Political Forums

I would like to emphasize to my readers that there are two excellent forums for discussing nondemocratic, syncretic, and far-right ideologies. The first is a new one called Iron March. The second deals with all ideologies but has a special section called "Paternalism & Corporatism" where the above listed ideologies are discussed. It is called The Politics Forum, or PoFo. I am now regularly posting on these forums.

I would also like to inform those readers who did not already know it that the list of recommended websites is connected to feeds whereby the blogs are automatically listed by order of most recent update.

Fun with Ngrams (part 2): social justice, discriminatory, Capitalism etc.

This post was inspired by two posts at Audacious Epigone's blog: one on discrimination and one on social justice.

The following Ngrams will showcase the evolving meaning of discrimination from being something good to being something bad. It will also be demonstrated that the frequencies of usage of "social justice" and "Capitalism" began increasing dramatically at around the same time as the change in the meaning of discrimination. All the Ngrams are from the American English corpus with a smoothing of 1. To see higher resolution versions click on the images. To see the Ngram viewers from which they were taken, click on the links over the word Ngram.

The first Ngram plots the following words, from 1840 to 2008, in the following order: discriminate,discriminatory,discriminating,discriminated


The second Ngram plots the following words from 1840 to 2008: discriminate,discriminate against,discriminated against,discrimination against,discriminating against,discriminatory


The third Ngram plots the following words from 1840 to 2008: discrimination,discrimination against,discriminatory,discriminating


The fourth Ngram plots the following words from 1880 to 2008: Capitalism,social justice,discriminatory



Analysis of Ngrams will come later.

Fun with Ngrams (part 1): underprivileged, Jewish community, etc.

I decided to make some Ngrams relating to the roles played by antisemitism and German National Socialism in the alteration of the English language in an anti-White direction.

Google Ngram is an interactive tool which tracks the relative frequencies of words or word combinations in published text over time (as a % of all words in the corpus of published text published during the corresponding time interval). All of the Ngrams shown are from the "American English" corpus with a smoothing of 1.

I had to resize the images which made them rather blurry. You can see the full size images either by clicking on the links provided in the highlighted/coloured text, which takes you to the corresponding Ngram viewer, or by clicking on the images themselves, which takes you to the images directly. If you want the links to open in a separate tab or window rather than in the same page, then simply right-click on the link (or image) and select from the drop down menu the "open in new tab" or "open in new window" options.


The first Ngram is from here and charts the frequencies of "Jewish community","underprivileged", and "human rights" from 1920 to 1960.



The second Ngram is from here and charts the frequencies of "Jewish community","underprivileged", and "human rights" from 1700 to 2008.



The third Ngram is from here and charts the frequencies of "minority rights","antisemitism","racist","racism","disadvantaged", and "national socialism" from 1920 to 1960.



The fourth Ngram is from here and charts the frequencies of "minority rights","antisemitism","racist","racism","disadvantaged", and "national socialism" from 1920 to 2008.



What do you think?

I will provide some commentary to go along with the above Ngrams sometime in a new post.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the Whitest of them all?

This post will attempt to rank 13 European countries' relative proportions of non-euro admixture/affinity. I will be using a study which included data on those 13 European countries. Unfortunately not all major countries in Europe were included in the study. Italy, Ireland, Portugal, and Greece were not included and neither were any Yugoslavian countries.

The study compares the 13 European countries with each other together with 4 other geographically non-European countries: Nigeria (Ibidan Yoruba, denoted YRI), USA Whites (Utah, self-identified northwest European ancestry, denoted CEU), China (Beijing, denoted CHB), and Japan (Tokyo, denoted JPT). I use the data relating the 13 European countries + CEU against CHB as a proxy for the mongoloid racial type and YRI as a proxy for the negroid racial type. I will use two data sources from the study - Fst statistics and Principle Component Analysis (PCA). Note that the data provided in the study is based on samples (groups of people) from each of the countries and therefore only directly compares these samples. The samples are not perfectly representative of the genetics of each of the countries but can still serve as accurate proxies (with some caveates). All the data used can be freely accessed at:
http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v16/n12/fig_tab/ejhg2008210ft.html

First we look at what PCA can tell us by comparing countries' positions along the first PC in Figure 2. Below is a brief explanation of what PCA is followed by a rough ranking that I constructed based on the data in the figure. Feel free to draw your own conclusions from the figure.

PCA decomposes multi-dimensional data into maximally informative components. The first Principle Component (PC) captures as much of the total variance in a single linear dimension as possible. The second PC captures as much of the remaining variance (variance which isn’t correlated with the first PC) in a single linear dimension as possible. Similarly, all remaining PCs (3, 4, …) each account for as much of the remaining variance (variance which isn’t correlated with any of the previous PCs) as possible. The data from the study covers approximately 10% of the human genome. That is, the same corresponding 10% of each sampled person’s genome is examined by the study. Each dot/symbol in the PCA plots represents an individual as in a cartesian plot/plane.

Legend:
UK United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
No Norway
Si Slovakia
Ge Germany
Fr France
Po Poland
Be Belgium
Ru Russia
Ro Romania
Cz Czech Republic
Sw Sweden
Sp Spain
Hu Hungary
CEU Utah, USA

Ranking by most Caucasoid member (PC 1)
1/2. UK
1/2. No
3. Ge
4. Fr
5. Po
6/7. Cz
6/7. Ru
8/9. Be
8/9. Sw
10. CEU
11. Si
12/13/14. ?

Ranking by second most Caucasoid member (PC 1)
1. UK
2. Ge
3. Fr
4. Po
5. No
6. Sw
7. Be
8. Ru
9. CEU
10/11/12/13/14. ?

Ranking by most Caucasoid estimated median (PC 1)
1. UK
2/3. Po
2/3. No
4. Sw
5. Be
6. CEU
7. Ge?
8. Fr
9. Cz
10. Si
11/12. Ru
11/12. Hu
13. Sp
14. Ro

Next we will see the results obtained from an analysis of the Fst data provided in table 1. The Fst is a measure of genetic distance between two samples which compares the average within sample variability to the variability of the aggregation/combination of the two samples. The larger the Fst the greater the between sample/population variance relative to the within population variance. In general the Fst is nonlinear (further information will be provided upon request) but for the purposes of this analysis the Fst is probably approximately linear and will be treated as such. First, the 13 euros + CEU are ranked (by me) from least to greatest raw (unadjusted) affinity to YRI and CHB.

YRI (negroid) Raw Affinity (relative to Norway)
1. No 0.0000
2. Sw 0.0007
3. P0 0.0011
4. UK 0.0018
5. CEU 0.0021
6. Ru 0.0027
7. Cz 0.0028
8. Ge 0.0029
9. Si 0.0033
10. Be 0.0035
11. Fr 0.0038
12. Hu 0.0041
13. Ro 0.0068
14. Sp 0.0071

CHB (mongoloid) Raw Affinity (also relative to Norway)
1/2. UK -0.0015
1/2. Sp -0.0015
3. CEU -0.0014
4. Fr -0.0013
5. Be -0.0012
6. Po -0.0005
7. Ge -0.0004
8. No 0.0000
9. Cz 0.0001
10. Sw 0.0008
11. Si 0.0012
12. Hu 0.0023
13. Ro 0.0034
14. Ru 0.0045

Simple sum of Mongoloid and Negroid affinities
1. No 0.0000
2. UK 0.0003
3. Po 0.0006
4. CEU 0.0007
5. Sw 0.0015
6. Be 0.0023
7/8. Ge 0.0025
7/8. Fr 0.0025
9. Cz 0.0029
10. Si 0.0045
11. Sp 0.0056
12. Hu 0.0064
13. Ru 0.0072
14. Ro 0.0113

There will be more to come later.

13 reasons not to support democracy

Two years ago I started a forum thread at politicsforum.org with the same topic as the title of this post. The link to it is:
http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=95651
It is also available at the FreeMediaProductions website at:
http://www.freemediaproductions.info/Editorials/2009/06/30/13-reasons-to-not-support-democracy/

1. Corruption – politicians receive large sums of money from businesses and other special interests (e.g. unions) in exchange for implementing specific policies. Politicians depend on such contributions for campaign funding.

2. Lack of accountability – because any given politician or party has such limited power for such limited periods of time it is difficult to evaluate their impact. Power often oscillates from one party to the next such that outcomes can easily be attributed to the party currently in power or, similarly easily, to the party previously in power. Power is divided between various branches and levels of government and among numerous politicians such that responsibility and accountability are dispersed and confused.

3. Incoherence – the division of power, both between different levels of government and within each level of government, can lead to an assemblage of policies that are inconsistent in terms of there objectives and implementation.
Example: Division of power requires compromise between those who support the complete ban of a substance and those who favor no restrictions. The compromise reached is to criminalize the production of the substance but not its use, thereby allowing unfettered demand to combine with exclusion of legal production to produce a huge market for organized crime.

4. Gridlock/delay – disagreement within government and so-called “checks and balances” delay the implementation of much needed policy changes. Consultation of “the people” takes time.

5. Fuzziness of the concept – the very meaning of democracy is unclear. Whether a given system of government is more democratic than another is frequently disputed among proponents of democracy.

6. Corporate (etc) media influence – much media is delivered by corporations with their own interests that could influence their reporting. Media depends on advertising for much of its funding and could be compelled to report in ways favorable to current and prospective advertisers. Such reporting heavily influences the voting public.

7. Lack of effective/powerful international/supranational government and impracticality of its formation within a democratic framework – practically precludes comprehensive, substantial, global cooperation and coordination to solve problems.
Example: Two states share a border. One of the states implements a strict ban while the other does not. Consequently, the state with the ban has much greater difficulty enforcing its ban.

8. Instability – governments and policies often change frequently resulting in wastage of resources from starting and undoing programs and lack of sustained long-term policies/projects. Incentives become less effective due to uncertainty.

9. Political myopia – campaigning focuses on short-term goals, accomplishments, and results. Politics becomes overly focused on shot-run outcomes.

10. Superficiality/triviality – voters are unwilling and/or unable to dedicate much time or effort to investigate or analyze political issues. Consequently, politics becomes focused on rhetoric, emotions, trivialities and is overly simplistic. Policies and candidates are selected within the context of the aforementioned state of political discourse.

11. Division/partisanship “democracy fosters division along party lines” people are expected to adopt particular ideological identities (opposition vs government etc) – unity is precluded (granted, Russia may be an exception).

12. Democracy allows good governments to be voted out of office.

13. “Human rights” often promoted as essential components to democracy. Many of these “human rights” interfere with the implementation of good policy.

The Left, the Right, and the Third Position: Prt 2

I decided to make a second post on this topic. The first post addressed the essence of the left-right political spectrum in absolute terms. However, the left, right, and centre are usually thought of in relative terms. That is, the centre is defined as being the point along the left-right spectrum at which half the population (any arbitrarily chosen group of people) lies to the left of that point and the other half lies to its right. It is in this relative sense that the "right" can axiomatically favour equality to a greater extent than inequality, all else equal. The political mainstream in the modern West is thoroughly leftist (equalist/egalitarian) when considered in absolute terms. To be merely axiomatically neutral with respect to equality is generally considered a far-right position. Hence fascism, because it doesn't consider equality axiomatically good, is categorized by many as being "far-right". This categorization is basically correct insofar as one is using the relative definition of "far-right". It should be noted that what is considered far-right today was considered far-left in other times and places (eg 17th century Europe). There have been many places and times for which absolutely right-wing thinking was considered normal. It was believed by many that Feudal lords were meant by divine providence to possess great wealth, power, and privileges. It was thought that they, and they alone, deserved their station in life.

Many people, especially those on the right, contend that the left-right spectrum is ultimately about the extent to which statism or collectivism is favoured as opposed to individualism or classical liberalism. I disagree. The collectivist-individualist and statist-liberal (by "liberal" I mean classically liberal - it makes more sense etymologically and in other ways) spectrums are real, important, and useful, but they do not capture the essence of the left-right divide. For example, so-called "progressive" taxation, which taxes those with larger incomes at higher rates than those with smaller incomes, is considered left-wing. This policy could plausibly be construed as statist and collectivist - so far so good. But, the reverse policy, a "regressive" taxation, which taxes those with larger incomes at a lower rate than those with smaller incomes, would conventionally be considered extremely right-wing. But these opposite policies are equally statist and equally "collectivist". Clearly, those who contend that the left-right spectrum is equivalent to the statist-liberal spectrum have a lot of explaining to do.

I will add to this post with updates later. I will also answer all comments. This blog will explore many different topics - economics, philosophy, politics, HBD, and more.

The Left, the Right, and the Third Position

Edit (2011): I was no longer happy with what I had written for this post, hence I revised it.

As with most terminology, especially political terminology, there are disagreements as to what Left and Right refer to when used in political contexts. Insofar as a certain meaning for a word is widely excepted (or even only excepted nonwidely) then that meaning is legitimate in some sense. Words or terms are assigned meaning (including multiple and even mutually exclusive meanings) based on how they are used.

Another factor to consider in determining the appropriateness of a given meaning of a word is the word's etymology (how the word was used when it was constructed and/or how one might reasonably expect that the word would be used based on its construction and/or its relationship(s) to other words). For the revised version of this post I will consider the various meanings of the words Left and Right and expound upon how those meanings relate to how I interpret the Third Position.

For the most part, there are two meanings for the Left:
1) as a synonym for egalitarian and
2) as a synonym for anti-(conservative/reactionary) and hence progressive/revolutionary.

The first meaning is the dominant one. The original version of this post only dealt with the first meaning.

What it means to be of the Right is more complicated. Nowadays it is often thought that the Right is bland and uniform whereas the Left is vibrant and diverse. Such thinking is wrong.

The most inclusive meaning of the Right includes anything that isn't of the Left and hence can include quit a lot. By the first meaning of the Left, anything that is not of the Left would include any ideology which wasn't egalitarian (at least relatively speaking). By the second meaning of the Left, anything that is not of the Left would include reactionaries and conservatives only.

The Right can also specifically refer to traditionalists (either reactionaries or conservatives), and/or libertarians (hardcore classical liberals).

Originally, conservatives were those who wanted to conserve the status quo (the present circumstances) and slow change, and reactionaries were those who wanted to reverse changes that had occurred and return to the status quo ante (the circumstances in the past).

Libertarians are hardcore classical liberals. Classical liberals (what I prefer to just call liberals though that confuses many as liberal has come to be considered by many to be a synonym for leftwing) were those who prioritized the supposed rights of the individual in the abstract. The rights of the individual to have freedom from the interference of government or others.

The Third Position, in the philosophical sense of the term, refers to an ideology which is neither liberal nor traditionalist nor Leftist/egalitarian.

The Third Position isn't egalitarian and therefore, by the most common meaning of the Left, is also not Leftist. If the Right is defined as including anything that isn't of the Left then the Third Position is of the Right, if the Right is defined otherwise then the Third Position is neither of the Left nor the Right.

As I had pointed out in the pre-edit version there is another narrower and somewhat different notion of the Third Position. This other notion relates specifically to economics and refers to economic systems which reject both socialism and capitalism
- or at least which reject capitalism and socialism in their "pure" forms. I also belong to this category.

In addition, there have been, and continue to be, various other organisations and individuals calling themselves Third Positionist. They have a wide range of viewpoints and a wide range of interpretations of what is the Third Position. I do not necessarily agree with them on anything. For instance there is the recently founded American Third Position Party which appears to be a big-tent pro-White party with an otherwise pretty prozaic platform.

I chose to name my blog "The Third Position" and consider myself a Third Positionist because those considering themselves Third Posionists seem to have the most in common with me, politically, and also because the nature and spirit of the Third Position is such that it is expected that there can be many legitimate interpretations of it. In other words, the Third Position is a big-tent inclusive category which is largely defined by what it specifically excludes rather than by what it includes. Given that, I am in fact much more than merely a Third Positionist but, unfortunately, there is no name for my specific ideology as I am (so far) its only practitioner.

I also consider myself a fascist but I am not a "Fascist". I am a "small f" fascist. Fascist, when capitalised, refers to the more narrowly defined ideology of fascist Italy. The word in its non-capitalised form is much more general in scope and has a certain vagueness inherent to it. Mussolini accepted this dichotomy, explaining in The Doctrine of Fascism and elsewhere that he belonged not only to the ideology referred to as Italian fascism, or simply, Fascism, but also to another "eternal" ideology which manifests itself in many different ways in different times and places. This other more general ideology is what is referred to as "small f" fascism. I will compose a post on fascism later.

With this blog I hope to give other people the same understanding of the world that I hold dear and convince them that my prospective is a good one. I also want to learn more about how others think and how others would go about addressing the positions which form my ideology.

It is mostly the last block of text in the pre-edit version of the post which I dislike. The rest is OK and I might try to integrate it into the new version. I will probably delete the pre-edit version at some point.

To be continued?

/// What follows is the original pre-edit content of this post:

"The Third Position" has two different but related meanings. The first meaning refers to an economic ideology which is both anti-socialist and anti-capitalist. The first meaning will be discussed in greater detail in future posts. For this post the second meaning will be discussed. The second meaning refers to a philosophical ideology which is neither leftist nor rightist. To understand what it means for an ideology to be neither leftist nor rightist it is necessary to understand what it means to be leftist and what it means to be rightist.

Ultimately what distinguishes the left from the right is the extent to which equality is valued. The equality to which I refer includes several different but related notions. There is equality of outcome, equality of capacity/potential, equality of opportunity, equality of treatment, equality of moral or legal worth, and so on. Those who are considered to be on the left invariably value equality to a greater extent and with greater fervor than those considered to be on the right.

In particular, I believe, it is the extent to which equality is considered a priori (axiomatically) valuable that defines leftist thinking. Leftist thinking, assuming the definition just given, posits that equality is self-evidently good - that no explanation as to what makes equality desirable is required. The entire belief system or worldview of the left depends upon this assumption that equality is axiomatically good.

Many examples and/or illustrations confirm that the left-right spectrum principally relates to the extent of valuation of equality. Those who favour the redistribution of income from those with large incomes to those with smaller incomes are considered to be to the left of those opposed to such income equalization. So-called "Cultural Marxism" mostly deals with treating and/or thinking of various groups and lifestyles as if they were equal.

The entire left-right spectrum, including the centre, can be illuminated by examining the various possible stances one could take with respect to equality/inequality. The most extreme far-leftist is utterly obsessed with maximizing human equality. The opposite of equality is inequality. It follows, therefore, that the opposite of the far-leftist would be utterly obsessed with maximizing human inequality. Naturally, the opposite of the far-leftist is the far-rightist. Consequently, the most extreme far-rightist is one who is obsessed with maximizing human inequality. It also follows that one who is ideologically equidistant from the most extreme far-leftist and the most extreme far-rightist, who is neither leftist nor rightist to the slightest extent, would have a completely neutral/indifferent stance with respect to human equality/inequality or lack thereof.

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