The United States as Brazil

An important discussion, under the heading "The Western Crisis," is going on at Lawrence Auster's View From the Right.

It's prompted by the sense of shock and Angst that most traditional conservatives are feeling as they are forced to admit that they have been, not simply eclipsed or beaten in a skirmish, but defeated. Marginalized. Both prospective candidates for the presidency are left-liberals. The great majority of senators and congressmen are as well. And there is every evidence that the population as a whole, inundated with leftist propaganda from the media, academia, and government, is on board.

Even most so-called conservatives, or what Auster calls "right-liberals," accept the basic premises of modern liberalism: ever-increasing state control, de facto open borders, a revived welfare state, and permanent legal and extra-legal preferences for all "minorities" — that is, everyone except white, non-Hispanic males.

Some of the commenters are seriously discussing civil war. And although I can't imagine how a civil war could accomplish anything but kill off many of the remaining partisans of liberty, I understand the frustration that entices some to apocalyptic thoughts. The transformation of the United States into a quasi-Marxist closed society based on an ethnic spoils system, with heavy-handed suppression of non-politically correct speech, is gathering speed. It has already very nearly come to pass in Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway.

Commenter Dan McCulloch writes:

Our end will be like ... Brazil. We are undergoing the Brazilification of America. After which, there will be factions, group identity politics, terrorism, oppression, little race-based enclaves, multi-culti polyglot cities, no-go areas, bribery, corruption, poverty, Marxism, and pot-holes. (And lots of pot-holes.) But life will go on. It just won't be very much to our liking. Whites are going to have to learn to function as an ethno-centric minority within the larger population, in much the way Jews have done for the last 1500 years.

A commenter named Hannon writes:

What modern liberals have done so deftly is to suffuse national life with their version of morality and at the same time not threaten the economic basis of our existence. At least some of them recognize that their own ideological success would be impossible without the underlying material success of previous generations of thinkers, workers and investors. Their politics has avoided the effective promotion of collective bargaining (rather it has declined), nationalization of linchpin industries and similar oppressions.

That's bang on, I think. Today's quasi-Marxists, whether out of careful strategizing or just instinct, have learned from the failure of Communism. They know that overt social class war and nationalizing big business won't play with today's masses or even intellectuals. What they have contrived to do is insert their repressive values — what some call "cultural Marxism" —into the fabric of society, while leaving intact "private enterprise" (albeit with lots of ideological ballast like affirmative action). On top of that, instead of urging the lumpenproletariat to rise up and smite their masters, they've seen to it that the economy is artificially pumped up with E-Z credit so the plebs can knock themselves out with video games, 200-channel cable TV, SUVs, pygmy mansions, and all the rest of the entertainment and material high-tech opiates.

Who cares if you must censor yourself every time you speak in public, lest you be anathematized as a "racist," "sexist," "Islamophobe"? Or if you must openly or tacitly agree to have your country invaded by the millions? The fact is, most people would rather have what they consider prosperity than liberty. Even if an immigrant takes your job for half the pay, even if your own race is destined to become a minority, even if everyone except whites is encouraged to celebrate their ethnicity — the Liberal Establishment has convinced you that that's just the way it is, no sense fighting, it's inevitable. Anyway, you've got ESPN and the Comedy Channel, so what's your beef?

The comments (as well as Auster's own postings) at VFR show that there are intelligent people who resist the country's slide into a balkanized, hyper-egalitarian, thought-controlled nanny state. As smart and articulate as they are, though, few can offer with any confidence a way to induce their fellow citizens to choose freedom over comfortable serfdom, as the night advances, as sleep overcomes us.