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Entry: A Paleo Epitaph Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/a_paleo_epitaph#22769 Post contents: Mr. Gottfried is cleary right about what's going on inside paleoconservatism itself and it's something I've written about (http://beatingthepowersthatbe.blogspot.com/2006_12_0)1_archive.html) as well. It's simply the passing of the torch from one generation to another which happens in all forms of humanity, paleocons being no different. But why does this mean then, that paleoconservatism itself is dead? Is it because younger paleos will not care about the classics or medival Europe or Southern agrarianism and will simply engage themselves in politics to no end after being involved in the Ron Paul campaign? I would hope not because of the aforementioned experience of a youngster like me within that campaign shows clearly that politics without cultural renewal is a dead end road. We can laud the accomplishments of the Paul campaign, which were considerable, but the bottom line also is he lost and lost badly judged by any proper political standards. And he lost because the culture that exists that he has to operate in is completly hostile to him. The only way Rep. Paul or someone like him in the future can win over large amounts of voters is if there is a cultural sea changes where the underlying values of what Paul's positions on the issues become the values of the country at large. One can work within the system and perhaps take over a political party, even a major one like the GOP (the religious right had a good deal of influence in the GOP from the early 1990s until 2006). Unless the culture changes politically victories are hollow and ultimatley the culture winds up changing you. The Jonathan Edwards-like religious right of thee early 1980s gave way to compassionate conservatism of Bush II and now is the Mike Huckabee/Rick Warren "Purpose Driven Life" menagerie. Likewise, the David Frum of Dead Right days of 1994 (hard budget cutting) now sounds like Tom Dewey in his latest book. To me, the whole term "paleo" has evolved to encompass not just conservatism but libertarianism (Lew Rockwell/Murray Rothbard/Justin Raimondo) and even liberalism (Bill Kauffman/Alexander Cockburn/Ralph Nader/Eric Margolis) for that matter. Paleoism must be a way of logical thinking, tradition and belief and love of patria. It must never become an knee-jerk ideology the way conservatism has become (as described by Austin Bramwell) otherwise we'll be no better than they and become pathetic copies (Takimag becoming the paleo version of The Corner) The main sin of the Trotskyites is to transform conservatism into a reflection of their ideological selves, something they bequethed to their sons and new generation of flacks. The struggle for paleos of all persuasions, is to cure the bloodstream of thought and culture of the poisons of Orwellian-described ideology. Sent at: 2008 05 15