Recently, the Hyphen-Report called on average, working-class White people to give their opinions on various topics of the day, and tasked them with writing their thoughts with the intention of publication on the website. The following article is the result of that endeavor, and we are proud to introduce two new anonymous writers eager to contribute and speak out against the growing tide of anti-White rhetoric flowing from every avenue of mainstream politics. You can read the previous article in the series here.
Today’s topic centered around a recent article, America’s Gun Fetish, penned by the darling of the anti-woke left, Chris Hedges. The following is a rebuttal and deconstruction of Mr. Hedges’ own critiques, and despite coming from blue-collar, nine to five backgrounds, you’ll find our authors are more than capable of boxing with the lofty, credentialed intellect of the principled left.
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The firearms debate in America is one of the few that is truly evergreen, in that it stands tall all year but draws the most attention during a particular season. The difference here is that the evergreen tree is celebrated and used in the heart of winter, while the American firearms debate rages the hottest over the summer. This year is no exception, as we have already seen numerous mass shootings across the country, and we are still a month away from the Fourth of July. In proper American fashion, we have been subject to the usual spread of pontification on firearms, from DC social climbers to dyed-hair political science majors to out-of-touch celebrities. The pleas for “common-sense gun reform” continue to echo through the hallowed halls of Congress and the hollowed-out American interior but receive no-reply. For one reason or another, Americans are not responding, as these are the same tired cries that they have heard since the nineties.
However, America is in an objectively worse position than it was thirty years ago, and some members of the political pundit class have sought to take this into account by incorporating more contemporary concerns into their messaging. Case in point, Chris Hedges’ Substack article “America’s Gun Fetish” sought to tie the public’s deepening anxiety about the future of America to its understandable aversion to senseless violence. Predictably though, his piece immediately regresses to the system mean: to blame it all on White people. But Hedges’ article has a degree of merit, albeit unintended, as it is an excellent example of how the system exists and operates in a state of political precarity. Of course, hedges’ politics are abhorrent. Still, his article speaks to several important truths, not the least of which is that the American Empire is not nearly as infallible as it would like to present.
Chris Hedges has a long history of good system critiques, but when push comes to shove, he can never fully drop the anti-White rhetoric.
Hedges begins his article with a relatively fond recounting of his childhood surrounded by firearms, which he understood as a part of life in rural America. He mentions how he was raised around firearms and consequently learned how to use them safely and responsibly. This makes sense, considering how he grew up in rural Maine and not Gary, Indiana. He acknowledges how firearms were a significant part of the lives of the people he grew up around, not just because of their military service but because it instilled in them a sense of power and pride. He further explores this by positing what these people’s lives would be like without them, which he said was defined by “decaying small towns, shuttered textile and paper mills, dead-end jobs, and seedy bars” and by a prevailing sense of “squalor, decline, and abandonment.” This grim description is not particularly remarkable because it is an objective truth for anyone who wishes to pay attention. What is remarkable is how Hedges seems to sidestep this manifest reality when it comes to addressing the manifesto of the Buffalo, New York shooter, referring to the Great Replacement “theory.” This is a measurable phenomenon brought about through policy, though he handwaves it away as simply White supremacist propaganda.
The Great Replacement is acknowledged at multiple points throughout the piece, as Hedges remarks on how White people are concerned about their economic and political future as American demographics change. But just as quickly as he speaks this truth, does he belittle White people for clinging to their firearms, remarking that they keep them as a sort of fetish and that losing them would be the “final crushing blow to self-esteem and dignity.” The question that lays before Hedges is very simple, though he seems hesitant to answer it correctly. If America’s founding stock will be a minority by 2045, which he acknowledges, and they see their prospects for a prosperous future continue to dwindle, why should they give up their weapons? Why should White people forfeit their national birthright, one that bestows upon them a significant degree of political power and authority, to the government facilitating their disenfranchisement? There is no legitimate answer to this question, so Hedges can only resort to attacking White people themselves.
The closer to opulence one becomes, the less likely one is to come to terms with reality. Mr. Hedges consistently reveals he is close to the former and far from the latter.
No matter how tenuous the argument, Hedges pulls out all the stops in his attempt to demonize Whites who object to elitist gun-grabbing. Citing mass shooting statistics and information on American firearm ownership is laughable. It looks at who commits the crime, not just mass shootings, to see that the blame is woefully misplaced. There are more than enough years of FBI crime statistics, LiveLeak, and rap music videos for any honest person to recognize that the establishment message on firearms is one giant lie by omission. In another laughable portion of the article, Hedges sees it appropriate to conflate the actions of people like Dylan Roof and Brenton Tarrant with America’s instigation of foreign wars. According to him, these seemingly unrelated activities are bound simply because they are expressions of global White supremacist bloodlust.
He again maliciously omits that the same government that fought these illegitimate wars and destabilized those regions is the same that is currently importing those same populations across the Western world. What is also curious about this is that earlier in the article, Hedges attributes his aversion to firearms to his time serving as a reporter in war zones due to seeing what they do to a human body. Once again, he seems to be more fixated on condemning the people who fought America’s wars and the implements that they used than examining what put them in Vietnam or Iraq in the first place. However, asking questions like that would require Hedges to be a real journalist instead of an anti-White system stooge.
Chris Hedges has the necessary altruism to enter a maximum-security prison to teach violent criminals in New Jersey, but can’t summon even a crumb of solidarity with members of his fellow race.
So what does Hedges believe the future holds for America? What sort of changes does he prescribe to make this all go away? In addition to the usual spread of measures related to background checks, magazine sizes, and red flag measures, he offers a somewhat more novel idea. He recognizes that America’s trajectory will only worsen, so he provides that the government should work to alleviate the economic concerns of American citizens. His pitch for a sort of New-Deal policy package is not the worst idea, and many on the Dissident Right would see this as a step in the right direction. Such measures would, at least in theory, provide Whites in America with improved economic opportunities and relax some of the increasing burdens they have been feeling for decades.
But it should be made clear that Hedges is not offering such a solution out of genuine goodwill towards Whites. Instead, he is pleading to those in power to give White people a reason to remain invested and maybe even optimistic about the future of America. He wants Whites to be bought in because he correctly assesses that the more things deteriorate, the more people will be unwilling to disarm.
So no, Chris, White people will not give up their firearms because the gun lobby prevents Congress from acting or because they want to engage in vigilantism or lynchings. They will not give them up because they hate the current state of America and everything it stands for. They hate the dwindling job prospects and worsening economic precarity. They hate being racially demonized at every opportunity while still having more demands placed on them. They hate having to live in perpetual fear of violence at the hands of Blacks, who they know will never be targeted for any sort of gun control, and most of all, they hate you and everyone like you.
Members of the National Justice Party hold a flash rally for Jupiter Paulsen, the 14-year-old White girl murdered by an African immigrant in Fargo, North Dakota (of all places)
They hate how you scoff at their culture and belittle their struggles and pain. They hate how you cynically plead with them to adopt your proposals for the good of a country that no longer exists. But most of all, they hate that the American firearms “debate,” as you and people like you further it, is nothing more than a thinly veiled racial attack on them and their way of life. Because I promise you, they may not articulate it in this exact way, but they know perfectly well the targets of these policies.
White people are becoming increasingly aware of America’s deteriorating condition, fueled by economic hardship, social atomization, and record-breaking crime. They realize that it is racially targeted and have no reason to listen to what you or your ilk have to say. America does not have a gun fetish, it has a Freudian fixation on anti-White racial hatred, and it would serve you well to consider this when you bemoan the hesitation of White people to give up their firearms.
*The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Hyphen-Report. Any content provided by our editors or anonymous authors is of their opinion.*
[…] Recently, the Hyphen-Report called on average, working-class White people to give their opinions on various topics of the day, and tasked them with writing their thoughts with the intention of publication on the website. The following article is the result of that endeavor, and we are proud to introduce three new anonymous writers eager to contribute and speak out against the growing tide of anti-White rhetoric flowing from every avenue of mainstream politics. You can read the previous article in the series here. […]