We Report; You Decide
The 18th Annual Meeting of the John Randolph Club was perhaps the most successful in its history, with the exception of the bad behavior of one invited speaker, who, not happy that a majority of the audience favored the other side in the debate on Saturday night, has made common cause with the ex-communist David Horowitz to attack his longtime allies.
The debate question was "Resolved: America Should Immediately Withdraw Her Armed Forces From Iraq," and the affirmative team featured Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com, Peter Brimelow of VDare.com, and the well-known leftist author Kirkpatrick Sale, who these days devotes himself to furthering the cause of decentralism through his Middlebury Institute. The negative team featured regular Chronicles contributor R. Cort Kirkwood, Chronicles' foreign-affairs editor Srdja Trifkovic, and William Hawkins of the U.S. Business and Industry Council.
You can find Mr. Hawkins' account of the debate here. Mr. Hawkins raises questions about the people we associate with (and whom he voluntarily associated with by accepting our invitation), but we'll leave it to the reader to decide whether our associations are less desirable than his.
As for the outcome of the debate, you can decide for yourself. Thanks to Antiwar.com, which is providing the bandwidth, you can listen to the entire debate by clicking here.
Entries(RSS)
"Secessionism is a litmus test for American conservatism"
The integralists in other countries don't necessarily push for secessionism or even necessarily "limited constitutional government," though many of them support regional cultural and economic autonomy.
And this isn't 1859. Practically speaking, breaking off a chunk of the United States at this moment would give at last the visible reins of world power to China. As bad as things are here, I'm not sure I would consider that situation preferable.
Sales opinion on immigration is most likely a byproduct of his luddism and enviornmentalism. What I mean by this is that Sale, like myself, believes that there are too many people on the planet period and that we need to curtail immigration not just for cultural reasons, but also to protect against resource wars on our soil, massive sprawl, and enviornmental degradation of sacred spots. If memory serves, this point has been made by Chilton Williamson in the pages of this magazine, and it has certainly been a staple of the enviornmentalist left and quasi-left via the works of Edwad Abbey, Dave Foreman and others (all of whom were more sensible on issues of decentralism, prudence, and localism than Hawkins by the way).
I would suggest that while Kauffman may not be as "extreme" as Sale on this he has come to similar conclusions. It is true that in America First! he tepidly aligned himself in a footnote as an unethusiastic "open borders" "Americanist". But much has changed since then, and Kauffman is if nothing a man who is willing to adapt and rethink conventional wisdoms that reveal themselves to be conventional fallacies with time.
Furthermore if anything Kauffmans work and thoughts on the Interstate Highway System should be a fine resource for paleos and other opponents of open borders as the carving up of the American West is directly linked to this federal territorial incursion, which is in modern times indisputably linked to the massive population growth in the region.
As for Horowitz..Horowitz is the worst sort of intellectual fraud, in that he is a very smart man, who consistently pretends to be stupid to further his neocon views, most of which revolve around the alleged moral perfection of Israel next to any other state INCLUDING the United States. It is hard to imagine how Mr. Hawkins would label men like Sale and Raimondo left wing, terrorist sympathizers and then jump into the waiting arms of a man who literally belives his own country should be a subservient partner in its relationship with a foreign state who has an antagonistic relationship with every other country in its region, routinely spies on his country and has committed an unprovoked attack on his country. Treason is not the right word for that, but it certainly is not patriotism.
Raimondo reviewed Radical Son in the pages of this magazine years ago and basically got Horowitz right, but Justin did not touch on the fact that Horowitz career from left to "right" IN HIS OWN WORDS was very much about the changing social status and material wealth he received the more his views "moderated". Read the book it..it is a remarkable indictment, not so much of the Black Panthers, but of the author himself, who never did convert on the road to Damascus...he just found a different set of enemies that could help him make more money.
The interstate highway system issue is part of a larger issue. If Euro-Americans didn't have the option of fleeing the blessings of post-1965 diversity, post-19965 immigration policy would have bee shut down a while back. The building of an infrastructure-road systems and cheap mcmansions-is the safety that make escape possible. The day of reckoning is comming.
Eventually all non-white immigratin will be completetly shut off. This wil be the first step in reclamimg America
Mr. Wheeler, there were still roads connecting the states.
I've little problem with homosexuals by the way provided they accept that it isn't normal and attempt to resist their urges. We all are mere humans with many flaws, but we can nevertheless strive to rise above them and to serve our people and our Lord.
@Sean Scallon (52):
"Bill Kauffman has written he was 'victim of some haymakers' at a JRC event so his interpretation of what happened, as you might expect, is a little different."
You're referring, I presume, to p. xvi of Look Homeward, America. If so, you've done Bill Kauffman a disservice. Go back and read it: He says nothing about being a "victim" or about being involved in said haymakers.
As I mentioned earlier, Jones didn't attack Kauffman; he didn't even mention him. Bill objected to something that he thought Jones was saying, which was, in fact, the opposite of what Jones was actually saying. Some of us tried to explain it to Bill, as he stormed (loudly) out of the room; he didn't want to listen.
Still, give Kauffman some credit. Whatever his disagreements with the rest of us, he's at least man enough not to whine about being a "victim" in the Introduction to his book (especially when he wasn't one). If you're going to write even off-the-cuff histories of Chronicles or JRC or paleoconservatism, please don't rely on "second hand [accounts] or from internet articles and books or just from conversation." You've always got access to those of us who were there.
Yes--And next year all of you should attend the JRC (location TBA) so that you can observe first-hand more history being made.
The tone of the Iraq war debate was deplorable. There were far too many personal digs and attacks. Such debate tactics are childish. Perhaps they have been influenced by the tone of many of the posters at this site (you know who you are!).
I just posted this question at TakiMag, but thought I'd post it here too. I'm curious what people have to say.
It seems to me that the biggest threat to the Western way of life is globalism / internationalism. It has become a religion at schools of foreign policy, MBA programs, law schools, etc. And its dogmas include unbridled free trade, open borders, massive “legal” third-world immigration into the West, the democratization of the World (whether Iraq or Darfur), multiculturalism, self-hatred of Westerners, et al.
What is the best strategy to oppose these forces? It seems to me that some form of nationalism might be necessary, especially to combat things like free trade, which even Paul Krugman confesses is harming the first world but insists that it must be continued for “humanitarian reasons,” thus making it another “white man’s burden” (according to J.G. Collins).
And immigration? Perhaps it will come to the point when the proud citizens of a particular state will have to take it upon themselves to deport the unwanted and instill sanity and order. Are we yet at this point?
The real threat at this point in time is not nationalism, but internationalism / globalism. In short, is regionalism or a modified form of nationalism the best avenue to combat this threat?
@Bede (60):
The answer, to me, seems obvious, and it's the reason why such men as Mr. Hawkins have been part of the acceptable range of opinion at Chronicles (a rather wide range compared with that of other "conservative" publications).
What's needed is subsidiarity. We tend to think of subsidiarity only in terms of moving from lower to higher--that which cannot be handled at one level can be moved on up to the next. But we can look at it from the other direction, as well: defending the proper prerogatives of each entity at each level. The nation-state should be defended against the forces of globalism. Regions/states should be defended against the intrusions of the nation/state (as well as against globalism). Localities should be defended against the overweening power of the individual state in which it resides (as well as against the powers above that). And families should be defended against the intrusions of them all.
Still, properly understood, all of those defenses are patriotic, not nationalist. Can common cause sometimes be made with those who are more nationalist, and less patriotic (such as Mr. Hawkins)? Yes. But, as this unfortunate incident shows, such alliances are always limited and can be destroyed when the nationalist is engaging in unpatriotic activity--such as imperialist expansion.
Of course, Mr. Richert's distinction between patriotism and nationalism testifies to the other side of the coin of subsidiarity: universal natural law and the Catholic Church cannot be subverted in favor of the nation-state, which is what nationalism attempts. And could not the same model be used to rule out secessionism, when a province or federated state/canton unjustly attempts to usurp the sovereign or federal power?
Where is the great Sam Francis when you need him? He, and apparently he alone, came down on the correct side of every issue, from immigration to isolationism, from capitalism to Christianity.
I was not at the JRC this time, though I have attended in the past on several occasions.
There are many correct views being bandied about, both in the debate as well as in the comments above, but what is fascinating is how often they are joined to idiocy - in the very same persons!! Each of the parties seems to grasp some essential aspect of the truth, but no one is able to put it all together.
This probably in part reflects the total domination of the Left in the 20th century (and continuing today). So entrenched is their hegemony that a group like the JRC becomes a home to all authentic radicals of the Right, despite the Right's being composed of ideologically conflicting factions. From the vantage of the ruling liberal-Left, both a nationalist (but apparently not a racial one, at least not anymore) like Hawkins, and a non-Christian, non-racialist, 'libertine'-libertarian like Raimondo, are on the Far Right, despite these writers having nothing in common ideologically beyond their mutual resentment of Left-liberalism itself.
Someone very knowledgeable in these taxonomic matters (like Paul Gottfried) needs to provide some sort of definitive model of how to classify someone as Right or not. Of course, people will still dispute his conclusions, but it could help to clear up many of the confusions observable above.
A few random comments on these matters.
First, while the locus of conservative concern shifts over time, depending upon which existential threats are predominant, it should be noted that conservatism is neither coincident with Christianity (or even religiosity), nor with mere tribalism of one sort or another, nor with liberty or capitalism, nor with any single issue, but rather is informed by all of these concerns and influences.
I would argue, roughly with Russell Kirk and Sam Francis, that the true conservative is the man with the disposition to defend his own culture and that culture's settled way of life, provided that such are neither violative of Christian natural law, broadly understood, nor demonstrably inferior to some other mode of existence (as Burke reminds us: "A state without the means of change is without the means of its conservation."). Put another way, the conservative seeks to defend both that which is a permanent part of a moral order thought either to be a product of God, or best suited to a substantially unchanging (genetic) human nature, as well as what is particular to his own politico-cultural community.
Thus, conservatism's non-ideological character. It does not offer any specific, 'timeless' policy prescriptions because all depends upon historical context. Simultaneously, conservatives are not merely relativists because they will defend the general principles necessary to the maintenance of humane civilization itself, and they will defend the particularity of their own communities.
Second, the chief issue today is nothing less than the survival of Western civilization - that organic unity which has been demonstrably superior to all other human communities in all significant ways, and which is OUR civilization. In other words, this civilization is defensible by conservatives because it is good, and because it is ours (and we would not be who we are without it: it molds our minds, and determines our larger identities).
The first question, then, is what aspect of our civilization is under greatest attack, and second, what is the most efficacious means of repulsing the threat?
Conservatives, depending upon their varying ideological predispositions (Christian, racialist, or libertarian), will disagree on the answers to both of these questions, but I think that the racial threat is undeniably the greatest one. My belief is not simply a product of my own committed racial nationalism.
Western civ was created by white people (I trust no one here disagrees). To paraphrase Sam Francis, there is no evidence that this civilization (or any other) could have been created apart from the genetic endowments of the founding (white) race, nor is there any reason to suppose that it will be continued by persons of other racial backgrounds. Indeed, if the manifest failure of America's experiment in racial integration to assimilate non-whites to Anglo-European American cultural norms is indicative of the future, then there is no hope that Western civ will be preserved in places where whites will no longer comprise demographic majorities.
Thus, we must stop the non-white demographic and cultural and even psychic conquest of the lands historically associated with the West. THIS IS THE NUMBER ONE PRIORITY FOR CONSERVATIVES TODAY - not ending the Iraq debacle, stopping abortion, eliminating the capital gains tax, or any other secondary or tertiary matter. ALL other issues of conservative concern must, first, be subordinated to the overriding issue of white racial survival, and second, must be judged only in light of whether and to what extent they aid or harm the primary racial objective.
Keeping this in mind, it now becomes possible to judge who is, and is not, a true (or at least clear-headed) conservative.
And I meant when a province usurps sovereign power, or when a federated state or canton usurps federal power. So my comments were not slanted toward any particular theory of federal or state sovereignty.
And I meant when a province usurps sovereign power, or when a federated state or canton usurps federal power.
And what if sovereign power lies with the province but has been usurped by the central government?
Scott,
Again, if I've gotten the all the details wrong I apologize. You were there, I wasn't. You trump me on that point.
However, I'll post the passage from the introduction to Kaufmman's latest book that I didn't quote exactly right but not totally wrong either:
"The paleos ranged all over the political lot, from Port Huron New Leftists to John Birchers, and American politics staggered from the shock when a former Nixon polemicist and fierce Cold Warrior, Pat Buchanan, adopted isolationist paleo themes in his presidential campaigns and shocked the GOP in that redoubt of flintiness, New Hampshire. It couldn’t last. The paleos dissolved—or rather, they erupted—in bile and drunken haymakers. Yet the anti-globalist, Little American tenIntroduction xvii dency to which they gave voice and shape is likely to grow (perhaps even burgeon) as the most intellectually rigorous and sentimentally appealing electoral alternative to our two-for-the-price-of-one parties. At its best, it embraces the gentle, amusedly tolerant and neighborly anarchism that makes small-town America so sweet./
Okay, "The paleos dissolved - or rather, they erupted - in bile and drunken haymakers." I can't say exactly what this means but it doesn't sound good. You said yourself Bill walked out of the room in a huff. Obvioulsy he was upset. And you're right he's not a whiner claiming "victim" status like Hawkins is. But it just goes to show these debates can turn ugly and that's my point. That's not the fault of the JRC, as we both agree it comes down to the individual involved and whether the angels of our better nature allows him to overcome what differences there are between himself and another member.
But we have to realize things have changed. We have a broader movement now than one just focused from just a "conservative" standpoint. After all, this was the best attended John Randolph Club event as you say. We must be careful that debate does not turn into division when you have broad range of backgrounds and viewpoints. As much as I despise Hawkins for what he has done, it is a little sad to see a writer's whose work you've read for the past decade in Chronicles let a debate turn him so viciously against his former collegues and friends it seems, without so much as a thought of what he was doing.
@Sean Scallon (66):
Read the passage again, carefully. Kauffman is not talking about a particular event; he's making a general statement. I don't know why you insist on trying to make this passage refer to that JRC meeting when Kauffman makes no reference to that meeting whatsoever.
First, Kauffman doesn't say that the JRC dissolved; he says that the paleos dissolved (an untruth; we're still here, but we'll leave that stand). Second, he refers to "drunken haymakers." That, in itself, is proof that he's NOT talking about this incident. Jones is a teetotaler. The incident took place in the morning. No one in the room had had anything to drink.
Finally, you keep referring to this as a "debate." There was ONE debate at that JRC. It wasn't between Kauffman and Jones.
I really don't understand the point that you're trying to make. You start with this year's debate, then you discuss three others, none of which actually occurred (though you keep conditionally apologizing--"if I've gotten all the details wrong"--as if you might still be right, and I'm--what? Lying?). On the basis of those errors, you then generalize to a broader point that--what? You claim that you don't mean to say that we shouldn't hold debates, but that would seem the only prudent action if your description of events were correct.
Fortunately, it isn't, and attendees at future JRCs can look forward to further debates.
By the way, Sean, if I seem a bit impatient or testy, please don't take it personally. It's just that the history of the JRC, and of The Rockford Institute, and of Chronicles, and of paleoconservatism generally is so interesting that there's really no need to create conflicts where none existed or to embellish events where conflicts did exist. Let the history stand on its own--it's exciting enough.
Leon Haller
You have nailed right on the head. However, there is no way of avoiding the War issue. If Bush Nukes Iran...We become a a nation that destroyed the human species. We may that closer to WW111 than amyone realizes.
Hawking is aniother retarded Evangelical Christian Zionist who worships the corporation. Species:cockroach
Kauffman should not be let off the hook on the non-white LEGAL IMMIGRATION issue. It was his choice to marry an Armenian. Look,I think Kauffaman is a fraud.
Mr Wheeler,
Aren't Aremenians white Europeans ?
While Haller recycles Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts and Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts, Mr Depré displays fine fencing skills!
Scott Richert,
I agree. I actually just posted something a couple days ago saying that need more discussions on subsidiarity, a concept that should be appealing to traditionalists, and Catholics and Protestants alike.
I also think that this is a better approach than the complete rejection of any form of government. I think that lurking below the paleolibertarian critiques of nationalism is the complete rejection of any form of legitimate government.
Scott, I'm not trying to pick a fight. I'm just puzzled as to why seemingly rational people have done irrational things at some particular JRC meetings. Why did the Rockwellians decide all of a sudden decide not to participate any longer in a club they helped to found and leave with a blast at Pat Buchanan and Sam Francis? Why did Bill Kauffman storm out of the room if what Jones was saying was neither directed at him nor anti-Semitic? Why does Bill Hawkins act as though this was first JRC meeting and was suprised to find Justin Raimondo and Kirkpatrick Sale there and then act so suprised at the negative reaction to the war in Iraq from many JRC members that he runs into the open embrace of David Horowitz?
It just seems so strange. You would think JRC members and Chronicles readers would know their collegues are not all of the same mind on many topics and what disagreements there are should be overshadowed by what we all agree on. Yet because such irrational incidents have occured is my concern and my point
I just hope I don't see another JRC meeting make Frontpage Mag.com. for the wrong reasons.
Sean, I understand your puzzlement, and I know that you're not trying to pick a fight. The answer is that there's no single answer to all of the questions.
The Rockwellians left because, after Murray died, they could no longer tolerate differences of opinion. That's not irrational. Childish, perhaps, but not irrational.
Bill stormed out of the room because he misunderstood what Jones was saying. (Why Bill would have found it necessary to storm out of the room if Jones had actually said something antisemitic is a different question, which would have to be answered if you wanted to determine whether it was a rational act.)
And Hawkins? Frankly, that's just a mystery--not that Hawkins would have disagreed with Justin, Sale, and Brimelow, given his nationalist bent (that's rational), but that he would act this badly, considering his long association with us (which, probably, has nothing to do with rationality, either way, but just bad manners).
As for the JRC making FrontPageMag.com, I can pretty much guarantee that it will never make it for the RIGHT reasons. : )
@Bede (72):
"I think that lurking below the paleolibertarian critiques of nationalism is the complete rejection of any form of legitimate government."
Absolutely. Though I'm not sure it's lurking--they tend to be pretty open about their absolute rejection of government of any kind.
Re: T. Chan. It depends on how long ago the "central state" usurped that province's sovereignty, and how much it would cost to reclaim it. Should Aquitaine try to reclaim its "autonomy" and give its ducal crown to Queen Elizabeth? Should Quebec try to secede from Canada? Only if doing so will actually help things and not raise new problems.
But Mr. Chan, you do recognize that there are such entities as non-sovereign local and provincial governments, right? The Confederates complained, no doubt, when the western counties of Virginia seceded and formed West Virginia. What is to prevent individual counties from seceding from their states if secessionism lacks limits?
There simply must be boundaries as to which governments can break off from larger units and which ones cannot. Some govts. are too big, some too small. My small town back home would die if it attempted "autarky" or tried to secede from its county, let alone its state.
So I answer your rhetorical question with another one, what if sovereign power rests with the acknowledged sovereign state and not with the province? When I used the word province, I specifically avoided the American theory of states' rights, as everyone admits at least in theory that a federal state is not a province. A province is a wholly subsidiary creature.
Is Lew Rockwell Catholic? Was Francis writing for The Occidental Quarterly and American Renaissance when Rockwell pulled out of the JRC? Think Rockwell read this?:
“7 ... Whoever identifies, by pantheistic confusion, God and the universe, by either lowering God to the dimensions of the world, or raising the world to the dimensions of God, is not a believer in God. Whoever follows that so-called pre-Christian Germanic conception of substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the personal God, denies thereby the Wisdom and Providence of God who "Reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly" (Wisdom viii. 1). Neither is he a believer in God.
“8. Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community - however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things - whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.
“10. This God, this Sovereign Master, has issued commandments whose value is independent of time and space, country and race. As God's sun shines on every human face so His law knows neither privilege nor exception.
“11. None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are "as a drop of a bucket" (Isaiah xI, 15).
“16. Whoever wishes to see banished from church and school the Biblical history and the wise doctrines of the Old Testament, blasphemes the name of God ...
“17. The peak of the revelation as reached in the Gospel of Christ is final and permanent. It knows no retouches by human hand; it admits no substitutes or arbitrary alternatives such as certain leaders pretend to draw from the so-called myth of race and blood.
“18 ... The Church founded by the Redeemer is one, the same for all races and all nations. Beneath her dome, as beneath the vault of heaven, there is but one country for all nations and tongues ...
“21... among the [German] leaders there is more than one whose official position is intended to create the impression that this infidelity to Christ the King constitutes a signal and meritorious act of loyalty to the modern State.
“22... Should men, who are not even united by faith in Christ, come and offer you the seduction of a national German Church, be convinced that it is nothing but a denial of the one Church of Christ and the evident betrayal of that universal evangelical mission, for which a world Church alone is qualified and competent. The live history of other national churches with their paralysis, their domestication and subjection to worldly powers, is sufficient evidence of the sterility to which is condemned every branch that is severed from the trunk of the living Church.
“23. You will need to watch carefully, Venerable Brethren, that religious fundamental concepts be not emptied of their content and distorted to profane use. "Revelation" in its Christian sense, means the word of God addressed to man. The use of this word for the "suggestions" of race and blood, for the irradiations of a people's history, is mere equivocation
“28. To discard this gratuitous and free elevation [of Grace] in the name of a so-called German type amounts to repudiating openly a fundamental truth of Christianity.
“29. No coercive power of the State, no purely human ideal, however noble and lofty it be, will ever be able to make shift of the supreme and decisive impulses generated by faith in God and Christ.”
Just asking.
Yes, Sid, Lew is a Catholic. And no, the Occidental Quarterly didn't exist when the libertarians pulled out of the JRC.
And the racial views of members of the JRC--paleocon or paleolibertarian--had nothing to do with the libertarians pulling out of the JRC.
"Rodney King,"
I agree that if one makes race the most important factor it would be a form of idolatry.
On the other hand, to deny race at all I find to be a form of almost utopian thinking, not unlike 1950s liberalism, which sought to produce a color-blind society (not government), through whatever means necessary. Peruse through the early issues of National Review and you will find conservatives like Buckley and Kirk opposing such fancy thinking.
And if such naive thinking did not work for 1950s liberals (they finally abandoned it), why will it work for neocons and libertarians today?
Ad minimum, there is the classical notion of race, like the Latin ‘gens’, in the sense of kith and kin and ancestral pride. But even in a modern Wittgenstein sense, there is a “family resemblance.” People tend to self-identify by their more prominent features, skin-color being one of them. And no matter now politically correct someone may try to be, this is not going to be erased from the popular memory.
I toured a prison a few years ago, and in the cafeteria all the inmates were not self-grouping by eye color, or height, or IQ or any other random factor. They were self-grouping by race. All the whites sat together, all the blacks, all the Asians, all the Mexicans, etc.
Regarding Christianity, it in no way requires one to relinquish his loyalties to family, kith and kin.
Thomas Aquinas said it best when he said: “after his duties towards God, man owes most to his parents and his country. One’s duties towards one’s parents include one’s obligations towards one’s relatives, because these latter have sprung from [or are connected by ties of blood with] one’s parents…and the services due to one’s country have for their object all one’s fellow-countrymen and all the friends of one’s fatherland.”
Mr. Torgerson:
You write:
And could not the same model be used to rule out secessionism, when a province or federated state/canton unjustly attempts to usurp the sovereign or federal power?
and then this:
And I meant when a province usurps sovereign power, or when a federated state or canton usurps federal power. So my comments were not slanted toward any particular theory of federal or state sovereignty.
Then you write:
But Mr. Chan, you do recognize that there are such entities as non-sovereign local and provincial governments, right? The Confederates complained, no doubt, when the western counties of Virginia seceded and formed West Virginia. What is to prevent individual counties from seceding from their states if secessionism lacks limits?
You assert that there are such entities as non-sovereign local and provincial governments--do they lack sovereignty but potentially have it, or do they lack it absolutely? Don't both suppositions depend on a "particular theory of federal or state sovereignty"? This is what I am ultimately getting at.
There simply must be boundaries as to which governments can break off from larger units and which ones cannot. Some govts. are too big, some too small. My small town back home would die if it attempted “autarky” or tried to secede from its county, let alone its state.
Boundaries as determined by reason--I don't look at the size of the government, but the size of the community. A community may "die" if it is not self-sufficient and depends on a larger political unit for its survival. But I would argue that if it is able to regain what it should possess as a political community, then secession may be a possibility (setting aside the question of whether it would be "permitted" or not by the larger political entity)--and this is of course a conclusion dependent upon a particular understanding of sovereignty.
So I answer your rhetorical question with another one, what if sovereign power rests with the acknowledged sovereign state and not with the province? When I used the word province, I specifically avoided the American theory of states’ rights, as everyone admits at least in theory that a federal state is not a province. A province is a wholly subsidiary creature.
I would argue that a province is a wholly subordinate entity only because of human arrangements, which can be changed.
Mr. Wheeler,
You make some excellent points about the pace of the ongoing white genocide.
I think, though, that the way you are using "secession" is actually alien conquest.
Dr. Wilson and many others write well on secession, a tool which populists worldwide have wielded successfully.
-----
And to set the record straight about the use of the alien invaders' use of the term "reconquista."
The Southwest was never integrated with nor technically even a part of Mexico. Texas (originally French) and New Mexico were "kingdoms" separate from New Spain. California likewise was run separately; it had an ambiguous status, since it was already claimed for England in 1579 by Sir Francis Drake, reaffirmed in the American colonial claims made from "sea to sea." (Los Angeles was part of South Carolina?!) Thus California was really a huge, nearly empty, missionary district managed by the church, with Spanish troops provided for protection.
The reason the regions not part of New Spain slowly -- and very briefly -- came under Mexican authority was that they were largely empty. And of course that is why Mexico recruited Americans to settle these regions and later provoked the Mexican War.
So strictly speaking, any reconquista of the American Southwest will be the sending of the invaders home.
And I should add that I do not see the invasion of our lands stopping in the Southwest. Mexicans have already arrived in large numbers all over the South and along the East coast. That means I do not think there will ever be a "secession," or rather annexation of the Southwest.
They mean to have the whole continent while white genocide is finished up.
Bede:
Thanks for the venerable post. I have saved it to disk.
A few more points added to my comment #63 above (which, again, the morons who pen these writebacks either didn't read or couldn't comprehend).
1. Bill Kauffman is a leftist pure and simple. I recall despising him way back in the early 90s. His writing is deliberately obscurantist and plain cranky (somewhat like Fleming's, at least on the latter point). Moreover, he repeatedly exhibited a typical PC "let's find a way to blame the white man first (again like Fleming)" attitude too many times to go unnoticed (remember a dozen years ago his quoting with approval that disgusting little stanza about "giving it back" (ie Australia, to the savages) from the Aussie traitor-rock-band Midnight Oil?). I am glad to hear that he no longer writes for the magazine. Good riddance.
2. Whatever the cause of his apparent transmogrification into neoconism, Mr. Hawkins wrote an excellent book back in the 90s called IMPORTING REVOLUTION, about the Marxist links to the mass-immigration agenda. I strongly recommend that any patriots at this site read it. He also published a number of very solid pieces in CHRONICLES on subjects like protecting American national sovereignty, the evils of the UN and the NWO, and the fraud that is contemporary so-called "free trade". I've always thought of Hawkins as one of the better persons associated with the magazine (and of course, his clear, analytical prose was in wonderful contrast to the worthless, opinionated bombast of Kauffman).
3. Both sides in the debate at issue were riddled with intellectual errors - not of fact, but of judgment. Alas, I am too tired and lazy to go into them in any detail. I would most closely agree, however, with Dr. Trifokovic.
4. Justin Raimondo, like Kauffman, is fundamentally another leftist, whom I have personally witnessed on numerous occasions cross the line from libertarian domestic anti-statism and foreign policy isolationism (in the manner of Ron Paul) to plain anti-Americanism. Forget Raimondo's, ahem, questionable personal life, which the leftist Fleming apparently finds less objectionable than, say, the mere opinions of straight-living dissenters from the hegemonic (Zionist-leftist) Holocaust narrative.
Raimondo is a culturally left- libertarian whose real passions are not those aspects of the libertarian agenda which are shared by conservatives and nationalists (eg, eliminating gun controls, abolishing 'civil rights' laws, restoring free enterprise, slashing the welfare state, abrogating NAFTA and other globalist treaties, etc) but rather, those that are shared by the anti-American Left: weakening America's military strength, further opening our citizenship to legal immigrants, and, of course, opposing EVERY projection of American power abroad, even when necessary to defend American interests (no, I do not mean to imply by that last statement that I was a supporter of the Iraq debacle; I opposed it in 2003 for most of the reasons CHRONICLES did, as well as out of a fear that it would lead to the US being saddled with more immigrant refugees).
Raimondo has, it must be said, produced some interesting writings. I particularly learned from his book RECLAIMING THE AMERICAN RIGHT. I had been very unfamilar with persons like Garet Garrett and John T. Flynn, as well as with the heroic republican tenacity of the Chicago Tribune under Col. MacCormack. Although written from an amazingly tendentious anti-interventionist perspective, it remains worthwhile reading.
But Raimondo is not a man of the Right.
Has Claes G. Ryn ever attended JRC? Just curious.
Bede and Scott,
Paleolibertarians are, by definition I think, either anarcho-capitalists or minarchist. Paleoconservatives don't criticize the state per se. What I think they should criticize is the modern state which is the unified, indivisible, sovereign of Hobbes, Locke, Lincoln, Bismarck, etc.
I personally think nationalism is playing with fire. Perhaps it is a necessary concession to modern reality. But then again, is it not feeding the beast?
Sean,
"The paleos dissolved—or rather, they erupted—in bile and drunken haymakers."
The way I read that is not a reference to a specific event. It seems like a bit of rhetorical excess to describe the "fall" of paleoconservatism in general. With a lot of people "turning" on each other.
Leon Haller
I agree with everything in your post.
A Euro-Christian American living in Maine by many orders of magnitude has a much greater claim on California than the chinese,iranians,hindus,pakis and mexicans who are now colonizing California.
The comment above exposes a very serious flaw in the extreme decentralism of Clyde Wilson-I actually like Clyde Wilson. I agree with him on so many things-- and the bombastic, local community destroying Bill Kauffman(Who I deeply despise)
Armenians are not European. They have Persian roots.
But the American Renaissance did exist, didn't it? and in Sept 1995 at its conference Sam said some racial stuff, didn't he? Think Lew Rockwell liked it?
Bede: whose genetics did Burke and Aquinas follow: Mendel's or Watson & Crick's?
Just asking.
Sid, if you think that Lew is a Cundiff-style anti-racialist (or, indeed, any kind of anti-racialist), you've never had a candid conversation with him.
"Don’t both suppositions depend on a “particular theory of federal or state sovereignty”? "
As far as I now know, no American view of federal or state sovereignty ever held that towns and counties could secede from their state or from the federal union. As far as I now know, the creation of West Virginia was an ad hoc affair done in order to add another Union state and give Virginia a taste of its own secessionsist rhetoric. I rather think that both Unionists and secessionists viewed local and county governments as creatures of the state absolutely. If you think they may potentially be sovereign, then I think you have gone beyond any classical American theory of states' rights (they are *states'* rights, not county or city or town rights). If you wish to move beyond classical theories of American federalism, fine, do so, but I still think I was right to say that I made all the necessary caveats so as not to include any criticism of Southern secession in my point that there are sub-sovereign forms of government.
I believe Paul Gottfried spoke at the same conference that Sam Francis did, and Paul Gottfried still writes for Lew Rockwell. In fact, Gottfried wrote an essay for Rockwell's website on this very topic, the Hawkins Frontpage story.
So, Sid's/Rodney King's revisionism is all wet. Nothing new about that of course.
Here is an article from this year, on the LewRockwell site by Dr. Gottfried. Here is the title and the link, followed by a quote from the article.
MLK as Twentieth-Century Jesus
http://www.lewrockwell.com/gottfried/gottfried98.html
Although this form of savior-displacement opens the door to many questions not all of which I can address here, there are two misconceptions concerning the King cult that warrant immediate discussion. In both cases, I am criticizing my well-meaning traditionalist friends who have pooh-poohed what is going on. The holiday, contrary to what some predicted would happen twenty years ago, has not turned into "just another George Washington birthday-type vacation," marked by bargain sales and a few entirely forgettable media references. MLK comes as the prelude to a new Lenten month that is full of compulsory meditation on the sins of white racism. The national birthday shows all the spontaneity of a celebration of Hitler’s birthday held in Germany during the Third Reich.
@Bede (86):
Claes Ryn has been to several JRCs. If I recall correctly, the last one he attended was the one in Georgetown.
@Scott Richert
I just listened to the conference --- it was great. Both Srdja & Raimondo brought up some good points.
I can't get my post to go to takimag, and since it's relevant here and Scott P. Richert is also here, I think it's not disrespectful to post here:
Justin Raimondo,
you call Hawkins a neocon yet this is clearly not so. Was Hawkins a neocon, he'd want free trade and open borders.
Isn't it better to overlook Hawkins's article rather than to burn bridges; is anything gained otherwise? I disagree with him on foreign policy, but he seems to want what's best for the American nation. Tancredo too is unfairly labeled "neocon," though I do hope "paleocon" still means more than "one who opposes the Iraq War."
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@all
We should be bound by a common desire to save our own Western nations and communities within; especially if demographics don't let up, Western Civilisation; and, yes Sid, whites (no disrespect intended). If the Netherlands fall to Sharia, do we sit idly by obeying paleo isolationist dogma? I’m not advocating centralization btw.
Under such a movement, Hawkins would probably be a natural ally unless he's secretly a globalist. He would be an asset despite his rude behavior.
---
An argument for secession:
One argument for Southern secession that I think Dr. Francis would like: it can bolster the patriotic identity by jettisoning the parts that are too diverse or corrupt. Also, we Southerners at least see a Southern nation, even if it's not politically expedient to secede.
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Scott P. Richert,
I wasn't aware of the history of nationalism either, but when talking with folks if they're even aware of a distinction they tend to view patriotism as something disconnected from kinship consisting entirely of ties formed via acquaintance and Sid's view of cultural ties.
One who loves his nation then is a patriot, and one who loves his state is a nationalist?
What's the gain from everyone speaking English if they can't communicate using it?
Heck speaking of misunderstandings, I'm not entirely sure of just what a "right-libertarian" is and how a libertarian could even be on the right, though I've an idea but it would mean there's a great deal of diversity within the term right-libertarian. When I want info on the war I go straight to Raimondo, but I don't see him as right wing as I understand his views. No disrespect intended.
Scott P. Richert wrote:
Is Hawkins truly leftist or merely misguided and unChristian? His loyalty would seem to be to the American people and not merely his state. The desire to exploit a neighbor and to acquire limited resources as vital as oil for the sake of the US nation seems to be his.
Anthony Cooney wrote regarding Chesterton:
This sort of imperialist sentiment doesn't seem to apply to Hawkins.
@Frank (98):
"Isn’t it better to overlook Hawkins’s article rather than to burn bridges; is anything gained otherwise?"
Is it possible to burn bridges once someone else has already burned them?
@Frank (98):
"Under such a movement, Hawkins would probably be a natural ally unless he’s secretly a globalist. He would be an asset despite his rude behavior."
And that's why we had him writing for Chronicles, and why he was invited to take part in the JRC. But alliances go both ways. You can debate with allies over areas of disagreement, but if you stab them in the back, you can hardly be considered an ally anymore.
@Frank (99):
"Is Hawkins truly leftist or merely misguided and unChristian?"
I didn't say that Hawkins was leftist; I said that extreme nationalism is a leftist phenomenon, as many true rightists have recognized.
That's not to say that the nationalist cannot have many, many conservative traits. Certainly, Hawkins does. But there's nothing truly conservative about nationalism, which always defines a people in opposition to the other, not in terms of itself.