Pre-Adamites

After wandering into more socio-political topics than I was initially ever intending to talk about here, I decided to return to one of my early flagged topics: the possibility and nature of pre-Adamite people.  Quite possibly, as happened to me, you see the very term and scratch your head.  Huh?  What in the world is a pre-Adamite person and where in the world did such an idea come from?  This is actually somewhat curious, however, as the question was once a big one that many members of the Church seemed to be concerned about, and it even prompted an official statement from the First Presidency to the General Authorities of the Church.  This question is also inextricably tied up with the question of evolution, so I'll have to address that somewhat too.  Before we really begin, let's establish some context.

First off, as James Talmage said, there is no conflict between science and religion when both are clearly understood; if there is apparent conflict, it is due to our own incomplete and imperfect understanding of one or the other (or even both.)  That said, there are limitations to both sets of knowledge with regards to this particular question.  Religion has not attempted to answer definitively with any level of detail what exactly encompassed the creation, and I think any attempts to wring a detailed history of the world by literally reading the Genesis account of the creation such as the Ussher chronology are wrong-headed from the get-go.  The answer from God appears to be some form of "that is not important to your salvation, so details have not been revealed."  Also, it stands in (occasionally, apparent) contrast with science, which means that it becomes a means whereby to try the faith of Man.

Evolution, on the other hand, is a bit more tricky.  Sure, there is a strong, decades-long scientific tradition of the model of evolution being the explanation given for the peopling (and inhabiting by both plants and animals, for that matter) of the earth.  However... things are not as simple as they seem.

A few interesting examples: the credibility of the scientific industry overall has undergone a rather withering fire for anyone who's been paying attention to it.  Although I could discuss this at length, to do so, I'd need to dig out a lot of old sources that I've read but not really tracked; rather, let me point you merely to a summary here, and an even more scathing one in the book reviewed here.  And here's one specifically regarding evolution itself.

But maybe that's getting a little ahead of ourselves.  Despite it's ascendancy, evolution as a model suffers from a number of crippling flaws, notably:

• The second law of thermodynamics states that natural systems become more chaotic over time, not more structured and organized.  Evolution posits the opposite.
• Few scientists understand the statistics involved.  While they handwave away the unlikeliness of evolution by saying that clearly it did happen, in reality, no rational mathematical model can possibly give us the complexity we see over the time frame that we see.  That mathematics would require an order of magnitude (or more) more time for evolution to have produced the result that we see today.
• This is even worse with the abiotic genesis of life from some "primordial soup."  There is no satisfactory scientific explanation for the genesis of life from not-life organic elements.  And again; the statistical odds of not-life becoming life is astronomically more difficult than most scientists realize or admit.
• Hybrid species in the fossil record are rare, and usually unconvincing, except in a very macro, big picture way.  As an example; Archaeopterix lithographica is often held out as a transition between dinosaurs and birds; however, it's also clearly too derived in a number of characteristics to be ancestral to later birds.  It's therefore a "close cousin" of a completely unknown and unconfirmed ancestor to birds.  This kind of ghost transition fossil story is commonplace; the actual transition fossil is almost uniformly unknown.  There's even a modification to the theory of evolution that purports to explain why there is no clear fossil evidence for evolution: punctuated equilibrium.  All of this merely says that there is no significant "hard evidence" of evolution in the fossil record.
• Experiments have been conducted with fruit flies, bombarded with mutagens to supposedly replicate the effect of millions of years of evolution.  None of these has ever produced anything like a new species.
• In fact, the very notion that mutation is beneficial and can result in speciation, especially prompted by vacant ecological niches, is a just-so story that has never been observed or explained satisfactorily.  And it trips over its own feet to some degree; mutation isn't caused by ecological vacancies, so what exactly prompts rabid speciation and diversification when ecological vacancies exist is not explained at all.
• The complexity of various organs, such as the vertebrate eye, or a bird's wing, which have hundreds of working parts that all interact together to fulfill a single function, has no explanation.  There are handwavy attempts to suggest that "half a wing" or a "partial eye" confers some evolutionary benefit, thus prompting transitional features to exist, but these are handwavy just-so stories.  The reality is that these complex structures have to have been designed in coordinated fashion in order to even exist.  This is, again, a failure of most scientists to truly understand statistics and probability; c.f. the just-story which is actually statistically impossible of millions of monkey and millions of typewriters and Shakespeare.
• The same is true for intracellular enzyme interactions, or for that matter, other complex symbiotic interrelationships.
• Biological models, as referred to in the link above, are continually debunked by genetics, requiring tweaks to the theory of evolution until it is a hopelessly complex model that rests on an unproven foundation, and is therefore very unlikely to actually end up being true.

While it isn't really my purpose in this post to debunk the theory of evolution by natural selection (TENS for short), it is important for this post that I point out and establish, at least at a very high level, that TENS is very poor science, and if it weren't for inertia and politics within the scientific community, it almost certainly would have been discarded decades ago, and we'd either be talking about a new standard model, or at least be in search of one.  The reality is that we are desperately in need of a new model that better explains the data that we have, because evolution doesn't do so.  Young earth creationism doesn't either, which is the other obvious alternative in the public sphere, so we do not have a model that actually fits the data well currently, unless it lurks out there in the fringe realm of pseudo-science.  

One day, the edifice protecting evolution from sufficient criticism to bring the model down will break through the political forces aligned to stop such criticism from gaining steam and some alternative, whatever it may be, will be presented.  Then again, maybe it won't happen until further light and knowledge is revealed to Man.  TENS has evolved into the counter-argument against religion; an atheistic, secular humanist dogma.  As I said, neither the "standard" religious model of young earth creationism nor the atheist natural selection model are realistic or believable, and both are contradicted by a wide variety of evidence, but the presence of the model of evolution has been a very effective tool for Satan in leading people astray from their faith because of the weaknesses in young earth creationism, and the suppression of details about the weaknesses of evolution.  As I said earlier, and as Bro. Talmage said decades ago, there is no conflict between science and religion when both are properly understood.  However, neither are properly understood today; science gives us a visibly unworkable model with no alternatives, and religion declines to answer the question in any detail at present (although curiously, there are ways in which using time dilation observed by theoretical physics can actually—believe it or not—salvage and reconcile the Bible narrative with observed scientific observations about age.  But that doesn't take away from the fact that the creation narrative that we have is incredibly light on details, and almost certainly deliberately so on the part of God, or Moses, or both.)  For now, what is required is faith that more details on the how will be forthcoming at some future date, possibly in the Millennium, or in our life to come as we learn and grow more following the Resurrection.  From D&C 101: 32 Yea, verily I say unto you, in that day when the Lord shall come, he shall reveal all things— 33 Things which have passed, and hidden things which no man knew, things of the earth, by which it was made, and the purpose and the end thereof— 34 Things most precious, things that are above, and things that are beneath, things that are in the earth, and upon the earth, and in heaven. From the Religion 301 manual (an Institute, or BYU class): How was the earth created? The Lord has not yet revealed how the earth was created. All we know is that it was created by God.  (That quote from D&C 101 will apply quite well to all kinds of mysteries in astronomy and astrophysics that also are clumsily patched up with a secular, areligious scientific dogma, but that's a discussion for another time...)

Nor is my purpose to present an alternative model.  I personally favor a model that has many of the "noble and great ones" involved in the creation, as described in Abraham 3 as a learning and training exercise, to prepare the world for the coming of Man, and that the various stages of life as seen in the fossil record are more like the model years of a car than what is described in TENS.  But that's merely my own speculative pet theory and without a greater understanding of what the purpose of such an activity may be, it's hard to pin it down as only one of many potential models that could fit the available data.  But we shall indeed see.  As Bruce R. McConkie once wrote (and with the caveat that McConkie wrote a lot of stuff that was clearly merely his opinion, learned though it was); emphasis mine: When, during the Millennium, the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon is translated, it will give an account of life in the premortal existence; of the creation of all things; of the Fall and the Atonement and the Second Coming; of temple ordinances, in their fullness; of the ministry and mission of translated beings; of life in the spirit world, in both paradise and hell; of the kingdoms of glory to be inhabited by resurrected beings; and many such like things. As of now, the world is not ready to receive these truths. For one thing, these added doctrines will completely destroy the whole theory of organic evolution as it is now almost universally taught in the halls of academia. For another, they will set forth an entirely different concept and time frame of the creation, both of this earth and all forms of life and of the sidereal heavens themselves, than is postulated in all the theories of men. And sadly, there are those who, if forced to make a choice at this time, would select Darwin over Deity.

Some of the speculation of pre-Adamites came about a hundred or more years ago as Charles Darwin's TENS theory was first breaking across the world, in particular with regards to the age of human and hominid fossils, and the very existence of "early man" in general that seemed to contradict the Adam and Eve narrative.  Given the many weaknesses of TENS, it's possible that the reason for the idea is somewhat mitigated, although it would also require that one believe that the half-life of Carbon-14 and radiocarbon dating is flawed science; a more difficult premise to accept, as I know of no challenges of any significance to the rationale of radiocarbon dating.  So what exactly is the idea of pre-Adamites, and what happened to the idea that it's kind of dropped out of the consciousness of the membership of the Church?

Obviously, science still teaches us that the longevity of the human race is a good deal longer than as described in Scripture.  According to research, anatomically modern humans have existed since about 200,000 years ago, out of a diverse selection of "archaic human" groups such as Neanderthals, Heidelburgians, Denisovans, Ergasters and Antecesors, etc. go back a million or more years, and guys like Homo erectus and Homo habilis go back almost 3 million years, before which their ancestors were supposed to have been the chimpanzee-like Australopithecus.  Now granted; you need to get the details on a lot of this research.  What is presented to us as a done deal with complete skeletons of unambiguous interpretation is often quite far from that in reality; while nothing as grotesquely false as the Piltdown Man hoax is evident, I firmly believe that without the underlying context of TENS, the data that we have on these so-called early humans could and would be interpreted very differently than they are today.  A few fragments of bone does not a convincing man-ape hybrid make unless your model requires man-ape hybrids, after all, and very few of these specimens are known from more than a few fragments of bone.  Most of the skulls that you see pictures of are reconstructions based on a bit of braincase attached to some brow ridges, a separate find of some jaw bones from a similar locale that is referred to the same species, and the rest is filled in via comparative anatomy.  There's a joke physical anthropologists, archaeologists and paleontologists make that you could fit all of the pre-Modern human remains that we have today in a single shoe box, and still have room for the shoes.  That's an exaggeration, but it's funny because of the underlying truth behind it.  But even if you disregard the entire reconstruction of primive, ape-like species like Homo habilis, you still have anatomically modern humans that extend an order of magnitude earlier than Adam could possibly have been extended.  It is very difficult to envision even an unliteral reading of the Scriptural account that has Adam and Eve running around 200,000 years ago.  And yet we have skeletons that date that old, and no reason to doubt the veracity of the dating. 

In addition to that, here's a small roundup of some quotations from The Brethren:

• In a Memorandum from the First Presidency to the General Authorities (mentioned above) issued in April 1931, it says: Both parties [i.e., Elders Joseph Fielding Smith and B. H. Roberts] make the scripture and the statements of men who have been prominent in the affairs of the Church the basis of their contention; neither has produced definite proof in support of his views... Upon the fundamental doctrines of the Church we are all agreed. Our mission is to bear the message of the restored Gospel to the people of the world. Leave geology, biology, archaeology and anthropology, no one of which has to do with the salvation of the souls of mankind, to scientific research, while we magnify our calling in the realm of the Church. We can see no advantage to be gained by a continuation of the discussion to which reference is here made, but on the contrary are certain that it would lead to confusion, division and misunderstanding if carried further. Upon one thing we should all be able to agree namely, that presidents Joseph F. Smith, John Winder and Anthon Lund were right when they said: "Adam is the primal parent of our race." 
• Elder James Talmage wrote, of the same debate: Involved in this question is that of the beginning of life upon the earth, and as to whether there was death either of animal or plant before the fall of Adam, on which proposition Elder Smith was very pronounced in denial and Elder Roberts equally forceful in the affirmative. As to whether Pre-Adamite races existed upon the earth there has been much discussion among some of our people of late. The decision reached by the First Presidency, and announced to this morning's assembly, was in answer to a specific question that obviously the doctrine of the existence of races of human beings upon the earth prior to the fall of Adam was not a doctrine of the Church; and, further, that the conception embodied in the belief of many to the effect that there were no such Pre-Adamite races, and that there was no death upon the earth prior to Adam's fall is likewise declared to be no doctrine of the Church. I think the decision of the First Presidency is a wise one in the premises. This is one of the many things upon which we cannot preach with assurance and dogmatic assertions on either side are likely to do harm rather than good. 
• Hugh Nibley, in an article titled "Before Adam" wrote, among other things: Do not begrudge existence to creatures that looked like men long, long ago, nor deny them a place in God's affection or even a right to exaltation—for our scriptures allow them such. Nor am I overly concerned as to just when they might have lived, for their world is not our world. They have all gone away long before our people ever appeared. God assigned them their proper times and functions, as he has given me mine—a full-time job that admonishes me to remember his words to the overly eager Moses: "For mine own purpose have I made these things. Here is wisdom and it remaineth in me." (Moses 1:31.) It is Adam as my own parent who concerns me. When he walks onto the stage, then and only then the play begins. 

This opens the door to the possibility; maybe even the probability of pre-Adamite men, given those quotes and the archaeological record.  But that of course answers nothing of what in the world they are doing spiritually and where they fit into the Plan of Salvation.  Here's a few other Scriptures and quotes that some have used to build up (admittedly very speculative) concepts about pre-Adamites and where they may fit:

• D&C 45:54: And then shall the heathen nations be redeemed, and they that knew no law shall have part in the first resurrection; and it shall be tolerable for them.
• There are also many who believe that the term "replenish" in the phrase "multiply and replenish the earth" is to be taken literally; i.e., the earth needs to be refilled as it was emptied from a former full state.  Elder Orson Hyde said in the Journal of Discourses: The world was peopled before the days of Adam, as much so as it was before the days of Noah. It was said that Noah became the father of a new world, but it was the same old world still, and will continue to be (in the future), though it may pass through many changes.

If any such pre-Adamites existed, then there are basically three potential outcomes that I'm aware of, with little to recommend any of them other than speculation. 

1. Adam and Eve were the father and mother of the lineage of people who received the first dispensation of the gospel, and as such are the father and mother (in a spiritual, and figurative sense) of all men.  Their presence alone at the head of the family tree of all humanity is not to be taken too literally in this interpretation.  Although I do not favor or agree with this interpretation, there are at least some traditions that support it; Adam and Eve are mentioned in the Pearl of Great Price (and in other sources) as interacting with other people who remain unnamed.  I presume that they are meant to be their own offspring.  There are also persistent (apocryphal if not actually outright mythological) references to a first wife of Adam's: Lilith.  Even the statement above from the Presidency to the Brethren leaves open this possibility; it states that Adam is the primal parent of our race, not the sole parent of our race.  In general, I don't support or agree with this position myself, but I can, by squinting really hard, see how it could maybe fit in with what we know.  Certainly it seems that most the Brethren have never really believed it, but many Christian scholars outside of our faith believe in something like this.  (Many others see the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall as symbolic rather than literal, and many even in the Church believe this, although I believe that this is not in harmony with what we know of Gospel doctrine.)
2. There was a theory that I haven't heard much about, but which apparently was earlier somewhat popular, that a large number of people in the War in Heaven were reluctant, or afraid of the mortal trials, and entered into some kind of "plea bargain" or negotiated state where they would inherit only a Terrestrial (at best) glory but would live outside of the dispensations of the Gospel and not be subject to Celestial law.  Although prior to hearing about this notion, I had assumed statements like Joseph Smith's reference to "the heathen of ages that never had hope," in Times and Seasons to refer to merely conventional heathens who died without ever hearing of the Gospel, some have seen statements like this as evidence for this plan, as is the verse from D&C section 54 noted above.  If a terrestrial eternity was "tolerable" to these heathen nations, could they have bargained for just such a plan rather than being tried according to a fuller, celestial law?  If so, it certainly makes sense for them to have lived before Adam's time, because Adam was given the celestial law, as were his descendants and the whole earth from his time until the end; even those who lived during the Apostasy or in cultures where they never heard of Christ will be taught the gospel in the spirit world and have the chance to accept it and thus gain the benefits of a celestial exaltation.
   
   Although I don't see any reason to say that this notion can't be true, neither do I see any reason to suspect that it is.  Every statement used to support it can equally be made to support another interpretation that does not involve pre-Adamic peoples that merely were apostate, not in some putative negotiated, plea-bargain spiritual status.  The only things that recommend it are the fact that it does, at least, offer an explanation for human skeletons found by archaeologists that are almost certainly way too old to post-date Adam and Eve, and hey, at least it's a really interesting just-so story.
3. Orson Hyde and some other Brethren in earlier days of the Church seemed to believe in entire Dispensations of the Gospel that were born, came to fruition, and were finished prior to the Dispensation of Adam; i.e., Adam and Eve are the parents of our cycle, but that earlier cycles of humanity may well have existed on the Earth, lived their lives, had the Gospel, come to fruition, etc. and been then cleared to make way for our cycle once they were done.  The quote given above from Hugh Nibley seems to be concurrent with this belief.
   
   The reasons for this idea to be attractive are, again, it explains the existence of archaeological finds and radiocarbon dates associated with them, and at least a few of the early Brethren seemed to believe it.  And as Bro. Nibley said, our Scriptures allow for the possibility; by which I presume he means that they don't say anything that would contradict it, although they also say nothing that would support it either.
4. Adam as the Father of our race does not mean that he's the father genetically, but spiritually, i.e., there was no dispensation of the Gospel on the Earth until the Gospel was revealed to Adam after his Fall and expulsion from isolation in Eden.  This could, conceivably mean that there were other people on the Earth at the time of Adam and before, but that lacking the Gospel, History, as they say, starts with Adam and the revelation of the Gospel to him.  In this scenario, being the posterity of Adam could just as well mean that our ancestors received the Gospel from him as that they were born of him.
5. Before leaving off theories entirely, here's another idea that some in the Church believe.  They apply this more to dinosaurs and other extinct life-forms and whatnot than to old people skeletons, but the concept is the same: i.e., that the matter used to create the Earth may have been leftover from some other earth and that fossils and other finds that seem to predate the Biblical record seem to do so because they existed earlier on another earth, not on ours.  There are several reasons, I believe, to reject this idea:
1. The creation of the earth, as best understood by science, is not a cold creation.  The accretion of material would have generated a great deal of heat and pressure and any such relics from whatever former earth that they are the detritus of would have been destroyed as part of the process of the formation of our earth.
2. We are given to understand from multiple sources that the spiritual fate of the world is to be perfected and "resurrected" to a degree of glory itself, not merely the people who lived on it (see D&C 88:17–20; 130:8–11; 77:1; 29:23–25; 43:32).  If this is true, it doesn't make sense that the "bones" of one earth would be used to make another, since those other earths presumably have the same fate as ours; i.e, to receive their own celestial glory and be perfected; not to be torn apart and recycled.
3. This would be true of the actual fossils and skeletons as well; if the world on which they lived had its Dispensation and came to its fullness of times, thus freeing its matter up to be used to make our earth, why haven't those creatures or men who lived on it been resurrected themselves?  And if they have been resurrected, why are their remains still hanging around?
   
   You can possibly twist this into a salvageable theory by positing that the Judgement Day of our world is actually the Judgement day of all worlds, and therefore all of those resurrections and celestial glories are yet to have happened.  All in all, I think this theory requires too much special pleading... although honestly, I suppose all of these theories require special pleading.

That's really kind of the takeaway, though—as interesting as all of this is, there really isn't any reason to believe any of it.  The only reason I can think of to even entertain these ideas are 1) they're curious and interesting at least, if nothing else, and 2) if you need some kind of rationalization or justification in your mind to accept the apparent contradiction of what we think we know about archaeology and what we think we know about Gospel doctrine.   Finally, you can add 3) it was obviously a preoccupation of some degree to some of the earlier Brethren of the Church, which means that it's not just some wild, crackpot idea, but something that our elders took seriously, which at least implies that we might, if we're so curious, do so as well.

Personally, I don't require any such justification, and I'm comfortable suggesting that there are a number of things that I don't know or understand, but will in the fullness of times.  So for me, I don't really take any of these theories seriously, or believe in any of them... although I will point out that I also can't see any reason to suggest that they can't be true; just that I don't see any reason to suggest that they should be true either.

All in all, I find them merely an interesting historical footnote; a folk belief, if you will, that briefly had a heyday before the Brethren decided specifically to no longer address it and it faded away as an important question to the membership of the Church.

What next for Liberalism?

Quoted, with some slight edits, by me (originally by "Bixxy Noodles" and "Heartiste") for some added context, but mostly to make the language more polite so that the content can be of use with a different audience as well as for it's 'core' original audience. The tl;dr summary could almost be a quote from Ayn Rand, "We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.": "The Trumpslide and the dawn of collateral empowerment of Heritage America has supercharged three stereotypical neuroses of the Left, pushing them to the brink of mass psychosis and mental breaks with reality. These neuroses are cognitive dissonance, narcissistic rage, and psychological projection.

Cognitive dissonance is a major problem in our over-scaled society. The information control systems (education-media complex) used by our governing order to manage the people and keep them in line lead directly to the people adopting a lot of conflicting and wrong beliefs in order to adapt to the system and get by. The indoctrination of these conflicting beliefs happens mostly in education, while the purpose of the major media has been to reinforce them via The Narrative™ and provide a vehicle for the management of any cognitive dissonance which does arise.

This election has been a case study in this dynamic. The regnant orthodoxy demands that its partisans believe all sort of incompatible and false things: everyone is equal except white males, sodomy is normal and healthy while traditional marriage is rape, debt is money, and way too many other examples to list. Because of the constant, competing cognition these nonsensical and contradictory beliefs generate, the people who hold them are in a nearly constant state of emotional disequilibrium. They are temperamentally brittle, and easily perturbed into emotional outbursts as their cognitive dissonance essentially causes their brains to lock up and blue screen.

The old media narrative control system evolved specifically to mitigate this problem. By dramatically narrowing the Overton Window and ruthlessly deprecating everything outside of it, the amount of contradictory stimulus and information generating dissonance was reduced. They also provided mantras or catechisms as tools for people to use to insulate themselves from dissonance: extremist!, racist!, conspiracy theory!, dangerous!, insane!, etc.

The advent of the internet undermined and out-maneuvered this control and management system, to the point where now we've almost gotten to the point where the only people still using the old media are the ones who need it most to manage their dissonance problems.

When there is no direct threat or stimulus generating dissonance, their attitude is what I like to refer to as 'aggressive complacency' or 'belligerent apathy.' They are comfortable in their bubble and aggressively reject, ridicule, or ignore anything that might endanger it.

This was on display everywhere over the past eighteen months, on both the establishment left and establishment right, as well as the major media gas-lighting the whole nation right up to the end (and beyond at CNN).

When aggressive complacency fails to insulate and cognitive dissonance occurs when conflicting and false beliefs run smack into cold, hard realities, you get strong emotional reactions. Now, a psychologically-healthy person will generally respond to cognitive dissonance emotions by recognizing something is wrong and adjusting their beliefs and behavior to adapt. What we’re seeing with these meltdowns is a long way from psychologically healthy. Light years away.

What it does resemble, quite closely, is narcissistic rage.

Narcissistic rage occurs when the narcissist perceives he is being personally 'attacked' by someone else. Grandiose self-worth, vanity and entitlement are basic characteristics of this disorder; when these are challenged it often leads to narcissistic rage. Narcissistic rage is a reaction to 'narcissistic injury'—a perceived threat to their self-worth or self-esteem. Their rages can be of two types: explosive or passive-aggressive. The explosive rages are just as they sound—explosive, volatile outbursts which may be verbal, physical, or both. The passive-aggressive rages are exhibited as withdrawal into a sulky, silent treatment as the means to punish the offender.

Our prevailing culture has strongly encouraged leftist partisans to closely associate the beliefs with their personal identity and self-worth. e.g. 'I am a good person because I hate racism and vote for Hillary Clinton.' This naturally leads to the narcissist’s flip-side of the equation: 'Anybody who opposes these beliefs is an evil, bad person.'

The recent meltdowns we’re seeing are a perfect storm of these two dynamics. In the one hand, we have a belief system so contradictory and out of touch with reality, that a situation in which reality has contradicted it has generated mass cognitive dissonance. On the other hand, the people experiencing that dissonant emotion are treating it as an existential threat to their personal identity and self-worth, so they can’t respond in a healthy manner and are instead freaking out.

Reality has forced the equalitarian Marxoid bubble-dwellers to grapple with their amplified and aggravated cognitive dissonance. This unfamiliar threat to their cortical stability results in a narcissistic self-protection cascade; essentially, race and sex equalitarians feel like they are under physical attack (even when the attacks are only verbal expression of alternate opinions) and that their worth as human beings is questioned and found wanting.

The one liberal neurosis I would add is psychological projection, which is universally evident in liberal mental gymnastics, and never more so than now, when they are being undermined and subverted to a degree that they haven’t experienced in generations by an unleashed force of impertinent politically incorrect opinions that they can no longer hand-wave away. Psychological projection, like narcissistic rage, is the liberal’s emotional defense to cognitive dissonance. When the real world won’t align with one’s cultivated virtue-world, and one’s beliefs and actions are exposed as the menace to healthy society they are, then psychological projection becomes an ego emollient that spares the liberal any need for self-reflection, or even self-awareness. When one can readily project one’s personal malevolence (intended or coincidental) onto a perceived enemy, a release from guilt and shame is achieved.

Furthermore, psychological projection has the added benefit of opening a pathway for liberals to recommit to their virtue signaling and slandering of non-liberal realists. If you have tricked yourself into believing your foes are the scumbags that you really are, then you can return to the pleasure of feeling smugly moralistic.

So what does all this mean for the nascent rebellion against political correctness and its concurrent denial of observable reality? When cultural Marxists are experiencing acute cognitive dissonance and narcissistic rage, the correct response is to...

Increase the voltage!

'Conservatives' had it all wrong from the get-go, which is why they failed to conserve anything from our budget, our culture, or even the women's bathroom. You never give emotionally breaking enemies an inch. Feed a rabbit a blade of grass, and he’ll pop out ten more rabbits to devour your lawn. When the rabbit warren is on the edge of annihilation, you put foxes in holes and wipe out every last one of them. Metaphorically, of course, by completely frying their ability to bunker their egos behind a wall of narcissism and projection.

Eventually; the only solution is for them to abandon their anti-American beliefs, because you've walled out and blocked any escape hatch or bolt hole into which they could flee and keep their bizarre beliefs intact."

Election data

Well, I have to admit that in the wake of the 2016 Presidential election, one of my pet theories has taken a bit of a blow.  Not that it's been proven wrong, but it has been shown to be, perhaps, less important than I thought it was.

First, let me establish a ground rule.  The platform and agenda of the current Democrat Party is both anti-American and evil.  I'm taking this as a given, but let me at least take a moment to frame it at a high level.

Firstly, the philosophical premise of the Democrat party, at least currently (it's long ago gone a complete reversal of the populist, freedom and limited government and states' rights party of Andrew Jackson) is based on literally non-American ideas: the collectivist approach of "general will" of Jean-Jacques Rousseau which was an important component of the Jacobin element of the violent savagery of the French Revolution.   It's an important pillar of Socialist and Communist thought ever since, combined with the collectivism of Karl Marx; an Ashkenazi Jew (albeit from a family that had converted to Lutheranism) from Germany.  Democrats eschew many of the protections guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.  Freedom of religion is routinely curtailed in a twisted backward interpretation of the separation of Church and state clause to almost completely obliterate religion from any kind of public sphere, freedom of association is trampled on with anti-discrimination laws (the gay cake baking and wedding flowers incidents, for that matter, not only violate the 1st Amendment, but also the 13th), freedom of speech is routinely suppressed via "hate speech" laws and casual censorship.  It's a running joke that the Democrats hate the 2nd Amendment and wish to repeal it (many have openly called for that; others are more subtle and merely want to cripple it while leaving the fiction up that it stands.)

Their big, authoritarian, re-distributionist government ideal, which in many ways has already come to pass is a dramatic curtailment of our freedom; the Founding Fathers started the Revolutionary War over much less—and is a repudiation of the entire point of the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence.  And more recently, their open and blatant corruption and cronyism is little better than a banana republic.  At an even more existential level, their constant propaganda against heritage America and white Americans is just the icing on the cake; after everything that they've already managed to enact, they hardly even need to bother slagging us in dialog anymore; it's just piling on.  Now that they actively agitate for white ethnic cleansing of our own country, however, it's reached a fever pitch.  As Barack Obama said near the beginning of his first term, their goal is to "fundamentally transform America" and despite just an incredibly load of sophistry to try and apologize and rationalize that, there is no other way to see it other than that they reject America as it is and want to make it into something... well, fundamentally different.

Their evil is just as blatant as their anti-Americanism; their support of abortion, of nation-building abroad and red-lines and belligerent posturing against global rivals for power (otherwise known as genocide of Third World brown people) in places like Syria, Libya, the Ukraine and more is both literally murderous and tyrannical.  Their staunch and unrelenting war on Christianity, their embrace of psychologically damaged ideas like homosexuality, transexuality, and their intent on shoving it in everyone's faces and forcing them to celebrate it, their indoctrination of children into the evils of big government, the abandonment of self-restraint or responsibility, sexual perversion, and more, the notion that anyone seems them as anything other than anti-American and evil is difficult for me to personally fathom.  But since it's not, here's a few statements from the prophets that bear repeating.  Keep in mind that Heber J. Grant was a very staunch opponent of Roosevelt in the 30s, almost taking it as a personal insult that the members of the church supported his "neo-socialism" and belligerent pro-war stance in Utah, and wrote several letters to the editors of Deseret News condemning that political doctrine.  David O. McKay stated that Communism was considered "the greatest satanical threat to peace, prosperity, and the spread of God's work among men that exists on the face of the earth."  Ezra Taft Benson was even more explicit, comparing "socialism-communism"—a label that he used deliberately to ensure that his meaning wouldn't be mistaken when Leftists changed their labels and pretended to be a different ideology because of a few superficial details—was an extension of Satan's plan in the pre-existence and that if any member of the church held such beliefs and had "second guessed" their first estate, they were in dire need of repentance.

Many leftist members of the church, especially those who were fans of Bernie Sanders, have tried very hard to minimize these statements and write them off as merely "the opinions" of various leaders of the church (all of the leaders of the Church for as long as we have recorded opinions of any of them on such issues, as a matter of fact) rather than doctrine.  This may be true; because of the perversion of the 1st Amendment which prevents churches from commenting on political issues at risk of losing it's protected "Church" status with the IRS, the Church has very carefully maintained political neutrality officially.  But their are so many applicable doctrines of the church that are at odds with the platform of the Democrat party that it's ridiculous to assume that it could be anything other than a massive rejection by the Church, by its doctrine, by it's leaders, and by the Lord himself, of the platform of the Democrats.

The implication here might be that the Republicans are, however, the part of Americanism and good.  This is not the case at all.  The Republican Party platform is dominated by the neo-conservatives, former Democrats who fell out of favor with the Democrat party when the platform started migrating away from war-hawk FDR style Democrats and got more heavily invested in the sexual perversions, women's lib, civil rights, and "invite the world" rather than the older "invade the world" (the neo-cons embrace both.)  Democrats have since become hawks again; or rather, they are hawks when their own leaders are agitating for war (Obama, both Clintons, etc.) but pretend to be for peace when Republicans agitate for war, but the reality is that the Republicans are made up of Democrat elitists who merely feign a few social conservative positions to exploit the votes of conservatives.  They rarely manage to do anything about these professed conservative positions while in office, but they can give them lip-service during election seasons like nobody's business.

And that's the real crux of it; it's the electorates that tend to favor the Republican party that is pro-America, pro-freedom, and pro-traditional, Christian values, not the party itself.  And the electorate is pretty fed up with the betrayals of their party officials as this recent election made quite clear.  The Democrat electorate, on the other hand, gets more of what they want in their party's platform; their disgust with their candidate this time around had more to do with her open corruption and cronyism than with her doctrine or platform.

So, although it's an imperfect and no doubt controversial metric, it's a "good enough" model to suggest that supporting the Democrat candidate for president is an act of anti-Americanism, pro-big government, and pro-tyranny while supporting the Republican candidate is an act of pro-Americanism, pro-limited government, and freedom.  One could certainly argue that other parties (Constitution party, Libertarian party, etc.) better model this than the Republican party, but the fact that everyone knows nobody can possibly win from those parties means that their de facto support is very limited, even if support for their doctrines may be high.

My pet theory is that the 19th Amendment and women's suffrage was the end of Americanism and freedom from tyranny.  Vladimir Lenin, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler all courted the woman vote and embraced women's suffrage, because they knew that they could convince women to hand over authority to them.  Voting trends and exit polls have consistently shown that women favor big government and limited freedom, especially younger, unmarried women.  It's my belief that these voters see big government as a kind of ersatz daddy/husband figure and because they are, by nature, more compliant and subservient than men, they are perfectly willing to lay their freedom on the altar of big government.  Women's suffrage is therefore, the long, slow, fatal wound that killed our democracy.

And yet... in the wake of the most recent election, I'm forced to conclude that it is not as much of a factor as I thought.  Look at the following data compiled by CNN.  This is the relevant section:

White voters, including women, gave large majorities to Trump vs Hillary.  This is also true if you break down the age of the voters; in all age brackets, white voters gave a majority, or at least a plurality of votes to Trump vs Hillary.

The data presented does not break down the data by race, sex and age bracket, and I suspect that millennial white women may have been the exception here, although again, I can only suspect, because the data is now shown.

On the other hand, what is very, very clear is that diversity is a much greater threat to America than women's suffrage.  Non-Americans do not vote in America's interest.  Once you pass the white rows, every other row goes to Hillary in big numbers; the black vote especially.  Being an American is not merely a function of having American citizenship, American paperwork, or even of having been born and lived your whole life in America.  American is an ethno-cultural designation, and the fact that vast hordes of non-Americans live in America and even have American citizenship does not make them Americans; their identity is to something other than being American.  And, they clearly represent a threat to American institutions such as our cultural, legal and political traditions.

Post election

I've seen a lot of post-election commentary. Here's mine, with apologies to the various guys here and there that I've paraphrased or even copied and pasted portions of this from:

Liberals (and foolish "conservatives") in Defeat: Healing, unity, give him a chance, open mind, blah blah blah.

Liberals in Victory: Put down that 32 oz. drink, get over here, abort my baby with your own hands and at your own expense, pay for my 400 gazillion foreign friends' lunches, bake a cake for my underage daughters' lesbian wedding and don't you dare complain about it, you racist homophobe, or we'll drag you through kangaroo courts until you're ruined! Complaining about having to support all of us from cradle to grave, and having to continually act against your conscience simply so we can display our narcissistic vindictiveness is a sign of white privilege! If it weren't for you, all the polyamorous Guatemalan trannies would have wonderful lives of happiness, health and fabulous financial success, so until you all die out, you will gibsmedat.

No. Liberals don't do magnanimous defeat. Crocodiles don't do respect. You can't train and domesticate cockroaches or tapeworms. There are no white flags in a snake pit. It is a miracle that we won this election. We should not gloat, for that is to pretend that the Lord has not given us a break, and spared us from the fate we deserve for our willful blindness and obtuseness thus far. He has shown us mercy and given us a chance to prove that we will finally do His will, and stand up for truth and justice, rather than continue to make pacts with evil, vesting the Liberal Satanic Freak Show with perpetual rights of free action against us. We must stop promising beforehand never to gain victory over the Satanic Tranny Pedos of Color death cult, by accepting the Liberal premise that a final victory against them would be a violation of their human rights. It's about time we faced up to the fact that pretending that error and tyranny has rights, is what has led to the societal environment where Satanic Tranny Pedos of Color Death Cults are no longer outlandish.

We will not get another chance to end this (more or less) peacefully. I am no longer interested in tolerating or being peaceful with these creatures. I do not hate them, but I oppose them and what they stand for.  I will happily forgive them if they repent, but I will harbor no delusions about them if they do not. They beg for tolerance when they are down; if they gain power again, they will finish us. There will be no healing, no unity, until the cancer is removed. We are still at a point of existential crisis. America is on the verge of an irreversible change that will cause it to cease to be America. We've been given one, final straw to grasp at to prevent that inevitability from happening. For decades, anti-American would-be tyrants have eroded the Constitution, attacked our values, our legal protections, the very essence of Americanism, and dishonestly told us that doing so was somehow American(!) and while they were at it, they quietly built up a budding super-majority of anti-American foreign voters who would give them ballot box invincibility.

But they played their hand just a little bit too soon. They didn't quite have the super-majority that they thought that they had yet, and America woke up and saw a hint of what they were up to, and gave them a so far very mild rebuke.

Now there's talk of pretending like, "Aw, shucks, you got me, now go back to sleep and pretend like nothing's wrong again," while they get back to work finishing the job that we caught them at red-handed. I thoroughly and completely reject that paradigm. Now is not the time to make peace again with the enemy, stick our heads back in the sand, go back to sleep, only to find out that our freedoms and our birthright will be stolen right out from under us when we wake up again. Now is the time to roll back the danger, excise the cancer, discredit and defeat the forces of anti-Americanism for good so that it will not haunt us again election after election until there's no way to peacefully turn it back ever again and our only recourse is violent, bloody civil war.

Ezra Taft Benson's words during the peak of the Cold War are even more true now then they were when he spoke them, for the enemy has become more subtle, taken on a fairer face, and has infiltrated the very elect of God. "Never before has the land of Zion appeared so vulnerable to so powerful an enemy as the Americas do at present. [...] So, I say with all the energy of my soul that unless we as citizens of this nation forsake our sins, political and otherwise, and return to the fundamental principles of Christianity and of constitutional government, we will lose our political liberties, our free institutions, and will stand in jeopardy before God.

No nation which has kept the commandments of God has ever perished, but I say to you that once freedom is lost, only blood—human blood—will win it back."

Washington delenda est. Deus vult.