Make-Beleive Conservatism. National Review isn't Right.

Lewrockwell.com | 25-03-03 | Daniel McCarthy

[u-89]

Buckley, NR, Rush, GOP & "Neo-Con" conservatism = > 90%of "conservatives"

Pat B/"Paleo-Con" conservatism = < 10% of "conservatives"

Who is in power today? The former.

Will the latter ever be in power? No.

Who will best advance the conservative agenda? The former.

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I agree with your statements but not with your conclusion as I understand it. This goes back to the definition of what is a conservative. I think those who wish to live by limited govenment guided by the concepts of liberty should drop the label of conservative as it means something today as different from its original definition as today's liberal definition compares to the 18th century version of the word.

[Porterville]

Ain't with us your against us; 'nough said.

[Mr. Bird]

Novak (a Jew, by the way)

Really? I honestly thought I heard him refer to himself as someone of Arab descent, with no religious affiliation.

[Hacksaw]

Good point, though Lew Rockwell also describes as conservatives the southern Democrats who killed 400,000 U.S. troops in the 1860s.

Please keep the south bashing comments to the Civil War threads.

[Moby Grape]

Rockwell, and his band of self-professed true patriots, are a gaggle of silly long winded arrogant know-nothings. The problem with this tiny cirle-jerk, is that THEY believe THEY have the TRUE compass, and wish to DEFINE all and everything under the sun by their divine revelations.....Conservative can come in more than one shade, and 99.9% of conservatives are NOT going to let these goofy dipsticks define them...and they will not allow them to create a Hilter BROWNSHIRT "Committe To Determine Who Is Really Conservative".

[u-89]

Where's the LewRockwell Drivel Alert?

Sorry but I am not keen on "alerts" in headers - pro or con.

[Captain Kirk]

Please quote that "virulent" Jew hater quotes of Mencken. Mencken made fun of everyone (and like many during his time including FDR) used ethnic stereotypes. His comments were beneign compared to some of the country club New Deals around (and including) FDR.

BTW, Mencken (who supported free immigration of Jews to the U.S. and and always championed victims of discrimination) did more for the Jews than you and I ever will in his life.

[hchutch]

AMEN TO THAT!!!

And I will tack on the same message to certain other fringe elements who I may run into disagreement with as well.

[Howlin]

One of the BEST posts I've seen on FR.

[Grand Old Partisan]

I was bashing Democrats. Plenty of Democrats in the North sided with the rebels too.

[Cyber Liberty]

"The argument over what is a conservative is very important no matter who brings it up."

Not true. It's very important if a LewRockwellite brings it up, because the sole purpose of the bringing is to declare the non-LewRockwellite "not conservative enough", thus trumping all, and allowing the LewRockwellite the smug self-satisfaction one gets from bullying one's opposition into giving up the argument. You advance nothing, not even one convert to your cause, but it feels swell.

So, most of your premises are suspect. You've devolved into griping about semantics. Don't blame yourself: It's impossible to discuss LewRockwell stuff without someone getting that way, sooner or later.

[white_wolf]

The paleos carry around with themselves a whiff of racism and anti-Semitism. Being an American is an idea -- a human idea. It is a beleif in the principles espoused in the Declaration, no more, no less. Those principles are not based on race or even on heritage, but on "inalienable rights." All human beings can be "American" by subscribing to the American ideals. The War in Iraq is based on the idea that freedom and human dignity belong to all, Iraqis included. Being an American is an appeal to "the better angels" of human nature. Everyone has felt the subtle seduction of feelings of racism, but those who are noble reject them. This is the idea that conservatives seek to "conserve." The paleos would seemingly turn those sublte seductions to racism into a virtue. Neo-cons may not always be right, but the seductions of the neo-cons must be resisted and relegated to the dustbin of history.

[u-89]

Most of us probably sympathize with the ideas expressed in Washington's Farewell Address. But do the same conditions apply today that applied in the 18th century?

The rules of the game - the constitution and the advise of the founders - apply today as then and indeed are still valuable and viable. The trouble is we departed from them long ago and show no sign of learning from our mistakes. Had that advise been heeded we would not have been ensnared in any of the bloodshed from The Boxer Rebellion to today. In fact the involvement of the US in long ago foreign wars had consequences that we and the world live with today. We cannot relive the past but we can learn form it and try to correct our course. If one suffers from a mistake repeating the same mistaken actions will not solve the problem.

[philosofy123]

Can some one educate me about this publication called THE WEEKLY STANDARD, where did this publication come from, is it real conservative, and why Fox news always feature editors from that magazine?

[white_wolf]

Sorry, should read:

"Neo-cons may not always be right, but the seductions of the PALEOS must be resisted and relegated to the dustbin of history."

[Longshanks]

I have thought from the very beginning of this debate that the anti-war folks - including those who consider themselves "left-wing" - sounded more conservative than the pro-war folks.

Similarly, I advocated war against Iraq, and I recognize that this wasn't a very "conservative" position. It was a radical one.

Thanks for your Frank admission. No matter how you slice it, Wilsonian imperialism is simply not Conservative.

[Longshanks]

Novak (a Jew, by the way) Really? I honestly thought I heard him refer to himself as someone of Arab descent, with no religious affiliation.

Novak is a Jewish convert to the Catholic faith.

[Cyber Liberty]

Rockwell types remind me of something someone said to me a long time ago: Transexuals tend to be extremely proud of their affected identities, and fail to understand why everybody else isn't as excited about it all as they are.

Birchers are like that, without the silicone.

[Mr. Bird]

From a Russell Baker review of the works of Mencken. I can't run over to the Pratt right now to find the exact quotes. You might think I throw that charge around loosely, but I certainly do not:

No one, however, wrote more exhaustively about Mencken's life than Mencken himself. At his death he had put under seal at Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Library perhaps 800,000 unpublished words in a diary and other biographical manuscripts not to be opened until he had been long dead. These provided a great deal of fresh fodder for Menckenians, some of it with scandal value, especially the revelation that he had a streak of blue-stocking anti-Semitism. The disclosure produced despairing cries of pained disappointment, as it was bound to in an age no longer indifferent to the dangers of such prejudice.

Nowhere was the disappointment more painful than in Baltimore. Anti-Semitism of Mencken's sort was so shockingly drab, so ordinary, such a shamefully shabby imperfection. A man of Mencken's stature should have only magnificent defects. In mythologizing him, Baltimore had come to think of him as superior to the common country-club bigot. And now here was this indisputable diary evidence. Carl Schoettler, an Evening Sun staff writer, captured the sense of disgusted disappointment in three deadly adjectives: "His prejudices are commonplace, casual and banal." No one said, "Say it ain't so, Henry." Everybody thought it, though. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Moby Grape]

Well said...and funny!!!