Category Archives: Ilana Mercer

Updated: Older Liberals Like Me

Classical Liberalism, Conservatism, EU, Ilana Mercer, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism

James Burnham on classical liberals of the nineteenth century:

“Older liberals tended to be patriotic and nationalistic. They believed in the self-government, independence and sovereignty of their own country, and also in the right of other nations and peoples to be independent and self-governing. They were ready to fight, and did fight… There was little trace of pacifism in nineteenth century liberalism; rather more imperialism than pacifism.”

“As rationalists they believed that … other things being equal, peace among nations is better than war. But Peace had a modest priority; there were a number of other things, Liberty prominent among them, more important than Peace.” (Suicide of the West, 1964, p. 172)

In some respects, modern-day libertarians are closer to left-liberals than classical liberals—in preaching pacifism, and in their disregard for notion of the nation and its place among nations.

Update I (Jan. 3): Speaking of nineteenth-century liberals like myself, “Eurosceptic Czech President Vaclav Klaus” is a good example. Klaus opposes the European Union for its sovereignty sundering supranational regulation, and “stubbornly refuses to fly the EU flag.”

It’s a great shame that his people, who once cheered this free-thinking, free marketeer, are turning against him—and their better instincts—and toward the prevailing, pitiful PC around them. Resisting propaganda is never easy.

Updated: Return To Reason, New Year Resolutions, Etc.

General, Healthcare, Ilana Mercer

I’m off this week. Return to Reason, my weekly WorldNetDaily column, will, well, return next week.

Any interesting New Year resolutions out there? Mine is to consume more wine, and to adopt, and tenaciously stick to (against all odds), the infinitely civilized habit of taking a nightcap. (Hint: there is nothing sartorial about this habit, pun intended.)

I began drinking wine in the last year. My family–Jews of Russian extract all–is seriously disposed to heart disease. Despite being a trim runner with exceptionally healthy (and distinctly un-American) eating habits, I recently discovered I have inherited high cholesterol from my people. This is frustrating since the margin of change achievable in an already optimal life-style is small.

What am I to do? Begin the day with a bowl of ten different fruits rather than the eight I already consume every morning? Eat four, instead of the three vegetable servings that accompany the little meat, chicken or fish I eat at dinnertime? I’m big on pure chocolate, not baked goods. And chocolate is a very fine food. I’ve been consuming it by the pound for decades–well before Oprah’s gurus gave the nation the go-ahead.

Having grown up in the Middle East and South Africa, before American, fake, sugary foods became the rage there, I like and eat good food. I’ve never paid any attention to diet news because reason and common sense tell me that Sean and I eat–and have always eaten–extremely well. (Although we tend to eat too much of a good thing; but the resolve to cut quantities consumed will have to wait until next year. You’ll agree that I have already taken on enough of a challenge).

The cake recipes our American friends have shared with us have four times the sugar and butter my grandmother and mother’s recipes have. My mother’s frosting (icing we call it) has about one tablespoon of sugar; an American cake has about one to two cups of the stuff. To me, it tastes simply dreadful. With incredulity, I’ve noticed most of our friends pour the same sweet goop from a bottle on their salads. Why oh why would you want to eat salad with sugar?

A guest once wanted to know what I put on the salad she and her guy scoffed down with barbecued steaks. It didn’t taste at all like the bottled stuff she purchased. Olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Sometimes a dollop of Dijon mustard for fun.

Sure, a very spicy meal may call for a sweeter salad. Then I use a bunch of halved grapes to sweeten the salad. Combine them with pink onion, celery, avocado, and toss it all in virgin olive oil and vinegar and you have a tart and tasty complement to a spicy meal.

Missing in my culinary routine has been red wine. Now that I’ve acquired the habit, I think I’m ready for the challenge of a nightcap. What do you think?

Please share. If you’ve decided to take up less arduous commitments than mine, like irritating more Greens and liberals (and unlike the formulaic Ann Coulter, this includes Republicans), joining a secessionist movement, arming yourself to the teeth, homeschooling, or reading more Mercer–do share.

Have fun,

ILANA

Update (Dec. 28): It’s not always easy sticking to a New Year’s resolution, but so far, I’m persevering with mine. I stop working on my tome and turn off the PC between 12:00 and 12:30 at night. Sean then pours me a stiff one and I sip the thing in front of the telly. (Usually watching Fraser, or a rental).

I can’t say it’s improved my fractious sleep, but at least I feel I’m being pro-active.

What is it with men that they’re always keen to ply women with alcohol? It must be a biological instinct to try and get us intoxicated. Just kidding; I’m not one for biological reductionism. For whatever the reason, the husband is being very supportive. Come midnight, and he’s ready with my brandy.

‘Mercer Eats Nails For Breakfast’ (Not)

Classical Liberalism, Ilana Mercer, Old Right, Pop-Culture, Reason, The Zeitgeist

In 2006, Anthony St. John posted interesting, but misguided, comments about me on the blog of Sir Peter Stothard, editor of the Times Literary Supplement, whose avid reader I am. (Their archive facility for subscribers seldom works; a big drawback.)

Sir Stothard had noted my praise for the TLS in “Excellence Vs. Offal”: “It’s always good to find a friend in blogland. So let me introduce Iana [sic] Mercer and her views about the TLS.”

Sigh.

As they say, “So long as they spell your name correctly…”

More interesting are Anthony St. John’s comments about me. A while ago, my pal Tom DiLorenzo sent me a note in which I am referred to as “one of the toughest people around.” Sean laughed a lot. (He understood that the comment was directed at my principles, not my person.) I find it puzzling, as I’m one of the softest sorts around, in demeanor too. (And a tiny person at that.)

I suspect that rationality is hard to grapple with in sentimental fin de siècle America. I don’t misplace sympathy; I always bestow it where it is absolutely deserving.

It takes a superficial sort to call me “hard.”

Has any writer written more emotionally than the one who wrote “About a Boy,” or “Betraying Brave Boys”? I doubt it. It’s just that I don’t bleed all over the floor for Oprah’s or Tyra’s archetypal “victims.”

I suspect that comments such as “[d]oes she eat nails for breakfast?” are an extension of the above, and compounded by the impersonal nature of the Internet.

In any event, St. John’s comments are interesting, as I’m not quite sure how he, being a Marxist, would like me to mellow. Or how he, being a Marxist, can even attempt to understand a woman of the Right, which I am–a woman of the Old, libertarian Right. This man has not done his homework. As for me being “crass”; a man who doesn’t recognize a lady is no gentleman at all.

Here goes:

30 June 2006
DO I HAVE TO THROW STONES AT THE MONA LISA BECAUSE IT’S CRACKING, PEELING AND FADING AWAY?
About twenty years or so ago, I (7 October 1944) stopped asking myself “Where’s this world going.” I just had given up. Nothing could surprise me from then on. So when one of my fellows, a woman, wrote back to me–after I had suggested to her to visit www.ilanamercer.com and tell me what she thought–pleading that I “blow Ilana out of the water,” I was not shocked, but I was very disappointed. I have no reason to blow Ilana out of the water. She is a stunningly beautiful woman, a very talented essayist, and I admire gutsy women (and men) who provoke us to think in these days of ambiguity and hypocrisy. A cad I am not! And Ilana offered me a chance to stroll down a Memory Lane of sorts. She reminded me of my stint as a circulation/correspondence assistant at NATIONAL REVIEW magazine in New York where I hobnobbed with those egg-headed US conservative doyens who were planting the seeds of the NeoTheoCon vogue with which we are burdened today. I broke bread with Russell Kirk, Senators Barry Goldwater and John Tower, Eddie Rickenbacher, Jr, James “The Managerial Revolution” Burnham, Robert Welch, Charles Edison, William A Rusher (WAR!), Frank Meyer and many others including, of course, the Prime Mover of the NeoTheoCon fad and the fervent Irish-American Roman Catholic who put God in the first pew of Northamerican conservative politics, William F Buckley, Jr. Ilana is made of that “conservative stuff” I tired of when I left NR in 1962 and went to university. (I am haunted, to this day, by with what my sister once told me: “You, mitigated Marxist, rocked the cradle of the NeoTheoCon movement, too!”) They are smart individuals but they stink to high heaven with their self-righteousness. I read a couple of IM’s articles and I know how her political DNA is mapped out. I could never agree with her on, say, her efforts to extol Oriana Fallaci whom I consider a racist and war-monger. (Nothing would please OF more than if British and Northamerican soldiers fought another “crusade” against the believers of the Islam religion which she, OF, detests.) But, IM is courageous enough to say those things which others might not agree with her on, and she is ready to take the consequences–something which many journalists today are not wont to do. I would like to give Ilana Mercer some advice, if I may. Ilana, you are often crass and insensitive. You also assume too much from your readers. Remember there are many people in this world who are not even interested in what the Left or Right has to offer us in these trying times. Your barbs are probably going to turn people off more than they will win friends and influence people to your side. You must enlighten and delight. Tone your voice down. You have a wonderful ability to see through to the heart of things. But, please be courteous when doing so–for your own benefit. Contain your strength and maintain a calm exterior. Remember that we are pliant. We are flexible when we are born, and we become hard when we die. You must be strong. Not hard. Being strong means you know when to be soft, when to be hard. You are too hard, Ilana. Really. Anthony “The Word Warrior” St. John…

Posted by: Anthony St. John | 30 Jun 2006 18:02:36
24 June 2006

I’ve been called THE WORD WARRIOR…but I would run for my life if I saw Ilana Mercer coming my way! Does she eat nails for breakfast? Anthony St. John

Posted by: Anthony St. John | 24 Jun 2006 10:17:13