The left wing president of Honduras has been ousted and President Obama has shown “deep concern.”  Venezuela and Bolivia have condemned the coup.  “The West,” such as it is, has condemned it.  Hugo Chavez has been making some rumblings about military action.  The reaction is about what would be expected, the usual song and dance about democratic norms and the furrowed brows of the Great and the Good that result when the gun that lies behind all political power is briefly viewed from behind the curtain.

However, as the Wall Street Journal reports, there is more here than just another military coup in Latin America.  Jose Manuel Zelaya was executing a fairly blatant power grab.  He was opposed by both the courts and the congress, and the constitutionally designated second in command took power, pledging to hold the regularly scheduled elections. The country is not in chaos and the new regime seems fairly united.  From where I sit now in this extremely early stage, it looks less like a coup and an attempt to set up a junta than it does like a law enforcement action. 
 
We can expect the usual moans about democracy and the military staying out of politics.  The discomfort with the situation in Honduras is an outgrowth of the usual clichés that allow the velvet glove to slip over the mailed fist of managed democracy.  Perhaps I am just cynical, but as we have seen in the advanced democracies of Europe, referendums and elections are only respected when hoi polloi reach the correct decision as defined by the political class.  When they don’t, the vox populi is gleefully ignored or openly scorned, the chosen representatives are banned or marginalized, and sometimes the voters are openly insulted.  Even if there is a formal choice, it is one increasingly meaningless, as the media (sometimes run or funded by the state) manipulates the facts to benefit chosen candidates, legal obstacles mysteriously appear against certain parties and movements,  and mass immigration and the welfare system create an ever growing class of state dependents on income transfers, special privileges, and general government meddling.  The term democracy, used the way it is today, is not a system of government distinguished by popular elections, certain constitutional or human rights, and representative governments.  It is a system of left wing orthodoxies holding together and granting legitimacy to a huge redistributive state apparatus.  It is hard not to be cynical when the likes of Chavez, Castro, and Clinton all join forces to bemoan its fall. 

While the democracy regime is a huge topic in its own right, let’s look at the limited example of Honduras.  If we accept for the moment the claim of the new government that they were protecting the constitution, what was the politically correct alternative they should have taken?  More petitions?  Protests ?  Judicial verdicts that the president would ignore?  Democratic means hold no answers when the supposedly democratic regime can ignore any check from within the system.  The military therefore had to take action from outside the system to protect the constitution.  However, the international norm, and certainly the norm in the United States, is for the constitution to be treated as the “goddamned piece of paper” that serves as the window dressing for the people who think there is any limit on the power of the state.  For my own part, I see no reason why a leader who breaks the law should be protected from consequences because of the mystical power conferred by conning his way into office, particularly considering that he seems to have little support for his actions now.

This obviously has theoretical implications for us.  Our own military takes an oath to no leader, but to the Constitution.  It is no stretch to imagine that American military officers hold their oath to the Constitution more sacred than most politicians.  The danger from a politicized and alienated military in America has been the subject of an award winning essay within the military, alluded to in best selling books, and even a facebook group with thousands of members where military members are taking pledges not to enforce certain hypothetical laws.  At the same time, since Washington put on his spectacles at Newburgh, Americans are rightly uncomfortable with the military in any kind of a political rule. That said, the ideal of the neutral, professional military Samuel Huntington described in the “Soldier and the State” seems to require a responsible ruling class or at least a ruling class not actively at war with its own country, something missing in much of the Western world.  If such a regime were to take power in America and was fortified in office through “democratic” means, how could republican government be restored except by action on the Honduran model?   

The march of the Left through Latin America has hit an unexpected roadblock.  In the past, the United States was all too willing to violate the independence of our southern neighbors to beat down Communist insurgency (and to be fair, make the world safe for United Fruit).  It will be interesting to see if President Obama and his Secretary of State renew the American tradition of interventionism and political pressure, this time to force the return of the “democratic” leader, regardless of the seeming wishes of the Honduran people.  If they do, it will reveal the threat that the Honduran precedent poses to the lie that freedom and modern “democracy” are the same thing.

It’s not like we didn’t see this coming.  Arlen Specter made de jure what was already de facto and has almost certainly given the Democrats the magic number of 60 Senators.  There is now a filibuster proof majority for the most far left President in American history.  Somewhere, actually probably soon on a cable news show, Pat Toomey is saying “I told you so.”

With all the tea parties, the infighting between the Alternative Right and the non-Alternative Right and the different factions in the Paul movement and all the other drama, the brutal reality is that Obama, the stimulus, and the managed social democracy that we are moving towards are all popular.  Even with all the infighting, all the factions of the right have probably been more united now than at any time since the Iraq War.  The “tea parties,” whether or not they were co-opted, were the product of every possible wing of the conservative movement working together.  What else could unite Redstate.com (where you couldn’t even mention Ron Paul for fear of being banned) and the Ron Paul movement, many of whom openly despise the GOP?  April 15 was about as big a mobilization as you possibly could have, with everyone (even alternative ones) more or less pulling in the same direction.

What the Specter defection shows is that politicans are not intimidated by it.  The political winds are still with Obama, the stimulus and wealth redistribution.  Moreover, once new entitlements are in place it is almost impossible to remove them through democratic means.  Now that the GOP is officially a powerless rump, we can expect to get a lot more of them.

I haven’t really spoken about Youth for Western Civilization much on Takimag, but since we made Drudge, I should mention the event that happened last night.  Congressman Tom Tancredo came to the University of North Carolina to speak on the topic of illegal immigration.  The event was paid for through the Leadership Institute’s Revitalize Our Conservative Knowledge grant program.  He was prevented from speaking by a violent mob that attacked the event.  Below are some videos.

I’ll have some more on this, but I want to pay tribute to our members at the University of North Carolina and Elon who attended last night as well as our other active and start up chapters who have been working hard this semester.  These kids put up with left wing reporters looking to smear them, professors and administrators condemning them and threatening to ban them, and the threat (and reality) of left wing violence from the thugs who serve as the militant wing of the establishment.  Especially if you are a bit older, you simply can not imagine how bad it is.  So far, with almost no training or assistance, and with YWC building off almost no foundation, we’ve attracted some of the smartest, most dedicated, and certainly the gutsiest young people in the country.  These are college kids who are standing up to violent mobs screaming “we know where you sleep!” and talking about the crucial issues of our time in the most hostile environment imaginable. 

I could not be more proud of all of them.

Charles Murray gave a well received address at AEI Wednesday night which is generating a fair amount of buzz on conservative blogs.  Essentially, he warns of the collapse of the European economic model (which President Obama is trying to impose on us) but optimistically hopes that new scientific discoveries will break the stale public policy climate and give a new impetus to conservative principles such as the importance of traditional families, the abolition of racial preferences, and the creation of an elite that at least pretends to care about the society it is a part of.  One of the characteristics of the amorphous “Alternative Right” that some on Takimag speak of is a transcendence of the reactionary impulse and a synthesis of scientific progress with a proper respect for tradition, identity, and a natural hierarchy.  That’s part of what it means to be “right wing,” as opposed to conservative.  As our elite is fundamentally sociopathic, I can’t imagine what’s worth conserving anyway. 

John Derbyshire over at NRO rather gloomily responded that our society is essentially locked into this system. 

The unasked question is where does this leave us?  I agree that the American people (well, if there even is one anymore, maybe I should just say the people who live in the United States) will certainly never vote out this system.  I also think our elite can manage the slow decline indefinitely, and that there won’t be this sudden collapse that will lead to the Old Republic rising like a phoenix from the ruins. 

Most of the conservative movement is worried about how to build the New Majority that will allow the Republicans to regain power.  The answer is they can’t—as Mr. Derbyshire noted, the ground has already shifted beneath their feet as they were squabbling about marginal tax rates.  They were warned, they ignored it, and now the opportunity is gone.  The only way the GOP can win on a national level again is to adopt policies that adjust to the New America—socialist, dependent on government largess, and corrupt at the deepest levels.  Eventually they will, and the GOP will win again, but who cares? 

What happened to choosing hope over fear?  The biggest argument behind this “stimulus package,” which mostly consists of various handouts to Democratic clients, is that we have to “do something” and it doesn’t matter precisely what.  This might be a good time to rediscover a Conservatism of Doubt as despite his blithe and confident assertions, it is becoming increasingly clear that our new President has no idea what the hell he is doing when it comes to the economy.

I think Peter Hitchens nailed it when he said that in broad cultural terms, the election of Obama showed that the United States was beginning its “long, slow descent into the Third World.”  Hopefully, he’s wrong, and as the freedom fighters at Young Americans for Liberty suggest, Obama is simply more of the same.  However, if Hitchens is right, perhaps I could suggest that Russia, in broad cultual terms, could become an alternative to the leftist regime that holds sway in North America and Europe.

Of course, Victor Davis Hanson warns darkly Obama’s foreign policy naiveté could lead to Putin taking advantage of him.  This is terrible, because “Vladimir Putin wants consensus and dialogue — about re-establishing a right-wing version of the Soviet Empire” and the United States of America will not be able to stop him. 

If only.  Know hope.

I learned this morning of the death of Paul Weyrich, who has written here in the past.  Mr. Weyrich was the first president of the Heritage Foundation and the CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.  He was also a protodeacon in the Melkite Greek Catholic Church.  Having fought the good fight, he goes now to his reward.  RIP.

Paul Weyrich’s collected posts on Takimag

One of the hopeful examples in this dark time is Italy, which has a legitimately right wing government and is actually doing productive things to save the country.  The screams of outrage from the media are signs of contradiction that they are truly on the side of the angels. 

Of course, the colorful coalition leader Silvio Berlusconi occasionally gives us something beyond just a good political example.  The latest manufactured crisis is that he called Barack Obama “young, handsome, and suntanned.”  Clearly, the New York Times must alert us to this horrific act.  We can have anchors sobbing on the air and openly telling us their job is to make Obama successful, but someone making a lame joke about the President-Elect’s complexion, even a complimentary and obviously positive joke, must not be allowed.

Berlusconi may be prone to the occasional controversial (or stupid) statement, but he always handles his (self-created) gaffes beautifully.  Rather than doing the PC cringe, he counterattacks.  Thus, when leftists whine over nothing, the Prime Minister responds that they are ““imbeciles without any sense of humor.” When a self-righteous reporter tries to enforce left wing orthodoxy, Silvio thunders, “Why (should I)? You should apologize to Italy!” Silvio, whatever his faults, is a Man of the Right who has learned that cringing gets you about as much respect from the Left as John McCain got of the Hispanic vote.

Certainly almost any Republican in this situation would bow and scape, promise a few million dollars of someone else’s money for some diversity program, and be called a Nazi and a Klansman for their trouble. 

Berlusconi’s reaction, in contrast, leads to criticism on the New York Times website, which is apparently worthy of a full news story.  However, Rachel Donadio writes the following priceless sentence—“Yet Mr. Berlusconi’s latest gaffe seemed to tap into a deep well of anger at him, which is at least as strong as his high approval ratings.”

Would that we had leaders who inspired a deep well of anger from leftists, and high approval ratings from everyone else.

One of the surreal things about living in the yuppie wasteland of Arlington, VA is listening to Taps mournfully played from the nearby Arlington National Cemetery as I go to sleep each night.  As the now familiar notes blared through the window this evening, some Obama supporters must have heard some kind of formal announcement of victory.  Their cheers mixed with the funeral song in a fashion that can only be described as fitting. 

The defeat of Lou Barletta in Pennsylvania and the possible defeat of Virgil Goode in Virginia removes what minor feeling of triumph I might feel at the downfall of the neoconservatives—as they are taking many good people with them, including champions of what is left of the real right in this country. 

Luckily, Damon Root over at Reason magazine is here to tell us that this is actually a victory of classical liberalism.  Maybe everything will be ok after all.

According to this perfectly dimensioned and in no way altered photo from the AP, Russia seems to have giant mutant cows in their fearsome arsenal.  Whether this is another fascist plot by Czar Putin or simply radioactive fallout from Chernobyl is unclear.