Rhodesia, after it fell to Mugabe in 1980, was forgotten for many decades, but it matters greatly because it shows why the West is no longer what it once was
A short 🧵👇
First, what was Rhodesia?
It was the little land north of South Africa and south of the Belgian Congo, where decolonization meant chaos and slaughter that effectively hasn't ended since the Belgians left
Despite being landlocked and underpopulated, it was an economic powerhouse. It was the breadbasket of Africa, exporting food to the rest of the continent, and was an industrializing economy that was also successful at growing cash crops like tobacco
Notably, Rhodesia also didn't have apartheid. Rather, it had a voting system like America and much of the West, such as Britain used to have: anyone could vote so long as they owned a requisite amount of property
That restriction was meant to keep it a republic and percent the problem of democracy, which is mob voting and the wolves voting to eat the lamb
But despite its economic success, resistance to communism, and its hope to chart a course in Africa where the whites wouldn't face the fate of those left behind in Congo or Kenya and where blacks wouldn't face the same fate as in South Africa, America helped the USSR destroy it
Yes, America helped the Russian and Chinese communists destroy a functional, Western nation known for being "more British than the British"
The result was genocide. With Mugabe, the winning communist, first butchering the Ndebele tribe and then forcing white farmers off their land, killing many in the expropriation process
Britain helped too
Why? Why destroy an agricultural land that mimicked Britain at its Victorian height?
Because Cultural Marxism and liberalism generally had rotted the West from the inside. It was no longer comfortable with itself and its old values, and so wanted to destroy them
Particularly, it wanted to destroy the twin concepts of natural hierarchy and cultural achievement
As a reminder, the Old World, and much of the new (South America and the Cavalier South) were ruled by hierarchy: landed aristocrats, whether titled or gentry, handed down their wealth and prestige from generation to generation
As a result, wealth was largely controlled by an elite few, and those few were the ones who, largely, were the ones best suited to responsible nurture it in the manner of a garden
That brought with it noblesse oblige, or the concept that the privileged should care for their social inferiors in the name of the community.
But they weren't to destroy all wealth in the impossible quest to eradicate poverty; Jesus reminded us that the poor with always be with us, after all
Instead, donated was responsibly spent on bettering the circumstances of the poor, such as by building worker cottages
Or it was spent on cultural achievements. The great statues of the Renaissance. The beautiful Palladian country houses of England. The hunting castles of Scotland. The music of Mozart and Beethoven
All came only as a result of noble wealth; hierarchy enabled achievement
Then came Marxism and Leninism, the twin ideas of enforced egalitarianism and weaponized grievance
Death duties, punitive income taxation, social leveling, and hostility to beauty resulted from those impulses, destroying much of the Old World mindset
This era, roughly the two or three decades after WWII, saw the British nationalized coal industry destroy Wentworth Woodhouse, the greatest of country houses, out of envy. It saw America destroy the space program to focus on welfare. And, perhaps worst of all, it saw former empires turn on their colonial subjects
Hatred of hierarchy meant hatred of colonialism and imperialism after all, so Britain and France effectively helped communists carry out atrocities in Algeria, Kenya, the Congo, and more as they left and helped the "national governments" accede to power
Rhodesia saw what happened in the Congo and told Britain to get lost, with WWII Spitfire pilot and war hero Ian Smith, the PM, leading Rhodesia as it declared independence in the hope of surviving as a functional nation
So, the UK, and eventually America under Civil Rights Carter and his friends like Andy Young, embargoed Rhodesia. It couldn't import fuel or weapons and so was slowly strangled by the West as communists funded and armed by the USSR and Red China murdered civilians in horrible ways as their form of "war"
Eventually Rhodesia fell, unable to survive without being able to import fuel or weapons and unable to export its cash crops.
Then the aforementioned horrors of Mugabe occurred, with the West covering for Mugabe and even congratulating him as he butchered his own people
That conduct matters, and it's largely the reason the West is no longer functional and, indeed, often abetting its own destruction by importing hordes of foreigners
It's no longer self-confident, and as such, no longer willing to stand for the traits that made it great
Egalitarianism did not make the West great. Social welfare did not make the West great. Hatred of white people did not make the West great. Degenerate culture and rotten entertainment did not make the West great
Social hierarchy and its wonderful fruits did
But, as shown by its rejection of Rhodesia, the West turned its back on those values. Rotted internally by Cultural Marxism and the Leninist grievance impulse, it destroyed them
Now, instead of moon landings, concertos, and palaces, "we" have brutalist architecture, rap music, and food stamps
Was that a good tradeoff? Was it worth it?
Or should we have sided with Rhodesia as it remained the last outpost of the Old World, beset by grievance politics of the sort now destroying us?
Oh, and I should have added this earlier, but also check out @k9_reaper to understand the similar events happening in South Africa, and check out this interview we did with him on the subject, in which we mention the Bush War: theamericantribune.news/p/surviving-so…
And credit to the intro pic from @thewardoll, from whose account I found it awhile ago
Make sure to read these superb books about the Bush War and Rhodesia:
What separated Rhodesia from the rest of the West?
One key matter: it focused on excellence in an age when all others transitioned to ruthless egalitarianism
As Ian Smith put it in the clip below, “We simply have a standard”
That standard is what made the West great
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This is, I think, really the key differentiating factor and is what makes it so interesting to me
In an era when America was in the throes of Civil Rights egalitarianism, tearing down everything to make communist-connected rebels happy, and England was at war with its heritage, taxing those who embodied that heritage out of existence while confiscating their houses, Rhodesia chose the other path
That other path was the one that really matters: it was simply having standards
Their elections are the best example of this. Those weren't racial, but rather required those who were to vote in national elections first prove to the country that they could be stewards, shown through their being stewards in their own lives
Hence the property qualification: requiring the equivalent of $60k in 2024 USD in Rhodesian property, they largely succeeded in screening out those who were irresponsible.
Below, Elon argues DOGE is fighting the bureaucracy, and thus might restore Democracy in America
He's right to call bureaucracy the enemy of the people, but wrong to say it's the enemy of democracy
The two go hand in hand, as the West's 20th century decline shows
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First, what Elon told Rogan was partially correct, but mostly incorrect
He said, “The reality is that our elected officials have very little power relative to the bureaucracy until DOGE. DOGE is a threat to the bureaucracy—it's the first threat to the bureaucracy. Normally, the bureaucracy eats revolutions for breakfast. This is the first time that they're not, that the revolution might actually succeed, that we could restore power to the people instead of power to the bureaucracy.”
In some ways, that is obviously correct. DOGE is indeed at war with the bureaucracy, as shown by the firings, the court cases, the budget freezes, and so on
Elon, and thus DOGE, recognize that the federal bureaucracy is not only overly expensive, but has been spending and regulating in a way that makes it hard to do anything in America, particularly anything worth doing. Business is burdened by taxes and constrained by onerous regulations. Hiring is difficult, and firing an incompetent employee of a "protected" race is nearly impossible. Innovation is stifled by aging bureaucrats. The Deep State has been weaponized against conservatives, and most bureaucrats go along with it because they just want their pensions.
So, DOGE is indeed at war with the bureaucracy, is winning some battles, and the bureaucracy is clearly the enemy of the American people
But he is wrong in saying that the bureaucracy is the enemy of democracy, by which he means modern mass democracy, or a near-universal adult franchise, which hereafter I'll just call democracy
That is wildly off, and proof of that comes from America and Britain throughout the 20th century
I’ve seen much talk about what visas the US ought have, from golden visas to H-1bs
Often missed is that all are highly destructive, lacking a critical focus: assimilation
Rhodesia shows assimilation-focused immigration builds national prosperity without destroying culture🧵👇
This was a critical problem Rhodesia had nearly from the beginning, even as it was still a private colony being built by Rhodes and the British South Africa Company:
Its vast veldt and resultant massive farms, paired with its Anglo roots and the strict criteria on who was in the original Pioneer Column, created a unique and highly distinctive national culture
That culture was, in many ways, an African adaptation of the better aspects of British country life.
This can be seen in Rhodesians eventually being known as “more British than the British,” polo being beloved, a national reputation for love of social drinking, the country estates around which the agrarian economy was organized. And, of course, as @RoryDun76684897 pointed out in my recent podcast with him, there was an Anglo upper class in the country and many of its cultural attributes “trickled down” to much of the prosperous white population in the country
But there were the African variations on that; it wasn’t, like Tidewater Virginia, an attempt to just recreate England but with different crops and fewer villages. The unique conditions of Africa and adaptations those who moved there made meant that its culture, while very British in many respects, was still unique and distinctive
“We will expropriate land without compensation whether [whites] like it or not. If they object, they can seek refugee in America.”
South Africa is going full Zimbabwe. Never go full Zimbabwe.
A reminder of what happened in Rhodesia and why that's a warning for South Africa🧵👇
As a reminder, Rhodesia was essentially the opposite of either Zimbabwe or modern South Africa
It was prosperous, had no anti-black or anti-white apartheid laws, had functioning civil infrastructure, and was a breadbasket rather than a land of fallow farms that have been handed to incompetents out of a desire for racial redistribution
That held true, for reference, even into the later stages of the Bush War, when you'd think things would be falling apart, a la Germany in March of '45
Instead, it was more functional than modern South Africa, which is at peace and aided by the world
Here is how Dr. Theodore Dalrymple described it:
I expected to find on my arrival, therefore, a country in crisis and decay. Instead, I found a country that was, to all appearances, thriving: its roads were well maintained, its transport system functioning, its towns and cities clean and manifesting a municipal pride long gone from England. There were no electricity cuts or shortages of basic food commodities. The large hospital in which I was to work, while stark and somewhat lacking in comforts, was extremely clean and ran with exemplary efficiency. The staff, mostly black except for its most senior members, had a vibrant esprit de corps, and the hospital, as I discovered, had a reputation for miles around for the best of medical care. The rural poor would make immense and touching efforts to reach it: they arrived covered in the dust of their long journeys. The African nationalist leader and foe of the government, Joshua Nkomo, was a patient there and trusted the care implicitly: for medical ethics transcended all political antagonisms.
One of the states I find most fascinating, after Rhodesia, of course, is Singapore
Why?
Because, it, in its undemocratic nature and drive for excellence, shows how we can escape our current decline and build a future of greatness even as decline surrounds us
A short 🧵👇
Why is it a glimpse at a good future?
It, much like Rhodesia, embraced the functional aspects of our civilization without the egalitarian insanity
As such, it shows what me must avoid to have a thriving society
It is undemocratic, and thus practical rather than ideological, prosperous rather than race communism obsessed, and gleaming rather than covered in the usual refuse of the Third World and increasingly Third Worldified West
It is, in other words, the opposite of South Africa
It embraced excellence rather than equality, and prospered for it, creating a world in which one would like to live rather than some steaming, Third World hell
The trend for the past century and a quarter, one partially shown by this superb video, is that houses prices in gold got cheaper, but priced in fiat they've gotten hugely more expensive
The truth, then, is that Houses Aren't Getting More Expensive, You're Getting Poorer
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This chart provides a good showing of the gold trend, though it only goes until 2020, after which the trend accelerated
Priced in gold, which is useful because it represents the cost in a relatively stable fraction of global production, houses have gotten noticeably cheaper while growing larger and more complex
Priced in fiat, they've become unaffordable to the majority of the country
So, what happened? Why don't they seem cheaper?
Because income hasn't kept up with real inflation
As Forbes noted: "The bottom line is that, in terms of gold, wages have fallen by about 87 percent. To get a stronger sense of what that means, consider that back in 1965, the minimum wage was 71 ounces of gold per year. In 2011, the senior engineer earned the equivalent of 63 ounces in gold. So, measured in gold, we see that senior engineers now earn less than what unskilled laborers earned back in 1965. That’s right: today’s highly skilled professional is making less in real, comparative terms than yesterday’s unskilled worker."