Really? In NYC, perhaps. But not in TAC!

If you cannot see that to define politics in terms of economics, rather than the other way round, is Marxism, I don’t care. You’re a moron, remember?

Meanwhile, TAC readers and writers will need no explanation that conservatives, by definition, approve only of economic and political arrangements that conserve such good things as national self-government, local variation, historical consciousness, family life (founded on the marital union of one man and one woman), the whole Biblical and Classical patrimony of the West, agriculture, manufacturing, small business, close-knit communities, law and order, civil liberties, academic standards, all forms of art, mass political participation within a constitutional framework, and respect for the absolute sanctity of each individual human life from the point of fertilization to the point of natural death.

If anything doesn’t do that, then it is not conservative. By definition. And if it does, then it is. By definition.

The historically illiterate ideas that Americans have always been suspicious of any government activity whatever, and have always been prepared to use military force to advance “freedom and democracy” all over the place, not only cannot both be true, but simply are not conservative, by definition.

I am a conservative living in New York City. Never been disagreed with? Come on…

In America we call “conservativism”, what is roughly classical liberalism. If you are unable to comprehend that classical liberalism is exactly the opposite of Marxism, meh, I don’t care. You’re a moron, remember?

I think you’re demented. It’s a weird day indeed where I long for the relative normalcy of Nathan P. Oringer. You can go back to your own planet, now… thanks.

Not that I’ve noticed.

“Allow me to repeat”

Try and stop you, I fear.

“Allow me to repeat”

High praise indeed, coming from someone who can see no fault in Reagan or Dubya, cannot see why anyone would have anything against Glenn Beck, and cannot see why anyone would be too bothered about the Iraq war.

The less said about the bad undergraduate summary of Marxism that follows, the better. Likewise, the description of Obama as a Marxist, when in fact this Adminstrtion SUCCEEDED one full of them, and entirely dependent on them intellectually.

Saul Alinsky’s chosen successor was and is a member of Opus Dei. Are they Marxists, too? And anyway, Alinksy is nothing compared to Krauthamer, the Kristols, and that crowd. Yet I doubt if anyone beyond Obama and maybe a couple of others in the present Adminstration ever met Alinksy. Had anyone in the Bush Administration not met, and rather more than met, Krauthamer, the Kristols, and that crowd?

“the modern environmental movement is run by socialists”

If you define “Socialism” as “anything I happen to dislike”, yes. There is a growing left-wing opposition to the re-restriction of travel to the rich, the arresting or retarding of economic development in the poor world, and the destruction of high-wage, high-skilled, high-status jobs for the working class in general and working-class men in particular. Within the Democratic Party, conservatives could make common cause on that basis. You, on the other hand, being a Reaganite rather than a conservative, doubtless think that such re-restriction, arresting, retarding and destruction are thoroughly good things, putting you on the same side as the hardline Greens.

And if you think that it is possible simultaneously to be a Marxist and a Keynesian, then you have certainly never spoken to, or even read, a Marxist on the subject of Keynesianism (not a perfect system, since none is; but a serviceable one).

Since this is a conservative site, how, exactly, does your favored system conserve even so much as ONE of national self-government, local variation, historical consciousness, family life (founded on the marital union of one man and one woman), the whole Biblical and Classical patrimony of the West, agriculture, manufacturing, small business, close-knit communities, law and order, civil liberties, academic standards, all forms of art, mass political participation within a constitutional framework, and respect for the absolute sanctity of each individual human life from the point of fertilization to the point of natural death? I submit that it is utterly corrosive of all of them.

And I submit that to define politics in terms of economics, rather than the other way round, is Marxism. To say that any one or more of these things must go because the economics require it, is Marxism.

To what “piece” about localism are you referring?

“A final thought, to wrap things up”

We should be so lucky.

In fact, you should be so lucky. You really have never been disagreed with in your life, have you? You have never dealt with anyone whom you could not fire, or possibly evict. You have absolutely no idea how to deal with it.

Your entire intellectual edifice is muddled and incomprehensible.

Attention – this is me calling you a moron, not communist, not a marxist, not a socialist, but a moron.

I reprint this here:

Fortunately, at least after reading this post you can consider yourself semi-literate in the ideas of Marx, and I won’t have to act dually as a debater and an educator.

Marxism is a German synthesis of ideas, combining thought from the disciplines of economics, philosophy, and spurious interpretations of history. The endgame for Marxists is Socialism – the simultaneous consummation of man’s achievement and the end of history. It is held together through a perversion of Hegel’s dialectic: dialectic materialism. What does this concept contend?

1) Society is an outgrowth of the tools employed in production. Therefore it follows that the plow and the cart created feudalism, the factory and the steam engine created capitalism, and the new tools of the future will lead to socialism. The dialectic is the interaction of society and the tools employed.
2) The superstructure of society – itself an outgrowth of the tools employed (what one may call capital goods) – leads to the creation of classes. The class one is born into shapes ones thoughts. It is impossible for one to think outside his class, and in fact communication between classes is impossible because one’s conception of truth is determined by class.
3) There are two classes: the proletariat, and the bourgeoisie; the proletariat is exploited by the bourgeoisie. It always has been and always will be, until the eschaton – socialism. This exploitation grows increasingly more burdensome as society progresses from feudalism to capitalism, until finally the oppression is enough and the proletariat stage a revolution.
4) This revolution will establish socialism – it will socialize the means of production – the capital goods, the tools that determine the class structure. It necessarily entails an abolition of private property and the market system. This is the revolution our president is spearheading.

[I am not going to delve into the fallacies in Marxian economics, but if you are interested I would recommend reading about the labor theory of value (LTV) and the essay "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth" by Ludwig von Mises.]

You say that Marx’s ideas are long-discredited. This is true, of course: they were discredited back in the 1800s. But that does not change the fact that the current president is a Marxist, like his mentor Saul Alinsky. It does not change the fact that the modern environmental movement is run by socialists. It does not change the fact that Keynesian economics – the doctrinal system of our universities -are sympathetic to socialism. It also does not change the fact that even our so-called free market financial press takes many of the Marxian assumptions in its writing.

Socialism is no longer just abstract and discredited; it is historically proved to be a system of slavery. This was predicted by many social theorists, including Tocqueville. In the end, the will of a nation’s citizenry must be directed by a central ego, or a small planning board.

Now, in direct and irreconcilable contrast to Socialism, to Marxism, is the free market system. Anyone who advocates government coercion to guide us sheep back to localism – agrarianism, so say the authors of that piece – is a functional Marxist. It necessary involves restricting our economic freedom (private property rights, that is), and the freedom of enterprise to engage in large scale profitable activity. If you contend that this idea of localism is in no way political, then why bother advocating it? Live your life on a kibbutz, on your own private property – just leave MINE alone.

A final thought, to wrap things up. The future does not belong to those who insist on returning to what they perceive as an uncorrupted past. Socialist authors and totalitarians alike agitate for the return to their own version of their idyllic bygone era. Change is one of the few certainties in life, and we should embrace it prudently. Progress is a good thing assuming we, as moral humans, do not throw out the baby with the bathwater. The authors of that piece and apparently all localists are really closer to advocating the static conditions of socialism than they realize.

This is why they’re neo-Marxists. They accept his terms of the debate. Disagree with me on what you will.

Why don’t you? I think we know why not.

“I admit I’ve never heard of Schachtman”

Then you don’t know what you are talking about.

“I’ll let you figure out why you’re so much closer to [Marx] than I”

Well, I can’t see it. In true Thatcher-Reagan-neocon fashion, you have merely changed Marxism’s ending so the bourgeoise wins. You even claim to loathe the idea of a bourgeoise (truly bizarrely seeing it as a product of “big government”), despite obviously being a member of it; nothing could be more Marxist than that, all the way back to Marx himself.

And in true Thatcher-Reagan-neocon fashion, you retain the Marxist dialectical materialism, the definition of politics in terms of economics rather than the other way round; the Leninist vanguard elitism, and reliance on religious and other Useful Idiots; the Trotskyist entryism, and belief in the permanent revolution; and the Stalinist belief that the dictatorship of the victorious class (in this case, the bourgeoisie) must be created in one country before being exported throughout the world, including by force of arms, while vanguard elites owe their patriotic allegiance to that country instead of to their own.

I admit I’ve never heard of Schachtman, and am not exactly planning on reading his biography.

If you think I’m a follower of Marx in any way, shape, or form, well…. I’ll let you figure out why you’re so much closer to him than I.

If you are going to classify me as anything besides an American conservative, call me a classical liberal. I don’t know what I’d classify you as, but attention hungry.

What are your ideas on on trade, immigration, the status of English, corporate power, corporate welfare, big lobbyists, the constitutional rights violated by the Bush Administration, helping those on low and middle incomes, reducing abortion, defending traditional marriage, a realistic foreign policy, or a strong defense capability used strictly for its properly defensive purpose? By what are they informed? What is your idea as to how to get them implemented?

So far as I can tell, you do not even agree with these things, yet somehow purport to be a conservative. You cannot even see why anyone would be too bothered about the Iraq War! You are just a spewer of the toxic neoconservative brew of Strauss, Rand and Marx-Lenin-Trotsky-Shachtman, as marketted to the masses by Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly and Beck. Who, apparently like you, have certainly never heard of Strauss, Rand or Shachtman, and probably not of Trotsky, either. They are, and you are, what Lenin called Useful Idiots.

Catholic Social Teaching lay at the heart of political movements that successfully saw off serious Communist threats in Western Europe and the Old Anglosphere before and after the War.

Where the system that you prefer has been and is being implemented, there have been and are routinely mass membership Communist Parties with real influence, armed Marxist insurrections, and so on. Or rising, if not risen, political Islam. Or both.

Leo XIII was right. Of course.