Wednesday, 27 September 2017

Levels of Political Involvement

Recently I was having lunch with a friend of the blog and he told me that he believed that there were six levels of political involvement. As I listened I thought his insight was on target, so I asked him to write out his thoughts as soon as he got back to work, which he did. He then gave me permission to publish them here. The only thing I would add is that I would include even doing part of a level, so for example if you didn't do one or two things in a particular level but you did most of the others I would put you at that level of involvement.

Levels of political involvement

1.    Online involvement – Using Social Media and Discussion Forums.

2.    Basic real-life involvement – Attending private meetings occasionally.

3.    Advanced real-life involvement – Regularly attending private meetings and also contributing financially.

4.    Basic real-life activism – Regularly attending private meetings, contributing financially and doing leafleting, stickering and postering.

5.    Advanced real-life activism – Regularly attending private meetings and public meetings, going to public rallies and doing leafleting, stickering and postering.

6.    Publicly being a known-person in activism – Regularly attending private and public meetings, going to rallies and doing leafleting, stickering and postering and also giving public speeches and being interviewed by the media etc. 

I would put myself at 5, I wonder where you would put yourself?

Upon Hope Blog - A Traditional Conservative Future
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Sunday, 24 September 2017

Raising Your Own Children

Recently I saw a video of a British couple who were allowing their 4 year old boy to dress as a girl. In their words they were "raising him to be gender neutral". But that's not raising is it?

Instead we have arrived at a point on the Liberal road that Conservatives have warned about for so long we have forgotten when it was first warned against. Liberalism believes in the Autonomous Individual, someone who is self made, free to invent themselves. Free to choose everything about themselves. So this trend fits in perfectly with the greater aims of Liberalism. After all if you can choose your religion or nationality, why shouldn't you be able to choose your own gender?

And there is why we should reject the idea of gender, you and I are not social constructs we are biological creatures, therefor we have a sex. We are either male or female and we are unable to choose which, as biology has made that decision for us. But to Liberalism being unable to choose our own destiny is not freedom and freedom without constraint is at the very heart of Liberalism. So while I and nearly every other person thinks that the parents of that 4 year old boy are bad parents, and they are. They are the future of Liberalism, bad parenting is the future of Liberalism.

Because good parenting involves raising children, it involves setting limits, it involves discipline and saying no. Those things are slowly being removed from parents by Government. In some countries it is already illegal to spank your children. Many parents do not want to be the bad guy, they want their children to like them. If you raise your own children you might do something that makes them not like you, better to let them raise themselves. To let children set their own limits. However children hate this, sure they might like the idea but they hate the reality. Because they are not capable of living in such a world, they are children. The world of a children is small, as adults we can forget that. But even traveling a few streets away from where they live can seem like an alien place, a place of adventure or scary. To you or I that's not true, but we are adults.

Children need to be exposed to the world little by little, they do not need to be exposed to the adult world. They need stability and certainty not confusion, but being told that they can choose their own gender is not stability nor is it certainty. And you think to yourself well that's their business how they raise their child, it doesn't affect mine, but it will. When that children attends childcare or school, your child will be expected to treat them not as freaks, which is sadly what the parents have made him. But as just another child who one day is a boy and the next a girl and that's perfectly normal. Except it is not perfectly normal, it's weird but neither you or your child is allowed to notice. Your child is being lied to and they are never allowed to say so, neither are you!

This effects all of us, it is not just some freaky parents, it is about making us say things that we know both to be untrue and ridiculous. In Communist countries people were required to say things that they knew to be untrue. It destroys peoples belief in themselves, once you have publicly said something that you know to be false then how do you continue to believe in your own integrity? How do you trust your neighbours integrity when you have heard him say something that you both know is untrue?

This isn't about freedom, because the freedom of Liberalism is slavery. You are free to be anything you want as long as you betray who you really are. A boy is free to become a girl and then we must all lie and agree, that is not freedom. The freedom of Liberalism is a lie.

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Friday, 22 September 2017

Melbourne Traditionalists in October 2017

Early next month the Melbourne Traditionalists will be meeting up again. If you enjoy good political conversation along with good food and drink and your in Melbourne, Australia, then get in contact.


Guiding Principles of the Melbourne Traditionalists

1. Loyalty to the Crown of Australia

2. Loyalty to our British and Western heritage

3. Loyalty to the Family, Husband and Wife, Mother and Father and their children



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Monday, 18 September 2017

Why Same Sex Marriage is Wrong

Currently in Australia there is a postal vote to gage the voters opinions on same sex marriage. Now we were promised a Plebiscite, as voting is compulsory in Australia it would have provided a very clear gage of the voters opinions. Within the Parliament there is overwhelming support for same sex marriage, but enough do not support it and this has been as good as we can currently hope for. Now even if the majority vote against it in the postal vote, the Parliament can still vote to implement it, but probably won't. Traditional Conservatism has three guiding principals, Tradition, Order and Family and all of them are opposed to same sex marriage.

 Here I will spell out why each principle is opposed to same sex marriage.


Marriage is so old that we don't really know how old it is, but considering that the marriage of one man and one women is near universal it must be old. Even Australian aborigines who have been in Australia for tens of thousands of years and for most of that time have been isolated from the rest of the world have marriage. And only one form of it, one man and one women for life. Now there have been variations, but it has always involved men and women because only one man and one women can create life. Marriage is traditional because it connects the past, the present and the future.


Marriage is at it's heart about life, and only one man and one women can create life. Life is part of Order. Order means that everything has it's rightful place and also a wrongful place. For example I live in a house, but I don't live in your house, so if you open the door to your house and I'm there I am in a wrongful place. For me to assess my bank account is rightful, for me to access your bank account is wrongful, even if it was lawful. Because it is not Order. Everything should be in it's rightful place and that includes marriage. For people who cannot create life to marry is wrongful.

Now there are two arguments against that, firstly men and women who cannot have children marry. But in the past there was no way of knowing if they were unable to have children. Tradition now says that they can marry, furthermore no one is arguing that they should not marry. The second argument says that homosexuals can use artificial means to have children or that they can adopt. Nature has provided that one man and one women can create life, and in the vast majority of cases to raise them together. A child should have both a mother and a father, that is Order. Homosexuals cannot provide that.


For one man and one women to create life is natural, it is Tradition, Order and Family. Because the birth of a child creates a new family. Marriage provides the best social environment in which to raise children. Because Marriage is about binding together one man and one women and their children. A family is not a social construct that is flexible and changeable. The family remains what it has always been. Same sex marriage seeks to disconnect that, to pretend that family is endlessly malleable, that it can be forced into any shape and that it will still fit. That it is both evolution and unchanging, but that is not true because it cannot be true. Once marriage is changed from it's timeless meaning then it will be corrupted and corruption is never a good thing.

Instead of helping working class men to get and keep jobs, instead of discouraging unwed mothers, we have a political class that actively supports unemployment and children growing up without fathers and now homosexuals getting married. We have a political class that actively attacks the Family and therefore the future. As we should have learnt from our own experience and from overseas experience, change will mean more change. It never ends, it is endlessly destructive, is that really what you want?

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Monday, 11 September 2017

The Fifty-Fourth Month

Blogging sure is a roller coaster ride!

You would think that the amount of visitors to a site would be more or less constant, but that really isn't true. Another month were I have been sick, I've had a bad year this year with flues, although considering 10 people have died from the flue in Victoria in the past month maybe I shouldn't be complaining!

So in March I had 3,894 visitors, which is better than the previous two months and going back up. However I had three worst days, 47 visitors on each day the 21st, 22nd & 26th of August, my best day was the 13th August when I had 355 visitors.

My Australian visitors are down below 400, I haven't had Australian numbers that low since July 2016 which is disappointing.

I have been blogging now for 4 1/2 years and every six months I give out a list of the ten most read articles on the site. The total number of times they have been viewed is in brackets.

(5216) What Do Traditional Conservatives Believe?

(3201) Free-Trade Versus Protectionism

(2683) Why Don't the Poor Marry?

(2519) Why Do Conservatives Believe in Different Social Classes?

(1928) Feminism, Why We Are Not Feminists

(1925) What is More Important, the Past, the Present or the Future

(1403) Housewives, Good for the Economy and Society

(1228) The Balanced Society

(1166) The Problems of Monarchy

(1158) The Discrimination of Anti-Discrimination

In the Fifty-Four months this blog has been running I have had over 54,000 Americans, 21,000 Australians and 10,000 Russians visit this blog.

August - September

United States
United Kingdom

United States
Puerto Rico
United Kingdom

Germany and France are the only countries that went up...and France only went up by 1!

The United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and Brazil all went down. 

Russia and Spain have rejoined the top 10.

Puerto Rico and Belgium have left the top 10.

I have also received visitors from the following countries: the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., Bahrain, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Morocco, Zambia, South Africa, Argentina,  

I thank you for visiting and I hope to see you again soon.
Mark Moncrieff

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Saturday, 9 September 2017

Why the Church is Important - A Secular Argument

Most discussions on the importance of the Church, in my experience go like this. The Church is important because of God and the reply comes back that God doesn't exist so the Church is not important. The argument moves from this world to Theology and no mortal man can solve those issues, although he can certainly have an opinion. And in the muddle the basic question of the Churches importance is forgotten.

But the Church is an important component of the balanced society, the basic idea of which is that different centres of power exist within society. Today power resides around the Government and most things revolve around the Government. It is not that Government should not exist or that it should be powerless, certainly not. It has a rightful place, but if something has a rightful place that also means it has a wrongful place. Today the Government has it's claws in everything, there is hardly an area in which it is possible to escape the Government. But that was not always the case.

In the past the Church was an important area in which the Government did not have overriding power. Certainly it had power and influence but rarely was it overwhelming. Instead the Church was a counterweight, an area of life were the Government was not all powerful and that made the Church important by itself. In fact before the 1800's most social issues were not dealt with by Government at all.  Education was either a private concern or conducted by the Church, hospitals, asylums, orphanages were nearly always run by the Church, even in Protestant countries. Poor relief was often Government policy but still organised and run by the Church. Marriage and it's bad byproducts, divorce, legal separations and annulments were all Church issues. As was record keeping, the Church keep the Parish records that genealogists use today to trace their family trees.

The Church was not completely separate from Government but it kept many areas of administration away from Government, more importantly away from busy bodies. It also meant that the Church was not all theory, it had to be practical and frugal as it's money was not unlimited. It had to keep it's head out of the clouds and down to Earth.

The failure of the Church to keep control of it's own areas of responsibilities has had huge effect on all of us. It has given the Government power over areas of life it really has no business being it. It has encouraged busy bodies to change things for change sake. It has made the Church very airy fairy, with not enough experience in real life and it has placed too much important not on God, or people but on theology, on theory over practice. It is not that theology is unimportant, but that it has a rightful place in the Church and that place is not at the expense of life.

 Maybe it is time to start thinking about returning the Church to it's rightful place? Maybe the Church has drifted so far away from that that it would be dangerous to do so? But the the Church has a place in any Conservative future and we need to start thinking about what place it should occupy.

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Wednesday, 6 September 2017

Women and Status

I've written about women and status before, What do women want? and in a few other places as well. Yesterday I was in a former bank, a bank where the bank manager would live and it was pointed out that until the 1980's being a bank manager or even working in a bank was quite prestigious. It was a steady job with a good wage and good security. That got me to thinking about why that is no longer true.

Certainly like nearly all jobs, working in a bank is no longer as secure a job as it once was. But the real change has been that banking staff have gone from being a predominately male occupation to being a predominately female one. In fact when I go to the bank it's a rare bank were even a quarter of the staff are men. Women have displaced men and it has not been an accident, it has been by design. But that has meant that in return banking has become less prestigious. In fact any occupation that becomes female dominated loses status. Why?

Because men are hierarchical and women are not. A man want to know who's in charge and exactly where he belongs. Women like to arrive at a consensus, to arrive at a place where everybody is happy with the outcome. But to achieve that women need to engage in constant negotiations. Men however make decisions and give orders. The different ways men and women behave is why strong women are seem as bitches. To be direct is a masculine way of communication and neither men nor women find it natural coming from a women, it goes against the grain.

So as an occupation becomes female dominated, the men within that field look for ways to get out and new men become reluctant to join. Feminists state that it is because men cannot handle strong women, but the truth is that it becomes a place were male virtues are seen as undesirable. And where female traits take over, cooperation instead of direct and clear lines. It involves much more talking and familiarity then most men are comfortable with.

An occupation that loses men also lose status, men are taller, more decisive, more direct, more uniform, more impersonal and competitive. Which means that women are shorter, less decisive or direct, more individual and more personal but less competitive. Companies love women because they are less confrontational, more conformist, more attractive and less competitive. That is not to say women are perfect employees, they get sicker more often, they have much more personal issues and they can produce a toxic and destructive workplace even if that is rare.

This lose of status affects women as women like status, it is why women love job titles. But it also means that women can become trapped by these symbols. Instead of having real achievements they have symbols. Instead of having a Husband and a family they instead have the symbol of a successful life, which is not the same thing at all.

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Friday, 1 September 2017

Afghanistan Strategy

Recently President Trump announced that more US combat troops were deploying to Afghanistan, currently US forces have been at war in Afghanistan for 16 years, the longest war in US history. On the Alt-Right there has been endless criticism of this decision, that he has abandoned his prior commitments to withdrawal and that the war has gone on long enough. The criticisms betray the Paleo-Conservative origins of much of the Alt-Right.

I however am not a Paleo, but a Traditional Conservative, I do not accept the argument that if we leave the world alone then the world will leave you alone. Not only do I not accept it, I utterly reject it. The world is not a static place but a dynamic place were other people, some of them hostile to you and your interests, get to do things as well. They get to decide if they hate you and they get to decide if they want to do something about it.

First let me answer two persistent myths regarding Afghanistan, the first is that it is the graveyard of armies and the second is that it has never known peace. Afghanistan is often portrayed as a land where war is perpetual. The first army that "died" in Afghanistan is the army of Alexander the Great, the only problem with that idea is that the land that is today Afghanistan was successfully conquered. And it stayed conquered, Greek cities were built and for centuries remained under Greek control. The reason that the myth continues is because there is nothing of great value in Afghanistan, it is it's strategic placement that gives it any value so armies don't stay for long. That is not to say that armies have not been defeated in Afghanistan, they certainly have been but that is true of Estonia and Portugal and insert the name of a random country here. It also bleeds into the other myth that Afghanistan has never known peace, but in fact before 1973 Afghanistan had fought one war in the Twentieth century, the Third Afghan War of 1919. That means that Afghanistan had 72 years of peace in the Twentieth century. Banditry yes, war no. Afghanistan is not some magical country were special rules apply, it has it's own unique issues but that does not make it magical.

The reason that Western troops are in Afghanistan is because the United States decided after the Soviet intervention had ended in 1989 that it would ignore the country. That allowed the Taliban to come to power and they in turn allowed other more extreme groups, such as Al Qaeda, to use the country as a training camp. The United States had a number of opportunities to fix this issue throughout the 1990's, but instead they continued to pretend the country did not exist. Even after Al Qaeda decided to attack the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and killed hundreds the US response was muddleheaded and ineffective. That lead to the attacks on 9/11 and that lead to the current war in Afghanistan.

The United States left Afghanistan alone and forgot that other people get to decide whether they hate America or not. They did hate America and they did something about it.

The first mistake that was made was not restoring the Afghan Monarchy. Afghanistan as we would understand it came into being in the early 1700's, Kabul becoming the capital in 1776. From 1709 to 1973 Afghanistan was a Monarchy, then a Leftist Military coup took place that within a few years had become a Communist dictatorship. All of the current problems spring from this time and reinstating the monarchy would have signaled to everyone that the good times were returning. Unfortunately a Republican system of Government was put in place. Afghanistan is a traditional culture and a King would have been a return to tradition and he would have been able to reform old alliances. Alliances that had once lasted for generations. But how long will a President stay in power? Behind the President are guns, behind the King is loyalty. It is not too late to fix that mistake, the President can and should be rewarded for his service to his country.  

On the military front there are two issues:

1. The Internal Instability
2. The Pakistani Frontier

The Internal Instability

A return of the Monarchy would help return tribes and clans to believe in a more stable future. There are three other Internal issues that need to be dealt with

A. The continued support for the Taliban

B. The drug trade

C. Modernity

A return to a traditional source of authority will appeal to many Afghans, I believe that would include many Taliban. But we need to stop trying to modernize Afghanistan, it has been an unending source of evil. Most Afghans do not want to be Westerners and we should stop trying to force the issue. Womens education is one such evil, it does no good and only causes issues. It should be the Afghans themselves who make these changes, if they want too. But for too long we have insisted that Afghanistan becomes Switzerland, surely that is their decision and not ours.

The drug trade is a massive problem, we have turned a blind eye to this evil and we should not. It destroys lives in Afghanistan and outside, it hurts us all. It also distorts all economics within Afghanistan. Why grow food when you can get Western charity and still make big money in the drug trade? It stops honest men from making a living and makes fools of honest men for not trying to destroy other peoples lives.

We need to stop trying to turn Afghanistan into a Western country but we should not allow drugs to be grown when it hurts our own citizens. We have been far too tolerate of this trade, but as it hurts us we should let the Afghan Government know that we will return that hurt to the Afghan Government. Sanctions, travel bans and the like, we should not start there but we should begin to let them know that this needs to change. That we will work with them to change but that we expect results or they can expect things to change.

The Pakistani Frontier

I think the most important of these is the Pakistani Frontier, this is the same problem that confronted the US in Vietnam and in Iraq. An enemy who can train and rest in a foreign country and can then on it's own initiative decide when to fight. It is amazingly hard to defeat such forces, they are hard to find and they are hard to destroy because they get to choose when they fight.

The answer is to channel the enemy forces into areas where they can be found and destroyed. To do that the border needs to be sealed. Today the enemy can come and go as they please, across the Pakistani Frontier. To bring them under control that needs to stop. The answer is not primarily combat but engineering.

First a survey of the Frontier needs to be done.

Secondly a plan must be designed that deprives the enemy of infiltration routes into Afghanistan.

Thirdly those plans should be built, walls, barriers, laser lines, barbed wire, kill zones, the purpose is not to entirely seal the country off, it is to limit the routes that can be taken into and out of the country.

Fourth, patrol using locals, troops, helicopters, drones etc. to make sure the barriers remain in place and that they are effective.

Only by cutting the Frontier can a decisive effort be made in reducing violence throughout Afghanistan.  

The war in Afghanistan has gone on for a long time without question. But to leave Afghanistan is to return to the failed policy of the 1990's. We should seek out a space somewhere between Switzerland in the Himalayas and Failed State, actually there is a lot of ground between those two positions. We should seek out a good position and head in that direction, with the United States and it's Western Allies doing what the Afghans cannot do and leave what they can do to them.

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