I respectfully disagree with you Lawrence. There are two problems with the 64% approval rating. First, this number may have been pulled out of thin air by the propaganda department.

Second, the American people have been given so much erroneous information, that they are in no position to make an informed decision.

“For a hundred years Noah called people to him, but only the dumb animals came.” - Saint Nectarei of Optina

Mr. Liebermann’s and Mr. Eubank’s comments indicate how deeply alienated and out of touch with reality some people on the antiwar right have become. Now that the debate is over and President Bush is taking action, they can’t believe or accept the fact that the American people are rallying behind the president. So they suppose that the poll numbers are either manufactured out of thin air, or that people are so ignorant (despite a year of constant debate on the reasons for this war) that it doesn’t matter what they think, or that people are dumber than dumb animals. In short, the antiwar right is fleeing into gnosticism, the refuge of people who can’t bear reality as it is and so imagine that the universe is some vast illusion constructed out of conspiracy or ignorance, and with only the gnostics themselves knowing the truth.

The lose-lose situation that paleos like Sobran and Rockwell have created for themselves is beginning to manifest itself as predicted here on VFR. Not only have the neocons won the debate over whether or not to go to war — as if that were ever in question — but now they will write the history. Paleos by their tactics, by their refusal to engage in the discussion, by their irrational and shrill ad hominem approach, have forced a giant step backward for traditionalism. Out of the jaws of defeat on one policy question the anti-war right snatches another defeat; a much more important ideologial one:

http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/frum031903.asp

When paleos gripe about David Frum and Jonah Goldberg writing the history of the current conflict, and setting the “conservative” ideological agenda for the next several decades, they should remember one thing: you put them there, gentlemen. You put them there. So when Frum attaches this:

“The civilization that we as whites created in Europe and America could not have developed apart from the genetic endowments of the creating people.” — SAMUEL FRANCIS, SPEECH AT THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE CONFERENCE, MAY 1994

to this:

“It is clear that neither laws nor any sense of fair play will stop this rampant U.S. arrogance. The time may soon come when we will have to call for the return of the spirit of the man who terrified the United States like no one else ever has. Come back Stalin — (almost) all is forgiven.”
— GEORGE SZAMUELY, IN “TAKI’S TOP DRAWER,” NEW YORK PRESS, JULY 11, 2001

then remember, my paleo friends: you did this.

Today, if I’m not mistaken, is the day whereupon it is especially appropriate to take a brief moment to “pray God” (whether figuratively or literally, depending on each person’s innermost self) that our leaders in the U.S. and in Great Britain will have the wisdom to lead our countries through this crisis now upon us, along the right path. May God grant to our leaders the judgement which they will need during the coming days, to bring us and the world safely through, with victory going to the righteous. May the side of victory also be the side not of hubris after the battle, but of true Godly humility — for then and for a long time thereafter, the wisdom to do the right thing shall be needed just as much.

Thanks to Matt for linking the Frum article, which is a long indictment of the paleocon/antiwar right. Sadly, Matt is entirely correct. In their embrace of irrational, anti-American causes (maybe it’s time for Buchanan to change the name of his organization to “The Anti-American Cause”), the antiwar paleocons have also helped discredit the good causes that they stood for, such as traditional culture, smaller government, immigration restriction, and the defense of Euro-America. But do they care about the damage they’ve done by so hopelessly marginalizing themselves? No. Just like the anti-war Left, they are too caught up in their anger and alienation to care about anything else.

At least at View from the Right we have attempted hold up the standard of a traditionalist conservatism that is also rational and patriotic.

I never saw Mr. Eubanks’s quote before. But, in view of the outcome, it’s the people who were dumb and the animals who were smart.

Here is an apt cartoon about the anti-war right from Rebel Grey, a moderately paleocon website that rejects the anti-Americanism of many paleocons, paleo-libertarians, and Buchananites.

http://rebelgray.com/Threesome.gif

frieda,

That was quoted in a letter from Vladika Andrei of Novo-Diveyevo to Aleksander Solzhenitsyn in 1974. Like Solzhenitsyn, we will continue to thunder away at evil policies and deceit with all the righteous rage God is willing to grant us. And also like the neocons did to Solzhenitsyn, we will be slandered, libeled and ostricized for it. I can express with the upmost confidence that I’m not losing any sleep over Frum’s article. In away it’s good because Frum. et. al. have never payed more attention to us than they are now. We’re now the whipping boy of every neocon ragmag in town. We’re doing something right!

The exposure of paleocon leaders as anti-American cranks and worse is Mr. Eubanks’s idea of paleocon progress, even of paleocon martyrdom. Fleming mocking the deaths at the WTC; Raimondo accusing the Jews of complicity in 9/11; Rockwell virtually cheering for our enemies to harm us; Buchanan publishing cartoons of Uncle Sam as an evil maniac murdering the world. And then there’s Mr. Eubanks himself, who has said he would have supported the assassination of President Lincoln. What a bunch! What martyrs to truth!

The clearest proof of how destructive and self-destructive the paleocons have been since 9/11 has been their virtual abandonment of the immigration issue. Instead of making THAT their number one cause, using the emerging Muslim threat to make a powerful sustained case against the immigration of unassimilable groups into this country, they made their opposition to Bush and the pro-war neocons their main focus. They have thus spent all their energy in opposing Bush on the ONE AND ONLY thing that Bush has done right—his war against the Terror Masters abroad—while they have expended NO serious energy against Bush in the area where he is most wrong—his continued support of open immigration and multiculturalism. To paraphrase the General Confession in the Book of Common Prayer, They have left undone those things that they ought to have done; And they have done those things that they ought not to have done; And there is no health in them.

Mr. Auster,
Fair enough. Paleoconservatism is, in all likelyhood, riding off into the sunset despite my false bravado. I hope you learned from our mistakes, because you’re next on the ideological execution list of Poddy’s NKVD. Be warned, the neocons are brilliant tacticians if poor strategists.

I have no illusion that the neoconservatives are friends of traditionalist conservatives, even of the non-paleo type. For example, see my article “Why Jews Welcome Muslims,” http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr/archives/001041.html , in which I examine Norman Podhoretz’s view that any concern about America’s ethnocultural character is anti-Semitic. But the neocons are a part of America as we are, and the only way we can defeat them is by remaining in America and fighting them through politics and reason and debate, not by dropping out of America and becoming virtually anti-American, as many paleocons have done.

A place among traditionalists can and must be made for those that have failed to see what others have seen. Traditionalists might have a long row to hoe and might need all the allies they can muster. Fortunately, traditionalists probably will have little trouble absorbing the formerly blind because when it comes to politics, most Americans seem to have short memories, convenient memory losses, inexhaustible capacities for denial, and forgiving natures.

Mr. Auster and Matt have made serious points.
As the paleoconservative mainstreme devolves into a mixture of populism, ant-Federalism, and neoconfederatism and the neocons are out to impose democracy on the world (going farther than Wilson), who will stand up for tradition?
At a time when many neocons (Chavez, Krauthammer, Grecht,…)are becoming disenchanted with the UN and Globalism, the paleocons are in no position to hold a rational discussion.

We need a new Nationalist Conservative movement
to save Conservatism from the neo and paleo ideologues.

How Mr. Auster can say that paleos have abandoned the immigration issue, when a recent cover story detailed the problem of Somali’s showing up in small town main, is beyond me. And would Mr. Auster like to wager on the proposition that the major Somali refugee stream into the US started after our intervention in that country?

Second, Mr. Eubanks is correct. Remember the adage, any publicity is good publicity. Paleo positions are starting to be heard in the mainstream media. That, in fact, is what is provoking neocon attacks.

Third, the Frum piece, while a carefully culled selection of paleo writings from what literally must be millions of words, really doesn’t land any major blows. His charges (council of dispair, yearning for defeat) have to be backed up by quotes which are qualified — i.e. which don’t really support the points he is trying to make. Sure, paleos are a little cranky, but what intellectual isn’t. I predict that some under the neoconservative spell will seek out paleo websites, if only to see what’s up for themselves, and find a great deal to like.

Fourth, I am getting sick and tired of Canadians (Frum, Krauthammer) telling me I am not patriotic and anti-American (yeah, I know both are Jews too. The point is their birthplace not their religion. I’d throw in Derbyshire, but I don’t think he has accused the paleos of anti-Americanism)

Fifth, if I am “anti-American” it is only in the sense that I don’t trust hyperpower in anyones hands. It is truly a heresy to believe that America or Americans are without sin, that we won’t succumb to temptation to misuse our power.

Finally, while I don’t believe for a second that the poll results are cooked, I do know that Americans have been subject to a steady drumbeat for war, up to and including what can only be called “misleading information” put our by our government. Sure Americans rally around the Pres — even PJB is calling on Democrats to “put a sock in it” until the fighting is over. The fact that one person of one hundred or 30 people of one hundred hold my position does not affect its correctness in the slightest. After all, I bet the vast majority of counterrevolution.net positions would be opposed by huge majorities of Americans.

Finally, part II. If Matt thinks that neocons would have forgone their near monopoly on “establishment conservative” media and support a few “paleo” positions — e.g. immigration restriction — if only we had supported this war, he is seriously misinformed. Neocons don’t love America, they love power. They will not share power, they will not debate serious issues with “paleos” or traditionalists. They will continue their globalization campaign for liberal democracy. As a former supporter of Gulf War I, and even the Bosnian intervention, who only wised-up after the bombing of Serbia for the benefit of Muslim criminal gangs, I have now realized that only course open is opposition at every step.

An insignificant detail, and off the topic, but I can’t resist throwing this in. Mitchell Young writes,

” … I bet the vast majority of counterrevolution.net positions would be opposed by huge majorities of Americans.”

I heartily disagree. Of COURSE if the poll questions are framed outragrously unfairly, as the left-leaning pollsters always do to guarantee the desired outcome, this is true — but it’s also true that a poll of top mathematicians would, if conducted the way the liberals conduct theirs, show overwheming majorities in favor of two plus two equals five.

No, I’d say that honestly, correctly, and neutrally stating VFR’s positions on things would result in OVERWHELMING majorities in favor, in any poll of Americans (or, for that matter, of Europeans).

(Excuse me, Mr. Young, for straying a bit from the main, and vastly more important, topic.)

Mr. Young writes:
“Finally, part II. If Matt thinks that neocons would have forgone their near monopoly on “establishment conservative” media and support a few “paleo” positions — e.g. immigration restriction — if only we had supported this war, he is seriously misinformed.”

That has never been my position. My position is not that paleos should extend an olive branch to neoconservatives — I agree that such a gesture is likely to result in pulling back a severed stump. My position is rather that paleos have discredited themselves, and penumbrally have discredited traditionalism in general. Paleo’s could have opposed war in a principled pro-American way, but chose instead to commit ideological suicide. Paleos gave the ideological victory to neocons, all wrapped up with a bow on top, as the Frum piece illustrates.

Finally, having some PR experience I can tell you that the old saw “any publicity is good publicity” is total rot. The wrong sort of publicity can kill you.