July 9, 2020

USA: There Is No Such Thing As White Nationalism. Why You Should Be a Nationalist. America Is Not A Racist Nation.

Dennis Prager fireside chat about White Nationalism.

๐Ÿ‘‡ I typed a transcript for you below ๐Ÿ‘‡

Nationalism is a beautiful thing. There's no such thing as White Nationalism. That's the irony.

What is White Nationalism? White is a race. Aren't most of the people in Iceland White? Are they part of White Nationalism?

How can you be a White Nationalist when there is no White nation? There are nations composed largely of Whites. But that's a separate issue.

The people in Iceland don't walk around thinking yay for White. They think yay for Iceland. Big difference.

So this notion oh if the President of the United States mentions Nationalism it's something about White Supremacy. That's absurd. The whole point in American Nationalism is that it contains people of every race. Nationlism ends race. It doesn't celebrate race. It celebrates nation. And it's a beautiful thing to have a national identity. Not just human being. What does that mean? You're a member of a biological species known as homosapiens? That's your identity? Yay homosapiens. Who are we going to root for in the World Cup, homosapiens? It's preposterous and bad, morally bad.

It's a beautiful thing to have nationalism. The Left hates it. That's part of the great ideological battle in America and the West. People unthinkingly go oh yeah Nationalism geez that's bad. What's bad about it? People of every different race and every different religion united as ONE NATION, what can be more beautiful? Who are you going to give power to if it isn't diffused? Among states in the United States, among nations in the world. I don't want Brussels to run Europe and I don't want the UN to run the world. That is the issue. Long live good Nationalism. What's the moral alternative?


PragerU published December 17, 2020: Why You Should Be a Nationalist

๐Ÿ‘‡ VIDEO TRANSCRIPT ๐Ÿ‘‡

Britain votes to leave the European Union. The United States elects a president who says he’ll put “America First.”

Around the world, nationalism is winning elections. Many see this nationalist revival as the great danger of our time, fearing that nationalism will take us back to a more primitive and racist past.

But it wasn’t long ago that great political figures such as Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt, David Ben-Gurion and Mahatma Gandhi, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher recognized what I call the virtue of nationalism.

So, what is this virtue?

A nationalist believes that the world is governed best when nations are free to chart their own independent course, cultivating their traditions and pursuing their interests without interference. Nationalism is not about racism. All nations are internally diverse. And it isn’t about isolationism.

Of course, nations can a pursue a variety of different policies in diplomacy and trade. Nationalism is the opposite of imperialism—or globalism or transnationalism—which are all names for the attempt to bring peace and prosperity to the world by uniting mankind under a single political authority.

The debate between nationalists and globalists, then, is over whether we should aspire to a world of many independent nations—or to be one unified super-state, like the enlightened “Federation” of the Star Trek movies. A case can be made for both sides of the argument. But for the last 30 years—really, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of the Soviet Union—the “one world“ side has been dominant.

Today, this is changing. Maybe not among elites, but among ordinary citizens—or, as they are known in America, “the deplorables.” It turns out that a lot of people still think good borders make good neighbors.

It’s hardly surprising that people want to preserve the way of life they and their ancestors built up over centuries, the way of life they believe is best. It’s human nature. Our strongest loyalties are to those who are closest to us: to our family; then the larger community or “tribe”, and finally, to the nation.

Long ago, it was discovered that the key to human freedom is to build political life out of this natural loyalty. By putting decision-making in the hands of the family, the community, and the independent nation, you could get people to cooperate with one another, join in the common defense and willingly obey laws. The only alternative to this kind of community and nation-based politics is to use force—to coerce obedience. In the 20th century, communism and Nazism both sought to impose a universal vision at gunpoint. Both the communists and the Nazis were imperialists: They wanted to eliminate the independent nations of the world.

Nationalism holds that borders are crucial: The border is where each nation’s ambitions should stop. This idea first appears in the Bible, where Moses gives borders to Israel and tells the Jews they’ll be punished if they trouble their neighbors.

True to its biblical roots, the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century made the independent nation-state the political cornerstone of the modern world. When Henry VIII declared that England would no longer obey dictates from Rome, he became Europe’s first true nationalist.

Soon, additional nations declared their independence: the Dutch from Spain, and America from Britain, to cite just two examples. The competition among these newly independent peoples led to an explosion of innovation, bringing unprecedented progress in science, industry and government.

For nearly four hundred years, the principle of national independence served as the foundation for a better, freer world. But World War I and World War II changed everything. Traumatized by these catastrophic conflicts, many now seek comfort in a simplistic narrative, ceaselessly repeated: that “nationalism caused two world wars and the Holocaust.” But this is one of the great untruths of our time. Adolph Hitler was no nationalist. He was an imperialist. If his ambitions had been limited to ruling Germans, it would have been terrible for Germany, but the French, the British, the Russians, and everyone else would have been spared a world war.

Sadly, European elites learned the wrong lesson, believing that independent nations are inherently dangerous. Better, they reasoned, that all countries should live under one government.

In 1992, this vision gave birth to the European Union. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher hated the idea. She didn’t want the bureaucrats in Brussels making decisions for Brits in Birmingham. But in the utopian 1990s, Britain thought it was better to dump Thatcher and go with Brussels. It’s the spirit of Margaret Thatcher and, indeed, of Henry VIII, that reasserted itself in Britain’s vote for independence from Europe in June 2016. Donald Trump tapped into the same spirit of nationalism five months later, in November 2016.

Nationalism is making a comeback. If you care about freedom, you should hope it succeeds.

I’m Yoram Hazony, author of The Virtue of Nationalism, for Prager University.


PragerU published January 18, 2016: Is America Racist?

๐Ÿ‘‡ VIDEO TRANSCRIPT ๐Ÿ‘‡

Is racism still a major problem in Ame­­rica­? President Barack Obama certainly thinks so. He said that racism is “in our DNA.” Really? If racism is in our DNA, doesn’t that mean it's immutable, unchangeable?

But America has changed -- and dramatically so. In 1960, 60% of Americans said they would never vote for a black president. Almost 50 years later, the black man who said racism is in America’s DNA was elected president, and four years later re-elected. That’s only the most obvious example of racial progress. There are many others.

Take inter-racial marriage. As William H. Frey of the Brookings Institution wrote, “Sociologists have traditionally viewed multiracial marriage as a benchmark for the ultimate stage of assimilation of a particular group into society.” Black-white marriages were still illegal in 16 states until 1967. And a 1958 Gallup poll found that only 4% of Americans approved of black-white marriages. Today that number is 87%. In 1960, of all marriages by blacks, only 1.7 percent were black-white. Today, it’s 12 percent and rising.

Now what about “racial profiling” and abuse of blacks by police? Doesn’t that prove that racism remains a major problem? In the summer of 2014, Ferguson, Missouri became ground zero for this accusation when a white policeman shot and killed an unarmed black teenager. While a Department of Justice investigation of the incident cleared the officer of any wrongdoing, it did accuse the city’s police department of racial bias.

But what was the Justice Department report’s most headline grabbing stat? The gap between the percentage of blacks living in Ferguson -- 67% -- and the percentage of those stopped by police for traffic violation who are black -- 85%. An 18 point discrepancy.

Racism, right? Not so fast.

Blacks comprise 25% of New York City, but account for 55% of those stopped for traffic offenses -- a 30-point discrepancy, far bigger than that of Ferguson. Why isn’t the NYPD, a department that is now majority minority, considered even more institutionally racist than the Ferguson PD? The answer is you cannot have an honest discussion about police conduct without an honest discussion of black crime.

Though blacks are 13% of the population, they commit 50% of the nation’s homicides, and almost always the victim is another black person, just as most white homicides are against other whites. In 2012, according to the Center for Disease Control, police killed 123 blacks, while, by the way, killing over twice that many whites. But that same year blacks killed over 6,000 people -- again, mostly other blacks.

What about traffic stops? Unlike when responding to dispatch calls, police officers exercise more discretion when it comes to traffic stops. Therefore “racist” cops can have a field day when it comes to traffic stops, right?

Actually, no.

The National Institute of Justice is the research agency of the Department of Justice. In 2013, the National Institute of Justice published a study called "Race, Trust and Police Legitimacy." Three out of four black drivers admitted that they were stopped by the police for a "legitimate reason." Blacks, compared to whites, were on average more likely to commit speeding and other traffic offenses. The Institute wrote, “Seatbelt usage is chronically lower among black drivers. If a law enforcement agency aggressively enforces seatbelt violations, police will stop more black drivers."

The NIJ’s conclusion? These numerical disparities result from "differences in offending" -- in other words, not because of racism.

Similarly, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also found that blacks violate traffic laws at higher rates than whites -- in every offense, whether it’s driving without a license, not wearing a seat belt, not using a child safety seat or speeding.

Is there still racism in America? Of course, there is. But racism is not in America’s DNA. Recent history and a lot of research and data prove it.

As liberal Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson said, America, “is now the least racist white-majority society in the world; has a better record of legal protections of minorities than any other society, white or black; offers more opportunities to a greater number of black persons than any other society, including all of those of Africa."

Patterson, by the way, is black.

I’m Larry Elder for Prager University.
UPDATE 7/9/20 at 3:16pm: Added info below.

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