Posted on 03/26/2003 10:02:01 PM PST by billbears
Reading through David Frum's Unpatriotic Conservatives, a shabby indictment against those he lazily blankets as "paleoconservatives," I was reminded of a fascinating paper Jörg Guido Hülsmann of the Mises Institute delivered some years back entitled The Production of Signs and the Growth of the State.
"The most important class of signs are the words we use, in particular the words of the written language," explained Hülsmann. We come to understand "the fundamental facts of moral and political life: religion, liberty, love, hope, faith, property, justice, and all other purely intellectual things" through the configurations we create with letters of the alphabet.
How fragile then are those cherished concepts, and all the more so in the hands of a manipulator such as David Frum. Frum's style of debate is Kafkaesque.
Take this paragraph:
The antiwar conservatives aren't satisfied merely to question the wisdom of an Iraq war. Questions are perfectly reasonable, indeed valuable. There is more than one way to wage the war on terror, and thoughtful people will naturally disagree about how best to do it, whether to focus on terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda and Hezbollah or on states like Iraq and Iran; and if states, then which state first?
Note how Frum dictates the terms of debate. He starts off by generously welcoming "questions" about the war on Iraq. But with the next breath Frum constricts the scope of discussion, making the acceptance of the "war on terror" a prerequisite.
By the by, the National Review's blog really showcases the essence of the "girlie-boys," to use Ann Coulter's coinage for this lot. Recall, the "boys with the bowties" dropped Coulter's syndicated column after September 11 when the firebrand columnist suggested, tongue-in-cheek, that we should invade Muslim countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity. Considering that the neoconservatives at the NR advocate the two of Ann's moves, I've a strong suspicion as to what prompted the firing caprice.
Christianity!
Or more appropriately, Coulter's contention that converting Muslims to a religion of peace might do the trick. This was beyond the pale for the multicultists at the NR (who also regularly chide the Pope).
It's hard not to notice how similar the simpering on the NR's blogistan is to Mrs. Frum's infamous e-mail. Danielle Crittenden had done a mass mailing to her pals after her hubby had coined the axis of evil phrase, expressing her "hope you'll indulge my wifely pride."
Rod Dreher of NR exudes the same fake saccharine humility: "I suppose it might be unseemly to praise one's own magazine," he blogs, "but I am proud to be associated with a publication responsible for David Frum's magnificent essay." As Golda Meir once said, "Don't be humble. You're not that great."
In response to Jonah's whine that "paleos have been goading and mocking" him, not least by naming his mag the "Goldberg's Review," I suggest substituting the "Goldberg Variations."
Bach's monumental score for the keyboard ought to remind Jonah that the West that paleolibertarians and conservatives love and wish to peacefully restore is the civilization epitomized by the faith-inspired beauty of Bach. It's the West reflected in the poignancy and "deep pain" Pope John Paul II expresses these days with every fiber of his crippled frame. The picture of this righteous man, head clasped in hands, overcome with sorrow at the savagery unfolding, trumps the nasty specter of the American metropole at its most shameful, cheered by the "girlie-boys" at NR.
A testament to his manipulation of language is that the "facts" Frum marshals for each of the raps he draws up against paleos don't coincide with the accusations:
The antiwar conservatives have gone far, far beyond the advocacy of alternative strategies. They have made common cause with the left-wing and Islamist antiwar movements in this country and in Europe. They deny and excuse terror. They espouse a potentially self-fulfilling defeatism... And some of them explicitly yearn for the victory of their nation's enemies.
Frum's mode of argument is slightly more sophisticated than Michael Savages. Savage yelled that he'd demonstrate to his viewers "Why We Fight." If language means anything, then the reason we fight against Iraq must directly relate to an aggression Iraq has visited on us, at the very least.
Instead, Savage began screening and rescreening the attack on the Twin Towers, amidst hysterical yelps of, "This is Why We Fight." His frenzy incites the same in the recipient of the distorted message, thus subverting reason. Note how the signs Guido Hülsmann speaks of have been severed from what they signify the message Savage conveys is that we fight Iraq because Saddam brought down the Twin Towers. On the facts, this is false.
The sophistry of the State's speechwriter is similar: As evidence that Pat Buchanan "espouses defeatism," Frum dredges Buchanan's observation that other than to use their might, Americans do not understand the conflicts and terrain they plunge into. This is an intelligent observation about American insularity and cultural chauvinism.
Frum affects a similar disconnect between the indictment and the evidence he advances against Toronto Sun foreign correspondent Eric Margolis. Margolis recommended non-aggressive ways in which Arabs might prevent war against Iraq. This Frum labels as a "yearning for defeat." If one respects the words used by the communicator Margolis and their meaning, rather than resort to conjecture, then what Margolis was saying was aimed at trying to peacefully thwart American aggression and prevent defeat for all involved.
As is evident from his tittle-tattle tome (and like his wife), Frum is a gossip. His essay is in keeping with this unfortunate character trait. He produces a series of vignettes designed to "prove" that paleos developed an ideology (which, in the case of paleolibertarians, is as old as the natural law), in order to compensate for alleged career failure.
So we discover that the delightful Paul Gottfried doesn't entertain his students and that paleos are among the more "fractious and quarrelsome folk in the conservative universe." (Frum fails to allow that non-conformists do tend to be "belligerent," the word my spouse uses for his wife.) To discredit paleoconservative or paleolibertarian ideas, however, one must tackle the ideas, not the personalities. Claiming that Paul Gottfried, a consistently engaging and interesting intellectual, didn't win a popularity contest with a bunch of 19-year-olds fails to tackle his ideas. Nor can he be refuted by the fact that he teaches at a small college. In order to be taken seriously, Frum must deal with the substance, not personalities or professional travails vis-à-vis the mainstream.
I can't speak for paleoconservatives, but paleolibertarians care first about the effects of the state on civil society. In the words of Lew Rockwell:
Paleolibertarianism holds with Lord Acton that liberty is the highest political end of man, and that all forms of government intervention economic, cultural, social, international amount to an attack on prosperity, morals, and bourgeois civilization itself, and thus must be opposed at all levels and without compromise.
Everything flows from the passion for "the Old Republic of property rights, freedom of association, and radical political decentralization." What Frum calls our "obsessive denunciations of Martin Luther King," is borne of the understanding that "civil rights" legislation is inimical to property rights and freedom of association.
Perforce, Frum charges paleos with racism. And he mocks us for allegedly being incapable of reconciling our alleged belief in "the incorrigible inferiority of darker-skinned people," with our perception that "darker-skinned people are gaining advantage over whites."
What a skilled obscurantist!
While the strength of the paleolibertarian team comes from its enduring commitment to natural rights and justice, the strength of the Frum faction comes from its endorsement of the Almighty State. Yet, the State is conspicuously absent from Frum's silly screed.
Frum must certainly be aware that the State redistributes wealth from those who create it to those who consume it. Frum must also be aware that libertarians oppose this coercive distribution of wealth by the State. And even Frum must be cognizant of discernible trends in wealth creation and wealth consumption. Ditto where crime is concerned: Certain populations are more likely to be perpetrators, others more likely to be victims.
Are these observations racist? To the extent that it is a relevant variable in crime and welfare, paleos comment honestly about demographics.
Yes, certain segments of society are gaining at the expense of others, but there is nothing inexplicable here if one considers the entity whose bidding Frum does so effectively. The ousting of white males from positions of prominence is courtesy of State directive! Surely even David Frum knows that. The beef paleolibertarians have is with the State for seizing and redistributing private property, for prohibiting the rightful exercise of freedom of contract and freedom of association, and for making all-out self-defense impossible.
Jonah claims, incidentally, that David Frum is "libertarian on the economy." I don't know any libertarian who supports the pseudo-science of climate change and the concomitant advocated policies, which Frum apparently does. But if he has a libertarian streak, Frum must have heard of property rights. Why, then, is it a racist notion that productive Americans should not have to subsidize free riders? Frum heaps scorn on Buchanan for having said that "many Americans in the first country are getting weary of subsidizing and explaining away the deepening failure of the second."
Just as property rights are not a new paleo idea, but rather a little Lockean indulgence taken very seriously by the American founders, so too are paleo ideas on foreign policy and American adventurism, rooted in, to quote Felix Morley, the traditional American attitude of "opposition to what George Washington called overgrown military establishments." Frum's attempt to cast paleo ideas as new and discontinuous is ignorant of the history of the ideas.
Equally revealing about the Frum framework is his aversion to objective truth. He says that "race and ethnicity are huge and unavoidable issues in modern life, and the liberal orthodoxies on the matter tend to be doctrinaire and hypocritical." Paleo refutation, however, he condemns because it too advances orthodoxies. Does it not occur to this doxy of the State that some "orthodoxies" may be true? Is it not possible that what Buchanan and Harvard economist George Borjas report about immigration is simply correct?
As I've written, and with reference to Borjas' work, it is true that since the 1965 immigration amendments, "the United States has been granting entry visas to persons who have relatives in the United States, with no regard to their skills or economic potential." "Immigrants today are less skilled than their predecessors, more likely to require public assistance, and far more likely to have children who remain in poor, segregated communities." An influx of the unskilled is, moreover, responsible for the lowering of wages across the board, something that hurts poor Americans, especially blacks.
Since 1965, mass immigration has constituted the quintessential "swamping by the central state of an existing population for political ends," to quote paleolibertarian economist, Murray N. Rothbard. Those who laud the changing US, and want more of the same, ignore the fact that this radical transformation, good or bad, has been engineered by the State, to which Frum is in thrall.
Again, the State's speechwriter pries words from their meaning. This time Chronicles' Thomas Fleming catches static for asserting that we "would soon be a nation no longer stratified by class, but by race as well. Europeans and Orientals will compete, as groups, for the top positions, while the other groups will nurse their resentments on the weekly welfare checks they receive from the other half."
Why, pray, is this statement evidence of "racial animus"? Orientals and Europeans, if I am not mistaken, are the highest earners. They shoulder the tax burden. I would think that as a "libertarian on economics," Frum would be irate that, for being high achievers, certain people are denied equal treatment under the law.
Once again, Frum's appended slur doesn't jibe with the utterance of the slurred.
Frum's impoverished coda is full of journalistic jingoism about the epoch September 11 has unleashed. Paleos, spoilsports that they are, have failed to celebrate one of the most formidable consolidations of State power in recent American history. For this failure, David and the "girlie-boys" are going to turn their backboneless backs on us.
To Frum's "War is a great clarifier," we offer Ludwig von Mises' words: "War only destroys; it cannot create. War, carnage, destruction and devastation we have in common with the predatory beast of the jungle." A good synonym for neoconservative.
I didn't say you said that. I was just saying what I said.
And it did evoke a few opinions.
Yes, meaning that you do not see all the guilt by association that dominates the piece. As my last post demonstrated, it is pervasive throughout his argument.
As I said, if you read the first two paragraphs, you'll understand the relevent aspects and the thrust of Frum's piece.
No you won't. Not until, at minimum, paragraph four does it become clear. The first two paragraphs simply make anonymous characterizations about certain conservatives. He does not specify who they are until paragraph four, and after that he devotes the entire article to smearing them.
You've decided to turn this into something it is not.
To the contrary. You seem to prefer that giving attention to only those first two paragraphs and ignoring the much more underhanded content of the rest of it.
I can't dig up something that doesn't exist, and you can't come up with any good links That's the proof.
This oughta start you off http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a2993855096.htm
Almost 3 years ago and you posted only ten posts to it. Not exactly on a par with any of the Civil War threads you post on. LOL
By the way, I don't think that the posters here appreciate bringing your flame war to this thread.
However there's a converse to that as well. The people need to be educated to what role the government is supposed to hold in a Constitutional Republic, especially under our Constitution, and the part that the morality that so long ago left us holds as well. That means allowing the respective states to have morality clauses, as they did at the time of the signing of the Constitution. Considering that people like Frumfrum are going to call those actions racist, hateful, and every name under the sun, I really don't see which way there is.
The government will gain more power and the Republican party (the old Democrat/Anti-Federalist party) will continue to move further left until one can't tell a difference between the two parties. A third or fourth party is going to have to come to the forefront. While I don't necessarily agree with all the aspects of the Libertarian party, I consider myself more of a Constitutionalist (and the spirit under which it was written) moreso than anything
Again, Frum lays out factual information that can not be denied. One quick example, to specifically offset an allegation you made. It is well known, that Joe Sobran, Pat Buchanan and Bob Novak are not pro-Israel, don't support Israel and have never been defenders of the Israeli people. I don't consider Novak to be an anti Semite, but Buchanan brushes up against anti-Semitism now and then, and Joe Sobran is an anti-Semite, IMO. Frum's entitled to his opinion. As for labeling people with individualized set of political standards, big deal. We all do it. The fact Frum lumps these conservatives together, labeling them "antiwar conservatives", should come as no surprise to anyone. All of the parties mentioned have that fact in common. They're all against the war with Iraq! LOL
Look, I'm no fan of David Frum, but you obviosuly don't like the man. Okay fine.
Have it your way.
I've already demonstrated the pervasiveness of Frum's use of that tactic in the article, to which you have not responded. How can you deny its presence?
I believe truth dominates the piece
Insofar as he correctly pings American Renaissancer fringe types as anti-semites, the piece is truthful. But Frum takes liberties well beyond that, and among them is his lumping of mainstream conservatives such as Novak in with the American Rennaissancer fringe and tarring them all at once with the label of anti-semitism. That is an intellectually dishonest tactic and his use of it overshadows the presence of smaller items of truth in the piece.
and as with Bob Novak, that truth seems to have you very upset.
Rather than responding to arguments, you are appealing to motives that you know not when you make suggestions such as that.
Needless to say, no effort on your part will convince me otherwise.
At least you are honest about your mind having been made up.
You take certain well known truths, twist them using a form of convoluted reasoning
If that is the case, they surely you can demonstrate how it is so, as the last time I checked, you have yet to respond to my detailed outlining of Frum's tactic.
--- in this case, an over dramatized version of guilt by association
Calling it overdramatized does not make it so. I have stated and will continue to state that guilt-by-association is the central argument of Frum's piece. I have also made my case as to why I believe this is so by quoting Frum's piece extensively and demonstrating where it occurs. To date, you have not responded to that demonstration in any substantial way. Therefore you have no basis on which to characterize it as overdramatized.
Guilt by association isn't driving this article.
If that is so, the tactic would not be present in Frum's writings. I believe that it is present and have, to the best of my ability, backed my belief with extensive quotations to demonstrate that it is not only present but pervasive in the piece. Thus far you have not responded to it in any substantial way.
Again, Frum lays out factual information that can not be denied.
With regards to some of the people mentioned in that article, that is certainly so. What facts he does lay out are quickly overshadowed though by his extensive and pervasive use of a dishonest guilt-by-association smear tactic.
One quick example, to specifically offset an allegation you made. It is well known, that Joe Sobran, Pat Buchanan and Bob Novak are not pro-Israel, don't support Israel and have never been defenders of the Israeli people.
Indeed it is. And while I disagree with those three on that issue, I cannot dispute their right to hold beliefs other than mine as to how we should conduct our foreign policy with Israel. The same cannot be said of Frum, who, as his article evidences, cannot bring himself to tolerate an opinion other than his own on Israel without throwing out the leftist race card of anti-semitism and attempting to implicate respectable people in it by fabricating a link between them, the American Renaissancer fringe nuts, and an anonymous neo-nazi emailer.
I don't consider Novak to be an anti Semite, but Buchanan brushes up against anti-Semitism now and then, and Joe Sobran is an anti-Semite, IMO.
You are entitled to that opinion and, if you can support it, state it to your hearts content. That does not, however, give you a right to fabricate ties between Novak and known and blatant anti-semites from a fringe nutcase organization. That is exactly what Frum did when he lumped Novak and others in with the American Renaissancer crowd and attacked them all as one in the same.
Frum's entitled to his opinion.
Yes he is, but, as I just noted, he is not entitled to make gratuitous attacks and intellectually fraudulent smears on other individuals without expecting to be rightly smacked in return.
As for labeling people with individualized set of political standards, big deal. We all do it. The fact Frum lumps these conservatives together, labeling them "antiwar conservatives", should come as no surprise to anyone. All of the parties mentioned have that fact in common.
You are arguing against a straw man. Frum noted them to be anti-war conservatives, but the label he attached to them was "paleoconservative" or "paleo." He then proceded to make a seconf association of that label of "paleo" with anti-semitism, thus permitting him to smear the persons he named as anti-semitic.
Look, I'm no fan of David Frum, but you obviosuly don't like the man.
You are correct at that. And I say that even though Frum's politics on Israel and the mohammedan world are likely fairly close to my own. I find Frum's writings to be adolescent, self-absorbed, and in this case offensively dishonest. David Keene and other conservatives who probably agree with both myself and Frum on the war and Israel have reached the same conclusion about his writings. That in itself speaks volumes. When people who agree with Frum on a certain issue nevertheless express disgust with his treatment of people who disagree with us on that same issue, it suggests that there's a problem with the way he handles himself.
Since you didn't get the point in my last reply, I'll try again. You haven't demonstrated, nor have you convinced me, that David Frum was using guilt by association to wrongly attack this group of antiwar conservatives. You've offered no significant facts to support your contentions. Frum made a solid effort and gave extensive factual accounts to show that these men have very similar political ideologies.
I've followed Pat Buchanan and Bob Novak for over thirty years. Always thought they both presented the conservative side in a fair manner. However, Novak's public demeaner has changed drastically over the last several years and Buchanan made a first class fool of himself by leaving the GOP. Neither man's public behavior has served him well of late.
>>> ... surely you can demonstrate how it is so, as the last time I checked, you have yet to respond to my detailed outlining of Frum's tactic.
I can't demonstrate something that never existed. Frum employed no "tactic", as you say, he simply wrote a solid political essay. You want me to say, you're right and Frum is wrong. That ain't gonna happen. It would be a lie and I'm not into fabricating untruths to please anyone.
As I've already said, these men have much in common on a political level. Guilt by association remains a weak argument on your part. There has been no "smear tactic", "gratuitous attacks", and "intellectually fraudulent smears" by Frum on anyone. You just don't get it. Frum spoke the truth. Again, if Frum wants to use the label "paleo" to get his point across there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. By all accounts, Bob Novak, Pat Buchanan and Joe Sobran are all paleo conservatives.
You don't hide your dislike for David Frum and the closing paragraph of your last reply, says it all. The man has a talent with words and in this specific piece, Frum speaks the truth. I've got to say it again. Sometimes the truth hurts. This is a perfect case of the truth upsetting both you and Novak. It doesn't help your case by denying that obvious fact.
Btw, you never laid a glove on Frum. If it makes you happy, keep trying.
Seeing as you have refused to address my breakdown of Frum's essay, I do not see how you can legitimately make that claim.
Since you didn't get the point in my last reply, I'll try again. You haven't demonstrated, nor have you convinced me, that David Frum was using guilt by association to wrongly attack this group of antiwar conservatives.
And since you evidently did not read my previous post, I'll note that I did indeed demonstrate in an extensively quoted breakdown of the article that Frum was using guilt-by-association in post #27. You have yet to address or even acknowledge that post's contents. As for not convincing you, I do not see how you can legitimately cite me for that considering that you yourself stated in post #47 "Needless to say, no effort on your part will convince me otherwise."
You've offered no significant facts to support your contentions.
That is simply not so. I quoted Frum's article extensively to demonstrate my point back in #27. You are free to continue ignoring that post, but lying about it not being there will not make it go away.
As I've already said, these men have much in common on a political level. Guilt by association remains a weak argument on your part. There has been no "smear tactic", "gratuitous attacks", and "intellectually fraudulent smears" by Frum on anyone. You just don't get it. Frum spoke the truth.
You may shout all that in repetition to your heart's content, but it no more makes it correct than flapping your arms will make you fly. The fact is, Frum DID use guilt by association as the central feature of his essay. It is pervasive throughout the essay, as I demonstrated by quoting him back in post #27. It is also a matter of fact that, by using guilt by associations at the heart of his essay, Frum engaged in an intellectually dishonest and argumentatively weak form of attack.
Again, if Frum wants to use the label "paleo" to get his point across there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
There is when he uses it to describe people who are not "paleos," or when he uses it to paint people with racism based on the anti-semitic quotes of a few fringer extremists. Frum did both of those things and you could see it quoted in post #27 if you were honest enough to open your eyes for a moment.
By all accounts, Bob Novak, Pat Buchanan and Joe Sobran are all paleo conservatives.
I'm sure that would come as news to Bob Novak! It would probably come as news as well to several from the Lew Rockwell crowd who were also labelled "paleos" even though they are, by their own admission, libertarians.
You don't hide your dislike for David Frum
You are correct about that! I find him to be an intellectually weak and self-absorbed writer. This latest charade only demonstrates it further.
The man has a talent with words
He's penned a single soundbyte that any one of us could have dreamed up. It worked as a soundbyte and was a good soundbyte at that. But it was still a soundbyte and his contribution to writing it no more makes him a Shakespeare than this thread makes you or me a Chaucer.
Frum speaks the truth. I've got to say it again.
Since convincing yourself of his truthfulness in the face of all factual evidence seems to be your game, I suppose you do have to keep telling yourself that.
Btw, you never laid a glove on Frum.
You keep telling yourself that. In the meantime, the arguments you refuse to even read indicate beyond dispute that Frum's smear piece is an intellectually fraudulent waste of paper. You are perfectly free to live in a deluded reality where up is down and black is white, and for all I care you can preserve that reality for yourself by reaffirming its "existence" by repetition of statements such as that. But back here in the real world, Frum has been torn apart by honest conservatives of all types and will continue to be torn apart by honest conservatives of all types. He will continue to be torn apart because his arguments ingulge in fraud.
Your tit for tat debating style is over the top and boring. And your ignorance of American politcs is asounding.
Carry on.
"Needless to say, no effort on your part will convince me otherwise."
Until then, STFU!
No you won't. You've already stated that you are impervious to any ammount of fact that shows you or Frum to be in the wrong:
"Needless to say, no effort on your part will convince me otherwise."
Intellectually dishonest + unchecked emotions = liberal
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