A writer in National Review was talking about books about alternative futures. He was puzzled that every alternative history showed either 1) Any deviation from our history ends up in disaster or 2) things come right back around to where they are now.

Or both.

It is interesting that this puzzled statement should appear in National Review, because that is how National Review makes its living.

National Review says exactly what the left does. The only difference is the time line. So if the founders of that publication, with their statement in 1955, were to appear t today, National Review would disagree with them on almost every issue.

The 1955 heroes of the conservative movement are either forgotten or denounced by NR today. This is the definition of respectable conservatism. It is also the REAL definition of neoconservatism..

I always have to use words two ways, the media definition and the real definition. In a seminar I expect commenters to recognize the difference. I was proud that, when I mentioned neo-conservatism and defined it, only one BUGS commenter went into Knee Jerk Mode, ignored the point I was making, and talked about the Neoconservatives as a variation on the Bilderbergers which David Duke and Pat Buchanan have exposed.

The rest just read what I said and got my point.

The term neoconservative means one who is a natural product of our literary market. He is easier to explain as an economic unit than as one holding any beliefs.

Periodically our established religion redefines what may be discussed. These guidelines are never spoken, and I have pointed out that talking about them would be a big help in exposing them.

We all know what the hierarchy of minority groups looks like, but none of us ever TALK about it.

To be a respectable conservative, one fills a slot in our society. He is against what is proposed now, but he is, above all, not an extremist. Like the minority hierarchy, no one ever mentions what an extremist is.

But everybody knows, to coin Talleyrand’s phrase, that extremism is a matter of dates. The Extremist label goes back to about 1970 now, and no one is more furious in denouncing anything advocated before the present date specified than the Respectable Right. That date is the entire story of their industry. That date is their SOLE means of livelihood.

The respectable conservative doesn’t just accept the date now specified to avoid extremism, he is militant about it.

Now let’s go back to that puzzled question in National Review about how all “if” histories wind up showing that We Live in the Best of All Possible Worlds.

Other writers have to make their living in exactly the same world that National Review does. If you say that history could have been better on some other path, you are an extremist. This is the year 2010 on the Path to Progressivism. To make a living or even publish at all, that has to be your guiding light.