Perhaps, but then perhaps Bill Compton is also neither “right-wing” nor an Undead-American. Perhaps he’s even secretly some pervy queer resident of a northern city so liberal that it might as well be Canada. One never knows what dangerous creatures one can find lurking below the shallows of the internets.

In any case, I’ll certainly credo that we should all be armed and trained as citizens- which today primarily implies competence with a laptop and a cellphone, not primitive American killing tools- and therefore I have reserved the right to unleash unbearable levels of rhetorical violence against anyone who dares to break the sacred libertarian principle of “no shoot gun in house”. As I alluded to in my earlier note, what other weapons have I here?

Touché. Barbarian.

I’m sure it would be more peaceful is we accepted that we are one people and just sung the national anthem together. Oops, I meant a civilised one.

Otherwise, the Mom’s garden in growing beautifully; it’s stunning how quickly everything we planted some months ago has flourished. She’s growing me a trimming from her camelia bush. Life is beautiful.

Unless he accidentally left off an ‘s,’ Bill didn’t say that he hates immigrants.

And everything you say here is truly, deeply, right, and just. Of course there’s nothing wrong with farming per se. Of course not all farmer’s are bigots. I have some serious concerns regarding the conservative tendencies of environmentalism, but that’s another issue which may be put aside. We should be free individuals respecting another’s rights. I would like to see such a world.

Left and right, and their urban and rural constituencies, are fortresses. Each of us holes up in one fortress or another out of fear from being hurt by the other side. Each side pushes for laws and social conditions which harm the other, and each side takes each new blow as further evidence of the necessity of inflicting harm in return. And fortresses are prisons, and to the degree each side fears the other they are willing to put up with tyranny and enforced conformity from their internal elites. It’s precisely how the terror war functions, or the international state system generally, or the position marriages offer to women in patriarchy. Swear fealty to one tyrant or be tortured by the next.

Libertarianism should have been an answer to that. It should have been, in Ayn Rand’s words, about trading de-control for de-control,and learning to relate to each other as individuals rather than examples of power blocs. But it didn’t happen. Objectivism and libertarianism just became a cover for one of the fortresses. The one that literally wishes that I did not exist.

I wish this were a better world. I often feel as if we’ve passed and lost the chance to be kind enough to make that better world real. I am so tired. I’ve been hurt one too many times because I did try to live on the principle of refusing all protection of all fortresses because it’s all a horrible self-justifying game. But the third alternatives have either betrayed themselves or are too weak to offer protection, and I can’t live according to the demands of moral purists and rugged individualists who demand that I live without security. The anger I expressed was very, very real. I grew up in a Southern family and later spent several years of my life trapped in a small town in southwestern Virginia, and that portion of my mind is like a black scar. I’m also very sad that I feel I did have to choose a side with its own bloodied hands in a senselessly bloody conflict.

But I have. And I know very well that the presence of cultural islands of centre-left hegemony is the only thing protecting me from a nightmare of harassment, discrimination and exclusion literally every time I step outside my door. I know people may think that I’m making this up, but this is what life was like for me in ‘red state’ America. It’s been two years since I left the States, and I still occasionally wake up with nightmares. It’s very hard to simply get used to the fact that most people here really treat me as just another person and judge me as an individual.

I shouldn’t have said what I did, and I’m very happy if you have found work that you love- too few people ever do. I can’t imagine loving it, but most people feel the same way towards my life. In the future the existence of left-wing farmers could very well prove crucial to the survival of liberal civilisation. What I expect is more likely that the ‘Long Emergency’ will lock us back into dominance by feudal landlords. But if liberal culture can somehow survive a disurbanising transition without losing its essence my picture of the world would lose much darkness.

But for now, the war rolls on. And I remain foundationally grateful to the cities and people who have made me feel like I am allowed to survive. And I am willing to do absolutely anything necessary to preserve these circumstances. I can see that the urban centre-left has a chance of preserving them, while libertarianism has failed.

P.S. I also admire Ayn Rand critically, tho’ I’ve no idea whether our disagreements with her philosophy converge or differ.

Bill-

I’m more inclined than not towards a RKBA position on weapons rights issues. But with that attitude towards immigrants- especially as I’m an immigrant myself (not to America, thank goddess)- I’m perfectly thrilled to see someone rip off every last rifle and gun in your possession. Every time I feel sick about something done by the Left I remind myself that the alternative is falling under the power of someone like you. I didn’t like the state taking away my stiletto and pepper spray either, but the thought of an armed you frightens me enough to put up with far worse.

Given that she spent most of her childhood moving across the country from one farm to another, with poor access to formal education, I imagine that Rose Wilder Lane would be classified as one of those “right-wing farmers” by the aforementioned liberal statists. Certainly their aforementioned laws would make no distinction.

Perhaps you could argue that she was an exceptionally intelligent farmer who eventually turned her back on that lifestyle. Then there’s the case of Isabel Patterson, who experienced much the same situation on a cattle ranch in Alberta, of which she wrote favorably.

Your’s truly,
An angry, right-wing male that had his guns taken away by liberal statists who hate immigrants, and who has, on occasion, farmed.

I’ve given up trying to format my text on any website, since you never know whether they’ll accept html, [i], , or some unholy custom tags.

I created a plugin that displays the list of allowed tags just below the comment textbox to take the guesswork out of it.

As an individual who grew up on a farm, and who loves all aspects of farming– particularly if it is managed in a Polyface Farm/Acres USA type of manner– I resent being identified as bigoted or right-wing. Yes, some farmers are bigoted and right-wing but not all. In fact, some of the most freedom loving and rational individuals are farmers, especially those that follow the organic, work-with-nature-and-the-soil Acres USA type of approach.

For the sake of argument, lets assume that the stereotype you just uttered is correct. Let us assume that all farmers are indeed bigoted right-wing nuts who, given the chance, treat all who do not share their narrow view of humanity as immoral and something less than human. I fail to see how this would thus imply that it is proper to use, indiscriminately**, the apparatus of the state to slap their wrists and call them “naughty boys.” You have expressed admiration and appreciation for Ayn Rand, hence I do not deem it necessary to argue the premise and conclusion at this point. If you have a different view, i.e. you want to- or can- argue about why people should be punished for their mere beliefs, I am more than willing to engage in such an exchange of ideas.

**By “indiscriminately” I mean using force against farmers who simply believe a certain way, but who have not violently infringed upon the life and property of others.

P.S. I admire Rand, but I think she was significantly wrong about many things.