Bill Whittle says “Be the K”

Bill Whittle is a frequently seen celebrity on the Tea Party talk circuit, former contributor to National Review Online, as well as the engaging host of such shows as Afterburner, Firewall, and his weekly podcast The Stratosphere Lounge. He also, through paid memberships such as mine at BillWhittle.com, funds the production of such old school, patriotic feature films as the soon to be released The Arroyo. They are a nice counterbalance to the anti-American leftist propaganda that Hollyweird routinely turns out.

He has recently reviewed the material on r/K theory and politics, and come to the conclusion that it explains a lot (for a discussion of it, and an interesting thought experiment about human K’s placed in r-bodies, see this Stratosphere Lounge, beginning at 59 minutes in).

In a tweet, he coined the phrase “Be the K,” as a catchphrase designed to entice people to “Be the K.” Bill recognizes his mission in life is ultimately to be the K, and he also recognizes that every human should feel this way.

We all, deep inside us, feel that “the K” is somehow what we should be. But what is K, and why do we feel this? It is a question that often arises, as I try to figure out why some people immediately grasp all of this and embrace it with an almost religious enthusiasm, while others seem perplexed as to why, even if true, any of this has any importance to our debate.

The question of what is K, struck me as I read an email a little while back. A reader had encountered two thugs in a parking lot. They were attempting to surrepticiously maneuver into a position of relative superiority to him, from which it appeared they intended to strike quickly and harshly – whether to rob him or just assault him was unknown. Possessing the well developed amygdala of a K, he called their play before they ran it, and calmly faced off with them, at which point one thug quickly said to the other, “Let’s go,” and they beat feet out of there.

So who was the K, the guys who wanted to jump him, or our peaceful reader, for scaring them off with his palpable bad-assery?

This was touched on in the book, but probably not enough. You will see K identified as five behavioral traits as part of the scientific analysis of it. There are more traits that evolve from the group-centric urges, from honor of rules, to respect for authority, to willingness to sacrifice, to compassion for, and loyalty to your weak, but all of those traits are actually an outgrowth of the fundamental nature of what K really is.

K is really a spirit. K is technically a trait, or a suite of traits, but all of those traits have one fundamental, underlying purpose. They are designed to promote the creation of evolvedness, complexity, advancement – whatever you want to call the larger quality of “greatness.” This trait, designed to favor greatness among its carriers, then produces great individuals to carry it. The entire universe is, in reality, an engine of greatness-production, and we K’s are the warrior-servants who, by our very spirit, revel in creating it for our Creator.

Some will concern themselves with K’s genetic roots, as if that is where you will define what K is. K almost certainly has many genetic means of being encoded, but K doesn’t care for any of them. K is in the genes on some level, but it is not of the genes. As the K’s of the world compete, they carry an inherent urge to see the weaker versions of K fall back, and the stronger versions of K succeed, even if their own genetic version of K’s material roots proves inadequate, and it is they who must fail as a result. Where the weaker K-genes fail, the K grows stronger, and more likely to produce a level of greatness, that the last version couldn’t imagine.

This ephemeral K-Spirit that inhabits us, is actually piercing the veil and crossing the boundary between the spiritual and the material – actually reaching into the physical world, and molding its own genetic vessels molecule by molecule. We K’s recognize innately that our own personal value is miniscule, in comparison to what we have been blessed to be a part of creating.

Inherent to the K-spirit is an individual’s lack of concern for themselves, and a love of the K-Spirit itself. Where we fail and fall, we know that a greater, immortal good that we are a part of succeeds, and this enthuses us.

We recognize the sacrifice of K’s who have served on behalf of K in the past, from the Founders of America to the warriors of our nation’s military battles. As we are lovingly awed by them, we hope one day to be remembered similarly by the K’s to come. Our lives and our purpose are all dedicated to K – we are that spirit, it is what defines us, and in doing so it binds all of us together as one.

I have no doubt, if ever we figure out the underlying mechanism behind the universe, we will find that somewhere, embedded deeply in that software code, will be at least a few lines, designed to see K arise from the earth spontaneously, foster its ultimate success, and thus favor the production of greatness in the world. Increasingly, I believe it was the whole purpose of the entire program. Without that snippet of code, greatness would never arise in the universe, and the universe would be a bland and boring exercise in futility and pointlessness. In coding that element into the ultimate program, we were given life, as the universe was given purpose.

Opposite us are the r’s, but who are they? You can talk about amygdalae that can’t see threat, or r-selected reproductive strategies, or even draw the obvious rabbit parallels. All of those will convey the weakness, patheity, and foolhardy nature of Liberals, but they won’t touch on the real, fundamental force that we perceive operating within them, or why we oppose them so much, instinctually.

In the end, r-Liberals are merely the destroyers of greatness. Every urge they feel, every desire they have, works to that end. For this reason, r’s are the eternal enemies of K, as the pursuers of failure and destruction. Where we seek a world of striving, they seek a world of oppression. Where we want greatness to arise, and see those who produce it rewarded, they seek to crush it, and see those who dared produce it punished. To them, the very presence of success and greatness is prima facia evidence justifying a death sentence for whatever produced it.

The very idea of a world where greatness dominates, and thrives, is abhorrent to r’s. Find a company that is successful, and they will label it “Big Something”, and then set about trying to destroy it with taxes and regulations, no matter the good it does for others. Find a businessman who creates something great, and Liberals will seek to demonize him as evil incarnate for advancing the world and succeeding in his field, (unless he is willing to repurpose his acquired wealth into some greatness-destroying endeavor himself).

Find a smart student, and Liberals will seek to diminish his intellectual advantages, by dumbing down the tests he takes. Find a nation which works well, and Liberals will seek to destroy any vestige of greatness within it. Find an enemy who wants to destroy greatness, and the Liberal is on his side.

We laugh at the movie Idiocracy, but the truth is, that is the Liberal utopia that the Liberals are attempting to walk us toward. The only addition Liberals seek, that was not in the movie, is a plethora of violent imbeciles who actively terrorize anyone with the gumption or determination to try and rise above the morass of idiots, and produce something great.

Which brings us back to the question, who was the K in our intrepid reader’s parking lot encounter? Was it the two thugs, who sought to sneak up on a fitter opponent to exploit surprise and numerical superiority, so their idiocy, weakness, and inability to perform violence would win out over his skill and ability? Or was it our reader, who without thought squared off with evil, sought to enter the battle regardless of the outcome, and was content that the battle would reward fitness, whatever way it went? The answer is obvious.

K is about the mission of fostering greatness. It is the firefighter saving others, so they may one day strive freely. It is the martial arts instructor passing on his knowledge to the next generation of K’s who strive. It is the soldier, fighting so that his countrymen may strive in freedom in pursuit of their greatness. It is the NRA member who seeks to see all of his fellow K’s able to defend their families against evil, so their greatness may shine free of criminal oppression. It is that Tea Party supporter who just wants government to stop interfering in our eternal search for greatness.

If there is one overriding quality I have found among people who see this work, it is not that they grasp the science, or that they are hyper-intellectual eggheads, or even that they support Republican candidates assiduously. The reason they see this is because they are the K. The K-spirit fills them – even if they do not know exactly what it is, or how it figures in the grand plan of the Universe. They feel that spirit inside, know they are a part of something greater than themselves, and they want to serve that purpose selflessly.

Deep down, the r’s know that this is why r can never win, and that is why r’s are so bitter and spiteful. Eventually, r must fail, due to the very nature of the universe, and it is that thought which haunts the r’s, wherever they go.