"Thelemites for Trump" Facebook page
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It is very strange to me, this queasiness over Liber Oz.
Let's be clear: You don't "have" rights. The space of action you are allowed to move within by law is simply a part of the social order reproducing itself. Any OTHER rights you want to claim for yourself you will only get by demanding to be recognized, by through sheer force of will carving out a new space of action that might become permanent and universalized enough that it becomes part of a new reproducing order.
Any rights you are able to exercise right now are there because of historical reasons. The right to not be a serf exists because people have been ready to kill and be killed in order to secure that right.
There is absolutely no mystery in these lines, no hidden meaning. The right to kill means the right to kill. By retreating from this declaration you are taking complete comfort in the guaranteed permanence of the present order. One from which you will get a harsh awakening sooner or later. Even more odd is for a proclaimed Thelemite to take this position, someone supposedly striving to surpass this order in whatever way.
This feeling of unease looks to me little more than an expression of commonplace liberal pacifism. And liberal pacifism is always hypocritical - verbally extolling non-violence while practically defending a social order maintained by constant violence. This violence, by the way, is the secret guarantor of your rights as they stand, and it's a pretty crass way to maintain them at that.
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@Victor said
"It is very strange to me, this queasiness over Liber Oz.
Let's be clear: You don't "have" rights. The space of action you are allowed to move within by law is simply a part of the social order reprocing itself. Any OTHER rights you want to claim for yourself you will only get by demanding to be recognized, by through sheer force of will carving out a new space of action that might become permanent and universalized enough that it becomes part of a new reproducing order.
Any rights you are able to exercise right now are there because of historical reasons. The right to not be a serf exists because people have been ready to kill and be killed in order to secure that right.
There is absolutely no mystery in these lines, no hidden meaning. The right to kill means the right to kill. By retreating from this declaration you are taking complete comfort in the guaranteed permanence of the present order. One from which you will get a harsh awakening sooner or later. Even more odd is for a proclaimed Thelemite to take this position, someone supposedly striving to surpass this order in whatever way.
This feeling of unease looks to me little more than an expression of commonplace liberal pacifism. And liberal pacifism is always hypocritical - verbally extolling non-violence while practically defending a social order maintained by constant violence. This violence, by the way, is the secret guarantor of your rights as they stand, and it's a pretty crass way to maintain them at that."
Yup
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Meh.
Kind of hypocritical to extol violence on the individual level to claim one's personal rights, but then complain when a culture chooses to systematically implement violence in a collective way with more consensus and oversight, in order to to claim rights for others.
Again, this isn't rocket science. Ayn Rand style beliefs are a fantasy peddled to losers to talk them into letting the rich, corrupt people have more power.
Every man and every woman is a star.
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Good God, I'm as far away from Ayn Rand as you can get. I will punch myself if I'm giving off that impression.
My remarks on violence was simply stating a fact. The tree of liberty has been watered with the blood of tyrants and martyrs, to paraphrase Jefferson.
And violence in liberal democracy is not just used to protect rights, but also to keep people down (people who demand rights not sanctioned for instance, like occupying an empty house if you're homeless), was my point. In any case, opposition to violence is in 99% of cases not a true opposition, but an opposition with qualifications.
To illustrate: If someone was seriously thwarting your rights, say threatening to murder or enslave you, or someone close to you, what would be your response? Not exactly a great dilemma.
And if someone in that case would respond with meekness, not wanting to sully their hands, allowing the other person to carry on, surely that would be the true moral outrage.Even if someone is perfectly at home in their society, they have to admit that this violence is sustaining it. What does it then mean, this shirking away at the thought of violence? It doesn't make sense, unless this outward display of peacefulness actually masks the brutal exercise of power.
A lot of people thought it absolutely horrible and barbaric that the heads of the nobility were rolling in France, while peasants living under the whip was just part of the God-given harmonious order. That's the kind of hypocrisy I'm talking about. -
"To illustrate: If someone was seriously thwarting your rights, say threatening to murder or enslave you, or someone close to you, what would be your response? "
Talk to my friends and neighbors about how we can mitigate the threat of murder and enslavement in our community.
If the threat is immediate, my responses could be: run away, fight, refuse to negotiate and accept my fate. I dunno. Interestingly, I have used up half of my life expectancy without this issue coming up once for me, personally. I may never encounter it. Thanks to the fact that people got together and figured out how to reduce violence in my part of the world.
Yes, societies are established with violence (or the threat thereof) with the intention of regulating violence. In liberal, representative governments, the whole point is that more people get to decide how violence is allowed to be used, while fewer people actually have to use violence. Getting to be a pacifist is one of the perks.
I'm profoundly grateful to the people who have engaged in violence in the past to help secure freedoms for other people. It was a huge sacrifice, because violence sucks. If history deems that violence is again necessary to preserve the freedoms of others, I'll do what I can. But as of now, voting, marching, calling, organizing all seem to be the more effective strategies for people of my time and place.
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@Hermitas said
"Come on, Takamba, Av is saying the most relevant, practical stuff in this thread.
What are you suggesting instead?"
Victor is showing practical and relevant stuff. The word "most" in this case doesn't work as a "quantity" word because victors points are more in quantity (practical and relevant) and so, therefore, I have to believe your use of the word "most" is a qualitative descriptor, and opinion, or "fluff term" as understood in marketing.
Let's be practical. Decide we raise a civilization against violence, make them by design runaway or cower or simply ignore. Every so often there's a fluke birth. Kid can't seem to learn! Fucker is violent!
wham! your society is now down for the count. Gone. Wiped by the violence it preyed upon itself to wipe. Gone. Gone. Gone.
Practical? Relevant?
Gone. -
Look, when it comes to resisting tyrants... I'm good with it.
But the seemingly scandalous thing about Liber OZ is that it's not overtly limited to big, bad governmental threats where there would be a large consensus in justifying such an act of war.
It reads as if it is universally applicable, which.... I mean, you'd have to be a psychopath, but it does read as if it's universally applicable even to small scale situations like the maladjusted teen who isn't allowed to "dress as he wills" at school. That, of course, is why we furrow our brows and think, "What the hell?" But we're not given anything to qualify it, which is why it's such a scandal - something Crowley seemed to love fomenting.
I actually just read it as applicable to tyrannical governments and shake my head at the more scandalous interpretations.
What's your take? You gonna kill the school principal for enforcing the dress code?
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Yes.
I get that we are stone age humans emerging from 6,000 years of patriarchy, and so it's going to be confusing to some of us to be living at such a time of peace and prosperity. There is a natural desire of the overwhelmed to blow it all up and return to simpler survival.
Or we could grow up. A person deciding on how to live in harmony with their True Will needs to consider the time and place of their birth, as well as their current time and place.
My current time and place is such that if someone wants to murder someone over the Liber Oz "right" to not bake a cake for homosexual people, my strategy would be to go hide in a corner and use my magic phone call the cops who have fast cars and big guns. But yeah, if someone wants to just use their fists, they can be my guest. Let success be your guide.
Back to the main topic: Trump's platform is a conscious rejection of the truth that every man and every woman is a star.
I don't need to have faith in the government to choose a more established, transparent process over a brain-damaged racist. I can look at the results, and choose the best option. And it's going to be flawed. That's ok.
Here's my invitation to Takamba, repeated:
"Maybe you could pick something measurable that you connect with making it easier for the most people to live their true wills, and describe how Trump has improved that metric?"
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"Interestingly, I have used up half of my life expectancy without this issue coming up once for me, personally. I may never encounter it. Thanks to the fact that people got together and figured out how to reduce violence in my part of the world."
It's certainly not unimaginable though. As a situation existing for other people, or as a situation that might exist for you some time in the future.
@Avshalom Binyamin said
"Yes, societies are established with violence (or the threat thereof) with the intention of regulating violence. In liberal, representative governments, the whole point is that more people get to decide how violence is allowed to be used, while fewer people actually have to use violence. Getting to be a pacifist is one of the perks."
I respect principled pacifism, and would be in that camp myself on many occasions, though there are things to critique about it. If you're merely delegating violence rather than exercising it yourself however, that is hardly it.
Violence in liberal democracy has been reduced to a certain extent. It remains a part of the normal functioning of society.
If one's project is to eliminate inter-human violence as far as is possible, and one's objection to Liber Oz comes from what one sees to be its glorification of violence,* I can get that. My problem is the trust in the guaranteed permanence of the present order that this reactive response often betrays.
- Regarding this part, it's still more complicated. There can be heroism in violence too, and non-violent interaction can easily be used in a top-down manner to palliate conflicts that need to be addressed. Furthermore, something might look non-violent, with the threat of violence still hidden underneath.
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@Hermitas said
"Look, when it comes to resisting tyrants... I'm good with it.
But the seemingly scandalous thing about Liber OZ is that it's not overtly limited to big, bad governmental threats where there would be a large consensus in justifying such an act of war.
It reads as if it is universally applicable, which.... I mean, you'd have to be a psychopath, but it does read as if it's universally applicable even to small scale situations like the maladjusted teen who isn't allowed to "dress as he wills" at school. That, of course, is why we furrow our brows and think, "What the hell?" But we're not given anything to qualify it, which is why it's such a scandal - something Crowley seemed to love fomenting.
I actually just read it as applicable to tyrannical governments and shake my head at the more scandalous interpretations.
What's your take? You gonna kill the school principal for enforcing the dress code?"
The real scandalous thing about Liber OZ is that it's so damn simple that apparently it's easily missed.
Man has the right to live by his own law.
Okay. Simple. Argued? Well, let's add a clarification before any debate. The word is "Man." Crowley, in writing about this piece, told us the arguments he'd received (such as "why not 'mankind?') and he made clear. Man means mankind, not a man, not these men or those men, but all man. so..... not mankind because of the one syllable thing.
Unarguable.
Man has the right to eat what he will.
Well, not if it has to be stolen, right? It doesn't say that man has the right to own what he will, and since we have to own something (in a manner of speaking) before we can eat it, it should go without saying.
Don't pretend that Crowley was retarded and didn't think this through. The man was a master chess player, a record-holding mountaineer, an accomplished poet, and a general man about town; don't expect retarded arguments to actually hold up.
Man has the right to think what he will.
I dare you to argue with me! I dare you!
Man has the right to love as he will.
Fact is, some people even believe this isn't even a choice. They be born that way, baby. Rwawr!
and then finally, for those with weak stomach comes the final right. The last right.
Man has the right to kill those who would thwart these rights.
Again, the "Man" thing mentioned above. Not "a man," not "just men," not "some men," but "Man."
Now. As far as Trump goes; the law of change keeps me safe as far as I'm concerned. A lot of work-up over a little nothing.
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@Victor said
"I respect principled pacifism, and would be in that camp myself on many occasions, though there are things to critique about it. If you're merely delegating violence rather than exercising it yourself however, that is hardly it."
Behaving violently oneself isn't somehow more noble.
I don't object to Liber Oz; I object to violence-glorifying interpretations of it.
I really wonder what any of this has to do with self-called Thelemites embracing white supremacy in the form of Trump.
@I said
"Maybe you could pick something measurable that you connect with making it easier for the most people to live their true wills, and describe how Trump has improved that metric?"
@Takamba said
""
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"
@Victor said
"I respect principled pacifism, and would be in that camp myself on many occasions, though there are things to critique about it. If you're merely delegating violence rather than exercising it yourself however, that is hardly it."Behaving violently oneself isn't somehow more noble.
I don't object to Liber Oz; I object to violence-glorifying interpretations of it.
I really wonder what any of this has to do with self-called Thelemites embracing white supremacy in the form of Trump.
@I said
"Maybe you could pick something measurable that you connect with making it easier for the most people to live their true wills, and describe how Trump has improved that metric?"
@Takamba said
""
"If I didn't answer that (and I'm still not answering), it's because a president's effectiveness takes years to measure. What I am seeing is an improved economic landscape, and improving. But I'm not a racist and not a Trump supporter. There seem significant "unscientific" methods by which you must reach conclusions.
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Please look at the top of the thread for the topic.
Here's a statistical analysis of measuring Trump so far.
We're at the bear repellent level of causation for any improvements you are noticing from your van. My bear repellent lucky penny is working today too!
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Okay, Av.
But every time you base an ethic on "Every man and every woman is a star," I hear this in the background:
"We have nothing with the outcast and the unfit: let them die in their misery. For they feel not. Compassion is the vice of kings: stamp down the wretched & the weak: this is the law of the strong: this is our law and the joy of the world."
Would you care to give your take? I really am interested, and I think that might be the justification for some of the Trumpers.
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Liber Legis says lots of weird things.
The whole verse, by the way, is:
"We have nothing with the outcast and the unfit: let them die in their misery. For they feel not. Compassion is the vice of kings: stamp down the wretched & the weak: this is the law of the strong: this is our law and the joy of the world. Think not, o king, upon that lie: That Thou Must Die: verily thou shalt not die, but live. Now let it be understood: If the body of the King dissolve, he shall remain in pure ecstasy for ever. Nuit! Hadit! Ra-Hoor-Khuit! The Sun, Strength & Sight, Light; these are for the servants of the Star & the Snake."
I'm not sure how this translates to politics. Sounds pretty metaphorical to me.
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"Please look at the top of the thread for the topic.
Here's a statistical analysis of measuring Trump so far.
We're at the bear repellent level of causation for any improvements you are noticing from your van. My bear repellent lucky penny is working today too!"
Topic? Listen bub...
The actual "topic" is "anyone seen it?" and it went from there to a discussion of [I paraphrase] "why would anyone conflate Trump's policies/natures/desires/plans/etc with anything remotely Thelemic?" and that discussion has continued (sans the occasional liberal interruption of "oh but that's awful! and should be restricted." I'm merely standing as devil's advocate about said concerns.
Now, where were we? Victor, go on.
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"the occasional liberal interruption of "oh but that's awful! and should be restricted.""
I didn't realize my strong anti-Trump opinion was restricting you from your opinions. You best come Liber Oz me.
Seriously though, I'm out. We'll get to see in person whether our institutions can save the assault, or whether we'll descend into another century of madness, and I'll have to reclaim my share of violence from the state to become an American Nazi hunter in the back 9 of this incarnation. As glorious as that sounds, I hope for the former.
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
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"the occasional liberal interruption of "oh but that's awful! and should be restricted.""I didn't realize my strong anti-Trump opinion was restricting you from your opinions. You best come Liber Oz me.
Seriously though, I'm out. We'll get to see in person whether our institutions can save the assault, or whether we'll descend into another century of madness, and I'll have to reclaim my share of violence from the state to become an American Nazi hunter in the back 9 of this incarnation. As glorious as that sounds, I hope for the former.
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"Apparently, you do not comprehend what's being discussed (although you believe you do).
"The word of Sin is Restriction."
"What we need are gun control laws!"
Go figure it out