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Notes -
Questioning the Core
Recently Tucker Carlson, who everyone knows, did an interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg, a former British MP for the Tories. JRM is a known quantity in British politics as an upper class Englishman with a neoliberal stripe who manages to say enough things 'wrong' for the far left and right to dislike him. But on the flipside he does say those things with a very pleasing accent. He earned this particular interview with Carlson due to his firm anti-Russia stance and recent agitation that Britain needed to prepare for war.
The interview itself was mostly boring. Tucker seemed to not really know what his own point was for the first half of the interview, aside from JAQing off about NATO aggression. And JRM didn't feel like giving Tucker any rope to pull on. To that end both parties came across as snide. JRM never directly engages with what exactly the point of NATO is or what Britain or the EU is even doing at this point, and Tucker never directly asserts that the liberal moral order has been the catalyst for more harm than good. Instead they both circle around their underlying points but never directly engage with them.
The surface level Tucker Carlson argument here is that Britain is weak, its allies are weak, and Russia is strong. So Britain should sue for peace.
JRM's argument is that Britain is good, and Russia is evil. So there will be no peace.
They are both correct. Insofar as Britain is weak, Russia is also weak. And as far as Russia is evil, Britain is also evil. Failing demographics with corrupt and inept leaders suppressing their subjects alongside shocking news of unconscionable crimes on a huge scale, signaling deep social decline. No offers of a positive vision for the future are anywhere to be found. Only fatalism and the faint promise of a coming metamorphosis. Worry not for your pain. You, the English, will soon cease to exist. And so will the Russians (as far as any westerner has an analog to what a Russian is). A complete separation of state and folk. The death of nations.
It's fair to say that neither party wants to engage with this reality. As admitting to anything real here would be tantamount to ponder whether Hitler was actually right. Since neither can, neither will. Though they do get close:
The Liberal World Order gambit that JRM employs is simple enough: If Hitler was evil, everything is vindicated. So we just repeat that for Putin, right?
Well, Tucker doesn't raise this point directly enough, but leaving aside the question of whether looking at world events through the eyes of a 10 year old to decide who is good and who is evil is beneficial or not, has the consequence of being on the side of 'good' been of benefit to the people? The obvious answer is no. And that's not the fault of Hitler, but the people who came after him. So why should anyone take their word for anything? They are fast becoming literally worse than Hitler.
Whilst not directly questioned, it should be. Are Angela Merkel, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Ursula von der Leyen really the best a man can get? Can you really take the light of critical inquiry seriously if it can only be shone at those who have already been determined to be evil? So we pretend the Ukrainian state isn't a cesspool of corruption and shame, but rather the bastion of good against evil. That the EU isn't a bureaucratic hellscape that hates its citizens. Or that the US isn't going to industrially and culturally decline along with its demographics.
The big question is: Are any of the big movements that now define modern society worth dying for? Is continuing the status quo of 'good' in anyone's best interest except those who are evil? The cynic in me believes you can always draft enough young men to die in any war no matter what. And that indignance towards dying for the ruling class has and always will exist. And maybe I'm in that bubble of indignance. But I want to believe that things are different now. The current state of affairs is just so ridiculous.
This argument might have more force when Britain invades France, massacres civilians, tries to annex half the départements and gets hundreds of thousands of British men killed in meat-grinder assaults.
The Russian regime legitimises itself to its subjects through whataboutery. If the Russian state lies, steals, kills and rigs elections, well every government (probably) does that too so all countries are equally bad. I can understand why Russian grannies who only watch state TV might believe that, but do you really believe it?
I believe the consequences of invading another country are always gruesome. Nevertheless it is the case that leaders make calls to war. I doubt you will find many who believe that the brutality of the fighting is to be blamed on the leaders who assumed the necessity of the war. Unless you're making an HBD case relating to Slavs and Anglos. The British have their own history of failed military ventures, after all. I'm not sure people would as earnestly buy the English bulldog bravado about their 'just' wars if they had GoPro footage from them.
I'd contrast Russia's failed military ventures with Britain's failed domestic policy. Importing millions of fighting age men willingly and then setting up a system of governance and justice that marginalizes the natives to a point where thousands of little girls can be raped by foreigners with little to no interference is, as far as statecraft goes, kind of worse. Leaving aside the brazen effort of population replacement. Which is maintained by the state through a network of media suffocation and political suppression.
Russian grannies might watch state TV, but nigh every man, woman and child in the west watches Netflix. I don't particularly care for the weight people put on the distinction between state propaganda and propaganda that happens to not be directly from the state. There's obviously a program being run by every government to get a message out there or to follow a message. And to drown out other messages. To that extent I don't believe the average granny in the UK is much better informed than the average granny in Russia in any way that matters. British people in general seem just as stupid as others when it comes to discerning reality from fictional propaganda.
The UK invaded Iceland in 1940 and the Faroe Islands (then under the Danish crown), neither with loss of life. Iceland was never returned to Denmark. But I'd consider that more the exception that proves the rule.
There's also the US invasion of Grenada, which was not bloodless, but nor was it gruesome. Same with Panama.
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