Category Archives: Neoconservatism

UPDATED: The Tyrant’s Intellectual (& Non-Egghead) Enablers

Celebrity, Critique, Ethics, Foreign Policy, Intellectualism, Media, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Propaganda, The Zeitgeist, Uncategorized

Much has been made of the American singers who sang for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. Nothing has been said of the intelligentsia that has sung his praise. There is a big difference between singing for your supper and singing songs of praise for this, and other, odious characters. Paul A. Rahe at The Chronicle of Higher Education dissects “The Intellectual as Courtier.” (Here, with thanks to my Canadian friend, Dr. Grant Havers.)

“If, in The Washington Post, one were to describe the elder Qaddafi as ‘a complex and adaptive thinker as well as an efficient, if laid-back, autocrat,’ if one were to call him ‘flexible and pragmatic,’ if one were to go on to suggest that ‘Libya under Qaddafi has embarked on a journey that could make it the first Arab state to transition peacefully and without overt Western intervention to a stable, non-autocratic government and, in time, to an indigenous mixed constitution favoring direct democracy locally and efficient government centrally,’ one would be apt—and with good reason—to be compared with Leni Riefenstahl, as Benjamin Barber was by Ken Silverstein at Harper’s Magazine.

Worse criticism would justifiably be in store for the intellectual sycophant who chose to write on the eve of the Libyan uprising, as Barber did at The Huffington Post, that Qaddafi ‘is not detested in the way that Mubarak has been detested and rules by means other than fear,’ especially if he were to add, ‘His son Seif, with a Ph.D. in political philosophy from the London School of Economics and two forthcoming books focused on liberalism in the developing world, has pioneered a gradualist approach to civil society in Libya, insisting along the way that he would accept no office that wasn’t subject to popular elections. No dynasty likely there.'”

READ ON.

[SNIP]

Because of their wide reach, Peggy Noonan (and her ilk)—while no intellectual— serves as a greater court courtesan than does the academic sycophant. As I chronicled in “LETHAL WEAPONS: NEOCON GROUPIES,” Noonan has gone as far as to conflate President Bush “with a Higher Power – Peggy believes God speaks through George W. Bush. From his furrows to his genitals, her high-flown linguistic banalities have lovingly depicted her man’s every inch. (See “He’s Got Two of ‘Em.”)

There are other culprits, of course.

UPDATE: Myron: You’re the funniest ever here on “nuance.” Why not cross-post this and other posts to the Facebook page, where the blog posts appear automatically? You’ll spice up the place in no time.

No To Strafing Libya

Foreign Policy, John McCain, Military, Neoconservatism, Reason, UN, War

“No-Fly Zone” is one of those Orwellian coinages; it conjures a protective shield from high-above. But why not ask the Iraqis about this manna from the heavens? Before the US invaded Iraq, it had been bombing the place illegally—and immorally—over the unilaterally established No-Fly Zone. Not such a comfort if you’re on the ground. I’ll give the Obama Administration this: at least one of its officials has called a spade a spade. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a holdover from the Bush era, has explained what a “No-Fly Zone” over Libya actually entails (See CBS):

“A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defenses.” He added that it couldn’t be done by a single aircraft carrier off the coast. “It’s a big operation in a big country,” Gates said. … In other words, there is no need to establish a no-fly zone, at least for now, and no desire within the military to do it period. The U.S. military has long experience with no-fly zones — more than a decade over Iraq — and knows what it takes, not just jets but tankers and early warning aircraft.

The neoconservatives were champing at the bit to take the battle for Libya away from the Libyan people and put it where it belongs: the US military. Steven Hayes of the Weekly Standard made a weak case on FoxNews. Essentially, the US needed to quickly and self-righteously compensate for its lackluster reaction (here’s mine) to the Egyptian revolt.

Fumed McMussolini: “We are spending $500 billion not counting Iraq and Afghanistan on our nation’s defense. Don’t tell me we can’t do a no-fly zone over Tripoli. (FoxNews) Impeccable reasoning, as always, from the senator. To wit, even if the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan were essential to the defense of the realm—and they are certainly not-–why does it follow that Libya is too?

Sen. John McCain should know a thing or two. In all, he lost five jets during his time. (As Steve Sailer once quipped, “To lose one plane over Vietnam may be regarded as a heroic tragedy; to lose five planes here and there looks like carelessness.”)

There’s one more pesky detail. CBS again: “Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the same subcommittee that the Pentagon has no confirmation that Libyan strongman Muammar al Qaddafi is using his air force to kill civilians.”

Fibbing our way into occupying a country: Remind me why that sounds familiar.

UPDATED: Wonder Woman In The Work Force (Beware The WASPs)

Affirmative Action, Feminism, Gender, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Neoconservatism, Paleolibertarianism, Propaganda, Pseudoscience, Race, Racism

Distaff America’s claims of disadvantage can be easily dispelled: “If women with the same skills as men were getting only 78 cents for every dollar a man earns, men would have long-since priced themselves out of the market. The fact that the wily entrepreneur doesn’t ditch men in favor of women suggests that different abilities and experience are at work, rather than a conspiracy to suppress women.” [“Barack Against The Boys“] Yet the White House has preferred to perpetrate the myth, starting with a pay equity act the president signed at the beginning of his interminable term, and now with a new report affirming that “the earnings gap between men and women” is a result of all sorts of discrimination. HERE.

Scholarly reams have been written disputing this phony calculus, as it omits vital variables: How long the woman has been in the work force, her age, experience and education; or whether her career has been put on hold to marry and mother. Just as women are more likely than men to have had an interrupted career trajectory, so too are they more inclined to enter lower-paying professions: education instead of engineering, for example.

UPDATE: BEWARE THE WASPS. It was interesting to observe the neoconservative programmed response to the news about a “Texas college scholarship that targets only white male students.” I am referring to the obligatory PC huffing and puffing of Greg Gutfeld and his crew, last night, as to the “low-life racists” who would dare dream-up such a scheme.

Tucker Carlson, a kind of paleoconservative, chimed in with a full-throated denunciation, but, at least, pointed out the obvious: how is this scholarship different to the affirmative action programs that have infested every nook and cranny of the American labor force, public and private, for decades?

The thing that makes these gilded, neocon elites mere retread left-liberals is the fact that they mock the brute fact that poor white men are extremely marginalized in the workforce. The data abound. They ignore the Frank Riccis of the country. In my forthcoming book, I cite, among other sources, sociologist Frederick R. Lynch’s “Invisible Victims: White Males and the Crisis of Affirmative Action”(1991).

But in case you need a reminder of the jeering contempt the neoconservative faction of the left-liberal establishment has for the plight of white (poor) males in American society, watch last night’s “Red Eye” segment (it’s generally very amusing, by the way).

Naturally, this element of the establishment has never bothered to expose Saint Bill Gates’ “No-WASP Scholarship” fund.

Prominent Neoconservative Admits Europeans Ahead On Multiculturalism

Affirmative Action, Europe, IMMIGRATION, Islam, Multiculturalism, Nationhood, Neoconservatism, Racism, Republicans

Which is what I said back in … 2005, in the column titled “Get With The Global Program, Gaul”. At the time, the famed Francis Fukuyama, Frederick Kempe, and Jonah Goldberg—neoconservatives all—had fingered the French for racism and snobbery in marginalizing their Muslims, who were running riot across France. All nonsense on stilts, naturally. The French simply rejected what we Americans embrace: submerging aspects of their identity for their mad-as-hell Maghrebis. As I wrote then:

“To her credit, France has no institutionalized multiculturalism. Integrating individuals, not communities, is how the French have approached their émigré population. They say their republican values proscribe affirmative action. But since America’s republican values haven’t hindered racist quotas here, says our neoconservative troika, the French should get with The Program.”

“Schadenfreude tinged with a sense of American superiority,” is how I characterized this neoconservatives response to the destruction Muslims visited across France. Their recommendations for the errant Europeans? Perfect yourselves by following us Americans; through affirmative action programs; through fashioning a spanking new national identity; do some “nationl building.”

Now, Dr. Daniel Pipes admits to finding the European anti-Islamist stance encouraging. Those of us who have family in Europe are well-aware that this position is widely shared by Europeans. In the Netherlands, for example, they vote in large numbers for Geert Wilders, an influential Dutch parliamentarian working against the spread of Islam in his country, and roundly condemned by most on the American “right” as a fascist.

Dr. Pipes’ is a welcome conversion, although he is simply lauding politicians for catching up with the people they are supposed the represent. Writes Dr. Pipes:

The stirring speech by British prime minister David Cameron on Feb. 5, in which he intelligently focused on what he called the “hands-off tolerance” of “Islamist extremism,” including its non-violent forms, exactly fits this pattern.
In similar fashion, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany last October deemed multiculturalism to have “utterly failed.” A referendum in Switzerland about minarets manifested the concerns of that country’s population – and polling around the continent showed those sentiments to be widely shared.
The rise of respectable political parties primarily focused on the issues surrounding Islam – with Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands at the forefront – is perhaps the single most encouraging sign, compelling legacy parties like the British Conservatives to pay attention.