printI’ll be retiring tonight with “Suicide of a Superpower: Will American Survive to 2025?” by the iconic Patrick J.Buchanan, whom every paleo-libertarian admires. I’ve just received a copy courtesy of the author. The new book is inscribed as follows:
“To Ilana Mercer: Fellow Columnist and Fellow Conservative, with The Respect and good wishes of The Author.”
Mr. Buchanan’s graciousness made my day, make that my month.
In a gracious note to this writer, the one and only Mr. Buchanan wrote: “I believe your book is being sold [or bundled on Amazon] along with my new book, ‘Suicide of a Superpower: Will America survive to 2025.’ … my 18,000-word chapter on ethnonationalism and tribalism and the surge of both throughout the Third World—as well as our own declining world—tracks pretty much with what you wrote …”
UPDATE (Oct. 12): You wish, Myron! Being called a “fellow conservative” by Pat Buchanan is most definitely a high honor. Like myself, Mr. Buchanan regards giants such as Democrat Grover Cleveland, Russell Kirk, Barry Goldwater and “Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, also known as Mr. Republican,” as authentic conservatives. Snarky comments to the contrary, Buchanan is a member of the Old Right. (As am I.):
In the wonderfully conciliatory 1992 essay “A Strategy for The Right,” Murray N. Rothbard traced the original American Right to a reaction against the New Deal and the manner in which it obliterated the old republic’s classical-liberal foundations. Members of the original Right wanted to abolish the Welfare State ushered in by the New Deal and return to the foreign policy of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, enunciated in his First Inaugural Address, in March 1801: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” Avoiding the metropole status our imposter conservatives or neoconservatives are currently cultivating was crucial to an America First foreign affairs position.
By no means a monolith, the Old Right sported nuanced opinions in matters of philosophy and policy. Sadly, it petered out politically, only to be usurped by the W. F. Buckley, big-government “conservatives.”
Sure, Mr. Buchanan goes wrong on trade, but one would expect posters here to be familiar with my record on free trade.
Survive until 2025 – hell, the stupid government is operating with continuing resolutions every 6 weeks (like
Bolivia or some other 3rd world country)! The deficit exponential looks to be reaching the Wiemar-Zimbabwe singularity in 2017 – so 2025 is truly optimistic.
I’m glad Buchanan appreciates you although I don’t know that being called a “Conservative” is a compliment these days after Bush, Cheney, and their crew gave us “compassionate” conservatism. [This is misguided.]
Even “liberal” was not a derogatory word in the heyday of Jefferson and Cleveland until the political left ran a muck with their ideas from 1933 onward.
Ilana, the way things are going, I hope you are a SPEED READER! I do not think we have that much time – 2025 indeed – and that a 5 to 10 year window at the max if corrections are implemented within this next year or two.
Ilana,
I am happy Mr. Buchanan respects you as a fellow conservative and did so by inscribing his book for you. We readers of Barely a Blog, however, have known this about you for years and “we ain’t chopped liver, Lady!” Keep up the good fight.
When I was young and inexperienced, I was moderately conservative, and usually voted Republican, but sometimes voted for an occasional Democrat; but now much older and more experienced and hopefully wiser, I am becoming more and more conservative, although I still occasionally vote for a conservative Libertarian.