Unpatriotic Conservatives; A war against America.

National Review Online ^ | March 19, 2003 | David Frum

[tpaine]

"-- Bradford came to the government hiring window with certain disadvantages: He had worked on the George Wallace campaign in 1968, and he had published an essay that could plausibly be read to liken Abraham Lincoln to Hitler.
In the spring of 1981, Ronald Reagan was trying to persuade a balky Congress simultaneously to enact a giant tax cut and to authorize a huge defense buildup; to slow inflation, end fuel shortages, and halt Soviet aggression, from Afghanistan to Angola.
It was not, in other words, a good moment to refight the Civil War.
Bradford could never accept that it was his own writings that had doomed him. --"

This issue is Lew Rockwell's hobbyhorse.
Though all libertarians fault Lincoln for using force to keep seceding states in the Union, thereby giving the nation a push toward centralization and away from states' rights, Rockwell became obsessed with this point.

Fine, Rockwell is obsessed; -- this hardly means that "-- all libertarians fault Lincoln for using force -- thereby giving the nation a push toward centralization and away from states' rights. --"

Rational libertarians see both paleo & neo socalled republicans as fringer rinos. -- Real libertarians support the Constitution [as should real republicans].
Rinos, -- and most middle road republicans, support both state & federal infringements as part of our political realty.

His blog has become a secular version of the Phelps church, cheering on al Qaeda and providing a gathering place for young conspiracy theorists and washed-up old anti-Semites.

What else is new? Most of these internecine political 'wars' are a major part of the main problem this country has.. -- We're all to busy badmouthing each other to tend to the business of killing our enemies.

[billbears]

Oh good, the old article from the little Frummer boy. Haven't seen this one in oh...about three years is it? And it's no more true then than it is now.

I HAPPEN to have been in the room when "paleoconservatism" first declared itself as a self-conscious political movement. It was in the spring of 1986, at a meeting of the Philadelphia Society, and Professor Stephen Tonsor of the University of Michigan read the birth announcement.

Well isn't that special. Unfortunately for Davie, old conservatism was a self-concious political movement in 1796 when General Washington gave his Farewell Address.

[billbears]

His blog has become a secular version of the Phelps church, cheering on al Qaeda and providing a gathering place for young conspiracy theorists and washed-up old anti-Semites.

Yes, of course anyone who reads LRC on a regular basis knows this to be false but hell let's get a slur in while the iron's hot eh? And on this thread by all means. LRC has multiple columnists, some of who I agree with, and some who I disagree with. Better just get the big paint brush out just in case

[CWOJackson]

You got to admit, he nails the paleocons perfectly. I didn't get halfway through the article and had already thought of a lot of freepers who fit the bill.

[Texasforever]

Yep.

[onyx]

Placemark.
This thread could get interesting. :)

[Texasforever]

Naw the paleocons are ignoring it. They are in mourning.

[tpaine]

CWOJackson wrote:

You got to admit, he nails the paleocons perfectly. I didn't get halfway through the article and had already thought of a lot of freepers who fit the bill.

Be interesting to see if you boys have the cojones to 'nail' the FReepers who fit the bill by naming them.

I'll bet two bits you don't.

[CWOJackson]

The beauty of this article is it's even more accurate today then the day it was written. Just a couple of months ago we took out a nest of vipers in Pakistan and the next day there's pat buchanan moaning and wringing his hands about our killing innocent women and children...he never once mentioned the high level terrorists who were the target and who had been killed.

[Texasforever]

Well you for one.

[CWOJackson]

Not really much need to...the pretty much out themselves.

[TAdams8591]

Yes, I agree. The following paragraph (and a few others) describes some people on this board and elsewhere rather well:

"But the antiwar conservatives have gone far, far beyond the advocacy of alternative strategies. They have made common cause with the left-wing and Islamist antiwar movements in this country and in Europe. They deny and excuse terror. They espouse a potentially self-fulfilling defeatism. They publicize wild conspiracy theories. And some of them explicitly yearn for the victory of their nation's enemies."

[TAdams8591]

Agreed.

[TAdams8591]

"They are in mourning."

LOL! Good one.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

Three words: Paul Craig F***ing Roberts.

[TAdams8591]

"Well you for one."

Another good one. You're very funny! : )

[CWOJackson]

Yaccckkk! I thought Justine Raimondo had a disturbing personal photograph on his webpage, Roberts is worse. Is he angry or is it just a bad case of roids?

[marron]

Part of the problem is the fuzziness of the term "conservative". The fuzziness lies in what specifically it is that you are trying to conserve. US conservatives are of a very special type. US conservatives are basically what were once called "classic liberals". We mainly are trying to uphold and adhere and preserve the principles built into the US constitution, which is the quintessential classic liberal document.

Jefferson and most of the founding fathers were classic liberals mostly; John Locke who inspired most of them was a classic liberal. Even Edmund Burke, who lived about the same time and is sometimes thought of as the "father of conservatism", was a Whig, that is to say, a classic liberal.

Our conservatism is not mere traditionalism, not mere resistance to change. The value of traditionalist conservatism depends a great deal on what traditions it is that you want to preserve. Not being clear on this is how neo-confederates are able to blend themselves in, for example. Conservatism that isn't tied to positive philosophical values gives rise to what we sometimes call "Republicans in Name Only" whose only purpose seems to be to act as a drag on Democrats, and an obstruction to their brethren, but never really standing for anything. If the Dems propose a huge new program, the "Rinos" will propose one half that size, and then the two will split the difference. That should sound familiar because we do it all the time.

As much as we dislike so-called "Rinos", that is what conservatism is when it is disconnected from principle.

Patriotism, when it is disconnected from positive principle, degenerates into nationalism and racialism. The kind of patriotism we know is a beautiful thing, precisely because it is informed and inspired by something more than mere nationalism, it is tied to a love of liberty.

This is, I suppose, why the twisting of the term "liberal" has been so pernicious, because the term "conservative" is itself more fuzzy than we realize, and it allows people who do not share our values to masquerade among us. Conservatives of the "classic liberal" variety don't particularly want to preserve any status quo; they want to build liberty, and that sometimes means kicking over the table.

I always say that the interesting arguments are all on our side of the aisle. On the left, all you have is a struggle for power, and a dividing of the spoils, and principles are flexible and expendable. On our side, you have grownups trying to build liberty, preserve liberty, and the arguments are all about how best to do that. There is a pretty broad spectrum; from the more libertarian to the more traditionalist, to the guy who wants to fight, to the guy who wants to pull in the drawbridge, but for all of us the common element is liberty and how to keep it.

[AmishDude]

Long but fantastic article.

[Dialup Llama]

Three words: Paul Craig F***ing Roberts.

At least he's honest enough to say that the non farm payrolls have been weak for a long time. He's not cheering a NFP report of 75,000 jobs added as "good" news of a "strong" economy.