I first heard about Dark Enlightenment or the Neoreactionary movement probably a decade ago, but I was an Obamabot and just thought "Huh, weird, anyway".
I finally sat down and spent a few hours reading An Open Letter to Open Minded Progressives. Especially as someone who already had tried to rid himself of progressive thoughts and beliefs, it was quite a ride.
https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2008/04/open-letter-to-open-minded-progressives/
Overall I find his ideas and arguments fascinating. The claim that our modern progressives as the direct heirs of Protestantism/Whigs is quite the claim, but I think it makes sense. The way that he lays out the history of the Whigs and the Tories and their respective religious factions and how the Whigs won and that their religion and ideology is the literal foundation of our culture to me rings at a bare minimum as partially correct.
It just makes too much sense that something like the Inner Light doctrine would naturally evolve into "No human is illegal", or whatever slogan they're throwing around about how we're all exactly equal and the same. Even the sect I was raised in (Mormonism...I know) experimented in communistic communes and I can't even tell the difference between Mormons (The heads of the church, not necessarily the individual adherents) and Globalists anymore, which I think was inevitable due to the way that they proselytize globally.
When he brings up the Malvern Conference I honestly was speechless. A giant representative coalition of American Christians came together to produce a document demanding No Borders, One World Government, International Control of all Armies and Navies, etc, is almost unbelievable. Unless he's correct that whether folks are aware of it or not, nearly all of us are Whigs, who would make argument for such things and have consistently for hundreds of years?
I assume some people here have read him before, what do you think? I find his diagnosis and historical narrative of our country incredibly persuasive, but I'm not sold on his prescription (Restoration of the Stuarts). If nothing else, I am quite moved by the argument that we're all Whigs. Obviously not literally 100% of Americans, just like 99%.
That's a good way of putting it. I've never discussed the topic of the founding of america without a cloud of "And thank god the RIGHT people won because we are champions of democracy" progressive thought in the air and so to even hear say, an actual opinion from a tory in 1700's England without editing, is honestly hard to properly comprehend. The idea that our founding fathers rebelled against people with opinions who wrote them down that I can read myself never properly occurred to me. Even in my best attempts to educate myself I reached for, at best, historical compilations with the stamp of approval from the cathedral.
It's common for them to play those games, but even from my perspective, there's definitely a "thank god we won" because look at what Britain's system turned into.
Honestly, the English felt what we felt when the British Parliament behaved the way it did with Brexit. The Remainers even argued "Parliamentary Sovereignty" when they utterly rejected multiple overtures to finish Brexit. That same argument was made by that same Parliament against the Americans who were complaining about Taxes, Tariffs, and military governance; and a rejection of state government; when the British parliament did whatever the hell it wanted.
Basically, American colonies claimed their natural rights as Englishmen were being violated (not by the King), but by Parliament who was operating without any consent or input from the colonies or their representatives. In response, Parliament claimed "Virtual Representation" through "Parliamentary Sovereignty". Basically, "we're the parliament, so we do what's best for Britain, which is how you are represented, so your complaints aren't valid because were're doing what's best for Britain."
The Colonials tried damn near every imaginable pathway in the fucking book for 30 years in order to get Parliament to listen even once, and they just got more obstinate. The Stamp Act set everyone on fire because the British Parliament just gave themselves unlimited authority to tax whatever the hell they wanted, with absolutely no consent, no negotiation, no discussion, and then they'd throw anyone in jail who didn't pay it. So people refused, and got really fucking angry that they were ignored again after years of obstinate retardation. Protests were had, letters were written, speeches were given, mockery was made, but things were getting pretty tense. The British Parliament decided that now was a good time to tax tea. The tax was written in such a way that other costs & duties didn't have to be paid, so the tax meant that the Americans could pay less for Tea. The Colonials figured out the scam still meant they agreed to be taxed illegally, and dumped that shit into Boston harbor. When they protested, rioted, smashed shit, burned shit in effigy, the total disorder finally got the British Parliament to take notice to calm the situation down. They repealed the Stamp Act... and immediately passed the Coercive Acts and sent armed troops to Boston to launch a military occupation of the city.
Remember, the Colonials thought they were English. This was illegal in England, but the British Parliament just declared that they had the right to do it in the Empire because it's totes different. ... This is why you have a written constitution.
At every single step, the British Parliament, for 30 years, pushed the colonials to rebellion. The reason they finally started shooting at each other, and why Independence made sense at all, was because conversation, philosophically went like this:
Colonials: "We're English. We're literally, ethnically, English; we are English subjects; we are loyal to the King; we have English Rights."
Parliament: "Fuck you. You're not English. You're British. I can't see you from here, so I get to do whatever I want, kill yourself."
Colonials: "We have English Rights."
Parliament: "You're not English. I'll fucking kill you."
Colonials: "King the Parliament has gone fucking mad!"
King George: "He's right. You're not English. I'll fucking kill you too."
Colonials: "I... alright, fine!"
ColonialsAmericans: "Okay, we're not English. EAT SHIT."King George: "THIS IS FUCKING TREASON"
Parliament: "REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
Anyways, Madison and Adams are pretty good figures to read about how they approached the Constitution and why they did what they did within the concept of Liberal philosophy.
However, Blackstone is a particularly amazing read. He's not a founding father, but he has a major influence on both Liberal philosophy and the American revolution. His explanation of why you must have a property requirement for voting in a free society sounds counter-intuitive, but when you see how his explanations have come true, it really shows that your intuition has been poisoned by people making sure you don't realize that the shit that he was saying 300 years ago makes perfect fucking sense.
I'll definitely read Blackstone and thank you for your perspective. I have first been reading Brutus who was the most interesting author mentioned by Moldbug and I thought really understanding the anti-federalist case would be a good start to actually understanding our history from more perspectives.
I definitely think our revolution was a move overall towards freedom and liberty, I just thought we had finished there and that a representative republic ensures the most freedom for the most blah blah blah. I definitely agree on restricting voting rights in some way at least as a start, so I'm curious to see what Blackstones predictions were, as reading Brutus's has seemed rather prophetic.
I can sum it up for you at the moment to give you an idea.
I tried to explain how his argument worked here.