“To combat Islamic terrorists more effectively, the US government should...” get the heck out of the Middle East and get out now!

Red, I can see it now, September 12th, 2001:

“Fellow Americans, we deserved these murderous attacks.  We’ve offended the sacred Islamic holy places by placing our Christian feet upon their sands.  We have stationed troops there to protect our long term friends the Saudis from an attack by Saddam Hussein.  And we even had the temerity to protect international shipping in the Persian Gulf.  We gave money to the evil Israelis (and Palestinians and Egyptians too). We are going to comply with all of al Qaeda’s demands immediately and withdraw all of our forces from the Persian Gulf region and do whatever else al Qaeda wants.”

There’s a cost of not inflicting revenge.  There’s a cost of allowing oneself to be bullied.  Nothing we did in the Middle East justified the 9/11 attacks. We should seek long-term arms-length engagement, but we have every right morally and out of self-interst to give the folks who did this a good wallop.  Otherwise, we’ll be at the mercy of whoever wants to make a demand with some force against us.  It’s not like people only use force against us or others justly, you know. 

One thing Americans can do, however, is image management.

Spin doctoring is effective only insofar as the spin doctors are credible. Our’s are not. Even among the most blinkered Americans, the media is has all the validity of an Everglades housing tract. We are burdened with your imagined “image management” here and now, and any future P.R. projects would default to hardcore neocons pushing their tiresome Israel-centric line. Americans are sick of war, and sickened by the injustices of this administration - with Gitmo among the top five offenders.

Mr. Roach,

Your Fellow American speech was highly entertaining. And it is relevant to a bone I have tp ;ick with many on this website.

Paleconservatism was originally associated with a specific viewpoint on a variety of political issues, but more and more members of the right who claim to be paleoconservatives are really just “anti-neoconservatives.” Lately, I myself have been driven away from this specified version of paleconservatism by the isolationists on this website who disregard the human desire for dominance and actually believe that if we just left the world alone, the world will leave us alone. This naïve understanding of human nature clouds the judgment of these paleoconservatives even more than the idealistic liberals and neocons they claim so much to hate. As a result, I am forced to question if “specified” paleoconservatives are truly conservative if they do not adhere to the foremost conservative principle that man is a beast driven by his passions.

That is so totally the foremost conservative principle… only Mr Roach is a lawyer driven by the hope that he might write for NR or AmSpec.

Curt, how sad for those poor guys in Gitmo.  I’m sure lots of conservative Americans have lost, collectively, 30 seconds of sleep over their fate.  Give me a break. 

Of course, I hope none of them are innocent.  Some probably are, just like in civilian prisons.  That’s unfortunate and unavoidable, not least because our enemy disregards the entire concept of having uniforms, a chain of command, nor any other easy way to distinguish civilian from combatant. But this is war, and you can’t expect the same procedural niceties we enjoy in peacetime civil justice. Nor should we, rather than the Arab race, bear the burden of mistakes and overcaution.  Why?  Because I’m deeply prejudiced in favor of our own people.  As a conservative, I know our government exists first and foremost to protect our rights and the flourishing of our people.  It’s first duty of loyalty is to a specific and historical people, joined by blood, a shared history, and a common language, not some abstract, deracinated cconcept of “citizens of the world” and suicidal procedural equality. If any of these Arabs and other assorted Third Worlders held there are innocent, that’s just tough luck.  Lots have been released, of course, some of whom were not innocent and returned to the battlefield.  I’d rather err on the side of caution.  Mistakes will happen either way, and these non-Americans should be more accustomed than we to something other than a presumption of innocence because of the despotisms under which they were raised (and which they promise).

Curt, you should change your name to San Francisco Curt if you think anything happening in Gitmo--other than the failure to have a mass execution of these terrorists--is anything other than an unavoidable injustice incident to a legitimate campaign of deterrence and revenge.

Agreed, Gavin.  The older tradition is ignore dor forgotten, foreign poliyc is foremost, unsustainable alliances with pacifist internationalists are becoming common, and the part is becoming the whole.  We are against alliances, nation-building, and meddlesome involvement out of a combination of justice and self-interest.  But very few self-described conservatives, until recently, thought of the world as a would-be utopia if only we’d butt out.  Likewise, none was so naive as to think things like the free flow of shipping, access to oil, protection of American forces overseas by invitation of lawful national governments, and the dispatch of international terrorists were not legitmate national interests secured by the prudent application of force and threats of force.

As for C Bowen, that’s just some real air-tight analysis there.  Did you study under Chomsky or the brilliant Gene Callahan?

@ Mr. Roach,

“There’s a cost of not inflicting revenge.  There’s a cost of allowing oneself to be bullied.  Nothing we did in the Middle East justified the 9/11 attacks. We should seek long-term arms-length engagement, but we have every right morally and out of self-interst to give the folks who did this a good wallop.”

Well let’s see:  nineteen of the conspirators died on the planes they commandeered, and we’ve got six others in custody and after that, what?  Bomb the entire Arab Muslim world?  You’re not prepared to do that, I’m not prepared to do that, so I guess that’s why you’re reduced to calling for “choreography” for the Pentagon.  Now you combine that with the Army’s dashing new black berets and, well, forgive me if I don’t belt out a few showtunes!

LOL, Mr. Roach, anytime you want to compare notes on patronage to the institutions and personalities of the paleo-Right, I’d be happy to.

I have to ask, did you realize the irony in claiming to be a paleo, and a Chicago School Great Books type, or is that pure unintentional comedy?

There should be one overriding strategic goal:  prevent future terrorist attacks.  This is even more important than “revenge” strictly speaking.  Not responding in any way to the 9/11 attacks other than by appeasing al Qaeda would not have served this goal.  Terror-bombing random parts of the Arab and Muslim world would not either.  Killing al Qaeda’s leadership, foiling its operations, upsetting its finances, stopping its state sponsors, and reducing its stature in the Arab and Muslim world are all part of the tableau. 

A certain finesse is needed operationally, but, equally important, serious attention to the image we’re projecting is important in connection with operations at every level.  All of our operations should be geared around the fundamental X Factor in this whole caper: domestic and Arab/Muslim public opinion who form al Qaeda’s financial and logistical support and source of recruits. 

Instead of building up al Qaeda into the second coming of the Third Reich, we should treat them dismissively, as a bunch of incompetent, unusually lucky, and fundamentally selfish Keystone Cops.  Of course, this isn’t entirely true, but it’s more true than alternatives, and, more improtant, operations that demonstrate these attributes of al Qaeda would improve our overall strategic aim. One of the best little examples of this, perhaps unwittingly, was the Khalid Sheik Mohammad photo in his oversized wife-beater, looking like a pathetic guy who just lost to running quads in an all night game of Hold ‘Em.

C Bowen, please explain the irony.  I didn’t realize in addition to being anarchists, we paleoconservatives couldn’t study the Great Books either?!?” Someone should tell Daniel Larison.

We have stationed troops there to protect our long term friends the Saudis ...

15 of the 19 hijackers were saudi nationals so we punished them by invading Iraq which had zero nationals amongst the hijackers.

The saudis are our friends? right. They are such friends of ours they are the only faux country allowed to own and run a terror-training school in America.

They build mosques all over America yet not ONE Christian Church is allowed to be built there.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=ABD54405-1F55-405D-8F0B-754FAC23C5CD

We gave money to the evil Israelis (and Palestinians and Egyptians too).

This is a good thing?

We are going to comply with all of al Qaeda’s demands immediately and withdraw all of our forces from the Persian Gulf region and do whatever else al Qaeda wants.”

Let’s do what Americans want. Put it to a vote. America is sick to death of war and troops stationed all over the damn planet. So WHAT if al qaeda has finally caught up with the American public re bringing our troops home.

Why don’t you, and Max Boot, grab a gun and patrol the borders of your close friends the saudis?

While you and Max are over there, maybe we can then focus on closing OUR borders and stopping ALL Muslim immigration into America.

Nothing we did in the Middle East justified the 9/11 attacks.

Terrorism is never justified. Outside of the terrorists nobody claims it is justified. It was the blow-back for what we have done in the ME since 1920, at least.

We should seek long-term arms-length engagement, but we have every right morally and out of self-interst to give the folks who did this a good wallop.

The terrorists who attacked the WTC and The Pentagon died in the attack and Bin Laden and his network was not holed up in Iraq.

Mr. Roach. In your attempt to mock Mr. Phillips you revealed many of your own errors and weaknesses.

“There should be one overriding strategic goal:  prevent future terrorist attacks.  This is even more important than “revenge” strictly speaking.”

Well how about this:  we acknowledge that they don’t belong here, and we don’t belong there, and we can content ourselves with trading our dollars for their oil, until it runs out and the place can go back to being a flea-bitten sandpit.

I think your basic problem is there’s no real substance to dress up anymore.  Al Qaida was a militant training camp in the Afghan wilderness consisting of about two thousand Muslim ascetics.  The US broke it up.  “Al Qaida in Iraq” is a ragtag bunch of Wahhabists who coalesced only when the US set up bases in Iraq.  Who’s being put on trial in Gitmo?  Probably mostly stupid goatherds who got ratted out when they plotted to fire some RPG’s in a convoy.  People are going to compare that with $4B a month and 4,000 dead soldiers and say WTF?!

In short, no amount of lipstick will gussy up this pig.

I’m not talking about Iraq.  I’m talking in general about the war against al Qaeda, specifically GITMO and the attack on al Qaeda’s bases in Afghanistan, in responding to Red Phillips.  No one from Iraq, so far as I know, is at GITMO.  I also never said that nothing we did had an impact on why we were attacked; it clearly did.  The question is was it morally justified.  It was not, even though we should not needlessly antagonize al Qaeda or anyone else internationally.  The goal is to prevent attacks, once again. A secondary quesiton is whether our first response should have been to pull back to the borders or avenge the attacks.  I say the latter.  In other words, our war in Afghanistan and the associated imprisoning of suspected al Qaeda is defensible and those who say otherwise are naive and don’t understand the anarchic and violent inherent nature of international relations. 

Please re-read my comments and try to notice something called qualifying language. You are misrepresenting what I wrote and it’s plain to see.  I realize you’d rather talk about Iraq, because the pacifist position on al Qaeda exposes the left and the anti-American right as nihilistic and naive.  Also, please stick to the discussion and don’t personalize it. Indeed, shouldn’t you volunteer for the Border Patrol according to your tired “chickenhawk” reasoning?

“A secondary quesiton is whether our first response should have been to pull back to the borders or avenge the attacks.  I say the latter.  In other words, our war in Afghanistan and the associated imprisoning of suspected al Qaeda is defensible and those who say otherwise are naive and don’t understand the anarchic and violent inherent nature of international relations.”

All right I’ll give you that, but again, bin Laden’s al Qaida has been broken up and its remnants have fled to the tribal areas of Pakistan.  There’s really nothing else to blow up and the illiterates in Gitmo probably won’t make for very good copy.  So again, all the choreography in the world won’t paper over the bitter fact that 9/11 as a horribly, spectacularly successful criminal conspiracy carried out by 25 men, 19 of whom died in the planes they commandeered.  I suppose points were scored by deposing the Taliban but that is questionable as well.  The strategy from this point, therefore, would appear to be political rather than military.  This won’t satiate the visceral need for revenge (justified or not), but it increasingly appears to be the only option.

(Of course, the US cannot actually do the things that will actually prevent a second terrorist attack without violating its own social democratic charters which is why we’re engaged in these Wilsonian crusades to begin with, but that’s another rant.)

Mr. Roach;

Ummm...The whole Leo Strauss thing and the origin of the Great Books curriculum?

...Strauss got some ink in the paleoconservative press most recently over whether or not the Neocons were Straussian noble liars.  You may have been a libertarian then, I am not sure, your bio only goes back to 05.

More recently on the topic of Great Books:

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=319

The point is that Great Books is a topic of debate with paleoconservatives, which you claim to be, but were wholly unaware.  Do you know how that looks?  I am trying to help you.

In other words, our war in Afghanistan and the associated imprisoning of suspected al Qaeda is defensible and those who say otherwise are naive and don’t understand the anarchic and violent inherent nature of international relations.

Bombing the Afghanis will create more terrorists.

That aside, please cite for me the country that has successfully invaded occupied and ruled Afghanistan.

There are those, like yourself, whose response to the blow-back created from our international militarism is more international militarism. There is nothing ever new from you folks.

Sir Michael Howard had the right response.

http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/11/01/19888.html

No one from Iraq, so far as I know, is at GITMO

No. We keep the locals locked up there. How many thousands are in the House of Wisdom (our religious re-education prison in Iraq?).

http://p10.hostingprod.com/@motleypatriot.com/blog/2007/09/the_us_military_performing_rel.html

I am not a pacifist. You think I am;so suggesting I take up arms is not too bright.

You are the one in favor of American troops all over hell and creation so you ought to do the manly thing and volunteer to teach religion at the House of Wisdom.

The Great Books curriculum predates Strauss and predates our modern educational debates.  It’s revitalization in the 1940s at Colubmia and at Chicago under Robert Maynard Hutchins had its origins in a rejection of the technocratic and vocational model nascent among universities.

It’s the kind of education that a Burke or Sir Henry Maine or John Stuart Mill received.  It’s the kind of education extolled by Russell Kirk, who along with Burke was probably my biggest intellectual influence in college to me. 

I was unfamiliar with the link you provided, but am aware that a certain kind of reading of the Great Books--which I encountered at Chicago--focuses on their supposed secret or esoteric meaning.  I alwayd found this viewpoint a bit too clever. I also got into my share of disputes with Tarcov, Kass, and Cropsey--gentleman all--for their Lincoln worship, which struck me as having a whiff of Jacobinism. 

That said, I think Leo Strauss is interesting and worth reading, not least for his invitation to re-read the Classics not as mere historical artifacts but as people speaking to us directly to mankind for all time about the important questions of life.

I was a Burkean conservative in college, and my views were not too different from what they are now, though some new issues have appeared to say the least.

I realize you’d rather talk about Iraq,

Yeah. I was the one who brought up Iraq. It was not you in the first and last paragraph of your post.

OK, so America invaded and occupied Iraq for reasons other than a response to the WTC terrorist attacks and that invasion caused us to lose focus on Bin Laden and his network but its all cool cause because “its good for the mission...”

Personally, I think the Iraq invasion plans were actualized once Bush learned that Saddam Hussein had killed Nelson Mandela.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1KGwQ1O88Y

Spartacus, is it wrong to attack al Qaeda in Afghanistan?  If it’s not, and you support it at all, shouldn’t you be volunteering? You have only noted it’s a difficult place to fight and that we can’t expect to stay forever.  I agree.

This business about “why aren’t you over there” is honestly the dumbest and most juvenile argument ever generally advanced against a particular foreign policy. The border patrol is at home, Spatacus, it’s mission is essential and somewhat dangerous.  Under your idiotic reasoning, you should sign up, just as I should sign up for Iraq, because unless you do that, I guess under your schoolyard view of life you lack credibility.

In my first paragraph, I suggest we should get out of Iraq and Maliki’s statements may give us cover to do so.  In the last I say that the war is too forceful and too drawn out.  Some war monger I am. My general point was one about image management, which I see you I am not Spartacus can care less about, just as liberals in general tune out when how to make the military more effective comes out.  They always say some bullshit about schools and bake sales and the military industrial complex.

Spartacus, you are boring and don’t know how to have a discussion in good faith.

I agree that Al Queda should be exposed for what they really are, but that would go against what has definitely been a choreographed program to instill terror in the American people out of all rational proportion to the actual threat.  Your choreography would not work with the neo cons in charge because how many Americans would forfeit their constitutional rights when the enemy is laughable?

We don’t need to forfeit anything if we deport foreigners and closely monitor ethnic and religious minorities with ties to foreign enemies of the United States with an eye to encouraging self-deportation among those who are disloyal or unassimilated.

“respect the will of the Iraqi people.”

Isn’t that special. America invades and occupies a country that did not attack us and part of your response is to dismiss the legitimate aspirations of those we invaded by putting quotes around that phrase.

Ok, so you don’t much care about what they desire.

What do you propose to say to all of those young Americans (and their families) wounded, driven insane, and permanently scarred in this unnecessary war of aggression?

And what about the innocent Iraqis and Afghanis killed by bombing? Do you think they are interested in image management or revenge by any means necessary?

A sure way to grow enemies is to bomb the crap out of them like we have been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Your post about image management in the face of this great evil is truly repulsive and sickening.

The sad thing is is that you prolly do think your post is arguing in good faith and I confess I am too boring to think that is anything but a hallucination.

I have nothing else to add on this particular thread, Mr. Roach.

Spartacus, it’s cute and quaint how you refer to him as “Mr.” Roach after tossing out references to “arrogant asses” and “colon kissing.” You strike me as a quasi-educated little troll with a good memory for clever paleo cliches about the “American Empire,” and little else.

Cheers to your stated intention not to comment anymore on this thread.

Mike Gavin- GREAT post!  You nailed it there.

I’ll second MacGarr’s compliment.

Although I think that part of what drives the tendencies Mr. Gavin remarked upon are caused less by naivety about the world than they are by a desire to elevate a domestic enemy to the highest threat.  This phenomenon has been quite common in modern times, as evidenced by focuses on “capitalists”, freemasons, Jews, etc.

Mike Gavin seems to propose that the answer for inherently beastly mankind is for beastly men to fight overseas wars against other beastly men.  I suppose Woodrow Wilson would certainly agree.  But this is nothing more than the matriarchal, social democratic welfare-state projected outward:  the warfare-state really best personified by Madeline Albright and her crusade against Orthodox Christians in Serbia.  Our war in Iraq was certainly not undertaken in revenge for 9/11 or on any legitimate ground of self-defense.  And while the break-up of Al Qaida and deposing the Taliban regime may have satisfied these points, our continuing occupation of Kabul, excuse me, Afghanistan, seems nothing more than, again, a Wilsonian welfare-state crusade.  Do Messrs. Gavin and McGarr really believe that inherently flawed and fallen men become morally perfect demi-gods by virtue of employment with the US government?  We are engaged in pure hubris and are going bankrupt becoming more vulnerable to terrorist attacks as a result.

There is also a strain of nominally conservative thought that declares the military to be immune to what conservatives would otherwise agree are the inherent flaws of government.  Do not forget, the standing military exists first and foremost to justify its own existence.  Next in priority is to assure the continued flow of tax dollars and to prevent the overthrow of the government by its own citizens.  Securing the nation’s territorial and cultural integrity is NOT the purpose of the US military, as is all too obvious by this point.  Rather, the process followed is to intervene in overseas inter-tribal conflicts, import peoples from both sides of said conflicts, and react when the predictable comes about in order to satisfy the prime directive.  Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.

Senor Doug asks, “Do Messrs. Gavin and McGarr really believe that inherently flawed and fallen men become morally perfect demi-gods by virtue of employment with the US government?” Is it necessary to believe this? No one in fact said anything approaching this

Our whole government has numerous checks and balances.  I don’t think cops are demi-gods either, but I know that without them other people that I know are naturally much worse, habitual criminals, will run ramapant.  So we have to undertake some loss--the occasional bad cop, some corruption, some lost funds--to perform a necessary task.  The military is little different. If one knows anyone in the military, it’s relative efficiency and professionalism compared to the rest of the government is marked.

Senor also says, some conservatives believe “the military to be immune to what conservatives would otherwise agree are the inherent flaws of government.  Do not forget, the standing military exists first and foremost to justify its own existence.” On the first point, I think that’s true for many, but not for me.  The military needs oversight and improvement as does everything else the government does, but that’s why I wrote this piece, and these kind of practical issues of how to fight wars and defendt he country efficiently and sensibly seem to be what the slogan-addicted anti-war crowd seems most intent on avoiding discussing. 

As for the “justify its existence” cliche, I don’t buy it.  It’s true, the military is loathe to shrink or reduce its budget.  It’s acquiesced many times, though.  It’s uniformed manpower has been cut repeatedly in history, not least after WWII and after 1991.  This kind of conclusory slogan you offer as analysis doesn’t really explain much, not can it easily explain the near cutting of half of the military in the early 1990s, nor its massive reduction from 1945-1950. I suppose those were just big flukes.

I think anyone who is an anarchist commenting here or anywhere should just put that in parantheses after their comments, so the rest of us can know that they are unreasonably out of touch with reality and should be ignored.  So, if you’re an anarchist Doug (or anyone else), please let us know.

I’m not an anarchist, but I’m also a believer in organic society, which the US government as presently constituted is absolutely not.

Let me get straight to the point:  the US military fights overseas wars that have nothing to do with defending the cultural and territorial integrity of the US and everything to do with justifying its continued deployment.  Now, I grant that defending the US may have been accomplished when the US military disbanded bin Laden’s Al Qaida and deposed the Taliban, but that should have been the end of the matter.  The military swoops in, kills people and breaks things which, I completely agree, it should do and does well, and leaves the Musselmen shivering in their ruined hovels.  (That’s what nations with natural, patriarchal hierarchies do.  Matriarchies spend billions to bomb somebody then billions to rebuild them, all the while fretting and clucking about “democracy” and “freedom.") What is being accomplished at this point?  Nothing more than a projection of liberal social democratic values on societies that could care less about them.

You take issue with my thesis that the military exists first to justify its own existence, then I challenge you to tell me how the US military or, for that matter, any branch of law enforcement presently defends its citizens’ cultural and territorial integrity.  A separate net tax-consuming/black market-based nation is being set up all across the US sunbelt with the full acquiescence of the US government.  White, middle-aged people are subjected to pat-down searches with zero probable cause while presuming to travel in their own homeland.  In fact, the machinery of the state is constantly employed, often brutally, against those who presume to maintain their discrete culture within their geographic bounds.  And again, rather than maintain the US as a majority Christian and Anglo-Saxon nation with identifiable borders and adherence to its constitution, the US military is sent to spread democracy overseas without even a declaration of war.  There are Muslim mosques and Hindu temples going up in my hometown.  Which is the bigger threat to the US as a nation--the angry rabble in Kabul and Baghdad or the fact that the US is being actively transformed by its government into a market-state with no coherent concept of citizenship?  So you’ll pardon me if I don’t get too worked up about the details of US military supervision of inter-tribal wars between people I don’t care about and who don’t care about me six thousand miles away.

I think you’re defending a military institution that disappeared with the death of Gen. George Patton.

“We have stationed troops there to protect our long term friends the Saudis from an attack by Saddam Hussein.”

But ... um ... er ... THAT ISN’T OUR JOB!!!! Where is protecting the Saudis in the Constitution?

Of course the world is a dangerous place. Of course people are fallen. And of course Christians/conservatives believe this. But what other countries take this alleged burden upon their shoulders? Why doesn’t Switzerland also have a duty to protect the Saudis? Why are there no Swiss ships protecting the free flow of oil in the Persian Gulf? Last I check, Switzerland has access to oil and they probably get a whole lot more of theirs from the Middle East than we do. Is every country that gets grain from the US obligated/entitled to station troops here to ensure the free flow of grain?

Last post I said that you, like the neocons, are a type of nationalist? You are also, like the neocons, and American exceptionalist. What other country has troops in well over 100 other countries? Why is this OK/necessary only for the US?

I know, I know, we are special and different. Divinely ordained by God even. Like I said before, I’m sure Jaffa would agree with you.

Spartacus, it’s cute and quaint how you refer to him as “Mr.” Roach after tossing out references to “arrogant asses” and “colon kissing.

Just because I am writing to an ass in no reason not to use the traditional and formal mode of address, Mr. Wade.

Red,

One response I have gotten is that the US is stepping up to the plate in the absence of the British Empire.  My response is that in that event, we will end up just like the British Empire:  broke, socialist and populated by our enemies.

Senor Doug, I get the impression that this doesn’t even occur to most of them. Their assumptions re. some special role for the US are reflexive and unthinking. The world is a dangerous place and therefore we must do something, anything, to make us safer. Have they ever stopped to think what exactly they would do about all these dangers if they lived in Burkina Faso? Would they be fretting about policing the Gulf then?

I’m not saying it was good policy to defend the Saudis from a standpoint of US interests, though securing resources is much more defensible than building nations other things being equal. I’m saying it does not justify a renegade Saudi’s decision to mass murder our countrymen either morally or on any other level. 

I’m well aware of the problems of our current strategic course.  Part of the point of this post was to encourage us to extricate ourselves and to generally think more cleverly and less binarily with regard to the use of force than we have thus far, whether in Afghanistan or anywhere else.

Senor Dough, I in fact wrote a lengthy article on why our nation-building approach in Afghanistan is unnecessary and fraught with all the inherent difficulties of our current and overly ambitious course in Iraq.

http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/the_afghanistan_fallacy

We’ve offended the sacred Islamic holy places by placing our Christian feet upon their sands...

Yes, we have. Not that Bush, or you, have the first clue as to what Islam teaches.

We are going to comply with all of al Qaeda’s demands immediately and withdraw all of our forces from the Persian Gulf region and do whatever else al Qaeda wants.”

Al Qaeda only wants what The Prophet taught.

Book 019, Number 4366:

It has been narrated by ‘Umar b. al-Khattib that he heard the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) say: I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim.

While Bush celebrates Ramadan in the White House his saudi “friends” are building terror-recruiting Mosques all over America while laughing their asses off at his ignorance and the ignorance of all the puffed-up international “experts” who have not the first damn clue who they are dealing with and think their mortal enemies are their friends.

oops. I forgot the link

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muslim/019.smt.html#019.4366

Avoiding this cyberspace stuff for a while, I can’t help but think we’re being a bit hard on Mr. Roach. 

I mean he’s not a defender of nation-building, nor of the invasion of Iraq, correct?

I guess what I’m saying is that not everybody who disagrees is necessarily Christopher Hitchens.

That said:

“my thesis that the military exists first to justify its own existence...”

Well, Mr. Roach, I’m sorry—and I say this not to be antagonistic—but my own 5 years experience as an officer in the military only confirms Senor Doug’s thesis.  A lot of butt-kissing careerists devoid of moral cores, sprinkled with the frustrated, increasingly-cynical patriot here and there.

Actually I believe Red has some military time, too.

The 60’s liberals (and Ike) *were* right about one thing—the military-industrial complex is a racket. 

And a socialist one, at that.

You want to defend America, then join the Minutemen.  Or buy yourself a gun.

I don’t know whether either would do any good, but it’d be a helluva lot more beneficial than any sort of affiliation with the abominable monstrosity known as The Pentagon, which only works to dissolve communities and family bonds, and suck up tax money.

Did y’all know, BTW, that their newsletter is called “The Pentagram”, or at least was the last time I checked?  I shit you not.

I am not Spartacus:  “I have nothing else to add on this particular thread, Mr. Roach.”

You said you wouldn’t post anything more on this thread, so please follow through.

G.S., any hardness on Mr. Roach is based on a long history and not a single article.

Here is what I have experienced especially following the first debate dust up between Rudy and Ron Paul. There are people, and Christopher may be one of them, who are willing to concede that our foreign policy is wrongheaded and might even entertain some greater or lesser degree of non-interventionism, but who are unwilling to withdrawal from the Middle East because it could be interpreted as doing what the other side wants. In other words, giving in.

But it is only giving in in response to a threat or setback if the thing the other side is objecting to is legitimate in the first place. If we withdrew from the Middle East we would only be doing what we should have been doing (or really not doing) in the first place. That is not giving in. It is setting things right.

AAAAAAGGGGGG I can’t take it any more!  I know they will accuse you of ignoring challenges to your worldview, Roach, but *every* *single* *post* you put up on Takimag leads to long threads of insane, rude hippies making dumb arguments and you *respond* at *length* like eight times per thread!  And then I read them! This madness has got to end!! Don’t feed the anarchists!!!

“I don’t think cops are demi-gods either, but I know that without them other people that I know are naturally much worse, habitual criminals, will run ramapant.  So we have to undertake some loss--the occasional bad cop, some corruption, some lost funds--” So no-knock raids, random traffic stops, growing police paramilitaries, and daily asset forfeitures without even convictions are the price ‘we’ have to pay?  Empire abroad get one a quasi-police state at home. Habitual criminals would cease breathing and be much less of a problem if the State CR supports would get out of the way.  The State’s only interests are in expanding itself and keeping crime low enought to prevent the subjects from revolting.  Don’t understand why states like Vermont and New Hampshire are such criminal hellholes - must be the lax gun laws.  Many years ago the Phoenix AZ PD went on strike - crime went way down because media announced that cits were now protecting themselves.  ST

Vemont is filled with orderly, decent people.  Take government away from the average or below average lot, as in New Orleans post-Katrina, and you have Somalia on the Mississippi.  Too little government is as bad or worse than too much.

By your previously written neo-Darwinian logic, NOrleans should be allowed to sort itself out.  I would agree but for different reasons.  Seems the State with its Blackwater praetorians contributed to much of the chaos in Louisiana. What if residents want a Somalia on the Mississippi (and who and what helped to wreak society in Somalia?) ST

It must be comforting to have an explanation that is always the same, immune to facts, and ignorant of basic reality.

Was the state the cause of the problems in Bohemia during the Thirty Years War?  Is the state the reason little

Must be even more comforting to have to go back ‘a bit’ to the Thirty Years’ War to try to make a point relevant to political situation in 2008.  When the State has proven over the last hundred years to be the most lethal creation in history who is denying reality? The metronome of your statophilia is as consistent as my espousal of an opposite way.  I would again accuse you of crying on your way to the bank, but your Empire has helped put the US banking system in a right jolly way, eh?  ST

I don’t believe in an unlimited state.  I don’t believe in anarchy.  I believe in Constitutional limited government.  Indistinguishable from Stalinism for some, but I consider that moderate position in good company.

Now, ST, please tell me why the anarchy of Bohemia yesterday and Somalia today (or for that matter the inability for the old weak Polish state to defend the Polish people rom annexation) are not relevant historical factors to consider when opining a general theory of politics, as you purport to do.

I have a strong suspicion that the same folks who rail against bail-outs of banks would argue
for the bailing out of investors in those banks if they folded.  Am I right?  Is it easier to bail out the bank itself so that it does not fold or is it easier to bail out thousands up on thousands of individual investors who will have lost their savings, mortgages, assets, etc., if the bank folded?  Yikes, for some people there is never a
way to make the best of a bad situation.  If the situation is bad, then all actors must be condemned, and the same
for all responses.  Look, shit happens.  Either the tax money/debt bails out banks so the investor is not hurt, or
the investor is hurt and taxpayers are billed again, only now there is less tax money because real people have actually lost their money.  Absolutely not a damn thing will ever stop this, so it is pointless to whine about it. 

There, I have fed my troll for the day.

Well, “I am not Spartacus” and Simon Tregarth have had their say—where is McBrown?

CR, do you mean Hussite Bohemia?  Let me know and I will get back to you after I do some research.  Stuck between Germany and Russian, weak or strong Polish state makes no diff, except weaker state not as greedy or oppressive.  Somalia is another story entirely.  Prior to techno-superior Euros butting in, Somalia was under modified kritoracy, good example of libertarian state that Euros worked to undermine and replace with their usual satraps.  Euros had limited success but did enough damage to help usher in Siad Barre who played US and USSR like a tart with two ardent suitors.  SB continued societal destruction until his ouster in ‘91, but the die was cast - centralized power was the most sought after Somali prize, not restoration of region-wide kritocracy. Current chaos caused by above factors coupled with continued Euro-american injections of cash and arms to keep indigs at each others throats in quest of tribal supremacy. Interested in reading how you can square support for US Consti. with any US overseas bases, foreign aid, and post 1898 foreign meddling. Perhaps our greatest difference in belief is that you believe the State to some degree or another makes a better overall place while I believe that the less the State the better.  ST

I have a strong suspicion that the same folks who rail against bail-outs of banks would argue
for the bailing out of investors in those banks if they folded.  Am I right?” Hello, T, and no, you are wrong. Banks collapse, assets if any liquidated to pay investors and creditors, banking reorganization with hopefully lessons learned (vampire FED staked, sound money), life goes on.  Making best of a bad situation (ah, Gladys and her Pips).  ST

You said you wouldn’t post anything more on this thread, so please follow through.

That was my intent until Mr. Wade bellowed be to return when he posted his insults.

I have a strong suspicion that the same folks who rail against bail-outs of banks would argue for the bailing out of investors in those banks if they folded.  Am I right

Privatising profits and socialising debt,sometimes, works.

The Resolution Trust Company after the S & L fiasco turned out to be a sensible resolution.

One more huge failure - a bank or investment company - might lead to another GSE that would take all the bad paper in exchange for say, Gov’t Bonds, and everything would be Jake.

Oh, btw, just such a GSE already exists. Curiously enough its name is the same as a side street right next to The Fed

Mr. Roach. I apologise for my way over the top rhetoric and for making my disagreement with you so nasty and personal.

I sometimes drop the reigns on my temper and I get dragged through the mud and end up looking like a dirty idiot.

I would like to know if you were in favor of the invasion of Iraq?

I would like to know if you were in favor of the invasion of Afghanistan?

I was opposed to both because I could see no way out of either hell hole.

Of course those who planned the terrorist attacks should have been hunted down and either killed or captured and put on trial.

I’d prefer a trial where they’d be exposed to the world as the evil low life insane rat bastards they are.

I think our invasions and occupations of those countries have weakened us and diverted us from far more important problems and projects at home.

Roach, Gavin

Your basic arguement is two wrongs make a right. As a Christian who believes in the new testament to me that arguement is so off-base that I won’t even go there. So let me try to appeal to you on secular grounds. Revenge only breeds more revenge. Look around you. Look at history. Not the short term “we did not stand up to the Nazis” but the long term “what caused the Nazis to occur anyway.” As a teenager I work for a man who lived in Berlin in 1930. If I went through what he went through I would have had a really hard time practicing my beliefs.

feed the troll, become the troll.

Bob D,
“Your basic argument is two wrongs make a right. Revenge only breeds more revenge. Look around you. Look at history.”
Not exactly sure what wrongs you are referring to. Perhaps you have clumped the opinions of Mr. Roach with my own. If this be the case, I cannot say whether or not I agree with Mr. Roach’s arguments because I gave up long ago trying to follow the many tangents this entire message thread has sprouted. But I will attempt to refute your counterargument in the same spirit that I declared true conservatism recognizes that man is a beast driven by his passions.  Bob D, your basic argument is false because at the end of the day, there is no such thing as wrongs and right. There are only powers. Stop living in the dream world. Foreign policy cannot be conducted in accordance with some abstract understanding of what is good and what is evil. Instead, we must look at the world as it is and do what is necessary to secure our particular interests against competing bodies of men. In other words, we must put our interests in front of outsiders, well in front, so far in front that it might appear we are purposely trying to encroach upon the interests of others, because in a competitive world, it is an unfortunate reality that others have to suffer in order for you to prosper. You say revenge only breeds more revenge? I say your slave moral code has prevented you from seeing what true vengeance is. Indeed, sir, let us take a look at history. How vengeful are the Japanese right now after WW2? How vengeful were the radical Muslims in Syria when President Hafez al-Assad leveled the city of Hama?  Vengeance does not breed more vengeance when it achieves submission. However, let me be clear, I did not support the war in Afghanistan purely for reasons of vengeance. Certainly there was a need to demonstrate to the Islamic world that we will not be inhibited by our own morality, but the war’s true strategic justification was its counterforce objective--destroying the means of the enemy to attack us. Whether or not the Bush Administration achieved this goal to the best of our ability is another debate entirely.

Absolutely, Leo Strauss is important.

As important to conservatives as any Bible Code sleuth, or someone looking for a good set of Power Ball numbers.

As far as revenge goes, you make a good point.  It’s not enough to say bring the boys home, we have to focus on a reasonable number of folks at the top to punish--punish severely. 

Unfortunately, our government lacks honor and faith, like say the Chinese Communists, so we have to do it the old fashioned way with courts, cameras, perp walks and nasty photos of the horror Traitors like Doug Feith unleashed...but you are right, it has to be done.

It’s the only, image management wise, to sell a policy change...right?

C. Roach wrote “As a conservative, I know our government exists first and foremost to protect our rights and the flourishing of our people.”

Such a laughable and patently false statement belongs at the Corner of National Review or the Huffington Post.

How can anyone truly believe that
when the Federal Government gobbles
up around fifty percent of the GDP and destroys the dollar through
inflation?

I am still trying to figure out why Mr. Roach writes on a site that views the state with a high degree of skepticism. 

His world view and concept of the state are no different at their base than the writings of many neo-conservatives.

Maybe he is trying to get a job at
NR.

John McKerrow

It was a normative and not a descriptive statement.  Have you read the preamble to our Constitution, John?  Were those guys neoconservatives?

Mr Roach, yes, they were.

Any other questions?

Rather odd, almost surreal, really. It’s 2008 and Mr. Roach is advocating constitutionally limited government as if it were viable form of administration, advantageous to his variety of conservative.

It’s almost as palpably ridiculous as a contemporary Russian bolshevist defending the deceased USSR as a model communist state.

“I don’t believe in an unlimited state.  I don’t believe in anarchy.  I believe in Constitutional limited government.  Indistinguishable from Stalinism for some, but I consider that moderate position in good company.”

Were Mr. Roach’s intellectual heroes alive today, it is certain that Kirk, Burke and the rest would find his notions to be more dismally erroneous, than repugnant.

The course that Burke’s generation unwittingly charted ensured that future generations of conservatives would be driven to extensive deviation from those original principles which their ideological forefathers upheld.
The constant streams of time have worn away the literal and social granite of conservatism, leaving behind mere relics, egg-shell thin.

The Whig-Conservatism which Mr. Roach intensely seeks to uphold was originally severed from Traditionalism and doomed to be nothing more than a handmaiden of social-democracy; the mere foil and humble assistant-sparring partner of liberal-progressivism.

I imagine the management of TakiMag retains Mr. Roach because his articles generate controversy, leading to a significant increase in traffic.
However, one might argue that those unfulfilled men, his leading fans, who are disturbed by the notion of the U.S. not exerting overwhelming influence around the Globe, or having the most powerful military in the world, are as much a liability as they think we Traditionalists are, if only because their way has always been morally defeatist.

The more conservatives of Mr. Roach’s variety are exposed to genuine Traditionalism, the greater becomes their desire to recycle and accede to every Century-old social-democratic principle, and then preferentially call it “conservatism.”

Savrola, do you honestly think that most of the other writers for this site are opposed to Burkean, Kirkean, *American* limited govt.?  I am not myself a fan of the Anglo-American republican tradition, but certainly most of
the authors of this site are, contrary to the impression your rhetoric leaves behind.

Tobias;

The complaint against Mr.Roach is that he does not have a firm grasp on “paleoconservatism” as a contemporary American strain of world-view, separate from paleo-libertarianism, and comes up with tripe to pursue his own version of ideological purity.

Depending on your age, this stuff matters to Mr.Roach’s co-agists.  If he called himself a conservative, defending the current regime, warning against rash turns away from the status quo, it’s water on the bridge and we all don’t bother with his threads.

C Bowen what’s up with the “age” stuff?  I’m 32. I’m not a baby, and I don’t need to lick some bitter 40 year old’s shoes to have bona fides. I was in this game before ex-hippy pacifists thought their anti-Americanism coupled with a desire to pay low taxes made them the Second Coming of de Maistre. 

I was reading Chronicles since 1992 when I was a junior in HS and subscribed to it until the late 90s.  I still read Modern Age and Intercollegiate Review, Chronicles, and the American Conservative regularly.  I quit subscribing to NR when the wimped out on immigration and purged some of my favorite people in the mid-90s.

I also think my view on paleoconservatism is reasonably well informed, and Paul Gottfried seems to agree. 

http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/what_is_paleoconservatism/

Your paragraph above, Bowen, is nearly incoherent.  Kindly sort it out and make some sense, or I’ll be inclined to completely ignore you and your rude comments.

“because at the end of the day, there is no such thing as wrongs and right. There are only powers. Stop living in the dream world. Foreign policy cannot be conducted in accordance with some abstract understanding of what is good and what is evil. Instead, we must look at the world as it is and do what is necessary to secure our particular interests against competing bodies of men.”

Thank you for summing up the liberal moral relativist argument.  I would also tend to disagree that an acceptance of man’s bestiality is at the heart of true conservatism.  I would argue that it is more at the heart of true liberalism with its heightened appreciation for evolution and atheism.  At the heart of true conservatism is Christian moral teaching, the family and one’s responsibility to it. To sum it up simply, to the liberal man is little more than a beast and therefore smarter monkeys need to make restrictive laws for the rest of us.  To the true conservative man is in the image of God although.  Man retains the abillity to be redeemed.

that should read man is in the image of God, although fallen…

Needless to say, the assertion (first made by Mr. Gavin, I believe) that Hobbesianism somehow equals conservatism is too ridiculous to address.

I am 34--we’re contemporaries, Mr. Roach--I guess I could have been clearer by posting my age rather than constant allusions to as much.

It’s not that a Machiavellian (Straussian amoral version?) world view is ‘wrong’, who am I to say, it is just that it is a world view associated with “neoconservatism”.

And how a Chronicles subscriber during the era of Rothbard and Rockwell in those pages identified with the term, and still feels at home with the term, is not convincing.

But, hey, its just consumer feedback, reverse gate keeping, do ignore it.

Mr. Roach, I am afraid you have been drinking far too much of the Kool-Aid.  The so called “islamic terrorists” are defending their homes.  We invaded their country to control their resources, their lives and their future.  911 was a an inside job.  7/7 was an inside job.  The Madrid Bombing was an inside job.  The Bali bombing was an inside job.  Numerous suspicious events in Iraq have the american, british and israeli fingerprints all over them. Wake up an smell the corruption.  If you want to be a conservative, start by demanding that the troops come home and we end this insane policy of trying to dominate the planet.

I’m still confused at what you’re trying to say C Bowen.

I will say this.  I don’t let a label define my views. I do use it as a kind of shorthand.  I do think the paleolib/paleocon rapproachment of the early 90s never really went anywhere.

I do hate much of what is called neoconservative, though I would not therefore say every word in NR or the Weekly Standard is not worth reading.  Maybe 30-70%! I even had beefs with the so-called West Coast Straussians in college and identified strongly with Bradford in the Bradford-Jaffa debates about the founding. We forget these domestic concerns with the overarching effect of the Iraq War on politics.

I opposed the Bosnia, Haiti, and Kosovo interventions in the 90s. I supported Pat in ‘92 for President.  I even met Murray Rothbard in 1993 at the LVMI Summer School. 

But I don’t think of paleoconservatism as a laundry list of positions.  I remember and still enjoy great debates in the pages of Chronicles.  I even enjoyed the recent dust-up with Pat and Lukacs, both of whom I admire.  There is a sad strain of rigid orthodoxy creeping into the far-right, and it’s counterproductive.  I am honored to be writing here and hope, if nothing else, to show that the far-right has some diversity of thought within a framework of certain common views, assumptions, and prejudices.

Mr. Nucci,
“Thank you for summing up the liberal moral relativist argument.  I would also tend to disagree that an acceptance of man’s bestiality is at the heart of true conservatism.  I would argue that it is more at the heart of true liberalism with its heightened appreciation for evolution and atheism.  At the heart of true conservatism is Christian moral teaching, the family and one’s responsibility to it.
Yeah…after I reread this, I thought the exact same thing about summing up the relativist argument. You will recall that Bob D reduced my original argument to the adage: “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” My response was therefore a poor attempt to refute Bob D’s statement by using his own words against him. Please ignore that first part and reread what I wrote:

“Foreign policy cannot be conducted in accordance with some abstract understanding of what is good and what is evil. Instead, we must look at the world as it is and do what is necessary to secure our particular interests against competing bodies of men.”

Bob D’s misconception (and maybe yours as well) is that he fails to acknowledge the conservative belief in a Dual Moral Code. Unlike a universal moral code that suggests there is one way we should treat all people, a dual moral code stipulates that we should treat those within our family, culture and nation much differently than the way we treat outsiders. Why?  Because as conservatives, we value the members of our collective association much more than we values outsiders. Does this mean we should always have enmity towards outsiders? No, but the way we judge our behavior towards outsiders is not judged by the same moral standards we apply to the way we treat our own. This was the point I was trying to make—we live in a competitive world where attempting to live by some abstract moral code that demands we treat all men equally is a path to suicide. Consequently, a “wrong” against outsiders can in fact be a “right.”

Mr. Nucci, I don’t disagree with your point that Christianity was the heart of true conservatism when it accomplished three things: (1) clearly distinguished a them from an us; (2) ordained we were superior to them; (3) morally advocated us to put our interests well before their competing interests. Unfortunately, Christianity today embraces the egalitarian myth of a common brotherhood which some might argue makes it the foundation of universal liberalism. For what is liberalism other than Christianity applied globally without acknowledging the existence of a God?. And what are “human rights” other than godly conceptions derived from the metaphysical?

I thus repeat my assertion. Man is a beast driven by his passions and all true conservatives recognize this principle. We thus recognize that this is a competitive world where survival and prosperity demand a Dual Moral Code.

Savrola,

“Needless to say, the assertion (first made by Mr. Gavin, I believe) that Hobbesianism somehow equals conservatism is too ridiculous to address.”

“Equals” is a bit too powerful. My words were foremost conservative principle.

Since you will not debate this, will you at least answer the question: Is man a beast driven by his passions?

Christopher, I agree as I have before that paleoconservatism is not a laundry list of positions. It is a mindset. A set of baseline assumptions. But neither is it just any manner of illiberalism. If it were then the white nationalist wouldn’t have issues with us and we would all be one big happy family. I have conceded you are an illiberal. But your position on foreign policy are not paleo, IMO. They are nationalistic with a healthy dose of American exceptionalism. How is that consistent with radical decentralization?

Mike Gavin, man is a beast driven by his passions, but he is not a complete idiot nor is he entirely self destructive. He wouldn’t last too long as a species if he were. History demonstrates that some sort of spontaneous intrinsic order arises in human societies. Hobbes postulated an extrinsic/foreign/alien/imposed order, not a natural spontaneous order. This, it seems to me, is not a conservative conception. It is an unnatural conception. And it spawned Locke’s silliness and remains the dominant conceptual paradigm today. This is a huge problem.

My internal and my external policies are different.  I’m for decentralization from the UN, NATO, and the like.

Incidentally, how is Pat Buchanan’s call for protective tarrifs and his call for an industrial policy rooted in nationalism coupled with radical decentralization? 

I’m against the UN.  I’m against spreading democracy.  I respect other nations’ spheres of influence.  I am against our stupid policy against Russia.  I am for punitive attacks on those who attack us.  I am for a restoration of Congress’s role in any military action.  I support a policy of a) effective use of force (b) as a last resort (c) when American interests defined as narrow concerns for commerce and security are at stake.  I believe, so long as it may be done, we should stop nuclear proliferation to the Third World, cooperate with other nations against “enemies of the human race” like pirates and al Qaeda and narcoterrorists, and that we should observe certain formalities of international relations and the law of war, so long as our counterparts do.  I’m not a Wilsonian idealist.  I’m not for American Empire or National Greatness foreign policy.  To me foreign policy is a means to a prosaic end:  Peace and Prosperity without interference from those who mean us harm.

CR, in the event that the Mexican or Canadian govs decided to stop selling oil to the US, would you favor whatever means(up to and including war),against said countries, to restore the petroleum flow?  ST

C. Bowen:  “And how a Chronicles subscriber during the era of Rothbard and Rockwell in those pages identified with the term, and still feels at home with the term, is not convincing.”

What “term” are you talking about?

“Maudlin”, “ex-hippie”, “un-american” pacifists.  You left out “commie”, “bed-wetting”, and “thumb sucking”.  Principled pacifism has a proud pedigree in the Colonies that predates the founding of the US centgov, if the Quakers and Amish count for anything.  ST

“On the contrary, what is more natural than fear and the desire to dominate?” Perhaps co-operation, a desire to live and let live, and the widespread attempt by so many to use the divine spark God instilled in all in imperfect attempts to transcend our more brutal natures.  Interesting that so few desire to dominate as opposed to the ones who subject to their domination.  De la Boetie has the right of it.  ST

“I am for punitive attacks on those who attack us.”

A country did not attack us. Stateless terrorist did.

“I support a policy of a) effective use of force (b) as a last resort (c) when American interests defined as narrow concerns for commerce and security are at stake.”

Bombing Iran to pre-emptively prevent them from getting nukes is by definition not a last resort.

Mr. Gavin.

To answer your question in not-so brief terms.

de Maistre and Hobbes, a pair of traumatized humanists whom conservatives love to quote in justication of their hysteria.

In direct response to your question and their theories, I might offer the suggestion that supported by all history since Hobbes that:

Natural Order=Mere Force=Increased inferiority of human nature.
It’s also like placing a band-aid on a bullet wound. The blood will still flow, perhaps in greater proportion than before, since pressure must be exerted to make the band-aid stick.

(Has this metaphor been taken too far?)

So no, I do not accept the notion that man is a beast driven by his passions.

Acceptance indicates tolerance and were one to exercise tolerance towards this notion, he would then have no inspiration to aspire to anything better.

In further reference to this, I might add that your earlier mention of the Dual Moral Code was, in such context, like throwing the baby away and retaining the bathwater.

“There is a sad strain of rigid orthodoxy creeping into the far-right, and it’s counterproductive.”

Mr. Roach now deplores those anti-Democratic strains on the distant-right, misinterpreting them intentionally perhaps, as “rigid orthodoxy” when in fact they are a reaction against the endless losing streak we have been subjected to.
By contrast, Mr. Roach’s attitude seems to be, if you can’t beat them, you can become a more moderate version of them.

Further, man is not “forced into submission” by those that wish to “dominate”.

There are men that are above you, and those below.  There are the “dominant”, who have been placed in those positions by the Grace of God, and the “dominated”, placed in those positions by the Grace of God.

For example, I “dominate” my family.  Not that I necessarily want to, but it is my station in life.  My wife and kids are subject to both my domination and love; there is a reciprocal, of course:

Because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. He is the saviour of his body. Therefore as the church is subject to Christ, so also let the wives be to their husbands in all things. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it…

Of course, as head of household, I have responsibilities towards not only my family, but my village, and my clan, and those of whom they have responsibilities towards.  And likewise, the authority flows from the bottom up; the village is under my authority, but not as an individual, nor even as a “people”, but as members of the Mystical Body of Christ:

It is imperative that no one, out of indifference to the course of events or because of inertia, would indulge in a merely individualistic morality. The best way to fulfill one’s obligations of justice and love is to contribute to the common good according to one’s means and the needs of others, and also to promote and help public and private organizations devoted to bettering the conditions of life.  Gaudium et Spes

Clearly, “domination” over a people, especially by killing them, does not contribute to a community’s common good.  That does not mean, however, that occasions of taking a life are not warranted.  I feel there is no need to go over “Just War Theory”.  Or is there?

“To combat Islamic terrorists more effectively, the US government should spend some real energy on image management, perhaps hiring a big Hollywood guru.” C.Roach

Hold on a second, this is exactly what the neocons have been preaching and practicing since the early 1990s.  Translated from double-speak, this sentence reads:

“To combat the enemies of Israel’s aggrandizement under the pretext of an bogus ‘War on Terror’, the US government should spend even more tax money on, and waste more lives for the liars in the media and Hollywood.”

So Mr. Roach, now that the country is circling the drain because of of its government’s compounded lies and crimes, your suggestion is that more lies and crimes will save the day. This type of corrupt wisdom has wracked many a nation before, and the US will be no exception. I hope you will keep on preaching the beauty of lying after the deluge. Something tells me though, that if you do resurface at all, you will emerge as a born-again truth-lover, at least as far as your public persona is concerned.

“It is pertinent to point out that I have not argued that domination and fear are the only passions that drive man.”

I’m glad you’re willing to qualify your previous statement which was a rather excessive response to an assumed Paleo position.

“You will recall that my original message was a debunking of the prevalent belief among paleconservatives that if we just leave them alone.”

Indeed, but I had thought that you were merely incinerating straw-men.

“My argument was that it is incredibly naïve to maintain an optimistic view of human nature that rules out the possibility that our enemies within the Islamic World do not have expansionist goals.”

In the interests of time, I by-passed the more simplistic portions of your “arguement” in order to concentrate on its Hobbesian roots.

When I in my bestial needs for food, shelter, sex, etc, I am compelled to attack a foreign country to fulfill those needs, then I will accept Mike Gavins’ argument that paleo conservatives are arguing against our natural state of being.  There are in fact many holes in the argument for expansionism.  There is currently no physical need that is served by our expansionist policies.  Furthermore, those needs that are fulfilled are not individual needs but group needs.  In other words we are not invading Iraq because the individual American soldiers felt the bestial desire to attack but that our government lied that it was in our communal interest to do so.  Since the needs that are fulfilled are in fact communal needs and of a non physical nature then I would argue that they are in fact intellectual(spread of democracy, women’s and gay rigts) and unnatural needs and completely contrary to man’s nature bestial or spiritual. 

On the subject of pacificism.  I am far from a pacifist and lean toward bloody revenge when injured.  I do not however confuse this attitude to any particular personal strength but rather a weakness.  I do not find myself feeling at all superior to one who would turn the other cheek, nor do I confuse my personal feelings of revenge as any concept that a rational foreign policy may be built.

Revenge can be a rational foreign policy, but it must be done right, otherwise it just invites reprisals.

I think you mistake revenge, childish and unfufilling behavior, for necessary reaction.

One might further note a traditionalist solution, amid differentiation between the “vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,”-brand of Christian pacifism and the “kill ‘em all as revenge for unspeakable crimes,” philosophy which our culture exalts.

The Western world is running out of supposedly unspeakable crimes which justify bloody retaliation.

Villanizing one’s foes is a nationalistic strategem devised by weak monarchs and governments to incite conflicts where none exist, and to provoke a martial spirit in their citizen-subjects-cannon-fodder.
Of course, the masses get the blame for catching the war-fever and the state is further empowered, so it’s a win-win situation.