Mullvad DNS has been great also.

Ah, I think I understand your point better now; thanks.

Though it’s also highly debatable, I still think that my old self-imposed label of “anti-authoritarian democratic market-socialist” would turn off more people than “anti-conservative”.

At this rate, I should opt for “anti-technofeudalist” in a nod to Yannis Varoufakis if I’m going to piss people off anyway in the U.S.A.

Luckily for me, my wife is Dutch. Therefore, I split my time between the Netherlands and the U.S., so strangers asking about my political persuasion is an exceedingly rare event, at least when I’m in Europa.

Every hired worker is required to have equity in the business as part of their compensation.

He is an independent as a Senator. But you’re correct in that he ran as a Democrat in 2016.

Our (U.S.A.) best option for that in recent history was Bernie Sanders in the 2016 election.

😅 My apologies, I’ve been re-reading this reply many times and I’m not following your argument against the utility of using the “Anti-Conservative” label for myself if someone asks what is my political position (within the United States)?

Is your thesis that “Anti-conservative” is not specific enough?

I think tribalism and anti-tribalism would be a better starting point while that was a meaning already too.

On this, I agree.

However, I propose that the “Anti-Conservative” label, with all of its flaws, has more utility in presenting its economic and political implications within the admittedly linguistically absurd political discourse in my country (U.S.A.).

Aliens from a star that forms the constellation?

I am not sure if I agree with it being called conservatism.

Yes, Wilhoit, if I’m understanding his treatise correctly, addressed this point:

For millenia, conservatism had no name, because no other model of polity had ever been proposed. “The king can do no wrong.” In practice, this immunity was always extended to the king’s friends, however fungible a group they might have been. Today, we still have the king’s friends even where there is no king (dictator, etc.). Another way to look at this is that the king is a faction, rather than an individual.

The corollary label could be “Anti-Establishment”. Perhaps, “Anti-Authoritarian”.

What a vapid and obtuse thing to say.

What other actions do you want me to take, other than organizing and voting?

Shall I run for office? Shall I take up arms against the government? Should I abandon my family to do those things? I will have to in order to be remotely successful at either.

On the latter, I am not a combat veteran. I wouldn’t know where to begin, and I’m not inclined to throw my life away easily.

Furthermore, I believe wildcat strikes would be far more effective at dismantling the machinery of disenfranchisement, subjugation and oppression than armed revolution.

I think the more common through-line is anti-capitalism rather than “anti-conservatism”.

I will concede that this clarification makes sense if one regards capitalism and conservatism as de facto interchangeable.

Personally, I like the “Anti-Conservative” label as defined by Wilhoit because it more accurately describes my own political position within the specific constraints of voting and engaging in political discourse as a U.S. citizen.

Anti-Conservative

There is no such thing as liberalism — or progressivism, etc.

There is only conservatism. No other political philosophy actually exists; by the political analogue of Gresham’s Law, conservatism has driven every other idea out of circulation.

There might be, and should be, anti-conservatism; but it does not yet exist. What would it be? In order to answer that question, it is necessary and sufficient to characterize conservatism. Fortunately, this can be done very concisely.

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:

There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.

For millenia, conservatism had no name, because no other model of polity had ever been proposed. “The king can do no wrong.” In practice, this immunity was always extended to the king’s friends, however fungible a group they might have been. Today, we still have the king’s friends even where there is no king (dictator, etc.). Another way to look at this is that the king is a faction, rather than an individual.

As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny. Today, the accelerating de-education of humanity has reached a point where the market for pseudophilosophy is vanishing; it is, as The Kids Say These Days, tl;dr . All that is left is the core proposition itself — backed up, no longer by misdirection and sophistry, but by violence.

So this tells us what anti-conservatism must be: the proposition that the law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone, and cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.

Then the appearance arises that the task is to map “liberalism”, or “progressivism”, or “socialism”, or whatever-the-fuck-kind-of-stupid-noise-ism, onto the core proposition of anti-conservatism.

No, it a’n’t. The task is to throw all those things on the exact same burn pile as the collected works of all the apologists for conservatism, and start fresh. The core proposition of anti-conservatism requires no supplementation and no exegesis. It is as sufficient as it is necessary. What you see is what you get:

The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.

• Frank Wilhoit, American Composer, 2018

Also, those who insist on political purity tests reveal themselves to be temporarily-inconvenienced-dictators-in-waiting.

Who composes the syndicate?

I eat beef (occasionally) due to its excellent flavor, versatility in cuisine, and high complex protein density.