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There Are 38 Responses So Far. »

1. 1 Comment by Robert on 7 November 2008:

   Dr. Wilson says,
   “There is one consequence of the election that is absolutely certain: The Republicans will NOT draw the right conclusions. ”

   Some Facts :
   1 all three state pro-life initiatives failed Tuesday: the California Abortion Waiting Period and Parental Notification Initiative, the Colorado Equal Rights Amendment (defining personhood as beginning at conception) and the South Dakota Abortion Ban Initiative.

   2 And both state anti-life initiatives passed: the Michigan Stem Cell Initiative (allowing human embryo experimentation) and the Washington Death with Dignity Initiative (allowing physician assisted suicide).

   conclusions by”conservative” writer, David Frum on How to Get Back on Track ? :
   “it will involve painful change, on issues ranging from the environment to abortion. And it will involve potentially even more painful changes of style and tone: toward a future that is less overtly religious, less negligent with policy and less polarizing on social issues.”

   Conclusions by me, a nobody Chronicles reader:
   “the enemy hath done this.”

2. 2 Comment by Rick on 7 November 2008:

   You can blame Star Trek for our present condition,which portrayed a future as a paradise of prosperity,equality and technological wonders. We our heading to a United Federation of Earth.

3. 3 Comment by Chris Campbell on 7 November 2008:

   GOP only gave lip service and little action to Pro-life, good riddance!

   Let us begin again:

   http://www.constitutionparty.com/

   Who has sanity and is with me?

4. 4 Comment by John Seiler on 7 November 2008:

   Forget the English Only movement. Start learning Mandarin.

5. 5 Comment by John Rutowicz on 7 November 2008:

   “two-party system” I’m trying to figure this out. Why are so many neo-cons that I’ve read or heard in the last few days not too bothered about Obama’s choice of Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff? I wonder if Obama will keep his promise to get troops out of Iraq in 90 days? I’m glad AIPAC’s influence has been greatly reduced because of Obama.

6. 6 Comment by John Rutowicz on 7 November 2008:

   Sorry! I’ve repented of those inappropriate thoughts. Ahhh! Now I can feel my hope returning. I feel much better now. I love our dearly beloved leader.

7. 7 Comment by Andrew G. Van Sant on 7 November 2008:

   Robert @1:
   Meanwhile, talk radio hosts are spreading the wrong conclusions to their listeners. It almost makes you wish Sen. Shumer and his cronies are successful in passing their anti-free speech “Fairness Doctrine” measure and taking them off the air.

8. 8 Comment by D Simmons on 7 November 2008:

   Talk radio has a bit further to go before it hits bottom, they have Bibi Netanyahu’s campaign tour to promote at the first of the year if elections are called for. After that they will get the fairness doctrine courtesy of “Rahm the Merciless.”

9. 9 Comment by Josh Cooney on 7 November 2008:

   “There is one consequence of the election that is absolutely certain: The Republicans will NOT draw the right conclusions. It would not be nice.”

   Thanks for bursting my bubble already. I was really counting on some soul searching by Republicans in the South, Great Plains, Mountain West, and even rural districts in the East. I thought Mr. Frum’s comments might get their attention that these Northeastern Capitalists are a bunch of wise guy yuppies. In the very least, I thought they might pretend to do some soul searching so they can get elected. Dr. Wilson is probably right, and it is a pipe dream to think the Republicans have a clue. Does anyone know a good book to begin to learn Mandarin?

10. 10 Comment by george on 7 November 2008:

    @2Rick

    I like Star Trek except the original and the latest one.

    Even in Star Trek they use other races as a reference for disparaging remarks.

    And who is the most power advisory in Star Trek Deep Space 9 The Dominion controlled by race of shape shifting aliens who control another race who they think of as Gods and have a history of persecution by “solids” non shape shifters and think everyone is trying to kill them so they pursue an aggressive military doctrine.

    Thank god we don’t have people like that in real life.

11. 11 Comment by robert on 7 November 2008:

    Here is how one writer has put it post election. After lambasting the Democrats, he makes this seemingly accurate analysis of The GOP and their candidate:

    “McCain, on the other hand, is a tired old Republican Party hack, a residual Christian of some sort who still recalls the days when people could follow a syllogism and even Democrats considered abortion unthinkable, but who, in the twilight of his own life, lacked confidence in what he was trying to sell, which is the fading memory of a nation whose electoral majority once exhibited a semblance of Christian morality. Today, if there were a national referendum on a one-day moratorium on abortion in exchange for canceling the season finale of “Dancing with the Stars,” it would be defeated by sizeable margin.”

    If this is true, and apparently it is, there is no man who can save such a country. Instead of criticizing him, we should all get on our knees and pray for Mr. Obama that he might someday overcome the public humiliation we have bestowed upon him by asking him to serve such wretchedness.

12. 12 Comment by Daniel Maxwell on 7 November 2008:

    “It would be good to think that the present financial debacle has cured Americans of their belief in automatic wealth—but I doubt it. The election results surely show that the delusion is stronger than ever.”

    Yup. Even the South is a victim of such thought – Virginia and North Carolina going to the Obama column says it all. They want their ‘fix’ like a heroin addict, now. I noticed it was closer in Mississippi than I would have expected as well.

13. 13 Comment by Andrew G. Van Sant on 7 November 2008:

    Daniel @12:
    Anne Arundel County where I live in the Peoples’ Republic of Maryland voted McCain 51% – Obama 48%. (I voted for neither.) AA Co is rapidly being overwhelmed by illegals and I don’t expect the Republicans to outvote the Democrats for too much longer. Besides, as we’ve been discussing, there is not much difference between those two parties. (flip sides of the same coin)

14. 14 Comment by Daniel Maxwell on 7 November 2008:

    Andrew @13

    Not surprised. I used to live on Andrews Air Force Base when my father was still in the Air Force, and the surrounding area was completely Democrat.

    I understand the last holdout of Southern culture in Maryland are in the bottom 3 counties that border Virginia..which is odd, considering those counties across the border are the most heavily left-liberal of Virginia!

15. 15 Comment by Brendan on 7 November 2008:

    North Carolina has been overrun by Yankees in the last two decades which is what pushed it over the top. The Hispanic vote wasn’t a factor yet despite the massive human tide of them that has flooded the state. Mainly because almost all of them don’t have citizenship yet.

16. 16 Comment by Daniel Maxwell on 7 November 2008:

    @15

    You’re probably correct, although I actually think enough blue collar types just had it with Bushian policies. The vote was still close in both NC and VA.

    NC seems to have been overrun by more yankees than any other Southern state. Even Virginia’s yankees are still by-and-large confined to the northernmost counties and a few areas along the Atlantic coast.

17. 17 Comment by Brendan on 7 November 2008:

    Never mind illegal immigration, the Bush Administration was planting all kinds of colonies of exotic foreigners all over the US. I wonder what plans the Obama Administration will have for this. The media singled out West Virginia (96.1% white, least amount of foreign-born in all 50 states) in this election on coverage for racism since it was traditionally Democratic. Appalachia isn’t diverse enough so it looks like it is time for change there as well.

18. 18 Comment by J. Meng on 7 November 2008:

    Dear Mr. Wilson,
    I have been put off by chores, recently, but I have given you an answer in #32 of the article by Mr. Chilton Williamson to your comments that my thoughts were absurd. Maybe, you would like to peruse it and give me your thoughts. Thanks, much. Sincerely, J. Meng

19. 19 Comment by J. Meng on 7 November 2008:

    Correction. It is #31; sorry.

20. 20 Comment by J. Meng on 7 November 2008:

    I hated Star Trek, because it was a universe without God.

21. 21 Comment by Michael Ezzo on 7 November 2008:

    True, but so was Leave it to Beaver, the Brady Bunch, and almost everyone else on TV, despite their pretense of representing everyday people (in the days of 75% Mass attendance).

    Mr. Campbell (#3), you are not alone. Many of us voted for Chuck Baldwin. And this is not the first time the GOP has only given lip-service to the pro-life cause. As Dale Vree of New Oxford Review said after the 2004 election : “Thanks pro-lifers, see you again in four years.”

22. 22 Comment by robert m. peters on 7 November 2008:

    Mr. Maxwell @ 14

    Your words:

    “I understand the last holdout of Southern culture in Maryland are in the bottom 3 counties that border Virginia..which is odd, considering those counties across the border are the most heavily left-liberal of Virginia!”

    Your statement is true of most march lands. Western Germany, right along the French border, is, in many respects, quite French; and France, in its most western march against Germany is, relatively speaking, quite German.

    Interesting.

23. 23 Comment by george on 7 November 2008:

    @20 J. Meng

    Just like western society then.

    Why hasn’t anyone attempted to create a holodeck yet.

    The US media is finally starting to get wind of what happen in South Ossetia.
    This could be embarcing for Barky and Brezinski especially if war crime charges are proven to be true and for the hysterical Russophobic media at large.

    If it was made a big deal on the internet it would through Brezinskis mad foreign policy in doubt or even question his objectives.

24. 24 Comment by robert m. peters on 7 November 2008:

    Things shifted to “blue,” i.e. to Obama in Southern climes, even in the states that remained “red,” because outlanders have come in – some from the north and west of the U.S. and some from out of country; because the decay of moral values and identity with Southern traditions and customs has accelerated among old-line Southerns; because some are finally seeing the bankruptcy of the Republican Party but know only to run from the sinking ship of the GOP onto the burning platform of the Party of Jackasses; and because Obama and company found every hag, werewolf and troll hiding in every cave and root and registered them to vote – the latter being the ultimate outcome of that movement known as “democracy.”

25. 25 Comment by robert m. peters on 7 November 2008:

    George @ 23

    Yes, even the New York Times is beginning to raise questions about the representations which Georgia has made. One wonders what is afoot. What Marionettenmeister is pulling the strings of the Gray Lady so that she dances to a somewhat different tune, and what is the purpose of that change?

26. 26 Comment by Leo on 8 November 2008:

    A.Vant Sant @ various spots…that’s a very perceptive comment about Anne Arundel County,Maryland.May I add some interesting results.My politically incorrect observations of the AA vote is that in places like District 31 which are integrated or adjacent to Baltimore the white vote actually moved further to the Republicans.Obama’s gains among white voters were largely in the functionally segregated affluent areas like Severna Park.Readers of Chronicles will draw the correct conclusions without me saying more.

27. 27 Comment by Harold Crews on 8 November 2008:

    Dr. Wilson I always enjoy reading your articles. I look forward to hearing you speak on the 15th in North Carolina.

28. 28 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 8 November 2008:

    Doctor Wilson, I do buy water, I get a bill for it every month. I pay 3 times as much to get rid of it! But on the very rare occasions when I buy a plastic bottle of Dasani, I do notice that it’s more expensive than $4 a gallon gasoline.

29. 29 Comment by Andrew G. Van Sant on 8 November 2008:

    Leo @26:
    As the Hispanics move in, they are displacing blacks. The local paper has begun to comment on the fact that most crimes are committed by blacks, but thay haven’t yet commented on the rivalry between Hispanics and blacks. Meanwhile, the community in which I live is seeing more criminal incursions from the nearby public housing, including a couple of home invasions. Recently, an outsider broke in to the home of two women in their 80s as they sat at their kitchen table. One hit the invader over the head with her cane and he departed in a hurry.

    Our local homeowners association is considering a measure to increase our annual budget by $125,000 to fund a dedicated county police patrol for the community. It will cost each homeowner about $8-$9 per month.

30. 30 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 8 November 2008:

    @26 Leo

    Since the Stupid Party elite has bungled its activities in the Free State by sucking leftward and grubbing for money, it was encouraging to see several young Ron Paul disciples run against entrenched House democrats and do surprisinly well with nothing more than Dr. Paul’s email endorsements and some help from WBAL.

31. 31 Comment by A. Hayter on 10 November 2008:

    Prof. Wilson:

    (I have copied this from the comments section of your previous article, as you might not be going back there again.)

    Thank you for that clarification, and apologies for the delay in responding. Alas, I’m not too sure how precisely we go about achieving that agenda (or any other conservative one). My point was simply that the Right’s capital is obviously so limited, and the situation is deteriorating so rapidly, that we need to husband our energies, donations, activism, etc. to get the greatest marginal returns, and that means re-focusing our intellectual, educational and political efforts towards those areas which directly threaten the physical interests (ie, personal safety, and economic prosperity, along with national sovereignty, the loss of which would end our scope of action without even a fight) of traditional Americans. I want serious conservatives to start ‘prioritizing’ their overall agenda, jettisoning concern over secondary issues.

    I wish this weren’t necessary. I wish we had never changed our immigration laws, had passed the Bricker Amendment, still hung murderers, retained a ‘dollar as good as gold’, etc. Then we could gently make the complex arguments on behalf of sexual ethics, traditional moral values and cultural standards, and so forth. But I perceive our future ever less dimly, and it looks increasingly like the “new” South Africa’s present. What did Sam Francis say long ago about the “basics” that are all most people really care about: personal safety, putting food on the table, not living in continuous fear, etc.? Outside of exceptional times and places (eg, 1861-5)Americans have mostly possessed those “basics” The day may come, however, when they can no longer be taken for granted.

    If I am being asked about the specific, or even just secondary, mechanics of achieving immigration stoppage, etc., I just don’t know. That’s a tall order you’ve given me! But I do know a few things. I think Sam’s strategy of Middle American nationalism is still the correct one. I think we need some sort of ‘center’, say, a “Middle American PAC”. Each of us needs, first, to educate himself on the issues, and then constantly try to persuade others of the empirical and moral soundness of our positions. Above all, conservative intellectual leaders need to reach some sort of consensus as to what in fact ARE the key issues (I bet a lot would say ‘abortion’; others ‘national defense’). My post represents my ordering of the top concerns for conservatives.

    Upon what do you think the Right should focus?

32. 32 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 10 November 2008:

    Mr. Hayter, alas, you entirely miss the import of my question. What should we (you and I and fellow thinkers) DO?.

33. 33 Comment by A. Hayter on 10 November 2008:

    Prof. Wilson:

    I’m not usually this obtuse, but by “DO” do you mean: eg, write essays; write novels, plays or poetry; read books; get married; join the Minutemen at the border, if they’re still there; run for office; clean our guns; go back to law school; pray?

    What conservative thinkers specifically need to ‘do’ is ascertain the morality (theological justification, if any) of Western survival. The political difficulties of the Right will only increase in the future, because they stem finally from a new Zeitgeist, which consists, on the theoretical level, of a sweeping rejection of the moral legitimacy of any claims of particularity, and, on the empirical one, of an unprecedented (and growing) demographic imbalance between ‘the West and the rest’.

    Let me be less euphemistic. Western civilization is white racial civilization (or at least, our intellectual and cultural achievements rest, as do those of any civilization, on a general biological base – ‘human nature’ – as well as a specific racial one). It might be possible to transmit Occidental culture, behavioral norms, morality and outlook to other races, but I am sceptical. Or, at least, when other peoples appropriate aspects of Western civ, they never precisely reproduce our way of life in toto. Their psyches, I believe, remain culturally differently conditioned (if not also biologically non-identical).

    Suppose I am correct. Then the growing non-white presence in the West represents a direct threat to the ultimate survival of the civilization. We can handle some minorities in our midst (especially if we were more culturally confident), and still preserve the core elements of or way of life. But numbers matter. At some point the primacy of the majority culture begins to be threatened.

    Every exogenous factor is pushing what Pat Buchanan bravely calls the Death of the West. In other words, we are like men in a runaway car heading towards a cliff. I believe that only a militant (and possibly violent) assertion of white nationalist will in various Western countries can avert cultural and eventually racial extinction. What we ‘thinkers’ (not sure whether I would include myself in such an august category) need to ‘do’, is ascertain the moral boundaries of any national-preservationist action. Of course, we can organize protests against mass imigration. Any nation has a moral right to draw boundaries around itself (as do individual homeowners). But what if we are governed by traitors with no loyalty to the nations or peoples they govern, who are actively, say, allowing for the importation of Muslims into Christendom? What may patriots do to resist? Your otherwise very distinguished editor seems to think that the answer is private Christian education, coupled with responsible voting – but that organizing mass movements based on national identity (let alone race) is somehow “un-Christian”. Is it? What if sowing seeds of ethnic division is, ironically, the most effective way to save European Christendom? May we do so?

    These are some of the types of questions rightist scholars need to address before we will ever get concerted resistance to global homogenization off the ground. Western Man is preeminently Ethical Man. But he lacks the ethics of his own preservation.

34. 34 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 10 November 2008:

    Mr. Hayter, you make some excellent points. However, to my question about your original statement: There is no such being as “the Right” in America. There is ceretainly no such being with the capacity to “focus upon,” decide and act. If there were such a being the entire vast machinery of mainstream (i.e. leftist) America and the entire vastly organised and funded machinery of the Republican party would be mobilised to kill it.
    I and many others have “focused on” the right things for half a century. You young people will have to become actors, not “focus uponers” for an imaginary “conservative movement.” I am trying to hint at a need for you talented and honourable younger people to move beyond conventional fantasies about “the Right” deciding what to “focus on.”

35. 35 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 10 November 2008:

    P.S. As to what you should do I have no good idea. The worn, lopsided ball of American conservatism is in your court.

36. 36 Comment by robert m. peters on 10 November 2008:

    Sitting around a bonfire (probably a seditious act in the United Kingdom) last night, singing songs and eating squirrel gumbo, my mind, as it often does, wandered and thereupon bumped into the following analogy.

    Conservatives, the true ones if such actually exist, are like mangy and emaciated pups pawing and sucking at the teats of their dead mother (think “union of constitutionally federated republics or the Constitution itself”), thinking that the rot which they are ingesting is life-giving. Meanwhile, one by one, the empire is knocking the litter in the head; the closer the empire comes to the still living, the more urgent becomes the nursing of those left, with each entertaining the hopeless hope that the mother will rise up and kill the empire.

    My mind found its way back to “reality” when a shower of hot embers from the fire set a lady to screaming. The squirrel gumbo was excellent and the fellowship was sweet. Somewhere in the distance a pack of coyotes howled. The moon was waxing gibbous.

37. 37 Comment by Josh Cooney on 10 November 2008:

    #33 “At some point the primacy of the majority culture begins to be threatened.”

    Is the “majority culture” worth defending anymore? Dr. Wilson remarked that we are dealing with an “imaginary conservative movement,” and I am beginning to think that we are also dealing with an imaginary “America.” Even an imaginary “Middle America.” Personally, I am almost convinced that the America of my childhood (1980’s) was the end of the old America, and the beginning of something else. I notice students only a few years younger are incapable of understanding simple concepts in American history and literature. They find the works of Faulkner and Frost “boring.” They find them boring because they cannot understand them. The culture is too distant. Themes such as rural life, the family, industrialization, the wilderness, tradition, the past, chivalry, etc. make no sense to young Americans. What exactly are we defending and conserving these days? The majority might just as well lose their heritage, be ruled by Saudi princes, Chinese businessman, Israeli lobbyists, and overrun by third-world immigrants, so long as they can watch their favorite football team on Sunday, when they obviously are not at any Christian church.

38. 38 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 10 November 2008:

    Agreed, there does not seem to be very much “America” left. That is why some of us, a few years ago, thought we might be able to save what was left of the South, which still showed a little life. The signs of life are still there, but they grow weaker.
    What the remnants of the American people need are leaders and protective wealth. For leaders we will needs have to wait on providence, I fear. We need the wealth so that noone will lose his livelihood in the future from being a real American, and we will have the educational and cultural wherewithal to preserve Western civilisation for our posterity to hold onto in an alien environment.