If you’re claiming to be part of a ‘Freedom’ Movement and you’re blocking people critical of your viewpoint (and therefore trying to filter out that criticism from reaching your followers) you gotta ask: Whose side are you really on?
Simon's “woke piece” has a comment thread in which someone claims he blocked them on twitter and he says he didn’t. I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt over this until......
I posted three supportive comments on that very thread in which I told him about your critique and offered my own take whereby I made an attempt to defend Simon.
A few days passed with no comment from him. But this morning I found he had deleted my comments. ....and had apparently blocked me on twitter!
I might be willing to accept that the twitter block didn’t come from him had it not been that the timing is suspicious I.e. coming straight after his deletions- and I presume he has control over his own site!
I’m trying to think of some innocent explanation for this but I can’t. His deletions without comment are the big giveaway. The deletion is a clear action on his part. If he had some legitimate reason for it, he could have inserted it right away. But he didn’t. Not so much as an “I’ll get back to you later”.
If Elmer devoted as much time and effort to building strong and ethical arguments rather than to trawling his twitter account and website to delete even slightly dissenting views, he might not have produced what I critiqued. But that's who he is. He has shown his true colours.
I will say that this so-called "freedom" movement is heavily populated with people who perhaps don't like what's going on but see this moment as an opportunity to make money and sell books etc. It's almost become an industry as opposed to a type of revolutionary movement. So their egos are the main driver of their behaviour. That post of his is an extract from his book and my feeling is that, in his desperation to sell as many copies as possible, he is dedicated to snuffing out any trail of criticism that might have validity.
I respect your view that Elmer's work was defensible. You are prepared to engage - both with him and me. I respect your view because, as I said in my own piece, I can see that he gets some things right, but it's the easy / obvious things that we all know. But he then mixes those things up with really insidious rhetoric and so he produces this soup that has some validity but is laced with poison. I know my piece is a bit long so I will reiterate the core of my argument:
1. I don't have a problem with discussing immigration and I'm sympathetic to the growing feeling that it's gotten out of hand. I said that. However, I take issue with how one uses that debate. Even though Elmer discusses the Great Reset and throws in obvious facts about it, the link between immigration and the Great Reset, as it is unfolding, is very weak / non-existent.
2. He presents immigration stats and concludes that the PRODUCT of 2 decades of immigration is a 2nd generation immigrant political class that hates White British culture. The clear inference (to me) is that the wider immigrant community for which this political class is a proxy, must therefore also hate British culture and people. Well, what is to be done with this 18% of the population who hate 80% of the rest? That's the question he's effectively asking and it's obviously ugly.
3. I argued that neither the proxy political grouping nor the wider group of immigrants hate British culture. We need to accept that this 2nd gen group are British and that the statements they make should not be seen as evidence of hate but rather politicking - what all politicians do. Remember, they are on the same side as the whole political establishment and they would not get away with those statements unless they had the approval of the broader political establishment. One only need look at what happened to Truss and Kwarteng when they stepped out of line. Colour didn't matter, did it? Bottom line, Elmer is just ginning up hatred through the lens of ethnicity and culture, instead of focusing on the bigger picture.
4. He says these 2nd gen immigrants in high office is evidence of "colonialism". Just not true for the reasons I argued. This is an attempt to draw a direct parallel between historical colonial abuse and what is happening today in Britain. Again, ginning up hatred with a baseless comparison to history.
5. All of his rhetoric has the effect of making some people think that immigrants are responsible for the Great Reset when we are ALL victims of it. This is scapegoating. I have no concrete scientific proof for this but my gut feeling is that resistance to the Great Reset might by higher in immigrant populations (but certainly at least equal to) than in those who are established here for much longer.
6. The Great Reset cannot be beaten using divisive cultural ideology. IF you decide that culture (rooted in ethnicity) offers a causal argument in the GR problem, then it's more rational to examine the 82% white population and not the 18% minority. (Whether I were in the minority or majority, I would not go down that route because it makes no sense on so many levels, moral and rational.) After all, the 'fruits' (as listed in my piece) of Western culture are at the root of every pillar of the GR. We all share universal values and all people, regardless of background, can see that those values are under threat. Ironically, the more conservative one's values, the more likely you are to be opposed to the GR which means that liberalism has turned into a form of tyranny.
7. Bottom line - I do not believe there is a cultural deficit. There is a values deficit and it cuts across all cultures. That is what we need to attack. Woke is a sign of a values and intellectual deficit and it must be attacked with arguments rooted in values and intellectual rationality.
I attempted to draft out a defence of Simon’s case until I realised the absurdity of the situation. Why attempt to defend someone who deleted my support? He’s on his own now. He can defend his own case. And if he doesn’t then there’s nothing more to say.
I think when someone, who purports to be against the great reset agenda, turns around and blocks someone, not for bad behaviour, but for simply debating them, then it’s perfectly reasonable to question their motives!
On the anti-immigration question, I started following on X a couple of high-profile people, Jackson Hinkle and Keith Wood, doing an amazing job of standing up for Palestinians, but after a while I noticed their broader politics are some kind of ethnic separatism, with positions like “cultures don’t mix“, “keep cultures separate“. Both are white, so it seems like a kind of white supremacy with an attempted humanist patina. This concerns me a lot.
I was a fan of Elmer then I was blocked by him a few months ago after I asked him about his past as a Class War activist - he earlier had claimed he would have nothing to do with anarchists. When I linked to a video : 0WZXOoNnbv0 (youtube) he blocked me and deleted his replies. Seems he did not want his followers to know. But that raised more questions for me: why does a very well spoken posh boy like elmer claim to represent the working class anyway? My guess is he's not who he says he is.
He is very strange. How can anyone claim to fight totalitarianism by employing the same tactics as the totalitarians?! I too thought he was 'clever'. We live and learn.
Freedom means freedom even for those you don’t like
This is pretty elementary but often forgotten
Thanks for your great work
Simon's “woke piece” has a comment thread in which someone claims he blocked them on twitter and he says he didn’t. I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt over this until......
I posted three supportive comments on that very thread in which I told him about your critique and offered my own take whereby I made an attempt to defend Simon.
A few days passed with no comment from him. But this morning I found he had deleted my comments. ....and had apparently blocked me on twitter!
I might be willing to accept that the twitter block didn’t come from him had it not been that the timing is suspicious I.e. coming straight after his deletions- and I presume he has control over his own site!
I’m trying to think of some innocent explanation for this but I can’t. His deletions without comment are the big giveaway. The deletion is a clear action on his part. If he had some legitimate reason for it, he could have inserted it right away. But he didn’t. Not so much as an “I’ll get back to you later”.
I feel quite betrayed by this.
If Elmer devoted as much time and effort to building strong and ethical arguments rather than to trawling his twitter account and website to delete even slightly dissenting views, he might not have produced what I critiqued. But that's who he is. He has shown his true colours.
I will say that this so-called "freedom" movement is heavily populated with people who perhaps don't like what's going on but see this moment as an opportunity to make money and sell books etc. It's almost become an industry as opposed to a type of revolutionary movement. So their egos are the main driver of their behaviour. That post of his is an extract from his book and my feeling is that, in his desperation to sell as many copies as possible, he is dedicated to snuffing out any trail of criticism that might have validity.
I respect your view that Elmer's work was defensible. You are prepared to engage - both with him and me. I respect your view because, as I said in my own piece, I can see that he gets some things right, but it's the easy / obvious things that we all know. But he then mixes those things up with really insidious rhetoric and so he produces this soup that has some validity but is laced with poison. I know my piece is a bit long so I will reiterate the core of my argument:
1. I don't have a problem with discussing immigration and I'm sympathetic to the growing feeling that it's gotten out of hand. I said that. However, I take issue with how one uses that debate. Even though Elmer discusses the Great Reset and throws in obvious facts about it, the link between immigration and the Great Reset, as it is unfolding, is very weak / non-existent.
2. He presents immigration stats and concludes that the PRODUCT of 2 decades of immigration is a 2nd generation immigrant political class that hates White British culture. The clear inference (to me) is that the wider immigrant community for which this political class is a proxy, must therefore also hate British culture and people. Well, what is to be done with this 18% of the population who hate 80% of the rest? That's the question he's effectively asking and it's obviously ugly.
3. I argued that neither the proxy political grouping nor the wider group of immigrants hate British culture. We need to accept that this 2nd gen group are British and that the statements they make should not be seen as evidence of hate but rather politicking - what all politicians do. Remember, they are on the same side as the whole political establishment and they would not get away with those statements unless they had the approval of the broader political establishment. One only need look at what happened to Truss and Kwarteng when they stepped out of line. Colour didn't matter, did it? Bottom line, Elmer is just ginning up hatred through the lens of ethnicity and culture, instead of focusing on the bigger picture.
4. He says these 2nd gen immigrants in high office is evidence of "colonialism". Just not true for the reasons I argued. This is an attempt to draw a direct parallel between historical colonial abuse and what is happening today in Britain. Again, ginning up hatred with a baseless comparison to history.
5. All of his rhetoric has the effect of making some people think that immigrants are responsible for the Great Reset when we are ALL victims of it. This is scapegoating. I have no concrete scientific proof for this but my gut feeling is that resistance to the Great Reset might by higher in immigrant populations (but certainly at least equal to) than in those who are established here for much longer.
6. The Great Reset cannot be beaten using divisive cultural ideology. IF you decide that culture (rooted in ethnicity) offers a causal argument in the GR problem, then it's more rational to examine the 82% white population and not the 18% minority. (Whether I were in the minority or majority, I would not go down that route because it makes no sense on so many levels, moral and rational.) After all, the 'fruits' (as listed in my piece) of Western culture are at the root of every pillar of the GR. We all share universal values and all people, regardless of background, can see that those values are under threat. Ironically, the more conservative one's values, the more likely you are to be opposed to the GR which means that liberalism has turned into a form of tyranny.
7. Bottom line - I do not believe there is a cultural deficit. There is a values deficit and it cuts across all cultures. That is what we need to attack. Woke is a sign of a values and intellectual deficit and it must be attacked with arguments rooted in values and intellectual rationality.
I attempted to draft out a defence of Simon’s case until I realised the absurdity of the situation. Why attempt to defend someone who deleted my support? He’s on his own now. He can defend his own case. And if he doesn’t then there’s nothing more to say.
That made me laugh. A perfectly rational approach to take.
I think when someone, who purports to be against the great reset agenda, turns around and blocks someone, not for bad behaviour, but for simply debating them, then it’s perfectly reasonable to question their motives!
On the anti-immigration question, I started following on X a couple of high-profile people, Jackson Hinkle and Keith Wood, doing an amazing job of standing up for Palestinians, but after a while I noticed their broader politics are some kind of ethnic separatism, with positions like “cultures don’t mix“, “keep cultures separate“. Both are white, so it seems like a kind of white supremacy with an attempted humanist patina. This concerns me a lot.
I was a fan of Elmer then I was blocked by him a few months ago after I asked him about his past as a Class War activist - he earlier had claimed he would have nothing to do with anarchists. When I linked to a video : 0WZXOoNnbv0 (youtube) he blocked me and deleted his replies. Seems he did not want his followers to know. But that raised more questions for me: why does a very well spoken posh boy like elmer claim to represent the working class anyway? My guess is he's not who he says he is.
He is very strange. How can anyone claim to fight totalitarianism by employing the same tactics as the totalitarians?! I too thought he was 'clever'. We live and learn.