First thoughts on the PWC conference

At the close of the Preserving Western Civilization conference outside Baltimore which ended today, it suddenly occurred to me that the topics of Israel, Jews, and anti-Semitism had not come up at all during the two-day meeting, except perhaps for a passing reference to Islam’s attitude to the Jews, and Julia Gorin’s comedy performance at the banquet on Saturday evening. This, despite the fact that what had motivated Michael Hart to organize the conference in the first place was the desire to discuss the threats to Western civilization without having to deal with Israel-haters, anti-Semites, and Nazi types such as were predominant at the 2006 American Renaissance conference, where Mr. Hart, after a diatribe by David Duke, righteously told Duke that he was a Nazi who had disgraced the meeting, and then walked out. In the aftermath of that conference, and of Jared Taylor’s refusal to condemn the serious anti-Semitism that had been manifested there (which included standing applause, by between a third and a half of the attendees, for the prospective demise of Israel), Mr. Hart conceived the idea of bringing together speakers to address the related but distinct topics of immigration, Islam, and the suicidal white guilt that results from ignorance of race differences, at a meeting of Western patriots that would be welcoming to Jews and not welcoming to Jew haters.

But, as I said, despite the profound concern over anti-Semitism that had led to the conference, Jewish-related topics were not heard. Why? For the simple reason that the organizers and participants were focused, just as the conference title indicated, on the preservation of Western civilization. Their intention was not to explore specifically Jewish concerns or advance specifically Jewish interests, but to air the vital topics of immigration, Islam, and race differences in a civilized environment free of the vile poison of Israel hatred and anti-Semitism which so much of the paleocon and race-realist right tolerates, welcomes, and embraces.

No anti-Semites. Just right.

- end of initial entry -

February 9

John D. writes:

It was my great pleasure to meet you in person this past weekend.

I was unaware how the PWC conference came into existence. The very first person that I came into contact with mentioned his personal affiliation with Amren. What initially came to my mind was Amren’s ambivalence toward anti-Semitism. I then had a very informative conversation with Joel LeFevre in which he explained the genesis of PWC. Being a defender myself of Israel’s right to exist, I found PWC to be an excellent organization in which to convey and advance ideas that are relevant to our circumstance without the attached rabid anti-Semitism that is rampant among many of the so-called defenders of the West.

Your speech was excellent in my view, and alone would have made the conference worth attending. One topic that was missing from the other speeches was a concise definition of liberalism and how it seeks the destruction of particularity and the order of nature itself. While it is greatly beneficial to discuss the problems that the liberal paradigm has created, I think that it is essential to first define liberalism’s destructive non-discriminatory principle. You meticulously provided that description at the outset of your speech. Then, having described the tendency of people to be silent on, or even their refusal to think in terms of, the issue of halting Muslim immigration as being “something that makes people uncomfortable”, you defined our dilemma exactly. You next noted that the dilemma suggests the solution by stating that the “unthinkable must become thinkable” and the “unsayable must become sayable” in order to replace liberalism as the leading belief in society. In achieving this goal, you stated that we must attack the validity of the liberal dogma and replace it with the traditional ideas and those realities which they encompass.

The remainder of your speech was quite valuable in citing the problems of Islam and your solution of separating ourselves from it in “our future and no longer imaginary reality” of non-liberalism. You continued with a theme that you previously found either little acceptance of, or at least very few comments on, your idea of a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting the practice of sharia Islam in America. It must have become obvious to you the reason you found so little comment on this idea (much to your initial dismay), was because it would be utterly impossible to implement in today’s society where we base everything we do on the of liberal principle of equality and non-discrimination. As you found, even like-minded thinkers saw its absurdity while still in the grips of liberalism. It took a journey to a “radically different reality” in order for the idea to be processed and made possible. And this new reality is a very hopeful place, if we can make it so by challenging and defeating the liberal principle of non-discrimination.

Thank you for providing such a comprehensive analysis and subsequent solutions to the monumental problems of both liberalism and Islam.

LA writes:

I hope to have an audio file of my speech posted this week. The entire conference was recorded and will be available.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 08, 2009 07:26 PM | Send