Monday, August 7, 2017

no, i still think you're not quite sure where i stand on this. try to listen, rather than fall into a false dichotomy.

so, as stated repeatedly, i'm an anarchist. first, that puts me on the left. you see that spectrum up there? see where i am? alright. and, second that means i want less government in people's day-to-day lives, or at least less formalities and less bureaucracy. and, that applies to immigration policy as well.

so, what does "less government" mean, when applied to immigration?

1) it would mean less enforcement around what you call "illegal" immigration.
2) it would mean scaling down efforts to actively bring people into the country - so, less "legal" immigration.

that is what "less government" on the immigration file actually means, applied in a consistent way that is actually thought through.

but, less immigration enforcement does not negate the principle of democracy, which asserts that people have the right to govern themselves, locally, how they see fit. and, while i would not vote against entry for people based upon ethnicity, i would vote against entry for people based upon religion.

nor does less border enforcement imply accepting a breakdown of labour laws. migrants need to have the same labour rights as everybody else and should expect to be treated the same way as other workers are.

does that make my ideology some kind of alternative? well, it's certainly an ideological alternative to neo-liberalism, and it's mirror reflections on the pseudo-left. but, what i'm expressing is a rather ideologically orthodox type of rather bland leftism. and, if you don't recognize it or think it's extreme, it's because you're the one that's not familiar with a leftist approach.

the right has historically not been strictly ideological, so it's been able to express itself in ways that uphold and contradict itself at the same time. hitler and churchill were both able to exist on the right, while holding disagreements that were strong enough to nearly destroy the whole fucking planet. but, you can trace them ideologically backwards to the same principles of a strong, centralized bureaucratic elite. they are equally valid expressions of the dominant ideas on the right, as expressed from hobbes through to burke and beyond, without having anything close to a comparable theory. terms like "alt-right" can consequently at least have some kind of coherent meaning, as it is possible to build an alternative to the right without exiting it.

the left is too ideological for this. while leftists are of course famous for their infighting, there is a simple question for belonging on the left, as well: do you advocate for worker self-management? this implies support for grassroots democracy. if you do not answer that question in the affirmative, you cannot be on the left. and, this has been the case all along. there is no such litmus test on the right, which opens it up to these alternative expressions of dominance and authoritarianism that leftists have always discarded out of hand (despite having sometimes lost to fraudulent expressions of the pseudo-left, which is the correct terminology on this side of the spectrum).

this term, "alt-left", is consequently not of the left but an attempt by the right to limit the realm of discourse and expunge any premise of the left from history. it's an attempt to enforce an end of history. in this narrative, "the left" becomes synonymous with the identity politics that anchor neo-liberalism in place. that is, "the left" becomes some kind of marginally less violent concept of capitalism. the next step is to reduce it to a slogan to divide opposition with.

but, a leftist can only frown and laugh at the absurdity of the discourse - while acknowledging that we perhaps will not object too strenuously upon being accused of offering an alternative to capitalism, or should become too upset at the elite for presenting an argument that renders them so fully irrelevant. for, this is the true graveyard of political elites: irrelevance.
it is actually not difficult to tell the difference between marijuana and skunk excretion. the similarity is only at the top of the smell. marijuana only exists at this top level of the scent, whereas skunk plunges much deeper into a multifaceted odour.

so, i'm tempted to conclude that somebody in the neighbourhood really needs to take a walk, late at night. but, the aroma consistently delves too deep for the cause to actually be marijuana. 

instead, i'm left to conclude that there is somewhat of a struggle going on between cats and skunks, out there.