Abu Hatem أبو حاتم

I just finished watching Barack Obama’s absolutely disgusting speech on the economy in North Carolina today, his first speech of the general election campaign. The Guardian has a summary of the speech available here.

Here is the basic gist and summary:

Free markets and ownership do not promote prosperity. Expanding the private sector and promoting economic growth only benefits the rich. Tax the hell out of rich people, and Exxon and every big corporation, and use the benefits to help the poor through a million new programs and expanding big government.

Obama was right on one thing during the speech, that you can’t just keep spending money you don’t have, and that it wasn’t fiscal conservatism. And the man is probably better than John McCain who will raise taxes (he voted against the Bush tax cuts twice), tax the hell out of companies for his “climate change” plans, increase defense spending and keep the war in Iraq going on. Yet, isn’t it funny that after all of this tax-and-spend your way into prosperity was debunked years ago by people such as Friedrich von Hayek in his Road to Serfdom, people are still taking it up and believing it?

The amount of growth and wealth in the American economy since Ronald Reagan cut the abysmal Carter-era marginal tax rates, through the Bush administration and including Bill Clinton who also kept taxes very low in comparison to former democrats (Clinton’s top marginal tax rate was about 40% while Carter’s was in the 90% range), has made America the richest country in the world. Complain about corporations and oil companies all you want, Mr. Obama, but the sheer amount of annual real GDP% growth has gone up so high in the post-Reagan era of low marginal tax rates (which includes Clinton) than in the malaise of the Carter years.

Just look at this graph to understand the difference between the GDP growth rates under Carter, and then Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush who despite their economic flaws did benefit from the slashed marginal tax rates (recessions, or negative GDP growth, are in red) :

Under Reagan, and Clinton for the most part growth rates were phenomenal. Under Clinton people even expected us to be living in a “New Economy” without recessions. Despite this big error, if Obama expects to tax and spend his way into prosperity through interventionism and central planning then he can expect Carter-esque malaise. Intervention and central planning destroy wealth, while the market creates prosperity (this is the utilitarian argument, the market also is the only possible way of respecting natural rights and ensuring justice or “social justice”).

And no offense at all to Jimmy Carter. Although his economic policies were wrong, he has been one of the greatest patriots for peace in my life time, and certainly amongst ex-presidents. And peace is more important than prosperity, and also the key to prosperity (as our preemptive, aggressive, and unnecessary wars destroy our economy).

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You know Antiwar radio is pretty damn good. Honestly, if the average joe listened to like 3 or 4 of the very intelligent guests they have on there he would be absolutely changed. Its your shortest link to understanding the Bush administration’s view of U.S. foreign policy. Here are the best interviews I have seen so far:

1. Pat Buchanan
2. Rep. Ron Paul
3. Bill Kauffman
4. Phil Donahue
5. Glenn Greenwald
6. Howard Zinn
7. Juan Cole
8. Chris Hedges
9. Chalmers Johnson
10. Robert A. Pape
11. Edward Peck
12. Scott Ritter

And don’t forget my good friend Joshua Snyder, at The Western Confucian blog.

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In one of those interesting tidbits of life, I have been searching for a copy of Mario Kart for Wii for the past few weeks. I finally decided to check Amazon.com on the internet to see just how much I would have to pay for the luxury. Amazon.com has run out of copies, and the used copies are selling for from $77.89-89.00.

My first impression of course, when looking at this, is that this is a textbook example of the fallacy of just price. What would be the “just price” of Mario Kart? The answer is that prices are subjective, because the inherent value that human minds give to goods and services in the marketplace is subjective. The price of Mario Kart has gone up from its retail price of $50.00 because there is a high demand, i.e. more people find Mario Kart in their marginal utility than the amount of Mario Kart games currently on the market. Because of this, the price goes up. The price, as the Ottoman Islamic business law manual al-Mejelle tells us is the uncoerced and volitional offer and acceptance agreed upon by buyer and seller.

Jeffery Tucker, of the Ludwig von Mises institute made it ever so clear with a beautiful article on the just price this weekend:

The only real answer here is to let the free market rule, which is another way of saying that people should be free to come to their own negotiations about the prices they are willing to pay or accept for this and that. Those points of agreement should be as flexible as human valuation itself. That is to say, we should be free to change our minds, with each exchange taken as an end in itself, with no bearing on future points of agreement.

This is not only fitting with the needs of freedom — any attempt to force prices to do this or that does in fact impinge on our freedom to negotiate — but it is also essential to a well-functioning economy. That’s because the price is heavily influenced by factors such as resource availability, the subjective valuations of consumers, and the profitability of the undertaking in light of accounting costs. In the end, the books have to be in the black. The prices that are accepted in the market must sustain this state of affairs. Even in mega-industries like oil, the difference between revenue and expenses can be surprisingly thin. Even small regulatory and tax changes can drive companies of all sizes to bankruptcy.

Prices are crucial to the wise apportioning of resources in a world with unlimited wants and limited resources. Prices affect the way in which we use things, whether conserving them or throwing them away. You will note that higher gas prices change the way you make judgments about going places and doing things. This is a good thing. Higher prices signal the need to conserve — and without unworkable mandates from government. And from a producer point of view, prevailing prices provide crucial information concerning the forecasting of future profits and hence today’s investment decisions.

Tucker’s article was wonderful. When we establish the freedom of human beings to voluntarily enter into their transactions with their own voluntary prices, the spontaneous natural order of the market ripples benefits throughout the entire economy. This is the miracle of the market economy, of the right to private property and the right to buy and sell as opposed to central planning. From a spiritual point of view, when one ponders the spontaneous order of the market one ponders the miracles of God in his creation.

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Bill Moyers, a former adviser to President Lyndon Johnson, and the author of the documentary Buying the War which exposed the media for the run up to war in Iraq, sat down with media analyst and journalist Greg Mitchell last night on the new Scott McClellan book and the media “propaganda campaign” as the former Bush press secretary put it, involved in the run up to war.

Here is a preview:

Mitchell is funny:

GREG MITCHELL: Yeah, what Charles Gibson said. We wouldn’t — I don’t think we would ask any different questions. I mean, it’s shocking-

Yes! In the words of an 8 year old “no duh.” Moyers’ program last night was some of the best TV in a very long time. Good for him in continually raising the bar and challenging people. He has a very far left bias, but Moyers is much more intelligent and a better journalist than the entire cast of ideologues at Fox News and Al-Jazeera English combined. They also debunk the radical conspiracy theory that TV news is false, or that all TV media is controlled by a government or lobby or group or that it is not free:

JOHN WALCOTT: Yeah, but there are some terrific reporters in television — you know, at the Defense Department in particular. Jim Miklashevski at NBC, David Martin at CBS. What I think happened in part was another problem, which is they have sources. Believe me. I wish I had some of the same sources they have. But whatever information came from those unnamed anonymous sources is trumped by Donald Rumsfeld at the podium or Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice saying, “We can’t allow the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”

Mitchell will be answering questions on Bill Moyers’ blog next week, so put in a word.

Here is Dan Rather, who spoke, along with Moyers I may add, at the National Confrence for Media Reform which is a left-wing progressive group working against media bias.  Rather just lambasted the press during the run up to the Iraq war, and does a good job I may add.  Dan, we miss you on TV:

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Every few days the nerd in me has to bring up more maps, look at more polls, and give more analysis concerning the 2008 race.  Sorry, its an election year and American politics is my passion.  Presidential elections without an incumbent in either party are the World Cup of political junkies.

I read an interesting article two days ago by the usually horrible Mort Kondrake who quoted political scientist Allan Abramowitz (known for his excellent early 90s work on Senate elections!), who said that Obama had extremely good odds in 2008.  What interested me most about it is it quoted the one work that I have had in mind all cycle - Allan Lichtman’s Keys to the Presidency who’s formula has been right for every single presidential election in the past 15 cycles.

Litchman examines 12 or 13 variables which make presidential elections easy to predict.  His work is actually, other than James Caesar’s analysis in Presidential Selection, the absolute best book any political junkie needs for viewing presidential elections.

The Kondrake and Abrowitz articles make clear the chances for an Obama landslide.   Kondrake writes:

 A new scholarly analysis confirms that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has to perform miracles to win the 2008 election. So far, he is far short of doing that.

McCain’s speech in Louisiana Tuesday night fell embarrassingly short of matching Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) eloquence, vision and delivery — demonstrating the distance McCain has to go to have a chance of winning in November…

Professor Alan Abramowitz of Emory University has developed an “electoral barometer” based on just three variables for predicting election outcomes, and it suggests that McCain is all but certainly set to lose this year.

In an article last week on University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball Web site, Abramowitz declared that “it appears very likely that the Republican party is dealing with the dreaded ‘triple whammy’ in 2008: an unpopular president, a weak economy and a second-term election.”

Abramowitz has tracked the effect of those variables on the last 15 presidential elections and found that they accurately predicted the popular vote outcome in 14 and came close in the 15th.

The formula adds the incumbent president’s net approval rating (approval minus disapproval), the second-quarter election-year GDP growth rate multiplied by five (emphasizing the importance of the economy) and then (factoring in time-for-a-change sentiment) subtracts 25 points if the in-party is finishing a second term.

Bush’s net approval now stands at minus 40. The first-quarter growth rate was 0.6 percent and Bush is finishing eight years, meaning that this year’s electoral barometer currently stands at minus 62.

If such a number holds, it “would predict a decisive defeat for the Republican presidential candidate,” Abramowitz wrote. “The only election since World War II with a score in this range was 1980,” when “Jimmy Carter suffered the worst defeat for an incumbent president since Herbert Hoover in 1932.”

With oil prices yesterday reaching $138 a barrel, unemployment now at 5.5% which was a major spike, inflation higher than ever, and economic growth in fractional percentage points, a recession seems likelier than ever.  Winning in a recession is hard enough.  Winning in a recession with 8 years of republican rule and a president at 20% approval is something else.  And with a charming candidate like Obama who mirrors the Gipper in his eloquence next to the absolutely horrid speaker of John McCain, the choice looks easy.

Abrowitz’s article adds graphical anlaysis, and argues that:

The Electoral Barometer has predicted the winner of the popular vote in 14 of the 15 presidential elections since World War II. There were five elections in which the Electoral Barometer was negative and the president’s party lost the popular vote in all five of these elections: 1952, 1960, 1976, 1980, and 1992. There were ten elections in which the Electoral Barometer was positive, and the president’s party won the popular vote in nine of these elections: 1948, 1956, 1964, 1972, 1984, 1988, 1996, 2000, and 2004.

The only election in which the Electoral Barometer did not accurately predict the winner of the popular vote was 1968. In that year the Electoral Barometer was barely positive at +2 and the candidate of the incumbent party, Hubert Humphrey, lost the popular vote by less than one percentage point.

The information required to calculate the final Electoral Barometer score for 2008 will not be available until August when the federal government releases its estimate of real GDP growth during the second quarter of 2008. However, it appears very likely that the Republican Party is dealing with the dreaded “triple whammy” in 2008: an unpopular president, a weak economy, and a second term election. Based on President Bush’s net approval rating in the most recent Gallup Poll (-39), the annual growth rate of the economy during the first quarter of 2008 (+0.6 percent), and the fact that the Republican Party has controlled the White House for the past eight years, the current Electoral Barometer reading is a dismal -63.

An Electoral Barometer reading of -63 would predict a decisive defeat for the Republican presidential candidate.

I have been thinking about Litchman’s barometer all cycle, and it appears that an Obama win is eminent.

In others news, the GOP is also seeing a meltdown in Congress.  Is this the Great Depression FDR “New Deal” landslide all over again?  The National Journal’s Cook Political Report gives the following updated odds:

With these changes, the GOP occupies 21 of the 27 seats now listed in the Toss Up column.

CA-04- OPEN (Doolittle)- Solid Republican to Likely Republican

CO-04- Marilyn Musgrave- Lean Republican to Toss Up

CT-04- Chris Shays- Lean Republican to Toss Up

IL-10- Mark Kirk- Lean Republican to Toss Up

NM-02- OPEN (Pearce)- Likely Republican to Lean Republican

NY-29- Randy Kuhl- Lean Republican to Toss Up

NC-08- Robin Hayes- Lean Republican to Toss Up

OH-01- Steve Chabot- Lean Republican to Toss Up

VA-02- Thelma Drake- Likely Republican to Lean Republican

WA-08- Dave Reichert- Lean Republican to Toss Up

All of these people on TV saying McCain is going to surprise upset Obama in Pennsylvania or Michigan are just trying to look for an excuse at not predicting an Obama landslide.  While state-by-state polls may be close now, nobody ever pays any attention to polls until the months before the election at the very least.  The fact of the matter, as I have blogged repeatedly, is that Obama landslides in Gore states along with a pick up of Colorado and New Mexico which are very very likely will offset the republican Florida advantage and give Obama the White House.

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This is one very rare, one in a thousand, posts on religion. This blog is about politics. But I did see that a friend of mine, Islamic scholar Sheikh Faraz Rabbani who blogs here, has some very good blog posts in the past few days on love of neighbor.

The one link to politics I will give here is that traditionalist conservatives have always argued that conformance and harmony with the natural order is the key to so much personal and societal benefit in life. The happiness of friendship, of human collaboration, of love, not to mention the spiritual happiness in love of God that the religious speak of, is an important mark of a healthy society for all traditionalists from Burke to Kirk.

Sheikh Rabbani quotes a study which says money can buy happiness - that is spending on others provides happiness. Secondly Sheikh Rabbani posts concerning the Islamic ethics of friendship:

Imam Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami (Allah have mercy on him), one of the great sufi masters, wrote in his work The Proper Manners of Companionship (Adab al-Suhba) that,

Proper companionship with one’s friends is through:

[1] Remaining constantly cheerful

[2] Doing the good

[3] Spreading mention of their virtues

[4] Concealing their errors

[5] Considering great this little act of good

[6] Considering little anything one does for them

[7] Taking care of them with one’s person and wealth

[8] Avoiding malice, envy, harming, hurting, and all matters
that they dislike, in any way

[9] Leaving anything one would have to apologize for.

I would add that C.S. Lewis does philia or loving friendship and agape or charitable brotherly love, justice in his acclaimed work (and honestly, my favorite of his) The Four Loves. While, yes, happiness and enjoyment may result through working hard, self-actualization, and even enjoying one’s material things, the happiness which results from agape or charitas, the natural or real happiness carried out by the believer seeking to please and love his brothers in humanity because of his love of God is something more. It is was Aquinas describes in comparison with the “true happiness” of witnessing God’s beauty in the afterlife, and what the great Muslim theologian al-Ghazali calls as part of the love of God which is the soul’s supreme and highest good. Al-Ghazali writes:

Love of God is the highest stage of our soul’s progress and her summum bonum. Repentance, patience, piety, and other virtues are all preliminary steps.

The word for love that the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and give him peace, uses in his hadith when he says “None of you truly believe until you love for your brother what you love for yourself,” is mahabba. The etymology of mahabba is the strongest form of love which is manifested through serving and loving others. It is the Arabic equivalent of the Greek agape or charitas which refers to the highest form of Christian love. In fact, the Arabic language has scores of words for love which were expounded upon by philosophers of love such as al-Jahiz, Dawud al-Dhahiri, and Ibn Hazm, yet mahabba remains the highest and most spiritual/religious connotation of love.

Al-Ghazali notes that loving one’s fellow brother in creation, simply because of God’s love for him is:

greater [love] because this arises from the excess of love of God Most High, so much so that it reaches the boundaries of passionate love. It leaks out of the love of God over into love of another, and even extends then to love of the walls of the beloved friend, the district in which the beloved friend lives, and even the dog that roams the beloved friend’s part of town

Islam also teaches that loving for one’s brother what one loves for oneself (which the most authoritative commentaries of hadith including Imam al-Nawawi the chief commentator on Sahih Muslim and Ibn Hajar al-Haythami note refers to “brother in humanity” and “brother as son of Adam,” and not to mere Muslim brotherhood) refers to “seeking for one’s beloved” and “seeking all good to come to one’s beloved” for “the lover seeks” as al-’Izz ibn ‘Abd al-Salam notes in his commentary on this hadith. Thus the meaning of the hadith according to Islamic authorities is that one does not truly believe until one loves and seeks and seeks genuinely for one’s fellow human brother what one loves for oneself.

Let’s get a little love in this world!

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Whatever you think about Pat Buchanan, his newest book is absolutely amazing point of genius. Challenging the conventional wisdom, Buchanan’s hardheaded realist non-interventionist foreign policy recommendations inherent in his book would be wisely heeded by an administration who in the quest of “making the world safe for democracy” has destabilized the world leading to the criminal deaths of millions of people.

Here is Pat Buchanan on the Colbert Report last night:

Buchanan’s point that Churchill shouldn’t have given a war guarantee to Poland because it did not posses the capabilities to protect Poland, and that war would destroy the British empire, are absolutely correct. Colbert jokes that Buchanan would allow Poland to fall to Hitler, but Buchanan counters that if we gave a war guarantee to Tibet nowadays this would lead to war with China which is not in our national interests.Our neoconservative friends would say this is not correct. America should be, as Charles Krauthammer says “democratically realist,” it should not only care for its national interest but also, when practical, aim at spreading good throughout the world. Unfortunately, Krauthammer does not understand that American intervention often falls to the law of unintended consequences. Oftentimes our good intentions end up with extremely evil consequences. Questions of war and peace deserve more moral reasoning than that surely.Buchanan recommends that Britain would have carried out a policy of containment, telling Hitler that the red line was France and threatening war otherwise. Unlike the positivists formulating theories of international relations, Buchanan agrees with Henry Kissinger who wrote in his Does America Need a Foreign Policy? that “there was nothing foreordained about World War II.” Indeed, Hitler highly respected the British and would have much rather went to war with Stalin.War is the biggest of big government programs, and times of crisis are often the impetus of increases in government power, decreases in liberty, and pathological utopian social engineering schemes to be given weight.Buchanan compares World War II to the Iraq war. We did not need to start that war, Buchanan says, because Iraq did not threaten the United States. Indeed!

Hitler is often cited as the ultimate example of the necessary war. Indeed, it would have been necessary to contain Hitler by the time that he had upset the regional balance of power. Modern academics of international relations theory call this a strategy of “offshore balancing,” or that once a potential and aggressive hegemon upsets the balance of power to such a degree that their uneven increase in power threatens one’s state, it would be more cost-beneficial to fight that hegemon now while he is weaker and one is stronger, than weight until defensively attacked and lose power advantage.

Positivist international relations theory does not examine the morality of such a situation, only the utilitarian security benefits of a state in preemptive or preventative war. The realm of morality to some realists is nonexistent, and if existent is impossible. This is obviously absolutely rejected. Yet the realists do make important points when it comes to analyzing international politics.

Many times alliances are not created for ideological ends at all, but simple as marriages of convenience for state security. Because a state cannot guarantee its existence except by increasing its military power or by being protected by another powerful state that can check the potential aggressive intentions of another, often nations find themselves in strange marriages. Hitler loved Churchill and his ideology saw Churchill’s people as superior, and the U.S. hated Satlin who they saw as a communist tyrant, but the Allies ended up including Stalin while the Axis opposed Churchill.

Friendships can occur amongst nations through commerce, friendship, and diplomatic ties. And there is no doubt that ideology influences foreign policy (for those that disagree, look at who’s in the White House!), but the realities of international realpolitk must always be affirmed. If Britain would have used its diplomacy more effectively and been more realistic it could have remained the world’s unipolar hegemon, and we would have avoided a Holocaust, a Cold War, and the deaths of millions.

It is the same with Iraq. In a dreamworld quest for democratization of the Middle East, or control of a state in the heart of the Arab world, or preventing hegemony over oil, or a preventative war against a potential Iraqi threat to the West and Israel - whatever the justification for war - we have destabilized the Middle East, created a new Arab cold war over Iran, scared other states in the international system, and perhaps begun something even worse than what Churchill did for Poland.

The moral of the story is that war is a weighty matter, aggression is immoral, and that even for those who reject the morality of war (realists), the decision to enter into a preventative war or a war for idealistic ends should always be seen through cost-benefit analysis.

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One good thing about being a traditional limited government antiwar conservative is that you are the ultimate moderate. Let me be clear, I am not a “purist,” there are places I do depart from traditional conservatism, however few. Yet, the traditional conservative seems to agree with everyone and disagree with everyone at the same time. The good thing about being a traditional conservative is that you can have your cake and eat it too, and if you reject political parties - like I do - you will find that your democrat, republican, green, libertarian, and independent friends all have something in common with you.

Case-in-point, while watching my favorite cable TV news program, Morning Joe, which is often very mainstream in its political opinions, I find that I agree with both the conservative Joe and the liberal Mika often. For instance, whenever Joe discusses lower tax rates or opposes socialized healthcare, I find myself in full agreement. His arguments are usually my arguments - both natural law based and utilitarian although they don’t use those terms obviously. And whenever Mika begins discussing our civil liberties being taken away in the war on terror, or how the Iraq war was a huge mistake, I find myself in full agreement. Her arguments are both natural law based and utilitarian although she doesn’t use those terms either obviously.

On economic issues it is the same as well. When the left discusses how corporate welfare, corporate lobbyists, government contracts, and government interventions benefit corporations on behalf of the consumer, I am the first to agree. This is what Ludwig von Mises, the great economist, called soft fascism, and is a government-industrial complex. Its greatest modern manifestation was in the bail out of Bear Stearns, the failed Wall Street investment bank, by the Federal Reserve last March. Why modern conservatives support such acts for “stability in our markets,” to quote Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson or “keeping the markets running,” true traditional conservatives see it what it is - injustice and oppression of the poor through transgressing their liberty and property rights.

When the right begins discussing bloated spending, increasing tax rates, and a progressive income tax wherein the top 5% of earners pay 53.25% of the taxes, and the top 50% pay 96.03% of the taxes, making saving extremely difficult and making working one’s way out of poverty (in conformance to the conservative belief in the natural order) difficult - then traditional conservatives are the first to agree. Some may say because the very rich often manipulate legislation through intense lobbying receiving government protections and benefits, they deserve these draconian tax rates, the French classical economist Frederic Bastait refuted this years ago saying that when government injustices are used by the rich to exploit the poor, and then the poor to exploit the rich, one has a “web of injustice,” and nothing else. Traditional conservatives would also use the arguments of Robert Nisbet, the great traditional conservative sociologist, who wrote of how when government becomes the benefactor you have a very unnatural society which weakens the power of intermediate groups such as communities and religious organizations instead relying on centralization of power. Alexis De’Tocqueville once wrote that when government is the sole social engineering benefactor, one has a very cult-like society wherein religion is weak.

When libertarians and the left begin discussing the need for freedom, you will find traditionalist conservatives fully agree. However, freedom also includes, traditional conservatives would retort, that states have the right to regulate matters within their own states. Thus, if a state or even better - a local community - seeks to make illegal matters which the constitution permits them, then they should have the right.

When conservatives begin noting the need for state coerced morality, such as banning prostitution and other things which go against the natural order, the traditional conservative will agree but will fear the dangers of centralization and increase of government power. Instead of doing such things at a federal level, they should be done at the level of the states to prevent the dangers of a unitary executive.

On the illegal immigration issue you will find traditional conservatives, historical and modern divided, another example of moderation. While traditional conservatives have always sought legal immigration and accepting others onto our shores throughout American history, some have sought a loosening of immigration rules while others have seen the need for tightening.  The classical liberal and libertarian wing of conservatism seeks inclusion and a multicultural society while the more traditionalist seek conservation of culture. One can find examples for both sides of the debate in American history and in the traditional conservative movement’s writings. The issue is not as clear cut as some like to make it. Like in all questions, there is a strong traditionalist branch of the traditional conservatives who held on to conserving culture, while there is a strong libertarian (with a small-l) branch of the traditional conservatives who held on to increasing liberty.

This is the traditional conservative way which has long been forgotten. It was the tradition of the late 1800s Bourbon Democrats such as the late great president Grover Cleavland, and others such as democratic presidential candidate Sam Tilden. It is the tradition of republicans such as former Senator Robert Taft.

In the United Kingdom the traditionalist conservative tradition has been strongest, notably because the Whig (or classical liberal) and Tory (classical conservative) parties combined in the early 19th century against socialist Labour. While the antiwar anti-imperialism strand of American traditional conservatism was and is not as strong in the United Kingdom, they too had the marriage of liberty (Whiggism) and tradition (Burkeanism) so much so that the late economist Friedrich von Hayek who adopted Britain as his home called himself a Burkean Whig.

On American shores this marriage occurred at the hands of political thinker Frank S. Meyer who’s In Defense of Liberty called for the fusion of classical liberal means with traditionalist ends. Traditional conservatism he argued was the fusion of tradition and liberty. This moderate balance defines traditional conservatism’s moderation.

It is interesting to note however that before the Whigs and Torries combined in Britain, and before Frank S. Meyer’s writings on fusionism, traditional conservatism was always defined by these two marks and American Catholic Russell Kirk attempted to integrate the view of traditionalism into the American conservative consciousness. Bourbon Democrats in the United States were not absolute social libertarians in the modern sense, and they held on to state right’s of regulation. Moreover, even further historically, the father of all classical conservatism, Edmund Burke himself was a Whig and advised many economically classical liberal views in his Notes on Scarcity. Yes, the same Edmund Burke who harshly opposed “abstract theory,” said that an abundance of politics signified a “sick society,” and who rejected philosophical discourse on natural rights.

The uneasy relationship, and often tension, between Burkeanism and Whiggism, between tradition and liberty, between classical conservatism and classical liberalism itself is what signifies the moderation of “traditional conservatism,” or whatever modern nomenclature we give it. This coupled with conservatism’s inherent disgust for rigid ideology, radicalism and the revolutionary mentality, make traditional conservatism simply a synonym for moderate.  In fact, I found the following diagram in a standard college government textbook the other day which vindicated my point about American traditional conservatism, it had “American conservatism” in the middle of the political spectrum and overlapping with “moderate” while European more classical conservatism was in the far right.

It is wise here to recount the words of Russell Kirk, as quoted by fellow blogger The Western Confucian:

Ideology—that is, the manmade formulations and doctrines of both the right and the left in modern American politics—is the enemy of true conservatism, as it is the enemy of the Gospel, which rests on revealed, propositional truth. Russell Kirk, the great Catholic thinker whose writings have so influenced me over the years, said that ideology is “the abstract designs of coffee-house philosophers.” Most tend to be utopian and end up serving not the welfare of the people, but the interests of power-seekers.

Conservatism, on the other hand, is not a set of doctrines, but “a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order.”

Indeed, conservatism is not an ideology. Conservatism is a state of mind and way of looking at ideas. It is one that I think is inherent in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition and worldview, as well as many more such as Eastern Confucianism. It recognizes the natural order and moderation is an integral aspect of the natural order. From the Ancient Greeks who called “temperance” one of the four cardinal virtues, and Chinese, to the musings of Islamic mystics, moderation has always been seen as a virtue. The great Imam Ali, the cousin of the Prophet Muhammad (may God bless him and give him peace) once said that “justice is putting everything in its proper place.” Another word for justice or ‘adl in Arabic is “moderation.” As the Prophet himself said, “Do not go to extremes in religion,” and, in another hadith narrated by Bukhari says “So aim for what is right, follow a middle path, accept the good news of the reward for right action, and seek help[for your goal] in the morning, evening and some of the night.”

Hence instead of calling me a traditional conservative, it would perhaps be more accurate to say that I am the ultimate moderate.

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I was watching CSPAN’s Washington Journal this morning and the guest was Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) a republican congressman from Texas.

Hensarling kept arguing that the democrats spend our money, that they have done a horrible job at “governing” since 2006, and that their draconian tax rates will destroy the country by lowering our standards of living and immorally pass the debt on to our grandchildren.

Republican caller after caller phoned into Washington Journal, and good for them, reminding the congressman that republicans spent our money just as bad if not worse than the democrats. What is fiscal conservatism if instead of raising taxes you put it on the credit card?

One republican called in and said he had voted with the party since 1968 but that if in a country of 300 million the best the republicans could do was liberal John McCain there was a problem. The republican caller noted that Bill Clinton was a fiscal conservative compared to the drunken sailor spending George W. Bush. Many callers voiced their support for Congressman Dr. Ron Paul and said that he was the only true conservative in the race.

The only reply from the congressman was that the democrats were worse, that they would spend our money and tax us worse, and that as bad as the republicans do they are better than the democrats? What?

As pollster Charlie Cook of the National Journal wrote last week, the country is in a punishing mood. Cook noted that very rarely does one party win two consecutive congressional landslides, and the presidency, but that this year anti-republicanism is so rampant that it defies all odds. I agree.

The republicans have failed us, they have proven they are the truly liberal and left-wing party. Whether on the war in Iraq, the biggest of big government programs, or their insane spending, they have proven they truly have no principles. On the war, the number of antiwar republicans can be counted on one hand (Congressmen Ron Paul, and Walter Jones, Senator Chuck Hagel, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, ex-republicans Pat Buchanan and Congressman Bob Bar). On spending and taxes the republicans never got rid of the estate (i.e. “death”) tax, and limit their discourse to empty talk on “earmarks,” while making government bigger at home and invading other countries abroad.

Yes, congressman. The GOP might not raise our taxes or spend our money as the democrats. But you know what? Who cares. We’re not getting taken for granted by anyone. We punished the democrats before. In 2004, when the pitiful John Kerry who was almost as bad if not worse than Bush and a pro-war hawk was nominated by the democrats we punished them. And now is the same for you. It doesn’t matter how bad the democrats will be, the fact is that you deserve to be punished… again. The National Journal rightly calls it “a punishing mood,” and it will simply be unjust if you are not punished for your sins. Maybe then you will learn from your mistakes and go back to the pro-peace limited government low taxes fiscally responsible pro-growth message that republicans used to have.

If the democrats take the congress and White House, which I hope they do, there will be some deep soul searching inside the republican party. And as Doug Wead, a former special assistant to former president George H.W. Bush, and the one who coined the phrase “compassionate conservative,” recently wrote - the GOP will realize that it should have listened to a man named Ron Paul.

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The American Conservative’s blogger-in-chief Daniel Larson has some good commentary on Obama’s pandering warmongering anti-peace speech to the Israel lobby AIPAC yesterday. Larson calls it “the status quo we can believe in,” amen, brother. But it’s still better than John McCain. Larson writes:

No doubt those who want to portray Obama as “weak” on Israel will conclude from this inconsistency that he says one thing to one group of people and another to a different group, which proves that he can’t be trusted, but what this really shows is that when he goes to an interest group’s conference he toes their line as carefully as he can. The lesson is that he can’t be trusted to take real political risks or challenge entrenched interests for the sake of anything approaching real policy change. What this tells me is that he will play antiwar and J Street-type voters for suckers with appealing rhetoric on Iran and then maintain the failed status quo.

Philip Weiss, of the Mondoweiss blog adds:

Interesting that the idea that our policy in the Middle East, including the Iraq war, is made and meant to support Israel is taken for granted, by Obama and other politicians.

Weiss, himself also of the American Conservative, discussed the Israel lobby on al-Jazeera English yesterday:

A side note: I do agree with the insane neocon New York Sun writer, the Arab commentator’s assertion that AIPAC controls Barack Obama or is his source of money is extremely ridiculous. While there is an Israeli lobby, like there is a gun lobby (NRA) and a retired people lobby (AARP), when the discourse comes to “control” it becomes in the realm of conspiracy theory. Unfortunately us Arabs, and our anti-Israel biased allies at al-Jazeera English (as should be obvious from the clip), seem to want to blame everything on conspiracy exaggerations rather than discuss the true reality of AIPAC. Our inability to grasp such basic concepts undermine our arguments.  The Arab commentator showed himself to be absolutely inarticulate, unintelligent, and explaining of everything in a conspiracy theory.  Weiss definitely stole the show.

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