[x]

Fleming wants too much to sit back and feel superior to the rest of the culture and to everything that's happened for the last 200 years. There's a lot that's wrong with American culture and with modernity, but we're all a part of it, and can't simply write it all off as a failure withoug writing off too much of our world. Past ages, including those Fleming glorifies had their faults as well, but they kept on working towards improvement.

I think you're right about distrusting plans and "programs" to bring universal peace and prosperity, but if you have goals, it's useful to talk about how to get there, and indeed whether it's possible to get there. Too many paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians are utopians who sketch distant goals and ignore what to do before we reach the promised land -- or what to do if we never get there. It's all or nothing with them. It's good to have those goals on the horizon to strive for, but most of our lives will be lived on the journey, not at the destination.

Paleo and neo mean different things to different people. For some people the difference is foreign policy. Others focus on domestic policy and constitutional interpretation. I'm probably closer to Novak, who apparently isn't a paleocon but rather a conservative political realist who disagrees with the neo-cons on some specific issues, than I am to ideologues like Fleming or Sobran or Rockwell. But I do agree that Frum's attack is out of line. Much of what is valuable about conservatism has been lost in the celebration of world power.

[Burkeman1]

Paleo and Neo? What the heck is that? I am against this war in Iraq but does that make me a confederate sympathizer? NO! I am can't stand these labels.