Spengler has found the great moral equivalence between Jeremiah Wright and Southern sympathizers with the Confederacy, and manages to convey in one article all of the arrogance and inanity of the modern Westerner.  Never mind the remarkable lack of moral imagination required to identify fallen soldiers with common criminals, as if answering a call to defend your homes from invasion could … [Read More]

Paul Gottfried has written an epitaph for paleoconservatism, and it is sure to generate a fair amount of controversy among paleos and even among those who might identify more with what he calls the “post-paleo right.”  There is a lot in it to ponder.  I am not sure that I agree that paleoconservatism is dead or dying.  In the future, it … [Read More]

Tom raises an important point in this brief post.  As I have said countless times before, all democratic politics is identity politics, and identity politics should not be a phrase reserved for minority grievances.  To some degree, all mass politics is identitarian.  This can be a curse, but it is also unavoidable.  I suspect what troubles critics of “identity politics” is … [Read More]

In the ongoing debate over the merits of Reason, I have not really said anything, but I should say a few things.  The tendency that Justin and Thomas Woods critique so well is a habit that has negatively affected conservatism and libertarianism alike, which is the precious desire to demonstrate conformity with the norms of “respectable” opinion at the expense of … [Read More]

Dan McCarthy’s article on the relationship between pro-life conservatives and the GOP is simply excellent, especially in his framing of the question around the “new fusionism” envisioned by Bottum (which I have critiqued before) and the Hitchcock attack on antiwar pro-life conservatives (critiqued by Scott Richert here).  It provides a good beginning to discuss the parallel predicaments of pro-life and non-interventionist … [Read More]

Paul Gottfried reminds us that Obama was recently awash in the praise of Republicans who have now turned on him ferociously.  He also writes: There were of course critics of Obama on the right, but these were not the people who counted. They were members of the now isolated Old Right, those whom the centrist GOP establishment and their neoconservative confidants … [Read More]

The most emotionally powerful argument John advances is that America was descended from Europe, shared in European civilization, and so could not have stood by while Europe was subjected to either German or Soviet control.  But he phrases this in an interesting way: “The conquest of Europe…was a prospect unacceptable to a nation that was mostly descended from Europe…”  Yet it … [Read More]

John has challenged us to think about the interventionist case for WWII and gives what is probably the best possible angle on the interventionist view that anyone is likely to find.  There is, refreshingly, no talk of appeasement, nor any glorification of the “Western democracies” and none of the other usual German-bashing trappings of WWII apologia.  John forces the Christian traditionalist … [Read More]

Mickey Kaus beat me to the punch.  For that matter, so did Richard.  One of the reasons that I have frequently noted the obsession Obama supporters have with his appearance, his heritage and the symbolism of his candidacy is that I was sure that this obsession would make it not only possible but entirely legitimate for Obama’s critics and political opponents … [Read More]

Returning to something Leon Hadar said in the comments of one of my posts on ethnonationalism, I wanted to expand on his observation that Muller conflated categories of ethnic groups with other communal identities, especially religious/sectarian communalism.  I agree entirely with Dr. Hadar’s point, and alluded to this problem of confusion in my opening remarks, but I didn’t develop this part … [Read More]