NOVAE MILITIAE

From today's Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON -- Americans have historically swung between anger at big business and anger at Washington. This year their rage has targeted business and government with equal fury.

Public frustration over Wall Street failures that led to the financial crisis was typified by the uproar over bonus payments to American International Group Inc. executives. Those feelings haven't dissipated, political strategists say. At the same time, Americans are equally upset at what they call overreaching by Congress and federal bureaucrats, with protesters taking to the streets to decry "socialism" and a "government takeover" of the economy.

Policy makers face a quandary. With voters simultaneously recoiling at laissez-faire policies and a big-government approach neither party in Washington seems capable of corralling an angry public.

"I think this is a very populist moment," said Vin Weber, a former Minnesota congressman and now a top Republican strategist. "People held onto their distrust of big business and Wall Street, but what has happened is their distrust of big government has come back as well."

We Confederate types have been noting this all along, since almost back to the time of the new Constitution's inception.  The enemy just isn't big government.  The enemy is the symbiosis between big money and big government.  And now they, and their unholy alliances, have been exposed for Americans to see.  And that is largely why fault does not like with liberal Democrats, but with "conservative" Republicans as well.

As I've said before, they are just two sides of the same worthless coin.  And worthless all our coins will soon indeed be under their "governance."

Accordingly, Americans are beginning to see also that the solution will not be found in the "system."  The "system" is beyond repair, and other actions, possibly deadly, draconian ones, will be necessary to salvage the country.   Voting in this party or that one will no longer do.  If it ever did.

Steven F. Hayward writes this howler over at the Washington Post, the title of which asks an important question: "Is Conservatism Brain-Dead?"  In a certain respect, one reads the 1,840 words he writes to address the question without even getting an answer to the question.  This is because the object of Hayward's analysis really isn't historic conservatism at all, but the imposter which was given life by William F. Buckley when he Went Leftward.  There is no mention in Hayward's article of the great luminaries of the true conservative tradition: Burke, Jefferson, Calhoun, Burnham, Eliot, Kirk, Bradford, Weaver.  Rather, Hayward mentions the 60s and 70s as conservativsm's heyday, and some of its seminal works as "Friedman's 'Free to Choose,' George Gilder's 'Wealth and Poverty,' Paul Johnson's 'Modern Times,' Allan Bloom's 'The Closing of the American Mind,' Charles Murray's 'Losing Ground' and 'The Bell Curve,' and Francis Fukuyama's 'The End of History and the Last Man.'"   Of course, Hayward being a fellow of the neocon American Enterprise Institute, and neoconservatism having done its best to obliterate the mention and memory of the Old Right, perhaps this is to be expected.

Hayward laments the dearth of such scholarship these days, however.  Conservatism has been reduced to talking heads, sound bytes and heartlandish populism.  Nevertheless, Hayward sees a few hopeful signs:

The blend of entertainment and politics is not unique to the right (exhibit No. 1 on the left: "The Daily Show"). And it is perfectly possible to conduct talk radio at a high level of seriousness, and several talkers do well at matching the quality of their shows to their intellectual pedigree. Consider Hugh Hewitt (Michigan Law School), Michael Medved (Yale Law School), William Bennett (Harvard Law and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Texas) -- all three of these brainiacs have popular shows on the Salem Radio Network.

And Glenn Beck even "asks (R.J. Pestritto) questions about Hegel", doncha know.

And Jonah Goldberg's book "Liberal Fascism" is an "intellectual text."  Yes, that's right, Jonah Goldberg; "intellectual text."

So there's hope, you see.

Hence my reference to this article as a howler.  So, in another respect, Hayward does provide an answer to the question he asks, for when Hewitt, Medved, Bennett and Beck replace Burke, Calhoun, Bradford and Weaver, then the answer to the question is yes:  "conservatism" is brain-dead.

Steve Benen over at the Washington Monthly, commenting on the Hayward article, puts it succinctly:

Weisberg's pitch is simple but persuasive: Republicans have given up on being the 'party of ideas,' have no plausible alternatives to major policy challenges, and don't take policy matters seriously at all. Conservatives, Weisberg said, have 'devolved' so far, 'ostensibly intelligent people [are] cheering on Sarah Palin.' With the rise of neoconservatives, the right's focus shifted to political power, and away from interest in policy. . . .

Which is not to say Hayward is despondent. He believes Jonah Goldberg's 'Liberal Fascism' is an intellectual text, and he believes Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, and William Bennett are 'brainiacs' with 'popular' talk shows. Hayward is also impressed with Glenn Beck's reading habits and choice of authors and guests. Beck, Hayward argued, has demonstrated an 'interest in serious analysis of liberalism's patrimony.'

Where Hayward finds hope, in other words, is with Jonah Goldberg, Hugh Hewitt, and Glenn Beck. Seriously.

If this isn't proof of the right's intellectual collapse, nothing is.

Hugh's "Hughniverse" page. 

This is merely the latest in a series of moves Hewitt has made to insulate himself from criticism.  First, he turned off the comments boxes at his own Townhall blog site.  This occurred after it was overrun by liberals and paleocons, including yours truly who comments there under the name of "Cicero."  (His excuse at the time was that he was moving to Twitter for comments.  Well THERE's a medium for productive exchange.)

However, he would occasionally post over at the general Townhall blog, where the comments boxes are always on.  Recently, said liberals and paleocons realizing this, they would chime in whenever Hewitt posted there.  Well, sure enough, he stopped posting there.  And now he has his "Hughniverse", where he charges a whopping $55 per year for access to transcripts and podcasts of his radio broadcasts.

Hewitt rarely if ever invites paleoconservatives onto his show, and only infrequently or allows paleocon callers to his show through to make comments.  On those few occasions where he does allow them through, it is only to ridicule them and then quickly move on.  (One of his favorite tactics when a paleocon critic of the Israel Lobby calls in is to play his tape of someone saying "The Joooooooooooos" while the critic of the lobby is trying to make his argument.)

Hugh's no dummy, but he sure seems to have gone to great lengths to creative the impression that he doesn't want to dialogue with the ideas and writings of the conservative luminaries of the past.  I suppose he's much like other neoconservatives in this regard.

Sometimes you just have to back off from the political/cultural struggle, and just be quiet.

World celebrities sing to stop global warming.

Wonder how much greenhouse gas will be spewed into the atmosphere in connection with putting this moronic eco-gig together.