Otherwise, bagh!

Leave the poor madman alone folks. There’s really no point in engaging him.

Nonetheless, I want to thank you for your reference to the “pox on both housers” as practicing an un-serious “literary politics” because it begs a label in reply…..that most spurious of things in a world of ideas…a fitting label for the more purportedly serious “pragmatists” you would like to line up for the calling of attendance in your Big Tent:

Illiterate Conservatives.

The phrase “sell-out” comes to mind as well. But this would be unfair and likely inaccurate and does not reflect my opinion of you despite our differences of opinion. You suggest an invigoration of the Big Tent. Sniffing derisively at those who are consistent in their support of limited government, fiscal conservatism, prudent and dispassionate foreign policy, the benefits of property and the remarkable potential of small business in this country…all things that were once Republican Bedrock Values and simply no longer are, well, it provides a clear demonstration of the “pragmatism” afloat today in our flummoxed party.

Your suggestion of FPR Democrats and Republicans is a good one, the grass roots of both political poles having much more of a common interest than their inept “leadership”.

Medaille’s response, somebody who I have both significant disagreements and agreements with but I would never accuse of being “unserious” or “dreamily ” literary….but his response about placing most emphasis on the grass roots is likely the only venue we have open to us as long as the “pragmatic” Republicans continue their reign of hypocrisy in Washington.

But then, this kind of scorn from the smartest people in the room is to be expected. I know what it means to meet a payroll and scratch for business and let me be possibly the first to inform you that it is anything but “literary”. My literary curiosity and expressiveness are the antidote to running a business within an economy that is currently whipsawed by the combined forces of that Monument to Pragmatism On The Potomac: Washington , District of Corruption.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/business/global/25swaps.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1267229032-FTJBwfd6fk6hfoTGqgF4XQ

As John suggests don’t even bother reading it. It’s predictable.

The last time we were in this situation, the nation was re-built from the top-down, first because of the depression and then because of the war. Only a strong federal gov’t was deemed to be capable of handling these problems. We got such an imperial gov’t, but at least it was a stable, prosperous, and relatively just order. But that order has been under stress for 30 years, and there is nothing to be done to save it. Roosevelt started at the wrong end, we must start at the right end.

But in brief–I’ll forgive Pat for anything after a thread in which he praises BOTH this Cornered book and Amity Shlaes’ Forgotten Man! Bob, you gotta love that! I sure do. It really can be consistent.

And no Pat, no offense taken anyhow. For whatever reason, you interpreted some of my comments back in June as fitting this SHHH theory…and well, that just wasn’t my intention. I’m against third-wayism and pox-on-both-ism that is literary politics, or quasi-theological literary politics. FPR third-wayism does not have to be literary. The specific proposals of someone like Carlson or yourself, back by an overall platform, can and could form a significant bargaining part of some partisan coalition, particularly on the state level. AND I WANT AMERICANS TO KNOW ABOUT THIS OPTION!!!

Now you know my judgment as to the partisan coalition that is for the forseeable future the one responsible citizens should back–it’s the Republican one. And I know that isn’t your judgment. Fair enough. But the nonforeseeable future is long, unpredictable, and here before you know it. I would very much like to see a Republican party that admitted an influential FPR faction or movement into its big tent. It would be good for the average conservative to hear from FPR-ers that there is a difference b/t being for the free-market and property rights in general, and being for this sort of anti-trust legislation, this sort of corporation-advantaging law, etc. They could learn much. If the conservative big tent is big enough to allow libertarians and social conservatives like myself to ally, I don’t see why an FPR faction couldn’t play a positive role, even if that role is only temporary and provisional. But in my wildest fantasy, the FPR faction would strengthen within coalition to the point that the coalition could increasingly (and indeed would have to) give less and less to the libertarians and mindlessly pro-corporate activists in its midst.

And while it would be second-best in my view, I have the perhaps Pollyannish view that an FPR faction finding a home in the Democratic coalition would also be a good, becaue it would the dwindling pro-lifes and Galstonian Dems needed allies in their intraparty fights, and this would lead to a healthier politics overall.

What I don’t want is an FPR movement that sucks away social conservative types, epecially Christian ones, into a never-never land of mere essays and attitudes (you know–simple living, pro-Berry, anti-LIBERALISM, pox-on-both-houses), that tends to lead to drop-out-ism, that tends to drain desparately needed strength from a conservative coalition that really is desparately needed for the foreseeable future. And if more FPRers tend to go that way, well as much as I can I’ll be criticizing. Loudly. No shushing about it.

But let’s hope for the best, and say it LOUDLY, all together, F-P-R! F-P-R! F-P-R!

The problem here Robert is less about the faux parties than it is the citizenry, a gullible and lethargic mass that has habituated itself to half-truths and the “team pride” version of partisanship. This is what happens when a people spend five decades in an epic misallocation of resources , elevating One-Horse-Town Financialism to the extent it has been elevated and deciding that a Consumer-Service Society with a Growth Jones is remotely wise as anything but a short term “jamboree” to put it as the lefty Kunstler well puts it.

Truth be told, on the essential human level, the Christian Conservative has more in common, in an individual sense with the cheerfully sensation-loving suburban hipster than they do with the people who profess to represent them. Under a laissez faire , traditionally Republican modus, the common yet divergent purpose can succeed because there is enough room for the people to , in effect “create their own realities” and the ability to create widespread wealth is present. But we have not had a traditionally laissez faire Republican force for a very long time. We’ve had Statist Republicans and Statist Democrats in thrall to an increasingly specialized oligarchy. As a result, the citizen has relinquished morality, care-giving, initiative, planning, identity and expectations to the Statist/ Technocrat Consumer Project. We are wards of the State in many ways, thus punishing any reformative Republican impulse on the one hand, and inducing the Democrat into gluttonous sloth on the other. It is precisely the ceasing of the distinction, the quieting of the Conversation of the Discursive Republic that is stymying our efforts to effectively deal with the issues at hand. Partisanship is confused with conversation and the forced divisions of identity politics insure that the discursive vehicle is abandoned and left to rot…and with it, our hopes and futures.

A pox on both houses Cheeks, we have realized the deleterious effects of factionalism described by Madison in the Federalist Papers. We have the best government money can buy and it sets brush fires to keep the citizens distracted while feathering a nest that is simply and almost exclusively concerned not with results for the populace but with election and re-election.

Just this past weekend, the N.Y. Times Magazine’s Matt Bai wrote an article entitled “the Brain Mistrust” on the Think Tanks of Washington. He cited the $1,000,000,000.00 spent by Conservative Think Tanks like the Heritage Foundation and Cato during the 90′s. These Conservative institutions were developed to counter the Liberal Agenda. While much is produced of real quality and powerful thinking by many of the organizations, they are subsumed by the partisan Bait and Switch of Washington. We have, after $1 Billion bucks of “Conservative Intellectual Firepower”, virtually nothing to show for it. Technocratic Statism , its assigns and heirs remain as firmly ensconced in the life of the country as if not a cent of that $1 billion in conservative research and rhetoric would never have been spent. Why is that? Because we dwell on differences rather than common cause and similarities. We dwell in a house of fear, listening to the baying of Cassandras or sweet murmurings of Boosters while abandoning the discipline and responsibilities of informed discourse in an atmosphere of humility. We look for people to help us, save us, create change for us while not taking the initiative upon ourselves to find communion in this dirty rotten starkly beautiful nation occupying one of the best pieces of productive real estate in the history of the globe.

A long time ago, Irving Stone wrote a classic book about the Western Expansion and it was entitled “Men to Match My Mountains”. We had men and woman who were a match for the mountains. The Frontier demanded it. We are no longer a frontier nation (except in an intellectual sense) and so now, the challenges are even greater. Frontiers were a relief valve and now they are gone and the serious craft of self-governance gets altogether more difficult and complex. Funny enough, we still do have men and woman to match our mountains but not in our so called “leadership”. What we have now are Men and Woman to Match our Press Releases and so spin ….and legerdemain is the squalid edge-of-the-frontier hovel we are beginning to inhabit. Buy a recycled spittoon, lock and load and wait for the attack and once in a while, venture down to Chucky Cheese.

I don’t think anyone here denies that we’re talking about a daunting challenge. You haven’t been tuning in, if that’s your assumption. Doesn’t mean we ought not to talk about it, though.

But it’s ungenerous and inaccurate to suggest that there’s an unwillingness among writers here to be critical of all the various modern pathologies, whether socialism – or capitalism. You suggest that to criticize the latter is to embrace, or at least be complicit in, the former. I believe that’s what’s called a logical fallacy, at least if those two options (in their current form) are not mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive of reality. And I don’t think they are. ‘Nuff said. You’re welcome to the last word, but that’s mine about this particular rut that you’re welcome to enjoy with plenty of other company. Just not me.

And we all must admit that A) diagnosing how, policy-wise, CVS replaced the local drug store, and B) formulating policies to reverse that, are two very different things. B) is probably a much more daunting task than we realize.

Probably Caleb was the one to rasie the issue of the left?

As to Cheeks and his importunate accusations of my “myopia”. Let me tell you buster that it aint easy trying to keep prime on the breathing straw while attempting to prop the rear hatch open with my machete scabbard as I plunge ever deeper up the Hindu Kush of southern precincts.

Were you a sensitive liberal, you might not be so indelicate as to remind me of my predicament. Furthermore, somebody has to counter some of your more picturesque invective with an equally vivid fantasy.

I’ll have you know that cranial colonic impaction is a lifestyle and I demand my rights. One had best accustom one’s self to sulfurous environments anyhow because to say we’re going to hell in a handbasket is like saying Sharpsburg was just a difference of opinion.

As to the “genuine American System”…it seems to me we are as close to it now as we have ever been (or should I say “back to it”) and that the halcyon days of longing we seem to think were ‘normal” (the 50′s -70′s) were an anomaly and chiefly characterized by a top tax rate that would make a Swedish Hipster burn down their sauna in a fit of pique. Exactly why should we think we are immune from the fate of every Global Power in the history of the world? Particularly when we treat our officials with the same blithe disregard as has every other briefly free people in the history of the World? Hubris is an equal opportunity employer.

By the way, what do you get when you cross a Vampire Squid with a Commie Dem?
High occupancy rates on K Street.