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Part 2 of 3 (Part 1 here)

The past decade or two have seen the rise and fall of an alternative to mainstream conservatism in libertarianism. If we were to use the political compass as a model, conservatism would sit in the center between the upper and lower right quadrants, while libertarianism would be found in the lower right quadrant.

Libertarianism’s selling point was the reduction of government regulations and state power in favor of increased personal liberty and autonomy. Libertarianism became a trendy alternative to the mainstream Right during the 2000s and 2010s. Libertarians held several positions in common with the mainstream Right, such as the reduction of taxes and opposition to gun control, but also opposed foreign military intervention and the expansion of state surveillance, policies which many conservatives supported during the 2000s. Libertarianism was certainly appealing for many on the Right due to the increasingly intrusive expansion of government into all aspects of modern life, and gained it a following. It was libertarianism’s slide into Quixotism which lost it.

While libertarians shared a lot in common with the Right, some also embraced ideas associated with the Left, such as the decriminalization of drugs, more liberal immigration policies, and support for the LGBT movement. They argued that the government shouldn’t be able to dictate which substances an individual can or cannot take, that free movement of labor is an essential part of the free market, and that the LGBT movement was a matter of personal liberty. There was even a libertarian meme back in the day which showed gay couples using their guns to defend their privately-owned marijuana farms.

This created a divide within libertarianism, as it was at odds with the socially conservative leanings of many libertarians, while others argued it was consistent with their underlying principles. Most who had adopted libertarianism didn’t have armed homosexuals selling drugs to their children in mind as their idea of “liberty.” It didn’t stop there, however. Libertarians took the idea “government bad, free market good” and ran with it to the point of absurdity. Libertarians started calling for the abolition of all taxation as well as the entire governmental and state apparatus. Libertarianism became a one-upmanship contest where one proved his cred by proclaiming how strongly he was opposed to government regulation, no matter how insane the policies actually were.

This resulted in libertarians taking ludicrous positions under the premise that less government is always better. Some argued that it should be legal to sell illicit drugs to children, that police forces should be abolished altogether, that countries should have no borders at all, that child labor should be legalized, and/or that one shouldn’t need a license in order to drive a car. Some rather repulsive individuals identifying as libertarians even went so far as to argue that age of consent laws should be abolished, because that’s “government”.

Not only did this quixotic pissing contest make libertarianism look unserious and infantile, the years following 2016 have completely discredited their ideology. For example, during the wave of mass Internet censorship between 2017 and 2021, the online discussion within Right-wing and center-Right circles turned to the need for legislation to prevent social media companies from banning users for legal political speech. As they fell under the umbrella of the broader political Right, many libertarians found themselves the targets of censorship as well. Nevertheless, they still argued against any kind of legislation preventing social media companies from enacting censorship on the grounds that they are private companies, and thus government intervention to regulate them is wrong. The libertarians’ quixotism got them to the point where they opposed legislation designed to protect they themselves from censorship. They tried to see the issue strictly through the frame of their ideology by arguing that if a company censors content that viewers want to see, the market will punish the company and reward free-speech alternatives.

This has been proven wildly incorrect, as the engagement dissident Right content creators receive on alternative platforms today is merely a fraction of that which they got in 2016. But even this didn’t get libertarians to change their opinions. When President Donald Trump was banned from Twitter in 2021 while still in office, rather than seeing this as an egregious affront to freedom of speech and a warning sign of impending corporate tyranny, some libertarians actually rejoiced. Why? Because it was being done by a private company.

Another product of their quixotic thinking is their argument for open borders and unlimited immigration on the grounds that the market demand for labor should determine immigration, and that the state doesn’t have the right to regulate this. Whenever the issue of illegal immigration crops up in the United States, libertarian parties are sure to chime in, arguing that there shouldn’t be a border at all. If you want a smaller state and lower taxes, this is an insane position to take, as it has long been established that non-white immigrants overwhelmingly side with the Left and favor the expansion of the welfare state. It’s how they transfer wealth from the white population to themselves. Yet, libertarians continue to argue for open borders because of their idiotic first principle that any use of government power is always bad.

Libertarians disregard the burning issues of our time — demographics, nihilism, social atomization, etc. — by accusing those who are confronting them of being “statists” or “collectivists.” They often respond by saying, “How does this affect you personally?” The reality is that the collective stability and wellbeing of society matters to everyone, and you can’t simply close yourself off in a little bubble and expect to be left alone.

We could have safe, prosperous, and cohesive countries again, though part of the solution would include strict immigration policies, competent police forces, and a crackdown on subversive elements in the media and education. But many libertarians would have none of this because it would involve the use of . . . THE STATE! So instead, libertarians rave about how wonderful it is that illegal immigrants are being allowed to purchase firearms.

This obsession with ideology and total disregard for the reality of the world we actually live in persuaded many on the Right to abandon libertarianism. One of the many lessons COVID taught us is that the line between government and big business is being blurred. The two almost function as one entity today. It’s now referred to as public-private partnership. Both the state and corporations colluded in order to impose themselves in the minutest aspects of everyone’s lives for two years. And even after COVID, we continue to see smaller-scale collusion of this nature all the time. Libertarian quixotism has gotten them to the point that they would support themselves being hauled off to the gulag so long as that gulag was run by a private company and not the state.

In response to these developments, a new strand of the Right became trendy in the late 2010s and early 2020s. Referring back to the political compass, while libertarianism sits on the bottom right quadrant, this ideology sits on the top right. While I’m sure most of my readers will already agree with my criticisms of conservatism and libertarianism, I imagine I will step on a few toes with what I will write next. I feel that it is precisely because of this that it is even more important to say.

For the purposes of this essay, I will refer to this ideology as Third Positionism. Third Positionism came into existence in the early twentieth century following the First World War in opposition to the rise of Communism, but also as an alternative to capitalism. Iterations of this worldview took hold in Italy in the form of Fascism and Germany in the form of National Socialism.

The events of the past decade have exposed just how untenable libertarianism is. There’s the broader issue of the emptiness and nihilism which the materialistic consumerism of neoliberalism has brought about, and the more recent phenomenon of how ideologically progressive major corporations have become. In the era of Woke Capital, it’s clear as day that big business is just as responsible for the ills facing our society as governments, and that any realistic solution to our problems will involve bringing privately-held capital to heel.

A portion of libertarians embraced the concept of race realism throughout the 2010s. For many of them, this caused a shift in their core principles from limited government to ethnic nationalism. In the second half of the 2010s, this became known as “the libertarian-to-Alt Right pipeline. From there, many former libertarians began to rethink the idea that government intervention is always a bad thing and consider that at least a degree of government power will be necessary in a stable society. They, along with former conservatives and even some former Leftists, now make up what is broadly referred to as the dissident Right.

Third Positionism became a popular ideology among the dissident Right in the late 2010s and early 2020s. Along with ethnic nationalism and race realism, this strand favors a more socialistic economy in opposition to neoliberal capitalism, advocates a strong state and the use of government power, opposes classical liberal values, and puts a strong emphasis on the issue of Jewish influence and Zionism within the elite class.

As with libertarianism, I see the initial appeal. Race realism and collective ethnic identity were glaring omissions from conservatism and most iterations of libertarianism. The neoliberal capitalism which the Right supported for decades is a problem, and is even more so in the age of Woke Capital. Privatization is not always better. If you’re serious about attaining power, you can’t shy away from using the power of the state. The Jewish Question is likewise a pressing one. Jews have had a massively disproportionate amount of power in Western countries for decades now, and they’ve done more than any other group to promote mass Third World immigration, anti-white narratives, feminism, homosexuality, affirmative action, and censorship.

These have become standard dissident Right positions, and these are essential issues to confront for anyone hoping to build a more ordered and stable society. Thus, this perspective offered a very legitimate critique of mainstream Right-wing thought up to that point. But the Third Positionist strand of the Right, as well as many on the dissident Right more broadly, eventually found themselves guilty of Quixotism as well, just as had conservatism and libertarianism before them.

What happened was that the Third Positionists became obsessed with certain aspects of their worldview to the point that it overshadowed more important issues. This was largely the result of both an unhealthy obsession with 1930s Germany as well as excessive contrarianism in relation to mainstream conservatism and libertarianism. While the Jewish Question is an important aspect of understanding the nature of power in the Western world, for many Third Positionists it became the be-all-and-end-all explanation for everything happening in the world today.

The organized Jewish community is probably the most disproportionately powerful group. They, however, are only one of a number of groups vying for power today. Historically, their power has risen and fallen, increasing in one area at one time and then later declining, only to arise again somewhere else. The problem with the Third Positionist camp is that they came to the conclusion that Jews have total power over everything in the Western world for all of modern history (except in Germany between 1933 and 1945).

This brought them to the conclusion that Jews, as well as the state of Israel, hold absolute control over the United States, and that the US in turn holds absolute control over every other Western country. They also came to the conclusion that since the mainstream Right supports Zionism, everything they believe in must be incorrect, because it must have been designed by the Jews to misdirect the Right. Besides this, rather than just acknowledging that state power is necessary at times, they concluded that the use of state power is in itself “based,” and that asking for any kind of limits on it is “liberalism.”

These obsessions led to Third Positionists throwing the labels of “Zionist,” “liberal,” or “controlled opposition” around, aimed at anyone on the Right who had the slightest ideological differences from them. If you think that China’s massive surveillance system and social credit system are excessive, then you are a liberal who just doesn’t like brown people. If you acknowledge the Jewish Question but you don’t think they’ve put extra Js in your alphabet soup, then you are controlled opposition trying to obfuscate the issue of Jewish power. If you believe that Islam poses a threat to the West, then you are a Zionist shill who supports wars in the Middle East for the benefit of Israel. These accusations became commonplace by 2019, but it was during the COVID pandemic that Third Positionist quixotism really started to show.

When the initial lockdowns were initiated in 2020, the online Right didn’t know how to react. Some thought it was a reasonable precaution, as we still didn’t know how dangerous the virus was, while others dove straight into the conspiracy theories. After some time, it became clear that the lockdowns were unnecessary and doing far more harm than the virus itself. From there, most on the Right adopted the position that the restrictions were at best the result of idiocy on the part of the establishment, or at worst part of a more nefarious agenda. This became glaringly obvious after mass demonstrations were allowed during the Summer of Floyd even after everyone had been locked down for the preceding two months. When the COVID vaccines were rolled out in late 2021, most on the Right opposed the following mandates tooth and nail.

The Third Positionists, however, tried to force the issue of COVID into the frame of their ideology where it didn’t really fit. Since their ideology supports the strong arm of the state, they accused those on the Right who opposed the lockdowns of being “liberals” or “libertarians.” With the vaccine rollout, Third Positionists argued that there couldn’t be anything wrong with them because Israel was giving them to their own citizens — and since everything in the world is one big conspiracy to benefit the Jews, the vaccines must therefore be safe.

The Third Positionists also accused those who vocally opposed the COVID restrictions and vaccine mandates of being controlled opposition and trying to distract everyone from the real issue of Jewish power. After all, if mainstream conservative commentators were opposed to the COVID measures, and if their sole reason for existence is to serve the Jews, then it couldn’t possibly be a serious issue. Some members of this crowd dismissed the entire issue of COVID and its related issues, such as the Sustainable Development agenda, as being of no interest whatsoever on the simple basis that its poster boys, Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab, aren’t Jewish themselves.

After their humiliatingly poor commentary during the COVID crisis, the quixotic ideological echo chamber of Third Positionism continued to churn out idiotic takes. Since they are of the belief that Jews, the US, the West, and Israel are all the same thing, and that this is the sole cause of everything bad that happens in the world, they began loudly cheering on all of America’s geopolitical enemies such as China, Russia, and Iran in hopes that these powers would bring about the downfall of the United States — and thus the downfall of the Jews. Their reasoning was that since Jews control America, and America controls the entire world, anyone who is against America must likewise be against Jews — and therefore anyone the US government doesn’t like must be their ally and share the same ideological suppositions.

Today, this has gotten to the point where the talking points of these self-proclaimed “National Socialists” are almost indistinguishable from those of some post-colonial third worldists. The quixotism of Third Positionism was taken to a whole new level in October 2023, when the current iteration of the Israel-Palestine conflict broke out. This crowd has been shedding crocodile tears for Gaza for months on end in an effort to score points against the Jews. Some have even gone so far as to put the Palestinian flag on their social media profiles and elevate a deranged, anti-white Leftist who lit himself on fire in protest of Israel to the level of sainthood. Of course, they accuse anyone on the Right who doesn’t play along of being a Zionist shill.[1]

What has been lost in Third Positionism’s quixotism is that which is actually good for people of European descent. The disastrous response to COVID caused enormous financial, psychological, and physical harm to countless people across the West. Yet, rather than try to hold the establishment responsible for the damage it had caused, the Third Positionist crowd dismissed the entire ordeal because it couldn’t be pinned on Israel, and because ordinary conservatives and libertarians had designated it as “cringe” to talk about it.

The question for Third Positionists is no longer what actually benefits us, but rather what is bad for the Jews, based on the assumption that since this is the sole factor that matters, anything bad for Jews must benefit us by default. The crux of the Jewish Question is that they are a separate ethno-religious group with a disproportionate amount of power whose interests are in conflict with the white majorities of the countries they have influence over. But they are only one group whose interests conflict with those of Europeans.

The Chinese do not share our interests, either. The rise of China does not benefit the West in the least. Their goal isn’t to liberate the West from Jewish influence, but rather to supplant the current hostile elite class ruling the West with their own. Let’s say China overtakes America and becomes the global superpower. Is it in their interests to allow White Nationalists to rise to power in the West, thus forming a potential threat to their hegemony? No, it isn’t. And we can look at how China deals with the Uyghurs or the Tibetans in their own country to give us an idea of how they’d prevent this from happening.

For a less theoretical example, let’s look at the pro-Palestine movement in the West today, a cause which the Third Position segment of the Right has spent months on end championing. It is a coalition of Islamists and Leftists, some of whom are white and some of whom are non-white; a few of them are Jewish. The position of the Islamists is simple: They want Islam to subjugate the West. The only difference between the Zionist camp and the pro-Palestine Leftist camp is that Zionists want universalist egalitarianism for every country except Israel, and the Leftists want universalist egalitarianism for every country including Israel. Jews are not part of the white race. Nevertheless, the pro-Palestine camp considers them white, and thus applies the label of “settler colonialist oppressor” to them as well as.

This divide within the West is between two factions that are both ardently opposed to white interests, fighting over the status of a foreign country in the Middle East. While it is in the interests of Western countries to end all aid to Israel, the broader cause of those associated with the pro-Palestine movement is at odds with our interests, just as with Zionism. The neoconservative boomers who relentlessly support Israel despite all the damage the Jewish lobby has done to their countries have become a joke, and rightfully so. But are the Third Positionists any better? Through their misguided quixotism, they have convinced themselves that they’re in an alliance with people who, given the chance, would have them lined up against a wall and shot.

The folly of quixotism can be found across the political spectrum, and almost all segments of the Right have been guilty of quixotic thinking over the past decade at one point or another. The question is, how can we avoid it?

Note

[1] I am not denying or downplaying Jewish influence. I am simply asking that our understanding of it should be accurate and that it doesn’t overshadow the core issue of white interests.