Against “No Enemies on the Right”
Posted on July 5th, 2009
by Nathan P. Origer |
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The recent battle royal I managed to incite with my now-infamous anti-Mark Levin screed and a comment Dan Riehl (who actually is a pretty nice guy, notwithstanding the butting of heads in which he and I engaged) made to me in an e-mail, paired with the posts dedicated to Governor Palin’s incoherent, barely literate resignation address, has brought certain thoughts to my mind about the potentially harmful effects of all of this infighting under the great conservative (though by no means Republican) big tent, whether the combatants represent the talk-radio Right and the “alternative Right”, or, more peaceably, the front porch and the postmodern world.
I suspect that even the most ardent Obamacons (perhaps excluding the perplexing Kmiec) have come to question the wisdom of their support for the current president (even if they, rightly, remain steadfast in defending their opposition to John McCain); I, for one, am quite glad not to have voted for the man (just as I refused to mark my ballot for his Republican challenger), and suspect that few in this circle are particularly fond of him and his clearly interventionist, statist (Yes, Levin is right here.) policies. We really haven’t spent much time animadverting against President Obama at Post Right, and that probably ought to change. (I certainly intend to criticize him on a few points sooner or later, preferably sooner.)
However, a seriously pernicious threat inheres in directing our vitriol solely toward our “enemy” in the White House (and his Pelosi- and Reed-led minions in the Capitol) and ignoring the glaring points of divergence from other citizens of the conservative realm. Specifically, we risk falling into a similar trap into which the Democrats fell prior to the 2004 election, when I felt compelled, writing for Notre Dame’s left-wing Common Sense as their token conservative (I got around a lot as an undergraduate writer.), to warn progressives against the foolishness of “Anybody But Bush” syndrome — the embarrassing result of which was the nomination of a man whose face most closely resembles a clay visage left too long in front of an electric hand-dryer.
Conservatives and/or the Right have a couple of years before we really have to figure out who the best person to challenge the incumbent is in 2012. Maybe we should play a little more nicely than I have of late, but steering clear of serious challenges to mainstream conservative/Rightist orthodoxy is essential, if only to work toward finding a neo-”fusionist” candidate whom many of us can support (even if only hesitantly). I have no interest in supporting the “Anybody But Obama” candidate; leave that pathetic petulance to the Democrats.
Filed under: politics
Now we’re talking Nathan! Why not Gary Johnson?
I’m confused. Who should we rally around? Ron Paul or Pat Buchanan?
Tripp, maybe. It’s too early for me to be excited by anyone, but I’ve heard good things about Johnson. A lot of good things.
Well, William, I’ll certainly support Dr. Paul if he throws himself into the fray again; I doubt Buchanan as a drop of blood still in his body willing to run for office again, but if so, I could be persuaded. I don’t think we should be rallying around anyone yet. Not until someone proves himself capable of defeating Obama without being an intolerable option.
Dr. Paul, if he could A) ever get elected (extremely doubtful) B) pusuade Congress, would end government spending on all non-Constitutional programs. I realize this description is extremely nebulous due to our highest court’s history of legalizing unconstitutional acts, but I am speaking here strictly of what Dr. Paul would like to do, if we take him at his word.
He is a libertarian who is very weak on national security. I don’t recall you classifying yourself as a Libertarian. In fact, it goes against the crux of your government induced communitarianism.
William, rest assured that I need no lecture on Dr. Paul’s beliefs. I have, after all, interviewed the man!
Indeed, I am no libertarian. However, I believe that I have, in failing better to elucidate my position, misled you. My communitarianism is not something I attach to government inducement. Were the word not so easily twisted, I’d suggest there’s a very libertarian element to it. Instead, I’ll take the even more abused word, calling it “anarchist”, or at least “anarcho-”.
Anyway, though I’m not a libertarian, I have a lot of respect for Dr. Paul, and agree with him on numerous points. I’ll happily embrace his conservative libertarianism (or paleolibertarianism?) as a via media and stepping-stone from statism to my pipe-dream anarcho-conservatism.
Weren’t you the guy who said he believed in Marxist means to achieve conservative ends? I could be mistaken and I’m to take the time and re-read your postings. If indeed this was you, you may not need a lecture about Paul, but would benefit from a lecture on consistency; at least on practicality.
Has there ever been a society in history that comes somewhat close to your idealized state? Are we to look to Plato, to Aquinas, to Chesterton, to Jefferson, to Frederick the Great? Maybe the Aztecs or the Incas, the bureaucratic Chinese? Shall we look to the ancient Jewish tribes for our model of self-autonomy and social conservatism?
Furthermore, I would say your political beliefs suffer from a fundamental lack of understanding regarding man’s economic life, and this ignorance has not allowed you to properly order your political priorities. On the other hand, if you want to break the global system of division of labor and send us back to agrarian hamlets, you’re spot on.
The reasoning is not hard to articulate: people look to achieve the most gain for the least labor exerted. This gives rise to specialization. Through the passage of time, transportation and communication methods improve, expanding the potential scope of local markets. Specialization expands with the integration of new markets. Society achieves the highest production when there are no boundaries to trade, notwithstanding the prohibition of goods/services deemed illegal (drugs, certain weapons, prostitution).
Without government coercion, society will not choose to increase their work burden. Only government intervention provides the perverse “incentive” to end commercial relations with other nations or communities. Hence, the communitarian vision is undone by liberal market forces.
While not inevitable, in the sense that people could voluntarily opt-out of the global market, it would go against historical experience to suggest otherwise. I for one do not wish to live on a kibbutz.
I think the idea of a Rothbardian (or Molinarian, if you prefer) anarcho capitalism is fun to think about, but that’s about it. Spitting in the faces of people who disagree with you on some points doesn’t help things either, however. Ranting about nouveau paleo conservatism and delving into what verges on absurdity all for the sake of not being a kool aid drinker of any sort, left or right, misses the big picture- namely the election of a corporatist/Marxist/fascist/horrible no matter what you call it president with a congress of the same nature. Calling for a debate on the direction of conservatism (or you may not want to move it anywhere,whatever) is fine, but practically speaking there are two choices in a presidential election, from the major parties, and the Ron Paul guys typically can’t get anywhere NOT because of neo-con puppet masters but because typical voters dont want to hear about the intricacies of advanced philisophical thought from such thinkers, or who cant understand Rep Paul’s ideas in the first place and are thus scared into choosing McCain or Huckabee or Romney.
I hate to say it, but it seems inevitable that one has to make the less bad choice. It’s not about neo-con vs. anarcho-capitalist or communitarian. It’s about (hopefully) smaller government Republican vs Big-government Democrat. George Bush was bad- Obama is unfathomably worse. How bad would John McCain have been?-not this bad, not to this extent, and I think it’s stupid to say otherwise. That’s why I voted for him and didn’t waste my vote on Bob Barr. I didn’t like it, but I would have felt ridiculous otherwise.
In addition, wouldn’t you think by now most of those Obama cons realize being Obama supporters and conservatives constitutes an antithetical political orientation? I don’t know how one justifies the phrase “Obamacon” other than being a Republican supporter of Obama, not a conservative. It’s oxymoronic- it’s like being a Jewish anti-Semite.
William P.
With respect to your thoughts on Rep. Paul:”He is a libertarian who is very weak on national security.”
Forgive me, for I do not know you, or the context from which this opinion springs, but I am curious what you include under your umbrella of ‘national security.’ Do you perceive Dubya as ’strong’ on national security? Are you of the “fight ‘em over there instead of fightin’ ‘em over here” crowd? Is a regime incapable of locating/killing OBL after almost 8 years a symbol of strong national security? Or is there more nuance implied in your statement?
Peace be with you,
crf
Hi Tripp,
I am one of those RP supporters who could not, in good conscience, vote for McCain. While I recognize the many shortcomings of Obama (and certainly never seriosuly considered voting for him either), your statement is an interesting one: “How bad would John McCain have been?-not this bad, not to this extent, and I think it’s stupid to say otherwise.”
Really? Would he have not bailed out Citi? I believe he voted for it in October as a Senator. Would he have voted against Cap-and-Trade? He was one of its initial supporters! Avoid any tax increases? Really? Health Care? His tax credit plan was nominal at best, and DOA in Congress. Put simply, I don’t think McCain is intelligent enough to understand why/how the market works, so he has no philosphical underpinnings to stop him from making some of the same poltically expedient choices Obama has made thus far.
Obama’s only possible positives come from his foreign policy, while four more years of the Dubya/McCain approach would have been a dismal failure.
So, granting you that Obama is no icon of fee enterprise, why do you reflexively say McCain would have been soooo much better?
Peace be with you.
I don’t get why you would take the idea of making nice with mainstream conservatism seriously. Have mainstream conservatives repented of their treatment of Buchanan, of Paul? Have mainstream conservatives repented of calling the antiwar right unpatriotic? What reason is there to believe that, in the future, when it benefits them, mainstream conservatives will not go right back to alternatively abusing and ignoring the alternative right? Have they even stopped doing that now?
What good could come of trying to get along and put Palin or Cantor or someone in the white house in 2012?
The only answer I see to that question is another (maybe a fifth?) vote to overturn Roe. But neither Reagan nor Bush 41 delivered on that score, and the jury is out on Bush 43, so why believe that the next mainstreamer will?
The upside of sitting on the sidelines flinging dung is obvious. Maybe conservatives can be demotivated enough to get Republicans to pay heed. Plus, it’s fun. The upside of playing nice? We know that does not get the alternative right a seat at the table because, well, they haven’t had much of a seat at the table.
cfountain:
I do not believe Ron Paul understands the nature of the Islamic threat. Bush was very accurate when he called it Islamofascism - it is exactly that. I am not going to engage in a bashing of faiths, but I will say this:
Islam has a history of aggression against Christians and Jews. It is imperial in a way that Judaism and Christianity are not. The Prophet himself was a warlord. The religion is not peace loving, at least in the way I understand peace! It is extremely degrading to women, who it makes approximately on the same level as chattel. I realize not every Muslim thinks and acts like this, but the textual support is there with very little counterbalance.
When you have a very large region of the world, largely illiterate, economically deprived, living for centuries under despotism, Koranic demagogues can easily rouse anti-Western sentiments. For that matter, they can and do raise anti-Christian sentiments regularly against their fellow compatriots, and anti-Jewish sentiments at their neighbors. Islamic terrorism is not a result of American interventionism; if any country has its fingerprints all over the region, it is first England. Yet ultimately we are dealing with a clash of incompatible civilizations: Western civilization, with roots in Greek philosophy, Judeo-Christian ethics, and Roman law, and Islamic civilization, which has changed little since the Middle Ages. One embraces tolerance, liberty, science, and progress; the other a return to what is termed “fundamental Islam,” but in reality that phrase has no meaning, as there has never been one interpretive body for the Koran comparable to the Roman Catholic Church. Digression!
To top it off, the Nazis were very active in Palestine, coordinating with local leaders who hated Jews equally as much as they. The Nazi roots are evident across the various kingdoms, from Iraq to Iran to the terrorists that occupy Gaza. Throw in some Soviet meddling and corruption, and you’ve created man’s most difficult modern problem: how to deal with an anti-modernist region of the world with approximately one billion sympathizers that has aims for world domination and no fear of death. I personally prefer sorting the situation out before Iran is the hegemonic power in control of the whole region.
This conversation is impossible to continue unless you understand Islam and some Islamic history. If you do, I’m happy to discuss.
Bill, you write “What good could come of trying to get along and put Palin or Cantor or someone in the white house in 2012?”
I think I’d label either of those two “Anybody but Obama” candidates. I’m only willing to play nice to a point; the points you raise about the mainstream’s treatment of Messrs Buchanan and Paul are spot-on, and that sort of thing makes me uncomfortable, but I’m not opposed to working to find common ground if it can lead to a decent candidate (e.g. maybe Mark Sanford, before his downfall, or perhaps Gary Johnson). If Dr. Paul runs, regardless of the ticket, or if one of the minor parties nominates someone who better deserves my vote (even if he hasn’t much of a chance), I’ll go that way, but I’m not going to discount playing nice until I see that there’s point to it.
I guess I’m the most enterally optimistic pessimist this side of the mainstream/alternative moat. Though it’s less likely than in the 1990s, maybe, just maybe, a Paul- or Buchanan-like figure can do something similar to Buchanan early in the 1992 race within the GOP. And, again, if not, third party, here I come.
Or I just say to hell with ‘em all and worry about local elections.
“Islamic terrorism is not a result of American interventionism; if any country has its fingerprints all over the region, it is first England.”–William P.
The British and French occupation of Middle Eastern lands was consequent to the allied victory in the First World War and hardly justification for Islamic animus against the West. The Ottoman empire combined with the Central Powers and, following their defeat, were therefore occupied as supine, spent nations always had been. A solid historical foundation is what is sorely lacking in contemporary discourse and, indeed, William is correct in maintaining that Islamic history (especially as it concerns the West) must be brought to the fore. If such facts are given circulation, then conservatives can countervail against liberals who insist on materialist amenities as a nostrum to quell the ills of the region. An inquiry into the nature of jihad and the situations under which it arises is of pressing necessity if conservatives are to reconcile responsible domestic spending with the genuine threats that are independent of American culpability.
Pons:
I don’t claim to be an expert and I appreciate your commentary. What is lacking in all non-conservative circles of the Republican Party is an understanding of the Islamic threat. It would be well to start with a primer on the Koran and a history of this mainly nomadic region.
You say, “An inquiry into the nature of jihad and the situations under which it arises is of pressing necessity if conservatives are to reconcile responsible domestic spending with the genuine threats that are independent of American culpability.”
We are so far past any notion of responsible domestic spending that, in my opinion, any attempt to justify it is horribly misguided. We should be unraveling domestic welfare programs rapidly, slashing the size of our non-military bureaucracies, and, perhaps most importantly, maintaining a stable legal environment for business! How any of this is controversial is only explainable when you grasp the enormous ignorance that our public schools have left us with, which you probably do.
We are so far past any notion of responsible domestic spending that, in my opinion, any attempt to justify it is horribly misguided. We should be unraveling domestic welfare programs rapidly, slashing the size of our non-military bureaucracies, and, perhaps most importantly, maintaining a stable legal environment for business! How any of this is controversial is only explainable when you grasp the enormous ignorance that our public schools have left us with, which you probably do.–William P
Naturally the ignorance inculcated in public school is staggering but that is all the more reason to combat it with a sound history that does not depict the West as an avatar of evil. That would at least obstruct the aims of liberals who insist that reckless spending is the only atonement for aggrieved minorities when it is shown that they were less than innocent. This–or any other–initial step in espousing responsible domestic spending is not insufficient or “horribly misguided”, as you say, and it is a worthy undertaking to untangle this debt-ridden complication of ours. The root lies in education.
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