HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (John Rickert)
Subject: Re: Time to break up the US? (was: Re: apparently a dilemma)
Organization: Vanderbilt University Mathematics Department
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 18:51:54 GMT

In article <DRW.93Jan11231637@euclid.mit.edu> drw@euclid.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley) writes:
>In article <C0pHE8.CF3@panix.com> jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>   It's hard to imagine much support for this.  Abstract American
>   nationality is one of the few things we Americans have in common that
>   rise above day-to-day concerns, so people hang on to it tenaciously.
>
>Another thing that Americans have in common is The Constitution, and
>the cluster of political values it is based on.  Since we have so
>little else on which to base our sense of "nationhood" (especially
>because we are an immigrant nation), The Constitution is held sacred
>here to a degree that Europeans find hard to believe.  Unfortunately,
>it seems that counter-revolution (as far as I can tell what you people
>mean by the phrase) would require doing away with the Constituion, and
>many of the political values under it.
>
>Dale

    I strenuously disagree.  I think we need to get _back_ to the
Constitution.  If anything, we have been drifting further and further
from it for the last forty years.  We live now under a government that
is largely judge-made in its notions and bureaucratic in its operations.  
This is not the kind of government the Constitution establishes.


>Dale Worley		Dept. of Math., MIT		drw@math.mit.edu
>--
>I leave my son the pleasure of earning a living.  For 20 years he
>thought the pleasure was mine.	-- from the will of the Marquise d'Aligre


John Rickert				"What they mean by 'living'
rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu	 Constitution is _dead_
					 Constitution."
						Thomas G. West
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
From: drw@riesz.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley)
Subject: Re: apparently a dilemma
Organization: MIT Dept. of Tetrapilotomy, Cambridge, MA, USA
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 19:48:46 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.062824.12094@news.vanderbilt.edu> rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (John Rickert) writes:
   Being a (Burkean) conservative, I am opposed to revolution.  On the
   other hand, things seem to be approaching a condition in which revolution
   appears to be the only available recourse, given my deeper beliefs.  More
   specifically, I have little hope in the culture in the United States today,
   and it appears to have taken hold so tenaciously that the usual means will
   not be of much avail.  Advice?

Emigration is always an option.

Which leads to the question:  Are there any present nations which are
closer to the "counter-revolutionary" ideal?

Dale

Dale Worley		Dept. of Math., MIT		drw@math.mit.edu
--
If people think nature is their friend, then they sure don't need an enemy.
-- Kurt Vonnegut
From: cla04@seq1.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Hello!
Date: 11 Jan 93 09:36:57 GMT
Organization: Keele University, England

From article <C0nLK9.AwL@panix.com>, by jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb):
 
> Sounds like someone has been reading Nietzsche.  One question:  what do
> they identify as the lost non-Christian and non-totalitarian Europe to
> which they owe allegiance? For example, are there any pre-Christian
> European thinkers that the ENR particularly likes?  Any particular
> pre-Christian European societies?  Why did Europe become Christian if
> Christianity is unEuropean?


Tends to be ancient Greece; the problem is that the Greece praised is
the Greece of German romantics such as Winkelmann rather than the very
different real thing.  In other words a construct of a Christian
civilisation.  However the point is well taken, preChristian Europe had
no locus of identity - even the classical world had no idea of what it
was to be 'European', Northern Europeans were as alien to the antique
world as Asiatic peoples etc. 

On the other hand I'm not sure that the argument in the last sentence
above follows, but surely the important point is that whatever the
origins of Christianity it has been the informing idea behind European
civilization for over the last millennium. One thing that worries me
about the ENR here is that despite its protestations of cultural rather
than racial allegience its rejection of Christianity seems to be a
racist search for a 'pure' European faith - are they in some sense the British
Israelites of the modern world?

Andy
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
From: newsome@panix.com (Richard Newsome)
Subject: Re: apparently a dilemma
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 17:53:45 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC

In article <1993Jan8.062824.12094@news.vanderbilt.edu> rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (John Rickert) writes:
>
>   Being a (Burkean) conservative, I am opposed to revolution.  On the
>other hand, things seem to be approaching a condition in which revolution
>appears to be the only available recourse, given my deeper beliefs.  More

Revolution against who or what? Excessive taxation and debasement of the
currency? Political correctness in the schools? Nutty puritanical activists
who make war on cigarette smokers and fur-wearers? Struggle with these
forces would probably take the form of civil war rather than revolution, don't
you think? 

Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Hello!
Date: 10 Jan 93 19:45:44 GMT
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences

deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:

>Totalitarianism exists where the attempt is made to force one absolute
>truth, one good, one idea, one God, as the only truth [ . . . ]
>Essentially the ENR (the term New Right was coined by their enemies)
>is pagan in spirit, and passionately pro-European [ . . . ] The ENR
>would argue that the past 2,000 years has been a slow process of the
>de-paganizing of Europe.

Sounds like someone has been reading Nietzsche.  One question:  what do
they identify as the lost non-Christian and non-totalitarian Europe to
which they owe allegiance? For example, are there any pre-Christian
European thinkers that the ENR particularly likes?  Any particular
pre-Christian European societies?  Why did Europe become Christian if
Christianity is unEuropean?

>I believe that the process of social disintegration has gone so far
>that breakdown and revolution are inevitable. Moreover, the logic of
>liberal totalitarianism (and remember, American conservatives are
>simply right- wing liberals) is such that I doubt that any group which
>tries to resist assimilation into the mass culture will be allowed to
>exist [ . . . ] True, the authority of the State to do this is always
>under attack. But the collapse of State authority and instability will
>only lead to a greater, stronger tyranny. Anarchy = Tyranny.

I have more sympathy with this view than I would like, and sometimes
find Plato's account in Book VIII of his _Republic_ a compelling
description of what we are seeing.  There, you no doubt remember, he
describes how society devolves from a mythical perfect order to a
military aristocracy based on honor, and then to a commercial oligarchy
based on profit, a democratic consumer society based on freedom,
equality and hedonism, and finally to a tyranny.  The process moved
fairly quickly in the small states with which Plato was familiar, but
has moved very slowly in Western society as a whole.  The fear, of
course, is that the vast scale and slow speed of the transformations we
are seeing makes them all the more complete and irresistible.
-- 
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we
disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn."  (Montaigne)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
From: drw@euclid.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley)
Subject: Re: Time to break up the US? (was: Re: apparently a dilemma)
Organization: MIT Dept. of Tetrapilotomy, Cambridge, MA, USA
	<1993Jan11.024218.21875@athena.mit.edu> <C0pHE8.CF3@panix.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 04:16:37 GMT

In article <C0pHE8.CF3@panix.com> jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
   It's hard to imagine much support for this.  Abstract American
   nationality is one of the few things we Americans have in common that
   rise above day-to-day concerns, so people hang on to it tenaciously.

Another thing that Americans have in common is The Constitution, and
the cluster of political values it is based on.  Since we have so
little else on which to base our sense of "nationhood" (especially
because we are an immigrant nation), The Constitution is held sacred
here to a degree that Europeans find hard to believe.  Unfortunately,
it seems that counter-revolution (as far as I can tell what you people
mean by the phrase) would require doing away with the Constituion, and
many of the political values under it.

Dale

Dale Worley		Dept. of Math., MIT		drw@math.mit.edu
--
I leave my son the pleasure of earning a living.  For 20 years he
thought the pleasure was mine.	-- from the will of the Marquise d'Aligre
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
From: rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (John Rickert)
Subject: Re: Time to break up the US? (was: Re: apparently a dilemma)
Organization: Vanderbilt University Mathematics Department
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 01:10:59 GMT

In article <DRW.93Jan12171008@euclid.mit.edu> drw@euclid.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley) writes:
>In article <1993Jan12.185154.21332@news.vanderbilt.edu> rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (John Rickert) writes:
>   I strenuously disagree.  I think we need to get _back_ to the
>   Constitution.  If anything, we have been drifting further and further
>   from it for the last forty years.  We live now under a government that
>   is largely judge-made in its notions and bureaucratic in its operations.  
>   This is not the kind of government the Constitution establishes.
>
>Well, what exactly would you change? 

    
    Believe it or not, I find this question a little vague.  I'm not
sure whether you're asking what I'd like to see different and considering
the practicability as a further question, or whether you mean to include
that as part of your question.  Are you granting me a proverbial magic
wand, or not?

    Of course, I'd be tempted to assume the first.  :-)  Basically, most
importantly, I'd like to see a return to Constitutional government.  I'd
like to see a polity in which the Constitution really and truly means
something, rather than being an instrument that can play any tune.  It
seems to me that when a question comes before a court, the desired 
result is already known; the difficulty is in finding the appropriate
"constitutional" text or precedent to support it.  But, if you see what
I'm saying, the Constitution then is no constitution at all.

    I would like to see a term limit for federal judges.  Possibly
one 18-year term or something like that.  Maybe this argument is a 
little strained, but I'll mention it anyway:  (i.e., I don't necessarily
endorse it, but it seems worthy of consideration) -- The Board of
Governors of the Federal Reserve has considerable power over the 
economy, primarily through the setting of the prime interest rate
and through determining required reserves.  And we all can see that
the economy is important to a great many people.  Yet, you don't see
annual, large, vociferous marches by people of different monetary
beliefs protesting the Fed's policy, do you?  This, of course, is
quite the contrary with the Supreme Court.  This is evidence to my
mind that the Supreme Court has far more power than it should, and
that people realize this.

    There are more things I would like to see changed, but this post
is long enough already.


>Dale


John Rickert					Where laws are not
rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu		sovereign, demagogues arise.
							-- Aristotle
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Subject: Re: Integrism
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 07:41:19 GMT

drw@zermelo.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley) writes:

>In article <1ifmedINNgq6@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> bp847@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jovan Weismiller) writes:
>   For those outside the _Catholic_ counterrevolutionary sphere,
>   Integrism is an ordinary term for the ideology which places Christ the King
>   at the head of society, state, culture and civilization. Thus, it stands in
>   opposition to all forms of the revolution which place the people, history, 
>   reason, humanism, race, etc. at the head.
>
>And leaves the *interesting* question of who speaks for Christ on
>earth.  (As far as I know, even the Pope doesn't claim to be the
>unique spokesman for Christ.)  A lot of wars have been fought over the
>point.

I'm not sure that it's more troublesome to say "Christ the King is at
the head of s., s., c. & c." than it is to say "the goal of the state
is to establish justice" or "the purpose of society is to further the
realization of the potential and goals of the individual".  In either
case you're accepting some grand end for society the exact meaning and
appropriate implementation of which will be subject to dispute.  The
Roman Catholics, at least, have a more orderly procedure for dealing
with such disputes than most.

It's true that such disputes sometimes lead to war.  When the grand
principles are religious the wars are called religious wars; otherwise,
they're called by some other name.  Why think that religious ages are
more violent than others?  The wars of this century have certainly been
violent enough without having much to do with religion.
-- 
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we
disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn."  (Montaigne)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
From: myempire@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Matt J. Martin)
Subject: Re: Time to break up the US?  (was: Re: apparently a dilemma)
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 00:58:30 GMT

In article <1993Jan11.024218.21875@athena.mit.edu> norris@mit.edu writes:
>
>Has anyone given any thought to the possibility of breaking up the US into
>several countries of more reasonable size?  
>
>
>Here are some possible benefits (just off the top of my head, so to speak):
>	-- each new nation would be more homogeneous in culture and values
>	-- the break-up would be an instant step toward greater subsidiarity
>	-- no more flag-worship: the new nations would identify patriotism 
>	   more with place and people, less with 'democratic' ideology
>
  But don't you think that the lack of any central stabilizing force would 
lead only to increased instability, especially when you consider that fact the
states of the U.S. are pretty much economically interdependant.  Each of the
new nations would have a greater vested interest in protecting its own resources
and the increase in competition for those resources would lead to conflict
and war.     I think the last thing we need right now is increased factionalism.
  

---
  ##########################################################################   
  ##   /   ##               Progress Before Peace!               ##   /   ## 
  ##  //   ## Matt J. Martin, Technosociology and Space Politics ##  //   ## 
  ## ///// ######################################################## ///// ##
  ##   //  ##        Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN       ##   //  ##
  ##   /   ##           myempire@mentor.cc.purdue.edu            ##   /   ##
  ##########################################################################
From: corleyj@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu (Jason D Corley )
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Time to break up the US?  (was: Re: apparently a dilemma)
Date: 12 Jan 93 03:51:39 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson

In article <C0pupJ.6nz@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> myempire@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Matt J. Martin) writes:
>In article <1993Jan11.024218.21875@athena.mit.edu> norris@mit.edu writes:
>>	   more with place and people, less with 'democratic' ideology
>>
>  But don't you think that the lack of any central stabilizing force would 
>lead only to increased instability, especially when you consider that fact the
>states of the U.S. are pretty much economically interdependant.  Each of the
>new nations would have a greater vested interest in protecting its own resources
>and the increase in competition for those resources would lead to conflict

I hope I deleted this right. ;-)

Factionalism, as far as I can tell, seems to me to be a basic expression
of rights.  What all government does not, and by its nature, cannot
address is the unique needs and abilities of every individual-- factionalism
grows from the desire to express those needs with those who feel the same.
Unique ideas and ideals cannot be controlled, or even comprehended by
_any_ governmental system.  Factionalism is the only option--and even
THAT's not a particularly good one.  The natural tendency is to splinter
and splinter into smaller and smaller subgroups until one realises that
no matter how far you split, you still won't have a group that can
understand you, because all individuals are different.  Does that make
sense?

As far as eliminating the United States federal government, it's a start.
Decentralization is the first step towards true self-government.  The
more responsibilities people have to take on, the more they realise their
duty to themselves and to each other.  Of course, it's not feasible, as has
been already pointed out, but one can dream, right?

	Jason
	An alt.society.anarchy poster.
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: apparently a dilemma
Date: 10 Jan 93 14:12:37 GMT
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences

rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu writes:

>If I could make an excuse [for "revolution" posting], which is something 
>generally to be avoided, I would say that it was pretty late at night when
>I made the post, and now it is not so clear to me what prompted it.

The post seemed to express a state of mind that is comprehensible enough
to me.

One motive for conservativism is the thought that since the world goes
beyond anything any of us can figure out, the good life requires us, in
order to get beyond what we are able to do individually, to take
advantage of the knowledge implicit in social usages and habits that
arise over time.  It's just as well that's what the good life requires,
because it's a practical impossibility to avoid basing most of what we
think and do on faith that what other people think and do is valid.

Unfortunately, when we look around us in America in 1992 it seems that
the social usages and habits that are becoming more and more dominant
are motivated by a rejection of the notion that there's anything of
value in the world that goes beyond things (like social position and
physical pleasure, or at least comfort and equality) that the smallest
mind can apprehend immediately.  You begin to wonder exactly what it is
that conservatism is supposed to conserve.

It can be upsetting, to put it mildly, and the thought that dominant
social trends are not the only or the most important things that exist
is not always as consoling as it no doubt should be.  The point of
conservatism, after all, is that society is important even if it's not
ultimate.
-- 
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we
disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn."  (Montaigne)
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: ENR
Date: 11 Jan 93 16:50:16 GMT
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences

In <1993Jan11.001202.7408@news.cs.brandeis.edu> deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu writes:

>In many ways, our modern
>political ideologies are secularized Christian heresies. 

No doubt, but heresies are not the same as the thing itself.  One can
think of religion as something that does not dominate the world but
instead provides a transcendental point of reference that enables us to
make sense of the world and our action in it, and find those things
good.  Somewhat similarly, the concept of "truth" doesn't dictate
anything and doesn't refer to anything that we can altogether grasp, but
it gives a reference point for organizing and making sense of our
understanding of things.  Modern political ideologies are rather
different.

>I should point out that ENR's "paganism" does not necessarily mean the
>revival of ancient religions - I am aware that some are doing this - u
>but rather, they mean by paganism a certain mentality, a "new hellenism"
>which can provide menaing and spiritual impetus to a rejuvenated Europe.

I would be interested in knowing more about which Greeks they have in
mind.  People find affinities between Plato, the tragedians, various
post-Socratic philosophers, and Christianity, and Simone Weil would have
said there are affinities between Christianity and the Iliad.  Maybe all
those people are wrong, of course -- I don't have a fully-developed
theory on the subject.

>(Karl) Popper accused Plato of being "the first totalitarian". Not sure
>the ENR would agree. Plato, in the Republic, is fixed on the one aim of
>building a strong, stable state, but there is no hint of the messianic
>desire to make the whole world adhere to his blueprint. An interesting
>problem.

Plato considered his republic possible, but just barely.  He understood
the difficulties of politics, which the totalitarians think can be
obviated through the use of force.  So I wouldn't call him a
totalitarian.

>I'm not sure if the transformations you mentioned are taking place as 
>slowly as you might think [ . . . ]

What I had in mind (using the language of economics) was feudalism ->
capitalism -> consumerism -> [?], a series of transformations related to
those Plato describes, and that have taken hundreds of years.  There are
no doubt other ways of thinking about the matter.
-- 
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we
disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn."  (Montaigne)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
From: drw@zermelo.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley)
Subject: Re: Integrism
Organization: MIT Dept. of Tetrapilotomy, Cambridge, MA, USA
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 23:32:41 GMT

In article <1ifmedINNgq6@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> bp847@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jovan Weismiller) writes:
   For those outside the _Catholic_ counterrevolutionary sphere,
   Integrism is an ordinary term for the ideology which places Christ the King
   at the head of society, state, culture and civilization. Thus, it stands in
   opposition to all forms of the revolution which place the people, history, 
   reason, humanism, race, etc. at the head.

And leaves the *interesting* question of who speaks for Christ on
earth.  (As far as I know, even the Pope doesn't claim to be the
unique spokesman for Christ.)  A lot of wars have been fought over the
point.

Dale

Dale Worley		Dept. of Math., MIT		drw@math.mit.edu
--
They robbed from the rich...and gave to the CRIMINALLY INSANE!!
-- Ren & Stimpy
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter