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“Why did Reagan ever pick him for a running mate?”

Forgive me for butting in here, but I always figured it was to carry the Southern vote.

Comment by Mark

ME:

That that HURT!

Bush, Sr. was always looked upon down here as a New Englander. Listen tot hat whiney Yankee, nasal voice!

The only electoral office Bush Sr. ever won on his own was one term as a congressman from Texas. He was elected president purely as Reagan’s successor, immeidately got rid of all Reagan appointees, and lost his reelection bid massively.

In 1982 I produced The New Right Papers, which explained how we on the New Right had engineered Reagan’s 1980 victory. Paul Weyrich wrote a piece in that book where he pointed out that the first great victory his section of the New Right won was defeating George Bush for re-election in Texas! This, was, of course, Reagan’s Vice President at the time.

Our estimate of him in 1982 was demonstrated to be perfectly accurate.

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So you are going by the definitions from typical usage. I was going by a dictionary definition. Note my emphasis is below:

con·ser·va·tism (kən-sûr’və-tĭz’əm)
n.
1. The inclination, especially in politics, to MAINTAIN the existing or traditional order.
2. A political philosophy or attitude emphasizing respect for traditional institutions, distrust of government activism, and OPPOSITION TO SUDDEN CHANGE in the established order.

rev·o·lu·tion·ar·y (rĕv’ə-lū’shə-nĕr’ē)
adj.
1. Bringing about or supporting a political or social revolution: revolutionary pamphlets.
2. Marked by or resulting in RADICAL CHANGE: a revolutionary discovery.

“Revolutionary conservatism” wouldn’t be in essence a contradiction of terms if you are refering to a time and a place where your views were labeled conservative — and you want a revolution to get it back.

It confuses those of us who aren’t politicos.

Maybe you are referring to radical traditionalism? An interesting article I stumbled upon:

Why Radical Traditionalism in Politics?
http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000/node/611

— Comment by Al Parker

ME:

This reminds of the amusing use of language in religion. It is so common nobody notices it.

For example, the Pope refers to the “Orthodox Church.” But clearly he considers his OWN church to be the orthodox chruch or he would hand in his tiara.

ALL churches consider THEMSELVES the orthrodox church or they would not exist.

When a pope or an Orhtodox Patriarch refers to the Episcopal Church, we know what sect he is talkng about. But the word “Episcopal” simply means that a church has bishops. Bishops rule the Catholic Chruch, the Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, and even the Methodist Church, which was titled The Methodist Episcopal Church until recently.

But we all know what the Episcopal Church refers to.

As for the Catholic Church, every church considers itself to be catholic, which means universal. Every church thinks of itself as both orthodox and catholic, but those words have a titular meaning iwthout which any discussion between churches would be almost impossible.

All churches are evangelical, meaning that they all go out and preach the Gospel. But when we say evangelical Christian we mean a specific type of theology. Outside of the Quakers, all major denominations baptize, but we have a Baptist Church.

I do not consider myself a revolutionary because of Webster’s Dictionary. I call myself a revolutionary because I want to tear this system up by the roots.

Someone said that Shari gets knocked down here and keeps coming back and added “Yay, Shari!”

I myself have remarked on Shari’s intellectual courage and I certainly join in the Yay bit, but I never got the impression that Shari was intimidated by me.

If she IS terrified of me, she expresses it in an odd way.

Her last comment was, quote,

“Ha!”

Unquote.

Al knows better, but he gave me a chance to make a point here:

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I think one has to first decide if he’s a conservative or a revolutionary.

Bob is calling himself both. Is there no contradiction here?

I can understand why one would want to call himself a conservative and speak in ambiguous

terms about preserving European heritage. It brings the normal, mentally balanced people

that we desperately need into the movement. But I find it disingenous at best and deceitful

at worst. As if non-whites would leave if you gave them a plane ticket and a few dollars.

Yeah, right.

Comment by Al Parker

ME:

Al, language is usage. Today anyone who is not a stright-down-the-line Political
Correctness freak is called a “conservative.” I did not invent the language, but I have to

play it where it lies, and this is a lie.

Nontheless, in our society every non-liberal is called some kind of conservative. If
you are anti-liberal you are a conservative, and in that sense I am a conservative.

If things were not so desperate, I would spend some effort in fighting for the
correct use of words. The William Buckleys have ample time to do that sore of thing.

I don’t have that time preceisely because I AM a revolutionary.

To say, “I think one has to first decide if he’s a conservative or a revolutionary.” is one

of those statements one cannot deal with logically, like Reagan’s “We came here to clean
out the swamp, not to join the alligators.”

The word you apply to me is defeinitely NOT the first thing I am worried about.

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Bob, there’s a not a day goes by that I don’t reflect on something you said. I feel like

I’ve earned a bachelor’s degree in common sense from the last 6 or 8 months I’ve been

reading you. My masters degree should be delivered sometime next fall.

Comment by Mark

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BW keeps coming back again and again to this subject of ideology versus pragmatics.

Reagan was an opponent of something that has not been opposed in big league politics since Reagan and that is the rise of “communitarian standards” in social life.

Reagan opposed the salting of the bureaucracy with his appointees because he wanted to establish a “competing standard” that specifies that appointees loose their jobs when the boss loses his. That was the way things were before the civil service and Reagan felt that if we go back to the old ways we could mitigate the plague of rule by academics and financial elites.

Reagan understood that the concept of “communitarian standards” was a mechanism through which an academic-financial elite establishes a dictatorship they call “democracy”. This is the European Union today.

Everybody (and I mean everybody) along the ideological spectrum nowadays loves the notion of “communitarian standards” in one way or another. The Christian Right is in love with the idea as are Hippy Liberals. Even the “anti-globalists” love the idea without noticing the irony.

The genius of BW is that he understands that humans are punished by cleverness and Reagan was a measure to clever for his own good. I get the feeling that BW is an opponent of all ideology.

Instead BW says focus loyalty alone. Isn’t that a truly radical idea?

Comment by Dave —

ME:

You are really getting my point. I plug away here evry day on the faith that you will carry on my way of thinking. I have exactly the same feeling you do:

We are living in a world of zombies or Pod People. Why can’t they just the crap and see reality as it is?

It helps me a LOT when Mark says he THINKS about what I say and uses it in formulating his own approach to things. In a world of Pod People, one person who can understand reality is a great relief.

Dave continues Mark’s theme. he is APPLYING basic thought to policy.

Dave is dead right about this communitarian business. I mentioned it in regard to that endless, disastrous nonsense about conservative congressmen “giving money back.” The same thing was true of Reagan’s policy of not putting our people in the permanent civil service.

They say that if THEY give money back, then they are being principled.

What was funny to me was that, whent ey were giving money back they were adamantly opposed to exactly the same policy in miltary affairs.

It’s called Unilateral Disarmament. The idea was that, since America believed in Peace, we should give up OUR weapons and Communists would get rid of theirs. Liberals said that was a matter of principle. Conservatives said it was insane.

At the same time I had to deal with conservative Unilateral Disarmament all the time.

Back to basics:

Why did people elect a consservative congressman instead of a liberal? They elected him so he could get 1) a vote in congress, 2) More important, so he could get committee assignments; 3) so he could speak for them in congress, 4) so he woud get MONEY to hire staff to do things for his district and ITS beliefs.

Now, what if a congressman said, “Well, I think congress does too much. So I’m not going to vote at all.” Lunatic asylum, here he comes.

What if a congressman said, “I can have two committee assignments, but since I believe the government interferes in too many areas, I am going to give up one. Linatic asylum, here he comes.

What if a congressman said, ” I don’t like the rhetoric in congress, so when a question is being debated, I’, going to give up my time.” Has the asylum got room for one more?

Now, what if a congressman says, “I have this budget, but the government spends too much money. So I won’t hire staff to take of my district or fight for my beliefs.” Do they put him in a straitjacket? No, they think he’s God.

Reagan’s saying, “We came here to clean out the swamp, not to join the alligators” he was practising exactly the same kind of Unilateral Disarmament. As I said, the first thing Bush did when he took office in 1989 was to clean out every single TEMPORARY political appointee Reagan had put in. He wanted his OWN people in there. He, like every president before Reagan, worked hard to get his people into PERMANENT civil service jobs.

Try to explain that to an intellectual zombie, a respectable conservative. You will understand why I am so grateful for the Daves and Marks.