THE RIGHT OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO HIS OWN NATION

by Ryan Andrews

To me, the performance of the Identitarian side on Andy Warski’s live chat last night represented the Alt Right in a nutshell. On the one hand, considering we are drawing from such a small pool, the level of talent on the Alt Right/Dissident Right is astonishing. Richard Spencer is verbally quicker on his feet than anyone the mainstream political nation has to offer at the moment. (John Dickerson is just as talented as an on-the-fly wordsmith, but he doesn’t have anything original to say. The fact that he is officially neutral probably limits him there.) On the other hand, the continued intellectual sloppiness/indifference is frustrating—the alt right movement is almost a decade old now, and at this point we should not be getting tripped up by basic-bitch liberal objections to white nationalism.

CLASSICAL NIHILISM

by Daniel Spaulding

It’s a common refrain among self-described conservatives and libertarians in America that both the modern bureaucratic managerial state and mass culture have veered wildly out of control, headed in an ever increasing totalitarian direction, and must some how be reined in. Their prescription is almost always a return to the Constitution, along with the supposed values of the Founding Fathers, and some form of classical liberalism; as one constitutionalist slogan declares, the answer to 1984 is 1776. What is often absent from sloganeering is any meaningful analysis of how society developed from the original republic to the current oligarchic, Leviathan surveillance state.

THE BITTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE

 The fatal flaws of Classical Liberalism 

by Charles Jansen

The Classical Liberal – as opposed to the contemporary statist-favoring one – was, deep within, a saintly creature. The same can be said for his current heir, the Libertarian. The quest for equal rights embodied in both arises from a search for a compromise between equality and freedom, in short, a carefully crafted synthesis between the two. For the Classical Liberal and the Libertarian, liberty is sacred, but it has to be bestowed on everyone in order to avoid absolutism or unfair domination from the State.

But, of course, a major flaw in all this, is that any remaining difference can be conceptualized as an inequality, so equality has to be stopped somewhere. Rights shall be equal, but individuals' property and social status shall remain beyond the pale of state intervention – as much as possible. Every citizen shall be a right-bearer, but his rights shall not intrude on other people's rights, nor shall he be forced to do anything for them beyond minimal social intercourse. As libertarians say, “we want to take over the world, and then leave you alone.”