Category Archives: Conservatism

Smaller Unit of Bondage?

Conservatism, Economy, EU, Europe, Liberty

Mainstream conservative opinion is catching up with secessionist sentiment and prescriptions expressed over these pixelated pages (September 9, 2011), except that these conservatives can’t quite bring themselves to speak of the benefits of dissolving the dysfunctional EU.

Brett M. Decker of The Washington Times advocates a new, if smaller, unit of bondage:

“… a new Mark-based monetary union with fellow northern economies that maintain strict fiscal controls could help salvage something when the next economic tsunami hits Europe.” (October 21, 2011)

BUT:

German taxpayers are fed up with having to constantly bail out suicidal spendthrift policies in irresponsible countries. They understand that bailouts are only temporary band-aids because welfare states will keep coming back with hats in hand for more cash injections but never improve their failing practices.

If they are dropped from the EU, “loser countries” will better able to serve as cheap labor and resume exporting goods to their neighbors.

UPDATED: Thank You, Pat Buchanan (The Old Right)

Celebrity, Classical Liberalism, Conservatism, Etiquette, Founding Fathers, Ilana Mercer, Old Right, Trade

I’ll be retiring tonight with “Suicide of a Superpower: Will American Survive to 2025?” by the iconic Patrick J.Buchanan, whom every paleo-libertarian admires. I’ve just received a copy courtesy of the author. The new book is inscribed as follows:

“To Ilana Mercer: Fellow Columnist and Fellow Conservative, with The Respect and good wishes of The Author.”

Mr. Buchanan’s graciousness made my day, make that my month.

In a gracious note to this writer, the one and only Mr. Buchanan wrote: “I believe your book is being sold [or bundled on Amazon] along with my new book, ‘Suicide of a Superpower: Will America survive to 2025.’ … my 18,000-word chapter on ethnonationalism and tribalism and the surge of both throughout the Third World—as well as our own declining world—tracks pretty much with what you wrote …”

UPDATE (Oct. 12): You wish, Myron! Being called a “fellow conservative” by Pat Buchanan is most definitely a high honor. Like myself, Mr. Buchanan regards giants such as Democrat Grover Cleveland, Russell Kirk, Barry Goldwater and “Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, also known as Mr. Republican,” as authentic conservatives. Snarky comments to the contrary, Buchanan is a member of the Old Right. (As am I.):

In the wonderfully conciliatory 1992 essay “A Strategy for The Right,” Murray N. Rothbard traced the original American Right to a reaction against the New Deal and the manner in which it obliterated the old republic’s classical-liberal foundations. Members of the original Right wanted to abolish the Welfare State ushered in by the New Deal and return to the foreign policy of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, enunciated in his First Inaugural Address, in March 1801: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” Avoiding the metropole status our imposter conservatives or neoconservatives are currently cultivating was crucial to an America First foreign affairs position.
By no means a monolith, the Old Right sported nuanced opinions in matters of philosophy and policy. Sadly, it petered out politically, only to be usurped by the W. F. Buckley, big-government “conservatives.”

Sure, Mr. Buchanan goes wrong on trade, but one would expect posters here to be familiar with my record on free trade.

Paul on the Value of Peace & Personal Sovereignty

Christianity, Conservatism, Family, Foreign Policy, Judaism & Jews, Morality, Religion, Republicans, Ron Paul

Ron Paul melds the teachings of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament to remind “Values Voters” at the 2011 Summit of the Biblical imperative and the blessings of peace, and personal sovereignty; of the need to follow the Golden Rule (treat others as you wish to be treated), of the importance of striving for virtue and excellence as individuals—and not as subjects beholden to the proverbial king about whose evils Samuel forewarned. Above all, Paul emphasized the urgent need to revive the restraints this country once placed on the federal government. And fast.

Read the complete speech.

The Texas congressman won 37% of the poll at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, sponsored by the Family Research Council, a social conservative group.

[CNN]

Steve Jobs & The Paramountcy Of Privacy

Business, Capitalism, Celebrity, Conservatism, Ethics, Human Accomplishment, Media, Morality, Pop-Culture, Technology, The Zeitgeist

THE PARAMOUNTCY OF PRIVACY. I’m not particularly familiar or enamored of the new gadgets, although I fully appreciate their contribution to humans and to humanity. I tend to stick with CDs (for the best in sound), books for reading, and the Internet and email for communicating.

Still, as a capitalist and a communicator, I admired Steve Jobs greatly. I particularly liked the precision and sophistication with which he used language. I appreciated the amalgamation of drama and simplicity in the Job’s message. Jobs was never a blabber mouth.

But most of all, I identified with Steve Jobs’ acute sense of privacy. He was a very private man.

For one of the most recognizable men on earth, Steve Jobs was quite elusive. To me, that is paramount—and the very essence of greatness. Privacy is what made Jobs a conservative persona. The fact that Jobs knew the importance of boundaries between what a person shared with the world and what he kept to himself gave him the bearing of a champion. Only a private man, in my view, can strive to true greatness.

When Jobs died I was wrapping up a WND column about yet another repulsive character that is about to join the pantheon of American exhibitionists—liars, cheats, whores (not the good kind), and worse—who’ve shared (or will share) a couch with that vulgarizer, Oprah. What a study in contrasts!

In Ayn Rand’s magnificent words, “civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy.” The heroic and creative inner struggle is what brings out the best in man. I repeat myself, I know: My heroes are in the Greek tradition: silent, stoic, principled yet private. That is what I saw in Steve Jobs.