Social Justice Hates You More Than It Loves Itself

I’ve been aware of, and fighting against in my own little way, social justice for maybe 5 or 6 years now. For a little while it was my hobby to argue with SJW’s on Facebook.  I’ve had hundreds of civil and not so civil interactions with self-proclaimed social justice warriors. SJW used to have negative connotations, but not so much anymore. Some people collect stamps, I debated SJW’s what can I say. After a few years, it became a little too soul sucking to do on a regular basis. When I first started down this rabbit hole, I thought that there was no possible way these people could actually believe what they were saying. At this point in time, I believe they do think that they are working for good, but they are also mostly mentally ill, malicious people who like to watch the world burn. How can you be both working for good and like to watch the world burn? If you believe something strongly enough, like the current social system needs to be dismantled, and are at your core an empty, malicious person, you take delight in the destruction of that system regardless of who may get hurt in the process.

Social justice is an umbrella term used for social movements that have the goal of dismantling capitalism and replacing it with a Marxist system (communism). There are many modern social movements that fall under this umbrella because they share the same political goals. The largest of these are modern feminism, Black Lives Matter (BLM) and LGBT+. If I say something like, “feminism doesn’t care about women”, or something similar with one of the other SJW movements, I’m speaking about the broader movement and/or organization(s) as a whole, not individual people.

I’ve said many times before, and I stand by it that feminism does not care about women, BLM does not care about black people and LGBT does not care about gay or trans people. This is a very easy thing to prove. All you need to do is look at the women, black people and gay/trans people who have even a slightly different message than the approved message assigned by social justice. Social justice warriors, in these groups, have no problem publicly berating these people, these dissenters, through social media. Black people with messages outside the norms of Marxism are suddenly uncle Toms, race traitors, house slaves, etc. If you’re a woman you are called everything that they say they hate women being called, if your trans, it suddenly becomes okay for you to be dead named. No, they don’t care about you, they care that you think what they want you to think and use these social groups as useful idiots to make the world look like they want it to look.

Lately, I’ve been trying to put aside my logical mind and step into the mind of an emotional thinker. I guess I’m trying to get a better handle on why anyone would fall for social justice. It also helps me find emotional arguments against some of the beliefs. Maybe it’s my new hobby, I don’t really know.

When I put my emotional thinking cap on, I find that what I thought about feminism not caring about women is a little wrong. It’s not that feminism doesn’t love women, it’s just that they hate men a little bit more than they love themselves. Same for BLM for white people and LGBT for straight people. The primary emotion is envy.  Feminists mentally make a pro’s and con’s list of everything that they think men and women are and decide that men are better.

 This starts the envy train rolling. Their gender studies professors have already explained to them that there are no real biological or chemical differences between men and women, so the only real explanation that women are women and men are men is societal structure, i.e. the patriarchy. Thus begins the war to feminize men and masculinize women. Everything male becomes evil, if done by a male, but celebrated if done by a female. Male becomes synonymous with violence. If men enjoy looking at women, then women need to become something that men don’t want to look at.

Enter the “body positivity” movement, the “I stopped shaving my armpits” movement, the “shaved side of the head with hair dyed blue”, standard haircut of the modern feminist. All these things in an effort to combat the “male gaze”, which is now equal to rape.

It is very easy for a logical person on the outside to see this and determine that feminism does not care about women. If you make a math problem out of it, feminism loves women could be 5, and male envy would be a 10. If you subtract the love of women from the hatred of men you get -5, which is not good for women. Essentially, it’s a male supremacy movement.

The exact arguments can be made for BLM being a white supremacy movement and LGBT being a straight supremacy movement. Change some of the factors, like the patriarchy becomes, “systematic racism”, and you’re there.

To the feminists out there, men and women are born different. We have a different biological and chemical makeup, our brains work differently. We tend to like different things. Just because a man likes something, doesn’t mean it’s good. Just because women like something doesn’t make it bad. Your gender studies professor lied to you. Your power in society does not come from the same place a man’s power comes from. You are already equal, just a little different. the world needs both women and men to survive. Instead of trying to steal a man’s power source, use the power granted to you by evolutionary biology. Women masquerading as men diminishes your power. Embrace the feminine, it will serve you well.

To Black Lives Matter people, how many awesome black people in American history do you need to see before you realize black people are already equal to white people? Name a public arena: business, education, entertainment, sports, government, a black person has been to outer space for crying out loud. Yes, there has been systematic racism in our past, but those days are long past. You are the only thing holding you back now. Individualism is not just for white people. It’s not white privilege if you can do it too. Some of the best individualist thinkers in American history have been black. Do you think it to be a coincidence that most black people who get away from collectivism, which is what BLM strives for, succeed? It’s not. Look into it and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

To people in the LGBT+ community, nobody would benefit from individualism more than you. How demeaning it must be to be relegated to being a letter in a string of letters too long to be written out fully. I think my heart goes out to you most of all. You don’t need to invent a new gender for yourself to be validated as a human being. All you have to do is be you. When I say “you”, I don’t mean the culmination of your physical characteristics. Your sexuality isn’t you. Your gender isn’t you. Your skin color is not you. You are that individual inside of those things. You are more than your demographics. The LGBT+ movement has taught you that the world around you should change based on your feelings. This is a lie. The world neither cares about you, nor owes you anything. This is also true for straight people. Stop caring about the world and start caring more about your personal interactions with individuals. You will find that while a few are jerks, the majority don’t care about what the people you have sex with look like. Nobody will ever even ask. If they do, understand that it is just that individual and not everyone who vaguely looks like that individual. If you’re friendly, people will be friendly back.

Explaining “Anti-maskers/vacciners” to Pro-maskers/vacciners

In a continuation of my previous blog, “Explaining ‘Get Woke, Go Broke’ to Woke People”, I’ll be attempting in this blog to explain to pro-mask people, people who are against government mandates for things like masks, vaccines, lockdowns, etc., using only emotional arguments. I’ll do my best to stay away from logic, facts and reason, since those things apparently do nothing to persuade people who believe the government should be mandating these things. I hesitate to call these people “woke”, as while there may be a lot of crossover, I also see a lot of non-political people on the side of big government in this case. Again, these people do not arrive at this position through logic and reason, so reasonable and logical rebuttals are useless.

As a logical person, I find this exorcise to be challenging and fun. If it also helps someone out there to understand that those of us who do not agree with the government having the power to force the world economy to shut down, or to dictate what you must wear, or what health steps you must take, are not evil and the enemy, all the better. Also, to those pro-mask et al people, this writing is not to persuade you to come over to the dark side with us malcontents. I just want you to be able to read this with an open mind and see that we are just people who have a different opinion and that’s it. I’m not trying to dismantle your opinion.

I will be addressing the most common objection to masks that I have come across (outside of the Love thy Neighbor argument). The argument, which I have seen and heard from so many people, goes something like this: Asking you to wear a mask is a tiny thing and is not equal to the civil rights movement, or fighting against segregated water fountains, it’s just a mask. Get over it and wear the stupid mask. The “Love thy Neighbor” argument is much more prevalent, but I couldn’t think of a way to counter without using facts and logic, so I went with number 2. I’m sure you’ve seen or even said some form of the “Muh Civil Liberties” counter-attack.

My response is to say, sure, your right. The government forcing you to wear a mask or take a vaccine isn’t segregated water fountains or women gaining the right to vote, or Martin Luther King marching for Black people to have the right to live with dignity. Sure, it’s a seemingly and comparatively small thing, but it’s still a thing. After thinking about it for a while, I came to the realization that you don’t think it’s a big deal because it’s an equal order. What I mean is that these mandates are not singling out anyone. If it affects everyone equally, it can’t be that bad. We’re all in this together, right? This notion is the heart of my argument against mask mandates.

What would you say if the government mandated that only black people had to wear masks? Or only women? Or only gay people? Or only the group you consider yourself to be in? Would that be fair? If not, what would be your argument against it?

Would you tell that black person who is being forced to wear the mask that it’s only a mask, not segregated water fountains and to just wear the stupid mask? Somehow, I don’t think so. I imagine that a typical good-hearted person would say it’s not fair that only this group or that group be forced to wear masks. I would also imagine that it would be a small minority of people clamoring for the government to please force everyone to wear masks and not just (insert singled out group here). Most people, I believe, would think it better in this situation that nobody be forced to wear a mask and everyone abide by the “love thy neighbor” method. I would be among you.

I’m not in your head, so you only have to answer to yourself. In the scenario above, would you ask the government to also force you to wear a mask, or would you ask the government to stop forcing the singled out group to wear a mask?

If my example resonates with you, my question for you pro-maskers/vacciners, etc., is to ask why, if you would have one stance if only one group is being forced into doing something, that your position on that government force would change only because they are forcing all of us to do that thing? The fact that the force is being applied to all of us shouldn’t really make a difference, should it? It’s not really about the mask, the vaccine or the lockdowns, its about the force.

I would like to hear from pro-maskers to see if my argument, first of all, made any sense to you, and secondly, gives you a better understanding of how the “Muh civil liberties” side thinks about this issue. Also, what would be another topic where you might think an argument from emotion might help bridge the gap between the left and the right?

Explaining “Get Woke, Go Broke” to Woke People

Most people have doubtlessly heard the phrase, “get woke, go broke”. It has become somewhat of a truism as of late. As we see corporations like Disney, ruin beloved franchises like Star Wars and Marvel with a “woke” agenda, the proponents of “woke”, seem to have a massive disconnect as to why there is resistance with fans. Most of the time, woke people tend to blame the fans, and former fans of these franchises for their failures. On the dumpster fire that is Twitter, you will see these people called things like, “toxic man-babies”, “alt-right Nazis”, “trolls”, etc. I’m sure the un-woke fans of these franchises give just as good as they get, so no harm, no foul, I guess.

The purpose of this blog is to try to explain to woke people why this is happening. Why are people rejecting the woke agenda? If you consider yourself “woke”, this blog is for you. Just so we’re clear, what I take “woke” to mean is an adherence to the, emotion based, political philosophy of social justice. You believe in things like “white privilege”, “marginalized groups”, “systematic racism”, etc. You know the buzzwords. I’ve written before about this belief system is racist and wrong. Look at my previous blogs if you want to find out why. The purpose of this blog is not to argue about the merits of social justice, it is about why social justice ruins entertainment. For this blog I offer a temporary truce, for the purpose of explaining why social justice is ruining entertainment, hopefully in a way you can understand.

I’m a logical person. Social justice is an emotion-based philosophy. If you don’t think it is, there’s not much I can do for you. It just is. It is very hard for logic-based arguments to get through the haze of an emotion-based person, and vice-versa, but I think I may have found a way. I’ll give it my best shot, anyway.

Why do people like stories like Star Wars and Marvel comics, or any of the various TV, movie, book genres in the first place?

I would guess that most of us lead fairly boring, monotonous lives. Most of us live paycheck to paycheck. Most of us are average looking, regular people. We get invested in these stories to escape our regular people lives. Watching beautiful, heroic, rich people do beautiful, heroic, rich things, is fun. When these people fail, make mistakes, get beaten, make bad choices, etc., it makes the story that much more believable. People need faults to overcome, to truly be heroic. When these beautiful, heroic people go through all these hardships and still figure out a way to redeem themselves and come out on top, we cheer. People love a come from behind victory. We love an underdog. We love redemption stories. All this is the long version of just saying the story is what matters. Story is king.

Hopefully, so far we can agree on this. If you don’t agree, then I hope you can at least see how other people may see entertainment this way. We put ourselves into the story. We don’t care if the characters are men, women, gay, straight, black, white, or anything else. We care about the story.

So what’s wrong with woke storytelling?

The problem lies with the fact that woke writers care more about representation that they do about the story. When your goal is representation, it kills the story. Why can’t you have both? Well, if a character in your story is a representation for someone, especially a marginalized group, how can you put faults into that character? Putting faults into that character is basically saying everyone in that marginalized group has those faults. Doing that would get you cancelled. Because of this we see nothing but one-dimensional characters. “Hi, I’m the gay character, I’m good at everything and everyone loves me, except for that bad guy, who I defeat with ease.” “Hi, I’m the female character, I’m good at everything and everyone loves me, except for that bad guy, who I defeat with ease.” “Hi, I’m the black character, I’m good at everything and everyone loves me, except for that bad guy, who I defeat with ease.”

The only characters in woke writing that are allowed to have human feelings and faults are the white male characters. When I say human feelings and faults, take that to mean the bad guy. I’m not mad about it, white people are at the top of the privilege mountain, so making them the bad guys is a given. Given that it is a given also makes your story boring. That’s the real problem.

Woke writers are terrified of black people. You can tell by how they portray black characters in their stories. Black women are almost always genius level, hyper-competent characters. They are also, for some reason, lesbian or bi, well over half the time. Black male characters are essentially treated as household pets for the female characters. They are accessories, much like a purse, or lipstick, there only to assist in a very passive, good guy way. Never threatening, always docile. You will only see a black villain if the hero is also black. Both are very rare. Even in a black male hero story, the female characters will usually take charge, especially black female characters.

When you put representation over storytelling, it immediately lets us know what will happen. There are no surprises. It’s boring. Boring does not make for a good story. Boring is about the worst thing a story can be.

What can you do to make it better?

Like I said before. Nobody cares about your characters race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, or anything else. When I watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I’m a teenage white girl for 45 minutes. When I watch Black Panther, I’m an African black guy for 2 hours. When I watch Rocky, I’m a white guy. See how it works? You can put this middle-aged white guy into any body you wish, just like you can put the Afro-Latina trans person into Captain America. Just make it compelling. It’s hard, I know.

In good storytelling, a diverse set of characters will emerge naturally. You don’t need to force the diversity. There are a lot of red flags that let us, the reader/viewer know that this is not a good story. Women are as strong as men. How many times do we have to watch a 115 pound woman one punch knockout a 250 pound trained killer? Red flag. None of the black guys are cool? Red flag. All the white people are evil or incompetent? Red flag. None of the minority characters are evil/incompetent? Red flag. None of the women are evil/incompetent? Red flag.

The solution is to have all the diversity you want in the story. Just don’t make the characters represent their group. Have them be an individual. Give them flaws. Let them fail, no matter what they look like on the outside. Allow these characters the courtesy of getting put in their place by someone bigger, stronger, faster, more skilled, then figure out a creative way for them to work around their weakness to get the job done. Stop writing stories where only white people get to grow and learn by defeat.

Conclusion

Woke writing, while trying to be inclusive to everyone, is essentially white supremacy thinking, put on film or paper. I know that’s not your intention, but that is what’s happening. In your fear of offending marginalized peoples, you refuse to make them real people in your writing. Since white males don’t need your protection, these are the only real characters you can make with any depth. Bad guys are the most fun characters to write and to play, according to many actors. Minority, gay, female, trans, whatever, are people just like the rest of us. They can handle being depicted as real characters with flaws. The 12 people on Twitter that your story will upset don’t matter at all. My best advice is to get off Twitter. It’s just a hate filled dumpster fire.

Don’t be afraid of people who don’t look like you. I promise you that they are full functioning adults, with adult brains, who love a good story, just like we all do. A good story with good characters will transcend race, gender and sexual orientation.

Tropes of SJW Writing and Characters

If you’re like me and enjoy a good story, you may have noticed a shift in how stories are told over that last 5-10 years. If you work for a large corporation, you may have noticed a shift towards, “diversity and inclusion”. If you follow governmental policy shifts, you may have seen more discussion involving “hate” speech, and crimes. If you are a college student, you most likely are quite used to political correctness on your campus. What do all these things have in common? They are all just parts of the same movement called, “social justice”.

Proponents of social justice come from a far left, identitarian philosophy. They seem bent on dismantling capitalism and replacing our current system of government with a style of communism based on assigning rights based on arbitrary criteria such as skin color, gender and sexual orientation. They have created a hierarchy of privilege and oppression using something called the “progressive stack”. These people have been dubbed “social justice warriors”, or SJW’s in common pop culture. This can be used as a slur, but I am not using it that way in this writing.

Now that you have a glimpse into the background of the SJW philosophy, you might be wondering what this has to do with writing and characters. Well, to answer this question, I have to go into what it means to be identitarian. I glossed over that in the previous paragraph. Identitarian groups support political interests of one group, be it based in race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc. For example, white nationalists support policies that benefit white people, the Black Lives Matter movement support policies that support black people, LGBT supports gay people, feminism supports women, etc. By contrast, the social justice movement uses the progressive stack to replace all the individual identitarian movements with a single governmental structure. Because of this, representation of all groups becomes very important in all aspects of life. Here is how social justice is impacting modern writing and characters, be it TV, movies, comics, news, etc.

The progressive stack dictates the characteristics of characters high in oppression points not be shown negatively in a story. The same rules dictate that characters with traits that are considered privileged be shown mostly in a negative way. In this way the privileged and oppressed people have shrunken the divide between them, creating more parity. Because of this narrow scope of accepted character behavior, I have noticed the following tropes in SJW writing:

*please note that these impressions are my own opinions and are solely based on my personal observations of characters in TV, movies and books.

White Men

• If you are reading a story written by an SJW and come across a straight, white male secondary character, you have found the villain of the story. Expect this character to be a know it all, insensitive, sexist, bigoted, homophobic jerk. You can often tell by hair color how bad this character will be. If he has blond, or red hair, watch out because he is evil incarnate.
  

Black Men

• In my opinion, this is the character that SJW’s are most afraid of. Because of this, we see what has been dubbed the, “Gordon good brother”. Almost all secondary black, male characters you see will be competent, smart, nice, reliable, non-violent, meek and always doing the right thing. In other words, boring. The only time you will ever see a black male villain is if the hero is also a black male.
  
• Primary black male characters suffer from much of the same fears that SJW’s have about writing any faults into characters who are not white. They often end up being a Gordon good brother with more dialogue.
  

White Women

• All white women, in an SJW story, will have the same personality. This character will love science, be instant friends with any other female character, make very few mistakes and always win, or accomplish whatever goal propels the story forward. There will be very little in the way of opposition and any trouble that arises will be beaten easily. This character will be emotionally validated often and will be awesome for the whole story.
  

Black Women

• Very similar to white women, with the additional trope of the, “soulful saint”. This character can be seen as essentially a white woman on steroids. Strong, brilliant, proud. A force of nature. One personality for all black female characters. If the white woman is smart, the black woman is just a little smarter. If the white woman can science, the black woman will science just a little better. But it doesn’t really matter, because they are besties and constantly validate each other while slaying the world.
  

“Other” Characters

• I use the term, “other”, to describe the background characters you will see. There is just no other way to describe them. Rest assured, this is where the unrepresented group identities from the main story will hang out. You will see an overweight person, a disabled person, maybe even a vaguely Asian person, who knows.
  
• Sometimes the main character is an Other. This happens when an SJW decides that a particular identity group, be it an ethnicity, religion, or some other arbitrary characteristic of a real human being is being underrepresented. In these cases, the whole story revolves around that underrepresented characteristic. This character will be the personification of what you need to know about whatever arbitrary trait is being represented. Rest assured they will be awesome in every way imaginable. By the way, did you notice they were (fill in the arbitrary trait being celebrated here)? Don’t worry, you’ll be reminded in 10 seconds.
  

Gay Characters

• Expect very high percentages of characters to be homosexual, or trans in SJW writing. This is especially true for female characters, and black female characters in particular. If there is a group of women working together, you will find that up to 50%, or more, of them will be lesbians, or have had girlfriends in the past, or will become the lover of another woman in that group.
  
• For male characters, the percentage of gay characters is also much higher than you would find in the real world. Often, the gayness of a character overpowers all other aspects of that character, to the detriment of the story. It might be more accurately stated that the story becomes secondary to the gayness of the character.
  

Stories

• In SJW writing, representation is the story. Having a plot with well developed characters is just an annoyance to be avoided at all costs. Depth, flaws, regrets, redemption and failure are looked down upon and usually reserved for white characters. Any trait seen as less than perfect cannot be assigned to any oppressed group identity. The typical arc of an SJW story is that the main character, who will be an ethnic minority, female, gay person of color, or some combination thereof, will be awesome from beginning to the end, all the while having to deal with oppression from the white, male character, but easily winning in the end with nary a struggle. If a white male is one of the good guys, he will either be gay, or a loudmouth know it all who eventually screws up something. In essence, the story is a necessary evil needed only to add representation where they feel it is needed.
  

Conclusions

It is my opinion that SJW writers care neither about the stories they write, nor about the group identities represented in those stories. They don’t think of the people being represented as people, or even human beings. They are merely boxes in need of a checkmark. If you are gay/trans, female, black, an ethnic minority, or any other “oppressed” group identity, you don’t matter to an SJW. The fact that you are a thinking, feeling, human being with a personal story, a family, friends and neighbors does not matter, in fact, it is an annoyance that needs to be stamped out. Don’t believe me? Try straying off the plantation by saying something not approved in the SJW ideology. You will quickly find out that you will be discarded, un-personed, exiled and destroyed in short order.

I specifically did not name any TV shows, movies, or books I found to be written by SJW’s. I want everyone who reads this to look for themselves at what they consume as entertainment. Now that you know what to look for it will become apparent to you. What can you do about it? You don’t need to call for a boycott. You don’t need to publicly denounce anything. Just use your power as a consumer and quietly move on without supporting whatever offends you.

Light at The End Of The Tunnel

For all of you people, (and to me you are real, live, people), who are sick of being treated like a sword and shield for political points there is hope. It may seem like there is nowhere for you to go. Nowhere to be accepted for who you are. I’m here to tell you, you are wrong. Despite what you are told, the vast majority of people are not racist, are not bigoted, are not homophobic. You might scoff, but the truth is nobody cares about the arbitrary characteristics you can’t change about yourself. What matters to the vast majority of Americans, and any other 1^st world nation occupant I would imagine, is the “you” underneath it all. You have been lied to. You have been living in a bubble perpetuated by fear. We all have. We all do, to some extent or another. But I ask you to come out of the cave and into the light and I will do the same. We won’t bite. We will treat you like an individual. You matter.

The Alt-Left and The Alt-Right Are The Same People (or social justice is the same as white nationalism)

We are seeing an increase in mass shootings in the last few years. Republicans blamed it on the policies and behavior of Obama, Democrats are blaming it on the policies and behavior of Trump. Both are right, both are wrong. What people don’t seem to realize is that the alt-left groups, like feminism, BLM, LGBT and the “social justice” movement, are the same people as the alt-right groups like the white nationalists. How can this possibly be? They seem to be bitter enemies. Often clashing in the streets with encounters ending in bloodshed and property damage. It is true they play for different teams and there is a bitter rivalry between them, but the teams themselves are in the same league.

Aren’t groups like feminism, BLM, LGBT and Social Justice leftwing groups advocating for their groups and white nationalists ultra-rightwing? Well, yes, but only if you look at it from one perspective. From the perspective of an average person, both groups are leftist. All of these groups are designed to advocate for their particular group identity. People who do not identify with their group identity are looked at as the enemy. In all of these groups the “we” is much more important the “me”.

To illustrate my point let’s look at the chart I’ve made. A little background may be needed to understand this chart. At the heart of all of this is the desire for freedom and liberty. The question becomes how do we get there. When you peel back all the layers of our lives, things like our families, friends, religions, politics eventually you get to the foundations of your belief system. Essentially, what makes you believe what you believe. The question, with regards to freedom and liberty, at the base of it all is,” Do I own myself”. While most everything in your life falls on a spectrum, this does not. This is a binary choice that defines your axiomatic truth.

On the left side of the chart you have collectivism, you can also use “social”, to describe this side of the chart. On the right you have Individualism, you can also use “personal”, to describe this side of the chart.

If you answer “yes” to the question of self-ownership, then you also, by definition, also own your property, your rights and your justice. These things belong to you as an individual. This means that you can buy and sell your property as you see fit. Rights are universal and every person on earth owns these rights for themselves. This means that you can buy and sell, or give away your rights as you see fit. Justice is personal. This means that you and you alone are responsible for your actions. You are punished for crimes as an individual and you are rewarded for accomplishments in the same way.

If you answer “no” to the question of self-ownership, it means that you cannot own property. Property is owned socially, or by society at large and divided by whatever mechanism the community sees fit. Rights are social, meaning that the community dictates who has rights and who does not. Generally, this is decided by creating a scale of privilege and oppression. Rights are taken from groups that have more privilege and given to those with less privilege. In this way, the most oppressed people have the most rights. This is done to balance the scale and make everyone as equal as possible. There is social justice. This means that the groups formed in this hierarchy of privilege and oppression are wholly responsible for both crime and accomplishments. You might have heard people say things like, “all white people are racist”, or “all straight people are homophobic”, or “black people invented the…”. In short, there are no individuals, only your group identity.

These core belief systems give rise to the line at the top of the chart. This is the political layer, where your core beliefs are put into action. If you answer “yes”, you tend toward capitalism. If you answer “no”, you tend toward socialism. These are broad terms that have many variations. Communism, for instance, is just a subset of socialism, the most extreme version. Anarcho-capitalism is the most extreme form of capitalism. If you think of communism as being at the extreme left of the line with 100% collectivist worldview and anarcho-capitalism at the extreme right with 100% individualist worldview, then what is in the middle? It would stand to reason that it would tend to be 50% communal and 50% individual right? In political terms you could say that it is a system where the property is owned by individuals, but controlled by society, or the other way around, where the property is owned by society, but controlled by private individuals. Well, there is such a system, it’s called national socialism in the first case and crony-capitalism in the second. Both have the common term, fascism. This is area of the chart with the blue rectangle.

That’s right! Fascism is only extreme right when viewed from the lens of a socialist. For a capitalist, fascism is an extreme left position. Social justice groups, like the feminist movement, BLM and LGBT, are using the same worldview as the white nationalists are. Collectivism. Sure, they are way more extreme leftists than white nationalists are, but the outcome is always the same. When Antifa calls the KKK Alt-right, they are basically admitting that they use the same worldview.

Why is there a rise in violence in recent years? It’s because collectivism always leads to violence. 100% of the time. Why? Because of that pesky hierarchy of privilege and oppression. The weak make the rules and get to impose them on the strong. The oppressed get the rights and justice until they become the oppressors and the cycle starts over. There is a constant competition for the title of most oppressed. Couple that feeling of constant dread of being deemed “privileged”, with the knowledge that you can do nothing about it because you don’t own your rights, or yourself. At the end of the day, all you have left is violence.

So why is this all happening? One of the main reasons is that the idea of social justice has been adopted by major universities, media outlets and government. The concept of privilege has been almost universally adopted as true in these places, although there is no basis in fact for it. White men are starting to feel oppressed by these other social groups and are fighting back. See what I did there? “white men are starting to feel oppressed…”. As if there is a single entity called “white men”. It’s really hard not to get caught up in the language of the leftist.

How can we fix this? In short, education. We need to make sure our children understand their self-ownership. Once they get to college it’s almost too late. We all need to think deeper than republican/democrat. Get to the essence of why you believe what you believe. Is your core belief system in line with your politics? You can’t be a socialist if you think you own yourself. You can’t be a capitalist if you believe in social justice. If you are an individual, you have to realize that feminism is bad for women, BLM is bad for black people and LGBT is bad for gay people. If you can’t be that honest with yourself, how are you supposed to teach anyone else? By all means, use the chart above to help you if you need it. If you have questions, talk to someone you trust. Talk to me if you have no one else. I’ll do my best to help you.

Why Can’t We Communicate?

It seems as though the war of ideas between the social justice warrior (SJW’s) and the anti-SJW’s is coming to a head. At least on social media platforms like Youtube, the anti’s have won. On college campuses and in government, SJW’s won a long time ago. This would make sense because social media is available for any voice who wants to join the conversation. College and government is just not like that. They are both sheltered from the real world. Social media is a more interesting beast. A better description of what is happening on social media would be to say SJW’s vs. The Real World.

Right up front, I have to admit that I’m in camp “real world”. It seems obvious to me that the majority of positions held by the SJW crowd is not only wrong, but dangerously so. It would be easy to say that I have yet to hear any convincing evidence showing concepts like, “patriarchy”, “systematic oppression”, or “privilege” are even real, much less happening. I’ve written several times as to why I think they are not, and my opinion as to what I think those things really are. But here’s the problem, SJW’s absolutely think those concepts are real. For real, real. It is virtually impossible for most people who advocate for social justice to even entertain the thought that what they believe may be wrong. Why can’t we communicate? I have an idea as to why, and I will try to be as neutral as possible, with the reader’s understanding that I am an anti-SJW.

Have you noticed how anyone who disagrees with an SJW is called a Nazi? Then the person being called a Nazi says something like, “you’re the real Nazi!”? Well, this got me thinking. Picture a line moving from left to right. The extreme left is labelled communism. The extreme right of the line is labelled anarchy. Anarchy involves zero government, rights are personal. As you move left, the government plays a larger and larger part in your life until you get to the extreme left, communism, where government controls 100% of your life. At this point rights are communal. You can find the different political philosophies along this line. Next to anarchy is libertarianism, then republican, then democrat. From the other end, next to communism you have socialism, then ancillary socialist like philosophies such as syndicalism, then progressivism. What about the mid-line? Just to the left of the mid-line you would have a system where the means of production are owned by the government but controlled by corporations. Just to the right of the mid-line you have a system where the means of production are owned by the private segment of society, but controlled by the government. This describes two sides of the same coin…fascism.

Now picture the line from above with a concrete wall, with barbed wire running over the top where fascism goes. Social justice is solidly on the side of communism, communal rights, group ownership, etc. When they look right, all they see is the wall of fascism in the way of progress. Anti-SJW’s are on the whole, solidly on the side of the individual and support individual rights, ownership, etc. When they look left they see a wall of fascism in the way of progress.

I believe this is why it is so hard to communicate with each other. An SJW sees things like race through the lens of collective power, whereas on the other side, we see race and color more as demographics describing individuals. For example, you might hear an SJW say that the black experience is one of systematic oppression by white people. Therefore, all white people are racist and all black people are oppressed. An anti-SJW would argue that there is no such thing as the “black experience” because every black person goes through life individually and their experience is their own. Also, “white people” do not make laws or the system. Elected individuals might be overwhelmingly white, but those people are not all people. All people are subject to the same laws as all other people. To an SJW, you are just part of a group, not a person per se. Interestingly, they acknowledge that most people are part of several groups and try to reconcile the concept of being, for instance, both a woman and black with the concept of intersectionality. This is where all your group identifiers intersect to tell you how oppressed or privileged you are. Anti-SJW’s see an individual and everything about that individual are just adjectives describing that person, for instance, you are a black, gay, obese woman. The important part of you is the “you” part, not the adjectives that describe you.

The non-partisan section is over. So What’s the solution? This is the hard part. Due to the nature of individualists, we tend to be much more open to dialogue than those on the left. Leftists tend to make anyone who disagrees an “other”. We tend to get auto-blocked by the major SJW leaders. For this reason, I would start small. A small Facebook or twitter discussion, or one on one. Be courteous and understanding. Do your best to explain the concepts I outlined above. If they are receptive, great. If not, bid them a good day and move on. I think we have an excellent opportunity with women or people in the gay community. Social justice seems, to me at least, to be in direct conflict with a woman, or a gay or trans person’s personal interest. Especially now that it seems Muslims are seen as more oppressed than either of those groups. If an SJW does take an interest in what you have to say, run with it. Sure, it may be a waste of time in the end, but at least they escaped their bubble for a few minutes and heard your point of view. None of this is easy, but we can’t give up.

Free Speech Through the Eyes of a Social Justice Warrior

Modern liberals hold themselves to be the defenders of civil liberties, freedom of expression, speech, etc. You can see them constantly in the streets exercising that freedom. Marching and protesting and rioting to defend their freedom from whatever boogeyman wants to take it away from them today. But are they really for free speech and expression? I submit to you that to today’s left, or the social justice movement, free speech is the most dangerous idea possible.

To understand the danger of free speech to a social justice warrior(SJW), you have to understand where they are coming from. These people are piggybacking off the free speech movement of the anti-war 1960’s. This movement started at the University of California, Berkeley, where students marched against the war and for civil rights. Today, students at Berkeley are rioting and protesting to prevent people they don’t like speaking at their school. Yet they still fancy themselves champions of free speech. How is this possible? In the book 1984, by George Orwell, this was called doublethink. This means holding and believing two opposing beliefs at the same time. Like championing free speech while trying to suppress free speech.

Only an sjw can really know the answer for sure, but if I had to guess I would say that they use the same thought process for speech that they do for human classification. It’s a thought process based in cultural Marxism where there is believed to be a hierarchy of privilege and oppression. Those at the top of the hierarchy are privileged and those at the bottom are oppressed. This is also an example of doublethink. Where you advocate for equality by oppressing those above you on the hierarchy ladder. Equality by oppression. This allows an sjw to be racist, bigoted and homophobic while at the same time claiming to help these same people. As long as the person you hate is above you on the ladder, it’s ok. For context, I’ll give you examples. Sjw’s generally agree that white people are at the top of the ladder, so it’s ok to be racist against them, to hate them, to cheer their destruction. It’s not racist at all you see, because you can only be racist to those more oppressed than you are. Doublethink. As we’ve seen by recent Islamic attacks against gay people, sjw’s put gay people higher on the ladder than brown people, so you can’t blame Muslims for killing gays, that’s oppressive. It’s ok for Muslims to be homophobic, since most Muslims are brown. It is not ok for Christians to be homophobic, because most Christians are white. Doublethink.

So let’s apply this logic to speech. How does someone justify advocating and suppressing speech at the same time? To a regular person there is just speech. Sometimes you don’t like what another person has to say. Sometimes speech is deeply offensive. Sometimes speech can be mean spirited, or crude, or funny, or uplifting. It’s all just speech. A social justice warrior classifies speech in a similar way that they classify people. There is free speech, or speech they approve of. There is hate speech, or speech they do not approve of. Hate speech, therefore, is outside the bounds of free speech. An sjw will use the hierarchy ladder to classify speech as either free or hateful based on who is speaking and about what. If a person who holds a certain place on the ladder is speaking negatively about something that might affect a person lower on the ladder, that is hate speech. A white man speaking about the dangers of illegal immigration for instance, is hate speech. A thin woman speaking about the dangers of women being overweight would also qualify as hate speech because thin women have more privilege than fat women. This is why comedians are protested, conservative speakers are protested, and anyone who does not subscribe to social justice is protested. Every time they hear a person with differing views it reaffirms to the sjw that there is oppression in the world that needs to be fought against.

If you wonder why these people are so angry all the time, why they need safe spaces, why they get triggered, just imagine how life must be for them. Literally, and I mean literally, everything they see, touch or encounter is sexist, bigoted, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, or some sort of “ism”, that they must fight against. This is because they live in a capitalist country. To them, the entire system is set up specifically to oppress everyone who is not a white male. They live in the twilight zone, an alternate reality than the rest of us. They live in a place where boogeymen are everywhere and you can’t get away from them. I would want a safe space too. In my opinion, it a borderline mental disorder. To think that a young person can get a degree in social justice is frightening. It’s like sending yourself to a re-education camp for brainwashing. Once the brainwashing sets in, it’s almost impossible to reverse the effects.

The Amusing Notion Of “Fake News”

I must say that in regards to the “fake news” labels being used to call out news outlets that you don’t like is very amusing to me. Especially so when it now seems to fall upon presidents and other government officials to determine what is and is not “fake news”. It’s one thing for Facebook or twitter to screen out what they believe to be fake news, after all, beyond the social platforms they own, they don’t have much of an impact on your life. It is a different thing entirely to have your government decide what is and is not actual news.

The problem we now see can be put squarely on the shoulders of do-gooder progressives. The hypocrisy, arrogance and plain shortsightedness of these people and their ideology never ceases to amaze me. This is an ideology that, simply put, believes that the government is the best, most efficient way of spreading the most good to the most people. So, in this idea of ultimate altruism, they try to cede the most amount of power possible to the state (federal government). I really do think that these people are taking actions that they believe will help people. They are not villains in this story, which makes it doubly frustrating.

To combat those who do not share the notion that the government should be the giver of all things, progressives tend to, instead of debating in the arena of ideas, create a label to put on these people or groups. Labels like, homophobic, xenophobic, sexist, racist, bigoted, etc. In this case, they came up with “fake news”. They slapped this label onto any news site deemed to be biased toward the right politically. In the minds of the social media oligarchs, these dissenting news outlets cost Hillary Clinton the election, so must be stopped. This term was picked up by president Obama and he slung it towards places like Fox News, to the delight of progressives everywhere. Congress even got on board with the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016. Signed into law just before Christmas. This bill concentrates on foreign interventions in our news. It doesn’t take much of a leap to imagine the law spreading to domestic news sources and alternative media.

The arrogance of these progressives shows when they create these labels and pass these laws thinking that they know best what people should be exposed to. They also are as arrogant as to think that ceding all this power to their government will only help them and hurt the people who disagree with them.

Maybe the shortsightedness stems from the arrogance, but it is beyond me how many times I hear that once this progressive is in office it will be impossible for any other party to ever win the presidency. This position is just not rational. In fact, it is almost always the opposite. So, the power collected by your president, always gets transferred to the next president. Obama has been the most imperial president of my lifetime, largely because the congress let him. His end-arounds of congress have come to the delight of progressives everywhere because he championed their cause by and large. Do you really believe that President Trump will just give that power back to congress? To the people? You are diluted, you are irrational, you are arrogant and shortsighted. This happens Every. Single. Time.

Finally, my progressive friend, you are a hypocrite. You cannot cheer when President Obama calls Fox News fake, and cry when President Trump calls CNN fake. You gave him this power. Freely. Cheerfully, even. You constantly advocate for this huge, do everything for everyone government, against the wishes of literally half the people’s will who live in this country. You tell them to sit down and shut up because you are smarter and know what’s best. Now, when the other party is in power, you protest, riot, boycott, cry and whine like petulant children who don’t get their way.

The moral of this story is that you should not give so much power away to any government that you cannot live freely under a government you may oppose.

Feminism (and Social Justice) Are Not About Equality

I have heard a lot of talk lately from people, really smart people even, who defend feminism as a movement advocating for the equality of women. They all love to go to the dictionary and read the actual definition of feminism. Fem·i·nism noun: feminism: the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men. To be honest, this is a pretty weak definition because there are more than one type of equality. Depending on the lens in which you look at the world, that definition could mean vastly different things, polar opposite things even. Not to mention that almost mainstream feminists reject this definition, (until they are debating an anti-feminist and it becomes convenient to use it), and hold that there is no set in stone definition of today’s modern 3^rd wave feminist movement. For the purposes of this writing, let’s just stick to the dictionary definition. I don’t intend to imply that the definition of feminism is wrong, just the worldview behind the movement itself.

What do I mean when I say “the lens in which you look at the world”, or “worldview”. They mean the same thing. The structure by which our societies are built, shape in a large way how we see the world. Worldview. In modern times, the two most prominent worldviews that shape western society have been socialism and capitalism. In olden times we could throw monarchy and theocracy in there, but those aren’t major players in western society anymore. I may get to them later though. Aren’t these just economic systems though? What does buying and selling stuff have to do with how we view equality? Well, based on which system the society you live in chooses, a government is formed and laws are written. These laws should, if done properly, protect the rights of people.

So what’s the difference on how socialism and capitalism look at equality? In America, our society has been built with the worldview of capitalism. We think of equality in terms of equal opportunity. This means that the government has one set of laws that apply to everyone in the same way. What you make of your life is your choice. Every citizen has the same opportunity to follow their dreams as every other citizen under the law. Yes, some will succeed while others fail. Yes, some have an advantage based on a multitude of factors. No one has access to laws that give them any advantage over another person. Capitalist societies use terms like egalitarian to describe equality.

In the socialist worldview, places like the old Soviet Union or modern Venezuela, the concept of equality is more in the line of equality of outcome. This means that the laws will favor people who have less over people who have more in an effort to make everyone more equal in what they have, compared to what everyone else has. To do this the government must have some way of determining who the laws should favor. The most popular way to determine who is privileged and who is not today is through a philosophy called Critical Theory, the Frankfurt School or sometimes Cultural Marxism. It takes privilege from those who need it less and grants privilege to those who need it more to create a balance of equal outcome in society.

Leaders in the modern feminist movement, as well as the larger social justice movement, have embraced the socialist worldview and developed a system of hierarchy, sometimes called the “progressive stack” to determine who is privileged and who is not. The stack itself goes something like: 1. Race 2. Heteronormativity 3. Gender 4. Sexuality 5. Ability 6. Class 7. Religion. The group with the most privilege using this hierarchy would be white, cis-gendered, male, straight, able bodied, rich, Christian. The devil incarnate. It’s hard to say who would be at the bottom of the list because there is a constant fight for who can claim the status of most oppressed. I’ve written before on Social Justice Warriors, and Why Feminism Fails.

Ultimately, the reason the social justice and 3^rd wave feminism movements fail everywhere except college campuses, is because in western countries, women do enjoy political, social and economic equality to men. In fact, women enjoy more protection in many areas of the law. Women are generally given less jail time for the same crimes and child custody and divorce laws favor women, for instance. Feminists cling to myths like the gender wage gap where women supposedly make $.77 for every dollar a man makes for doing the same job. A myth that has been debunked dozens of times. Feminists don’t care that women work less hours, take more time off and generally quit working earlier, they just want them to make the same amount of money no matter what. Equality of outcome. Not equal opportunity. They cling to myths like the 1 in 5 sexual assault on college campus for women, which has also been debunked several times over. This study was debunked by the very person who created the myth in the first place. Doesn’t matter.

There are, in fact, places in this world that could use feminism. These are places that still rely on monarchy and theology as worldviews. These are places that take part in female genital mutilation, openly value women less than men by law and generally treat women as property rather than people. You will rarely see a modern feminist criticize these countries or their culture and practices. Islam is lower than Christianity on the scale, you see, so they are less privileged and more oppressed than all these social justice/feminist keyboard warriors and therefore can’t be criticized. Because of this it doesn’t matter that women who are raped get stoned while the man who raped her gets a slap on the wrist. It doesn’t matter that gays get thrown off buildings for being gay. It doesn’t matter that Christians get beheaded for being Christian.

I’m not a feminist because I don’t believe in their version of equality. I believe what is good for everyone regardless of race, herteronormativity, gender, Sexuality, ability, class or religion is the freedom of equal opportunity. Free markets make for a free people. Socialism has failed everywhere it has been tried. I have hopes that the 4^th wave of feminism embraces the free market and they see the fallacy of the segregation and regressive laws they are supporting. High hopes, low expectations.

Is “Democratic Socialism” Different Than Plain Old Socialism

I hate to keep harping on this topic and hopefully I won’t have to as Bernie Sanders becomes less and less likely to win the Democratic nomination. It is quite apparent that many people, mostly under 35, think that “Democratic Socialism” is a new thing, maybe a more compassionate and modern take on the socialism of old that has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people in the last century. Maybe the Bernie Sanders socialism takes all the good things out and throws away all the bad things? Let’s just see about that.

As a comparison between old world socialism and Bernie Sanders socialism, I’ll use the 1936 Constitution of the U.S.S.R. and various parts of BernieSander.com and other Bernie Sanders websites. If you remember in my previous blog on socialism, I explained the difference between capitalism and socialism. I think it’s only fair to point out that socialism is not inherently evil. It is a political system devised with the best intentions, I’m sure. Socialism advocates for the very poor people that, in the end, suffer at its hands. This is because of a very simple principle, as it turns out. The cornerstone of freedom and prosperity is the right to own things. Sounds simple right? How can you pin 100 million deaths due to starvation and mass murder on the right to own things? Well, in socialism, the cornerstone of the philosophy, what really makes it work is that individuals can’t own anything. The state allows citizens to own personal property, like their clothes and maybe a home, but stuff you would use to make money, called the means of production, including your building, machinery and all the other things you would need to run a business, are owned by the workers and more generally, the government. It stands to reason that if an individual can’t own the means of production, then they can’t really own anything.

That’s a bold claim. So how can I say that? Well, take a quick look. I think we would all agree that we own our own bodies right? My thoughts, what I’m good at, nobody can take away. So far so good, I hope. I also own my time, because I can choose to use my time here on earth however I choose. Good, bad or ugly. Let’s take that a step further and say when I trade my time, thoughts or talents for things like money or food, I also own those things I gain in the trade. Stated differently, if I trade my time by working, for money, since I own my time, I then must also own the money. By this logic, I can also truly own things by trading that money which I own for other things which I must also own. So far I don’t think many people would disagree with me. Even the Soviet Constitution agrees with me so far. Here’s where I must depart from socialism, and why in that system a person really doesn’t own anything.

This is a line of logic based on the socialist system:

• I buy a home. Do I own it? Yes
• I buy a printing press. Do I own it? Yes
• I buy a typewriter. Do I own it? Yes
• I start a home based newspaper with myself as the sole employee. Do I own it? Yes
• Sales increase and I need help, so I hire a few employees. Do I still own my business? No, the employees take ownership of the means of production.
• Do I still own the typewriters? No, they are part of the business.
• Do I still own the printing press? No, they are part of the business.
• Do I still own the home? No, it is part of the business.
• If I purchased those things with money I gained by trading my time and talent, how can I say I own my time and talent? I can’t.
• If I don’t own my time and talent, do I own myself? No

With this simple illustration you can see that in a socialist system you not only can’t own things, you don’t own yourself. Your time, talents and treasures are effectively owned by the state government. In socialism the collective group is more important than the individual. This system is enforced by workers unions and cooperatives that are organized by the state. These entities take ownership away from the person who started the business and give it to the workers in those unions and cooperatives. The state dictates the wages based on the income of the business to ensure everyone gets an equal share. This is outlined in the Soviet Constitution I linked to above in the section about “The organization of Society“. Just to recap, in the old socialist system the government, through unions and cooperatives takes over your business, dictates your wages and hours worked by the employees.

What about Bernie Sanders? Well in fact, he absolutely does believe in union and cooperative employee ownership of business. Dictated through government mandates. He absolutely does believe in government dictated wages for employees. Under the guise of income inequality, a socialist mantra, he proposes to steal from the rich and give to the poor, dictate the minimum wage, which is arbitrarily set by government bureaucrats. Class warfare, pitting the rich against the poor, is a classic socialist tactic. Bernie calls the rich the 1% and the poor the 99%, in the old socialist system they called the rich the bourgeoisie and the poor the proletariat. Same exact thing. Create a boogeyman to fight, divide the people, making it easier to control everyone.

How did the old socialist system deal with the needs of the people? In chapter X of the Soviet Constitution, it outlines the “Fundamental Right and Duties of Citizens“. This is mostly a list of positive rights, with a few negative rights thrown in at the end: freedoms of speech, press, assembly and street processions and demonstrations. The positive rights include: the right to a job, leisure time (set workday and paid vacations), free healthcare and social security, free education from elementary to college and vocational school, paid maternity leave for women along with free daycare for their children and the right to join trade unions and cooperative associations.

If any of that sounds familiar, that’s because you have heard it before. Bernie Sanders thinks you have the right to a job, free healthcare and social security, free education from elementary to college, 12 weeks of paid maternity leave for women and expand public unions and grow cooperative businesses.

In chapter X of the Soviet Constitution, not only did they outline workers’ rights, but also the duties they were expected to perform. This is crucial to socialism. Everyone likes the rights because they benefit, but in the end the state has to have a way to provide all those benefits and therefor has to require that the citizens do their part. In the case of 1936 Soviet Union people were required to work, unemployment was illegal. If you did not have a job, a job would be designated to you. If you don’t work, you are an enemy of the state. Military service is mandatory, if you do not serve you are an enemy of the state. If you break any rules, you are an enemy of the state. You have freedom of speech, but if you speak out against the state, you are an enemy of the state. There is freedom of the press, but the state controls the press. There is freedom of assembly, which is state controlled. This is the ugly part of socialism, the part Bernie Sanders won’t tell you about. Without the Capitalist notion of competition and market incentives, a void is created that can only be filled by force.

This is the downfall of socialism and why it has never really worked anywhere it has been tried. It all stems from ownership of things. When a person does not own things, that person does not care as much about those things as when they do own them. Think about things in your life. Do you treat public restrooms as nicely as you treat your own bathroom at home? If you have rented a car, do you care as much about that car as you do your own? When you win a gift card in a contest do you spend that money as wisely as you spend your hard earned money? If you are honest, the answers are all probably no. That does not make you a bad person, just a bad socialist. There has been no system in the history of the world that has propelled people into health, happiness and prosperity like capitalism has. This is because capitalism gets around the problem of incentive by acknowledging the natural right to ownership. When you own it, you have an incentive to take care of it. As we drift closer and closer to a socialist state, we will also go the way of the old Soviet Union.

At the very least, you can at least now see that there is very little, if any, difference between the Democratic Socialism proposed by Bernie Sanders and that of WW2 era Soviet Union. To be fair to Bernie, he’s not the only one with this ideology. He’s just honest enough to admit it. Always vote for freedom.