Buchanan's surefire flop. Home Bound

The New Republic ^ | July 11, 2002 | Franklin Foer

[Phillip Augustus]

Ah, so you are more of a radical than a paleo-conservative, and more of a liberal than a paleo-libertarian. Too bad RINO wasn't an option!

[DugwayDuke]

"Punishment, not conquest, should be the reponse to any threat abroad." and "Our troops should be put on our borders, whose defence is their Constitutional perogative."

These two statements demonstrate the fallacy of the paleo argument. Somehow, we are too believe that it is better to respond to threats by punishment after the fact than preemption before the fact. And, that it is better to fight a war on our own territory than to fight one on the territory of our foes.

[Ohioan]

Goldwater didn't have much in common with Taft and Bricker in the sense that he was an internationalist, and they were isolationists.

Goldwater had a lot in common with Taft and Bricker; although he was slightly to the right of both. To call Taft and Bricker isolationists is to parrot a Leftist lie. They were not. What they did favor was the traditional American foreign policy, see An American Foreign Policy, which was basically the same policy which Goldwater and Reagan promoted.

Much of your other issues are middle-of-the-road positions, with a moderate Conservative bias. But the following, I would suggest, may show a certain confusion:

They tend to be rather permissive on social issues up to the point that it threatens the fabric of the commonweal, but strongly believe faith and religion are a good thing, even if not religious themselves. They are strongly opposed to all forms of irrational discrimination

Traditional Conservatives are often rather permissive on social issues, I will grant--indeed, it is our belief that Government should not be defining social values, which often motivates our taking an interest in politics, when the Left pushes their Social agenda--particulary when it is in the form of an attack on traditional social values, as with the promotion of Leftist values under the guise of "life adjustment" in the public schools; or efforts to misuse the Commerce Clause, to coerce compliance with new politically determined socio/economic norms. But I am not at all sure what you mean by the reference to "discrimination."

Every choice a free man makes involves discrimination. If you mean to oppose irrational actions upon the part of the Government; then that is one thing. But if you are implying a right in the Government to deal with what the Bureaucrats consider irrational choices made by individuals in their own affairs, then that is something vastly different. In Communist Russia or Nazi Germany, the individual lost all right to make choices the State considered irrational. I trust that you are not advocating that sort of thing for America.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[Torie]

I don't wholly disagree with your last sentence (that is why I said it was more polemicism than analysis), although I think it does point out the ideological feuds. It is entertaining polemicism though, and quite well done.

[Miss Marple]

My goodness, you certainly stirred some people up!

I didn't know a familiarity with The New Republic was critical to being a true conservative. :-)

[Torie]

Well, I think public establishments should not discriminate on the basis or race etc. It does impinge individual rights, but at the cost of corroding our social chords, and with great attendant cruelty and humiliation. I am reading about Taft and Bricker in Robert Caro's book on LBJ's senate years. They were isolationists (opposed to the Marshall Plan for example), and simply not my cup of tea at all. Bricker was a big fan of McCarthy.

[Torie]

No, but it assists in being an informed and forarmed one, IMO.

[Miss Marple]

Oops! Now I see the confusion! I used to make that same error when I was in colege. Must be some sort of mental short circuit.

Never mind, as Emily Latella used to say.

[habs4ever]

I can't for the life of me understand why neo-con is a such an epithet to many right wingers? Reagan was the culmination of neo-con thinking, and his embrace of the supply siders was a repudiation of the GOP country club set that had ruled the party since the '30's.The neo-cons brought the brains, the toughness and the better ideas, so that men like Reagan would would thrive.Being a neo-con now is a no more than being a conventional Republican.


It's really about time to drop this hypenation, don't you think?

[Torie]

And here I thought Serbian terrorists were threatening Muslims. Oh well, whatever.

[Miss Marple]

And I really do know how to spell "college."

I think I will go take a nap.

[Torie]

The term "neocon" defines a certain wing of conservatism and the Republican party. Thus it is a useful term. And yes it is more mainstream and dominant now than other wings - for the moment.

[Phillip Augustus]

If you thought that, then I urge you to do some additional research. But before I go any further, I would note that, whether the Serbs were in the wrong is irrelevant to the issue as to whether American national interest justified a subsequent brutal bombing on a civilian populace in Belgrade.

Be that as it may, in Kosovo, the drug-dealing, white-slaving, gun-trafficking Albanian Muslim KLA terrorists were the aggressors, and were officially labeled so by our State Department prior to Clintoon's decision to wage war on Serbia. Prior to any aggressive reaction by Milosevic, the Albanian Kosovars were aggressively committing terrorist act after terrorist act against Kosovo's Serb civilians. Eventually, Milosevic said "enough is enough!" and took steps to counter said terrorism. The entire story is much more complex than the neo-con/liberal agenda would have it, and it is to the credit of the American people that we did not for the most part support this vicious illegal war against European Christians who were combatting Islamic terrorism despite the media's unbelievably biased media blitz against Serbia, the likes of which has not been seen in the world since Julius Streicher, and not in America since the maddogs who advocated war against Spain over the maine.

[Shermy]

The Buchananites may not want to admit it, but in the post-9/11 era, as during the cold war, the prominent critiques of American internationalism will come from the left.

Thanks for the big laugh for today. Putting aside the identity-driven argument that infers people can't have different views that don't fit this writer's mental pigeon-holing of "left" and "right", his agenda to appropriate "dissent" as for the "left" is hilarious. It is the "left" that is the co-conspirator of the pernicious effects of Globalism - or in other words, stripming the American middle and lower classes. Those so-called "anti-globalization" protestors aren't - they just want a globalization that gives them control over lives. Look at those "NGOs" protesting for "debt relief". Bank funded, set up through the NGO divisions of public relations firms, using guilt and lefty politics to forward a bank agenda - insuring repayment on suspect loans. Other solution, let them negoitate with tthe borrowers. Not as profitable.

The lefties are still in a twitter that UNOCAL hasn't colonized Afghanistan yet.

[Phillip Augustus]

One clarification: there was NO national interest whatsoever as far as the US was concerned to justify the war-crimes committed against Belgrade. NONE!

[Torie]

I used to be a regular on the Balkans threads here. It was just Hoplite and me for the side of truth and light, and then later Bluester. I have read numerous books on the topic. It was a big hobby of mine. But I have moved on. The good guys won, and matters are now in the mop up phase, and Slobo will spend a long time in jail. New dangers and challenges await, and I no longer have much interest in litigating the past with the losers about their assorted and sundry prejudices and mistatements. Hoplite is better at it all than I am anyway. Go take him on! You shall see.

[Torie]

Ya, except stopping mass ethnic cleansing and genocide. Other than that, who cares?

[Torie]

Oh, I see you flagged a couple of the more notorious Balkan thread perps in any event, so I see you are already resident.

[Shermy]

Agreed. Actually, it seems to be a post-9/11 identity trip for a lefty, trying to find the correct pose to maintain a plausible pose of "dissent" in a post-9/11 world where the citizens are looking for facts, not merely ignoring these people.

The article is full of false premises, assumptions, and dichotomies. Strawman after strawman is posed and torn down. For example, immigration. The criticism of mass immigration is about culture, wages, taxes, and the welfare of the American people versus short term business interests and its ally liberal guilt. He frames the issue as if it has to do about complaints about fake visas.

And, of course, mentioning antiwar.com just shows how far this guy will reach out to pseudo-intellectual discourses and ramblings to support his thesis.

I have noticed on the lefty sites a total dearth of understanding, or attempting to understand, world forces unless they support an anti-American agenda or identity-left self-maintenance. Dissent, which for them is disagreement invoking a common identity, seems to be the de rigeur cry to battle. It seeks conformity of views and selected facts to be recited, not analysis of them. I gues "Buchanan" is an uncomfortable person for them, so they whip up a pose against him, rather than analysis of which views of his they agree with, and which not.

[aculeus]

Justin Raimondo, an adviser to Buchanan's 1996 campaign ...

Raimondo and Buke are an item? Who does what? To whom?

Nothing insinuated. Just practicing my familiarity with English pronouns.