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Old September 2nd, 2012 #22
Alex Linder
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"[A] belief that the nation needed an aristocracy -- an elite filled with a sense of noblesse oblige that would serve as the nation's ballast -- may be a fundamental tenet of conservatism. But while Rossiter leaned toward a meritocratic aristocracy, Kirk placed faith in family lineages. He believed that people had to be born and bred to the sense of duty, and that it took generations to fashion worthy aristocrats. Moreover, he believed families should be connected to the land. He criticized Rossiter for rejecting what Rossiter called 'country-house Conservatism.' ...

Among those attacking Rossiter was James Burnham, who would become Buckley's second in command at National Review. In a scathing review of Rossiter's book, Burnham attacked not only Rossiter but Burkeanism -- and, by extension, Kirk too. 'Feudalism never existed in America,' Burnham wrote. 'Therefore there is no historical basis for a true Burkean conservatism, which rests on traditional aristocracy.' Burnham was also clearly upset that Rossiter suggested that liberals and conservatives should not be enemies. ... Burnham was not willing to concede that liberalism was a genuine or valuable part of the American tradition. ...

Rossiter's belief in tradition, community, the social fabric, and institutions, as well as the importance of understanding history, made Rossiter a Burkean through and through. But although he saw conservatism and liberalism as a partnership, he viewed conservatism as the junion partner. 'Our commmitment to progress means that liberalism will keep its role as pace-setter in the arena of politics, and that conservative doers will constinue to spend far too much time fighting the reformers and then adjusting to their reforms,' he wrote. Thus, he believed that liberalism provided society with its momentum, and the conservative mission was to moderate and consolidate the progress. (pp. 129-130)

In other words, conservatives aren't just cowards, afraid of all uncontrolled or spontaneous human activity, they are effeminates. Reduced to tugging on their man's sleeve in the vain hope of getting him to slow down a bit. Can it truly be a surprise that so many conservative politicians are closet homosexuals, given that the entire mentality of the breed is is passive-unaggressive? Spirit-queers, they tend to be, and all too many turn that into flesh-queerdom as well.

"Frank Chodorov was also blasting Conservatism in America. In a private letter, Chhodorov sought to persuade a prominent conservative that the new conservatives, including both Russell Kirk and Clinton Rossiter, were in fact liberals. Kirk rejected the key principles of libertarianism or individualism, which he said were limited government and the free economy, Chodorov declared. ... [I]t was not Kirk alone who bothered him; it was the combination of Kirk and Rossiter that upset him. "I would never have become exercised over this matter,' he wrote, 'if it were not for a book called 'Conservatis in America' by Clinton Rossiter. Mr. Rossiter welcomes Kirks brand of conservatism because it fits in very nicely with Mr. Rossiter's 'liberalism.'' (p. 130)

Conservatism is liberalism, then. Just a slower, more dubious kind, but trailing in the same path.

Anyway, this was the environment the 'libertarian' conservative Buckley emerged into or competed with, but in any case soon came to render marginal.


Taft was anti-racialist. Rossiter in a 1962 editorion of his book denied he was or had ever been conservative! 'New conservative' Viereck also added a few dozen pages to his Conservatism Revisited for a new edition in 1962. He attacked Russell Kirk for talking the talk but not walking the walk:

"Kirk evoked the 'true humanistic conservatism' of conservative figures of the past u failed to follow their examples. Where, for example, were Kirk and other conservatives on such worthy humanistic causes such as desegregation? Viereck urged conservatives to reread Burke's speeches against the slave trade and reminded them that John Adams was one of America's first champions for Negro rights. (p. 132)

Conservatives place the community ahead of the individual only where they feel like it. Not where it's objectively necessary. The loosed negro is the surest guarantee of the destruction of the social order, so how can a true conservative support it? Only because he allows his ideology and his religiously-produced morality disorder his mind and disable his senses.

"In a similar vein, Viereck accused Kirk of arguing for the preservation of pseudotraditions that appealed to him and rejecting genuine traditions that didn't -- as he did by romanticizing utopian dreams of an aristocratic society while rejecting New Deal liberalism. Kirk, Viereck said, was guilty of an 'unhistorical appeal to history' and a 'traditionless worship of tradition.' 'In contrast,' he continued, 'a genuinely rooted, historically-minded conservative conserves roots that are really there.'

Excellent points. Conservatives pick and choose. Because they are naturally timid and stupid, they follow authority. Conservatism becomes whatever the athority they're listening to tells them it is. Thus they go from 'isolationists' to warmongers because there's no independent thinking at work to puzzle out the inconsistency.

After their early-sixties revisions, "both Clinton and Rossiter left the battlefield," says Bogus. And so William F. Buckley Jr's definition of conservatism -- economic libertarianism + aggressive foreign policy -- won the day over the Burkeans.

"Why did Buckleyism prevail? ... The answer has little to do with the ideas themselves. The answer has to do with leadership," says Bogus.

"It is ironic that the new conservatives -- notwithstanding their philosophical emphasis on community over individualism -- were loners. Despite the commonalities of their views, Kirk, Viereck, Rossiter and [jewish sociologist Robert] Nisbet never untied to collectively promote the Burkean vision. It is doubly ironic that William F. Buckley Jr. was exactly the opposite; he was philosophically an individualist but built a community at and through National Review. (p. 138)

We see the same thing today. Libertarians, supposedly the ultimate individualists, get along with one another far better than White Nationalists, who are supposedly all about a racial community. Ron Paul has succeeded in building a real community of people who love him and listen to him and work with one another to advance their collective goals, whereas racialists mostly hate one another and try to undermine each other. Explain that if you can. The world, as always, is ironic in construction.

Last edited by Alex Linder; September 2nd, 2012 at 11:17 AM.