Subversive Thoughts for April 15
The New York Times takes note of Sean Scallon’s recent TAC essay oon the conservative side of Jimmy Carter. He was no Wilhelm Roepke, of course, but Carter’s “malaise” speech included some quite Roepkian socio-economic ideas. Scallon’s story, as well as Dermot Quinn’s new essay on Roepke, is a timely reminder of the “demand” side to our economic crisis. The American public has been led by politicians over the last several decades to expect everything for nothing–easy credit, oceans of oil, limitless growth, low taxes, and an extensive welfare state. And of course, the world’s biggest military. (See Jeff Huber’s “Sticker Shock and Awe.”)
Having written the largest check of my life to the IRS a few days ago, I’m as ready for a tax revolt as anyone. (There I go being a right-wing extremist again.) But there are social and spiritual dimensions to our woes as well as purely economic and political ones, as the Scallon and Quinn pieces show.
Speaking of right-wing extremism, if you haven’t yet read Philip Jenkins’s “Terror Begins at Home,” perhaps the most prophetic essay of the year, be sure to do so. Jenkins recounts the 60-year history of hysteria about domestic terrorism under Democratic administrations.
Jenkins’ article is pretty prophetic considering all these DHS and state DHS reports on dangerous Ron Paul supporters. I didn’t think the Obama Administration would be suchs fools to turn the so-called “War on Terrorism” into a domestic issue but I was wrong.
OT but is anyone here going to comment on Ron Paul’s plan to grant letters of marque to US citizens and have them patrol the Gulf of Aden as privateers? There’s a lot of Ron Paul suporters on these pages so I’d love to hear your opinions.
Sorry for going OT on ya.
Sean, Obama didn’t commission that report and there is absolutely nothing new in it. Anyone with a functioning brain could have told anyone who would listen that militias will become popular again when a dem takes office. It’s not left wing propoaganda. Most people who join militias are right wing and when a left wing government is in power the right gets angry. When the right is in charge they feel their grievances are going to be addressed so they quiet down. No one expects another OK City but there will be pamphlets and speechifying about a left wing takeover. And since the noise will come from conservative outlets it’s not wrong to call it a right wing conspiracy. That’s how it looks. It’s just an observation.
Did you feel the same when the FBI was trying to infiltrate PETA using ‘War on Terrorism’ powers? Is it only bad if DHS is looking at right wing domestic groups?
Regarding the issue of our Presidents for the past few decades taking us on a seemingly cost-free ride, which has now come to an end, I highly recommend Andrew Bacevich’s “The Limits of Power.” I’m only part-way through, but that is a major theme so far.
Those of us who were adults during Jimmy Carter’s presidency are less inclined to recognize conservative principles in any of his utterances. The man had many chances to advance practical conservative policies. Confusing his nattering and scolding with a conservative manifesto of responsibility misreads the man and certainly didn’t strike people that way at the time.
Carter was a president during difficult times. He needed to rise to the occasion. He did not. He was not, and is not, a big man or a deep man. He attempted to undermine every President that followed him. He is a self-righteous humbug of the first water and it’s difficult to understand the impulse to claim this comprehensive failure as one of us.
Rawshark,
Your OT remarks usually make me tune you out, but this was pretty interesting. For anyone else who’s interested, here’s a link to Ron Paul’s speech in the House:
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2001/cr092501.htm
And again, your second comment shows that you still think you’re conversing with conservatives that have been Hannitized. Keep reading, though, partner. I’m starting to think that you might have a suspicion that you’re actually a conservative, and so you’re compelled to raise the objections that will be levied by your friends if you ever “come out” as a “c” word.
Paul’s been talking about letters of marque and reprisal since 9/11, but here are his comments from today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql7l2aQop-o
Re: Carter, as someone who was not born until the beginning of Reagan’s second term, yea he was a pretty lousy President but for all his faults both political and personal (those I’ve known who knew him tell me he was extremely vindictive) it seems to me impossible to deny his deep tempermental conservatism.
In addition to the matters at issue here, and his known social conservatism, I refer everyone to his recent essay critical of Lincoln and the rush to war by both north and south, and the vitriolic denunciation of it by Ira Stoll in the New York Daily News.
“Sean, Obama didn’t commission that report and there is absolutely nothing new in it.”
Well, yes, that’s one of its problems. Aside from the alleged RKBA obsessive who shot three policemen, there is very little recent detail. What is there is significant speculation about a “Return to the ’90s.” Had the report been more willing or more able to name active threats, it wouldn’t be as controversial.
And with respect to the substance of Dan’s blog, I’m glad to see him make this point and step back from the bizarre GOP absorption of the trappings at least of the Ron Paul movement.
To the extent that this is happening, it confirms my iron law of right-wing movements: they all eventually morph into the horribly unjust caricature their enemies originally make them out to be. Major cases in point are Regnery/Human Events and the original paleos.
Speaking of which, regarding the reports about “domestic extremism”, yes it is appalling and disturbing to see all the usual suspects on the left doing their thing, but I can only have so much sympathy as long as the targets are Fox News and its confederates rather than the real patriots targeted in the 90s.
Rawshark, Jack Tracey is right.
I don’t remember the PETA incident speficically, but the government intrusions into our regular mundane lives is absolutely something that the typical AmConMag reader is indeed opposed to.
Having said that, are you prepared to oppose Obama’s war drumming?
I dare say none of *us* are surprised that he seems to be planning a march on Africa. We just thought that the occupation would begin in Darfur.
“Most people who join militias are right wing and when a left wing government is in power the right gets angry. When the right is in charge they feel their grievances are going to be addressed so they quiet down.”
I’d have more respect for them if they headed for the hills during Bush II’s tenure. Apparently some people think the government suddnely grew tenfold the minute Obama took office. It’s pathetic.
” it’s difficult to understand the impulse to claim this comprehensive failure as one of us.”
One of whom? Our tree house club? Our little tribe? Our ghetto? Our “movement?” I’ll save you the trouble and say I claim Carter for no group, party and or faction (which he would probably be happy about).
What I wrote concerned a speech that has turned out to be a very important one, a turning point if you will, in American politics, economics, history aned society in this, its 30th anniversary. I wanted to show that it had rhetoric in it that could be considered traditional conservative but had had been obscured by politics. I wanted to show the address was not some Jeremiah Wright hate America speech but one by a patriot concerned about America’s economic priorities whether you agreed with him or not.
You are right Tom that Carter did not rise to the occasion in difficult times. That’s why the speech ultimately failed. But as for self-righteousness, I find it interesting you accuse Carter for being a Puritan for asking you to turn the thermostat down and yet I don’t remeber you being critical of a Republican Party and conservative movement that tolerated and even courted men like Falwell, Dobson and Robertson who had plenty to say about American’s viewing and reading habits and their sex lives. Were they self-righteous too or is okay to be self-righteous so long as you are taking about sex and not about consumption as Carter was? If that’s the case then whatever meaning conservatism may once have had is truly lost.
I’m thrilled about the Tea Parties and all of the coverage they’ve gotten, but it is an undeniable fact that taxation is only the second worst thing the government can do to it’s citizen’s pocketbooks.
Inflation, which Republicans have sometimes favored over taxation, is the devaluing of the currency. As prices rise higher than wages (and that is what happens) Americans are squeezed. The tax code is somewhat “progressive” in that higher rates are charged as one’s income rises. Inflation, on the other hand, hurts the people at the bottom, because they don’t get access to the newly plentiful money until it’s circulated for a while.
There is absolutely nothing conservative about eschewing taxation in favor of borrowing. Not only is it shortsighted (because the debt builds up, obviously), it is also inequitable, confusing, and dangerous.
Getting rid of the IRS would be nice, but the FED is what has ruined this country. The IRS is mere windowdressing…
Jack, at the risk of being mean spirited, I always attributed the conservative” aspects of his temperment to some sort of clinical depression.
Sean, where did I write that Carter was a Puritan? He was and is self righteous. I write this as a reflection on his public statements and actions. His endless show of the outward signs of humility is so transparent that I’m surprised that anyone is taken in by them. Perhaps I’ve spent too many years around politicians.
Let me give one example. On an NPR radio interview thumping the tub for one of his many self serving books, he told a tale of life in Plains Georgia. Part of the tale was to inform us that he still teaches Sunday school. The second part was to inform us that he instructs all the little children to address him as “Jimmy.” Of course the whole function of the exercise is to burnish his image as a Podunk Cincinnatus. Sean, truly humble people do not strive to show us how humble they are, self righteous people do. His entire public life has been like this, and those of us with functioning crap detectors resent it.
If you don’t remember my taking the Conservative Movement to task for courting the Falwells et al. it must be because the knowledge you have of my writing or other political activity is via my comments in TAC. I’m fairly obscure, but if you had read my blog or did the smallest amount of digging, you would know that I’ve been attacking the corn pone – AIPAC axis for a long, long time.
As to sex, self righteousness and thermostats, I haven’t given this a great deal of thought. I suspect that Falwell, Dobson and Robertson and Carter all have similar, rather orthodox views on sexual relations. Personally, I find sex better with the thermostat down a bit. But opinions differ on this.
I wouldn’t worry over much about consumption as the indicus of the meaning of Conservatism. The denizens of East Germany consumed very little and weren’t conservatives at all and Jimmy Carter would have fit in in a curious sort of way.
No doubt Tom you did your patriotic duty on Sept. 12, 2001 and shopped to you dropped.
I was in law enforcement at the time Sean, what were you doing?