Lawrence Auster has a good piece on Obama that discusses the pros and cons of his election, which the chief positive being that he would focus conservatives and purify our beliefs, something I argued in May. I still believe this would happen, and it would happen in a particularly healthy way: his overreach, enabled by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, could revive our respect for limited government and the traditional criticisms of the welfare state, remind us of our latent wariness of foreign adventures, and hopefully degrade the health of political correctness and taboos on race and immigration. The latter is particularly important, and would depend upon his policies revealing themselves (as they have been his entire career) to be narrowly tribal and tinged with the rhetoric of class warfare rather than unifying in any normal sense of the term. Arguably, this radicalization was the effect of the Carter Administration, which functioned as a capstone of the craziness of the 1970s. Only after that long and dark decade could Reagan explicitly attack the pro-government, pro-welfare, anti-defense, and anti-American foundations of much of contemporary liberalism. In other words, the times created Reagan as much as he responded to the times; only really tough times made worse by Obama’s policies could revive a healthy conservative political voice in American life. Continuing with the faux conservatism of Bush or McCain, which is in fact populist militarism, would discredit conservatism on many fronts: this approach does not work, it is not responsible, it causes too many conservatives to compromise on their core principles, and such policies, by rejecting free markets and replacing them with managed corporate welfare, does not command the respect of the vast majority of natural conservatives among small businessmen, folks that take pride in self-sufficiency, and the “leave us alone” coalition in general.
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The “leave us alone coalition” is often described, but rarely seen in the wild; we’ve become a nation of pussies.
Nice article. The problem though with your analysis is that Reagan was able to do what he did because it was 1980. There was still some fight left in us. Almost 30 years later and Whites have allowed themselves to be beaten senseless by Political Correctness. Obama can be seen as a symptom of that.
Today, there are less Whites, we’re mostly older, and many just do not care anymore.
Fact is, we’re in the process of being bullied to death. Literally. And we seem to think that if the bully would just listen to us then we could talk some sense into him and things would change.
But the bully is having far too much fun knocking us senseless and won’t stop until we’re dead. In the meantime we have become the inverse of fanatics who gladly go to their death for a cause. We just lay there and take it – and probably will until we’re dead.
Actually, I say “we” out of politeness. Personally, I have no intention of taking what is most definitely coming lying down.
The gospel on conservatism’s sustenance never fails to amaze. Of the purist, breath one is often a wistful rhapsody and breath two an over-sought bereavement.
Comes now Obama, it is said, acting like some split-personality prince of darkness and prince of peace, ready to invite the latter and to incite the former. Tears of sorrow to be followed by tears of joy. Need we count the ways.
Except the political equation-the political ambience- is not, shall we say, so black and white an issue. No man, no moment, dictates the fabric of our (hard-right) political soul. It is not subject to piracy. Need I remind you of J.Sobran’s brilliant musings (from “Pensees”) that it is the gratitude of things (more than the platitude of things) that account for conservatism’s core. Or let him speak for Burke who said (to instantiate the point) that “a constitution ought to be the subject of enjoyment rather than altercation. ”
Indeed, the hallmark of true conservatism, unlike the vacuity of liberalism and bubblegum GOP conservativism, is that it transcends the vicissitudes and fashions of the day. Constancy and tradition defines legitimate conservatism, and no amount of well-oiled, snake-oiled slogans on change will disturb that axiom.
Please disabuse yourself of the notion that new-age GOP conservatives McCain and Palin or activists Obama and Pelosi dizziness are needed for conservative revanchism. The cause is merely on pause for a hiccup, for a schtick that allows the huddled masses to rediscover their grounding.
In short, Obama stands athwart from conservatism’s ineluctable destiny and design.
Praise the lord.