Dealing with Individualists and Cowards
Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2017 3:33 pm
Dealing with Individualists and Cowards
Commentary by: Dr. William Pierce
NA BULLETIN, April 1998
In the past I've written more than once about the two obstacles to our recruiting: cowardice and selfishness. Correspondence received at the National Office this month has reminded me again how important these two obstacles are.
First we received an e-mail letter from someone who had been reading my American Dissident Voices scripts on the Internet, and he had just read a script in which I urged people to join the Alliance and take part in our struggle for freedom and progress. He said that he agreed with many of my comments about race, the Jews, and the media. He deplored the advance of the welfare state and the Marxist policies he could see in the US government - but, what he wanted to know, would joining the Alliance do to help him achieve his personal and professional goals? How could the Alliance help him get ahead in life? If he joined, what benefits could he expect?
I responded as follows:
The National Alliance cannot help you attain your goals or "get ahead" if by that you mean acquiring better employment, a larger income, a higher social status, or the like, The National Alliance does not exist to further the financial or social conditions of its members.
The purpose of the National Alliance to secure the future of our people and to prepare the earth for a higher type of man. Men and women who join the National Alliance do so in order to work together toward these goals. They do not ask what the Alliance can do for them, but only what they can do to serve the purpose of the National Alliance.
If you can adopt the goals of the National Alliance as your goals, then we will be happy to accept your application for membership.
My correspondent, who uses the Internet name "Joe Fenian," responded huffily that if that's what the National Alliance is all about, "then you and your organization are the same as those you decry."
I probably never have encountered a franker exponent of the John Birch Society mentality or the Ayn Rand philosophy of "what's in it for me?" than Mr. Fenian, unless it be a fellow named Harry Browne, the author of a quintessentially crass book titled How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World and the perennial Presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party.
A second letter received this month is from someone in Dallas, Texas who signs his letter "a supporter" who identifies himself as "a strong Christian." Despite his Christianity, he said he wants very much to provide financial support for the Alliance - anonymously. But he has several very serious concerns. First, what technique can he use to send money to use and be sure that we are receiving it without the government or the Jews finding out about him? Second, how can he be sure that we aren't some kind of "trick" organization set up by the Jews "as a tool to smoke out anti-Semites?" He then speculated about various techniques he might use for sending money and receiving assurance of its receipt without being found out. One technique he suggests is to wire money anonymously via Western Union, paying for his money orders in cash - but the danger he sees in that is that Western Union offices usually have a security camera, and so he would have to wear a disguise when he paid for his money orders.
It is depressing that there are grown men of our race, claiming to be more or less in agreement with us, who are this cowardly. Unfortunately, there are many of them.
Which is worse: the Birch-style selfishness and individualism of the first writer, or the abject, groveling cowardice of the second? Can anything be done to make either of these types good for something? It is tempting to write both of them off as fit only for clearing minefields by driving herds of them through suspected areas.
If we consider them dispassionately, probably we can hold out some hope for the Bircher, but none for the coward. In the case of at least some individualists their attitudes are based on ideological conviction, and one of these might undergo a religious conversion and switch his loyalty from himself to his race. I hate to admit it, but I went through a libertarian phase myself as a teenager.
Cowardice, however, is much more a matter of one's innate constitution and one's accumulated life experiences than of belief. Our coward in Dallas has already has his religious conversion, and it's hard to see how another could make a man of him. Undoubtedly some cowards are born, and some are made. Men who have been sheltered from danger all their lives, who have grown up in a welfare state, and who have never faced physical danger or seen another man die a violent death may not be able to cope with the idea of risk or be able to overcome even minor fears which beset all of us every day of our lives. If our people could grow up in a more natural society, we might have fewer of this type of "made" coward, but we need to build that society before we can reap its benefits.
Certainly, we'll accept financial support from even the most miserable coward, but we won't waste our time trying to persuade him to be something he cannot. And we won't waste much time on the individualist either. He may undergo a religious conversion, but the impetus for that is more likely to be some encounter with reality which literally knocks him off his ass that any gentle persuasion by us.
Commentary by: Dr. William Pierce
NA BULLETIN, April 1998
In the past I've written more than once about the two obstacles to our recruiting: cowardice and selfishness. Correspondence received at the National Office this month has reminded me again how important these two obstacles are.
First we received an e-mail letter from someone who had been reading my American Dissident Voices scripts on the Internet, and he had just read a script in which I urged people to join the Alliance and take part in our struggle for freedom and progress. He said that he agreed with many of my comments about race, the Jews, and the media. He deplored the advance of the welfare state and the Marxist policies he could see in the US government - but, what he wanted to know, would joining the Alliance do to help him achieve his personal and professional goals? How could the Alliance help him get ahead in life? If he joined, what benefits could he expect?
I responded as follows:
The National Alliance cannot help you attain your goals or "get ahead" if by that you mean acquiring better employment, a larger income, a higher social status, or the like, The National Alliance does not exist to further the financial or social conditions of its members.
The purpose of the National Alliance to secure the future of our people and to prepare the earth for a higher type of man. Men and women who join the National Alliance do so in order to work together toward these goals. They do not ask what the Alliance can do for them, but only what they can do to serve the purpose of the National Alliance.
If you can adopt the goals of the National Alliance as your goals, then we will be happy to accept your application for membership.
My correspondent, who uses the Internet name "Joe Fenian," responded huffily that if that's what the National Alliance is all about, "then you and your organization are the same as those you decry."
I probably never have encountered a franker exponent of the John Birch Society mentality or the Ayn Rand philosophy of "what's in it for me?" than Mr. Fenian, unless it be a fellow named Harry Browne, the author of a quintessentially crass book titled How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World and the perennial Presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party.
A second letter received this month is from someone in Dallas, Texas who signs his letter "a supporter" who identifies himself as "a strong Christian." Despite his Christianity, he said he wants very much to provide financial support for the Alliance - anonymously. But he has several very serious concerns. First, what technique can he use to send money to use and be sure that we are receiving it without the government or the Jews finding out about him? Second, how can he be sure that we aren't some kind of "trick" organization set up by the Jews "as a tool to smoke out anti-Semites?" He then speculated about various techniques he might use for sending money and receiving assurance of its receipt without being found out. One technique he suggests is to wire money anonymously via Western Union, paying for his money orders in cash - but the danger he sees in that is that Western Union offices usually have a security camera, and so he would have to wear a disguise when he paid for his money orders.
It is depressing that there are grown men of our race, claiming to be more or less in agreement with us, who are this cowardly. Unfortunately, there are many of them.
Which is worse: the Birch-style selfishness and individualism of the first writer, or the abject, groveling cowardice of the second? Can anything be done to make either of these types good for something? It is tempting to write both of them off as fit only for clearing minefields by driving herds of them through suspected areas.
If we consider them dispassionately, probably we can hold out some hope for the Bircher, but none for the coward. In the case of at least some individualists their attitudes are based on ideological conviction, and one of these might undergo a religious conversion and switch his loyalty from himself to his race. I hate to admit it, but I went through a libertarian phase myself as a teenager.
Cowardice, however, is much more a matter of one's innate constitution and one's accumulated life experiences than of belief. Our coward in Dallas has already has his religious conversion, and it's hard to see how another could make a man of him. Undoubtedly some cowards are born, and some are made. Men who have been sheltered from danger all their lives, who have grown up in a welfare state, and who have never faced physical danger or seen another man die a violent death may not be able to cope with the idea of risk or be able to overcome even minor fears which beset all of us every day of our lives. If our people could grow up in a more natural society, we might have fewer of this type of "made" coward, but we need to build that society before we can reap its benefits.
Certainly, we'll accept financial support from even the most miserable coward, but we won't waste our time trying to persuade him to be something he cannot. And we won't waste much time on the individualist either. He may undergo a religious conversion, but the impetus for that is more likely to be some encounter with reality which literally knocks him off his ass that any gentle persuasion by us.