Sailer—my kindred spirit?

I’ve criticized Steve Sailer on certain issues, sometimes very strongly, but on Obama, he and I see eye to eye. He writes:

More and more, I am being accused of threatening America with disaster by being responsible for Hillary or McCain getting elected in November. Of course, my ongoing plot to make Hillary and/or McCain President consists of me sitting here in my underwear typing into my blog passages from Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s bestselling 1995 autobiography Dreams from My Father.

Except for the part about the underwear (VFR being a traditionalist website, I always wear a jacket and tie when blogging, even at 2 a.m.), I’m in more or less the same situation as Sailer. Certain parties are extremely annoyed at me for bringing out the truth about Obama, because they say that this only helps McCain. As I’ve stated over and over, in virtually every article in which I’ve attacked Obama, I oppose McCain totally. My aim in bringing out the truth about Obama is not to help McCain, but to bring out the truth about Obama. If Obama were elected, we right-wingers would have to continue to speak the truth about him and oppose him. But if the defeat of McCain becomes more important to us than understanding truth, then we would become neocons turned inside out. The neocons suppress all discussion that goes against Bush, McCain, and the Thousand Year Iraq. But certain anti-neocons would suppress all discussion that goes against Obama, because they think that that will empower McCain and the neocons.

Now imagine that those right-wingers who like myself prefer an Obama presidency over a McCain presidency, because we think that Obama will stimulate conservatism while McCain will destroy it, forced ourselves into silence about Obama in order (as we imagine) to help defeat McCain. If Obama became president, would we suddenly regain the moral and intellectual capacity to criticize Obama, after having suppressed that capacity in ourselves in order to help him get elected? No. Our clarity and principles would have been lost. Obama would not have become president despite of our opposition to him; he would have become president because we had helped him. And this would materially weaken our ability to oppose him in the future.

Bottom line: assuming Obama is the Democratic nominee, the election will be between two totally unacceptable candidates. I say we oppose both of them.

- end of initial entry -

Gintas writes:

Sailer really has the drop on just about everyone, because he’s actually read Obama’s autobiographies. That’s sacrificing yourself for the cause.

Adela Gereth writes:

I was so relieved to learn that you blog while wearing a jacket and tie.

Naturally, it never occurred to me that you would blog in the overly casual and non-traditional garb of Steve Sailer. I had, however, formed a mental image of you somewhat similar to that other wise and witty writer, Waldo Lydecker. You may well imagine, therefore, that the fear of your being electrocuted whilst blogging in the service of traditionalism was a constant, if unmentioned, worry.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 21, 2008 05:03 PM | Send