What’s Wrong with the World

That is a bit pathetic. I have them in my twitter feed, but I rarely ever retweet.

My conservative political life has been an unending death march. On the other hand, we're one day closer to the end of the Age of Enlightenment, God be praised!

Amen. I thought I was the only one that was frustrated with AmCon.

From its inception it has leaned liberal (one of the original editors was a self-professed political liberal) but I thought it was going to change with the new publisher and the addition of the inestimable Rod Dreher. But sadly, that hasn't been the case. The day before the election they had a defense of Obama ("The Obamacon’s Dilemma") and today they are saying that maybe maybe we should support gay marriage. It's unbelievable that a publication called "The American Conservative" can be so openly leftist.

new and fresh ideas to do battle against the liberal policies being enact[ed] at the federal level

The problem is that the electorate do not want conservative ideas, new and fresh or old and stale. They (or at least a majority) want to be cared for, cradle to grave, free only of responsibility for their poor judgment.

That is tough to fight, and I dare say impossible to overcome by reasoned argument. The majority will continue on its present trajectory until the cold, hard, cruel reality of complete disaster kicks in, and is basically left with no choice but to face reality.

Cheer up. With Obama it is bound to happen sooner rather than later.

In addition, a number The American Conservative's other writers decided to support the Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson -- apparently these folks didn't get the memo that traditional morality and Johnson's confused libertarian philosophies are not compatable.

Maybe they got the memo that Johnson was the only candidate who would actually seek to limit government (that used to be a conservative ideal).

(mostly concerns about our military spending which is not the key to solving the problem of our national debt), and endless critques of the "neocon" foreign policy.

Spending more on the military is not the key either.

we should have a healthy debate about foreign policy and the realist position has a long and respectable tradition on the right.

Agreed. We won't have that debate between Dems and Repubs though.

So at a moment when conservatives, including traditional conservatives, need new and fresh ideas to do battle against the liberal policies being enacting at the federal level, we have a so-called conservative magazine quietly cheering from the sidelines confused about who the enemy is and what it means to fight for conservative ideas.

I've never read it, but it sounds like they are libertarians. There will always be a debate as to whether it is "conservative" or not to try to stop government coercion in social issues. Progressives want the government to codify their lifestyles into law, Social Conservatives want the government to codify their lifestyles into law, libertarians want the government out of lifestyle issues completely.

BTW, who IS "the enemy" anyway?

Pathetic.

That's a matter of opinion. I am going to check them out now - you've piqued my interest!

I'm a regular AmCon reader, primarily for foreign policy, Larison in particular.

our military spending which is not the key to solving the problem of our national debt

Considering the size of our military budget, you can't fix our fiscal problems without tackling it along with Big 3 entitlements.

The American Conservative is the finest periodical currently published.

I expected Obama to win, so I wasn't overly distressed by Romney losing. He wasn't very good anyway, and the Republicans both underestimated Obama's celebrity appeal while overestimating Romney's executive appeal. I do think Obama may come to regret this second term. The Democrats right now are praying that the economy improves, because 1.5 trillion dollar deficits just have to end one way or the other. If the economy doesn't improve, then the Dems will be forced to start taking chunks out of their own coalition just to keep the machine running.

I was more distressed on the Senate. I had hoped that Akin wasn't going to lose because of a silly gaffe, but clearly I overestimated Americans. I guess the Senate result put paid to Republican optimism though...I think the Reagan platform has just about run its course.

The worst result by far was the gay marriage votes. 0 for 3. Make no mistake, that battle is over. Legalized marijuana was the other big ballot issue, but I thought it was more of a sideshow. I voted for legalization in Washington, for the simple reason that I don't really care what other people smoke.

TAC is what it is. Just mentally block out the "Conservative" part of the title and forget that Pat Buchanan ever owned it and it will be much less frustrating. Their problems are that they are cursed with guys like McConnell who aren't conservative but are apparently grandfathered in now, as well as being owned by libertarianish Ron Unz. Also, they have this reflexive hatred of the conservative establishment, dubbed "Conservative Inc", and most of what they write on the website is a sort of nitpicky reaction to things Conservative Inc says. They also hated Mitt Romney with the passion of 10,000 blazing suns. Larison in particular wrote about 50 posts nitpicking everything about Romney for every one post mentioning Obama as having made a "mistake". I'm not honestly sure if he is a conservative anymore, or if he even wants to be. If third party voting were disallowed, their symposium probably would have gone 2/3 Obama.

Finally, the budget will never be balanced without cutting military spending. Whose ox will be gored in the coming contraction? Everyone's!

I've never read it, but it sounds like they are libertarians.

Not really, Chucky. My impression is that their symposiasts actually were for Obama or were indifferent to an Obama presidency. No libertarian should take *those* positions, whatever else one might say.

SS, Medicaid, Medicare, and various other social programs are nearly 55% of the federal budget. Then add federal retiree benefits at 7%, interest on the debt is 6%, "other" is 4%, and education 2% among others. It all adds up to 80% of the budget. I don't know why people think that cutting the military is any sort of fix.

I think the current version of The American Conservative (TAC) is by far the best yet. I was even going to subscribe to them, but they've made subscribing hard for people who live overseas.

They seem to be taking seriously their new motto, Ideas Over Ideology. Less ideological, less polemic than the old Pat Buchanan mag, which was more about repeating slogans (Buchanan loves slogans) and defining the "enemy" than about thinking. That's it, actually: they've started thinking.

Larison was always a thoughtful writer, though. He was the exception in the old TAC, and back then he was the only writer there whom I read regularly. He was one of the very few paleos who understood that slogans and talking points aren't enough, if you want to do more than stir up the mob. If he opposed, say, intervention in Libya, he didn't just mouth some slogan like, "America should not intervene unless its vital interests are at stake." He looked at the concrete details of the situation and explained why, in this particular situation, America should not intervene. Larison's one of the best.

I don't understand the complaint that TAC is no longer conservative. Say they're not - so what? Does that mean they're not worth reading, or that they're wrong whenever they're not conservative, or what exactly? Let's say they're, I don't know, socialist. Isn't a good magazine with a socialist perspective a good magazine, and worth reading?

About McConnell: I've always been annoyed by his infatuation with his pet Palestinians. His "thoughts" about the Israel-Palestine conflict are very unthoughtful, typical of Internet punditry on the subject, especially paleo. But he's always been like that - remember his "Jesus was a Palestinian" phase? - and he seems to have toned it down a bit lately, maybe from McCarthy's direction, I don't know. Lately he even wrote what I'd call a pro-Israel article, where he said how much he liked the country itself but was soured on it just because of the US-Israel relationship. It was honest, anyway.

P.S. Like other paleos, McConnell's politics, on Israel in his case, seems to be partly a reaction to personal conflicts. Maybe he'll become a little more balanced on the Israel-Palestine conflict after Norman Podhoretz dies, I don't know.

Say they're not - so what?

Let's say they're, I don't know, socialist.

Well, normally if those things were true, the name wouldn't be The American Conservative. Especially not with several endorsements of Obama. Y'think maybe?

But so what? Is that really the complaint, that the name is inaccurate? Suppose it were called The American Socialist or The American Right-Leaning Liberal. Would that make the magazine OK for you guys, if you thought it had a more accurate name?

Well, people don't like being lied to. Maybe they can drop the Conservative and just be "The American". Of course, given Unz's love of Mexicans, maybe that isn't appropriate either. How about just "The"? Joking aside, I wouldn't mind them so much if they weren't always sneering at conservatives in their reactionary way. They don't have much "thoughtfulness" either, unless you consider anti-war social liberalism thoughtful. They've always had a few writers here and there though. Dreher is worth a browse, and even though I don't understand his unfathomable hatred of Mitt Romney, I usually read Larison unless he's rambling on about Georgia or something irrelevant. They will also give airtime to actual conservatives that the MSM wouldn't touch. Small favors, you know.

I will say though that there is no reason not to take the Obamaphile wing of TAC seriously. Take them seriously if they merit it (Bacevich surely does, Beer is a decentralist who writes for FPR, Giraldi and McConnell really don't like Israel, and no idea about Hadar) just don't take them for conservatives.

Now that he's got his second term as president, Obama has nothing to lose when he gambles with America's future. As the Scots would say, in for a penny, in for a pound.

Lots of commentaries around the internet suggest that irreversible developments in American culture and demographics make it highly improbable that a WASP will be ever again be elected as president. So maybe this year's election really will turn out to be a political watershed in the United States.

It's been suggested that Barack Obama, 'appeals' to women much more readily than he does to men and that the 'women's vote' swung the election for him. It's not just the single mothers who, as might be expected, have voted for their bread and butter, but also masses of educated women who have voted for Obama's policies on ideological grounds.

If this is true, I have to ask why do (modern) women respond, apparently, to liberal messages more eagerly than men? I'd be thrown out of the window if I insinuated that it had anything to do with women being the 'weaker sex'.

Matt writes: "...unless you consider anti-war social liberalism thoughtful."

By "thoughtful," I mean thinking, as opposed to regurgitating talking points and ideological slogans. So "thoughtful" is a property of a person, not of an ideology. Any follower of any ideology, social liberalism included, can be thoughtful or unthoughtful.

But so what? Is that really the complaint, that the name is inaccurate?

Yeah, Aaron, that's pretty much it. Kinda like when some leftist dictatorship calls itself "The Democratic People's Republic of Democratic Republican Democracy," or when someone refers to some indiscriminate murdering bomber as a "freedom fighter." It's called lying, and it sort of matters.

Some of their writers remind me of Lew Rockwell’s paleolibertarians.

They seem to be characterized by two tendencies: the tendency to be contra-other-conservatives and the tendency to hate America’s foreign policy more than they love America.

Auster refers to them as The Palestinian Conservative.

Lots of commentaries around the internet suggest that irreversible developments in American culture and demographics make it highly improbable that a WASP will be ever again be elected as president. So maybe this year's election really will turn out to be a political watershed in the United States.

Yeah, I don't know about that. Most commentaries ignore that Romney lost the election in the white great lakes region, not the southwest. I'm not sure that the Republicans can go on forever losing California, NY, and Illinois without a fight...that's a rather large electoral disadvantage to start off with, but for the time being it is possible to win elections by winning the entire interior against the coasts, and that is at least within the realm of sanity (save perhaps Illinois).

But there was definitely a watershed moment when gay marriage went 3 for 3 in referendums. So much for that.

Once again, for about the zillionth time, the neo-cons here evince their confusion over the nature of the word "liberal."

As Patrick Deneen and others have gone to great lengths to demonstrate, contemporary mainstream conservatism is not truly conservatism but right-liberalism, in that it accepts uncritically major aspects of historical/classical liberalism, i.e., Enlightenment thought.

Until the right in this country wakes up, smells the Kenya AA, and gets this into their heads we are going to continue down the spiral of decline, as left-liberalism and right-liberalism will simply continue to feed off one another, to the detriment of everything truly traditional and conservative.

Oh, and anyone who thinks that The American Conservative is "liberal" watches entirely too much Fox News and should immediately cancel their subscription to The Weekly Standard. You've already had too much of the Kool-Aid.

It's been suggested that Barack Obama, 'appeals' to women much more readily than he does to men and that the 'women's vote' swung the election for him. It's not just the single mothers who, as might be expected, have voted for their bread and butter, but also masses of educated women who have voted for Obama's policies on ideological grounds.

If this is true, I have to ask why do (modern) women respond, apparently, to liberal messages more eagerly than men? I'd be thrown out of the window if I insinuated that it had anything to do with women being the 'weaker sex'.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/forget-war-women-men-vote-could-decide-wins-150827099--election.html

Unfortunately Aaron, they don't display much personal thoughtfulness either. The main blog style is to just troll conservative or right-wing sites until something sufficiently wrong is found, and then nitpick it incessantly. Larison does this too, and he's at least smart enough to know how it comes across and does it anyway. Their handling of Romney's 47% comments was like something out of Mother Jones. There was a decent argument to make against Romney's comments (Derbyshire made it in his radio show, while admitting that they contained a kernel of truth), but TAC wasn't making it, instead focusing solely on how mean and nasty that Romney is. It's almost comical how much they hated Romney, and were obviously glad when Obama won. Reflexive anti-Republicanism is not thoughtful, guys.

Sage, as usual, rocks.

Oh, rats, Nice Marmot is back. Oh, yeah, NM, it's so _totally_ misunderstanding the nature of conservatism to think that a journal that backs Barack Obama and spends all its time attacking fellow conservatives, evincing what commentator Matt calls "reflexive anti-Republicanism," isn't conservative. That just shows that everybody around here is a bunch of thoughtless neocons. Golly, thanks for waking us up.

Don't worry, Lydia, I'm leaving again. This was just a brief stopover to give y'all something to think about. I can see it's a lost cause, but hey, I love you all enough to keep trying...

Oh, and by the way, I don't consider you thoughtless at all. You just have an area of thought that's gone un- or underexamined. I know this because I once had it too.

Thanks to all for the comments -- they cheered me up!

On the subject of defense spending and the debt -- while I'm more sympathetic to Mark's argument (thanks for the stats Mark!) and while I obviously reject those who say you "can't fix our budget problems" without cutting defense (mathetically you can -- especially if through tax and regulatory reform we get economic growth up again), I agree that in some sort of bargain with the Democrats it is likely defense will probably have to be cut if we are going to get cuts in entitlement programs and cuts in discretionary spending. I would also argue that the size of our military should be driven by our defense needs, which is obviously a separate and different argument which I don't want to have in the comments section here.

On the subject of legalizing marijuana, while I know some conservatives have supported legalization (or at least decriminalization), I think Matt is wrong not to worry about "what other people smoke". There are profound implications to your neighbors, and especially your neighbors kids getting high, and we just don't know how high rates of drug addiction will increase and/or how many lives will be destroyed by marijuana versus the so-called benefits of legalization. A good conservative public policy magazine like National Affairs looks at such issues in depth!

Finally, Matt, as if those referendums weren't depressing enough, I had to watch yesterday CNN interview (in a celebratory manner) Wisconsin's new Senator who is open about her sexual disorder. As Adam Smith said, there is much ruin in a nation.

I notice nobody has brought up the "other" unfortunate truth in this election result. We get 4 more years of the insufferable Mrs. Obama. This woman is a menace to the health of our children. I've been following the school lunch debacle. It's all about government sticking their noses into what YOUR children will eat for lunch, and how many calories they will consume. Cradle to grave, folks. They got ya. I'm up here in Canada - we're used to the nanny state and soft socialism. Hope you'll like it too. Mrs. O is just the thin edge of the wedge as far as the intrusion into your kitchen is concerned.

Defense spending ought to be cut, but conservatives must insist on a change in mission. That would include eliminating most of those 900 some foreign military outposts; leaving only a handful of naval bases to allow us to maintain our blue water navy. It would also mean making it an automatic impeachable offense for the President to carry out acts such as what transpired in Libya or the drone war in Pakistan without a declaration of war from Congress.

On the subject of legalizing marijuana, while I know some conservatives have supported legalization (or at least decriminalization), I think Matt is wrong not to worry about "what other people smoke". There are profound implications to your neighbors, and especially your neighbors kids getting high, and we just don't know how high rates of drug addiction will increase and/or how many lives will be destroyed by marijuana versus the so-called benefits of legalization.

You could say all of that about alcohol. There is simply no honest defense of legalized alcohol which does not apply to marijuana. Alcohol is at least as dangerous in every area, and in fact is often more so. For example, it is very common for people to become aggressive when drunk; the same is not true of marijuana.

About the only positive thing you can say about alcohol is that it is easier to use without getting blitzed, but that doesn't change the fact that there is an extremely high percentage of drinkers who use it for the purpose of intoxication.

Mike T,

Does the fact that alcohol consumption has a long history in the story of man, something which does not apply to marijuana, count for anything? It is just ridiculous to say that there are no significant differences between the two when it comes to the human experience.

Apologies to the editors if this is considered OT or thread-jacking, but, to Andrew E., a cursory perusing of Wikpedia reveals:

Cannabis is indigenous to Central and South Asia.[86] Evidence of the inhalation of cannabis smoke can be found in the 3rd millennium BCE, as indicated by charred cannabis seeds found in a ritual brazier at an ancient burial site in present day Romania.[6] In 2003, a leather basket filled with cannabis leaf fragments and seeds was found next to a 2,500- to 2,800-year-old mummified shaman in the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China.[87][88] Cannabis is also known to have been used by the ancient Hindus of India and Nepal thousands of years ago. The herb was called ganjika in Sanskrit (गांजा/গাঁজা ganja in modern Indic languages).[89] [90] The ancient drug soma, mentioned in the Vedas, was sometimes associated with cannabis.[91] Cannabis was also known to the ancient Assyrians, who discovered its psychoactive properties through the Aryans.[92] Using it in some religious ceremonies, they called it qunubu (meaning "way to produce smoke"), a probable origin of the modern word "cannabis".[93] Cannabis was also introduced by the Aryans to the Scythians, Thracians and Dacians, whose shamans (the kapnobatai—"those who walk on smoke/clouds") burned cannabis flowers to induce a state of trance.[94] Cannabis has an ancient history of ritual use and is found in pharmacological cults around the world. Hemp seeds discovered by archaeologists at Pazyryk suggest early ceremonial practices like eating by the Scythians occurred during the 5th to 2nd century BCE, confirming previous historical reports by Herodotus.[95] One writer has claimed that cannabis was used as a religious sacrament by ancient Jews and early Christians[96][97] due to the similarity between the Hebrew word "qannabbos" ("cannabis") and the Hebrew phrase "qené bósem" ("aromatic cane"). It was used by Muslims in various Sufi orders as early as the Mamluk period, for example by the Qalandars.[98] A study published in the South African Journal of Science showed that "pipes dug up from the garden of Shakespeare's home in Stratford-upon-Avon contain traces of cannabis."[99] The chemical analysis was carried out after researchers hypothesized that the "noted weed" mentioned in Sonnet 76 and the "journey in my head" from Sonnet 27 could be references to cannabis and the use thereof.[100]

I'm sure some of the particular claims could be subjected to scrutiny. And none of this means smoking cannabis is good or that it should be legal, but no long history in the story of man?

Does the fact that alcohol consumption has a long history in the story of man, something which does not apply to marijuana, count for anything?

It has absolutely no relevance to the moral or safety issues. Intoxication is intoxication. You are trying to say that one method to achieve the same desired immoral end state is worthy of protection and respect.

It is just ridiculous to say that there are no significant differences between the two when it comes to the human experience.

It is even more ridiculous to judge an intoxicant's societal standing on the basis of how long it's been with us rather than what it does.

I say that as someone who actually has a great deal of respect for alcohol on a tradition basis.

It's nice to know that kzndr (?) knows how to use that googly thing on the interwebs. Shamans, religious ceremonies, inducing of trances (ie. special circumstances, nothing like the universal, general consumption of wines, beers, spirits and champagnes); color me unimpressed.

Look at the people who want marijuana legalized for personal (not abstract) reasons. Just LOOK at them. Michael Savage is constantly engaging in screeds against legalizing marijuana on medical grounds.

Look at the people who want marijuana legalized for personal (not abstract) reasons. Just LOOK at them.

This is about the only argument worse than the argument from historical use.

We get 4 more years of the insufferable Mrs. Obama. This woman is a menace to the health of our children. I've been following the school lunch debacle.

He who pays the piper calls the tune. With the way health care costs are going, there's no you can have government health care without increased lifestyle interference. As distressing as it is for conservatives, that's the way the entire western world is going. Pelvic issues are the only area where the masses won't tolerate government interference.

So, if marijuana had been around in Jerusalem in 30 AD, Jesus and his disciples could have had a Last Toke, or Last Bong Hit. Yeah!

It seems that the classical liberal and the classical conservative don't even exist anymore- having been replaced by left-wing Statists and right-wing Statists. Both camps agree on far more than they disagree on: The foreign policy of both is militaristic interventionism (the only argument being over who we invade and who we support), the monetary policy is bank/state Keynesianism (no discussion of the Fed or fiat currency), the domestic policy is all about "security" (TSA, Homeland Security, Kill or Capture, NDAA - they don't even argue about this), the social policy is all about 'morality police' (the argument being over which version---left or right---we should have).

Classical conservatives (pre-WWII Republicans for instance) were largely non-interventionist (anti-war). They were also of the opinion that it wasn't the place of government to interfere in the economy.

Classical liberals were about getting the government out of personal matters.

Oh for the good old days!!

I had (relatively irrational according to Nate Silver) some hope that Mitt Romney would pull it out in the end.

Some math comedy about Nate found on Twitter:
"Results ask Nate Silver if they’re significant.”
“Nate Silver's samples have only a median and a mode. Because no number would be mean to Nate Silver.”
“Nate Silver can recite pi. Backwards.”
“There are no imaginary numbers, only ones Nate Silver hasn't acknowledged yet.”
“Nate Silver can divide by zero.”

Thanks for sharing Step2. Who would've thought a math nerd would be the next Chuck Norris?

Chucky Darwin is right in a way that using Govt is wrong way to go for resolving social issues like homosexual marriage, abortion BUT it is not because the individual's privacy and freedom is paramount but because having a polity and a system of Govt presumes consensus on fundamental issues. These things are by nature pre-political.
Thus having a division there implies that the polity has fractured and is no longer A Polity.

The elections are meant to decide trivial things e.g. who gets to be the president, what the tariff should be etc. But they can not decide whether the nation should be communist or libertarian. Similarly, the elections can not decide whether abortion or homosexual marriage should continue or not.

Well, yes, abortion should be against the law because all murder should be against the law. Abortion is no more "pre-political" than murdering five-year-olds. Now, I suppose we should say that abortion shouldn't be "decided by elections" because people shouldn't even be _thinking_ of aborting their children, so those laws should be supported by _all_ lawmakers whom the people would even _consider_ electing. In an ideal world, yes. But to say that abortion is not a political issue *as if* that meant that there should be no laws against it is really like saying that there is a particular class of citizens against whose murder there should be no laws. Which is incorrect. To put it mildly. Note that we aren't talking about a state of nature in which there isn't any written law or common law at all. We're talking about a human society that has laws at all. And in such a society, murder should be against the law.

Lydia,
Has abortion ever been considered as murder simply? I ask for information.
Look at this from another way-- elections can decide things if the loser can take it. Otherwise, there would be revolt and revolution.
The liberals have virtually defined themselves by being pro-choice. I don't think they can take or endure any law that bans abortion simply.

Even if one succeeded in passing law against abortion, it would have, in practice, the same sort of existence as the laws against sodomy-- ignored and unenforced.

The political process is not suited to define the class of citizens. You had the amnesties and immigration acts, though, and they remain controversial and widely hated and greatly responsible for the changed nature of the nation. In effect, they were the acts of revolution and not politics.

Sage, Lydia, come on, "lying"? They named their mag when it was a paleoconservative journal devoted to anti-neocon polemics. This was Pat Buchanan et al. "Conservative" was part of that polemic: they were making the point that they represented a valid strand of conservatism, and that the neocons did not.

So they haven't changed their name, because, well, magazines don't change their names. But contributors such as Noah Millman, Leon Hadar, and others, including even Paul Gottfried, don't call themselves conservative. I don't know whether Scott McConnell does. Who, specifically, is lying by calling himself a conservative?

They're a good online magazine, that arguably has an inaccurate title because they've changed (for the better) since their founding.

For Jeffrey S.: Just a comment for what's it's worth about your statement: "I had to watch yesterday CNN interview (in a celebratory manner) Wisconsin's new Senator who is open about her sexual disorder."

Tammy Baldwin's campaign never mentioned her sexual orientation. I live in Wisconsin and not once in any of her ads or her opponent Tommy Thompson's ads was her sexual orientation ever brought up. I don't know why. As a matter of fact, I didn't even know about it until the media mentioned it after the election! I did not vote for her, but I just wanted to mention this because the media seems to be implying that her sexual orientation was some big deal during the campaign and it certainly was never mentioned!

CC73,

Tammy Baldwin mentions her "special" status/achievement not 6 minutes into her victory speech. The people of Wisconsin have "made history."

http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/full-video-tammy-baldwin-s-victory-speech/vmix_2c364b78-28b9-11e2-a651-0019bb2963f4.html

I think McConnell was a conservative for about an hour after 9/11, just long enough for him to convince Buchanan. But yes, TAC is lying. Not every contributor pretends to be a conservative, but the magazine as a whole claims not only to be conservative, but that they are the real conservatives against the fake ones in the conservative establishment. Just recently they wrote an editorial about the election (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/conservatisms-hour/) where they present their worldview* as the antidote to Republican woes. They also have the About section (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/who-we-are/) where they speak again of conservatism as the antidote to both leftism and rightist reaction.

If they aren't going to be conservative, then they should stop pretending to be. Rename themselves "The American Journal of Burkean Reflection". Otherwise, they can't really complain when people state the obvious.

*Whatever it is that this worldview actually entails beyond anti-war and Israel Is Wrong, that is. The Who We Are section has this quote:

Today the country pays the price for the left-wing ideologies that ran rampant in the 20th century and the right-wing, but not conservative, reaction that has only exacerbated the destruction wrought by the left.

I'd be fascinated to hear about these "left-wing ideologies". When do you suppose we will?

Andrew E.,

Thanks for the link to her speech. Like I said, I didn't vote for her so I hadn't heard her speech before.

I still don't know why it was never brought up during the campaign. Maybe it's because it was assumed everyone knew that already? She makes the claim that Wisconsin made history but she never ran her campaign on that platform at all. I remember during the summer she had an ad about her background in which she talked about being raised by a single mom, loved her grandmother, took care of her, but she did not bring up her sexual orientation. That's the only ad I can recall that showed anything personal about her. Tommy Thompson's campaign ads talked about her voting record and how she is very far left as far as jobs and healthcare are concerned. Either way, it was not a campaign issue so I'm confused as to why this is a big deal now.

Apparently, I've been living in a cave and I'm the last Wisconsinite to learn this about her.

Has abortion ever been considered as murder simply? I ask for information.

It has, Gian, by people who are informed factually and not perverted morally.

I find your comment so interesting, Gian, because it tells me even _more_ about your opinions for me to...deplore. I have seen again and again in comments your strange taste for greater authoritarianism so long as it is of a reactionary sort. Yet here, inexplicably, we get just the opposite. When it comes to protecting the most vulnerable among us, you are suddenly tentative and concerned not to disturb or upset the liberals. Apparently even if you could try, you wouldn't.

So on top of all the other weirdness, you aren't even committedly pro-life, committed to the proposition that the unborn child should be *protected* in law. Rather, you fall back on the weak-sauce claim that such protections would be ineffective, so why bother.

Why bother? Because, actually, doctors are very risk-averse, and outlawing abortions to the greatest extent possible definitely would save lives. A non-negligible proportion of doctors who now do them would not do them, fewer women would have access, and children would be saved. (My own life is testimony to the effectiveness of pre-Roe laws. Women at the time, friends of my bio-mother, did indeed go to those "back-alley butchers" we hear about over the border in Mexico, but their stories were sufficiently hair-raising to prevent my bio-mother from making the trip. Hence I am here.) Why bother? Because law is a teacher, and the legality of abortion leads many and many people to think that it is "not so bad" or even a "constitutional right."

And you never know: Some of us actually pay attention to our local prosecutor races and would vote specifically for those who would enforce the laws protecting the unborn. And they do exist.

CC73,

Yes, she says in her speech that her campaign was not about her sexual orientation, yet she states that she is in fact "gay" and thus the people of Wisconsin have made history and it is wonderful. You see how these lying leftists get to have it both ways? All the while, the power of leftism is advanced. It's remarkable to behold the ruthless efficiency of these people. The right is totally ill-equipped to beat back these forces.

Andrew E.,

Thanks for your reply. I wonder if she had mentioned her sexual orientation during the campaign if that would have helped or hurt her? We'll never know. It comes close to a lie of omission - I only say close because apparently she's "open" and everyone knew that except me. But there have to be others who didn't know that about her and voted for her for reasons other than "Wisconsin making history". It seems like she pulled the wool over people's eyes. But what do I know?

Look at this from another way-- elections can decide things if the loser can take it. Otherwise, there would be revolt and revolution. The liberals have virtually defined themselves by being pro-choice. I don't think they can take or endure any law that bans abortion simply.

Gian, that's a grotesque mockery of the democratic "mnajority vote decides" concept. What "the loser can take" can't be decided by the loser on the basis of mere whim, personal taste, or this year's favorite color, it needs to be based on something a lot more solid than that. Like, for example, PRINCIPLE.

There is no principle that pro-choicers can point to that shows why in 1970 everyone in the country (including the losers of decisions to keep abortion illegal) could "take" the results in 1970 but they cannot "take" such a result now. Because there is no basis. All you are pointing out is that the pro-death camp DON'T WANT to go back to having abortion illegal, and that they would complain and grumble about it if the law were changed. Yeah, that's what the losers of democratic outcomes do. Big deal.

Also, nobody here has said that it is in principle unacceptable that we return to being a pro-life society in stages, such as: first, outlawing partial birth abortion, then outlawing abortion that is not medically required to save the LIFE ONLY of the mother, then outlawing 3rd trimester abortion, then outlawing...The natural result of such a process would show these pro-death people that yes, in fact, they really can tolerate a situation where abortion is illegal.

We went from a democratically determined condition (in 1973) where most or all states democratically decided to outlaw abortion, and the losers of those process generally accepted that they were legitimately bound by such laws as passed democratically, to an overnight change overturning those laws by judicial fiat, and the losers of THAT decision for 40 years have democratically accepted such decision as the "law of the land". You cannot be serious that a DEMOCRATIC process to return SOME of the limits on abortion would be something that pro-choicers would by principle and with moral legitimacy be "unable to take", requiring as an absolute moral obligation either civil disobedience on a mass scale or outright revolution. Yet that's what your comment means. (At least here,) you are not a serious commenter, you are masquerading goofy nonsense as if it were something to consider.

Why mittens failed?
First Bush let's the banksters steal enough money to bail out every loan in the country.
The obummer lets them steal the same amount again,with the provision to come back for more and print funny money.(helicopter)

Then you wonder why americans won't elect a guy who made his dough playing corporate pirate bankster?

Seriously, you wonder?
Corporatism has killed off the good name of capitalism,and yall never bother to make a distinction.

Has abortion ever been considered as murder simply? I ask for information.

Not exactly sure what you mean by "simply," because homicide has never been defined as "murder" simply. Legally, there have always been degrees (criminally negligent, first degree, second degree, etc.) with differing penalties. Abortion has been defined as a species of homicide, but I don't know off-hand at what level (and they probably varied).

Not exactly sure what you mean by "simply," because homicide has never been defined as "murder" simply. Legally, there have always been degrees (criminally negligent, first degree, second degree, etc.) with differing penalties. Abortion has been defined as a species of homicide, but I don't know off-hand at what level (and they probably varied).

Thanks c matt. You beat me to it. This is also the answer to the "how much time should she get" "argument" that supposedly proves that conservatives don't really think that a fetus is a person. Not every homicide is treated equally. In this state vehicular homicide -basically killing someone while breaking a traffic law other than DUI- is a misdemeanor. The maximum penalty is the same as punching someone out in a bar or stealing a six-pack from Wal-mart. Does this prove that the victim in a car crash isn't really a person? Of course not.

I agree with Gian that the State is not the entity most qualified to define morality (that qualification belongs to the Church).

As for abortion, I agree with Lydia that a life is at stake and the State's preeminent job is to defend the innocent from those who would harm them.

Unfortunately, in the society we live in, the Church has lost much of its influence over societal thought. So now, with the sexual revolution having lifted the taboo on fornication and adultery, the only thing keeping this new progressive society from achieving total sexual freedom is the nagging "pregnancy problem". Abortion is the solution - and will be fought for tooth and nail. The thing we must NOT lose sight of is the fact that it was the Church's lack of influence over (some would say winking at) fornication and adultery that led to this.

Ton,
Let me remind you that the democratic procedure was unable to resolve the slavery issue
precisely because the losers were unable to take it.
Now the pro-lifers could have taken this path in 73 but did not thereby showing that they could take it.
But there is no obligation whatsoever on the other side to show the same consideration.
The American constitutional theory itself says so-the tyranny may be opposed by any group of citizens, by any means including armed insurrection.

the losers were unable to take it

Stick to the truth that is known: the losers refused to take it. Refused. They might have chosen otherwise, and we will never know what the outcome would have been had they TRIED that option. We simply don't know whether that choice might have led, eventually, to a peaceful resolution.

Here is a telling point: There is not one argument that I have ever read about the South's claims presented a notion that due to Lincoln's election, they (each state of the South) were morally obligated to secede because merely belonging to a union that had Lincoln as president was as such an inherently moral evil. The valid notion of "can't take" the election result has to create a moral imperative before you can state that the losers really can't take it, and there is simply no viable argument that Virginia, eg, was by the fact of the election in a morally objectionable state for belonging to the Union. Even to say the words is to laugh, 'cause there is no possible argument. The southern states seceded because they foresaw probable future government actions which would make their preferred way of life difficult or even impossible to maintain (I include "difficult" because Lincoln repeatedly stated he had no intention of outlawing slavery in the states where it existed already). Even so far as that goes, it is hard to make out a future, probable requirement being imposed by such a future government that would have OBLIGATED them to do something inherently morally objectionable. Even in the south, nobody argued that EVERY white man was obligated to own slaves. Plenty of white men did not, and quite a few of those had absolutely no inclination to do so - nobody suggested a failure to want blacks slaves was somehow a "bad intention" because "white men have a duty to enslave them" or some crazy thought. No, the south seceded over an expectation of a FUTURE situation that (they thought) would represent a "can't take it" state of affairs. Out of fear, basically.

The American constitutional theory itself says so-the tyranny may be opposed by any group of citizens, by any means including armed insurrection.

Oh come off it. That theory doesn't GRANT within the law itself the legal right to oppose tyranny. It recognizes as pre-existing an inherent sustained right of citizens to withhold obedience to the government if the government ceases to exercise power for the common good, and (by force) institute a new government. It doesn't say that this right becomes exercisable when "you can't take it anymore". It rests on objective conditions - the state no longer ruling for the common good - not on subjective feelings about the matter. Gian, holding forth on your wacky theories of what a government is going to get overly tiresome, especially when you make these comments out of left field as if everyone already accepts your underlying premises and concepts when we don't hold them and never will.

Apparently, I've been living in a cave and I'm the last Wisconsinite to learn this about her.

Well everyone in Madison knew, so they should have told you. She's been out since at least 1998, her first Congressional race. Perhaps earlier than that but I wasn't able to dig back that far. I don't know about the local press but her orientation has been in the national press multiple times when she announced her campaign and in the weeks leading up to the election.

Also, nobody here has said that it is in principle unacceptable that we return to being a pro-life society in stages...

Passing fetal personhood laws isn't a stage, it is revolutionary. As mentioned in another thread it should be done through the Constitutional amendment process. If you want to go by stages, you should be advocating what I've always supported, overturning Doe v. Bolton, so that Roe's trimester system is a valid limitation for enforcement. Doe acts as a nullification of the trimester system.

This is also the answer to the "how much time should she get" "argument" that supposedly proves that conservatives don't really think that a fetus is a person. Not every homicide is treated equally.

If you could show how abortion isn't obviously first degree murder with aggravating circumstances under the fetus personhood framework you might have an answer.

If you could show how abortion isn't obviously first degree murder with aggravating circumstances under the fetus personhood framework you might have an answer.

step2, I agree with you about the Doe v Bolton. But I don't get this follow-up. If the law directly defines an abortion as manslaughter or as second degree murder, then it won't be classed as first degree murder. Only if the personhood amendment it passed AND if there is no specific law addressing abortion as a separate class of action, will people conclude that abortion would by default fall under first degree murder. But most or all states would take it up as a separate consideration, not least because there are plenty of complicating issues (like drugs that could cause a medically induced miscarriage but are not taken for that reason...and lots more).

I suppose Americans would be justified in resisting Govt by force if the Govt was to deprive them of right to property, i.e by instituting a Communist system. That is the argument I have heard for years by pro-gun people (a wrong argument, by the way--the domestic tyranny comes not by the force of arms merely but by a force of opinion).

Now for a large proportion of American, apparently, the right to abortion is more basic than the right to property. It is as simple as that.

By the way, the formulation "could not take it" implies no obligation whatsoever. It is descriptive-the same as "they refused to take it".

Abortion is deliberate killing of an innocent in cold blood. If it is murder, it should be of first degree, deserving the highest punishment.

But which legal system or a polity has yet classed all abortion thus? Again I ask for information.

The pro-lifers should choose winnable battles, like European style limits or fetal pain laws. Not get entangled with rape or contraception and lose vital elections.

" It rests on objective conditions - the state no longer ruling for the common good"

The common good is objective but known subjectively.

The pro-lifers should choose winnable battles, like European style limits or fetal pain laws. Not get entangled with rape or contraception and lose vital elections.

Gian, as so often, you are simply uninformed. Nobody is "getting entangled" with anything. These lawmakers were *asked* by the media whether they believe abortion should be legal in the case of rape. They were responding to these questions. Pro-lifers in America have been taking an incremental approach in practical terms for decades. What the pro-aborts want us to do is to *embrace* the exceptions and to say that we believe abortion *ought* to be legal in those cases. What we are being asked is to change our moral beliefs and to abandon even the aspiration, eventually, to protect children in those cases. From a practical point of view, no one is actually proposing such laws right now, because they would be in conflict with the controlling Roe v. Wade which we have not yet found a way of overturning or effectively defying. The hostile media must know this but keep asking these questions to try to move the GOP further to the left, to create fake hysteria, and to win elections. It is an entirely cynical move, and then uninformed people like yourself come along and blame the principled pro-lifers as if they were deliberately campaigning on a platform that said, "Here is how I propose immediately upon my election to outlaw abortion in cases of rape."

Now, there _are_ practical issues in terms of funding, and frankly, I think pro-life lawmakers _should_ be trying to restore the original Hyde Amendment which did not fund abortions federally in cases of rape and incest. A small (incremental, again) move was attempted in this direction by Ryan and Akin when they attempted to remove funding for all but _forcible_ rape. I do not blame them for this at all. I think they were right. However, if it makes such sideline talkers as yourself happier, I'm sure no one is going to try that one again for a long time.

As for contraception, again, you are uninformed. No one is attempting to outlaw it. It is the left that is taking the aggressive position and attempting to force everyone to *fund* it, which is against the consciences of many Catholic employers. This is not conservatives "getting entangled" with anything but merely resisting an outrageous expansion of federal power to coerce them to participate.

You think you are so terribly clever to lecture your fellow conservatives (ah, those foolish Americans as opposed to your presumably non-American suavity and wisdom), but often, you simply do not know what you are talking about.

Now for a large proportion of American, apparently, the right to abortion is more basic than the right to property. It is as simple as that.

Gian, you are blithering again. If you were to pose the question "which would you rather accept: contracting the abortion permission so that it were illegal in the 3rd trimester, or losing all private property", 90% of Americans would take the former. There is (according to repeated polls) some support for some limits on abortion.

Also, even for those who try to think of abortion as a right, it isn't that the right (so-called) to abortion is more basic than that of private property, it is that this right is the one under direct consideration in some contexts, not that of private property. It's the squeaky wheel. Nobody allowed the question of loss of private property to be raised.

"so that it were illegal in the 3rd trimester"

But the religious position is to ban all abortions.
How many women would not countenance the religious position, under any circumstances?
I would say pretty large.

The American Conservative used to be a fine Paleo-Caon anti Neo-Con publication.
In that tradition, permit me to offer an observation. Romney is an old liberal Republican Governor just like his father. Neo-Cons like to pretend these old liberals are really moderate conservatives. A Romney victory would have been really frightening. As Governor he tried to fix previous administrations liberal programs. He gave hints of that already with Obamacare saying he did not favor a repeal of all parts of the program. He is an extreme interventionist internationally. Romney was pro-choice before he was pro-life. He was pro-sodomite before he was opposed to gay marriage. Etch-A-Sketch.
The bad thing about a Romney win is you could count on two hands the Republican members of Congress who would stand up and openly oppose his agenda. On balance, I am glad he was defeated.

That is what I would fear as well.

Unfortunately we will never know how bad he could have been.

Thomas, perhaps Romney (or one of the other candidates) would have done all that. But as far as I can tell, what you are pointing to is a series of things for which all we can be sure of is: Obama is going to do all that, and more.

At least now our congressmen feel free to act as opposition to the liberal/left agenda advanced by our president. They would not feel equally free in opposing the only slightly less liberal agenda advanced by a President Romney.

That's true. I wonder if they will achieve anything doing so? Well, if they manage to keep the US out of the UN Convention on the Rights of Children, that's a start.

There is also the danger where they say "We must not be liberal enough!" and go in all out to be as left wing as the Democratic party.

A Romney victory would have been really frightening.

As opposed to what? Everything you've listed doesn't mean he'd revert back; maybe he would've if he was elected, but thinking "he isn't conservative enough" doesn't help the country's march to a more European future - both socially and economically, where religion is almost completely absent.

SMH

But so what? Is that really the complaint, that the name is inaccurate?

Yes, Aaron, is it a complaint because it is inaccurate. Unless they keep the name based on nostalgic reasons it's a dishonest portrayal; hypocritical, even.

Suppose it were called The American Socialist or The American Right-Leaning Liberal. Would that make the magazine OK for you guys, if you thought it had a more accurate name?

Yes, because it would be more accurate of the reflections of their writings if such a mentality is the dominate force, and would be resident indefinitely.