Hitchens’s beliefs

Here’s what Christopher Hitchens—whom conservatives adored and called a conservative because of his support for the invasion of Iraq and subsequent democratization policy—said about himself, three years after the invasion of Iraq:

In 2006, in a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania debating the Jewish Tradition with Martin Amis, Hitchens commented on his political philosophy by stating, “I am no longer a socialist, but I still am a Marxist”. In a June 2010 interview with The New York Times, he stated that “I still think like a Marxist in many ways. I think the materialist conception of history is valid. I consider myself a very conservative Marxist.”

As much as any fact of our time, conservatives’ deeply felt and solicitous embrace of Christopher Hitchens shows that “conservatism”—insomuch as conservatism is supposed to be something different from and opposed to liberalism and leftism—is dead. It fights liberalism on some issues, but does not and will not fight liberalism itself.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 28, 2011 04:54 PM | Send