A genuine conservative becomes a peacenik...

[fastpat]

The superb writer, formerly with National Review before it became a firmly neo-conservative, socialist rag, Joe Sobran explains his travel to anti-war activist. His feelings about World War II explain why there is a sudden movement to build a memorial to that catastrophe.

Becoming a Peacenik
Posted by Lew Rockwell at March 23, 2006 03:14 PM

Writes Joe Sobran in The Wanderer (16 March 2006):

"One of the baneful side effects of the Cold War was to make 'peace' sound like a left-wing cause and to identify conservatism with war. But warlike habits proved hard to break, and with the Soviet enemy gone, conservatives found new enemies who didn't threaten the United States at all.

"The real threat, I firmly believed, was unconstitutional government, which always thrives on war. Our real enemies were not in Baghdad, but in Washington.

"Alas, this idea, which Thomas Jefferson would have understood at once, was hard to sell to conservatives. To them, even the Polish Pope, whom they had once rightly hailed as Communism's deadliest foe, seemed suspiciously like a 'peacenik.'

"And so, over these 20 years, I have gradually broken my ties with the conservative movement and rediscovered an older conservatism of peace. Today's conservatives, adopting the lingo of yesterday's liberals, curse that tradition as 'isolationism,' and I have even found myself accused of being a liberal! A new experience for me.

"But some people don't know what else to call someone who opposes a war. It hardly seems to matter what the war is about. People who used to damn Big Government up and down forget all their ancient reservations about it whenever Big Government makes Big War.

"This is odd on its face. By its very nature, war is the opposite of conservative. It destroys. I got one of the shocks of my life in 1981 when I visited Berlin and walked among some of the preserved buildings, where German civilians had once lived, that had been hit by American bombers.

"I didn't become a 'peacenik' on the spot, but it gave me a strange new feeling about my country-not exactly, shame, but not pride, either. Just a terrible regret to think of the innocent people who had died where I was standing.

"In some obscure way I felt responsible. Not guilty, but responsible, in the sense that I must try to prevent such things from happening again, insofar as I could have any influence at all. In that terrible past I began to find my future.

"I was 35 then, which seems very young now. The shock was quiet; I didn't feel like talking about it, didn't even know what to say about it, and felt no desire to recriminate. Blaming wouldn't help anyone; our duty now was healing old wounds and preventing a recurrence.

"Even if fighting that war was a duty, how can anyone celebrate it without feeling pity for the millions who died in it? 'O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee!'

"If I can excite even a little horror of war in my fellow conservatives, I will feel that my long career has not been entirely wasted.

"To this day, I find it impossible to look back on World War II with pride or pleasure, let alone admiration for the men who wanted it. I do venerate the two great Popes, Pius XI and Pius XII, who saw it coming and pled for peace. They are the true war heroes. Blessed are the peaceniks."
http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/010238.html#more

[Superman]

Everybody understand the utility of delivering a good punch in the nose. Sometimes war becomes necessary. We are not wimps, and the world needs to understand that. I get it. but.......

Our political and economic system feeds on and must have a supply of certain distateful stuff. Poverty, for example. Most of you don't understand why that is necessary to our brand of capitalism, and how much of it is necessary. Some of you are still imagining that instead of there being winners and losers, there can be winners and winners. It's not true. Sorry. And if you're okay with that, then you are simply not Christian. You are okay with a system that dooms a certain percentage of the population. I'm not as satisfied, or as greedy, as that.

And war. We love war. We need war. I'm not okay with that either. As the saying goes:

Killing for peace is like fukking for virginity.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Superman
Everybody understand the utility of delivering a good punch in the nose. Sometimes war becomes necessary. We are not wimps, and the world needs to understand that. I get it. but.......

Our political and economic system feeds on and must have a supply of certain distateful stuff. Poverty, for example. Most of you don't understand why that is necessary to our brand of capitalism, and how much of it is necessary. Some of you are still imagining that instead of there being winners and losers, there can be winners and winners. It's not true. Sorry. And if you're okay with that, then you are simply not Christian. You are okay with a system that dooms a certain percentage of the population. I'm not as satisfied, or as greedy, as that.

And war. We love war. We need war. I'm not okay with that either. As the saying goes:

Killing for peace is like fukking for virginity.

There aren't enough guns or nuclear weapons on the planet to eliminate poverty.The only way to eliminate poverty as we know it is to deregulate the market and access to it. Until that's accomplished, there will be poverty.

[yellowline]

Originally posted by Superman
You are okay with a system that dooms a certain percentage of the population. I'm not as satisfied, or as greedy, as that.

A woman found a guy living in a tent behind our local Sears in town. Whatever the eff she was doing in a wooded area behind the store, I'll never know, but he set up camp there and she found him. The woman offered him help, to which he declined. True to form, the woman entirely ignored what he said and called up the town hall and local papers in an effort to help him. He ended up moving from the attention of being on the front page of the paper.

Some people just don't want help. Are you that elitist that you think you know what's best for him? Would you override what the man wants, like what one of our village idiots did? If your insurance company dropped coverage on your Porsche, then told you to get a family sedan because "it's better for you," would you be happy with them? Why should the government and press scare this man away, when Sears didn't know about him and didn't press charges on him?

In ministry, Christ gave people what they needed to succeed, not a life in a box. He didn't find the formerly blind guy a wife, a house, and a dog, but simply gave the man his sight. Christ above all acted and taught with the philosophy of free will. "Ask and you shall receive" should strike a chord here. I agree with you that those who want help should be helped. But wealth redistribution (outside of voluntary charitable donations) is not the answer.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by yellowline
A woman found a guy living in a tent behind our local Sears in town. Whatever the eff she was doing in a wooded area behind the store, I'll never know, but he set up camp there and she found him. The woman offered him help, to which he declined. True to form, the woman entirely ignored what he said and called up the town hall and local papers in an effort to help him. He ended up moving from the attention of being on the front page of the paper.

Some people just don't want help. Are you that elitist that you think you know what's best for him? Would you override what the man wants, like what one of our village idiots did? If your insurance company dropped coverage on your Porsche, then told you to get a family sedan because "it's better for you," would you be happy with them? Why should the government and press scare this man away, when Sears didn't know about him and didn't press charges on him?

In ministry, Christ gave people what they needed to succeed, not a life in a box. He didn't find the formerly blind guy a wife, a house, and a dog, but simply gave the man his sight. Christ above all acted and taught with the philosophy of free will. "Ask and you shall receive" should strike a chord here. I agree with you that those who want help should be helped. But wealth redistribution (outside of voluntary charitable donations) is not the answer.

It would be hard to add to the above, one of the most moral posts on this forum.

I can say that if anyone looks to government for lessons in morality and ethics, they will be pulled down to government's level, they cannot redeem government in any way.

[Jeff Higgins]

I don't think anyone can stand in those ruins, thinking about the innocent people that lived there, and not be moved. I have been there and seen that, spending summers in the '60's abd '70's with my Oma and Opa in Germany. They made it a point to show us, to try to make us aware of what had happened on a very personal level. My German mother, a young girl during the war, continues to reinforce their message to this day.

So the German people were indeed victims, but of whom? Their own government far more so than of their foes in the war. Their government started that war and left the rest of the world no choice but to fight. Their own government had no concern for their well-being, just as modern day Iraq had none for its people. In a similar manner, the Iraqi people are victims of their government's ambitions far more so than they are victims of our invasion.

The rest of the world did share some of the responsiblity back in the 1930's, as they stood by and watched while Germany re-armerd herself. The same is true today, with some of our "allies" even going so far as to illegally help in Iraq's re-arming.

It probably would have looked as unreasonable to attack Germany in about 1937 as it did to some of you to attack Iraq today. Why, some of you even appear to think we did so because we love war. How simplistic and absurd.

Most of us are "peaceniks" at heart; no one loves war. There are, however, men of power and influence that stand to gain personally, (either power or wealth, or usually both) by picking a fight. It then becomes necessary, as detestable as it is, for the "peaceniks" to go to war and resist. It appears in the case of Iraq, we were simply too quick to do that for the Monday morning quarterbacks' tastes. Because we did not let the threat mature into a real one, demonstrated by a horrific attack somewhere on innocent people, the naysayers will forever second guess what might have been.

[craigster59]

Simplistic, but "You gotta break a few eggs to make an omlette."

[rrpjr]

One more aging, white westerner descending softly into the guilt-addled twilight of his intellect. It is not a sure thing that the west has the mettle to make it. It will be a close call.

[Moneyguy1]

Jeff, I believe there are those who do love war. You alluded to those who will profit from it. There are those who love it because they have not personally experienced it. To them, it is the opiate of power, not necessarily wealth. It is indeed unfortunate that those who would rather live and let live are called to clean up the messes left by others.

[RoninLB]

Poverty statistics are ng because they are static, not dynamic. The only group serious about maintaining poverty is the teachers unions, socialist black activists, and the Dem party.

Post cold war strategic policy is concerned with world wide connectivity. The only group currently against this and for isolation is the Dems anti free traders.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by craigster59
Simplistic, but "You gotta break a few eggs to make an omlette."

That sounded much better in the original Russian, that's a quote of the words of Joseph Stalin.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by RoninLB
Poverty statistics are ng because they are static, not dynamic. The only group serious about maintaining poverty is the teachers unions, socialist black activists, and the Dem party.

The teacher's union is the Democrat* Party.

Post cold war strategic policy is concerned with world wide connectivity. The only group currently against this and for isolation is the Dems anti free traders.

Your statement above shows complete befuddlement on what isolationism is, and who opposes it. See Lewrockwell.com

First, isolationism is not anti-trade or anti-market in any way; in fact exactly the opposite, isolationism is for unrestricted trade with any and all countries. Isolationism is all about leaving other countries alone politically and militarily. Spreading a political ideology to other countries is pure Trotskyite socialism, in fact was invented by Trotsky, and kept by the Soviets long after Trotsky was murdered by Stalin. Using the military to spread a political ideology was a tool used by both the National Socialists of Germany and the Russian dominated Soviet Union.

I wish the Democrat* Party were isolationists, but alas they are not. They favor worldwide sociofascism just about as much as the neo-conservative dominated Republican Party does.


*Democrat Party is the correct name of the one of the two large sociofascist parties in America; they are not a Democratic party and never were, any more than the Republican Party is a supporter of Republicanism.

[Jeff Higgins]

I just had a good chuckle over this whole thread. Maybe I'm too easily amused, but I couldn't help but notice the various factions (libertarian,, liberal, and conservative at work here.

Libertarian starts off: War is bad because governments start wars. Government is bad. Anything they do is bad. Did I mention I hate government?

Liberal: War is bad, but poverty is worse. Poverty is bad, because mean greedy people put others in poverty. Mean people suck. Poverty is worse than war, so let's change the topic to something I like to talk about: poverty. And mean, greedy people.

Conservative: Neither one is going away any time soon. Let's deal with it. We fight wars when we are forced to do so. No one likes it. We will have to do so as long as there are tyrants in the world. We all wish they would go away, but that's not reality. My success does not make others poor. We help the poor as best we can, but there will always be poor. As long as there are oppressive governments and/or listless and lazy people in the world, we are stuck with the poor. Sometimes it's their fault; even their preference. I have no obligation to help that class of poor. I'll try to help those that want help.

I think it's clear who is more firmly rooted in reality.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Jeff Higgins
Conservative: Neither one is going away any time soon. Let's deal with it. We fight wars when we are forced to do so. No one likes it. We will have to do so as long as there are tyrants in the world. We all wish they would go away, but that's not reality. My success does not make others poor. We help the poor as best we can, but there will always be poor. As long as there are oppressive governments and/or listless and lazy people in the world, we are stuck with the poor. Sometimes it's their fault; even their preference. I have no obligation to help that class of poor. I'll try to help those that want help.

I think it's clear who is more firmly rooted in reality.

Since most of the wars in the 20th century were entered into by sociofascists in the Democrat Party, and only recently by the Republican Party now that it's as sociofascist as the Democrats, or in actuality returned to it's sociofascist (read mercantilist) roots, your statement is rather full of holes philosophically speaking.

[Tim Hancock]

Originally posted by Jeff Higgins
I just had a good chuckle over this whole thread. Maybe I'm too easily amused, but I couldn't help but notice the various factions (libertarian,, liberal, and conservative at work here.

Libertarian starts off: War is bad because governments start wars. Government is bad. Anything they do is bad. Did I mention I hate government?

Liberal: War is bad, but poverty is worse. Poverty is bad, because mean greedy people put others in poverty. Mean people suck. Poverty is worse than war, so let's change the topic to something I like to talk about: poverty. And mean, greedy people.

Conservative: Neither one is going away any time soon. Let's deal with it. We fight wars when we are forced to do so. No one likes it. We will have to do so as long as there are tyrants in the world. We all wish they would go away, but that's not reality. My success does not make others poor. We help the poor as best we can, but there will always be poor. As long as there are oppressive governments and/or listless and lazy people in the world, we are stuck with the poor. Sometimes it's their fault; even their preference. I have no obligation to help that class of poor. I'll try to help those that want help.

I think it's clear who is more firmly rooted in reality.

This is a very good summary. Too bad some will not be able to see it as such.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Tim Hancock
This is a very good summary. Too bad some will not be able to see it as such.

Good as an example of neo-conservative delusional thinking.

[Tim Hancock]

Originally posted by fastpat
Good as an example of neo-conservative delusional thinking.

It nailed you down your perspective pretty well.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Tim Hancock
It nailed you down your perspective pretty well.

How could it do that, it's completely irrational? Neo-con's are irrational, including your analysis above.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

That's got to be the most skewed, self-serving example of misinformed political labelling I've ever seen.

[Tim Hancock]

Oops, I guess I boogered that sentence. Well, there you have it, Patsy won this round of the republicans vs the whackjobs smackdown. Not to worry, as there will undoubtedly be many more rounds to follow.