Prolific bloggist (and presumably chronic insomniac) Diane Vera has been kind enough to give scrutiny on her blogs to some of the ideas posted on Opus Diaboli:

http://dianevera.blogspot.com/2008/05/satanism-and-politics-question-for.html

http://dvera.wordpress.com/2008/05/22/julian-karswell/#more-62

The ‘text only’ formatting of the some of the blog software used has made this a clumsy arena to debate items back and forth with any clarity, so I have reproduced a recent response on her blog here, with some expansion and clearer formatting:

Again, thanks Diane for your views on my blog, which have been well considered and researched.

For reasons of time (and not currently having access to my full library) I can’t address all of your points adequately right now. I will address some of the main issues raised:

Turkeys voting for Christmas:
“You’ve hit the nail on the head here, Julian. That being the case, why do you continue to equate “Satanism” itself with LaVey’s “vaguely right-wing” value system? Why do you continue to use the term “Satanic state” to refer to LaVey’s ideal society, or something very similar to that?

It seems to me that Satanists need to move away from advocacy of pure capitalism and “social Darwinism” and advocate, instead, an agenda which would actually benefit the “sensitive arty types and sexual ‘deviants’” who are, in fact, Satanism’s core constituencies.
In another post, Julian talks about what he calls the Children of Leviathan: “creative, unworldly, given to interests in the occult and arcane aspects of life … attracted to the shadows rather than the light, delving into the hidden things and nature’s secret ways, rather than accepting the readily presented norms.”

That’s a pretty good description of what I think Satanism (or Satanisms) should be about, while at the same time encouraging practicality.”

I agree - this is one of the key mysteries of Satanism is that the Laveyan form is heavily affected by Lavey’s reading of Might is Right. As a right-wing libertarian, even I find Might is Right a bit loopy - it is never sufficient to be strong enough to seize power - you have to be smart enough to hang on to it.

Reconciling being one of the ‘Children of Leviathan’ with right-wing leanings is for me, part of the journey of Satanism, and I’ll follow up some of the links you suggest.

Hushed up by the U.K. government?
“In Stratification - it’s here!, Julian wrote:
Oliver Curry, while working in London, has apparently been walking around his city with his eyes shut.
If he took a stroll around the crack-ridden streets of London, chanced a walk on the grim and violent streets of Nottingham, or surveyed the squalor, filth and incest of the Isle of Wight, he would see that half a century of socialist intervention in the UK has bred a frightful underclass, which is a significant minority within that country.

The first symptom is an aversion to work: there are children leaving school who will never have a job. Their parents have never had a job and their grandparents have never had a job. Welfare has made work an unnecessary burden on their lives for 50 years.

How do you know the family history of all these people? This is not something that can be ascertained simply via a stroll around the neighbourhood. Can you cite any studies?”

…
…How do you know this? What do you consider to be reliable sources of information on matters which have been “consistently hushed up by the UK Government”? ”

I’ll be careful in my wording here. I’m speaking as a person who was born into a poor family in a poor neighbourhood in a poor city in the UK. I have lived among the people I am writing about, and I am talking about direct observations of communities where families have not had jobs for three generations, and where parents don’t see the point in sending their children to school because ‘no-one round here works’.
I have seen at first hand the destructiveness of not having a useful life on both individuals and neighbourhoods.  I don’t cite studies written by academics who spent two weeks talking to ‘community leaders’, then scuttled back to the suburbs.  I have lived among these people, and when I talk about families out of work for three generations, I am anonymising real people I have known either personally or professionally.

I have worked in local government and currently work for an INGO, and have a direct experience of people, who regardless of the political colour of an administration, relentlessly pursue a socialist agenda, choking off any policies which they think are not ‘fair’ - such as workfare policies (which I have studied in a policy context).

I have knowledge and experience of what I have hinted at in terms of incest in the UK underclass and the kinds of birth defects that it is producing. In a professional capacity I have watched court case after court case on a week-by-week basis, featuring father-child incest and rape among siblings. I have known professionals who work in child protection simply deny that there is a problem with incest because they know it is a problem they don’t have the resources to tackle. It would also require acknowledgement that their beloved welfare state has created a feral underclass disconnected from any kind of morality.

What to do about the “long hours culture”?
“I would say that what’s needed here is a law mandating a 40-hour-maximum work week - or, at the very least, that people be paid extra (say, double time) for overtime.”

Hmmm, France has done this by law, and the outcome has not been good. There were riots last year because of the crippling rate of unemployment.  From my own experience in business, the more employment legislation that is brought in, the more reluctant you become to hire staff. I’d prefer to see a system where people choose to consume less, waste less money on junk, so don’t have to work like beasts to jack up their debts.

Moral Risk
Apparently, in Norway, Sweden and Finland, when a bank would fail, the central bank would nationalize it, seizing all its assets, and then stabilize it, and then sell it to a new set of stockholders. That way, the old stockholders lost everything, but the bank’s customers did not lose any money.

Seems fair to me, and a good way to avoid “moral hazard” while at the same time avoiding bank runs and avoiding a monetary collapse. Julian, what do you think of this idea?”

It seems like a sound Idea, and one which would punish those whose poor decision making has led the bank to collapse, while protecting consumers.  I am very fond of the Nordic countries and particularly the Netherlands; despite my profound misgivings about socialism, they seem to make a form of it work for themselves. This is mostly because the populace seem to have a mature and adult approach to government and society. It’s never worked properly in England.

On Economics
“there is, in my opinion, no substitute for cracking open some standard academic textbooks in economics, sociology, and urban studies. Of course, the textbooks aren’t infallible either.”

Note: I don’t know what Julian’s academic background is on these matters, so my point here is not to accuse him, personally, of denouncing the scholarly consensus out of ignorance. ”

I have a master’s in the area of policy science, so have cracked open more than a few books on these subjects. I tend not to pepper my blog with academic references because:
a) it’s a blog, not an academic paper
b) I don’t want to alienate people who haven’t read as extensively or studied academically – I should be able to write clearly for an averagely intelligent audience
c) my blog is largely my opinions on what is in the news, I mostly cite newspaper stories.

“Also in Moral Risk, Julian then goes on his usual spiel about welfare policy, a topic I myself admittedly haven’t studied in-depth”

I have, at least in some areas.

“although I do know just enough about it to know that at least some of the common right-wing middle-class folklore about welfare isn’t necessarily accurate, at least here in the U.S.A.”

This is probably true of the USA, where for most states welfare is less of an option as a way of life. Not so in the UK.
Here’s a nice tale from the Daily Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1970307/Woman-bought-baby-to-get-a-council-flat.html

An extreme example of what many of us who have worked in social policy know to be true. If you are on welfare, if you have enough children, you will get the state to provide you with a bigger house than you could ever afford by working.

“Anyhow, I think nearly all geneticists would agree that human survival is best ensured by having a diverse gene pool, rather than by drastic, cattle-breeding-style efforts to weed out undesirable traits. Only with a diverse gene pool can we ensure that the human race as a whole can continue to adapt to many different environments.

“Still, I wouldn’t necessarily oppose relatively mild, noncoercive eugenic measures such as tax incentives to encourage the most productive citizens to have at least two or three kids. Of course there would inevitably be some haggling over who these most productive citizens are. And any such measure should be accompanied by improvements to the educational system, including improvements to school discipline.”

Social Darwinism is an emotive subject, so it’s best to be clear about what you mean by it. When I use the phrase Social Darwinism I use it to mean removing the artificial social mechanisms which stop the lazy and the foolish from suffering the consequences of their actions and inactions.

I am not among those (such as HL Mencken) who thought that there was a class of people ordained by nature to run things and a class of people who were ordained to be cattle. I believe in the individual and the right of that individual to reap as he sows, not for the successful to be penalised by redistributive social policy. As far as race is concerned, I believe that the intermingling of races to be wholly good thing for the gene pool and also for cultures. I don’t subscribe to any system of stratification that is not based on the achievement of the individual.

“The endless pap of ‘reality TV’, celebrity gossip and bland pop are just ways society has of filling up your time so that you don’t think too long and too hard about anything.

“It doesn’t seem likely to me that anyone deliberately decided, “Let’s create all this nonsense just to fill up people’s time so they stop thinking.” I think it’s more likely that most of pop culture exists merely for the purpose of making money, and, to that end, needs to grab people’s attention. And it has, alas, succeeded in grabbing people’s attention to the point where silence is now very scarce.”

I was speaking figuratively of how society fills up your time with ‘important’ trivia. I wasn’t intending to imply there was a real conspiracy to make people watch awful television programmes (probably).

“Julian also says: The more careful control of those who do not have the strength and will to determine their own fates will result in a more stable society, and ultimately, longer, happier and more fulfilling lives for those who are at the bottom.

Julian, exactly what kinds of “control” do you favour?”

Simply this:
Removal of all welfare benefits for those who won’t work.
Flat tax rates that don’t penalise success.
Compulsory sterilisation of those who persist in having children they can’t financially support – to protect children from feckless parents.
Compulsory sterilisation of recidivists – to protect children from feckless parents.
Re-introducing the death penalty for murder, drug trafficking, drug dealing, some sexual offences and armed robbery.
Re-introduction of hard labour for other serious offences.
Repealing the UK's Human Rights act and replacing it with a charter of rights for citizens who contribute positively. People who are anti-social or recidivists could be excluded from those rights either for life or for a fixed term.

Some of these measures would only need to be implemented for two or three generations until a society emerged where the work ethic had been restored and you can walk the streets without being stabbed by a 15-year old who thinks he’s living in a rap video.

These are harsh measures, but after 11 years of New Labour, the UK is about to collapse under chronic taxation and civil disorder.
As we speak, gas is around US$9.38 a gallon, and 85% of that is tax: as well as being tax on going to work, it is pushing up the price of food and other commodities. We have had 11 years of stealth taxes to pay for Stalinist grandstanding such as the Millenium Dome, the doomed 2012 Olympics and ‘Healing the Scar that is Africa’.   Meanwhile 20% of school leavers are functionally illiterate, and the roads are full of holes that no-one can afford to mend.

I take your point about New York being made safer since the 1970s and 80s - I haven’t checked the stats recently, but London did fairly recently have a higher murder rate than New York, children are killing each other in London now at a rate of around one a week. The UK now needs strong medicine just as New York did.