Natural Rights

Natural Rights

Thomas Allen

What are natural rights? According to natural rights doctrine, the rights of a free people come from the laws of nature, which God has ordained. Unlike what many people claim or seem to believe, natural rights do not come from governments, i.e., states.

Nevertheless, much disagreement exists about natural rights. One ethnicity’s concept of natural rights often differs from another’s concept. The natural rights of a Christian, even a nominal Christian, country differ from those of a Muslim, Jewish, or Hindu country. Europeans, South Asians, East Asians, American Indians, and Africans have different concepts of natural rights — if they have any concept of natural rights at all.

Still, most people consider natural rights to be life, liberty, and property, plus the right and means to support and defend them. However, much disagreement occurs about liberty, property, and their protection.

Except for warmongers, proponents of abortion, and advocates of genocide, most people consider the right to life a natural right — at least for members of their ethnicity.

Before 1861, most Americans considered freedom of speech, religion, association, and assembly to be among the natural rights of liberty they were to enjoy. (The natural right of liberty did not include libertinism, public immorality, sexual perversion, and trespass against other persons or their property. Today, however, these are the natural rights of liberty, and traditional pre-1861 liberties are not.)

Many other societies do not consider these liberties to be natural rights. Today, in America, many of these liberties are being suppressed. Freedom of association died with the advent of the Civil Rights Era.

  Further, much disagreement exists over the right to own property and to use it as the owner desires, provided he does not trespass against another. This was the commonly accepted concept of property rights in the United States before 1861. This natural right is fading away. Except for some small personal items, it hardly exists in some countries. In socialist and fascist countries, the government regulates, i.e., controls the use of property — especially real property. Even in the United States, property rights are restricted via excessive taxation, zoning, and other laws that restrict the use of property, and the like. Moreover, while some, like the founding fathers, consider collective property, such as race, ethnicity, culture, and heritage, worthy of protection, others, like progressives and libertarians, do not. In America today, the latter now prevails over the former.

Many people consider the freedom from want to be a natural right. Where freedom from want is considered a natural right, the ownership of property is not a natural right. Freedom from want depends on forcibly taking property from people who have earned it and giving it to people who have not earned it.

Also, people dispute over the appropriate means to defend the natural rights of life, liberty, and property. Does an individual have the right to defend his life, liberty, and property with deadly force? Although some jurisdictions allow the use of deadly force by an individual to defend life, others do not. Rare is a jurisdiction that allows an individual to use deadly force to defend property, and even rarer is one that allows a person to use deadly force to defend liberty. Instead, most, if not all, societies depend on governments to defend the natural rights of the people. Yet, governments, especially those that have morphed into states, are the greatest enemy of natural rights.

The United States were founded on the concept of the natural rights to life, liberty, and property and their protection. This concept of natural rights was the foundation of the constitutions of the several States, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of 1787. Moreover, the concept that sovereignty rests in the people of each State was another foundation of these constitutions.

People are not free because, at any particular moment, their government is not violating their rights. They are free if they force their government to live within the bounds of the constitution that establishes it — such a constitution being approved by the body politic, i.e., the people who wield political power in the territory under that constitution.

Today, Americans are not free because the federal government ignores most of the bounds of the Constitution that establishes it. Likewise, the State governments operate beyond the bounds of their constitutions. And the people let their governments violate the laws under which they are supposed to operate — mostly because the oligarchs, who control the federal government, have bought them with their (the people’s, i.e., the taxpayers’) money. To a lesser extent, State governments have acted likewise.

Unlike the federal government, which has strictly delegated powers beyond which it is not supposed to exceed, State constitutions grant their governments the authority to legislate on all matters where they are silent. Further, State governments are not to trespass against any restrictions that their constitutions place on them. Thus, all powers not expressly delegated to the federal government are denied, while State governments have all the powers not denied.

Free people do not allow their governments to go beyond the limits of their constitutions. Therefore, Americans are not free because their federal and State governments act beyond these limits. Moreover, much of the rest of the world is not free because their governments exceed their constitutional limits. The exceptions are countries like North Korea and China, which were not free to start with because the ruling oligarchs set no limits on governmental power, and, therefore, they can never exceed their limits.

Unless the people rise and enforce their constitutions, they will continue to live in tyranny, i.e., live under an unlawful, arbitrary, and unrestrained government. To free their people, the States need to oppose the federal government and beat it back into the bounds of the Constitution. Similarly, the people of each State need to rise and force their State back into its constitutional bounds.

To force the federal government to return to its proper bounds, a powerful weapon that the States may use is to cease cooperating with the federal government in enforcing unconstitutional federal laws. However, to do this, the States would have to give up the bribe money that the federal government pays them. Probably, all States lack the fortitude and integrity to do this.

Nullification is another weapon that States may use. However, to be effective, the States need to arrest and jail any federal agent trying to enforce the nullified law. Again, probably all States lack the fortitude and integrity to do this.

Being sovereign, the people have the duty to force both the federal government and their State governments to operate within the bounds of their constitutions — with arms if necessary — hence, the reason for the Second Amendment of the US Constitution and similar clauses in their State constitutions. 

Copyright © 2025 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More political articles.

Jefferson and States’ Rights

Jefferson and States’ Rights

Thomas Allen

In Chaining Down Leviathan: The American Dream of Self-Government 1776-1865 (McClellanville, South Carolina: Abbeville Institute Press, 2021), Luigi Marco Bassani discusses Thomas Jefferson’s concept of States’ rights. The following summarizes that discussion.

Jefferson used “State” to designate the people of a State and not its government, which the people (body politic of that State) created. He advocated localism over nationalism; localism is more closely tied to liberty than is nationalism. Therefore, local interest should be superior to the national interest. Further, he supported self-government and elected officials being directly responsible and linked closely to the voters. Thus, he endorsed natural rights, limited government, and popular sovereignty.

Moreover, the government should be restricted to protecting life, liberty, and property and have a laissez-faire approach in economic matters. Consequently, he opposed the concentration and consolidation of power in a single center and, therefore, fervently opposed a strong federal government that decided the limits of its power.

States’ rights were the best and surest way to prevent the consolidation of power in the federal government. After all, the States had created the federal government as their agent to manage their common affairs, such as foreign relations. They did not create it to rule over them and to manage their internal affairs.

For Jefferson, tyranny rose from the concentration of power. States’ rights were the mechanism by which such tyranny could be prevented. Only by strictly construing the Constitution could the States be saved from being subservient to the federal government. Only when a State acting individually and independently could decide if a federal act exceeded the authority delegated to the federal government and could nullify such unconstitutional act within its territorial limits would the liberties and rights of the people be protected.

Jefferson favored a constitution that united the States concerning foreign affairs but kept the States separate and distinct in domestic concerns. Thus, the States were independent in everything within themselves but were united in everything respecting foreign countries. However, he opposed becoming entangled with other countries; therefore, he favored allowing merchants the freedom to manage their trade with foreign countries.

The Kentucky Resolutions, which Jefferson wrote, expressed the core of his concept of federalism, States’ rights, and constitutional doctrine. According to the Kentucky Resolutions, each State had the right to nullify within its own territory any federal act that if found exceeding the powers delegated to the federal government without the need of other States joining it. Thus, the Kentucky Resolutions expounded the political and judicial philosophy of Jefferson’s States’ rights.

Jefferson believed that the States were much better defenders of individual liberties than were federal courts. Consequently, he replaced the doctrine of natural rights as expounded by federal courts with the doctrine of States’ rights, which were more powerful and effective at protecting the liberties of individuals. Therefore, the States should be responsible for guarding the constitutional balance against the consolidation of power in the federal government.

As sovereign powers, the States entered into a compact to create a federal government as their agent, subordinate to the States, to carry out well-defined, limited functions. Since the States were sovereign parties that entered into the constitutional compact, the federal government, their agent, had no authority to expand its power without the agreement of the contracting parties, the States.

Consequently, Jefferson maintained that each State acting individually and independently could decide if an act of the federal government was contrary to the Constitution. If it found such an act unconstitutional, it could nullify that act within its territory.

Although Jefferson adored the Union, he valued the right of local self-government even more. Thus, he insisted that freedom and self-government could not be subordinated to the Union. Like many people before 1861, he contended that the Union was an experiment in liberty and not an end in itself. Moreover, he thought that local self-government and not the Union was the guarantor of the safety and happiness of the people.

Also, Jefferson objected to the notion that the Constitution gave the federal government implied powers as Alexander Hamilton had argued. Furthermore, the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution did not give the federal government absolute supremacy over the States. Not all federal laws are the supreme law of the land. Only those laws enacted pursuant to one of the delegated powers are supreme. Otherwise, State laws are supreme.

To Jefferson, the Union was a true federation with the federal government having a few delegated functions and powers as set out in the Constitution. Only with the consent of the States through the amendment process could it expand its power. He considered federalism as an end in itself with self-governing States being supreme over the federal government. Moreover, he rejected the notion that the Bill of Rights applied to the States and asserted that it only applied to the federal government.

Jefferson also rejected the notion that a federal common law existed. Each State had its own common law system that applied solely within its borders. However, no American common law existed.

He feared that if the federal legal system incorporate common law, Congress could expand its power by revising and integrating the principles of common law. If this were to happen, constitutional limitations on the federal government would vanish. Congress could legislate in all cases whatsoever. If common law were to limit federal legislative activity, then the judiciary would acquire legislative power. If common law became a body of law, the Constitution would cease limiting the powers of the federal government. In any event, the incorporation of American common law into the federal legal system would be disastrous for the liberties of the people and States’ rights. The Constitution and federal common law could not coexist in the American system of government.

Jefferson rejected the notion of the Supreme Court, which was part of the federal government, being the final arbitrator between a State and the federal government. If the Supreme Court were the final arbitrator, then Congress and the President, which were also part of the federal government, were being adjudicated by another part of the federal government, the Supreme Court, and not by the Constitution. If the federal government could force the States to comply with all federal laws whatsoever, whether according to the Constitution or in flagrant violation of it, then federalism would cease to exist except in name only. Consequently, the States were and ought to be the final judges of the constitutionality of federal acts. (Being part of the federal government, federal courts has no incentive to prevent the consolidation of power in the federal government. History has shown that not only do federal courts place little constraint against such consolidation, but they have often led in such consolation.)

Thus, Jefferson maintained that the authority of the Supreme Court to decide in the last resort did not extend to the rights of the States, which were parties to the constitutional compact. The States gave federal judges their delegated trusts. As original parties to the constitutional compact, each individual State was the ultimate judge of whether an act of the federal government was compatible with the Constitution. As a creation of the Constitution, the Supreme Court could not be the ultimate judge.

Since the defeat of the Confederacy, the federal government has been suppressing States’ rights and has almost extinguished them. As a result, liberty has faded and the tyranny that Jefferson feared has happened.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More political articles.

Why I am not a Republican

 Why I am not a Republican

Thomas Allen

I am not a Republican for many of the same reasons that I am not a Democrat. Both promote destructive policies — only the Democrats generally promote them with more alacrity and vigor and are more successful.

The comments that follow are directed at the Republican and Democratic leaders and their spokesmen and apologists in the media. Although they are not directed at the rank-and-file Republicans and Democrats, most of the rank-and-file do adhere to and follow their leaders in the matters discussed below.

Republicans and Democrats are proponents of “American Exceptionalism.” This exceptionalism is the creed of equality, democracy, and universal natural rights, which both promote. This creed is the defining principle that makes America America. However, they disagree somewhat about what constitutes “natural rights” and especially what equality means.

Both Republicans and Democrats prefer the constitution that Lincoln (as furthered developed by Presidents Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and carried to fruition by the Warren Court and especially Justice William Brennan), which is the current constitution, to the constitution that the founding fathers gave the country.

While Democrats only give constitutional government lip service, Republicans claim to believe in constitutional government. Yet they have done nothing to reduce the size of the federal government. As under Democrats, the federal government continues to grow under Republicans — perhaps, not as fast, but it still grows.

An example of the hypocrisy of the Republican support of constitutional government is the unconstitutional Department of Education. When Republicans controlled the federal government, it did nothing to abolish the Department of Education despite their promise to abolish it. Instead of abolishing the Department of Education, they have used it to consolidate federal control of education in the United States, which is why the Democrats established it. Thus, the Republicans have collaborated with the Democrats to give the federal government control of education in the United States.

Republicans and Democrats both revere Father Abraham (Lincoln) and St. Martin Luther King the Divine — only Republicans more so than Democrats. Republicans have even elevated them to Deity.

Like Democrats, Republicans are racial nihilists and promote a multiracial and multicultural country and society. Both are globalists. Neither have any objections to miscegenation, and both promote other policies that eventually genocide the American Negro.

Both Republicans and Democrats promote diversity as a strength and great virtue. Therefore, both ignore Madison’s warning about too much diversity, which plutocrats use to transfer ever more wealth and power to themselves. Thus, plutocrats control both parties.

Although Democrats ardently support abortion, Republicans do not oppose abortion — their rhetoric to the contrary. In spite (or because) of abortion being a highly successful weapon in the genocide of the American Negro, Democrats have ardently promoted abortion for more than a half-century. Except for their rhetoric, Republicans stopped seriously opposing abortion decades ago.

Both are Lincolnian-Hamiltonians. Nonetheless, Democrats prefer much more governmental intervention in the economy than do Republicans. Thus, Democrats are much more fascistic than are Republicans. Whereas Democrats are proponents of a command-and-control economy, Republicans favor a market economy — at least in rhetoric. (Republicans claim that they support a free-market economy, which they do not. Otherwise, they would move to abolish all the regulatory agencies, which are unconstitutional anyway, of the federal government.)

Contrary to their assertion otherwise, Republicans support the welfare state. Democrats strongly promote the welfare state for the same reason that Bismark, the archconservative German chancellor, did. (Bismark instituted the welfare state in Germany: The welfare state makes governmental control of the people easier because people who receive benefits from a welfare program are less likely to object to other governmental programs.) The primary difference between the Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans want to make controlling people more cost-effective.

Like the Democrats, Republicans like to create problems and then like the Democrats express outrage at the consequences. Many of the problems that both Republicans and Democrats rail against result from the welfare state, which both endorse and support.

Despite their rhetoric during political campaigns, both support the warfare state. They prefer war to peace. Neither object to using the United States military to bully other countries and to interfere with their internal affairs. After all, war is necessary to impose the American creed of equality, democracy, and universal natural rights on everyone. More important, war transfers ever more wealth and power to the rich and powerful, who control the federal government.

Both the Republicans and Democrats support the police state. Moreover, with the Transportation Security Administration, secret warrants and arrests, indefinite detention, and torture centers, Republicans have led the charge. All this has been done in the name of the war on terrorism, which is really a war on the American people. (Terrorism results from the foreign intervention and meddling policies of the Republicans and Democrats.)

Just as the Democrats accept the thief of the 2020 presidential election, so do the Republicans. Without Republican succor, Democrats could not have stolen the election. Even the Republican-controlled Supreme Court abandoned its constitutional duty to rectify the illegalities of the election — and so did Republican-controlled State legislatures.

Both Republicans and Democrats reject intergenerational duty to ancestors and posterity. If they cared about their posterity, governmental debt would not be exploding. If they cared about their ancestry, they would not promote conditions that lead to racial and cultural genocide, yet they promote programs and policies that lead to racial and cultural genocide. 

Neither Democrats nor Republicans want to dismantle the leviathan federal government and return to the constitutional government of the original Constitution. Both want to use it to advance their agendas. They consider the Constitution to be so elastic that they make it a worthless scrap of paper.

Neither supports the doctrine of States’ rights except when they can use the States to oppose a policy that the other party advances with which they disagree. 

Republicans and Democrats are hostile to traditional conservatives, who are the true conservatives. In marginalizing traditional Southern conservatives, both parties have been highly effective.

Nevertheless, Republicans and Democrats do differ in some aspects. Democrats are more vindictive and spiteful than Republicans. On the other hand, Republicans are recreants. While Democrats are bold, Republicans are timid.

Democrats are Dixiephobic, Confederaphobic, and albusphobic. Except for neoconservatives and establishment conservatives, Republicans are generally not Dixiephobes or Confederaphobes. Moreover, not all Republicans are albusphobes.

While Democrats are fervent supporters of gun control even to the point of disarming the American people, Republicans are hesitant in imposing more gun control. Nevertheless, Republicans are always ready to comprise and support more gun control. Furthermore, Republicans have not removed any restrictions on gun ownership when they controlled the presidency and Congress.

While Democrats favor restricting energy production and usage, Republicans favor cheap and abandon energy. However, as with its other principles, Republicans are always willing to compromise away cheap and abandon energy.

As for COVID-19, the Republican approach has been much less authoritarian than has been the Democratic approach. Moreover, Republicans who did take an authoritarian approach to COVID-19 have been much more eager to relinquish their control than have been Democrats.

Most Republicans favor lower taxes, and Democrats favor higher taxes. Nevertheless, both favor exploding federal budgets.

Republicans are eager to compromise and abandon their principles (if they have any). Perhaps, Republicans compromise their apparent principles so easily and quickly is because their real principles differ little from those of Democrats. Contrastingly, Democrats resist compromise and abandoning their principles as evil as they may be. 

Democrats are on the left and so are the Republicans. Both are socialists (mostly of the democratic fascist variety) at heart; only the Democrats are more open and honest about being socialists.

Another major difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Democrats are about a decade ahead of Republicans. (The homosexual agenda evidences this conclusion. For years, Democrats have promoted homosexual marriages and finally succeeded in legalizing them over the objections of Republicans. Now most Republicans accept homosexual marriages.)

Most of the time, arguments and disagreements between Republicans and Democrats are about details and strategies and not about principles. 

The above description of Republicans explains why most establishment conservatives and neoconservatives loath President Trump. Trump deviated from too many of these Republican standards. Yet, many people supported Trump because he did deviate from some of these positions that Republicans had stolen from Democrats.

For the most part, Republicans are imitation Democrats; they just lack the courage to become full-fledged Democrats. The reason that I am not a Republican or a Democrat is that Republicans are too much like Democrats and Democrats are too much like Republicans.

Governor George Wallace once said that there was not a dime’s worth of difference between the Democrats and Republicans. That is still true, and a dime is worth only a fraction of what it was when he made this remark.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More political articles.

Neoconservatives

Neoconservatives

Thomas Allen

Neoconservatism grew out of Jewish conservatism but primarily out of Jewish liberalism and anticommunism (mainly Jewish anticommunism). What follows is a description of the typical neoconservative. The typical neoconservative:

– is an egalitarian, a statist, and a rationalist;

– inclines toward pragmatism;

– is forever future-oriented;

– is a social justice conservative and compassionate conservative;

– promotes equality and antiracism;

– is an anticommunist, but does not oppose the Communist organized and controlled civil rights movement;

– despises Russians, who are second only to Southerners as the cause of America’s problems;

– is an ardent Zionist, who promotes an Israel-first foreign policy for the Middle East;

– opposes any country that presents a threat to the American and especially Israeli imperialism — even too wanting to attack militarily such a country — although he cannot conceive of the United States or Israel as imperialistic;

– although he condemns segregation and discrimination, supports Israel’s segregation of and discrimination against Palestinians, who deserve no rights;

— often acts as though most Americans, especially Blacks, who discriminate against Jews are antisemitic;

– is convinced that Jews can do no wrong and do not control anything, especially the presstitute media, Hollywood, medicine, banking, and finances, even though the CEOs and other high ranking corporate officials are often Jews, and vehemently condemns anyone who claims otherwise as an antisemite (if a perpetrator or corporate official is a Jew, his Jewishness is ignored or concealed);

– believes or claims to believe the official governmental conspiracy theory of 9-11;

– most likely, admires, reveres, and supports the American Empire that the Yankees built although he probably rejects the notion that it is an empire;

– favors power politics and prefers war to peace;

– believes that America was built on the proposition that all men are created equal instead of being built on race and consanguinity, and unlike other nations is not a genetic nation;

– believes in political equality (democracy — except Palestinians should not be allowed to vote in Israel) and social equality (integration, amalgamation, miscegenation), but opposes economic equality (socialism);

– adheres to the notion that the United States is (their verb, instead of “are,” the correct verb) a propositional (creedal) country dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal” and it has been foreordained by God to force this concept on the rest of the world, that is, America is an exceptional nation that is divinely destined to impose equality and democracy on the rest of the world (except the Palestinians);

– claims that equality is universal and the premier God-given unalienable right of all humanity;

– asserts that patriotism is an affirmation that the principle of equality is the core of America’s founding and that race and ethnicity, which historically has defined  patriotism, are irrelevant;

– considers traditional patriotism of loyalty to one’s country (territory), race, people (ethnicity), family, and traditions as evil and a vice and not a virtue; thus, defining patriotism as loyalty to the abstract doctrine of American exceptionalism, America’s form of government (liberal democracy), and equality of natural rights;

– places universalism, i.e., giving equal consideration to all people whom an action may affect (although unreconstructed Southerners and Palestinians seem to be exceptions) above patriotism;

– opposes a foreign policy based on isolationism, liberal internationalism (multinationalism), or realism (interest in terms of power);

– seeks to destroy the Soviet Union (now replaced by a desire to destroy Russia);

– believes in the Puritan idea that the United States is the “City upon a Hill” and, therefore, is destined to bring universal peace and harmony to the world by establishing a benevolent global hegemony (all this is accomplished when everyone in the world becomes the image of the Puritan Yankee);

– favors the government intervening to promote unalienable natural rights (described below) domestically and internationally — even using force when necessary to impose them;

– like the Yankee and Progressive, is inclined toward utopian ideals;

– prefers homogeneity to plurality;

– like the liberal, favors a designed order over a spontaneously evolved order;

– prefers the motto of the French Revolution, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” to the motto of the American Revolution, “Life, Liberty, and Property (Pursuit of Happiness)”;

– construes morality as abstract universal principles that are self-evident and existed before and independently of all traditions; thus, believes in universal moral truths that depend on reason and not on tradition;

– favors family values and is disturbed by rising illegitimacy, single parenthood, divorce, and crime and opposes homosexual activity and marriages although beginning to accept the homosexual and queer agenda;

– prefers to discourage abortion rather than its elimination;

– disdains the counterculture, cancel culture, and political correctness;

– believes that the government should encourage religion and opposes a strict separation between church and state;

– adheres to the universal principle of natural rights (describe in next section) and opposes the notions of positive rights (governmentally granted rights) and historical and traditional rights of the nation;

– believes in the natural rights of men, which are unalienable rights endowed by God and are independent of culture and transcend time and place (existed before and independent of any culture or civilization) and are self-evident truths discovered by reflection and reason and can be expressed as principles of abstract ideas (in reality, natural rights are based on personal preferences or sentience of the speaker), and rejects the notion that liberty varies with time and circumstances and that conventions and traditions determine rights;

– despises most customs and traditions and subordinates particulars and traditions to the universality of abstract principles, values, and ideas;

– believes that the Union predated the States and the Union created the States instead of the States creating the Union;

– considers the United States to be one undivided independent country instead of a federation of sovereign States and that it was founded as one undivided independent country instead of a federation of sovereign States;

– ostensibly advocates interpreting the US Constitution the way that the drafters and ratifiers intended it to be understood (original intent) while praising and supporting the Racial Republicans’ radical transformation of it (the living document theory);

– generally, supports a powerful central government (unless it promotes something with which he disagrees) and opposes of States’ rights (unless a State opposes a federal action with which he disagrees), yet is often skeptical of governmental solutions to problems;

– favors Lincoln’s understanding of government (the Hobbesian concept of man as a solitary being) to Jefferson’s understanding of government (the Aristotlean concept of man as a communal being); 

– supports nationalism and opposes sectionalism, federalism, and localism;

– prefers the concentration and centralization of political power to decentralization and dispersal of political power;

– prefers the commercial-financial empire that Lincoln and the Republicans created to the union of sovereign States that the founding fathers created;

– although opposing socialism, seldom objects to the Yankee’s version of fascism, a.k.a. business-government partnership, the military-industrial complex, crony capitalism, corporate welfare, or corporatocracy;

– a proponent of regulated capitalism but not overly regulated;

– condemns Progressivism while advocating most of its social positions and many of its political positions;

– approves of most of the social welfare programs of the welfare state, such as social security, Medicaid, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and family assistance, but wants to reform them to make them more economical and humane (less dehumanization); however, opposes the redistribution of income;

– supports bureaucrats overriding the market (private business decisions) for social purposes, such as the promotion of Black privileges, yet opposes affirmative action and quotas; 

– is racial nihilists and practitioner of the new morality and, therefore, does not oppose the destruction of the races through amalgamation and miscegenation; thus, has little concern about breeding the American Negro out of existence;

– despises racial segregation and separation by any race even if it is voluntary and even if Blacks are advocating racial segregation and separation;

– promotes inclusiveness, especially racial inclusiveness, but his inclusiveness does not include Southerners (especially unreconstructed Southerners), antisemites (anyone who is not a Zionist or believes that Palestinians should have a say in what happens to them), racial supremacists (especially White supremacists), racial preservationists (especially White preservationists), anyone who is labeled “racist,” most Moslems, isolationists, and principled conservatives (or traditional American conservatives, which includes Jeffersonian-Calhounians, paleoconservatives, traditional Southern conservatives, and Old Right);

– panders to Blacks as a racial group, but never openly appeals to Whites;

– claims that Martin Luther King is an archconservative, perhaps the greatest conservative ever, and a racial nihilist although King was a racial supremacist (a Negro supremacists) and a practitioner of the old morality;

– conceives Lincoln to be the greatest or second greatest president and praises him for saving the Union (although he changed the Union from one of consent as established in 1787 to one of coercion and converted that union into an empire) and, more important, freeing the slaves, which he claims was the primary reason for Lincoln’s War;

– although highly praising Jefferson, rejects nearly everything that Jefferson supported and accepts nearly everything that Jefferson opposed;

– is most likely a Republican;

– seeks to salvage and enhance the reputation of the Republican Party by declaring it to be the party of civil rights and racial equality, the leading opponent of (White) racial supremacy, and the force of everything good in America since its founding in 1854:

– sees the Democratic Party as the party of racists, White supremacists, and Black oppressors and everything evil in America at least since the beginning of Andrew Jackson’s administration; 

– is a Confederaphobe and Dixiephobe;

– treats the Southerner, especially the unreconstructed Southerner, as he treats the Palestinian: like a nonperson and subhuman only worthy of genocide although using euphemisms instead of being so blunt;

– believes that everything coming out of the South is bad except one phrase in the Declaration of Independents: “all men are created equal”;

– blames the South for nearly all of America’s problems;

– prefers the Yankee culture to the Southern culture;

– laments that the failure of Radical Republicans, whom he praises, to reconstruct the Southerner into the image of the Yankee;

In short, the key characteristics of a neoconservative are that he is an anticommunist, an anti-Southerner (especially anti-Confederate), a Zionist, a racial nihilist, and a Republican. Moreover, like the progressive, the neoconservative is rationalist and universalist, and he is a proponent of the natural rights of men. Furthermore, he promotes integration, equality, democracy, and foreign intervention. He reveres and sanctifies Lincoln and King, even defying them, especially King. Also, like the liberal, the neoconservative believes that the Constitution should be understood as Lincoln understood it and not as Jefferson understood it. Perhaps most important, he maintains that the United States are an exceptional country and a proportional nation whose purpose is to spread the American ideals of democracy, equality, and natural rights of men across the planet by force if necessary.

Some neoconservatives may deviate from several of the items on this list. However, most neoconservatives adhere to nearly all, if not all, of these items. Moreover, many neoconservatives often show signs of schizophrenia or other mental disorders.

For the most part, establishment conservatives agree with neoconservatives; the two are often indistinguishable. (Establishment conservatives are conservatives who are not neoconservatives, enlightened conservatives, or principled conservatives; they include Hamiltonian-Lincolnians, big-government conservatives, the typical Republican politicians, and Buckleyites. Enlightened conservatives are the New Conservatives of the 1950s represented by Russell Kirk and who subordinate the individual to society, subordinate freedom to virtue [for them, virtue is freedom] and rights to duty, subordinate reason to undifferentiated tradition to the point of rejecting reasoning, scorns reason and principle, reduces virtue to prudence, and depends heavily on Providence.) Moreover, except for some economic issues, neoconservatives generally agree with liberals and progressives. Thus, distinguishing between neoconservatives and liberals and progressives, especially on social issues, is often difficult.

The following are some neoconservatives: Kenneth Abelman, Elliot Abram, Larry Arnn, Steve Balch, Glenn Beck, Adam Bellow, William Bennett, Peter Berger, Alan Bloom, Max Boot, Eric Briendel, David Brooks, Mona Chares, Lynne  Chenney, Eliot Cohen, Matthew  Continetti, Ann Coulter, Dinesh  D'Souza, John Davisdson, Lucy  Dawidowicz, Midge Decter, Rostow Eugene, Douglas Faith, Don Feder, David Frum, David Gelernter, Nathan Glazer, Erwin Glinkes, Jonah Goldberg, Newt Gringerich, Allen Guelzo, Nikki Haley, Sean Hanity, Victor Hanson, Kay Heimowitz, Mark Helprin, Will Herbert, Gertrude Himmelfarb, John Hood, Sidney Hook, David Horowitz, Irving Howe, Brit Hume, Laura Ingraham, Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Jeff Jacoby, Harry Jaffa, Michael Joyce, Robert Kagan, Max Kampelman, Leon R.  Kass, Jack Kemp, Charles Kesler, Jeane Kilpatrick, David Klinghoffer, Allan Kors, Bruce Kovner, Neil Kozodoy, Hilton Kramer, Charles  Krauthammer, Irving Kristol, Bill Kristol, David Lapin, Michael  Ledeen, Max Lerner, Mark Levin,  S.M. Lipset, Seth Lipsky, Herbert London, Frank Luntz, Myron Magnet, Joshua Marvchik, Michael Medered, Adam Meyerson, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Joshva Muravchik, Rupert Murdoch, Forrest Nabors, Richard Neuhaus, David Novak, Michael Novak, Robert Nozick, Bill O’Reilly, Dinash O’Souza, Rauesh Pennuru, Martin Peretz, Richard Perle, Nathan Perlmutter, Daniel Pipes, John Podhoretz, Norman Podhoretz, David Prager, Ronald Radosh, Karl Rove, Jennifer Rubin, Rick Santorum, Lisa Schiffern, Wendy Shallir, Ben Shapiro, Leo Strauss, Diana Trilling, Lionel Trilling, Ben Wattenberg, George Weigel, Paul Weyrich, George Will, James Wilson, Albert Wohlstetter, Paul Wolfowitz, and Adam Wolfton.

References

Friedman, Murray. The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy. New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Gottfried, Paul Edward. Conservatism in America: Making Sense of the American Right. New York, New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2007.

Kerwick, Jack. Misguided Guardians: The Conservative Case against Neoconservatives. Las Vegas, Nevada: Stairway Press, 2016.

Personal observations and other articles.

Copyright © 2021 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More political articles.

Mencken on Disproportional Representation

Mencken on Disproportional Representation

Thomas Allen

    In 1926, H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) wrote Notes on Democracy in which he expressed his views on democracy and related issues. He was a journalist, satirist, and critic and a libertarian and one of the leaders of the Old Right. In his book, he describes disproportional representation, pages 97-107. Below is an overview of his discussion on disproportional representation; my comments are in brackets.
    Disproportional representation “is intimately bound up with this question of disfranchised classes, for it must be plain that a community whose votes, man for man, count for only half as much as the votes of another community is one in which half of the citizens are, to every practical intent, unable to vote at all.” An example is the U.S. Senate. Regardless of population, each State has two Senators and no more. Moreover, the votes of Senators from States with small populations are the same as States with large populations. [Some democrats have proposed proportioning Senators among the States based on population. With no Constitutional authority, the U.S. Supreme Court imposed its democratic desires on the States by requiring them to proportion the legislative districts of both houses based on population. Before that ukase, most States proportioned at least one house of their legislature based on nonpopulation considerations. Also, before the Supreme Court ruling, rural areas and urban areas had approximate equality in State legislatures. After the ruling, rural areas lost their equality as urban areas gain control of both houses in most State legislatures.] Mencken comments on this issue of disproportional representation in State legislatures.
    To overcome disproportional representation, “certain romantic fuglemen of so-called pure democracy . . . [came] forward with complicated remedies, all of which have been tried somewhere or other and failed miserably.” Mencken notes “that disproportional representation is not a device to nullify democracy, but simply a device to make it more workable.” Thus, in the United States, “the sovereign people have voluntarily sacrificed a moiety of the democratic theory in order to attain to a safer and more efficient practice.” [In a true republic, the majority lacks the power that Mencken describes. In a true republic, absolute political power resides in no individual or body — not even the largest majority. Checks and vetoes always exist to everyone’s and every group’s power.] If they so desire, they could get rid of all disproportional representation. [Lacking the patience to allow the people to change their disproportional representation systems in the States, the U.S. Supreme Court usurped their power and did it for them. Obviously, the Supreme Court did not trust the people with this decision for fear that the people would not abolish disproportional representation.]
    Most people prefer disproportional representation because of a “wish to counterbalance an advantage lying in the very nature of things.” It “is not a wish to give one voter an advantage over another.” [Apparently, the U.S. Supreme Court believed otherwise. Based on its philosophy of “one man, one vote,” it swept away disproportional representation of the State legislatures.] Mencken explains that urban areas have a natural advantage over rural areas. The proximity of people in urban areas enables them to form opinions more quickly and uniformly and to maintain a solid front than people in rural areas, who are spread out more. Thus, people in urban areas “show all of the characters of men in a compact mob, and the voters of the rural regions, dispersed and largely inarticulate, cannot hope to prevail against them by ordinary means. So the yokels are given disproportionally heavy representation by way of make-weight: it enables them to withstand the city stampede.” In spite of disproportional representation, “the majority under democracy remains the majority, whatever laws and constitutions may say to the contrary, and when its blood is up it can get anything it wants.”
    Mencken remarks, “Most of the so-called constitutional checks, in fact, have yielded, at one time or other, to its pressure. No one familiar with the history of the Supreme Court, for example, need be told that its vast and singular power to curb legislation has always been exercised with one eye on the election returns.” Early Supreme Court decisions have been “completely reversed afterwards, as the second thought of the plain people has differed from their first thought. This responsiveness to the shifts of popular opinion and passion is not alone due to the fact that the personnel of the court, owing to the high incidence of senile deterioration among its members, is constantly changing, and that the President and the Senators, in filling vacancies, are bound as practical politicians to consider the doctrines that happen to be fashionable in the cross-roads grocery stores and barbers’ shops. It is also due, and in no small measure, to the fact that the learned and puissant justices are, in the main, practical politicians themselves, and hence used to keeping their ears close to the grass roots.” [Thus, the United States have the “rule of men” and not the “rule of law,” which exists independent of even the largest majority.]
    Mencken writes, “In boom times, indeed, democracy is always very impatient of what used to be called natural rights. The typical democrat is quite willing to exchange any of the theoretical boons of freedom for something that he can use.” Continuing, Mencken adds, “In most cases, perhaps, he is averse to selling his vote for cash in hand, but that is mainly because the price offered is usually too low. He will sell it very willingly for a good job or for some advantage in his business. Offering him such bribes, in fact, is the chief occupation of all political parties under democracy, and of all professional politicians.” [The welfare state has given the politician another avenue of offering legal bribes at the taxpayers’ expense.]
    Whether ideal or not, democracy “works, and the people are actually sovereign.” The system works: “Any conceivable change in the laws could be effected without tampering with the fundamental scheme.” Therefore, the “inferior American [is hostile] to the thing called direct action — the darling of his equals in most other countries. He is against it, not merely because he is a coward and distrusts liberty, but also, and maybe mainly, because he believes that revolution, in the United States, is unnecessary — that any reform advocated by a respectable majority, or even by a determined minority, may be achieved peacefully and by constitutional means. In this belief he is right. The American people, keeping strictly within the Constitution, could do anything that the most soaring fancy suggested. They could, by a simple amendment of that hoary scripture, expropriate all the private property in the land, or they could expropriate parts of it and leave the rest in private hands; they have already, in fact, by tariff juggling, by Prohibition and by other devices, destroyed billions of dollars of property without compensation, and even without common politeness, and the Constitution still survives.” Mencken identifies many other things that the American people can do if they so willed. He provides a list of the horrendous actions that the sovereign people can lawfully do: “They could enfranchise aliens if they so desired, or children not taxed, or idiots, or the kine in the byres. They could disfranchise whole classes, e.g., metaphysicians or adulterers, or the entire population of given regions. [They disfranchised Southerners following the War for Southern Independence.] They have done such things. . . . Finally, they could, if they would, abandon the republican form of government altogether and set up a monarchy in place of it: during the late war [World War I] they actually did so in fact, though refraining from saying so frankly. They could do all of these things freely, and even legally, without departing in the slightest from the principles of their fundamental compact, and no exterior agency could make them do any of them unwillingly.” [Thus, they can make the likes of Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and Pol Pot look like saints.]
    Mencken adds, “The people, if they are actually sovereign, have a clear right to be wanton when the spirit moves them, and indifference to an issue is an expression of opinion about it. Thus . . . the masses are that part of the state which doesn’t know what it wants.” Next Mencken discusses what the people want: “What they want principally are safety and security. They want to be delivered from the bugaboos that ride them. They want to be soothed with mellifluous words. They want heroes to worship. They want the rough entertainment suitable to their simple minds. All of these things they want so badly that they are willing to sacrifice everything else in order to get them. . . .    The science of politics under democracy consists in trading with them, i.e., in hoodwinking and swindling them. In return for what they want, or for the mere appearance of what they want, they yield up what the politician wants, and what the enterprising minorities behind him want.” [Since 9-11, most people have wanted security. The powers behind the politicians, i.e., big money, the military-industrial complex, and the security complex, want ever-expanding wars and ever-expanding police state. In the name of security, the American people have received more wars and a growing police state. Thus, liberty dies under democracy.]

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More political articles.