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You know I’ve been waiting for a good time to talk about this, but I am usually hesitant because by now these discussions don’t ever lead anywhere and no one’s opinion is ever changed in any meaningful way, but I guess now is as good a time as ever.
At one point I would have considered myself a white nationalist, although only in the way a nineteen-year-old university student would consider themselves a Marxist. Just as I was reaching my twenties I got caught up in the counter-cultural alt-right sphere in 2016, and adopted many of the worldviews that were congruent with the political atmosphere of the time, including Ultra-nationalism, Antisemitism, and extreme social conservatism.
It is important to note that one does not become an ultranationalist following a genuine reading of Evola but comes about almost exclusively as a reaction to the failures, dishonesty, and excesses of modern progressivism. It is almost a meme at this point to talk about Anti-white propaganda that is constantly espoused from the left and influences their legislative policies and cultural creations in every aspect of society. It is difficult to ignore this when every social message from every institution is categorically opposed to your very existence in a very genuine way. It is not ironic or subtle, and it is very difficult to take criticism of racial prejudice seriously when the culture at large only considers discrimination legitimate when against ‘approved’ groups.
This is coupled with a domestic policy that also reflects those values, and actively promotes immigration programs that are intrinsically designed to weaken the amount of social and economic power that the majority holds. It is not fallacious to say that western governments are actively supporting causes and ideologies that are inherently anti-white. It is always in the back of people’s minds that their societies have gotten successively worse over the last twenty years and in the minds of the radical right this is correlated with the rise of multiculturalism. We have been so ingrained with the idea that it is morally wrong to even* conceive* of a nation strictly composed of a white majority that It is no surprise that it leads to strong political reactions such as white nationalism.
While I could go on infinitely about the failures of modern liberalism, the point of this thread chain is about why white nationalism is not a viable solution to the greater social trends we are currently seeing, or specifically why I became disillusioned with white nationalism.
The greatest problem I had with entire community is one of unspoken beliefs. Much like Marxists (who have legitimate grievances with neo-liberal capitalism, ones that they are correct in pointing out can not last without complete disaster), they hold beliefs internally that are completely malevolent. White nationalism is centered on a goal of a homogeneous nation that is composed of an ethnically white majority. While I do not consider this inherently immoral (much like how I wouldn’t consider nation such as Japan, India, or China's homogeneity as immoral), the reality is that due to modern immigration policies over the last thirty years, western nations hold a large number of visible minorities. Underneath many of the public facades of ultra-nationalists there lies a reality that is invisible under the surface. Ask a white nationalist what they would do to minorities who would refuse to leave the nations in which they have built a foundation for the future, and they will give you ambiguous solutions that never really sound satisfying to either you or them. They will deny this to no end, but If given complete political authority, they would do many of the things that leftists would accuse them of doing. In order to reach their preferred racial demographic goals, they would have no qualms in deporting, imprisoning, and ultimately murdering hundreds of thousands if not millions of people given the opportunity. Much like the far left in which they criticize, their public personas do not actually reflect the values in which they hold in their hearts, and the practical reality of their governance would result in a large amount of innocent bloodshed, which I do consider immoral.
White nationalism does not have an adequate plan for the future and their proposed solutions to problems will not simply vanish if given political control. Since I have explained that white nationalists come about primarily as a reaction to the excess of progressive ideology, they don’t really have a thought-out plan for the future, only the destruction of what is currently politically popular. Destroying a current political establishment, and actually governing are two completely different things, and they are often in sharp contrast with one another. It would not surprise me if they achieved political power that it would not last particularly long, because the modern world does not share the political realities of the interwar period. They seem to have this idea that the only thing stopping western nations from their previous economic and technological superiority is simply the racial makeup of the country. Now while it can be strongly argued that the social benefits of homogeneity would lead to better educational and economic outcomes, by no means is this guaranteed. Modern nation states are in constant competition with one another in all kinds of ways that are not obvious on the surface. They seem to have this opinion regarding almost all facets of society, that simply making western nations homogeneous will solve almost all of their political problems. This is not apparent to me. There are many serious issues that demographics don’t seem to solve. The birthrate for example, would seemingly skyrocket the moment western nations are ethnically homogeneous, never stopping to notice that these problems are worst within nations that are ethnically homogeneous, such as China, Korea, or Japan. The modern world has become far too complicated for such simple solutions, and in many ways White nationalist’s delusional world is only a reality within their minds.
This is not to say that modern liberal democracy is inherently better, as I would prefer almost anything to what we currently have. I believe modern progressivism to be a political and cultural dead end, and one that white nationalists correctly diagnose as being inevitable to die, either due to political revolt or societal collapse, given a long enough time frame. The dissident right has emerged as an evolution to this type of ideology and is a little more realistic in their goals and slightly more aware of the moral problems that come about as a result. White nationalism is an equal dead end, at least the fantasy of it that the adherents hold to in their heads.
This seems to me a quite bad refutation of white nationalism. The meat of your objection is that wignats would have to use violence to achieve their policy goals, but apparently you've never had a frustrating conversation with a libertarian. That's true for every political movement ever. Whether we are talking about ethnic cleansing of hispanics or civil rights laws for blacks or motor vehicle registration for your SUV, the enforcement of policy ultimately rests on an escalating sequence of consequences that end in non-compliants being gunned down by police in the street.
Yes, making an ethnostate would require reprisals on people who don't want to obey. This is equally true of patrolling borders. China, Korea, and Japan are not "naturally" homogenous today. They are homogenous because they have continued to enforce a threat of violence against border crossers who do not meet their preferences.
This post could be rewritten to condemn any political movement that is not in power, save ancaps.
The best refutation of white nationalism is fact that there is no such thing as "white nation", that all the hundreds of millions of pale skinned people all over the world (white nationalists themselves vigorously disagree all the time on the basic issue who exactly should count as "white") do not see themselves as "one nation" and do not see any stranger with the same skin color as their brothers or sisters.
White nationalists have to build their nation out of nothing, have to organize, educate and agitate on unprecendted worldwide scale, have to persuade, for example, Balkan and Eastern European peoples to put down their mutual grievances and see each other as fellow white comrades.
Do you see any force capable of such monumental task? I don't.
I remember reading a couple of discussions online following the first Black Panther movie and the first season of Bob Hearts Abishola, respectively, making a parallel point about "black" — that things like "Pan-Africanism" have always been primarily phenomena of "diaspora" blacks (Erik Killmonger, Gloria Tyler), while Africans have their own particular national and sub-national identities, rivalries, and enmities.
(This parallel also provides a good rejoinder to the 'if you, a "white" American, want to live in a "white ethnostate," just go back to Europe, bro' argument — how's Liberia been doing?)
But note that while the above militates against a global "black" identity, it doesn't remove the salience of such an identity in the American context; hence the increasing ADoS discourse. There's no "black nation," but there's quite arguably a "black American nation." Ethnogenesis is a thing.
And the parallel goes for white Americans… to a degree. For various reasons, including, but not limited to, the "break" from the "old country" and its culture being less extreme for (mostly, to varying degrees) willing immigrants versus slaves brought in chains. The "melting pot" did a lot, but so did "Albion's Seed," as it were.
So there isn't even one "white American nation" — there's at least two, and they're increasingly hostile. A lot of times, when a certain type of "white person" goes on about how awful "white people" are, they don't mean themselves, they mean the other tribe. As I've put it to people before, I'm not a "white nationalist," but I am, perhaps, a Borderer nationalist. And "build[ing] their nation out of nothing… to organize, educate and agitate" on that much smaller and more homogenous scale would indeed be an easier task than "convincing Balkan and Eastern European peoples to put down their mutual grievances and see each other as fellow white comrades" — consider, for example, why quite a number of "white Americans" with no historical, familial, or geographic ties to the South will display a Confederate flag?
Except, I, for one, don't particularly see trying to carve out a Borderer ethnostate as much of a path forward either, even if the "tribes" are increasingly segregating geographically. Instead, I see the best path forward for my people to lie outside the (increasingly outdated) Westphalian nation-state model.
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I disagree. My objection is not that they would use violence to achieve their goals, but that mass violence is *inherent *to their political goals. I understand violence is necessary for any political power to hold on to their positions of authority, but it's not simply a matter of political subjugation.
The consequences for non-whites who subjugate themselves to a ruling class of White Nationalists would be identical to those who don't, because it is not their consent that is contentious, but their existence itself. The use of violence is therefore used not as a contingency for non-compliance, but as a tool used towards those who don't have the desired characteristics. There would not be 'reprisals,' because that would imply causation.
Yes, I agree, and I would prefer the West to have the same type of policies, but the reality is that they don't. The question now remains, how you would reverse the effects of mass immigration without the overwhelming use of political violence? Comparing the use of force for the displacement or extermination of millions of ethnic minorities to registering your SUV is extremely disingenuous.
Kuwait deported a quarter of their population in a week during the aftermath of the Gulf War with little to no bloodshed - I’m sure any Western country could easily deport a single digit percentage of its population with less fuss than Covid restrictions especially if that population used state benefits at a higher rate than the native population.
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It's not their existence that is contentious, it is their location. They are free to exist elsewhere, and if they choose to stay they can be forcibly removed, as Pakistan deported hundreds of thousands of Afghans. It's absurd to say that the very existence of those Afghans is in contention, it is their location that is the problem and it was their location, not existence, that was corrected.
I particularly hate this use of "existence." It's manipulative and dishonest.
Yes, in theory, but In practice that's nearly identical. I find the distinction between existence/location to be marginal at best. Just in the same way I don't wish for all mice to be eradicated off the earth, I would kill all of them that are in my house, for the very same reason that I don't like their location.
Exactly my point. Think about the practical implementation of these policies. Force them where and how? Tell them all to pack their bags? Send them to other nations that don't want them? What if these nations refuse to take them in? What if these minorities refuse under all circumstances? What about the large proportion of minorities that are second or third generation immigrants who do not have a place to go if displaced? What starts out simple in theory quickly becomes murderous in practice.
The perpetual counterpoints I bring up to these sorts of points, and the equation of country breakup and ethnic sorting/relocation with "Balkanization":
The post-WWII relocations of ethnic Germans
The "Velvet Divorce" of Czechoslovakia
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Probably back over the Mexican border, since the vast majority of them came in through that avenue. As for how, the same way the state does everything else: with the threat of uniformed men with guns.
That would be first, and easiest, solution and was actually proposed by a Republican candidate for President in my lifetime. He referred to it as self-deportation.
Yes, exactly.
We lean on them, the same way we do to get our way all the way around the world in a thousand different ways. Starting with sanctions, probably, or withholding of aid. Or we simply move the people across the border and present it as a fait accompli.
It depends on how intermixed they are, first of all, but anyone who has been ethnically distinct for three generations in America gets little sympathy from me and can be deported to where their grandfathers came from.
You keep raising these logistical issues as if they are the moral issues but they simply aren't. Removing them is a logistical issue, and it can be resolved using all of the regular tools we already have, once the decision has been made to do so.
I don't get the reticence. How has any state gotten anything accomplished at any time in history? By deciding to do it and marshalling their resources to the task. This is no different.
Your example is specific to a certain type of Mexican immigration in the United States. Whether you're looking at something logistically or morally are completely different issues. There are 10.5 million Mexicans currently in the United States, which is 5x larger than the largest standing army in the world. How would you do that logistically without causing an all out civil conflict? Once again I'm arguing that whatever way you think that will play out in theory will not play out that way in practice. Even if you want to pretend that it's not a moral position, it absolutely is, and you will have to morally justify that to a large portion of the United States population that will not be in favour of such drastic policies and will risk losing a large portion of your support to the immigrants you are attempting to displace.
I'm not even American btw, my thoughts on this are based on Canada where I live who don't have such easily displacable immigrants. How would we get rid of millions of immigrants from places like China and India? Send them down to the United States border? Have a centralized agency responsible for the displacement of all non-whites over a 10 million km radius?
Operation Wetback led to the departure of over a million Mexicans from the United States, using less than a thousand federal agents. Most of them weren't even arrested; hundreds of thousands simply fled the US to avoid arrest and formal deportation proceedings. And that was in an era with a much weaker state apparatus and no significant tracking capabilities, at least none comparable to what we have now, let alone the means and ability to punish domestic sponsors of illegal migrants. Modern Western states are vastly powerful in ways most people cannot even imagine; what cripples them is democratic restrictions on exercising their powers. I don't think the illegals hanging around outside Lowe's are going to take up arms against the government if they hear that the US is deporting all Mexicans or Central Americans - like their forebears, the odds are that they'll simply pack up and leave, or they'll hang around hoping they're lucky enough to avoid getting swept up. "Civil conflict" is an absolutely minor and irrelevant possibility. It's not a question of logistical ability - it's a question of political will.
Yes, ultimately this is the only real obstacle to effective border security and demographic policies, which is why I have little sympathy for liberals who wring their hands over the election of right-wing anti-immigration politicians in Europe - if your position is that democracy is necessarily a racial suicide pact, you should not be surprised if people emerge who are not as beholden to democracy as you.
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Not to tread old ground here, but I once again find myself curious about the tricky edge case of the old-stock American black.
(I'll take the former Georgia colonial territory circa the 1770s if you're offering it though.)
Not that the partition of India was clean and easy, but we're living in a world where such a partition happened last century. The model is there, so mostly what I'm bemoaning is a lack of imagination.
From the (Mississippi) river to the sea*?
*Ocean
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Is that even an edge case? Seems like a pretty central example.
I just mean edge case in the sense of "statistically, most minority racial groups in the US do have a known country of origin to point to within three or four generations, but this one is not as simple as that."
Thinking about it again, there must also be some percentage of Mexican/Hispanic-identifying people in the western US who are descendants of people who were already living on the land that the US subsumed. I don't know what that percentage is - honestly I don't have a good grasp on the history of Central America in the 1600s-1900s, and I don't know when "Mexican" and later "Hispanic" as identity categories started eclipsing identification with the various indigenous people groups that the Mexican empire itself subsumed. I suppose it could be argued that any such person who identified as Mexican could still be sent back to Mexico, since Mexico still exists.
Of course then there's the case of all the other North American indigenous groups. I suppose you could forcibly rez everyone who's not already rezzed who meets a certain threshold of native ancestry and then demand all the reservations formally secede under threat of force, and then have a bunch of independent, very poor landlocked micronations dotted around your country's interior full of people who you don't like who don't have a very favorable opinion of you now either. That doesn't seem like the kind of simple logistical solution that this expulsion plan is supposed to be able to provide though.
Maybe you can airdrop them all into the Canadian wilderness and just say hey, close enough, take it or leave it.
In all seriousness, though, the problem I'm pointing at is that the population of the US can't be cleanly divided into "people who white nationalists want to share their country with" and "people who you can send back to where their grandfather was from".
At some point you do run into "well, okay, yes, your people have been here as long as my people have or even longer, but we still would rather like you to go away if you don't mind."
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I hate to state the obvious, but just because Jimmy Carter and Joseph Stalin both used "violence" to achieve their policy goals does not mean I can't prefer Carter for killing fewer people and pursuing better policies than Stalin.
/u/TheBookOfAllan is making the entirely defensible claim that the cost of deporting/imprisoning/killing millions of Mexicans is incredibly high compared to typical policy goals and compared to the benefits. It's not helpful to respond that it's no different than enforcing vehicle registration.
When post-modernist nonsense is the default restating the obvious becomes the first duty of an intelligent man.
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