Conservatism

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There are two types of freedom, and you need to pick a side

What does freedom look like?

To Americans, the concept of freedom is easy: Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These words, inscribed on the Declaration of Independence, define the ethos of the “Land of the Free.” When Alexis de Tocqueville came to America to wonder at the up-and-coming nation, he praised the extensive forms of “self-government” he encountered.

It’s no exaggeration to say that if Tocqueville hopped in a time machine and arrived in today’s United States, his impression would be far different. The liberty he witnessed in the farm fields and small towns did not subside as America industrialized. The country is still home to a great deal of freedom. It’s just that the modern version of freedom is radically detached from what was once a well-ordered tradition of civic and familial obligation.

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A response to Leon Wolf re: Donald Trump

Ever since Donald Trump decided to upend the Republican Establishment with his presidential run, the pusillanimous underbelly of the political elites has been on full display.

Acela Corridor talking heads despise the Donald. Liberals hate his courting of the poor working class. Conservative intellectuals dismiss him as a showman hypocrite without principle.

It’s all great fun to watch. Donald Trump had topped the Republican primary polls for three months straight, and show no signs of slowing down. Political know-it-alls are baffled by his success. Trump is everything they resent: rich, white, successful, straight-talkin’, and politically-incorrect.

Even professional right-leaning commentators are beginning to wonder how the Reign of Trump ends. Leon Wolf, the newly-annointed editor of RedState.com, is no Trump acolyte. He doesn’t believe the Donald is “a conservative in any meaningful sense of the word” and questions whether the businessman “believes literally anything.” Like most Republican faithful, he’s getting tired of The Apprentice: White House Edition, and wants GOP primary voters to settle on a “serious” candidate.

He poses this question to readers: “Is there anything Trump might do or say that would cause you to stop supporting him?”

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Will America lose the upcoming Cold War?

World War III is coming.

If you think I kid, just read Max Fisher’s write-up about the approaching U.S. confrontation with Russia. It’s enough to make you soil yourself.

Here’s the rationale: Not yet deterred from the collapse of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Putin is actively restoring Russia’s sphere of influence. He has made a point of invading Ukraine to access his country’s port in Sevastopol. Now he’s openly defying the U.S. by aiding the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Now, I’m no wide-eyed Bill Kristol disciple. I don’t think America needs to keep its empire status. But at the same time, I see a need for order in an uncertain world. There will always be a domineering force on our planet. And, like it or not, that global bully is America. So it’s better to err on the side of caution and to, in the words of Michael Oakeshott, “prefer the familiar to the unknown,” and root for the home team.

The question is: with Barack Obama soon to leave the White House, what presidential candidate is best fit to stand up to aspiring leaders like Vladimir Putin? Who will put the ex-KGB spy and Russian leader in his place?

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Chromosomal damage

Women: You can’t live with them; you can’t work with them either.

That’s the topic of my Taki’s Mag piece today. An excerpt:

These complaints might all seem trivial (and insane), but they add up. Nagging protests have the ability to snowball until they become a coherent message. By constantly hammering away at the idea that men are incorrigible Neanderthals with their brains set on “rape,” feminists have altered corporate culture so that guys must be on guard every second of the day. If they slip up, it’s a one-way trip to the unemployment line.

It’s an unhealthy mix that affects productivity and basic workplace camaraderie. Yes, there are definite cases where men take advantage of naive office girls (this is especially true in D.C., where the office manager is often having an affair with the cute twentysomething coffee fetcher). But feminists trying to equalize the workplace are engaging in a Sisyphean task. Men and women just aren’t made to work together as a unified team. The sexes are different. They excel at doing different things.

Just consider the examples of accepted sexual differentiation in our society. Professional sports are demarcated along gender lines. You rarely see a female construction worker on the site of a new skyscraper. Hooters isn’t about to hire men as waitresses.

Win one for the patriarchy and give the piece a manly read here.

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White plight

The Southern Poverty Law Center is going to have an aneurysm over my plea to consider the struggle poor whites face in America. The piece is (where else?) over at Taki’s Mag today. An excerpt:

The racial privilege status of white trash makes them unattractive to the media because being penurious and pale-skinned is not respectable. While poor minorities are viewed with dignity and sympathy (as they should be), the same doesn’t apply to Caucasians. The white working class is, as Baptist minister Will Campbell put it, “the last, the only minority left that is fair game for ethnic slurs from people who would consider themselves good liberals.” Since the Progressive Era, the U.S. government has made it a goal to forcefully equalize society between races, classes, income scales, and gender. But to Campbell, “poor whites have seen government try to make peace between various warring factions but they have not been brought to the bargaining table.”

The result is pockets of despair in many parts of the country, most predominantly the South. And while it’s true that poor whites have always existed in America, the callous disregard for their difficulty we see by blue bloods in the Acela corridor is new. People like Kim Konzny have been stripped of dignity and left to fend for themselves without the assistance of the media or Washington elites. Unlike impoverished blacks who hold tight to faith and community, they are without an honorable sense of identity. If they cling to the Bible, they are seen as brainless, flat-earth bumpkins. If they somehow succeed in getting out of the trailer, they are demonized and told they’ve earned nothing because of “white privilege.” If they try to stick with their own kind, they are called neo-segregationists.

 

Read the whole thing and look for me listed somewhere on the SPLC’s Hate Map. I’ll be kickin’ back in short-shorts and combat boots with an Old Milwaukee pounder in one hand and four fingers down with one proud in the other. Boy howdy!

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My modest proposal: equal hair for all!

Republished from the Press and Journal

Brothers and sisters, it’s good to be on the side of progress in 2015.

Today in America, marriage is no longer considered a conjugal bond to rear children. The rich and middle-class must pay for the health care of the poor. Across the land, restrooms and locker room are being opened to all genders regardless of biology. The last vestiges of the Antebellum South – including the Confederate Flag – are being removed from public life.

Yes, it’s a good era in which to be liberal.

There is no doubt history will judge us correct in our struggle against the patriarchal reactionary forces that wish to keep us shackled in the 19th century. After all, our side represents progress and equality for all!

Unfortunately, a new front has emerged in our war of equaling. It is located in the western part of Pennsylvania, our great progressive state. A barbershop run by a burly, misogynistic poor excuse for a citizen is refusing to cut women’s hair. The barber, John Interval of Washington County, was rightfully fined $750 by the state’s Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs after a comrade-in-arms informed on him.

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