Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For February 1, 2023

Jan 26

To Heidelblog and their blogpost that references a Heidelblog resource page with references meant to totally discredit the 1619 Project. 

https://heidelblog.net/2023/01/new-resource-page-resources-on-the-1619-project/

Actual Heidelblog Reference Page:

https://heidelblog.net/1619-project/

The above criticisms of the 1619 Project lack precision in its criticisms in an attempt to discredit the whole work. 

For example, Sean Wilentz, who is in the article that criticizes the project from the Left, offered specific criticisms of the 1619 Project in an effort to keep the whole project from being discredited. In other words, he didn't reject the whole project or the project overall. He saw a significant amount of value in the project.

One of the points of contention from the 1619 Project was the claim that the Revolutionary War was fought in order to protect the institution of slavery from being axed by British rule. And though such a claim is an overstatement, it is not without evidence. For while American elites who led the campaign to breakaway from the British Empire did not mention the protection of slavery as a reason for the Revolution, the newspapers at that time did frame a statement made in a particular British court ruling as a threat to the institution of slavery.

As for the National Association of Scholars, its name sounds like a neutral voice but in reality it is a political conservative advocacy group similar to the American College of Pediatricians. Thus, the neutral sounding name that suggests objectivity for the National Association of Scholars which is far from the purpose of that group.

I could go on, but here is the point. Like with Critical Theory and Critical Race Theory, some conservatives have targeted the 1619 Project to be completely discredited rather than to identify its contributions and errors to our understanding of history. The treatment of the 1619 Project by those conservatives provide examples of black-white thinking, which is a kind of thinking that we see in authoritarianism. And, if indeed, the analysis of the 1619 Project by these conservatives is from an authoritarian viewpoint, then the goal of this kind of conservative analysis of the 1619 Project is to gain control over enough people so as to  silence the Project.

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Jan 27

To Pat Buchanan and the Imaginative Conservative blog that reposted a Buchanan article that was first posted in 2012. 

Just some loose thoughts here. 

First, conservatives don't have to impose their values to conserve their traditions and principles. But according to the above article, imposing their values on the rest of the people defines success for them.

As for Russell Kirk being a traditionalist, I say this to traditionalists from all ideological perspectives. Traditionalism is the other side of the coin from Narcissism. Both isms artificially elevate a set of time periods above all other time periods to the extent that it seems they believe that their chosen set of time periods has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them.

Buchanan's comments on the Civil Rights Revolution lack awareness. While he is quick to praise Martin Luther King Jr, much of what he also condemns was part of King's mission in life. In his interview with Xander Vanocur 11 months before his death, King defined the period of the passage of the '64 and '65 Civil and Voting Rights Acts as a struggle for dignity. King goes on to say that what he was working toward at the time of the interview was true equality for Blacks which was to be measured through the equality of results (see  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xsbt3a7K-8   ). 

Is Buchanan aware that King listed as the triplets of evil: racism, economic exploitation, and militarism? Is he aware that King said that to take down racism, we must also eradicate the other two evils?

In terms of what is bankrupting this nation, isn't it government spending on goods and services provided by corporations either in defense, pharmaceuticals, private prisons, and other goods and services. These items are provided by the same corporations that pay lobbyists to earn favor for their employers in the laws passed by our government.

As for the Vietnam War, what we used to justify our presence there, the Domino Theory, proved to be false. In fact, our involvement in Vietnam began around the time when the US rejected a democratic process that would determine whether the two Vietnams would be reunited. And the end of the Vietnam War showed that the War was always about reunification.

And what did Reagan revive? It was a belief in our nation but what is that belief based on? After all, the US has often interfered in the internal affairs of other nations including overthrowing left-leaning democracies and replacing them with dictatorships (for some examples see Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Greece in 1967, and Chile in 1973). Millions of civilians died in Vietnam because of our weapons and our intervention in that nation. Systemic racism in the US has survived the work of the Civil Rights Movement. And for the past several decades, wealth and income disparities have continued to increase between the classes and the races in this nation. Reagan's war against unions and embracing of neoliberal capitalism has contributed to those growing disparities.

Yes, some conservative values and practices have fallen out of favor for much of the nation. But if conservatives hold on to those values and practices, how is it that they have failed even when others have not? How have they failed unless conservatives judge their success by their imposition of their values and practices on others in this nation?

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Jan 30

To Heidelblog and Dorothy Sayers for the part of Sayers's address that was quoted in a heidelblog post about Christianity vs paganism. 

Dorothy Sayers's full address can be found at:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ah7lgde0rrsd7m/sayerscreed.pdf?dl=0

One should only accept Sayers's claim that Christian and pagan are in a 'life-and-death' struggle if Christendom is Christianity. And the last time I checked multiple sources on this, including Heidelblog (see  https://heidelblog.net/2022/06/christendom-was-a-renewal-of-the-old-testament-theocracy/  AND   https://heidelblog.net/2021/11/christ-the-only-way-doctrinal-confusion-and-a-twofold-kingdom/     ). Christendom is not Christianity. Instead, Christendom is both caused by and causes confusion on the relationship between the Church and State. And thus the presence of heathendom does not put Christian and pagan in a dire battle with each other.

And so with the main claim of  Sayers's address resting on equating of Christendom with Christianity, I am confused why the Sayer's address is quoted from  here. After all, if Christendom is not identical with Christianity, how can we say that the replacing of Christendom with heathendom puts Christian in a 'life-and-death' struggle with pagan?

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To Joseph Pearce and the reposting of his article on what was tragic in the Old South. His article presented a challenge to an opinion written by a Tennessee girl who denounced the South's history and its heritage. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

If the South's only major flaw was slavery, then was the Federal government overstepping its role, or unjustly attacking subsidiarity, in outlawing Jim Crow laws? Inquiring social justice warriors want to know.

There are a couple of problems with Pearce's article here. The first, of course, was limiting the South's sins to that of slavery. That is a problem because what drove or enabled slavery goes without criticism: the belief in white supremacy. And it was that belief that caused Jim Crow laws and culture to follow what was an all too brief respite from the racism in the South known as Reconstruction. 

But the mere existence of either slavery or Jim Crow shows the problem with putting the principle of subsidiarity on too high a pedestal. We can't afford to have local rights, whether they be parental rights, church rights, state rights or whatever else rights be independent from evaluation by universal values and principles. We can't allow the individual to violate the equal rights of others.

Another problem with Pearce's analysis here is to call the Federal Government a distant government. When each state has two Senators regardless of its size and each state is divided up into sectors according to its population and has its own representative, we can't call such a government 'distant.' We even have an electoral college that also helps balance out the voting power between urban centers and rural areas. How is that 'distant'?

Here I have to agree with the 'Tennessee girl' Pearce referenced far more than with Pearce. Then again, I am not from the South. But I've seen violations of equal rights in the North as well. We have enough stuff to be ashamed of here too.