The Economic Nationalist

Here is an unexpected thing. According to analysis of the Web server’s logs by the software Awstats, one of the Economic Nationalist’s most assiduous readers is located in Moldova.

Moldova!

One wonders if Awstats were not somehow confused.

Though the Economic Nationalist, specifically a U.S. blog, seeks no international audience, all the big people of little Moldova are welcome to read if they wish, for their own, inscrutable reasons. One hopes that they find the reading edifying.

This article follows the last two on Iran (here and especially here).

Like many readers, this writer grew up during the Cold War. It is hard to convey to the younger generation the deep, implicit sense Americans shared in those days, especially white, conservative Americans, that our country was a great force for good in the world, opposing the Soviets (which was true), having stopped the Nazis (not really true, since the Soviets did that, but we remembered it through the lens of D-Day), serving as a bright beacon of freedom and democracy to a world threatened by tides of darkness. Of course, in the later years of the Cold War Cultural Marxism was on the march here. Cultural Marxism did much domestic harm but, on some level at least, we simply knew that those among us that sought to tear down our patriotism were liars and bad people. America was good; America’s foes were wicked. We all understood this for, despite persistent, draft-dodging, leftist propaganda to the contrary, it had the advantage of being largely true.

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Would someone like to explain to me what, exactly, is supposed to be so wrong with Iran’s form of government? The more I learn about Iran’s constitution in the context of the present crisis, the more that constitution makes sense to me.

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The anti-American, left-wing wench Joan Walsh writes recently in Salon,

I was on “Hardball” today talking about the climate of extreme right-wing rhetoric today, and whether it had anything to do with Wednesday’s tragic shooting at Washington’s Holocaust Museum, or the May 31 murder of Dr. George Tiller by an antiabortion crackpot.

Let’s get this straight. The psychopathic Dr. Tiller was a cold-blooded serial murderer who delighted in full-term abortions so gruesome that even his colleagues in the abortion trade found themselves too squeamish to execute the infernal procedure. It is thankfully not given to this writer to judge whether a radical abortionist deserves to die but, if Miss Walsh came to the Economic Nationalist for affirmation that the likes of Dr. Tiller deserved to live, then she would have come to the wrong place. If Dr. Tiller was not a very monster, distinguishable from Stalin principally only in the scale of his opportunity to spill innocent blood, then this writer does not know what a monster is.

As Ann Coulter has observed, the U.S. abortion profession has aborted 49 million since Roe v. Wade, 1973, whereas antiabortion zealots have claimed the lives of precisely five abortionists during that time. It seems rather fair to observe that the abortionists have had the upper hand.

Now, a disastrously but honestly mistaken case can be made for abortion, and this writer does not advocate vigilante slayings of abortionists. (Does he condemn vigilante slayings of abortionists, therefore? Answer: no comment. By refusing to answer such mischief this writer will cordially decline to dance to the puppet-strings of the liberal left. The leftist who asks such a sordid question, which does not merit the dignity of a reply, can go carry his own filthy water, as it were, for this writer will not do it for him. Let the leftist condemn, if that’s what he wants. What this writer wants to know is why the left is so fond of killing babies.) To use the exceedingly rare but maybe well deserved fate of the monster Dr. Tiller as an excuse to implicate a nonexistent, extreme right-wing cabal however is a bit rich.

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As distant in so many ways as Iran stands from the Western world, Iran gives us nonetheless an important lesson in constitutional governance, if we can and will but summon the insight to take the lesson.

As readers may be aware, Iran has held a presidential election recently, a simple majority of the countrywide vote required for victory with a run-off between the top two candidates if needed. It is a simple system and, to the extent to which one believes in democracy, indisputably a fair system in form. The election’s results however are not indisputable. The results are in hot dispute.

Indeed, the results are in riots. A mob rallies in the streets of the capital.

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If readers would indulge the writer in a self-referential blog post about the blog, the Economic Nationalist would like to acknowledge the valuable contribution the pseudonymous reader “Dr.D” has persistently, generously lent. His running series of remarks demostrate an insight that, one suspects, only long years of experience can bring. Where Dr.D and this writer have disagreed, the disagreement has always been civil, but indeed our profitable discourse has gone beyond mere disagreement, both on- and off-line. I have learned from him, and indeed his constructively provocative remarks have provided the germ for new articles here.

Readers working their way through the archives below are commended not to skip past Dr.D’s remarks but rather to read them, for they are invariably worth the reading. It is virtual friends like Dr.D that have made the blog enjoyable to write.

HJH

News breaks in Europe. The quinquennial election returns to the European Parliament roll in by the minute, when the mildly fascist British National party (BNP) looks set to capture not one but two of Britain’s 72 seats. Party leader Nick Griffin is in for Manchester. For the first time, the BNP is going to Brussels.

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Frank J. Fleming writes,

I don’t know if Cheney is a real person or if he’s liberals’ fears of inadequacy on national defense given form.

When I predicted that the Republican presidential nominee of 2012 would be one of Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, I forgot Dick Cheney, about whom I had a vague, evidently mistaken notion that he was retiring in ill health. Yes, by all means, please do add Mr. Cheney’s famous name to the list.

Mark Sanford, Bobby Jindal and even Tim Pawlenty are all interesting but, as I have explained earlier, 2012 will not be their year. Unless I am mistaken, one of the aforementioned five will lead the GOP in 2012. The five make a deep stable; no sixth seems likely to break through the door of it.

The Economic Nationalist, incidentally, likes and—as of now—warmly supports four of the five, the only exception being Newt Gingrich, of whom the blog is skeptical but who is probably the least likely of the five to be nominated in any event. Even Mr. Gingrich would be far preferable to George W. Bush or John McCain.

Do not credit the disappointment and fear, the doom and gloom, that seem to pervade the U.S. right today. Heading into 2012, thus far, the Republican party stands in fine shape; and there is no Bush or McCain on the scene, waiting to mislead it, this time.

Having stopped Mr. McCain, we’re going to be all right. You’ll see.

HJH

I love Dave Ramsey’s daily radio program, though naturally I get to listen to it only occasionally. If you do not yet listen to Dave (as he asks to be called), why, I would recommend his show most heartily to you.

Yesterday, Dave broadcast half an hour on the federal bailout of GM. Listening to my car radio at the time, without a cell phone, I was unable to phone in until it was too late, but Dave invites e-mails and I did send him one on the topic later. For readers whom this sort of thing interests, the e-mail follows.

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Peter Hichens writes,

And then there is the general problem with despots, created by our pious insistence on frogmarching them, in chains, in front of righteous tribunals. What tyrant, seeing the imprisonment of Milosevic, the hanging of Saddam, and the harassment of Pinochet and Honecker, would be stupid enough to abandon his sovereign immunity and volunteer for the cells?… [North Korean dictator] Kim Jong Il, now 65 and in poor health, has no incentive to dismantle his kingdom of lies and repression….

Precisely.

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