NM Symposium: Sam Tanenhaus’ latest book, The Death of Conservatism, argues that conservatism must decide whether it is a movement of cultural revenge or a governing philosophy. NewMajority has asked conservatives to weigh in. First up: Austin Bramwell, a former National Review trustee, and Geoffrey Kabaservice, our resident GOP historian who at one time contributed research to Tanenhaus.
As politicians gird their loins for the last of the summer’s encounters with spittle-spewing townhallers, birthers, deathers, Freepers, gunners, and other fired-up right-wingers, it would seem premature to proclaim “The Death of Conservatism,” as Sam Tanenhaus does in his insightful essay. But Tanenhaus offers an incisive overview of the exhaustion of the conservative intellectual movement and the end of the decades-long conservative era that began, arguably, with liberalism’s overreach in the 1960s. Predictably, many reviewers have claimed the book to be a liberal critique of conservatism, but it doesn’t much deal with liberalism or even with conservatives’ battles against liberals. Rather, it’s an explanation for why the vital dynamic between idealism and pragmatism within conservatism has ceased to function.
For the past two decades, Tanenhaus has been writing and thinking about two giants of the early conservative movement, Whittaker Chambers and William F. Buckley, Jr. (I was his research assistant when he began work on his Buckley biography.) Tanenhaus’ analysis in The Death of Conservatism in a sense grows out of the differences between the two as revealed in their letters during the 1950s and early ‘60s (later published as Odyssey of a Friend). Chambers was Buckley’s mentor and hero, but each man embodied an aspect of conservatism that was in tension with the other. In Tanenhaus’ depiction, Chambers was a realist conservative in the tradition of Edmund Burke and Benjamin Disraeli, suspicious of all ideologies and reverent toward tradition and constitutional order, but aware of the need to preserve the state and civil society by adjusting to changing conditions. Buckley, on the other hand, began as a self-proclaimed intellectual revolutionary: purist, uncompromising, eager to overturn the New Deal by any means necessary and create a new conservative movement.
Tanenhaus’ point is not that Chambers’ realist view was right and Buckley’s idealist view wrong, but that the tension between them was highly productive for conservatism as a whole. Buckley’s idealism kept Chambers and other conservatives from resigning themselves to liberal dominance, while Chambers’ realism influenced Buckley to move conservatism toward the political center in the 1960s and 1970s and establish it as a responsible philosophy capable of governing the nation. Ronald Reagan incarnated both strands of conservatism, restoring American pride and economic prowess while demonstrating flexibility in retaining the social safety net and helping to negotiate an end to the Cold War.
The problem with modern-day conservatism is that the realists have been vanquished by the ideologists, with dire results for the conservative movement and the Republican Party that is now wholly identified with the movement. As conservative idealists no longer feel any restraining Burkean influences, intellectuals have grown complacent while movement leaders have given free rein to what Tanenhaus calls “revanchists” – throwbacks to the Old Right of the 1930s and ‘40s who consider liberals to be traitors and oppose progressive change of any kind.
“Revanchist” is a provocative term, and Tanenhaus could be clearer on the difference between unalterably partisan but rational conservatives on the one hand and outright crackpots on the other. The danger for modern conservatism, however, is that this distinction is becoming blurred. Buckley once observed that “I’ve spent my whole life separating the right from the kooks.” Who presently performs this function for conservatism? John Birch Society-style paranoid claims of the sort repudiated by Buckley are now repeated by prominent Republican politicians. Million-selling kook books like Fred Kamp’s Hitler Was a Liberal and John Stormer’s None Dare Call It Treason were rejected by the Buckley-era conservative intelligentsia, while Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism and Ann Coulter’s Treason are now embraced. Where for that matter are the equivalents of Buckley’s Up from Liberalism, Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind, or Charles Murray’s Losing Ground, intellectually sophisticated works that didn’t merely preach to the already converted?
The process by which the dialogue within conservatism was replaced by what Tanenhaus calls “exhortations from the Right to the Right” was long and involved. His whirlwind historical tour of conservatism’s rise and fall is suggestive rather than comprehensive, and one can argue with a number of his historical assertions. (Has the Democratic Party since 1960 really been choosing “centrist, explicitly non-ideological presidential candidates” – like Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, and Walter Mondale?) Neither is it self-evident that a classical conservative perspective would lead a modern-day Whittaker Chambers to consider David Souter a true Burkean or homosexual marriage the capstone of the “family values” movement, although Tanenhaus makes a plausible case.
Tanenhaus is correct, though, in pointing out that there has been no agonizing reappraisal within conservative circles following the failures of George W. Bush’s presidency, that the movement no longer attracts intellectuals and centrists as Buckley did in his heyday, and that classical conservatives have “deserted the Right or been evicted from it.” The massive conservative infrastructure of think tanks and journals and pressure groups remains in place, but it has become a sort of Maginot Line locking conservatives into outdated positions rather than a source of fresh, contrarian thinking and positive solutions to current problems. Tanenhaus doesn’t tell how to revive the classical component of conservative thought, but it’s hard to find fault with his diagnosis of how badly the absence of such pragmatism has hurt the movement.
Conservatives will not thank Tanenhaus for telling them how they have failed to live up to Buckley’s legacy, any more than dissolute heirs who have squandered their patrimony appreciate being reminded of that fact. But they ought to listen to him.
76 responses so far
1 From Buckley to Beck: Where Did We Go Wrong? // Sep 5, 2009 at 4:15 am
[...] Kabaservice, Conservatism is Dead Without Pragmatists Many reviewers have claimed Tanenhaus’ book to be a liberal critique of conservatism, but it [...]
2 MFarmer // Sep 5, 2009 at 7:38 am
“Tanenhaus doesn’t tell how to revive the classical component of conservative thought”
Nor do I hear any concrete ideas — a lot of complaining with no explaining. Is the problem that the intellectuals are out of ideas? If the problem is intellectual emptiness among the pragmatists, then one can hardly be surprised that the idealists are in ascendance.
3 Chekote // Sep 5, 2009 at 8:38 am
Tanenhaus is correct, though, in pointing out that there has been no agonizing reappraisal within conservative circles following the failures of George W. Bush’s presidency, that the movement no longer attracts intellectuals and centrists as Buckley did in his heyday, and that classical conservatives have “deserted the Right or been evicted from it.”
This passage gets to the heart of my frustration. Hardly any analysis has been done regarding Bush and the effect its administration had the current state of the Republican party. More shockingly has been the near silence regarding the McCain campaign and his selection of Palin. Instead, it has been a full force attack on anything Obama does. I am not a fan of Obama’s policies. I think they are wrongheaded and they basically are the latest re-run of collectivist, highly centralized policies that have failed every where they have been tried. But I do think it is important for the GOP to spend some time reviewing the past eight years and analyze how we managed to lose all the congressional seat in the North East.
4 sinz54 // Sep 5, 2009 at 10:18 am
Chekote:
You and I just had a whole argument about the Bush strategy of nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan. You supported it. And among conservatives, you’re not alone.
The GOP base will never accept the idea that the Iraq War was not worth fighting. Never. And that’s because many of them served in the military themselves, or have friends or loved ones who did. To admit that the Iraq War was not worth fighting would mean that the sacrifices made by these young people in the military (sometimes the supreme sacrifice) was in vain.
So I don’t think that looking backward on the Bush presidency is going to work. Rather, it would deepen the division in the GOP–and likely result in the final expulsion of the few remaining critics of the Bush foreign policy.
I think we need to look ahead. The Dem Party didn’t continually agonize over LBJ’s Vietnam policy. Once Nixon had been in office a whole year, the Dems simply switched to calling Vietnam “Nixon’s war.” LBJ became an unperson, never mentioned again.
That was the right strategy.
5 sinz54 // Sep 5, 2009 at 10:27 am
Kabaservice:
But how and why did that happen?
It happened because parts of the ideology became obsolete. A main pillar of modern conservatism (going all the way back to Whittaker Chambers in the 1950s) was anti-Communism. But the USSR collapsed in 1992. Who cares about anti-Communism anymore?
And conservatism’s free market ideology, which kept invoking Adam Smith and trying to punch holes in Keynesianism, has never taken into account the latest research on behavioral economics and behavioral finance. It’s now proven by both this research and the history of the last 10 years that markets are NOT always rational and self-correcting. Economic conservatism’s heart has always been the libertarian idea of Man as a rational being, always making rational choices.
Any party’s ideology has to evolve over time. Heck, even the Vatican accepts Darwin’s Theory of Evolution now.
6 sinz54 // Sep 5, 2009 at 10:34 am
Another major problem with conservatism today is its proud anti-intellectualism.
William F. Buckley was an intellectual, erudite, well read, able to frame intelligent arguments in public debates. Even liberals grudgingly acknowledged that. There were other right-wing intellectuals too, like David Brudnoy here in Massachusetts where I live. By the late 1970s, it was conservatives who had lots of new ideas, while the liberals were reduced to regurgitating New Deal liberalism after its time had passed.
But those conservative intellectuals have passed away. Instead of replacing them, the conservative movement was happy to embrace the anti-intellectualism of Red State social conservatives. And that’s why its ideological thinking hasn’t evolve–there’s nobody intelligent enough to evolve it. You’re not going to get new thinking on radical Islam or regulation of the derivatives market from RedState.com or from Sarah Palin. What you get is ancient, tired arguments dredged up again and again.
In order to fix this, the conservative movement has to stop holding up “Joe the Plumber” as its paragon, and start looking at attracting new young people in prestigious Ivy League universities to conservatism. Instead of writing off Ivy League universities as irrelevant or even threatening to “American values.”
Remember, Buckley went to Yale.
Sarah Palin did not.
7 Churl // Sep 5, 2009 at 12:27 pm
sinz54, there is much talk here about intellectuals, which leaves me somewhat confused as I have never been sure of exactly what an intellectual is and how to distinguish one from the rest of the herd.
Could you give me a concise definition of what you are talking about when you say “intellectual”?
8 Chekote // Sep 5, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Sinz,
I am not suggesting that we revist the Iraq War. The Left will do that enough, thank you. I was suggesting that we need to review why the Republican Party was left in shambles after the Bush presidency.
9 Chekote // Sep 5, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Could you give me a concise definition of what you are talking about when you say “intellectual”?
To start, someone who doesn’t wear his or her ignorance as a badge of honor.
10 EscapeVelocity // Sep 5, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Pragmatism on the Left seems to be the small bite approach towards moving towards Socialist Utopia.
They dont propose their Utopian Vision, so that we or the voters can disagree or agree, they are simply critical of the status quo, unceasingly, and then they propose this program in isolation, and then that nationalization in isolation. Purposely ignoring the net effect of all of them together, combined with every new program, tax, nationalization, regulation….where it all leads….you will never here from a Leftist. And if you bring all that up, they wont answer and charge you with being a wingbat McCarthyite. And then fools in the Republican Party will agree or at minimum say that, that isnt constructive or pragmatic and drives voters away.
If we allow our language to be limited, then thoughts are controlled, the debate is controlled, and the Left wins by default….because they have taken away the ability to intellectually counter a movement that has big intellectual dreams that cant be mentioned in the public sphere, and are only allowed to called pragmatic centrists, and only one program at a time is allowed to be discussed in isolation from its cumulative effects. This is the slow march to totalitarianism. And the argument seems to be, that after each program or nationalization, or regulation, or limitation on freedom is put into place, that it behooves Conservatives to protect those institutions, to conserve the new status quo, and not rock the boat.
The whole argument is outlandish! Burke would not approve.
11 Chekote // Sep 5, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Who cares about anti-Communism anymore?
Mark Levin and Glenn Beck.
12 Chekote // Sep 5, 2009 at 12:40 pm
It’s now proven by both this research and the history of the last 10 years that markets are NOT always rational and self-correcting.
How can it be proven? Or is it only a mere coincidence that markets failed as the role of government increased.
13 Churl // Sep 5, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Chekote, perhaps I did not make question sufficiently clear, I would like to know what an intellectual is, not what an intellectual is not. There are many things that intellectuals are not and I am aware of many of them (e.g. cast iron skillets, Model T spark coils, pebble bed nuclear reactors – I could go on and on). But I think that the list of attributes that define an intellectual is much shorter than the universe of things that are not intellectuals and, in the interest of brevity, just define the term “intellectual” .
Thank you.
14 EscapeVelocity // Sep 5, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Who cares about anti-Communism anymore?
Cubans, Venezuelans, Chinese, Vietnamese, North and South Koreans, Zimbabweans, South Africans, Columbians, Nicauraguans, Eastern Europeans, Poles, Czechs, Russians, Tories…..
Shall I continue?
15 The Divine Conspiracy Blog » Blog Archive » The Death of Conservatism II // Sep 5, 2009 at 2:26 pm
[...] of The Death of Conservatism, one by Austin Bramwell here and the second by Geoffrey Kabaservice here. Posted in Politics | No Comments » Leave a [...]
16 joedee1969 // Sep 5, 2009 at 2:35 pm
I just read C. Rich’s new book. ” The Conservative Reconstruction Project” and it was right on point with the conservative movement. I sent him an e-mail telling him about this site. He checked it out and wrote me back and said he loved it. He even put it on his blogroll and that guy never puts a whole lot on his link list. He must have love it. Anyway check out this link:
http://americaspeaksink.com/the-conservative-reconstructon-project/
17 ernie1241 // Sep 5, 2009 at 3:01 pm
All political extremists (left or right) have the advantage of believing in certitudes whose premises they never question. Furthermore, all political extremists think “compromise” is a four-letter-word.
The self-correction to political extremism is that most Americans are decent, fair-minded, incrementalists who believe in civility. Which is why the current GOP flirtation with brain-dead extremists will pass or the GOP will consume itself and become totally irrelevant.
18 sinz54 // Sep 5, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Churl: From Wikipedia:
An intellectual includes any or all of the following:
1. An individual who is deeply involved in abstract erudite ideas and theories.
2. An individual whose profession solely involves the dissemination and/or production of ideas, as opposed to producing products (e.g. a steel worker) or services (e.g. an electrician). For example, lawyers, management consultants, educators, politicians, and scientists.
3. An individual of notable expertise in culture and the arts, expertise which allows them some cultural authority, which they then use to speak in public on other matters.
For myself, I was referring more to (1) and (3). These days, the knowledge workers of (2) can be specialized technicians in their own field, but not particularly thoughtful about the greater context, nor prepared to speak in public on their ideas.
19 ernie1241 // Sep 5, 2009 at 3:08 pm
CHURL: An intellectual is
(a) someone who is curious about the world — including ideas, values, and positions which he/she does not share
(b) someone who values intellectual attainment and who does not denigrate the accomplishments of persons who spend their lifetimes pursuing knowledge in a particular field — even if those persons arrive at different conclusions from one’s own
(c) someone who recognizes the importance of careful examination of factual evidence — and someone who accepts the normal rules of evidence and logic
20 sinz54 // Sep 5, 2009 at 3:09 pm
There is an attitude among the rank-and-file conservatives–such as you find in the GOP base–that you don’t need to be educated or even intelligent to hold high political office. All you need is to be of good heart.
And I just don’t agree with that. You’ll end up with an elected official who tries hard but doesn’t succeed very well.
Our Founding Fathers were the cream of the crop of the 13 colonies in the 18th century. Their breadth and depth of understanding of philosophy, history, rhetoric, and even science (thank you Ben Franklin) was excellent. We modern conservatives revere them. But we don’t try hard enough to emulate them. Instead, we suggest that to be that good is to be an effete elitist, out of touch with the people.
If Americans had that attitude in the 18th century, there would have been no Declaration of Independence, no Federalist Papers, and no Constitution.
21 ernie1241 // Sep 5, 2009 at 3:26 pm
SINZ54:
I often debate right-wing conspiracy believers in various on-line discussion groups and they usually ridicule me for asking them to specify what methodology they use to discern fact from fiction.
For example, I recently debated a 9/11 conspiracy believer who insisted that I need view ONLY ONE video of a lecture by somebody presenting a 9/11 conspiracy thesis.
I replied that I do not have the technical training or experience (physics, chemistry, architectural principles, engineering, etc.) to be able to analyze all the complex arguments presented by conspiracy believers — and I was immediately ridiculed for acknowledging my limitations.
I then was boldly informed that I need only apply “common sense” — by which the conspiracy believer meant, immediate uncritical acceptance of everything he presented.
Similarly, in another forum, I debated for months with various right-wing conspiracy believers who insisted that “court historians” and “establishment experts” can NEVER be trusted to contradict ANY explanation presented by government officials and they always “ignore” their critics (meaning critics who present conspiracy theories). Eventually, one confronts circular arguments — and there is no possible way to falsify their assertions because they do not accept or apply normal rules of evidence and logic.
22 EscapeVelocity // Sep 5, 2009 at 3:33 pm
That is false, Jim Demint does not have an intellectual pedigree, but he certainly is effectual.
Similarly Ronald Reagan was also not an intellectual, but he was pretty effective.
You folks have the problems all wrong. First it was getting the message across to simple folks, marketing sophisticated ideas. Now the problem is that the simple folks got the message.
Make up your minds.
Furthermore, I disagree that there is a lack of intellectual heavy weights in Cosnervatism. Newt Gingrich, Thomas Sowell, Ross Douthat too many to list, often not given great accolades by the modern Leftwing Establishment.
In fact it is the Left that has advocated anti intellectualism as its banner. Post Modernist mumbo jumbo, critical theory’s politicization of logic, personal “truth”.
You fellows are lost in the sauce.
The problem isnt a stong intellectual foundation, or continuing intellectual commitment, the problem is that of media, indoctrination in the education system, and Denny Hastert a backroom mechanic, as Speaker of the House.
And David Brooks is out of touch with the American people and his party, and elitist who is working the Leftwing Establisment for scraps, instead of standing up to them. David Frum is now making the circuit.
And yes the Founding Fathers were Radicals, who told the Establisment to go fuck themselves, and presented the ideas that made this Country Great….abandoning the Constitution for unfettered Commerce Clause abuse and anti Federalism is a crying shame.
The Confederates were right!
23 agentprovocateur // Sep 5, 2009 at 4:53 pm
“Pragmatism on the Left seems to be the small bite approach towards moving towards Socialist Utopia.”
“The Confederates were right!”
Anyone hoping to be a part of a “New Majority” shouldn’t let escapevelocity speak for such an entity, as it wouldn’t get very far with such ranting.
24 LFC // Sep 5, 2009 at 4:53 pm
I hate to admit this about my country, but what the GOP needs is a charismatic leader. The Dems fired up with Obama who, whether you like his policies or not, is a great speaker. (The Dems in Congress simply flounder.)
Looking back in recent history, JFK, Reagan, and Clinton were excellent speakers and were popular. Nixon, Carter, Bush I, and Bush II, not so much. This despite the fact that Nixon had some great accomplishments and Bush I may have been the best foreign policy president out of the whole bunch.
As long as the GOP shreds anybody who doesn’t toe the crazy line, this person cannot arise. Romney seems like the best current shot, but he had to turn his back on everything sane that he ever did just to try to compete.
A famous quote said something like democracy works best with a credible opposition. We NEED the GOP to be that credible opposition. When they are, they will be a competitive party once again.
25 Churl // Sep 5, 2009 at 5:09 pm
sinz54, thank you for your definition, it is nice to have some understanding of the terms being tossed around. I still don’t know what good that the bright folks in Ivy League colleges would do for reforming conservatism, assuming that someone can overcome the leftist bias that has been hammered into their heads “from Head Start through the PHD” .
I remember reading Hofstadter’s “Anti-intellectualism in American Life” many years ago, much of which was a polemic against those who didn’t agree that the country should be run by intellectuals (i.e. college professors). I’ve been sensitive to the slippery use of “intellectual” ever since.
26 EscapeVelocity // Sep 5, 2009 at 5:31 pm
We could have an intellectual discussion about the US Civil War, but quite frankly I dont think you have the intellectual prowess to do so, agentprovacateur.
27 agentprovocateur // Sep 5, 2009 at 9:16 pm
re: escapevelocity // Sep 5, 2009 at 5:31 pm
It is awful rich for you to talk of “intellectual prowess” in one breath and in the next tell us about how “the Left” is committing some kind of “socialist” conspiracy. And you certainly don’t need to hide behind any talk of intellectualism. Do tell us how a group of people was justified in committing treason against this country so that they could keep their cherished institution of slavery.
28 sinz54 // Sep 6, 2009 at 10:09 am
escapevelocity:
I respect all those men for having interesting ideas.
But none of them is running for office. And none of them is a campaign adviser to any major GOP candidate either.
Ask Sarah Palin if she can compare and contrast the views of Newt Gingrich, Robert Sowell and Ross Douthat. See what kind of an answer you get.
29 sinz54 // Sep 6, 2009 at 10:18 am
Churl:
You don’t have to go to Harvard to get a firm grounding in the humanities.
You can go to Hillsdale College, for example.
And a young conservative won’t feel alone there, believe me.
There are plenty of other colleges that are either centrist or just left of center.
For most voters, it’s not the name of the college the candidate graduated from.
It’s what he learned there, and what he knows years later.
I also think that the intellectual climate for conservatism will improve on all college campuses, as Obama continues to flounder. Just as it did in the late 1970s as Carter floundered.
30 ernie1241 // Sep 6, 2009 at 11:09 am
Escapevelocity:
With respect to the portion of your message I copy below:
You may not be aware of this but it is common practice among extreme rightists (such as Birch Society members and admirers) to DENOUNCE Reagan, Gingrich, Bill Buckley, et al as “phony conservatives” who subvert true conservatism.
By contrast, “the modern leftwing establishment” (as you phrase it) does not usually deny the conservative pedigree of its perceived opponents and few, except the most rabid on the fringe, deny that people like Gingrich and Buckley are honorable and worthy foes.
“That is false, Jim Demint does not have an intellectual pedigree, but he certainly is effectual. Similarly Ronald Reagan was also not an intellectual, but he was pretty effective. You folks have the problems all wrong. First it was getting the message across to simple folks, marketing sophisticated ideas. Now the problem is that the simple folks got the message. Make up your minds. Furthermore, I disagree that there is a lack of intellectual heavy weights in Cosnervatism. Newt Gingrich, Thomas Sowell, Ross Douthat too many to list, often not given great accolades by the modern Leftwing Establishment.”
31 ernie1241 // Sep 6, 2009 at 11:15 am
Questions for everyone contributing to this thread:
(1) How do YOU define “socialism”?
(2) Do you consider the family to be a “socialist” institution?
32 EscapeVelocity // Sep 6, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Ask Sarah Palin if she can compare and contrast the views of Newt Gingrich, Robert Sowell and Ross Douthat. See what kind of an answer you get. — sinz
See, that has zero to do with governing well. You can surround yourself with good advisors, intellectuals as well as people successful in industries, and not be a super genius or even the most well read. Now I certainly agree that maybe Palin was pushing it a bit far, but essentially she is like Ronald Reagan but lacking 20 or 30 years extra experience. She has the gift that Obama has and Reagan, the communication gift. What Palin lacks, she can acquire.
Reagan wasnt a genius, he was the Great Communicator. Reagan didnt come up with new ideas, he took the ideas from giants and ran with them, put them into understandable likable language, and then implemented them.
33 EscapeVelocity // Sep 6, 2009 at 12:25 pm
I agree with Ernie, you all are asking the wrong questions…and directing your ire in the wrong directions.
34 EscapeVelocity // Sep 6, 2009 at 12:39 pm
agentprovacateur: It is awful rich for you to talk of “intellectual prowess” in one breath and in the next tell us about how “the Left” is committing some kind of “socialist” conspiracy. And you certainly don’t need to hide behind any talk of intellectualism. Do tell us how a group of people was justified in committing treason against this country so that they could keep their cherished institution of slavery. ….End Quote
And that in a nutshell is your blaring ingnorance, spouting the simpleton’s non nuanced version of history, which is totally ignorant of real issues, grievances and power politics that lead to what is called the US Civil War, and what is rightly called the War of Northern Imperialism. Seccession isnt treason, seccession is in fact the last act of those who were being treated unfairly by their government and chose peaceful coexistence, instead of trying to take over the central government and impose their will on others. Because there was no contention for power over the centralized government, this is incorrectly called a Civil War. Futhermore, the US blockade on the South is a de facto recognition of Confederate Sovereignty as per international law. Just as a matter of common sense, nations dont blockade their own ports, they close them down.
But Im not here to school you on the Confederacy, the Violence that Lincoln and the North did to the Constitution, nor the War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity perpetrated by the North, nor Lincolns assault on Civil Liberties. Nor the North’s use of immigration to assume control over the Federal governemnt, while also exploiting labor….in order to enforce a terribly unfair taxation scheme that was allowed into practice, of all ironies, to keep the New England colonies from seceding at the time of the War of 1812.
Oh yes, there is a rich history there, that bears little resemblence to your little Manichean morality play around rebel slavers.
35 EscapeVelocity // Sep 6, 2009 at 12:42 pm
In a way we are still fighting the Civl War, as the North wishes to assert its dominance over the rest of the Nation…look at the “Blue” States in the last few elections.
And the South is fighting to ward off the the North’s imposition of will via the centralizing of power in the Federal Government.
You may not realize it, because you think the Civil War was about Slavery.
36 agentprovocateur // Sep 6, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Escapevelocity continues his/her escape from reality. I wonder how many other conservatives share these views of the Civil War.
37 PoeticJustice // Sep 6, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Thank you Mr. Kabaservice,
Your last paragraph sums up this matter nicely:
“Conservatives will not thank Tanenhaus for telling them how they have failed to live up to Buckley’s legacy, any more than dissolute heirs who have squandered their patrimony appreciate being reminded of that fact. ”
One should be reminded what Edmund Burke did to Mr. Gibbon’s career after “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” was published. Apparently Mr. Gibbon’s take on the role of Christianity in Rome’s denouement was beyond personal tolerance.
And so, by all means, let’s violate our own conservative principles and “inspect” who might be having sex or tippin’ a few to many brews….
S’cuse me while I scratch me balls.
38 EscapeVelocity // Sep 6, 2009 at 3:35 pm
No, agentprovacteur, its not an escape from reality, in fact it was the standard historical account of the US Civil War for about a half a century…then the historical revisionism started to come into play, and finally solidified with the Civil Rights movement which needed to create the Slavery Myth and the “Great Emancipator” myth in order to give African Americans something to latch onto. Skip Gates has himself recognized the fallacy of the myths, in his recent show about Lincoln. Its about historical accuracy and knowlege, indeed intellectualism….as opposed to your preference for myth.
39 EscapeVelocity // Sep 6, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Which brings up an interesting tangent…
Why dont the Leftwingers acknowledge the grievances and culture of the South and Southerners, and work them into their identity politics victimization narrative, and promise them special priveleges, preferences, and wealth re-distribution programs…..to promote equality and justice, of course. Why are Southerners not protected by Political Correctness from language that is abusive to them and their culture? Why is it OK to belittle them and make fun of them, stereotype them as ignorant rednecks? Why does every other group get these protections and defense from the Left but not Southerners (and White Christian Conservative Folks more broadly)?
Why? I ask you. This is not a flippant question, it is sincere.
40 Corky // Sep 6, 2009 at 5:16 pm
I want to say that I am in complete agreement with escapevelocity’s message #10. It’s been a long time since I’ve read something which so clearly illuminates the rhetorical mechanisms used by the left in the public sphere to twist conservatives down and shut them out. I especially like this last sentence, “… the argument seems to be, that after each program or nationalization, or regulation, or limitation on freedom is put into place, that it behooves Conservatives to protect those institutions, to conserve the new status quo, and not rock the boat.” Exactly. The only role left for conservatives in this setup is to as a paperweight and, when necessary, hold the door open for people who have no place being in our house in the first place. If pragmatism means that I have to take communion from a lesbian priest, or that I have to look the other way when dozens of illegal immigrants cut across my property, trashing it, so that, please sir, I might end up with a half or a third of what I really want, then I’m willing to let someone else be pragmatic. I have standards. You live up to them or I don’t let you in my house (physically or intellectually). That’s as pragmatic as I get. If all of the liberals yearning SO HARD to become conservatives, if only the conservatives would “meet them halfway” don’t like my position, they’re free to join and develop a third political party. It’s called the Libertarians. We could end up with a political situation like Germany’s. A Libertarian Free Democrat party, a traditional Old Left party, and a Christian Conservative party. Works for me.
41 sinz54 // Sep 6, 2009 at 5:28 pm
escapevelocity asks:
What grievances do Southerners have???
I honestly, sincerely do not know.
As I remember history:
As part of the deal to settle the ambiguous Hayes-Tilden election of 1876, the Dems agreed to let Hayes win the Presidency, in exchange for the GOP agreeing to withdraw Union troops from the South and end Reconstruction.
Southerners should have appreciated the gesture. Instead, with Union troops gone, they embarked on a program of revenge and retribution among the newly freed slaves. The Ku Klux Klan went on a reign of terror, not just against blacks, but against Catholics and Jews and modernists and just about anybody they didn’t like. Like any guerrilla movement, they moved within a “sea” of popular Southern sympathy for their cause.
It took Federal action to give blacks their civil rights, from the FBI fighting the KKK to the Supreme Court desegregating the schools.
Lincoln had offered “With malice toward none, with charity for all.” The white Southerners responded with bitterness and a desire for revenge.
42 sinz54 // Sep 6, 2009 at 5:44 pm
corky:
Let me explain it this way:
Conservatives, by definition, eschew radical change, and support gradual progress. True conservatives, in their heart, believe “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
But that works in both directions, something “escapevelocity” doesn’t understand.
It doesn’t just mean opposing the radicalism of the Left.
It also means eschewing radical moves to the Right as well.
For example, in the 1990s, Gingrich and Clinton worked to reform welfare (AFDC). Not to end welfare. But to streamline it, reform it, and get more value from it.
Libertarians are true radicals of the Right. They would, if they could, just get rid of nearly every Federal domestic initiative of the 20th century, from income tax to the Federal Reserve. But that’s not a conservative view.
And remember that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Before demanding that we get rid of Medicare, Social Security, etc., we ought to look at what conditions were like before those programs were available–and whatever we do to change those programs, to make sure that we don’t reintroduce problems (like widespread poverty of the elderly) that used to exist.
Gradualism is the heart of conservatism. No radical leftists. No radical rightists either.
43 sinz54 // Sep 6, 2009 at 5:48 pm
agentprovocateur:
Almost none outside of the South.
There are plenty of conservatives in Montana, Nebraska, Idaho, Utah, etc. But you wouldn’t hear such an interpretation of the Civil War from them.
Ask Orrin Hatch.
44 Corky // Sep 6, 2009 at 8:43 pm
sinz54 :
Your definition of the word “conservative” certainly isn’t new to me, but I’m not sure I understand your point. By your definition of the word, “conservative,” the leftists whom escapevelocity posits in post # 10, those who “are simply critical of the status quo, unceasingly, and then they propose this program in isolation, and then that nationalization in isolation. Purposely ignoring the net effect of all of them together, ” become the true definition of conservative because they are always only proposing gradual, incremental change. To call such people conservative is rhetorically true but a logical non-sequiter if we’re discussing American electoral politics. Can you clarify your point?
45 Corky // Sep 6, 2009 at 8:45 pm
sinz54:
By your definition, Nancy Pelosi is probably the most conservative person in Congress.
46 SFTor1 // Sep 6, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Off we go on a thread to discuss the restoration of intellectual rigor to conservative thought, and before you can say “Goldwater” a Southern racist highjacks the thread.
Ouch.
I think it can be reasonably argued that a character like escapevelocity is symptomatic of what ails the Republican Party. Such a one should not have a political home in the party. He does.
47 agentprovocateur // Sep 7, 2009 at 12:22 am
re: sinz54 // Sep 6, 2009 at 5:48 pm
My question was somewhat rhetorical, but I would agree with your point about non-Southern conservatives. Some Southern conservatives, as well as people like escapefromvelocity, who can’t seem to get over the twin facts that the South lost the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, are not doing the Republican Party or conservatism any favors with their warped views of history. There is a reason such people left the Democratic Party in droves after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. These people will only hurt the GOP in the future.
48 greg_barton // Sep 7, 2009 at 12:47 am
escapevelocity:
Glad you’ve shown your true colors.
And this is exhibit B for why the right wing is dead.
49 EscapeVelocity // Sep 7, 2009 at 12:54 am
Now Im a racist.
Yawn.
The charge has lost all power, and loses it by the day as everyone is called a racist, for opposing Barrack Hussein Obama, the Messiah. Who by the way is prisiding over the most racially divisive adminstration in probably a century.
I am a big supporter of the Civil Rights movement.
But slander as intellectualism to foster a conciliatory room for debate….is clearly what these people are promoting with calling me a racist.
These people have lost all credibility, I should think by now.
They arent interested in what they say they are interested in.
—–
And BTW, any dissent from the Leftist Line on the Civil War is now the sign of a racist or racist agenda or racist sentimentality.
Grievance #1 of the Southerners.
50 EscapeVelocity // Sep 7, 2009 at 12:57 am
Is Shelby Foote a racist? Or a noted scholar on the Civil War?
51 EscapeVelocity // Sep 7, 2009 at 1:24 am
All I see is a bunch of ignorant bigots on this thread with regards to the Civil War….not wanting to engage or discourse but rather slander and smear.
But your myth making is a part of your cultural identity. You have your myths, that you cherish. Other groups have their myths.
Why are some groups myths supported in the multicultual diversity circle, yet others are attacked and not allowed their myths, and not invited to the multi cultural circle. If cultures are relative and their are only shades of gray.
Here we can see the inate anti Westernism (in this specific case…anti Southernism) ingrained within the Left. Hypocritical to no end.
If you would like to learn about the Civil War….I would direct you to this site. There is some fantastic analysis and writing there….and not by a Southerner.
http://www.etymonline.com/cw/apologia.htm
Furthermore, I would like to call attention to Icarus Fallen, by Delsol. Here Claire Berlinski reviews the book….which I encourage you intellectuals to pick up.
Is God Still Dead?
By Claire Berlinski
Claire Berlinski on The Twilight of Atheism by Alister McGrath and Icarus Fallen: The Search for Meaning in an Uncertain World by Chantal Delsol and translated by Robin Dick
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3431831.html
In her subtle, highly intelligent meditation on the moral state of modern European man, Delsol considers his profound disillusionment: European man has in recent memory suffered two great losses, first his Christian faith and then its replacement — a vision of human perfectibility absent supernatural guidance. Failed experiments in utopianism, particularly in its communist and fascist expressions, have left him, like Icarus, singed at the wing-tips and fallen, paralyzed by self-doubt.
Utopian ideologies were, as she says, “systems of reference structured like cathedrals,” and her use of this rich simile is no accident. Europe has spent the past several centuries, not just this one, in a series of struggles to find a replacement for its lost Christian faith. Until recently, for example, nationalism was a substitute for religious belief; in France, the idea of France itself and its civilizing mission lent meaning to the lives of Frenchmen, just as the mystical Aryan ideal stood in for religious belief in Germany. The nation-state, the arts, music, science, fascism, communism, even rationality itself — all of these were substitutes for Christianity, and all failed. “We have watched all the cathedrals fall into ruin,” Delsol laments, “one after another.” But where McGrath sees in this the inevitability of religious revival, Delsol discerns no such thing. She finds her contemporaries’ fear of ideological certainty fully reasonable: Rigid orthodoxy, after all, did give rise to both the Inquisition and the Holocaust. So a return to the past is impossible, and no one has the faintest idea what the future might hold.
Man continues, nonetheless, to long for utopia and for the absolute — this is a design feature, to paraphrase Delsol, not a bug — and for a means to interpret his existence. But he no longer possesses a coherent ideological vehicle by which to express this longing. Here she sees the source of the profound risk-aversion of the modern European: “In general,” she writes, “our contemporary cannot imagine for what cause he would sacrifice his life because he does not know what his life means.” Though Delsol does not explicitly say as much, this is as good an explanation as we are apt to find for Europe’s recent approach to international affairs: How better, for example, to explain the willingness of the Spanish people instantly and obediently to capitulate to the demands of the terrorists who last year slaughtered some 200 of their countrymen?
Lacking any sense of purpose, Delsol asserts, modern man enshrouds himself in technological and physical comfort, leading a life that is at once free of risk and mediocre, mouthing vapid, unexamined clichés. These she calls “the clandestine ideology of our time” — clandestine because no overt adherence to ideology is now socially permissible. Yet the banishment of the economy of ideology, she astutely remarks, has encouraged a black market to flourish in its place: “This underground moral code is saturated with sentimentality yet arbitrarily intolerant.” The code is a close cousin to the political correctness of the Americans, and it is the unspoken foundation of the modern European welfare state — a society predicated on an ever-expanding sense of entitlement:
Anything contemporary man needs or envies, anything that seems desirable to him without reflection, becomes the object of a demanded right. Human rights are invoked as a reason for refusing to show identification, for becoming indignant against the deportation of delinquent foreigners, for forcing the state to take illegal aliens under its wing, for justifying squatting by homeless people, for questioning the active hunt for terrorists. It is not only desire or whim that leads to rights claims, but instinctive sentimentality and superficial indignation as well.
Another principle of this code is the estimation of tolerance above all other virtues. Once defined by the absence of state prohibitions against certain ideas and behaviors, tolerance has come to be conflated with legitimization — as the state itself now actively encourages those ideas and behaviors through legal and material aid. Delsol finds this pernicious, and rightly so. One need only look at the Netherlands to see exactly where this orthodoxy leads: When an artist created a street mural with the words “Thou shalt not kill” in response to the murder — by a Muslim radical — of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, Dutch police immediately destroyed it in the name of tolerance. Deputy Prime minister Gerrit Zalm was widely criticized for declaring the Netherlands to be at war with Islamic extremism. “We fall,” said Green-left leader Femke Halsema, “too easily into an ‘us and them’ antithesis with the word war.” No more perfect example of Delsol’s thesis can be imagined. “Dominated by emotion,” she observes,
our era overflows with treacly sentiment. It is almost as if the feelings that were once associated with a certain type of piety have contaminated the whole population. . . . Seeking the good while remaining indifferent to the truth gives rise to a morality of sentimentality.
My only quibble: This is not just a morality of sentimentality; it is a morality of eager, collective suicide.
Delsol’s is certainly not the first baleful assessment of our ambient culture of moral relativism — perhaps quasi-relativism is more apt because, as she rightly notes, its practitioners unquestionably accept moral absolutes (“one must be tolerant”) while insisting that they indignantly reject them. But her criticism is particularly lucid, and her analysis of the reasons for the rise of this ideology — and the kind of culture to which it in turn gives rise — unusually canny.
Alister mcgrath contends that a new “cultural sensitivity” has “led to religious beliefs being treated with new respect.” Yet on the pages of our major news organs we find the faithful described in the most disrespectful terms. Here is novelist Jane Smiley, in Slate, depicting them as “unteachably ignorant,” advising us to “[l]isten to what the red state citizens say about themselves, the songs they write, and the sermons they flock to. They know who they are — they are full of original sin and they have a taste for violence.” Brian Reade of the Mirror calls the faithful “self-righteous, gun-totin’, military-lovin’, sister-marryin’, abortion-hatin’, gay-loathin’, foreigner-despisin’, non-passport ownin’ red-necks.” Maureen Dowd, predictable as sunrise, sees “a vengeful mob — revved up by rectitude — running around with torches and hatchets after heathens and pagans and infidels.” And Nicolas Kristof echoes his New York Times colleague with his nod to “wheat-hugging, gun-shooting, Spanish-speaking, beer-guzzling, Bible-toting” Americans. If Delsol’s thesis needs further confirmation, consider this: These critics are exercised about the intolerance of the religious.
No, not much newfound respect for religion on display here — just a good deal of what Delsol calls the “ideology of the apostate.” Mainstream moral thinking remains, above all, structured around the rejection of religious morality. “The drama of the present age,” she observes, “does not lie so much in the return of certain figures of existence as it does in the fact that these figures were — and in many cases still are — despised.” Evidence for Delsol’s somber assessment of Western man, with his limited, repulsive view of truth and transcendence, is everywhere
52 SFTor1 // Sep 7, 2009 at 2:35 am
escape,
you cannot take the words “The Confederates Were Right” in your mouth and not be a racist. It may be a big bore to you, but civilized people find racism distasteful. Try to wrap your arms around it.
As for the rest of your comments: it never ceases to amaze me that American Christians are pushing the idea that they are a persecuted few.
53 Corky // Sep 7, 2009 at 2:52 am
If I had a job I would buy a wife from Russia, but I can’t, because I’m on unemployment. Should I sell drugs to make up the difference?
54 Conservatism Is Dead Without Pragmatism « Dr. Jones & the Raiders of the Lost Blog // Sep 7, 2009 at 10:37 am
[...] Is Dead Without Pragmatism Follow this link to a conservative commentary on the fate of the GOP if the anti-intellectualism of recent months [...]
55 Conservatism Is Dead Without Pragmatism « Dr. Jones & the Raiders of the Lost Blog // Sep 7, 2009 at 10:41 am
[...] Is Dead Without Pragmatism Follow this link to a conservative commentary about the fate of the GOP if the trend of anti-intellectualism [...]
56 EscapeVelocity // Sep 7, 2009 at 11:00 am
That only proves your, ingorance, intolerance, bigotry and hatred, sf.
I know you cant understand that, and probably have such a twisted half arsed knowledge of the Civil War.
Your view is very common, so it isnt as if I havent encountered it before.
I know you have no desire to learn and develop a better understanding and perfectly at peace with your ignorant simpleton’s bigotry.
57 EscapeVelocity // Sep 7, 2009 at 11:37 am
What we need is special education supplements, perhaps Southern History week or month in schools to promote knowledge and understanding of Southern History, especially of the US Civil War to combat ignorance which leads to bigotry and hatred.
58 EscapeVelocity // Sep 7, 2009 at 11:56 am
Sinz here is what I am talking about with the Southerner as Leftwing identity victimization politics group.
Here is the quick version…
The South was the victim of a brutal total Captialist Imperialist war, perpetrated on the population by the United States of America. And by default the Left likes this narrative…is predisposed to it. After the imperialist war of subjugation which perpetrated the worst sort of human rights abuses….the South impoverished, the capitalist North exploited the South for its agriculture and raw materials….which produced a legacy of decades perhaps a century of poverty, while the North amassed the riches.
So we have the South, an easily identifyable cultural group with a sense of victimization and grievance with regards to the power structure of the US, who is to this day still economically less well to do and less educated. Furthermore exacerbated by negative stereotypes and bigotry (which seems to be fully acceptable as they are unprotected by PC). And special protections for this historically discriminated against and disadvantaged group.
Clearly we have the formula which follows the classic Marxist as well as a New Leftist cultural frameworks, all that is left to do, is to community organize and have the Left champion the Southern people.
Special money distributions for schools and education programs, wealth re-distribution, special preferences for college adminssions nationwide (especially in elite universities in the North East corridor built with capitalist exploitation of the South), and special preferences and protections in employment hiring. This to correct historical wrongs done to these people, by the powers that be, specifically teh United States and the Northern Military Industrial Complex.
Furthermore, we should have manadatory cirricula changes which celebrate Southern culture and value Southern contributions to the United States, discourage hateful hurtful speech that stigmatizes Southerns as ignorant poor racists of low moral character….a PC enforced speech code.
Certainly you can see where this falls right in line with Leftwing thinking and ideals.
So the question becomes….why has it not been done? And the answer to that question is quite revealing.
59 sinz54 // Sep 7, 2009 at 1:29 pm
escapevelocity:
The Civil War was a war between the industrial, increasingly mechanized, technological North, vs. a South which had a backward agrarian economy sustained only by slave labor.
Even if the War had not been fought at all, the South could never have withstood change much longer. The strongest slave, no matter how much he’s fed and cared for, can’t compete with giant machines run by steam engines or internal combustion engines. The South would have had to modernize eventually, just like the North did. The lure of a rapidly rising standard of living (which the North was enjoying) was just too great.
In the world today, backward agrarian economies built on slave labor (like Cuba’s or Russia before 1991) can only be sustained by tyranny which brooks no opposition or independent thinking. But the American South didn’t want that (look at the Constitution of the Confederacy). So it had to lose. It was becoming an anachronism, just like Gorbachev’s forlorn hope for “democratic communism.”
Look around your own house. It’s full of slaves. You’ve got a slave to wash your dishes and a slave to wash and dry your clothes, and a slave ready to take you anywhere you wish to go in your city, day or night; and a slave to take your messages and transmit them to their destination. Only these slaves aren’t human. They’re machines–and they work better than humans. And they never go on strike or revolt for better working conditions. That’s why the Southern model, based on human slaves, couldn’t survive in competition.
As for Southern culture, where would America be without:
– Hush puppies, jambalaya, Southern fried chicken, Coca-Cola, Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper, Jack Daniels;
– Country music, ragtime, rhythm & blues, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Gone With the Wind, Gomer Pyle, To Kill a Mockingbird;
– William Faulkner, William Styron, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote (most of whose works are studied in schools all across America)
You have nothing to worry about. Southern culture is an integral part of America’s heritage.
It’s just this funny idea that our God-given natural order was for whites to be superior to blacks and even treat blacks as draft animals, that we discarded.
60 SFTor1 // Sep 7, 2009 at 1:32 pm
I would leave it to conservatives on this blog to deal with escapevelocity.
His pathology can only be dealt with by people he cannot dismiss as enemies.
61 midcon // Sep 7, 2009 at 2:16 pm
60 sftor1 // Sep 7, 2009 at 1:32 pm I would leave it to conservatives on this blog to deal with escapevelocity. His pathology can only be dealt with by people he cannot dismiss as enemies.
Yes he can dismiss them – he can declare them liberals rather than conservatives and then dimiss them. It is simple matter to relabel someone (living or dead). However, I agree with your strategy and since I am indepedent, its not my job. However, I just do not engage him and skip to the posts worthy of my attention.
62 EscapeVelocity // Sep 7, 2009 at 2:23 pm
The Civil War was a war between the industrial, increasingly mechanized, technological North, vs. a South which had a backward agrarian economy sustained only by slave labor. — sinz
The first sentence of your response is bigoted and anti Southern. Agriculture is the foundation of this countries power. Without cotton there is no mill and their is no clothing manufacturers.
The fact of the matter is that the South was being heavily taxed on its goods exports to Europe, to fund the federal government on the order of 4 Southern States funding 75 percent of the Federal Government, and then the Feds spending 90 percent of expendiatures in the North. The export tariffs also had teh effect of a protected market for the North of Southern agriculture and raw material production as it did not pay these tariffs.
63 EscapeVelocity // Sep 7, 2009 at 2:26 pm
sinz said:
Even if the War had not been fought at all, the South could never have withstood change much longer. The strongest slave, no matter how much he’s fed and cared for, can’t compete with giant machines run by steam engines or internal combustion engines. The South would have had to modernize eventually, just like the North did. The lure of a rapidly rising standard of living (which the North was enjoying) was just too great.
—-
This is absolutely correct. Which takes the wind out of the War was about Slavery brigades sails. The North had already figured out that exploiting immigrant labor was much cheaper, no large up front investment, and no on going concerns about providing food, shelter, health care, etc. Just cheap labor, freely exploited.
64 EscapeVelocity // Sep 7, 2009 at 2:39 pm
It’s just this funny idea that our God-given natural order was for whites to be superior to blacks and even treat blacks as draft animals, that we discarded. — Sinz
Except that that didnt happen. And not in the North either. The states in the North that had abolished slavery didnt free the slaves and grant them citizenship and full human civil rights. In fact most of them encouraged slaveholders to sell their slaves out of state to be rid of them, as they were seen as subhuman inferiors that they didnt want to have to deal with.
Furthermore, the offer of a Constitutional Amendment protecting slavery as an institution before the war to avoid Secession gives the lie to the claim that the war was a war of liberation to free slaves. The Emancipation Proclaimation itself was the same offer in the middle of the war. Furthermore, Slavery continued as a legal institution in the North, even after the Emancipation Proclamation was made. Delaware was the last state that had legal slavery, post Civil War.
The North wasnt primarily concerned about slavery, so much as its political and economic domination of the rest of the country. They were fine with slavery, they just wanted preffered access to the fruits of slavery’s labor, and the tarriffs were the drivers.
Gotta go, be back.
65 EscapeVelocity // Sep 7, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Furthermore, post Civil War, you can see that the North quickly abandoned the charade of being about African American freedom and liberty, equality, etc.
In fact most African Americans lot did not improve, they were now just freely exploited labor, share croppers, still working in the fields to produce agricultural goods for the use of the industrialized North.
One can look at the Supreme Courts cases until 1900, a period where the victors of the Civil War dominated, the Republican Party adn the North where Great masses of wealth accumulated to the Robber Barrons.
“Between 1890 and 1910, of all the 14th amendment cases brought before the Supreme Court, 19 dealt with black people, and 228 with corporations.” Namely the personhood and rights of Corporations.
The facts dont jive with the simplistic myth, that you profess.
Racism and segregation were just as virulent in the North and the rest of the country, pre and post Civil War. Its just that Negros were much more numerous in the South, and thus the power dynamics were much more on display.
Please give this linked article your attention and indeed the whole of that site is dynamite, well written and well researched.
One can fully abhor slavery and segregation and racism and support the Confederacy as a noble cause….in the same vein as the American Revolution.
The Cost of Union
http://www.etymonline.com/cw/intro.htm
66 agentprovocateur // Sep 7, 2009 at 8:28 pm
His pathology can only be dealt with by people he cannot dismiss as enemies.
It would appear that anyone who disagrees with him is dismissed as an enemy.
The fact of the matter is that the South was being heavily taxed on its goods exports to Europe, to fund the federal government on the order of 4 Southern States funding 75 percent of the Federal Government, and then the Feds spending 90 percent of expendiatures in the North.
Oh, sorta like how so many blue states pay far more in federal taxes than they recieve from the federal government as opposed to so many red states where the reverse is true. Perhaps all those blue states now have the “legitimate right” to secede from the Union?
67 greg_barton // Sep 8, 2009 at 1:13 am
Man, escapevelocity, you exceed expectations every time. Keep it up!
68 EscapeVelocity // Sep 8, 2009 at 2:53 am
Well, I dont expect to change the minds of bigots who have no use for historical facts who are more concerned about continuing to justify their irrational hatred….but there is a another way…
I proffered a compromise solution, where you get to keep your preffered myths (and Southerners get to keep their preffered myths…well they arent myths but from your perspective they are)…..this falls under the cultural relativism moniker. We (as in everybody is forced to in the public school system and cirricular) celebrate the Southern versions of history, they are promoted in Southern Studies University Programs, that type of thing. This is part of the celebrating diversity meme, and also college admission preferences for Southerners is isntitued, Affirmative Action hiring programs to equalize the economically and educationally historically and currently disadvantaged Southerners. The Southern Gap. Special protections against would be discrimination against Southerners. And also, campaigns to end the negative stereotyping of Southerners and end the bigotry.
The question still remains. Why has the Left not pursued this strategy, they could bring the Southerners into the Left coalition and form a permanent majority. Why has this not happened?
69 EscapeVelocity // Sep 8, 2009 at 3:01 am
This is an intellectual discussion, is no one willing to proffer a reason?
70 Corky // Sep 8, 2009 at 11:37 am
I’d like to hear your answer as to why it hasn’t happened yet, eascpevelocity.
71 SergeantS // Sep 8, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Good Lord–could you please bring your brain into the 21 century from the 19th? This discussion is about the FUTURE of the conservative philosophy…not the past. Dragging up the Civil War stuff is not really useful to any sort of discussion. It’s good to know your history, but unless you are a history professor, it’s bad to fixate upon it….and this comment thread is doing exactly that. I was born and raised in the South, and I could not care less about any supposed white Southern grievances, and the more time you devote to a thread that has very little bearing on the premise of the original post, then the more this whole discussion becomes a joke.
72 EscapeVelocity // Sep 8, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Now intellectualism is a joke.
Ive heard it all on this site now.
Corky, its an interesting question isnt it corky? Because it would seem that the South is ripe for the Leftist picking, right in line with their playbook and Marxist interpretation of history. A group that has been oppressed by teh Western Capitalist Imperialist Bourgousie.
My understanding is that it is rooted in the Lefts anti Westernism. In their eyes the Southern Whites are the problem. The culture war is against them, and other Europeans and now the Israelis have come under their ire….which has really got the Jews stirred up, because the Jews have been within the Leftist fold, even leaders and great thinkers within the Leftist movement.
The Southerners are to have their culture destroyed, anti Christianity is part of it….so that the revolution can commense. The Left needs an enemy to rally differing groups around in order to hold a coalition of disperate groups together for power. The White Western Christian Capitalist Patriarchy.
But their is something else going on here as well. The Northern Leftwing elites do not want to disempower themselves, which is what this would do. So in a sense this is the old Civil War conflict, where the Northerners are attempting to excercise power over the rest of the country, via the Federal Government.
To illustrate this, lets take Affirmative Action and Hiring Preferences for African Americans.
In the North (and other areas) this is much less controversial. Why? Because there are far fewer blacks in those areas. Its affects are not overall intrusive. However in the South where an area may be 50 percent African American and 50 percent White….this has massive impact on the white population. Preferences in hiring and college admissions have much greater effect on Southern populations.
What say you corky?
73 Corky // Sep 8, 2009 at 7:27 pm
I’ve lived my whole life on the fringes of the South, but I haven’t lived and looked for work in the heart of the Old South, so I can’t speak to affirmative action’s effects on the daily lives of whites in the old south. As to your other point, I’d say that your characterization of the intellectual left is spot on. (I’m cooking dinner, back in a minute…)
74 EscapeVelocity // Sep 8, 2009 at 7:48 pm
The most glaring example of this anti Westernism, is in the Lefts turn on Israel and its apologia and support for Islam and Muslim societies and cultures, and opposing US (and Western) war efforts to beat back the scourge of humanity, Islam and particularly its fundamentalist and reactionary forms. This is the classic extenuation of the anti interventionist anti war stance vis a vis the Cold War, which was not pro peace, but rather pro Communist, Socialist, Totalitarianism, which was the point and the effect.
We constantly hear fretting about treating Muslims poorly and not respecting their culture and religion, but we get scurilous attacks on Christianity which is portrayed in the most vile terms.
Its lunacy!
75 Corky // Sep 8, 2009 at 8:19 pm
If you want a short road map to the future of conservative philosophy, here’s my version. Rebuild a lot of what the left trashed and get rid of a lot of what the left saddled us with. As you noted, escapevelocity, we can address this issue in isolation, then that issue in isolation, then the other in isolation, but we’ll never address the driving force behind it all. We can get apopleptic about the lack of prayer in schools (why is the separation of church and state the only constitutional principle that is never, ever open to modification, only to reinforcement? Anyone?). We can get apopleptic about late-term abortions, etc, but we’re fighting with one hand tied behind our back when we do, while the left is hitting us with krav maga. It was a good first step when some red-diaper babies became neocons back in the seventies, but it seems to me that David Frum has his sights pointed the wrong way. The problem isn’t that the Republicans aren’t reaching out aggressively enough to the left (kind of a strange image, if you think of it). The problem is that the intellectual left is still unable to face or acknowledge the the cultural, the moral, the economic mess it’s made over the past several decades. The apology needs to come from the intellectual left, not from the right. It always has, and I’m not really seeing it.
76 EscapeVelocity // Sep 8, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Agreed, the Left is unapologetic.
Balconesfault, thinks that the Republicans should apologize for Iraq, but nobody is offering apologies for their attempts to hamstring Reagan in support of the Contras and against the Sandinistas. And that is just one of many, many.
I agree that the Red Diaper Babies turned NeoCons are a Godsend, David Horowitz and Ronald Radosh, Ive been reading lately. They are truely apologetic and because they as Leftists were hyper political, feel the need to expose the truth about the Left and the networks and tactics and strategies used by the Left.
What is Obama and the Left doing to put families back together? Nothing, the whole point was to replace Dad with the State in the first place. Who is going to provide health care for the kids, the Federal Government is, because Dad is nowhere to be found.
We have problems that need solutions, indeed!
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