Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
This Is What Democracy Looks Like
The wolves have voted: The sheep are to become dinner. There’s a joke that goes “What’s the difference between South Africa and Zimbabwe? About 10 years.” Turns out, it wasn’t a joke.
South Africa’s parliament on Tuesday passed a motion brought by the radical left party, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), to carry out land expropriation without compensation, a key pillar of the ruling ANC government and new President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The motion, which would include a review of the constitution, was brought by leader of the EFF Julius Malema and was passed by an overwhelming majority of 241 votes in favour versus 83 votes against the proposal.
The justification for the law is, of course, peace, justice, and equality.
Published in Politics“For a lasting peace‚ security and justice‚ land must be expropriated without compensation for equal redistribution. “
Wrong link. That one’s about a gas pipeline.
About 40 years may be more accurate. I’m headed there in July, first and last time I suspect given this type of action. I’d been reading about this issue for half a year and expecting it.
Here is what is on the menu…..I hope not me…..
It’s the story of Africa and the South African experience merely delayed it. Read Theodore Dalrymple’s essay, “After Empire.” It explains a lot.
https://www.city-journal.org/html/after-empire-12420.html
Why was this proposed in South Africa but never in the US?
Is it because the grievance group in our society is a smaller proportion of the total population or less powerful? Are our Affirmative Action advocates less tribal than theirs? Is it because Affirmative Action is only one part of the Democratic platform with more competing priorities? Or is it because even Americans full of resentment and envy tend to be more respectful of property rights than similar people in other nations?
There is a quote from the late, great SciFi author Larry Niven that seems appropriate…
”In hindsight it may even seem inevitable that a socialist society will starve when it runs out of capitalists.”
Give it time. It’s on the way. That’s where the “white privilege” game is headed.
Thank you for this link.
To my fellow Ricochet members: This article is wonderful reading. Dalrymple is a truly great writer.
How long did it take Zimbabwe to go to dust?
Late? Please don’t bury Niven before his time! As far as I know he’s still drawing breath, though I don’t suppose he’s writing much anymore…
It’s an outcome that wouldn’t surprise me at all, given how the aggrieved group has grown in numbers over the last fifty years. The “browning of America” should describe a nation peacefully blending cultures and peoples of different nationalities and ethnicities, through intermarriage and community life. It’s a phenomenon James Michener wrote about in his books Hawaii, Caravans (Afghanistan), and The Source. But when the Socialists and Communists turn to race to drum up business for their failed ideas, civil war isn’t entirely out of the question because the two groups the Communists are pitting against each other are both large and of equal size.
I wish the world’s anthropologists would speak up on the subject of race. In the late 1990s I read three anthropology textbooks by the University of Michigan professor Conrad Philip Kottak (his most popular textbook is in its sixteenth edition: Cultural Anthropology), and the notion of “race” as it was understood in the nineteenth century has been pretty much debunked as a way to describe people meaningfully or even accurately. Between human migration and people not being able to marry within their own immediate family–there’s been a lot of mixing up of people from different places.
Don’t think the reparations crowd, if they ever became the majority, wouldn’t seize all property owned by whites (except that of their liberal overlords).
Oh my goodness. My bad!!!! It was Jerry Pournelle who passed away.
You’d think the South Africans would look at Zimbabwe’s experience, or even at Venezuela’s experience, and take pause. But no. They’ve been murdering white farmers at a terrific rate for years now, and what becomes of the land those farmers used to till? Farming units handed over to people of the proper skin tone mostly lie abandoned and unproductive, and this is already threatening South Africa’s food supply.
There is no limit to the stupidity of leftist ideologues.
Well, for the first round at least. After they’ve squandered that batch of other people’s money….
If the Soviet Union proved anything, it’s that a regime can survive by stealing and murdering for many generations. There is no point at which a communist government “runs out of other people’s money” because it only needs enough for a few aristocrats while everyone else starves.
There is an interesting book about that. It is called “Dinner With Mugabe” and was written by a white supporter before things went to hell. She recounts how Mugabe wanted Lord Soames, whose wife was Churchill’s youngest daughter Mary, and who was the last British viceroy of the colony of Rhodesia to stay and help him govern. Soames declined and left but she thought that Mugabe recognized how unprepared he was and wanted help. His supporters soon drove out the whites and the rest is history. I doubt it would have helped but it is one more “What might have been” stories.
Mugabe and his wife attended Soames’ funeral even though uninvited.
Wow! What a story. Thanks for that weird bit of history.
Yes, this is the correct way to look at hopes that refined will implode. How far down will Venezuela go, for example? How long will the hardliners stay in place? Who will bail them out? Canadian tourists?
Thank God the prior government in the 70s destroyed their nuclear bombs.
Absolutely brilliant point.
DocJay, the shark is being baited. Look at the very last image, you can see the string leading to the likely-rubber seal.
Oh I know. I’m paying to watch the fake seal being dragged. Then I hop in a cage. Epic!
It’s been said that blacks can’t be racist because blacks don’t have any power – but in many parts of Africa they do have power – and they are using that power in ways that would be called racist were anyone else involved.
Venezuela comes to mind.
Should we offer refugee status to South African whites? It seems like the right thing to do, they probably won’t be a drain on the welfare system and if the leftists ever start taking our freedom and our guns away they will be hold to freedom with the a well-earned stubbornness.
It’s been said, but it’s balderdash.There is a thing called racism, and it has nothing to do with who has the “power”. If some activist wants to describe that power business, then he must come up with his own word!
Just because somebody thinks something up doesn’t make it true.
And anything can be anything if you get to simply change the definition of words whenever you want to.
(Plus, this has always galled me: The “power” thing is like a reverse tautology. As soon as you simply deem the one in “power” to be a racist, aren’t you advocating for stripping him of all his power and transferring it to the poor downtrodden out-of-power guy? Otherwise what’s the point. Well doesn’t that then immediately make the downtrodden dude the one with the power?? Pretty powerful to be able to bring down the racist. Racist now powerless because down he went.
Now downtrodden dude must suddenly become the racist, right? He’s proven that he’s one with the power now. It makes my head hurt.)
But, but… Wakanda!
On a more serious note, I suppose this means the few white South Africans who haven’t already gotten out will soon be arriving in Sydney.
Do the white South Africans prefer a common wealth country?
There is a Dutch element as well… some end up in The Netherlands and don’t struggle too much with language requirements.