Tanstaafl on Auster

Here I republish an article that explains my sudden paradigm shift on the topic of the Jewish question. The article first appeared in Tanstaafl’s Age of Treason. I republsh it here for the simple reason that many have complained about the white letters against a black background that Tanstaafl uses in his blog. Now there’s no excuse for gentiles, semites and philo-semites to miss the Tanstaafl-Auster debate. My comments appear in brown (except a single red one: the crux of the whole matter). Tanstaafl wrote:


Sunday, December 23, 2007

Auster and Anti-Anti-Semitism

Lawrence Auster writes more frankly and more cogently than almost anyone else on issues concerning Islam, immigration, and race. As he and almost anyone unlucky enough to be interested in reading this knows, the discussion of such subjects in “polite society” is heavily constrained by political correctness (PC)—a hypocritical and stealthily imposed code of conduct propagated by pundits in academia and the media, and unthinkingly adhered to by nearly everyone else. Auster violates PC daily, and he does so by appealing to reason and history. He points out the many threads that connect events to the liberal influences and responses of “polite society”. This is why his opinions are valuable. And this is why I am disturbed that he doesn’t write more frankly and cogently about another issue related to all these others: Jews.

Until recently I would not have even linked to Auster much less praised him. For most of my life I have been raceless—too busy with my work to notice race, and afraid that someone might call me a racist if I did notice. It took a lot for this to change. The LA riots, the O.J. trial, 9/11, Iraq, Jena, and insane levels of immigration finally gave me sufficient justification and courage to speak out. Toward the end Lawrence Auster helped. I read and think and write thoughts now that I never would have wanted to be associated with before.

During what in retrospect has been a lifelong awakening I criticized and ridiculed political correctness and the liberal illogic behind it without even understanding their origins, pervasiveness, or monstrous power. It was only in the last few years, and especially the last few months, that I have had the time and motivation to dig deeper.

As I tried to understand Islam I came to see that the prevalent ideas—“religion of peace”, “jihad means inner struggle”—rang false, and so I spoke plainly against them and in favor of the truth, smears of Islamophobia or racism be damned. As I tried to understand immigration I came to see that the prevalent ideas—“family values”, “jobs Americans won’t do”—rang even more false, and so once again I spoke out, smears of xenophobia or racism be damned.

Now most recently, in spite of my dim wit, the hours of autodidacticism have finally connected these realizations to a long line of related lies: civil rights, multiculturalism, diversity, and above all the smothering, dictatorial political correctness that promotes these false ideals and protects them from criticism. I now see all these things as individual ingredients of a single toxic philosophical cocktail. Auster calls this cocktail “liberalism”. He helped me recognize it.

Where I estimate we part company is that I believe whatever else this cocktail is intended to accomplish it will in fact also accomplish White European extinction. I also plainly say that Jews have played and continue to play a major role in causing this to happen, smears of anti-semitism or racism be damned.

I explained how I came to these conclusions in Political Correctness + Multiculturalism + Diversity = White Extinction and Committing PC’s Most Mortal Sin. I do not jump to conclusions, nor will I abandon them simply because they violate PC.

Clearly Whites are threatened with extinction. Clearly PC is largely to blame. Clearly Jews are both a proximate cause of PC and one of the minorities PC favors over Whites. No matter how carefully you choose the words, no matter how politely or obliquely you broach the subject, if you are critical of Jews someone somewhere will howl anti-semitism, call you a Nazi, and derail the discussion. This has the curious and surely deliberate effect of creating a big, ugly warning light in everyone’s mind. A light that everyone in “polite society” knows you must not ever chance triggering for fear you might have all sorts of opprobrium heaped on you—just like the other “Nazis”. You should not even speak of this light, or the dehumanizing opprobrium, lest you are prepared to suffer.

This is the same psychological control mechanism that is brought to bear when “racist”, “Islamophobe”, “xenophobe”, and the other smear words of liberalism’s “hate speech” crimethink are deployed. There is one difference with “anti-semite”: it is the strongest and most hypocritical smear of all. Jews are the longest lasting, most powerful, most cohesive group in human history. Those facts are not unrelated. This historically paranoid group sees and encounters enemies everywhere, but they have in contemporary times convinced even non-Jews to spot and silence their critics. For them to be the only group that has a specially designated and almost religiously observed protection clause (anti-semitism) is perfectly understandable, but the particularity of the “crime” flies in the face of the spirit used to justify defining it as such. The most virulent form of this bigotry (anti-anti-semitism) is self-defeating, if not flatly anti-everybody-else.

My story is similar to a handful of other people who I’ve since encountered via the internet. I am an ordinary White man who has belatedly recognized extraordinary threats not only to my own existence and the future of my children, but also to my larger extended family, my kinsfolk, who I have until now taken for granted. I am well educated and have been successful professionally. I can think and write moderately well. I use these abilities to seek truth. I try to speak it. I do not seek fame or fortune.

I write under a pseudonym because I can, and because there are many bad people—especially of the kind exalted by PC—who would surely harm myself or my family if they could easily find us. I know enough about the internet and politics and history to realize that I will have no protection in the long term, even if I never write another word. I chose Tanstaafl because I believe what it stands for: There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. I value many such aphorisms, but I selected this one because it also has a name-like acronym.

I think that covers the background, from my point of view, for the critique of and exchange with Lawrence Auster that motivates this post. What follows in some places requires more detailed understanding of Auster’s positions and terminology. Sorry about that. Most readers who have gotten this far probably know it anyway. I believe this issue is critical. If even those who oppose PC do not think we should be free to speak of any and all topics, from any and all sources, even when threatened with extinction, then what hope do we have?

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Chechar’s interpolated note of 28 February 2010: Since this article deals with Auster’s “First Law”, it is advisable to read a previous entry on Auster’s discovery.

___________________

A month or so ago with the thoughts described above in mind I commented on a post by John Savage concerning Lawrence Auster’s Law of Majority-Minority Relations in Liberal Society (MMRILS). I asserted that this Law, which I agreed with but had never seen Auster apply to Jews, did in fact apply to Jews. John disagreed and we went back and forth several times arguing the point.

I include that exchange here for archival purposes, as John has now moved to a new site and disabled commenting on the old one (links and italics are in the original):

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

[John Savage wrote:]

List of Instances of Auster’s Laws of Majority-Minority Relations in Liberal Society

Since I love having Lawrence Auster’s great discovery at hand—his Laws (or is there just one stated many different ways?) of Majority-Minority Relations in Liberal Society—I’m gathering together all the instances here, so I can just cite this post whenever I want to appeal to these laws. I’m still not positive which is the original statement of the law—this appears to be the oldest post on the topic at VFR, but it gives the impression that the idea was not new even at that time. So I’d appreciate Mr. Auster referring me to the original source in which he first laid out the concept, whether that source is online or not.

“The worse any designated minority or alien group behaves in a liberal society, the bigger become the lies of Political Correctness in covering up for that group.” (source) A “restate[ment]” of the First Law.

“The more egregiously any non-Western or non-white group behaves, the more evil whites are made to appear for noticing and drawing rational conclusions about that group’s bad behavior.” (source) Stated as the “First Corollary” to the First Law.

“Once the equality of all human groups is accepted as a given, any facts that make a minority or foreign group seem worse than the majority native group must be either covered up or blamed on the majority.” (source) This may be the original statement of the First Law.

“The more illegitimate and dangerous you are, the easier it is for you [to immigrate to the West], and the more legitimate and productive you are, the harder it is for you.” (source) A “variation” on the First Law.

“When a society, acting with the purpose of eliminating all historic forms of exclusion and discrimination, including, ultimately, its own historic and ethnocultural identity as a society, admits large numbers of people into it who do not fit into it, either because of lower abilities or incompatible cultural/religious adhesions, the fact that they do not fit, when it is finally recognized, can only be blamed on the society itself. To blame the lack of fit on the newcomers would be to revive the very discrimination that their admission was meant to overcome. As long as the host society accepts the principle of non-discriminatory inclusion as the very basis of its own moral legitimacy, it must keep admitting more and more unassimilables, whose lack of ability to function in or identify with the society becomes more and more troublesome, a problem that, in accord with Auster’s First Law of Majority-Minority Relations in Liberal Society, must be blamed more and more on the racism of the society. Thus the more the society undoes itself in the name of indiscriminately including and favoring unassimilably diverse peoples, the more racist and guilty it becomes in its own eyes, leading to more and more minority preferences, speech codes, anti-hate laws, official lies, and the multicultural dismantling of the majority culture.” (source) An excellent example of applying the First Law.

“The WORSE a designated minority group behaves, the MORE we must blame ourselves for it.” (source) Perhaps the most succinct statement of the First Law.

“The more racial problems are created by liberal race policies, the more racist whites are.” (source)

“Given the inverted standards introduced into race relations by the belief in equality, the less deserving a nonwhite actually is, the more deserving he thinks he is.” (source) Another “variation” on the First Law.

Here’s the First Law expressed well in its three main variations:

1. The worse a designated minority or non-Western group behave, the more they are praised and their sins covered up.

2. The worse a designated minority or non-Western group behave, the more racist it becomes to speak the truth about their behavior.

3. The worse a designated minority or non-Western group behave, the more their behavior must be blamed on white racism. (source)

In another post, I’ll try to put together some of the instances in which I and others have had occasion to apply Auster’s Law(s).

Posted by John Savage

[Tanstaafl included JS’s blog comments:]


Lawrence Auster said...

Dear Mr. Savage:

Thanks very much for accumulating these quotes. This is helpful. I’ve sometimes wondered myself whether there were several versions of “Auster’s First Law of MMRILS,” or just one Law with many variations. As I look over your collection, it’s clear to me that there is but one Law, and it’s simply this: that the more difficult or dangerous a minority or non-Western group actually is, the more favorably it is treated. This increasingly undeserved favorable treatment of an increasingly troublesome or misbehaving minority or non-Western group can take numerous forms, including celebrating the group, giving the group greater rights and privileges, covering up the group’s crimes and dysfunctions, attacking the group’s critics as racists, and blaming the group’s bad behavior on white racism.

Lawrence Auster


Tanstaafl said...

And the corollary: Jews are the most favorably treated minority of all, therefore they are the most difficult and dangerous.

Or shall we just label such an observation anti-semitic and discard it?

John Savage said...

Tanstaafl, I don’t know where you got it in your mind that Jews are the most favorably treated of all. People are pretty much given a pass for their anti-Semitism if they’re not white Christians.

I agree with your statement that most Jews seem to agree with the idea of making whites a minority, supposedly to prevent another Auschwitz that way. But I tend to agree with Auster that that’s irrational for them because they’re importing people who are more anti-Semitic than the original WASPs.

Tanstaafl said...

Nobody gets a “free pass” for anti-semitism, it’s the one PC no-no that strictly applies even to those who get a free pass for anything else. It is so potent that it is sometimes brought to bear against those who simply don’t support Israel, don’t like neocons, or question the Holocaust.

You cannot oppose mass immigration for very long before you are forced to notice the overwhelming support for it coming from some of our most powerful institutions: media, academia, business, and politics. It is more difficult to notice that Jews have a disproportionately large representation in each, and nearly impossible to discuss what that may mean, without being called an anti-semite.

Do Jews overwhelmingly support mass immigration? How is it rational for them to do so? Do they support Israel? Do they know what Israel’s immigration policies are?

This is a line of questioning forbidden by PC. To see that it gives Jews an especially favored status all you have to do is substitute “Mexicans” and “Mexico” for “Jews” and “Israel” in the statement above. Both statements violate PC, but which statement is more forbidden that the other?

John Savage said...

Tanstaafl, I fail to see how Jewish liberals are any different from any other liberal. Sure, “anti-Semite” is used against people who are not anti-Semites, but how is that any different from liberals falsely calling, say, Bush a hater of black people?

I would say that the argument about Israel’s immigration policy is equally un-PC if you replace “Israel” with any other non-Western country. Liberals will dismiss your concern with Mexico’s immigration policy just as readily.

So the only difference I see is that Jews are a powerful minority for their size, whereas other minorities are not as powerful. It isn’t a reason to be anti-Semitic, in my view, rather than just anti-liberal.

Tanstaafl said...

You accept MMRILS. You accept that Jews are a minority. Yet you do not accept that MMRILS applies to Jews. You appear to be treating them favorably even while denying that they are favorably treated.

I can make two related points in Auster’s terms:

Those who accept MMRILS but deny the favoritism of anti-anti-semitism appear to be making an Unprincipled Exception. (Whose restriction to “liberals” must be loosened in order to apply here.)

Condemnation of anti-semites (by your definition anyone who takes their refinement of anti-liberalism too far and names its components) is an example of Criticizing Those To Your Right. (Which Auster has complained of many times but I cannot find a formal definition of.)

John Savage said...

Tanstaafl, “Criticizing Those To Your Right” is a straw man. Everyone does it. Anyone who defines his position clearly is going to say, “These people are to the Left of me, and these people are to the Right of me. Here’s where I am on the spectrum.” I doubt you can prove to me that Auster has condemned “criticizing those to one’s right”. He too has criticized anti-Semites in much harsher terms than have I. For example, he criticized Jared Taylor for refusing to ban anti-Semites from the American Renaissance conferences. You are maintaining that somehow those to my right deserve immunity from criticism, and I maintain that no one deserves immunity from criticism.

Auster has complained of people excluding him from discussions or slandering him because in their minds, he’s too far to the Right. I am not doing such a thing. I am not excluding you from the discussion, and I would have thought twice about calling you an anti-Semite had you not called yourself one already.

Regarding Jews, I admit they are treated favorably, though I maintain less favorably than other minorities. (See my post on the Hierarchy of Entitlement, for example.) I agree that this should not happen, and that there are many false accusations of anti-Semitism made (including against me). I agree that false accusations of anti-Semitism should stop. But you still claim I’m showing favoritism toward Jews, I suppose because you believe that Jews belong at the top of my Hierarchy of Entitlement. So in your mind, I’m denying that MMRILS applies to Jews, but I maintain that I’m not.

Tanstaafl said...

Auster says: “However, the issue still comes down to white guilt, since, whether whites consider themselves guilty or consider other whites guilty, white guilt is still what it’s all about.”

Anti-anti-semitism is one manifestation of white guilt. I assert that it is in fact the most prominent. To see this all you have to do is review the most notable things Whites are collectively blamed for—the Holocaust, slavery, Manifest Destiny. Of them all which source of guilt is most likely to be accepted even by White conservatives?

I agree with you that no person or group should be above criticism. That’s exactly why I bristle at anti-anti-semitism. I see it as an attempt to shut down criticism rather than refute it.

There are several similar slurs—sexism, racism, nativism, fascism—intended to achieve similar purposes. However, the unique power of the very specific slur of anti-semitism is clear if you notice that even many of those who refuse to cower when tagged with any of those other labels will resort to tagging others with the anti-semitism slur.

[Chechar’s note: I myself used to do this...]

Since you can say that MMRILS applies to Jews all we would seem to disagree on is how favorable their treatment is. I say it is greatest of all. You claim it is lesser than others.

Your “Hierarchy of Entitlement” essay doesn’t mention Jews. I would appreciate if you could further and more directly support your argument as I have mine. I’m curious to see how your metric of who rapes who works out when applied to a group for which it is not even politically correct to note membership. Or how the hierarchy might shape up if it were based on a metric of say proclivity for financial and political power while enjoying relative immunity from scrutiny.

I believe Auster is a philo-semite. He favors Jews. On his blog he openly speaks in favor of White interests and against the various forms of liberal insanity that threaten Whites, but to my knowledge (and I admit I have not read everything he has ever written) he has not (except see below) discussed Jewish influence over that insanity and their relative exemption from it. Even when obvious opportunities arise he passes them by. As illustrated by the examples cited below, when the subject comes up outside his tightly-controlled blog he quickly and needlessly resorts to innuendo, distortion, and insults. His logic on the subject is exceedingly thin.

Ultimately my criticism of Auster, and any other pundit, is this: How can you honestly comprehend or describe the structure of power in the liberal dominated West while neglecting to consider and account for, out loud and at length, the disproportionate involvement and influence of Jews? There are many related issues. Why are they taboo? The answer is PC. Why does a thinker who so often decries PC and its defamatory tactics use such tactics himself? I’d like to know.

December 1, 2007

[Auster wrote:] Tanstaafl is just wrong to say that the First Law of Majority-Minority Relations in Liberal Society is about Jews and that I’m covering that up.

You misrepresent my position. I did not claim that MMRILS is about Jews, or that you are covering this up. I made the assertion that I believe your MMRILS should apply also to Jews.

The First Law is about conspicuously different minorities who are perceived as minorities, and who are perceived as dysfunctional, unassimilable, alien or hostile. Since Jews are not generally seen these ways, except by anti-Semites, the First Law does not apply to Jews, though some aspects of it may apply some of the time.

By this logic, since any minorities who are perceived as minorities, and who are perceived as dysfunctional, unassimilable, alien or hostile are not generally seen these ways, except by racists, one could say that your First Law doesn’t apply at all. It’s your Law. You can define it however you like. I find it a valuable insight that reveals an unpleasant truth. Your original definition—:

The worse any designated minority or alien group behaves in a liberal society, the bigger become the lies of Political Correctness in covering up for that group.

—didn’t hinge at all on “dysfunctional and unassimilable”. The variations you’ve made since show that the idea is somewhat flexible.

As with the “racism” smear, likewise “anti-semitism”. Even if perceiving Jews as a dysfunctional, unassimilable, alien or hostile minority earns you the label “anti-semite”, so what? That doesn’t explain why Jews require special exception from criticism. Is it not an Unprincipled Exception to say that they do? Is it not criticizing someone to your right to insult and dismiss someone as an anti-semite for even making these arguments?

When I say this, I am not covering up the fact that there is a Jewish problem because that is something I often talk about. But I believe in the need to talk about it rationally. The Jewish problem—not the Jewish problem of the Jew haters, but the real Jewish problem—consists in the fact that Jews are a distinct people who because of their energy and talents tend to become dominant in culturally influential areas of society. This leads to the problem that a small minority group begins to become the definer of cultural standards for the majority.

You state the Jewish Question forthrightly here. Thank you. I have been reading your blog on a daily basis for months, and have read many of your older writings there and at other sites. I’m afraid I cannot agree that you talk about this problem much. Not in such frank terms, and certainly not often.

For the most part, this is not due to any Jewish racial agenda or conspiracy, as Kevin McDonald would have it, rather it is just built into the fact of Jewish distinctiveness combined with Jewish talents.

Kevin MacDonald does openly talk and theorize about Jewish influence, its causes and effects. Do you agree that he talks about it rationally? Do you acknowledge that he has been irrationally demonized, especially by Jews and Jewish organizations, as is virtually anyone who criticizes Jews, rationally or not?

The First Law applies to dysfunctional and unassimilable groups, it does not apply to functional and assimilable groups. To try to make the First Law be about Jews—and especially, in Tanstaafl’s treatment, be primarily about the Jews—hopelessly confuses the issue. It is but another illustration of how anti-Semites, because they see all issues through the filter of the Jewish issue, cannot see any issue truly. Their lunatic obsession with Jews as the source of all evil makes them intellectual cripples who are incapable of defending the civilization they supposedly want to defend.

I have not proposed that your First Law is “primarily about Jews” and I do not “see all issues through the filter of the Jewish issue”. I understand and agree with your Law, and have argued that it applies to Jews just as well as any other minority. Best of all in fact. I provided simple, rational reasons why.

It is your rationale that is confusing. You exclude Jews based on words not present in fact or spirit in many variations of your definition. Your labeling me an “intellectual cripple” is unjustified, as is the assumption that I have a “lunatic obsession with Jews as the source of all evil”.

Jews played an enormous role in creating the liberalism that poisons our society with its PC lies. They play an ongoing role in perpetuating it. Would you agree that non-Jewish Whites have legitimate reasons to see this as “bad behavior”? Jews have benefited greatly from the protection afforded them and all the other “minorities” by PC. Would you agree that it is reasonable to propose that these observations together conform to the spirit of the two halves of your MMRILS law?

I value the opinions of those, like yourself, who challenge PC. I’m curious why some, like yourself, go to a certain point and stop. You seem intelligent and forthright on so many other issues. Why do you stoop to PC ad hominem when an otherwise rational discussion turns to criticism of Jews? Why do you distort and extremify the positions of those who, like myself, don’t give any special dispensation to Jews? Perhaps you’ll write about this. We need more open discussion of this problem that goes beyond calling people names.

To clearly see the Jewish problem (also called the Jewish Question) requires that you realize and accept that Whites and Jews are not the same group and their group interests do not entirely coincide. But this is yet another truism that is difficult to calmly discuss in the face of hysterical anti-anti-semitism and totalitarian PC. I do not say that Whites are the master race and Jews are subhuman. I do not say that I want to exterminate Jews. I do not secretly crave such things and I resent anyone who projects their own imagined hatreds into my head.

What I do say is that a person cannot be both Jew and White at the same time. It appears to me that where the interests of Whites and Jews diverge Auster prefers Jewish interests. That’s fine. Being an ostensibly White opinion shaper I’d just like him to be more clear on this point. From his swift and negative dismissal of my comments so far it seems in a way that he has.

It hardly matters what I think, but I side with Whites. I do not oppose other groups discussing their interests. I am against Whites being prevented from discussing their interests, for any reason, including when it contradicts Jewish interests. That’s my view from the right of Lawrence Auster.


UPDATE, 24 Dec 2007:

Auster has responded. Rather than answering my arguments and clarifying the positions of his which I have questioned he continues to focus instead on smearing me personally. Beyond that his response illustrates very clearly the inconsistencies I think most relevant here, and I encourage anyone concerned with White interests to read what he writes.

Auster claims to be concerned with White interests when he in fact pursues Jewish interests. That is now clear to me. To the extent those interests overlap his pretense works, it is where those interests conflict that he is revealed. I’ve never seen him get so worked up about anti-Whitism. I’ve never seen him attack with such venom someone he thought was being anti-White. To so self-righteously and summarily dismiss my arguments as anti-semitic, on that basis alone, he must strongly identify as a semite and consider those interests superior to all others. QED.

Speaking of me he says:

He’s someone who thinks that if I fail to join him in his anti-Semitism, that shows a troubling inconsistency in my thought.

This is an interesting and by its repeated occurrence I daresay deliberate distortion. I have just reiterated one troubling inconsistency above. It is not about him not being an anti-semite, it has to do with not being open about being a philo-semite.

There is another inconsistency, the contrast in his attitudes about racism and anti-semitism, that a comment from his correspondent Tom M. triggers him to highlight:

Regarding the “I am attacked for not being an anti-Semite” thread, hasn’t the term “anti-Semite” become an all-inclusive, imprecisely defined word, used for effect the way “racist” is being used? Whether one has good reasons for making racial distinctions or not, the label “racist” is used to undercut any rational discussion of race. Likewise hasn’t the label “anti-Semite” become a description to stop at any cost a rational consideration of the effects of influential Jewish persons and their thought processes on society?

Auster’s answer to this is that the only proper path is to very carefully separate what is rational and legitimate criticism from that which is not. He then calls Tom M. an anti-semite for not professing philo-semitism. This is rational? This is legitimate?

I prefer my way. I openly state my loyalties and interests. I openly state who I think operates against my interests. I am not concerned whether people smear me as a racist or an anti-semite. I am not going to waste my time writing “some of my best friends are...” apologia to try and convince anyone that I am neither. I hold no ill will toward anyone due simply to the color of their skin or the genes in their cells. I will however hold them responsible for the thoughts they express, and especially for their actions. I possess the faculties to recognize who operates against me and my kin, for whatever reasons they choose to do so. I will openly call them out, and I will act in self defense. If you consider that a crime then you are certainly an enemy. [...]

What I suspect Mr Auster dislikes most is that his calling me an anti-semite is not enough to shut me up. My response is: I know what I am, the question is what are you?


UPDATE, 24 Dec 2007 #2:

Auster has written some more. No answer to my points. He is more interested in speculating about my pseudonym. Really. He says my thinking works like an anti-semitic computer program.

At the core of the program is the false epiphany: “Now I see it! The Jews are responsible for everything that has gone wrong with the West, the Jews are the enemy, and everyone is covering this up, and I alone have the courage to reveal this truth and call the Jews to account.”

So he thinks I’m an automaton. An inferior whose arguments he must exaggerate in order to make them sound unserious. I think this means I will not be getting any substantive answer.

This automaton has read and comprehended enough of Auster’s own logic to find what it thinks are some real problems. It has expressed opinions using Auster’s own terminology and asked him for clarification. Surely such a lowly automaton could be easily corrected.

Instead Auster supplies yet another lesson in how anti-anti-semitism works. Cry anti-semitism! Treat the person criticizing Jews as if they are insane. A reasonable alternative—that many Jews have acted against White interests, that they have covered it up, and that others have said the same things because those things are objectively true—is apparently too far-fetched to accept.

Here’s the program for anti-anti-semitism:

While detect (criticism_of_jews)
Output (“Anti-Semitism!”)

In Auster’s case it seems to be stuck in what programmers call an infinite loop.


UPDATE, 25 Dec 2007:

Auster continues to confirm not only a pro-Jewish bias, but an unwillingness to be forthright about it. He jumps from one conclusion to the next without any self-awareness, just how unserious (to use one of his favorite put-downs) he is revealing himself to be. I’m especially touched by the pile-on-the-ignorant-anti-semite comments from his peanut gallery. Honestly I expected either no response, or a terse reasoned response. I did not expect an ongoing babbling meltdown.

A correspondent tried to help him understand where “TANSTAAFL” comes from, something he could have easily discovered if he had googled tanstaafl or followed the link I provided in my original post. Auster knows it now, but in spite of this he says I really selected the name because it “sounds warlike and Germanic”. Those weren’t my thoughts (I said what I was thinking above) but this does at least explain why he’s so obsessed with my pseudonym. If only he would use the energy he spends projecting and speculating futilely about what motivates me, and use it instead to respond to what I’ve actually written.

He brings up my MMRILS criticism, only to once again dismiss it on the basis that it is anti-semitic. He continues to ignore the rebuttal in this post. He will not admit that Jews are the minority that liberal political correctness protects most of all, even while his own PC-based anti-anti-semitism demonstrates it. Amazing.

Then he takes my separatist notions and extrapolates what they mean, for Jews. This fellow who presents himself as a White Christian pundit is oddly capable of scanning my posts and focusing like a laser on any statement that contradicts Jewish interests, while missing the things I’ve said that contradict Latino and Muslim interests and the pro-White basis from which I argue. Frankly I don’t need his lectures about why Whites are fleeing California.

I freely admit that in retrospect it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that Jews lobbied long and hard for non-White immigration, and that it isn’t Latinos or Muslims who are wildly overrepresented in the rabidly open borders media, it is Jews. To me this is evidence that these facts are not discussed openly enough. That Auster finds these observations antithetical to Jews means that for him the truth matters less than what he thinks is good for Jews.

[Chechar’s note: the following is only a fraction of the responses to Tanstaafl’s article. No ellipsis added between unquoted phrases:]

112 COMMENTS:

bolingbroke said...

A good discussion of an issue that’s bothered me as well for some time. It is most curious how Auster, who is generally able to deal with an issue in calm and rational terms appears to have a major blind spot when it comes to the Jewish Question. As KMD remarks, it’s very difficult to argue with someone who refuses to acknowledge the depth of his ethnic investment in the issue under discussion. When Jews are at issue, or at least when a non-Jew brings up the negative consequences of Jewish behaviour, Auster almost invariably resorts to ad hominem bullying and insults.

The question we should be asking ourselves everyday and every way is simply: Is it good for the Anglo-Saxons? Only then will Jews and other aggrieved minorities be compelled to respect (and fear) us.

John Savage said...

Tanstaafl, I think you are being very fair here. I myself am losing patience with Auster’s refusal to respond to points of view that he perceives as being to the Right of himself. I sent him a comment a few days ago in which I asked why, if blacks were an unassimilable minority, he didn’t advocate separating from them. It seems like he has a double standard in which new minorities (Hispanics, Muslims) are intolerable, but the influence of old minorities has to be tolerated, no matter how negative it is. You have suggested a reason why: he fears that Jews wouldn’t be tolerated either. So you’re right that this is a serious weakness in his thinking.

Schopenhauer said...

A question: In what way is your claim that Jewish interests are fundamentally at odds with majority American interests different from the Nazis’ claim that Jewish interests were fundamentally at odds with German interests? I think this goes to the heart of the matter of the charge of anti-semitism.

Anonymous said...

His arrogance in ridiculing your screen name is quite telling indeed. The ironic thing is the method by which he did it: he employed anti-anti-semitism and said TANSTAAFL sounds like a “Neo-Nazi moniker.” Classic. Shut off all rational debate by accusing the other side of being a Nazi before you even get to writing. Thus, he behaved in the exact same illogical manner that he ascribes to his liberal enemies. Auster says anti-semites see the world through a one-issue lens. He does the same thing: through the lens of anti-anti-semitism.

adam said...

This is not the first time that Tanstaafl has assured us that he does not want to exterminate Jews. I’d say that’s putting the bar rather low. Tanstaafl, what measures WOULD you consider regarding Jews? You have written that “not all Jews are our enemies”. Could you please indicate what you see as the identifiers of a non-enemy Jew, and what place such a person might properly occupy in white society? You have also mentioned “questioning the Holocaust”. Could you identify to what extent you question it? (e.g., four million vs. six million, or something more fundamental?). Since you have called on Larry Auster to be more frank, it seems only fair to ask the same of you.

bolingbroke said...

Anglo-Saxons have been notoriously less ethnocentric than just about any other group. Jews (with some honourable exceptions) have pursued a consistent, long term strategy of undermining Anglo-Saxon Protestant hegemony in American politics and society. In Canada, the French have developed ethnic free-riding at the expense of Anglo-Saxons into an art form. It really is time that Anglo-Saxons ceased to believe that cosmopolitan self-sacrifice on their part will ever be reciprocated. Our weakness is in fact one of the most important reasons that whites generally—with the notable exception of Jews—are losing ground to the non-white masses flooding into what Europeans still so quaintly refer to as the “Anglo-Saxon countries.”

Tanstaafl said...

Schopenhauer and Adam ask a valid question: what do I propose to do about Jews?

In a word I would prefer separation over the lie we live now. I want all the squabbling racist, ethnic, nationalities other than White Westerners to leave (or be ejected from) the West. I wish to restore the White nations, where Whites rule for the benefit of Whites. Let’s start there. Whites used to have the security. But then the Jews amongst the Whites helped convince Whites that this security was bad, immoral, unfair. It was not only Jews.

Whites and Jews who donate their own efforts to such a cause are evil enough. Those who have made it compulsory for everyone to fund this via government policy should be disclosed, tried, and executed for their treason. But let’s not put the cart before the horse. The first and foremost problem we have to deal with is the subject of this post: disclosure. This is complicated by the fact that most Whites and many Jews do not even recognize that the two groups are not identical—it is a thoughtcrime forbidden by PC. In fact everything I’ve just said is forbidden by PC.

Bolingbroke, I sympathize with Anglo-Saxons and other “old stock” Americans. What has been done to you and yours by the “nation of immigrants” rhetoric, both in the former colonies and in your homeland, is truly a crime.

Adam, I’ll tell you what I think about the Holocaust. I think 6 million is an exaggeration. I think the Nazi intent to exterminate Jews has been distorted and misrepresented. The Madagascar Plan is not well known and contradicts popular perception of the Holocaust.

adam said...

Well, we’re inching towards clarity. Tanstaafl has indicated that he favors the mass expulsion of Diaspora Jews to Israel and that he believes the Nazis’ intentions towards Jews have been misunderstood, presumably in a way that defames Nazis. Of course, the “honest and brave” Holocaust revisionists praised by Tanstaafl are for the most part neo-Nazis. He also suggests that he was deliberately misled into thinking that the entire German people were involved in the mass extermination of all Jews beginning in 1933—a position I’ve never heard maintained by anyone, though Daniel Goldhagen comes close. The “singular focus” on the killing of Jews from 1941-1945 is in fact easy to explain, since Jews and Gypsies were the only races marked for complete extermination, and frankly, most people know little and care little about the Gypsies. (And yes, there isn’t much of a Gypsy presence in the media.)

Auster made a good point when said that, in the circumstances, Tanstaafl might do better to read and reflect more before identifying himself with such views. Frankly, he resembles the sort of person who one day discovers (say) Scientology and decides that it makes sense of everything.

[Chechar’s note: Adam's first sentence below is pure Austeresque orthodoxy:]

Since you’ve invited me to state what I believe and where my loyalties lie, here’s a very hasty sketch: The problem is liberalism. A disproportionate number of Jews are liberals (it hasn’t always been so). Non-Jewish liberals are equally objectionable. The Jewish love affair with liberalism is largely a matter of historical accident (see: Napoleon, the Czars).
You have noted that your own blood is mixed. So’s mine. Jews have lived in Europe since the late classical period. Just as some Jews assimilated, so some non-Jews “married in” before Christianity prohibited this. That’s presumably where I get my fair skin and blue eyes (in childhood I was so blond, my eyebrows were white). On first meeting people generally take me for German or Anglo-Saxon. To hear that I am “really” Asiatic is pretty funny. I don’t speak Hebrew or Yiddish. I have a Scots-Irish wife.

As it happens, none of my Jewish friends, of whatever eye color, are involved in pursuing the “group evolutionary strategy” MacDonald writes about. That’s not to deny that other Jews aren’t involved in such a strategy. Abe Foxman is, to give one of many examples. Of course, Teddy Kennedy is just as destructive. I can come up with a very long list of non-Jewish liberals of his kind. The problem, again, is liberalism. It also may be worth pointing out that the proportion of liberal Jews is likely to diminish, because their families tend to be small, while non-liberal Orthodox Jews have large families. The Orthodox of course, present other problems of non-assimilability, but they’re like the Amish in being more separationist than subversive.

Tanstaafl said...

Adam, I think liberalism is a problem, but it is not the only problem.

desmond jones said...

The Nazis are always discussed in a vacuum. There’s never any mention of the mass murder by Lenin and Stalin and their Jews. Stalin’s Jews: We mustn’t forget that some of greatest murderers of modern times were Jewish. An Israeli student finishes high school without ever hearing the name “Genrikh Yagoda,” the greatest Jewish murderer of the 20th Century, the GPU’s deputy commander and the founder and commander of the NKVD. Yagoda diligently implemented Stalin’s collectivization orders and is responsible for the deaths of at least 10 million people. His Jewish deputies established and managed the Gulag system.

adam said...

To Desmond Jones: Funny you mentioned J.B. Salsberg; he was my cousin, and indeed, he was Stalin’s bootlicking tool for over three decades. Yes, there were Jewish Chekists, but if you don’t hold the German people collectively responsible for the SS, why hold the Jews collectively responsible for the Chekists? Every group has its criminal element. Sadly for your thesis, neither Lenin nor Stalin were Jewish. I don’t excuse either the Chekists or the SS; I loathe them both. You loathe Chekists but make excuses for the SS.

Anyway, gang, it’s been fun, but as arguing with Jew-baiters is one of life’s more futile endeavours, I’m outta here. I do hope you get over your, uh, little difficulty.

Howard J. Harrison said...

Well, look, Tanstaafl: many conservative American traditionalists like me will not join you in identifying Jews as cultural foes, but if Auster wants to call you ugly names instead of debating your views, then I don’t know who he thinks he is impressing.

desmond jones said...

The Canada that existed prior to WWII was much different from the post-war Canada. There is no denying that Mackay was a traitor to his people. That is not the issue. It is recognition of the disproportionate involvement of Jewish interest groups who coordinated a full scale press against the Anglo/Franco host population, on humanitarian grounds. The S v K decision allowed blacks to move into white neighborhoods in St. Louis. The result is that St. Louis is now one of the most dangerous cities in the U.S.

“In what way do you think he was worse than his non-Jewish comrade Tim Buck?” Again, the issue is not who is worst. Buck was also a traitor to his ethnic group, however disproportionate the number of Jewish interests that utilised the umbrella of communism to further their ethnic interests.

“Yes, there were Jewish Chekists, but if you don’t hold the German people collectively responsible for the SS, why hold the Jews collectively responsible for the Chekists?” Interestingly enough, the World Jewish Council, backed by the power of the US gov’t, do hold Germans collectively responsible. By the year 2020 the payoff will total 100 billion marks. It is based on the premise that the German nation, including even the Germans who grew up since 1945, is collectively guilty of terrible crimes, contrary to the democratic notion of individual responsibility for crime.

“Every group has its criminal element”. True, however, it appears not every group is held accountable. The Jewish mass murderer, Lazar Kaganovitch, the Soviet Union’s Adolf Eichmann, died in his bed at a ripe old age. “Sadly for your thesis, neither Lenin nor Stalin were Jewish.” No one said they were Jewish.

“As for excusing the SS because of what the Chekists did, that’s like excusing the Chekists because of what the pogromists did.” Alternatively, the pogroms for what the radical Jews of the mid-19th century did. However, no one excused the SS.

The question Auster does not answer is why these Jewish interest groups will, through reason, reject their position of white (especially Anglo) loathing? Despite the fact that 45,000 overwhelmingly Anglo Canucks died fighting the Nazis, Jews view Anglos as little better than Nazi facilitators.

Anonymous said...

Tanstaafl, you say want a jew-free white nation. But this is precisely what Jews fear (and have always feared). No wonder no white movement, no matter how ostensibly philo-semitic (see American Renaissance), has ever gotten much help from them. Aside from this, Jews know they are guilty of covering up their involvement in Communism and their role in non-white immigration. They see little to gain in admitting to any of it. Auster knows this too. He knows Jews will never become pro-white en masse. His interest is Israel; hence his focus on Islam, hence his focus on “Western Civilization” rather than “race”. Nevertheless, he’s valuable. But he has no way of artificially containing people’s awakening except to play the antisemite card. About time a Jew became a useful idiot, I say.

adam said...

“Treason”? Give me a break. It really doesn’t matter how many Jewish intervenors there were in the case; in the end, an Anglo-Saxon made the decision. So to say “the Jews caused....” is, again, poor history.

“Despite the fact that 45,000 overwhelmingly Anglo Canucks died fighting the Nazis, Jews view Anglos as little better than Nazi facilitators”. I suppose you won’t believe me when I say that none of the Jews I know believe this. “For many Jews it is still 1939. For them it will probably always be 1939”. Here, I think, you do hit on something that describes a segment of the Jewish community.

Desmond: Oh yes, about Trudeau; same point. Lots of Jewish liberals were involved in the transformation of Canada in 1968 et seq., but none was as influential in this as Trudeau, a Catholic. Similarly, the US immigration “reforms” of 1965 may have been drafted by Jewish liberals, but it was Teddy Kennedy who pushed the changes through. So we’re back where we started; the problem is liberalism, and the most that can be said about Jews is that a high proportion of the secular ones are liberals. Taansteufel darkly says that “liberalism is a problem, but not the only problem”—that is, he has a problem with Jews regardless of whether they’re liberal-left or not; a problem with them merely as Jews—der ewige Jude, complete with fangs and horns. Fortunately, most non-Jews in Canada and the US don’t agree with him or with you.

Tanstaafl said...

The culture war has gone on for decades and the results have been disastrous for American traditions. For example, today supposed conservatives such as Auster and his exponent here Adam. Auster finds it necessary to paint me as a bogeyman. For my part I’m content that in doing so he has clearly revealed who he is and where his highest loyalty lies.

desmond jones said...

You (Auster) wrote: “If America had known when admitting Jewish immigrants between 1880 and 1920 that the descendants of those immigrants would oppose America’s right to have any future control over immigration, would America have admitted those immigrants in the first place?” Beautifully put. My grandparents were Russian and Polish Jews who came here (i.e., to Toronto, Canada) between 1908-1923, and I’ve often found myself asking the same thing. In fact, awkward as this is to confess, I’ve increasingly asked myself whether Jewish immigration was on the whole a good or bad thing for Canada and the U.S., and I am coming around to the view that the negatives have outweighed the positives.

adam said...

Thank you, Desmond, I’m Paul T. “Adam” is my general-use internet name.

Again, the problem is the liberalism, not some unique form of Jewish evil as taansie clearly implies. At this stage it would be quixotic to expel Jewish liberals from the country when there are far greater numbers of non-Jewish liberals. The solution is to emancipate both Jews and non-Jews from their liberalism. And, as Larry Auster and I have both written, this is not going to happen until the consequences of liberalism are so plainly disastrous that further evasion of the truth is impossible. Hence worse is indeed better. But we’re still a long way from that tipping point.

Taans: It’s fascinating to see how quickly Auster has gone, in your view, from being an indispensible mentor to Tel Aviv’s Satanic puppet. I suggest that this speaks to nothing but the rapidity of your descent into Jew-hatred. Since this occurred recently and so quickly, I’ll hold out some hope that it’s a passing phase.

bolingbroke said...

Both Auster and Adam want to stigmatise “non-Jews” who identify Jews as their foes. That position is said to be anti-semitic. And yet, the obvious strategy to refute anti-semitism would be to demonstrate that Jews are really friends with whom we can make common cause.

[Chechar’s note: There’s the rub. Cf. my red emphasis in my previous entry.]

Both Auster and Adam are therefore caught in a cleft stick because even they have to acknowledge that organized Jewry is in fact hostile (or at best indifferent) to the survival of the white. That is Jewish “liberalism” at work courtesy of the Anglo-Saxon elites who surrendered their ethnic hegemony without a shot being fired.

leadpb said...

The idea that no group should be immune from criticism or inquiry as a group is sound and Tanstaafl makes some good points in this regard. Jews do seem to be in a class that enjoys magical protection in the press and often in polite conversation. The upsetting condition seems to be that the Jews have subjected America to a socialist PC agenda (or worse). But no one in these comments has yet offered an estimation of how much responsibility we gentiles owe to this tribulation that has taken place in our own house. Do we bear so little responsibility here? How many whites have colluded in this nefarious scheme? We must also take responsibility for allowing modern liberalism to flourish in our midst.

flippityflopitty said...

Conservatives had their shot and look what they did with it. They even got a “four more years free” card with 9/11 and still—what did they do with it? If you want to take down the liberals, you’d better fix your conservative band wagon first.

Tanstaafl said...

The reality is that power comes from acting as a group, in the interests of that group—as La Raza, the Umma, and the Tribe all demonstrate. Blindness to this, like almost any blindness in nature, is a weakness and leads to extinction.

Adam: “It’s fascinating to see how quickly Auster has gone, in your view, from being an indispensible mentor to Tel Aviv’s Satanic puppet. I suggest that this speaks to nothing but the rapidity of your descent into Jew-hatred.” It’s fascinating to see how such insightful and intelligent people, judging by your conversation with Auster as Paul T., can become so dishonest and duplicitous when dealing with criticism from outside. You find it convenient to assume I am driven by “Jew-hatred”. This permits you to evade the truth. Liberalism and PC have arisen, and accelerate, precisely as Whites lose power and Jews gain it.

Anonymous said...

Auster has cast the “anti-semites” into the fiery pit of hell: “Since I posted my critique of the anti-Semite ‘Tanstaafl’ the other day, I’ve been receiving a steady stream of e-mail from anti-Semites, all of them with suspiciously bland and generic names...” You really struck a nerve with him; I don’t remember him devoting two rapid posts to attacking a leftist in some time (and, of course, there was his queer Obama love-fest not long ago).

Flanders Fields said...

Tan: Keep up your good work. We are all trying to find answers. If we aren’t, then what good are we? After forty years of listening to controlled media, it is refreshing to realize that truth will again prevail through our collective disparate, but patriotic voices. America was built on that and will prevail again.

desmondjones said...

“Again, the problem is the liberalism, not some unique form of Jewish evil as taansie clearly implies.” This is mendacious at best. No Jews no liberalism.

[Chechar’s note: As always, the above comment has been heavily edited down by me to a mere bare bone. I only wanted to remember Milton Himmelfarb’s phrase “No Hitler, no Holocaust”.]

adam said...

Tanstaafl,
Criticism I can take; a proposal to relocate me at gunpoint to Israel goes well beyond criticism.

Tanstaafl said...

Anonymous 12:18PM, thanks for the link to “In which circle of hell do the anti-Semites reside?” I knew I hit a nerve when I saw he could not accept and talk to me as a fellow human being.

bolingbroke said...

Adam, to demonstrate that it is wrong to suggest that Jews have cast themselves in the role of foe towards Anglo-Saxon (or whites), why don’t you simply show us how and why Jews are really the Anglo-Saxons’ (or the white man’s) friend? Provide plenty of examples for those of us who can’t immediately recall much evidence of Jewish concern for Anglo-Saxon (or white) ethnic interests or the survival of Anglo-Saxon civilization.

[Chechar’s note. Once again, this is my challenge to the philo-Semites in my previous entry: If I don’t present me a convincing rebuttal of the Bullard statement I will have to remove the “non anti-Semitic” clause before “white nationalism” in the masthead of this blog. Conversely, if someone demonstrates that Jews are also over-represented in organizations or movements that represent the interests of the ethnic majority in the U.S., the masthead will remain. This is the whole point of these entries on the Jewish Question that I am re-publishing here.]

Tanstaafl, what Auster refuses to acknowledge is that the battle lines in the “Anglo-Saxon countries” is not merely one between rival ideologies i.e., “traditionalism” vs. “liberalism,” but is a struggle for hegemony between rival races, religions, and ethnicities. The basic premise of white nationalism is that all “white” ethnies were created equal. The spectacular rise of the Jews to wealth, prestige, and power put the lie to that foolish conceit.

Auster is plain wrong. What we need is not for “the majority”—an arithmetic abstraction—to reassert its identity. Instead we must get rid of all that “democratic” majoritarian mumbo jumbo. We need to recognize the realities of minority rule.

Divide and conquer is an age-old elite strategy. That’s why they love Third World immigration in the first place.

Svigor said...

Howdy all. Why do you guys think Jews fight tooth and nail at the drop of a hat when you touch their tender Jewish parts? Because they know they’re fighting for their lives, even if only at the subconscious level. There’s nothing “hysterical” about their behavior at all. They know, at whatever level, what will happen to them if the cat gets out of the bag. Start thinking of Jews as criminals bent on keeping their crimes covered up.

Tanstaafl said...

Welcome Svigor. The anti-anti-semites I’ve “debated” are otherwise rationale people with an encyclopaedic knowledge of jew-Gentile conflict, yet they tend to apportion collective blame to disparate Gentile cultures sprinkled across time and space (e.g., presuming an unjust pogrom or Holocaust can spring from Whites anywhere) even while they judge any criticizing or apportioning of blame to jews collectively as ironclad evidence of the accuser’s subhumaness.

I’m tired of the word games and the moral double standards. Fuck that shit describes my sentiments exactly.