The Ideological War Within the West

Watch on the West: A Newsletter of FPRI's Center for the Study of America and the West ^ | 6 May 2002 | John Fonte

[FreedomPoster]

Thanks. I do believe this is a worthwhile thread to bump. One of the more worthwhile originating posts I've made on FR.

[rdb3]

I do believe this is a worthwhile thread to bump.

Fa sho! ("For sure" for those in Rio Linda!)

;-)

[Godebert]

bump--------/\.........

[rdf]

noch ein "bump"

[Kerberos]

One of the best articles I have seen for why we should get the H*ll out of the UN.

[FreedomPoster]

Shameless early morning bump. And yes, it is just more ammo for why we should boot the UN. Not that we didn't already have more than enough reasons. This piece clearly defines the ideological battlefield, and makes it very clear on which side the UN sits.

[tictoc]

For the longest time, I kept hearing Huey Lewis sing "Hit the B Square".

At FreeRepublic it's Hip to Be Square :-)

[Hobsonphile]

The EU is a large supranational macro-organization that embodies transnational progressivism. Its governmental structure is post-democratic. Power in the EU principally resides in the European Commission (EC) and to a lesser extent the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The EC, the EU's executive body, initiates legislative action, implements common policy, and controls a large bureaucracy. It is composed of a rotating presidency and nineteen commissioners chosen by the member-states and approved by the European Parliament. It is unelected and, for the most part, unaccountable.

Leaping to mind now is the memory of a group of protesters in DC shouting at me and my American flag about the "unelected president." Interesting, really, that leftists are only concerned about accountability when the public figure involved is Republican.

[DaveCooper]

BTTT.

Also available at FrontPageMag.

[FreedomPoster]

Here's a great new post that shows a practical example of the idoelogical theory presented in this article:

The Community Character Act (S.975) = Ripping Apart a Nation In the Back Room

[tictoc]

Bumpity bump

[beckett]

Bump for an article that deserves wide attention on FR.

[FreedomPoster]

Bump back. As I said at the beginning, it's a longish, somewhat tough slog, but well worth it. This guy nails it, and fporetto's and x's commentaries are well worth it, as well.

[beckett]

The "liberal democrats" or "Liberal Democrats" of the 20th and 21st century have left such ideas behind them already.

I think Fonte's point is that the term "liberal democrat" no longer applies to those who claim it in U.S. politics. They are more accurately called "transnational progressives." It was FDR and the New Dealers who slyly and deceptively appropriated the term "liberal." Their ideological trans- and supra-national progeny should be stripped of it.

[beckett]

Very nice essay. Like you, I am constantly baffled and disappointed by "[the] unwillingness [of those] who have nothing to account for by any objective standard [to] defend themselves...even when [the general public doesn't] have any sympathy for their attackers' values."

We need to see more defenders of property rights speak plainly and unashamedly about the convictions that motivate them.

[beckett]

If you want to read a real long but really engrossing piece, written at least a full year before 911, which is fascinating in its prescience and which also hits on some of the same themes mentioned above, check this one out.

And here is a post-911 piece by Robert Kagan, Power and Weakness, that should not be missed by anyone thinking seriously about the present balance of power in the West, and, consequently, the balance of power around the world.

And lastly, here is a lecture by Francis Fukuyama, Has History Restarted Since Sept 11?, which comments on Kagan's article in some interesting ways.

[Lancey Howard]

Excellent find.
John Fonte is an amazing thinker and a very good writer.
This piece blew me away. It is not a happy essay.

[Lancey Howard]

To protect our rights will involve regenerating our understanding of them: whence they emerge, their scope and application, and their implications for our treatment of one another when we find ourselves in disagreement. Isabel Paterson believed that this could be done by encouraging students to approach the Constitution as an engineering plan, a blueprint that emerged from the Framers' understanding of the fundamentals of freedom and the stresses and strains a diverse, often fractious people would undergo.

You see the problem here.
The National Education Association is at least as dangerous as any NGO, and is sister-in-arms with the America-hating, multiculturalist NGOs named in Fonte's piece. Heck, the NEA is practically the spearhead.

[FreedomPoster]

Heck, the NEA is practically the spearhead.

The was a cover article on the NEA some years ago in Forbes; you could probably find it in a Lexis-Nexis search. It was titled something like "The most dangerous organization in America."

The aspect of contemporary life that gives me hope in this area is the increasing number of home-schooled and privately-schooled kids. These people will have an influence on their generation well out of proportion to their numbers, and give me hope for the future.

You are right, though. It is not a happy piece. As I said when I originally posted this, know thine enemy.