Posted on 11/13/2001 12:10:56 PM PST by Zionist Conspirator
I do not post these musings of mine to be disagreeable or provocative, but I simply do not understand the consistent inconsistencies of "palaeo"conservatives. And I am not referring to their position on Communist Arabs vis a vis their position on every other Communist in the world. I am referring to something far more basic.
I do not understand someone calling himself a "palaeo"conservative who then invokes "liberty," "rights," etc., for the very simple reason that "palaeo"conservatism connotes a European-style conservatism that opposes these very things in the name of Throne and Altar. So why do our disciples of Joseph de la Maistre pose as followers of Murray Rothbard, Ayn Rand, Ludwig von Mises, or Friedrich von Hayek?
I don't know. Honestly. I'm asking.
True, Charley Reese and Joseph Sobran (unlike their more honest and consistent fellow, Pat Buchanan) pose as across-the-board individualist Jeffersonian ideologues. But truly consistern libertarians, even the most "rightwing," took positions on civil rights and the new left in the Sixties that were (and are) anathema to some of these fellow travellers. I recently went to a libertarian site (this one here) where I was impressed with the fearless consistency of a true libertarian, such as Rothbard. I urge interested parties to read some of Rothbard's writings here (particularly "Liberty and the New Left") and honestly ask themselves if they can imagine "libertarians" like Sobran or Reese (or their supporters here at FR) saying such things.
Imagine, for example, the following quotation from Rothbard, from the article just cited:
It is no wonder then that, confronted by the spectre of this Leviathan, many people devoted to the liberty of the individual turned to the Right-wing, which seemed to offer a groundwork for saving the individual from this burgeoning morass. But the Right-wing, by embracing American militarism and imperialism, as well as police brutality against the Negro people, faced the most vital issues of our time . . . and came down squarely on the side of the State and agaisnt the person. The torch of liberty against the Establishment passed therefore to the New Left.
Okay, the militarism/imperialism quote is right in character, but can you honestly imagine Sobran saying such things about "police brutality against the Negro people" or heaping such praises on the New Left in an address before Mississippi's "Council of Conservative Citizens?" Or Reese saying such things before a League of the South convention???
Something doesn't fit here.
The thing is, the "palaeo"right has roots going back to the turn-of-the-century European right (eg, Action Francaise) as well as to the Austrian school of economics. In fact, sometimes these roots jump out from the midst of libertarian rhetoric--for example, when someone stops thumping the First Amendment long enough to bemoan the subversive, rootless, cosmopolitan nature of international capitalism (and surely no one expects libertarian Austrian economics to create a Pat Buchanan-style monocultural country!), or to defend Salazar Portugal or Vichy France.
In short, what we are faced with here is the same situation as on the Left, where unwashed, undisciplined, excrement-throwing hippies rioted in favor of the ultra-orderly goose-stepping military dictatorships in Cuba and Vietnam. In each case--Left and Right--the American section advocated positions that the mother movement in the mother country would not tolerate. For one thing, Communist countries exploit and use totalitarian patriotism; no one in Cuba burns the Cuban flag and gets away with it, I guarantee. Yet partisans of nationalist-communist Cuba advocate the "right" of Americans to burn their national flag. And can anyone imagine what Franco or Salazar would have done to some dissident spouting Rothbard's rhetoric back in Iberia in the 1950's or 60's? Yet once again, a philosophy alien to the mother country is seized upon by native Falangists as the essence of the movement.
I don't get it. Palaeos, like Leftists, don't seem to be able to make up their minds. Are they in favor of or opposed to "rights liberalism?" Do they dream of a reborn medieval European chr*stendom, or a reborn early-federal-period enlightenment/Masonic United States of America? Do they want a virtually nonexistent government or something like the strong, paternalistic governments of Franco, Salazar, and Petain that will preserve the purity of the ethnoculture? Or they for or against free trade? (It is forgotten by today's Buchananite Confederacy-partisans that "free trade" was one of the doctrines most dear to the real Confederacy.) Are you for Jeffersonial localism or against it when a Hispanic border town votes to make Spanish (the language of Franco!) its official language?
I wonder if I could possibly be more confused than you yourselves seem to be.
Honestly, it does sometimes seem that the issue that defines "palaeo"ism is hostility to Israel. Why else would someone like "Gecko," a FReeper who openly admired 19th Century German "conservatism," which he admitted was a form of state socialism, be considered a member of the family by "disciples of Ludwig von Mises?" None of this makes any sense at all.
As a final postscript, I must add once more that I am myself a "palaeo" in all my instincts (except that I don't go around advocating a Biblical Theocracy for Israel and a Masonic republic for the United States, nor do I brandish the Bill of Rights like an ACLU lawyer). Whatever the intrinsic opposition between palaeoconservatism (at least of the more honest de la Maistre variety) and a reborn Halakhic Torah state based on the Throne and Altar in Jerusalem, I have never been able to discover them. I guess the rest of you know something I don't (although it sure as heck ain't the Bible). If there is some law requiring "true" palaeoconservatism to be based on European idealist philosophy, Hellenistic philosophy, or Austrian libertarian economics rather than the Divinely-Dictated Word of the Creator, I would like to hear about it. All I know is the rest of you "palaeos" seem to take hostility to Judaism (not just Zionism and Israel but Judaism itself) as a given for anyone who wants to be a member of the "club." And you seem to have a mutual agreement to act as though Biblical Fundamentalist Zionism didn't exist and that all sympathy for Israel originated in the philosophy of former Trotskyist/globalist/capitalist/neoconservatism (which is confusing because according to libertarianism capitalism is good). I have moreover learned from past experience that if I question any of you about your position on the Bible you ignore it with a smirk I can practically feel coming out of the monitor.
My attitude is as follows: for true libertarians who are actually sincere and consistent I have a deep respect, even though I disagree with you philosophy. For people who insist that one should be required to oppose the existence of a Jewish State on the ancient 'Eretz Yisra'el in order to even consider himself a conservative, you can all boil in hot excrement, since I have no desire to belong to your loathsome `Amaleq-spawned society. I simply wish I could understand why conservatism--which to me has always meant an acknowledgement of the Jewish G-d and His Word--has spawned so many people whose fundamental outlook is so diametrically opposed to this.
At any rate, while I do not expect any other than taunting, smart-aleck replies, I will most assuredly listen with an open mind to any explanation of the otherwise inexplicable Franco/Ayn Rand connection.
Taiwan is on the other side of the globe. It was created by socialist revolutionaries like Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek.
Globalists are currently trying very hard to create a "palestinian" state. Arafat has spoken before the Council on Foreign Relations and is an associate member of the Socialist International. But I'm sure you would never regard such a "palestinian" as "inherently globalist" under any conditions . . . would you?
The United States of America was created by Illuminati-Masonic type enlightenment radicals and deists (or in the case of Franklin, a satanist). The American Revolution was the first project of the Globalist Left and was a testing ground for the social revolution that later took place in France. The international soldiers of fortune who came to America during our Revolution were the exact counterpart of the Red International during the Spanish Civil War. I guess that means all true conservatives should oppose the evil United States of America.
And btw, my reference to the age of jimmydean was not a reference to his behavior but to his lack of knowledge of Cold War history. I simply meant he is obviously too young to remember the Cold War, whereas I am not.
All that being said, thank you for letting us know where you stand, but no thanks at all for addressing none of my initial questions.
Uncalled for comment. I don't know about Sobran or Reese but Buchanan is for America first. Now being for America first is an 'Israel hater' to only the Israel first and free Pollard crowd.
1) You ignore the fact that "liberty" is a motto of Jacobinism and therefore anathema to European-style conservatives. Why therefore do America's "Euroconservatives" pose as its greatest champions?
2) Kindly explain why paleoconservatives who echo Jefferson Davis when it comes to distribution of power in the United States are such ardent admirers of arch-centralists in other countries, such as Chiang Kai-shek, Francisco Franco, Antonio Salazar, and Henri Petain. If Lincoln was a tyrant, why were these other men heroes of liberty? Can you explain this? Or do you even know about it?
P.S.: The late John G. Schmitz, the John Bircher who spent his entire legislative career fighting centralization of power, apparently in his last days despaired of this remedy and leaned toward a Franco-style revolution. How would such a solution be justified in Rothbardian libertarian, or even Jefferson Davis-style, terms?
Goverment falls within the context of three axes: popularly enacted law, centralized plenary authority, and anarchy.
Suuuuure they did. I'm sure their support of Israel was exactly equal to their gung-ho interventionism on behalf of Taiwan, Rhodesia, and South Africa.
And don't you consider all religion to be a cult? So it would be irrelevant whether I joined an "identity" group or not.
Still haven't told me where Fundamentalist-haters like you get your moral beliefs. I guess this confirms that it is mere parasitism off the Jewish Bible.
The next time you "western man" types want to adopt a new religion as your rallying cry, you might consider one that doesn't open with the Jewish Bible. Most "fundies" tend to read that part first.
The Republican Party as founded upheld strongly the virtues of the Founders. Non-interventionism (as opposed to isolationism per se), Fiscal responsibility (almost every abolitionist speech cites a long litany of the ills of government mismanagement), equality of all men on the simple premise that any man, no matter what his abilities or status or nature, will thrive on freedom as compared to what he would be in chains. In 1860 these ideas remained categorized as the far left, yet today our far left considers them as questionable notions, and our right, stock full of old Dixie-crat notions and illusions, can't deal with them either. Above all, on left and right today, it is the notion that an individual is somehow truly not suited to taking care of himself that drives forward the undermining of our most noble concepts.
I'm only concerned here with American conservatives, not Euroconservatives.
2) Kindly explain why paleoconservatives who echo Jefferson Davis when it comes to distribution of power in the United States are such ardent admirers of arch-centralists in other countries, such as Chiang Kai-shek, Francisco Franco, Antonio Salazar, and Henri Petain. If Lincoln was a tyrant, why were these other men heroes of liberty? Can you explain this? Or do you even know about it?
None of that esoterica is central to traditional conservatism.
P.S.: The late John G. Schmitz, the John Bircher who spent his entire legislative career fighting centralization of power, apparently in his last days despaired of this remedy and leaned toward a Franco-style revolution. How would such a solution be justified in Rothbardian libertarian, or even Jefferson Davis-style, terms?
Senility?
Thank you. The only thing that I have figured out was that they took offense at being confused with neo-conservatives or any other kind of conservative. I was clueless as to the distinctions.
Huh?
The second and third, taken together, are a single axis. Not three.
Someone who thinks coming down from the trees was a bad idea?
I would consider myself a palaeoconservative and I would describe the apparent disconnect in this way:
Palaeoconservatism believes that there is such a thing as cultural particularity and that particular social/economic orders appear to work best when ensconced in their proper cultural milieu.
For example - Rothbard postulates a completely free market economy with a highly articulated financial apparatus built upon a few basic principles.
I believe that in his model there are a number of cultural assumptions that are necessary but unspoken postulates to his expressed axioms. I believe that his economic order works for people like himself and myself. I do not believe it works for someone who would nod his head in agreement at Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March address or Noam Chomsky's latest lecture or someone who is addicted to scatological pornography.
Rothbard himself based his observations on a tradition of thought beginning with Aristotle and continuing through Aquinas and the Physiocrats.
The palaeoconservative realizes that systems are not perfect and that cultural and historical factors intrude. Was Franco the absolute best ruler for Spain? Probably not. Was he immeasurably better than a Stalinist client state? Assuredly.
Because I think that Spain could have done a lot worse than Franco in 1936, does that mean I think his style of government appropriate for the US in 2001? Not at all.
Palaeoconservatives are most properly cultural patriots. If we believe that strict construction of the US Constitution is the cultural and political apex of American civil society, then we are not being inconsistent. If we believe that the US Constitution is not the perfect form of government for Myanmar because it is alien to their cultural traditions, we are again not being inconsistent.
There are certain bedrock principles of human nature and morality which apply to all men - but there are also myriad cultural differences which it is foolish to disturb.
There are two issues: Israel itself and Israel in its relationship to the US.
I believe the US should have a cordial relationship with Israel. I don't believe we should meddle in their internal affairs. I don't believe we should give them money like clockwork, and I don't believe the Israeli government should expect its spies in the US to receive special treatment.
I think Israel, in the palaeoconservative analysis, is as muddled as the US. It is at once a socialist Eurostate and the home of a deeply religious people yearning for a benevolent theocracy. That state of affairs cannot continue forever, just as the US cannot waver forever between being a socialist Eurostate and a Constitutional republic. I am fundamentally ambivalent toward Israel for this reason, just as I am fundamentally ambivalent about the direction our country is headed.
That being said, I support the Jewish people settling in their ancestral homelands and I support all efforts by the US to rid this land of Islamist terror and to destroy it wherever found. I consider Islam to be an ideology eerily dissimilar from Communism or Nazism.
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Which goverment? - Our government?
Or all government?
In either case, kevin, your pronouncement is VERY debatable. - Could you elborate a bit?
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