The America I Love and the America I Despise

A Twitter thread turned into a post.

I am once again writing a short post of passing thoughts on a subject that demands a long form essay. Where does all my time go?

I recently had a series of Tweets related to the meaning of America in the development of world history. American conservatives of various stripes have long talked about America as sort of a last bastion of a seemingly dying West.

Here’s what I wrote:

You love America because you can consume relentlessly, live leisurely, and fulfill your own individuality.

I love America because of the drama of its history, the unique aesthetic of her lands and culture, the fact that I can still sense its older spirit.

We are not the same.

I shared these images with the tweet.

This is the real America, not Ben Shapiro with a truck and a retarded cowboy hat. Modern(ist) conservatism is actually just a LARP because the true sociological conservatism has vanished like a dream.

I also shared these images, with another comment below.

America is not about the American Dream, it’s not about diversity, its not about the ideal that any individual can come and seek his destiny, its not about natural rights, its not about equality, its not about democracy, its not about individual liberty, its not about prosperity.

America is our home, the location of our people; it’s where our blood was spilled, our grandfathers were raised, our experiences were had. America is a nation because of its people & its people’s shared culture. America has a history & 20th century liberalism was the betrayal of that history.

These comments came on the back of James Lindsay’s attack on Paul Gottfried whom, despite the latter’s multi-decade academic work studying the New Left, Lindsay had stated he never heard of. Gottfried has recently argued that the Woke Left came out of the milieu of American “liberalism,” not from Marxism. Gottfried has long argued that the post-Marxist Left is not Marxist. It is the replacement Left after Marxism failed.

I also commented on all the above by saying:

Listen. Marxism did not cause the collapse of this America:

The very materialistic, consumeristic, tech-obsessed, & universalist doctrines of the post-war liberal-conservative consensus did this. Your domestic elites caused this, not China, not Karl Marx, not the Soviet Union.

As I grow older and reflect on what America was, the more I realize how much of a revolutionary repudiation of the American character the postwar American mythos really was. Celebrants of unfettered capitalism and consumptionism (I just made up that word), of material advancement as the proof of progress, of historically awesome (or, perhaps, awe-ful?) affluence disseminated to the masses… these are the celebrants of the decline of the West, the decline of the best aspects of the American nation.

Who else among my readers would be willing to give up the iPhone, the Tesla, the Wi-Fi, the packaged food…. just to have the Old America back within experience?

Now, nostalgia is no foundation for healthy living. But sometimes I do indulge.

On a more positive and forward looking note, I also reflected the following:

Playing competitive sports as a kid was one of my most memorable highlights

But it’s been much more rewarding in a deeper & almost spiritual sense teaching my son how to bat and catch and watching him light up at his efforts and successes. You get to witness the cycles of time.

Continuity and the facilitation of experience from one generation to the next, not constant innovation and economic progress, is the true Conservatism.

And I downplayed the transexual movement as the ultimate line in the sand:

The replacement of the grandfather instructing and imparting wisdom to his grandson, with the grandson trying to keep grandpa up to date with wi-fi, iPhones, and digital experiences, is the true cultural revolution in our midst. The trans movement is a niche offshoot.