Identity Dixie – By Harmonica –
Contra the Controlled Right, the Dissident Right knows the entire Civil Rights Movement was a scam and its patron saint, Martin Luther King Jr. was neither a true conservative nor an example of “Christian courage” – he was a leftist and a heretic. The division between these two attitudes runs deep, so deep that it functions as a very good litmus test for the distinction between the fake and the real Right. But, what many on the Dissident Right do not know is just how destructive the logic and language of the Civil Rights Movement is, and how quickly it can turn an authentically rightwing movement into either one powerless to stop the excesses of the Left or, even worse, actively become leftist itself.
Part of the reason the Civil Rights Movement is so seductive is because of its success. It was able to radically transform the United States on racial matters in less than a single generation. Other leftwing movements, namely the gay rights movement, used the basic strategy outlined by the Civil Rights Movement to similar success. Remember, it was not that long ago (2008) that even California was able to pass a ban on homosexual marriage. With all of this in mind, it makes sense, at least on the surface, that rightwing movements can adopt the language of the Civil Rights Movement for their own ends. Even if we are to admit that those ends were bad, at least the basic strategy can be used. However, history shows that is a tragic mistake, one we can see in three different movements that have all seen a leftwing turn after utilizing this strategy – Irish Nationalism, Quebecois Nationalism, and the pro-life movement.
Irish Nationalism
Irish Nationalism found its first real successes – the establishment of the Irish Free State and later the Irish Republic – through rightwing nationalist ends. Though there was a socialist element lead by James Connolly, the vast majority of the movement stood for traditional Irish culture, including a strong place for religion and recognized the distinction between men and women. But, for all the success the movement had in the interwar period, by the late 1960s the movement had staled and it had yet to achieve its ultimate goal of uniting the Republic of Ireland with Northern Ireland. This is when a new strategy was born, one that utilized the language of the Civil Rights Movement.
A shift in language occurred – no longer were the Irish Nationalists fighting for traditional Irish values, but rather they were fighting an anti-colonial war, trendy language in a world where old European style colonialism was on its last legs, with only Portugal under Salazar and his successor and Spain under Franco as the last real holdouts trying to maintain their empires.
The result of this shift in language was the swallowing of a poison pill that would eventually destroy the Irish Nationalist movement. Far from fiercely defending Ireland, her people, and traditions, Sinn Féin (an old Irish Nationalist party that has gone radical Left in recent years) can’t be bothered to support any of the things that make Ireland a unique and special nation. Instead, Sinn Féin began supporting increased immigration into Ireland, abortion, and homosexual marriage. Look, there are a lot of reasons why Ireland went from, in a single generation, the most conservative nation in Western Europe to being the most liberal, and while I do still maintain that the ultimate blame for what happened lay at the feet of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy for its mishandling of the sex abuse crisis, there is no doubt that the leftwing shift of several old Irish Nationalist organizations played a significant role as well, and the beginnings of their shift can be seen when they attempted to use trendy leftwing language to achieve their goals.
Quebecois Nationalism
Much like Ireland, Quebec was a historically rural, religious, and conservative nation. Starting in the 1960s, however, they began to try and assert more control over their affairs, growing tired of being ruled by anglophone Canada. Instead of looking to the rightwing nationalist movements that thrived in the first half of the 20th century, the Quebecois looked to the then burgeoning American Civil Rights Movement for their inspiration. They were no longer a European people seeking self-determination, but rather were an oppressed minority – they considered themselves equivalent to blacks in the United States and their mindset reflected that. The historical legacy of ancient regime France, including the Catholic faith, had to be jettisoned in order to make their new strategy work. The result was the complete destruction of old Quebec, accomplished by her own sons and daughters. By the time the Quiet Revolution turned a decade old in 1970, “France without the Revolution” had become very much like France herself, only in North America and much colder, in terms of its cultural leftism and hostility to religion.
The fact that all of this happened to Quebec so quickly suggests some serious rot had already occurred well before the Quiet Revolution began, but that it occurred so rapidly does suggest that the Quebecois Nationalists made several very serious mistakes. Those critical mistakes being replacing their historical European and Christian moorings, as they relate to the struggle for greater Quebecois sovereignty, to leftists ideologies inspired by the Civil Rights Movement. As in the case of Ireland, using leftwing language and ideas cannot sustain a historic Christian nation. Eventually, be it in a decade as in the case of Quebec or two generations as in the case of Ireland, this will end in disaster as it creates a breed of “nationalists” that are unable to defend the historic foundations of their nations.
The Pro-Life Movement
Over the past few years, I have noticed a growing tendency for the pro-life movement to frame its fight in terms of the Civil Rights Movement. I’m not talking about discussions regarding the impact on abortion on the black population, it goes deeper than that, but nevertheless, it still contains the same seeds of destruction that happened to both Irish and Quebecois Nationalism. Back in 1983, the then Archbishop of Chicago, Joseph Cardinal Bernadin, proposed what he called the “seamless garment” attitude to abortion, which held that while abortion was important, it should be held as equal to “other pro-life issues” – namely capital punishment, poverty, and gun control. Never mind that Holy Scripture and every great mind of Christendom until the late 20th century held that the state has the right to execute criminals for murder. Never mind that there is a distinction to be drawn between the direct, deliberate taking of life as in abortion and an indirect death that may occur due to poverty. Never mind that self-defense is a natural right. They are all held as equals. The “seamless garment” theory eventually produced the “New Pro-Life Movement” that directly tries to appeal to the Left by lumping abortion in with the favorite pet causes. The end result is a weakening of abortion as a great evil.
As of right now, the New Pro-Life Movement is a minority tendency within the larger pro-life movement. If anything, the Democrats radicalization on this issue and the fact they will never offer anything more than tepid condemnation of said radicalization, if that, has limited its appeal. But their presence does show the same mistakes that were made by both the Irish and Quebecois Nationalists – a desire to use the language and framework of the Civil Rights Movement in hopes of piggybacking off of its success. As European people, both the Irish and Quebecois must embed their movements in Christianity. As must the pro-life movement, and the framework of the Civil Rights Movement, made by Marxists and heretics, undermines that, essentially destroying the foundations by which a successful movement must be built.
The logic behind adopting the Civil Rights Movement’s language makes sense. It has drastically changed the United States. In the days before the Civil Rights Movement, phrases like “America is a white man’s country” were taken as mere statements of fact or even a source of pride. Up until this point, the United States had an immigration policy explicitly designed to prevent massive demographic change (specifically, from the 1920 census). It was an arrangement that lasted for almost 200 years. The Civil Rights Movement changed that. “America is a white man’s country” is today only used by leftists who want to push the revolution even farther.
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