5 Ways to Fight the Left and Make Your Life Better
By Daniel Greenfield
SultanKnish.Blogspot.com
Lately I've been looking at Organic Opposition
instead of Organizational Opposition. The latter is
still important, but people are rightly disappointed
and angry with everything from the GOP to assorted
national groups and bewildered by a wide array of
candidates.
Organic Opposition doesn't require organizations or
a movement. It's about living in ways that naturally
oppose the left.
Most of the people here already live in ways that
the left resents without even thinking about it.
Organic Opposition is about finding new ways to
oppose the power of the left in your life.
This is not a complete checklist. It's a set of
general ideas and people are welcome to add to them
in the comments.
5. Don't Give Money to People Who Hate You
Imagine meeting an actor or a CEO, and telling him
your political views and envision his response to
them. If you can see his lip stretching into a sneer
or a spittle-flecked rant as he orders security to
throw you out, you really shouldn't be giving him
your money.
That doesn't mean that you should lose out, but
there are ways that you stop rewarding people who
hate you.
For example, when buying new books, you are helping
that writer and his publishers. If you don't support
the writer, save money and buy the books used. It's
easy to find most of the books you want in good
condition for a fraction of the price on sites
like Alibris.
Buying new books should be reserved for writers you
support. Do look into writers on our side, like
Edward Cline, if you like mysteries or
Peter Grant, look at if you like Science
Fiction, look at the projects that
Adam
Baldwin is involved in, and if you really must
have that Stephen King or John Grisham novel, buy
it used. You're not just saving money, you're
denying income to people who hate you.
I know that conservatives don't like doing this. I
don't like doing this. But the left does this and it
works. Look at the politics of the writers, actors
and directors you support. That doesn't necessarily
mean only reading only those writers you agree with,
but a reasonable acid test is decency.
Decency, for example, means standing up for basic
freedoms. People who are on the political left can
do that and when they do it, they should be rewarded
for it. When Patrick Stewart recently said that a
bakery should not be compelled into writing a
pro-gay marriage message on a wedding cake, that was
a rejection of the totalitarian norms being imposed
by social justice warriors.
People who hate you don't want you to be able to
live in peace. That's the essence of the SJW.
Those who take a stand against them on an issue,
even if they're on the left, should get some support
and a note or tweet telling them why. Likewise those
who make the wrong choices should be told that from
now on that even if you buy anything they make money
from, you'll do it in a way that they won't see any
proceeds from it. That will make them angrier than a
straight boycott would.
And there's a lot more you can do that will hit the
left in its pockets.
Use AdBlockers on its sites. Not on conservative
ones. You'll save time and hurt the left.
Dump subscriptions to liberal magazines and
newspapers.
Get rid of your cable. Cable is a financially shaky
proposition. If enough people leave, it falls apart.
And even if the only thing you watch is FOX News,
under the current system, you're subsidizing a whole
bunch of left-wing channels. If you have cable
internet, you can access a wider range of
programming online than you could on cable. You'll
save money and hurt the left.
4. Shop Small Business and Become
Independent
People were surprised when Wal-Mart turned left.
They shouldn't have been
Under the current system, major corporations will
almost inevitably turn left to align with the
authorities and tastemakers. Liberals have become
champions of big government. The bigger a company
becomes, the more it aligns with the system.
We all buy things from Amazon or Wal-Mart, but try
to support local small businesses in your community
when you can. They form a community in ways that a
megastore won't and when they get a monopoly they
will step on you, not just economically, but
politically as well.
The Confederate flag hysteria and the Trump purge
are a warning sign of things to come. Imagine a day
when it's Ted Cruz's books being purged from every
online retailer and Apple blocking his App.
It will come to that.
Look at the politics of major corporations and their
policies. Avoid 'gated communities' created by the
hardware sold by Amazon and Apple. Yes the Kindle
and the iPhone are convenient, but you're giving
control of your digital life to two left-wing
corporations. As bad as Google and Microsoft are,
they're somewhat better when it comes to freedom of
speech.
A good test is imagine yourself working at a
particular company. If you can't imagine even being
tolerated there, maybe you shouldn't be rewarding
it.
Learn something about the products and brands you
buy. If you know of a company that shares your
values, keep it in mind during your next purchase.
Choose small manufacturers and stores when you can.
And avoid becoming dependent on megacorporations.
The St. Patrick's Parade was undone because it had
become dependent on Diageo, a mega whose vast
catalog of brands includes Guinness.
When a corporation becomes big enough, it will find
it easier to bend to the left than tolerate you.
A megacorp whose brands you eat will rob them of
nutrition and taste to comply with the left's food
police. Its cleaners will turn into useless junk to
comply with the environmentalists. Even if it hasn't
sold you out yet, it will sell you out later. And if
you wait for it to become a monopoly, you'll have
trouble finding alternatives.
Find ways to become independent. Make some of the
things you've become accustomed to buying. Or buy
and trade with other craftsmen. Those are useful
skills in the best of times and we may be headed for
darker times.
Independence threatens the left and makes your life
better.
3. Build Likeminded Communities
You don't need to move to X to find a conservative
community. You can build one organically by making
friends, online and offline, cultivating ties,
sharing and helping other people who share your
worldview.
Make your own tribe. The left is doing it.
Find sane people at work. If you're in a position to
hire sane people over likely leftists, do it. Be
careful, don't risk your position and don't tell
anyone what you're doing, but do it if you can.
A community is about more than setting up a Facebook
group. It's a support structure and you'll need
those, if not now, then later. The members of a
community help meet each other's needs.
Don't get seduced by telescopic philanthropy. Don't
focus on helping Third World countries. Help your
neighbors and friends. An hour spent helping someone
you know does a lot more good than all the 'penny a
day' for starving children in X, which really ends
up going to the marketing department.
Protect communal institutions you have and avoid
hostile ones. Don't stay in a church or synagogue
that has gone to the left. Find one that meets your
needs. If it doesn't exist, work with other
dissatisfied worshipers to make one happen.
Never subsidize left-wing clergy. America got
Hillary Clinton because she came under the influence
of a left-wing minister at an impressionable age.
The left is trying to break up the country's
traditional social structures. One of the best ways
to resist them is to maintain them, whether it's a
family, a religious institution or a club. Protect
them and they'll protect you.
By being part of a real community, you'll be
naturally resisting the left and making your life
better.
2. Have Fun Starting Trouble
The pushback to the left may not start where you
expect. The Cliven Bundy standoff and Gamergate both
happened when groups of ordinary people with little
in common pushed back when they felt pushed into a
corner.
It wasn't a national issue. Grazing sites and
corruption in gaming are about as narrow as you can
get.
They became national because when people fight back
against the left, local goes national and then
global.
The American Revolution started in part over a
dispute with a British officer over a bill in
Boston. That led to the Boston Massacre and by then
the issue that started it all no longer mattered.
What people come away with is who is being abusive
in that particular situation.
People rally to unlikely flags and causes and fight
for unexpected things that they care about.
A revolution against the left won't be led by the
GOP. It won't come out of Washington D.C. But the
pushback just might come because a group nobody pays
attention to is angry about some issues you've never
even heard of.
That group might be next door to you.
Fighting back does not have to be about convincing
them to read Thomas Sowell and Bill Buckley. If you
think like a community organizer, it's about getting
them to make the connection between what they're
angry about and the source of the trouble from the
left.
People want to know why they're being kicked around.
They don't want to hear about the politics. Those
come later. They don't need the big stuff. The
little stuff is pointing them at their abusers.
Community organizers spend a lot of time listening
to people's grievances, especially people not one
else listens to, and then slowly pointing them in
the right direction while making them feel
empowered. You don't have to look at it as a job.
Think of it as being a troublemaker. It's not a
chore. It's fun.
The next major issue may start in your backyard and
you, not some national organization, might just be
the one to help set it off.
1. Focus on Your Family
You can have more influence on your kids than you
ever can on Facebook or Twitter. If you have them,
your biggest job in the world is making sure that
you are a bigger influence on them than the latest
movie or trending topic.
Be involved in their lives.
Even if they're in their forties and seem to have
turned out liberal, plenty of people have turned
around their politics right at that age. Don't argue
with them. Shouting matches never changed anyone's
mind. Show them that the way you live is better in
the long run.
If you win there, the left loses big. Its big gamble
is generational. If it loses your kids and
grandkids, it loses. Period.
And your life will be better for it.