Conservative Heritage Times

So says Washington Watcher:

VDARE.com wrote extensively about Ron Paul’s mixed but interesting immigration record during the 2008 campaign, including an interview he did with Peter Brimelow. Back then we noted that he was generally good on the issues of amnesty, sovereignty, welfare for illegal aliens, and above all birthright citizenship (of which very few professional politicians had then heard). He was bad on E-Verify and Real ID. And his positions on legal immigration were disturbingly vague.

But as the 2008 campaign wore on, it became clear that Paul had no idea how to use the immigration issue, with the result that the chameleon Mike Huckabee and the amnestiac John McCain (!!) regularly outpolled him among self-reported immigration patriots—greatly to the disgrace of his campaign managers.

Since the presidential primaries, Paul has been virtually silent. His post-campaign book, The Revolution, did not mention immigration at all.

Paul’s congressional website’s platform for 2010 was identical to that for 2008. He called for increased border security, rejection of amnesty, an end to birthright citizenship, no welfare for illegals, and a vague “true reform” of legal immigration.

On the legislative front, Paul has been Missing In Action. He voted against the DREAM Act, but has not co-sponsored any significant piece of immigration legislation.

Now, at last, Paul has finally given a comprehensive discussion of his views on immigration—in his latest book Liberty Defined, where he lists his positions on fifty different issues.

But what he—or the left-libertarian faction that seems to have his ear/ byline after the strange death of Rothbardian paleolibertarianism—actually says about the issue of immigration is a profound, and in fact tragic, disappointment.

Ominously, Paul begins by trying to triangulate between the Open Borders Left and a non-existent restrictionist straw man.

[Continue reading and you will find that Paul is beginning to sound more like Barack Obama and Newt Gingrich on immigration.]

In 2008, I gave Paul’s campaign money and voted for him in the primary.  This time around, however, if Ron Paul has in fact become a Newt Gingrich on immigration, I won’t support him.

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See it here.

The site looks good, but one unsolicited piece of advice I would give him is that he needs to get his own domain name. I had a hard time finding the site.

Here is his Roy Moore for President Facebook page.

(Also, on a curious side note, the “Qualifications” section used to contain a copy of Moore’s long form birth certificate which has now been removed.)

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I said at the time that Ron Paul’s vote on repealing DADT is going to hurt him if he decided to run for President again. It has already started.

The problem with his vote to repeal DADT is that it contributes to two impression that Ron Paul is going to have to overcome to do well in Republican primaries and caucuses - that he endorses moral relativism (as libertarians, rightly or wrongly, are perceived by many to do) and that he is weak on the military.

First of all, an authentic conservative should be “weak” on the military because the military needs to be radically downsized to a size appropriate to defend the country instead of run an empire, but voters in Republican primaries aren’t there yet. Also, there is a difference between making a principled case for downsizing the military and forcing on them a PC policy they didn’t want. This gives military hawks who don’t like Paul’s non-interventionism a weapon to attack him. This is clearly what uber-hawk Donnelly is doing in the linked article.

Second, Paul’s libertarianism and strict constitutionalism sometimes runs him afoul of some “values voters” who want the federal government to “do something” about this or that moral issue, but Paul has always been good about finessing those issues on principle without coming off like a libertarian moral relativist. 

But, IMO, the DADT issue can’t be finessed in such a way. The military is a decidedly unlibertarian institution by its very nature. It prohibits and requires all sorts of things. There is no reason it can’t prohibit homosexual behavior in its ranks if it believes such to be contrary to good order and discipline. You can’t impose libertarianism on the military. If so, why not repeal all the regulations regarding hair length or uniform wear?

Don’t get me wrong, I still support Ron Paul for President. This isn’t a deal breaker for me, but while I can argue against federal drug laws or a federal definition of marriage on principled constitutionalist grounds, I can’t defend his vote on DADT.

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Many people on the Left are quite beside themselves criticizing the royal wedding. And adding insult to injury, Prince William did not invite the Affirmative Action King of the World to the wedding. (A wise decision, in my estimation.  Do you really want an insecure megalomaniac trying to steal the spotlight talking about how “interesting” he is to anyone bored enough to listen?)

Although the aristocracy may not be what it once was (see my thoughts on aristocracy), people of the European Diaspora generally are still fascinated by the idea of royality. Outside of the UK tomorrow in democratic (read managerial/therapeutic) states, the eyes of most people with English blood in their veins will be turned toward Albion.  Like the prick of a needle, perhaps it’s a reminder of the West that once was.

May His and Her Royal Highness, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, have a memorable wedding ceremony tomorrow (and some privacy from the media afterwards)!

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Last week, the Providence College Republicans hosted Richard Spencer, editor of AlternativeRight.com. As you can see from this report and embedded video, foul-mouthed “antifa” interrupted Spencer’s talk twice, once at 2:38 into the video, and again at 4:00 in. The second time, they poured into the room like circus clowns from a clown car, showing off their costumes, their self-righteousness, and, um, piercings, like the knucklehead in shining armor pictured above.

Watch Spencer keep his cool, and even try to hide his amusement at times. One member of the audience responded to the chief antifa spokesgoon with, “Get a latte!” which evoked knowing snickers. Gee, I wonder where that came from?

Despite the noise and profanity, which is all these antifa types are capable of, the talk continued. The antifa didn’t silence anyone.

Still, this bothers me for a couple of reasons. It would’ve been profoundly satisfying if campus security had hauled these brats to timeout, but it looks like they took off because they just got tired of throwing their tantrum. You can’t hold your breath forever after you turn blue.

Also, I wonder if the College Republicans would’ve gotten off so easy if they’d interrupted a meeting of, say, the Self-Hating Whites Club.

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We are told “Put not your trust in princes”, which is pretty sound advice. Indeed, Raimondo’s latest column at Antiwar.com hit the point hard.

But it should be pointed out the people who say this are older and thus wiser by their experiences. But I myself am still fairly young (not quite 40) and thus I still have enough youthful and foolish idealism left for one more fling with a presidential campaign, that being Ron Paul’s in 2012.

In what form this takes I do not know but I don’t expect it will be standing on a street corner during a parade handing out flyers. I hope its something worthwhile and even if it isn’t I really don’t care. I’m happy to see Ron Paul get back in the ring for one last serious try before I grow old and completely cynical as one naturally does. I’m sure there are many who have done the same before they finally grow up, one last attempt at glory.

The 2007-08 Ron Paul campaign experience was a  lot fun and a wonderful experience, even if we didn’t win anything.  This would be true even if it was in vain, but it wasn’t. I believe and evidence backs me up the campaign accomplished a lot in changing politics, even if for the long haul as Raimondo says.

We are told not to put our trust in princes and yet most people at least one prince they admire strongly or feel they’ve been influenced by or whose lives they’ve been impacted by. For some it’s Ronald Reagan, others John F. Kennedy, still others Franklin Roosevelt, Barry Goldwater, Robert Taft or Paul Wellstone etc. Myself and many others feel the same way about Ron Paul, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this.

So here we are again, four years later on the cusp of another campaign. If I lose my youthful idealism in the process, I’ll happily fling it away dreaming than have kept it to myself for nothing. Sometimes you need a big, successful campaign to show those in it for the “long haul” they can be rewarded for their work someday. With this, hopefully I’ll see you all in Ames once again.

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Want to know how our efforts in Afghanistan are being appreciated by the Afghans themselves? Well one of our erstwhile allies whom we were sent to liberate repaid us with killing nine U.S. servicemen in cold blood. I’m glad to see they’re so greatful as to shoot us. Here we are putting our lives on the frontline just so Afghans can kill us in the back. And get this, you’re paying for it!

Just come home.

Some more articles for your consideration…

Charles Murray’s recent lecture shows us the racial divide isn’t as great as the classist divide.

From Antiwar.com: “Rescue the GOP from the Interventionists”

From J.J Jackson at Liberty Reborn “The Psuedo-Conservatives Wail”

From SARTRE at BATR: “Hedge Fund Speculators and their Poverty Premiums.”

Ron Paul critque’s Ben Bernake’s groundbreaking press conference, the one Paul forced the Fed Chairman to make given his attacks upon the institution.

Pat Buchanan over at Chronicles: “When Dictators Fall, who Rises?

Leon Hadar at TAC: “Israel’s Other Demographic Problem”

Thomas Naylor at Second Vermont Republic: “Small Nation Neutrality, An Alternative to Obsessive Compulsive Military Might”

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From the AP:

Obama spoke shortly after the White House released a copy of the long form of his birth certificate, which contains more extensive data than a version released earlier.

The certificate says Obama was born to an American mother and Kenyan father, in Hawaii, which makes him eligible to hold the office of president. Obama released a standard short form before he was elected in 2008 but requested copies of his original birth certificate from Hawaii officials this week in hopes of quieting the controversy.

Until Wednesday, the White House had insisted that the short form certificate was the appropriate legal document confirming Obama’s birth and no further proof was needed.

The newly released certificate is signed by the delivery doctor, Obama’s mother and the local registrar. His mother, then 18, signed her name (Stanley) Ann Dunham Obama.

The form says Barack Hussein Obama II was born at 7:24 p.m. on Aug. 4, 1961, at Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital, within the city limits of Honolulu.

There’s no mention of religion. It says his father, Barack Hussein Obama, age 25, was African and born in Kenya and his mother was Caucasian and born in Wichita, Kan. Obama’s mother and the doctor signed the certificate on Aug. 7 and 8.

Hawaii’s registrar certified the new photocopy of the document provided to the White House on April 25, 2011.

Hopefully the matter is at last closed, though Obama should have released this long form years ago…

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This shouldn’t surprise anyone:

Forest Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company best known for its anti-depressant products, is in a pickle. Six months ago, the company settled allegations it improperly marketed its Lexapro and Celexa products by paying a $313 million fine to the feds. End of story, right? Not so fast. In a new development, the Obama administration is threatening to ban the company’s CEO, Howard Solomon, from doing business with the government, essentially giving Forest’s board of directors an ultimatum to fire him or watch the company collapse as it loses sales to, for example, Medicare beneficiaries.

From day one, we’ve condemned Obama’s unconstitutional usurpation of Congress’ authority to declare war. The pro-war, any-war crowd that whooped it up when Obama gave them a new, glorious display of American arms to cheer on didn’t think about the domestic implications of an increasingly imperial presidency. But then, they never do.

So if Obama can decree regime change in Libya, what’s to stop him from doing the same at Forest Labs?

An interventionist foreign policy and interventionist domestic policy reinforce and complement each other. Ask not whom the unmanned drone targets, it targets you.

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In order not to clutter up the site with multiple links only posts, I will combine some Ron Paul and Donald Trump related links of interest in a single post. My minimal commentary will follow some of the links.

Ron Paul gets a little love from The Hill. In the same blog post The Donald gets dissed.

Bussiness Insider also give Paul a little love and respect.

Public Policy Polling says we should take Paul seriously.

Politico has the story on Paul’s announcement. This story irked me a bit. It begins:

“Ron Paul will move one step closer to a long-shot presidential bid Tuesday, when he announces the formation of an exploratory committee in Iowa.”

Ron Paul’s campaign honestly is a “long-shot,” but it is poor form for the allegedly neutral Politico to inject that editorial description of the campaign into its story, especially in the first sentence.

Trump questions how Obama got into Harvard Law School. The reigning assumption of a lot of people including Trump (and Wayne Allyn Root who has harped on this issue a lot) seems to be that Obama is not disclosing his school records because his grades were poor, and this seems likely true, but I also think he may not want his school records revealed because they might reveal he attended school as a foreign student or have some other embarrassing information. So the focus shouldn’t just be on grades. That said, it is good that this issue is being brought up because it also focuses the attention of a lot of people on the unfairness of Affirmative Action. We do know that Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law because that information is public, so he is no dummy, but he likely didn’t earn his way in.

Trump claims Obama’s birth certificate is missing. This is a bold and reckless, if not true, claim. Does Trump know something? The problem is Trump tends to shot from the hip. He says he has been “told.” Anyone else I would think they might know something. Trump I’m not so sure.

De Niro criticizes Trump. Trump fires back. As much as I appreciate Trump for having the balls to raise and pursue the birth certificate issue, he really is too thinned skinned for politics. Trump has a tendency to respond by going for the neck. For example his famous exchange with Rosie O’Donnell. Here he calls De Niro dumb. Trump’s handlers, if there can be such a thing, need to help him reign in this type of reaction.

HT: IPR, Lew Rockwell

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This is the other headline Graham made that I referred to below. Franklin Graham takes the obvious common sense position. Christiane Amanpour clearly wasn’t expecting this answer.

“He can solve this whole birth certificate issue pretty quickly … I don’t know why he can’t produce that … It’s an issue he could answer pretty quickly.”

The White House has gone from being dismissive and snarky to angry. I suspect the White House understands that Graham is someone who is respected by a broad cross section of the public and can not be easily dismissed. Of course there isn’t a dang thing the White House can say that can’t be unarguably countered with “Just release the long form birth certificate.”

Hopefully we are marching toward critical mass. (People do need to make clear that what they want to see is the long form birth certificate. That way the White House and Obama’s apologists can’t say he has already released it.)

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He will announce tomorrow according to National Journal.

Addendum: USA Today has this.

He is announcing in Iowa. This is a wise move.

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Since our readers are likely to be interested in a Johnson campaign as a possible competitor to Ron Paul, here is a link to a Daniel Larison post on Johnson. Larison is friendlier to Johnson’s candidacy than you might expect.

I plan to have more to say on Johnson soon.

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Jim Antle reports at AmSpec.

Politico has the larger story.

People seem suprised, but I’m really not. Barbour is an insider and a former lobbyist and political opperative. He had to understand the odds were stacked against him, and I don’t think he wanted to run if he knew he was unlikely to win. I’m no fan of Barbour who is horrible on immigration based on some of his previous lobbying efforts, but what bothers me is that a lot of people who discounted his chances did so on the basis of him being a Southerner with an accent. The thought being that Southerners with accents can win (Clinton, Carter) as long as they are Democrats but not if they are Republicans. Here is what I wrote at AmSpec:

Barbour has serious issues on immigration based on some of his lobbying efforts in the past, but I did have a bit of a soft spot for him because a lot of the opposition to him was motivated by obvious anti-Southern bigotry. I wouldn’t/couldn’t support Barbour, but he has good enemies.

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Franklin Graham made a lot of headlines based on his recent interview. This is one of them. He says Palin is not running. (More on the other headline he made in a separate post.)

I predicted here earlier that Palin and Huckabee would not run. I’m still sticking by my prediction on Palin, but I am not so sure about Huckabee. (More on the Huck later.) Palin’s star is fading in polls. She still has some hard core supporters, but she also has a lot of hard core detractors and not all of them are RINOs who don’t want a “conservative” carrying the banner. I think she knows she can’t win, so why run and diminish her stature by performing poorly in the primary? She can retain her present iconic status and stay in her good paying gig with FOX pontificating and “writing” more books without having to subject herself to the scrutiny of a presidential campaign. Or she can run, probably do poorly, and never again regain her current stature. Anyone heard from Fred Thompson recently?

Graham makes an interesting observation. He says she doesn’t like politics. This sounds odd, but may be more true than it seems on the surface. Palin probably likes politics in the same way that the writers and readers of CHT like politics. She has long been an activist as was her husband Todd. She ran for city council twice and mayor twice and governor once before stepping down half-way through her term. But this, and I certainly mean no disrespect, is small time compared to national politics. During the Presidential campaign and afterwords she didn’t seem to respond very well to the visciousness of a national campaign. (Not that anyone would or should.) She came across as thin-skinned, and just simply not used to not being liked. She ran for Governor of Alaska as a “good government” anti-corruption candidate and actually won some praise from a broad spectrum of the commentariate. She wasn’t prepared to become the poster child of Red America with the irrational hate that that inspired in the other side.

(BTW, Graham seems to be a surprisingly asute political commentator.)

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Jason Pye has a poll up at his site. Go vote for the candidate of your choice.

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“May the many refugees coming from several African countries, forced to leave behind their dear ones, receive the solidarity of everyone; may the men of good will be enlightened and open their hearts to them, may they meet the pressing needs of so many brothers in harmony; may the ones who are giving generous support and aid, thus giving the example, know how much we appreciate them” ~ Pope Benedict, “Urbi et Orbi” Easter Message 2011

On whose side is the Pope? Like Catholic priests in the U.S., the Pope is siding with the Third World against the West — yet again. The last thing most Europeans want or need is to flood Europe with more Africans. (Most European countries now are populated at over 500 people per square mile.)  Sure, pray for the Africans, pray that their lives will be better in Africa — but not that Europeans will facilitate their invasion of Europe.

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… He is risen indeed.

Happy Easter to all our CHT readers.

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When I saw Gary Johnson speak for the first time at the Rally for the Republic in Minneapolis back in 2008. Here was my reaction:

“As for other would-be Paul successors, Gary Johnson was a disappointment. This was the first time I had ever seen him in public and watching his speech he looked and acted the way (humor columnist) Dave Barry would if he were running for President. At times he barely looked up at the crowd….This goes back to what Lew said the other day about Sarah Palin. Johnson has a style that works for New Mexicans but may not sell on a national stage to the American people  unable to understand it.

I see no reason to change this assessment of Johnson and Justin Raimondo’s column in today’s Antiwar.com sums up very well what his candidacy is about, an effort by the libertarians “cosmo” wing to try and reassert control and influence away from Ron Paul.  Well, Johnson may have CATO’s support and Reason’s support, but he doesn’t have mass support because he’s going to have to spend much of his time just introducing himself to voters (an we’re already in May and the Iowa Straw poll is just four months away). At least this time Paul doesn’t have to do this. But if Paul doesn’t want to be the 1972 Eugene McCarthy of 2012 (while Johnson become George McGovern stealing his support away from him), he must run a vigorous campaign, not an “educational” effort.

There’s a lot to like about Gary Johnson in his background but he comes across as “too libertarian”, not just in policy but also in mannerism to take his campaign out of narrow niche into a broader market.  Ron Paul could do this, otherwise his campaign in 2008 wouldn’t have gotten off the ground. Pundits and journalists lazily call him a libertarian, but his support and the things he talks about are much broader than that and it’s why he has a chance whereas Johnson doesn’t.

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For those wishing to observe a religious holiday as opposed to a secular one (which they do at say, Google and Yahoo) here are some places on the internet you can go to…

Chronicles Magazine

The TAC blog

and Daniel Larison’s Eunomia as Orthodox Easter fall on the same day this year as it does in the West.

And here are a few other articles too…

My latest post at TAC

Harry Beadle’s “Traditional Conservative Beliefs” at his own website

SARTRE’s “Betton Woods II – The Final Enslavement of Mankind” at  BATR

Patrick Deenan at Front Porch Republic “Spring Spheres and Vernel Equinox Bunny”

C.J. Maloney at Lew Rockwell.com  “The Danger of Ending the American Empire”

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