Nation of Little Swine

In the early years of the Soviet Union, a cult of personality was created around a boy named Pavlik Morozov, who supposedly denounced his own father to the political police for subversive activities. There were statues, songs, and even an opera in his honor. Joseph Stalin used the story for political advantage, but said privately, “What a little swine, denouncing his own father.” George Orwell may have drawn on the story when he wrote of the “Spies” in 1984 — a group of children systematically “turned into ungovernable little savages” who informed on their families.

Yesterday’s dystopias are today’s reality, and denouncing family members for political reasons is becoming common. Trump Administration advisor Stephen Miller was the latest victim, denounced by David Glosser, who traded on his family relationship to Mr. Miller to write an article called: “Stephen Miller Is an Immigration Hypocrite. I Know Because I’m His Uncle.” Mr. Glosser says that because the family fled the czar, Mr. Miller has a moral duty to fight President Trump’s restrictionist policies. He says his nephew “has become the architect of immigration policies that repudiate the very foundation of our family’s life in this country.”

White House senior advisor for policy Stephen Miller. (Credit Image: © Ron Sachs/CNP via ZUMA Wire)

Mr. Miller is not a hypocrite. He is a patriot who puts his country’s interest over some implied moral obligation to increase immigration. Mr. Glosser has no such love for this country. He inadvertently makes a strong case for keeping out “refugees” if their descendants are morally obligated to work — forever — for open borders.

Mr. Glosser suggests any kind of discrimination in public policy between different groups is a threat to the whole world, blasting any policy “that specifically disadvantages people based on their ethnicity, country of origin and religion.” Any government that passes such policies, he adds, is “a threat to all of us.” Does Mr. Glosser feel the same way “affirmative action,” a policy that disadvantages whites? Most countries, and almost every non-white country, “privilege” their own people, meaning their own ethnicity. One such nation is Israel, which recently declared itself officially a “Jewish state.” It’s hard to believe Mr. Glosser believes all such governments are a “threat to all of us.”

Mr. Glosser’s views are not thoughtful or profound. However, his connection to Mr. Miller evidently makes them newsworthy, and they were widely reported:

• Huffington Post: “Stephen Miller Likely Sees Other Ethnicities As ‘Unworthy’ To Be Americans, Uncle Says”
• Philadelphia Inquirer: “Why Stephen Miller’s Philly-area uncle called his nephew an ‘hypocrite’ “
• CNN: “Stephen Miller’s uncle: ‘I felt it was incumbent upon me to raise my voice’ against administration’s immigration policy”

On the same day Mr. Glosser denounced his nephew, a son attacked his father. Congressman Bob Goodlatte, a Republican in Virginia, is retiring this year. His son Bobby took to Twitter to brag that he donated the maximum permissible amount to Jennifer Lewis, a Democrat running for his father’s seat. He also praised recently terminated FBI agent Peter Strzok (whose political views were thought to disqualify him from a Trump investigation), calling him a “patriot” whose career was “ruined by my father’s political grandstanding.” Congressman Goodlatte did not comment.

This attack was also widely reported, often in a celebratory tone:

• The Cut: “GOP Congressman Repeatedly Owned by Son on Twitter”
• Vox: “A powerful Republican House member just got blasted on Twitter — by his own son”
• CNN: “GOP lawmaker’s son blasts father’s role in Strzok saga, wants to flip his seat”

The media also mocked Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler for supposedly being condemned by his father.

• The Mary Sue: “Watching Jason Kessler’s Dad Yell at Him for Being a Nazi Is a Beautiful Ray of Anti-Fascist Sunshine”
• Vox: “The organizer of the Charlottesville rally just got humiliated by his own father”
• Salon: “White nationalist Jason Kessler humiliated by father during Nazi livestream: ‘Get out of my room!’ “

The actual story was not really newsworthy, since his father was yelling at him for recording a livestream in his room. However, his father has also criticized his views.

The more common morality play the media like to promote is about racially enlightened youngsters correcting older family members. This is the theme by the “confronting-your-racist-uncle-at-Thanksgiving” genre of articles. In another version, young women denounce their fathers for not accepting black boyfriends. The fathers get media abuse, while the women gets adulation and, in some cases, money.

• Daily Mail: “Woman shames her racist father on Twitter after he sent her letter threatening to disown her after ‘disgusting’ relationship with black man“
• UK Independent: “Teenager raises more than $10,000 for college after ‘parents cut her off over black boyfriend’ ”

Perhaps no instinct is as powerful as the love of parents for children, but there has been a whole series of articles about parents who are horrified by their “racist” children, along the lines of “I Lost My Son to the Alt-Right Movement.” Parental variations on Pavlik Morozov include the father of The Right Stuff podcast host “Mike Enoch,” the father of Peter Tefft, a participant in the first Unite The Right rally, and the parents of well-known Twitter personality “Ricky Vaughn.”

The most sympathetic interpretation is that parents are trying to keep their children out of trouble. Whites are supposed to swathed in “privilege,” but white advocacy or even implicitly white political conservatism can be financially ruinous and physically dangerous. Needless to say, “civil rights” lawyers, white-baiting “civil rights” leaders, college professors who bemoan “white privilege,” administrators of “refugee resettlement programs,” and now, “dumb-ass-fu*****-white-people” Sarah Jeong do fine for themselves.

Parents with status ambitions for their children encourage them to drop any public discussion of white interests — or they may be more worried about their own social status than that of their children. But whether it is parents denouncing children or children denouncing parents, it is always a betrayal of a familial relationship. Parading family differences in public is part of the death of a traditional “honor” culture; now, claims of victimhood carry great moral authority, so family dignity or unity comes second to moral preening.

In traditional societies, a person’s status largely depended on relationships with family and clan. Today, a person’s public image, as reported by the media, makes much more difference in terms of income potential, keeping a job, or living in peace and safety.

Ultimately, as race realists, as white advocates, as Identitarians, we recognize identity is not entirely self-created and we are born with certain duties that cannot be renounced without renouncing ourselves. Those who so lightly discard these primordial commitments are incomplete; their identity, values, and happiness are dependent on the opinions of people they don’t even know. Certain relationships are sacred. Even Stalin knew we shouldn’t take moral guidance from “little swine.”