The Economic Nationalist

Keith Preston writes,

The simple fact is that present-day liberal ideology and liberalism’s core constituent groups contain within themselves certain contradictions that will eventually prove to be fatal. There is simply no way that an agglomeration of affluent liberal whites, underclass blacks and Hispanics, affirmative-action babies, feminists, gay militants, transsexuals, Third World immigrants, atheists, Muslims, hipster youth, traditional blue collar workers, state-connected labor unions, Jewish plutocrats, environmentalists, and the left wing of the traditional WASP elite, with each of these attempting to get their pieces of the pie distributed by the managerial-therapeutic-multicultural-welfare state, can be politically durable on an indefinite basis. The only thing that unites this coalition is hostility to traditional Western culture and a desire for more freebies courtesy of the state. While this coalition will indeed continue to become more powerful and its values more deeply entrenched in institutions in the short term, over the long term it will self-cannibalize and collapse due to its own internal contradictions and fractious nature.

What a gargoyle’s roster! “[A]ffluent liberal whites, underclass blacks and Hispanics, affirmative-action babies, feminists, gay militants, transsexuals, Third World immigrants, atheists, Muslims, hipster youth, traditional blue collar workers, state-connected labor unions, Jewish plutocrats, environmentalists, and the left wing of the traditional WASP elite.”

Yes, that’s it. The gargoyle’s roster lacks but leprous gravediggers and cackling hobgoblins. Though a few of the aforementioned elements might have been pillars of the nation under other circumstances, together under present circumstances they constitute the liberal Democratic coalition we know and cordially despise.

Mr. Preston is right. So self-contradictory a rabble of a political alliance cannot indeed cohere.

Such insight, so cogently expressed, earns Mr. Preston’s words the Economic Nationalist’s recognition as Quote of the Week.

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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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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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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Among the Economic Nationalist’s distinctive core beliefs is that the grave troubles that beset our civilization are largely self-inflicted. Even so, the blog believes that most such troubles would soon evaporate if we Americans would only moderate our pride and cease to insist on viewing certain things (like race, religion and culture) as other than they plainly are. The left is far more prone to such error but the right can stumble into it, too—particularly into error of the latter kind. This article regards such an error, an error into which some of our finest, most energetic brethren on the right have repeatedly fallen. The error concerns the nature and prospects of third-party politics on the American right.

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Is Roland Burris of Illinois entitled to take the seat the U.S. Senate has denied him today?

The short answer is, no. For a longer answer, well, let’s untangle this.

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The Times of London reports,

Jacqui Smith, the [British] Home Secretary, showed little sympathy over the leak. She told Sky News: “It probably says something about the BNP that people don’t want to have it known that they are a member.”

The “leak” Miss Smith refers to apparently regards the theft and publication of a confidential membership list of the British National Party (BNP), betraying the members’ names, home addresses and telephone numbers.

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So here we stand, on the verge of election again. Our badly abused yet still magnificent Constitution authorizes and condones that solemn popular act November 4 which—we have every reason to believe—will order the 43rd peaceful change of power in U.S. history.

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The filibuster is unconstitutional. This writer doubts that it will hold.

Democrats in the U.S. Senate of the coming 111th Congress are unlikely to allow a prospective minority of 41 Republican senators to thwart important legislative initiatives the Democrats believe a Democratic president will approve. The simple fact of the matter is that the Constitution of the United States does not provide for a filibuster. Majority Senate Democrats will discover this significant fact and bring important bills to floor votes, in defiance of Senate rules, before debate on the bills has concluded. Moreover, regrettably, they will be right to do so, because the Senate rule in question is unconstitutional.

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