"I should mention: it was not until I became a Christian that I realized how scary Christians seem to their foes. Here am I, newly vowed to a faith that says I may not lift a hand to defend myself, may not hate my deadly enemies even in my secret heart, but must to pray for them and love them even when they come to kill me; and yet perfect strangers write in to my livejournal to tell me that they quail in a perfect cold sweat of terror, stockpiling arms, because we Xtians are about to oversweep the world and install a Theocracy so tyrannical it will make the Pharaoh seem like an anarcho-capitalist. It happened more than once: people writing me to tell me they were afraid of me. Now, I assume they are not actually afraid of me, because otherwise I would merely pass their names and IP address along to the Holy Office, so that the Jesuit albino-assassins or Benedictine-built killer-robots could come beat them to death with radio-active crucifixes. I hope I am wrong, but I secretly suspect it is puffery, a pose of moral superiority. I have to be painted the aggressor, so that they can paint themselves the victim."There is a chock-load of interesting material in that post, the author detailing his beliefs and prejudices at the time he began the series, along with the various creative techniques he employed to pen the Chronicles of Chaos trilogy. Although it's quite prolix, I heartily recommend it to those who are familiar with the novels, and were perhaps looking for more critical understanding (verstehen) of the characters' paradigms.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
King Pharaoh, Anarcho-capitalist
Admit one John C. Wright to the hallowed ranks of anarcho-capitalists, as this following paragraph serves as his endorsement. Witness;
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3 comments:
You cannot trust John C. Wright when he says (or does not say) what his political opinions are. There is another post where he says he is a crypto-monarchist favoring the return of the Holy Roman Empire.
From his writing, he sounds like a straight-up social conservative, free-market type.
Are you perhaps referring to this post? http://johncwright.livejournal.com/126077.html?thread=2646397#t2646397
As it so happens, that was meant entirely as a joke in reply to a comment I left there.
And most social-conservatives I know (Neal Boortz types), don't express what he said there in the last paragraph;
"I also would like to see a return to the Gold Standard. An anarchist should admire the idea of allowing the free market to determine the interest rate, credit reserve, and currency circulation volume."
And with his pro-monogamic, hard-money [anti-Fed], pro-war stance, you definitely cannot pin him with a "social" label, nor a capital "L" Libertarian one.
Finally, I was writing this post tounge-in-cheek, in the same jocular spirit of JCW's exaggeration that in comparison to how Christianity is sometimes portrayed, King Pharaoh looks to be the model of saintliness-- an anarcho-capitalist. It's obvious that JCW considers ancapism to be idealic, although we happen to disagree what that label would entail.
Hi. This is the same anonymous as above.
Lets pin down what we definitely know about Wright's political stance, as opposed to his kidding around:
1. Gold Bug. He wants to return to the gold standard, and thinks the federal reserve board is evil.
2. Pro-Monogamy to a fault. He goes on about marriage like it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. He thinks no-fault divorce should be illegal. I assume he has the Catholic notion that condoms are immoral.
3. I am not sure what to call this, but he is the opposite of a feminist. Masculinist? He thinks men should be manly and women should be feminine, but he seems to use the word "manly" to mean "knightly" rather than macho.
4. Sometimes he talks like a libertarian: he wants public officials who violate the Constitution to be hanged, for example. Some of that talk might be bluster. Definitely pro-gun 2nd Amendment and all that.
5. He HATES Clinton. Whatever he is, he is anti-Dem.
6. He thinks abortion is child-murder, which I guess is a typical Christian-conservative line of argument.
I am not sure how he would score in a Nolan test, but he talks like someone who wants to see industry deregulated, and traditional home, family, marriage all that jazz defended to the death. Liberal if not Libertarian on economics and conservative on social questions. He talks about Ludwig van Mises and only the libertarians I've heard do that.
So what do you call the part of the spectrum that favors liberty in the public square and traditional stereotypes at home?
I guess that makes him a Whig?
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