September 25, 2020

As a child, my parents trained me to always question other people. While this isn't always great for trust, it is beneficial when it comes to challenging and questioning ideas. Within my friend groups, I have always considered myself the ultimate devil's advocate. While I'm sure that I'm largely overselling my own talents with that title, it drives my general philosophy when approaching any topic of discussion, and any analysis of how others are presenting themselves. In a way, this is why I like Tim Pool. He consistently criticizes the left for not leading policy or social narratives in a way that approaches their claimed ideals. Likewise, I find it critically important to distinguish the areas where I find conservatives or traditionalists lacking, and put a heavy emphasis against people claiming to be constitutionalist libertarians or classical liberals.

I take a non-stance on the position of abortion due to personal circumstance, but I have argued with pro-life people the necessity of and philosophical "right" for abortion, and I have argued with pro-choice individuals the philosophical underpinnings that make abortion an absolute violation of natural rights as defined in the United States Declaration of Independence. I have argued for the experience of mixing cultures as well as the foolishness of leading cultural independence among different societal groups. I have outlined the propaganda from both sides and acknowledged the obscurity of truth in many areas of "factual discussion". Sometimes the truth is obvious, but the lies are smeared over the entire view, as if an ink blotch was painted over the Mona Lisa. There is a truth but everyone sees something different.

So what is the point of this. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure. I want to tell my story and help my supporters and followers understand me better, and the reason I post what I do. I bare a grudge when I see people claiming to be libertarians forcing their order onto others. I see the hypocrisy in Fox making fun of CNN for calling the the riots "Fiery but Peaceful Protests" and then themselves calling literal explosions that happen live on camera "The use of some incendiary devices" and downplaying them as "fireworks" and claiming they are "not bombs". Fireworks are bombs, and even if one wouldn't consider them thus, they were still used as bombs live on Fox's coverage. I hear older conservatives pushing for law and order to be forced onto even peaceful protests as being "disruptive", calling walk away rallies that get attacked by BLM "people going to get attacked", claiming Trump needs to win with a 10% or larger margin while refusing to go to any public place to promote or support the promotion of the president and saying anyone who does is "creating trouble". I begrudge the hypocrisy and back turning on public support of their own values. Saying schools are indoctrinating our kids and then saying all kids must go to public school is one of the arguments I have heard that aggravates me the most.

To an extent, I am angry at the old right. I am a younger generation and I want to see society move in a more traditional libertarian direction, and the refusal for and even degrading of public action to promote their own beliefs sickens me. 110 years ago, the progressives were a part of the republican party. Teddy Roosevelt took the progressives from the Republicans and they were later absorbed by the Democrat party. Knowing this, I had come to a realization. Progressives are not innately left or right. They are simply the arm of action, and will take action for whichever side they happen to be on. While the right is called conservative now, I believe that is actually a misleading naming structure. Conservatism is a part of the right, but it is not the right side of the graph.

The right side is traditionalism. When the Republican party was founded, it was not a conservative party. It was a traditionalist, progressive party. A party that wanted to move the country to closer approach the ideals inscribed in our constitution and Declaration of Independence. There is a saying that the Overton Window always pulls left. I believe that is because of the dynamic of progressivism being fully concentrated on the left, the concentration of power and, what I would call, pre-post-traditionalism. As post-modernism destroys the evolutions in human thought discovered in the enlightenment period, creating an image that almost mirrors the pre-enlightenment era of thought, so too does leftism and the concentration of power of the left. I honestly believe that a new word is necessary to describe the left side of the political spectrum from the American perspective, but I will use pre-post-traditionalism for now. That said, with conservatives being the force that is unwanting to move and the progressives being the unstoppable force, the nation has continued to move leftward, and will even move leftward from conservatives if they believe that a leftward movement will help to maintain a certain aspect of their existing status quo. This is why George W. Bush was able to get away with the Patriot Act. Conservatives liked the strong military and "safety" they had previously felt they had in flights. To conserve that, they moved leftward and ceded privacy rights to the government in order to protect a more daily relevant status quo.

The recent lockdown events have given me the opportunity to discuss the protection of freedom with older conservatives, and it seems that many have been convinced that sacrificing their freedoms "temporarily" is necessary to protect their "freedom". The contradiction struck me. It is probably the thing that really shifted my locals to become more political in nature. I consider myself a traditionalist, but the word conservative has become poison to me. I see similar things on the left, where more active members of the left become frustrated with those who only echo the talking points of the media they watch.

Now, saying all this, I find the right to be willing to argue and debate across the lines of disagreement far more willingly than those on the left. In a debate with a friend on abortion, we argued using the three key rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" as the foundation for our arguments. My friend argued that an unborn's right to life does not have the validity to overwrite ones right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. My argument was that using your liberty to pursue happiness and failing does not give one the right to take a life that such pursuits resulted in creating. A heated discussion on the morality of the argument and realizations that not all of our arguments were fully developed and that more emotional opinions were being held than had first been believed. Yet I have found little way to present my own arguments to any on the left that will not result in total shutdown. I can question, sometimes, but the conversation seems to have a requirement of one sided flow of knowledge. This is why I focus my criticisms on the right. As of the time being, I see hope to have open discussion with traditionalists of any background. The pre-post-traditionalists adoption of critical theory has led them to consider logic to be a corrupted aspect of the traditionalist spectrum and the utilization of such systems of debate is evidence supporting their critical theory promotion of traditionalism as bad. This all said, I cannot say for sure that this critical theory aspect of the left wing is the left wing, or if it is just a part of it, as conservatism is a part of the right.

For me, I simply want to learn, discuss ideas, and pass along my knowledge and experience. I created this locals as both an outlet for my ideas and a place to further challenge myself and others. To be honest, I find the lack of responses I get to my posts to be somewhat disheartening. I am no expert in any of my ideas or concepts, nor do I expect anyone else to be. Anecdotes, thoery, or factual evidence provided are all worthy to my search. I hope too that you all can learn from the challenges I put myself through, and perhaps you too will find a fun challenge along the way. That is my goal.

As a devil's advocate, I consistently get called a radical for all sides of the political spectrums. The truth is, I'm just a guy who wants to explore his freedom to challenge all ideas. That said, the most radical concept in the world is the concept of freedom. I see it as my duty to help to enshrine that radical idea for another generation. I get sad and frustrated when I see that even the generations before me have abandoned so much of it. So I shall be that radical patriot fighting for the words of our constitution. In the words of Patrick Henry, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!"

I look forward to continuing this pursuit with you all at my side. I will make some posts about definitions of terms that I use and words that I make up as I go along from now on too. I think that will be useful for you all to understand how I utilize my personal language