Category Archives: Conservatism

Happy Birthday, Pat Buchanan

America, Conservatism, Foreign Policy, Founding Fathers, History, IMMIGRATION

Tom Piatak writes a great column about a great American (with whom I’ve disagreed, a fact that has nothing to do with the man’s prescience and patriotism): “Pat Buchanan At 70: ‘He Told You So, You F****ing Fools!’” Read it on VDARE.COM, naturally:

“Both Bush and McCain swallowed the neoconservative line whole. Both see the mission of the United States as using its blood and treasure to spread’ ‘global democratic capitalism.’ Both welcome the mass immigration that is radically transforming the United States. … neither views America as a real country at all, but as the embodiment of an abstract political creed—the ‘first universal nation.’

Buchanan long ago warned that allowing neoconservatives to set the agenda would be calamitous for conservatives. His warning was unmistakably vindicated when the Republicans lost Congress in 2006. And if the American electorate rejects Bush and McCain next Tuesday, it will be rejecting neoconservatism, pure and simple.

Of course, Buchanan opposed the Iraq War that has cast its shadow over Bush’s presidency. He foresaw that removing Saddam Hussein would greatly strengthen Tehran and that an occupation of Iraq would be both costly and deadly.

More generally, Buchanan recognized that the end of the Cold War meant that America must begin reexamining its global commitments and pursuing a foreign policy in line with the one recommended by the Founders—and that failure to do so would be costly.”

The complete column on VDARE.COM.

Updated: Who’s Stupid? Not Sarah

Conservatism, Elections 2008, Federalism, IMMIGRATION, Intelligence, Israel, John McCain, Just War, Media, Republicans, Sarah Palin, War

The following is an excerpt from my new WND column, “Who’s Stupid? Not Sarah.” It is the first in a series of three (unless the news cycle changes the plan):

“Governor Sarah Palin’s alleged lack of cerebral alacrity is probably less in doubt after the first Vice-Presidential Debate. Prior to that, a bipartisan consensus had been developing among the ideologically converging political class and their parrot pundits that she was indeed an idiot.

The biggest hitter was conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, who demanded that Governor Palin bow out of the race. “Only Palin can save McCain, the Party, and the country she loves. Do it for your country, please,” pleaded Parker histrionically.

How like a woman to implicate causes not in evidence for the country’s undoing.

Where was Sarah Palin when the Bush/Bernanke bulldozer was running up debts and deficits financed by promiscuous printing and borrowing? Whodunit? Who so debased the country’s coin? …

Sarah Palin … has an alibi. When these characters were gassing-up the economy with hot air, she was in Alaska getting her house in order. This does nothing to excuse Sarah’s subsequent sell-out, but it doesn’t put her at the original crime scene.

Elementary, my dear Ms. Parker: Palin quitting will not save your Party or the country.

…. At the very least, the developing consensus as to Palin’s aptitude, I venture, is premature. …”

Read the complete column, “Who’s Stupid? Not Sarah.”

Update: A reader sent this YouTube clip along with the comment, “Explain this about your precious Sara! [sic].”

He apparently had not understood my column, wherein I condemned Palin for turning her back on a laudable cause she and Tod once supported: peaceful secession, which is as American as apple pie. I’ll repeat what I wrote:

Palin slammed a cause she had, at one time, saluted: that of the Alaskan Independence Party. It advocates what was once a fundament of the American founding: peaceful secession. As leading economic historian Tom DiLorenzo has documented in rich detail, the Union was a voluntary one. If the states had believed it was a “one-way Venus flytrap,” they would never have ratified the Constitution.

“Sarah Palin: Palling Around With Secessionists” convinces me that by joining McCain, Palin has forfeited a previously held, laudable libertarian principle.

I urge the reader to read “Quebec May be the Guard of Our Ultimate Freedom” and “Raise a Toast to Western Separatism and Canada’s Good Health.” Since Sarah seemed to have once supported peaceful secession, I am all the more convinced that she was a patriot, and has sold her soul by adopting McMussolini’s creed.

Insane McCain

Conservatism, Economy, Elections 2008, John McCain, Morality

I’ve just heard McMussolini say that the American dream of home ownership should not be crushed under the weight of a bad mortgage.

What about that fundament of the American founding: self-reliance and responsibility?

McMussolin went on to promise to buy up bad home mortgages, which is what I thought the Sell-Out Bill did indirectly. These idiots don’t really understand the bill they just signed. As Ron Paul cautioned, Warren Buffet confessed to not understanding the derivatives market. Do we really think the buffoons in Congress get it?

RIP, George Putnam

Celebrity, Conservatism, Ethics, Ilana On Radio & TV, Media

George Putnam, the “greatest voice in radio,” has died at the age of 94. Mr. Putnam’s was the greatest voice not only because of its sonorous quality, but because of how incisive, smart and principled the man behind the voice was.

“Former President Nixon, speaking on videotape during a 1984 roast of Putnam given by KTTV to celebrate his 50th anniversary in broadcasting, said of the outspoken newscaster: ‘Some people didn’t like what he said; some people liked what he said. But everybody listened to George Putnam. That is why he has been one of the most influential commentators of our times.'”

Read about Mr. Putnam’s inspiring life, and life’s work, here.

I was immensely privileged to have been a guest on Talk Back, George Putnam’s nationally syndicated show, on October 9 of 2007. I came away feeling I had been graced by a great American.

At the time I wrote the following: “Mr. Putnam is a national treasure, who should be on TV to remind Americans how incisive, sonorous and super smart some of their media mavens used to be. (Now none of them are.) I was also touched by Mr. Putnam’s graciousness about me and my work. This is a man whose counsel Nixon and Reagan sought, and who ‘has a star on the Hollywood Boulevard ‘Walk of Fame.’ Again, an honor.”

Our good friend Chuck Wilder has been doing a splendid job of hosting the syndicated show on CRN Digital Talk Radio. Chuck continues the tradition of reasoned, civil, politically incorrect debate. I wish wonderful Mr. Wilder continued success.