Posted on 12/25/2006 8:54:12 AM PST by A. Pole
"Are there even any real conservatives left in America?" recently asked the one eager for knowledge. "There are," responded the wise man, "but they are often called paleoconservatives."
What are paleoconservatives? Well, as Russell Kirk once said, they are the only real conservatives left in America. The whole "conservative movement" has moved so far to the Left, or rather has been "neoconned," that many so-called conservatives are "conservative" in name only.
What do paleoconservatives believe?
Like mainstream conservatives, paleos are often religious, or at least reverent of religion. They are opposed to secularism, opposed to "gay marriage," opposed to the abortion industry, opposed to political correctness, opposed to the vulgarity of popular culture, and opposed to big government.
Otherwise, paleoconservatives hold more traditional views not held by many mainstream conservatives and certainly not by neoconservatives (aka "liberals in disguise").
For the remainder of the essay, I shall contrast paleos with neocons, who have gained prominence in America in recent years largely due to alliances with liberals. The liberal mainstream media is quite tolerant of neocons since they are only liberals of a different stripe.
First, unlike neocons / neoliberals, paleoconservatives oppose free trade. Historically and philosophically, conservatives have opposed free trade, and they should. It is destroying our economy, it is undermining our sovereignty, and it is national suicide. Unfortunately, many in the GOP have been "neoconned" into supporting free trade.
Second, unlike neoliberals / neocons, paleoconservatives are critical of mass immigration and oppose the third-world invasion of America. All immigration (whether legal or illegal) from the third world must end. Our country is currently being invaded, and many in the GOP (Bush, McCain, Rice, Brownback, Giuliani, Huckabee, et al.) not only have done nothing to oppose this invasion, they actually support it. They actively attempt to transform the USA into a third-world wasteland.
Third, unlike Leftists (and the neocons who have adopted this idea from them), paleoconservatives oppose the "proposition nation." The proposition nation is the left-wing idealization of a nation whereby one only has to believe in a few propositions to be considered a citizen. Not only is this contrary to history, but it is the recipe for self-destruction. Paleoconservatives support the traditionally conservative concept of a nation: one built upon kith and kin, blood and soil, genophilia (instinctive attachment to family and tribe), ancestral obligations, and ethnic solidarity.
Fourth, neocons at heart are philosophical liberals. They accept most of the liberal baggage of the Enlightenment and actually champion the left-wing notion of "rights." Paleoconservatives, however, reject Enlightenment notions of "rights," and rather believe in a more traditionalist, flawed view of human nature, one based in history, ancestry, community, and custom, and guided by the laws of nature. Obligation trumps right. Whereas most neocons / neoliberals side with the Enlightenment revolutionaries, paleoconservatives side with Aristotle and the Bible. Whereas neocons / neoliberals champion equality and egalitarianism, paleoconservatives cherish ancestral traditions and hierarchy.
Fifth, neocons support a neoliberal foreign policy, which resembles more Jacobin radicalism than conservatism. Neocons seek to transform the world into a liberal global democracy - tossing aside prudence, history, and realism. Paleoconservatives, on the other hand, realize that different types of government are better tailored for different cultures. Furthermore, paleoconservatives are largely non-interventionist, which means that we should not be a military for hire to solve others’ problems. If attacked, certainly, we should fight back, but we needn’t be the world’s policeman.
Regarding terrorism, many paleos support the position that the only way to end terrorism in the West (we can never stop it in the Middle East) is (1) to completely withdraw from the Middle East, and (2) to deport all Muslims from the West. This policy, more than any other, would reduce the chances of terrorist attacks on Western soil.
Neocons, however, support the opposite: endless war in the Middle East, and endless third-world immigration to the West. In fact, they just increased quotas for Muslims in the USA - not to mention the fact, as reported by Christian Science Monitor recently, that 200,000 Hispanics in the USA have recently converted to Islam.
Neocons, though, have no real historical attachment to America, and could care less about its wellbeing. They send our boys to die in a meaningless war in Iraq while the third world invades our country on an hourly basis. They protect Iraq’s borders, and allow ours to be flooded with third-world invaders.
In short, paleoconservatives are the only real conservatives left in America. Philosophically and ideologically, neocons are leftists in disguise, who fifty years ago would have been tried for treason but now portray themselves as patriotic Americans.
I notice you didn't refute Roberts' on the U.S. export profile - only the amounts in depreciated U.S. dollars. A U.S. dollar in 1900 was made of gold - a U.S. Dollar today is paper and has 3 cents in purchasing value compared to the old dollar.
Paul Craig Roberts article explains why I don't see U.S. made clothing, shoes, or manufactured products anymore in local stores - call him an Assclown if you wish, but at least his analysis is based on reality and can be checked out as being real with my eyes.
I can't say the same for your theories and statistics - if there is any justice, when the U.S. economy collapses due to trade deficits and free trade, you will be flipping burgers in a part-time job side by side with illegal aliens in a local McDonalds. It will be a Brave New World of Free Trade where you will be competing globally with Chinese and Mexican workers resulting in the lowest possible wage for you.
Hope you and yours had a VERY Happy Christmas, Toddster and a HAPPY BOXING DAY! :-)
Ronald Reagan leaned strongly in the neoconservative direction. He talked a good game but never shrank government (instead he allowed a tremendous expansion). Philosophically, he's well know for his optimism, including the saying that "all people are basically good". That's generous of him, but it sure isn't conservatism.
Great post! Go Pat, go!
Wow, I have a new tagline :)
Excellent post.
Those old Republicans weren't dumb - I'd vote for no income tax and a 40% tax on foreigners exporting goods for sale in the U.S. Could someone resurrect William McKinley and run him for President? In exchange for a 40% tariff, I would get no trade deficits, a dollar as good as gold, and no income tax in a country where a man can support his family with one paycheck - that's got my vote!
The ONLY reason for America's preeminence, in the world, in the late '40s through most of the later part of the 20th century, is because WW II wiped out almost ALL of Europe's manufacturing and they had to rebuild, retune, and then reemerge. In doing so, they and Asian nations stood on the shoulders of what America had built and outpaced her, due to cheaper labor ( in Taiwan and China ) and innovation. And least one forgets, Japanese goods ( in the late '40s ) and then Taiwanese, flooded America; now it's Chinese stuff.
The problems:
1)The boom of the nineties may have been driven by the Internet bubble, but it did relieve the doldrums of 1991-2, and it's still going on. Most people would rather have today's economy than what we had in the 1970s when the giants of American industry still held sway. We may have to pay the piper someday for neglecting US industry, but the status quo is better than a full-fledged paleo remedy.
2) Dittos on immigration. Yes, it's a mess. Yes, we probably shouldn't have passed the 1965 Immigration Act. But a country that wants to compete with China and India is probably going to have to take in some qualified technical workers from abroad. And it's impossible to return to the ethnic composition we had in the 1950s even if we wanted to. There's a lot we have to fix in our immigration policy, but the paleos aren't the people who can or should do it.
3) 9/11 means that we can't simply isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. And we have to focus on security issues. It's true that if we weren't so much involved in other countries' affairs, things might have been different, but we can't undo history. We have to start from what's already happened.
There's also a pattern in history. The US tried to stay out of the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon two hundred years ago. It didn't work. We tried to stay out of the World Wars a century later. That also didn't work. We could have done things differently, but it wouldn't have changed the general picture then or now.
Which brings us to 4) There are few people who lie about history as outrageously as paleocons. For them there is the real Jeffersonian America and Constitution and a false system that's been forced upon us that we must and can simply throw off.
But Jefferson's wasn't the only view of the Constitution. Most Founders weren't Jeffersonians. Jefferson's system didn't work in foreign policy, or in domestic policy either. He didn't have much understanding of economic development and as time went on he didn't show much real concern about slavery. I don't say that there wasn't much good in his thinking. Just that you can't take his version as Gospel, without asking serious questions about it.
5) There really isn't any such thing as a paleocon. There are Buchananites who favor tariffs and immigration controls. There are libertarians who oppose them. And there are Rockwellite paleolibertarians who (conveniently, if not quite dishonestly) rage against tariffs and support immigration control. There are wounded eccentrics like Tom Fleming and Paul Gottfried who are basically writing personal screeds about the modern world. And there are an awful lot of Dixiecrats and neoconfederates who the others fawn on because the seem to be the largest of the factions. It's hard to find a real philosophy or policy in this mishmash.
6) Finally, it was natural for Robert Taft or Howard Buffet or Barry Goldwater or Russell Kirk to want to get back to how things were when they were young. That's how people are. It's natural when neocons want to restore the social values of the 1940s or 1950s. When someone in his twenties tells you that we just have to return to how things were the 1840s or 1780s, that that was the true America and the true Constitution, only lost by the evil machinations of Hamilton or Lincoln, one can only shake one's head slowly and try not to laugh or cry.
For all their romanticizing about past epochs, Paleocons don't seem to have a clue about how history works and how change happens. It's sad.
There were more PANICS, recession, depressions, bank failures, and BUBBLES under the gold standard, than there have been since we went off it. And let's take a gander at that "dear" populist, William Jennings Bryan and his "CRUCIFIED ON A CROSS OF GOLD" speech......shall we? ;^)
And FWIW, the American standard of living has risen faster, for everyone, since going off the gold standard; as have wages. Gee, do you think that there's something here that you and old Pauly Roberts are missing?
It is a STUPID statement, because Free Trade has never been realized in this country, and probably never will be. You cant harden something into Dogma that does not exist as anything more than an ideal.
Nice try again, but essentially propaganda.
I don't know if you've seen the recent news, but apparently pennies and nickles are in danger of being melted down for the metal value - due to inflation, coinage is worth more for the metal than the face value. I'm willing to compromise with a silver backed currency or a gold and silver backed currency Bryan style. American money should represent a store of value and not increasingly worthless paper - even foreigners are catching on and are switching to other currencies, such as Iran to the Euro.
What is going on is that politicians are stealing the value of savings from Americans (and foreigners) by watering down the currency - You aren't in favor of theft, are you?
Also, a paper currency didn't save the Argentinians or Germans from PANICS, depressions, bank failures and the like - at least with gold (and silver) you are not left with worthless toilet paper after the politicians destroy the economy.
No. Tariffs are a tax, payable to the US Government, on imported goods.
The US Government is understood to be "the whole of the US" despite Congressional mis-understanding that the US Government is their personal plaything.
Feh. Paleos are isolationist lefties in conservative clothing. Their mindset comes from the 1930s and should have stayed there.
The Euro is dead in the water. It is a failing currency! England isn't on it and France wants out of it; amongst others. Iran...........you're handing me Iran? It's Boxing Day, so I'll be kind. LOL
Nobody, least of all American politicians, is "stealing the value of savings from Americans ( and foreigners )by watering down the currency."! That statement proves that you don't understand this topic and should really not engage in discussing. Oh and BTW....old WJB was NOT for a mixed gold and silver backed currency at all! Go read his loopy speech. His take was that gold and a gold backed currency was dooming the poor and the farmers. Again, you are trying to tackle a subject that it is clear you don't know anything about.
Are you for going back to a time when PANICS, RECESSIONS, and DEPRESSIONS were cyclical and constant?
Oh yoooooooooooooo hoooooooooooooooo...the German Mark tanked because of WW I WAR REPARATIONS! I suggest that you read 1919; it's a great book and a start on your road to historical literacy. :-)
Smoot-Hawley.
Funny. I thought tariffs allow domestic producers to compete with cheaper imported goods by giving them the breathing room to charge more for their products. The fact that you don't understand the difference comes from your pocket is hardly surprising.
Nope. Historical ignorance doesn't befit you.
The collapse started LONG before S-H.
No--the difference between slave labor and a prosperous neighbor is significant.
But first, (unlike others) one must CARE about their neighbors--not the PRChinese.
That "caring about (US) neighbors" stuff is part of Conservatism, not the "it's all about me!!!" Libertine/Libertarian bunch.
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