Category Archives: libertarianism

The Russell Kirk We love Is …

Classical Liberalism, Conservatism, libertarianism, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy, War

… the Russel Kirk who, “Toward the end of his life, … returned to his anti-war beginnings. He went so far as to say that ‘not a single American war … had been absolutely necessary.’ He denounced the neoconservatives as warmongers; and he had no use for National Review. ‘Kirk came to believe that Buckley had sold out to the neocons, claiming in a private letter to [Peter] Stanlis, ‘As Patrick Buchanan remarks, National Review is now the New York office of the New World Order.’”

David Gordon is always streaks ahead of the rest of us mortals. Read David’s review of Russell Kirk: American Conservative, by Bradley J. Birzer (University Press of Kentucky).

I will say that I knew, from my edition of The Conservative Mind, “that Kirk in the 1940s was himself a libertarian, or close to it.” And that: “… he strongly opposed America’s war policy, in particular the use of atomic weapons and the internment of Japanese Americans.”

I didn’t, however, know that Kirk “corresponded with both Albert Jay Nock and Isabel Paterson, both renowned libertarians. Indeed, he favorably discussed them in the first edition of The Conservative Mind.”

Best tidbit from David’s review:

Buckley was a former CIA agent, and the principal point of the [NR] magazine was to reorient the American Right from a noninterventionist foreign policy toward a militant pursuit of the Cold War against Russia and to purge those who dissented from militarism and war. Four of the editors, Willmoore Kendall, James Burnham, Frank S. Meyer, and Willi Schlamm, favored preventive war against Russia. Kendall and Burnham were also former CIA agents; and the late great George Resch told me that Henry Regnery, Kirk’s publisher, called National Review a CIA operation.

READ “The Real Russell Kirk” by David Gordon.

Meet Lovely Amy Lindsay, Ted Cruz’s Missed Opportunity

Feminism, Gender, libertarianism, Republicans, Sex, Welfare

With Amy Lindsay, Ted Cruz, standing for president, had an opportunity to support a charming, gracious and smart lady, who had acted in one of his campaign ads (below), later to be pulled by the senator’s campaign because Ms. Lindsay had also starred in a naughty film or two.

The libertarian-leaning Ms. Lindsay is, by her own admission, extremely conservative fiscally, likes Ted Cruz—so she was doing his ad because it comported with her beliefs—and intends to vote Republican.

Here was Cruz’s opportunity to show his support for our kind of woman: doesn’t nag, doesn’t rely on welfare, doesn’t think she has the right to dictate to anyone how they use their resources and thus supports Cruz’s right to pull her ad. Can you image the fuss Sandra Fluke would make in her place?

Politically, here was Cruz’s chance to show Democrats what it means to dignify a woman’s right to make a living as she sees fit.

He blew it.

Donald Trump should employ Amy in his next ad against the three establishment Amigos: Jeb, Marco, John K.

Like The Left, Left-Libertarians Weaponize The ‘Nativist’ Pejorative

Constitution, IMMIGRATION, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Race, South-Africa, Welfare

Et tu John Stossel? Austin Petersen? On the latest John Stossel Show (whose website seldom carries any contents-driven updates or transcripts, too unhip), the pejorative “nativist” is being bandied about to malign the concept of borders in a welfare state, where welfare is a magnet. Due to open-borders immigration central planning, America, as I’ve warned in Into the Cannibal’s Pot, is headed to dominant-party status like my native South Africa. But left-libertarians wish to do away with borders before private property has been reinstated as the governing principle in American society.

Anathema, too, to left-libertarians is the idea that liberty has a cultural and historical context—it is not a proposition or a mere idea easily assimilated by all. Hell, look at Bernie Sanders’ platform and its many American supporters! Do we need to import more Bernie voters?!

Check out my homeland South Africa, RIP, where the minority had imagined the black majority would be bound by the same political abstractions—that fellow black South Africans would relinquish race as an organizing principle, in favor of a constitutional design, because hey, that just how people are. It’s second nature.

Didn’t happen. Won’t happen.

In the left-libertarian universe, the perspective of someone like myself is discounted by fast-talking youngsters who’ve yet to be mugged by reality and human nature.


READ:

“Apartheid South Africa: Reality Vs. Libertarian Fantasy.”

“The Sequel to ‘Suicide of A Superpower.’”

The Winning Trump Ticket & Cabinet (Part I)

Bush, Crime, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Justice, libertarianism, Republicans, Ron Paul, UN

“The Winning Trump Ticket & Cabinet” (Part I) is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

If Donald J. Trump wishes to lessen the impact of his disappointing second in the Iowa caucuses and walk back the tack he’s taken with Ted Cruz—he must begin to think big and talk big.

Loud in not necessarily big.

Call it triangulation, a concept associated with Bill Clinton’s successful strategies, or call it “the art of the deal”: It’s time for Trump to DO IT.

To this end, Trump must quit the “we don’t win anymore” formulaic rhapsody, and start fleshing out substantive positions. A pragmatist does so by introducing the people he’ll be recruiting to “Make America Great Again.”

To Cruz belongs the Trump Department of Justice portfolio. Offering Justice to Cruz allows Trump to both put Ted in his place as unsuited to the presidency; while simultaneously making him part of Team Trump and repairing that relationship.

Ted is too soft to be US president in these troubled times. But he’d make a spectacular attorney general in charge of DOJ.

There’s a reason George W. Bush hates Ted Cruz. In 2008, Cruz gave America reason to cue the mariachi band and celebrate the death of detritus José Medellín.

As part of a gangbanger initiation rite, Medellín had raped (in every way possible), strangled, slashed, and stomped two young Texan girls to death.

“In Texas,” to quote another Ron from the Lone Star State, “we have the death penalty and we use it. If you come to Texas and kill somebody, we will kill you back.”

Bush 43 would wrestle a crocodile for a criminal alien. Backed by Bush—and on behalf of Medellín and other killer compadres awaiting a similar fate—Mexico promptly sued the US over procedural technicalities in the International Court of Justice. The president ordered Texas to halt the execution of murderer and rapist Medellín.

Texas’ heroic solicitor general said no.

Cruz took the case to the Supreme Court. There, he bested Bush and his lickspittles. As the Conservative Review gloated, Cruz “won the case, 6-to-3.” He had sought justice for Americans against a president who subjugated them to international courts. Ted, moreover, was forever gracious about Bush; Bush and his bambino bro routinely slime Ted. (In trashing Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Trump is in bad company.) …

…Read the rest.“The Winning Trump Ticket & Cabinet” (Part I) is the current column, now on WND.