Where Keith Preston Falls Short: A Critique from the Right

What follows is a letter I received from a reader, Mr. Todd Lewis. I believe this to be the most accurate yet thorough critique of my own work issued to date. It is certainly the most thorough critique I have received from the Right, and makes an excellent counterpart to Matthew Lyons’ critique from the Left which was issued a couple years ago. While the Lyons critique was quite good,  I believe Mr. Lewis has surpassed Lyons is his level of comprehension of my own ideas and level of penetrating analysis. I take my hat off to him.

Mr. Preston,

I have kept track of your work for a couple of years, and while I respect certain aspects of your work, which I will list, I have found a certain level of hypocrisy and irrationality in your work. You spend a fair amount of your time criticizing the contradictions and hypocrisy of the so-called Neo-Conservatives and Socialist Democrats and their so-called political disputes, when both are really just state socialists; one wanting socialism for corporations and the other socialism for special interest groups. Such criticism is justified and valid. However I see a similar hypocrisy and inconsistency in some of your work.

Before I voice my grievances, I would like to state what I find valuable in your work. Firstly, you are not politically ‘superstitious’, you are not scared off by white nationalists, Nazis, anarcho-capitalists, anarcho-communists, theocrats, traditional societies (such as Aztec, near eastern, Polynesian etc.) and gang culture; you see what each has to offer and take what you like and ignore what you consider invalid; walking the tightrope between ideological dogma of anarcho-capitalism and libertarian-socialism is one few manage; your podcasts interview interesting people representing ‘underground’ alternatives to the present political paradigm.

Having mentioned the strengths I find in your work, I will now voice my grievances. These grievances revolve around two issues 1) your hypocrisy in terms of social criticism and 2) apparent duplicity in terms of pitching ‘big tent’ anarchism or as you put it, anarcho-populism.

In your essay Beyond Conservatism: Reclaiming the Radical Roots of Libertarianism you state that Hoppe’s implementation of a social order identical to the ‘Old Order’ or Ancient Regime, would betray the essence of libertarianism. You argue that Libertarianism was predicated on the destruction of that order. I tend to agree with your assessment or I should rather say Rothbard’s and Russell Kirk’s, that libertarianism and conservatism are incompatible, but your basic arguments against the ‘Old Order’ are hypocritical. You say:

“Whether one likes it or not, ethnic minorities, feminists, gays, environmentalists, immigrants, and other groups of this type are here to stay. Indeed, demographic patterns indicate that ethnic minorities will collectively outnumber whites by the middle of the twenty-first century.”

 

and Ralph Raico’s response to Ernest Van den Haag:

“If he does not, then he has immediately violated the principle of community-right in some very obvious cases, and he has exposed himself as a mere babbler. If he does defend these institutions, then what decent person would want to have anything to do with such a pervert?”

 

In various articles and podcasts you appeal to the relativity of ethics in different cultures. Some cultures practice female circumcision, others cannibalism and yet others monogamy. I don’t remember exactly which podcast you said this in, it was either “For a Libertarian Legal Revolution” or “Rising Above Culture War Psychology” that monogamous marriage is not ‘traditional’ marriage, traditional marriage is polygamy.  Similarly you state that monogamy is not necessarily ‘normative’ given that many different nations practice polygamy, polyandry and bigamy, etc.

You say, “Conservatives your tradition is dying out or maybe evolving, you need to evolve with it.” The problem is that your arguments are pedantic and weak. The very same objections could be raised against you.  As far as rejecting association with Grand Inquisitors and “What decent person would want to have anything to do with such a pervert?”, in regards to your tacit support of abortion (your support is tacit since you see no need to repeal Roe v. Wade) I could just as well say “What decent person would want to have anything to do with such a pervert?” I mean who, wants to work with someone who supports the killing of babies? Your appeal to the current existence of alternative lifestyles as “here to stay” is irrelevant; why do you support anarchism? You might as well get used to Totalitarian Humanism, since it is here to stay. Demographically these alternative lifestyle advocates you are supporting will ensure the survival of the Totalitarian Humanist state, since they vote in favor of it in massive numbers. If you reject conservatives with such flippant hand-waving, then why cannot a Totalitarian Humanist do the same with regard to your project of anarchy? Your argument is essentially fallacious since you are left undefended from a similar charge.

Given that you vociferously argue the incompatibility of conservatism with libertarianism, why do you work and collaborate with conservatives as your article “Why I Choose to Collaborate with Racialists and Theocrats” indicates? In one breath you claim that conservatism is incompatible with libertarianism and then in the next say that in a libertarian society would include Satanist theocracies, Aryan nation enclaves, Black Panther communities and echo Giovanni Baldelli’s praise of traditionalist societies in their resistance to totalitarianism. You just said that theocrats and conservatives cannot be reconciled to libertarianism in Reclaiming the Radical Roots of Libertarianism.

Your rhetorical cheap-shots such as this: “Some of them may defensively adopt the hyper-theocratic outlook of far-out crackpots like the late Rousas John Rushdooney, but very few conservative Christians think they will ever achieve a Saudi-like theocracy for themselves in the United States.” These statements are not an argument, but an expression of an opinion. Why is Rushdoony a crack-pot for advocating theocracy, but you are not, despite tolerating if not advocating abortion, prostitution, drug use etc.? Your standard of judgment is faulty. It seems you are just riding the wave of Totalitarian Humanism as it pertains to social values. You are more liberal than a conservative, but less extreme than say Code Pink or NAMBLA. Yet if conservatism is rendered obsolete by homosexuals and feminists ‘being here to stay’, your principle of anarchy is just as much obsolete since Totalitarian Humanism is here to stay. If you argue that we need to overthrow totalitarianism, but we don’t need to overthrow say Feminism, then why not? What makes you think your anarchism is not just as much obsolete as the conservative’s monogamy? You have no logical reason to exempt yourself from the same obsolescence you accuse the conservatives of. The elevation of your position to such a privileged status is neither warranted nor explained.

You seem to wonder why one should get so worked up over sexual preferences. The reason is obvious: sexual perverts are enemies of freedom. They are incapable of being free and are pawns of tyrants. Aldous Huxley said as much in his forward to Brave New World: “As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends compensatingly to increase. And the dictator (unless he needs cannon fodder and families with which to colonize empty or conquered territories) will do well to encourage that freedom. In conjunction with the freedom to daydream under the influence of dope and movies and the radio, it will help to reconcile his subjects to the servitude which is their fate.”[1] The so-called freedom of sexual expression is one of the links that forms the chain of tyranny.

John Adams echoes this view: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”[2]

When was the last time you saw a free, prosperous, dare I say liberal society that was dominated by prostitutes, pimps, transvestites, homosexuals, pedophiles, drug addicts and gangs? Furthermore these ‘alternative lifestyles’ are not the product of natural social evolution.  These alternative lifestyles are to culture what big business and big labor are to government. Modern homosexual, feminist and the drug culture are as much a product of big government as Wal-Mart and Microsoft. Without welfare subsidies these ‘alternative lifestyles’ would not exist in the numbers they do now. In fact Timothy Leary, the Drug culture Guru, stated this:

“If you look back, many things that we thought were coincidences turned out not to have been accidents. The entire LSD movement itself was sponsored originally by the CIA to who I give great credit. I would not be here today if it were not for the foresight and prestige of the CIA psychologists. So give the CIA credit for being a true intelligence agency.” [3]

 

We see here Huxley’s vision of Soma being implemented through Leary and the CIA. The notion of enslaving people to their passions i.e., drugs, alcohol, sex and one’s pleasures has a very long history. We see in the writings of Herodotus that King Croesus of Lydia actually advocating specific measures for Cyrus to enslave the Lydians:

 

“But pardon the Lydians, and give them this command so that they not revolt or pose a danger to you; send and forbid them to possess weapons of war, and order them to wear tunics under their cloaks and knee-boots on their feet, and to teach their sons lyre-playing and song and dance and shop keeping. And quickly O King, you shall see them become women instead of men, so that you need not fear them, that they might revolt.”[4]

 

We see Croesus arguing that lyre-playing dancing and song will make the people weak and unable to resist the Persians, i.e., enslaving them to foolish and destructive passions. This episode of history serves as a key stone to Etienne Boetie’s warning in Politics of Obedience where he reports, if not entirely accurately the same spirit of Croesus’ advice:

 

This method tyrants use of stultifying their subjects cannot be more clearly observed than in what Cyrus did with the Lydians after he had taken Sardis, their chief city, and had at his mercy the captured Croesus, their fabulously rich king. When news was brought to him that the people of Sardis had rebelled, it would have been easy for him to reduce them by force; but being unwilling either to sack such a fine city or to maintain an army there to police it, he thought of an unusual expedient for reducing it. He established in it brothels, taverns, and public games, and issued the proclamation that the inhabitants were to enjoy them. He found this type of garrison so effective that he never again had to draw the sword against the Lydians. These wretched people enjoyed themselves inventing all kinds of games, so that the Latins have derived the word from them, and what we call pastimes they call ludi, as if they meant to say Lydi. Not all tyrants have manifested so clearly their intention to effeminize their victims; but in fact, what the aforementioned despot publicly proclaimed and put into effect, most of the others have pursued secretly as an end. It is indeed the nature of the populace, whose density is always greater in the cities, to be suspicious toward one who has their welfare at heart, and gullible toward one who fools them. Do not imagine that there is any bird more easily caught by decoy, nor any fish sooner fixed on the hook by wormy bait, than are all these poor fools neatly

tricked into servitude by the slightest feather passed, so to speak, before their mouths. Truly it is a marvelous thing that they let themselves be caught so quickly at the slightest tickling of their fancy. Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naively, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books.”[5]

 

In concluding this particular subject of vice and servitude I recommend reading E. Michael Jones’ Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation & Political Control, which to my mind is the most extensive and detailed investigation of the reasons for and methods of using sexual deviancy to render one’s subject’s effeminate and unable to resist tyranny. Jone’s key point is that if one cannot control one’s self than a social vacuum is created which is filled, by intent, by the self-same prophets of ‘sexual freedom’ to control us for ‘our own good’.

If you reject Wal-Mart and Microsoft as government cronies, then you should reject Homosexuality and Feminism as government cronies used to put us to sleep and to kiss our chains.

In Philosophical Anarchism and the Death of Empire you state in footnote 63 “From Mencken, we understand that no totems should be spared attack.” I laughed when I read this. Whenever someone says they embrace skepticism and enjoy eating sacred cow burgers (i.e., Mark Twain), such people are in fact the most dogmatic of the bunch.

Do you criticize your totems of anarchism, secularism, liberalism etc? No. Of course not. You only criticize and doubt the positions of your opponents and never your own. This is the height of intellectual sloth. As I always say: no skeptic is skeptical of his own beliefs, only those of others. Why do you not critically evaluate your anarchism and secularism to the same degree you scrutinize religion and statism?

Furthermore, your endorsement of Nietzsche and Stirner is quite disturbing. If we are going to speak of perverts why do you endorse these two perverts who advocated murder, theft and rape as normatively ethical? I mean if you endorse Nietzsche and Stirner by what right do you criticize Rushdoony, who is tame in comparison?

Marx Stiner in The Ego and His Own states:
“I am entitled to murder if I myself do not forbid it to myself, if I myself do not
fear murder as a “wrong.” … There is no right outside me. If it is right for me,
it is right. Possibly this may not suffice to make it right for the rest; that is
their care, not mine: let them defend themselves. And if for the whole world
something were not right, but it were right for me, that is, I wanted it, then I
would ask nothing about the whole world. So every one does who knows how to value
himself, every one in the degree that he is an egoist; for might goes before right,
and that–with perfect right.” pg 247

“The conflict over the “right of property” wavers in vehement commotion. The
Communists affirm that “the earth belongs rightfully to him who tills it, and its
products to those who bring them out.” I think it belongs to him who knows how to
take it, or who does not let it be taken from him, does not let himself be deprived
of it. If he appropriates it, then not only the earth, but the right to it too,
belongs to him.” The Ego and His Own, ed. James J. Martin (New York: Libertarian
Book Club, 1963), pg 249

 

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states this about Stirner’s thought: “In a world in which “we owe each other nothing” (263), it seems that acts of infanticide, incest, and murder, might all turn out to be justified.”[6]

Nietzsche wrote this:
“To speak of right and wrong per se makes no sense at all. No act of violence, rape,
exploitation, destruction, is intrinsically “unjust,” since life itself is violent,
rapacious, exploitative, and destructive and cannot be conceived as otherwise.”[7]

Holy cruelty. — A man who held a newborn child in his
hands approached a holy man. “What shall I do with this
child?” he asked; “it is wretched, misshapen, and does not have
life enough to die.” “Kill it!” shouted the holy man with a
terrible voice; “and then hold it in your arms for three days
and three nights to create a memory for yourself: never again
will you beget a child this way when it is not time for you to
beget.” — When the man had heard this, he walked away,
disappointed, and many people reproached the holy man because
he had counseled cruelty; for he had counseled the man to
kill the child. “But is it not cruder to let it live?” asked the
holy man.[8]

The biblical prohibition “Thou shalt not kill” is a piece of naïveté compared with the seriousness of Life’s own “Thou shalt not” issued to decadence: “Thou shalt not procreate!”—Life itself recognizes no solidarity, no “equal right,” between the healthy and the degenerate parts of an organism. . . . Sympathy for the decadents, equal rights for the ill-constituted—that would be the profoundest immorality, that would be anti-nature itself as morality![9]

 

The inquisition gives you pause, but this does not? And you think Ernest Van den Haag would be a pervert if he endorsed the inquisition?

In conclusion, I believe you are mature enough to accept such harsh criticism which is why I wrote you in the first place. I do appreciate your perspectives on the modern warfare-welfare state, but found your relativism and uncritical acceptance of your own totems, and quick dismissal of those whom you disagree with as being disingenuous and quite off-putting. I’m just sick and tired of people criticizing what they know nothing about. As Rothbard said: “It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a “dismal science, but it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.” I would appreciate the same from you in regards to philosophy and religion.

 

PS the citations of Max Stirner and Frederick Nietzsche are found here:

The Ego and His Own: http://books.google.com/books?id=T4SN0M7YSqMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=ego+and+his+own&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NbfAUP-aHKnY2A
XzioGADA&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=entitled%20to%20murder&f=false

 

The Birth of Tragedy & The Genealogy of Morals, Issue 677
http://books.google.com/books?id=4Q8lWXlzpdgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=birth+of+tragedy+and+the+genealogy+of+morals&hl=en&sa=X&ei=C6G_ULinHsXErQHBsIHoCQ&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=birth%20of%20tragedy%20and%20the%20genealogy%20of%20morals&f=false

 

The Gay Science
http://books.google.com/books?id=trakSLk9qt0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+gay+science&hl=en&sa=X&ei=k5n0UL68J7CUigKo0IDYBQ&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=cruel%20live&f=false
The Will to Power
http://books.google.com/books?id=Magi-iz7kIQC&pg=PA389&dq=will+to+power+%22thou+shalt+not+kill%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mJv0UNLYIrDmiwKo_YCgCw&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=will%20to%20power%20%22thou%20shalt%20not%20kill%22&f=false

 

Sincerely,

Todd Lewis