The Economic Nationalist

When Sarah Palin takes offense at Rahm Emanuel’s use of the adjective “retarded,” one is tempted to retort, but the discussion which would follow the retort would be, well, too retarded to bear. The word “retarded” itself is etymologically somewhat retarded, but the word is a jewel of clarity next to the positively gay adjective “developmentally challenged,” or whatever the latest euphemism is supposed to be.

For my part, I think that I will henceforth insist on reviving the adjective “imbecilic,” a word which an earlier generation of easily offended parents of imbeciles apparently shamed out of use, that generation replacing it with the then supposedly inoffensive “retarded.” At least “imbecilic,” unlike “retarded,” is directly, properly and unambiguously derived from its Latin root. (Regarding “developmentally challenged,” one wonders whether the philological vandals pushing the word had so much as heard of Latin.)

The trouble with the word “retarded” resembles the trouble with the word “gay” (as in homosexual) and, unfortunately, also resembles the trouble with the word “black” (as in Negro). The trouble lies not in the word but in the characteristics or behavior of the thing to which the word refers. Were it not so, each generation of semiëducated scolds would not be pushing on us yet another retarded euphemism for the thing. One hesitates to introduce examples regarding variously humorous or private parts of the human body, but such examples would if introduced illustrate the same linguistic principle and are not hard to call to mind.

To anyone who thinks it possible to introduce a safe word to identify imbeciles, a word which would not soon become universal grist for schoolyard taunts: good luck. The English language is still going to need some suitable word to refer to imbeciles, even so. Rotating the existing word out for a new euphemism once per generation really does not help.

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The quiet respect one naturally feels for a neighbor who, with dignity, bears an unfair burden or an unearned infirmity evaporates when he abandons his dignity, when he starts whining that you and I weren’t showing servile enough a deference to his problems. Some folks will never understand this.

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Like other conservative U.S. traditionalists, I feel strongly inclined at first encounter to like Sarah Palin. She seems at first blush somehow to exemplify the American frontier spirit. However, could the authentic American frontiersman, at his best, not exhibit ruggedness or polish alternately, as the occasion demanded? Think of the fictional Benjamin Cartwright; or recall the redheaded men of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, quoting and singing their Tacitus. Or, if fictional characters don’t suit, how about Abraham Lincoln?

Regrettably, one finds it hard to suppose that Mrs. Palin knew who Tacitus was. It does not seem safe to suppose that she knew much even about Lincoln.

Have you noticed incidentally that, in her heat to slam Mr. Emanuel for his locker-room vernacular, Mrs. Palin practically passes over his blankin’ adverb? Oy!

Mrs. Palin is a hugely entertaining national figure, and I am glad that she’s out there, so to speak; but here is yet more reluctant evidence against nominating the woman to the U.S. presidency—especially in a cycle in which the chief Republican alternatives to her are relatively so strong.

HJH

[This week’s special election in Massachusetts is a significant event about which Howard J. Harrison regrettably finds little original to say. With the following remarks, the pseudonymous Dr.D fills the gap.]

Well, Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts seems to have struck a possibly mortal blow to the ambitions of the Democrats. The are recoiling as though they have been seriously wounded, although I really do not see why. They still have 59 votes in the Senate rather than 60, so if they believe what they have been telling us, why do they not plow ahead and pass all of their foolishness?

It appears that the answer lies in the instinct for self preservation. Even more than bringing about their communist utopia, they want to keep themselves in their sine cures. Brown’s win seems to have shaken them into realizing that they might have to get JOBS, jobs for goodness sakes. Now we all know that simply means that they would become lobbyists, but in the coming days, the way the mood is turning, lobbyists may not be viewed with the greatest favor either. That could mean having to get real jobs and work for Pete’s sake. Perish the thought! Thus the IPP (Incumbent Protection Plan) of both parties swings into high gear now, with a dive towards the center. Everybody becomes a moderate, even Uncle Harry Reid, that nice old gentlement who always smiles at everyone (you do remember him, don’t you?). And sweet old Aunt Pelosi, who would not stuff anything down the throat of a fly, why she is up for re-election too, I do believe! Wonder of wonders, what that one ballot in Massachusetts did!

Barack Obama and his motley Congressional Democratic majority of resentful nonwhite ethnics and graying, 1968-style liberals have met such political troubles as few Republicans would have dreamed one year ago, though the Economic Nationalist is pleased not to be surprised. Events are now in the saddle, so to speak, as foretold here. The horse has the bit in its teeth.

Joe Guzzardi said from the start that the 111th Congress would never be able to pass a major immigration amnesty. Mr. Guzzardi’s forecast looks righter and righter. If so, this is very good news.

Things are looking up. Rested and tanned after a blessedly enforced political vacation, the Republican party is back in a semblance of fighting trim, and its members in Congress, though not yet exactly receptive to a Buchananite, neoconservative, alternative Right world view, do seem less actively hostile to such a world view than in recent memory. This is especially true of younger members who, though variously flawed, represent a significant improvement over the older generation of Republican Congressmen they will gradually supplant. The bad news is that, though the Republican party is better, the Democratic is much worse, whereas our Republic is safe when she enjoys two good, patriotic national parties. One such party however is preferable to none.

(There remain those conservatives, among them friends of this blog, who believe that even the Republican party is good for nothing. I have already explained how strongly I feel that their belief stands on a fundamental misconception of the kind of thing a national party is but, for readers new to the Economic Nationalist, consider: a good dog barks at visitors after nightfall, runs on and tears up the lawn, and slobbers on its water dish, even when such caninity is inconvenient to the dog’s master. A good dog behaves as a dog, just as a good national party behaves as a national party. It is no use to wish a national party to be something it was never meant to be, something no national party ever has been; and it is even less use to compare a national party, by its very nature a power-seeking coalition of significantly divergent interests, against a boutique party like the Constitution party which, though honorable and worthy of respect, simply is not the same kind of thing a national party is. A survey of the center-right national parties of the Western world reveals how fundamentally sound, how relatively good our Republican party truly is, now that Republicans are rid of the bad leadership of George W. Bush and John McCain. That political parties in a democratic republic are, by their very nature, generally somewhat wretched hardly indicts America’s specific, fairly excellent Republican party. It tends to indict the very principle of democracy, rather—a principle the United States, being what they are, probably cannot escape. We work with what we have. But I digress.)

What nervous Republicans misunderstood in 2008, and indeed what this writer misunderstood as recently as 2004, was that the only way out was through, so to speak. The Republican revolution of 1994 having failed, Democrats were bound to get their shot at mismanaging the Republic. Democratic mismanagement is bad for the United States, of course, but if inevitable then sooner was better than later. Either John Kerry or Barack Obama would have sufficed to lead the inevitable Democratic mismanagement, putting an end to the all-too evitable Republican mismanagement under the well meaning but inflexible, incompetent George W. Bush. The only way out was through.

The real danger is that, when we Republicans return a Republican to the White House, we might choose the wrong Republican again. Traditional America might not survive another such mistake; we have run out of room for error. Fortunately, the clearly leading Republicans, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee (and even Sarah Palin if you like) are each much preferable to any candidate the party has nominated to the presidency since Reagan. A return to Reagan would be ideal, but Reagan is dead, Romney is rock-solid (I should explain why in a later article) and Huckabee, though sometimes worrisome, is at least an intelligent, perceptive man who actually grasps the issue of economic nationalism. We stand well going into 2010 and 2012. And, indeed, who would have thought it? The year 2010 has arrived already.

In the meantime, given the sorry circumstance of 2008, the Obama administration is working out beautifully thus far for American patriots, better than even this writer had hoped. The danger was that Mr. Obama would swamp us with an immigration amnesty but he seems barely interested in immigration. Mr. Obama seems interested rather in doing every other stupid political thing he can think of to do. How he and his Democrats have turned the health-care issue, a sure winner for 2009 Democrats, into a political loser will remain a textbook-example of political incompetence for years to come, but turn it into a loser they seem indeed to have done.

Ironically, voters seem inclined to punish rather than to reward Mr. Obama even for the one important thing he has done right, namely, to save General Motors. Remarkably few Republicans seem to grasp the fundamental importance of having saved General Motors, which is why when their party returns to power it will, obliviously, do the right thing at the right time for entirely the wrong reason: it will privatize General Motors again, and America will be strong back in the auto business.

There is still a God in heaven Who blesseth the United States of America, undeserving though they have become. The signs are there to see for those who will. The story of America is not over, yet.

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Few readers will wonder why the Economic Nationalist has published little lately, but a brief account might be given those few. There are at least three reasons for the relative quiet. First, the Economic Nationalist’s eponymous issue, economic nationalism, has slumbered; the issue will stir again, but maybe not this year. Second, national media now echo themes the Economic Nationalist discovered a year or two ago: it seems thus unnecessary to belabor such themes at the moment. Third, the major issue of the moment, Democratic health-care reform, is a subject of broad, vigorous debate across the news media, a debate to which I lack the knowledge meaningfully to add, except to state that I am fairly persuaded by that which has become the conventional Republican position on the issue. When events provoke it, the Economic Nationalist will wake again.

In the meantime, for something completely different but maybe of even deeper importance in the long term, I have turned to writing a slow article or two on Aristotle. If I can only work the article or articles into pleasing forms it or they should prove edifying, but the articles’ publication lies days, weeks or months away, if indeed ever. We shall see.

More later.

HJH

Lawrence Auster’s blog format, which Laura Wood, the Thinking Housewife, has adopted, happens not to be my favorite format. Among readers’ comments, the format leaves a vague, probably unintentional, nevertheless fairly heavy impression of sycophancy. Many readers evidently like the format, which naturally is fine with me; but, as the saying goes, it’s just not my cup of tea.

But don’t let the format bother you today. Go and read this.

(Incidentally, one suspects that the best blog format just might be the format which existed long before blogs, or the Internet, ever arrived on the scene—the standard periodical format with the familiar, stuffy, stodgy, “Dear Sir”-addressed column of “Letters to the editor.” Not, mind you, that “Dear Sir” actually works in a medium in which readers will identify themselves by handles like “Sgt. Joe Friday” and “Axe Head”! Can you imagine? “Dear Mr. Head: Your point is well taken. We can understand why you and your neighbors in Location Undisclosed might feel as you do, but for the reasons stated in the article we believe otherwise. Respectfully yours, The Editors.” It does not quite work, does it? But, anyway, you get my drift.)

Russell Roberts brings wise economic counsel.

In testimony before the congressional Joint Economic Committee last week, George Mason University economist Russell Roberts made a … point with regard to job creation and the stimulus. “There is no reliable way of knowing whether the stimulus package has averted a worse situation—or whether it’s part of the problem. There is no consensus in the economics profession on this question, and no empirical evidence that can settle the dispute.’’

Economics, a tremendous science, is badly abused when policymakers fail to grasp the crucial message Dr. Roberts quietly conveys. The message: economics knows some things pretty well; about other things, economics offers interesting theories which observable facts sometimes refute—theories which, though interesting, though even theoretically unrivaled, must therefore be regarded as probably false.

In the particular case in question, regarding the stimulus, Dr. Roberts admits that he finds himself in a double bind. In this case, the facts which might refute the relevant theories are not even observable. That of course does not mean that all the theories are wrong. It does not even mean that the stimulus should not have been tried (though the Economic Nationalist did generally oppose it). What it means is precisely what Dr. Roberts says that it means.

One should hardly expect to discern the proper real-world application of economic theory until one has understood, not only theoretical economic principles, but also Dr. Roberts’ overriding metaprinciple—that there remain important aspects of the real economy economic theory has never adequately explained, nor can hope to explain any time soon.

HJH

Mona Charen writes,

It’s Freudian: The Viennese analyst taught that if you say you hate your mother, you hate your mother. And if you say you love your mother, you are in denial about hating your mother. Climate change believers are like Freudians. If the weather is warm, it’s proof of global warming. But if the weather is cool, this, too, is evidence of the sinister tricks global warming can play.

These words earn Miss Charen the Economic Nationalist’s extremely sporadically awarded recognition as Quote of the Week.

(For the record, the Economic Nationalist has never taken a position on the proposition that mankind were threatened by man-made global warming.)

The eminent Paul Gottfried calls us the alternative Right. We are disciples of Bob Taft, Jesse Helms, Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul. Our time has come.

Our time has come, I say, though you may doubt it, so let us view the battle as from the enemy’s lines. The enemy, the liberal, commands the field, but his forces blunder blindly, distraught, in disarray. His morale is in catastrophic collapse. His victory is empty, his triumph bitter on the tongue. The mirage he has long imagined to be truth is revealed in his own eyes as hubris, or less, as mere vanity. He does not admit his error. No, never that. But the bright liberal dawn of 1968 has turned to a blackening eve of wrack and ruin. Like Tolkien’s Gollum, he hates us. He hates us forever, but he hates himself the more. Love to him now is hardly known.

A strong enemy is never weaker than when he has ceased to believe in the justice of his own cause. You and I will learn to recognize a morally hollow foe. It is said that our foe finds willing recruits today among the younger generation, to fill his hollowness, and indeed this is true; but these young recruits are not the eager spirits of 1968, in foolish rebellion against an older, more conservative world. These young recruits rather are the wary youth of a world gone mad, trying to find their way.

Despair is a sin, but we need not despair. Truth is a powerful ally: she stands on our side. We lack vigorous, seasoned leaders, for Buchanan and Paul have already grown old, and Taft and Helms are gone; but chance will supply leaders in time as we persist in harassing our hollow foe.

The year 1954 will never come again, and this is a real loss; but Western civilization is twenty-seven centuries older than 1954. Western civilization is not so easily killed. The West, that great Oak, will flower again. The strident divisions we find today among ourselves on the alternative Right bespeak the passion of our commitment, a passion our enemy can no longer match.

The long age turns at last. Our time has come.

Howard J. Harrison
The Economic Nationalist

Let the wheels of industry turn! Confirming this journal’s expectation, the ISM index of change in U.S. manufacturing activity has risen to a robust 55.7 for October.

Except to the (maybe considerable) extent to which Congress might interfere, the Economic Nationalist knows no reason the present U.S. industrial recovery should not prove the strongest since 1973.

There is not much in a word, maybe, but what do these recent news headlines have in common?

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O, the narcissism!

… Swiss watchmaker Swatch Group Ltd. is worried that its relations with Muslim countries—an important destination for its goods—will be imperiled if [a Nov. 29 referendum to ban the construction of minarets] passes. “The brand ‘Swiss’ must continue to represent values such as openness, pluralism and freedom of religion,” said Hanspeter Rentsch, member of the executive group management board at Swatch. “Under no circumstances must it be brought in connection with hatred, animosity towards foreigners and narrow-mindedness.”

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