First, let’s catch up on some lingo. Nathan Damigo, the guy who punched Moldylocks, founded something called “Identity Evropa” (meaning European). I visited the website and I did not find any statements that call for white supremacy; only for white/European identity.

Think of it this way. We have accepted identities such as African-American, Latino-American, Asian-American, Jewish-American, etc. In general, those identities don’t intend full-on Black or Latino or Asian or Jewish supremacy. They may sometimes achieve special privileges (for example, quotas or differing standards for the alleged races). But the majority of people holding to those identities don’t intend anything like a hard apartheid (or internment camps, etc.) for the other identities. In that sense, they usually aren’t “Black supremacists” or “Latino supremacists” or “Asian supremacists”, etc.

Damigo and company seem to be saying, we can get along with those identities but let’s have one for whites, too. They reject the term “white supremacists”. In the Rebel Media interview linked above, Damigo describes himself as a “white identitarian” and says that hysterical claims about his being a Nazi, a racist, etc. are just “anti-white hate speech” to shut down conversation.

It may sound almost reasonable until you remember that all identity politics are harmful. These guys are going in the exact wrong direction. They are doing a “Me, too” on racial identity politics. Like the others, they offer a cheap identity – “join the fraternity”, says their website. A San Diego Union-Tribune article says:

[As a Marine in Iraq, Damigo] saw firsthand the conflicts between the country’s ethnic and religious groups. “I said, ‘This is dumb. Why don’t … each one of them have their own country and they can all express themselves and … they’re not, you know, fighting with each other,” he told the Los Angeles Times in December.

In other words: Damigo might not want to harm or subjugate the other identities; but he thinks that both the Middle East and America should be even more ethnically-divided than they already are. Not good.

I believe in a melting-pot, American identity based on America’s founding principles of Human Freedom under Limited Government and the Rule of Law. Yes, the Left has pulled us all away from it with cheap, divisive identity politics. So let’s restore it.

When I come across identity-politics material of any kind (white, black or otherwise), the word “stupid” keeps popping into my head. I’ve been thinking about why that is. First, here is how I define the term. Interactions between 2 parties will have one of four outcomes.

• I win, you win: That’s smart.
• I win, you lose: That might be justice; if it’s not, then it’s predatory on my part, masochistic on your part.
• I lose, you win: That might be justice; if it’s not, then it’s masochistic on my part, predatory on your part.
• I lose, you lose: That’s just stupid.

With identity politics, everyone loses. Even the hucksters who gain financially from it are still losers – because they’re hucksters. If it’s stupid when Blacks or Asians or Latinos do it – and I’m afraid that it is – then it is equally stupid when whites do it.

All identitarians oversimplify their group’s history, and Identity Evropa is no exception. Their materials highlight Western civilization with majestic Greco-Roman-appearing figures next to slogans like “Let’s become great again”, “Serve your people”, “Discover who you are”, “Protect your heritage”. Fine. I like greatness and heroic art. But these guys seem unaware that Jesus was a Mediterranean Jew, and that the Greco-Roman civilizations (I dare not say “races”) were highly mixed, with a good deal of Mediterranean, Semitic (Phoenician), African and European heritage together.

They seem to forget that *culture is culture*. It isn’t about ethnicity, or tribe, or race, or genes, or color. It’s ideas; principles; the arts; laws and legal practices; philosophy; sciences; means of production and trade; food; ethics; things that can be adopted by anyone, of any ethnicity, at any time.

I am a Western supremacist. That is: I think that the Judeo-Christian-Greco-Roman-Lockean/Enlightenment civilization, while not perfect, is better than the others; it has the most elements from which an ideal civilization could be built. And I want to spread those good elements, by example and persuasion, to all ethnic groups (in America and the world).

It’s about the ideas/principles, and the individuals everywhere who may hold them. I couldn’t care less about the survival of *any* ethnicity as such. Ethnic identity is a sideshow, a rabbit hole where everyone loses, if we keep going down it.

And sorry Mr. Damigo, but if it does turn out that you’re one of those people who dwells on racial categories and uses them to pre-judge your fellow human beings: then yes, at that point you would be a racist. If you don’t want to wear that shoe, kindly make sure it never fits.