[jstone78]

Great article by Murray Rothbard.

I think what Rothbard was trying to say, is that what we consider to be the "Old Right" was really a coalition of cirtics of FDR and the New Deal. They included classic liberals like Albert Jay Nock, Midwestern Conservatives like Robert Taft, a number of Southern Agrarian Conservatives like Sen. Russell of Georgia, social critics like HL Mencken, American Firsters, and a whole lot of other folk.

You did not have to believe certain specific things in order to qualify as an Old Rightist. True, the Old Rightists were strict constructionists when it came to interpreting the constitution. But the various interpretations differed widely.

The most important difference between Old Rightists and Neo-Cons, is that great ideological diversity existed in the Old Right, while all (or most) Neo-Cons seem to read from the same script.

[tacticalogic]

The most important difference between Old Rightists and Neo-Cons, is that great ideological diversity existed in the Old Right, while all (or most) Neo-Cons seem to read from the same script.

That seems to come from an end-justifies-the-means mentality among the neocons that makes constitutional issues irrelevant.

[x]

The most important difference between Old Rightists and Neo-Cons, is that great ideological diversity existed in the Old Right, while all (or most) Neo-Cons seem to read from the same script.

That is the result of not having or wanting power. When you aim at getting power or winning office your options are limited.

I agree with this characterization of neo-conservatives, but surely it also applies to paleo-conservatives now. What Rothbard was describing was a collection of unconnected dissenters. When groups congeal to the point of forming a clique or coterie, an orthodoxy develops.

Go to lewrockwell.com and see how much dissent there is from the site's silly orthodoxy. In Rothbard's day, free marketeers, isolationists and Southern regionalists or nationalists were three very different and unconnected groups with different views on different issues. Fuse the three groups into a common ideology and eventually ideological conformity will be demanded.

Rockwell apes the neo-conservative tactics of creating centralized organs to spread an ideological orthodoxy and he's done a fairly good job with his brainwashed troops. Though they play at being mavericks and iconoclasts they stick pretty closely to the script.

The point should be to get away from clique or coterie or group think, whether it calls itself "neo" or "paleo."

[rdb3]

The most important difference between Old Rightists and Neo-Cons, is that great ideological diversity existed in the Old Right, while all (or most) Neo-Cons seem to read from the same script.

Hold up!

Didn't you just utterly destroy the premise of your own vanity with this statement? You, and many others, never hesistate to liberally (no pun intended) toss around the term "neo-con" at the drop of a hat. Yet you now say that intellectual diversity is not with neos but with the Old Right?

Read it again: "The most important difference between Old Rightists and Neo-Cons, is that great ideological diversity existed in the Old Right, while all (or most) Neo-Cons seem to read from the same script."

The script written for FR's own "Old Right" is to label EVERYTHING with which they disagree with as "neo-con." It is a script in which the lines are NEVER forgotten.

You just blew your own argument to hell! You can not have it both ways.

[JohnGalt]

Some day soon, I will post the article as a seperate thread. Until then, here is a link to the rest of the article I pulled that snippet from.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/ir/Ch1.html

[JohnGalt]

Some day soon, I will post the article as a seperate thread. Until then, here is a link to the rest of the article I pulled that snippet from.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/ir/Ch1.html

[weikel]

HL Mencken was the best. He should have been made supreme emperor of the world most of what he said was pure gold and my small disagreements with him are not relevant politically.