The most problematic feature of the Northwest Quartet, like The Turner Diaries, is the author’s penchant for genocidal fantasies, directed not just at non-whites, but at white people as well. The most famous such passage in The Turner Diaries tells of the “day of the rope” in which white race-traitors, particularly those who engaged in inter-racial sex, are lynched by the thousands.

Covington makes clear that the creation of a white homeland would not, and indeed could not, require the mass killing of non-whites, even though moral qualms about mass murder of civilians tend to be set aside during warfare. Such killing would be logistically impossible for a small guerrilla army, and it would be unnecessary, since Covington thinks that most non-whites could be induced to flee simply by destroying their employment and social support networks through targeted killings, beatings, and property destruction, mostly aimed at the whites who profit from and facilitate their presence.

He is less surgical and discerning in choosing his white victims, both during the war of liberation and the subsequent “cleanup.” Covington’s death list contains not just white operatives and allies of the regime, but three whole categories of individuals: lawyers, race-mixers (meaning anyone who has had interracial sex, regardless of issue), and homosexuals. This is problematic, because if white nationalism begins making progress in the Northwest, these views will be broadcast far and wide to scare white people away from white nationalism and into conformity with the system that is killing us. Beyond that, these lapses are at odds with the generally rational and pragmatic character of Covington’s political thought.

First, spare the lawyers. Although killing lawyers has the authority of the Bard, and everyone enjoys a good lawyer joke, among white nationalists of my acquaintance, lawyers are the best represented profession. Thus it seems foolish to treat all lawyers as enemies, since this will drive otherwise sympathetic and useful individuals into the arms of the system for protection.

Second, it is easy to understand why white nationalists see homosexuals as enemies, since the organized homosexual community is an integral part of the anti-white governing coalition. Beyond that, white nationalism is steeped in a right-wing, conservative subculture with strong currents of anti-homosexual sentiment, which are constantly stoked by the organized homosexual community.

But Covington’s stated rationale for murdering homosexuals is that homosexuality is a mental illness. I think that homosexuality is neither a sin (an offense against the God of the Jews) nor an illness, but rather it is something that might be called a “natural suboptimal condition,” like baldness or myopia or a propensity to pack on the pounds.

But let’s just grant Covington’s premise for the sake of argument. So what about all the other mental illnesses? Covington does not mention if melancholics, manic depressives, schizophrenics, paranoiacs, compulsive liars, kleptomaniacs, alcoholics, and other sufferers of mental maladies will be marked for death.

The reason for this is obvious: homosexuals are marked for death not because they suffer from a mental illness, but because the Bible—the Jewish Torah—tells us so. This is probably the source of the extreme animus toward race-mixers as well. It is, to put it mildly, a rather astonishing lapse. It makes it all too easy to parody white nationalists as Bible-thumping hayseeds and hillbilly psychopaths.

It also serves to drive otherwise sympathetic and useful individuals—who might be guilty of nothing more than an experimental homosexual or inter-racial dalliance while in college or the military, where such experimentation is common—into the arms of the system for protection.

What would Aryan reason, as opposed to Jewish superstition, dictate in dealing with homosexuals and race-mixers?

First, it is no policy or solution to postulate that when a white nationalist state is founded it will simply chase away or kill the homosexuals on its territory, for inevitably new homosexuals will appear (it does not matter whether by nature or nurture or both). Furthermore, these individuals will manifestly not be “one of them” (the anti-white ruling coalition) but “one of us” (a racially-conscious white person, raised in a racially homogenous and self-conscious society).

On Covington’s premise, the policy a rational society adopts to homosexuality is an instance of the larger policy it should adopt toward mental illness. The appropriate attitude toward mental illness is not hatred but pity and compassion. It is reasonable to fear the unknown, but unreasonable to persist in one’s ignorance. The idea that homosexuality should be treated as a crime is a relic of benighted times when people thought that other mental illnesses were evidence of witchcraft or demonic possession and should be “treated” by torture and burning at the stake.

Mental illness is not a crime. If mentally ill people commit crimes, we punish the crimes, not the illness. Thus it would be inhuman to exile or kill our relatives simply because they suffer from manic depression or paranoia. It would be arbitrary to treat homosexuality any differently. If homosexuality is a mental illness, not a crime, then it should be treated as an illness. If it can be cured, then cure it. If it cannot be cured but can be lived with, then live with it. If it is genetically determined, then screen for it and try to decrease its representation in the next generation. (If homosexuality has a genetic component, then homosexuals should not be encouraged to “pass” as straight and pass on their genes to their children, but to live as homosexuals and take their genes out of the next generation.)

In a healthy society, people should, of course, be free to associate with or avoid homosexuals just as they are free to associate with or avoid people who suffer from other mental maladies. But to determine rational policies and attitudes toward homosexuality, one would have to compare it to other such illnesses. One would have to determine whether homosexuals are more or less reliable friends, colleagues, and comrades than, say, manic depressives, alcoholics, or compulsive liars.

Of course there would be no problems excluding homosexuals from the pup tents of boy scouts, the locker rooms of school children, or the barracks of the military. There would be no nonsense about homosexuals marrying or adopting children, which seeks to erase the distinction between the normal and the abnormal. Should society also be expected to provide everyone who thinks himself Napoleon a coronation and everyone who thinks himself Jesus a crucifixion?

The question of race-mixing is more complicated. First, the problem is not interracial sex or marriage per se. The problem is interracial babies. Of course there are no interracial babies without interracial sex, but not all interracial sex produces babies. The problem with multi-racial societies is that inter-racial sex is inevitable, because it is perfectly natural and normal for people to take advantage of a wider range of possible mates and sexual partners.

Many racialists claim that they are immune to inter-racial attractions, that they have some sort of genetic aversion. This may well be true of a tiny percentage of people, but it is surely not true of most. There may well be an instinct for mating with one’s kind, but there is no reason to think that this instinct will always trump the other instincts under certain circumstances, particularly given the power of the sex drive.

For instance, the person who had the single greatest influence on my awakening on race and the Jewish question obviously had a great deal of instinctive feeling for his own kind. But that feeling was insufficient to trump his conflicting desires for a home and a family with a woman who has not corrupted by feminism and American junk culture. So he ended up marrying a woman from the Philippines. The marriage was without issue, thank goodness, and it did not last. Now he is married to a white woman who has given him three sons. Yes, he made a potentially terrible mistake, but the idea that this man has committed a capital offense is ludicrous.

Interracial sex is not only inevitable in a multi-racial society, it is being relentlessly promoted by every organ of the establishment. (The same is true of the normalization of homosexuality.) The propaganda is particularly intense on college campuses, where sexual experimentation has always been more common. The number of college students who have had interracial dalliances is already quite high, and if present conditions continue, it will rapidly reach the point of saturation. (We will soon have a better idea if some are genetically immune to the lure of exotic flesh.)

But the percentage of these dalliances that turn into long-term interracial relationships, much less marriage and child-rearing, is still small. Indeed, some such encounters may be the first steps down the road to a full racial awakening. (This is true of one young woman of my acquaintance, who was raped by her black boyfriend.) Again, the idea that these people have committed not just a mistake but a capital crime is offensive to reason. These people are victims of our present regime, not criminals.

What then should be the attitude of a white nationalist regime to race-mixers? First, all whites who produce offspring with members of other races have, in effect, left our race for another. One cannot mix one’s blood without mixing one’s loyalties. We cannot reasonably expect that such people will be more loyal to their extended racial family than to their mixed-race children, and no white nationalist would ask them to. They could not, therefore, be citizens of a white ethnostate (much less would-be white nationalist leaders). Whites who have married non-whites without offspring or prospects of offspring clearly belong to a different category, but it is not clear that a different policy should apply.

As for whites who have had sexual relations with non-whites, or who married but then divorced non-whites without producing children: they should be able to become citizens of a white ethnostate without penalty. But this would not be possible without somehow addressing the irrational yet powerful antipathy they arouse in some racialists.

For the offenders, there needs to be a process of confession, contrition, cleansing, and atonement to incorporate them into a self-conscious white nation. Ideally, such a truth and reconciliation process should be modeled on a religious ceremony (how about a bath, for starters) rather than a legal proceeding if the atonement it produces is to be heartfelt and enduring.

But racialists need to change too. There is a larger principle here that applies to more than just sexual matters. A healthy new society can be made only by and from the products of today’s sick society. White nationalists are not an Elect, chosen by genes or by God to be immune to the corruptions of our age, thus licensing us to smugly look down upon and condemn the rest of humanity.

If there is any hope of our people at all, then most of them are capable of seeing the light, and the only thing that sets today’s white nationalists apart from them is . . . time. We saw first, but we will never be saved until they see as well.

This means that there is no room self-righteousness and much room for compassion. Indeed, the leaders of any revolution are likely to be worse rather than better than the average person in important respects. Not only are they imperfect to begin with, but given the dark necessities of revolution, they are likely to be monsters in the end. They may be creating a better world—but not for themselves.

Covington shows that he understands this in many subtle and funny ways. For instance, in The Hill of the Ravens, he remarks on how the veterans who created the Northwest American Republic shock their own grandchildren with the vulgar language and tastes inherited from Amurrica. Also, Covington’s self-portrait as “the Old Man” is hardly flattering and shows that he too is out of place in the republic he helped create.

Until we breed a race of flawless Nietzschean Supermen, we will have to muddle through with people who have a short list of essential virtues (honesty, courage, intelligence, loyalty, good-judgment, initiative) and a rather longer list of inessential flaws and past mistakes. No, I am not recommending that we try to get mileage out of creeps and kooks. Just virtuous, talented, committed, imperfect people.

Within the movement, we need to be willing to tolerate inessential flaws and past mistakes on the condition that people are honest and transparent about them. One can build with flawed materials, but only if one knows where the flaws are. We don’t want to put the guy who is hiding his dyslexia in charge of editing, the guy who is hiding his agoraphobia out distributing literature, an insecure buffoon in charge of picking up a VIP, or a creepy compulsive womanizer among the wives and daughters of comrades, etc.

A weakness is compounded by concealment. It does not become a virtue by being flaunted. But when one is willing to acknowledge one’s flaws, that is the first step toward rising above them. It is an opportunity for moral growth, a way of strengthening one’s character. Thus we have to penalize concealment and reward transparency.

For a white nationalist revolution to have any moral authority, its leaders must not just lead us to regaining control of our racial destiny. They must also lead us in self-criticism, self-purification, and atonement with the greater racial body.

Bibliographical Note:

The novels of the Northwest Quartet are:

H. A. Covington
The Hill of the Ravens
Lincoln, Nebr.: 1stBooks Library, 2003

H. A. Covington
A Distant Thunder
Bloomington, Ind.: Authorhouse, 2004

H. A. Covington
A Mighty Fortress
Bloomington, Ind.: Authorhouse, 2005

H. A. Covington
The Brigade
Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2008

TOQ Online, March 18, 2010