Born To Lose

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On this side of the great divide, it is popular to bang on about how Buckley-style conservatism is dead. Alternatively, people like to go on about how conservatives have systematically betrayed their supporters. It is also common to explain both trends in purely personal terms. For example, conservatism died because it became a business, perhaps even a racket, rather than a political movement. The sellouts are doing what they do because it gets them media and think tank jobs.

Reducing politics to personal squabbles and motivations is a way to justify supporting or opposing something, without thinking too much about it. This is the preference of the simple minded, who struggle to understand events in the larger context of general trends or the ideas driving those trends. In reality, it is ideas, events and people that come together to shape our present reality. More often than not, the things we see today largely came about by accident or chance played a big role.

You see this with Buckley-style conservatism. It was never an ideology or even an independent agenda. It existed, as Buckley himself often said, to “stand athwart history yelling STOP!” The whole point of the Buckley project was to slow the roll of the Left in mid-century America. That became such an intense point of focus it made impossible any consideration of what to do if they succeeded. The whole point of the exercise was to slow down the Left without ever expecting to win.

Put another way, it was like a dog that chases cars. It was never expected to catch the car and if it did catch the car, it had no plan for what to do when that great achievement was attained. As a result, conservatives have never been able to plan for victory or take advantage of their successes. In fact, the very framework for thinking about winning has been eliminated from the thought process of the Right. Whenever they manage to trip up the Left, the hunt is on for some new car to chase.

This article in the American Conservative is a great example. The short version is that the author thinks Trump missed a golden opportunity to advance his agenda and fundamentally change politics during this virus crisis. He could have used the event itself and the fallout to become this century’s FDR. One notable aspect of the post is that it is posted months after the crisis began. Maybe if conservatives had thought about catching that car a little bit, this would not be an issue.

One of things that drives conspiracy theories about 9/11 is the neocons and the war machine were the primary beneficiaries of the event. The Left, which is always ready for a crisis, got very little from it initially. They have since taken over the surveillance state, but they initially opposed its creation. The simple minded assume that 9/11 must have been a neocon conspiracy, as how else could they have been ready to make such good use of it? The answer is, they planned to catch that car one day.

Another reason for the failure of Buckley-style conservatism is the mistaken belief that virtue is a useful weapon against the ideologue. In reality, ideologues think the adherence to principle is akin to falling for superstition. Ideologues on the Left are at their core anti-tradition. Therefore, they see the defenders of tradition as madmen, obstacles to be cleared from the path. Those lunatics from the Buckley cult standing on the train track need to be mowed down, not respected.

This post in National Review is a good example of the problem. The Buckley crowd is arfing like seals at Bill Barr’s assertion that there will be no criminal investigation of Obama and Biden over the FBI scandal. It is hard to know if Barr is unilaterally ruling it out as a possibility or he is simply stating that at the moment there is no reason to think such a thing will happen. Either way, Buckley-style conservatives are soiling themselves in ecstasy over this development. Here’s the money quote.

Having watched the hardball that investigators played against Trump associates, Trump partisans want comeuppance. It is natural, especially for the non-lawyers among them, to maintain that there is no satisfactory form of accountability other than criminal prosecution. Nevertheless, we must bear in mind, no matter how difficult doing so may be, that we react so negatively to the use of investigative processes as a political weapon because it is wrong.

On the one hand, it is tempting to explain this as the lunacy of someone unable to come to terms with the fact that they are defending rules that no longer exist. The writer still thinks he lives in a world bound by mutually agreed upon rules. He’s like a boxer thinking the crooked referee is on the level. The other fighter has a bat and a length of chain as weapons, but the clean fighter is convinced this cheating will be stopped by the referee at some point, so he sticks to the rules.

On the other hand, a core feature of Buckley-style conservatism is it was never designed to go on offense. It has no mechanism to advance forward, because it was designed as a fixed installation. it would be like the castle walls moving outward when the besieging army falls into disarray. Such an idea cannot exist even in fantasy, as it is beyond all possibility. Instead, to continue the analogy, the Buckley-style conservative dreams of repointing the mortar after the battle.

This reticence to go on offence has become such an integral part of conservatism that the use of it has become a weapon of the Left. This post is pretty typical of what happens whenever the Left wrecks themselves with scandal or overreach. They are quick to warn the Right that they better not think about taking advantage of this situation or there will be hell to pay. Put another way, the Left has evolved to use the fundamentals of Buckley-style conservatism to their advantage.

There’s no doubt that many of the people living well in Conservative Inc. understand their role is to be the eternal loser. Maybe they started out as a real culture warrior, but sold out for a good life in the Imperial Capital. Make no mistake, it is a great life that surpasses everywhere else on earth. Rich Lowry makes close to half a million a year running National Review. He knows he could not make that doing anything else, so he is not rustling any jimmies in his role.

The thing is though, such men dominate conservatism because conservatism was by design intended to be a foil for radicalism. It was never intended to defeat it or even stop it, but as Buckley said, merely slow it down a bit. Inevitably such a worldview must boil off fighters and replace them with the accommodating. Buckley-style conservatism did not lose every fight because conservatives are losers. It lost because it was born to lose and therefore it attracted losers.

 

160 thoughts on “Born To Lose”

  1. Lets understand a facet of our situation that is fatally absurd; we are online.

    Online is enemy platform. We exist at their discretion.

    Observe; below article discusses RW trolling of Euro elections.
    We could add everything about the online life, including the online Right.

    We must organize in real life, as you know I recommend getting the shooting club mannerbund together, 8 is enough. But lets not think we have anything online- the enemy has us at his utter discretion.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/24/american-nationalists-european-vacation-278246

  3. In praise of the previous formatting of comments.

    * The gray background and smaller type of the new formatting is harder to read.

    * In the previous formatting, if you kept your comment under a few hundred words, then separate paragraphs could be displayed. In the new style, all paragraphs are concatenated and thus harder to read.

  4. Bless your heart zman for reading National Review for us. I have to confess that reading that article stressed me out nearly as much as listening to NPR. Code Switch, 1A and On The Media all automatically spike the blood pressure. Who are these people? How did they get their jobs?

  5. The problem is that any debate with the Left that is based in a secular world-view is bound to fail.

    Any disputation against gay-marriage, or feminism, or even a Guaranteed Minimum Income (to brings things up to today) is bound to fail unless you can point to a non-secular source of dogma.

    All world-views are based in some dogma … beliefs that are taken as foundational to the world-view. Secularism, in the form of Liberal Democracy, is atheistic and holds man as the arbiter to determine right and wrong. “Who are you to tell me that I’m wrong!”.

    Christianity, Islam, et al., holds revelation as the arbiter. So, fighting secularism with secularism results in secularism … and we keep drifting “left” … that’s the bottom line.

  6. Z Man said: “The thing is though, such men dominate conservatism because conservatism was by design intended to be a foil for radicalism.”

    As far as I’m concerned, bourgeois American Conservatism was, from the very beginning, nothing but a bunch of politically active yacht clubs. Which is why they where always purging the unworthy. Here’s what I’m talking about. This is an artical by George F. Will @northjersey.com yammering about some Polymath Rock Bozo named Bill Weld. Will is longing for ex Governor Weld to “restore conservatism.”

    https://www.northjersey.com/story/opinion/columnists/2018/06/21/can-bill-weld-restore-conservatism/718307002/

    • George Will is an absolute hardcore 100% swamp creature. He has lived in DC far too long to have the ability to speak to any of the problems that are happening in the country. Its isn’t a surprise that a man that has spent so much time near the federal government, the think tanks and the money/privileged of the DC area would think the way he does. Its more surprising to me that the people that publish him think that he represents the views of conservatives living the in rest of the country. These people, the publishers, newspapers, TV and media take us for suckers and see us as fools that can be easily be tricked. This time, “Never trump 2020. Vote Libertarian.”

  7. I know Conservative Inc are perennial losers, but I’ve always wondered why, why, WHY they waste time ingratiating people that will always hate them, while at the same time they utterly ignore the people that vote for them?
    https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/blog/why-are-blacks-democrats/

    I’ve had to train myself to give up the old “yay, red team is winning!” impulse after Republicans won that handful of special elections. I now know Republicans will never do anything for me, so I no longer get excited if they win elections. Every time they’ve won, I’ve still lost. I’ve actually gotten more from Democrat politicians than I’ve ever gotten from Republican politicians.

    • There’s an adorable species of cuckservative out there who, unable to advocate for his own interests, is obsessed with blacks on the Democrat “plantation” instead:
      https://mobile.twitter.com/HathcockNate/status/1263995902101946368

      Problem is, blacks have actually gotten a ton from Democrats for the last 50 years, whereas whites have gotten nothing from Republicans. It turns out the white block vote for Republicans is way worse than any black block vote for Democrats. When leftists argue that poor whites are voting against their interests when they vote for Republicans, they’re right!

    • A microcosm of this was the special election in Elijah Cumming’s infamous shithole district. A black woman Republican (oooh!!! wowww!!!) ran against the usual Democratic geriatric. The Boomercon websites and networks like Red State and Town Hall were all a flutter about the black Republican, who was an ardent Trump supporter.

      The Democrat won by a margin of 3 to 1.
      https://www.businessinsider.com/maryland-7th-district-special-election-live-updates-results-2020-4

    • It’s amusing that the objective stupidity of blacks as a tribe has protected them from being distracted by the kind of ideological foolishness that has ensnared white constitutional conservatives. Blacks simply ask, “What are you going to give to me and my tribe?”

      • Yes! And some humble, grudging respect has to be thrown their way for having the ability to see through all the ideological decorations to the gibs underneath. “What are you going to give me and my tribe?” is really all politics has ever been about and all it ever will be about. So many of us have been distracted by the ideological decorations for a couple centuries now.

  8. According to Free Republic, the NYT has been stressing over the possibility that the President will void the upcoming election and declare himself President for Life. This is a good idea; in fact imperative for our side to have any future input in government. No branch of the federal government (or state government for that matter) still adheres to the Constitution/Bill of Rights and even lip service has become passe. Why not face reality and grab the government while it is still possible? I am sure Barack regrets not executing a successful coup de etat in 2016.

  9. The Christians tell us, “we lost God”- and it turns out they are right.

    We lost our balls, too.

    These both happened at the same time, for the same reason. A specific reason.
    It works every time, that’s why they use it.

    After WWll, when circumcision became standard practice in American hospitals, a specialist procedure so routine it was picked up by insurance.

    Boomer babies were also subjected to the most intense, coordinated brainwashing experiment ever, resulting in the Cultural Revolution when they grew to young adults.

    They gained a new state religion- and the managerial preisthood class that goes along with it.

    Every population that has this practice imposed on it goes somewhat insane, from Africa’s al Shabab to Ottomon Turks to Pashtun Taliban to Abu Sayyaf in the Phillipines.

    White admixtures become guilt-ridden and conformist, non-white admixtures become impulsive and violent.

    The permanent brain trauma has spiritual effects as well as mental ones.
    A people can no longer hear their God, the spirit that moves them.

    We lost our God, and our balls.
    We are Shechem, Genesis v. 34.

    • The end of the (((Masoretic))) inspired protestard heresy will be a mass conversion to Judaism. When you accept divorce, circumcision, usury, and multicultural imperialism (“tikkun olam”) you’re pretty much there already.

      I don’t know why anyone would try to beat Jews at their own game, even before knowing about all the tricks in the Talmud.

  10. Any kind of politics that doesn’t look to win is lazy at best. And let’s be honest, if lefty’s way hadn’t lifted many boats (even if it was at the expense of future generations), somebody would’ve fought it and won.

    People got lazy, now the bill is due. Things are changing in our direction, at what will be a terrible cost, but I have a feeling there’s no other way it could be. Nobody wants to get smaller, even if it’s in their long-term interest.

    Still, I’m glad future generations will have a chance to know a fuller self determination than we do. It’s up to us to make that happen for them.

  11. Except the right did have a series of victories in the 1980s, including, critically, the overthrow of the lefties’ beloved USSR (and history has been rewritten to decouple the left’s support for it, as they were either fellow travellers or useful idiots ). It seems to me the right only became losers, in the sense described here, after the fall of the USSR in 1991.

    I loathe Buckley, by the way, and broadly agree with this blog, but if you look at the West in the 60s and the 70s, the 80s does look like a conservative interregnum. Could be a lesson there.

    • Christopher Caldwell says that when Reagan won in 1980 he had a mandate to roll back some of the Democrat’s great society stuff. But he did nothing. Basically the conservatives won the argument but none of the laws were changed, and the opportunity was lost.

      I think he covers this in this video and in his “Age of Entitlement” book:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGfsH0VJ62U&t=3242s

      Its interesting to see some of the house conservatives begin to turn on Reagan. It wasn’t so long ago that he was venerated as a political ideal by the right.

      • In defense of Reagan, keep in mind he always had to deal with a Democrat Congress, who would never roll back any significant part of the New Deal. Not that there weren’t Republicans who would have voted with the Dems.

  12. “You see this with Buckley-style conservatism. It was never an ideology or even an independent agenda…”

    Good piece, but Buckley had at least one very specific agenda: Expose the old, reasonable right, meaning the 85 percent of the nation that opposed American entry into WWII.

    Charlie Beard knew it. He even wrote it up in (of all places) the September 1947 issue of The Saturday Evening Post:

    “The Rockefeller Foundation and Council on Foreign Relations . . . intend to prevent, if they can, a repetition of what they call “the debunking journalistic campaign following World War I.” Translated into precise English, this means that the Foundation and the Council do not want journalists or any other persons to examine too closely and criticize too freely the official propaganda and statements relative to “our basic aims and activities” during World War II. In short, they hope that the policies and measures of Franklin D. Roosevelt will escape in coming years the critical analysis, evaluation and exposition that befell the policies and measures of President Woodrow Wilson and the Entente Allies after World War…”

    The Buck could flip back and forth on civil rights, states rights, whatever. But any old “isolationist” was banned and ghosted.

    THAT was “Buckley conservative’s” agenda and it succeeded. Very few people now living even remember the old right.

  15. they are the wormtongues that keep Theoden under Saruman’s spell. Remebering Saruman with the ring would just be Sauron but think himself good.

    There was a Meme with Ron Paul as Gandalf. Trump the Orange played that role.

    It is also not political to use a criminal investigative process to find and prosecute, well, criminals (What is the statute of limitations on Hillary and her server and foundation?).

    The problem with Flynn is that the swamp is the Harlem Globetrotters. They can’t let Washington Generals win, even once.

  18. Further; what now are the liberals reduced to but standing in athwart the Trump Train – the difference being the Left DID stop the Trump Train- by shutting down the economy over COVID. Admittedly they blew up the entire rail system to do it, but they did stop the Trump train. The economy is derailed, war is far more likely now.

    Stepping back, and looking at Cloward-Piven Medicine ie COVID-19 -Piven I have an epiphany; Stalin wasn’t wrong.
    The wreckers and saboteurs he purged out of the Party were real. We are seeing their work now with COVID.

    Oh Koba, how little we knew ye.
    Because that’s who we need now gentlemen- Stalin. He knew how to handle Communists, he knew how to catch the car, drive it, and how to win.

    Stop pining for Hitler.
    We need Stalin.

  20. I disagree on this one. Conservatives were born to lose because they lacked a negative identity.

    Yes I know you said on your podcast on Friday, look at how Negative Identity has handcuffed Black people — but I would turn that around. Black people with their genetic starting point of poor future orientation, lower natural IQ, higher levels of aggressiveness, higher levels of violence, low paternal investment with nothing BUT Negative Identity have managed to:

    Control most Eastern Cities, now and for the foreseeable future.
    Control national politics and run the Democratic Party.
    Create and maintain a massive income transfer from Whites to Blacks.
    Demand special set asides for Blacks at the expense of Whites and constantly EXPAND those to new areas.
    Have most of the leadership in culture, politics, and sports.
    Start the colonization process of China — which has an African population now of more than 50,000 in Southern China and yes Black people there get their way.

    Negative Identity creates and maintains unity. Even or especially among Black people. Look at Bill Cosby. Had he not criticized Black people for keeping it real, Hannibal Burress would not have done spit to publicize his roofy-raping ways. But he did and Burress did and now a leading critic of keeping it real and advocating (for others) White behavior is in jail for the rest of his life.

    Conservatives don’t fight because they lack … HATE. Anger is an energy, as John Lydon once sang for Public Image Limited. Anger, Negative Identity, and HATE HATE HATE motivate people like nothing else. Look at how motivated SJWs, AWFLS, Karens, etc. are about beta males and flyover Whites. They hate them and want them dead, so they act in ways that self interest would limit. Hate and anger will galvanize action even to the point of death of the individual, see Mohammed Atta, Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahari, etc.

    Indeed Black people found out very quickly in WWII with most White men gone they could stage riots and Whites would … surrender. Comply. That HATE energizing hyper violent acts by the lower classes enabled upper class organizers and leaders the ability to dominate and control a much larger population.

    I would agree there needs to be limits on the hate. Negative Identity without a plan and without limits leads to defeat. And there needs to be some positive identity too — the Irish Renaissance / Revival movement, Afro-futurism etc. are models.

    Anger is an energy.

    • While the China thing goes too far, this is mostly true, but not because they’re strong, but that whites are at this point weak and brainwashed. A pretty unified people, while inferior in nearly every way, can beat a group of people beset by race denialism and mentally ill Karens. It won’t last long and nature will win out in the end. Even 5-10% of rabidly racist (realist) whites, when unleashed, could control that population. They won’t be unleashed for a long time.

      • Yes, he does a have a point. But blacks have succeeded using a negative identity only because their white targets do not have any collective identity. That needs to change and only whites can change it.

  21. I think about the times when Republicans had both houses of Congress and the Presidency. Some of HW Bush’s Presidency and Trump’s first 2 years. They cut taxes, spent more money than ever, confirmed some decent judges, and did… nothing. Paul Ryan literally ran out the clock in Congress until he could hand the gavel back over to Pelosi. No concealed carry reciprocity (or anything else for 2A), Planned Parenthood still got funded, illegals still flowed across the border freely, nothing really changed.

    • I would love to know why congress didn’t attempt to pass more meaningful legislation in the first two years of the Trump admin. Is the threshold for passing legislation 60 votes in the Senate now?

      In hind sight, it feels like such a wasted opportunity.

  23. Over the years, the many good people that the evil Buckley tossed out of the “Conservative Movement” plainly showed anyone really looking that he was not on the side of the right at all. Some said he was a CIA plant who was there to keep conservatives from being anything other than the professional wrestler whose job it was to lose.

    Buckley’s picture should be in any dictionary beside the definition of “controlled opposition.”

  24. The problem isn’t the hucksters in Conservative Inc., They’re a symptom of the problem. The problem is that there’s no real market for conservatism anywhere in modern society. Not real conservatism. Not Jeffersonian conservatism. The “conservatives” of today are fascists who don’t even know it. For instance, a Jeffersonian style conservative would recoil at anything more than 5% of his total income going to taxes, maybe even less, and would consider drunk driving to be fine and dandy, as long as you take responsibility if you run someone over. Society would be much more dangerous, but personal responsibility would be the rule. About 98% of the country doesn’t want that. Instead, the “conservative” of today is a cop worshiping liberal with less dietary restrictions. Don’t touch my Medicare! Don’t touch my disability check (from a fake back injury in the 90s). Just look at the sh-t show on the Breitbart commentary section. Freeloading fascist yokels who think they’re “conservative.” They even have the Gadsten flag icons, which is like a five year old in a Spiderman outfit thinking he’s Spiderman. At this point I almost detest them even more than Antifa. Almost. They sit there dumbfounded as the owners of our country mow us down with brown hordes, but when their orange god tells them to vote for the open borders Alabama football coach as their Senator, they cheer and dutifully punch the ballot, and then e-mail each other vapid, saccharine, Jesus memes.

      • It’s only a matter of time before he crosses the line (whatever he will say will be obvious but taboo) and FNC loses the Cialis ad revenue, he’ll be gone. He’s actually quite hated among a lot of conservatives for not sucking off orange god every day.

      • The people are nothing without leaders, and at present we only have one. He’s Orange and Bad, not bad enough for many here of course.

        We need an Orange Party, or to make the GOP Orange.

        Its doable, but doubtful.

        Whiskey is right. We don’t hate enough. The Left hates us more than it seems we love ourselves.

  25. The constant refresh cycle of available data is a must to achieving success. Dissident progress must every so often go through this process. When you refresh your data you stand a better chance of seeing reality. If you want to win that is. If the goal is to lose then create a delusion. One you can comfortably rationalize. Just like Conservative Inc. does with gatekeepers and everything. Real blood? Or is it?

  26. If Rich Lowry or Rod Dreher were not making a nice living writing tame and boring stuff, what would they be qualified to do? Maybe a front-line manager in some customer service organization but they are not serious men. Of course the same is true of dissident right “leaders” like Richard Spencer. If you owned a business, what would you trust him to do above the level of shift manager at a Subway?

      • I’d say journalism, but CNN already hired Spencer as the face of the Right.

        Event planning, then, as CNN hired Kessler for Charlottesville.

        You can hire guys like this and the performers themselves whenever you need a false flag, or if the joggers are taking a day off, through agencies like this: crisiscast.com

        The show must go on!

  27. We have a Uniparty.

    Conservative Inc works perfectly well. At best it is controlled opposition that puts on Kabuki theater for the masses giving them the illusion we have two opposing p0artiues when in reality we don;’t.

    Case in point prior to Trump winning. Both Ryan and McConnell had legislation wriitten up for Hillary to sign once she won. And what was the legislation? One was amnesty for illegals and another for TPP..

    Uniparty in action folks.

    And prior to that senior GOP leadership colluded with the Democrats to stop Trump. They even got together at Sea Island to hash out a strategy.

  28. “the mistaken belief that virtue is a useful weapon against the ideologue.”
    That is the quote of the decade.

    • I dunno, it seems virtue is the ideologue’s chief weapon in recruiting.

      As grey said, “the cool thing to be”.
      Don’t you wanta by Ivy League?

      Both left and right “defend freedom, democracy, and prosperity”.
      Take that, oppressors!

  29. 1897 Dabny quote: “It may be inferred again that the present movement for women’s rights will certainly prevail from the history of its only opponent: Northern conservatism. This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. . . . Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always when about to enter a protest very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its bark is worse than its bite, and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance: The only practical purpose which it now serves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it in wind, and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy, from having nothing to whip. No doubt, after a few years, when women’s suffrage shall have become an accomplished fact, conservatism will tacitly admit it into its creed, and thenceforward plume itself upon its wise firmness in opposing with similar weapons the extreme of baby suffrage; and when that too shall have been won, it will be heard declaring that the integrity of the American Constitution requires at least the refusal of suffrage to asses. There it will assume, with great dignity, its final position.”
    1897

    https://www.counter-currents.com/2012/11/robert-lewis-dabney-on-conservatism/

  30. Buckley Conservatism Started as WFB’s reaction against the growth of government in the New Deal, and gained widespread popularity on the “Right” during the Great Society.

    It always was an economic-based ideology. Social life could morph into whatever so long as it did so constitutionally.

    It was a boutique ideology for a particular time. It belongs in the same dustbin of history as Jacobinism and Mercantilism.

  31. Conservatives like their opponents the progressives are both Whigs. Constitutional government, personal freedoms and scientific (meaning material) progress are baked into the foundation of both. The Enlightenment gave them birth. All that came before is prologue. Anything from the past not seen as leading to a justification of the present is ignored and by now largely forgotten. The Enlightenment is Christian Universalism retaining its teleological litany but secularized. It is no longer the hand of God but now the hand of Man that can reshape Man’s destiny on the path to the inevitable universal progress of mankind. Any reading of our past that envisions a need to temper this drive is rejected and buried. Ordered freedom and evolutionary progress (controlled and assimilated progress) vs accelerated freedom and revolutionary progress (rapid and constant progress) is the only difference between what now defines the conservative from the progressive.

    The one needs the other. The progressives need the conservative wing to temper their ceaseless drive into the unknown. Without at least some assimilation of their creed the conflicts they engender would implode the whole thing. The conservatives need the progressive wing to keep them in assimilation mode and to continually find themselves having to assimilate more and more…otherwise if things progress too slowly uncomfortable questions may arise and that would interfere with the march forward. The conflict between them drives the progressives to more revolution. Yesterday’s progress is today’s ball and chain. The instability caused by the progressive’s march forward forces the conservatives to find ways to assimilate more forcefully and to wall off anyone unwilling to assimilate beyond a certain threshold. “Look behind me, Proggies. Don’t you see what you’re awakening! Slow the eff down!” ,is the conservative’s political war cry. Akin to a ship dragging its anchor in a storm attempting to avoid from keeling over.

    Without this cooperative conflict the path to enlightened progress would collapse. The Whiggish conception of progress is the belief system. It is the worst aspects of Christianity untempered by the lack of any belief in something greater than man’s faith in his ability to rationalize and bend nature to his will. The progressive and the conservative are the necessary tools by which it advances. Not even dissidents are free of this net. To free yourself from this Whiggish cage is the final white pill.

    • Superb observation. You’ve stated what’s been knocking about in my brain for some time, but unable to articluate. The ships anchor metaphor is spot on.
      Meantime the ship of state continues its drift toward the rocks.

    • Agree, superb.

      About 500 BC, the concept of Salvation came to both East and West.

      This was the same time the priestly class overthrew the engineering class, when most of our modern theological concepts came to dominance.

      Bhudda gave the polytheist East escape from the endless Wheel.

      Jews gave the West the monotheist End of Time.

      Before salvation, men sought honor and memory, because the afterlife wasn’t much to speak of.

      • Addendum- so our politics become religiously motivated, as the acolytes plan what to do when they catch the car.

        Funny how ‘eliminating whiteness’ is now openly preached by the clerisy.

    • Don’t worry.

      Back in the olden days- late Feb, I used to think that we were headed for e re-run of Wiemar. I’m now convimced that the end-result will be a complete reversal of the gains of the Enlightenment.

      Once we’re all serfs, the direction we need to head will be obvious, of course, it will be too late.

  32. Now you’ve got that vile piece of garbage Bruce Springsteen stuck in my head. “Oh Windy cucks like us, baby we we were bo-orn to loooooooose!!” Thanks a lot, Z Man.

  33. A parasite by any other name is still a parasite. Like a crack addiction, once seduced into dependence, one quickly loses the ability to live any other lifestyle. Can a parasite be rehabilitated? Can you talk it out of it’s need to feed? Can you teach it to be productive as a substitute for sucking the blood from it’s host? And how long can you ignore the parasite on your ass before it bleeds you dry?

  34. Your post prompted me to slum at National Review. What caught my eye was an editorial condemning a Republican senatorial candidate in Oregon for embracing QAnon, which of course NR dismisses as conspiracy theory (my point does not concern the validity of QA). Needless to say, the virtue signaling was off the charts.

    The caused me to reflect on how National Review treated the mother of all conspiracy theories, Trump-Russia Collusion. NR ran column after column and editorial after editorial either entertaining this lunatic claim or lauding absolute trash and corrupted fiends such as Robert Mueller. Some writers there who used to extol the virtues of Mueller and company now go to great lengths to condemn or distance themselves from the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory. This happened across Conservatism, Inc. Similar things always happened with the laughably named “conservative movement.”

    So why did NR at best indulge Trump-Russia collusion? Why did it go after the senatorial candidate? It is simply because these types live in deeply Blue areas and want approval from their left-wing friends and associates. Of course, to maintain their Uber Cuck status and corporate patrons, National Review wouldn’t dare go after Republicans who richly deserve condemnation such as Richard Burr, Kelly Loefller, fill in the blank. Bill Buckley also played the same game. Anyone who thinks the degeneracy of NR and the rest of Conservatism, Inc., is a recent development simply doesn’t know the history.

    Yes, conservatism always lacked a strategy to go on offense but it had an even more fatal flaw. It was all a pose. It was just a pose, straight up, designed to attract blue-haired heiresses and their generosity and to appease the Left they lived among in Manhattan and D.C.

    Conservatism as an ideology cannot die fast enough.

    • NRO should have died years ago. NRO is like a boated corpse kept afloat by donations IT ceased being relevant after putting all its eggs in the Jeb/Cruz/Rubio basket.

      • National Review survives on donations from the wills of those who passed when they were still relevant

        • A lot like the Episcopal “church”; much lovely real estate that will remain empty even after the corona virus moves on.

  35. Real fighting may get you dead. Whining pseudo opposition gives you lifetime good income. Liberals of course have also media and intellectuals but their rule is simple. Go against left and you run into serious troubles. When we look liberal history, then despite having massive propaganda machine, left never counted on brainwashing or hearts and minds but always brutal violence. This is the reason why any intellectual opposition is useless and dead from beginning.

  36. To be fair to Buckley, NR was founded in 1955 by CIA types, including himself and Burnham. The Cold War, mainly with the Soviet Union but also Red China, dominated its pages until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. They backed the long Vietnam War, 1965-75, with many issues devoted to that. The Left used the war as one of its reasons to subvert the culture. Meanwhile, all the major Protestant denominations, as well as the Catholic Church following Vatican II, failed to defend the culture. Paul VI, a weakling, never punished anyone from dissenting from his anti-contraception encyclical, “Humanae Vitae,” even as it was mercilessly attacked by such apostates as Garry Wills, a Buckley prodege. Paul VI’s Mass in the vernacular was a disheartening disaster, even for non-Catholics. See “Agatha Christie Indult.” There was no Web, so it was hard to push any conservative ideas beyond those in NR. Buckley’s brother-in-law, Brent Bozell, founded a reactionary Catholic journal, Triumph, but had almost no impact. Well, at least the Soviet Union ended.

    • VietNam was, perhaps, Buckley & Co.’s biggest mistake, although Everyone Who Counted thought it was a wonderful idea–including JFK, who put “advisers” in-country in 1960 or so. When the Catholic Diem–regarded as “incorruptible” became a problem for the US/CIA, he was eliminated.

      It’s reasonable to speculate that the war was pursued for the benefit of US industry which needed another incremental market-share gain. It could not have been pursued “to stop the Commies”–as that is precisely what it incurred.

      It’s also reasonable–and uglier–that VietNam and subsequently Iraq/Afghanistan are the necessary test-beds for military technology and tactics FBO the Pentagon and its suppliers. Eisenhower had something to say about that.

    • Meanwhile, all the major Protestant denominations, as well as the Catholic Church following Vatican II, failed to defend the culture. Paul VI, a weakling, never punished anyone from dissenting from his anti-contraception encyclical, “Humanae Vitae,” even as it was mercilessly attacked by such apostates as Garry Wills…

      Agreed in the main. But–to be fair–what was Paul VI to do with such as Wills and Curran? He could not fire them, and even if he managed to engineer a loss-of-job (as he may have done with Curran) the skunk simply moved to a new burrow.

      Paul’s much larger problem was his appointment of dozens of Bad Bishops, who separated the Faithful from the Faith. There are far more Judases in Catholic ‘middle-management’ than one likes to think. It’s not really dissimilar to Trump’s situation in many ways, except Trump seems to have much better vision than Paul VI or John Paul II.

  37. >One of things that drives conspiracy theories about 9/11 is the neocons and the war machine were the primary beneficiaries of the event. The Left, which is always ready for a crisis, got very little from it initially. They have since taken over the surveillance state, but they initially opposed its creation. The simple minded assume that 9/11 must have been a neocon conspiracy, as how else could they have been ready to make such good use of it? The answer is, they planned to catch that car one day.

    hmmm….the neocons created the post-911 surveillance state. Compare pre-911 to post-911. That was their doing, their victory, which stands today. They not only grabbed the car but ripped the driver out. They also won in regard to Iraq and Afghanistan wars. They have has some defeats but some key victories too.

    • The Neocons were former leftists so they knew how to play the long game and catch cars, as it were. Come to think of it, what were the other differences between the Neocons and BuckleyCons? The BuckleyCons were milquetoast and post-Reaganite, kind of like the old leather recliner you keep in your living room because it’s comfy and goes with everything. The Neocons, on the other hand, had a Judeo-Machiavellian drive to to control the world…er, spread freedom and liberty. Since the BuckleyCons were also for freedom and liberty and USA #1, they went along with it. But other than having old WASP names like “John Fund” among them, I can’t tell the difference.

  38. It could be that conservatives lack the courage and vision to restore America’s lost glory, or it could be that history’s ratchet turns only in one direction. That government is destined to grow ever bigger until it bleeds its host dry. There will then be an adjustment period when $100 bills blow about uncollected in the street, rafts of dead bodies float down the Potomac, and we will have small government again.

  39. The people who inhabit Conservatism, Inc. are like the old 19th century conservatives who were terrified of radicalism. The one thing they feared more than anything back then was revolution. Today’s establishment is precisely the same in that they fear the dissident right’s ideology will lead to real revolution. They know we mean it. They cannot imagine a world in which they do not hold all the levers of power: monetary, cultural, political. We threaten that. We want a revolution and are willing to do whatever it takes to preserve our civilization, our language, our very communities. The thing is, Normie is beginning to realize that TPTB are not going to protect him and his family. As the demography of political change unwinds, this realization will become starkly apparent. The Dissident Right just needs to watch and become engaged only when events give us the opportunity. We threaten no-one but the string pullers. And we threaten passively by our mere existence.

    • Or, our normie may more closely resemble the Roman normie. He saw every fault of the ruling class, had lost confidence in his normie class and any possibility of a return to Republic. When the end came he divided up into what was more natural to him, twenty Italian countries. The centuries that re-invented civilization came from those countries. Rome made a comeback in the 19th century and it has not played out particularly well.

      On this side of the divide we tend to think no less large than the left. It’s our loss. Might is found in right, not gigantism and conformity.

    • Epaminondas,

      You mentioned earlier this week that there is an untapped market for private teachers. While I have my own ideas about how to execute this, could you speculate as to what private teaching will look like in the coming years? And do you really believe that public schools are on the way out? You’re someone whose advice I highly value.

      • I didn’t catch that, but there is a vast untapped pool of money being misspent on the public schools, 15k plus per student national average. Aristotle would be happy to educate your child in very managable groups for that kind of money. Who even knows what talent is in waiting out there?

        • But I would be teaching the kids to take state-sanctioned tests, no?

          How can I make sure the kids qualify for X, Y and Z when I’m a public school pariah? Yes, I know: research. I’m doing that. But there’s just so much frickin red tape!

          The “manageable groups” thing is important. It’s kind of a waste to cram 30 kids into a classroom. Too much time spent reigning in the goats. And the goats are great kids, by and large; they just need a few more reminders than your average animal.

          That dynamic changes in (very) small groups, though. A class of four or five means greater accountability, intensity and interactivity. One-on-one is better still.

          The biggest pull will be the total absence of politicking, which drives liberal teachers crazy. Any liberal education resource simply MUST inject divisiveness and bias into its pedagogy. Look at wikipedia. When you try to point out to the editors that they’re being a little too militant, they (almost literally) retort that their bias is correct and yours isn’t, so it’s justified. The hubris is astounding. Moreover, there are too many women teaching older children. It makes the kids soft and inattentive.

          • If you are in a state that administers certification tests that employ politically correct material, walk your child through the curriculum and point out the propaganda. Put big red marks on those pages. Or move to a state that gives you the freedom you seek and completely avoid the issue. Or avoid the PC material, remain where you are until your child is ready to graduate, then “move” to a homeschool-friendly state and have the certification tests done there.

          • Yeah, I like that red mark idea. It wouldn’t necessarily mean “wrong,” just “we need to discuss this first.”

        • approx $24k per student in NYC.
          ~130k employees at the Dept of Ed
          ~1,300,000 students
          Ten to One ratio, yet most classes are still 28-32 students; less than half are actually in the classrooms teaching.

          • The pandemic has had profound effects on public spaces (e.g. social distancing). If this trouble hangs around for even a year or two, imagine the profound effects on public schools. If they must social distance, much smaller class sizes? Or, we can just do business as usual. Schools may suck at educating, but they remain outstanding community spread of infection locations 😀

          • This particular virus however, seems not to affect/infect children and children have not be shown to be a vector for infection. They might get away with business as usual using some faux hygiene theater.

          • Sure, and LA is 25+, Milwaukee and DC 27+, in other words, failure gets funded.

      • The first thing to do is get comfortable with the concept and do some research about your state’s laws governing homeschooling. If you do some online searching along the lines of “how to homeschool your child”, you will come across a ton of links. There are people in your area who are already formed into support groups. Find them. I’ll caution you about online curriculum: it can be just as corrupt as anything you get in the government schools. Parents MUST be intimately involved to make sure your child is not brainwashed. The material is insidious and particularly apparent in the reading and writing courses. If I were you, I would try to get my hands on older instructional material from the fifties. I learned from the Row & Peterson materials (Alice and Jerry), and those materials are still out there! The educational material will become more difficult to police as the child grows older, so you must be aware and vigilant. Throw your TV away. Rent or buy DVDs you trust. As your child matures, introduce them to recorded literature and histories. The Learning Company and Audio Connoisseur offer excellent products. The success of homeschooling largely depends on the participation and enthusiasm of parents. When you’re engaged, your child will be engaged.

        • Very interesting on the reading material. Thank you for giving me the name of a reputable education company. I probably won’t need to push too hard as my kid ages because I plan to lie to my child as little as possible.

          I can’t wait to parent. In fact, I often parented while I was teaching. For example, I once heard a kid say to his friend that Mrs. X has a hairy pussy, which I ultimately decided to unhear. But when that same kid threw a pencil in class, I told him to come out to the hall.

          “Do you know why you’re about to get suspended?”
          “Because I threw a pencil?”
          “No, that’s not it. What was that you said earlier about Mrs. X?”

          He got wide-eyed and apologized. Told him that if he threw another pencil in class it would void my NDA and I would personally call his parents and tell them what he said.

          I love ironing out those morality wrinkles. Can honestly say that I’ve never gotten mad while I was doing it. At that age, a stern lesson can still correct bad behavior and help keep a kid out of trouble down the line. That’s not so in his twenties.

        • If I were teaching young children,
          I would concentrate on
          Listening & Speaking
          Reading & Writing
          Looking & Drawing (visual communication is very important)
          Arithmetic — calculating & estimating

          Socialization is also one of the important aspects of Learning (I would recommend that children be in mixed-age groups, not segregated by age).

          I don’t think elementary schools need be concerned with filling the young minds with Data… historical facts, social studies, cultural things; these can be studied on their own when they’re older teens.

          Unfortunately, Babysitting has become one of the major reasons for schools; the fallout from that is the emergence of “in loco parentis”, and the requirement that schools and teachers adhere to the cultural norms of the majority, no matter how degenerate those norms might currently be.

          • For slightly older kids I would recommend teaching mechanical skills, software and hardware building blocks

          • For grief’s sake, get their hands on things. Teach them some skills.

            They’ll ‘get’ the abstract when it’s useful- how to measure a table to paint it, how many feet of cloth, etc.

            Or at least how to pick cotton.
            Otherwise we’ll end up with colleges filled by theological lawyers.

    • Many on our side may imagine some type of fight against the establishment to reclaim the levers of power. But to me, it seems more likely we should let it collapse and, ideally, be well-positioned to replace it with our own version. We seem to agree that it is impossible to fix the system (voting or running for office), fighting it just makes us a target. Perhaps we can live in our own little groups and mind our own business. Aged, corrupt systems eventually collapse of their own weight. The best the small guy can do is to try not to be under the falling debris. Easier said than done.

  40. In the instance of an attempted coup, can think quite easily of alternatives other than criminal prosecution. Just a hunch, but pretty sure Andy Mc-Foxcontract and I diverge at the definition of “alternative”. But if I remember correctly, there was no Fourth Servile War.

    • +1 SamlAdams. “No, I am Spartacus!” OK, time once again for a forrest of crucifixes, along the Potomac rather than the Tiber. The solution is not voting, but watering the tree of liberty. Sic semper tyrannis.

  41. A good synopsis of where we are and why. It is discouraging that traditions “conservatives” purport to revere, in reality do nothing of the sort. Just a bunch of yelling & gnashing of teeth – or should I say rather, refined, civil and nuanced discussion ala wild bill Buckley? Regardless, all sound and fury signifying nothing. Traditions do evolve with succeeding generations but mostly for the worse it seems. Gee, I wonder why that is?

  42. “….because it is wrong.”
    Hahaha

    I just had a conversation with someone who said Biden would not be able to get away with not debating Trump. Apparently that was just a bridge too far. I said they can do anything they want, for example, imprisoning half the country in their homes. The person I was talking to immediately wanted to call me a conspiracy theorist for the use of the word they. He is a very well trained

    • you know it’s funny, i have been using “they” “our elites” and even; “our rootless cosmopolitian elites” in comments for a while now. I expected some push back but haven’t encountered any as of yet.

      • I just call them “our ruling overlords” and get it over with. Shocked looks but no blowback as this Range Front Fault looks like unpredictable vertical acceleration.

        • Yeah that works too. Everybody uses “they” but if your “they”eventually is going to have a check put on their behavior and get some sort of comeuppance then you’re not a conspiracy theorist. However, if your “they” is running amok in a completely lawless society then you’re a conspiracy theorist.

          • One would think ‘zhey’ ought to pass muster with the speech polizia.

  43. One might say that conservatives are the Washington Generals to the Harlem Globetrotters….

    • I’m really behind the times. I thought it was the Washington Wizards (renamed from the Bullets, presumably because DC wanted to de-emphasize the ballistics in the bad parts of town). In any case, we have plenty of Fantasia-style sorcerer’s apprentices in DC, damned few true Wizards.

  44. Hello,
    First comment here after reading this blog since a quite long time, and I want to thank it’s author for it’s good quality, which is hard to find by today standards, same quality problem about political party in general.
    The main problem with conservatism is that money now preveils over values since decades.
    Here in France, plenty of pseudo “conservative” bourgeois, aka “Catholic Zombies” , preferred voting Macron, an endless social progressist and EU Federalist, as long as it allows them to do business as usual rather voting for a more risky candidate for their business but with more conservative societal values.

  45. Well, this is a point that has been made a million times by our side, but since it’s the main point, I’ll make it again:

    Conservative Inc.’s attempt to be color blind, which is really an attempt to fit into their opponents’ Overton Window, is its fatal flaw.

    The other side knows this all too well: this is why their main thing these days is to prevent any kind of white identity or solidarity–they know that’s the winning play for any real rightism/conservatism, and they’re correctly (from their point of view) fortifying that side of their occupation encampment.

    Conservative Inc. is too cowardly to storm that wall, so they just go for busy-work “conservatisms” that don’t really adress the central issues of demographics and white solidarity.

    Real rightism/conservatism is about storming that wall of racial identity. Simple as.

    • The irony is the Bill Buckley of the Fifties would be considered racist and anti-Semitic today. He fully understood racial realities and the dangers Jews posed to civil society. Then his neighbors took up civil rights and he shut up about it.

    • I agree. The most important thing our side can do is to make it respectable among whites (I don’t care what non-whites think) to be proud of our heritage and to think about what is best for our people.

      That doesn’t mean trashing other races. It means being proud of who we are and demonstrating that we have the balls to further our own interests. Other races see us weak (and frankly they are right) for failing to do so.

      • Watch the nagger beating up the old White man in the nursing home, or any of hundreds of such things over at Paul Kersey’s blog, and then tell me “We don’t need to trash other races.” I’m fed up with hearing ‘I don’t hate x, I just don’t want to live with them.’ Hate is a normal and natural emotion and he who does not hate after what blacks do daily to Whites, or what small hats have done to White countries, is merely virtue-signalling for muh optics.

        • 3g4m, I don’t think I expressed my opinion very clearly.

          I went to a majority black high school in the ghetto of Hampton, VA. It was a living hell. I had to be ready to fight every single day just for being white. I saw white friends taken away in ambulances after being jumped by groups of blacks.

          So I personally have a very negative opinion of blacks and I am sick of their incessant whining about racism. I wish they had never been brought over here.

          That said, we are trying to win normie white people to our side. Most white people have not had the experiences I had. They don’t want to be perceived as racist. So as a strategy, being pro white has a much better chance of winning than being anti black or anti any other race.

    • I’d never seen Tucker Carlson. My wife goes on about him, thinks he nails it every time. The night that he covered the black guy beating hell out of what appears to be an unconscious elderly white man she said, “You have to see this.”

      I watched it. They showed a bunch of assaults in similar circumstances. Every perpetrator was black. Then Tucker and the guest came up with two solutions: relax the Covid crap to allow people to visit and check on these residents, and increase funding to Medicare and Medicaid.

      What passes for the Right in this country makes sure to stay stuck like glue to the rightmost portion of the Left, necessarily moving to the left every time the Left does so.

      Same with coming out of this virus nightmare. The Right thinks we should all able to go to beaches and concerts and restaurants as long as we wear masks, stay six feet apart and never touch another human.

      Screw that. The actual conversation position would be to quit pretending the MacGuffin Virus exists for any other reason than to move the totalitarian plot along.

      • Doc, I haven’t seen your comments for a while. Can you say a bit more about why you call it the “MacGuffin Virus?” I know that “MacGuffin” means “a plot device that has no specific meaning or purpose other than to advance the story.” What I’m curious about is your conclusion that the virus is so inconsequential that it is a mere plot device. I’d like to benefit from your knowledge and experience. Thanks.

    • A great conversation starter (or stopper, depending on the company) is to work into a conversation that you are ok with Blacks, it’s N——-s (rhymes with “Jiggers”) that are the problem. Berore using such a verbal device, may I suggest you carefully review your business, social and personal contacts and how important they are to you? 😀

  46. it would be like the castle walls moving outward when the besieging army falls into disarray.

    Great analogy. Great column.

    But now is not the time to bicker about what comes after. Defeat the enemy first, then bicker.

    • Not so, Karl.

      I was there. Back then, there were still a few respectable people on the left that weren’t certifiably nuts or evil. There was much more civility between the parties. For us up here in Canukistan, things started going badly with the election of Turdo The Elder. We are a couple swirls and decades ahead of you Yanks as we go down the leftist crapper… Your Yank equivalents started losing their minds when Blowjob Bill got elected. Jimmeh Carduh wasn’t that bright either I suppose…

      Back then, if some leftist started screaming, you settled them down, got them talking, and tried to reason and possibly compromise with them. Nowadays you either submit to them or pay for defying them. Or you walk away from them and live your life without them.

      They are going to fall, even if we don’t have to kill them first. It’s not a matter of “IF” we catch that car – it’s a matter of when. And – not trying to be a dink or anything… but the Dissidents don’t seem to have a formalized plan to handle that car either when they catch it. We really need to jump on that.

      • It’s a tangent, but in fairness to Jimmy Carter he was in Hyman Rickovers nuclear navy. Brains were never Jimmy’s problem, Nixon himself said he was one of the smartest men to occupy the presidency.

        More proof that IQ by itself isn’t going to save us, there are plenty of bright men who believe the silliest things imaginable.

          • One of my favorite bumper sticker bromides, alas, rarely seen, is “Don’t Believe Everything You Think.”

          • About 40 years ago, I recall “I didn’t invent sin, I’m just trying to perfect it.” This could well apply to many political movements…

        • Just have to comment, that my dad had a good friend, that was a retired Marine general. More than 1 star, we’ll leave it at that. Went to Annopolis with Rickover. Despised the man. Said he used his ‘race’ (me at the time: wut??) to gain advantage and avoid responsibility. This a man that was a major at start of ww2. Enough said. Didn’t have much love lost for Jimmah either.

        • And the most pernicious things possible. Academia is filled with technically brilliant people, yet it consistently generates the very most destructive ideas. Intelligence isn’t the same thing as wisdom. Indeed, it sometimes seems they are antonyms.

    • Karl is concise, not verbose. Spot on, Karl!
      Z….your job is concise verbosity. good job!

    • The GOP was always about serving monied interests first and foremost.and did very well for them.They just gave the illusion they gave a shit about the American people,.

      First off you get nowhere in the party unless you’re a kept man who is a slave to his campaign donors. Secondly they don’t want populist style candidates but those who are part of the system.

      Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina are great exanmples. The CA GOP knew full well that neither polled well and were in fact hated by most GOP and independent voters but were pushed onto the CA GOP ballot with terrible results

  48. It’s gonna take a long time to boil the current age conservatism crap off the white race in America. You can see it with the recent Biden gaff about you ain’t black if you don’t vote for me. All we hear is how racist! How racist!
    From the American main stream conservatives.
    They are clueless about the outcome of this pandering.
    I meant to add a comment yesterday when the Z was discussing Baltimore.
    On a tour of America come to St. Louis Missouri and look up the burial place of one General William Tecumseh Sherman and go for a visit to the gravesite.
    But bring your weapons, even in the middle of the day. You will need them. General Sherman’s body lies in the hood amongst a people who have no idea nor care that he destroyed the southern confederacy for them and forever changed America.
    The current crop of Conservatives will eventually lie in the ground in an America they would abhor as much as Sherman.
    Sherman would despise the surroundings of his burial place, but he deserves them.
    The Buckley conservatives will deserve theirs too.

    • My Dad is an ex cop. When I dropped the line, “Did you know that if you have an IQ of 85, you can’t read a bus line map?”
      He responded with a smile, ” Do all those people live in the same part of town?”

      It was a great bonding moment. Yesterday, as I was helping him repair his car, he brought up Biden’s gaffe and how “dementia reveals your true character” with the angry tone of an anti-racist.

      It’s like seeing a glitch in the matrix. Is all this a simulation full of NPCs just repeating pre-determined lines?

      • Once talked to an ex-cop turned cap driver. He made rather frank observations of his time as an officer dealing with the usual suspects in Detroit.

        To this day wonder what gave him so much confidence to just blurt out so many forbidden observations to me without any sort of signal, unless just about every white guy he deals with knows the score, despite whatever platitudes they spout out among respectable company.

        • He knows that in order to survive in the larger society he must offer generally accepted opinions that he doesn’t actually hold. This is called “preference falsification”, as explained here:

          Preference falsification, according to the economist Timur Kuran, is the act of misrepresenting one’s wants under perceived social pressures. It happens frequently in everyday life, such as when we tell the host of a dinner party that we are enjoying the food when we actually find it bland. In Private Truths, Public Lies, Kuran argues convincingly that the phenomenon not only is ubiquitous but has huge social and political consequences. Drawing on diverse intellectual traditions, including those rooted in economics, psychology, sociology, and political science, Kuran provides a unified theory of how preference falsification shapes collective decisions, orients structural change, sustains social stability, distorts human knowledge, and conceals political possibilities.

          A common effect of preference falsification is the preservation of widely disliked structures. Another is the conferment of an aura of stability on structures vulnerable to sudden collapse. When the support of a policy, tradition, or regime is largely contrived, a minor event may activate a bandwagon that generates massive yet unanticipated change.

          In distorting public opinion, preference falsification also corrupts public discourse and, hence, human knowledge. So structures held in place by preference falsification may, if the condition lasts long enough, achieve increasingly genuine acceptance. The book demonstrates how human knowledge and social structures co-evolve in complex and imperfectly predictable ways, without any guarantee of social efficiency.

          Private Truths, Public Lies uses its theoretical argument to illuminate an array of puzzling social phenomena. They include the unexpected fall of communism, the paucity, until recently, of open opposition to affirmative action in the United States, and the durability of the beliefs that have sustained India’s caste system.

      • If only it were true that IQ < 85 would keep them off the city busses. Based on my limited observations, most of them can use public transit just fine. They even get to sit anywhere they like, these days 😀

      • Yes, the second one was his programming.Also they for some reason trust the plan of the talking heads. It’s credentialism, they are the “top guys” so they must know what they are doing I think is the thoughts these people have, so they imbibe their dumb kosher talking points and internalize them, or at least start repeating them.

    • Brilliant comment. I also learned where I can go to piss on Sherman’s grave, not that the people he ostensibly freed probably do it with some frequency.

    • Didn’t know about Gen’l Sherman’s burial being in St Louis MO. Why is that? I always assumed he was buried at Arlington or in his home in Lancaster OH or NYC, which has a large statue of him at the entrance to Central Park.

      • His wife likes St Louis and one of his children died early and was buried there. His son was a Catholic priest and served their I think? Sherman’s wife was a Catholic and Sherman spent considerable time in St Louis early in his life.
        Anyway he marched through Georgia, helped change the United States forever,
        Now he lies amongst the former slaves as gun shots ring out every night disturbing his peace while they rob and kill each other.

  49. There are plenty of men on our side of the great divide who are ready to take action . There will be many more as things start to break down for the middle class. We will need to organize and stand up and fight. We cannot expect Buckleyites or neocons do do our fighting for us as we have hoped for decades . Those people are not fighter, even with the pen. We have to start with grassroots and build up quickly. The dissident right are the new radicals. We can’t act like conservatives because their is little to conserve except for our cushy lifestyle (but the wooden pillars supporting it are completely rotten and will likely crumble). We are radicals at odds with the current orthodoxy, the cathedral, the 0.1% and their lapdogs in “elected” offices. Time to get out of the cushy armchairs and start acting like radicals. Our children and our culture are at stake.

  50. I think this is correct. Rusty Reno, of all people, was trying to identify the same concept when he noted that even all of the conservative departments (U. Chicago, Hillsdale, possibly some other one) adopted “great books” programs _So That_ the concept of the Open Society could be advanced. The claim was always that the Left was betraying the True Open Society.

    The Left were the ones being internally consistent.

  51. This is a very good explanation of why many of us left “Conservative Inc.”, there was never a plan to win, or as you note, merely go on the offensive.

    My moment came during the run-up to the implementation of Obamacare and Ted Cruz’s filibuster, the NROs were soiling themselves because Cruz was fighting (albeit, ineffectually, but it was fight). After a raging battle in the comment sections it became clear that their sole strategy was to gain control of the Senate without a thought as to what that meant.
    “And then?”
    “Then we need the Presidency in 2016.”
    “And then?”
    “Then we need a supermajority in both houses in 2018.”
    “That’s delusional given the demographics of this country, but even if that happened, then what?”
    “Well, we may repeal Obamacare, but people will probably like it, so we can’t say for certain, and we don’t want to appear mean.”
    “So you have no plan to implement all those ideas you write about.”
    “Well. . . ”
    “Got it, you plan to lose, but write a few strongly-worded letters to the editor.”

    • The masters of the strongly worded message, bad assery legal citations, then run and hide behind mama’s skirts and do jack sh*t – somehow both reside in the same area of an otherwise ultra conservative area of the upstate of SC (where I so happen to reside).
      I give you: Lindsay Graham and Trey Gowdy.

      As for Zman statement: ‘The other fighter has a bat and a length of chain as weapons, but the clean fighter is convinced this cheating will be stopped by the referee at some point, so he sticks to the rules’.
      Behold Graham’s latest quote for the ages: “no place in America for vindictive justice”.

      • Especially sad considering that once men from that district were threatened by a British officer that “if they did not desist from their opposition to British arms, he would march over the mountains, hang their leaders, and lay their country waste with fire and sword…”

        That officer lies dead on King’s Mountain to this day…

        Trey and Miss Lindsay would have capitulated, and probably turned Tory to boot.

        • That is the question, do they fear to fight, or are they on the other side?

          • The only side they are on is their own ambitions and whoever pays them the most. Of course, in the old days, men with no principles and no loyalty to anyone but themselves were considered lower than dirt, unfit to lead their people.

          • They are on the side of looting the country for as much money as the can get.

            Or if you don’t mind a Star Wars quote

            You needn’t worry about your reward. If money is all that you love, then that’s what you‘ll receive.

            Conservative Inc is essentially a Leftist movement who prefers Oligarchy without Socialism as vs Oligrachy with Socialism

            The problem is that actual Conservatism is about preserving values and traditions and when that fails, becoming far more revanchist and forcing those values on people.

            This can be difficult and frankly it requires a very fashy approach to things.

            An example, if you don’t want drugs in this county you may have to try , convict and publicly hang hundreds of thousands of people till drug use stop. This even if you take casualties doing it.

            Even Iran is reluctant to do this since every person you hang is one less citizen and even if they are trash, less consumption and wealth.

            And note, once society goes developed and urban , population will decline even in a theocracy

            Strong relgiously driven nationalism and outside threats can help as in Israel which has above emplacement TFR (2.2 or so) but it requires good leaders. And note its only a tick above.

            The US could be but it essentially would require leaders who are devoutly Christian , ruthless in restoring the nation and who practice what they preach.

            Conservative Inc OTOH is essentially a Leftist movement who prefers Oligarchy without Socialism as vs Oligrachy with Socialism

            Nationalists could restore the nation and its laws but probably can’t raise the TFR as the only way people in modernity have kids is devotions and “Have one for Murica.” or the real life “Do it for Denmark” has proven woefully ineffective in practi

            Over time this becomes the defacto thing to do, we emulate our leaders and we’d recover.

            Ignoring the condition of the bigger churches for a second, this may not be possible as will to power is not a thing on the Right.

            Its getting there but as our host noted, at best we play defense and unless we are willing to drop pretenses of being “freedom oriented” on the Right we had might as well just go Libertarian instead.

            That might win. Granted it would destroy us but at least we’d die free of the State I guess.

        • Patrick Ferguson, correct? I’m a TN DAR and there’s a chapter named for this battle.

      • Stranger;

        Somebody please tell Miss Lindsey that if he and his fellow swamp rats hope to see Trump leave office when his term is up, there had *better* be punishment of Obama’s minions who tried to ruin him and his family in 2016 & 2017 instead of just handing over power. A man’d have to be a complete fool to give them a second crack at it.

        It might be necessary to spare The Lightbringer himself for prudential reasons. But this would make punishing his cat’s paws all the more urgent as a deterrent to future refusals to accept the outcome of an election. Extraditing Biden and Kerry to Ukraine for trial on corruption charges would be the cherry on top. And it would be fully consistent with AG Barr’s statement.

  52. “Another reason for the failure of Buckley-style conservatism is the mistaken believe that virtue is a useful weapon against the ideologue.”

    Probably the main reason.

    • if enforced with hands instead of wailing and calling for the judge for help, traditional/Godly virtue can be useful. without them, you cannot adapt properly to present and future challenges, which of course may demand new answers, but always contingent on past ones, as they inhabit the same God-created universe.

      conservatives that wanted to win were purged with the pre-45 labels. all we were left with were vacuous Prot influenced laissez faire philosophy with lots of talk about individuals and decency and freedom, and little about details – thus allowing the left to fill them in.

      it also didn’t help that conservatives and pro-military factions became one during the cold war, ergo getting subsumed into the globalist complex. the neocons with their compassionate conservatism attracted some few wealthy hispanics, but many more muslims (specially sunnis, as the shias were with iran). of course, this was before 9/11, but the damage was done. now these muslims are all dems, they were prone to being so but after Osama even more fooled than before; and too many conservatives likewise fooled by Fox don’t understand the uselessness of having thousands of soldiers dying abroad, and how the Iraq War pretty much fed the millennial left its “republican=bad” mantra in its formative years.

    • Lorenzo;

      Depends on what your virtues are. Defending one’s dignity and honor against slander by an ideologue, using force if necessary, *used* to be a manly virtue

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