Sep
7
MNR (updated)
September 7, 2009 | 1 Comment
A society without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. – Edmund Burke
Kicking me out of the NWO? I’m kicking you out of the NWO. – Randy Savage
Well it wouldn’t be a week in the conservosphere without a bunch of navel gazing posts about the future of the conservative movement, most of it centered around the problem of extremists within. The latest round got started over a week or so ago when Jon Henke of the blog The Next Right called for the shunning of World Net Daily. His co-blogger Patrick Ruffini jumped on the bandwagon and waxed nostalgic for the days of William F. Buckley going medieval on the Birchers with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch. (Or maybe just a written denunciation. It was a brutal smackdown either way.) This prompted Robert Stacy McCain, no doubt rejuvenated from feeding off of the blood of dead babies, to reply here and here. Some dude named Conor jumped in the fray but his contribution was meaningless, so we can skip his part. Dan Riehl added some thoughts as well.
Personally speaking WND doesn’t do much for me, but it’s not much worse than The American Conservative. I’d happily denounce any outrageous statement coming from any organization, but organizing a jihad against it is not at the top of my to-do list right now.
Finally today Rick Moran added his voice to the discussion, and he terms the battle as one between ideologues and realists (or pragmatists). Gee, I wonder where his sympathy lies.
With the absolute refusal of the ideologues to abandon their purge of who they consider less than ideologically pure conservatives, and with the pragmatists fighting what amounts to a rear guard action to marginalize the crazies who are, if not embraced then certainly tolerated by the revanchists, there is no “common purpose” that could lead to any amicability or respect.
I generally like the New Right blog. Unlike the New Majoritarians, the majority of the bloggers don’t seem intent on redefining conservatism and turning into some sort of spineless bit of moderate drek. Sadly Rick Moran, like so many of the pretenders to the mantle of Burkean conservatism, cites the great philosopher in the same way a pro-choice Catholic selectively quotes Church leaders in order to defend their intransigent stances.
Moran presents a rather distorted account of things. By his telling you would think that moderates were minding their own business one day, when out of nowhere the angry, pitchfork-wielding extremists came to purge them from the party. Sadly the opposite is closer to the truth. Ever since the election moderates have been attempting to make the case that conservatives need to change their positions on any number of issues, but most especially socially ones. We’ve been told we have to change our attitudes about gay marriage and abortion lest we face dire electoral consequences, ignoring first of all the polling data that indicates that they are wrong, but more important denying our deeply held principles. Conservatism without social conservatism is simply not conservatism, and yet these moderates would have us squash all of our fundamental beliefs for the sake of electoral gains which will never arrive if we follow their advice.
It is in fact the so-called ideologues who have been fighting a rear-guard action and standing up for Burkean principles. We refuse to simply abandon the foundations of conservatism, and for this we have been mocked and belittled by unprincipled incompetents like David Frum, whose sole concern is electoral victory, as though that the were the most cherished principle in the universe. Uninterested in fighting the good fight and standing up for traditional values – you know, kind of like Burke would suggest we do – these wimps would rather turn tail and run and go along with the supposed prevailing wisdom. We should call these losers the Vichy conservatives for the amount of fortitude they display.
Even non-Vichy conservatives have gotten on my nerves. For all the bellyaching about Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, they’ve actually accomplished things. The folks at the Next Right think that politics is one giant version of the Yale debating society. Now who’s being idealistic? The true realists are the ones who long ago learned that the left loves to fight in the mud, and the only way to hit back is to get in the mud with them. As the left continues to demagogue, play the race card, and utilize the mass media to its advantage, it doesn’t do much good for our side to whine about the uncouth among us. Yeah, because the whackjobs on the left like Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, ACORN, Code Pink, etc. really harmed the left’s electoral chances the last two election cycles. Clearly all those erudite intellectuals who made Socratic appeals to deep principles were the ones who led the Democratic party to victory. You know, guys like . . . umm, you know . . . errr, yeah.
I’m sure we’ll go through another round of this meaningless infighting. And another. And another. And someone else on the right will bitch about something Rush Limbaugh will say, at least as reported by Media Matters. Meanwhile Barack Obama will have appointed a “toilet paper distribution” czar with a $723846782467 budget who thinks that people who use more than three square per use should be sent to re-education camps.
But at least we sure have our priorities straight.
Update: A pair of great posts on this subject from the Classical Liberal.
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[...] MNR: Moran presents a rather distorted account of things. By his telling you would think that moderates were minding their own business one day, when out of nowhere the angry, pitchfork-wielding extremists came to purge them from the party. Sadly the opposite is closer to the truth. Ever since the election moderates have been attempting to make the case that conservatives need to change their positions on any number of issues … ignoring first of all the polling data that indicates that they are wrong, but more important denying our deeply held principles … [...]