Category Archives: Neoconservatism

Lincoln Died Today; His Cult Never Says Die

Fascism, History, Media, Neoconservatism, Propaganda

Today, in 1865, is the day John Wilkes Booth killed Abraham Lincoln, well after the 16th President of the United States had already done insurmountable damage. The heroic Lincoln myth-buster, Tom DiLorenzo, marks (but doesn’t mention) the anniversary with a detailed and well-sourced swipe at the cult that never quits:

… These are all the main ingredients of a modern Lincoln cultist, as [David] Brooks demonstrated in an April 7 New York Times column entitled “What Candidates Need.”

“I have two presidential election traditions,” Brooks wrote. “I begin covering each campaign by reading a book about Abraham Lincoln [probably not one by Yours Truly], and I end each election night, usually after midnight, at the statue of the Lincoln Memorial.”

Brooks should be credited with bravery for being anywhere in public in Washington, D.C., The Town That Lincoln Built, after midnight. He does not say if he holds a séance there, or just prays at the foot of the gigantic statue of the corporate lawyer/lobbyist in an armchair that is the Lincoln Memorial.

Reading most books about Lincoln by “Lincoln scholars” will generally make one stupid and misinformed, as Brooks very ably demonstrates. This is because all such books are bundles of excuses, phony rationales, and fabrications. They are all written like defense briefs in The War Crimes Trial of Abraham Lincoln, authored by third-rate lawyers or law students. Being a “Lincoln scholar” means fabricating an excuse for everything. The bigger and more elaborate the excuse, the more “prestigious” is the “Lincoln scholar.”

For example, when the high priestess of the Lincoln cult, Doris Kearns-Goodwin, wrote in her book, Team of Rivals, of how Lincoln was actually the source and promoter of the Corwin Amendment to the Constitution, which would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering with Southern slavery, she praised him for it. Rather than condemning him for supporting the explicit enshrinement of slavery in the text of the U.S. Constitution, Goodwin heaped praise on Lincoln because this slick political maneuver, she said, helped “save” the political fortunes of the Republican Party.

Another example is how, in his last book on Lincoln, Harry Jaffa tried for the ten-thousandth time in his career to explain away Lincoln’s admonition in one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates that he was “opposed to making voters or jurors of Negroes.” Lincoln opposed giving “Negroes” the right to vote in the 1850s, Jaffa wrote, so that they could have the right to vote in the 1950s. This of course is absurd nonsense but also a good example of the dishonest academic hocus pocus known as “Straussianism.” …

… The complete column is “The Very Model of a Modern Major Lincoln Cultist.” Read it.

S.E. IDIOT & Jake Tapper Rubbish Ron Paul

Gender, Neoconservatism, Republicans, Ron Paul

In the event that you’ve failed to keep track of the succession of empty headed bobbing heads called on to impart their “analysis” on the idiot’s lantern—you’ll find everything you need to know about S.E. Cupp, “commentator,” in “Just Another Mouth in the Republican Fellatio Machine.” While Cupp is not as off-putting, banal and over-the-top as Jedediah Bila, she’s up there.

In any event, here is an exchange about Ron Paul between two of CNN’s towering intellects, Jake Tapper (an OK journalist when he sticks to reporting) and Cupp:

TAPPER: S.E., let’s start with you. I know you’re not Senator Paul’s biggest fan. But removing your views on him, he could be a serious contender, I think. …

… There’s one other elephant in the room, and that is Ron Paul, his father, who is — I don’t know how to say it without ending up with nine million tweets, but has very objectionable views to many Americans, to many Republicans, and has affiliated himself with some real crackpots on the right. I think that is definitely guarantee those tweets, but…

CUPP: [smirking smugly] Incoming.

TAPPER: How do you deal with that? How do you deal with somebody like Ron Paul?

CUPP: Rand Paul?

TAPPER: Yes.

CUPP: Yes.

Rand Paul sort of I think spent the past decade watching his dad run for president, and thought to himself, I can do that better. And so I think you have seen him moderate because he understands rightly that Ron Paul’s views were completely unpalatable.

So he’s starting from that, you know, far right or left — I don’t even know what to call it — place of Ron Paul and moderating toward the center. The trick is going to be to take the Ron Paul supporters, the young folks who liked Ron Paul’s libertarianism, and also make his — again governing philosophy, which is different from his libertarian philosophy, work for the center.

That’s going to be a tough thing to pull off. I know you’re confident he can, but I think he’s going to have a tough time with that.

MORE.

Rand Paul: ‘People Shouldn’t Be So Afraid Of Freedom’

Foreign Policy, Iraq, Neoconservatism

Admirably, Sean Hannity went through the gamut of issues with Rand Paul, who announced today he would stand as a Republican presidential candidate. From Paul’s initial critique of the Civil Wrongs Act to the war against Iraq—Mr. Hannity shied away from no controversy. On toppling secular strongmen—Saddam, Assad, Mubarak, Gaddafi—Rand Paul did not, for once, let libertarians down, as is his wont. Instead, Paul condemned the disastrous toppling of all the secular strongmen of the Middle East who kept radical Islam at bay. If it were up to the neoconservative, we’d be bombing both Assad and ISIS in Syria. Cui Bono?

“Almost anyone in the Senate would have better defended the Bill of Rights than Lindsay Graham,” snorted Paul, taking a much-needed swipe at the awful Graham, evil twin of more-bombs-from-above-and-more-boots-on-the-ground John McCain.

Paul cleverly framed his plan to poach traditionally Democratic and independent voters, not by promising them stuff, but by emphasizing the entire Bill of Right and not only the 2nd Amendment.

Yes, weening people off “free” stuff and onto freedom is a good tone to strike.

Let’s see if he keeps it up.

Zionist Reciprocity = Recognizing There’s No ‘Global Right Of Return’ To The US For The World’s Citizens

Foreign Policy, IMMIGRATION, Israel, Nationhood, Neoconservatism, Paleolibertarianism

Steve Sailer seconds Mercer on the “path to mutual respect” between the neoconservative and Zionist faction, on the one hand, and the American conservative (and paleolibertarian) faction, on the other hand. As Steve puts it:

The path to mutual respect is to insist upon reciprocity. The most reasonable bargain would be for conservatives to demand of neoconservatives that in return for American support for Zionism, Zionists must publicly support America deploying the same immigration policies as Israel currently enjoys.

The Mercer version (April 29, 2011) urged Israelis to recognize Americans’ right to deny a “global right of return to the US for the citizens of the world”:

“… Ask any left-liberal American Jew if he supports a ‘Right of Return’ to Israel proper for every self-styled Palestinian refugee, and he’ll recoil: ‘Are you mad? Never. That’s a euphemism for Israel’s demise.’ The very thing he opposes for Israel, the leftist Jew is inclined to champion for America: a global right of return to the US for the citizens of the world. When it comes to ‘returning’ to America only (but not Israel), humankind is said to possess a positive, manufactured right to venture wherever, whenever. (This view is common among American liberals of all religious persuasions.)
Israelis want the support of Americans in standing up for their national sovereignty. Fine. But they should respond in kind. … when liberty deprived peoples the world over support patriots stateside, I’ll return the favor. The same goes for Israel. …”

MORE Mercer.

MORE Sailer.