From the Belmont Club

The Revolution Within the Revolution The particular venom with which the Liberals regard President Bush is at heart a reaction to what they perceive as a coup d'etat directed against the carefully constructed edifice of their historical achievements. To understand why the President and individuals like Paul Wolfowitz are described as "illegitimate", one should not, like the man who doesn't get the reference, look to the Florida chads or US Supreme Court decisions. Liberals are not talking about that kind of statutory legitimacy. Rather they are referring to what is perceived as a brazen attempt to negate the cultural equivalent of the Brezhnev doctrine, the idea that certain "progressive" modes of behavior, once attained, are irreversible. In this view, an entire set of attitudes, commonly referred to as "political correctness" and their institutional expressions, like the United Nations, have become part of a social contract, part of an unwritten constitution. President Bush, so the indictment goes, is guilty of ignorant trespass on these civilizational norms; he is simply too stupid, too much of a yokel to know better. Like a hairy caveman guided by only the most primitive of instincts, he is accused of reacting to the September 11 attack on America by clubbing all, near and far. Yet if George W. Bush is beneath contempt, not so his archpriests the "neoconservatives". They are the worthy heirs of a role historically filled by the Knights Templars, Masons and Jesuits: the scheming manipulators of the half-witted king. In the days following September 11, the Liberals watched aghast as America went to war -- when that had been abolished! -- against Muslims in the Third World, all but twitching away the hapless figures of France and the United Nations in the process. Arrivals to America were not ushered to sanctuaries run by enlightened clergymen. They were interviewed by Homeland Security. Abroad, the doctrine of containment for rogue states, kept in place by gentle diplomatic prods, was replaced by outright confrontation. But worst of all, liberals were faced with an intellectual movement, one that had developed an alternative ideology, a competing explanation for the way the world worked. Prior to that, Conservatives, however distasteful, were inchoate; they had tacitly acknowledged the intellectual leadership of the Liberal project. No more. Now Liberals were confronted with people who didn't want to read the New York Times, were unimpressed by celebrity and didn't want to go to Harvard. Many liberals didn't recognize "their" familiar country any more. James Lileks described the intensity of the revulsion at the barbarians at the gates; not Osama Bin Laden, but rather someone else. (Hat tip: Roger Simon) I ask my Democrat friends what they’d rather see happen -- Bush reelected and bin Laden caught, or Bush defeated and bin Laden still in the wind. They’re all honest: they’d rather see Bush defeated. Osama Bin Laden, if he was regarded as a foe at all, was the 'far' enemy; but President Bush and the neoconservatives were the 'near' enemy. Osama Bin Laden's men came but once, like flaming apparitions across a blue sky mayhap never to be seen again, but President Bush sat day after day in the People's White House to their everlasting chagrin. In the most ironic of reversals the Liberals had unconsciously taken on the mantle of defenders of the ancien regime while the neo-conservatives donned the robes of Jacobins overturning the old order. But just as the terrorist threat didn't emerge overnight, neither did the nemesis of Leftist edifice. Both took shape at around the same time, in the dying days of the Soviet Union, while Jimmy Carter racked his brains helplessly for a response to the Ayatollah Khomeini, where if one looked carefully one could see that Leftism in the West was dying too. The key factor in the moribidity of both the Soviet and Western cases was that Leftism had ceased to work. Its last serious intellectual exponents, Baran, Sweezy and Joan Robinson had gone shuffling off to retirement homes. Its stultifying effect on demographics and freedom have been described elsewhere; but in one particular its failure was life-threatening: the "progressive" edifice had ravaged the Third World with its nostrums and willful blindness. Countries like India and China quietly abandoned the dogmas of Leftist progressivism in favor of a market economy but the more dysfunctional societies of the world turned to stronger waters. In Africa it was mayhem; in Arabia and South Asia it was Islam. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism coincided with the collapse of Nasserism. The Koran was what the incendiary Arab grasped when he cast away the Little Red Book in despair. Through the long summer of 1990s, the wounds festered as the infection deepened. It was masked by the ineffectual cologne of NGO projects, corrupt aid delivery, United Nations peacekeeping public relations projects, by selective media coverage and by the jangling of fund raising concerts at which a Secretary General appeared, like some secular pope, to give his blessing, until the boil burst over Manhattan on that bright autumn day. As the debris showered on New York it obscured the fact that a new post-post-colonial ideology was ready to push the Liberal edifice aside and take up the challenge of Islamic terrorism; underneath the War for Terror there was now a War for the West. James Lilek's friends must know that electing John Kerry to the White House will not restore the antebellum world. Things have gone too far for that. The Third World in general and the Islamic World in particular have burst their bounds; they can no longer be herded into the decrepit and threadbare tent of the United Nations; the Kyoto climate agreement; the International Criminal Court or any of Potemkin treaties woven by the European Union. Islamic fundamentalists are openly attacking Russia; besetting India; seizing British naval vessels; threatening to interdict the Straits of Malacca; menacing the House of Saud; renewing hostilities in Kosovo; bombing trains in Spain; raging through the Sudan and building nuclear enrichment plants. No Clintonian ceremony in the Rose Garden can replace the planets in their old orbits. All John Kerry can do if he must pay the price of restoring the Liberal dream is to withdraw, like Prince Prospero, into the artificial gaieties of last Bal Masque while the Red Death stalks without. Niall Ferguson, writing in the Wall Street Journal described a world exactly like that: "...a world with no hegemon at all may be the real alternative to it. This could turn out to mean a new Dark Age of waning empires and religious fanaticism; of endemic rapine in the world's no-go zones; of economic stagnation and a retreat by civilization into a few fortified enclaves." But that nightmare does not lie at the end of the Conservative dream; a dream which springs not from the Paris Commune but from the Declaration of Independence. And therein lies the problem for Liberals; that the only impetus to social survival springs from someone else and that illegitimate. To John Kerry's task of corralling Osama Bin Laden must be added the daunting job of persuading many Americans to renew their touching faith in the United Nations; to grasp the pages of the Time and Newsweek again as if they were gospel; to laugh on cue at the network anchor's artificial smile: to return, in short, to the Big Tent so recently punctured by the suicide pilots of the Al Qaeda -- as if nothing ever happened. From a practical standpoint, the Liberal project will not die overnight. It is too old and established for that. But neither will the new faith that has risen to challenge it be banished by single John Kerry term. It is too vigorous for that. Sooner or later Liberals and Conservatives must form a coalition of national unity to face the barbarian horde as one. Perhaps President Bush is too polarizing a figure to achieve that; perhaps the current crop of Democratic candidates are too narrow to see that their world has ended forever. They will pass, and a new polity will emerge as the old wanes. On a long-ago summer in that vanished world, children played and sang a song so beautiful that it seemed it would never end: Some will come and some will go, We shall surely pass. When the wind that left us here, Returns for us at last. We are but a moment's sunlight, Fading on the grass. But the last strains have sounded: the golden children have aged; night has fallen and the Morlocks have come. At their peril, for a flame still burns in the West. posted by wretchard | Permalink: 11:54 AM Zulu

good read

More in a similar vein from TankNet

I hate death and murder. Violence is horrible, and it's a terrible price to pay. War is bad, etc... Now the one thing I hear OVER AND OVER, is that "well, clinton never took us to WAR!". As if war is the very bottom of the barrel of "bad things". As if war is the "Worst" thing possible. That's the "problem" with the typical Liberal philosiphy. It can be paraphrased a dozen ways. One of the things I have seen in common with all liberals is the opinion that WAR is the very WORST thing, period. Nothing can compare to war, and once war is reached, you can declare "failure", for the ultimate goal of mankind is to avoid war. Avoidance of war, war being the pinnacle of human failure, therefore means "success". In their minds, every possible human suffering, enslavement, rape torture, etc. is preferable to war. Therefore, a status-quo of misery is maintained for a duration, for the fear that any attempt to imporve the situation might "degrade" into war. This concept of War as the ultimate human error, needs to go. It may be more clear to define Peace, to better understand the differing "feelings" towards war--them and their "Feeeeeelings"... here's dictionary.com's defintions: 1. The absence of war or other hostilities. 2. An agreement or a treaty to end hostilities. 3. Freedom from quarrels and disagreement; harmonious relations: roommates living in peace with each other. 4. Public security and order: was arrested for disturbing the peace. 5. Inner contentment; serenity: peace of mind. It seems too many people stop reading after #1, or #2, and are perfectly content as long as that is established. I say, What the hell good are the others if you don't have peace of mind? If I were living in peace as defined by #'s 1-4, but knew that somebody was living nearby, and they wanted to see my children die by the will of Allah, then I would not consider THAT peace. Without peace of mind the others don't mean jack.

By God, that was a good read!

Yup!

-LS

Brilliant.  Superb.  Amazingly prescient.

Too bad the stupid fucking liberals will never understand it...nor the incredible dangers they pose our country.  I can really understand the Islamofacists...I want them all room temp...but I do understand them.  I don't understand our own citizens shitting the nest like they do.

Seditious fuckers all...

Yeah, right.  Like Bush is not pushing the socialist agenda forward with drugs for seniors and the federalization of grade school education.  Like he has not presided over a massive increase in federal pork.  Like he didn't cave on conservative federal court nominees and the International Criminal Court.  Like he didn't sign a law restricting political speech.

He has been a formidable and determined war president, but let's not fool ourselves by pretending that he is conservative.  Just because you mention Jesus every now and then does not make you conservative.  

Bush is not conservative, he is just the lesser of two evils.

A real Conservative would never fight terrorists either.  They would not want to spend the money.

Quoted: A real Conservative would never fight terrorists either.  They would not want to spend the money.

You are absolutely wrong about that.  Being conservative, by definition, means that some things are worth fighting for.

Quoted: Yeah, right.  Like Bush is not pushing the socialist agenda forward with drugs for seniors and the federalization of grade school education.  Like he has not presided over a massive increase in federal pork.  Like he didn't cave on conservative federal court nominees and the International Criminal Court.  Like he didn't sign a law restricting political speech. He has been a formidable and determined war president, but let's not fool ourselves by pretending that he is conservative.  Just because you mention Jesus every now and then does not make you conservative.   Bush is not conservative, he is just the lesser of two evils.

No, wrong.  He may not be as conservative as you would prefer, but he is not an evil at all.  He's a damned good man and a damned good president and we're lucky to have him.

That is a brilliant post from The Belmont Club.  Wretchard has been sucking for a month or two since Fallujah ended, but this is great.

Oh, I forgot.  Bush's immigration policy sucks too.

Quoted: Oh, I forgot.  Bush's immigration policy sucks too.

Oh I forgot, I don't give a shit...I'm voting for him anyway.

Quoted: Yeah, right.  Like Bush is not pushing the socialist agenda forward with drugs for seniors and the federalization of grade school education.  Like he has not presided over a massive increase in federal pork.  Like he didn't cave on conservative federal court nominees and the International Criminal Court.  Like he didn't sign a law restricting political speech. He has been a formidable and determined war president, but let's not fool ourselves by pretending that he is conservative.  Just because you mention Jesus every now and then does not make you conservative.   Bush is not conservative, he is just the lesser of two evils.

Yeah, damn those old people who have worked all their lives to make a better world for people like you.  They should just be put in a room and let die, huh.

Quoted: Quoted: Yeah, right.  Like Bush is not pushing the socialist agenda forward with drugs for seniors and the federalization of grade school education.  Like he has not presided over a massive increase in federal pork.  Like he didn't cave on conservative federal court nominees and the International Criminal Court.  Like he didn't sign a law restricting political speech. He has been a formidable and determined war president, but let's not fool ourselves by pretending that he is conservative.  Just because you mention Jesus every now and then does not make you conservative.   Bush is not conservative, he is just the lesser of two evils. Yeah, damn those old people who have worked all their lives to make a better world for people like you.  They should just be put in a room and let die, huh.

Well, if they can not afford drugs, they did not work hard enough.

Quoted: Oh, I forgot.  Bush's immigration policy sucks too.

But I love Kerry's!

Quoted: Quoted: Oh, I forgot.  Bush's immigration policy sucks too. Oh I forgot, I don't give a shit...I'm voting for him anyway.

 Well at least you can admit it now Rik

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Oh, I forgot.  Bush's immigration policy sucks too. Oh I forgot, I don't give a shit...I'm voting for him anyway.  Well at least you can admit it now Rik

"Admit it?"  It's nothing to be ashamed of.  I REVEL in it.  I proclaim it to the fucking heavens.
I AM VOTING FOR PRESIDENT BUSH AND FUCK ANYONE WHO ISN'T.

Quoted: Quoted: Yeah, right.  Like Bush is not pushing the socialist agenda forward with drugs for seniors and the federalization of grade school education.  Like he has not presided over a massive increase in federal pork.  Like he didn't cave on conservative federal court nominees and the International Criminal Court.  Like he didn't sign a law restricting political speech. He has been a formidable and determined war president, but let's not fool ourselves by pretending that he is conservative.  Just because you mention Jesus every now and then does not make you conservative.   Bush is not conservative, he is just the lesser of two evils. Yeah, damn those old people who have worked all their lives to make a better world for people like you.  They should just be put in a room and let die, huh.

You know, I understand where you are coming from Larry.  But do not fool yourself, this issue requires you to make a choice between your parents and your CHILDREN.

Quoted: Oh, I forgot.  Bush's immigration policy sucks too.

If ya don't want to vote for Bush, then who you're going to vote for? Al Gore? Or a 3rd party person who has zero chance of winning?

Quoted: Yeah, right.  Like Bush is not pushing the socialist agenda forward with drugs for seniors and the federalization of grade school education.  Like he has not presided over a massive increase in federal pork.  Like he didn't cave on conservative federal court nominees and the International Criminal Court.  Like he didn't sign a law restricting political speech. He has been a formidable and determined war president, but let's not fool ourselves by pretending that he is conservative.  Just because you mention Jesus every now and then does not make you conservative.   Bush is not conservative, he is just the lesser of two evils.

(1)
He has NOT caved on the ICC...

He's stuck his thumb in the UN's eye again and said 'Sorry, no troops for you' untill they give our folks exemption from Kangaroo Kort trials...

(2)
Federalization of gradeschools? You mean actually requiring that they perform on pain of loosing existing federal aid? Why that's TERRIBLE , I mean, it's soo baad that we check to see that Fed money is being spent effectively!

Seriously, NCLB is an attempt to apply Reagan's cost-benefit principle to education. Billions of federal dollars are spent on education every year, and still would have without NCLB. But now, at least we try to see that said money does not go straight down the drain...

(3) Pork

Ya, so... Pork has been around forever. It sucks, but it's part of government. Also, defense spending (except for keeping extra bases open stateside, and the XM-8 program) is not pork. It's important work that must continue if we are to mantain our edge.

(4) Bush is the first neoconservative president.

He is not a classical conservative, fixated on abortion, the federal budget, and returning to an 1859 era of a bunch of separate, independant and incoherant minicountries within the US...

But he is not a liberal either...

He is tne new breed, focused on unilateral American supremacy abroad, and economic prosperity thru unrestrained, unregulated capitalisim at home. Those are the 2 issues that matter - as they are matters of life or death for this country, and that is where my support for him comes. Further, those 2 elements are the only way to resist the fatal disease of European socialisim, which if the Dems can successfully import it will be more damaging than Islamofascisim EVER COULD BE.

Every other issue is secondary, and even there - with the exception of CFR and Medicare - they've all been handled textbook-perfect.

Law & order taking precidence over the contrived 'rights' of criminals.

Judicial nominations that are  conservative enough to PO the Senate Dems, instead of nominating 'moderates' that will sail thru (like his dad did after Thomas)...

No AWB renewal yet, and a slim-none chance of one occurring.

No new gun control laws since he took office, despite an EXCELLENT oppertunity to push them thru (the DC-area shootings)...

Tax cuts for everyone, not just people who make less than 30k per year and have 4 kids....

A++ for Pres Bush here...

Quoted: A real Conservative would never fight terrorists either.  They would not want to spend the money.

Ahh, but a neoconservative would...

After all, we do want to take over the world, one new Wal Mart at a time...

Quoted: Quoted: A real Conservative would never fight terrorists either.  They would not want to spend the money. Ahh, but a neoconservative would... After all, we do want to take over the world, one new Wal Mart at a time...

Well you outlined it:

He is not a classical conservative, fixated on abortion, the federal budget, and returning to an 1859 era of a bunch of separate, independant and incoherant minicountries within the US...

Fighting terrorism doesn't appear anywhere in that, and being true to most of them would make fighting terror impossible.

Here is another good one

toysoldier NOT a brain washed reddish minnion   posted 24 Jun 2004 08:32 Log: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- it isn´t as simple as compulsory pathological "anti-anything" behaviour. theres an emptyness needing to be filled, a heavy misguidance. i´ve know many 1st world leftists/peaceniks, and theyr real tragedy is a tremendous lack of pleasure. i don´t mean sex; i mean they just don´t find anything more thrilling or rewarding to do that to braze a crusade. its just that no one else would talk to them, hug them, f...k them, whatever, and is actually the commie bastards coming on to them and showing them something of a endeavouring life project. this is no urban legend, i´ve seeing this. heck, i´ve done the commie bastard part more than once. what you really need is to cure them while theyre young (you can´t help Chomsky now). give them a life (not everybody finds one easily), be less cynical or materialistic or competitive. if not, you drive/scare away those geeky, sensitive, timid, intelligent, nice young ppl right into the arms of this commie bastard here, who knows just how to turn them into a blazing 5th column. well, i haven´t performed any conversion myself, but i´ve reeled a lot on the "propert" direction.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: A real Conservative would never fight terrorists either.  They would not want to spend the money. Ahh, but a neoconservative would... After all, we do want to take over the world, one new Wal Mart at a time... Well you outlined it: He is not a classical conservative, fixated on abortion, the federal budget, and returning to an 1859 era of a bunch of separate, independant and incoherant minicountries within the US... Fighting terrorism doesn't appear anywhere in that, and being true to most of them would make fighting terror impossible.

That I'll agree with you on... All you have to do is listen to the 'seal the borders, shining-fortress-on-a-hill' types to figure out it won't work...

Conservatisim handles human nature better than liberalisim, however the original isolationist bent reminds me of the '3 little pigs' -> Pig #3 is only 'smart' untill the wolf realizes it's easier to blow a house UP than huff, puff, and blow it down... At that point, pig #3's only hope to survival is to pick up a rifle & go wolf hunting, not hide behind his brick & stone walls...

From that, we get neo-conservatisim, which keeps traditional conservatisim's constitutional strict constructionalisim (Bush could do a tad better here -> CFR, but he's close), treats social policy as a local issue too trifling for Federal involvement (room for improvement, but he seems to mostly follow this), believes free markets can do no wrong (check), and completely abandons isolationisim - replacing it with the belief that the only way to protect our freedom at home is to bend world to the will of the USA, foreign opinion be damned (check, big time)...

That article hits it spot-on... Old-style conservatisim is just a desire to return to the past...

Neoconservatisim is conservatisim with a vision -> it outlines what things have been done wrong that need to be reversed (just like the old guys did), but also gives a direction for the future and a plan for a better (US dominated) world...

Dave_A:

I think you are trying to put GWB in a hole where he does not really fit.  He has been a very strong anti-abortion president, probably the strongest we have ever had.

If neocons support free trade, Bush's record on trade is mixed.  He imposed steeel tariffs and has been signed on to domestic farm subsidies.

The percentage of the GDP owned by the government is the highest it has been since WWII.  This is not due to high defense spending (it is historically quite low), but due to domestic pork.  Reagan restrained this pork.  Heck, the pork was more restrained under Clinton.

Of course your opinion that Bush supports "unregulated capitalisim at home" is ludicrous.  He has fooled around with a few regulations, but the has been no rollback of federal economic regulations.  See my sig line as to what Bush's opinion is as to the role of government.  It is very expansive, including the governments role in the economy.

I don't think you can say that Bush is really a neocon at all as you define it.

I would like to see this quote where Bush said "not troops for you" to the UN.  My suspicion is that this will end like the "deal" he made with Daschle on judges:  a total surrender.

You claim that "NCLB is an attempt to apply Reagan's cost-benefit principle to education."  Reagan, of course, did a cost benefit analysis on the federal government's role in eduction.  His solution:  eliminate the Department of Education.  You can't hide in Reagan's mantle there.  Remember, "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."

You give Bush A++.  I'll admit that he has done a fine job in Afghanistan, PATRIOT was long overdue, he did a very nice job on the tax cuts and you are certainly right that the gun issue has been quiet.  I am certainly not going to give him an F, and he is certainly the better choice than Kerry and Kerry is so bad it would be idiotic to throw your vote away on a 3rd party.

Bush is socially conservative, strong on defense, but a big government liberal when it comes to domestic policy.  For too many questions, his solution is a new government program.  I don't see why we have to hand out drugs to seniors or subsidize our already overpriced schools to fight terrorism.  They do not seem related.  In fact, we could probably afford a few more bombs or divisions if we were not wasting time on crap like that.  Reagan had his priorities and beat a foe far more dangerous than what we face now, and he didn't have to increase domestic spending to do it.

And all of this stuff about the US taking over the world financially is of course not going to happen so long as we run a current account deficit.  The opposite is happening, in part due to runaway federal spending.

And all of this stuff about the US taking over the world financially is of course not going to happen so long as we run a current account deficit. The opposite is happening, in part due to runaway federal spending.

What the federal goverment does with its money is meaningless.

Its US banks and busnesses in the PRIVATE sector that are going to take over the world financially. With the US Goverment forcing the way open for them.  The bulk of the Federal debt is STILL to US banks and bond holders.

You also PROVE exactly my point.  That true conservatives would not spend the money to fight. They are unwilling to make any capital investment in the future of the country.  They value their budget more than eliminating threats to the country and making the world safe for US businesses, who in the long run will be the ones paying the expense back.  As their volume of business increases so does the Federal Goverments income (without changng rates).

Quoted: And all of this stuff about the US taking over the world financially is of course not going to happen so long as we run a current account deficit. The opposite is happening, in part due to runaway federal spending. What the federal goverment does with its money is meaningless. Its US banks and busnesses in the PRIVATE sector that are going to take over the world financially. With the US Goverment forcing the way open for them.  The bulk of the Federal debt is STILL to US banks and bond holders.

The US current account deficit is definately effected by the budget deficit.  We are having to sell assets (bonds, businesses, etc.) in order to buy goods (oil, cheap crap from China, etc.).  The current account and budget deficits have both expanded rapidly under the Bush administration.