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SCP#4
Hello guys, today we have An American Writer & Essayist, a fellow Distributist-Corporatist, subsidiarist, and tomboy enjoyer. He is also a Roman Catholic (like many of my guests… hmm…, 3/4 so far and the other was Orthodox). I will refer to him in this podcast simply as Chris.
Chris has been a faithful follower of mine, and was one of my earliest paid subscribers. I don’t think I met anybody else on Substack who has as similar political views to myself, which I realised reading his article ‘My Political Beliefs’ earlier in 2024, which inspired my most recent ‘What I Believe’ series. But it’s nice to know that somebody has so many of same political instincts.
Chris is a quiet, thoughtful type, and lets me do a lot of the talking. But I highly valued getting to finally talk to him in real time. We discuss economics, suffrage, political systems, Third Positionism, architecture, and whether ‘Trad Tomboyism’ can exist, and end up agreeing on a lot.
Check out his page and support his work!
Timestamps
- Introductions – 00:00 – 01:22
- Chris’s fiction writing – 01:23 – 02:26
- Hearts of Iron IV and its modding scene. I say its a great point of entry into politics for teenage boys, though is an occasional slop generator (‘my ideology is Burgundian System’) – 02:27 – 03:57
- Chris’s Distributist-Corporatist views – 03:58 – 05:17
- Why the Papal Encyclicals ‘Rerum Novarum’ (1891) and ‘Quadragesimo Anno’ (1931), which preached distributism, corporatism, and subsidiarity, were ironically most completely realised in non-Catholic Singapore, and no Catholic country completely implemented them – 05:18 – 09:25
- I start talking about the difference between Distributism-Corporatism (as advocated in Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno), and post-war Christian Democracy. I ask Chris questions about the difference between Thomistic natural law and natural rights – 09:26 – 12:36
- I ask Chris too many autistic questions about the development of the EU and its ‘human rights fundamentalism’, so we move on – 12:37 – 14:07
- I concur with Chris’s critique of universal suffrage in favour of ‘majority suffrage’, and give my reasonings. We also discuss Demeny Voting (parents voting on behalf of dependant underage children), and the different rationales and justifications for suffrage – 14:08 – 19:40
- Chris, like myself, is a big fan of Robert A. Heinlein’s ‘Starship Troopers’. We discuss the Paul Verhoeven film (a satire so bad it ends up being an unintentionally faithful adaptation of the book’), the book, and whether a suffrage system where a minority of voluntary soldiers are the only ones with the right to vote –19:41 – 23:35
- Myanmar/Burma as a ‘Starship Troopers-society gone wrong’ – 23:36 – 24:27
- Why a purely military-based suffrage doesn’t make sense, because whilst violence is the supreme authority, military juntas are hardly ever prosperous societies – 24:28 – 25:34
- Switzerland prior to 1971 (when women got the vote) was in some ways similar to a Starship Troopers-style society, except with everybody serving. However, men who were unfit to serve could also vote as an automatic right. I think they should have given women the vote but made the ‘service guarantees citizenship’ explicit, and have a system of ‘majority suffrage’ – 25:34 – 27:17
- Chris opposes conscription, whereas I support both conscription and compulsory voting. I interpret our disagreement as a difference between European nation states and more ‘propositional’ (though this is contested) nations like the United States, though Switzerland is also not a ‘nation state’ in the way Japan is, and is bound together by its conscription. I also discuss the failure of the Cossack Hetmanate – 27:18 – 32:40
- Chris’ film recommendation ‘The Rocketeer’, of which he posts a link in a review. I watched the film after he recommended it, and greatly enjoyed it. We both love the Art Deco and pulp aesthetic of the film – 32:41 – 34:09
- Why I admire that Chris focuses on reviewing and creating culture, and not just politics – 34:10 – 35:54
- We discuss how uncreative anti-liberal regimes like Putin’s Russia and Orban’s Hungary are. Why do they still wear a liberal democratic skinsuit when it confirms Francis Fukuyama’s ‘End of History’ narrative, and vastly increases corruption? Why not actually develop their own anti-liberal system which is what it claims to be? – 35:55 – 41:46
- Why democracy is not in Russia’s DNA, but I nonetheless make fun of Cemil Kerimoglu for thinking Ukraine is worth nuclear war – 41:47 – 45:55
- Me and Chris discuss whether Georgism (Land Value Tax) is a competitor or a compliment to Distributism. I talk about a distinction between urban and rural areas, and in-depth about my ‘residents dividend’ idea for Georgist cities, which is a bit wonkish and probably not the best for conversation flow – 45:56 – 52:48
- Chris has explored the ‘Third Positionist’ sphere a bit more than I have, even though in my ‘anti-SJW leftist’ phase in the mid 2010s I flirted with it. We discuss Francis Packer Yockey and Chris’s admiration for him, and whether a ‘Pan-Western Federation’ could work. – 52:49 – 54:43
- Would a ‘Pan-Western Common Market’ be better than a full-fledged federation? Should freedom of movement of Europeans be allowed? – 54:44 – 57:50
- Why I distrust fiat money even as a non-libertarian, and would like to see a ‘bitcoin peg’. We compare it to bimetalism, advocated by William Jennings Bryan in the ‘Progressive Era’ – 57:50 – 01:01:44
- We discuss Progressive Era reformers like William Jennings Bryan, Robert M. La Follette, William Simon U’Ren, and Hiriam Johnson, and how they championed the common man. I make a few book recommendations about the Jeffersonian tradition, namely ‘Politics on a Human Scale’ by Jeff Taylor – 01:01:45 – 01:04:06
- Why I admire Otto Strasser, even though most self-described ‘Stasserites’ dislike Otto Stasser and ultimately just hate Jews and support Hitler’s racial policies, whereas Otto Strasser condemned the Holocaust. We both admire Otto Stasser’s more decentralised German nationalism – 01:04:07 – 01:06:50
- Why are ‘contemporary Third Positionists’ so singularly obsessed with Jews – 01:06:51 – 01:08:15
- I explain to Chris how I’m a fan of Charles Maurras and Yann Fouere – 01:08:16 – 01:11:56
- We discuss the ‘beautification of America’, tearing down ugly eyesores and replacing it with beautiful classical and Art Deco architecture. I suggest an ‘ugly building tax on all local authorities, with these properties not being granted permission to be refurbished – 01:11:57 – 01:15:58
- Can tomboys be trad? – 01:15:59 – 01:07:58
- Closing
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