This is what Zimbabweification means for landowners, and really anyone who is normal and has assets
As leftism is built on envy and grievance, like Mugabe's Zimbabwe, the jackals are coming for wealth in the name of equity, as has happened before in England
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Mugabe is far from the only communist to do this, of course. All such regimes, from the Bolsheviks to Mao, confiscated land in the name of leveling society
But Mugabe is particularly apt, as his land confiscation wasn't so much for economic reasons as for spite and envy
To some extent, that was true of all communist regimes. But some of the Soviets at least appeared to think farm collectivization would lead to some prosperity for at least some of the USSR. Similarly, Mao's collectivization and bird killing had a drop of (quite poor) economic reasoning behind it. It was all ridiculous and foolish, of course, but not motivated purely by spite
Mugabe's land expropriation was. No one thought that taking land out of the hands of intelligent farmers and putting it in the hands of various regime cronies and ex-guerrillas would lead to more prosperity. They just hated that the whites owned it, and so they wanted to steal it while citing racial "equity" as their reasoning
This is essentially what's happening in Britain now
Much as they claim that growing crops or raising animals on land is "hoarding" it and taxing families out of existence so that solar farms and migrant shelters can be built on fields that have been farmed for a millennium, that's not actually what they care about, nor what they really think
Only the dumbest could think poisoning the land with solar panels...in a county known for being cloudy, would be anything approaching a prosperity-inducing idea. It has even less sense behind it than Pol Pot killing people with glasses or Mao killing sparrows. Similarly, the migrants who need shelters built for them are an obvious drain on society rather than being anything prosperity-inducing
So, it's near impossible for anyone with a brain to seriously think that stealing, through brutal taxation, land from farmers would lead to prosperity or "new life"
If it's not about prosperity, then what is it about?
The "prices and rents" line in the above article is telling: they hate that the land of England is tied to its history
They hate that families like the Percys have owned 100k acres for centuries, that farmers who love England have tilled the same soil, whether because they own or rent it, for similar periods of time, that being part of the beautiful countryside is something that ties people to the country's history and traditions
Hence why they claim to want "prices and rents" to fall. It's not really about decreasing costs; if that's what they'd care about, then they'd reduce inflation and the resultant financialization of farmland that has resulted from it. But they're also the easy-money crowd, so it's not that. Rather, the gloating about seeing prices fall is gloating about the massive sales of land they know will happen. They know prices will fall like a rock when huge chunks of farmland hit the market due to families being unable to hold onto the same land their forefathers tilled, and they couldn't be happier
Key to their goal is severing the link between land and tradition
As things currently stand, the landed families and their longtime tenants are much more conservative and care about England herself rather than the cosmopolitan, globalist world of Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer
Breaking that link is key to the liberal "end of history," or having a rainbow flag-festooned boot stomping on the face of normal people, forever. Without people tied to the nation's history, people, and culture, who will stand up to the BLM boot? No one
But it's also just spite
They hate that certain families own much of the land and have managed to hold onto it despite taxes and regulatory hostility
They hate that people like @JeremyClarkson own land and want to be able to do on it what they please, rather than what a council decides
They hate liberty, they hate freedom, and they hate that such feelings tend to come from country living
And that brings us back to Mugabe. They hate that people like the Duke of Rutland (a UKIP patron) enjoy chasing the fox on horseback or shooting grouse, not so much for any reason other than that they exist. They hate that farmers enjoy the crisp country air, the sight of sheep and cows grazing, the joy that comes from riding a horse into a covert or alongside a hedgerow. And, of course, they hate the feeling of private property and ownership; such is a feeling of independence, of resistance to liberalism and its leveling impulse, and so on
And, like Mugabe, they're justifying their confiscation of private property (though through taxation rather than men with guns) in the name of racial equity.
It's just envy, it's just hate of normal white people. It's just Mugabeism
This isn't the first time that this has happened to England
The envy Starmer represents existed essentially from the Parliament Bill to Thatcher, particularly under Attlee and Wilson
The Attlee years particularly stand out as a time when envy won out and countryside life and prosperity were destroyed in the name of envy
The best example of this is what happened to the Fitzwilliam family and Wentworth Woodhouse
The Fitzwilliams grew, under the low-tax Victorian and Edwardian years, fantastically wealthy off their coal mines. Unlike other landowners, such as the Marquesses of But, they didn't rent coal land out but instead ran the mines themselves
As mine owners and operators, they contrasted with the plutocratic, new-man mine owners in that they placed a heavy priority on miner safety, and seemed to care a great deal about miner well-being. They always had the best, most effective safety improvements in their mines, provided employment for mine workers during depression years when the mines were slowed or shut down, and generally treated the miners as people rather than industrial cattle
Proof that their behavior wasn't just an act is that the local miners liked them and stood by them, even during the nationalization period
That period came under Attlee, the post-WW2 PM. He nationalized railroads, mines, and mills in the name of...envy of the wealthy, explained away as caring about worker wages and safety. Amongst those mines confiscated were those of the Fitzwilliams, showing the lie of Attlee's reasoning: the Fitzwilliam miners were well-paid and safe
But, nationalize them Attlee did. The spite and envy were put in clear relief by Manny Shinwell, the Labour Party's Minister of Fuel and Power
He ordered strip mining on the Fitzwilliam family's Wentworth Woodhouse estate, despite the low value of the coal on it. The miners protested and threatened striking over his decision, as they were loyal to the Fitzwilliam family, but Shinwell crushed that and the strip mining began. It ravaged the cultivated, Capability Brown garden landscape. It also continued right up to the door of Wentworth, and damaged the foundation of the house severely, making it unliveable
In the name of spite, he destroyed a family's home and gardens despite that family's kind treatment of their employees
There was no reason for that other than envy. The miners had been well-treated, the coal was valueless, and the family paid its (unjustly high) taxes
But envy lies at the root of socialist Labour's popularity, just as it lies at the root of communism like Zimbabweification
So, with the Wentworth story playing out across the countryside and sky-high estate taxes destroying landed estates and old families, envy as a political force plagued England and culminated in Harold Wilson's 90% death taxes, currency devaluation, and economic stagnation
Of course, those who were destroyed for no reason other than envy were mocked for it by the media
That's back
Economic Envy is behind Starmer's decision to start confiscating land through taxation, and this time the country isn't still wealthy from Victoria but rather impoverished and already overtaxed, so the effects will be even worse
As always, the policy of envy is justified by saying the policy will just make the rich "pay their fair share"
But are land-rich, cash-poor yeomen farmers "the rich"? Should the actually rich, those relatively few peers who survived the death taxes of Churchill, Attlee and Wilson, be destroyed because of envy? Is that just?
No. But it is what liberalism wants. "Equality," by which they mean state-enforced egalitarianism, requires it
So now the last remnants of the old world are being taxed out of existence, their land to be confiscated by the state in a process little different than what Mugabe did to Rhodesia. It's just envy, as the "meme" below shows
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Ever since the Greeks built a culture around wine, the West has functioned quite well with alcohol as a social bedrock
And while min-maxing every tidbit of life is ridiculous anyway, there's not really evidence that reasonable drinking is bad for you🧵👇
First, the cultural aspect:
There is something unique about the West that was typified by its Mannerbund beginning but has held true through the ages; the ties of hierarchy, feelings of individualist, and pairings of brotherhood and merit created something truly astounding to behold
Such men could, with their ties that bind intact and providing strength and individual quest for honor and glory providing impulse, conquer the world
In fact, they quite literally did so; only a few minor realms remained outside Great Power control by 1913, and much of that had been conquered by adventurers of the Courtney Selous, James Brooke, and Julius Caesar mold. Men who created intense ties of brotherhood within their group and dominated the world as small bands
Meanwhile, back at home, the societies they lived in and which their compatriots built were, on the whole, more gorgeous than any competitors: where were the county houses of Imperial China, the parks and coverts of Mesoamerica, or the opera houses of Dahomey? None existed
What, then, beyond heritage, was unique?
Why did the Franks and Normans conquer the world while the Arabs once so far ahead of them fell first somewhat behind, then greatly behind, and were eventually under the thumb of the descendants of the Crusaders they once bested?
Why did the West work with the communists to destroy Rhodesia?
Or, why would the "free" side of the Cold War ally with the communists to destroy a thriving, resource republic in a critical area
It makes no sense at first. But it makes much sense with a closer look 🧵👇
Critical to understand here is what the two main sides of the Cold War were
On one side was the communist block. It wanted, whatever its internal divisions, to spread communism abroad, mainly by launching revolutions within the old Empires of the Great Powers
The other side was America. It, by hook or crook, aimed to contain and then roll back communism, mainly by subsuming the same former Great Power colonies the communists were aiming for, and replacing colonial government with nationalist-minded locals that would engage in free trade with America and at least pay lip service to liberal democracy
Notably, then, both sides shared two common traits
The first was a desire to strip the old powers of their empires. So, whenever imperialism fought the locals, America and the Soviets were on the same side, as happened first in the Suez Crisis
Egalitarianism, or the belief that there are no differences in capability between humans and that if any differences show themselves to exist, the state must destroy them, was the other common trait. The Soviets (and Red Chinese) were a bit more brutal about it, but the impulse was the same. "Liberal democracy" meant the destruction of natural hierarchy based forms of government, namely aristocracy, and its replacement with mass democracy or leveling dictatorship. Communism just jumped straight to the dictatorship bit, with a leveled country and a dictator + his cronies at the very top
One thing I've seen missed in the housing price debate on here the past few days is that, while the price of houses has increased tremendously in fiat cost over recent years, valued in real money it has held steady for a century
A short thread with some helpful charts🧵👇
This is one helpful chart given its length, and though it only goes to 2020, it does show the general trend:
Priced in real money, housing has actually gotten less expensive, even despite increasing in square footage, quality, and complexity; think of all the extra plumbing and electrical wiring now compared to 1900!
Meanwhile the fiat value has rocketed upward tremendously, as anything exponential eventually does
The only time housing increased priced in gold is when gold was artificially suppressed as inflation raged from the mid-1930s to gold being legal to purchase again in the 70s
Here's a chart going up to today and back to 1889: the house price hasn't changed much, priced in gold, and really the only spike was when gold's price was artificially suppressed
This lack of generational continuity is a big problem, as it leads to denying responsibility to the past and future which, in turn, creates a leftist political bent
Americans must learn to be Grosvenors rather than Vanderbilts; America's post-Depression history shows why🧵👇
The lack of "Old Money" in America is often celebrated, as it seems to signal total meritocracy, democracy as applied to the social scene, etc.
But that's not really true. America in, say, 1890 was a meritocratic time: Rockefeller, Carnegie, the Vanderbilts, etc. built and maintained vast fortunes and were able to do so because the general freedom of action allowed by the time created opportunity. They were free to unleash their genius, in other words, and so created vast fortunes
But it was also an era in which "Old Money" not just existed but dominated the social scene. A great example is Mrs. Astor's New York Four Hundred. Composed almost entirely of families of "gentlemen" in that the family money had been had for at least three generations, it ruled New York society and determined what was posh, fashionable, accessible and so on.
Those with talent, in short, were free to make their fortunes and often rose not just to business, but political prominence
Meanwhile, there was still a tradition-minded cohort that ensured old traditions, manners, customs, and so on were respected
They watched for excess - for example it was they, as represented by the Morgan dynasty, that kept banking in America long the province of gentlemen with strict moral standards (@NormanDodd_knew has done a fantastic job highlighting this)- and, as necessary and salutary integrated the "new men" into the social framework
What that accomplished was keeping society, both with a capital S and without, on the right track. Men and women dressed respectably, acted respectably in public, were inculcated in the view of service to the state (namely in the military) as a good thing, understood their duty to the different classes, and so on
Notably, it was the new men who never joined that group, men like Henry Clay Frick, who had the worst Gilded Age reputations for treating workers poorly
Nothing is perfect, of course, but America remained a stable and prosperous place, avoiding socialism and/or revolution as happened in much of Europe, and the sons of the wealthy volunteered in units like the Rough Riders and first air force (composed mainly of the Yale flying club) when war broke out
As Lee Kuan Yew put it, ending 3rd World behavior: “[We told them] stop spitting, stop littering … you can’t go around peeing everywhere as you did in the old squatter villages”
California's doing the reverse, and thus its decline🧵👇
And this has been something Singapore is serious about: they'll beat you with a cane if you litter, pee in the street, or commit some other crime of 3rd Worldism
Meanwhile they'll execute you if you traffic drugs or commit similarly anti-social crimes
They take maintaining order seriously
Why that works is obvious
Civilization, is, at a base level, destroyed by entropy. Everything that works together to create something other than a state of nature gradually decays, both as nature wears on it and those in charge gradually forget how to repair it or why it was once repaired at all
Rome's aqueducts are the classic example of this, but there are a multitude. Congolese infrastructure is probably the prime one of our times. Modern before the Belgians were forced out, now everything has fallen apart and is inoperable, with both a malice-caused refusal to maintain and an ignorance of how that maintenance is done being to blame
So, the decay over time is, over the long term, what destroys everything, from the aqueducts and mines to the civilizations they represent. That's obvious
Critical to know about the "Cold War" is that, for most of it, "we" aided and abetted communists as they committed the worst atrocities imaginable across the globe:
"We" helped enforce "equity" in its base form, at bayonet point
A few examples, and the reason why, in the 🧵👇
Right after WW2, in China, is a good place to start
There, Chiang Kai-shek could have won, could have kept China free of communism after ridding it of that plague.
Instead, as even liberal historian Paul Thomas Chamberlin notes in The Cold War's Killing Fields, Gen. Marshall aided the Red Chinese. He forced Chiang into pointless peace talks, then yanking aid, all while refusing to aid Chiang as he fought against Mao and Soviets in Manchuria. Marshall remained implacably opposed to Chiang because he was trying to defeat the communists rather than let them into the government (pg 78). Eventually, with US aid gone and the Soviets aiding Mao, China fell to communism, the "political changes" Marshall wanted. This was much like the sort of betrayal and backstabbing via peace conference later seen in Rhodesia's fight against communism
What followed were horrors of the worst sort, with tens of millions left dead as China's very fabric as an ancient civilization was ripped apart by Reds somehow even more destructive of history than the Bolsheviks. Mao, meanwhile, busied himself with molesting teenage girls
Another example is Algeria. Long a French colony in which millions of Pieds-noirs, or ethnic French who made it their home, settled, brutal murderers calling themselves rebels fought to "free" their country from just and effective French Administration
America, as could be expected, sided with the rebels, with historian Irwin Wall showing that America saw the murderous rebels as pushing an acceptable sort of decolonization revolution, and eventually France being pressured into abandoning the colony and its inhabitants because of that pressure.
So, French were forced from Algeria, the Pieds-noirs had to flee as the communist rebels with whom the "free world" sided for anti-colonial reasons inflicted horrors upon the domestic population. Eventually, the atrocities were awful enough that the Pieds-noirs fled, with the rebels essentially succeeding in effecting an ethnic cleansing of them, one Washington saw as acceptable