September
21st 2009
Posted under Conservatism & Interventionism & NeoCons
We have here at CHT tried to stay away from the polemic obituary. Here is an article on Irving Kristol, who recently passed, by Justin Raimondo that does not stray into that territory. It is a helpful retelling of Kristol’s intellectual background without being mean spirited. It is worth a read.
HarrisonBergeron2 on 21 Sep 2009 at 6:38 pm #
No can do. Kristol’s toxic ideology has ripped up millions of lives, bankrupted us and our children’s children, and advanced a home-grown police state. May he rot in hell, right beside Ted Kennedy.
Filmer on 21 Sep 2009 at 7:32 pm #
It’s not that Kristol and Kennedy don’t deserve criticism, they do. It is just a matter of the conventional decorum of at least letting the body get cold. The polemic obit is, as Thomas Fleming has frequently pointed out, a rather recent development and one of the most prominent people to make repeated use of it was William F. Buckley.
D B Allyn on 22 Sep 2009 at 1:05 pm #
Agree w/ Harrison – Kristol was Zionist jew of the highest order and it is a shame he didn’t die long ago before doing the damage he did.
Weaver on 22 Sep 2009 at 3:56 pm #
How long till we may dance on his grave?
Filmer on 22 Sep 2009 at 4:11 pm #
I think the point is to not use the occasion of his death as a launching point to bash him.
Weaver on 22 Sep 2009 at 9:45 pm #
Oh, I see. That sounds like a good principle.
Americaneocon on 23 Sep 2009 at 2:53 am #
But Justin Raimondo hangs out with antiwar left!
“He poses as a conservative but runs a website, “Antiwar.com,” that features anti-Americans like Noam Chomsky and is hugely popular with the left – not surprisingly since it views America as an incipient fascist state.”
“Iraq: 5 Years Too Many
A “Peace Vigil” starring Cindy Sheehan, Justin Raimondo — and not Sean Penn
March 16, 2008, San Francisco”
http://zombietime.com/five_years_too_many/
Jeez, I didn’t have to look! You guys just cough up the antiwar phlegm
Filmer on 23 Sep 2009 at 4:01 am #
Dr. D., you are not really that simple-minded and neither are we. Such simple-minded tactics might work with some mindless movement con robots, but they are beneath you.
Justin Raimondo is a libertarian. He is basically a paleolibertarian but he has some left libertarian tendencies. But he has long been sympathetic to the right-wing populist libertarian strategy (as opposed to a left-wing strategy).
Of course left-wing anti-war activists like AntiWar.com because it has been one of the most consistently anti-war sites on the net for a long time. But they would be appalled by Justin’s anarcho-capitalism. Likewise, anti-war paleocons like us here will often agree with Noam Chomsky or Glen Greenwald when it comes to the War, but we won’t agree with them on health care reform.
It is really very simple. You are either incapable of making these simple mental distinctions which I don’t believe or you are simply using a bully tactic. It is like a childish playground taunt. Billy was caught talking to effeminate Bobby so therefore Billy must be gay. “Billy is gay. Billy is gay. Nah nah nah nah nah! ” Either that or you don’t consider motivations important and only consider what you see as the effect. So agree with a leftist on some issue and you become a liberal for all practical purposes despite intent.
For the record, some of us here (Bede and me for sure and probably others) have counseled against a too close left/right anti-war alliance especially any sort of postulated sustained one because we believed it was unsustainable and unhelpful. Such an alliance must ultimately break down over questions of traditional values, religion, immigration, egalitarianism, etc.
roho on 23 Sep 2009 at 10:44 pm #
I remember America prior to the neocons, when even the simple minded citizen could understand conservatism vs liberalism without a bunch of israel firster spin!
I hope it’s a hereditary curse on the whole family!…………Israel firsters are the laterday equivalent of “Benadict Arnold” with higher loyalty to the “Motherland” than America.
HarrisonBergeron2 on 24 Sep 2009 at 1:55 am #
Filmer,
Way to swat that pest!
BTW, have y’all noticed DDD will only swoop in, make some personal insults, and flit away, never sticking around for a REAL debate?
One thing about chickenhawks — they’re consistent.
Weaver on 24 Sep 2009 at 8:29 pm #
He’s a wannabe demagogue who sticks to a simple set of arguments and explanations.
Answer the wrong questions, and he risks awakening his buddies to just how full of it he really is.
Americaneocon on 25 Sep 2009 at 5:57 pm #
Justin Raimondo is a leftist, folks. And denial is a prominent feature of today’s radical left. Can’t get out from under this. Raimondo’s radical.
Weaver on 25 Sep 2009 at 8:14 pm #
Define leftist.
Were you to admit to your readers that leftist = antiwar for Israel and rightist = prowar for Israel; then they’d see you in a very different light.
While we are admittedly against mass murder on this site, we also define America as a real nation with real traditions and a worth-preserving citizenry.
You see America as Raimondo and communists and every other “ist” does: as an ideological state to be manipulated. For Raimondo, the goal is libertarian freedom. For you it’s war for Israel.
We don’t butcher the English language. “Right” ought to mean what it meant during the French Revolution. We wish to preserve America; you wish to transform it. You, sir, are of the left.
Weaver on 25 Sep 2009 at 8:17 pm #
I await the predictable shriek that somehow what I said is “anti-Semitic” and thus directly addressing the matter is unworthy of a “respectable” pro-mass murderer.
While the US falls further into debt (both via spending and trade), is swamped with Mexicans, and falls further from its legal traditions; your primary focus will always be war.
The other issues for you are clearly just to win favour among your readers. The real issue, the one issue, is war. Prove me wrong.
Filmer on 25 Sep 2009 at 9:27 pm #
Justin is a leftist to the degree that his eccentric blend of left libertarianism and paleolibertarianism is leftist. Historically speaking, libertarianism is generally a philosophically leftist position but in America it has generally been associated with the right for some good reasons. But it is all very complicated. Libertarianism does have some rightist components philosophically speaking, especially paleolibertarianism. But of course I shouldn’t have to tell a political science professor all this.
That said, he is not a leftist in the way Dr. D. means it, and Justin does not consider himself such. See his column today where he speaks about the anti-war left. He clearly sees himself as an outsider to that movement.
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/09/24/who-is-barack-obama/
HarrisonBergeron2 on 26 Sep 2009 at 3:27 pm #
Americaneocon,
Yeah. Radicals write books with titles such as “Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement.” And what kind of radical would condemn W the Magnificent when the then-president used the language of radicalism? But that’s what Raimondo did when W used what Raimondo called “ultra-revolutionary rhetoric”:
The Marxist and anarchist revolutionaries of Dostoevsky’s day thought they saw history’s “visible direction,” although they did not ascribe to it an author. The Bushian innovation is to give his brand of revolutionism a theological theme, substituting God for History – but these are mere details. The central idea is the same: a worldwide revolutionary upheaval is needed to put the world right, and some men are anointed by history as redeemers.
DDD categorizes the American political landscape with the sophomoric criterion that says “Pro-war = conservative, Anti-war = leftist.”