This latest surrender of the conservative movement to the forces of "progress" should come as no surprise, since it is the logical outcome of a movement that has as its chosen ideology "fusionism," the marriage of libertarian economics and traditionalism outside the economic sphere championed by Frank Meyer in the early days of National Review.  As some traditionalists noted early on, a movement defined by libertarian economics was unlikely to provide any real support for tradition.

This point was brought home by the New York Times' excited behind the scenes look at the passage of its latest favorite legislation.  As the Times reports, wealthy Republican donors were instrumental in securing the bill's passage: "the billionaire Paul Singer, whose son is gay, joined by the hedge fund managers Cliff Asness and Daniel Loeb—had the influence and the money to insulate nervous senators from conservative backlash if they supported the marriage measure. And they were inclined to see the issue as one of personal freedom, consistent with their more libertarian views."  This passage helps explain why the conservative movement has been relatively successful in defending the economic interests of Wall Street billionaires, but an abject failure in conserving much of anything, including a definition of marriage that reflected not only the wisdom of millennia of human thought but what until only recently had been the overwhelming moral consensus of Americans.

The less farsighted are beginning to catch up. Recently, David Frum published a chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on his website, which was then picked up by Yahoo News. The chart shows that labor's share of U. S. national income has been plummeting since 2001 and is now at an all-time low. The chart is hardly a surprise: both globalization and mass immigration drive down wages, and our leaders have stubbornly clung to both, even as tens of millions of Americans remain unemployed or underemployed.  The question is: how bad do things have to get before our elites notice that globalization, as represented by both free trade and mass immigration, has failed?

All of these statements are either untrue or misleading.  The commission that detailed the appalling level of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Belgium (mostly occurring in the 1960s and 1970s) was established by the Church, not by "the country's secular authorities."  According to a September 10 BBC report, the commission "had found no indication that the Church had systematically sought to cover up cases," though the commission's chairman, Peter Adriaenssens, did say the commission's findings represented a "body blow" to the Belgian Church.  Hitchens also fails to mention that the search by the Belgian police, which included searching the tomb of a Cardinal and seizing the files of the Adriaenssens commission, was subsequently deemed illegal by the Belgian courts, and that the Church protested the raid because many of victims giving information to the commission had asked that their identity be protected.

Hitchens' column is the latest salvo in his campaign to have criminal penalties imposed on Benedict XVI.  It is also the latest reminder that Hitchens' appeal for "simple earthly justice" in the matter of clerical sexual abuse is made without regard for the actual laws governing those cases or indeed for the simple justice represented by honesty.

[Read Tom Piatak's "Christopher Hitchens and the Days of Rage," Part 1]

Withers’ disdain for the city of bitter losers was nothing new, and if the LeBron saga had been confined to the sports pages, I doubt I would be writing about it. But political commentators soon began focusing on James as well, in ways that both were unfavorable to Cleveland and touched on larger issues. Lew Rockwell highlighted the comments of fellow libertarian Skip Oliva, who wrote: “In the past week, I’ve seen the word ‘narcissism’ used dozens of times by the mainstream press to describe a 25-year-old African-American male who worked his way out of poverty, to earn millions of dollars entertaining people with his basketball skills. Apparently, his transgression was refusing to honor the collectivist whims of the press to remain in his depressed ‘hometown’ by deciding to join two of his close friends in a better part of the country.” In an expansion of this analysis, Oliva defended James on the grounds that “Every actor in the marketplace seeks his own ends through chosen means,” and he even praised James for announcing his decision to leave Cleveland on an hour-long ESPN special: “Smartly, he decided to capitalize on the process for his own interests.” Indeed, according to Oliva, criticism of James was a form of “racism” based not on his skin color but on his status as a professional athlete: “there’s a belief that professional athletes are entitled to a lesser degree of rights and social respect simply because of who they are.”

In other words, LeBron James is not only legally entitled to stiff the fans who’ve been loyal to him and to voice disdain for his native region as part of an overhyped television special, but he is entitled to do so without being criticized, since any suggestion that loyalty to a native region or to the fans who have supported him should carry weight is morally wrong and based on “collectivism” and “racism.”

A different critique was offered by another libertarian, Richard Hoste, at the Alternative Right website. According to Hoste, Cleveland fans complaining about LeBron’s move to Miami were “a bunch of losers,” whose letters to sportswriter Bill Simmons reminded Hoste of “the narratives that oppressed people like the Palestinians, Chechens and Kurds tell themselves. But they are actually concerned about the well-being of their people and its history, not some sports star who happens to sign a contract with a franchise that happens to be located in another city.” Rather than venting about LeBron’s departure, such fans should be “as passionate about hating their government” and espouse “anti-statist positions.”

For different reasons, Hoste comes to the same conclusion as Oliva: Cleveland fans, “losers” whose basketball star rationally decided to leave Cleveland for a “better part of the country,” should just shut up. But rather than prove their points, Oliva and Hoste remind us, yet again, how divorced from reality many libertarians are.

The anger of Cleveland fans at LeBron James is understandable. Cleveland last won a championship in any major sport in December 1964, when the Browns beat the Baltimore Colts to win the NFL championship. Since that time, we have known more sports disappointment than any other American city, as shown by the history whose recitation so annoyed Richard Hoste. James, an extraordinary athlete, seemed to offer the best hope of winning the championship Clevelanders craved, and he endeared himself to us by showing that he knew that history and telling us he would indeed win a championship for Cleveland. And for most of his career, James looked like he was intent to do just that, playing with passion and intensity. But this year he simply appeared to give up in the series against the Celtics, and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that James didn’t care if the Cavs lost because he knew he wasn’t coming back. One of the few words James himself spoke in the period following the collapse of the Cavs in the playoffs and the announcement of his departure on ESPN was the statement that Cleveland had “an edge” in signing him to a new contract, a claim contradicted by numerous press reports following his departure. The news that James was going to announce his decision of where he was going to play next year in an hour-long TV show reinforced the notion that Cleveland had “an edge,” since few here believed that James would use such a special to turn his back on fans who had been so supportive of him. But that’s just what he did, after delegating to one of his minions the task of telling the Cavs, moments before he went on the air, that he was going to Miami, and delaying the announcement of his decision until the time for acquiring free agents who might enable the Cavaliers to soften the blow of his departure had largely passed.

More to the point, an expectation of loyalty from hometown athletes, far from being indicative of “collectivism” or “racism,” is simply part of human nature. Human beings are not atomistic individuals but social beings who naturally organize themselves into groups, a process that includes expectations of loyalty from members of the group. Oliva’s incredulity at the reaction to James’ decision to leave Cleveland is even more surprising than his claim that professional athletes are somehow victims of “racism.”

Unlike Oliva, Hoste does not deny the reality of group loyalty; he just doesn’t like the group loyalties Americans actually have. When Hoste compares Cleveland sports fans unfavorably to ethnic groups struggling for a homeland, he erroneously concludes that it is impossible for someone to care about his city’s sports teams and something as weighty as “the well-being of their people and its history.” In fact, love of one’s home city and region is the precursor to love of nation, and it is difficult to see how a healthy, rooted patriotism arises apart from an attachment to one’s native place. Caring about the fortunes of one’s hometown’s sports teams is often part of caring about one’s hometown; indeed, children often learn about caring for their hometowns by rooting for its sport teams.

In suggesting that some Americans pay too much attention to professional sports, Hoste is closer to the mark than Oliva and his belief that professional athletes are victims of “racism.” However, Hoste overstates the case. It is possible to take an interest in professional sports and also take an interest in politics; millions of Americans do. It is also odd that Hoste thinks the alternative to participation in fandom should be espousal of “anti-statist positions,” since the excesses of professional sports have nothing at all to do with “statism.” “The state” did not decree the existence of ESPN, the network that broadcast LeBron James’ decision, sports talk radio, and weekends filled with nearly round-the-clock sports coverage: all of these came into existence because of market forces.

Indeed, an argument can be made that the free market has been principally responsible for the degradation of professional sports over the last few decades. Free agency for players has led to enormous salaries for athletes, salaries that have fueled player arrogance. Before players could entertain the hope of earning enough money in a few years to live lavishly for the rest of their lives, they sought instead to parlay the good will earned in the communities in which they played to be able to operate businesses in those communities following their retirement from sports. Growing up, my family would drive past the dry-cleaning store operated by Mike Garcia whenever we visited my Dad’s parents. Mike Garcia, my Dad told me, was one of the outstanding pitchers for the Indians in the 1950's, a teammate of Hall of Fame pitchers Bob Feller, Bob Lemon, and Early Wynn. When I moved back to Cleveland after law school, my commute regularly took me past the furniture store operated by Browns Hall of Fame receiver Dante Lavelli, and my wife attended Berea High School with the children of Lou Groza, another Browns Hall of Famer, who made his living as an insurance agent after leaving the Browns. I can’t help but think that, as a culture, we’d be better if our athletes emulated the likes of Garcia, Lavelli, and Groza rather than the many athletes today who long to be nothing more than highly priced mercenaries. From the fan perspective, too, player free agency has largely destroyed one of the joys of being a fan, the ability to watch a player develop his talents with one team and spend his entire career with that team.

Then there is the problem of what might be termed owner free agency, with the owners of sports teams betraying fans by moving their franchises to other cities for more money, as Art Modell did with the Cleveland Browns, or using the threat of such a move to extract money from local governments, as countless owners have done. One city that never has to worry about the hometown team leaving is Green Bay, since the Packers are municipally owned. The problem of disloyal owners can also be curbed by opprobrium, but libertarian ideologues are as dismayed by such opprobrium as they are by municipal ownership, as Skip Oliva’s defense of LeBron James reminds us.

It is hard not to get discouraged by professional sports today. But I still count myself a Cleveland sports fan, for both the excitement and the camaraderie following a team can bring. In a country where the sense of community is disappearing, sports at its best can still bring communities together. On August 31, 2004, two close friends and I went to a sports bar to play trivia. The Indians were on TV, playing the Yankees, but they had no realistic shot of making the playoffs and few people in the bar were giving the game their undivided attention. But as the Indians kept scoring runs, more of us started watching the game intently. By the time the score was 17 to 0 or so, all of us were watching the game intently, cheering loudly as the score finally reached 22 to 0, a record loss for the Yankees. We were cheering because we were Clevelanders and we knew what a hated rival the Yankees had been, thanks to fathers who told us about players like Mike Garcia. It is a shame that LeBron James chose to have this generation of Cleveland fathers pass along a different sort of story to their sons, and a shame that ideologues with no understanding of loyalty chose to criticize those fathers for doing so.

This year's anniversary did bring confirmation, though, that it is still considered detrimental to a career in Washington to remember the Liberty.

Political blogger Steve Clemons highlighted a piece by Charles Ebinger, an analyst at the Brookings Institute, that mentioned the Liberty. Clemons also noted the reaction of a friend, "wondering when . . . Ebinger will be spending time with Helen Thomas." The fact that politicians feel the need to suppress any interest in the fate of Americans killed by a foreign power is yet another reminder that the American national interest too often is not the paramount consideration in the setting of American foreign policy.

From the beginning, the Canadian carpetbagger has sought to climb the greasy pole by attacking those on his right, in ways designed to curry favor with the left.  As an undergraduate at Yale, he joined leftists at Yale in urging the university to take control of the Yale Literary Magazine, then run by future Chronicles editor Andrei Navrozov.  He made his first big splash in America by attacking Pat Buchanan in The American Spectator.  And back when he was welcome at all the places neocons congregate, Frum wrote a cover article for National Review attacking Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis, and Tom Fleming as "unpatriotic" for having the good sense to oppose the Iraq War.  There was no evidence supporting Frum's slander of these men, the despicable nature of which was confirmed by my good fortune in knowing them and knowing that their opposition to the Iraq War was rooted in a deep love for our country.  Frum's despicable attacks on those on his right continued, with Frum making false statements about Pat Buchanan's position on the use of military force against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, as I noted for this website.

More recently, Frum has expanded launching fusillades on those to his right into a more or less full-time job, as an examination of his modestly named Frum Forum website shows.  The only difference is that Frum's new broadsides are no longer aimed solely at paleoconservatives.  Indeed, Frum was rewarded with a cover article in Newsweek to attack Rush Limbaugh.  Along the way, Frum has picked up some strange new friends, including writer Alex Knepper, still featured at Frum's website even after Richard Spencer pointed out that Knepper is an admirer of Anton LaVey's Church of Satan and a member of the Facebook groups "F**k Christianity" and "F**k the Pope."  (It takes little imagination to realize how Frum would react if someone who wrote for Chronicles was a member of a "F**k Israel" Facebook group).  Frum has also picked up many new enemies, as evidenced by the fact that National Review Online is now publishing attacks on Frum, something that did not happen when Frum was attacking far wiser men than he as "unpatriotic."

Frum is defending himself from his new enemies in typical fashion.  Frum's website now features testimony to his wonderfulness from such leftists as Joe Klein, Ezra Klein, and Jacob Heilbrunn, as well as a paean to Frum's greatness from his wife.  (Somehow, I don't recall Shelley Buchanan or Gail Fleming writing about how their husbands really were patriotic after Frum attacked them.)  The criticism from former friends seems to be getting to Frum: He is particularly incensed that former colleague Tunku Varadarajan has portrayed him as a Beltway social climber rather than as a brave martyr to the truth.  To illustrate his bravery, Frum tells his readers that when he was in London during the runup to the Iraq War, he was recognized on the London streets and then singlehandedly debated an enraged mob of anti-war Britons.  (Leave it to Frum to tell a tale that involves his being recognized as a famous man, the way Frum no doubt sees himself.)

Still, if Frum wishes to dispel the charge of being a Beltway social climber, there is an easy way to do that: Leave the Beltway.  America's best magazine is published in Rockford, Illinois, a city Frum disdained as a "rusting industrial city" in the same essay in which he besmirched the patriotism of anti-war conservatives.  No one can accuse Tom Fleming, Scott Richert, or Aaron Wolf of being Beltway social climbers.   He can join me here in Cleveland, though my preference would be that he live on the other side of town if he comes.  Or, better yet, he can return to his "home and native land" and leave behind the hard life of being a Beltway pundit.  Perhaps he can become an insurance salesman in Waterloo, Ontario, while continuing to favor us with an occasional blog from the Great White North.  But my guess is that he will stay in Washignton, and continue to do what he can to be noticed in the media.

Miller, you see, though now a comfortable denizen of the Beltway, hails from the Detroit area, and those who flack for the Japanese in Detroit are made of the same stuff as was Benedict Arnold, since they know how badly hurt Detroit has been by the rise of the Japanese auto industry and how devastated Detroit would be if the American auto industry ever collapsed.  As even the Wall Street Journal has noted, for every job the Japanese auto industry has created here, the American auto industry has lost a little over six jobs, 2.8 of them in Michigan.  But even the traitors of the founding generation were better than their spiritual descendants today.  Miller regularly writes at NRO about his undying loyalty to whatever Detroit sports team happens to be doing well at the moment, affecting a sham loyalty to Detroit; Arnold, in his exile in England, at least had the decency not to fill the English newspapers with declarations of his undying love for New England village greens or the like.

As for the substance, I see nothing wrong with American government officials trying to assist American companies in beating their foreign competition.  Most of the nations that compete with us think that way, and Americans used to think that way, too.  But such thinking has virtually disappeared in Washington since the Reagan administration, and Transportation Secretary LaHood was soon apologizing and burbling about what a "good corporate citizen" Toyota is.  As well he might:  If recent history is any guide, LaHood stands a good chance of continuing to make money in Washington after he leaves the Transportation Department by lobbying on behalf of foreign interests, as so many other departing government officials have done in the past few decades.

Since Buchanan is not one of those criticizing Beck, he is completely irrelevant to Goldberg's piece.  But he is not irrelevant to Goldberg's larger purpose, which is to drive from the scene anyone to the right of National Review.  Indeed, Goldberg also praises Beck and Limbaugh for being "more cheerful—and more responsible—warriors than the populist right-wingers of yesteryear."  The clearest evidence that Beck and Limbaugh and indeed the tea parties pose no real threat to the governing elite is Goldberg's praise for them.

But Goldberg's piece is not without humor, albeit unintentional.  He praises Beck for getting "people to read serious books," a reference to Goldberg's own Liberal Fascism, a silly book that has inspired Beck to rant and rave about the "fascist" messages being conveyed by the art and architecture of Rockefeller Plaza.  A movement with Goldberg as its leading thinker, and Beck as its most visible mouthpiece, deserves the obscurity to which it is heading.