The antithesis of liberty -- the anti-liberty 'Obamacare' opposition

Dr. Keyes has written an article for WorldNetDaily called "Unhealthy for Liberty" from which I excerpt the following passage:

Though even some of the critics of the Obama faction's health sector proposals speak as if the problem with it lies in the fact that they are reaching for too much too quickly, this criticism begs the most important question: What are they reaching for?

Thanks to Dr. Keyes for pointing this out, it is a vital point to make.

From my point of view there is at least some advantage to our side due to the administration's aggressive, radical 'overreaching' (and I use the term very loosely here), but it does nothing to change the facts that what they're reaching for, at its very roots, is dictatorial totalitarian government, which is altogether unAmerican and must be stopped -- not merely resisted, stopped!

Dr. Keyes puts it in very simple terms:

The problem isn't that they are overreaching.

Again, thanks to Dr. Keyes for pointing this out. It is precisely correct. Indeed, as I've intimated above, that they're aggressively 'overreaching' works more to our side's advantage than theirs. And as I've said before here and elsewhere, I do not believe that they have the mental (or moral) capacity necessary to recognize that they need to scale it back IF they are to have any hope of advancing their agenda, ummm, peacefully. Not that advancing their agenda peacefully is necessarily their goal. Nonetheless, Keyes is right to point out that the perception which attributes to them the sin of 'overreaching' is mired in a false premise, namely that it's not what they're reaching for that is wrong, but the breakneck speed and wreckless driving in pursuit of the what that is wrong. This is, I believe, a great example of what Lawrence Auster has denominated the unprincipled exception. In the event that you're not familiar with the term, read Auster's explanation here.

Dr. Keyes continues:

It is quite simply that what they are reaching for is wrong – wrong for the quality of health care, wrong for the individual liberties of Americans, wrong for the preservation of constitutional government that secures the liberty of the American people.

Amen! A right principled position if there ever was one -- as opposed to taking an unprincipled opposing position wherein the best (albeit flawed) argument one can articulate 'against' government takeover of the healthcare industry (among others) is that we're not quite ready for a complete government takeover of xyz industry just yet. In this case there's no higher principle on which one founds his opposition to a given thing. No; he isn't necessarily opposed to government-run anything per se, he just thinks everyone is better served if totalitarianism continues to be implimented bits-and-pieces at a time, or, that the rate of speed at which it is advanced should be increased by slight yet steady increments. Because, you see, he thinks that that is the American way.

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Vindication

Regarding the preceding blog entry, I wrote to Mr. Auster this morning:

What a great article (or discussion) Tyrannical Atheism has turned out to be! Excuse me while I bask in being vindicated citing that particular VFR article as my prime example of why VFR is the premier Trad-con site. ;-)

Outstanding work! Thank you.

Perhaps it is simply a matter of, as they say, beauty being in the eye of the beholder. There is certainly an element of truth in that statement, and I don't deny it. But I saw this coming early on with Tyrannical Atheism, partly because I'm familiar with the quality of readership at VFR, partly because it's (that is, Tyrannical Atheism) a subject of intense interest for yours truly.

As has been said before, "extreme individualism is as dangerous to liberty as any form of collectivism." See Mr. Auster's reply to a reader whose answer to the collectivism he sees in our society is the aforementioned extreme individualism. The reader supposes he wishes for a society that, well, isn't a society; a society that has no identity, no purpose, no nothing but a universal recognition and following of extreme individualism. He supposes this only because he's never lived in such a ruthlessly individualistic society.

As I've suggested before, why don't we build these extremists a city somewhere off in the mountains, self-contained, self-'governed', completely independent of our society and check in on them from time to time to see how they're coming along in their 'development' away from the extremes of extreme individualism and all that that implies. Make it so number one.

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Randians vs. Trad-cons

At VFR we read, once again (**rolls eyes**), the "articulation" of the simplistic view among men which states that reason alone is to be our guide in everything, at all times, and under the inexaustible minutia of conditions and circumstances which we as human beings experience. My God!, what kind of kool-aid are these people drinking? Do they pay any attention to the goings-on around them?

Here is my comment to the VFR entry:

Terry Morris writes:

Humorous on one hand, sad and dangerous on the other, that Andrew Dalton has put his full faith in his own ability to reason properly and correctly, when all of human experience (as well as his own experience whether he cares to acknowledge it or not) hath shown that mankind is particularly disposed to reason incorrectly, as the faculty of reason without cultivation, without experience, and without revelation, is a miserable guide which often errs from ignorance, and more often from the impulse of passion.

His own words are his own undoing. To claim someone has rejected reason altogether on the basis that that person rejects the pitifully ignorant, sophomoric notion that reason alone is to be our sole and exclusive guide, and thus to count him a savage, is to reveal oneself as completely detached from genuine reason, not to mention humility. But as long as he's managed to convince himself, I guess that's all that matters as far as the poor soul is concerned.

LA replies to me:

I like your paraphrase of Mr. Jefferson.

Ah, we have a glimmer! It is satifying indeed to see that Mr. Auster recognized my paraphrase of Mr. Jefferson. But so far as he's concerned I would expect no less. Any Trad-con worth his salt would immediately identify the first part of my paraphrase as originating with Mr. Jefferson and the DoI. BUT...

...how many among you can identify the original source from whence the second part of my combination paraphrase emanates? Just yell it out when you know! ;-)

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Chuck Baldwin on the killing of the M.I.A.C Report

In a footnote added to his follow-up article on the M.I.A.C. Report, Chuck Baldwin -- named among three third-party presidential candidates, supporters of whom the report declared to be "prone to violence" and "militia membership," as I wrote about here -- observes that the means utilized to bring about the rapid death of this report can and must be used wherever we find the tentacles of tyranny positioning themselves to crush our beloved liberties.

Baldwin writes:

*Notice, too, that we did not need the major media to achieve this victory. We cut off this one branch of the tyranny tree without the help of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX NEWS (with the exception of Glenn Beck), or even the Drudge Report. Victory was achieved with the weapons of talk radio, syndicated Internet columns, Internet blogging, local news media, and word of mouth.

You see, folks, we can achieve victory without the major media. But we must stay focused and actively involved in our respective State governments. "We the people" are still the power of this country. And don't let anyone deceive you into believing anything else. Therefore, take heart in knowing that your diligence convinced the State of Missouri to rescind its atrocious MIAC report. Now, don't let it stop there. Let's faithfully cut off the tentacles of tyranny wherever we find them. Amen?

The main article is posted here. (H/T: OutragedPatriots.com)

Additionally Bob Unruh of WND has filed a similar report critical of the MIAC report and its contents:

Citing ALIPAC, Unruh writes:

The 'Missouri Documents,' as they came to be called, listed over 32 characteristics police should watch for as signs or links to domestic terrorists, which could threaten police officers, court officials, and infrastructure targets.

"Police were instructed to look for Americans who were concerned about unemployment, taxes, illegal immigration, gangs, border security, abortion, high costs of living, gun restrictions, FEMA, the IRS, The Federal Reserve, and the North American Union/SPP/North American Community. The 'Missouri Documents' also said potential domestic terrorists might like gun shows, short wave radios, combat movies, movies with white male heroes, Tom Clancey Novels, and Presidential Candidates Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and Chuck Baldwin!" ALIPAC wrote.

I don't know about you, but this to me reads more like a list of items that would be of concern to your typical All-American native son (or daughter). That is, when he wasn't busying himself with playing or coaching baseball, eating grandma's apple pie at a family gathering, instructing his children in the art of self-government, or doing volunteer work for his local church and his local community. Or, of course, writing at a political blog. ;-)

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How do you plead?

Chuck Baldwin writes at NewsWithViews.com My Response to M.I.A.C. Report:

By now, readers should be familiar with the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) report dated 02/20/09 and titled, "MIAC Strategic Report: The Modern Militia Movement." In this dreadfully malicious and slanderous "law enforcement sensitive" secret police report, Governor Jeremiah (Jay) Nixon; John Britt, Director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety; James Keathley, Colonel, Missouri State Highway Patrol; and Van Godsey, Director of MIAC categorize certain citizens as being potential violence-prone "militia members." I would venture to guess that more than 75% of the entire population of the United States would fit the MIAC's broad definition of someone who would fall into the aforementioned category.

According to the MIAC report, if you oppose any of the following, you could qualify for being profiled as a potential dangerous "militia member":

The United Nations
The New World Order
Gun Control
The violation of Posse Comitatus
The Federal Reserve
The Income Tax
The Ammunition and Accountability Act
A possible Constitutional Convention
The North American Union
Universal Service Program
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
Abortion
Illegal Immigration

Again, I would bet that at least 75% of the American people would oppose at least one or more items on the above list. Well, according to the MIAC report, that is sufficient to make them potential dangerous "militia members."

Uh, yeah, count me among the 75% ... several times. Indeed, count about 98.9% of everyone I know among the 75% who disagree with one or more of these, perhaps in most cases fewer times than I, or maybe not to the extent or with the same passion that I oppose many of the items on the forgoing list, but opposed they are to better than 50% of the named items nonetheless.

I must be particularly dangerous given that I strongly oppose virtually every single item on the list, though I've never been a member of any militia group and don't know any members of any militia group, at least to my knowledge. And I didn't vote for Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, or Bob Barr in the late election. In fact, I didn't vote in the presidential election at all. But if these three are indeed on this list, then I imagine I'll vote for one of 'em in the next election if I have to write his name in, and of course, if I'm still a free man at that point. Yet more evidence that I'm a particularly particularly dangerous individual, "prone to violence" and militia membership. I'm feeling kind of special right now, can you tell?

So much for pleading the fifth, eh?

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Flurry of activity over at WMH

WMH = Wise Man's Heart where Hermes has recently been "gettin' down with his bad self." I think it was VA who recently complained about the lack of activity around the traditionalist blogosphere. Well, here's an exception to the rule in the inverse. And a delightful one at that. Y'all check it out.

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Beer'n hotdog day!

Today is July 4th, the day that used to be set aside for us to celebrate America's Independence, as I wrote yesterday in the post directly beneath this one. It is sad but true that this is no longer what the holiday means to many (and judging by what I see around me, most) Americans. Perhaps this is not the case in your neck of the woods, but I happen to live in one of the most (comparatively speaking) 'conservative' states and regions in America. So I think the tendency would most likely be that as we move away from the center, this irreverant attitude towards our nation's birthday would become more pronounced.

After returning home late yesterday evening I got online and went to several sites listed in my blogroll, including VFR where this entry had been posted while I was away. In the entry Richard W. complains about the "lowering of standards" in diverse America. But you know what the B.O. supporting preacher said: "our nation's diversity (uh, I meant to say pluralism, sorry) is much more to be celebrated than to be feared" even though, according to B.O., as racial and cultural diversity increases in America, America becomes an ever more dangerous place to live. But I digress...

In his concluding remarks in his email to L.A., Richard writes that he's going to view the "fourth of July" as a day of mourning, with one consolation -- beer and hotdogs are hard to ruin, and I respond:

Richard wrote:

Ah, our America. Happy Forth of July? Hmm. I think I'm viewing it as a day or mourning.

He should be, particularly since the liberalization of America is now so complete and thorough that even patriotic folks like Richard refer to the day set aside for Americans to celebrate the great epoch of our nation's independence as "the fourth of July" without a second thought, not even to whom he's speaking to.

And L.A. replies to my response to Richard's remarks:

Isn't Mr. Morris being a little tough on Richard W.? Yes, of course, the proper name for the holiday is Independence Day; I personally often use that name when others are calling it "July Fourth." But it's been commonly called "July Fourth" for an awfully long time, probably going back well into the 19th century, and to suggest that the use of that familiar, even traditional name is a symptom of the much more recent radical liberalization of America is, I think, not correct or fair.

But, you see, this is my point. I'm keenly aware of the fact that the term "fourth of July" is not a new innovation on the proper "Independence Day" in America. Hell, until fifteen years ago or so, I myself used the term, just like Richard, without a second thought as to the implications of what I was saying. Furthermore, I did not suggest that it is a new innovation, nor was I trying to be harsh with Richard W. Indeed, I was trying to give Richard as much credit for his patriotism as I could while showing that his usage was/is improper and an indication of how deep our nation has sunk into the abyss of liberal domination (seriously, what force would my argument have in the absence of granting Richard's patriotism and love of country?; if Richard were not, in my opinion, a patriotic American, then what would be the point of my using him as an example of the extent of the problem as I see it?). But because I dared point out that Richard's usage of the improper "fourth of July" is indication of a deeper problem in America than what actually shows up on the surface, I'm declared to be unfair to Richard.

My apologies to Richard if I offended him, but frankly being fair to Richard is among the least of my worries on this day.

Y'all enjoy your beer and hotdogs.

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Son of Son of Proposition Nation

Over at VFR Auster has a nice post up rebuking the neocons for reducing the United States to a nation operating under the "rule of law."

LA writes:

The examples should make it clear that the rule of law, by itself, does not define what we are substantively as a people, a country, a way of life. Anyone who reduces America, or any Western country, to "the rule of law" and other such abstract phrases, is a liberal who has shown him incapable of defending our actual civilization from the mortal threats that encompass it.

Jake Jacobson comments to the article:

Points all very well made!

A further thought. Our focus is on illegal immigration and we have dealt extensively with the Minutemen. They are infamous for all but chanting this phrase at demos, so I have challenged some of them asking them "but what if they changed the law and passed amnesty?" Would you then respect the law?

"The Law" such as it is is by nature a malleable and political thing and it can change, which is why it is dangerous to invoke it in this way. Also, I genuinely believe this is a big part of why our elite class were so puzzled by the freak-out average Americans threw during the last several amnesty debacles. I really think they were sitting around sipping their soy lattes and saying "Right, right, so we'll change the law, what's the problem?"

The problem is that what we and they call "the rule of law" is a shared understanding, an unspoken covenant that appears to be breaking down like most everything else as industrial strength liberal solvent is applied, well, liberally!

Mr. Jacobson's comments got me thinking. Specifically, there is a tendency of right-liberals to oppose illegal immigration because, well, it's illegal ... duh! Right-liberals are admittedly all for legal immigration. In fact, they seem to be pretty proud of it. So using Mr. Jacobson's line of reasoning, one might ask whether right-liberals would care about immigration at all if the terms and conditions were changed to reduce and finally eliminate illegal immigration, in accordance with the liberal "gospel" of non-discriminationism?

If America is a nation which operates under the rule of law as the neocons say, and every law, and thus every nation operating under the rule of law, must have a "higher principle" as its basis, and if non-discriminationism is the "higher principle" which determines America's laws, then doesn't it stand to reason that it is the illegality of illegal immigration which is the chief cause of all the trouble? What's the solution then? Is it not, in conformity to the rule of law and the higher liberal principle governing it, to de-illegalize illegal immigration?

It seems to me that the grandson of the Proposition Nation may well be opposition to, and only to, illegal immigration.

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Toward a Federal Marriage Amendment

With the all-out radical leftist assault on traditional marriage in full force in this country, we're hearing again that what we need, what we must have is a Federal Marriage Amendment to save traditional marriage in America, and everything will be ok. I personally have resisted this approach since the debate was first nationalized on the grounds that amending the U.S. constitution to define marriage would have, good intentions notwithstanding, unintended consequences serving to add yet another twenty miles of pavement to the federal super-highway to hell. And through the clearing that's already taken place ahead, I can see the utter desolation of its final destination from here.

Nonetheless, and given my view of the sacredness of traditional marriage and why it must be protected, not only do I question my own position -- a position which pits me against respected traditional marriage advocates like Dr. Dobson, and Don Wildmon of AFA, and Lawrence Auster, and etc... -- on the FMA from time to time, but at certain times, given the popularity of the federal approach to protecting marriage among the more well known and well respected advocates of traditional marriage in this country, I get the feeling that ultimately the FMA might be the only method that the majority can agree on.

However, via John Savage's latest post in his recent series of entries concerning traditional marriage (see here, here, and here), I'm led to this 4-W entry on the topic and Lydia McGrew's comments concerning the FMA.

Lydia writes:

On purely (and I do mean purely) prudential grounds, I recommend state amendments. I worry about what a federal amendment would be used to do. There is a sense in which writing an amendment to the federal Constitution is like handing the federal courts a blank sheet on which they will write whatever they like. One doesn't mean to do that, but it could come to that. For example, if a federal amendment doesn't prohibit civil unions, some crazy federal court could rule that that means states _must_ have civil unions, or recognize other states' civil unions. And so forth. In my own state, our state Supreme Court tends to be more disciplined as far as sticking to what laws and the state constitution actually mean rather than telling lies about them.

My sense tells me that Lydia's concerns with the Federal Marriage Amendment are perfectly reasonable and legitimate. We all know that the unaccountable federal courts (and the federal Congress does nothing to prohibit it) love to divine the spirit of the federal constitution, and to mold it and shape it in their own image of what it should be. On the other hand, of course, we all know too that the federal courts aren't particularly disinclined from overthrowing State law when State laws have been molded and shaped by State legislatures whose image of the federal constitution doesn't match up to that of the federal judiciary.

All that aside, though, and as I've written before, the federal constitution provides two methods of amendment in Article V. Now, currently we have 27 separate State marriage amendments on the books in this country, and several others in the making. And with the most recent leftist assaults on the institution of marriage and the absolute certainty that the onslaught will continue in more radical ways than we've even seen thus far (this is the nature of liberalism; the less radical it needs to be to effect its purposes, the more radical it gets), I predict that this number of States with marriage amendments attached to their constitutions is going to grow significantly in the relatively near future. Indeed, I'm almost willing to bet that it will grow large enough over the next, say, five years, to meet the requirements laid down in Article V to at least initiate a Federal Convention for proposing amendments, if not see it through to its end.

So here's my question for all the strong advocates of the FMA. If we must have a Federal Marriage Amendment, wouldn't it be better for the States to force Congress to call a Convention on the subject, than for the people to pressure the federal Congress to pass the FMA; isn't this the more (to borrow from Lydia) prudent approach to which our advocacy of a Federal Marriage Amendment, if we must have one, should be directed?

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Nuff said?

Not by a long shot! Picking up where I left off in the entry immediately preceding this one, in which I quote Oklahoma Republican Senator Harry Coates as saying that "enforcing immigration laws is up to the federal government, not businesses," in a statement supporting federal suspension of key provisions in Oklahoma's law, I'd like for us to examine the implications of Coates's statement a little closer.

Besides the implied meaning of the statement which I discuss here, the statement is further problematic taken at face value without the implied meaning. Taken to its logical conclusion, it is the task of the federal government, and only the federal government, to craft, debate, pass, enforce and scrutinize any and all immigration standards on the books in this country even to the remotest parts. That's why dependents like Coates insist that if there is the slightest hint or perceived contradiction between federal immigration law and state immigration law, the former always trumps the latter which must be done away with forthwith. So the legal citizens of the United States, and of every state and municipality under its rule are relegated, according to Coates, to waiting for hell to freeze over or for their respective communities and towns and states to be completely and utterly ransacked by the invading hordes of third-worlders, whichever comes first. In other words, say the Coateses of the world, the United States must first be destroyed before we can allow any portion thereof to initiate policies designed to secure its own preservation independent of the all-powerful all-knowing all-encompassing federal government.

All-destroying attitudes like this literally make me sick to my stomach. But that's liberalism for you in a nutshell. And yes Senator Coates, I'm calling you a liberal, your affiliations with the Republican party definately notwithstanding.

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Conservative MEGO?

For those of you who don't know, or who may have forgotten, MEGO is the acronym for "My Eyes are Glazing Over." I'm sure most of you have dealt with this phenomenon at one time or another, in one way or another, during the course of your lifetimes.

I once had an employee who had a severe case of MEGO (fact is I've had several employees over the years who exhibited signs of having MEGO, but only one whose case was this severe), and it negatively affected everything he did at work, and thus me and my business. I'd be in the middle of explaining something to him, and I'd notice that his eyes would begin to glaze over; literally you could see his mind begin to wander off into never never land. I can't say I'm 100% certain about the root cause of his particularly extreme condition, though I have my suspicions, but one day when I'd had all I could take of his eyes glazing over and his mind wandering off into space as I was giving him vital instructions which required his full attention, I managed to temporarily recapture his attention and focus by threatening to fire him on spot. Even so, once I'd regained his undivided attention and began retracing steps I'd already covered, MEGO began to set in once again. Though I did not fire him on spot as I had threatened, I was forced to follow through a few days later when it was determined that his condition was simply too advanced and too much outside my control for there to be any hope of a reversal.

I sometimes have to wonder whether MEGO is that which afflicts many conservatives as regards Islam or the immigration problem, or a host of other issues? Modern conservatives definately seem to exhibit the symptoms (and at least the early stages) of MEGO -- short attention spans, inability to focus, lack of rationality, short-term memory lapses, inability to connect the dots, and etc. -- and as with my former employee, it negatively affects everything they do, and thus our country and its future. But unlike my situation with my former employee, we can't ultimately control the effects of MEGO by cutting MEGO afflicted conservatives loose, can we?; his, as I said, was an extreme case which required extreme measures. What then is the solution to this problem? If we manage to recapture conservatives' attention by being forceful and loud and threatening, only to lose it again to the condition of MEGO, what are we to do?

As regards my employee, I strongly suspect (I'm only about 99.9 percent certain) that he was taking drugs while on the job, and that this was the underlying cause of his inability to focus and to perform his job according to any acceptable standards. It wasn't that he didn't work hard, but that he didn't work smart and couldn't follow simple steps from a to z in a constructive, orderly fashion. In other words, in order to permanently stop the effects of MEGO that this person carries with him everywhere he goes, you'd have to end his drug use, which I have no ability to do. With regard to conservatives who show all the signs of having MEGO as well, I suspect that they're also working under the influence of the mind-altering hallucinogenic liberal drug known as multiculturalism which produces in the minds of its users hallucinations as to the ability of cultural incompatibles to assimilate in our culture while we, at the same time, acculturate to theirs and its increasingly problematic presence here. In other words, in order to deal with the effects of conservative MEGO permanently and effectively, we'd have to radically purge modern conservatism of the cause -- the use and abuse of the mind-altering addictive drug of liberalism. But how exactly can we do this?

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Kristor separates the MEN from the boys, and the boys from the screaming belligerant undisciplined toddlers

In the event that you haven't had the opportunity to read Kristor's excellent analysis on the distinctions which separate Traditionalists from liberal Republicans and liberal Republicans from liberal Democrats over at VFR, I'll make it easy for you:

Kristor writes:

That's the problem with gnosticism: the perfect drives out the good. The liberal gnostics quite properly hate evil, but are not prepared to admit that, albeit corrupted by evil, the world is basically good. For them, any evil anywhere ruins the whole shooting match. It is the moral stance of the two year old who wants both to keep his cake and eat it. Nothing is ever good enough for them. That is why they have difficulty with any wholehearted allegiance to any concrete entity like America. Their allegiances are to abstract ideas, which by nature cannot ever be perfectly instantiated in the world. They love ideas; they hate the world; and, logically, they would hate any world, because worlds as such are congeries of disparate entities that are forced to reconcile themselves to each other (so as to constitute a world), and thus to compromise on their ideals, and thus to introduce to the world some defect or other in the perfect actualization thereof. This is why there are conservation laws in physics; There is No Free Lunch is the conservation laws of physics at work in society.

None of this is acceptable to the liberal gnostic. Liberal gnostics want all the possible goods, without recognizing that there cannot be such a thing as a world in which all goods are compossible. So, e.g., they want cheap gas, but they don't want domestic drilling; they want to encourage people to reduce gas consumption and seek alternatives, but they want cheap gas; they want to tax the bejesus out of the oil companies, but they want cheap gas. They want to stop burning coal, but don't want to build nuclear plants, or site windmills where they might kill some birds. They want the poor to stop being poor, but they don't want anyone to do well. They want the Grand Canyon to be wheelchair accessible, but they want to reduce public access to the Grand Canyon. They want religious freedom, but they don't want religion to constrain anything. They want the government to make us all perfectly safe, but they don't want the government to do anything at all that would interfere with anyone's freedoms anywhere. The logical endpoint of all this is the destruction of humanity as a blot upon the earth. But that would be evil, too (thus James Taranto's archetypal liberal headline, "World Ends: Poor Hardest Hit").

When the liberal gnostics can't get everything they want, what do they do? They scream at the Daddy or Mommy who is telling them "no." That's why the gnostics of the first century were mad at Yahweh. That's why the liberal gnostics of today hate the mean nasty Republicans, even though Republicans are mostly liberals, too. The difference between the liberal gnostics and the liberal Republicans is that the latter are not gnostics. Liberal Republicans share the liberal goal of perfection: perfect safety, prosperity, health, and so forth, for everyone--but they recognize the limitations of reality. They tend to know something about economics. They are liberals, but they are realists.

The difference between the liberal realist and the traditionalist is that the traditionalist is not interested in perfection in this world; does not expect it; understands that the worship of creaturely perfection is both an exercise in idolatry and simply inapposite to our basic creaturely predicament. To the traditionalist, the limits imposed upon us in this world are instances of Providence, that secure for us the very structure of the world, and, thus, because the world is the platform from which we mount, as rungs to Jacob's ladder.

The liberal gnostic hates and abhors the limit, and all things subject thereto (thus also himself); the liberal realist recognizes and respects the limit; the traditionalist cherishes and celebrates the limit.

It's by sheer force of will alone that I resist the overwhelming urge to add to Kristor's list of grievances against liberal gnostics several of my own complaints, albeit that mine are of a more general variety.

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Why do Americans accept the unacceptable,...

and what, if anything, can be done about it?

Is our society so eat up with the cancer of cultural degradation that the unacceptable has now become acceptable among the majority, or is it, as Clark Coleman suggests, that the appearance of cultural degradation, seen in television adds promoting everything from "performance enhancement" drugs to "size enhancement" drugs for men, to lesbian activities between college girls, and etc., seems so utterly pervasive and overwhelming that the majority, not realizing it is a majority, feels incapable of, and utterly helpless in doing anything about it?

In a comment to Auster's article which I sent a few minutes ago and has not yet been posted, I wrote the following:

I've told the story before elsewhere, but in 1992 while serving in the U.S. Air Force and stationed in Anchorage AK, residents became alarmed by the radical homosexual agenda that the Anchorage city council was considering passing a local ordinance on -- adding the words "sexual orientation" to their non-discrimination laws -- which, as traditionalist conservatives understand very well, has far reaching destructive societal consequences. I personally attended several of the public hearings, braving sub-zero weather conditions with many other like minded concerned citizens who were "left out in the cold" so to speak due to the fact that so many alarmed citizens became instant and active opponents of the measure thus filling the council chambers to capacity, as well as the library building where these chambers were housed.

This did not deter the council from passing the ordinance by a margin of something like five to two, even though the members were warned many times and in many different ways that they'd be removed if they voted in favor of the measure. They passed the measure in open and direct defiance, even aggressive, insulting verbal defiance, of the clear and overwhelming will of the people. And they were all, every last one who voted in favor of the measure, summarily removed from the council at the next election cycle which was only a few months later, just as the citizenry had warned they would be. The new council overturned the measure as their first order of business.

The point is that this is an example of exactly how these things should be handled. We know that there are leftists in positions of power who are going to defy the will of the people, even on threat of their removal from office or on the threat of a boycott, or whatever. Such is the nature of leftists; they are aggressively defiant personalities who recognize no authority but the authority of the ideology of liberalism. The only way to deal with them effectively, therefore, is to give them fair warning of what their fate will be if they defy the will of the people, and then to follow through on that threat once they do. And when I say "follow through" I mean follow through all the way to the end, never allowing them to hold a position of authority where public policy is made again. ...

No news to you, I'm sure, that I like Mr. Coleman's idea, and I disagree with the dissenters and the naysayers. There are always any number of folks out there who say this and that lofty and worthy goal can't be achieved. And comparatively speaking there are generally far fewer people who believe a difficult thing can be achieved, than believe it can. But as Dad always used to say, "anything worth having is worth working for," which, of course, and as I've noted before, implies the opposite: anything not worth having is worthy of the expense of no effort.

Some folks place very little value on preserving moral and cultural virtue. Others place a great deal of value on it. You can count me firmly among that latter group, as well as among that group which believes that difficult and lofty goals are achievable, which makes the pursuit thereof that much more worthwhile.

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Warning: Politically Incorrect language used in this post

If you have a problem with it, give me your mailing address and I'll send you a dime which you can put a quarter with and call someone who cares.

VA has a good post up this morning where she cites an article written by one Mr. Max Boot, senior hombre' at the Council on Foreign Invasion, and a contributing idiot to, well, here's Maxy-baby's credentials, for what they're worth:

Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a contributing editor to Opinion and the author of "War Made New: Weapons, Warriors, and the Making of the Modern World.

Whoa! I'm awed ... by Max's utter lack of any credentials which qualify him to speak to the topic of immigration from other than an unAmerican perspective. That's right, I said it, Max's tone is unAmerican, which is to say not-American. So Max is unAmerican and an idiot t'boot, which his article makes perfectly clear. A resident citizen idiot armed with a vote and a pen and an axe to grind against the xenophiles and islamophobes, and etc. Seems like we have a lot of those running around this country these days. I wonder how they got here?

Go read VA's post where she deals with the likes of Maxy-baby pretty effectively. The only thing she leaves out is saying explicitly that Max and his ilk are unAmerican, which is why I said it here. We can be nice and call him a neocon, or a right-liberal, or whatever (how about neo-American?), but the bottom line is that Max advocates the destruction of America via mass immigration and amnesty for illegals with no baggage check, political or otherwise. And that, my friends, is by definition "unAmerican." Look it up.

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Did Darwin Prepare us to Worship at the Altar of Allah?

This used to be one of the main themes that I constantly hit on. Well, not in those exact terms. Let me explain:

The idea was, or so I thought, that the result of Darwin, once accepted as pretty much uncontested scientific fact which only needed reconciliation with some kind of a higher power which we'd identify as "God," that this Darwin god, being so much different than the biblical-Christian God would corrupt our conceptions of the almighty being to such an extent that we'd begin entertaining ideas of God, foreign ideas of God, that are simply incompatible with Western ideas of God man and government. It is, you see, our conceptions of the deity which form our conceptions of ourselves and the societal construct best suited to govern us.

And this is where I think (and have thought for a long time) Darwinianism is largely responsible for our finding ourselves in such a corrupted spiritual state collectively that we now accept, with little or no reservation, that Allah and the God of the Bible are essentially the same being; the same God. And if they are the same god, according to our Darwin based conceptions of the supreme eternal being, then why shouldn't we allow Muslims to come into our country and enjoy, automatically upon entry here, equal protections under our first amendment? Muslims are just like us, right? They believe in and worship essentially the same god that we do, right?

So Western liberalism prepared the way for Darwinism. Darwinism, in turn, prepared the way for the reception of an arbitrary chaotic unknowable self-contradicting he-can-do-anything-including-the-impossible deity we must all embrace and worship with our brethren from every corner of the earth. Sounds a whole lot like Allah to me. Is it any wonder we warmly welcome Muslims into the West preparing the way for our own dhimmitude, which, Darwinian evolutionism and sexual selection might just as well define as "freedom."

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On the franchise discussion

This has been a really interesting discussion that I hope we can pick up on at a later date. Our own Call Me Mom has some interesting thoughts that she's given me permission to post here at Webster's. I'll be posting them later in a separate entry. But to wet your appetite, she doesn't believe a woman's right to vote should be rescinded. And unlike Mary Jackson, she actually puts serious consideration to the question. Which, in and of itself, is a much stronger argument in favor of woman's suffrage, in my opinion, than I've seen coming from the likes of Mary Jackson. Good for her!

Heck, maybe my right to vote would be rescinded under Auster's proposal. Who knows.

More to come later.

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Reaction to limiting the franchise: We can't turn the clock back!!!

(Did I add enough exclamation points?)

Vanishing American has now weighed into the discussion on limiting the franchise with another thought provoking insightful entry at her blog.

VA writes:

So often we hear, when someone proposes to reverse a liberal policy which has been enacted, that 'we can't turn the clock back.' Usually this line is delivered with a tone of triumph, as if it settled the discussion once and for all. We can't turn the clock back? Really?

Can't we? Or do we mean to say that we dare not, because it might elicit tantrums from certain quarters, or a flurry of name-calling and foot-stamping?

That's a good question. And I think that's exactly what is meant by "we can't turn the clock back," or, its cousin, "how far do you propose to turn the clock back?" When people say things like this it's usually attended by a lot of high-browed holier than thou attitude which they use to shield themselves from having to come up with a good and reasonable argument to defend their view. I'd like to ask, what usefulness is this sort of thing to conservatism in general, and, why can't we all just be adults and have an adult conversation on the matter without all this do-gooder foot stamping at the mere mention that we ought to consider placing tighter restrictions on the elective franchise?

If it turns out that some of Auster's proposals are without merit, then so be it. But saying that we can't turn the clock back is not a very compelling argument. As I said to Mr. Auster, people like Mary Jackson and their positions would probably be better served if they'd just plead the fifth rather than attacking the proposals of conservatives with no substantive arguments in favor of their positions. According to Mary, the right of women to vote is such a self-evident truth that it requires no reasonable defense. Very good, Miss Jackson. What other self-evident truths have you independently discovered which conservatives need to be aware of? Wait! Don't tell me. "We can't turn the clock back" is one of 'em, right?

Attention Mr. Auster: You should consider a rewrite of your recent rewrite of the Declaration of Independence. Obviously there are a few self-evident truths newly discovered by Mary Jackson that you neglected to put in there. Fershame!

Also, how dare you post something so obviously offensive, alienating, and antagonizing as your limiting the franchise piece (see Ed L.'s comments). You definately know how to cull 'em.

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Rejecting the doctrine of universal suffrage

Here's an important discussion you need to make a contribution to. And VFR, I think, is the place to do it. Though you may feel free to add a comment here if you like.

Here are my initial thoughts:

If you subscribe to the principles of the 26th Amendment, U.S. Constitution, and you think it is a legitimate alteration to the original document, AND, you fancy yourself a "conservative," then I would respectfully suggest that you need to re-examine your conservatism.

If you're a libertarian, I get it, everything's arbitrary, blah blah blah.

(Update: See also Michael K.'s response to Auster and Laura W.'s reply to Michael K. She makes a better argument than I did in refutation of Michael K.'s assertions, my rebuttal being that Michael's argument sounded a lot like the liberal way of governing -- by the exception, not the rule. I.e., if any exception to the rule can be identified (and exceptions can always be found), then the only way to account for it is to formulate laws and policies based on the exception to the rule.)

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Can one be a Traditionalist Conservative, while not being Christian?

Rick Darby of Reflecting Light asks this very intriguing question in a thread over at VA's, as well as asking for answers. And I presume he means he's seeking an answer from anyone willing to attempt to give him one. Well, I'm willing, so here goes...

Rick writes:

Can I be a traditionalist conservative while admiring the Vedantic tradition of India (the Upanishads, not all the superstitious rubbish that modern Hinduism has accreted) and Buddhism? Can I be a traditionalist conservative who doesn't believe in the literal truth of the New Testament, the physical resurrection of Jesus, or the doctrine that Jesus sacrificed himself to save mankind from its sins? A traditionalist conservative whose spiritual practice is meditation and trying to be a decent person?

TM answers:

While my familiarity with Buddhism is very lacking, and of the Vedantic tradition of India much more so, I think the larger question Rick is asking is whether he, or any other American, can be considered a traditionalist conservative while not believing in the Christian doctrine of Chirst's deity.

I think the answer to the question is an emphatic yes, as long as such an individual does not fail to recognize the great influence of Christianity on Western culture, and the establishment of the United States as one step in the progress of that Western culture. Many people, in denying the doctrines of Christianity also deny its positive and direct impact on Western civilization and this nation, or at least try to minimize it to the extent that they claim an equal influence from all religions on the foundation of America, which I think cannot be supported with any substantial amount of factual evidence.

So I think people who embrace teachings of religions other than Christianity while rejecting Christian teachings, so long as they don't try to discredit Christianity's dominant influence on the development of Western culture and tradition, but instead recognize and acknowledge it, can indeed be traditionalist conservatives, and effective apologists for it. From what I've read of Rick (which isn't much to this point, I shamefully admit), I haven't come away with the impression that he seeks to minimize the influence of Christianity on Western civilization.

I'm also thinking in terms here of Kristor L.'s Apologetic comments to that VFR thread where he says that Christianity has historically not been afraid to acknowledge certain doctrines of other religions.

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Attention GOP,

Stop emulating the jackass party!

CitizenLink is reporting that a New York Times poll suggests that nearly 60% of White Evangelical Republicans agree with Dr. James Dobson on values voting.

"Eighty-six percent said presidential candidates should be judged on both their political record and their personal life," according to the CitizenLink article.

Dobson is to appear on the Fox News Program, Hannity and Colmes, later this evening to discuss this topic, by the way.

End of initial post.rest of post here

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