Free Republic

Although the 2004 election is barely underway, Conservarives ought to be thinking about how we can redefine the Republican Party once it is over. Say what you will about Bush, McCain, Giuliani, etc., but the Republican Party is our best hope for keeping the nation alive. Thus, it is essential that Conservatives take active roles in helping to shape the Party, because it needs our help, badly. That said, if Conservatives are to do anything to help the nation, we must come to a consensus on historically dividing issues between Paleoconservatives and Neoconservatives. The purpose of this thread is to...

Like most Toogood Reports readers, I observed this year's battles within the conservative ranks with profound discomfort. In my mind, there are far too many real enemies out there to waste time and print fighting one another. It seems that the world of conservatism has been split up between the "conservatives" and the "paleo-conservatives" or between the "conservatives" and the "neo-conservatives." Both sides present themselves as the bona fide article and the other side as the one in need of a prefix. Personally, I just want to spit up this strife the same way the bleachers of Wrigley Field do...

Irving Kristol, who identifies himself as the "Godfather" of neoconservativism, is finally beginning to come clean and admit what neoconservatism stands for: statism at home and imperialism abroad. He makes this candid admission in an August 25 article in The Weekly Standard entitled "The Neoconservative Persuasion." Congratulating himself for becoming an "historic" figure (at least in his own mind) he declares: [T]he historical task and political purpose of neoconservativism would seem to be this: to convert the Republican Party, and American conservatism in general, against their respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politics suitable to governing a modern...

One day, this Iraq War will be thought of as the Intellectuals' War. That is, it was a war conceived of by people who possessed more books than common sense, let alone actual military experience. Disregarding prudence, precedent and honesty, they went off - or, more precisely, sent others off - tilting at windmills in Iraq, chasing after illusions of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and false hope about Iraqi enthusiasm for Americanism, and hoping that reality would somehow catch up with their theory. The problem, of course, is that wars are more about bloodletting than book-learning. Tilting at...

Meso-Conservatives?, by Lawrence Auster: "A correspondent writes: “You are what I call a meso-conservative, a paleo on domestic policy (esp. immigration) and a neo…" Comments Taking the same positions as Mr. Auster, I’ve long called myself an eclecticon. I think a name that recalls choice among several items and then the combining of them is more appropriate than mesocon, which has the feel of something that’s been obsolete for a few million years. Where I might quibble with Mr. Auster’s response is in his calling himself a neocon on foreign policy. That implies that the neocons as a group have...

The outcome of the war in Iraq seems to have vindicated the conservative argument for the war. But as conservatives celebrate this well-deserved political victory, it is important to remember that not all conservatives supported the idea of ridding the world of Saddam’s regime. Pat Buchanan and his fellow paleo-conservatives at the American Conservative were as staunchly opposed to the war as the anti-war Left. Buchanan’s analysis, canvassed in detail on the pages of the American Conservative, had a particular twist which generated something of a mini-controversy. The mini-controversy was focused on whether Buchanan’s was an anti-Semitic argument. But the...

On the message boards at Gene Expression (gnxp.com), a self-styled paleocon calling himself Sporon offers the opinion that America is at war today for the sole purpose of "making the world safe for Israel." I could not help responding. My reply to Sporon reads: Dear Sporon: Nobody said that this war is being fought to make the world safe for Israel except you paleocons. Even the Arabs have more geopolitical sense than that. They understand that Israel serves the United States -- not the other way around. Paleos are experts at spinning excuses for opposing wars. Indeed, the only wars...

National Review’s Anathema Corner by J.P. Zmirak The spitball bombardiers of the imperialist "right" aren’t satisfied with imposing "democracy" abroad – they also want to stifle it here at home. The most serious attempt in recent weeks to silence discussion in American politics is David Frum’s cover story in the current National Review. If you haven’t slogged through it yet, it’s a compilation of all the most unfortunate things ever said – or almost said, or never said but possibly implied – by thinkers whom the ex-Canadian speechwriter broadly labels "paleoconservative." Rather than refute his charges point by point –...

Toogood Reports [Wednesday, March 19, 2003; 12:01 a.m. EST]URL: http://ToogoodReports.com/ Whom to Fight? The problem with fighting our Moslem enemies, as many observers have noted, is that the terrorists never identify themselves with any particular nation. Thus, each Moslem nation – excepting the Saudis – enjoys plausible deniability regarding its role in 911. What no one, to my knowledge, has noted, however, is that deniability cuts both ways. Just as Islam could not openly declare war on America, America cannot openly declare war on Islam. But we can fight Islamic nations, while denying that we are fighting Islam. Were America...

Defending American SovereigntyIn recent weeks, certain conservatives have questioned why globalists and certain countries have been taking actions in the UN that seemed to be discrediting the institution. Hans Blix and Mouhamed Al-Baradei persisted in downplaying Saddam Hussein’s open breaches of the 1991 Ceasefire agreement and Resolution 1441, the 17th resolution ignored or breached by the Ba’athist regime in Iraq. Meanwhile the French and Russians threatened to veto any resolution enforcing prior ones, for which they voted. While these stances have been explained by neoconservatives in the press as mere institutional pacifism in the UN and protection of business interests...

AMERICA'S FLAILING FRANCOPHOBES by Thomas Fleming March 13, 2003 Neoconservative hatemongers are stirring up the Francophobic bigotry that lies just beneath the surface of the American mind. Not content with hurling the charge of anti-Semitism against anyone who wins an argument with Bill Kristol (the line would extend around the world) or happens to have something (a foundation, a magazine, a job) they want, neoconservatives who have never fired a pellet gun or put on a pair of boxing gloves are deriding the French for cowardice and calling for boycotts against French wine. The assembled patriots and heroes of the...

LIONS AND HYENAS by Thomas Fleming A recent series of exchanges on LewRockwell.com reveal the fissure that divides libertarians from conservatives. More precisely, as our colleague Clyde Wilson points out, it divides one group of "chirping sectaries" within the libertarian coalition from all those conservatives and libertarians who understand that a civilized social order is, at the very least, an essential precondition for political and economic liberty. Beyond this limited Hayekian insight, conservatives have also understood that freedom of choice is a trivial gift, if the choice is between hamburger chains or the name brands of junk sold at Wal-Mart...

The Reluctant Anarchist by Joseph Sobran My arrival (very recently) at philosophical anarchism has disturbed some of my conservative and Christian friends. In fact, it surprises me, going as it does against my own inclinations. As a child I acquired a deep respect for authority and a horror of chaos. In my case the two things were blended by the uncertainty of my existence after my parents divorced and I bounced from one home to another for several years, often living with strangers. A stable authority was something I yearned for. Meanwhile, my public-school education imbued me with the sort...

Americanizing Newcomers AgainBy W. James Antle IIIEtherzone.com | October 30, 2002 If the U.S. immigration system is to have any purpose, it would seem that it should be the creation of new Americans. To that end, admission criteria would be revamped to prefer those who wish to become Americans and the naturalization process would emphasize assimilation - what we once called "Americanization."Up to this point, such prominent center-right opinion leaders and policy advocates as Ron Unz, Linda Chavez and Ben Wattenberg would strongly agree. But they would also couple their call for greater assimilation - and admirable opposition to the...

Straussians vs. Paleoconservatives by Paul Gottfried Having received a note from an inquiring graduate student, Mitchell Young, who is "banging out a Master’s thesis" at San Diego State, and cannot comprehend why I have insisted that Straussians and paleos are irreconcilably divided, I wish to offer the following friendly clarification. At the very least my explanation may be help to relieve the "cognitive dissonance" that Mitch has complained about, and which has been produced by my apparent inability to distinguish the disciples of Leo Strauss and neoconservatives. A German-Jewish classicist who fled to the US in 1938, Strauss (1899-1973) drew...

It Could Have Been the German Century by Francis Fukuyama My nominee for man of the century is considerably less well known than Time's choice, Albert Einstein, even though his actions arguably left a much greater imprint on the century. He is Alexander von Kluck, the hapless general commanding the German First Army as it swung around the French right while dashing toward Paris in September 1914. The French line miraculously held, and von Kluck lost the first battle of the Marne. The German drive was stalemated, and the two sides then settled down for four horrible years of trench...