Anyone who is unclear on this point should compare the hopefulness of many online conservatives and libertarians with the sobering election odds displayed on Intrade. Republicans may score big gains in the coming election cycles, but they may not. And even if they win big there is no guarantee that they will behave better in office than they did during the Bush years. Meanwhile the Left, having rampaged through the universities and media, is now very deliberately restructuring the federal bureaucracies and writing legislation whose destructive effects won’t be fully apparent for years. You can bet that the inept Loony Left appointees who have garnered public attention are only the tip of the iceberg. Thousands of others, less flamboyant but equally committed, are doing their best behind the scenes to entrench themselves in power and make it difficult for their ideological opponents to reverse the changes.
Conservatism
Book Review: Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription by William F. Buckley Jr.
A few years ago I read a couple of books containing letters and replies to and from Ronald Reagan. I was fascinated by these writings and was quite surprised that the leader of the free world would take the time to actually reply to some of the mail he got. It opened up another side of Reagan to me – a more personal side.
Last week I was strolling through DFW and happened upon Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription
Irving Kristol, 1920-2009
Irving Kristol was a CCNY Boy, not a Chicago Boy.
Kristol was a Neoconservative when the “neo” part meant something. It started out as an insult, by former liberal friends, who derided Kristol and others for going where the evidence took them, and turning against their former views and former colleagues. The Neoconservatives were the people associated with The Public Interest magazine in the 1960s, mostly Jews from New York. The leading figures were Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Nathan Glazer and their circle. These guys followed a half-century course from Left to Right. They started out as Trotskyists at City College in New York in the ’30s and ’40s. Kristol describes that period here. They were anti-communist Social Democrats associated with Irving Howe and Sidney Hook in the 1950s. As the Democrat party undertook to build the Great Society in the 1960s, they became social planners. As that program failed, and Vietnam failed, and the McGovernite New Left began to take over the party, they became Scoop Jackson liberal hawks who were increasingly dubious about government social programs as well as staying hawkish on defense issues. As Jimmy Carter attempted to go beyond detente to something like appeasement, some switched parties and became Republicans. They were hawkish on defense and unideological and undogmatic critics of social programs that did not work. Kristol was the main figure in this intellectual odyssey. He and his colleagues added a critical infusion of intelligence and policy expertise to the conservative coalition that elected Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Perhaps Kristol’s most important contribution was his editorship of The Public Interest, which he described here. Recently, the complete archives of the Public Interest became available online.
Rest in peace.
UPDATE: Helen weighs in, with many good links.
Lewis vs Haldane
J B S Haldane was an eminent British scientist (population genetics) and a Marxist. C S Lewis was…well, you probably already know who C S Lewis was.
In 1946, Haldane published an article critiquing a series of novels by Lewis known as the Ransom Trilogy, and particularly the last book of the series, That Hideous Strength. Lewis responded in a letter which remained unpublished for many of years. All this may sound ancient and estoteric, but I believe the Lewis/Haldane controversy is very relevant to our current political and philosophical landscape.
Paglia on the Democrats
Camille Paglia on the Democratic Party and its cheering section in the media. Plenty of shots at the Republicans, too.
(via the Advice Goddess)