True conservatives have never controlled the Republican Party and I think that it is now clear that there is no possibility of traditional conservatives’ coming to control the party. We need to recognize the GOP for what it is: the enemy, just as are the Democrats. The Democratic and Republican parties are the left wing and the mushy middle of the American establishment. The establishment has no right wing, and eventually will crash. In the meantime, we need to see things as they are and look elsewhere than the GOP for support.

DeLay (probably Goodlatte also) is considered a “very conservative” Republican, the kind the media excoriate as the “extreme right.” Nevertheless, DeLay and Goodlatte are incapable even of formulating the National Question in their own minds, much less doing anything about it in the political arena. To the extent they sound like us from time to time, it is because they happen to be trolling for votes among the “religious right.” They return to form as soon as they are re-elected. Look at how thoughtlessly Goodlatte defaulted to proposition nation argle-bargle as soon as immigration was mentioned. HRS

A look at history shows that ruling classes who refuse to reform, indeed crash eventually. It’s revealing that DeLay won’t even deign to answer a
question on immigration.

A political movement is needed to bring immigration numbers down to manageable levels.

Does anyone watch Lou Dobbs Tonight on CNN? He’s been covering the immigration issue with a vengeance. IMO, he’s doing a good job.

Thanks to Andrew for the tip about Dobbs.

Compared to the recent positions of Presidente Arbusto, enforcing current laws is a step in the right direction.

I think people need to wake up and smell the bacon. People on this forum talk like it’s still possible for traditional or traditionalist conservatives to reclaim the reins of power and the culture, when, in fact, we have passed the point of no return. Election 2000 was our last ditch chance to elect an immigration restrictionist to the Oval Office, and 9-11 would have given him a golden opportunity to reverse course (constitutionally or not); but to do this we probably had to start 20 years ago by recruiting and sponsoring an attractive candidate up the political ladder to some springboard position such as governor, senator, or VP. But we didn’t do it, and, because US voting patterns are strongly ethno-tribal (even among whites, but we are ourselves more sharply divided along cultural and regional lines than other major ethnic groups, and a large group of whites are part of the Demo’s tribal coalition), changing demographics makes it unlikely we will have another Republican pres after 2008 (although Republicans may remain strong in Congress for some time yet, how much good will that do us?).

I’m sure some of you will continue to harbor the illusion that a paleo-conservative takeover of the federal government, the courts, the press, and academia is still possible, but eventually even the most diehard among us will have to recognize that some even now fast-approaching event will signal that our last chance is behind us. And I would argue strongly that that last chance is already gone with the wind. Even if we have majority support among the (all too quiet) public for immigration reduction, other views, more fundamental to traditional thought, do not find favor among the majority. We ourselves are a minority, and not a terribly popular one.

If we have passed the point of no return, or if we are likely to pass that seemingly inevitable point somewhat later on, then we need to ask the hard questions.

First, what do we want to conserve? neo-classical political theory? traditional morality? traditional Christianity? a European gene pool? European higher culture? What do we value most, and what is expendable in the face of changing circumstances? We might answer this question somewhat differently among ourselves, depending on whether we view our history as essentially commencing about 300 years ago in the Neoclassical or “Enlightenment” movement, or whether we view that era as only one episode in a much longer tradition.

Second, we need to ask what non-government institutions and customs do we need to develop to conserve the things we value most?

Whether you agree that you are already part of a minority, or only that you or your descendents will be a minority in 2 or 3 generations, either way we face, either now or in the relatively near future, the dilemma that faces all minorities: do we assimilate to the larger, dominant, Marxified culture, or do we develop the institutions and customs to turn us into an unassimilable (and effectively pro-Natal—there’s a trick!) minority (or minorties) who can preserve our heritage while hoping and working for a brighter day in the distant future?

I realize this pessimistic tone will be disconcertingly alien to most white, Christian Americans, who traditionally do not think in terms of collective self-preservation, but these questions are beginning to stare us in the face, and they must be addressed, either explicitly and consciously, or implicitly and unconsciously. If the latter, our tradition of relatively autonomous individualism would suggest we will gradually—over a period of a few generations—assimilate. Indeed, this assimilation is already well along. Will people like us be but a footnote in history books (written by those who hate us) in another hundred years?

Meanwhile, the never-ending issue of terrorism is just a distraction from matters that are far more important in the long run. Terrorists seeking to turn US foreign policy in the Mideast to a non-interventionist direction may kill a few thousand people, or a few million if they one day unleash a nuclear weapon in NYC (“no great loss,” someone told me—I can see his point!), but they will not use their armies and police to forcibly open our lands to colonization by aliens, displace our peoples, seize control of the apparatus of state, of the courts, the schools and universities, the mass media, and every important social institution while they proceed to indoctrinate us with an alien ideology. No, other people have done that, our own citizens within our own borders, and it is far more destructive and far more heinous than terror attacks that destroy many lives and much property but present no credible threat to the continuity of our civilization, faith, values, or gene pool.

If Mr. Skinner looks through VFR he will find that unrealistic hopefulness about the prospect of turning immigration around is not a keynote of this site.

Let me make these points:

1. It is not impossible that immigration may be slowed, stopped and reversed. This could happen, and we should not abandon hope that it could happen. We should keep arguing and working for it.

2. At the same time, realistically, such an event is not likely in the forseeable future. That is why, as I wrote in my article “The most important point for traditionalists,” http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/000424.html we should not place our hopes in an external reversal of current policies. We should place our hopes in our own determination never to surrender internally to what is being done to us. From that core of internal and spiritual resistance, various forms of external resistance become possible as well, some of which Mr. Skinner has discussed. This of course is the exact opposite stand from that of the neoconservatives, who instantly surrender, internally and externally, as soon as one of their causes is defeated externally (e.g., the Grutter decision).

3. While Mr. Skinner’s dismissal of the terrorism threat in the light of the cultural destruction we are undergoing is understandable, it is nevertheless very wrong. The destruction of New York City would be a devastating blow to America. Someone who minimizes such a thing is no longer seeing reality whole, and is in danger of veering toward nihilism.

The simple reason we ARE going to succeed is that truth always prevails. Never in the history of the world has a lie outlasted truth, let alone an entire PACK of contemptible lies such as what Left-Liberalism and its withered, corpse-like mate, Country-Club Republicanism, represent (I nearly wrote “its withered, corpse-like soul-mate” but of course Country-Club Republicanism has no soul, not any more than Left-Liberalism does — they were made for each other).

The eyes of the future are on us right now in a sense, just as our own eyes are on the acts and thoughts of our fathers who went before us. Our descendants are watching. They see us carry the torch assigned to each generation whether it wants to carry it or not. They will be glad that when their turn comes we, their fathers, will have advanced it so far for them.

I’d like to second just about everything Mr. Skinner said. I would not miss New York city either. The place is a den of filth and corruption. The media is one of our biggest ememies too. There are false conservatives everywhere. Has anyone heard this idiot “Sean Hannity”? He is singing from the neocon songbook. What a moron. I urge everyone to take their T.V. out for target practice too. Make a planter out of it or something. I gave my T.V to someone I hate about two years ago. I wish them years of mind numbing bliss.

“Uncle Joe” demonstrates attitudes that are all-too-typical on the paleo and Buchananite right.

This is not to say that indignation at New York City, or at television, or at a pathetically weak “conservative” like Sean Hannity, is not justified. But so much of the paleo right has gone beyond indignation to a kind of mindless reactive resentment that renders it useless for participation in the common intellectual and political life of our country.

I should have said this before regarding “Uncle Joe”: people who express their indifference about the possible annihilation of an American city by terrorists are not welcome to post here. “Uncle Joe” might be more at home at Chronicles or lewrockwell.com.

Mr. Auster wrote:

“At the same time, realistically, such an event is not likely in the forseeable future. That is why, as I wrote in my article “The most important point for traditionalists,” http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/000424.html we should not place our hopes in an external reversal of current policies. We should place our hopes in our own determination never to surrender internally to what is being done to us. From that core of internal and spiritual resistance, various forms of external resistance become possible as well….”

Thanks for the link. The danger here is that resistance may remain internalized so long that it dies. It is critical that resistance be institutionalized, and that ways be found to _reliably transmit_ the old culture to seceding generations indefinitely.

I would also like to second Jim Kalb’s comment at the “most important point” thread:

“It follows that a very basic task for each conservative (sorry for proposing so many basic tasks!) is to decide what his tradition and community are. The America of the Founders? European Christendom? Some better America elicited from what we see around us? It’s rather an awkward stage for conservatism when so much comes to depend on individual choice….”

In deciding what truly needs to be conserved, perhaps it is important to analyze exactly how European civilization got into its present predicament. The thought of Marx and less insightful social critics (I have in mind the “utopian socialists” such as Robert Owen) certainly explains much of contemporary thought and policy, yet this strain of thought which became widespread in the 19th century and which emphasized collectivism, materialism, social liberalism, environmental determinism, and human perfectionism did not arise in a vacuum. These elements—and especially the last three—had precursors among Neoclassical liberals. The collectivist trend that became popular among certain 19th century thinkers seems to have sprung from the idea that man’s material lot could be greatly improved by organizing his productive efforts more rationally (since Enlightenment liberalism stressed skepticism toward organized religion and metaphysical dogmas in general, the highest goal of liberal public policy became the optimization of man’s material well-being in this life). That idea—that man’s materal life was best optimized by centralized economic planning—peaked in popularity between 1928 (the election of Herbert Hoover, who espoused corporatist economics) and sometime in the early 1970’s, when it became increasingly obvious that the most socialistic economies seemed to have the worst problems. Collectivism today is motivated less by economic considerations and more by the need to instill the prevailing ideology.

Of course, Neoclassical liberalism did not come from nowhere either. It was in part a reaction against the religious wars of the 19th century, which involved not only conflict between different societies, the the rending apart of societies and even families internally. (And see Frank Sulloway’s argument in _Born To Rebel_ that Protestantism got off to an initial successful launch because of the prevailing German custom of leaving one’s estate to the youngest son—when this custom developed, whoever would have thought it might have such world-transforming consequences?)

And in some ways Neoclassicism, which looked to classical models for inspiration, was the heir of the Renaissance, which also looked to those models after Greek classical literature was re-introduced to western Europe. Greek Christendom has long co-existed with this literature, but had found nondisruptive ways to incorporate this element of their traditional culture into their very conservative society. The separation of the Latin west from the Hellenic east—which emerged as a consequence of both the Islamic invasions that began in the 7th century (and which continue in some form today) and the Frankish conquest of Latin Christendom under Charles the Great (Charlemagne) who sought to displace the Roman Emperor in Constantinople as the legitimate heir of the original Roman Empire—allowed cultural conditions to develop which made the eventual reintroduction of classical Greek literature into western culture highly disruptive.

So where really is the core of what we wish to preserve to be found? In the broader picture, this whole story is ours, yet it contains contradictory elements. Which elements are important to set up as models to be emulated, and which elements are merely interesting history, or even warnings against arrogance and presumption?

For example, is Republican government and individual rights an end in itself, or an experiment which might be discarded if it doesn’t work out, or if the conditions which favored it change? Certainly one idea which many Americans share among both left, center, and even the right is that Neoclassical political theory is of supreme importance to preserve (and for Neocons and Liberals, to propagate with missionary zeal); however, I would think that traditionalist conservatives in European countries, including Britain, might have a different view of things.

But perhaps I have the cart before the horse. Perhaps we need to figure out first *how* to conserve the old culture. What instiutions and customs do we need to create to perpetuate the best that European culture has to offer in a world that is increasingly alien and even hostile?
For no matter how immoveable we may be as individuals, will we have any successors four generations down the road?

As to NYC, its destruction would undoubtedly result in an immediate economic and political crisis. Yet years later, when the crises had passed, I can see nothing but a net gain to the cause of traditional culture from the destruction of that city, which may be the single most influential center for the overthrow of tradition in favor of social insanity.

Unadorned wrote that “truth always prevails.” Perhaps, but sometimes it prevails too late, or it prevails in some other part of the world among some other people. I would receive no comfort is some pagan or Muslim, no doubt of foreign extraction, reads about us a thousand years hence in some dusty tome and remarks, “You know, that society’s cultural conservatives were right all along. Too bad for them that their society was too foolish to listen.”

Someday people will be ready to listen again, after the new paradigm has utterly failed and harder circumstances force people to heed once again the “gods of the copybook headings.” But who will be there to enlighten them? Will it be our successors, or Muslims, or the Mormons, or some new creed that may arise one day?

I would like to bring up some related matters, but I’ve been interminably verbose already. Thank you all for bearing with me.

and that ways be found to _reliably transmit_ the old culture to seceding generations indefinitely.

Oops! I meant “succeeding.” No pun was intended!

Law Professor John Finnis explains why the side of truth must emerge the victor in this struggle: people simply will not consent to live a lie forever:

“The testimony of [Vaclav] Havel and of so many others who lived under the Communist res publica, and who saw it one day deconstituted in the twinkling of an eye, is very clear: what had been most intolerable [for those forced to live under it], and one day was tolerated no longer, was living a lie.”

This is why the Left cannot prevail with its unending diet of “PC”; “Women’s Lib”; the extremely aggressive promotion of homosexuality, promiscuity, and sexual perversion; the fantasy of “The Wall of Separation Between Church and State” used as a bludgeon to suppress public community deference to and expression of time-honored bedrock religious traditions which harm no one; the fantasy of “Race Doesn’t Exist” used a bludgeon to eradicate the white Euro Christian ethno-culture once and for all; and the rest of their perpetual Marxism-warmed-over offerings, lies which we will see “one day deconstituted in the twinkling of an eye” as Havel lived to see happen to the Marxist lie of Communism his countrymen were forced to endure.

The rest of Prof. Finnis’ statement in this part of his article reminds us how the Left’s brazen lies undermine the very society in which we live, to the ultimate detriment of everyone:

“Of course, we all make mistakes. [Court] [e]vidence is often given under pressure of time; [Professor Nussbaum’s] testimony clearly was. Still, that testimony was, it seems to me, a wholesale abuse of her scholarly authority and attainments. But does it matter? If 281 historians abuse history, some of them more or less knowingly, so what? Suppose that (as I think) criminal laws of the type upheld in Bowers v. Hardwick [52] should be set aside. Suppose that (as I do not think) all the other laws and public policies discouraging homosexual and other non-marital forms of sexual conduct should be set aside in the interests of ‘autonomy,’ ‘equality,’ or whatever. Suppose that (as I think badly mistaken) the fundamental rulings in Roe v. Wade and Casey should indeed be sustained. Does it then matter that these purposes, supposing them to be good and important ends, are being promoted by means of deeply corrupt scholarship?

“I trust that the question answers itself. What I have been examining are nothing less than attempts to get the American people to constitute themselves around conceptions of their own past, and the past of their civilization, that are profoundly untrue—worlds not of reality, which we in principle can share, but of fantasy, which can provide no lasting basis for community. For scholars to collaborate in such attempts is to cut off at the root the orientation to reality that gives scholarship its very point and substance. And, like every choice of means, it not only affects the states of affairs it was intended to affect, but also changes the character of the chooser and of everyone who condones the choice. That change of character, in turn, impacts on many further choices and many states of affairs not in contemplation in the original choice. The testimony of Havel and of so many others who lived under the Communist res publica, and who saw it one day deconstituted in the twinkling of an eye, is very clear: what had been most intolerable, and one day was tolerated no longer, was living a lie.

“But we do not have to wait for dramatic dissolutions of public life to see the evil implications of scholarly willingness to lie or to speak with reckless disregard for the norms governing the inquiry and discourse of truthful scholars. We will see them in the unraveling of the institutions, and (as Plato warns) of even the more closely personal communities in which we have chosen to work our passage and seek our hearts’ desire.”

http://cp.yahoo.net/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=shameless+acts&url=xAJuGqS425sJ:www.webcom.com/zurcher/philosophy/nussbaum.html

(This is a very long article in which the part devoted to Professor Nussbaum’s expert court testimony, containing the above passage, starts almost a third of the way down. I linked to the article via this,

http://www.thrownback.blogspot.com/2003_12_14_thrownback_archive.html#107151492123934224 ,

via this,

http://www.haloscan.com/comments.php?user=pcella&comment=107176703009535950 .

Prof. Finis’ article is, in its second part starting a third of the way down where there’s a Roman numeral III, just one example among many illustrating the fact that expert opinion is divided concerning whether or not homosexuality was accepted in ancient Athenian society.)

I ask posters to consider other readers’ attention span and keep their comments to a reasonable length suitable to a discussion forum. Mr. Skinner’s last was over 1,000 words; I haven’t even attempted to crack it. Unadorned’s was close to 750. Surely the same points could be made with fewer words.

Alypius Skinner writes: “As to NYC, its destruction would undoubtedly result in an immediate economic and political crisis. Yet years later, when the crises had passed, I can see nothing but a net gain…”. Mr. Skinner says a number of good things, but if all he could deplore in the destruction of millions of people is certain short-term economic and political inconveniences, I think he has gone ethically off the rails. Come back, Mr. Skinner!

I had not read all of Mr. Skinner’s post last night and had not taken in his comment about the annihilation of New York City and all its people being a net gain for America. I’m starting to get a little tired of this, but I must inform Mr. Skinner, as I previously informed “Uncle Joe,” that the expressed advocacy of mass murder (or the expressed indifference to mass murder), particularly the mass murder of Americans, is not permitted at this site.

In their anger at the destruction that has been caused by liberalism, which NYC is a major epicenter of, Mr. Skinner and Uncle Joe have morally gone off the rails - as Paul mentioned. Even if it were possible to evacuate folks like Mssrs. Auster and Kalb along with others in that city who don’t subscribe to leftism and leave Bloomberg, Sharpton and their ilk to be irradiated into oblivion, it would do a lot more harm than good. The rot runs far deeper than NYC. It’s out here in the “Red” part of the country as well. We should direct our energies at lifting the scales that cover so many eyes instead of drifting into nihilism ourselves.

Mr. Auster wrote:

as I previously informed “Uncle Joe,” that the expressed advocacy of mass murder (or the expressed indifference to mass murder), particularly the mass murder of Americans, is not permitted at this site.

I am happy to be quite frank about my real opinions, so it is not necessary, and, in fact, will only cause you to mislead yourself, to “read between the lines.” I do not and have not “advocated” mass murder or the destruction of any city, either in America or elsewhere. Analyzing the consequences of such an event, and concluding that they constitute a long term net gain culturally and politically, is not a moral endorsement. The morality or immorality of an act does not dictate all externalities which follow from it. For example, arguing that dropping atomic bombs on Japan in WW2 was of net benefit to the United States, and perhaps Japan as well, does not constitute a moral endorsement of nuclear war. Or arguing that mass immigration from the third world will eventually undermine liberalism does not constitute an endorsement of such immigration. Arguing that smoking is a net gain to the economy since it kills off people mainly in their declining years when they would be a drain on social and medical services if they had lived is not an endorsement of smoking.

Carl wrote:

it would do a lot more harm than good. The rot runs far deeper than NYC. It’s out here in the “Red” part of the country as well.

Granted that the cancer is extensive; yet a lot of the rot in the “Red” areas (and I’m sure it’s no accident that the media did not wish to associate the color red with the Democrats!) is due to decades of drift, acquiescence, and steady indoctrination through the mass media, schools, and colleges. The impetus for the war against traditional culture is rooted primarily in the northeast, especially the northeastern urban centers, and secondarily on the west coast, especially in the vicinity of LA and SF. For most of US history, and especially since 1865, northeasterners have been effectively the rulers of America. All major policy initiative have originated there, including the plans in 1998 (which seem to have had nothing to do with fears of terrorism) to invade and occupy Iraq, followed by the deposition of the governments of several other countries in the region. Indeed, a couple of top Bush advisors (I foget which two exactly, but you all would recognize their names if I could remember)urged Clinton to invade Iraq in 1998, but he declined. What were their motives? Whatever they were, they certainly had nothing to do with 9-11.

Since 9-11, even if I were a left wing revolutionary wannabe, there’s no way I would live in either NYC or DC. People who remain there are crazy or stuck. Unlike Warren Buffet, I’m not making any predictions, but the risk is just way too great, no matter what the Bush administration does.

Here’s what Mr. Skinner originally wrote on the subject of New York City and mass destruction:

“Terrorists seeking to turn US foreign policy in the Mideast to a non-interventionist direction may kill a few thousand people, or a few million if they one day unleash a nuclear weapon in NYC (‘no great loss,’ someone told me—I can see his point!) …”

After I warned Mr. Skinner that he was in danger of veering toward nihilism, “Uncle Joe” then chimed in:

“I’d like to second just about everything Mr. Skinner said. I would not miss New York City either.”

This statement was too close to simply expressing indifference to the mass murder of millions of people and the destruction of America’s premier city, so I excluded “Uncle Joe” from VFR.

But then Mr. Skinner came back, saying of the destruction of New York, that while it would be a short term catastrophe, “Yet years later, when the crises had passed, I can see nothing but a net gain…’.”

He was very close to the edge, but with the slightly speculative cast he had placed on it I couldn’t quite see my way to excluding him for it. I told him again that supporting or expressing indifference to mass murder was not permitted at this site. I thought that would be enough to stop him without actually excluding him. But now, instead of heeding my warnings and pulling back, Mr. Skinner is eager to explain further what he meant. “Analyzing the consequences of such an event [the annihilation of New York], and concluding that they constitute a long term net gain culturally and politically, is not a moral endorsement.”

I don’t buy it. Mr. Skinner would not be saying what he’s saying if he didn’t feel that he would welcome the destruction of New York City. That’s what he really means. He is out of here.

This, by the way, is what happens every time when I try not to be precipitate in excluding people. I’ve learned from running this site that once a person has shown himself to be a bad apple, or has just given telltale signs that he’s a bad apple, he does not turn into a good apple.

I am with Mr. Skinner again. I did not say I wanted NYC to blow up. I just said I would not miss it if it did. And I wouldn’t. I live in one or these “prime target” cities too. I will not say which one. I wouldn’t be anywhere else. If these terrorists do attack it is going to be good times all around because a lot of us are all geared up! You guys out in the sticks will be sitting around knitting sweaters while we are swinging from the ceiling. You just have to look for the good in every situation. I also don’t think it is fair to kick people off of here when they are making decent points.

Joe, formerly “Uncle Joe,” has managed to post again. I’ll leave it up as an example of the very common type of moral depravity of the people who say things like, “I don’t want NYC to be destroyed, I just wouldn’t miss it if it were,” and who actually think that in saying that, they have cleared themselves of the charge of moral depravity.