Paleos, as Paul suggests, were people who once had aspirations to a central role in the conservative movement. Paul’s post-paleos are more likely to see themselves separated from what has now become the conservative movement, and they are somewhat less anxious to rescue that movement, though many still feel that inclination. I wonder what we can say about paleos and post-paleos socially and culturally. Paul’s book will tell you that the conservative movement lacked a social base and was more prone to corruption for that reason. Do paleos or post-paleos also lack social anchors? If not, and the backgrounds of the two groups more or less distinct or similar? Are post-paleos simply younger paleos, and are they simply more self-aware versions of the deracinated urban consumer creatures we like to complain about?

Are we conforming to the academic nonsense that requires the prefix of post before all concepts? “Post-modern” has been so abused it apparently now means contemporary. The emerging fault-line in our culture is not Left vs.. Right, as it is between those who wish to retain their humanity versus those who acquiesce before the godless technological onslaught and accept their status as machine. The alliance in opposition to a post-human future ( there’s post again) will bring together many former adversaries. It will have to, to succeed.

So, according to Dr. Gottfried, the Old Right has found itself in its familiar position of being “outsiders.” And, as usual, I have to agree with observation.  But, Old Right Redux sounds more accurate than post-paleo.

Paleoconservatism will continue to be a marginal political movement principally because traditional conservatives who do not fawn over MLK, oppose military intervention in the Middle East for the benefit of Israel and believe multiculturalism does not benefit America are shut-out of the mainstream media.  Neoconservatism is the public face of the conservative movement.  Can anyone imagine the New York Times hiring Pat Buchanan rather than William Kristol or David Brooks?  Can you imagine Charlie Reese or Paul Craig Roberts given a forum on Fox News to criticize Israel?

Mr. Larson,
Is the dilemma of the Obamacons just one of being trendy and a dire Leninist politique
du pire? How about a simple rational humane evaluation of who would be less likely to precipitate
new wars and more likely to withdraw from Iraq?
I suppose that I might qualify as a paleo (conserve...uh, what?)if I were even more self-important
than I seem to be or more invested in ideological quality control but I think we ought to take
a page from Ron Paul and strike out as individuals who speak to individuals in defense of the truth
and the constitution.
I hesitate to respond directly to Prof. Gottfried on his claim that Catholics are bashing
Protestants.  He is very sensitive about his asssertions. But I must say that I see no evidence of this.
Of course many paleo whosis tend to become Catholic.  This is in line with de Tocqueville’s prediction that
Catholicism had a great future in America because it it appeals to those who take religion seriously
Is that observation Protestant bashing?

Defenses of the truth and Constitution sound excellent to me, and I try to speak in defense of both when I remind people that Obama favours any number of unconstitutional usurpations and foreign adventures.  As for who is more likely to start new wars, I fear that it is not nearly so clear-cut to me that Obama is less likely to do this.  Someone who models himself consciously after JFK, FDR and Lincoln is not exactly my choice for avoiding new wars. 

Obviously, there are many people on the right who are drawn to Obama purely because of what they hope he will do on the war.  I respect that view, but I also regard this kind of single-issue voting to be a mistake.  I don’t mean to dismiss or slight these people, who are quite serious and some of whom are far more learned than I, but it seems to me that without very clear caveats when supporting Obama (caveats that I thought Prof. Bacevich included) it becomes too much an exercise in striking a novel pose or reflexive anti-Republican opposition.

Although I intend to address the matters raised by Daniel and Evan next week,
it seems to me that there is something more than a generational change at work in the
transition from paleos to postpaleos. Unlike the paleos, the postpaleo Right has
absolutely no connection to the postwar conservative movement. It does not look back to WFB or to NR at
any stage in the development of what is now a transformed American conservative
movement. It knows this movement was a journalistic invention and is not trying to
go back to the moment before it became corrupted. The postpaleos seem to have a greater
dislike of the military than I notice in my own generation; they have no inhibitions
about wrecking the Republican Party, which is an institution that I grew up generally
liking. In my view,the postpaleos are not simply a younger generation of paleos but a
different political breed.

When Sam Francis died, the paleo movement was reduced to a bunch of bleeding-heart hand-wringing by Catholic romantic and social gospellers. What exists today has nothing to say to Middle America, which it sneers at.

What passes for paleoconservatism today is no more relevant to Middle America today than The Weekly Standard. In fact it supports some of the same things.

1.) Both paleos and neos deny that such a thing as race exists.
2.) Both resent Middle American as bourgeois and protestant.
3.) Both see the Roman Catholic cultures of Latin America as a source of hope.
4.) Both desire a meddlesome welfare state, except paleos now hide behind “Catholic Social Teaching.”

In short the paleocons are no longer conservative and pro-American. Instead they are just like the neocons, a sanctimonious adjunct of the Left. It had a good start, but so did National Review.

“his claim that Catholics are bashing
Protestants.”

Much of the supposedly “conservative” ranting by paleocons is simply applied resentment toward WASPs, evangelicals and other non-Catholics. If you want to see where this mindset goes, look up the career of the original paleocon, Garry Wills.

“1.) Both paleos and neos deny that such a thing as race exists.
2.) Both resent Middle American as bourgeois and protestant.
3.) Both see the Roman Catholic cultures of Latin America as a source of hope.
4.) Both desire a meddlesome welfare state, except paleos now hide behind “Catholic Social Teaching.” “

All of this is utterly untrue.  If paleos don’t obsess about race the way some of our former commenters were doing, that means that they understand that something can be significant and a real factor in life without being the end-all and be-all.  Paleos don’t resent Middle Americans; they are, by and large, Middle Americans themselves.  They do find fault with consumerism and anti-intellectual strains in certain kinds of Protestantism, but on the whole paleos are defenders of bourgeois values.  Prof. Lukacs just wrote an important article on the middle class and the bourgeoisie, and as he usually has been he was generally complimentary about the values of the middle class.  No one who has ever read Chronicles believes that they or other paleos see Latin American cultures as a source of hope.  That is patently absurd.  Paleos are concerned about the interests of American labour, we think that multinationals can act contrary to the national interest, and we think that social solidarity is something that the Christian obligation of charity calls us to realise.  That doesn’t mean that we endorse a meddlesome welfare state, and anyone even remotely familiar with what we have said and are saying today would know that.

I was raised on National Review and have followed the paleocon movement since the early 1990s. For about ten years, I have noticed that the so-called “Middle American Revolution” was breaking down.

What has Taki to do with labor, the bourgeoisie, or Middle America? He is the very definition of urban cosmopolitan, more so than Irving Kristol ever was. If you speak for the common man, why are there pinstripes running down the sides of this page?

You see the same thing in Chronicles where Fleming cannot hide his disdain for the Middle America he pretends to support. At the drop of a hat he will gladly talk about the superiority of Italy and France. Meanwhile, TAC staffers openly brag about living along the the same few stops on the DC transit system. What gives?

You guys have too many inconsistencies. I can’t keep up with them.

It appears the Men Without Women have returned from salivating over pictures of leather-clad SS thugs to capture this thread. Maybe, Kari Konkola can minister to the Fourth Recih’s group of repressed homosexuals, but I think he’ll find there are limits even to his charity.

Reports of paleoconservatism’s demise are grossly overstated. Granted, Prof. Gottfried’s attempt is provocative, I think it is also somewhat overstated. From several of his takimag contribution, it appears to me that perhaps it is Prof Gottfried who has changed—perhaps we are viewing the rise of a post-paleocon Gottfried—rather than the demise of a supposed movement. I began to wonder: Is Prof Gottfried simply disguising his change of heart/mind and “projecting” it on a loose affiliation of supposed like minds? Though beliefs are different, is Prof Gottfried positing that our form and tactics mirror the “neocons” in order to make “post-paleos” more relevant and successful? Are we in fact called to be successful? Or, to be simply faithful to principles and traditions that bind us.

The marginalization of paleo-conservatives is the chief reason why paleos should sit back and watch the comng shipwreck of the Republican Party, neo-conservatism and, yes, the current American system with its unsustainalbe social welfare safety net.  When the collapse comes, and it must come, we not only should not be part of the current paradigm but we should be ready to prescribe positive rememdies for what replaces the current dry-rotted liberal/neo-conservative system.

Hello Peter Ramus!

I wondered where you had gone for lo these many months? Missionary work, perhaps?
Except for the usual, pungent anti-Catholic nonsense, I rather missed your occasional hand
grenades. I am afraid Taki-world has changed and not necessarily for the better. The unmedicated
had expressed opinions better kept to themselves and the Taki-hierarchy simply couldn’t let
it pass unnoticed.

In any event, inconsistencies ought to be expected. You really don’t expect us to all hold the same opinion
on all subjects, do you? Consider your cousins: RP on one end and John Kerry on the other.
Not much consistency there, eh?

I’ve decided: I am postneopaleo with reactionary tendencies rooted
in Rum, Romanism, and Rebllion.

Conservatism has never been well defined. There have always been the Crown and Cross conservatives (I believe Burke was one) who want to conserve a strong central government in league with a powerful religious hiearchy.Then there are the conservatives, like myself, who believe in a non-interventionist foreign policy abroad and a decentralized government with expansion of liberties at home,and with other institutiions such as the church, to which peoples loyalties belong acting as a buffer against centralized government.This form of conservatism I believe is dead as so many people now feel the major function of government is to give them something--free medical care, free prescriptions, free education, guaranteed pensions, relief from foolish financial decisons, care in old age, and on and on. And so many of these types also call themselves conservatives

John, it is not true that people with a fondness for the “Crown” are defenders of a “strong central government.” While the Crown was perhaps in some ways more absolute and unchecked, he had significantly less reach than the Feds do today.

Re. Obamacons, I can see no reason why a conservative would ever support a liberal like Obama over a rightist third party candidate. Voting third party sends a message to the powers that be that you are very unhappy. A vote for Obama will make you look like just one more liberal sheep. So vote Baldwin or Moore or Barr, not Obama. Heck, I would vote for Nader before I would vote for Obama. (I do want Obama to beat Hillary, BTW.)