Farewell to the Gipper
Today’s Republican Party is no longer the conservative party of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. It has morphed significantly in regard to the two main questions of concern to me: foreign policy and constitutional philosophy.
In the area of foreign policy, Reagan vindicated Goldwater’s lonely stand in the early-1960s Senate with such fellow “extremists” as John Tower and Strom Thurmond on behalf of victory over, not accommodation with, Communism. That was the main reason to be a Reaganite, as I understood it. The Communist Conspiracy had to be confronted, and only Reagan—not Bush, not Ford, not Nixon, and certainly not Carter—promised to confront it.
Alexander Bessmertnykh, the last Soviet foreign minister, said at a conference in Havana some years later that it was Reagan’s military buildup, and particularly the prospect of the Strategic Defense Initiative, that convinced Mikhail Gorbachev that the Soviet economy must be reformed. The results were Glasnost, Perestroika, and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Reagan’s domestic critics know better than Bessmertnykh, of course, why the Gorbachev reforms occurred. The run of Democrats and Russia scholars in the USA credit Gorbachev himself for liquidating the Soviet system to which he had devoted his life. What did Bessmertnykh know, anyway?
The other main reason to be a Reaganite was that Reagan, uniquely among 20th-century presidents, respected the Constitution as ratified. It was he, with the help of Attorney General Edwin Meese, who made originalism de rigueur after its decades in the wilderness. In other words, it was Reagan and Meese who dusted off the outdated notion that the federal government’s fundamental law should be law, not merely a thing of wax to be new-molded by each generation of federal office-holders (particularly judges).
Reagan and Meese did not succeed entirely in refashioning the federal judiciary along originalist lines, but they certainly made a start. Had the next two Republican presidents not been from the anti-Reagan, anti-Goldwater wing of the Republican Party—that is, had Reagan not made the momentous mistake of choosing George H. W. Bush to be his vice president—originalism would today be triumphant in the courts.
What of these two planks of Reagan’s platform today?
The two chief forces in human history, one wise historian said, are boredom and inertia. In regard to foreign policy, inertia has meant the retention of American bases and alliances in myriad spots formerly significant to the Cold War struggle. It has meant the continuation of our government’s tendency to involve itself in every dispute among insignificant tribes in unheard-of corners of the world. It has meant perpetuation of devotion to pipsqueak allies whose friendship now that the Cold War is over costs us more (in the form of broils with those allies’ enemies) than it can ever be worth.
John McCain is an old man. People of that description are even more prone than others to be driven by inertia. In the area of foreign policy, he certainly is, as when he says it would be a good thing to assimilate Iraq to the inertia-is-the-only-explanation examples of the immortal American commitments to North Korea and Germany. If 55 years after the Korean War and 63 years since World War II we still station entire armies on those distant battlefields, McCain reasons, why not turn Iraq into that kind of success?
It hasn’t occurred to him, seemingly, that America didn’t enter into World War II with the hope of becoming the world’s policeman, and that the Cold War has ended. Since the days of John Foster Dulles, Americans make permanent alliances, and here is another chance.
I have a feeling, and so do many others, that our current wars have something to do with President George W. Bush’s particular brand of Evangelical faith. Would a McCain presidency at least mean the lessening of tensions flowing from that source? The fact of Sarah Palin’s dispensationalism, in tandem with John Hagee’s primary-season endorsement of McCain and neoconservative leading light Bill Kristol’s support for Palin, is not a good sign.
When it comes to the judiciary, well, what is one to say? In marked contrast to Reagan’s habitual emphasis on the topic, McCain let slip part of one sentence in his Republican National Convention acceptance speech about the kind of judges he would appoint, and even that was only a bromide. His earlier comments seem to indicate that he prefers the Bush appointees to the Supreme Court to Justices Scalia and Thomas, and one is unsure why. Although I certainly have my favorite among the four, I doubt that he could explain this distinction on a theoretical basis.
It may be that a President John McCain would appoint better judges to federal courts than would a President Barack Obama. In fact, his judges likely would give us policy results that readers of Takimag would find preferable to those produced by Obama judges. To me, judicial legislation of whatever bent is equally lamentable, and I truly doubt that McCain appointees would do much to remedy the current moribund state of the Constitution.
In short, for this old Reaganite, there’s no obvious reason to be what in campaign 2008 is called a conservative. It doesn’t look much like Reaganism when it comes to my two paramount issues, and that’s leaving aside the attitudes toward taxing, spending, and government power generally with which the word “conservative” is now associated. John McCain is far more emblematic of than out of step with today’s conservatism—and far more in agreement with it than with the distinct brand once championed by Goldwater and the Gipper.
Comments
Reagan’s speech for Goldwater (the well-informed person’s choice in 1964) said many of the right things but then again so did some speeches at this year’s RNC. It was and is boilerplate. Murray Rothbard was right about that most of his life; at the end he thought with the Cold War over he could work with Pat Buchanan and the establishment right. Alas.
Reagan was from a New Deal Democratic background and arguably never really left. Sound familiar? Anti-Communism and Nancy’s opportunism/ambition made him a neocon. And he was an actor: he knew how to get people to like him.
Circumstances made Bill Clinton (also gifted with acting talent) a better conservative president with a balanced budget a possibility.
I appreciate ‘peace through strength’ as much as the pre-World War II real-conservative America Firsters did; like them I’m not a pacifist. But I can agree with the Misesians that Communism collapsed under its own contradictions. It couldn’t keep spending for war when the economic laws it flouted were bankrupting it.
I recently got to look closely at a 1950s-1960s Soviet car. Based on that, comparing it to American products at the time, there was no question who was going to win.
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I recall a quote by Reagan at his Presidential Library:
“Countries planted with bayonets don’t grow”
If only someone had told that to Dumbya when he entered office.
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“I have a feeling, and so do many others, that our current wars have something to do with President George W. Bush’s particular brand of Evangelical faith. Would a McCain presidency at least mean the lessening of tensions flowing from that source? The fact of Sarah Palin’s dispensationalism, in tandem with John Hagee’s primary-season endorsement of McCain and neoconservative leading light Bill Kristol’s support for Palin, is not a good sign.” - Gutzman
Yeah, those Christards and Patriotards certainly played their fair share in this debacle. They are race traitors.
But could there possibly, just maybe, have been a hostile alien influence at work as well?
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Voting for McCain - Palin is going to be a wrench but I am sure you will do it regardless of the consequences. Republicans pay lip service to Reagan but have him enshrined on their pantheon of Dear Leaders. In reality all they stand for is looting the taxpayer and wielding power for their corporate masters. Deeds not words show where their hearts are. The Old Republic is dead. It’s just becoming more obvious.
War is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength. – George Orwell
The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. – John Hay (1872)
Resistance to tyranny is service to God. – James Madison
Experience [has] shown that, even under the best forms [of government], those entrusted with power have, in time and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. – Thomas Jefferson 1779
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. – James Madison
The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims. The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves. – Dresden James
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I respect Mr. Gutzman’s writing on the Constitution, but the Cold War was one of the main reasons why modern conservatism has gone astray. Not something to be praised. (Obviously this is easier said in hindsight. Many people at the time were clearly caught up in it.) What part of the Constitution authorizes “victory over” world Communism? How is this not similar to modern calls to defeat “radical Islam?” Today’s interventionism and foreign meddling is a direct lineal product of yesterday’s Cold War.
I have a feeling this thread is going to be a fun one.
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“The Old Republic is dead. It’s just becoming more obvious.” - Timon the Whinger
Constitution Cultists are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Bush is right, the Constitution is just a piece of paper. Men who pledge allegiance to something abstract (the Constitution) and not something concrete (our blood) are not people I want next to me in a foxhole.
Here is a new Credo:
Loyalty is the Highest Honor of our Blood.
Our Loyalty IS our Honor.
We defend the Soil that nurtures our Blood with our lives.
Our Race IS our Nation.
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“Today’s Republican Party is no longer the conservative party of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.”
Reagan and Goldwater would have supported Bush and McCain. Why is this site publishing crap like this?
“In short, for this old Reaganite...”
Get a clue, you naive little girl. The old Reaganites gave us what we have now.
From another front:
“We defend the Soil that nurtures our Blood with our lives.”
Somebody go find “Captain Chaos” his meds. At any rate, most people who write for this stuff only care about the soil of New York and Washington, DC, anyway.
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Let it not be forgotten that the beloved “gipper” was neutered by the DC establishmentarians within the first 18 months of his administration.
The Bush/Baker/Dole crowd had no intention of allowing the anointed one a free reign to pursue the ideas he believed in. Many of his inside guys were quickly cast aside lest they encourage him to actually do what he said he would. Restore honest money, devolve political power to the states and local governments. My God, he couldn’t even bring himself to eliminate the Department of Education!
Reagan is a lesson in just how difficult it will be for a genuine conservative to create any meaningful change in the incestuous cesspool on the Potomoc.
Only the tough, gritty, unglamorous trenchwork of grass roots organizing leading to election of a genuine conservative base in Congress will lead to meaningful change. Paleoconservatism/libertarianism must focus it’s time and money on electing believers at the lower levels of government or face a future of increasing statism.
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From another front:
“We defend the Soil that nurtures our Blood with our lives.”
Somebody go find “Captain Chaos” his meds. At any rate, most people who write for this stuff only care about the soil of New York and Washington, DC, anyway.
Posted by Peter Ramus on Sep 11, 2008.
Hey, lighten up! Always with a dash of playful irony or “cheerful seriousness” as Nietzsche would have it.
Here is some food for thought:
“...the flatland of modern science, especially social science, and the fanaticism in the Mea Shaarim section of Jerusalem (incidentally, I would prefer the latter)” - Werner Dannhauser, disiple of Leo Strauss
“Some great love and loyalty to the White Race are in evidence in the life and works of Strauss…. Strauss was a good White Man. He knew the dignity and worth of love of one’s own. Love of the good, which is the same as love of the truth, is higher than love of one’s own, but there is only one road to the truth, and it leads through love of one’s own. Strauss showed his loyalty to things Jewish in a way he was uniquely qualified to do, by showing generations of students how to treat European texts with the utmost care and devotion. In this way he turned a number of his White students in the direction of becoming better White Men.” - Bizarro World Werner Dannhauser, fun with real quotes
Hey, don’t get me wrong, I am a Zionist, er, of sorts.
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“Our Race IS our Nation.”
By definition the above statement is false. A nation is composed of people of one ethnicity. And there are many ethnicities in any race. For example, if a Russian made the same statement, it wouldn’t make me Russian though we’re both of the same race. No, race is human biological determinism that shapes and informs the various ethnicities subsumed within it.
I’ll also remind you that whites have been far more cruel to each other than to non-whites. And it’s because they did NOT see themselves as one people. They share a common biological heritage, but that’s where it ends.
As a “constitutional cultist” I’m overwhelmingly proud of my people’s creation of this document. But it doesn’t pertain to the entire white race, but only to whites who are ethnically Anglo-Celtic, and within the US. Russians who share our white genes wouldn’t want any part of it; they prefer authoritarian government.
What you’re espousing is a form of racialist universalism. And one size does not fit all in any human affair. But believing in any form of earthly universalism or egalitarianism automatically makes one a liberal in the tradition of the Marxists and French Revolution. No thanks.
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If you believe, as I do, that the Soviet communist world-wide enterprise with its allies were an existential threat to Western civilization, then our efforts in Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War were understandable. Those of you under 40 will not have a sense of the near-run defeatism running rampant in our political culture during the 60s and 70s.
Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan were/are existential threats; and world-wide Islam is not, and can not become that threat unless driven to it by our deliberate policies.
This is why I was pro-war and served during the Vietnam era, but am anti-war now.
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“By definition the above statement is false.” - Dunnyveg
Oh? I guess that depends on how itchy your parsing finger is.
“A nation is composed of people of one ethnicity.” - D
Yup. I was referring to White Americans (Americans of European descent). We have become a bit of a polyglot you know. BTW, archaically, race was used as a synonym for ethnicity.
“For example, if a Russian made the same statement, it wouldn’t make me Russian though we’re both of the same race.” - D
Unless he was referring to people of European descent collectively as a “race” and he was proposing a worldwide “Imperium” or “Nation” including all traditional White countries, a al Norman Lowell.
“No, race is human biological determinism that shapes and informs the various ethnicities subsumed within it.” - D
Clear thinking and clear sailing ahead.
“I’ll also remind you that whites have been far more cruel to each other than to non-whites. And it’s because they did NOT see themselves as one people. They share a common biological heritage, but that’s where it ends.” - D
And what a bleeding shame it has been. White solidarity sounds good to me. Now, more than ever.
“As a “constitutional cultist” I’m overwhelmingly proud of my people’s creation of this document.” - D
It served its purpose. Time for something a bit more muscular.
“But it doesn’t pertain to the entire white race, but only to whites who are ethnically Anglo-Celtic, and within the US.” - D
You’re right, I never liked Guido. Screw the melting pot. It just ain’t part of his heritage. He wouldn’t understand.
“Russians who share our white genes wouldn’t want any part of it; they prefer authoritarian government.” - D
Those wise, soulful Slavs. Wise, wise Solzhenitsyn. I always liked those guys.
“What you’re espousing is a form of racialist universalism.” - D
No, White global solidarity, not global White “miscegenation” (destroys genetic diversity and all, makes Baby Jesus cry), subtle distinction.
“And one size does not fit all in any human affair.” - D
But sometimes too many hands in the pot spoils the soup.
“But believing in any form of earthly universalism or egalitarianism automatically makes one a liberal in the tradition of the Marxists and French Revolution.” - D
I’m definitely not an “egalitarian”.
“No thanks.” - D
Ah, c’mon. Try the soup. You might like it.
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Reagan wasn’t even a Reagan Republican. His victory cult, chock full of scheming nuts like Ollie North was the warm up for the sociopaths we now have. George Schultz rushed Condi to the Bush Frat House. Need we say more?
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To Sabin, just a little factoid - The CFR is located in the Pratt House, given to it by the mother (or Grandmother) of George Pratt Schultz.
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“...he CFR is located in the Pratt House...” - Rick Johnson
Where is AIPAC located?
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Excellent point young foley, those cars were made from scratch with no Western parts.
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I wonder what Reagan would have said about so called conservatives supporting KGB Russian revanchism, irridentism?
What would he say about conservatives like Buchanan attacking America on Russian Television, but not saying a word about the Putin-led renewal of the cult of Stalin?
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RonL, considering that Reagan was a Flaming Liberal, I bet he’d be against conservatives defending Holy Mother Russia.
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Yes, and what a Constitutionalist Reagan was. Especially when he ramped up the unconstitutional “war on drugs” at the behest of Nancy “just say no”.
Of course that little dilly gave us the militarized police willing to break down doors on any unsubstantiated tip to reap the booty for forfeiture before the neighboring county’s SWAT team could get there first. Hell, he even helped by having the spooks bring the drugs in when he couldn’t get the Congress to go along with his proxy war - if that ain’t constitutional I don’t know what is!
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SWAT teams that break down doors and shoot your dogs during a no knock raid, hand cuff you and question you for hours next to your bleeding pets.
Michael Vick got into hot water for dog fighting but gunning dogs down is alright as long as its part of a war. Not to mention the people gunned down, especially when they get the wrong address.
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“Paleoconservatism/libertarianism must focus it’s time and money on electing believers at the lower levels of government or face a future of increasing statism.” Right on! Is that what the C4L was supposed to be about? But instead we get forgettable press conferences with Nader and McKinney. *yawn*
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Bill Clinton was a neocon gone wild, not a conservative.
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RE; Ron L....Having worked so hard at forging an agreement with Gorbachev, I doubt President Reagan would have been so careless as to push shaming them through an attempted encirclement of a capitulated Russia, including a foolish U.S. War Exercise with Georgia and named “Operation Immediate Response”...... a scant 3 weeks before Russia RESPONDED to boneheaded Georgian moves against the break-away regions.
Those who currently swoon at his Temple work diligently to rebuke what he achieved.
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I wonder what Reagan would have said about so called conservatives supporting KGB Russian revanchism, irridentism?
What would he say about conservatives like Buchanan attacking America on Russian Television, but not saying a word about the Putin-led renewal of the cult of Stalin?
Posted by RonL on Sep 12, 2008.
I don’t know Ron? I’ll bet Reagan would respond by bombing Iran, nuking Russia, giving the green light for more Israeli settlements, and granting amnesty to all the third-world rabble. Sound about right?
As we all know, the prudent thing is to fight ideological phantoms whilst the Ethnic Genetic Interests of Whites go to seed.
It seems like everyone else’s Ethnic Genetic Interests are coming out ahead in this game except Whitey and those darn towelheads? Mmmmm.
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Reagan, while far from ideal in many respects, was vastly superior to what we have gotten since and what we certainly will get in January. In foreign policy he would been have been intelligent and prudent enough to avoid getting involved in any full-scale war in the Middle East. Fighting the Cold War, in general, was necessary and just; the war against Iraq is neither. The Soviet Union and its proxies had both the stated intention and the means, if not resisted, to destroy us. Saddam Hussein did not threaten, did not want to fight, and had many enemies in common with us. RonL, the gentleman representing Israel, as usual distorts what Pat Buchanan has actually written. To criticize your government’s policies is not to attack your country. Pat’s motives, as should be plain to anyone who has read his columns or books, are driven by what he (correctly) believes to best interest of his country.
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“By definition the above statement is false.” - Dunnyveg
“Oh? I guess that depends on how itchy your parsing finger is.”
I must admit I’m more than a bit disturbed by your leftist assumptions. To begin with, some things are true and others are false. Calling it parsing is a postmodernist’s response.
I also don’t your attitude towards American culture. You’re right that we’ve become a polyglot. But therein lies the problem that must be addressed. Believing we can ever be a “proposition nation” is a neocon’s pipe dream. It puts you in company with the likes of McCain.
My contention that you’re espousing racial universalism is in no way mitigated by your fears of miscegenation which I share. That is an issue individual groups of whites will have to address as they see fit. It wouldn’t surprise me to huge segments of the liberal white population lost due to miscegenation. But that is their business.
Your attitude toward the Constitution is also very liberal. You can sure pretend that human nature is infinitely malleable, but that doesn’t change the fact that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The most dangerous idea I can think of is the naturalistic fallacy, that is, since we want something to be a certain way we can get away with pretending it’s that way. This is the biggest factor that has made the leftist project such a dismal failure.
“But sometimes too many hands in the pot spoils the soup.”
This is the identical non-argument the left makes when they deride “divisiveness”. What they really mean is that unless we all do things their way, we’re being divisive. Just whose “soup” am I going to be forced to eat? And what if I decide I’d prefer a sandwich instead?
Your soup sounds like something they used to serve up in the gulags.
Freedom forever!
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Here is the blunt, bottom line: Muslims (south Asians, Arabs, and north Africans) have group average IQs that range from the mid to high 80s. That is pathetic. That is on par with Mexican mestizoes.
Islam could be easily crushed, that is if we took the gloves off; and when I say take the gloves off I REALLY mean take the gloves off.
But we don’t. We let tons of them stream into Europe. Yet ethnic agitators (yeah, you know who) would scream the loudest if we ever got the gumption to repatriate EVER SINGLE LAST ONE OF THEM. Why? Because they figure it would be them next.
Instead they bid us play silly little games with what amounts to no more than teeming hordes of low IQ third-world rabble and sell it as a Clash of the Titans.
Geez, they must think we are suckers. Guess what? The jokes on us, most of us are.
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“This is why I was pro-war and served during the Vietnam era, but am anti-war now.”
I’m 46 now, so I vaguely remember the defeatism you’re talking about. The fact is we’re still dealing with liberal defeatism about a whole host of issues. But even if I were 20 I could still understand liberal defeatism regarding the Cold War the same way I can understand, say, the Revolutionary War.
I would go farther and say experience is actually a hindrance to true understanding. Experience tends to color our attitudes towards macro-events of which most of us could only have a very limited experience. Experience is a definite hindrance to scholarly objectivity unless you’re writing specifically about your own experience.
This is why writing good history isn’t possible until after those who partook in the events covered are dead. For example, look at the literature on WWII. Those who participated wouldn’t tolerate any narrative other than that of the “Good War”. It is only now, after most of the participants are dead, that more balanced accounts are coming out.
Regarding your above statement, I would also disagree. For all intents and purposes we lost that war because our war aims of a non-communist South Vietnam were never realized. We were told at the time that this war was fought to protect our vital interests. When we lost, exactly which of our vital interests suffered? I think it did put Americans into a funk that made them very skittish about involvement in other people’s wars. How sad our memories are so short.
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Your soup sounds like something they used to serve up in the gulags.
Freedom forever!
Posted by Dunnyveg on Sep 12, 2008.
Yeah, Putin and Co. have reconstituted that gulag system. It’s so horrible.
Get real.
Lets face facts. A lot of paleocons whine about consumption of pornography, but would they actually have the stones to implement censorship thereof? How about miscegenation? Why not outlaw that too?
We did all of these once. Right here, in this country. The lemmings won’t stop engaging in either unless they face legal sanctions. I say we proscribe said again.
As for your claim that I espouse “racial universalism”, no, not really. I am an adherent of Salterian nationalism. Each ethnic group gets an ethno-state whose rulers expressly govern with a mind to the genetic continuity of that ethnic group (i.e., England for the English, Italy for the Italians, etc.).
But, we cannot have anymore fratricidal wars, ever. This time it really will be for keeps. To avoid that we DO need a sense of racial connectedness and solidarity that facilitates cooperation.
People of European descent make up 10% of the worlds population at best. Cooperation in the task of of ensuring our respective genetic continuities is a must.
If that involves some level of authoritarianism I say so be it.
Here is where the rubber meets the road: if you had to choose, I mean if you JUST HAD TO CHOOSE between the precious Constitution and the survival of your ethnic group, which would you choose?
I know what I would choose. How about you?
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Reagan signed the last amnesty for ILLEGAL ALIENS!
This set precedent!
Reagan should have deported the ILLEGAL ALIENS the way Eisenhower did during 1955-56!
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Reagan signed the last amnesty for ILLEGAL ALIENS!
This set precedent!
Reagan should have deported the ILLEGAL ALIENS the way Eisenhower did during 1955-56!
Posted by Mike Scott on Sep 14, 2008.
And yet Reagan is the Great Hero of Patriotards everywhere. Reagan was nothing but a system-hack and a race traitor. The current political system in the Eurosphere is not salvagable. The sooner White people realize this and begin to stand up for their race on their own the better off we will be.
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