Your Email:

Subject:

Message:
Entry: Right From the Beginning Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/right_from_the_beginning#22896 Post contents: Richard, Woody, Paul, and James: Despite certain rude interruptions, this is an interesting thread, raising all sorts of questions about the nature of the American founding and about the future not only of what is commonly denominated "conservartism" but also of this nation, as well. For the longest time, during my "Republican" years, I believed that we should all be rallying around the "old" Constitution, defending individual liberty (that I felt was guaranteed to us), and defeating Communism. But, slowely, over the years, I've come to the conclusion--a conclusion that I am still not that comfortable with--that there really is not that much left of the "Old Republic" worth salvaging. As a Southerner and a regionalist, and an active member of The Sons of Confederate Veterans, I see this even more acutely when I consider my own native Southland (which in many ways means more to me culturally and historically than the so-called "American" nation). And as a native born traditional Catholic, educated partially in what was (and still may be) the most Catholic of universities, the University of Navarra (Spain), I have come to believe that the very founding of this nation was beset with inherently fatal flaws, that is, that there were "time bombs" even in the original Constitution (and Federal union itself) that led to its real demise in 1865-67. My ancestors who fought with the old Southern Confederacy, who fought for the old Constitution , perhaps didn't see those flaws clearly enough, but they were, I think, there, and the American "Imperial" nation was the result, a result that I think was implicit from the beginning. What is it that defines an "American"? I no longer know, and in some ways, the question no longer is that important for me. A common history? Or a common language? A faith in "democracy"? A common culture? A religious and racial identity? None of these things holds much sway in 2008 America. We ask about the future of "paleo-conservatism," and yet for me the term "conservatism" has become and is more meaningless every day. What do we plan to conserve? A consumerist-driven, sharply divided, paganized society, where two jealous oligarchies called political parties trade favors and terms of office back and forth, where votes and opinions are bought and sold like slaves of years ago? Where American armies enforce "the American Way" imperially on societies we decide need American enterprize and commercial influence? Paul and Richard talk a of "new" or "post" paleo type of conservatism. That may be, but basing it on the same old trotted out suppositions that were employed in 1787 will, in my view, no longer work. I am reminded of something the late Fritz Wilhelmsen wrote about 1968, when all the student upheavals were going on, I believe in a little pamphlet titled THE KINGSHIP OF CHRIST OR CHAOS (maybe Woody will remember it!): "We must learn to love the country enough to turn away from it, so to build it up again. We must become radical traditionalist counter-revolutionaries." (I am paraphrasing) And what my late dear friend meant was this: we do not need more "conservatism," but rather counter-revolution, a radical re-examination of the postulates that once ungirded this nation, to discard those suppositions that have been deleterious, perhaps to the point that we come to a conclusion that it is not worth salvaging. I realize that Richard (and Paul) caution against attacking Calvinism and Protestantism, but the heritage this nation received from those streams of thought, supposedly of liberty and freedom and the right to property, free speech, and individual endeavour, have not been successful and have led us to this parlous state that we now find ourselves in. In the 1840s some leaders of the old pre-War Between the States Democratic Party worked to establish an alliance between Southern regionalists/states' righters and Northern Catholics (mostly ethnics). Today, the only real traditionalists left in the US are the few pockets of Southern (and some western)regionalists who still have traditions to defend, and various pockets of traditional Catholics (mostly ethnics)in the North and other regions. Again, in 2008, perhaps we should be searching for that kind of "union" of interests, of those willing to to take a hard look at basics, and, God willing, to re-examine the foundations and become truly radical traditionalists, to the point of discarding what is unworkable and "importing" that which may.... Lastly, Richard, Thielemann's TRISTAN is certainly worth listening to. Bohm (and Furtwangler) are still my first choices, however. Flagstad cannot be bettered in the music [there are several live performances of here as Isolde from the 1930s which are beyond great.] Sent at: 2008 08 30