The Dish

Scottish understatement reaches new heights.

The hysteria on the far right (is there any other sort any more?) about the immigration bill is remarkable to me. It’s not that there aren’t obviously good arguments against amnesty; it’s the fever-pitch mania that drives these people. I have to say I find it baffling – not the position as such but the anger and rage. The obvious solution – much better border control and some attempt to bring most illegal immigrants out of the shadows – is obscured by emotion. The result, of course, is that the GOP has all but lost the Hispanic vote for a generation, just by the tone of their rhetoric. And they are at one another’s throats. Bush, in particular, is now despised – for a policy has always publicly supported. The suicide of the right continues, and perhaps it’s for the best. If these people have not asked to be sent into the political wilderness, who has?

But I do want to address David Frum’s smear that I am now part of a "Blame America First" crowd, because I think our experience in Iraq and the huge damage we have done to our image in the Arab world requires us to rethink some aspects of our war-policy – like torture and open-ended involvement in the Iraqi civil war. I’ve been extremely clear that I believe that the US did nothing to "deserve" 9/11. But Frum tries to smear me anyway. Frum then analogizes Ron Paul to the vicious anti-Semite, Charles Lindbergh. On what grounds? I guess the same grounds that Jamie Kirchick and Ryan Sager accuse him of being an anti-Semite. Maybe there’s more out there I haven’t seen. But the only evidence Sager has offered to support his very grave charge of anti-Semitism is extremely thin. Is any criticism of special interest politics that includes the Israel lobby as a major offender inherently anti-Semitic? I guess that’s Sager’s view. It isn’t mine.

On another smear front, Hugh Hewitt has just accused Peggy Noonan of being a bigot.  Heh. Hewitt’s faith has long been a mystery to me. His religion isn’t of course. He worships power. His church is the Republican Party. I don’t think the smears pouring out of the panicked right are completely accidental. Some of us are trying to figure out what has gone wrong with conservatism and what has gone so terribly wrong in the war. Others on the right regard such attempts as deeply dangerous. I hope they’re right.

"There is no dichotomy between man and God’s image. Whoever tortures a human being, whoever abuses a human being, Whoever outrages a human being, abuses God’s image," – Archbishop Romero.

The quote is from a new group Catholic blog, Vox Nova.

(Photo: American citizen Jose Padilla, detained without charges for over three years, and allegedly tortured into incoherence. He is being escorted, chained hands and feet, to a dental office in a secure facility by U.S. soldiers.)

An interesting discussion. There’s a reason the GOP leadership needs to smear and silence Paul. His arguments might begin to refine our debate on Middle East policy.

Dave Weigel asks the Paul campaign about Michelle Malkin’s on-air lie. Retract, Michelle. Or give us evidence that Ron Paul believes that Bush knew about 9/11 ahead of time or has openly allied with or supported conspiracy theories about 9/11. One or the other. Silence = cowardice.

Download the MP3 hymns from the Thomas Road Baptist Church here. And get your favorite Falwell quotes here.

A group of artists try and live in two dimensions. 6 people in a box for twenty days. Hell on earth.

A joy to behold my old friend ripping into a semi-literate, fascist hack and a crook who abused Christianity for his own lucre and power. These people may be – just may be – finally on the run:

(Hat tip: Mike.)

A reader writes:

As much as I admire your work, I have to wonder where you ever got your notions of ‘conservatism’. Conservatism has nothing to do with libertarianism, and on the contrary has always had a strong authoritarian strain. Once this was expressed as reverence for monarchy, now it is the Doctrine of the Unitary Executive and a reflexive desire to defend the military. Hayek noticed what he called (in ‘Why I am Not a Conservative’) the conservatives’ ‘fondness for authority’:

Let me return, however, to the main point, which is the characteristic complacency of the conservative toward the action of established authority and his prime concern that this authority be not weakened rather than that its power be kept within bounds. This is difficult to reconcile with the preservation of liberty. In general, it can probably be said that the conservative does not object to coercion or arbitrary power so long as it is used for what he regards as the right purposes. He believes that if government is in the hands of decent men, it ought not to be too much restricted by rigid rules. Since he is essentially opportunist and lacks principles, his main hope must be that the wise and the good will rule – not merely by example, as we all must wish, but by authority given to them and enforced by them. Like the socialist, he is less concerned with the problem of how the powers of government should be limited than with that of who wields them; and, like the socialist, he regards himself as entitled to force the value he holds on other people.

Bush has not corrupted conservatism, he is acting out the kind of conservatism Hayek described in this essay. I think that is the only kind of conservatism that has ever existed as a real political force.

I disagree. Yes, of course, the strain that Hayek notes is a large part of the conservative tradition. But it is not the only strand. Burke, in many ways the founder of Anglo-American conservatism, defended the American rebels and the rule of law and was deeply skeptical of those in power. The skeptical Oakeshott, the twentieth century Burke, favored peace, non-violence, and liberty – not war, torture and authority. We can get bogged down in semantics here, and a case can be made that Burke and Oakeshott are more classical liberals. But I’m loth to argue that the two greatest British conservative thinkers were not actually conservative at all. I make my case in my book. Make your own mind up.

Baby-boomer parents are the best:

TinyPocketPeople produces made to order dolls, based on digital photographs that customers upload to the website. The company was founded by two parents whose youngest daughter was starting day-care. To help make her feel safe and secure, they created mini versions of themselves that she could take with her. The concept spread by word of mouth, and it turned out the dolls weren’t just popular with children. Grandparents order pocket versions of their grandchildren and long distance couples order mini-me-and-yous.