc. , but reality may present the same natured creature as Universal Socialist and anti Nationalist etc.

          Only liberty, transparency, and a society that is reasonably coherent but contains enough diversity to build understanding will safeguard. Over centralisation is not a good idea, nor monoculture either.

          It is not something that can be achieved and then that is that. It is an endless process of evolution that needs continual vigilance to maintain it as functioning, if only because its basis is very simple and therefore open to overcomplication or manipulation.

          Sorry if I don’t reply to any further reply, time. I just leave my thoughts as something to consider.

          G.B.

  13. Not, “Love they neighbor as thy self.” Rather, “I think therefore I am; unless my neighbor unthinks me.”
    The only recourse becomes the ancient judgement of direct brute force (voila AntiFa).
    Progressives, rolling back human progress by at least three millenia.

    • “Love they neighbor as thy self.”, and if thy neighbor wants to kill you (literally or otherwise), you have rights to love thy self more. God Jesus is a martyr, but it is destined that way. We DO NOT HAVE TO. We may or may not be a martyr; it’s your judgement call. I prefer Ali Sina’s advice; don’t be martyr. Continue to live, defend yourself; love thy self more if thy neighbor abuse your love.

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