In the comments thread of my nationalism and patriotism piece, Aaron Wolf raises an important question: what is the American nation? Does a conservative nationalism have to be “white nationalism”? I’ll answer the latter quickly by saying that conservative nationalism cannot be white nationalism, since white nationalism is contrary to the traits of the American character that conservatives want to preserve. … [Read More]

Dan has written a strong case against the criticisms of nationalism that I and others have leveled in recent weeks, and I have already responded to some of his points elsewhere, but in this post I want to address the criticisms of Orwell’s overly broad definition of nationalism.  Then in the next post I will consider this idea of “hubristic patriotism” … [Read More]

Okay, okay, I admit it: I, too, am bitter. What else would one expect an Obama-con to be? I know we’re not supposed to be negative, at least according to Hillary, who “seems to have switched her narrative around,” as one wag put it. In the Brave New World Hillary/McCain are building for us—a world of mandatory health insurance for … [Read More]

Here’s how to win the war on terror. The British way. One of the world’s most dangerous terrorists is living on benefits (welfare) in Britain making close to two thousand dollars per month. Abu Qatada is one of Bin Laden’s favorite ambassadors to Europe, and his once-upon-a-time right-hand man, yet is now enjoying freedom and a life of Riley in merry … [Read More]

In most intellectual circles on the right, as well many in the center and on the left, it is fashionable to damn nationalism. Among conservatives, patriotism is held to be something almost always worthy of praise—though exactly what patriotism might entail has never been settled upon. As is so often true, the conventional views of the Left and Right, if … [Read More]

This is the time of year when boats are hauled out of the water and their hulls scraped free of slime and barnacles. Then a fresh coat of paint is applied and—presto—one’s ready to start ripping up hundred dollar bills for the rest of the summer (the definition of owning a boat). The slime that builds up underneath the waterline is … [Read More]

Progress in Iraq! Every opinion seems to turn on whether one believes that it exists. (See here, here and here.) “Progress” (or “lack of progress”) may seem like a neutral way to describe what is or isn’t happening in Iraq.  In reality it is no more than an elusive figure of speech.  By grossly simplifying what we are trying to achieve, … [Read More]

A few weeks ago Jim Antle and I went a few rounds on our personal blogs over Antle’s criticisms of Sen. James Webb here at Taki’s Magazine. Antle showed that Webb is no conservative; if anything, Antle argued, Webb is to paleoconservatism, what Daniel Patrick Moynihan was to neoconservatism. My response: yes, but the neocons were correct by their own lights … [Read More]

Christians on the right are used to witnessing attacks on their faith from atheistic leftists. Ever since the highly influential “cultural Marxists” of the Frankfurt School emigrated to America and proceeded to spew their venom onto bourgeois Christianity from the 1950s onwards (as Paul Gottfried has documented in The Strange Death Of Marxism), it has become de rigeur for the … [Read More]

NEW YORK—I read in the New York Times that one of the four persons who operated the escort service that undid Eliot Spitzer, the ex-governor of the state of New York, was one Cecil Suwal, 23, “a graduate of an elite New Jersey prep school.”  Bad news travels fast, and I was informed of the fact that Cecil, a girl, incidentally, … [Read More]