Idealists March When Psychopaths Command
Perpetual war shows us that the only non cult in town, is MAGA.
In Syria now we are seeing exactly the same things that happened in Iraq after the toppling of Saddam and in Libya without Gaddafi.
Assad, Saddam and Gaddafi were all brutal, disgusting dictators. They were all savages who rose to the top or were born at the top in savage cultures. Savages only respect strength, brutality and fear. Middle Eastern dictators and rulers generally use torture and do disgusting things that decent people would not do.
But another truth of savagery is that the evil bastard at the top might be less evil, or more sane, or more pragmatic and manageable in his evil, than his opponents. Because those opponents…are ALSO savages.
Assad did evil things. But he was almost a secular figure in Muslim terms. The Druze and Christians were better off under him because he was not bothered about wiping them out. He viewed his position in terms of real threats and if a group had no power to threaten his position, they might well do reasonably well in the context of a savage culture.
Now here is where we get the difference between realists and idealists. And it’s the difference that really explains the fault line between most Populists and most Globalists. Realists look at an actual context and predictable consequences and judge whether the results of an action will do good based on what’s happened before.
Idealists work by some imagined best result in their head, ignoring the realities. So what happened in Afghanistan doesn’t tell them anything. What happened in Iraq doesn’t tell them anything. What happened in Libya doesn’t tell them anything. What happened with every perpetual war or pointless toppling of a dictator with no plan for what happens next doesn’t tell them anything. The nature of savage cultures and Muslim savages, again and again, doesn’t tell them anything.
They aren’t realist so they can’t notice that some strongman psychopath is sometimes better than a hundred competing strongman psychopaths or better than a different strongman psychopath with much firmer ideology and a much more religious desire to exterminate whoever he deems an infidel. The dictator dentist might be better than the jihadi mob. And idealists can’t understand that. For an idealist, if you do understand that, you’re supporting the dictator dentist.
And the idealist will end up supporting people who are JUST as evil, or MUCH WORSE, while pretending that they are spreading their ideals. They will put the label ‘moderate’ on a jihadi, and claim they have spread Democracy.
Now many Globslists at the top aren’t really idealists, they are crooks loooimg for money and power, and psychopaths with that. But they know idealism sells. So many lower level Globalists are pure idealists. Left or Right, they buy the Spreading Democracy bullshit. Regardless of consequences. Regardless of disasters. Regardless of expense.
All they can see and hear is the Ideal. The Promise. It helps that this is all that is presented in the mainstream media.
And they will idealistically love some random jihadi who topples Assad, or some dwarf sized comedian who plays the piano with his penis, when told that this is Ideal. A realist will look at who these people actually are, as well as who they oppose, and then be told they are supporting the Bad Man who Must Be Defeated.
This is how clueless sections of the Right and clueless sections of the Left can be united, because they are both idealists. They don’t look first and last at objective reality. They can’t learn from real world errors because their politics is entirely about imaginary things or Ideal versions of things. A jihadi is, in their way, an Idealist. So is an Antifa thug. So is the average emotive and uninformed person who hears the mainstream media saying Bad Man Must Go and doesn’t think beyond that.
What happens when the Bad Man goes? Is anything worse waiting? Did it work the last time? Is it it really our problem? Do those cultures stop being savage? Do they come here? Am I any safer? Where has the money gone? These are all pragmatic, realist questions that don’t occur to idealists.
The funniest thing about criticisms of MAGA are that both the Polite Right of ineffectual idealised uselessness and the Raging Left of pure psychosis call it a cult, when it’s the least cult like movement in modern politics. All of its critics are ideologically conditioned hyper emotional responders obsessed with some Shining Vision.
It is only MAGA that looks and says but this didn’t fucking work the last thirty five times, did it? It is only MAGA that says that sounds nice, but look at the shit you made. It is only MAGA that says where has the money gone. And it is only MAGA that says is our country safer, better, richer, happier because of this?
It is only MAGA that looks honestly at the nature of the dictator AND the nature of the opposition to the dictator.
It is only MAGA that notices what fails, and is prepared to accept what works, for the honest betterment of its own nation.
And right now, it is literally only MAGA that seems to notice hundreds of thousands of dead bodies.
The idealists are still busy looking at a mirage in the sanctimonious clouds and being very pleased with what Good People they are while backing jihadis and Neo Nazis and massive fraud and endless slaughter in the process.
Have for a long time been saying that what we are seeing around us in many fields is the creation of cults. Climate Change the first, then Brexit, Covid, and now Ukraine.
A word on Assad. My stepdaughter spent six months in Damascus, leaving just after the trouble started. My wife visited a couple of time. Both loved it. My stepdaughter said the felt safer there as a single young woman than she did in much of London, and much more so than Morocco where she felt the evil eye when out on her own.
50 years ago, I spent a couple of months in Morocco, with a friend and his girlfriend. She was able to wear shorts and no hair cover, with no problem whatsoever.
We were sold much spin on Assad. He was popular, and the economy was moving when the West decided Syria was the next to go. They had for the first time a professional middle class, and their GDP growth was better then here. He was starting to deal with what is a constant problem in ME/Third World countries - bureaucratic corruption.
His dad of course was excoriated for the massacre in Homs. Actually, that did us all a huge favour, as he wiped out a large encampment of the Muslim Brotherhood, the fons origo of Islamic terrorism. Similarly, there was NO civil war, rather an uprising by extremists funded by the West and (Sunni) Saudi Arabia. Those all trapped in Idlib after Assad won were all such.
Syria was also the last secular country in the Middle East. Rather than turning on them, realpolitik would suggest that we should have engaged with Assad to support this last bastion, and prompt him into being more moderate.
The notorious gas attacks 1) The only Chlorine in the country has long been in the hands of extremists. 2) The OPCW reports on this have been found to have many falsehoods. At no point has Assad turned on his own. Another reason for his popularity.
So what have we there now? As Daniel notes, a country in a far worse state than it was before Assad fell.
From one pragmatist to another — perfect. Thanks.