The Suicide of the Liberals

“There exists a liberal policy of trade, church, and education, but absolutely no liberal politics, only a liberal critique of politics. The systematic theory of liberalism concerns almost solely the internal struggle against the power of the state.”

Carl Schmitt

With Russia and China strengthening their military ties, with North Korea blowing bridges and tracks leading to South Korea, with threats of a communist quarantine (or soft blockade) against Taiwan, we find that the West is under military pressure from a global coalition of Marxist-Leninist powers. And who dares talk about it? Nobody wants to admit that we are being backed into a corner, step by step, by communists. We hear no rallying cry from our leaders. Some will talk against Russia, others against China, still others will mention something they call “American Marxism,” but hardly anyone puts the whole thing together. We are facing a coalition of countries which have, at their disposal, a vast fifth column inside the United States.

Here, before me, is Trevor Loudon’s book, Stealth: Kamala Harris’s Communist Roots. Many of the details are stomach-churning. The Democratic candidate for president has been close to communists her whole life. She has been a helpmate to the communist movement. She is already the vice president of the United States, seeking to become the president. The fact that Russia is still run by not-so-closet communists (like Vladimir Putin), makes Harris even more dangerous; for she deceptively pretends to oppose Moscow when her ideology aligns with the old communist bloc.

Internationally the situation is going from bad to worse. Russian President Vladimir Putin is threatening the West with nuclear war. Of course, Tucker Carlson thinks Putin has been misunderstood. I wonder what there is to misunderstand in the brutality of someone who threatens nuclear annihilation against you for trying to stop yet another Ukrainian genocide. Tucker Carlson suggests, of course, that it is not Putin’s fault. According to Carlson the CIA is to blame. Shame on America and its spies. Like the pounding of a drum, the constant and steady theme is America’s wickedness and stupidity. Many on the left blame America for racism, global warming, and exploiting the Third World. Many on the right think America deserves to be wiped out, that America has provoked Russia. Behind this way of thinking we find grand conspiracy theories involving “Jews” or “globalists” or “bankers.”

The problem with conspiracy theory is the theory part. Empty speculation is used as a format for promoting grotesque disinformation. The target audience is titillated, disoriented, and demoralized by “proofs” of an elite conspiracy to exploit and pauperize the masses. Here is the ideal format for subverting society. Meanwhile, the communist movement advances at home and abroad. Only nobody notices. Everyone seeks elsewhere for the responsible villains. Speculation is piled on speculation as dots are misconnected. Too bad for the millions who are confused; for the communist conspiracy is not a matter of speculation. It is historical fact, and it was outlined by Vladimir Lenin in a work titled What is to be Done? Lenin outlined his plan for a conspiratorial socialist movement. And he took over Russia with that movement in 1917.

Today we see various communist-led countries being helped by Moscow. Recently we saw the communist dictator of Nicaragua verbally assailing the President of Ukraine as a “Nazi.” President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua favors Russia because he knows that Russia is still ruled by communists. It is Ortega’s international duty, as a comrade, to support Vladimir Putin. It is also the international duty of communist North Korea to send troops to the Ukraine front. And this is why communist China also helps Russia. Yet the West has not noticed the communist aspect to the war in Europe. We dare not begin to talk about this because it would inevitably lead to questions about communists in Washington, London, Paris, and Berlin.

The truth of the situation must be told. The communist bloc has been revived. In fact, the communists have always been with us, masked by pseudo-democratic poses and free market reforms. According to communist defectors, the socialist camp has been following a long-range plan. It is a plan the West knows almost nothing about. Of course, we can see that America is being subverted. Yet we are forestalled from concluding that communists are the instigators. It has been drilled into our thinking that Reagan defeated communism. Meanwhile, conspiracy theorists divert us with references to the Bavarian Illuminati or shapeshifting reptilians or Bohemian Grove. Better to believe something completely crazy than admit the communists fooled us back in 1991.

Here is an idea: Liberals do not like to admit they have enemies unless those enemies are fictitious. Talk about real enemies and liberals get scared. According to Carl Schmitt, true liberal politics denies the friend/enemy distinction. If you imagine an enemy, liberals will say you are paranoid. It cannot be helped, on the other hand, if the first question of politics is – who are your enemies and who are your friends? Liberals do not want to answer this question. They prefer to use money to convert enemies into partners. “We can both get rich by trade,” say the liberals. “We can live in peace.” There is some truth in this, but it is a partial truth. Liberals imagine they are playing a win/win game rather than a zero-sum game. The Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong once asked, “Why sew up the businessman’s pockets?” In other words, let the liberal businessmen get rich while communism acquires more power. This has been China’s policy these past thirty years.

The liberal thinks of himself as enlightened. He is in favor of peace and prosperity. He hopes to turn the world into a great big shopping mall. This tendency is not a conspiracy. It is part of the capitalist’s win/win thinking. Communist strategists, starting with Mao Zedong, know all about this. They have understood, better than anyone, that liberal businessmen believe in the primacy of economics – which boils down to a negation of politics. Liberals believe in money over guns. Communists believe in guns over money. Political power, said Mao, is based on guns.

Here we can see, in conceptual terms, the problem that confronts Western society. Our system has evolved into a bureaucratic/plutocratic welfare state where economic concerns have come to eclipse political concerns, where the state serves economic interests ahead of national defense interests. America’s political class is largely focused on economic payoffs, wealth redistribution, and economic growth. In effect, such a system constitutes a political nihilism which necessarily damages the society that supposes itself to be governed and defended by it. As a system, it is devolving into a perverse set of parasitic structures. It is less and less able to defend itself against enemies foreign and domestic.

Liberal capitalism’s unwillingness to recognize enemies helps to explain why America has opened its borders to criminal gangs, terrorists, and other enemy auxiliaries. It explains why we have allowed our nuclear arsenal to rot away. It explains why we have built up our enemies by investing in them. The socialist camp has learned to take advantage of our liberal economic focus. Since we cannot tell friend from foe, liberal capitalism has allowed illiberal socialists to take over its school systems, major corporations, banks, the healthcare system. Whereas liberal businessmen have traditionally worked to keep the government off their backs, socialist businessmen are less inhibited and more empowered by big government. Billions can be stolen by socialist businessmen who work with state and federal agencies. The same situation occurs in communist China and the former Soviet Union where the oligarchs began their careers as secret creatures of the state security apparatus.

As a side note: Since the time of Edmund Burke, conservatism has been a kind of liberalism which respects tradition (i.e., especially Christianity and the family). Conservatives, like classical liberals, prefer small government (i.e., limited government). As opposed to the liberals and conservatives, it is the socialists who have appropriated the liberal label while expanding government. Everyone today confuses liberals with socialists. This is due to our present-day habit of misusing language. It is true, of course, that the socialists and the liberals have certain goals in common. They both hope to unite humanity under a global superstate in which nations no longer exist and wars are a thing of the past. In his book, The Concept of the Political, Schmitt argues that there is no such thing as a “world community” or a “world nation.” World government is not possible because it is a contradiction in terms. Those who believe in the prospect of universal peace and universal brotherhood are blockheads whose project will bring about a war of all against all; for everything built on a misunderstanding must come to grief. It is in this matter that we see, most clearly, why socialism and liberalism are ideologies of disorganization and dissolution. The structure of modern society, already complex and problematic, is increasingly disordered by socialist and liberal principles.

In attempting to make a world government, whether liberal or socialist, we find that the nation is intentionally undermined. Yet the nation-state is the most viable kind of state for the present age. It has been a vehicle of progress, freedom, and enlightenment. Furthermore, a nation that hopes to maintain unity must insist on the assimilation of alien elements. Contrary to liberalism and socialism, a nation that hopes to maintain order must have an appropriate system of authority grounded in wisdom and goodness.

Do we find this system in Russia or China? Or do we find something better in the West? And yet, the West’s moral qualities are debunked. Europeans are made to feel guilty. In fact, America is blamed by the socialists as “the enemy of mankind.” Why is America rich and powerful? The socialist says the Americans have been robbing the peoples of the Third World. America’s destruction, therefore, is the only way to liberate the world from the chains of capitalism. This is where socialism is going, and it is ultimately genocidal. To tell billions of people around the world that the Americans have robbed them, is not just an incitement to war. It is an incitement to genocidal war. Americans do not seem to notice this incitement. They think of their country as invincible. In history, however, there are no invincible countries. With modern air and sealift, America can be invaded with surprising rapidity. With nuclear rockets America’s defenses can be pulverized in half an hour. With biological weapons, America can be brought to its knees.

Our liberalism does not allow us to acknowledge any of this. Surely there must be a way to preserve our free institutions while recovering our state. Indeed, we need a federal government that will defend us. We need leaders who can tell friends from enemies, who will stand up to Russia and China. And most of all, we need someone who will confront communist subversion at home.

Is it hoping for too much?