Southern Avenger

During her speech to the first ever National Tea Party Convention in Nashville on Saturday, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin discouraged the very idea of a national organization, urging the movement to stay leaderless and decentralized. This was the most important and valuable part of Palin’s speech.

As for the rest of it—Sarah sounded pretty much like the same old Republican Party.

Despite the many independents that make up the movement, the tea parties in large part represent a long overdue reexamination of conservative principles. A big-spending Democratic president seems to have awakened grassroots conservatives enough to finally lament the big spending of the last Republican president, and plenty of incumbents from both parties face voter backlash in 2010 and possibly beyond, particularly if they supported bailouts, stimulus, national healthcare, or other massive debt-incurring legislation.

The tea partiers are right to acknowledge and denounce Bush’s big-government growth of Medicare, the implementation of No Child Left Behind, and Dubya’s other expansions of the domestic state. But what they still seem to forget is what made conservatives so tolerant of big government during that time—an almost religious preoccupation with supporting the Iraq War.

Today, defense spending remains the largest part of the federal budget, dwarfing the bailouts, stimulus, healthcare, and other government programs that offend tea partiers most, and President Obama is still expanding that budget and escalating our wars. One would think cost-conscious voters would at least question Obama’s wisdom in continuing Bush’s exorbitant foreign policy. Yet few tea partiers are asking such questions, and according to Palin, Obama’s primary weakness is that he’s not enough like George W. Bush.

Following up her tea party speech on “Fox News Sunday,” Palin said of Obama, “If he decided to toughen up and do all that he can to secure our nation and our allies, I think people would perhaps shift their thinking a little bit and decide, Well, maybe he’s tougher than …he is today, and there wouldn’t be as much passion to make sure that he doesn’t serve another four years.”

What is Palin trying to say? That tea party anger towards Obama would lessen if the president was to “toughen up,” becoming even more intent on waging war? Does Palin believe that the massive domestic spending conservatives don’t like would be tolerated so long as Obama increases the massive foreign spending conservatives do like? Isn’t this exactly what happened under Bush?

Read the entire article

After Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity are the two most popular rightwing talk hosts in America, defining for millions the definition of the term “conservative.” Lately, Beck has focused on attacking “progressivism,” often stressing that the progressive foreign policy of President Woodrow Wilson, who wanted to “make the world safe for democracy,” was identical to that of George W. Bush. Hannity takes a very different view, stating, “You can’t deny that George Bush was conservative on national security issues.” Yet, Beck does deny this, quite regularly. Who’s right? Better yet, who’s “conservative?”

That depends on your definition. The notion of “making the world safe for democracy” is unquestionably a liberal or “progressive” sentiment, but it is also true that it has been standard foreign policy for the mainstream Right for sometime. Self-described conservatives have associated endless military intervention with American “toughness” and viewed those who questioned the government’s wisdom in waging war as “weak” or “anti-American.” This has certainly been the view of Limbaugh and Hannity and for most of Bush’s eight years, it was also the view of Beck.

Yet the notion of America as the world’s policeman is not remotely conservative in the traditional sense, but “neoconservative,” a term most mainstream right-wingers are either ignorant of, embarrassed of, or don’t use because the wholesale takeover of the conservative movement by the neocons has made using the “neo” prefix unnecessary.

Neoconservatives care about one thing—war (and where they can wage it). Says contributing editor to The Weekly Standard, neocon Max Boot: “Neoconservatives believe in using American might to promote American ideals abroad,” a progressive, Wilsonian vision, if there ever was one. As for traditional conservative concerns like limited government, fiscal responsibility and constitutional fidelity, these are ideas neoconservatives will occasionally pay lip service to, so long as none of these principles interferes with their more important task of global military domination. It is no coincidence that George W. Bush—the first full-blown neoconservative presidential administration—did not limit government, was not fiscally responsible and shredded the Constitution, while still implementing the most radical foreign policy in American history. Writes conservative columnist George Will “The most magnificently misnamed neoconservatives are the most radical people in this town.”

Conservatives now seem more willing to question their recent radical past, and a populist rightwing movement consisting of tea parties, town hall protests and states rights’ rhetoric is not conducive to neoconservativism. With traditional conservatism being represented in its modern form most prominently by so-called “paleconservatives” like commentator Pat Buchanan or libertarians like Texas Congressman Ron Paul, Boot recently described such non-“neo”-conservatives to Newsweek: “A lot of them tend to be libertarian cranks: neo-Confederates, really insane, racist, xenophobic types.” “Libertarian cranks” could describe the current crop of constitutionally minded, anti-government protesters, and so-called “neo-Confederates” primary concern has always been states’ right, an increasingly hot topic. As for his portrayal of traditional conservatives as “really insane, racist, xenophobic” types, Boot’s criticism is not unlike the Left’s attempts to portray anti-Obama tea partiers as “racist,” and serves as a reminder of neoconservatives’ progressive inclinations.

Read the entire article

In the wake of the Haiti earthquake tragedy, something unusual has been happening amongst conservatives. On talk radio, the blogosphere and elsewhere, some have been wondering how our government can afford to help Haiti given the current economic crisis in the United States. Considering the magnitude of the tragedy in Haiti, I found this to be a rather insensitive question. It’s also a good one.

Republican opposition to the Democrats’ national healthcare agenda is in large part due to the exorbitant cost, perceived inefficiency and intrusive, bureaucratic character of the plan. Still, argue liberals, there are too many Americans suffering for government to do nothing. Conservatives argue that there is only so much government can, or should, do. It’s time for conservatives to apply their argument more comprehensively.

In 2007 during a FOX News interview, when Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul suggested that the US was involved too much militarily around the world, talk host Sean Hannity asked “Are you saying then that the world has no moral obligation, like in the first Gulf War, when an innocent country’s being pillaged, and people are being raped and murdered and slaughtered, or in the case of Saddam, he’s gassing his own people, are you suggesting we have no moral obligation there? Do you stand by and let that immorality happen?” Paul responded “We have, on numerous occasions.” Hannity’s co-host Alan Colmes chimed in “the fact is the Reagan administration stood by while the Kurds were being gassed, it happened in 1988, we didn’t do anything.” Paul followed up “And what did we do with Pol Pot, what did we do with Moscow, what did we do at the time? We stood by while they did it to their people.” Flustered, Hannity replied “We got it, Ron, you would stand by and do that, I would not… I think that’s immoral.”

President Obama and the Democrats believe it’s immoral for government to stand by and not help uninsured Americans receive healthcare. Hannity disagrees and devotes a significant portion of his radio and television programs to opposing national healthcare. Is Hannity being immoral? Or is he simply taking the conservative position that despite the suffering that exists, government benevolence has its limits?

A nation possessing the wealth and power of the US should be in a position to help Haiti, at least temporarily, and this is something countless Americans have already done privately, donating millions. But these same Americans might not think it’s a good idea to provide government healthcare in their own country. Does this mean they simply do not care? Americans who donated to Haiti may not believe, for instance, that we should send our military to stop the genocide in the war-torn nation of Darfur, something liberals have long advocated using the same “we can’t stand by and do nothing” logic many conservatives used with Iraq. In continuing to just stand by, does this make the US “immoral?” Will Hannity soon devote significant portions of his radio and television programs to highlighting Darfur, a country that’s “being pillaged, and people are being raped and murdered and slaughtered?”

Haiti is close to the US in proximity and the earthquake was so overwhelmingly disastrous that it makes sense to most Americans to lend a helping hand, something that occurred even without government prompting. The US should be able to afford to help Haiti and the extent to which we technically are not—our government operates on a monstrous debt—is due in large part to the hyper extension of our supposed benevolence in other areas. Yet, how many conservatives who now oppose national healthcare due to the cost, or even more strangely, now question the US’s ability to send dollars to Haiti given our own bad economy, didn’t blink an eye over spending trillions on wars in the Middle East, often citing humanitarian reasons as an excuse?

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That Sarah Palin will be speaking at what’s being billed as the first “National Tea Party Convention” makes complete sense. A popular movement that is still trying to figure out exactly what it is will be addressed by a popular woman still trying to figure out exactly what she is.

For now, this is OK. Come to think of it, this confusion or vagueness concerning ideology and identity amongst grassroots conservatives is much better than OK — it’s a necessary and encouraging journey.

As the Left and liberal media tries to portray outspoken Americans fed up with government spending as some sort of wacky fringe, the much-maligned “tea baggers” actually represent the first sign of sanity on the mainstream Right in some time. Perhaps it took the extreme spending example of President Obama’s Democratic Party to induce fear in so many about America’s future, but it is also significant that the tea partiers don’t seem to find any worthwhile value in the recent Republican past. In fact, Republican politicians who supported TARP or stimulus spending remain primary targets of the tea party set, and the big-government, big-spending, warmongering of the George W. Bush years seems to have become a distant, often embarrassing memory. Reported ABC News this month, “So-called ‘tea party patriots’ are members of a political movement sweeping America whose core beliefs center around fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free markets.”

“Fiscal responsibility?” “Constitutionally limited government?” “Free markets?” Isn’t this just long established, stock Republican language? It is. The difference is, unlike grassroots Republicans of the past 30 years, the mostly conservative and independent folks who make up the tea party movement are beginning to realize that the so-called party of “limited government” has not delivered.

But who might deliver? Generally not comfortable with the same old Republican establishment types, Palin is perceived as someone outside the Beltway, who is held at arm’s length by GOP elites and who is abused mercilessly by the mainstream media — just like the tea partiers. Given the dynamics in play, no one should be surprised that the tea party movement has embraced Palin. But it could be that Palin’s emergence as a tea party favorite is more indicative of a thirst for leadership than a thirst for Palin.

Read the entire column

Reacting to my current column, plenty of Obama-loving liberals are angry at me for pointing out the obvious—that on the one issue that most defined Obama's candidacy and the Bush presidency—the two men are indistinguishable.

Or as syndicated columnist Steve Chapman observes:

"The administration and its opponents both make much of its plan to withdraw all U.S. combat forces from Iraq by this summer and to pull the rest out by 2012. What both prefer to forget is that the previous president agreed to the same timetable. Obama's policy on the war he once opposed is not similar to Bush's: It is identical.

Afghanistan? Dick Cheney faults the president for allegedly failing to "talk about how we win," as if Obama were doing far less than the Bush administration. In fact, Obama has agreed to more than triple the U.S. troop presence in a war that his predecessor only talked about winning. McCain called for a "surge" in Afghanistan like the one in Iraq. Obama has given it to him.

Republicans nonetheless entertain the fantasy that at heart, Obama is a pacifist, bent on gutting our military might and naively trusting the good faith of our adversaries. Bush White House adviser Karl Rove recently complained that under this administration, "defense spending is being flattened: Between 2009 and 2010, military outlays will rise 3.6 percent while nondefense discretionary spending climbs 12 percent."

Read that again: Rove believes that when defense spending rises 3.6 percent, it's not really rising. Why? Because the rest of the budget is growing faster. By that logic, if I gained 10 pounds over the holidays but Rove gained 20, I'd need to have my pants taken in.

As it is, the United States spends more on defense than all the other countries on Earth combined. Yet we persist in thinking of ourselves as endangered by foreign countries that are military pipsqueaks.

Obama shares this view. He thinks the only problem with the American military is there isn't enough of it. He's expanding the size of both the Army and the Marine Corps. That's right: After we begin leaving Iraq, the biggest military undertaking in two decades, we won't need a smaller force. We'll need a bigger one.

Conservative talk-show host Sean Hannity accuses the president of "cutting back on defense," but he must be holding his chart upside down. The basic Pentagon budget (excluding money for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars) is scheduled to go up every year.

Over the next five years, defense spending, adjusted for inflation, would be higher than it was in the last five years, when Fox News commentators did not complain about inadequate funding. That's not counting the increases requested by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to provide an additional boost of nearly $60 billion over those five years.

What all this suggests is that Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us nothing about the folly of invading other countries and trying to turn them into modern democracies. The essential theme of the administration's national security policy is reflexive continuity. Why else would we need a bigger military except to do more of the same?

So we are stuck with the consensus that has ruled Washington for decades — the expensive, aggressive policy that has inflated the federal budget and bogged us down in two unsuccessful wars while furnishing an endless, priceless recruiting message for Islamic terrorists.

Too bad. None of this would have happened if Barack Obama had been elected."

Link

My latest at The American Conservative:

Author of the landmark 1953 book The Conservative Mind, Russell Kirk once observed that “Human society is no machine, to be treated mechanically.” While progressives of all stripes have always sought to restructure society according to specific liberal mechanics (socialism, feminism, etc.), Kirk believed conservatives should stress that man’s grandiose vision is no match for his nature. To proceed with their Leftist programs and big-government schemes, liberals always tend to leave human nature out of their equations, while conservatives — almost by definition — cannot afford to. This fairly conventional conservative belief would have not been the least bit controversial at William F. Buckley’s National Review, a magazine Kirk helped establish in 1955.

Unfortunately, some at National Review seem to have “progressed” from conventional conservative views concerning human nature, or as current editor Rich Lowry wrote in his syndicated column recently:

“Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab couldn’t ignite the bomb in his underwear on Flight 253 on Christmas Day. All he managed to blow up was a worldview. His failed attempt put paid to the notion that terrorism is the byproduct of a few, specific U.S. policies and of our image abroad.”

This “worldview” that was allegedly “blown up” by Mutallab is usually considered common sense when discussing any subject besides US foreign policy-namely, that when you diddle with people, they will diddle back. In ignoring Human Nature 101, Lowry seems to be saying that unlike taxation and welfare, two intrusive government interventions conservatives have long insisted affect human behavior, intervening in the business of other nations by invading, occupying or bombing them-for decades — does not elicit any specific reactions from the native population. Predictably, Lowry’s explanation for the underwear bomber’s actions is the same, lacking government narrative we’ve all become accustomed to: “Abdul Mutallab was in the grip of a violent ideology with an existential hatred of the United States at its core.”

No doubt, radical Islamic ideology was an obvious, personal motivator for Mutallab. But was it just Islamic ideology that allowed him to reach out to a wider network of terrorists to help him in his efforts?

The title of Lowry’s syndicated column, as it ran in Charleston’s Post & Courier, was “Flight 253 provides reminder of the Left’s naiveté on terror.” While Lowry is correct that the Left is foolish to ignore the religious dimension to Islamic terrorism, the naiveté on the Right is just as ignorant and even more dangerous — as too many conservatives still fail to recognize that foreign interventionism is the motivating factor behind the current terrorist threat.

Read the entire column

The author of nine books and a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Thomas E. Woods, Jr. is one of the best thinkers on the American Right today—not to mention young, entertaining and always cheerful. Tom was nice enough to join me on New Year's Eve at WTMA to discuss his New York Times bestseller Meltdown (I highly recommend it, a very easy to read explanation of our current economic woes), the Federal Reserve, the increasing popularity of Austrian economics, antiwar conservatism and how US interventionism is a recipe for terror.

In 2 parts:

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) was kind enough to join me for a WTMA radio interview on New Year's Eve (12/31/09), where we discussed national healthcare, foreign policy, non-interventionism and Paul answers Ben Stein's accusations of "anti-Semitism" stemming from an appearance on CNN's Larry King Live, Monday, Dec. 28.

My latest at The American Conservative:

Explaining the need for his “Stand Up for Christmas” resolution, Congressman Henry Brown of South Carolina released the following statement:

“I am troubled by the growing sentiment that the phrase ‘Merry Christmas’ is not appropriate and I am worried that attempts to celebrate a ‘politically correct’ holiday season may cause the loss of some of the traditions sacred to this widely celebrated holiday.”

Many have debated whether there actually exists a “war on Christmas,” with many conservatives answering in the affirmative and many liberals insisting that the whole thing is a manufactured seasonal ruse, exploited by opportunistic Republicans like Brown. While there is no doubt an increasing reluctance to use the word “Christmas” in public, especially within government and corporate institutions, liberals are right that the “war on Christmas” is often nothing more than an excuse to engage in cheap political opportunism and Brown’s “Stand Up for Christmas” legislation is a perfect example.

Brown is an archetype of the conventional Republican—a big spending, big government politician who constantly appeals to his base with ineffectual, conservative sounding rhetoric about peripheral social issues. It’s not that issues like abortion, gay marriage, and the 2nd amendment aren’t important—it’s just that most Republican politicians’ stances on these issues rarely produce anything that actually advances any conservative agenda. There is never a grand strategy—but always plenty of grandstanding.

For decades, such posturing on social issues has kept the biggest, big government Republicans in office and similarly, Brown’s supposed concern for the “traditions,” “sacred” to Christmas come off as grandstanding precisely because he is. Even many of those who agree with his sentiments concerning the loss of Christmas and its traditions, including this writer, can still see right through the opportunistic Brown.

Read the entire column

My latest at The American Conservative:

People often mistake being named Time’s “Person of the Year” as an honor, but that men as sinister as Adolph Hitler, Josef Stalin and Rudy Giuliani have all been given the title suggests otherwise. According to Time, the award is primarily a recognition of influence and by that measure the 2009 selection of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke makes sense. Explains Time, the Fed is “an independent government agency that conducts monetary policy, which means it sets short-term interest rates - which means it has immense influence over inflation, unemployment, the strength of the dollar and the strength of your wallet.” Powerful and influential indeed.

But using Time’s reasoning, the same award could have been given to Alan Greenspan, Paul Volcker or any other chairman in the history of the Fed. It is amusing that if simply being in charge of the powerful institution warrants such recognition, a Fed Chairman has now received it during a time of serious economic downturn and Bernanke likely won the award because his celebrity had been elevated due to the economy going south. It’s sort of like giving special recognition to Tiger Woods for making so many headlines recently, while ignoring that it is his personal recklessness and infidelity that has contributed most to his career and marriage going south.

So instead of giving props to Fed chairman who’ve screwed up the economy, why not praise someone who’s spent his entire career opposing the central bank, not to mention being ahead of the curve-often alone—on some of the most pressing political issues of our day? In terms of elevated profile and increased influence, it’s hard to imagine a better candidate worth recognizing as “Person of the Year” than Texas Congressman Ron Paul.

For starters, Paul agrees with Time that Bernanke should be “Person of the Year,” because he truly is “the most powerful man in the world.” Paul notes that Bernanke can “create a trillion dollars in secret without any monitoring of the Congress, so there’s no transparency, and I think he’s more powerful than the president.” And yet for years, decades even, Paul was virtually alone on Capitol Hill in calling to rein in the Fed. Today, the once “extreme” notion of auditing the Federal Reserve has become mainstream amongst Republicans and more than a few Democrats, due in no-small-part to Paul’s lead. Reports the Houston Chronicle:

“As odd as it may seem, (Paul) has become one of the most influential Republicans in a capital city dominated by liberal Democrats… The subject that has brought him to prominence is the same issue that subjected him to ridicule from establishment Republicans for years: his long-standing opposition to the nation’s monetary system and the Federal Reserve Board that prints money and controls its supply. ‘On economic matters, he was seen as a way outside the mainstream,’ University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray said. ‘His views were somewhat 19th century in the view of a lot of economists.’ Well, they say history repeats itself, and suddenly Paul’s “19th-century” thinking seems appealing to those suffering through the first economic meltdown of the 21st century.”

My latest column at The American Conservative is also the weekend spotlight feature (for Dec. 12 and 13) at Antiwar.com:

For eight long years under George W. Bush, conservatives endorsed a don’t ask, don’t tell foreign policy—they did not really ask why their country was at war and Republican leaders did not tell, or bother, Americans with any of the gory details. Missions were accomplished, we fought them over there so we didn’t have to fight them here and troops were supported by simply supporting the wars they fought, with little to no dissent. But why were we fighting? What was “victory?” How many had to die? What was the cost? Conservatives did not ask-Republican politicians did not tell.

But some Republicans are finally asking. Regarding President Obama’s decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan, columnist Reihan Salam writes: “Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican known for his independent streak, has made a conservative case for withdrawal.”

Says Chaffetz:

“Our military is not a defensive force for rough neighborhoods around the world. They are trained to be an offensive, mission-driven military force to protect the United States of America. They are not trained to be nation builders or policemen… If our mission in Afghanistan is simply to protect the populace and build the nation, then I believe the time has come to bring our troops home.”

Is Chaffetz’s position on Afghanistan a sign of things to come? Salam thinks so, writing: “my guess is that by the 2010 congressional elections, dozens of Republican candidates will be doing the same across the country.”

We can only hope. As a conservative, I have long found it perplexing that to a large extent the American Right has been defined by its enthusiasm for going to war virtually anywhere, for virtually any reason and often for no good reason.

The notion of defending one’s country is something patriots of all political stripes can subscribe to. But that every military action our government commits to should automatically be considered righteous and unassailable is a bizarre position for conservatives, given their natural distrust of government in every other sphere. The Wilsonian idea of “making the world safe for democracy” has never been the language of hard-headed conservative realists, but maniacal ideologues, and yet the liberal dispensation and celebration of such utopian rhetoric by the last Republican president, his party and most self-described conservatives, left the Right a confused mess.

Read the entire column

With his speech on our war in Afghanistan this week, the president who once preached “change” fully embraced his predecessor’s most dangerous idea: The Bush Doctrine. Describing this doctrine at West Point in 2001, said then President George W. Bush: “If we wait for threats to materialize, we will have waited too long. The war on terror will not be won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge.”

At West Point eight years later—President Obama reaffirmed the Bush Doctrine.

Read the entire text at www.amconmag.com

I'm very proud to announce that my twice weekly commentaries can now be found at The American Conservative. TAC is not only a personal favorite but arguably the best magazine on the American Right today. If you don't subscribe already, you should.

Writes my new boss and TAC Senior Editor Daniel McCarthy:

Jack Hunter, columnist for the Charleston City Paper and “The Southern Avenger” personality for WTMA 1250 AM talk radio will soon be providing regular YouTube podcasts for our new TAC TV feature. Here’s a preview — Jack’s commentary for this week on Sarah Palin:

Commentary text and videos can be found at TAC's "PostRight" blog until TAC TV is up and running.

Join the club Mark:

Meet the new boss... same as the old boss: