The war within the West

Here’s a factually well-informed account of what the author calls “transnational progressivism” but I’d simply call contemporary liberalism: The Ideological War Within the West. The author underestimates the degree to which the bad guys have won already, and also the degree to which their bad theory is the natural consequence of his good theory, liberal democracy. The problem is that if freedom and democracy are ultimate standards not defined by reference to higher goods, then all desires everywhere must be treated equally, politics is a wholly technical method for doing so, and the revolution the author opposes is inevitable.

4 thoughts on “The war within the West”

  1. The John Fonte article
    The John Fonte article strikes me as groundbreaking in that an establishment conservative is finally speaking of the globalist egalitarian ideology as a serious threat. The threat has been there for years, of course, but the respectables haven’t deigned to notice it. (A shrewd Christian conservative activist remarked to me a while back that the neocons have shown no opposition to globalism as such; they never criticize the U.N. except when it attacks Israel.)

    If the conservatives begin to understand that the demand for global equality under a borderless one-world government is only a logical outgrowth of their own denial of national and cultural particularity (just as multiculturalism is a logical outgrowth of liberal universalism), then the manifestation of this totalitarian global force cannot help but make at least some establishment conservatives question their complacent assumptions, just as the September 11th attacks did in some cases. Whether that will be enough to make any practical difference is another question. The establishment conservatives have eventually gone along with every other leftist innovation; why wouldn’t they go along with world government as well, if under a suitably “conservative” guise? Indeed, just as we now have “big government conservatism,” we could some day have “world government conservatism.”

    Reply
  2. One super-long, but
    One super-long, but valuable, sentence from that essay is awesome. I’ve split it up for easier comprehension.

    If our system is based:

    – Not on individual rights (as defined by the U.S. Constitution) but on group consciousness (as defined by international law);

    – Not on equality of citizenship but on group preferences for non-citizens (including illegal immigrants) and for certain categories of citizens;

    – Not on majority rule within constitutional limits but on power-sharing by different ethnic, racial, gender, and linguistic groups;

    – Not on constitutional law, but on transnational law;

    – Not on immigrants becoming Americans, but on migrants linked between transnational communities;

    Then the regime will cease to be “constitutional,” “liberal,” “democratic,” and “American,” in the understood sense of those terms, but will become in reality a new hybrid system that is “post- constitutional,” “post-liberal,” “post-democratic,” and “post-American.”

    Reply
  3. We’ve had “world government
    We’ve had “world government conservatism” before, but that was usually allegorical. Thomas More’s “Utopia” and Dante’s “De Monarchia” come to mind.

    Christians of all stripes talk of winning the world for Christ, but this is almost always via missionary work. A nation becomes Christianized as people convert, but they retain their basic language, culture and identity. Italians stay Italian, Greeks stay Greek and Chinese stay Chinese—even though they profess a common faith and may calls some foreigners their brothers in Christ.

    Reply
  4. Speaking of neocons and the
    Speaking of neocons and the UN, check out this bizzare column by the usually rational Dennis Prager where he says he might rejoice if terrorists blow up UN Headquarters:

    “The United Nations is, after all, one of the terrorists’ most important allies. It is Israel, the greatest victim of Islamic terror, that the United Nations loathes, not the terrorists.

    “Nevertheless, this alleged revelation did cause me to ponder. What if the U.N. building were blown up? What would happen? And then it occurred to me—if no innocents were hurt, the destruction of the U.N. building in New York City would actually increase goodness on earth.”

    http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27763

    Reply

Leave a Comment