Big Brother in Brussels
On September 11, a number of Flemish politicians from the Vlaams Belang [Flemish Interest] party were arrested for attending a banned rally protesting “The Islamization of Europe.” As pictures and videos that showed peaceful men in business suits being manhandled by the black cladded riot police, the protesters garnered a great deal of sympathy from American conservatives. Mark Steyn, Diana West, Pat Buchanan, Michelle Malkin, the Washington Times editorial page, and David Horowitz’s Jihad Watch all came to the defense of the Vlaams Belang. This is a stark contrast to the arrest and nearly two year prosecution of British National Party chairman Nick Griffin from 2004 to 2006 for the offense of calling Islam “A wicked, vicious, faith” Perhaps the only suppression of free speech that got this much attention was the arrest of Holocaust revisionist David Irving.
The major difference is that David Irving’s positions were universally denounced by his American defenders who merely advocated his freedom of speech. Although Griffin’s description of Islam would make some heads turn, it is certainly a position that many American talk show hosts and columnists have taken. The conservative defenders of the Vlaams Belang have made no such qualifications. Michelle Malkin set the tone by stating, “You’ll note, by the way, that almost every MSM article refers to Vlaams Belang as ‘far right’; the open-borders European press and politicians use the same demonization tactics against immigration enforcement proponents abroad as they do here.”
This incident is probably the first to highlight to introduce the Vlaams Belang, or any other European nationalist party to American conservatives. So who are the Vlaams Belang and what do they stand for? The Vlaams Belang’s platform is about as close to an American understanding of conservatism as any other party. They support the free market, take socially conservative positions on issues like abortion and gay marriage, oppose mass immigration of Muslims, and support assimilation of those already present.
Belgium is a different country than the United States, so they take some positions that are not of special interest to Americans: opposition to the European Union, and support for an independent Flemish state. While secession may be a fringe position in the United States, it is not that far out in Belgium. Belgium is comprised of two major ethnic groups: the Dutch speaking Flemish who make up 58% of the country’s population and the French speaking Wallonians who make up 31%. The remaining population is made up of ethnic Germans and immigrants from the Third World. The Flemish majority had been treated like second class citizens until the 20th century. In recent decades, power was moderately decentralized into three regions, the majority Flemish Flanders, the majority French Walloon, and the capital region of Brussels (historically Flemish), which now has a majority foreign born population, with Wallonians greatly outnumbering the Flemish. The inter-European ethnic conflicts can be seen even in the Brussels incident, as police were videotaped yelling “Dirty Flemish” as they arrested some politicians from the Vlaams Belang.
The Flemish have historically been more sympathetic to the free market, while the Wallonians have been more socialistic. Because each region has its own parliament with equal representation, it is impossible for the Flemish to enact free market reforms without the consent of the Wallonians. Furthermore, the vast majority of immigrants vote for the socialist Wallonian parties. This has led the Wallonian leaders to support more immigration and relaxed voting rights rules to speed the rate at which non citizen aliens grab hold of the vote. While some American conservatives have created the word “Islamo-fascism,” the Vlaams Belang prefers the term “Islamo-socialism.”
For these reasons, the Vlaams Belang pays a great deal of its efforts to opposing mass immigration, and supporting Flemish independence. Yet despite great electoral success, and earlier political repression of the party—most notably a 2004 court decision that virtually outlawed the Vlaam’s belang’s predecessor, The Vlaams Blok, at a time when it was the most popular party in Flanders—they have attracted little sympathy in America until recently.
The reason for this is largely because all right wing movements in Europe are grouped together, and as a group they have certain negative connotations which spook the American Right. This is unfortunate, because the only thing the parties actually have in common is opposition to European integration and mass immigration. While both of these views are shared by many in the Western hemisphere, the relationship with the European Right and American conservatives has been virtually non-existent.
Many European Right wing parties are overtly anti-capitalist. Some, particularly in the French New Right, are openly anti-American. And while parties like the British National Party and Vlaams Belang have begun to be relatively supportive of the State of Israel in solidarity against radical Islam, many of the parties have been opposed to U.S. policy in the Middle East. Most of them have done this on a strictly non-interventionist or national interest platform, but a few figures such as former Austrian Prime Minister Jorge Haider have gone as far as to align themselves with Sadaam Hussein.
The 800 pound gorilla that has made Americans hesitant to ally themselves with the European Right is the appellation of “racist,” “anti-Semitic,” and “neo-fascist” to all of the parties. Although these accusations have been used against the American Right by its leftist antagonists for decades, they hold a bit more water in Europe.
While for the most part, the planks on immigration and race relations in the platforms of most European parties are no different than that of most conservatives, the accusations of racism, xenophobia, and neo-fascism have been taken for granted by most of the mainstream (and even some right of center) press in both Europe and America. In the U.S., such rhetoric is usually confined to the Left in.
In some cases, such as the British National Party, a number of the major leaders had been neo-Nazis in their past. The BNP compares their past extremism to that of former Weathermen or Black Panthers who took radical positions out of misguided frustration, who have now learned to work within the system. They have toned down their rhetoric, purged the remaining neo-Nazis, and welcomed a number of Jewish supporters. While there is certainly a double standard when it comes to the past activities of the Right and Left, this heritage certainly hurts the reputation of these parties.
Yet the BNP is the exception, not the rule. In the case of the Vlaams Belang, the only link they have to Nazism is the fact that, almost 70 years ago, many Flemish Nationalists supported the Nazis, a fact that is almost always mentioned. Most of these collaborators were dead before the Vlaams Belang or even the Vlaams Blok were founded, and the Vlaams Belang has made it clear that these collaborators were hideously mistaken.
While Nazism is equally abhorred in Europe as it is in America, it cannot be escaped that a large number of Europeans once supported the Nazis. Disqualifying every single party with even tenuous connections to Hitler’s regime would be akin to disqualifying every political party which once supported segregation. (That would mean eliminating both the Republicans and the Democrats….) The Vlaams Belang decries the actions of Flemish collaborators, but puts them in the correct historical context, explaining that the Nazis portrayed themselves as an anti-Communist force who would give the Flemish their independence. The party currently has a large contingent of Jewish supporters and the endorsement of the Chief Rabbi of Antwerp, Flanders’ largest city. Despite these mitigating factors, the old charge still follows the party.
So why have Americans suddenly taken interest in the Vlaams Belang? Events in Europe and the United States have made it hard to ignore the party. Since September 11, the threat of Radical Islam has been one of the most popular issues among conservatives. And in the last few years, opposition to illegal immigration has exploded. A number of books such as Mark Steyn’s Eurabia and Tony Blankley’s The West’s Last Chance have examiend the War on terror as a “Clash of Civilizations,” which includes the Islamization of Europe. Terrorist cells found in Europe of even second and third generation immigrants, the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, and the riots following the publication of pictures of Mohammed in Danish newspapers made many Americans wonder if Europe would be better off with a Muslim majority.
Genuine opposition to mass Muslim immigration has been limited to the so called far right. A few center right politicians like Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi have made steps towards curbing immigration, but not on the scale that would have any serious demographic implications.
For all the talk about “Islamo-fascism,” “Dhimmitude” in Europe, and the threat of radical Islam, many conservatives have taken no interest in what Europe has been doing—except to monitor which sections of “Old Europe” supported President Bush’s Middle East policy. The action taken by the Brussels police against the Vlaams Belang may very well be the first step in changing that.
Marcus Epstein is a conservative commentator who writes widely on issues relating to immigration and the National Question. Photo comes courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
Comments
This is a very good and incisive analysis. Re the BNP, while the prosecution of Griffin was a grostesque travesty, they have repudiated anti-Semitism, and they have moved sharply away from neo-Nazism, their roots are in fascism - the British Union of Fascists - and more importantly, they do remain a race-based party; their Constitution bans non-whites from membership. For most Brits, while they have no desire to see British culture destroyed, open racialism is un-British and not acceptable. Were it not for their ban on non-white membership I expect the BNP could attract many Indian, Sikh, Chinese/east-Asian, and probably some conservative black Christian support.
By contrast, as you point out, the Vlaams Belang can in no way be described as fascists, racists or Nazis, they are moderately conservative Flemish nationalists, and the grotesque assault on them on 9/11 (including the arrest of several non-Belgian MEPs!) was a direct attack on the liberty of all Flemings and all Europeans who oppose the new totalitarian order.
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Unlike the propositional neocon GOP, European conservative parties (like Vlaams Belang, British National Party, Front National, Social Alternative, et al.) are conservative in the true sense of the word: They want to preserve Western man and his ancestral traditions.
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Jörg Haider never was Prime Minister (Chancellor) of
Austria. He is the Governor (Landeshauptmann) of
Carinthia, the southern most province of A. wp
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Real Conservatism, of course, has always opposed “racism, xenophobia, and neo-fascism”. Burke, Kirk, and Scruton loath these things. Ultra-Nationalism in general should be equally loathed. The Flemish aren’t Nationalists all hot to “preserve Western man and his ancestral traditions”, but Libertarians and Liberal Democrats tired of paying the way for Social Democratic welfare schemes in Wallonia. And when some Muslims do extremist things against the principles of Liberal Democracy (civil rights, civil liberties, loyal opposition, checks and balances, free debate, etc), recalling the actions of fascists and Cultural Marxists, they need to be shown the door.
In the U.S., such rhetoric is usually confined to the Left in.. Does the writer mean “Left end”?
If the BNP excludes “non-white” (as their 19th Century predecessors would have excluded the Irish) then they deserved the loathing of Real Conservatives and Libertarians as well. I thank Simon Newman.
Walter Pongratz is correct about Jörg Haider.
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The Vlaams Belang may be right about many things, but as a monarchist I am disgusted by their republicanism. Why the automatic assumption that an independent Flanders would necessarily be a republic? I could tolerate the dissolution of the Kingdom of Belgium if all the countries that were monarchies before 1830 would go back to being monarchies, but sadly that doesn’t seem likely, and it would be totally unacceptable for the number of reigning hereditary sovereigns in Europe (currently a meager ten) to sink into the single digits as it did briefly from 1974 to 1975. Europe is not America, and its authentic conservative/right-wing tradition is monarchist, not republican. Any European who would be a genuine man of the Right must look to Altar and Throne, not to Capitalism and Liberty as Paul Belien et al do. Outside of Switzerland, any European “conservatism” or “rightism” that is not monarchist is worthless to me.
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Sid,
Again, you are out in la-la land. Oh yea, “real conservatism” is all about egalitarianism, equal rights where everyone holds hands and sings Kumbaya, and the various plates of political correctness you try to enforce upon everyone calling it “conservative.”
Ad minimum, conservatives recognize the time-honored allegiances of kith and kin. If you cannot do this, you are a disgrace to your ancestral traditions.
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Minor correction:
Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis is by Bat Ye’Or. Mark Steyn is Conrad Black’s court comedien, author of America Alone and works on Broadway show tunes.
Mr. Harvey: There is plenty of precedent for republicanism in Europe outside Switzerland. The Venetian and Florentine Republics and other Italian republics fought the French sovereign and were hostile to monarchy. Sure, Naples was a kingdom, but today it’s a seafood dispensary. Many of the German states before unification were ruled by an elected grand homme. I believe Norway has a strong republican tradition since independence. Europe is not America, true, but not every European country is Britain or Spain either. Whether this is “conservative” or Rightist is irrelevant if the question is good governance in keeping with cultural traditions. Can you honestly say Sweden and its monarch (with their gay marriage, socialism, out of wedlock births and top-down multiculturalism) have preserved traditionalism better than the Republics of Austria or Italy? A monarchy can be as artificial an imposition on a people as the EU itself. Look at Belgium, where the monarch is a Leftist trying to suppress the republicanism of Flanders. I think it’s better to preserve a people’s traditions as they see fit. That strikes me as more conservative in the emphatic sense of the word.
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I’m curious as to whether/how The National Review &
other mainstream Republican outlets covered this event.
Anybody know?
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RE: “Burke, Kirk, and Scruton loathing racism.” Fact is
that Russell Kirk opposed the civil rights laws of the
late 1950s and the 1960s (as did almost every Real conservative back the) He never publicly altered that stance. One has only to go back and read back issues of the old National Review from the late 1950s or 1960s, and read the comments of most of the writers THEN, to see that they opposed the unconstitutional usurpation of power by the federal government. An excellent volume of the develping law and changes in law regarding civil rights is the volume THE BURDEN OF BROWN by Raymond Wolters, who is professor at the Univ. of Delaware. All true conservatives should read it, and stop mouthing leftist platitudes about “racism” inherited from the left, as the noe-cons and some of this blog are wont to do.
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@Sebastian
Among the republics, I would prefer not mention of
Venice as a model to be followed. It had a rather
nasty rule by secret police, and I suspect that many
a Venetian would not have preferred being a French
of English subject.
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@Loredan
About Russell Kirk’s rejection of civil rights laws,
all I can say is that it reprented a great missed
opportunity for conservatives, which resulted on a
sizeable portion of the population with conservative
values embracing liberalism because they were willing
to go to bat for them, while conservatives nitpicked
on the proposed solution without offering a better
alternative.
In politics, as in comedy, timing is everything, and
the fact that then only civil rights laws offered were
crafted by liberals cost conservatives much in the
long run.
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@ Sebastian: Norway actually is a monarchy, not a republic, but still a wonderful country to spend holidays!
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So, in short, the mainsteam American right wouldn’t give a flip about European conservatism, if they didn’t see a glimmer in them of the same streak of vicious Islamophobia that now infects the mainstream American right.
Just as the mainstream American right doesn’t really give a flip about any conservatism, instead preferring whichever candidate promises to most firmly place the boot of American power upon the neck of the Muslim world.
But then, I already knew that.
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I just checked my Kirk to be sure: Sorry, but among Kirks “10 Conservative Principles” and “The Permanent Things” ain’t race, genetics, slavery, or Jim Crow. He wasn’t so fatuous as to believe in separate ice cream trucks, one for “whites” and one for “blacks”, the latter pied-piping the young’uns with Billie Holiday’s “Sugar, I call my baby sugar”, the former using “The Blue Bells of Scotland”.
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<<He wasn’t so fatuous as to believe in separate ice cream trucks, one for “whites” and one for “blacks”...>>
But I’m sure he would have agreed with idea that one
could decide to sell to either Whites, Blacks, or even
Chinese only. Segregation is natural - people
segregate themselves, and there’s no point in forcing
them to NOT segregate - why violate “natural law” with
man-made laws? If I don’t want to serve ice cream
to Blacks, then let me be - I’m sure you would agree
with that, Sid, and I’m sure we both agree that the
government shouldn’t step in to guarantee a person’s
right to buy ice cream from me, even if I don’t want
to sell it to them.
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aaa
I am sick and tired of all you right-wingers and paleocons and your extreme views.
Once and for all, REAL CONSERVATISM is about:
(1) supporting egalitarianism
(2) all the races holding hands and singing Kumbaya
(3) gringo self-hatred
(4) complete denunciation of kith and kin loyalties (by gringos)
(5) supporting political correctness
(6) promoting human rights
(7) the gringos renouncing their ancestral traditions
Adriana,
Out of curiosity, what are you wearing?
Sid Clone
nnnn
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Sid Clone,
Ha ha.
Real Sid,
Again, please phone us when you come back to Earth.
Roger Scruton largely has sided with the neocons. Although he doesn’t identify as a neocon, he mostly hangs out with them. He’s in tight with the New Criterion crowd, has written articles for the New Criterion calling for the democratization of the Middle East, and writes op-eds for the WSJ.
And Weaver and Kirk hardly held your politically correct views. Both were opposed to the civil rights movement, supported segregation, and opposed miscegenation.
If you want to see what Kirk thought about blacks, go and read some of his 1950s pieces in National Review, or read his First Edition of the Conservative Mind.
In the 1970s, once he started hanging out with Jaffa and Strauss, he became more PC. In Roots of American Order he defends Lincoln. But the earlier Kirk did not hold your left-wing views, Sid.
Here are but a few quotes I just found on a Google search. If you want, I can later give you some good Kirk quotes from his 1950s NR articles.
Richard M. Weaver famously said: “Some of the means, for example the Ku Klux Klan, were irregular, but essentially it was the political genius of Jefferson, of Washington, of Madison, and of Pinckney expressing itself in times of trouble and oppression.”
Kirk on segregation: “It would be reckless indeed to tamper with an institution as ancient as segregation.”
Russell Kirk (with Buckley and Meyer), 1950s National Review, Main Editorial: “The White community is ENTITLED [to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically], because, for the time being, IT IS THE ADVANCED RACE. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but IT IS A FACT that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists.”
If you want, Sid. I can go tonight and pull up many more quotes from some PDFd National Review issues.
Sid, seriously, you sound like a used-car salesman for political correctness. Give it a rest.
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“Sid, seriously, you sound like a used-car salesman for political correctness. Give it a rest.”
I’ll second that.
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@ white elefant & Adriana
Thanks for the corrections. What I love about this site are posts by unrepentant monarchists.
By the bye, Scruton is no neoconservative, and neither is New Criterion a lock step journal like WSJ or Weekly Standard. If you read The West and the Rest, he calls for an “adjustment” of immigration polices based on country of origin and numbers; a return to respecting other’s cultures; and even blames modernization and its affects on architecture in Islamic cities for some of their rage, though he never justifies that rage, of course (p.100-101). His concept of the First Person Plural and territorial jurisdiction are vintage conservatism and antithetical to the proposition nation and EU, which he deplores.
I think that as a Brit who was literally chased from Oxbridge, he sees American conservatism as healthy and welcomes the debate between the various camps. He was never personally betrayed by Kristol the way Buchanan was, so he has less stake in our little vindictive debates. His real enemy are deconstruction and the Left - and he’s right.
I welcome evidence of his calling for military democratization. Scruton is a man of high culture and aesthetics, like Roger Kimball, so it makes sense they allign. Read Scruton’s work of Wagner for goodness sake; no neocon he.
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I knew Russell Kirk from 1966 until his death in the early 1990s. In 1971-1972 I was Dr. Kirk’s assistant, and lived with him and his family in Mecosta, Michaigan. I had the opportunity on an almost daily basis to talk with him about politics, religion, race, and numerous other topics. More, I assisted him on two books, ELIOT AND HIS AGE and THE ROOTS OF AMERICAN ORDER. I also possess firts editions of most of his books. Dr. Kirk, like most other writers at the NATIONAL REVEIW, disagreed with the court rulings on “separate but equal.” He believed that the Brown decision and the civil rights bills of the 1960s were destructive of our Consitution and the balance of powers. Someone mentioned Dr. Raymond Wolters’ study, THE BURDEN OF ROWN, and I can recommend it highly. True conservatives were correct to oppose the dismememberment and destruction of the Constitution in the 1950s and 1960s, and they are being proven correct more each day. Dr. Kirk understood this. Those who state otherwise simply don’t know what they are talking about.
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Theodore Harvey, thanks for your writeback. You represent a school of Real Conservatism, the royalist school, that needs to be heard from more often, because it has insights that other school might not have.
To reply, one king can rule two countries. It’s been done before.
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You forgot to mention that the Flemish pay the bills - while the others collect welfare - another big reason why their secession won’t be granted.
We have a similar situation in Kanada, where the Rest Of Canada pours billions in tribute into Quebec each year; the same Quebec where is illegal, and you would get jail time, for posting your business sign in English. We have an ‘equal rights’ ‘Constitution’, which all the provinces in Canada must adhere to except Quebec. It seems that there’s this ‘notwithstanding’ clause in the Constitution that says that anything that Quebec wants to do, they can.
Ever wonder why Tim Hortons donut shop chain doesn’t have the apostrophe in the Horton’s? Because then it would be English. So every Tim Hortons store in the States and Canada displays the non-English signage…
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The “Kirk loves Jim Crow, Kirk as KKK, Kirk as an avuncular William Pierce” won’t fly. It ain’t in Kirk’s publicly stated principles, those principles which I mentioned previously. Racialism can in no way be deducted from these principles. And quotes offered (without citation, and thus questionable) are (or would be) the Kirk of the 50s and 60s anyway. Intelligent people change. It wasn’t even in his principles even then. I could care less if he were a hypocrite regarding his own practice. I could care less if one opinion or action of his were to contradict his principles or be inconsistent with them. Ditto about Jefferson.
When Kirk in his later writings complained about the condition of Detroit, he never used racial terms. Kirk knew the tradition of English civil liberty and English civil rights. He knew the consequences of that tradition. Jim Crow, Slavery, and racial codes for voting went against that tradition. Instead of being a member of Christian Identity, Kirk was a real Catholic later in his life (and never a Potemkin one); he knew the prohibition against racism in “Populorum progressio”, ## 62, 63 (Denzinger 4466-4467). He also knew what Archbishop Rummel rightly did to segregationist Catholics. Catholics who advocate Jim Crow and who were to practice it would get the same treatment today from Mother Church.
Maybe the editor should invite Kirk’s daughter, a journalist, to tell us whether or not racialism were among Kirk’s foundational principles, and whether or not he spouted off the “n” word every five minutes. (The answer is of course “no")
True conservatives were correct to oppose the dismememberment [sic] and destruction of the Constitution in the 1950s and 1960s
We can assume there’s no 14 Amendment in the Constitution?
Forget for a minute the appalling act of telling a little black girl (or a Jewish, or Greek, or Catholic girl) that she can’t have any ice cream. Instead, just imagine that Andy Capp is driving, is out of gas, and the only available gas station open for miles around refuses to sell him gas because of of his “race”, ethnic identity, religion, IQ, eye color, or because he’s left handed. Now that would make Andy a little irked. And it would make for a social order of such hatred and resentment that it would turn the USA into cross between Lebanon and the Balkans.
And its a moot point anyway: we’re not going back to the old accommodation anymore than the Stuart Pretender would be our King any time soon. To think otherwise to have the thoughts of those who “simply don’t know what they are talking about” and would be “la-la-land” indeed.
Scruton as Hamiltonian Whig Neocon is also absurd. Burke believed in freedom for blacks and Catholic Irishmen. Conservatives who aren’t Burkean, ain’t conservative.
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I don’t know about Kirk, Sid, with conservative principle #5:
“Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety. They feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems. For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at levelling must lead, at best, to social stagnation. Society requires honest and able leadership; and if natural and institutional differences are destroyed, presently some tyrant or host of squalid oligarchs will create new forms of inequality.”
Seems he is advocating unequal orders and classes based on “natural” differences. Do we know which differences are natural and which are merely conventional? Of course, by principle #2, Kirk would be loathe to overturn even the conventional.
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“Sid, seriously, you sound like a used-car salesman for political correctness. Give it a rest.”
I third that.
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Why is every single thread here dominated by the asinine comments of Sid Cundiff and everyone else refuting them?
Why refute idiocy? Everyone knows that Kirk did not hold Sid’s absurd politically correct views, so why even talk to this fool? Why waste time?
Sid needs to go back to First Things where he belongs.
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Yes, Sid, Kirk was a civil rights activist, supported desegregation, and abhorred traditional kith and kin loyalties.
I don’t know what you’re smoking, but I want some.
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Sid Cundiff must have been attention starved as a child, which is why he comes here saying outrageous things: he needs attention. He steers every thread away from the main article towards his historical revisionism where he attempts to remold every conservative figure to conform to the protocols of 1960s political correctness.
It obviously is working, and he’s getting attention too. When I was at the John Randolph Club a few weeks ago, I heard almost as many jokes about Sid Cundiff as I did about David Frum or Larry Craig. He has become the little politically correct jester in the court of paleocons.
That being said, he’s annoying, not very funny, and detracts from serious discussion. He should go hijack some other sites for a while and give us a break.
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1. What do racialist nationalism and conservatism have in common? NOTHING. These are and ought to be deeply hostile movements.
Real Conservatism defends really existing institutions that are the product of a long history extending over centuries. This sense of historical continuity bestows upon such institutions legitimacy for one of two reasons. Either (1) such institutions ought to be maintained because their continual existence indicates their superiority in meeting human needs. Or (2) even if such institutions are not intrinsically superior to possible or theoretical alternatives, they are still superior by virtue of their familiarity and veneration acquired by their antiquity. If am following Jerry Muller here. The Real Conservative is a preservationist of a long, organic continuity.
On the other hand, Radical Conservatives, again following Muller, are unhappy with existing institutions, and wish to reach back to institutions found a real and distant past. The Radical Conservative is a restorationist. And he wishes to restore what really once existed, and existed for a long time. (With respect of Catholic liturgy, I might be something of a Radical Conservative myself)
Jim Crow doesn’t meet these standards as an institution. Read the best history of Jim Crow, C. Vann Woodward, The Strange History of Jim Crow and one will find that the Jim Crow practiced in the South had a recent and short life. Anti-bellum Dixie didn’t have it. Southern Redemption didn’t establish it. It was established between 1900 and 1910. It was passing by 1954. It was gone for good 10 years later. 50 years isn’t much history, isn’t much antiquity, isn’t much continuity, and certainly isn’t venerated now save by cranks and bigots. Real and Radical Conservatives know what killed Jim Crow, a real tradition that is ancient and venerated: a 900 year revered patrimony of English liberty and rights. Add to this tradition another, a business history, passed on by England participation in the Hansa, and, according the David Hackett Fischer, found particularly in the Delaware Valley Quakers who became the source of American business culture: a reciprocal concept of freedom: you do this for me, and I’ll do this for you.
In contrast to Conservatism, the racialist nationalist hates the present and hates the past. Rather than looking to existing institutions and their antiquity, he looks at a blueprint. His vision is of a future of a purified race purged through an act of violence. Put simply, the racialist nationalist is a revolutionary and a utopian, plain and simple. Ask him what people would be actually doing in his purified racial future, he has no answer. He is against things, not for things. He has no loves, only hates. Thus he is the exact opposite of Real and Radical Conservatives. The racialist nationalist, if he bothers with the past at all, has a completely mythical (in the bad sense of the word), romantic (in the bad sense of the word), fictive, fairy-tale faux past. With this fake past he tries to make Real and Racial Conservatives his useful idiots. It’s time Conservatives wised up. Kirk did. (And his daughter’s husband probably could not be served at a lunch counter under the brief time of Jim Crow.)
Kirk’s concept of orders and variety had nothing to do with race. Kirk knew what Europeans know and Gringos otherwise ignore: social class. He also knew that a social order is very complex. Or does Mr. Natural wish to make Kirk’s “variety” into a Cultural Marxist blathering about “multiculturalism” (which the Cultural Marxist doesn’t really believe in)?
2. It’s almost amusing how the racialist nationalist tries to wear the false whiskers also of a libertarian and a Constitutionalist. He defends Jim Crow as the freedom to trade with whomever one will, ignoring that Jim Crow, as I proved in my previous write back, deeply violates freedom. The Real Conservative adds to the Real Libertarian insight that persons live in Gemeinschaft with other persons, and have obligations to those persons. Among those obligations is to recognize what really counts in character, and what doesn’t count at all (“race”, so beloved by “Mr Natural”). And as for the Constitution, Real Conservatives know that it is a manifestation of the 900 year tradition of English liberty and English rights. Slavery and Jim Crow was and is alien to that tradition. Pity that Pseudo Real Conservative and T. French hold his venerable tradition to be the offering of a “used car salesman” and “political correctness”.
3. To emphasize the previous post. Real Catholics know that the racial segregationist deeply offends their faith. Catholics who preached and practiced segregation Archbishop Rummel excommunicated. Let them be excommunicated now, and join the “Christian Identity” filth – a movement which, of course, isn’t Christian.
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“I told you so” loves bad metaphors and false analogies. “Hijacking” is coercion. No one is coerced to read what I write. Or to respond.
He also is flat out wrong The topic is nationalism, actual in Flanders, and its theoretical foundations.
I’m flattered if racists and anti-Catholics hold me in contempt.
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Sid, I was a friend--a close friend--of Russell Kirk’s for 35 years; I spent a full year in Mecosta as his personal assistant, editorial assistant, and several years ago donated several dozen letters between Kirk and myself to the Southern Hisotircal Collection over at UNC-CH. I am also one of the co-founders along with other Kirk assistants (there aren’t that many of them) of Permanent Things, the Kirk email list. Now, you make some statements about Kirk, but you base them on really nothing at all. Kirk, I repeat, opposed Brown v. Board of Education, as well as the so-called “civil rights” bill of the 1960s, as usurpations of state authority and power. At the same time, in THE UNIVERSITY BOOKMAN, of which I was then assistant editor, he published works by scientists such as Aubred Shuey on the inequality of the races (I will be most happy to cite chapter and verse for you, since you apparently want to believe ONLY what you dream up in your mind. In the late 1950s Kirk founded the journal MODERN AGE; I will remind you that one of the issues of that intellectual quarterly (I think in 1958 or’59) was dedicated to the South and Southern opposition to the destruction of the Constitution by the various liberal civil rights bill that you now embrace. You cite the 14th amendment like a liberal, and yet most reputable conservative scholar (and even some neo-conservatives) have made telling criticism of the “interpretations” that have been used to justify the destruction of our Constitution that you now apprently embrace. Let me cite just a few titles that you might do well to read before you open you mouth of this topic and continue to claim to be a “Real Conservative”: Raoul Berger’s GOVERNMENT BY DECREE: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT; Robert L. Cored, SEPRATION OF CHURCH AND STATE; Wm. Stanmeyer, CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER; Forrest MacDonald, STILL THE LAW OF THE LAND? And there are numerous other volumes by conservaties that critique the usurpations of the last 60 years. Kirk, in his column From the Academy” and in hi syndicated column over years, and in essays (most all of which I have and can go cite) continued throughout his life to maintain that the courts had usurped the powers of the states in the 1950s and ‘60s, during the period of the Warren Court. That you state the opposite is perhaps not surprizing to those who read this list, but you really do need to do your research. As a friend and assoicate of Russell Kirk for over 35 years, I can tell you that you are off bvase here.
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I retract nothing. My arguments in their content are not even answered. And with this page I’m done.
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Anticipating a few comments about some typos in my last message, let me point out that Dr. Shuey’s first name is Aubrey, not Aubred; the author is Robert L. Corde, and not “Cored”; also, I should have typed “Historical” and not “Hisotical"---and there are some other typos (e.g. “base” and not “bvase").
One last thing: there is an assumption here that if one opposed the so-called “civil rights” bills that ipso facto one was/is a “racist.” That does not necessarily follow. Barry Goldwater opposed the civil rights bills, just as Dr. Kirk did. Neither one was a man who “hated” other races. But neitther man would have dismissed all evidence in science for racial differences out of hand, eith.
There is a false dichotomy here: Kirk understood it, he understood that the fact that all men have souls and are creatures of God, but that that did not mean that all men were endowed with the same characteristics, intelligence...or rights.
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@Andy capp
I think that you have a righ to sell or not to sell to
whoever you want.
On the other hand, for a salesperson to start saying “no
I won’t sell to you” to customers on his own personal
biases would be
a) bizarre on the extreme, because he is there to get
rid of stock as fast as possible and get green stuff in
return. He is not there to pass judgement on people he
meets briefly for a short transaction.
b) likely to give offense to people who only want ice
cream, and some of those people might be quarrelsome
(like some Irish after a couple of beers), so he might
be giving near occasions to sin, in theological parlance
and in police parlance, disturbing the peace.
So, basically, what right has the state to stop bizarre,
obnoxious behavior? That depends on how bizarre and how
obnoxious.
That a whole portion of the country had the state actualy
encourage bizarre and obnoxious behavior makes you wonder
if democracy is the best political system, after all…
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@Sebastian
I am no unrepentant monarchist, but I aware that many
kings were better rulers than Presidents Republic
Of course, when kings went bad, it was more difficult
to get rid of them.
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Sid, you can certainly state that you retract nothing if you will. But it is quite certain that your statements made do not reflect the facts. I must say that you remind me of a spoilt child, who, if he cannot have his way or get the last word in, simply takes his marbles and leaves in a huff. But, as you say, you are “done"-[--and in more ways than one....
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There is a world of a difference between wishing to preserve the ethnic purity of one’s country and demonizing another people as part of a strategy of conquering them and stealing their resources. I support the former and denounce the latter. If one wants to understand why the Irish Republican Army assassinated Lord Mountbatten, one does not seek for reasons in the Christian New Testament, one reads a history of the British occupation of Ireland, focusing on events like the potatoe famine and on the cruelties of the Black and Tans. If it is legitimate to criticize all of Islam based on certain verses in the Quran, then why not quote from the Book of Joshua, which tells in loving detail how the Hebrews exterminated other tribes,killing men, women, children and cattle, even razing their homes? We are told ad nauseam how Muslims teach their children to hate. I maintain that teaching one’s children that they are memebers of a chosen race teaches them contempt for all others, and that contempt leads to hatred of all others. That is what Jews teach their children.
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Boyd,
Thanks for the insightful comments. Although I’ve never had the honor or meeting Russell Kirk, I have heard from others that he in person would be very frank about his views on race.
Sebastian,
You are correct. Scruton may not be a neocon, but he certainly associates with them. The New Criterion has really gone downhill. What was once a journal of “High Culture” (or more accurately, a journal defending Modernism), has turned to more pedestrian themes. I haven’t look at it much recently, but over the past year or so the couple issues I did see had articles in them defending the Iraq war and toeing the neocon line on foreign policy. What this has to do with High Culture is beyond me.
Kimball is an enigmatic figure. He came out against immigration when it was unpopular to do so, and was condemned by other neocons. He also made that documentary _A Frankfurt School Story_ with the Council on Conservative Citizens, which I was certain would get him fired from the New Criterion, but it did not. If he were located elsewhere, and surrounded by different people, I’ve thought that he would probably be a paleocon.
Sid,
Yes, you do hijack threads (both here and at Chronicles). You have the argumentative sophistication of a college freshman. Your fallacies and false dichotomies are too numerous to list in full, but I’ll hit upon a few of the more egregious ones.
You create a false dichotomy: “pagan racialist nationalism” vs. your politically correct view of race denial.
Most people would fall into neither of these camps.
Most of the racialists I have met are vehemently anti-nationalism. In fact, they see nationalism as the Trojan horse that has led to many of our problems. All the racialists I have met are Protestant or Catholic. I don’t know a single pagan. And most of the racialists I have met are vehemently against “hate.” They just want to protect their own.
Furthermore, one does not even to be a “racialist” to want to protect his own. This a very natural instinct, one that is based in ancient concepts like kith and kin, and the respect of one’s ancestral traditions (mores maiorum).
Aquinas himself said: “after his duties towards God, man owes most to his parents and his country. One’s duties towards one’s parents include one’s obligations towards one’s relatives, because these latter have sprung from [or are connected by ties of blood with] one’s parents…and the services due to one’s country have for their object all one’s fellow-countrymen and all the friends of one’s fatherland.”
Notice that the Latin for fatherland, ‘patria’, assumes link by blood. It is not propositionalism. It is a traditional concept of a nation.
This is all I’m going to say on this matter, although I’m sure that Sid will continue to hijack the thread and write 452 replies.
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Bede,
Thanks for the compliment. And I repay them in kind, as I find your comments enlightening. I have often felt that the key in topics was proportionality, that is integrating the love of country (or patria), the love of one’s own “blood,” the love of one’s traditions and culture...because a man takes pride in his race does not mean, at least to me (or shouldn’t mean) that he necessarily “hates” other races or considers them to be “inferior.” “Different"--yes. Traditionally conservatives (or better, Traditionalists) have understood this. When we oppose government usurpation we do not do it out of “hatred,” but rather out of love for our culture and our traditions, and, yes, of our ethnic heritage and our race. There is absolutely nothing intrinsically “hateful” or “racist” about that. Nor does it violate the Church’s teaching regarding the respect that is due to each individual as a creature of God (the fullness of “human dignity” according to traditional teaching is only found in full communion with Christ and His Church).Russell Kirk became a Catholic in the early 1960s, but he also defended anti-egalitarian principles throught his life, and he understood that what science and scientist might have to say about the differences and potential inequalities that might exist between the races did not change our obligation to love our brother and give him due respect.
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Much as I promised never to acknowledge Dr.
Cathey’s presence (what happened to his purpose
to leave here so as not to be insulted?), I cannot
let his last comments pass unchallenged.
You say that race differences should not change our
obligation to love our brotehr and give him due
respect. Yet, you and your friend Kirk protested the
dismantling of Jim Crow which was based on denying
due respect to fellow citizens. As in “we can sleep with
your women, but if you sleep with ours we castrate and
kill you”. “We get first pickings and the best, and you
get the leavings and second rate of things” “We tell
you what to do, and you speak to us with respect” “When
we need a seat in the bus, you get up and give us one,
but we do not get up for you” “If there is not a
bathroom for you people, you cannot use yours, just go
by the side of the road” (which happened to Lyndon
Johnson’s staff when he was Vice President, and he
took the insult personally).
How can behavior like this can be called “respecting
one’s brother” Or following the Golden Rule to treat
others as you would yourself be treated?
It is sad that Kirk would have such a blind spot. It
is sad that you have it too, but one would think that
with time passed, you would have reconsidered your
views to bring it in accordance to your professed
Christian beliefs.
But then, maybe I am asking too much of a friend of
Father Meinvielle.
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Kirk occasionally makes interesting reading, but I thought his role as a man of letters was to provoke thought, not to be the founder of something approximating a religious canon. After a while the debates about what Kirk said and meant and believed begin to resemble (well, to me) debates about interpretation of the Gospels. I’d rather read the New Testament, followed by some good history, than parse Russel Kirk’s words and deeds into ever more ephemeral shreds.
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Re: the original article. Is it Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch, not David Horowitz’s?
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Boyd D Caathey,
Thanks for the wonderful insights.
ADRIANA SAID: “You say that race differences should not change our obligation to love our brotehr and give him due respect. Yet, you and your friend Kirk protested the dismantling of Jim Crow which was based on denying due respect to fellow citizens. As in “we can sleep with your women, but if you sleep with ours we castrate and kill you”. “We get first pickings and the best, and you get the leavings and second rate of things” “We tell you what to do, and you speak to us with respect” “When we need a seat in the bus, you get up and give us one, but we do not get up for you” “If there is not a bathroom for you people, you cannot use yours, just go by the side of the road” (which happened to Lyndon Johnson’s staff when he was Vice President, and he took the insult personally).”
You sound like a left-wing nut job. You might as well join the NAACP, associate with Harry Jaffa and John Neuhaus, and pray for the arrival of the Last Chance Armada.
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@Royalist
You sound like Charles Maurras, who like the Catholic
Church when it supported his idea of a monarchy and
a hierarchical society where the lower orders kept
their place, but rejected violently any parts of the
Catholic tradition (such as the Magnificat) which
contradicted it.
Which means that you too want to pick and choose
Christian doctrine.
Unfortunately the actions carried out under Jim Crow
were in direct contradiction with Jesus’s instruction
to do unto others as we’d have them do unto us. It is
sad that it took Christians this long to figure it out,
but not unusual.
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Adriana sounds like a mole for the SPLC.
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@ “Paleo Peter” who wrote:
“Adriana sounds like a mole for the SPLC.”
1. I don’t even have the faintest idea who the “SPLC” are, and more importantly,
2. Just knock it off, asshole. When you talk about your suspicions of “moles” among us, it reminds me of the ways of the barbarian Chinese Communist Party, in whose country I lived for the past five years.
Just knock it off. Just stop all this Communist, Mao-ist style bullshit of accusing some of this blogs writers and commenters of being “moles.” That kind of barbarian rhetoric is more typical of Communist barbarians than of truly free men who have truly free minds.
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@John Ball
Thanks for coming to my defense.
As I do not know how moles sound, I could not tell if
I was meant to be an insult or praise. After all, my
actual singing is much worse than any sound moles
make. I was consideirng mailing Paleo Pete a recording
of my attempt to sing “Amazing Grace” to give him a
better idea of what I sound like, but I thougt it to
be too cruel.
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Mr. Ball,
I think I speak for many others on this list when I ask that you please refrain form using barnyard language in your postings. I fully reconginize that words like “a--h---” that you utilized in your lasting message are currecnt “on the strett.” But the discussions on this blog are generally of a better calibre, and I thin,k it demaenas you and us all when you employ such terms. I recognize that we disagree, and my complaint has nothing to do with those differences. But I would ask you to please refrain from such foul language. If we differ, let us do it strongly but withouth the profanity. Thanks.
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Oops! Please forgive the numerous typos in my last post; I have a new pair of spectacles, and I have not yet adjusted to them!
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Sid is very confused about the history of “Jim Crow"-he even gets the title of the book he refers to wrong.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dieteman/dieteman46.html
(...)
Jim Crow began after the war, and after Reconstruction, when the Southerners were again in charge of their own state governments. When blacks were held in slavery, there was no point to Jim Crow laws. As an aside, Postrel is also apparently ignorant of C. Vann Woodward’s groundbreaking book The Strange Career of Jim Crow, where Woodward points out that the Southern Jim Crow laws – drumroll please – were modeled on Northern black codes which predated the Civil War.
(...)
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For more detail on Jim Crow in the North:
http://1898wilmington.com/OriginsofJimCrowLaws.shtml
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To Dr Boyd Cathey,
1. Although I disagree with you about many things, I agree with your aspiration for our blog to refrain from foul language;
2. On the other hand, as Paul Fussel said in his book “Wartime” (1989), “we use the word ‘shit’ so that we can use the word ‘noble’ and really mean it.” Or something like that, in paraphrase.
In other words, SOMETIMES foul language is appropriate.
3. I predict that if you and I ever meet in person (as I hope we will; I hope I will meet MANY of our blog’s writers and commenters in person! ESPECIALLY “Joe Populist” whom I threatened to beat up but now Joe Populist and I agree on most things and I owe him a LOT of drinks - not to mention Taki, with whom I want to drink a LOT whenever we finally meet in person! :-)…
...anyway, Dr Cathey, I predict that when you meet me in person, you will be astonished by my appearance, my deportment and my manners. Like our host Taki, I believe in the old definition of a Gentleman as one who never offends UNintentionally....hmmm…
;-) :-)
4. As a country-western song said back in 1985 when I was working on a Colorado ranch as a summer job:
“EVERYBODY IS AN ASSHOLE, including
you and me!
EVERYBODY IS AN ASSHOLE, sometimes!”
:-)
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Hello
As a member of the BNP maybe I can do a little
clarification.
I have yet to meet a ‘Nazi’ or a
thug within the party. Most Nazi’s and thugs
support other parties, not one that stands up
for the working and middle classes and for family
and country.
In fact an analysis of the voting for the BNP shows
that the support comes from the employed working class
and increasingly the middle class as immigration
impacts every town and village in britain.
On Saturday I attended a regional conference. Not a
tattoo in sight. Retired, decent men and women were
well representated as were small business people.
Many ex- military have joined our ranks.
The complete misrepresentation of the BNP by the mass
media and the fascists of the ‘politically correct’
brigade is a travesty and no more than the most
blatant of political censorship that would really have
done the old Soviet Union or Nazi Germany proud.
The real fascists are those who use violence and
thuggery to break up meetings and deny the freedom
of speech to their fellow citizens -as was done to
a BNP meeting the other night in the Midlands.
Nick Griffin was the speaker. The so-called
democrats who violently tried to prevent people from
hearing his views are the ones that should concern
the general public. It is fascism and totalitarianism
in the making.
Rosie
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@Rosie:
Thanks for your comments about the BNP and your corrective to what the liberasl media here in the USA attempt to do with reference to that grouping. The real totalitarians are those on the “p.c.” Left, here and in Europe wyou would like to stifle all discussion and debate (as per the continuing odyseey of the Vlaams Belang and other such parties and groups who try to work for reasonable recognition of their culture and traditions.
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Hello Boyd
Thank you for your kind words above.
To give you some idea of what is happening in England
I am posting a quote from the Blog of Simon Darby,
a senior member of the BNP and a great nature lover.
Far too busy helping out our wildlife to be tattooed
and skin headed.
Reading it is an eye opener. It comes directly from
the Labour Party and consequently the Labour Government
and demonstrates why this country desperately needs the
BNP and why the BNP is the fastest growing party in
the country.
The BNP website attracts overwhelmingly
more hits than any other political party.
You will read of the sheer arrogance of a government
conniving to use the votes of immigrants and of the
Eastern Europeans - most of whom have flooded into
this country as economic migrants to take what they
can including our social housing, our free healthcare
our schools, and even our jobs. They are taking our jobs
by undercutting what is a living wage to british
people with famillies and homes to support
with the massive increases in costs of the last
ten years under Labour.
Labour has allowed mass uncontrolled immigration that
is breaking down the cohesion of our society and
undermining our history and culture. We will have to
build 200 homes a day for the next twenty years just
to house immigrants. All on a tiny island which
is now the third most densely populated area of the
planet.
Our quality of life is being destroyed. Our
country slowly islamicised because of the massive
difference in birthrate between indigenous British
people and incoming muslims and other immigrants.
We have watched the fate
of the Serbs so know the dangers of this. Britain will
have a majority of islamics in some 20 to 30 years.
This is why people - ordinary decent people are
fighting back with the only hope they have - the BNP.
Only the BNP cares for our country, its history and its culture.
Only the BNP has any respect for the millions of
British servicemen and servicewomen
who over the years and particularly in the last century
gave their lives for their country and their famillies
and fellow British people.
The three main parties here are all the same and all
under the control of international corporations, ‘fat cats’
and fellow travellers. Motivated by greed and the desire
to reduce 70% of our people to peasant status.
Only the BNP stands up for that 70%.
I am watching with interest as many Americans who
seem to believe in the same things as the BNP,
as Americans who are sick and tired of corruption
and connivance, of lies and an increasing police state
as these Americans start a fightback with Mr Ron Paul.
Lucky you.
I hope that we in the BNP can mobilize as well as the
supporters of Mr Paul.
Please read the quote below from Simon and see just how
dispicable our Labour party/government is and the
disdain they have for the native people of London and
Britain itself. A travesty of democracy.
I quote Simon Darby
‘Meanwhile, all it would appear, is not lost for New
Labour as they announced yesterday their secret plan
to keep the BNP out of the London Assembly:
Mobilising the anti-BNP vote is crucial. Given the
size of London it is not feasible for anti-fascists
to undertake door-to-door campaigning across the
capital, other perhaps than in Barking and Dagenham
as this will be vital for the general election and
the 2010 borough council elections. Instead,
anti-fascists have to look for alternative forms of
campaigning to reach the largest number of people
with as little effort as possible.
The focus for much of our work has to be the BME
and newly arrived communities. Most should have an
intrinsic dislike of the BNP though the threat would
have to be explained. Another element of our campaign
must be voter registration, particularly for the
newly arrived communities from eastern Europe.
This should be done in conjunction with the trade
unions and linked to campaigns to improve their
working conditions. Discussions are already under way
with our Polish sister organisation, Never Again,
to help in this work.
So there you have it in black and white, so to speak,
the Party set up to protect the rights of the white
working class is now accepting that it is almost an
irrelevance to ordinary British people.’
quote ends
What cynicism!!! What a total betrayal of the British people
in the naked pursuit of power.
This is why the BNP is increasingly the voice of
the ordinary folk and why it represents such a threat to
those who control our media and our political system.
Take Care
Rosie
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