Now it takes an especially obtuse reader to conclude from these posts that I think that the Republicans have even a remote chance of retaking either house of Congress this year.  I said nothing of the kind.  I have been saying for almost a year that Republican chances in House and Senate races were terrible, and nothing I said in these posts contradicts that.  I did say that the Colorado Senate race appears competitve, because it does appear competitive, as does Minnesota at the present time.  But when all is said and done, I assume the GOP will lose five or six seats  in the Senate, regardless of McCain’s possible coattails, but no one credible seriously claims that Kentucky is likely to be one of them.  In the House I have explicitly said that I think that there are at least 40+ seats that could realistically be captured by the Democrats this year, and that seems right.  If NM-02, a pretty reliably Republican seat, is really up for grabs, the Democrats could significantly increase their majority.  As for the rest of the silly criticism in the post, the author might want to be careful what he wishes for.  

In an earlier post, there was a line that was worth reading:

With liberalism defined as the center, the right is the enemy of the left, in other words, the forces which hate the left more than they love liberty.

The concept is sound and echoes something from Lukacs, even if it is not nearly as precise as the distinction between rightist and conservative that Chilton Williamson made in the introduction to The Conservative Bookshelf.  In that definition, and I am paraphrasing very loosely, it was the rightist who defended fundamental principles of liberty, constitutionalism and cultural tradition, while the conservative was carried along with the tide and accommodated himself to whichever status quo existed at any given time. 

Lukacs said of modern American conservatives (the “actually existing conservatives” in question):

Many American conservatives, also, gave ample evidence that they were just conservative enough to hate liberals but not enough to love liberty.

Now we have someone, speaking in the name of Burke and Kirk no less (!), lecturing paleos for failing to love a liberal at least in part because we do actually love liberty.  So we are supposed to support Obama, complete with his PATRIOT Act-renewing, FDR-praising statism, and we are supposed to believe that Obama represents  a “positively Burkean answer to the specter of revolution that was on offer from Ron Paul,” when Paul and Obama have one or possibly two things in common.  Then, if we fail to react as irrationally against the destructive tendencies of the GOP and the movement as many conservatives have reacted against the left, we stand accused of some obsession with Obama’s race, as if there could be no other reason for failing to rally around the nominee of what we have called on more than one occasion the Evil Party.  I have never supported a major party nominee for President, and I am not likely to start this year.  Where did the idea come from that it is strange that most paleos are not going to support someone whose views are diametrically opposed to theirs on almost every issue? 

In my case, Obama’s race has nothing to do with my opposition and criticism.  While I cannot speak for anyone else, there is literally no evidence that any of my colleagues at Taki’s Magazine oppose him for that reason, either.  (Indeed, Dr. Gottfried recently expressed sympathy for Obama on account of the attacks being leveled against him.)  Anyone with a Kirkian appreciation of the permanent things would be able to see numerous reasons why Obama is unacceptable to many paleo and traditional conservatives.  The maddening thing about this ridiculous line of attack is that I think I have given Obama more credit and more of the benefit of the doubt than most people on the right, whether paleo or not, and I have focused my criticism on his own words and his record, rather than trying to impute his associates’ words to him.  In return, I and my colleagues are baselessly tarred as racists (or we are given the disingenuous “I don’t know if X is a racist, but…” treatment).  Unsurprisingly, this does not make me any more likely to support Obama.   

Update: Here are two responses.  I see several of his points in these posts, and I accept the apology for misinterpreting my views.  In one of the responses, he says:

This is not to say that a more radical and even revolutionary outcome represented by the Paul campaign would not have been desirable or just, but merely that to support Obama in this context is the Burkean position because it is the position of he who would ideally like to avoid a revolutionary upheaval.

Put this way, I understand the argument better, and it is somewhat similar to James’ “softest landing” argument for Obama.  This is not entirely persuasive, since I don’t see much danger of ”revolutionary upheaval,” at least not domestically, and it isn’t clear to me why backing Obama contributes to avoiding such upheaval.   

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