Category Archives: Conservatism

Voices Of Collectivism & Exceptionalism

America, Classical Liberalism, Conservatism, Fascism, Foreign Policy, History, The State, War

The concept of American exceptionalism has been hotly debated in connection with what kind of history “The Children” will be force fed in state schools.

My position : “the United States, by virtue of its origins and ideals,” was unique. But most Americans know nothing of the ideas that animated their country’s founding. In fact, they are more likely to hold ideas in opposition to the classical liberal philosophy of the founders, and hence wish to see the aggrandizement of the coercive state and the fulfillment of their own needs and desires through war and welfare.

Thus, I find myself in agreement with this one statement from Princeton’s Joyce Carol Oates:

“[T]ravel to any foreign country,” Oates wrote in the Atlantic Monthly in November 2007, “and the consensus is: The American idea has become a cruel joke, a blustery and bellicose bodybuilder luridly bulked up on steroids…deranged and myopic, dangerous.”

Andrew Roberts, on the other hand, is the Anglosphere’s “advertising agent,” whom some call a historian (most learned sources like the Times Literary Supplement question the value and veracity of his “scholarship”).

Roberts “has endorsed American exceptionalism in his own writings,” and thinks that to question it is to evince “psychiatric disorder,” or belong to liberal America (Rob Stove and I are rightists).

Yes, another learned source is our friend Australian historian Rob Stove, who detests Andrew Roberts (author of the best-selling Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941-1945). Rob has called him a “Court Historian,” the Anglosphere’s greatest modern mythologist perfectly suited to sanitize the Bush presidency.”

In the eponymous essay Rob Stove writes that to Roberts,

“Not only must every good deed of British or American rule be lauded till the skies resound with it, but so must every deed that is morally ambiguous or downright repellent.”

“The Amritsar carnage of 1919, where British forces under Gen. Reginald Dyer slew 379 unarmed Indians? Absolutely justified, according to Roberts, who curiously deduces that but for Dyer, ‘many more than 379 people would have lost their lives.’ Hitting prostrate Germany with the Treaty of Versailles? Totally warranted: the only good Kraut is a dead Kraut. Herding Boer women and children into concentration camps, where 35,000 of them perished? Way to go: the only good Boer is a dead Boer. Interning Belfast Catholics, without anything so vulgar as a trial, for no other reason than that they were Belfast Catholics? Yep, the only good bog-trotter … well, finish the sentence yourself. FDR’s obeisance to Stalin? All the better to defeat America First ‘fascists.'”

[SNIP]

Last week’s column, “In Defense Of Obama’s Apologizing,” coaxed out of the woodwork some “exceptionals.”

Wrote Mom [don’t you hate it when women call themselves “mom”? I see these self-identifiers everywhere, when out on my running excursions. They occasionally swing a kid while talking incessantly on the cell, and are always sedentary and overweight. Sorry for that detour]:

“I do not agree with you at all.…I give this administration a D in foreign policy and public relations…Listen, yes we have made some mistakes in our 300 years, but on the whole, this is the best country on the planet and we are an exceptional nation….This administration’s aim is to diminish our greatness and our status on the world stage…for a One World socialist government…When Obama said we have no borders, I nearly fell out of my chair…if we diminish our borders, we will not have a country….How did he allow Calderone to bash our country? You know why, because he doesn’t think of our country is special…So, I don’t give any points to him, I want my country back…I do not recognize my country anymore….so for you to give this admin. points … that is a no no. Sorry…”

[SNIP]

In other words, even though she and I agree on immigration, I must never be fair to BHO when he is not wrong. Indeed, fairness and non-partisanship have gotten me nowhere.

Tangentially related is another letter received last week in irate response to “In Defense Of Obama’s Apologizing.” This time the “exceptional reader” informed me imperially that he was writing me off and would no longer be reading The Mercer Column because I FAILED TO ENDORSE HIS FAVORITE MASSACRE.

This particular reader was a relic from my years of writing against the Bush war of aggression in Iraq—you know, when all those “red-state fascists” kept trying to get me fired from WND.

Memories…

In Defense Of Obama’s Apologizing

Barack Obama, Conservatism, Foreign Policy, Individualism Vs. Collectivism

The following is taken from my new WND column, “In Defense Of Obama’s Apologizing”:

“… Contrary to conventional conservative wisdom, there is nothing wrong with expressing regret for wrongs done by your country’s government, as opposed to its people. This is a well-meaning, if perhaps inconsequential, gesture.

Face it, what Republicans are really fuming over is BHO’s public expiation for the Bush I foreign policy, for which they themselves cheered. …

I hope the next president apologizes for the many innocent Afghanis BHO is busy killing in that country.
As do I hope the next incumbent apologizes for this president’s shabby treatment of the Israeli prime minister, or of Mr. Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota.

It’s a bit late, but an apology on behalf of Harry S. Truman is in order for deliberately dropping on Hiroshima and Nagasaki the Little Boy and the Fat Man—as the atomic duo was dubbed affectionately—and vaporizing 210,000 innocent Japanese civilians…

Is ‘America,’ then, bad because of deeds its bureaucratic or political corps commits? Not at all. …”

The complete column is “In Defense Of Obama’s Apologizing.”

Read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

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Updated: Palin’s Fiorina Frivoloty

Conservatism, Elections, John McCain, Military, Republicans, Sarah Palin

Perhaps Palin could not abide the fact that Chuck DeVore tempers his pro-military position with skepticism about intervention around the world. Perhaps, as a raving feminist, Palin feels obliged to support a woman over a man. And perhaps her endorsement of Carly Florina “in the GOP contest for the California Senate nomination” is just a bit of the same polite politics she played when campaigning for McMussolini:
 Palin knows Fiorina, “a top surrogate to Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) presidential campaign.”

Politico says “Fiorina recently warned against the ‘racist’ tone that has taken over the debate of Arizona’s new immigration law.” That’s the kind of Republican she is.

Whatever Palin is playing at, it is clear she goes with some mysterious flow—menstrual maybe?

DeVore has been called a “Tea Party darling” and a “most reliably Reaganesque representative.”

Update (May 10): The allusion to hormonal fluctuations was humor; meant not to be taken literally, but as a metaphor for Palin’s unreliable nature when it comes to liberty.

Hasselbeck’s Hassles

Celebrity, Conservatism, Feminism, Gender, Media, Republicans

To Socratic debate, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, I wrote, “has contributed the sob, the wide-eyed stare, and extravagant gesticulation. When words and wild gestures fail, she weeps.”

And weep she did once again, after being forced to apologize for one of the few witty observations she’s ever made concerning a female sports announcer (also known as a woman who spoils the sporting experience for men).

Watch Hasselbeck’s mea culpa. Watch George Stephanopoulos, now anchor of ABC’s “Good Morning America.” He takes the Fifth. (Stephanopoulos is one of the better lefties in the media.)

The rest of my description of this member of the Republican blond brigade:

Hasselbeck is the Republican’s brain trust on a show called ‘The View.’ Her conservative credentials include support for breast cancer prevention and research, the Amber Alert Initiative, the war, Our Leader, and, more generally, being blond and bubbly.

And don’t go accusing me of neglecting her contribution to liberty:

“Hasselbeck was a prime mover behind the persecution of Imus, for politically unpalatable speech, alongside race hustlers Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, neocon sister Amy Holmes, and other sundry sorts of the left (Whoopi Goldberg, Maya Angelou, Naomi Wolf).”