The Blue Beast...

Jim Geraghty, History Is Calling, but the Phone Keeps Ringing at 3 a.m.:

...It's not sustainable. Of course, as I said earlier this month, "unsustainable is the new normal." We're having a reckoning, but President Obama isn't all that interested in it; he wants to believe that a full, thriving economic recovery, along with rejuvenated tax revenues, is just around the corner.

I'm willing to bet that Walter Russell Mead's grocery list is full of fascinating historical allusions, but he's hit some similar notes in a few lengthy posts about what he calls "the blue beast" — a social model that defined our country for much of the last century, based upon large, stable entities — unionized oligarchies, big corporations, an ever-growing civil service, lifetime employment, etc. But that era has come to an end, and much of our political debate in the past decades is about trying to artificially extend the lifespan of the blue system by taking from the non-blue parts, or moving on to some other way of doing things:

Democratic policy is increasingly limited to one goal: feeding the blue beast. The great public-service providing institutions of our society — schools, universities, the health system, and above all government at municipal, state and federal levels — are built blue and think blue. The Democratic wing of the Democratic Party thinks its job is to make them bigger and keep them blue. Bringing the long green to Big Blue: that's what it's all about...

(There's more. I recommend reading it.)

"Based upon large, stable entities." That was the model of the Industrial Age. The reason was to have an organization that could transmit information reliably. Industrial Age organizations all worked vertically. Information was gathered at the bottom, and passed to the next layer to be organized and consolidated into reports, which were then passed up to the next layer. The retail level reported to the district, which reported to the region, which reported to headquarters, which reported to the top brass. Then instructions went back in the other direction.

In the old days the people on the sales floor might discover something important. Perhaps "Housewives are bored with pastels this Spring; they are asking for bright solid colors." But it could take a month for the news to pass up the levels. And then months for instructions to be pondered and then passed down to buyers and designers and the advertising agency. And months more before that resulted in finished goods and ads.

Today the top brass may be scanning blogs and forums, and noticing the new trends quickly. Designers can send CAD files to factories, which may be able to shift production immediately. And the factory can be anywhere. The designer might be in San Francisco, the ad agency in London, the factory in Indonesia. UPS might contract for warehousing and fulfillment. And if the company is a lively one, every part of it will be able to simply vibrate with the moods of the market, and change instantaneously if needed.

But that's only where competition forces people to move quickly. Few of us act that way naturally. In the public and quasi-public sectors of our world the Industrial Age model still prevails. And as the pubic sector has become cut-off from the spirit of the age, it has become cancerous. [link]

If you are aware of these changes you start to see them everywhere. For instance in the way David Brooks or Peggy Noonan whine about the loss of respect for elites and grand old institutions. But the "blue-blood establishment" of old was just another of those "large, stable entities." It was like GM, but the product was not cars, it was the "top brass." Its product, in the form of Ivy League grads, could be slotted into leadership positions in government, or industry, or the academy, or the press, or the "mainline" churches. Even unions! Those were all among the "large, stable entities" of the Industrial Age, and their leadership style was much the same.

One of the biggest problems of our age is to somehow transform all the public and quasi-public institutions into Information Age organizations.

Bar Area conservatives... hello?

Charlene and I have already RSVP'd to attend this meeting, described by Bookworm:

Are Bay Area conservatives willing to emerge from their seclusion? Bay Area Patriots ("BAP") certainly hopes so. On Sunday, March 7, 2010, in Mill Valley, California, BAP is hosting a Conservative Groupa-Palooza that BAP hopes will be the largest gathering to date of that beleaguered species: the San Francisco Bay Area conservative. BAP encourages conservative groups and individuals to attend. You can learn more about it and RSVP (for a pretty nominal fee) here.

I have a few predictions:

1. The Groupa-Palooza will be well attended.

2. The conservatives in attendance will achieve something approaching euphoria simply because they can be open about their political views.

3. There will be fringe, crackpot groups attending, such as Ron Paulians, just to name one of the less savory groups that self-affiliates with the conservative party. There will also be some Birthers who haven't yet acknowledged that the birth certificate ship has already sailed.

4. No matter how small the percentage of fringe groups in attendance, those are the only groups that will get media attention....

Meaningful lives...

Jay Nordlinger has a good quote from a reader...

Way back in the '70s, Ralph Nader gave a speech to students at my university in which he urged us not to go to work in corporate America after graduation because doing so would serve only to "make AT&T a little bit bigger." Instead, he challenged us to do something "more meaningful" with our lives.

I was all ready to sign up for the Peace Corps when it occurred to me that AT&T employees were doing more than just making their company a bit bigger. They were enriching lives by enabling loved ones to talk to one another. They were creating wealth by providing a fast and inexpensive way to transmit information. They were saving lives by enabling people to call fire departments and hospitals.

It then occurred to me that if all of AT&T's employees were marooned on a desert island, people throughout the world would be hurt. On the other hand, if all of the world's consumer advocates were marooned...

"Life is full of things which don't lend themselves to precise definition"

Macklin Horton has a very good piece on what conservatism is, Catholic and Conservative (1):

...My opponents in the disagreement documented above seem to believe that it [conservatism] is, or at least intends to be, a systematic philosophy, which makes it a rival to the Church, which in turn makes a Catholic who is also a conservative less than fully faithful to the Church because, as we all know, a man cannot serve two masters. They also insist that it fails as a system, because it is full of contradictions and inconsistencies; it is not only a rival to the Church, but an incoherent one.

I have to say that the attempt to respond to this complaint reminded me of arguing with objectivists, in that in both cases there is an insistence that certain terms must be defined with absolute precision or be dismissed as meaningless. The statement that the word "conservative" does not have a very precise meaning is taken as an admission that it has no meaning at all.

But life is full of things which don't lend themselves to precise definition, but yet exist, thereby making meaningful the words by which they are named. There are many such terms in the arts. Terms like "romantic" and "classical" cannot be defined in such a way that as to remove all doubt about whether or not any given work belongs to one of those categories, and there are others that are even more slippery—post-romantic, neo-classical, jazz. There are very few, if any, artists or individual works of art which fit perfectly into any of these categories, or which does not contain elements of both. Yet we continue to use these words because they serve a purpose in describing broad tendencies. If a critic describes one pianist's playing as more romantic than another's, everyone knows what he means; no one shouts Define your terms! And if he did, he would be laughed at, and deserve to be.

In answering the question "what sort of thing is conservatism?" these aesthetic terms provide the most useful analogy I've been able to come up with. Like them, the word "conservative" is more descriptive than prescriptive (as conservatives often note). Like them, it does not begin with a set of abstract principles. Like them, it is more understandable as a product of temperament and attitudes than as a book of rules. As Russell Kirk insisted, it is not an ideology, but rather the negation of ideology. It is a concrete human phenomenon, not an invented system. It has no necessary metaphysic, and one may be a conservative and an atheist, or a conservative and a Catholic. It is a loose alliance of people with broadly similar views about the management of worldly affairs....

A smidgeon of history...

Democrats' Bush-bashing strategy goes bust - Jonathan Martin - POLITICO.com:

...Running as much against the Bush White House as he was running against Sen. John McCain, Barack Obama easily carried Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts in 2008.

Yet when Democratic nominees for governor in Virginia and New Jersey and for Senate in Massachusetts sought to tie their GOP opponents to the still-unpopular former president, the strategy didn't resonate. Voters were more focused on the current administration or local political issues — and the onetime Democratic magic formula seemed yesterday's news.

"Voters are pretty tired of the blame game," said longtime Democratic strategist Steve Hildebrand, a top aide on Obama's presidential campaign. "What a stupid strategy that was."

Howard Wolfson, a senior official on Hillary Clinton's campaign and veteran Democratic communications guru, noted that his party was able to run against Republican Herbert Hoover's Depression-era presidency for 30 years....

SO, what happened 30 years after Hoover? Hmmm? Well, Conscience of a Conservative was published in 1960, and became a huge best-seller. The book was by Barry Goldwater, but actually ghostwritten by L. Brent Bozell Jr., brother-in-law of William F. Buckley. That was the moment that conservative thought began to nudge its way into the public consciosnous.

It's hard to imagine now how un-idea-ed the Republicans were in the first half of the 20th Century. I was raised by intelligent parents who read books and were conservative Republicans. They travelled, knew lots of interesting people, and ran a business that employed scores of people. We went to the library in a neighboring town because ours was not large enough. (Still odd to me was that my folks had little interest in owning books. It may have been a Depression Era thing, or because there were few bookstores around. None really; just the book sections of department stores.)

Yet the idea of reading conservative intellectuals was not something I even imagined until the 1970's.

Rights come from Big Brother...

One reason among many why the Massachusetts Senate race is important...

Kathryn Jean Lopez, It's a Good Thing for Martha Coakley That There Are No Catholics in Massachusetts:

During an interview today, Martha Coakley was asked about the conscience issue Catholic medical personnel encounter when it comes to a law that mandates the distribution of  emergency contraception, which sometimes works as an abortifacient. (I wrote about the details of this issue as pertain to Scott Brown and Massachusetts and Martha Coakley's misrepresentation of all of this here.)

Coakley explained that this should not be a problem because "we have a separation of church and state." "Let's be clear," the attorney general added.

The radio host, Ken Pittman, pointed out that complex legal principle that "In the emergency room you still have your religious freedom."

Coakley agrees that "The law says that people are allowed to have that." But, making clear her view — the attorney general who wants to be the next senator from Massachusetts — she declared that "You can have religious freedom, but you probably shouldn't work in an emergency room....

"The law says that people are allowed to have that." In other words, rights are given to us by the government. If you change the law, you change our "rights." I'd guess the majority of Leftists believe exactly that. Coakly doesn't seem like a person who actually thinks about such things, or even is capable of so doing; I'm sure she's just absorbed it from the kultursmog.

I assert that rights exist, not only regardless of government, but regardless of the existance of humankind. They are part of the moral law which is embedded in the fabric of the universe. They are implicit in our being made in the "image of God."

"a rabbi, a priest, and a toff walked into a bar..."

This is pretty funny, American Thinker: NYT & David Brooks: Intellectuals R Us:

...So Brooks starts the New Year with anger, upset that Americans are digging in their heels -- that the ruled class does "not have faith" in its superiors, "the political class generally." And when he's upset, he gets analytical. His insight for Times readers: You have all these "fringe" people, those not belonging to the "educated class" "from states like Indiana who feel that they are fighting against a bunch of rich toffs ..."

"Toffs"? "Frissons"? "Toffs"?!

In Brooksworld, in Timesworld, in a world where "hockey players like ice" is a Pulitzer-worthy insight, people may refer to "toffs," which is British for a member of the wealthy elite. But in "mediocre" -- his word -- America, very few jokes start with "a rabbi, a priest, and a toff walked into a bar..."

Brooks is upset, and when he is upset, he talks "toff." The "educated class" must stop these very average Americans who are pulling the nation in an "angry direction." Otherwise, they may throw out the most educated and enlightened leadership the nation has ever had.

Brooks asks, in a mixture of anger and wonder, What is happening to our "educated class"?

And we the people answer: Simple -- you're in for some toff times.

So hands off our frissons....

Cunctando regitur mundus...

This is just something I fudged up for a friend...

I don't know who made the Palin/Reagan picture, it's just something I found on the web. So I can't give them credit...

And the "kick your ass" motto has apparently actually been used on Kern County Sheriffs cars... Here's a link to a photo. (Charlene grew up in Bakersfield, so it's kind of an in-joke with us.)

Update: By the way, if you feel like doing something that might make a difference, donate to Scott Brown today...

Classiest of the lawyers...

The Weidners are fans of John Yoo. [Link] Charlene's heard him speak at Federalist Society meetings, and she says this interview is just like he is in person! Totally smart, in the same understated dead-pan-funny way.

Questions for John Yoo - NYTimes.com. I wonder if the reporter has really grasped how completely outclassed she is here...

Your new book, "Crisis and Command," is an eloquent, fact-laden history of audacious power grabs by American presidents going back to George Washington. Which president would you say most violated laws enacted by Congress?

I would say Lincoln. He sent the Army into offensive operations to try to stop the South from seceding. He didn't call Congress into special session until July 4, 1861, well after this had all happened. He basically acted on his own for three months.

Are you implicitly comparing the Civil War with the war in Iraq, in order to justify President Bush's expansion of executive power?

The idea is that the president's power grows and changes based on circumstances, and that's what the framers of the Constitution wanted. They wanted it to exist so the president could react to crises immediately.

Do you regret writing the so-called torture memos, which claimed that President Bush was legally entitled to ignore laws prohibiting torture?

No, I had to write them. It was my job. As a lawyer, I had a client. The client needed a legal question answered.

When you say you had "a client," do you mean President Bush?

Yes, I mean the president, but also the U.S. government as a whole....

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Lincoln of course trampled the hell out of "civil liberties," and quite properly so. [Link, link] It needed to be done, and he did it.

And speaking of Lincoln, this is a slam bang story. And this too.

And here's my favorite (for oddness) Civil War image. Colonels Kit Carson and Lafayette Baker! Baker did a lot of Lincoln's dirty work, such as kidnapping and imprisoning suspected Confederate agents in the then equivalent of Gitmo, Old Capitol Prison. Popularly known as "Baker's Bastille." [Link]

Awesomely awesome, if true!

My opinion of Canadians is not terribly high. I suspect that the men of Vimy are gone for good. But this piece is at least a small counter-indicator... Jonathan Kay on the triumph of conservative values in Canada: This is how we got our country back:

...It's odd being a Canadian conservative these days. Because the Liberals were in power for so long, and because Stephen Harper still doesn't have a majority, we spend our days in silent fear that all the Tories' reforms comprise a kind of mirage - that we'll wake up tomorrow with the Liberals back to power, and everything reversed in an instant. Most of us haven't allowed ourselves to sit back and appreciate the very real changes that have taken place since Jean Chrétien left the stage.

My big idea as the decade comes to an end ... well, it's more of a commendation: Take a bow, Canadian conservatives. You got your country back.

The roll of honour starts, of course, with Stephen Harper. I wrote a column five years ago arguing that Harper was too cranky to lead Canada's conservative movement. (Scott Brison, I argued in a separate piece, was the man for the job. This explains why I don't write about politics much.) Which is to say, I massively underestimated our current prime minister — just as everyone else did.

We can argue all day about the extent of Harper's fidelity to small-c conservative values. But overall, he provided the conservative movement with something absolutely indispensable: ruthless professionalism. Without that, nothing else matters. As the Reform Party demonstrated, voters can smell amateurism.

The supporting-actor award goes to Jason Kenney. If you told me 10 years ago that a religious, unapologetic, hardcore conservative like our current Citizenship Minister would have a prominent role in government, I wouldn't have believed you. But there he is, doing his thing. And in today's Canada, he gets away with it.

Last month, Kenney released a new citizenship guide for immigrants — a document that symbolizes, more than anything else, how much Ottawa has changed over the last decade. It contained this line: "Canada's openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, 'honour killings,' female genital mutilation or other gender-based violence. Those guilty of these crimes are severely punished under Canada's criminal laws."...

"American blood is not worth more than the blood of others..."

The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity.
-- President George W Bush, 2004

The Most Neo-Con Movie Ever Made - Forbes.com:

...James Cameron's new sci-fi film Avatar is exhilarating fun in the darkest days at the end of a depressing year, but it also says quite a lot, in an inchoate, American way, about the cultural moment. You should see it especially if you are "right of center" or conservative. Forget the sneering reviews--this is the most neo-con movie of 2009, or perhaps ever, because it illustrates, rather than argues, the point we neo-cons made in Iraq: that American blood is not worth more than the blood of others, and that others' freedom is not worth less than American freedom.

How universal are the values we Americans cherish? Avatar says they are completely universal--extending to another planet called Pandora. What is the responsibility of an American and how far does it reach? Avatar says, again, across the universe. Are we all brothers and sisters under the skin? Avatar answers yes, in the most concrete way, when protagonist Jake Sully decides to enter his Na'vi body permanently and stay on Pandora rather than returning to Earth...

I think there's a lot of truth in this. On the surface of course it is full of horrid wicked ideas. Pantheism, obviously, which is a spiritual toxin. Fluff-brained Hollywood Rousseauism (the movie's a sort of Pocahontus with blue redskins), anti-Americanism, blah blah blah...

But it may be, that, on a deeper level, it says something quite the opposite. A rebuke to the fake-liberals and fake-pacifists who think that Arabs and Afghans and Iranians are just sand-niggers who are incapable of enjoying freedom and democracy, and should be left under the heels of tyrants, so the rest of us need not be bothered with them. (Or worse, with the idea that there's anything worth fighting for.)

...Like the election of a black man as president of the United States, and like its great precursor Bladerunner, Avatar presents a physical answer to a philosophical question. Barack Obama's election was seen by many, both Democrat and Republican, as a way of bringing the American conflict over race to an end. (Of course it couldn't do this, no matter what you think of Obama--and I think very little.) Bladerunner was an attempt to cover some of the same ground, asking who is human in the context of an "ersatz" race hounded by bounty hunters...

....Avatar is actually both pro- and anti-military, but in an insider's way. Even the scenes that raise some reviewers' hackles as the most gooey, where the Na'vi gather in circles around a sacred tree and plug their braids into its roots, read to me as a metaphor for the networked military. Speaking of which, Avatar gets the look and mood of military environments just right. Everything from the unapologetically claustrophobic space travel and Avatar-driving pods to the laconically witty banter rings true to what I've seen on five embeds in Afghanistan and various bases here....

I've written off Canada, but there's hope for Australia...

Adam Brickley, at the Weekly Standard Blog...

It turns out that insurgent, populist Conservatives are scoring victories Down Under as well as in America -- and Tea Partiers and Palinistas here in the States would do well to watch conservative Aussie leader Tony Abbott very closely.

Abbott became leader of the right-wing Liberal party two weeks ago after the party's parliamentary representatives turfed ex-leader Malcolm Turnbull in the wake of Climategate. Turnbull had announced that the party would support Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's cap-and-trade legislation, causing a rebellion in his caucus, and he was tossed in favor of Abbott -- a right winger and climate change skeptic.

The media labeled Abbott's elevation a disaster. After all, they said, the public was fully behind Rudd's climate schemes -- and a blunt-talking "extremist" like Abbott would force moderates out of the Liberal party and cause the vote to collapse. Turnbull supposedly proved them right by "going rogue," posting a blog that labelled Abbott's climate stands "bulls**t". He further declared that any future Liberal climate plan would be "a con."

Abbott's goose was cooked before he even found his feet.

Or was it? Polls last week showed that 23 percent of Australians think Abbott would be a better Prime Minister than Rudd -- 9 percent higher than Turnbull's dismal 14 percent showing the previous week -- and the Liberal party has picked up 4 percent in general election polls. Today, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports the Abbott is trying to reclaim the working-class voters who put Liberal John Howard in the Prime Minister's office and then deserted him to install Rudd -- and he has the message to do it....

"Totalitarian in the strict sense"

From a talk by Fr. Michael Sweeney, O.P., President of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Expressing the Good

...A second example: That everyone should have access to health care would seem to be –and is– a very good thing. However, we must keep in mind that universal health care is not a good, but an ideal. Therefore, there has been little discernment of why it is a good thing, and little clarity concerning what we are attempting to achieve. There is no consensus concerning what we might mean by "universal" (should the health of all children be included, even those of illegal immigrants?) and no consensus concerning what we might mean by "health" (does health involve access to abortion?).

The role of government is regarded as one that proposes new social possibilities –posits ideals– and therefore the government has the task of legislating the ends, along with the means to fulfilling the ends. Therefore there is an urgency that "universal" and "health" must not be too closely defined; they must have the character of an ideal that we are striving for, so that everyone remains free to insert his or her private notions, founded upon previous social constructions, of what that ideal might look like in realization.

I do not suggest that government is bent upon tyranny or that those who govern are not attempting to seek good things; I do suggest that, willy-nilly, this process is totalitarian in the strict sense, in that it must relativize the particular communities that were once subsidiary societies –families and churches, for example– in order to create consensus around an ideal. I do hold that a totalitarian state is one that admits of no subsidiary societies, and that a government that presumes to define what is a family is precisely totalitarian....

I think that the way Catholic opposition to the healthcare bills has focused on abortion is a grievous mistake. Abortion is just one particular outcome of the much deeper problem of letting government define and control ever-increasing amounts of what we do and what we are. Tomorrow abortion may go out of fashion, and government-controlled health-care may be implanting genes to make us more healthy and..... cooperative. Or the court may decide that our "right to privacy" lets us kill red-headed stepchildren. Or any number of helpful things, with "helpful" decided not by us, but by the the "helping bureaucracies." Or the popular fad of the moment.

I'd guess that if the Founding Fathers had dreamed that in the future people would be re-defining morality by whim, or re-defining who is human and who is not, they would have instantly and firmly enshrined in the Constitution traditional Judeo-Christian moral beliefs. All of them in fact just assumed that those beliefs would continue as part of normal culture, even if individuals did not have any Christian faith.

"Exchanging real for fake emotion"

I highly recommend a new piece by Roger Scruton in The American Spectator, Totalitarian Sentimentality:

...As the state takes charge of our needs, and relieves people of the burdens that should rightly be theirs -- the burdens that come from charity and neighborliness -- serious feeling retreats. In place of it comes an aggressive sentimentality that seeks to dominate the public square. I call this sentimentality "totalitarian" since -- like totalitarian government -- it seeks out opposition and carefully extinguishes it, in all the places where opposition might form. Its goal is to "solve" our social problems, by imposing burdens on responsible citizens, and lifting burdens from the "victims," who have a "right" to state support.

The result is to replace old social problems, which might have been relieved by private charity, with the new and intransigent problems fostered by the state: for example, mass illegitimacy, the decline of the indigenous birthrate, and the emergence of the gang culture among the fatherless youth. We have seen this everywhere in Europe, whose situation is made worse by the pressure of mass immigration, subsidized by the state. The citizens whose taxes pay for the flood of incoming "victims" cannot protest, since the sentimentalists have succeeded in passing "hate speech" laws and in inventing crimes like "Islamophobia" which place their actions beyond discussion. This is just one example of a legislative tendency that can be observed in every area of social life: family, school, sexual relations, social initiatives, even the military -- all are being deprived of their authority and brought under the control of the "soft power" that rules from above.

This is how we should understand the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama. To his credit he has made clear that he does not deserve it -- though I assume he deserves it every bit as much as Al Gore. The prize is an endorsement from the European elite, a sigh of collective relief that America has at last taken the decisive step toward the modern consensus, by exchanging real for fake emotion, hard power for soft power, and truth for lies. What matters in Europe is the great fiction that things will stay in place forever, that peace will be permanent and society stable, just so long as everybody is "nice." Under President Bush (who was, of course, no exemplary president, and certainly not nice) America maintained its old image, of national self-confidence and belligerent assertion of the right to be successful. Bush was the voice of a property-owning democracy, in which hard work and family values still achieved a public endorsement. As a result he was hated by the European elites, and hated all the more because Europe needs America and knows that, without America, it will die. Obama is welcomed as a savior: the American president for whom the Europeans have been hoping -- the one who will rescue them from the truth.

How America itself will respond to this, however, remains doubtful. I suspect, from my neighbors in rural Virginia, that totalitarian sentimentality has no great appeal to them, and that they will be prepared to resist a government that seeks to destroy their savings and their social capital, for the sake of a compassion that it does not really feel.

I'm not a big David Frum fan,

...But he's right on this

Obama Passed His Test, Now Republicans Face Ours:

...Having urged the president to honor his commitment to the Afghan war, we Republicans must honor our commitment to support him as he fights it. Given the public unenthusiasm for the conflict, there will be political temptations to "go rogue" on the president, if not now, then in the summer of 2010. That will be our test, for us to pass as the president has passed his. I know many Republicans and conservatives will say: "Hey — the Democrats did not give President Bush support when he most needed it." Correct. They didn't. And the country suffered for it. The right way to react to that dereliction of duty is not by emulating it, but by repudiating it. "For it before I was against it" has deservedly become an epithet for shameful wavering. Let's not inflict it upon ourselves.

Politics would not be politics if Republicans did not exact some price for their support. For sure Republican leaders are entitled to close consultation on war policy and the larger national security strategy — and to more attention and respect generally than they have received from this administration to date, and not only Senate leaders, but House leaders too.

At the same time, demanding an extortionate price for support is tantamount to withdrawing support....

There have been few more beastly things in the last decade than the way Leftists have referred to "Bush's War." Congress sent our forces into battle, and that makes the struggle America's war. And while constructive criticism is aways acceptable, no American has the right to stand aside and sneer as if the struggle has nothing to do with them. And no, you don't get off the hook by pretending to be a "pacifist" or a Quaker or a Buddhist or an "artist," or whatever trendy cover for nihilism is going around. Our troops are fighting for all of us, and they deserve warm-hearted support and love. Not ice-hearted sneers.

(And yes, I noted the Frumskyian snark about "going rogue." Stupid, since Governor Palin is obviously on the same wave-length as Frum on this. He should be a man and thank her.)

Thanks again, Sarah...

NRSC Won't Spend Money In Contested Primaries:

...On the heels of the NY-23 special House election, in which Conservative Party insurgent Doug Hoffman overtook moderate GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava, only to lose to Democrat Bill Owens, NRSC chairman John Cornyn (R-TX) has announced that the GOP's national Senate committee will not be spending money in contested primaries.

"There's no incentive for us to weigh in," Cornyn told ABC News. "We have to look at our resources."

This could have huge ramifications in the Florida Senate race, where moderate Gov. Charlie Crist has been endorsed by the NRSC, and faces the more conservative former state House Speaker Marco Rubio. Crist has already emerged as a new top target for the same right-wing activists who went after Scozzafava....

Us "right-wing activists" just want to have a fair debate. The NRSC has no business "anointing" candidates, and giving them our money. The purpose of primaries is to let the people decide. Of course it makes short-term tactical sense to agree on a candidate without the bloodshed of a primary battle. But in the long run it's a mistake, and leads to the Scozzafava Effect....

Life rarely arranges such pellucid political object lessons..

Dr. Weevil, on DeDe Scozzafava endorsing the Dem...

... Now that she's withdrawn and endorsed the Democratic candidate, can the Republican Party ask for their $900,000 back? Can individuals who contributed to her under the impression that she was a Republican ask for their money back?...

My opinion is that 900k is dirt cheap for a show-and-tell like this. Right now millions of Americans are feeling like the tongue-tied person who finally finds the needed word or phrase.

Maybe: Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.

Conventional Wisdom self-destructs...

Jonah Goldberg:

I'm writing about this for my USA Today column, but the Frank Rich hissy fit is a perfect example of the real story of the election. The story is not that the GOP is self-destructing, it is that the conventional wisdom is being shown to be ludicrous. For some time now Frank Rich, Sam Tanenhaus and countless others (including David Frum) have been arguing that the GOP is a rump party and the only way for it to survive is for it to embrace me-too Republicanism of one flavor or another.

The story of all three major races (VA, NJ, and NY-23) is that this conventional wisdom was incandescently wrong and ill-advised. Hoffman and McDonnell owe their success to the support of independents (the independents all of these people said wanted moderate, Democrat-lite policies) and to Republicans determined to stay true to conservative principles. Not only was the conventional wisdom wrong, the idea that there's a "civil war" with the GOP revolving around this argument is nonsense. The GOP is an unapologetically conservative party, providing a choice not an echo, and — horror of horrors — it's working.

My own belief is that the Republican and conservative revolution that began with Goldwater and Reagan is far from running out of steam. One problem is that being conservative (or orthodox Christian or Jewish) is that in our culture you have to swim against the current all the time. You have to be counter-cultural. And most people just don't have the energy for that. So things go in fits and starts, with lots of slipping backwards.

I'm starting to like this guy Latimer...

Matt Latimer, Running Away From Rush — The Daily Beast:

...Time and again during the Bush administration, folks on talk radio warned the White House and Congress about grassroots discontent over a divisive immigration bill, would-be Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, and the administration's spending sprees. GOP leaders didn't listen. They should have. Conservatives abandoned the party in droves. (Of course, there are limits to talk radio's influence on the grassroots. Just last year, Rush advised listeners that John McCain would be a disaster for the Republican Party if he was the nominee. He came just short of endorsing practically anyone else—Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, none of the above. Listeners decided differently. That didn't mean Rush was wrong.

As an eyewitness to the final days of the Bush administration, I can report with assurance that the absolutely last people the powers that be listened to were conservative activists on radio and TV. If Chief of Staff Josh Bolten happened to catch Rush or Laura, it likely was only on his way to finding NPR. And Condi Rice wouldn't take her marching orders from Glenn Beck if he renamed his program The Glenn and Condi Variety Hour and let her play piano concertos between segments. Meanwhile, talk radio's remaining White House hero, Vice President Dick Cheney, was all but gagged and tied to railroad tracks while Bolten, Rice, and others did their impersonations of Snidley Whiplash waiting for a train to arrive.

It is true that White House communicators, led by clever sorts such as Karl Rove, cared about their relationships with talk radio and cable news. But as the controllers, not the controlled. Like savvy publicists stuck pitching a mediocre movie, Team Rove furnished select talkers with extravagant perks (tickets to special events, invitations to exclusive dinners, close-hold meetings with the president) to get favorable reviews. When that didn't work, they'd use another old publicist trick of threatening to deny access to Bush, Cheney, or various other administration "stars."

Some of the more popular talkers, like Rush, were too powerful for them to intimidate. (Rush being our equivalent of Tom Hanks.) But the approach worked on others....

Succisa viresci...

Dr Zero, on Palin's endorsement of Hoffman, Rogue Stars Rising:

...It pains me to say this about Gingrich. He accomplished some amazing things, in the mid-90s. He's a smart man who has offered some interesting ideas, in his second life as a conservative intellectual. The problem is that Newt is a political tactician, and in the final stages of a losing war against collectivist ruin, the time has come to focus on grand strategy, rather than tactics. The second decade of this century will be an existential war for the American soul, not a police action.

Gingrich is always thinking about the tactics of the moment, trying to win on points that will never be awarded fairly. He spent far too much of his time as Speaker of the House shouting in vain for media referees to throw penalty flags that remained stuffed in their pockets. Meanwhile, the political battlefront has shifted into the fatal terrain of essential liberties and economic freedom. This is the time for courage, conviction, and bold action… not whining about "big tents," while pushing a product of the Pataki machine with a Margaret Sanger award dangling around her neck. A Republican party that embraces Scozzafava over Hoffman isn't a "tent." It's not even a lean-to.

The most urgent task for conservatives is building a logical, consistent vision to place before the voters. They're looking for a comprehensive explanation of why Democrat policies are wrong. They can see Obama's failures all around them, but in the absence of a compelling narrative from the opposition party, they're likely to conclude those failures were inevitable, and learn to accept them....

The Culture War is the only war. Everything else is just surface-froth generated by leviathans grappling in deep waters, where we can hardly perceive them......

"Political parties must stand for something."

Fascinatin' to me. Sarah Palin has endorsed Hoffman, for NY 23. Good move. [Link] I'm a moderately "big tent" guy myself, but this one's ridiculous. I get calls from the RNC asking for donations, and they sound like an organization that's, as who should say, conservative. If they are giving my money to Dede Scozzafava, that that's just a lie.

...Our nation is at a crossroads, and this is once again a "time for choosing."

The federal government borrows, spends, and prints too much money, while our national debt hits a record high. Government is growing while the private sector is shrinking, and unemployment is on the rise. Doug Hoffman is committed to ending the reckless spending in Washington, D.C. and the massive increase in the size and scope of the federal government. He is also fully committed to supporting our men and women in uniform as they seek to honorably complete their missions overseas.

And best of all, Doug Hoffman has not been anointed by any political machine.

Doug Hoffman stands for the principles that all Republicans should share: smaller government, lower taxes, strong national defense, and a commitment to individual liberty.

Political parties must stand for something. When Republicans were in the wilderness in the late 1970s, Ronald Reagan knew that the doctrine of "blurring the lines" between parties was not an appropriate way to win elections. Unfortunately, the Republican Party today has decided to choose a candidate that more than blurs the lines, and there is no real difference between the Democrat and the Republican in this race. This is why Doug Hoffman is running on the Conservative Party's ticket.

Republicans and conservatives around the country are sending an important message to the Republican establishment in their outstanding grassroots support for Doug Hoffman: no more politics as usual.

You can help Doug by visiting his official website below and joining me in supporting his campaign: http://www.doughoffmanforcongress.com/donate3.html

As Marc Steyn put it:

Newt really needs to re-think his support for Dede Scozzafava. This isn't RINO but DIABLO - Democrat In All But Label Only...

Sixties rubbish crashing and burning...

Andy McCarthy on the accusations of racism against Rush Limbaugh:

...In the 1970s, I went to a highly integrated, all-boys high school (Cardinal Hayes) in the Bronx. It was one of the best experiences in my life, and I had great friendships with all manner of guys, because from the first day they treated us like we were all "Hayesmen" — not white guys, black guys, Spanish guys, Chinese guys, etc. We were encouraged to see each other as peers, not tribesmen. Of course there was intra-group affinity along ethnic and racial lines — there always is. But there wasn't a lot of tension. There was some — again, there always is — but there was no special treatment and no pressure for enforced separateness. We laughed at each other's expense (ethnic and racial jokes were not cause for banishment from society back then) and competed on a level playing field of merit. Everyone was treated like he belonged, if you did something good it was yours, and if you screwed up it was on you, not your heritage.

That's how Rush treats people — in the Martin Luther King aspiration that the content of one's character is what matters, not the color of one's skin. Yet, in the media narrative, he's somehow the one who's got a race issue — and the guys who trade on race, live and breathe it 24/7, are held up as our public conscience. The Left calls this "progress." I call it perversion.

There's only one way this nonsense ever goes away: When we say "enough!" and tell the race-baiters their time is up. It's too much of an industry, so it probably won't happen tomorrow. But the Sixties ideal is crashing and burning before our very eyes, and I think it'll take a lot of its warped obsessions down with it.

I keep hoping that Lefty race-baiting will reach some sort of tipping point, and people will wise up.

I often feel like pointing out to some of the African-Americans I encounter in our parish (don't worry, I never say nuthin') that if liberal Democrats really cared about black Americans, they would have made sure the first black presidential candidate was rock-solid. Experienced, competent, wise.

Of course if that were the criterion, the first black president would almost certainly be a Republican...

Subsidiarity. Something all conservatives should be for...

From a column by Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul and Minneapolis...

....Reading the commentaries of my brother bishops, I realized that I did not mention another essential Catholic principle that should have been included in my last column: subsidiarity, which posits that health care ought to be determined, administered and coordinated at the lowest level of society whenever possible.

In other words, those intermediary communities and associations that exist between the federal government and the individual must be strengthened and given greater control over policies and practices rather than being given less and less control. [have this sentence tattooed on your arm.]

To usurp this "hierarchy of communities" is terribly damaging in the long run, both to society as a whole and the individual citizen (See Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1883, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, No. 185 ff).

Papal insights

Two quotes from Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI are instructive in this regard:

Pope John Paul II has written:

"By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending" (Pope John Paul II, "Centesimus Annus," No. 48).

Pope Benedict writes:

"The State which would provide everything, [That sounds familiar somehow] absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person — every person — needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need . . . . In the end, the claim that just social structures would make works of charity superfluous masks a materialist conception of man: the mistaken notion that man can live ‘by bread alone’ (Mt 4:4; cf. Dt 8:3) — a conviction that demeans man and ultimately disregards all that is specifically human" (Pope Benedict XVI, "Deus Caritas Est," No. 28).

To neglect the principle of subsidiarity inevitably leads to the excessive centralization of human services, which leads to higher costs, less personal responsibility for the individual and a lower quality of care...

Leftism always tends toward increasing the power of the state, and decreasing that of individuals, families, communities churches, and organizations of mutual benefit. In this, and in many other things, Leftism is profoundly anti-Christian. (Also anti-American) It is materialism, it is living by bread alone.

A Christian (or conservative) health care plan would put power into the hands of individuals and families. How to do that? Easy. Put the money in their hands, and let them choose how to best spend it. Then health care organizations and providers would bend their efforts to serving the people, the same way businesses work tirelessly to satisfy and keep customers. (Here are examples. Link. Link]

But that's what you will never see in a Leftist health-care proposal. Instead you get thousands of pages of rules and laws and fines and criminal penalties. And that's just the laws themselves. Those are always supplemented by the regulations. They will end up being tens-of-thousands of pages of the CFR. Just as with the tax laws and regs, no one will know them all, so everyone will be a criminal in having violated some regulation they've never heard of. Which is precisely the point.

This kind of faux-objective* snippiness sure angers me...

*I call this style "faux-objective" because the terms of the debate are always Leftish. For instance, "bi-partisanship" never means Democrats seriously considering Republican ideas such as CDHC's, or tort reform. And "even-handed" debate on climate change starts with assuming that the theory of anthropogenic Global Warming is settled science (it's not) and then even-handedly debating how much more power to give to leftists to get rid of Capitalism and surplus human beings.

The Palin Republicans - John Parisella - Macleans.ca:

...Ever since Obama's inauguration, the Republicans have struggled to gain any traction as a viable alternative. [Actually that's normal in American politics. Dems were just a "party of protest" during the Bush years.] Since then, Obama's approval numbers have gone down sharply, but the Republicans have not benefited in any noticeable way. [Sure they have, but it takes an election to make this manifest.] Last week's silly outburst by Joe Wilson, a Republican from South Carolina, may have made him a hero to Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the rest of the lunatic right. But it did little to make his party seem like legitimate counterweight to the Democrats. [Maybe in the Maclean's newsroom it doesn't. But you don't vote here.]

Similarly, this Saturday's Tea Party protests seem grassroots enough, but the rhetoric emerging from its spokespersons leaves the impression that the Republican party is now just a party of protest. It is no longer playing the role of the guardian of conservatism. Consider, for instance, how Sarah Palin's false [You Canadians frequently send premature babies to the US for care because bureaucrats decided not to spend on facilities to save their (worthless) little lives. Your whole medical system is a @#$%&* Death Panel! ] charges of death panels did little other than derail [start] a legitimate debate on health care reform. [In July Obama was insisting that the bill MUST be passed before August. And you accuse Sarah of derailing debate?] As a result, the battle over health care is now an intra-party contest within the Democratic party. [95% (at least) of Republicans DON'T WANT government health care. We don't have ANY responsibility to debate this issue. Zero. None. Nada.]

What is astonishing is how the Republican leadership seems oblivious to all this. It is now obvious the Democrats have given [they never really tried]up on getting any bipartisan support regarding healthcare reform [SO, how much space has Maclean's given to reporting on Republican health-care proposals and bills, Mr Bi-Partisan? Yeah, I thought so. Frauds.] or on climate change legislation. [Your definition of "bi-partisan" is that Republicans must support Left-wing policies they hate. I've been hearing that malarky from "journalists" all my life.] You would expect more support from the GOP on the economy considering that many of the initiatives were started by George Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, a Republican nominee. Same goes for Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court. Even John McCain, a moderate Republican and the co-author of an immigration reform bill with Ted Kennedy, voted against her. Sotomayor was not a controversial choice [Assuming that you believe that people should be judged differently depending on skin color] and represented an opportunity for the GOP to make inroads with Hispanics. On health care, according to many observers, some of the GOP's ideas will make their way into the final package and there is a real possibility that the dreaded public option will be dropped. At the end of the day, the image conveyed at Obama's speech last week was that of a bunch of grumpy white men [Republicans are ALWAYS portrayed as grumpy white men. Condi Rice and Clarence Thomas are grumpy white men.] sitting on their hands and contributing very little to the debate. [The image conveyed to me was Obama's desperation. Mr Journalist somehow didn't notice this.]

Is it too late for the Republicans? No, not if the Senate Finance committee comes up with a proposal that has potential to garner some bipartisan support down the road. [This guy is SO blinkered. He just assumes that political success means going along with death-panel liberalism. And if Republicans crush the Dems in 2010...which is becoming a real possibility...he WON'T LEARN! He'll just write another article on how Republicans must now start moderating their positions and accommodating to the Culture of Death.] Still, Sarah Palin's missive I referenced above has come to symbolize the shallow, oppose-at-all-costs approach to public policy that has dominated the public discourse since last January. Quite frankly, Palin energizes a base that talk radio hosts like Limbaugh and Beck use to exploit fear and misinformation. Even McCain, who keeps defending Palin, sometimes with apparent discomfort, contradicts her view on the death panels. And yet, Palin leads many polls for the 2012 Republican nomination and will draw huge crowds once she hits the speech circuit this fall—this, despite how pathetic she was in interviews with Katie Couric of CBS and Charles Gibson of ABC when tasked with explaining policy. [CLING to that hope.] As long as her views drive the debate away from any reasonable proposals coming from Republicans in Congress, [Republicans have made MANY proposals. Why don't you report on them, Mr Fake-journalist?] the GOP will remain marginal in the debate over any policy direction...

Update: Funny how so many Lefty pundits are writing with concern and sympathy about the imminent demise of Republicans and conservatives...... unless...... and somehow it is always the same unless...... unless we get rid of PALIN! Perhaps it is too negative of me to suspect that perhaps these kind and helpful creatures are not being quite sincere? To suspect they may be urging us to do the opposite of what frightens them? I guess such thoughts mean I'm just a Republican hate-monger.

Solvitur ambulando...

Wilfrid Ward, in Witnesses to the Unseen, 1894...

...and while the intellect, when moving in mere speculation, and as a spectator of the riddle of life, tends to lose itself, to become morbid and paralyzed, and reach no conclusion, we are reminded with equal power of the light shed by a living practical faith, which brings us into the action of life, and gives knowledge and experience which cannot be translated into language intelligible to purely passive speculation, any more than the glow of the hunting field or the wild excitement of the field of battle can be known by those who have always lived an inactive life.

To this extent faith is its own evidence, and establishes itself by a solvitur ambulando. The doubt is seen by him who has shaken it off to have been in great part the result of hesitation and inaction, due to the absence of perceptions which action alone can supply; and faith justifies itself to the mind which is aroused from undue passivity.

Faith sees further and more truly, just as the confident rider sees clearly, and acts promptly, and clears the fence successfully, while the man who hesitates fails to see with precision, and fails in gaining the additional experience and perception which prompt action on that first rapid vision would have brought. The whole being moves together, and sight, action, experience, and knowledge are inseparably linked. Hopefulness, promptness, decision, affect mental perception as well as moral action...

The challenge is to educate...

Doctor Zero on Charles Krauthammer's absurd statement that Sarah should "leave the room" while the experts debate...

...Every political movement needs both academic intelligence, and vital charisma. The Left has always viewed the relationship between its intellectuals and politicians as something like the production and marketing departments in a business – and when it comes to accumulating power, socialists are all business. People like Saul Alinsky and Bill Ayers spent decades weaving the strings that control the Obama marionette. They openly wrote of their understanding that savvy merchandising would be needed to make the public accept their agenda, at least until the public no longer has a meaningful choice about accepting it. When was the last time you heard a leftist intellectual belittle a popular liberal politician, the way Charles Krauthammer treated Sarah Palin?

The challenge for conservatism is to educate the voters in its basic principles, since they received no such education in the public schools. Conservatism always triumphs on the elementary questions of freedom and capitalism. The ideas of the Left are diseased in root and branch — history has shown there is no need to allow them to blossom, in order to see they are poisonous. Conservatives who allow themselves to be dragged into bickering about page 945 of a 1200-page bill have already conceded far too much of the debate. Americans deserve better than being told to sit down and shut up, while Washington plays Jenga with Obama's obscene health-care proposals. They should be angry and insulted their time and money were ever wasted with this madness....

"If we cross this bridge, there's no going back"

Mark Steyn:

Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death Panels 
...but you can't have both. On the matter of McCarthy vs the Editors, I'm with Andy. I think Sarah Palin's "death panel" coinage clarified the stakes and resonated in a way that "rationing" and other lingo never quite did. She launched it, and she made it stick. So it was politically effective.

But I'm also with Mrs. Palin on the substance. NR's editorial defines "death panel" too narrowly. What matters is the concept of a government "panel." Right now, if I want a hip replacement, it's between me and my doctor; the government does not have a seat at the table. The minute it does, my hip's needs are subordinate to national hip policy, which in turn is subordinate to macro budgetary considerations. For example:

Health trusts in Suffolk were among the first to announce that obese people would be denied hip and knee replacements on the NHS. The ruling was part of an attempt to save money locally.

The operative word here is "ruling." You know, like judges. You're accepting that the state has jurisdiction over your hip, and your knee, and your prostate and everything else. And once you accept that proposition the fellows who get to make the "ruling" are, ultimately, a death panel. Usually, they call it something nicer — literally, like Britain's National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE).

And finally I don't think this is any time for NR to be joining the Frumsters and deploring the halfwit vulgarity of déclassé immoderates like Palin. This is a big-stakes battle: If we cross this bridge, there's no going back. Being "moderate" is not a good strategy. It risks delivering the nation to the usual reach-across-the-aisle compromise that will get Democrats far enough across the bridge that the Big Government ratchet effect will do the rest....

Peggy Noonan gets a clue

Peggy Noonan: 'You Are Terrifying Us' - WSJ.com:

...And so the shock on the faces of Congressmen who’ve faced the grillings back home. And really, their shock is the first thing you see in the videos. They had no idea how people were feeling. Their 2008 win left them thinking an election that had been shaped by anti-Bush, anti-Republican, and pro-change feeling was really a mandate without context; they thought that in the middle of a historic recession featuring horrific deficits, they could assume support for the invention of a huge new entitlement carrying huge new costs....

It's pretty funny to see Peggy playing the wise pundit explaining what's going on. She up to now has had no more idea what ordinary people are thinking than anyone else in Manhattan. The 2008 win left HER thinking that hopey-changey was the wave of the future, and the plebs could safely be sneered at.

So, how's about admitting that Rush Limbaugh was right? Hmmm?

Update: I caught a few minutes of Rush today, and he answered some discouraged people with the point that we've already won the debate! If congressmen really believed they had a great health care bill that people just don't understand, then they would welcome "town hall meetings." The would welcome the chance to explain. Instead of packing halls with S.E.I.U. members so as to have a friendly audience

Muddled thinking...

Mark Shea (A writer I highly approve of...except when I want to wring his neck for his partisan venom):

...But the knee-jerk Talk Radio junk about how health care is not a right appears to me to owe far more to maintaining a system in which money is exalted over the good of the person than to anything remotely connected with Catholic teaching or common sense. One can base a credible opposition to so-called "health care reform" on worries that it's going to wind up killing a lot of innocent people as a cost-cutting measure. That I can respect.

But basing opposition to health care reform on the parroted claim that "health care is not a right"--a claim that is demonstrably rubbish if we are paying any attention to the Church's teaching, suggests that other agendas besides the desire to enact Catholic social teaching as public policy are the guiding principals at work in our thinking. That's no longer really a surprise to me, given the spectacle of Faithful Catholics[TM] striving with might and main to justify torture, but it still may be worth pointing out for Catholics who may be sensing a disconnect between the Church's actual teaching and what they are hearing from the conservative side of the blogosphere that so commonly claims adherence to the Church teaching in stark contrast to the Awful Dissenters....

This is mostly a case of getting two different ideas muddled together. Two different "rights."

I have myself actually heard Rush Limbaugh talk on this point. (I betcha Shea has just picked up some leftish rumors, and doesn't know or care what's actually said.) Rush's point was that we have a responsibility to maintain our own health, and we have a moral obligation to help those who can't help themselves. And I think (I'm not an expert) that this is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church is actually saying when it asserts that people have a right to health care.

People have a right to expect that we will assume our moral obligation, and help them if needed.

But the leftish position is something different. It is that people have a right to health care in the same way that they have a right to, say, freedom of religion. What our Constitution calls "inalienable rights." Rush's point is that this would destroy both our responsibility and our moral obligation. It would destroy Caritas.

And I would add another point, which I think is desperately important. In America we have always regarded our rights as coming ultimately from God, and thus being inalienable. They somehow exist regardless of what laws we may pass. But once you start inventing new basic rights, that concept goes out the window. Rights become just human inventions, and can be given and taken away at will.

What man...if his son asks him for bread, will give him subsidiarity?

A friend linked to an odd piece, A Credo for Authentic Conservatives and Other Sane People, by Thomas Fleming.

There's nothing in it that's exactly wrong, but it's weird. Kind of bloodless and gutless. Wishful thinking. There's no suggestion that conservatism is a noble cause that a person might risk their life to defend.

I think the peculiar thing here is that this is called a "credo." But credo means "I believe." It does not mean, "Gee, it would be kinda nice if everybody was sensible like me." Early Christian martyrs scratched "CREDO" in the sand of the arena, as the last quarts of their blood gushed out. That's "credo," friend.

"Credo" implies Truth. With the capital "T." Do you have Truth, sir? If a socialist or a jihadi puts a gun to your head and says, "recant," can you say, "shoot and be damned?" Or "Father forgive them?" One doubts.

Also, note that first section "E" I've quoted below. Elephant-in-living-room alert!!! Over large portions of the globe today, people are choosing NOT to propagate. All of Europe is in demographic collapse. Likewise Japan and other "successful" Asian nations. Whole societies are dying, Mr Fleming. Dying before your eyes. Your chalky philosophy says to this....what? Hundreds of millions of people are finding no reason to endure the suffering that investing in future generations involves. Your waxen ideas offer....what? What reason to suffer? What reason to sacrifice?

What demands do you make on people? The paradoxical thing is that people are at their best—and free-est— when they are servants. Servants of causes or beliefs that are bigger than the individual, and demand our sacrifice and devotion. (And, biggest of all, we are all called to be Servants of the Word.)

Of course this writer may have put the chewy stuff elsewhere in his writings. (If so I apologize.) But the flavor here is decadent.

....E. Human beings under most circumstances quite naturally seek to survive, thrive, and propagate, but they also protect the ability of their family members and friends or social allies (socii) to do the same...

... G Marriage and family are natural institutions fulfilling human needs; and, since each presupposes a hierarchy of authority, not only society itself but also social and political authority are natural, in the sense that they are the outgrowth of human nature and natural necessities. Thus there has never been a state of nature, much less of natural equality. In the most nearly natural human societies of which we have any knowledge, females defer to males, children to parents, young to old.

H The origins of the commonwealth, then, are much as Aristotle, Cicero, Thomas, and Althusius supposed: a progression from the “dyad” of the marital pair to the extended family to the village or tribal community to that confederation of different lineages, tribes, villages that is the commonwealth. Each society, of course, has its own history, but the general outline is clear enough.

I Since the commonwealth is an extension of marriage, family, and community, and since it exists, at least in part, to provide for the needs less perfectly supplied by lower forms of association, it can be viewed as relatively legitimate whenever it assists families and communities in their never-ending quest for food, shelter, and stability, but when it deprives these lower associations of the necessary economic autonomy to survive and propagate, takes away homes, or interferes in the relations between parents and children, husbands and wives, promotes adultery and abortion [Nota bene: I am not saying tolerates], it is acting illegitimately. Such infractions do not necessarily render a government illegitimate, but a systematic pattern of abuse—e.g., the liberation of wives and children, seizure of private property, confiscatory taxation—the legitimacy of such a government must fall under suspicion of acting tyrannically, far more so than when it merely deprives citizens of such civil rights as the franchise, jury duty, etc...

"Opposed to Western/Judeo-Christian civilization"

From Orrin, in a post with the splendid title (I envy him this sort of cleverness) Inherit the Windbags, about "conservatives" who support Obama...

....In fact, the only real difference [in Obama's policies compared to McCain] is precisely that he's the most extreme supporter of aggressive social experimentation to be nominated for president during this era. On matters of abortion, infanticide, gay "rights," infant stem cells, euthanasia, etc. he is consistently and radically Pro-Death and opposed to Western/Judeo-Christian civilization. Edmund Burke would have no trouble recognizing the Jacobin in at least this aspect of Mr. Obama's politics

When we consider then what sorts of Republicans are supporting Mr. Obama we would, as Mr. Powers says, expect to find the old Eastern Establishment, secular Darwinist Right. Contrary to Mr. Powers, these issues are pretty much the same and Rockefeller money funded the more openly eugenic experimentation of the early/mid 20th Century. That's not, of course, to say that every "conservative" backing Mr. Obama is doing so because he'd increase abortion and fund it for "the poor," but it is fair to say that they are at least unbothered by the prospect. In fact, even the ostensibly pro-life Doug Kmiec was willing to forgo Communion in order to back Barack Obama.

This is why so many of the converts cite the choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate. The choice drove home the reality that the GOP is and is going to stay the party of the religious. They were hoping for a Joe Lieberman, Colin Powell, Mitt Romney, or Tom Ridge who are indifferent to or supportive of abortion.

Over time this is likely to be a more permanent divide and is certain to impact the Democratic Party more heavily than the Republican. After all, Darwinism is a marginal belief in America while Christianity is central. Eventually one would expect to see the parties divide along more clearly secular vs religious lines and the Democratic hold on entire tribes loosen, a process that will be accelerated by the recognition that intellectual elites support the Democrats in no small part because of "population control."...

It just fascinates me the people who hate Sarah. It's so revealing. The "feminists" who fantasize about seeing her raped or murdered, for example. (Ladies, your guilt is showing.) Or the Colin Powell and Christopher Buckley types on the right.

And this is all extra interesting because traditionally the V-P is someone who can give red meat to the base, allowing the presidential candidate to act "presidential," and move to the center. This is normal in our politics. So why should Republican "centrists" and libertarians hate Sarah? Why?

The real battle is increasingly about who we are. What is America and who are Americans. This is because old habits have worn off. Habits of religion, yes, but also patriotic faith, and faith in those things, including morality, that ancestors and founders have handed down to us---faith that those traditions should be revered. And just---faith in America. When I was growing up, everybody was patriotic.

I'd say that when Orrin writes: "...the GOP is and is going to stay the party of the religious," we should think of "the religious" in a broad-brush sort of way. It could include those who cherish the Great Books of Western Civ., and those who get a lump in their throats when they hear the Star Spangled Banner at the ball game. That is, those who think there are things bigger than the almighty self, things which demand an attitude of humility and willingness to sacrifice.

And the irreligious should include many people who still go to church, but recite their creed in the spirit of participating in a charming old folk-ritual. Or who call themselves people of the Right, but recoil from moral responsibility and personal humility.

The battle-lines are shifting, and as they do various people are going to find themselves suddenly stranded in no-man's-land, wondering which way to scurry. A few decades ago we had the neo-cons; Democrats who noticed that the Democrat Party had drawn away from them like the tide going out...and awkwardly found a new home on the right. Perhaps now we will have a bunch of neo-libs!

I'm thinking of Sager especially. The libertarian creep of the world. I should fisk this piece, The Rove Realignment, Have libertarians been driven out of the GOP? But what's the use? He'll never get it. Better he should just head over to the Party of Death where he belongs...

"Defending the culture IS a governing philosophy.."

Orrin Judd:

...Not that the GOP doesn't need some re-focusing, but what the Beltway types can never seem to grasp is that defending the culture is a governing philosophy, indeed the philosophy of the majority. And what the Left wants to do is destroy the culture in order to make people dependent on the State...

Exactly. And Sarah embodies this philosophy. That is, she doesn't expound it, she's just the thing itself. And "Palinmania" is a very rational response to her. A matter of having something just on the tip of the tongue for years, and seeing Sarah, and saying: "That's IT! That's what I've been trying to say, and never could quite find the words!" Of course you want to jump up and down and cheer.

It's frustrating, because the attacks on America's traditional culture are mostly in the form of millions of tiny cuts by millions of tiny shit-stupid ant workers. Few of which are big enough to make a fuss about. And if you were to do so, you would at most push them back a few feet, but then see them ooze around you once again.

I was just thinking about the way, when you or someone you know is in the hospital, you get a visit from a "social worker" whether you want it or not. On one hand is a trivial thing, and lots of people may benefit from it. On the other hand, it's a clear message that you are expected to rely on the bureaucracy, not on the support of family or church or such old-fashioned things. It's something that to me has a nasty smell, but if you complained you would just be thought to be a crank.

I don't know if anything can really be done. My guess is we are doomed. But I do know that the National Review types don't quite get it, and Sarah does quite get it. So she's my gal, and I'm sure a lot of other grass-roots Republicans feel the same...

And even if the struggle is hopeless, one should keep fighting anyway. One is either a man, or a horrid vile cowardly collectivist flubber-worm! I've added a quote to the top of the sidebar, to express my deep and bitter feeling on this. (Explanation here.)

Well, it's plenty late. I should be in bed. But I'll post this, pour another glass of Scotch, think of Scotland and Western Civilization on the skids... And I'll say yet another prayer to Our Lady to give Sarah strength and protect her from the hosts of Mordor. And resolve to go down fighting!

j j j

"Defending the culture IS a governing philosophy.."

Orrin Judd:

...Not that the GOP doesn't need some re-focusing, but what the Beltway types can never seem to grasp is that defending the culture is a governing philosophy, indeed the philosophy of the majority. And what the Left wants to do is destroy the culture in order to make people dependent on the State...

Exactly. And Sarah embodies this philosophy. That is, she doesn't expound it, she's just the thing itself. And "Palinmania" is a very rational response to her. A matter of having something just on the tip of the tongue for years, and seeing Sarah, and saying: "That's IT! That's what I've been trying to say, and never could quite find the words!" Of course you want to jump up and down and cheer.

It's frustrating, because the attacks on America's traditional culture are mostly in the form of millions of tiny cuts by millions of tiny shit-stupid ant workers. Few of which are big enough to make a fuss about. And if you were to do so, you would at most push them back a few feet, but then see them ooze around you once again.

I was just thinking about the way, when you or someone you know is in the hospital, you get a visit from a "social worker" whether you want it or not. On one hand is a trivial thing, and lots of people may benefit from it. On the other hand, it's a clear message that you are expected to rely on the bureaucracy, not on the support of family or church or such old-fashioned things. It's something that to me has a nasty smell, but if you complained you would just be thought to be a crank.

I don't know if anything can really be done. My guess is we are doomed. But I do know that the National Review types don't quite get it, and Sarah does quite get it. So she's my gal, and I'm sure a lot of other grass-roots Republicans feel the same...

And even if the struggle is hopeless, one should keep fighting anyway. One is either a man, or a horrid vile cowardly collectivist flubber-worm! I've added a quote to the top of the sidebar, to express my deep and bitter feeling on this. (Explanation here.)

Well, it's plenty late. I should be in bed. But I'll post this, pour another glass of Scotch, think of Scotland and Western Civilization on the skids... And I'll say yet another prayer to Our Lady to give Sarah strength and protect her from the hosts of Mordor. And resolve to go down fighting!

j j j