Greco-Roman Liberty

 

Despite what is almost universally believed – including by practically all Objectivists and libertarians – the classical Greeks and Romans loved political freedom and individual liberty. You can see some of this in the confidence, dynamism, and individuality of their statuary. And you can hear it in their frequent contemptuous references to “Oriental despotism”.

And the Greeks and Romans largely understood what the concepts of political freedom and individual liberty meant. They mostly lived under these social ideals and were proud to do so. The classical Greeks and Romans virtually never stopped comparing their civilized, advanced, and free societies with those of the savage, backward, tyrannical Persians, Germans, Illyrians, Etruscans, and other barbarians all around them.

Why did the philosophy- and science-inventing Greeks ferociously resist the overwhelmingly powerful Persians of the early 5^th century B.C.? The poet Simonides (556-468 B.C.) says: “ We fought to crown Greece with freedom.”

The historian Thucydides (460-400 B.C.) once acknowledged “the secret of happiness to be freedom and the secret of freedom to be a brave heart”. So the Greeks courageously resisted tyranny on numerous occasions. The playwright Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.) contrasted “the freeman” with “him enslaved by another’s might”.

One immensely important aspect of political freedom is equal justice for all. And as the great Athenian leader Pericles (495-429 B.C.) noted: "When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law."

The philosopher Aristotle (284-322 B.C.) generally praised liberty, but then mocked those who argued “because men are equally free [politically], they claim to be absolutely equal [socially]”. Aristotle approvingly stated: “The basis of a democratic state is liberty.” And it should be remembered that the Greeks essentially invented democracy.

The Romans built upon what they learned from the libertarian Greeks and gained a sophisticated understanding of constitutions, rule of law, justice, and certainly political freedom. The historian Sallust (86-34 B.C) noted the irony that often “in the highest [political] position, there is the least freedom of action.” The philosopher Epictetus (55-135 B.C.) added: “Only the educated are [truly] free.”

The poet and intellectual Horace (65-8 B.C.) praised Roman “painters and poets” for their freedom of “bold invention”. He explained: “We claim the liberty for ourselves and in turn we give it to others.” The historian Tacitus (56-120 A.D.) once happily noted: “It is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks.”

But did the classical Greeks and Romans really understand the relatively difficult concept of freedom of speech? Well, the philosopher Socrates (469-399 B.C.) evidently spent a half-century openly questioning, criticizing, and mocking virtually every powerful person and idea in Athens (frequently during wartime).

The Greeks debated extensively the merits of oligarchy, monarchy, and democracy, while often practicing their marvelous political invention of democracy. But they didn’t praise it uncritically because as the philosopher Plato (428-348 B.C.) observed, often: “Democracy passes into despotism.” Plato condemned even successful dictators by noting: “When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other in order that the people may [continue to] require a [dictatorial] leader.”

Regarding political freedom and individual liberty, Aeschylus observed quite early in Greek history that: “Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny.”

Man

 

Man is god. He is goodness and greatness personified. Man is an end in himself. He lives for his own sake.

Man creates his own meaning and purpose. He earns everything he has and deserves everything he is. As Ayn Rand noted: “As man is a being of self-created wealth, so he is a being of self-created soul.” He continually attempts to uplift himself and make his spirit soar.

Man carves out his own existence in nature and reality. He is a dynamic, vivacious, and cutting creature who drives himself forever forward. Man is potentially a hero, saint, and noble soul who forever rises.

Man is as creator. He builds and produces. He invents and achieves. It’s man’s holy duty to always grow and ascend. He is forever traveling onward and upward.

Man is the most wondrous and magnificent thing in the known universe. He is greatness itself. Virtual omniscience and omnipotence are his destiny. Man is god himself.

"Capitalism"

 

When people today speak of “capitalism” they almost always mean: government of vast economic regulation. They mean: fascism or welfare statism.

A “capitalist” these days is a rich person or business owner who uses his wealth to regulate his industry to his advantage. He uses his money to manipulate the political system to enrich and empower himself. By “manipulate” is meant coerce; by “empower” is meant acquire the ability to coerce.

But since in the real world capitalism means individual liberty or economic freedom, this current version of capitalism is the opposite of the real deal. Actual capitalists don’t seek to regulate or coerce anyone, nor do they allow anyone else to regulate or coerce them.

“Capitalists” nowadays secretly bride the legislators, judges, executives, regulators, and other government authorities with cash under the table. Or they openly bribe them via campaign or charity contributions. Or the bribes take the form of extravagantly-paid, no-show “jobs” for the various government officials, their family, friends, and cronies. Or the pseudo-capitalists fool and bribe the people or voters directly.

The general way these “capitalists” – these robber-baron parasites and authoritarians – become enriched and empowered is they get the bribed government officials to alter the tax, regulation, subsidy, import, and export system to benefit themselves – usually thru some version of a monopoly in their industry. This impoverishes and disempowers their customers and victims – as well as the nation and the world.

These “capitalists” slow human progress and damage world society. Their “alterations” of the tax, regulation, subsidy, import, and export system always involves coercion. This warping of economic freedom can also be called criminality or tyranny. And since real capitalism always means liberty, these “acts of capitalism” always involve the contrary of capitalism.

Under true capitalism the good businessmen and companies thrive and grow rich, while the poor ones go broke and out of business. But under vastly regulated fascist or welfare statist “capitalism” it’s the coercive, thieving, bad businessmen and companies which thrive and grow rich, while everyone else suffers considerable elements of impoverishment and enslavement.

No wonder virtually everyone today hates modern capitalism! They should. Current capitalism is the polar opposite, and death, of real capitalism.

The Moral Depravity of EVERYBODY (In the Aftermath of George Floyd)

 

The police are scum – for their generally abusive, thuggish, and brutal behavior as they enforce fascist “vice” laws and semi-fascist, government road rules. These two evils contaminate everything they do.

The police protesters are scum – for their demonstrations and marches against a police and societal “systematic racism” which doesn’t exist, while promoting socialist tyranny, and deliberately providing cover for criminals.

The rioters, vandals, looters, arsonists, and assaulters are scum – for obvious reasons. Time to get out the billy-clubs, if not machine guns, and stop these vermin dead in their tracks.

Black Loves Matter, Antifa, and their allies are scum – for being such racist, communist, cop-killing, savage organizations.

Blacks and Hispanics are scum – for being so criminal, welfarist, Big Brotherist, anti-American, generally immoral, broadly bigoted, and specifically racist.

Whites and Jews are scum – for appeasing evil blacks and Hispanics so much, for supporting the black-and-Hispanic-undermining welfare state so strongly, and for being so self-hating and self-destroying.

The intellectuals are scum – for not being able to figure out practically any of this, despite it being so obvious.

The entire American population is scum – for evading or denying the inferiority of blacks and Hispanics as regards their nature, nurture, and volition, i.e. as regards their manifest weakness of genetics, culture, and morality. This dishonesty and cowardice causes deep paranoia, and massively results in blacks and Hispanics faring badly in their personal, social, and economic lives. This evasion and denial of the obvious causes the majority of their backwardness – not white racism. When it comes to the relative merits of the ethnicities, the general populace needs to stop lying thru their teeth.

This is a scumbag world. Every last one of you is guilty of creating and maintaining it.

Bigotry on Parade

 

America is a systemically bigoted nation. It’s systemically racist and sexist. This considerable social evil has been on-going for at least 55 years now.

Kamala Harris wasn’t nominated Tuesday [August 11th, 2020] to be the Democratic vice-presidential candidate because of merit. She isn’t all that smart or politically experienced, and she’s a personal lowlife. Harris was selected mainly because of the (pretend) color of her skin and the nature of her genitalia. She is the great “affirmative action” or Bigotry Candidate of the year. She was chosen by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden because America is a systemically racist and sexist country.

So who is to blame for this horror? What caused this monstrosity? Altho’ many factors are involved – including the near-universal denial of pivotal biological realities – near the top of the list is the remarkable intellectual dishonesty and cowardice of virtually all American whites and males. Their submission to, and appeasement of, raw evil is a disgrace. Their ideological self-hatred and self-destructiveness is a giant part of Tuesday’s hideous display of racism and sexism.

The Power of Philosophy

 

The power of philosophy is effectively infinite. It can make people believe anything – no matter how false. It can make people do anything – no matter how evil. Philosophy is an exceptionally strong and dangerous weapon to possess.

At times, however, philosophy can be a beneficial tool. It can be a useful, helpful guide to life – even to a noble and magnificent life. But at other times a rotten and misguided philosophy can drive people to the very limits of absurdity and destruction. It can force people to think truly crazy things about themselves and others, and to perpetrate truly horrific acts against themselves and others. As Cicero noted: “There is nothing so ridiculous but some philosopher has said it.” When it comes to stupidity and depravity, philosophy has essentially no limits.

No wonder Cato the Elder and the Romans sent away the famous, visiting, Greek philosophers (Critolaus, Carneades, Diogenes of Babylon) of 155 BC! Considering all the unfamiliar and menacing nonsense they were spouting, the Romans might well have put them to death.

If you understand the intellectual, moral, and spiritual authority of philosophy, it isn’t surprising to see all the atrocities committed by the Russian Bolsheviks and German Nazis. And by the Cambodian Kymer Rouge. And by the Moslems of Saudi Arabia and Iran. And by the fascists under Mussolini, Franco, and Tojo. And by the communists of China, Vietnam, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba. And by the 1940s medical experimenters of Germany and Japan.

Under philosophy, massive slavery, torture, and murder is common. Especially this past century.

Of course, the major purpose of philosophy is personal happiness – not social utopia. The moment personal philosophers convert and pervert themselves into collectivist ideologues is the moment they should pretty much all be lined up against a wall. The history of social utopian philosophers is about 99% the history of coercion, force, attack, assault, totalitarianism, tyranny, and enslavement.

Collectivist ideologues – with their supposedly brilliant, ingenious, marvelous, and magnificent ideas and ideals – almost always reject persuasion in favor of coercion. Funny how that works out, isn't it? The lofty ideological idealists never convince by being convincing or persuade by being persuasive. Their philosophical understanding and insights are allegedly too good, great, fine, strong, beautiful, and wonderful to bother with that. So their technique is always that of Pol Pot. So too their goals and results.

The simple truth is people need meaning and purpose in their lives. They need goals and ideals. These are non-negotiable imperatives for human existence.

So they turn to philosophy. And, historically, philosophy usually turns on them.

Even Ayn Rand’s wretched, shocking, late-1900s cult was something to be expected. Why shouldn’t she and all her top lieutenants abuse, censor, and excommunicate all of their virtuous, loyal dissidents? Everyone who thinks too freely and asks too many questions? Abuse, censorship, and excommunication of dissidents are what philosophy is all about!

The leading Randroid cultists of the late 1900s and early 2000s had no problem taking a philosophy of reason and individualism, and then turning these ideas upside-down and inside-out. Noble philosophy transforms into lowly religion with ease.

So what can we do to keep it on track? How can we avoid the continuous, historical disasters? One simple idea may be the most important and best.

Freedom of speech is a powerful shield and weapon against bad philosophy. Open discussion and debate radically cleanses, improves, and uplifts it. So long as people are allowed, encouraged, and required to freely and openly doubt, question, criticize, and condemn the dominant ideas and people, philosophy tends to fare far better.

Scum

People are scum. Even the greatest geniuses sand heros. No-one is a saint. No-one is morally good.

Aristotle was a partial religionist and Rand a partial cultist. Aristotle knew perfectly well that “souls” and “gods” didn’t exist. Rand knew perfectly well that freedom of discussion and debate was imperative to philosophy and life. But both acted against these truths and willingly chose the path of personal immorality and social destruction.

Humans were somewhat rational and virtuous during the Helleno-Roman and Renaissance-Enlightenment periods. But then they voluntarily surrendered their relatively liberal philosophy, culture, lifestyle, and attitude. Human beings were happy to believe in and follow the stupidity and depravity of serious Christianity from 500 to 1500. They were happy believe in and follow the stupidity and depravity of serious socialism from 1900 to 2050.

So people are scum. They do tend to eventually ascend philosophically and culturally. But only when they can’t help it and only at a snail’s pace. People are scum.

Inferiority

“Truth never damages a cause that is just.” --Mohandas Gandhi

Blacks are inferior to whites. It’s a fact. Pretty much everyone today evades or denies it. But it’s a fact.

Blacks are significantly inferior to whites in both their nature and nurture. Virtually all the scientific and cultural evidence indicates this. But these days virtually no-one white or black cares to hear it.

The Great Lie which practically every one tells is that black and white IQs are essentially identical. And that black culture and white culture are essentially identically rational, moral, healthy, and happy.

So where is the public equality? Blacks and whites have been asking this at least since the 1960s. Why are blacks so economically and socially backward? The only answer or cause which anyone can think of – since the truth is forbidden to openly mention or even secretly consider – is white racism.

Hilarious. How absurd.

Everyone hates racism. Or at least traditional racism: racial abuse, discrimination, and disrespect by whites against blacks. This is universally and passionately condemned. Everyone black and white knows this. However much everyone nowadays may evade and deny it – everyone knows it.

The fact is legal and societal racism against blacks ended in the 1960s. That’s almost three generations ago. Virtually no-one alive today can even remember anti-black racism practiced in real life. And this is so despite ubiquitous propaganda claiming otherwise.

Blacks obtained political equality in the 1960s certainly. And in terms of popular respect and acceptance by half-way decent people of all races, blacks obtained societal equality as well.

So why don’t blacks today rank as high in business success and social esteem? Why do they perform so badly, economically and socially?

Must be racism. Everybody says this.

But what racism? Where? Who’s doing it, why are they, and what exactly are they doing? No answer is given. Or at least none that makes any kind of sense.

So the cause of black and white inequality must be hidden racism. You know, secret racism. Institutional racism. Omnipresent, broad-based, cultural, sociological, and overall racism. Racial inequalities are all due to systemic racism which comes from, and is caused by, you know, the system.

Blacks don’t really believe this. Whites don’t either. Neither race is stupid. But they just don’t know what to believe.

The fact is egalitarianism and progressivism have massively brainwashed both groups. According to these two philosophies, the equality of the races is a fundamental article of faith which it’s unthinkable to question.

But clearly something is wrong with this picture. Blacks and whites may not know what – but clearly it’s something. Everyone quietly knows and admits this.

But it can’t be that blacks are considerably lesser than whites in their genes and upbringing. It just can’t be. So what is it? No-one knows...

The natural result of all this militant and fanatical shunning of reality is that blacks today are massively paranoid. Someone or something is working against them. This is obvious. They just don’t know who or what. Nor how. On all these issues they’re filled with black despair.

Blacks today certainly assume – after 55-plus years of merciless indoctrination – that the “blacks are equal to whites” ignoramuses and liars can’t be wrong. The can’t be evil. And, beyond all doubt, they can’t be the ones doing all the damage.

Why, these egalitarians and equalitarians are the good guys! Indeed, these utter fools and brazen frauds are the black man’s only hope!

So says everyone. And so – at this point – maybe almost everyone believes. Tell a falsehood often enough, and with enough confidence and aggression, and prettyh soon everyone accepts it.

And so here we are! Stuck forever. Trapped in a never-ending nightmare. No-one will tell the truth – and yet this truth is the elephant in the room which is brutally stomping on all the deceived whites and blacks.

If we truly want whites and blacks to get along harmoniously – to live together in peace and brotherhood – then we must face the facts.

And the fact is: Blacks are inferior to whites. This is what all the impartial, scientific evidence indicates. This is what George Rockwell in the ‘60s, Arthur Jensen in the ‘70s, William Shockley in the ‘80s, Charles Murray in the ’90s, and many others more recently have observed.

Blacks are notably inferior in both genetics and culture. This is why they do so poorly economically and socially. It isn’t everyone’s favorite bogeyman “racism”.

If the two races would abandon the current, failed, depraved philosophy that this truth needs to be suppressed at all costs, things would be different. If the two races would halt their current, failed, depraved policy of lying thru their teeth, the situation would change. The relationship between white and black would take on a whole new character – something much more healthy and happy.

Altho some of the ignoramuses and liars of today are partially virtuous in their motives, today’s progressives, multiculturalists, black powerists, and black supremacists are truly doing both races a bad turn.

What people today don’t seem to realize is that admitting a problem exists is half-way to solving it. In the Game of Life, facing an issue squarely, and then acknowledging the truth about it, almost always means solving the majority of it. Evading or denying the problem makes it fester and grow.

Blacks and whites may be the same human species, but they are not the same sub-species. And they usually do not live in the same cultural milieu. At long last it needs to be admitted that these two varieties of humanity generally have contrasting natures and nurtures – significantly divergent biologies and sociologies.

Raising Hell

No child has ever been raised right. All of us have abusive childhoods in our background. And, by objective standards, almost always it’s severe.

The only major exception in modern society is when a kid’s upbringing is, instead, horrific and nightmarish. And certainly it’s doubtful whether space aliens ever adopted a human baby and then raised him in a proper and healthy manner.

Children should be brought up rationally. Their social and learning environment should be one of pure reason, including all the adults and kids they interact with.

Their books and videos should be strictly rational as well. Even their physical bedroom, home, school, play areas, and surroundings should be relatively understandable and coherently organized. And so too their childhood challenges, tests, experiences, and adventures.

Beyond systematic rationality, kids should be treated with the corollaries of that, which includes justice, morality, and merit. Dealing with people and their environment, good behavior should be rewarded and bad behavior punished – and all proportionately.

At the least, the child should have the perception that justice is the societal standard, and that his parents, teachers, friends, and others are at least attempting to reward and punish appropriately and fairly – as reality itself almost always does. Supervising guardian adults, authority figures, and others may lack insight and wisdom at times, and they may not always see enough of reality to treat him equitably, but if the kid knows that they’re indeed trying, then he likely won’t suffer much.

Children also need to be raised in a place which is physically safe from predators and bodily dangers, and which appears to be so to the kid.

A great deal of parental love, understanding, empathy, and emotional and psycho-spiritual support is also important in upbringing – especially when the child is young. As he ages, the massive unconditional love of his family, friends, and others should be gradually replaced with conditional love and support, based upon justice. The kid needs to gradually learn to earn his parents’ affection and caring behavior, just as he also learns to justly and properly return it.

But even if a child today is somewhat raised right – or partially so – he still has huge problems to face. One obvious one is that his powerful and important social world, outside his family and home, is nowadays highly irrational and unjust. Some of this will hit and hurt him directly, of course. And a good deal more he will have to observe in the suffering of others, such as what happens to his family, friends, colleagues, and multitudinous innocents.

Essentially everyone a kid meets in today’s irrational, illiberal, Dark Age culture is either a monster, or a victim of them, or both. Everyone he meets is warped and perverted. All are tortured and demented. Not one is healthy or normal.

So life today is pretty much an unending freak show for any relatively rational, decent, healthy, normal child. It’s like living in Superman’s Bizarro World or on The Planet of the Apes. Just about everyone he interacts with is a sideshow geek and sad, sick twist. For a normal kid – if any ever emerges – Earth today is like living in an unescapable, criminal, insane asylum. The weirdos and wack-jobs – the deviants and demons – are forever coming out of the woodwork to get him.

So the rational, healthy, secure, happy, justice-raised, morality- and merit-loving child has all of that to deal with. Life is quite tough, even for him. Still...it’s better than being raised irrationally and unjustly by ignorant, incompetent, morally-low parents.

Coming to Terms with the Past Two Centuries

In general terms, the philosophy of modernist, straight-wing liberalism (i.e. “classical liberalism” or “Enlightenment liberalism”) probably reached its height in the late 1700s in Britain, France, Holland, and America. The philosophy of liberalism was promoted mostly by upper-class intellectuals and the well-educated, but it massively made its way into the middle class and popular culture too, especially by around the mid-1800s.

Ever since the liberal apex of about the 1780s, the world has been a philosophical and cultural battleground between the post-modernist left-wing progressives, the pre-modernist right-wing conservatives, and the modernist straight-wing liberals. The first two groups are absolutely dominant, currently. Still, the liberals have been rising recently, especially since the revolutionary liberal philosopher Ayn Rand came to prominence in the 1960s.

But maybe the names of these three ideologies and their derivative cultures are mistaken and misleading.

It may be more enlightening and useful for humankind to call them left-wing regressives, and right-wing reactionaries, and up-wing liberators. After all, when it comes to our noble and magnificent Western Civilization, leftists today are hugely dedicated to mankind’s destruction. Rightist are hugely dedicated to mankind’s retreat. And straightists (if I may use such a term) are entirely dedicated to mankind’s triumph.

So why flatter the lefties by calling them “progressives” (progressing to where?) when they’re really regressives who seek worldwide destruction and even annihilation? Why flatter the righties by calling them conservatives (conserving what?) when they’re really reactionaries who seek worldwide retreat and even surrender?

I think the "straighties", “uppies”, “northies”, “risers”, “ascenders”, or some such need to find a better language. They need something more powerful with which to attack and eliminate their leftist and rightist enemies.