“Would any serious nation pass statutes with names like this?”

No Child Left Behind
Operation Infinite Justice
Patriot Act
Department of Homeland Security
Operation Enduring Freedom

It has been clear for a long time that someone in the Administration possesses a tin ear.

But it’s not just the federal government that has descended into this infantalism. States are naming their criminal statutes after the person whose murder led to the law. For example, in New York, there’s something like “Kimberley’s Law.” (I forget the correct name.)

Just out of curiousity Mr. Auster, who did you vote for? You certainly do not seem to be a fan of Buchanan, and Howard Phillip’s position on Israel and the Iraq war are rather similar to Buchanan (granted these issues were not as big a deal in 2000)

I voted for Buchanan in 2000, despite the fact that his candidacy was a joke. But he was the candidate who best represented the national question. It was not until early 2002 that his attacks on Israel became such that I could no longer support him. See http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=3341

I voted for Howard Phillips in 1996.

Out of even more curiousity, Mr. Auster, currently who do you see yourself voting for in the 2004 election? I understand a mainstream conservative has yet to appear to challenge Bush, but do you forsee one, such as Tom Tancredo possibly stealing some thunder by harping on issues such as immigration/race and possibly the economy?

This will be the first Presidential election I can vote in (a mere 17 in 2000) and I will say I would have voted for Pat Buchanan had I the chance too.

I agree though with Mr. Auster, his attacks on Israel have progressed to a much sharper degree then usual lately, but is there a true conservative statesmen left in America (besides Ron Paul)?

What up and coming Conservative should Young Americans get behind and follow?

I would call Ron Paul a libertarian, not a conservative.

There is no one on the horizon to be a 1992, Buchanan-like challenger of Bush in 2004. Alan Keyes was impressive in 2000, but I haven’t heard that he’s planning to run. There should be someone. Just as Bush 41’s signing of the 1991 Civil Rights Act propelled Buchanan’s insurgency, Bush 43’s approval of the Grutter decision should have triggered a conservative revolt against him. But it didn’t.

There will be the Constitution Party, of course. But they’re completely invisible in any national sense.

If, as I do not expect, Patrick Buchanan were to make another run for the presidency, would Mr. Auster consider supporting him again, despite disagreements about America’s Israel policy and the Iraq invasion? I ask because prominent traditional conservatives are rare. Traditional conservatives need to stick together as much as we can. Mr. Buchanan is the best-known American traditional conservative today.

The life-and-death issues for the United States are ultimately not foreign policy but domestic issues, the incessant attacks on our society, culture and national cohesion: immigration and open borders to destroy our national security (and our jobs); affirmative action against white, Christian Americans to eliminate us from America’s elites; multiculturalism and the Hell-bent pursuit of spurious diversity to destroy American identity; feminism and abortion to destroy our children; homosexualism and the attack on marriage to destroy the family and sexual norms; the relentless consolidation of power in Washington to destroy federalism, the states and the Constitution; the fiscal profligacy and confiscatory taxation that feed Leviathan. I suspect that on all of those, Messrs. Buchanan and Auster remain aligned. Would Mr. Auster set aside foreign policy reservations, concerning matters largely extraneous to the United States, to support a conservative candidate who was right about the essentials?

I agree about the political and social infantilism we display in how we name statutes. Another hint of our precipitous decline. The United States bids fair to become the first nation to commit suicide through sheer stupidity and absent-mindedness. Canada, the United Kingdom and France will not be far behind, though. HRS

Since PB is not going to run again, and since he got about 20 votes the last time he ran and was a complete irrelevancy in the campaign, and since I have been criticizing him so strongly over his anti-Israel, anti-war position for the last year and a half, I wonder what purpose is served by Mr. Sutherland’s question.

Remove Mr. Buchanan’s name from the question, then. How much deviation from Mr. Auster’s preferred foreign policy options (strong U.S. support of Israel vis-a-vis its Arab neighbors, support of U.S. intervention in the Middle East) would he accept and still support a candidate who is sound on the critical domestic issues? In President Bush Mr. Auster has the opposite problem: a president whose Middle East policy he favors, but who is a disaster domestically.

My point, perhaps not well made, is that the great American crisis is mostly domestic. We should be willing to accept a certain amount of difference of opinion about foreign affairs among people who are of like mind about our domestic problems. As for Mr. Buchanan, he may never be a presidential candidate again but he remains a prominent conservative voice who may yet influence more people through television and writing than he did as a politician. I am sorry to see Mr. Auster write him off so completely. HRS

I don’t know that it’s correct to say that I’ve written off Buchanan completely. I read The American Conservative regularly, including Buchanan’s articles. In every issue I find worthwhile articles to read. There is a need for conservative magazines and I’m glad conservative writers have this outlet. Nevertheless, at the core of the magazine is a politics of cheap shots, animosity, and unearned, sweeping, tendentious, and simply false statements (e.g., the Iraqis “detest” our presence there) that is indistinguishable in tone and manner from the anti-American left. This is not a matter of mere disagreement over some issue, but an objection to the basic moral and intellectual approach of this magazine. Nevertheless, I continue despite my sadness and discomfort to read it. When Buchanan writes something that I like, I say, “This is a good article.” So I am not closed-minded as Mr. Sutherland suggests. Given the dark impulses that I see at the core of TAC, I don’t think anyone could be more open.

(However, I stopped a year and a half ago watching the McClaughlin Group, which often has Buchanan. The mindless Israel bashing on that program is really intolerable.)

I don’t think I really answered Mr. Sutherland’s question, so let me say something I’ve said here many times before: I will never support anyone who supports or justifies or rationalizes or makes excuses for people who are seeking to exterminate Jews. In my opinion, that description applies to Buchanan, as well as to Scott McConnell.

Mr. Auster, have you read Peter Hitchens´article about Israel in The American Conservative?
In a nutshell P. Hitchens says that conservatives have to support Israel because it is our natural ally. Only common sense…

http://www.amconmag.com/10_06_03/feature.html

I haven’t read the whole article yet, but overall it seems pretty good. The question, of course, is why did TAC publish it. A clue was provided inadvertently a couple of months ago by TAC itself, in an unsigned comment about VD Hanson’s critical book about immigration and the friendly reception it was getting from neoconservatives. The clever reason TAC gave for this surprising event was that Hanson supported the Iraq war, and just about every other war you could think of. So, TAC concluded, if someone supported all the wars the neocons support, they would allow him to call for immigration restriction.

It seems the same sort of logic is working in reverse with TAC and Hitchens. They will publish someone who supports Israel, so long as he is also against the Iraq war.

What this really points to is the need for an Entente Cordiale between the two warring camps which we’ve discussed before: Paleocons support Israel and a strong foreign policy, in exchange for neocons supporting immigration restrictions. Which, roughly, is my own position.

The problem is that there are legitimate differences of opinion about what constitutes a strong foreign policy that is in America’s interest. The crux of the argument about the wisdom of American interventions in the Middle East is whether they enhance America’s security or expose Americans to greater danger. In general neocons believe the former, paleos the latter. It is a difficult gap to bridge. Even if neos and paleos cannot bridge it, I hope pro and anti war traditionalists will not excommuncate each other over that difference.

I agree with Mr. Auster that, for the peace of the West, Islam must be kept in its place. I also agree with him that there is no hope of doing so as long as Western (I wish I could still call them truly Christian) nations allow high levels of Moslem immigration, and then insist on elevating Islam to the same level in society as Christianity or Judaism. I question whether we enhance our security by replacing secular Arab regimes and immersing ourselves further in the Middle East. What does that really accomplish in the way of ending jihad when the U.S. government continues to pander to the more dangerous religious Moslems, including the Saudi regime - even after the September 11th attacks?

The West’s Moslem problem is at bottom religious. We make only weak attempts at a secular accommodation. A secular solution is no solution to this challenge. The West needs a Christian response. I see few signs that we are capable of giving one. HRS

At first Mr. Auster’s idea about a coalition is exciting. This coalition would seem to be a win/win situation for both allies. The neocons are in denial over immigration and actually believe restricting it is somehow immoral; but they will be the beneficiaries of immigration restrictions for all the reasons the traditionalists have been giving. In addition, the neocons could reduce the amount of hypocrisy they must suppress; the neoconservatives already insulate themselves from their multicultural utopia by fleeing to their temporarily exclusive, white suburbs and to the arms of their exclusively white friends and relatives.

I think the traditionalists are carrying the most water though, which is not a major objection in general (because almost all revolutions are led by small groups) but which is specifically a major objection here because the carrying of the water means dying. The traditionalists already know that a significant amount of warfare is necessary to their phyiscal survival so they benefit to a large extent even though it means supporting some neocon wars for “democracy” alone. But traditionalist’s children would be doing the dying to support wars at the end of which the children would be cha cha’d right out of their own country all over again. In other words, I am not sure dying for ungrateful descendants and noncombatants is smart. Maybe if the amount of casualties would be similar to the casualties in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and the soldiers were volunteers, my concern might be greatly lessened.

I generally share Mr. Auster’s view of TAC. There are regularly solid, valuable pieces in it, but the unmerited invective often on display is discouraging. And its stance against Israel is pure folly.

Readers may be interested in essays I have written on Israel:

http://cellasreview.blogspot.com/2003_06_22_cellasreview_archive.html#105662508037487410

And on the strange telling case of the Brothers Hitchens:

http://cellasreview.blogspot.com/2003_06_22_cellasreview_archive.html#105676897545061565

Like Mr. Auster, and Mr. Sutherland I personally find immigration and multiculturalism a much more pressing issue than Israel and Foreign Policy (not that I don’t think they are important issues). However, I don’t think an alliance which would be “Paleocons support Israel and a strong foreign policy, in exchange for neocons supporting immigration restrictions.” would work. While Mr. Auster may more/less have that positions, most paleocons genuinely oppose an interventionist foreign policy and the Influence and Aid that Israel is accorded by Washington. At the same time, most neoconservatives are enthusiasts for Third World Immigration. If most neocons genuinely supported immigration reform, or paleos were interventionists; then one of the issues could be sidelined to forge an alliance. However, if neither side agrees on anything, it is unrealistic to make an alliance. Finally, the neocons have much more influence than the paleos, so what would they accomplish by compromising with them when it is much easier to ignore or smear them.

Mr. Epstein is correct on all counts. However, I didn’t make that “entente” proposal thinking that there’s a reasonable chance of its happening. I make it to construct a standard of the way things ought to be, and thus as a way of judging and understanding the actual situation we’re in. The paleocons’ hatred of Israel is irrational. The neocons’ love of open borders is irrational. In a sane world, both sides would support American nationhood AND support Israeli nationhood. But as it is, the paleocons support American nationhood while denying the legitimacy of Israeli nationhood; and the neocons support the legitimacy of Israeli nationhood, while denying American nationhood.

Mohammedanism is at war with Western Civilization. That is the simple fact of the matter. We may not officially consider it such, but they do. That’s the problem. The paleocons don’t seem to grasp it very well themselves. And THAT is a problem!

Israel is on the front lines of this war. If she were not there assuming a disproportionate share of attention, (because she is Jewish,) the only enemy left would be us. (In their eyes we’re the Great Satan; she’s the Little Satan.. What all of us on this side need to recognize is: we’re the Good Guys; they’re the Bad Guys.)

We’re fighting the SAME WAR. It’s not a war we asked for or desire, but when one side declares war on another the latter doesn’t have the luxury of pretending that it doesn’t exist — if they wish to survive. Our support of Israel is NOT the cause of Arab hatred of us; they would hate us anyway. If we abandoned Israel, it would not help us; it would make things WORSE. It would be taken as a sign of weakness. Only weak losers abandon their allies in the trenches.

Paleocons need a hard dose of _reality_. Another terroristic attack, which we all know is coming, would theoretically be the needed medicine. But they will probably figure out a way to blame it on our support of the Front Line Soldiers.

It’s a mess. Mr. Auster has a practical solution which, if implemented, would go far toward turning this around. I don’t blame Mr. Epstein for his pessimism in presuming that it won’t happen. But I’d sure like to know if anyone can suggest a better idea.

Here is proposed entente between paleocons and neocons: Paleocons agree to be silent for a while about Israel and Middle Eastern policy, while neocons agree to be silent about immigration policy for a while. Both agree to pursue fiscal conservatism, a conservative judiciary, and other common ground with a sense of urgency.

In other words, I can hardly ask someone to actively support a policy they don’t believe in, but perhaps they can arrange their priorities so that the common ground policy positions occupy all the top spots on their mutual list of priorities, and defer fighting on the rest.

The practical effect would be to allow the neocons pretty much free reigh to influence foreign policy while the paleocons go silent, and the paleocons free reign to influence immigration policy while the neocons go silent. That will be a more bitter pill than I think either side will swallow, but probably is more feasible than asking for outright public support rather than silence.

Mr. Coleman’s proposal — calculated silence — has its attractive features, but it of course assumes that such a policy could be implemented in a sort of hierarchical manner, which is implausible to say the least. Imagine that, say, Pat Buchanan, could be convinced to hold his tongue on Israel; would Joe Sobran and Thomas Fleming do so as well? On the other side, if Michael Barone could be convinced, would other neocons follow suit? I doubt it.

Mr. LeFevre is correct. Former PM Netanyau was saying the same thing on TV the day of 9/11. He was 100% accurate.

Because Jewish people have uncommon abilities, they will be resented by many others (until genetic engineering becomes commonplace). So they need special protection. (Uh oh, am I wrong here?) Partitioning (a little of Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria) seems to be the only answer, but it will work only if the world and the Israeli left overwhelmingly believes it is the only answer and is willing to defend Israel. I am afraid, though, the probability is very low that this thinking will prevail.

Funny how a thread about the No Child Left Behind Act almost instantly turned into a discussion about Israel! We just can’t get away from it, can we? But it’s my fault, I guess, as Mr. Epstein asked me whom I voted for in 2000 and I mentioned my problems with Buchanan over Israel.

I don’t think that any alliance can be built through “fiscal conservatism.” Almost everyone claims to be fiscally conservative, but few agree with what that means. Many paleocons like Chilton Williamson, Tom Fleming, and especially Sam Francis are very hostile to capitalism or at least big business. While most neocons are big apologists for the WTO, World Bank, and the plutocracy in general.

As for the judiciary, most paleos are decentralists and reject the 14th Amendment, while most neocons take a more centralist stand where they base their view of the constitution on the Declaration of Independence and the 14th Amendment.

As for immigration, the neocons seem to recognize that their position is not very popular, so they are co-opting genuine reform. (See Sam Francis-Immigration Reform’s New Palatable Face from last years chronicles http://www.samfrancis.net/pdf/all2002.pdf scroll down to page 40)

The fact of the matter is that the paleos have absolutely nothing in common with the neocons so any source of truce would be no different than conservatives and liberals making a truce.