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Entry: Why the Right Moves Left Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/why_the_right_moves_left#12917 Post contents: I think a good part of the problem outlined by Professor Gottfried (not all of it) arises neither from conscious opportunism (but never discount this when dealing with politicians) nor conscious adherence to an ideological creed but simply to the fact that liberalism is the tradition of the US - at least the one which has triumphed. Those who object to propositional nationhood are confounded by the fact that the US was created propositonally by enlightenment intellectuals - albeit of a more refined breed than the thugs of the French Revolution. The temperamental conservative or tradionalist must therefore either defend the works of liberalism or, adopting a different tradition, be perceived as at least somewhat anti-American. Thus we see the odd phenomenon of both liberals and conservatives (not just neo-cons) praising the statist tyrants Lincoln and FDR as our greatest presidents and the even stranger phenomenon of conservatives defending liberal war crimes such as Truman's bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And in contemporary times we see the US armed forces, in self-image a conservative and authoritarian institution, killing hundreds of thousands to bring the blessings of democracy and feminism to the Middle East and central Asia - all to the applause of contemporary conservatives. Sent at: 2008 07 24