Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - It's Okay to be a Nationalist

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Nov. 14, 2018 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

31:09

It's Okay to be a Nationalist

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	And I told all of the European nations it's not fair.
	We have all these horrible trade imbalances.
	They take such advantage, they're not taking advantage anymore, folks.
	Under Republican leadership, America is winning again.
	America is respected again because we are putting America first.
	It hasn't happened in a lot of decades.
	We're putting them first.
	We're taking care of ourselves for a change, folks.
	Thank you.
	I like that guy, but not that much.
	Not that much.
	But radical Democrats want to turn back the clock.
	You know what a globalist is, right?
	You know what a globalist is.
	A globalist is a person that wants the globe to do well, frankly, not caring about our country so much.
	And you know what?
	We can't have that.
	You know, they have a word.
	It sort of became old-fashioned.
	It's called a nationalist.
	And I say, really, we're not supposed to use that word.
	You know what I am?
	I'm a nationalist, okay?
	I'm a nationalist.
	National.
	Nothing like it.
	Use that word.
	Use that word.
	I don't suppose we are supposed to use that word.
	And it seems that saying that he was a nationalist has provoked a response from the little drummer boy of globalism, Emmanuel Macron.
	Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism.
	Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism.
	By putting our own interests first with no regards for others, we erase the very thing that a nation holds dearest, the thing that keeps it alive, its moral values.
	That's an interesting statement, Emmanuel.
	Should we talk about it?
	Before I start going through word by word of what you said there, Emmanuel, let's ask Merriam-Webster, you know, a dictionary, what they think the difference between patriotism and nationalism is, just to be pedantic.
	As they say, although treated as synonyms, and they virtually are, there is a distinction, but it's more complicated than patriotism good, nationalism bad.
	Don't you have a degree of philosophy, Emmanuel?
	Patriotism was invented in the 17th century, nationalism in the 19th century, and they appear to have grown apart since the 19th century.
	Or as Merriam-Webster says, it would be more accurate to say that only nationalism has grown apart since the meaning of patriotism has remained largely unchanged.
	There are still obvious areas of overlap.
	We define patriotism as love or devotion to one's country and nationalism in part as loyalty and devotion to a nation.
	So you can see why people use them as synonyms.
	But the definition of nationalism also includes exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups.
	And as Merriam-Webster point out, this exclusionary aspect is not shared by patriotism.
	For example, you can actually be a patriot and a globalist.
	Admittedly, it's not a very sensible thing to do.
	If you have love and devotion to your country and you insist on doing things that continually harm your country, one might question your love and devotion to it.
	But you might have ulterior motives that we'll talk about in a little bit.
	You can, of course, be a patriot and a nationalist, which I imagine most nationalists are.
	I imagine that there probably are some nationalists who are just openly xenophobic.
	And so rather than having a love for their own country, they have more of a hatred for other countries.
	But I imagine they're very much in the minority.
	The one thing you certainly can't do is exalt one nation above all others and place primary emphasis on the promotion of that culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations and supranational groups if you're a globalist.
	If you want your country to be subsumed in a supranational political organization, a kind of proto-fascist entity like the European Union, then you would of course consider nationalism some kind of betrayal.
	If you happen to think that the leader of a nation putting the interests of that nation first is unpatriotic, then you have a particularly strange view and might I say, dare I say, privileged view of what it's like to actually live in your country with the changes that you are busy enacting.
	For nationalism to be a betrayal of patriotism would mean that you must hold a set of values that are directly in conflict with those people who think that nationalism is actually the fulfillment of patriotism.
	But to boil it all down into a simple phrase that I think you can take away and make this easy to remember, Emmanuel, nationalism is the politicization of patriotism.
	Consider it that way.
	If we are to politicize our patriotism, then we can look at the other countries around us as peers.
	We understand that they are nations just like us, and we will have to get political with them.
	And that doesn't mean go to war with them.
	That just means be competitive.
	Because I think there is a problem with nations that are not competitive.
	I say this again to Emmanuel Macron, who did his thesis on Machiavelli and Hegel, that I think it's time to be realistic.
	I think in many ways it might actually be time to set aside the idealistic conception of what world politics could be and be a bit more realistic about what it actually is.
	We're not going to abandon our morals, we're not going to abandon our principles, but we're going to remember that we live in the real world and there are people who do want to take advantage of us.
	And they are.
	It's okay if your worldview is built on axioms that contradict and conflict with those of a nationalist.
	You're entitled to your own opinion.
	Why people would vote for someone like this is quite baffling and frankly peculiar.
	And given that your approval rating has dropped again to just 29%, I think we can see where the problem lies.
	The national leader should put the interests of that nation before his own concerns.
	And at time of recording, Donald Trump had 13% more approval rating than Emmanuel Macron.
	Weird how that works out, isn't it, Emmanuel?
	Really weird, but sorry, we'll go back to your assertion.
	By putting our own interests first, with no regards for others, we erase the very thing that a nation holds dearest, the thing that keeps it alive, its moral values.
	I take issue with this statement, Mr. Macron, I think, is very poorly formed.
	Let me explain why.
	It is not possible for you to act in your own interests and have no regard for others.
	That would be so blind and foolish that any move you made would instantly be foiled by the people for which you had no regard.
	You must understand what the other nations around you are doing, what they hold dear, what their interests are, what their likely reaction will be to your actions, or your actions will fail.
	There is no way to act in your own interests and have no regard for others.
	If you had said, by putting our own interests first at the expense of others, I would have agreed.
	I would have said, well, that's absolutely true.
	Why should we just run roughshod over the national interests of other countries, such as their borders, their immigration laws, their customs, their trade, their armies, their people, the blood and treasure that they worked so hard to get?
	Why should we do that?
	But of course, that's not what you said.
	The second part of this half a sentence that I take umbrage with is the fact that you treat people putting their own interests first, rather than the interests of others, as some kind of moral deficit.
	What you are asking when you ask the Americans to cease being nationalistic and give up their hard-earned advantages so that people on the other side of the world can take advantage of them instead, is for you to say, I am at the top and I am okay to pull up the ladder behind me now that I'm here.
	When you allow multinational corporations to export the low-end manufacturing jobs and other blue-collar work that gets exported across to China, Indonesia and whatnot, what you're saying is to the working class people of that country that there is no ladder by which they can crawl out of the poverty that they find themselves in.
	There is no roots to the middle class for these people.
	Have you considered what an elitist position this is?
	Mr. I Have a Philosophy Degree, Macron.
	Have you considered that this is rank elitism at its very worst?
	And the globalist morality that you draw upon to justify this is actually a form of class warfare against those poor ignorant plebs that your Jupiterian presidency thumbs its nose at.
	But more importantly, have you considered that you are being exceptionally selfish by suggesting that a nation should not put its own interests first?
	Would you say this to Botswana?
	Would you say this to the Gambia?
	Would you say this to Papua New Guinea?
	You need to give up your resources.
	You need to give of yourself so that others may benefit.
	You need to make a sacrifice that I, Emmanuel Macron, your very unpopular president, has determined for you.
	You may suffer.
	It might hurt.
	You may find yourself impoverished.
	You may find yourself with no way to get out of this poverty.
	And yes, I, Emmanuel Macron, get to be the darling of the international elite.
	But trust me, it's for your own good.
	Because this keeps alive our moral values.
	And so let's turn to what keeps a nation alive, Emmanuel.
	Do our moral values keep a nation alive?
	Again, I would say that that's a position of remarkable privilege.
	When you're hungry and desperate and afraid, when you have a mob baying and banging on your door, throwing bricks through your windows and saying, get out kafar, will you be sat there worrying about your moral values or will you be worrying about your physical safety?
	Of course it won't happen to you, Mr. President.
	It will happen to someone else.
	It won't be your problem when your car's being set on fire, when the church doors are being broken in and a gang of jihadis are cutting the throats of priests and nuns.
	It won't be you.
	It will be someone else.
	So tell me, how will you keep these moral values alive?
	Because it seems to me, Mr. Macron, that you are turning France racist.
	This is a map of the percentage share of people who answered, people of another race, when asked to pick groups of people they would not want as their neighbours.
	France is slightly less racist than India, but around a quarter of your country said that they would not want people of different races as their neighbours.
	I wonder why that is?
	I would suggest that the thing that keeps a nation alive is the integrity of its borders, a corollary of which is the ability to maintain its own national sovereignty.
	You, Mr. Macron, have been elected to be the president of a country that is in the process of giving up its national sovereignty to a supranational entity.
	Why would you think your nation is going to survive?
	It seems that the people in your nation are growing scared and desperate and that they realize that something is going wrong.
	I would hazard a guess that it's because they elected a president of their nation who wants to sell out their nation to a different foreign sovereign.
	I understand that Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a bit old hat these days, but when I was studying psychology, it was still taught, which shows you how old I am.
	But I think there is definitely some truth to it.
	I think that self-actualization and the realization of one's moral values on a national scale or a personal scale is contingent on a series of other conditions.
	And when things like safety, food, or jobs are on the line, moral values probably take a back seat, whether you like it or not.
	Because at the end of the day, moral values, and I know you're not going to like me saying this, I know you're going to get really frustrated about it, but at the end of the day, moral values are expensive.
	It is a sad fact of life that unfortunately, if people are desperate and hungry and afraid, they will sacrifice their moral values.
	They will compromise their moral selves if they don't know what to do, if they don't seem to have any other options.
	If they are not comfortable and secure and prosperous, as many of the lower classes in our countries are not, then they will consider their moral integrity to be of less importance than their personal physical integrity or the integrity of their family and country.
	It's not that it wouldn't be morally laudable to do so.
	It's that it's ridiculous to ask people to suffer so that you, the president of the country, might feel good about himself.
	So that you can be the darling of the European Union.
	It's an absurd thing to ask yourself.
	And now we get to the moral values that you're so interested in talking about.
	What moral values?
	Is it moral for a president of a country or a chancellor perhaps to allow in millions and millions of immigrants?
	Is it moral for you to let these people in and then take no responsibility for the damage that they do?
	How many riots in Paris do there have to be?
	How much burnt property?
	How many beaten people?
	How many raped women?
	How many murders?
	Before we say maybe you and Angela Merkel and Tony Blair are responsible for the calamities that we're experiencing?
	How long until we hold you accountable?
	How long until the peasants realize who has visited these woes upon them?
	Because we know that the people of the Middle East generally hold dramatically different social values and moral values to people in the West.
	I mean I could find article after article of migrants gang raping women, torturing women, beating up men, breaking into houses, like I said, causing riots through Paris that just aren't reported in the media these days.
	I could do all of that, but you already know they exist, Emmanuel.
	You already know what's happening.
	I don't need to persuade you.
	And I've got a funny feeling that I've done enough videos on my channel about all of this that I don't need to persuade my audience either.
	So let's just skip to the chase.
	Whose moral values are you protecting?
	Is it moral for the leader of a nation to sell out that nation to a supranational entity?
	Is it moral for you to try and erase the borders of France and remove the national sovereignty of the country?
	Or are you selling out future generations for your utopian dream and creating an absolute nightmare for the people who have to pick up the pieces?
	You tell me, Emmanuel.
	Why would the president of any nation suggest that their nation be subsumed in a greater supranational entity and that entity should be given an army?
	Why would anyone do this?
	In his own words, we must have a Europe that can defend itself on its own without relying only on the United States.
	How does your secret crush feel about this?
	As Europeans, we notice that we can defend our interests when we work together.
	Only a stronger Europe is going to be able to defend its values and interests worldwide.
	The times when we could rely on others are past.
	This means that we as Europeans now have to really take our fate fully into our own hands if we want to defend our community.
	I have suggested that we establish a European Security Council with changing presidencies of the member states where decisions can be taken more rapidly.
	We have to create a European intervention force so that we can tackle issues immediately on the ground.
	We have already achieved cooperation in the military sphere.
	That is good and we are going to continue to support this.
	But what we should do, and this is really important if we look at the developments of the past years, we have to work on a vision of one day creating a real true European army.
	Well, that sounded terrifyingly nationalistic.
	If you are indeed creating a European superstate called the European Union and creating what is a new nation across the entire continent, that sounded very nationalistic.
	And as someone who has been in the Parliament and the European Union, I can tell you, the amount they talk about protecting European culture and the very detail to which they legislate really does make me think the European Union is in fact some kind of proto-fascist project designed to raise the sovereignty of all European nations altogether.
	Why?
	Well, of course, this will prevent war in Europe and inflame tensions with the United States.
	And does anyone remember why Sparta went to war with Athens?
	If I remember my Thucydides correctly, Emmanuel, and I know that I do, it's, in his opinion, because the Spartans were afraid of the growth of Athenian power.
	Imagine if you're successful.
	What do you think the Americans will think of Europe?
	Maybe there will be a war in Europe at some point.
	Who knows?
	Maybe the European Union will do the exact opposite of what it was intended and in fact bring war to Europe.
	I want to point out just how unbelievably dumb it is to try and create a European army given the state of Europe at the moment, which in my view is a direct consequence of the worldview of the people running the European Union.
	They have made the European Union really right-wing.
	The actual institution of the European Union itself is very left-wing, but do you think that'll last forever?
	Do you think that by the time you've finished building this massive Europe-wide army, how bad do you think it'll be by the time they take over?
	I imagine it'll be pretty bad.
	I imagine there will be more riots in the street, more looting, more rapes, more murders, more violence, more destruction, more lack of care and consideration for the native people of those countries.
	That's what this will be based on.
	The right-wing, the far-right, this scary right that you want to call everyone else are actually going to be the ones who profit from that.
	And the worse it gets, the more right-wing things are going to get.
	The fact that you idiots think that you, by the end of it, can build this giant super army to what, effectively prevent elections from happening?
	Because it sounds like Europe's getting fascism one way or another.
	And in my opinion, it's a direct consequence of people who oppose the existence of nation states.
	In my opinion, to be a nationalist is not even at this point to have an avowed, professed love of your country above all others.
	You might actually think other countries do things better than yours.
	But I think at the moment we're coming to a point where it's literally just, should my country exist as a country?
	I think we're at this point that that is what makes a nationalist.
	The reason, in my opinion, that Europe is so weak is because of her constituent nations following a policy of globalism.
	I think it's making them weak.
	I think it's hurting them working classes.
	And I think it's really pulling up the ladder behind them and waging something akin to a class war when you simply open the borders and don't have to deal with the fallout, at least to the same degree that the other people in your country are.
	I think you should really think about what you're doing.
	I think you should really consider the fact that it's turning people racist.
	I think you should really consider the fact that nationalism is coming whether you like it or not.
	So it would be more sensible for the more liberal among us to make it a liberal form of nationalism and say, yes, we can support the nation state.
	We can indeed endorse the existence of the nation state and our nation states acting in their own interests competitively along liberal lines.
	I don't believe there is actually dichotomy between liberalism and nationalism.
	I think a nation can be liberal and still want to see its own existence perpetuated.
	And I think that this is the most sensible position for anyone in the political center to adopt, as I consider myself to be.
	And if you say, well, how is this going to defeat the collectivists?
	Because all politics is, is a numbers game.
	It's just the number of people who support a position that make it strong.
	So if we all just agree to this position, this position becomes the strongest.
	Why do I even have to explain that?
	There are a remarkable number of leaders across Europe who do not have children.
	And it's not just these four.
	These are just the most important people in Europe.
	You have the Swedes, you have the Dutch, you have the Scots, all with childless leaders.
	Now this is something that a generation ago would have been unthinkable, unthinkable, to be a president or a prime minister of a country and not have a family.
	Why on earth would the people of any nation vote for someone who has no investment in their nation?
	Why would they vote for someone whose children weren't going to live with the consequences of their decisions?
	Why would I think that you understand what it's like for a parent to be concerned about the safety and well-being of their children?
	I can't guess why you would be pictured with these two young African men like half your age, topless and sweaty and touching you.
	I would suggest that perhaps the leaders of Europe see the non-white peoples in the rest of the world as their children.
	After all, Mama Merkel isn't raising her own children, is she?
	I suppose that's why Mama Merkel is being sunsetted by her own electorate.
	What I am saying, Emmanuel, is that your conception of globalism is an immoral thing to do to the poor people of your country.
	Sure, the elite, well-educated middle classes, who again don't have children of their own broadly and who are not putting a stake in the future of the country, but still somehow running its public life, might not agree.
	They might tell you you are the best thing since sliced bread.
	But the rest of the country isn't.
	The rest of our countries are saying that we are not happy with the way you have run these things.
	When Donald Trump says he's going to put America first in his trade deals and in his politics, that is something you can trust to at least improve your country.
	Let me use the example of Brexit, possibly your favorite subject, to point out exactly how nationalism is good for the regular people of a country.
	Today it was reported by the BBC that wages show the fastest rise in almost a decade since the Brexit vote.
	According to a senior statistician from the Office of National Statistics, faster wage growth and more subdued inflation have caused real earnings to pick up noticeably in the last few months.
	According to the BBC's economics correspondent, the prospect of Brexit and the weak pound seems to have put off some migrants from coming to the UK for work, while others have decided to return to their home country.
	Now we have the strongest evidence so far of that trend with the number of EU nationals working in the UK falling by 132,000 in the three months from July to September compared with the period of the year before.
	When people have less incentive to mass migrate to a country, the people who already live in that country get better wages.
	This is the primary, in my opinion.
	It should come as no surprise to you that the regular people who are actually suffering because of globalization are not interested in further globalization.
	In fact, they would like some nationalism.
	And how's nationalism going for Donald Trump?
	President Donald Trump has made no secret of the fact that he thinks that the economy and the stock market would be in big trouble without him.
	I'll tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash.
	I think everybody would be very poor.
	It's an argument that keeps coming up.
	We'll probably come up more.
	Whatever you think of his policies, whatever you think of all the scandals and the tweets and everything else that's gone on in his administration, the economy is doing great.
	And the question is, how much credit does he deserve for all that?
	On the headline numbers, the economy has been strong, no doubt about it.
	Trump has overseen six consecutive quarters of economic growth that's not only been positive, but also been above trend.
	We've also seen big gains in corporate earnings and the stock market, which is now the longest bull market on record, has continued while he's been president.
	Look at confidence levels.
	Consumer confidence is at its highest level since 2004.
	The National Federation of Independent Business Index, which measures sentiment for small business owners, is at its second highest level ever.
	And that went up as soon as Trump got into office.
	Some of the other metrics, a little bit of a mixed bag.
	Hiring has slowed somewhat, but that would be expected with the economy where it is right now.
	In June, there were actually more job openings than there were people who were classified as unemployed.
	That is a first for the U.S. economy.
	Food stamp recipients had been on the decline under President Barack Obama's administration.
	That decline has increased somewhat.
	Now, 8% fewer food stamp recipients in Trump's first 16 months.
	It's not earth-shattering, but it does represent progress in getting some of those Americans who have been left behind back up to speed as far as the economic recovery goes.
	So the big question, how much of this is due to Trump's policies and how much credit should he get?
	General consensus?
	Enough to matter.
	We are giving them a big, beautiful Christmas present in the form of a tremendous tax cut.
	On the tax cuts, many believe that this long-awaited fiscal stimulus is exactly what the economy needs.
	The price tag for these tax cuts, about $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years, and is providing a stimulus that policymakers at the Federal Reserve and elsewhere have really been looking for after a decade of an economy that was basically just running on monetary policy.
	Now, the slashing of regulations is where Trump has been really effective.
	We're going to put the regulation industry out of work and out of business.
	Multiple measures show that regulations have come down dramatically since Trump took office.
	We all remember his executive order.
	We have to knock out two regulations for every new regulation.
	So how do you measure the impact?
	Well, business investment is a great place to look across a variety of areas like software, intellectual property, research and development.
	It's brought those levels back up to around 2012 levels, which of course is not great, but it's turning things in the right direction.
	Even skeptics admit that the Trump administration has made progress.
	Mark Sandy, the chief economist at Moody's Analytics, had famously said during the 2016 campaign that if Trump's policies were implemented as proposed, it would cause a lengthy recession.
	Now he says Trump's policies have added 0.7 percentage points to his GDP projections, not an inconsiderable amount when you're talking about a $20 trillion economy.
	Now, of course, not everything is strong.
	One of the most nettlesome parts about the economy has been wage growth.
	In fact, when taking account for inflation, worker paychecks are barely budgeted since Trump has gotten into office.
	And that inflation number is something to keep in mind.
	As the economy picks up, inflation could kick in, and that in turn could trigger the Federal Reserve to continue to raise rates.
	In fact, at an even faster pace than the market and the economy anticipates, and that could slow growth down considerably.
	Of course, with more fiscal stimulus, we're also seeing more debt.
	In fact, the Congressional Budget Office projects the deficit to hit $1 trillion in 2020.
	For quite a long time, the markets in the economy have been willing to dismiss it.
	And there's an old adage on Wall Street, it doesn't matter until it matters.
	And that's what Trump's going to have to wrestle with as the debt deficits continue to grow.
	But for now, Trump is sitting pretty on a solid economy and he likes to take credit for it.
	The question is, how long can that keep going?
	Sorry for playing that whole thing, but it really did make the point I wanted to make.
	Trump is doing everything right for the US economy.
	He is in fact following Bannon's idea of economic nationalism, putting America's economy first, and that's having a massive, dramatic effect on the American economy.
	Now, if Trump can create the effect that Britain has had with the reduction of mass immigration, and apparently there are now 43 million immigrants in the United States as of 2015, which is the result of around a million new people a year coming to the United States, again, it doesn't matter where they come from.
	It just matters that they come in such numbers.
	If Trump can reduce this immigration, and I don't see why he shouldn't, if, for example, the Democrats decided that maybe, just maybe, they care about the people in the United States instead of caring about the people outside of the United States, if Trump were allowed to create a seller's market for labor in the United States, then the real wages of those people would rise, just as what's happened with Brexit.
	Because at the end of the day, it really is as simple as supply and demand.
	If there are not enough people to fill the jobs, then wages for the individuals working in those jobs will rise.
	Not only is it okay to be a nationalist, if you are the leader of a nation, it is a moral obligation on you to be a nationalist for the good of the people that elected you, for the good of the people that you are ruling over, and for the good of the people who now loathe you.
	Your moral compass is backwards.
	You do not have to pick up the white man's burden.
	It is not your responsibility or the responsibility of any other Western leader to save the third world from themselves.
	They will do that in their own time.

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