Liberalism

[YouCanCallMeAl]

James Lindsay's analysis on wokism is excellent.

[rachel]

I quite like the bit about the failure of Liberalism, it's basically eating itself.

Thinking Clearly about Debanking
DAVID MCGROGAN
https://newsfromuncibal.substack.com/p/ ... -debanking

Debanking - the practice of banks closing accounts, or denying services, on the basis of political belief - seems set to become one of the major battlegrounds of the ‘culture war’. And its salience tells us a great deal about what is at stake in that wider struggle, and its intellectual origins. Sadly, however, this has been obscured by a lot of muddy thinking, which it will take some time to clear up.

Let’s begin with the question: is ‘debanking’ justified in a free society, or not? This issue is raised, with customary contrarianism, by Matthew Parris in The Spectator this week. Although he doesn’t put the point in quite this way, he reminds us that the problem with debanking is that it really puts two freedoms in opposition to one another. On the one hand, our instincts tell us that it is wrong for a bank to close somebody’s account - knowing the baleful consequences this will wreak in a heavily financialised society like our own - on the basis of that person having expressed views which the owners of the bank dislike. But on the other, it is distasteful in a free society that the operators of a business should be forced to trade with anybody; the whole point of a free market is that it enshrines freedom of choice.

On the face of it, these two freedoms are not readily reconciled. And here the issue should also call to mind one of the other intractable problems of our current moment - the extent to which privately owned social media companies should be free to censor and/or ban users on their platforms based on the views that they express. There, like here, the question is which freedom we prefer: that to express one’s views, or that to associate freely?

What we are talking about, then, is really a recurrent problem within societies that purport to be liberal - i.e., what happens when freedoms conflict. Leaving aside the obvious truth that proponents of debanking (and censorship of speech on social media, for that matter) are often disingenuous and only seem to discover a faith in liberal values when it suits them to do so, this should serve to remind us that the culture war between progressives and conservatives is for the most part really a division within liberalism as to which types of freedom are preferred, and in what contexts. Broadly speaking, progressives prioritise the freedom to choose or express - it isn’t always clear which - one’s identity, sexuality, etc., as well as other related freedoms (such as reproductive freedom, the freedom to cross borders, and so on). Conservatives or ‘classical liberals’, meanwhile, tend to prioritise freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, freedom from state interference, and so on. There is more going on in the ‘culture war’ than this, but reflecting on this basic observation should at least help us to dismiss the argument that this is a conflict between liberals and Marxists: it largely is not. The fundamental division is between two types of liberal, if we define liberalism as the doctrine that the role of the state is to promote freedom.

So how do we decide which freedom ‘wins’, in any given context? It is here that critics of liberalism - Carl Schmitt and Stanley Fish being two prominent examples - site their most pointed and acute attack. For such critics, liberalism gives us no principled basis for such a decision. Ultimately, what it comes down to is power. The loudest voices get to decide which freedom matters. Whether debanking or social media censorship is allowed to proliferate, in what circumstances, and in respect of which views, will just depend on whoever is holding the levers of power.

This makes liberalism itself a big lie, according to these crities: it is not a political system that promotes freedom, but an unstable and vicious struggle between competing preferences and interest groups, to which the victor go the spoils and the losers, nothing. In this perspective, what we are currently witnessing, and what we describe as a ‘culture war’, is simply a playing out of the inherent self-defeating properties of liberalism across the cultural landscape. Whether or not the ‘woke progressive left’, or whatever you wish to call them, will get to impose their vision upon the world is simply a matter of domination versus submission and nothing more.

This leads us back to Matthew Parris. Parris, in trying to make the claim that what is at stake is merely a matter of principle (freedom of association in a free market), is in one sense simply being a useful idiot, pretending to be a good, neutral liberal but really just furthering the aims of one side in the broader power struggle. Lacking any principled basis for preferring freedom of association to freedom of expression in this particular context, he ends up simply ratifying the power play of one side over the other, and unwittingly therefore is just participating in the process whereby purported arguments of ‘principle’ are deployed to beat the other side over the head.

Is this, then, all that we are doing - simply engaging in a glorified shouting match? It can often seem that way. But here it is useful to step back for a moment and reflect on what it is that we think that the law ought to be doing if we value living in a stable, pluralistic society. This will vary. It is undoubtedly true that generally speaking it is preferable if business owners are free to make contracts with those who they wish to, and this is indeed a very old feature of English law (though a complicated one for reasons that I will have to go into elsewhere). But it is also the case that we make many exceptions to that rule - most notably when a business owner is making his or her choice on discriminatory grounds, such as on the basis of race or sex. In those circumstances, we say that the overarching value of pluralism has to win out, and that freedom of association has to give way to the extent that we would like to protect that overarching value. The alternative is that portions of society will be left out, and that resentments - and instability - will brew as a consequence.

In the case of debanking the same reasoning surely plays out. Thinking of the subject as a war between two freedoms, association versus expression, gets us nowhere. But thinking about it in terms of the vision of society which we wish to secure helps cut through. Do we want to live in a society in which people can be denied access to so basic a utility as banking based on the views they express, however prominent their profile? It takes a special kind of blinkeredness of vision to fail to see that such a practice cannot be consonant with life in a stable, pluralistic democracy - one cannot indeed have a stable polity in which large swathes of the population could at any moment lose access to finance simply on the basis of what they say. Yes, there might be edge cases about which reasonable people can disagree, but the basic position must surely be that banks - like certain other types of actor, such as utility companies - occupy so fundamental and privileged a position in society that the normal rules of freedom of association can’t be allowed to apply. The alternative is simply too potentially destabilising to contemplate.

In debating this issue, in other words, it is helpful if we try to look beyond soundbites and get at the underlying values - the ‘incompletely theorised agreement’ that we all can share. We might not agree on the details, but we can at least agree that it is better to live in a society which is stable, in which a plurality of views are accepted, and in which people are therefore not subject to arbitrary displays of power. From there, it is not difficult to reason our way to the position that debanking ought not to be permissable except in defined, and limited, exceptional cases.

[rachel]

Comment back to the last comment, again interesting about Liberalism and how it relates to public and private jurisdiction. And we can see PRIDE's point was to make what should be kept in the private, instead part of the public.

David

Re Thinking Clearly about De-banking

Wouldn’t thinking clearly, actually try and resolve the ‘incompletely theorised argument’ about freedoms?

I don’t think there is much agreement – we are in a land of newspeak where slavery is now freedom, you are being too nice. It’s the inability to create a theorised argument on freedom which has let us drift into our current total mess. It’s not just this banking issue which is at stake, there are a whole bunch of other ones – it is just that this one has the most momentum and ‘its so obviously wrong’ although we are still not exactly sure how to argue why about it. Classic conservative liberals do not know how to stem the tide because they are no longer ‘in power’, because they have generally conceded the common ground of objectivity and logic and so are all at sea with post modern progressive subjectivism. But progressive subjectivism is in the end all about power, power to influence and power to obtain the majority vote.

Matthew Parris throwing back, its just freedom of association in a free market is similar to throwing up the objection “what do you mean, you don’t like free speech absolutism”, when in fact free speech absolutism is a Trojan horse which destroys the idea of the ‘Golden rule’ and/or reciprocity which is in fact the true arbiter of freedom.

The point is no freedom was ever absolute in this extremist sense, the addition of absolutism makes it mean what it never can be. Freedom by definition must imply the ‘Golden rule’ and/or reciprocity. It is by giving freedom to the other that we allow it for ourselves, but it is in asserting the balance of reciprocity that a clear balance is drawn between so called competing freedoms. It is this balance which is the basis of a complete theorised argument.

For a human being to be empowered to express freedoms (diversity), as the progressives love to emphasis and a motive I basically agree with, requires that certain basic human needs are met (equality). These basic needs might be termed ‘the basic means of living’ - not something to be expanded through mission creep by progressives wanting to force their ideology through the back door.

The question is then to distinguish between basic means of living, which is the platform enabling freedom of expression, and the subsequent diverse freedom of expression itself. Reciprocity would demand that any diverse freedom of expression which disables or adversely affects another’s ability/or platform of expression through undermining their basic means of living, is dis-respectful and not being reciprocal. So a number of misdemeanours clearly fall into this category :- direct violence including speech immediately provoking it, the disrespect of private property, inappropriate prejudice such as racism etc – but also the modern trend of cancel culture, the disrespect of the common meanings of a common language through endless new speech codes, and not having an equal opportunity to partake of the public common wealth and means of living - would also all direct contradictions of reciprocity. Given how central the banking system is to the modern basic means of living this would clearly fit as a ‘basic means of living’. I think you will find that all the ones which should fit, will.

The apparent difficulty with freedom of association is that it is a diverse or private freedom and not a basic equal and public one. Its mixing the different freedom types up which get you in a muddle; is it a basic public freedom or is it a diverse private one? Freedom of association is a diverse private one. By private I do not mean keep it to yourself, I just mean its private and so potentially subject to all sorts of private whims. But as I said such whims cannot go so far as to destroy another’s basic public rights. Public basic rights always trump private diverse one, but one of the key points is that the basic ones are fairly limited, and hence basic.

To enact such a situation and for a government to preserve and encourage freedom would take a certain amount of regulation, especially where the distinction between private and public or equal or diverse is less obvious.

So where banks are concerned – because their basic service is so tied up with essential modern living it would be assumed that they were publicly orientated, both to customers and employees alike – so no private belief whimsy allowed. However if they wanted to provide a private service they could register to do so. Given the basic public orientation the government might have to limit this to ensure there is also a full service.

On sports clubs I think these would generally be public, as there is not really any private belief aspects about it – but it could reflect public distinctions such as male or female only sports as male and female compete separately.

Where places of culture, belief religious or political are concerned it is clear that they are basically private. This would also include the provision of political and religious services of various kinds as well.

There would clearly be organisation in between i.e. Hotel services – are these a basic right which enables another’s freedom of expression or is it a luxury and so initially subject to a private assumption. To avoid confusion they could just have to publically declare their private or public preference.

It is the basic understanding of the reciprocity of the ‘Golden rule’ allied to a distinction between basic means of living right (public equality) and diverse freedom of expression rights (private and diverse) which forms the proper basis for resolving most of the so called conflict between different freedoms.

The difficulty is that post modernism does not allow such distinctions, so the progressives will have none of it. Their MO is might is right, but the idea of reciprocity will surely be a weak point for them for they have to agree to it. (They have already debunked the equivalent idea of the ‘golden rule’ with some ‘platinum alternative’)

Of course to enact such an idea would mean a complete overturning of the 2010 equalities act and the like, which is basically an act which encourages equaling up of certain minority characteristics and so in turn encourages the division into such groups to obtain the 'equaling up'. The 2010 act is not about reciprocity.

Another interesting comment.

'Thinking of the subject as a war between two freedoms, association versus expression, gets us nowhere.' Agree – and not only because it turns into a shouting match power struggle.

This entire argument basically relies on corporate personhood – and in this context, the idea of banks having the same rights as natural persons to freedom of expression, association, etc. is pretty ludicrous. The idea of a giant corporation's 'right' to freedom of association being upheld at the expense of an individual's freedom of expression is perverse.

Additionally, as you say, access to banking in our society is an essential utility. Unlike having your electricity cut off for not paying the bill (not doing what you said you'd do as the account holder), being debanked removes your access to a vital utility for a reason that isn't part of your contract with the bank. Try not paying your overdraft fees because you don't like the tone of their letter, and see how far you get.

Also unlike your electricity bill, being debanked places a very real and punitive limit on your personal freedom. This is why obtaining a fixed address to open a bank account is a game-changer for people escaping homelessness. Without a little plastic card and a PIN number, you are not a member of society.

In the UK, the highest form of punishment for any crime is the deprivation of liberty. Prisoners are effectively removed from society; we even talk about those released as 're-integrating into society'. You cannot be subjected to this punishment without a fair trial. Or can you?

[rachel]

From 2016, not watched yet, but comments are good.

Empire Files: Abby Martin Exposes What Hillary Clinton Really Represents

Digging deep into Hillary's connections to Wall Street, Abby Martin reveals how the Clinton's multi-million-dollar political machine operates.

This episode chronicles the Clinton's rise to power in the 90s on a right-wing agenda, the Clinton Foundation's revolving door with Gulf state monarchies, corporations and the world's biggest financial institutions, and the establishment of the hyper-aggressive "Hillary Doctrine" while Secretary of State. Learn the essential facts about the great danger she poses, and why she's the US Empire's choice for its next CEO.

[Samson79]

[More Proof This is a Planned Fail of the Left - Miles Mathis]

latest papers.

We have seen Air Force bases as the focal points of hundreds of false flags over the decades, including the fake serial killers.

That is a powerful truth bomb right there.

[Samson79]

https://newsfromuncibal.substack.com/p/ ... -debanking

"Also unlike your electricity bill, being debanked places a very real and punitive limit on your personal freedom. This is why obtaining a fixed address to open a bank account is a game-changer for people escaping homelessness. Without a little plastic card and a PIN number, you are not a member of society......

In the UK the highest form of punishment for any crime is the deprivation of liberty. Prisoners are effectively removed from society; we even talk about those released as 're-integrating into society'. You cannot be subjected to this punishment without a fair trial. Or can you?"

No, essentially the UK operates under maritime law, merchantile court system.
The UK is PLC that is operates on floating on the stock exchange.

People are considered a resource. (Human Resources)

There is no justice in the UK as everything is judged on purely financial merit.
The more you make for the treasury, the higher up in status you can hope to enjoy.

Policing is for the sole protection of the resource/s at value, the myth of protection through paid services is cloaked in the protection of assets. If you harm someone physically, the damage to the injured party is calculated in strictly financial terms and punishments are not defined on life for life.
If your in prison because you murdered your neighbour, its to prevent you causing more damage to the revenue stream (which involves valued assets, merchentile assets, human resources, property and financial contract obligations), you harmed the resource as an asset, which can no longer produce revenue, that persons ability to work and expend its energy has been harmed.
The ruse "crime prevention" has a two fold meaning, without all the legalese or law society people generally fail to observe policing is about policy enforcement and protecting financial intrests, failing to see themselves as defined in purely economical terms.

Society is itself the trap, within society are contained and fully maintained by force, provisions for unlimited imigration, criminal entrepeneurism, removal of all land food and individual autonomy of man, woman and child.

Society is the creation of competition for services and life essentials based upon the model of scarcity, in the hands of tenants, all at the expense of freedom for the individual.
To live in society is to allow yourself to be fully accepting of its moral corruption, tacitly if not by individual compulsion.

You cannot leave without surrendering your life to God.
God calls men out of danger, but as a citizen you cannot leave your market place without a passport (your an asset, travelling as cargo....all cargo that passes port has to be marked!!)

[rachel]

Since I've talked about PPP in this thread a fair bit...you know, Tony Blair's "Third Way". Here's _@esc with a run down on how it will likely work.


https://escapekey.substack.com/p/the-pu ... dium=email

The Public-Private-Partnership
MAR 22, 2024

It’s the biggest scam ever devised, and will empty the public coffers and drain the middle class of the West, while stealing prime lands in third world nations.

Let’s run through how it works.

The entire scheme can be approximated using the below flowchart. Sure, detail is missing in some regards, like the creation of the (politically expedient) ‘best available scientific consensus’ which typically comes courtesy of Universities and NGOs, both of which generally receive generous ‘research grants’ courtesy of 'philanthropes’ representing the ‘private investor’ which you can however find in the below. I highlight specifically this one, as it’s probably the most important link left out.

But the point here is to put the dynamic in simple terms, and consequently, some nodes will have to go. Feel free comment below if you think I omitted some of pivotal importance.


But time is of essence, so let’s get on with the show.

Step 1 - Project Creation

Doesn’t really matter what said project is, but let’s say it’s claimed restoration of mangroves in Suriname, on a geographical range (‘landscape’) where some unfortunate native South American tribe has lived for many generation.


Step 2 - Assembling the Project Team

The Project Team is responsible for locating the ‘participating stakeholders’, as well as settling on the scope of the project itself, and its management structure. Said stakeholders could comprise a selection of NGOs, governments, representatives of the public, private… or even ‘indigenous peoples’, should the budget allow (no, really).


Step 3 - Locate the initial set of ‘stakeholders’.

It doesn’t matter too much at this stage if any are ‘bad fits’ (ie, disagees with the project direction), but the first set of ‘stakeholders’ is assembled, after several rounds of interviews and submitted forms, allowing said project team to discard those least likely to ‘fit in’.


Step 4 - Clarify who the decision makers are.

In short, the project team here can decide that all the ‘participating stakeholders’ are merely there in advisory capacity. But should any at this stage cause a problem, hey, now’s a great time to ‘iterate’ said, which in short means replace them with others who are more compliant. Because ‘agreeement’ is very, very important when it comes to these projects.


Step 5 - Objective clarification.

At this stage, the project details are discussed and clarified - ie, which geographic range is of interest, the duration of the project, and exactly what to ‘restore’.

At this stage, if further ‘participating stakeholders’ disagree, these can then be ‘iterated’, ensuring everyone is ‘in agreement’. And finally, should the best available scientific consensus disagree, the project team can wholesale override all ‘participating stakeholder’ input and just adopt that as policy.

And naturally, the management should be ‘adaptive’, meaning regardless of scale of disaster, or random changes halfway through the project - hey, they were simply following the ‘best available science’, and consequently, no further action needs taking, and certainly no legal action.


Step 6 - Project Details.

With all ‘participating stakeholders’ in ‘agreement’ (as all those in disagreement were ‘iterated’ out) three primary decisions are reached. Which geographic range must be ‘restored’ (ie, the ‘landscape’), the duration of the project, and which type of ‘ecosystem service’ is of interest. In our case, the ‘landscape’ - or ‘seascape’ - is a patch of land/sea with mangroves in Suriname, the ‘ecosystem service’ of interest is carbon credits, and lease duration - let’s put that at 10 years.


Step 7 - The Blended Finance Deal.

These three input parameters are then handed to the Global Environment Facility, who will structure a ‘blended finance deal’, and go to find investors.


Step 8 - The Blended Finance Investors.

With said deal structured, we need investors. We shall ignore claims of all others but two (including ‘philanthropic capital’) because in the grand scheme of things, those are utterly irrelevant.

Blended finance is titled as such because it draws in different types of investors, representing ‘different expectations’. In short, the private minority investor, and the much larger public investor (generally, the Multilateral Development Banks, funded through public taxation).

And while the public shoulders the vast, vast majority of risk, the private receives a far more generous return. These ‘deals’ are incredibly one-sided affairs.


Step 9 - The Lease.

At this stage, we have a carbon credit lease for mangroves in Suriname, with a 10-year duration. What this essentially means is that all the carbon dioxide sucked out of the air by those mangroves in Suriname (or could equally be ie forests in Indonesia or Siberia; in short, ‘carbon sinks’ per the 1992 UNFCCC framework treaty) have been turned into carbon emission permits, because the flip side of the carbon coin is called a source, and these require netting.

Net Zero, so to speak.


Step 10 - The Natural Asset Company.

In order to extract maximum value from these carbon emission permits, the lease is placed into a holding company of type Natural Asset Company, and floated on the stock exchange. And as these permits soon will be in short supply (as supply is gradually curtailed per Paris Agreement as we close in on 2030), their price will almost certainly rapidly increase vastly.

And, sure, while NACs were delivered a temporary setback, they will be pushed again and again until they pass. It’s just a matter of locating the right distraction. Or stock exchange, even.


Step 11 - Offsetting.

The 1992 UNFCCC Framework Treaty not only made mention of ‘carbon sinks’, but also emitting ‘carbon sources’, like farming or energy (electricity generation, car emissions, …). The concept of ‘offsetting’ relates to whatever a ‘carbon source’ is alleged to emit, this requires netting out with a ‘carbon sink’.

And that means a farmer - or oil producer - now will be required to buy large quantities of ‘carbon emission permits’ from those Natural Asset Companies - yes, those, now vastly increased in price.


Step 12 - Inflation.

With farmers, energy producers, and transportation experiening vast increases in input prices, they have no option but to push this onto the consumer, through cost-push inflation. And this leads to higher prices in the supermarkets, and more expensive fuel and heating.


Step 13 - The (largely) Western Taxpayer.

And the people represented by governments, fully signed up for this scheme, will now feel the full brunt of said inflation. The West will be hit, full-force.


Step 14 - Taxes.

Incidentally, it’s not the only direction from which the West will be hit. Recall those MDBs in step 8 above? Yes, their funding will also come, courtesy of said Western taxpayer. Taxes will increase, and subsidies will be reallocated, leading to even further price increases as the plan very much is to strip ‘harmful’ subsidies from farming and energy.


Step 15 - The Biodiversity Restoration.

Now, the GEF project outlined in step 7, using the ‘landscape’ outlined in step 6 (mangroves in Suriname), these require ‘restoration’, and this is where the Convention on Biological Diversity rears its ugly head. And said ‘biodiversity restoration’ will also be paid for using MDB funds, ie, Western taxes.


Step 16 - The UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

The ‘restored’ ‘landscape’ itself will typically be located on either a ‘Biosphere Reserve’, or a ‘Heritage Site’, both of which are UNESCO projects. But from where do said sites originate? Who submits these, and why?


Step 17 - The Debt-for-Nature Swap.

Well, those reserves typically come courtesy of highly indebted third world nations, or should said not be, the aim is to have territorial rights handed over to ‘indigenous peoples’, who then will be pressured or bribed into accepting a such swap.

The objective with the swap is to eventually cause a debt spiral, eventually leading to circumstances of the exploitation rights of said lands being fully handed over to said UNESCO Biosphere Reserves. And those swaps, of course, are also financed courtesy of those MDBs, and ultimately, the Western taxpayer.


Step 18 - The Reward.

While some rewards will be handed back to the MDBs through those blended finance deals, the simple fact is that the associated risk easily outweighs the gain.

Consequently, the gain is actually privatised, and some of said can then be used to finance further GEF blended finance deals. But most will make it back to…


Step 19 - The Private Investor.

Said gain will actually filter back to the private investor, who may or may not be selected as a stakeholder for the project in the first place. Hey, he might even be on the project team, or even fabricate the latest and greatest politically expedient ‘best available scientific consensus’.


Step 20 - The Net Result.

Consequently, the net result of this ‘new economy’ is that third world nations will see their lands - or perhaps more correctly, the rights of exploitation thereof - stolen, all of it will be financed by the Western taxpayer, transferred to the UNESCO Biosphere Reserves, from where it will be ‘restored’ through the Western taxpayer, and monetised for ‘ecosystem services’ in GEF blended finance deals using more Western taxpayer cash, though practically entirely financially benefitting the Private Investors.

It is the biggest scam ever devised, and it needs to come to a prompt halt.

CAPITAL CANNOT ABIDE A LIMIT