Banned at 312 Bank Street? Or, "Courage: The Greatest of Virtues."

While I'm an unapologetic creature of the left, whenever my friend Ken thinks a column by Jonah Goldberg might interest me, he forwards the link.

Obviously I tend not to agree with every point made by the National Review's senior editor, and sometimes with none of them, but usually there are ample thought-provoking nuggets.

So it is with this installment, which includes ruminations about empathy and cowardice, and words and dictionaries ...

The truth is that I don’t object to new words or even new meanings being breathed into them. I know that will happen. What bothers me is that no one seems to appreciate that the new meanings destroy the old ones for all time, and sometimes those meanings are worth keeping.

... as well as a central observation about honesty.

The only real litmus test for me is whether you take a position because you think it will advance conservative ends and that you are making your argument for it in good faith — i.e., that you’re not lying. Telling the truth is a form of courage, arguably the first form, and courage is the greatest of virtues.

Goldberg quotes Kevin Williamson, who also is speaking about conservatism.

And we should be ashamed of ourselves if we come to accept this kind of dishonesty in the service of political expediency. If conservative ideas cannot prevail in the marketplace of ideas without lies, they do not deserve to prevail at all.

This applies on my side, too.

Here in New Albany, local Democrats fancy themselves as somehow "left," though seldom willing to explore the actual perimeter. As I await their decision to display some/any merchandise at the party's vending stall in the marketplace of ideas, it strikes me as ironic that Jeff Gillenwater made mention of all this just the other day.

I’ve lived in New Albany, Floyd County, Indiana for more than a decade now. Throughout that entire tenure, the local Democratic Party has staunchly refused to take any position on any local issue. Save the occasional jab at a local or state Republican, they have focused almost entirely on federal issues. To the extent that any locals have raised concerns about that, they’ve been derided as unreasonable malcontents and radicals. Now that the party has a federal candidate who’s been asked about local issues, though, a lot of the very same people insist that strict jurisdictional guidelines must be followed; locals should only respond to local issues, federal responds only to federal, etc.. If these people get any more hyper-hypocritical about all this, we’re going to have to find a new way to measure such things just to try to keep up.

Fewer lies, more courage. Not exactly earthshaking, and not to mention probably impossible for so long as Adam "The Muzzler" Dickey's calling the party's neutered shots, but it would be pleasant for a change to read about ideas from Gahanites.

Do they have any?

The link: Courage: The Greatest of Virtues, by Jonah Goldberg (National Review)

"American conservatives aren’t necessarily racists, but they are invariably anti-anti-racist."

Ironically, only moments before viewing this article, I was making a point to a friend as to why the city of New Albany typically refuses to do very much about the physical infrastructure of "domestic" disturbances, particularly as they occur (a) in rental properties, and (b) outside the geographical and socio-economic vicinity where such matters typically (and cynically) are "expected" to occur, and are planned for accordingly.

Now, there exist various mechanisms which might be deployed by functionaries to turn up the heat on the property owner, but in my experience, these are only sporadically referenced. Political will is virtually non-existent, as you already know. Your issues cannot possibly exist in this shining city on the hill (or, in the flood plain).

In short, any elected official capable of convincing himself that an incessantly chanted mantra of "fundamentally better" describes a city where one's own two eyes persist in returning a different verdict probably is inclined to exist in a perpetual state of denial.

If this place is wonderful, then by definition, there can be no unresolved problems. It follows that those who continue to point to the unresolved problems must be doing so from malice and spite. In short, in the current climate of make-believe, my friend's complaints are likely to be construed as direct attacks on the mayor of the city, whose campaign platform is restricted entirely to this:

"These nice things I bought for you using your credit card are proof that we are fundamentally better and simply must go swimming while consuming more ice cream and cookies."

Meanwhile, there is the tendency of conservatives to be "anti-anti-racist." The preceding example has almost nothing to do with racism, as does the article referenced here. However, I'd argue that there is a linkage in the sense of cognitive dissonance, and methods of rationalizing it. Feel free to disagree, as we're still supposedly allowed to do so, at least until the guns come out.

National Review Magazine's Racism Denial, Then and Now, by Jeet Heer (New Republic)

... This unwillingness to admit a racist motive for the Charleston killings has a deeply political motive, for doing so would mean admitting that racism is a real, ongoing problem in American society—one that requires policies to counteract it.

American conservatives aren’t necessarily racists, but they are invariably anti-anti-racist. The creed of anti-anti-racism goes something like this: racism was a problem in the past, but no longer is a serious issue; the chief barrier for non-whites to advance in American society is their own behavior; attempts to remedy racism, such as affirmative action, are themselves a form of racism. For the anti-anti-racist, the very word “racism” has a strange, talismanic power. To utter the word “racism” is to create racism, which otherwise does not exist in the wonderful meritocracy that is America.

The cover art? Indisputably cool. The contents? Well ...

The most rational explanation for "Rodger" Baylor recently being added to the subscriber list at National Review is my renewal of The Economist. I suppose many of these print publications are linked, and complimentary (albeit brief) trial subscriptions are activated from one to the next. Every now and then, Rolling Stone starts coming again, and I've no idea why. Then it stops again.

If it's a gag, then thanks for the freebie, although it isn't the first time I've read National Review. During my Reagan-era tenure at UMI Data Courier, I often abstracted it. Today's tone seems less erudite than the Wm. F. Buckley glory years. The man was often mistaken, but he sure could write.

My only complaint: You spelled my name incorrectly. Buckley wouldn't ever have done that.

Kathleen Parker on Chris Buckley, National Review: "(Republicans) do not ... deserve to win this time, and someone had to remind them why."

NAC has been following this story since Christopher Buckley's on-line Obama endorsement first broke.

William F. Buckley was articulate and intelligent, whereas contemporary conservatism boasts a crass anti-intellectualism that lately has become viral.

Surveying the scurrilous faith-based wreckage of the conservative movement, which today embraces the "we the people don't need no education" line of non-thought and would correspondingly not hesitate to ostracize Buckley elder in the same way that it has impugned the younger, as well as previously savaging Kathleen Parker for her apostasy in denouncing Sarah Palin, LEO’s Stephen George said it best earlier this week:

Let’s call this line of thinking the terrorism of the idiocracy. It did not start with John McCain or Sarah Palin — although they have found wild profit in it — and it surely will not end there. In actuality, it begins in the vacuum created by a general ignorance of the world around you, the pride you take in that ignorance, and the vulnerability that leaves you with. When some addled shit-peddler like McCain or Palin fills the vacuum with radical lies, these barely literate masses take a crazed posture, and the worst of their own fear and loathing manifests itself in heinous, hilarious ways.

Like the woman who still insists, despite McCain himself telling her otherwise, that Obama is an “Arab” and, by implication, “Arab” is bad. Naturally, McCain scored media points by calling off that particular dog, but he never said anything like, “Hey nut-job, Arab is not a bad word.” In fact, by avoiding saying that but nonetheless acknowledging she’d erred, he subtly reinforced her “epithet.”

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WFB Would Be Proud, by Kathleen Parker (Friday, October 17, 2008)

Christopher Buckley's endorsement of Barack Obama -- followed by his abrupt departure from the back page of the magazine his father founded, National Review -- has caused a ripple of contempt from the conservative right.

Nay, make that a tsunami of hostility. An avalanche of venom. A cataclysm of ... well, you get the idea. People are mad. Good riddance, they say, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Let us proceed, gingerly.

I am not a passive bystander to these events. Buckley is a friend, as are other members of his family, especially Uncle Reid, with whom I have worked for several years. National Review is home to many friends, and its online editor, Kathryn Jean Lopez, kindly subscribes to my column. Like Buckley, I have enjoyed a decent fragging for suggesting that Sarah Palin excuse herself from the Republican ticket.

What gives here?

What does it mean that the right cannot politely entertain dissenting opinions within its ranks? What, if anything, does it portend that Buckley The Younger has bolted from the right, even resigning (with enthusiastic editorial approval) from the family flagship?

Some have opined, ridiculously, that Buckley -- son of the famous William F. Buckley (WFB) -- was merely seeking attention. Christo, as family and friends call him, has written more than a dozen acclaimed books, one of which, "Thank You for Smoking," became a movie. In 2004, he won the Thurber Prize for American Humor for "No Way to Treat a First Lady." For 18 years he edited a magazine, Forbes Life, and otherwise seems to be doing all right.

Other critics have surmised that Buckley's "betrayal" was a publicity stunt for his newest novel, "Supreme Courtship" (which I reviewed for National Review). When you're as funny and write as well as Buckley, you don't have to resort to stunts. You are the stunt.

So why did he do it?

Because he had to. It's in his genes.

True believers of whatever stripe too often forget that the men and women who create movements are first and foremost radicals. Great movements are not the result of relaxing afternoons musing along the Seine but emerge from flames of passion ignited by injustice.

When WFB created the modern conservative movement, he didn't call a neighborhood meeting and whisper, "Come along now." He stood athwart history and yelled, "Stop!"

His son, though he customarily takes the more circuitous route to the revolution via satire, is now merely answering WFB's original call to political activism. Paraphrasing Ronald Reagan, the younger Buckley said: "I haven't left the Republican Party. It left me."

In 1955, when WFB announced his new magazine and explained the reasons for it, he described conservatives as "non-licensed nonconformists":

"Radical conservatives in this country have an interesting time of it, for when they are not being suppressed or mutilated by Liberals, they are being ignored or humiliated by a great many of those of the well-fed Right, whose ignorance and amorality have never been exaggerated for the same reason that one cannot exaggerate infinity."

Fast-forward half a century, and the old is the new.

Radical conservatives are still having an interesting time of it, though these days they are being mutilated by fellow "conservatives." The well-fed Right now cultivates ignorance as a political strategy and humiliates itself when its brightest sons seek sanctuary in the solitude of personal honor.

The truth few wish to utter is that the GOP has abandoned many conservatives, who mostly nurse their angst in private. Those chickens we keep hearing about have indeed come home to roost. Years of pandering to the extreme wing -- the "kooks" the senior Buckley tried to separate from the right -- have created a party no longer attentive to its principles.

Instead, as Christopher Buckley pointed out in a blog post on thedailybeast.com explaining his departure from National Review, eight years of "conservatism" have brought us "a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance."
Republicans are not short on brainpower -- or pride -- but they have strayed off course. They do not, in fact, deserve to win this time, and someone had to remind them why.

Christopher Buckley, ever the swashbuckling heir to his father's defiant spirit, walked the plank so that the sinking mother ship might right itself.

No doubt his seafaring father is cheering from heaven: "Ahoy there, Christo! Well done, my son."

Buckley departs from The National Review: "The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me."

In the wake of his endorsement of Barack Obama, Christopher Buckley has resigned from The National Review, which was founded by his father, the late William F. Buckley.

Hmm.

So much for "laughing at the hypocrisy of all you left-leaning individuals always touting intellectual honesty, tolerance, and freedom of expression."

Looks like that particular malady is afflicting our friends on the right, too. Imagine that. Here's the Buckley piece in its entirety. Thanks to Bayerfan for the tip.

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Buckley Bows Out of National Review, by Christopher Buckley (The Daily Beast).

I seem to have picked an apt title for my Daily Beast column, or blog, or whatever it’s called: “What Fresh Hell.” My last posting (if that’s what it’s called) in which I endorsed Obama, has brought about a very heaping helping of fresh hell. In fact, I think it could accurately be called a tsunami.

The mail (as we used to call it in pre-cyber times) at the Beast has been running I’d say at about 7-to-1 in favor. This would seem to indicate that you (the Beast reader) are largely pro-Obama.

As for the mail flooding into National Review Online—that’s been running about, oh, 700-to-1 against. In fact, the only thing the Right can’t quite decide is whether I should be boiled in oil or just put up against the wall and shot. Lethal injection would be too painless.

I had gone out of my way in my Beast endorsement to say that I was not doing it in the pages of National Review, where I write the back-page column, because of the experience of my colleague, the lovely Kathleen Parker. Kathleen had written in NRO that she felt Sarah Palin was an embarrassment. (Hardly an alarmist view.) This brought 12,000 livid emails, among them a real charmer suggesting that Kathleen’s mother ought to have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a dumpster. I didn’t want to put NR in an awkward position.

Since my Obama endorsement, Kathleen and I have become BFFs and now trade incoming hate-mails. No one has yet suggested my dear old Mum should have aborted me, but it’s pretty darned angry out there in Right Wing Land. One editor at National Review—a friend of 30 years—emailed me that he thought my opinions “cretinous.” One thoughtful correspondent, who feels that I have “betrayed”—the b-word has been much used in all this—my father and the conservative movement generally, said he plans to devote the rest of his life to getting people to cancel their subscriptions to National Review. But there was one bright spot: To those who wrote me to demand, “Cancel my subscription,” I was able to quote the title of my father’s last book, a delicious compendium of his NR “Notes and Asides”: Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription.

Within hours of my endorsement appearing in The Daily Beast it became clear that National Review had a serious problem on its hands. So the next morning, I thought the only decent thing to do would be to offer to resign my column there. This offer was accepted—rather briskly!—by Rich Lowry, NR’s editor, and its publisher, the superb and able and fine Jack Fowler. I retain the fondest feelings for the magazine that my father founded, but I will admit to a certain sadness that an act of publishing a reasoned argument for the opposition should result in acrimony and disavowal.

My father in his day endorsed a number of liberal Democrats for high office, including Allard K. Lowenstein and Joe Lieberman. One of his closest friends on earth was John Kenneth Galbraith. In 1969, Pup wrote a widely-remarked upon column saying that it was time America had a black president. (I hasten to aver here that I did not endorse Senator Obama because he is black. Surely voting for someone on that basis is as racist as not voting for him for the same reason.)

My point, simply, is that William F. Buckley held to rigorous standards, and if those were met by members of the other side rather than by his own camp, he said as much. My father was also unpredictable, which tends to keep things fresh and lively and on-their-feet. He came out for legalization of drugs once he decided that the war on drugs was largely counterproductive. Hardly a conservative position. Finally, and hardly least, he was fun. God, he was fun. He liked to mix it up.

So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.

While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.

So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.

Thanks, anyway, for the memories, and here’s to happier days and with any luck, a bit less fresh hell.

Related: Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama

The last of a dying breed.

Hard as it may be to comprehend, for a time I was a regular reader of William F. Buckley’s National Review. Buckley, the oft-caricatured and curmudgeonly gadfly of the conservative movement, died this week at 82.

For a year and a half during the late 1980s, I was employed by a company that was creating an early CD-ROM version of a database somewhat along the lines of the old paper copy readers’ guide to periodicals. The staff was small, but generally competent, and even though we weren’t supposed to specialize in any one topic, human nature led us in that direction. Management tolerated it so long as the results were acceptable.

Thus, the woman who’d always wanted to go to medical school always abstracted the New England Journal of Medicine and Lancet. One of the guys was a budding young investor and grabbed Barron’s and Forbes, while another hoarded the sports magazines.

Being the resident Europhile and history buff, it soon fell to me to act as the division’s foreign affairs desk. In practice, since we only abstracted English language publications, this fact brought me into constant contact with periodicals from the UK, and The Economist, New Statesman and Punch all were constant companions throughout my stay. Because these alone didn’t provide sufficient articles to meet the quota, I looked for other fairly dependable choices that would provide both sustenance and numbers. National Review fit the bill.

Buckley was a familiar name and face, and I’d read some of his essays and columns while in college, but it wasn’t until the period of twice monthly paid exposure that I began to appreciate the breadth, erudition and vigor of his polemical style. Good writing’s good writing, though in my view sadly wasted in defending the likes of Joseph McCarthy.

Certainly the oppressive whole of today’s bile-spewing conservative blogosphere could learn more than a few lessons from Buckley’s techniques of argumentation and his ability to express himself without overtly foaming at the mouth. That so few today aspire to such levels of credibility emphatically should not be interpreted as an indictment of the late wordsmith.