Repeat after me:

David Frum is NOT a conservative;
David Frum is NOT a conservative;
David Frum is NOT a conservative;
And he’s not even a real American!

I find it helps. HRS

Here’s another symptom of their cluelessness: The usually astute James Taranto, writer of the hilarious “Best of the Web” column in the Wall Street Journal online, today suggests that Senator Lieberman should switch to the Republican party. He would, says Taranto, feel more comfortable there with his “moderate” views. I’ve complained a dozen times to online writers about this case of language pollution, pointing out that to call someone a “moderate” is to call all who are to his right IMmoderates. I’ve never received an acknowledgment. I think Taranto might be right about where Lieberman might feel at home. But then, I’m an immoderate.

Mr. Sutherland wrote:

“And he’s not even a real American!”

He’s not an American, period. He’s a Canadian.

Re Taranto’s ludicrous comment on Lieberman: Lieberman has repeatedly accused the Republicans of “stealing” the election in Florida, of “suppressing” the black vote, and all the rest of it, giving full moral support to the Democrats’ attempt to steal the 2000 election and deny Bush’s legitimacy; that is not any kind of moderate, let alone conservative. Further, as every sentient observer of politics became aware shortly after Lieberman was picked as the VP candidate in 2000, the man, notwithstanding his piety act, is a total whore. Yet, because Lieberman supports the war on Iraq and is not _completely_ insane like the other Democrats, Taranto sees him as a Republican.

For conservatives like Taranto, all a liberal has to do is differ from the hard left on one or two points, in order to be seen as “one of us.” Makes sense, since these “conservatives” themselves only differ from the left on one or two points.

Mr. Frum might as well take up fiddle-playing.

But seriously, I’ve seen very little reaction on these twin crises outside of a few quarters. There’s no movement coalescing that I can see to counteract them.

And even if there were, what to do? Writing our senators and congresspeople won’t cut it here. No demonstrations are planned, and probably wouldn’t grab much coverage if they were. The absense of any clear means to combat these decisions probably explains some (clearly not all) of the resignation among nominal conservatives.

A marriage amendment represents about the only feasible option in the one case, but it would take real leadership to get something like this moving. A grassroots movement could come together in its support, but I wonder who would organize and mobilize it? I don’t see any Schlaflyesque leadership emerging.

All that appears to be left is for us to pray and ask God’s mercy and leading, as I trust most of us here are.

Taranto writes an amusing and useful column, but his rapid resort to glib rhetorical violence in an effort to silence dissent on certain issues (I’m thinking of immigration, for instance) makes him repellent at times.

Mr. Bush is going farther on what Mr. Auster calls “Racial Socialism” every day. See the August 4 column by Samuel Francis on VDARE. A community in San Diego County isn’t electing Hispanics even though they do have free elections. Attorney General Ashcroft is investigating at Mr. Bush’s order.

Clinton and Reno didn’t give this order, Bush and Ashcroft did. The column links to a San Diego paper and to the LA Times. I predict Mr. Bush will keep going this route as long as he holds the Presidency.

George W. Bush is the enemy. Not the only enemy, but a dangerous enemy nonetheless, as his faux-folksy manner fools too many Americans into thinking he is like them and shares their concerns. His professions of Christian belief obscure a politics that is secular, socialist and dedicated to the never-ending expansion of a consolidated, multiculturalist welfare state. His interventionist foreign policy seems calculated to bankrupt that welfare state even faster than it would founder on its own.

Bush is a 60s-vintage child of our elite, and - as much as his father, although with a different style - incarnates the terminal fecklessness that has become the chief characteristic of what remains of the American WASP elite. He favors anti-white racial discrimination, he favors uncontrolled nation-destroying immigration, and in truth he is probably neutral, at best, about both abortion and the expansion of homosexualism (has anyone heard him criticize New York’s new homosexual high school?).

Bush’s fawning devotion to Mexicans and other Hispanics is a little harder to explain, as a dispassionate examination of Hispandering shows that it will not win elections for the GOP. The most interesting explanation of it that I have read was offered by Steve Sailer in an addendum to an article I wrote last year for VDare: that because of Bush’s Mexican relatives, the Bush family thinks its political future lies with Hispanic voters. (If interested, go to www.vdare.com, scroll down to Editorial Collective on the left side and click on my name; the article is 06/07/02 - GOP Hispano-Pander Failing - Except Maybe For Bush Dynasty.) There may be an unhealthy dollop of dynastic self-interest in his Racial Socialism.

The extraordinary federal intrusion in Vista, California to curry favor with Mexicans by investigating a problem that does not exist is of a piece with Bush administration Hispandering. In addition to what it says about Bush, it shows that AG Ashcroft has no respect for the Constitution he is sworn to uphold and defend.

David is right that Bush’s trajectory will not change while he is in office. In a way he is more dangerous than a Democratic president doing the same things. The Democrat would be opposed by establishment conservatives. What they would condemn from an avowed liberal they accept from a Republican. George W. Bush is a big-government social engineering liberal. It is long past time to stop being surprised when he acts like one. HRS

In trying to explain President Bush’s motives in embracing open Hispanic immigration and the Hispanic transformation of America, Mr. Sutherland leaves out what is the most likely explanation. As I wrote in August 2000, Bush really believes in this, it’s a part of his heart.

Mr. Auster writes:
“As I wrote in August 2000, Bush really believes in this, it’s a part of his heart.”

A common mistake on the right is to believe that our enemies are disingenuous. Because it seems inconceivable that someone could believe the things our enemies believe we think they are being dishonest. I don’t think that is usually the case though. Human beings are filled with conscious and subconscious motivations, desires, etc. of course. But our enemies are sincere in their convictions for the most part, I think. They really do think that liberalism is virtue rather than the nihilistic/narcissistic nexus of incoherent error that it objectively is. They really do think that asserting equality — that differences should be without social meaning or consequence — is not an active malevolent nihilism. They really do believe that a personal assertion of the meaninglessness of the lives of others establishes an unassailable personal virtue. They wouldn’t all agree with any particular formulation, etc; but they do honestly think what they say they think.

And, as Mr. Sutherland says, they are an irreconcilable enemy; not just of Western civilization, but of all being.

To Matt,

The very common tendency of conservatives to posit some ulterior self-seeking motive on the part of liberals, rather than seeing that the liberals really believe in liberalism, is another example of how conservatives don’t want to confront liberalism on principle. They’ll oppose liberals’ power seeking; they’ll oppose liberals’ lies; they’ll oppose liberals’ anti-conservative double standards; they’ll oppose liberals’ slanders. But they don’t want to oppose liberals’ _principles_.

(Of course, this is not true of Mr. Sutherland; I’m making a general point here.)

This is very good article from the Claremont Institute dealing with Leo Strauss, and the civil war between two Straussian camps that mirrors the war between paleocons and neocons. It also deals with the issue of the Founding, and classical liberalism, that has often sparked debate here at VFR.

http://www.claremont.org/writings/890818kesler.html

Interesting article.

Mr. Kesler wrote:
“When reason, equality, and natural rights (including the right of religious freedom) are contemned in the name of a monolithic and unrestrained ‘tradition,’ the ground for evil has been prepared.”

I’ll note a couple of things on this specific point:

1) My own primary criticism of liberalism is not based in tradition at all, let alone a monolithic and unrestrained tradition. My own primary criticism of liberalism (politics for equal rights) is that it is rationally incoherent as a matter of objective fact. One can certainly argue against liberalism from tradition or a specific tradition, but to do so is unnecessary. Liberalism properly empowered and unsupported by unprincipled exceptions (traditionally-based or otherwise) immediately destroys itself.

2) A monolithic and unrestrained tradition would indeed be preparation of the ground for evil (though it would also be a stunning change from anything seen in the past few centuries in the West). I don’t know of any traditionalist regular at VFR who advocates such a thing though. Traditionalism is not an advocacy of a tyranny of tradition-above-all, it is advocacy against liberal destruction of tradition as a real binding authority.