0 comment Thursday, July 24, 2014 | admin
We've got a problem on the right.The American people as a whole are sorely divided in many different ways: one generation against another; the social classes (which do exist, though not in the European sense) are divided, and of course race is the biggest and most serious source of division. The deep rift between left and right, which has become a chasm in recent decades, is largely centered on race, even more than on class conflict. The left have worked themselves up into a frenzy over how 'racist' most of their racial brethren supposedly are, and they are willing, it appears, to see open conflict over this.
Bring religion into the mix, and you have one more source of deep division. So with the Islamic population that has been imported into our country, bringing with them religious and racial disparities, you have a very volatile combination.
The events over the last several days in Oregon, with the Somali immigrant attempting a bombing at a Christmas-tree-lighting ceremony, have caused something of a revival of discussion of the Islamic question. On several genteel conservative blogs there is actually rather tentative talk about curbing Moslem immigration, and -- imagine! -- sending them home.
A few years ago, I asked why we are so afraid of the 'd' word (deport). We were not always afraid of it; Eisenhower, who was hardly a right-wing nativist, actually did deport a good many illegal Mexican migrant workers. But now, the word deportation has, thanks to the left and their media, been associated with phrases like 'cattle cars' or 'tearing families apart.' But all 'deport' means is to send somebody back to their place of origin, otherwise known as home. Imagine that.
I still think we ought to use the simple phrase ''sending them home''. The left are diabolically good at finding emotionally-laden words to use against us; we can respond by refusing to let them dictate the terminology and the words used to frame the debate.
About this time, someone will suggest that it is horrifying to send people back to some pestilential and dangerous country like, say, Somalia. But pray tell, how did Somalia, or other such places get to be cesspits? And will those same conditions not eventually develop here as we import the authors of all the chaos to live among us?
But back to the question of Islam specifically: there are many on the right who believe that Islam is not a threat except insofar as we cause that to happen. We, with our evil foreign policy and our War On Terror, have caused terrorism. Actually I can't help but remember that my far-left friend, whom I have known since college, said the exact same things. You might say in response, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Leftists might be right about Islam and our wars in the Middle East.
Nonetheless, I always stop and think twice if I start to agree with my lefty friend.
For the record I opposed the War in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's one of the things (immigration being another) which sent me running and screaming away from the GOP. I started this blog as a way of examining some of these issues and also as a way of exploring where I belonged on the political spectrum, as I was not an average Republican nor was I a paleoconservative -- because I did not agree with many paleos that Islam was not a threat if we simply leave them alone.
I am all for leaving them alone, but to say that they are not our enemies is not possible for me.
Here we read a frequently-quoted right-wing writer scoffing at the idea that Islam is a threat.
Consider that ten minutes before the first tower got hit in New York, the thought had occurred to practically no one in America that Islam constituted a mortal threat to all that we hold holy, chiefly chain restaurants and iPods. But Islam afterwards offered to fill this void that the Russians had wimped out on. For a brief period after the implosion of the Soviet Union, Americans had no threat to worry about. They found it deeply puzzling. Weren't we supposed to be afraid of something? It didn't feel right.
Then came New York, and suddenly we saw it: The Clash of Civilizations. Islam was out to get us. Why hadn't we noticed? A roaring hatred for Moslems sprang up from people who had never met a Moslem, who had a garden slug's grasp of history. A deep satisfaction came over the land. We had been made whole again.
Battling Mohammedans quickly became an industry. The government at first tried to peddle Terrorism as the enemy, not Islam, but it didn't stick. Something more robustly flackable was wanted.
I find Buchanan, of the American Conservative, proclaiming that Islam is a Culture of Jihad, and most militant. No doubt. Very. Would it be poltroonish of me to note that just now Christian armies are busily annexing and wrecking Afghanistan and Iraq, having recently bombed Somalia?
[...] Those Moslems. Militant, they are. The bastards.''
I don't know if Reed is a Christian; I don't read his stuff often, but it appears he is not. I also know he is an expatriate who is married to a Mexican and who has Mexican children, so I consider that as having abandoned his American identity. Fine; he's done the right thing to move to Mexico.
But I think his writings are very influential among some on the right, and there are many around the right-wing blogosphere who say things much like Reed says above.
I don't see what solutions he offers except to leave the poor Moslems alone, but what would he have us do about those who are in our midst, like the Christmas bomber-wannabe? Oh, perhaps he'd say that the incident was ginned up by the powers-that-be, that it was a sting, that the boy was lured and baited into a trap.
Honestly, I acknowledge the basis for a lot of the cynicism on the right; I have a certain degree of it myself. But do those who scoff at the idea of an Islamic threat believe that everything (like 9/11) was an 'inside job' or a 'false flag operation'? I have a feeling that when/if another major incident happened, most on the hard right would say that it was a false flag deal. Is it not even possible that there might be genuine terror attacks?
I am just trying to understand the mindset; do people believe that Moslems in general do not hate us or consider us their enemies? It's easy to rationalize their militancy by blaming it on our government, but doing so ignores the long history of Islamic hostility towards Christendom, and their repeated attempts to conquer our forefathers or convert them forcibly. Moslems not only invaded, repeatedly, our ancestors' homelands, but often kidnapped and enslaved numbers of Christian Europeans. We have a long, troubled history with them which starts long before any of our current foreign policy mistakes.
And leaving the question of 'terrorism' aside, there is the very real problem of the gradualist approach wherein Islam colonizes Western countries with the express purpose of Islamizing them. They don't even need violence to attain their ends, as they simply immigrate en masse, bring their relatives, and have many, many children at their hosts' expense. All the while, as they reach a critical mass, they get a foothold in influential positions, and agitate against the host country's culture and religion. We see what is happening in Europe; how can one blame this on our foreign policy?
No, they've always been hostile to us and always will be. We cannot coexist in the same country, not without losing our identity and being absorbed into their race, culture, and religion. It can't be done.
But the fact that the right is divided on this issue is a big problem.
I wonder if some on the right see Islam as a weapon to be used against Christianity, much as the Christ-hating left sees them? The left is so consumed by their hatred and resentment of Christianity that they will submerge their own agendas (feminism, gay rights, atheism) and take their chances with Islam rather than co-exist with Christianity.
The left are playing the game of siding with ''the enemy of my enemy'', and hoping to make common cause, dancing with the devil. They are doing this at their peril, as they may well see someday -- or maybe not.
Incidentally, Chris Roach has a very good piece discussing the potential for the 'suicidally liberal' people in Oregon to wake up to reality.
''It�s not clear if an event like this, even if successful, can remove the politically correct scales from the eyes of Portland�s leaders. Theirs is a web of deception that will likely detect, even in this, a clarion call to redouble their efforts of outreach, tolerance, and the like. Liberalism like that of Portland�s mayor renders intelligent people stupid and blind to basic reality.''
I tend to think that the true-believer liberals would actually rather die and feel good about themselves while doing so, than to violate all that they believe in and identify with. I just hope that our whole society isn't taken down with them.
Labels: Diversity, Immigration, Islam, Jihad, Multicult, Poitical Correctness, Social Divisions
0 comment Sunday, July 6, 2014 | admin
Recently in the post 'The cost of respectability' I wrote about the 'respectable conservatives', or the 'respectables.'
Obviously that isn't a phrase of my own coinage; its been current for some time.
I've also used the term 'castrated conservatives', but that too is not mine; it was Carleton Putnam's coinage, as far as I know.
In this discussion centering on William F. Buckley at AltRight, a commenter TS1709 provides a good description of 'respectable conservatism':
The most odious doctrine of his (much lauded by the left) was to keep the conservative movement "under control" and "respectable" by exiling and /or excoriating those who dared to go beyond a certain line of discourse. I cannot even begin to conceive why one would be deferential to the sensibilities of those whose objective is to destroy you and your beliefs. However, for a social fop such as WF Buckley whose vanity required the acceptance of the "Eastern Establishment" it was sufficient justification for the purges.''
The above is pretty much the same as my own idea of 'respectables', as the first sentence describes. The respectables are very image-conscious, and very quick to 'shush' and censor and even pronounce anathema on those of the right who violate the 'respectable' norms, as per liberal standards. Violate political correctness in any important way, and you will be drummed out of 'conservatism' and labeled a racist. The respectables worry lest your political incorrectness taint them and their spotless image.
And again, why should anyone on the right care what those hostile to us think or say of us?
Jack Cashill also writes an article in which 'Respectable Conservatives' are the subject. In his context, the 'respectables' are those who were either outright supporters of the president or apologists for him in some way. I suppose that these qualify as respectables in that they react to the criticisms of the left and tailor their message and their actions to the standards of what the left deems acceptable. These people Cashill alludes to are obviously cowards when it comes to racial issues, and afraid to mention that the emperor's clothes are conspicuously absent.
The readers who comment on Cashill's article seem somewhat confused by Cashill's use of the term 'respectable conservatives', seeming not to catch the irony or sarcasm in it.
''Good article but since when are Kathleen Parker, Jonathan Last, and for crying out loud, David Brooks "respectable conservatives"? They were, and apparently still are, being hustled by a narcissistic, man-child would-be fascist street agitator. How does that earn any thinking person's respect? ''
The idea is not that they should be respected, or respectable, but that they are courting respectability with the liberals and perhaps their media peers (who are, after all, mostly mad-dog liberals.)
In my own usage of the term, one need not be a major media figure or a visible leader of the party in any sense to be a 'respectable conservative'. Anybody who is more concerned with how we are viewed by the left than with truth and right fits the definition.
The purge-happy 'conservatives' among the bloggers, the ones who are ready to denounce and point the finger at anyone who strays from the acceptable line are an example. I think it's obvious that some, if not all, of them are people who are perhaps acting as some kind of gatekeepers and their job is to cull out those who are too far outside the narrow bounds of what is acceptable.
Whether they are cast in this role by the real powers in the GOP or the media, or whether they are simply self-appointed censors, doesn't matter; the part they play is the same.
They keep the 'right' corraled and steer them away from thoughtcrime -- otherwise known as uncomfortable truths.
Sometimes, however, some of the more 'edgy' conservatives (like Michael Savage or Glenn Beck) also fulfill the same role as the mild-mannered 'respectables', in a way. They are an alternative way of keeping the right from getting too radical. They act as an outlet, a way to channel and divert the anger that exists out there. They are a way to release some of the pressure, while still keeping people within acceptable bounds.
The respectables use the power to ostracize or anathematize the people who are too politically incorrect, too right-wing, and the 'edgy' personalities, who are geared to appeal to the more hard-core right, play along, and act as though they share the concerns of their listeners or viewers, all the while re-directing the energy towards safe ends. Beck seems to act as a means of reinforcing political correctness among the Republicans who are his followers. Witness his emphasis on black icons and heroes. The image of MLK which is shown every day alongside the Founding Fathers is a way of Politically Correcting his viewers. And it seems to be working.
The carrot and the stick both have their place in corraling the right.
Not just Glenn Beck but Fox News in general is a kinder, gentler reinforcer of PC for the Republican viewers. Over at Free Republic there are men who ogle Harris Faulkner (who is a female, despite the male name), and who thus find the 'diversity' more palatable at FoxNews than at CNN.
The media are just in the business of serving up differerent varieties of the same old, same old; one flavor for the 'right' and one for the liberal. For the Republicans, just wave the flag and make the liberalism less blatant, works like a charm.
Since what we now call conservatism has been so compromised and co-opted, we need a new term to describe the politically incorrect right. I think we discussed this here a couple of years ago, and we never found a term we could agree on.
Some on the ethnopatriot right say that conservatism is discredited; that may be true, but I still believe that there needs to be a concern for preserving or conserving what is good from the past. It's all very facile to say 'there's nothing left to save'. In my occasional cynical moment, I've probably said that, but it is not true. Our people are still here, though in a bad way, and our way of life is weakened and marginalized, but it is not dead and gone, despite the efforts of the enemy.
I don't know if I consider myself 'conservative' any longer; perhaps I'm a restorationist or a reactionary, or just an ethnoloyalist. The labels don't matter as much, but if we discard even the idea of preserving anything of tradition, we will become nothing more than ideologues with some utopian pipe-dream of a re-invented West, or Jacobins, who tried to destroy and remake everything.
As useless as 'conservatism' has become, and as much as it is the salt which has lost its savor, we still need to try to salvage what we can, and not raze everything to the ground in our zeal to reject what is bad in our world.
Obviously that isn't a phrase of my own coinage; its been current for some time.
I've also used the term 'castrated conservatives', but that too is not mine; it was Carleton Putnam's coinage, as far as I know.
In this discussion centering on William F. Buckley at AltRight, a commenter TS1709 provides a good description of 'respectable conservatism':
The most odious doctrine of his (much lauded by the left) was to keep the conservative movement "under control" and "respectable" by exiling and /or excoriating those who dared to go beyond a certain line of discourse. I cannot even begin to conceive why one would be deferential to the sensibilities of those whose objective is to destroy you and your beliefs. However, for a social fop such as WF Buckley whose vanity required the acceptance of the "Eastern Establishment" it was sufficient justification for the purges.''
The above is pretty much the same as my own idea of 'respectables', as the first sentence describes. The respectables are very image-conscious, and very quick to 'shush' and censor and even pronounce anathema on those of the right who violate the 'respectable' norms, as per liberal standards. Violate political correctness in any important way, and you will be drummed out of 'conservatism' and labeled a racist. The respectables worry lest your political incorrectness taint them and their spotless image.
And again, why should anyone on the right care what those hostile to us think or say of us?
Jack Cashill also writes an article in which 'Respectable Conservatives' are the subject. In his context, the 'respectables' are those who were either outright supporters of the president or apologists for him in some way. I suppose that these qualify as respectables in that they react to the criticisms of the left and tailor their message and their actions to the standards of what the left deems acceptable. These people Cashill alludes to are obviously cowards when it comes to racial issues, and afraid to mention that the emperor's clothes are conspicuously absent.
The readers who comment on Cashill's article seem somewhat confused by Cashill's use of the term 'respectable conservatives', seeming not to catch the irony or sarcasm in it.
''Good article but since when are Kathleen Parker, Jonathan Last, and for crying out loud, David Brooks "respectable conservatives"? They were, and apparently still are, being hustled by a narcissistic, man-child would-be fascist street agitator. How does that earn any thinking person's respect? ''
The idea is not that they should be respected, or respectable, but that they are courting respectability with the liberals and perhaps their media peers (who are, after all, mostly mad-dog liberals.)
In my own usage of the term, one need not be a major media figure or a visible leader of the party in any sense to be a 'respectable conservative'. Anybody who is more concerned with how we are viewed by the left than with truth and right fits the definition.
The purge-happy 'conservatives' among the bloggers, the ones who are ready to denounce and point the finger at anyone who strays from the acceptable line are an example. I think it's obvious that some, if not all, of them are people who are perhaps acting as some kind of gatekeepers and their job is to cull out those who are too far outside the narrow bounds of what is acceptable.
Whether they are cast in this role by the real powers in the GOP or the media, or whether they are simply self-appointed censors, doesn't matter; the part they play is the same.
They keep the 'right' corraled and steer them away from thoughtcrime -- otherwise known as uncomfortable truths.
Sometimes, however, some of the more 'edgy' conservatives (like Michael Savage or Glenn Beck) also fulfill the same role as the mild-mannered 'respectables', in a way. They are an alternative way of keeping the right from getting too radical. They act as an outlet, a way to channel and divert the anger that exists out there. They are a way to release some of the pressure, while still keeping people within acceptable bounds.
The respectables use the power to ostracize or anathematize the people who are too politically incorrect, too right-wing, and the 'edgy' personalities, who are geared to appeal to the more hard-core right, play along, and act as though they share the concerns of their listeners or viewers, all the while re-directing the energy towards safe ends. Beck seems to act as a means of reinforcing political correctness among the Republicans who are his followers. Witness his emphasis on black icons and heroes. The image of MLK which is shown every day alongside the Founding Fathers is a way of Politically Correcting his viewers. And it seems to be working.
The carrot and the stick both have their place in corraling the right.
Not just Glenn Beck but Fox News in general is a kinder, gentler reinforcer of PC for the Republican viewers. Over at Free Republic there are men who ogle Harris Faulkner (who is a female, despite the male name), and who thus find the 'diversity' more palatable at FoxNews than at CNN.
The media are just in the business of serving up differerent varieties of the same old, same old; one flavor for the 'right' and one for the liberal. For the Republicans, just wave the flag and make the liberalism less blatant, works like a charm.
Since what we now call conservatism has been so compromised and co-opted, we need a new term to describe the politically incorrect right. I think we discussed this here a couple of years ago, and we never found a term we could agree on.
Some on the ethnopatriot right say that conservatism is discredited; that may be true, but I still believe that there needs to be a concern for preserving or conserving what is good from the past. It's all very facile to say 'there's nothing left to save'. In my occasional cynical moment, I've probably said that, but it is not true. Our people are still here, though in a bad way, and our way of life is weakened and marginalized, but it is not dead and gone, despite the efforts of the enemy.
I don't know if I consider myself 'conservative' any longer; perhaps I'm a restorationist or a reactionary, or just an ethnoloyalist. The labels don't matter as much, but if we discard even the idea of preserving anything of tradition, we will become nothing more than ideologues with some utopian pipe-dream of a re-invented West, or Jacobins, who tried to destroy and remake everything.
As useless as 'conservatism' has become, and as much as it is the salt which has lost its savor, we still need to try to salvage what we can, and not raze everything to the ground in our zeal to reject what is bad in our world.
Labels: Conservatism, Media Bias, Poitical Correctness, Respectable Conservatism