Writer supports P. Hitchens’s attack on the BNP, and smears me

Steve Burton at What’s Wrong with the World calls Peter Hitchens “Christopher Hitchens’ smarter younger brother, and a sound traditionalist conservative if ever there was one.” He then goes on to endorse P. Hitchens’s anti-BNP stand.

Anyone who seriously believes that Peter Hitchens is smart, let alone smarter than his evil (and smarter) brother, and anyone who agrees with Peter Hitchens that the BNP—the only force challenging the traitorous British establishment—must be opposed at all costs (as though BNP victories in a few council seats and a few European Partliament threaten civilization, rather than threatening the current establishment), might want to read some of my articles on the BNP, and on Hitchens’s statements on immigration, race, and the BNP:

On BNP

How reformed is the BNP? [A reader suggests I haven’t been wary enough of BNP and I and Robert Locke reply.]
BNP leader criticizes anti-Semitism
Explaining the BNP
BNP chairman criticizes his followers’ anti-Semitism
BNP writer comes out 100 percent for Israel
Does the BNP oppose Islamization only out of electoral calculation?
Griffin on Gaza; BNP rank and file strongly in favor of Israel
Griffin says that nonwhites are not British
BNP Language and Concepts Discipline Manual

On Hitchens

An inadequate critique of Britain’s immigration woes—and of the BNP [Hitchens’s convoluted explanation of immigration problem]
When it rains it pours: another Brit calls for immigration reductions [But less to it than meets the eye—he says we should be “concerned” about mass immigration but doesn’t say it should be stopped.]
The mystery is explained: Why, with the enemy inside the gates, acting as the enemy, Britain still doesn’t react [Hitchens says that Britain’s governing elite has already decided to surrender to Islam.]
P. Hitchens: if you think race matters, you’ve not a civilized human being [December ‘07]
P. Hitchens confirms himself in his liberal folly about race and immigration [December ‘07]
Are my criticisms of Peter Hitchens unfair? [Dec ‘07 response to reader in which I lay out the case in more detail.]
Peter Hitchens—conservative surrender monkey [He says Obama election signals third-worldization of America brought on by Third-World immigration—which he has never opposed.]

—end of initial entry—

Bill Carpenter writes:

The furious loathing of British conservatives for the BNP—beyond what is merited by the BNP’s tendencies towards socialism, and giving no credit for the BNP’s patriotism in desiring to restrict immigration and withdraw from the EU—reminds me of the saying from Maoist China: “Class hatred is as deep as the ocean.”

Gintas writes:

I don’t know how closely you’ve followed that WWWtW thread on the BNP, but even that fanatical suffragette Mary Jackson (she’s of the New English Review, right?) has emerged there and is piling on (you’re “thin skinned”, by the way). When something meaty shows up over there, directly related to the glorious-but-tirelessly-maligned defense of the West (for which purpose WWWtW was supposedly established), they line up with its enemies. When there’s a chance to do philosophical gymnastics, they go on endlessly, especially if it’s about abortion. Is this a Catholic thing?

LA replies:

Thanks for letting me know about it. I just posted this there.

I hadn’t visited this thread since I posted a comment here three days ago, and didn’t realize it had become such a lively thread.

Steve Burton says to me:

“But it seems that the closer people get to your own position, the more furiously you denounce them for whatever disagreements still remain—as witness your ceaseless jeremiads against Mark Steyn & Melanie Phillips.

“I simply can’t understand why you do this.”

When I have written many articles on a given subject, such as I have on P. Hitchens and especially on Steyn, explaining repeatedly and precisely why I take a certain position, and someone like Mr. Burton comes along says that he “simply can’t understand why” I take that position, then I must regretfully conclude that Mr. Burton refuses to read what is in front of him. I simply can’t understand why he does this.

In any case, his refusal to take in my repeatedly stated reasons for my positions on Hitchens and Steyn, and his assertion that I take those positions not for the reasons I have clearly argued in many articles, but out of some perverse egotism, namely that the closer to my own position a person is, the more furiously I attack him, then it becomes clear that Mr. Burton not only refuses to read and understand my plain meaning, but that he is indulging in baseless and ugly smears against me.

Not what one would expect from this supposedly high-toned conservative website.

LA writes:

Here are two further comments I’ve sent to WWWW:

First comment (posted)

Steve Burton has basically called all my critical articles about Mark Steyn out and out lies. According to Burton, I don’t disagree with Steyn for the reasons I’ve laid out, I disagree with him because Steyn’s views are “really” very close to mine, and for sick ego reasons I need to put Steyn down. That, according to Burton, is why I write what I write.

That’s what Steve Burton would have people believe about me. Burton thinks he’s as pure as the driven snow. But he behaves like a smear artist.

In behaving this way, he evinces the standard left-liberal approach to conservatives. Liberals never grant to any conservative position the minimal respect of treating it as a reasoned, good faith position. All conservative positions are portrayed as symptoms of dark and irrational forces of resentment, hatred, fear, cynicism, and political calculation.

Second Comment (it was held for moderation, not posted)

On a more consequential issue than myself, the BNP, Burton has posted a video purporting to show what Nick Griffin stands for. In fact, the video comes from 2000, nine years ago. Either Burton doesn’t know, or he pretends not to know, that the BNP led by Griffin has undergone a profound change over that period of time, not a cosmetic change, but a reasoned rejection of its former anti-Semitic position. In the process, Griffin has not only decisively thrown aside his and the BNP’s former anti-Semitism, he has forced many anti-Semites out of the party.

I have written several articles about this transformation over the last few years. My articles did not consist of an endorsement of BNP, but I showed the transformation for what it was and I took it seriously.

Anyone who presents the BNP of ten years ago as though it were the BNP of today is either ignorant or dishonest.

Below are the titles of some of my articles on the BNP. [I listed the same articles that are listed at the top of this entry.]

LA writes:

It’s forty minutes since I sent the second comment above about the BNP to WWWW, and Burton has not posted it. He has posted a comment of his own replying to Gintas’s information that the Griffin video Burton posted is from 2000:

“Yup, Gintas, that clip is from 2000. And it tells me everything I need to know about Nick Griffin.”

Apparently Burton thinks that this is the final word on the matter, and so he refuses to post my comment in which I explain the BNP’s transformation and link my past articles detailing it. He doesn’t want his readers to know that the BNP starting in the early part of this decade has profoundly altered itself from the anti-Semitic party it used to be. If Burton persists in not posting my comment, he will have demonstrated even more fully than he has already done, his smearing misrepresentation of views to the right of his own.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 12, 2009 08:57 AM | Send