UPDATE III: Beck Revised (Who Eats Nails? Spencer Or Mercer?)

Conservatism, Founding Fathers, Glenn Beck, History, Ilana Mercer, libertarianism, Paleoconservatism, Political Philosophy, Race, Republicans

I’ve followed Glenn Beck closely and have concluded that overall, flaws and all, he is a force for liberty. One such example was when “Beck Broke From The Pack” to denounce perpetual war as the health of the state. Let us not forget how polluted are the waters in which conservatives swim. Glenn has changed that somewhat. Not for nothing does Sean Hannity keep his distance from Beck.

“Beck, Wilders, and His Boosters’ Blind Spot” discusses some mindless Beck missteps, such as mistaking “Geert Wilders, an influential Dutch parliamentarian working against the spread of Islam in his country, as a man of the fascist, far-right.” Unforgivable.

IMMIGRATION IGNORANCE:

Glenn also vastly overestimates the virtues of the “American People,” and underestimates the forces (state-managed mass immigration) that are dissolving what remains of that people and busily electing another. (Glenn: Once the country is 50 percent Third World, you might as well be talking to the hand.)

Nevertheless, I revised the “blithering idiot” verdict I passed some years back.

Richard Spencer has not. Glenn “going-to-school-with-each-new-show” has earned the contempt of the editor of AltRight.com.

The funny thing is that I second Richard’s analysis, as I have made the same points myself about Beck’s ridiculous fetishes (stop waxing fat about “Faith, Hope, and Charity”; build on life, liberty, and property, I wrote).

Beck’s (Harry) Jaffarsonian civil rights preoccupation and racial revisionism—sad to say, there were no black Founding Fathers!—are contemptible. But, what do you know?, I have been more forgiving of Glenn than Richard Spencer. Having been characterized as someone who eats nails for breakfast, I’m pleased when along comes a young man who is more uncompromising than myself, even if this guarantees he will not be playing footsie with this conservative tootsie (“intellectual windsock”) on Sean Hannity’s Great American Panel, a forum of and for the Idiocracy.

Read Richard’s superb analysis, “The Glenn Beck Deception: Inside the PC Lunatic Fringe.”

UPDATED I (June 22): I have been extremely careful to separate Beck from James Huggins’ Republican “freedom fighters” (see comment hereunder). Without much success. If you are convinced by Huggins’ GOP loyalism—and Mr. H has stuck to his guns, insisting these hacks stand for liberty—your learning curve is, well, wobbly.

UPDATE II: Here’s the “‘Mercer Eats Nails For Breakfast’ (Not)” accusation:

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

UPDATE III: Who Eat Nails for Breakfast, Spencer Or Mercer? Probably both, but Spencer wins out this time, I’m pleased to say. In case you think (sorry Huggs) that every tough-talking toots on Hannity’s “Great American Panel” can eat nails or swallow flames: tough, here, implies an ability to reason, and an uncompromising fealty to first principles. These must draw on fact and on history. To reason in the arid arena of pure thought is not what Richard (or myself, for that matter) does. Most libertarians, however, do so err.

Canada Rising

Canada, Conservatism, Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Political Economy

The Left will tell you it’s “regulation” that accounts for Canada’s strong banking system and solid economic growth. Nonsense on stilts; conservative financial practices account for the fact that Canada’s “economy grew at a 6.1 percent annual rate in the first three months of this year. The housing market is hot and three-quarters of the 400,000 jobs lost during the recession have been recovered.” (AP)

Canadian banks “aren’t as leveraged as their U.S. or European peers.” And I imagine that they did not aim to make home owners of those who cannot afford homes, and give credit to those who are not creditworthy.

The other day, CBC front man, Peter Mansbridge, reported approvingly on a Fed interest rate hike intended to prevent the distortions and the overextension that our artificially low interest rates are perpetuating. On American TV you’d have someone come on to give the Keynesian line to the contrary; government must stimulate; make up for sluggish demand, keep rates low. The CBC, as left as they come, did not present the “another side” to the interest rate hike story—-and rightly so.

There is only one correct economics, and it’s not the Keynesian kind.

UPDATED: Suing Arizona

Barack Obama, Homeland Security, IMMIGRATION, States' Rights

Taking cover, the American Treason Class, with Hillary Clinton at the helm, made the announcement from Ecuador: “The Justice Department, under [Obama’s] direction, will be bringing a lawsuit against the act” [Arizona immigration-enforcement law, SB 1070].

VIA The Right Scoop, here’s the Hildebeest herself:

UPDATE (June 20): “Our federal government should be using its legal resources to fight illegal immigration, not the law-abiding citizens of Arizona,” said Gov. Jan Brewer.

Brewer “refused to flinch after Obama administration officials confirmed Friday that they plan to file a lawsuit challenging the state’s anti-illegal immigration law.
In a statement issued late Friday, Brewer called Obama’s decision ‘outrageous’ but ‘not surprising.'”

UPDATE III: Demonizing Due Process (O’REILLY & O’BAMA SITTING IN A TREE…)

Barack Obama, Business, Justice, Law, Private Property, Republicans, The State

Rep. Joe Barton is being raked him over the coals by the Media-Congressional complex, his Republican colleagues included, for telling the truth: Big “O” muscled PB into handing over private property without due process—in contravention of “No person shall be … deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” and all that stuff.

Not only is this unconstitutional; it is also immoral. It further entrenches the shakedown ethos, and the perception that private property works and breathes at the pleasure of the politicos. This is a slush fund, a piece of which everyone along the Gulf will be clamoring for, presumably without the hassles of proving they have been harmed by the spill.

None of what I’ve said will strike those of you who respect private property and due process, including the neglected, necessary, legal imperative of mens rea, as particularly original.

The real newsworthy point to take away from this is how uncommitted Republicans are to these bedrock principles.

This is a replay of the Jim Bunning brouhaha and what the Wall Street Journal called his finest hour. For attempting to abide by the quaint principle of pay-as-you-go—a position not even the crooked Chris Matthews could condemn in its entirety—Bunning was treated like a leper (or an Afrikaner farmer) by the entire spectrum of idiots.

UPDATE I (June 19): ET TU, BACHMANN? Where is this Michele Bachmann? “Neutered” is the right word, via The Right Scoop.

UPDATE II: O’REILLY & O’BAMA SITTING IN A TREE… Bill O’Reilly is consistent here. Never before has he deferred to the limits the constitutional scheme imposes on central power, and he does not now break with that commitment to an overweening central government. (Obama should cut O’Reilly some slack and give him that prestigious interview he craves. O’Reilly is his friend.)

But Bachmann backpedals and disappoints. O’Reilly declares he is okay with Obama bringing down on BP the full force of the federal government; MB, who rightly objected, now meekly agrees. Sort of. She ought to have stuck to her guns in noting the usurpation of power and the violation of due process of which she previously warned.

From “PATRICIDE AND PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT”:

“Prosecutorial power to bring charges against a person is an awesome power, stress Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton in The Tyranny of Good Intentions. Backing him, the prosecutor has the might of the state, and must never ‘override the rights of the defendant in order to gain a conviction.’
Prosecutorial duties are dual. While acting as the plaintiff, the prosecutor must also take pains to protect the defendant’s rights.”

O’Reilly is like a Benthamite bureaucrat; he’s no truth seeker.

Since the GOP went out of business, Mark Levin has begun to speak truth to power (and phony populism). VIA The Right Scoop:

UPDATE III (June 20): So you still think the “GOP, RIP” can be reformed?

CNN:

Rep. Jo Bonner called on fellow Republican Rep. Joe Barton to step down as ranking member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on Friday following the Texas Republican’s controversial statements to BP chairman Tony Hayward on Thursday.
“Earlier this morning, Rep. Barton called me to offer his personal apologies for any harm that his comments might have caused,” said Bonner, whose district covers much of Alabama’s coastline.
“It takes a big person to admit they were wrong and I appreciated Joe’s call,” Bonner continued. “However, as I told him, I believe the damage of his comments are beyond repair and, as such, I am today calling on Joe to do the right thing for our conference and immediately step aside as Ranking Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.”
“Joe’s comments were stupid and extremely insensitive to the hundreds of thousands of people who live along the Gulf Coast,” Bonner added.