Liberty Peak Lodge Exclusive! An Evening with Irish Cicero
I am a Pilgrim, and a Stranger
It is with great pleasure that I met up with the witty and prolific founder of Liberty Peak Lodge, Irish Cicero. He is, as you would expect, a character, given to guffaws and irreverent hoo-ahs. A large fella, he slapped my arm so much I feared I might need medical attention, but we got through the interview without loss of life. I'm posting a good chunk of his responses here. I'll put the rest up later, when my arm works better.
Thanks for the Photo, Mark Scott.
HRB Where did the name, "Liberty Peak Lodge", come from?
IC A friend of mine. He tossed it off jokingly, and I caught it.
HRB Was he a Tosser?
IC He was.
HRB What's Liberty Peak Lodge all about?
IC Well, there's a perception out there -- particularly among the Huffington-Kos Left -- that all Conservatives are a bunch of whacko-Christian-Hypocrites -- as if that was in itself bad, no further discussion necessary. Who are they to judge? These are ad hominem labels they throw out without discussion. If you try to engage a "liberal" in a discussion of what they mean, they shutt you down. You're "uninformed." The assumption is we all take our orders from Rush Limbaugh and FOX News. Aside from being wildly ignorant about America and American history and American people generally, the assumption is childishly arrogant. The mind that sports such a prejudice is no different from a racist or homophobic mind. Hence, I typically refer to liberals as "liberal", because there's very little about them that's liberal!
I think Americans are more like something Rush Limbaugh always says: Even if they vote Democrat, their values -- their actions -- are conservative. I think that's an important insight and probably goes a long way to explain why the Republican party is stupidly obtuse when it comes to relating to people. In other words, the Republican party should be taking the country hnds down every election. Freedom is the wave of the future, not Collectivism. Three examples:
First, to allow the Democrats to take the "high ground" on economic matters is absolutely ridiculous. Democrats live and breathe in a 1936 capital vs. labor world of conflict. All Bush had to do was mutter the words "social security reform", and he was nearly tried for treason. Why? Ever since the rise of mutual funds and the expansion of middle class investments, Democratic economics have been largely, if not entirely, discredited. Why did Bush -- why do Republicans -- let the Democrats ride Reagan's chief accomplishment?
Throw 'em off and make 'em walk. We need to spread the gospel of 21st Century Free Enterprise. Democrats need to join in, or get out of the way.
Second, post-Reagan Republicans have ceded the youth vote to the Democrats. All Obama has to do is shout Hope! and Change! and every bone-headed fool with a pierced scrotum starts yapping in chorus with the Big Dog. Youth, by definition, is not "liberal", as in revolutionary. Youth is idealistic, passionate, and reckless. A con artist like Obama can take advantage of that because the people being manipulated want to be manipulated -- they're reckless with their passions. A leader tries to liberate that energy for a higher good, and by higher good, I don't mean Collectivism. I'm talking about honor, family, pride, and achievement. Youth will die for a higher cause. The question is, will it die for a Collectivist cause inspired by Il Duce, or for the sake of Liberty, of individual genius, as Ayn Rand talked about?
The Fountainhead - Howard Roark Speech (Ayn Rand)
Ayn Rand was an important personality who accurately foresaw the making of the 21st Century. She should be required reading for college freshmen.
Ayn Rand's Literature of Capitalism.
Third, Republicans take a lot of unnecessary abuse about the "religious right." The best example of that is President Bush's Office of Faith Based Community Initiatives. The Democrats leaped on that as evidence of George Bush's evil plan to impose an "American Theocracy." Kevin Phillips got on that bandwagon with what is, so far as I'm concerned, a classic example of Freudian hysteria, though the premise of Kevin's book is interesting and worthwhile. There never was ANY DANGER of an American Theocracy -- unless Islam captures the country. No American would stand for a Theocracy. Rational people, if they thought about this long, would understand this. Suppose you, as a Methodist, introduced a bill in your state legislature to prohibit Catholics from praying. Would it work? Of course not. So why did we have this mindless discussions about the impending Theocracy? Because of stem cell research? No. That was just a cover for the real issue: abortion. The real issue has always been abortion. Sixties "liberals" attacked a Republican president according to NOW's playbook, and people accepted this as having some truth to it when it was patently false.
The point I'm making is that America is totally New Age now. Christian churches have, over the last 50 years, repeatedly lost the competition to psychedelic drugs, sexual experimentation, Native American workshops and sweat lodges, astrology, past life regression, et cetera. People who 50 years ago wouldn't dream of talking about ghosts, spirits, and other lives do so all the time. There is no genuine, sustainable, controlling religious right. There are pockets of it in the south, but those same folks are getting their horoscopes done and reading Brian Weiss books. Everyone of you Republicans who doesn't know this is, in my book, ignorant of the single biggest development of the last 40 years: the techno-shamanism that was born right here in America:
Ancient India and Egypt developed a science of religion. Now our science is discovering religion. This should make you happier than a two-peckered billy goat. Evolution of Consciousness is the primary subject on everyone's mind. Don't let Collectivists claim that ground.
HRB Your last point won't sit well with skin-flinted reactionaries.
IC I know
HRB In short, Conservatives are stiffs?
IC Exactly. But, as you know, Conservatives are generally a head above "liberals" in terms of intelligence and skills, and there are reasons for that difference.
HRB We'll save that difference for later. What about environmentalism?
IC Same thing. The Democrats paint Conservatives as haters of the land. That's absolutely unacceptable. The Irish and Native American instinct is a deep, ancestral love for the land. That's about as Conservative as you can get, as David Yeagley points out.
And is definitely connected to the deepest religious feeling:
HRB I notice you've been posting a lot of Nazi imagery lately. Are you having fun?
IC I'm making a point.
HRB What's the point?
IC For years we've been hearing about how 'Bush is Hitler.' Aside from the gross historical inaccuracies of that analogy, it doesn't make common sense. Bush got attacked from every angle from the very beginning by every effeminate, unprincipled, self-serving little twit in the country. He didn't fight back. He didn't turn it around on them with laughter, as Reagan did. You can hardly make the claim that Bush was charismatic, or a charismatic speaker, whereas people are literally swooning at the sight of Obama. Obama's alleged hypnotic powers are far more Hitlerian than anything George W. Bush has demonstrated. Look at demand number 20 of the Nazi Party platform and ask yourself, 'Republican or Democrat?'
In order to make it possible for every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education, and thus the opportunity to reach into positions of leadership, the State must assume the responsibility of organizing thoroughly the entire cultural system of the people. The curricula of all educational establishments shall be adapted to practical life. The conception of the State Idea (science of citizenship) must be taught in the schools from the very beginning. We demand that specially talented children of poor parents, whatever their station or occupation, be educated at the expense of the State.
This sort of thinking is pure-Collectivism, which is what Collectivists accuse Conservatives of being. When Collectivists say 'You're all a bunch of religious whackos', what they're really admitting is they don't know anything about religion; haven't thought about it much; and therefore haven't confessed their own need for religious feeling, which they transfer to a religious figure. This is classic leftism and is what I tried to say in
HRB So, is Obama dangerous?
IC You Bet!
HRB In what way?
IC The unacknowledged need to have answers from the State. I suppose the European version of that is young girls dying their hair red, white and blue. I mean, c'mon. What's the meaning of this nonsense? Do they pick their nose in church, too? Would you ask a teenage girl who dyed her hair red, white and blue anything of substance? Could you expect anything from such a person? They're about a half-cut above retarded, yet we're supposed to see this as a "sign." Is this politics or exhibitionism? Pure religious bunk.
HRB What's with the chicks?
IC We report. You decide.
