I've identified myself as a paleoconservative and a libertarian nationalist, and placed myself firmly in the good area of the Notorious Venn Diagram. But if you want to call me a right-wing extremist, feel free. I'll be in good company. To come at it from a different direction, I accept and applaud the libertarian critique of just about everything, especially in the realm of economics, but I'm also aware of the limits of the applicability of the critique. I know, for example, that economics states that it's a short-term great idea to import illiterate peasants to pick tomatoes cheap, so that tomatoes will cost a penny a pound less. But I also know that it's a terrible idea because while your tomatoes are cheap, your taxes will go up to provide food stamps, free education, free health care, etc. etc. to those illiterate peasants and their offspring. In short, I'm a libertarian within the constraints of the necessary conditions for a healthy nationalism. I've been calling that libertarian nationalism, neatly enough, but now John Derbyshire says some things that might indicate that I'm actually a paleolibertarian. He writes:
What a menagerie we have become, here on the political Right!
Neoconservatives we all know about. They are the guys who favor restraint in taxation and regulation while being
supportive of free trade, the
welfare state,
globalization, and the
World Policeman role. Neoconservatives are currently basking in well-funded triumph, having
taken over the Republican Party.
Paleoconservatives are still with us, or at least
Pat Buchanan and
Chronicles magazine are. They preach
restraint in foreign relations,
traditional values, patriotism, and the
Tariff.
Somewhere in between the two lie
neo-reactionaries. I can't quite get a handle on this term, but I have been seeing it with rising frequency this past few months. Is it really possible to have a category that includes both
Jonah Goldberg and the weird but brilliant
Mencius Moldbug? (I am a regular reader of MM, insofar as one can be a regular reader of a blogger who sometimes goes two months between posts.)
[Read the rest HERE.]
No comments:
Post a Comment