The Authentic Right Vs. The Neocons

Intellectualism, Old Right, Political Philosophy

Paul Gottfried is, easily, the most learned, ignored scholar dealing with the history of the European and American Right. In this no holds barred interview, Prof. Gottfried and I discuss Conservatism in America: Making Sense of the American Right, Prof. Gottfried’s latest book. The interview is the first of two; the book is the last in a series of books dissecting the Right, among which are After Liberalism (Princeton, 1999) and Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt (Missouri, 2002).

Enjoy. Comments are welcome.

Andrew Sullivan Endorses Ron Paul (But Still Loves McCain)

Elections 2008, Media, Neoconservatism, Republicans

Before doing the right thing and endorsing Rep. Ron Paul, Andrew Sullivan gives us a glimpse as to why he’s been so misguided over the years (he’d never admit to learning by following those of us who’ve gotten it right). Sullivan first slobbers over McCain:
“I admire McCain in so many ways. He is the adult in the field, he is attuned to the issue of climate change in a way no other Republican is, he is a genuine war hero and a patriot, and he bravely and rightly opposed the disastrous occupation policies of the Bush administration in Iraq. The surge is no panacea for Iraq; but it has enabled the United States to lose the war without losing face. And that, in the end, is why I admire McCain but nonetheless have to favor Paul over McCain. Because on the critical issue of our time – the great question of the last six years – Paul has been proven right and McCain wrong. And I say that as someone who once passionately supported McCain’s position on the war but who cannot pretend any longer that it makes sense.”
Andrew has always done proud to Greenpeace and the Sierra Club combined. And since when has the mummified McCain’s opposition to Iraq been anything but tactical? At least Sullivan doesn’t pretend he wasn’t once firmly in the McCain camp with respect to Iraq. Why would he need to pretend? When the American punditocracy is wrong, which is almost always, it doesn’t incur adverse effects. Being a party to the neoconservative-Centre-Left coalition means never having to say you’re sorry (or being dismissed).
Another indictment of McCain came today in the form of an endorsement from Joe Lieberman. Ideologically, very little distinguishes neoconservatives such as McCain, or other big government, open-borders Republicans from the center-Left.
Sullivan doesn’t make much more sense when he gets to Dr. Paul, although the overall endorsement is a good thing:
“The great forgotten principles of the current Republican party are freedom and toleration,” he salivates.
The current Republican Party is based in freedom and toleration? It has not stood for these principles in many decades, and, as some argue, never, since this is the party of Lincoln.
Andrew improves when he praises “Paul’s federalism, his deep suspicion of Washington power, his resistance to government spending, debt and inflation, his ability to grasp that not all human problems are soluble, least of all by government…”

Derb’s Da Man

Elections 2008, Politics, Ron Paul

National Review’s John Derbyshire, once a skeptic (and here too), finally endorses Ron Paul:

“If you think that our efforts against jihadist terrorism constitute World War Four (I don’t), you will not want Ron Paul for president. (Jonah Goldberg’s article “The Tradition of Ron Paul” in the Dec. 17 issue of National Review is key reading in that context.) If you think there would be a whole world of difference between what Hillary Clinton would accomplish in the Rome-of-the-Borgias down there on the Potomac, by comparison with what Rudy, or Fred, or Mitt would accomplish, you won’t be supporting Paul.

If, however, you think that much of the underbrush that has grown up around our national institutions this past 40 years needs to by pulled up by the roots and burned, before it chokes the life out of our Republic, then Paul’s your man.”

As I said, Paul isn’t perfect, but he’s very good indeed.