I caught the late-night iteration of the Glenn Beck Show, in which he insinuated that Geert Wilders was of the “far right,” and that the European far right was fascist. See for yourself.

Defunct link:

Functioning one:

Glenn here is aping the thinking of the likes of Mark Steyn, Daniel Hannan, and other neoconservatives: all disavow any reclamation of national identity when done by Europeans. Neoconservatives are multiculturalists by default, by which is meant that, while fussing ceaselessly against official multiculturalism, neoconservatives motivate for that hollow concept of a propositional nation. Accordingly, and to quote from my upcoming book, a nation is nothing but a notion (the last is Buchanan’s turn of phrase), “a community of disparate peoples coalescing around an abstract, highly manipulable, state-sanctioned ideology. Democracy, for one.” There is nothing new about that.

See “Get With The Global Program, Gaul.”

Update I (March 9): Note please that the allusion above was to the neoconservative’s deracinated “thinking” Glenn has assimilated vis-a-vis nationhood and national identity. I do not know who said a good word about Wilders and how it was grounded philosophically, since the reader hereunder does not substantiate his assertion. However, it is one thing to defend Wilders’ right to free speech. That’s dead easy and doesn’t demand much mental effort. It is quite another to tackle Wilders’ refusal, in the name of Western tolerance, to prostrate his patriotism and his very survival—and the steps he wishes to take to that end.

Neoconservatives generally disavow, even mock, European reclamation of identity, with hackneyed, shallow assertions of American superiority: “Americans are so much better than they, as we ‘assimilate’ everyone into our [already dissolved] culture.” That would be a vintage neocon argument.

“Get With The Global Program, Gaul,” and other articles, has dealt with these nuanced neoconservative deceptions.

See what you think of Larry Auster’s dissection of Steyn. Read “Steyn calls for the destruction of Europe.” And here is the Auster Steyn archive. You really have to look beyond the Steyn pizazz and analyze what the man says.

Update II: The multiculturalims aspect: It exemplifies a seductively shallow aspect readers find appealing in the neoconservative’s argumentation arsenal.

Formulaically, they will finger multiculturalism and the newcomer’s failure to assimilate in a gamut of problems—from what they dub anti-Americanism to terrorism. Neoconservatives, however, resolutely resist dealing with the Putman findings, according to which racial and ethnic diversity mess with people’s minds—especially the host population—and makes them miserable and dysfunctional.

Update III (Mar. 10): I have updated the original, defunct YouTube embed with the functioning one provided by Robert. As Ms. West alleges here, Fox News removed the unreasoned Beck rant. Surprising to me is the surprise evinced by European rightists, and trackers of all things USA, at the denunciation of their positions by Chuckie Krauthammer and Bill Kristol. The latter—together with Hannan, Steyn, etc.—are completely congruent and consistent.

For the European Right “identity remains rooted in blood, soil and ancient shared memory”—that’s neoconservative Francis Fukuyama’s derisive description.

My readers are also having a hard time with the distinctions I’ve tried to draw so far.

BECK VS. BURKE. With respect to the Enlightenment and Schmidt’s comments: In Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke provides a “compelling presentation of historically-based conservatism.” Russell Kirk said about “Reflections” that it “burns with all the wrath and anguish of a prophet who saw the traditions of Christendom and the fabric of civil society dissolving before his eyes.” The Founders brought a lot of Burke to the republican table, but, for obvious reasons, our countrymen (Beck is representative) know and love Thomas Paine, who sympathized with the Jacobins and spat venom at Burke for his devastating critique of the blood-drenched, illiberal, irreligious French Revolution.

You can guess who it is that I prefer as a historical figure and social theorist. To quote my friend Paul Gottfried, it is not “the peripatetic troublemaker Paine.”