Talk:Paleoconservatism

Racists

I dunno about that line - conservatives may be racists - so may liberals, anarchists and commies. Racism is a pretty pervasive set of beliefs, and as much as one wants to be able to paint their political enemies with that brush, its a little more complicated than that. PFoster 23:39, 1 January 2008 (EST)

I think the white supremacist/Neo-Nazi branch of racism is right-wing in most cases. Besides, claiming liberals are racist is conservative bias, which RationalWiki doesn't like. OYS 23:40, 1 January 2008 (EST)

Well, as I argue, racism is pretty universal and not limited to any group: that's not conservative bias as much as acknowledgement of reality. - and it's a stretch to go from old-school conservatism to white nationalism and racism.

Recent Upswing?

Would it be accurate to say that the current Tea Party movement is strongly influenced by paleoconservatism?--Filby (talk) 01:28, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think so. Paleoconservatives are usually anti-big business as well as anti-federalist, while most of the Tea Party consists of more completely free market leaning people. Most of the Tea Party really doesn't seem to care for radical traditionalism or distributism either. ClothCoat (talk) 04:56, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

The Tea Party is Vulgar Libertarianism, nothing more.--Token Conservative (talk) 15:29, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Has Pat Buchanan (Patty Patty Buke Buke!) said anything about the TP?PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?. 15:34, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

A quick google search says yes. They're from pre-election and emphasize the economic policy similarities between Paleocons and the Tea Party. It makes sense really, Vulgar Libertarianism is basically just the economic views of Paleoconservativism, minus the big business and international trade paranoia. --Token Conservative (talk) 15:50, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the Tea Party is basically vulgar libertarianism, though I'm not so sure about the paleoconservatives. If you take away the pro-big business side of vulgar libertarianism it really can't be vulgar libertarianism. Paleoconservatives tend to be too paranoid to trust government or big buissness, Christian Fundamentalism and isolationism seem to be the issues of the day of them.ClothCoat (talk) 05:51, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Rise of Isolationism?

The articles' author/s seems/seem to be a little confused. It is claimed that isolationism came back into vogue as the Cold War reached an end. Yet the right has become much more interventionist since that time. Even many supporters of Vietnam have been harshly critical of all the foreign meddling which has occurred since the early 90s. For crying out loud, it hadn't even been a year since the fall of the USSR before we were in the Gulf War. It also seems to contradict another statement in the Neoconservative article which says correctly that the influence of Neoconservatives did not reach its zenith until after the Reagan administration. Well, the Cold War was practically over when Dutch left office (not that I'm trying to give him credit for that). Burkean (talk) 16:25, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Isolationism in the sense of not taking an active role in advancing global interests, being opposed to immigration, engaging in international diplomacy, not isolationist in being opposed to going to war with countries construed as threats. The core current to international politics of paleoconservatives is xenophobia, and most actual policies are interpretations of that. Being excessively belligerent isn't against those ideals. The Iraq war was this curious mixture of neocon imperialism and paleocon xenophobic violence. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 16:33, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I can accept the notion that most paleoconservatives are racists or xenophobic in one form or another. But, as rationalwiki's own article on neoconservatism points out, it is they and they alone who were the architects of Iraq, some of their milder brethren actually serving in the Clinton administration. Even during the height of the cold war, many paleocons opposed any kind of active overseas presence. And the globalist ambitions of neoconservatives, while sought after in a very unilateral way, very much wish to do away with social and cultural barriers between people, in order to better foster a global political hegemony via empire and the importation of socio/culture/political western underpinnings through violent, coercive, military approaches. I dislike their foreign policy, which is pretty much all they're about, but they are in fundamental disagreement with paleocons about the importance of traditional social and cultural barriers.

In their minds, globalism, democracy, cultural exchange and the like must walk hand in hand with American might and empire. The article also alludes to this. Paleocons were opposing US intervention quite vocally well before we were in Iraq (remember all the traditional conservatives who opposed intervention in the Balkans?). So the idea that they were somehow in on foreign policy decisions being made by people like Cheney makes no sense. Pat Buchanan was cited as the most prominent paleocon and he was in a heated exchange with Norman Podhoretz on this subject before the Iraq war had even begun. You also seem to ignore the fact that by the time of the war, neoconservatism had been around for over three decades and many self proclaimed neocons criticized the idea of going into Iraq, including Fukiyama himself. And considering how much talk their is from paleocons about the need to respect the wishes, beliefs and traditional mores of those who live in muslim countries, I think you might be overplaying the xenophobia card. Again, I freely admit the racist tendencies of such thinkers.

As to your comments about immigration, it seems entirely plausible that given the economic agenda of paleocons, their opposition to immigration might be driven by that as well. Dennis Kuccinich wanted to repeal NAFTA and close the border (though he is against arapio like enforcement policies). He isn't a small town southern blue dog, but a liberal progressive democrat. Yours seems like the silly argument we sometimes hear that paleocon opposition to big business or free trade doesn't correlate to the political philosophy's obvious ties to Chesterton, Distributism, and the Catholic Church, but because of their racist hatred of the Chinese. I wouldn't be surprised if you subscribe to this view as well. In any case, it doesn't really matter because whatever disagreements you and I might have, neither of us are paleocons. Burkean (talk) 18:01, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure why something primarily being motivated by xenophobia prohibits others from sharing the position for similar or different reasons, that's an odd point. And this kinda "Nuh uh, like 2 people within this ideology disagreed with the majority of its proponents, once" is some kinda amazing revelation. Honestly though, you're so all over the place with specious arguments that ring more of defensiveness than a coherent point, that I don't think I can actually formulate any kinda meaningful impression of what you're trying to convince me of.

I also don't know why, other than random defensiveness, you'd accuse me of ignoring the prior history of neoconservate thought. It never made any substantial policy inroads to judge it on until 2000 when it loaded down top-level executive positions in the US and then it blew up wildly. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 18:23, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

First of all, let me reiterate that comments regarding the rise of isolationism in the conservative/republican movement are highly ridiculous considering that most republicans are calling for more intervention in Iraq, Syria, Africa, among other places. The presence of a few libertarians or isolationist conservatives will change absolutely none of this. I never said that the xenophobia of paleocons means they couldn't/wouldn't agree on something. I also don't know why I'm being construed as defensive. I didn't take an aggressive tone, or attempt to vindicate either ideology. I don't really think I would be defending anything anyway seeing as how I don't subscribe to either ideology. Paleoconservatism seems to be primarily about the belief that a society needs to maintain a connection to its cultural institutions and history, religion, practices, language, traditional morals, ethnicity, etc.

Their opposition to Neo-conservatism seems to be a skepticism about the idea that the world can be remade through force. And for global hegemony, there will have to be power, which will corrupt and by promoting such, traditional cultural barriers and institutions will necessarily be irradicated and that this is inherently unstable. It seems strange that given paleoconservatives frequent lamentations about the destruction to society (and to faith, which is very important to them) which comes from war. A republic, not an empire, is the name of one of Pat Buchanan's books. It seems very implausible that they secretly liked the Iraq War because they are very anti-muslim immigration. This also seems far fetched for the simple reason that so many paleoconservatives (Howard Wilson, Pat Buchanan, Claes Ryn, Joseph Sobran) were very often praising Islam and Muslims because they agreed with what they had to say about our, as they see it, decadent and hedonistic culture. It seems quite clear that there are major differences in ideology between paleoconservatives and neo-conservatives. I really don't understand why this is a specious argument or why I'm "all over the place". Feel free to educate me. Burkean (talk) 07:01, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

so many paleoconservatives were very often praising Islam and Muslims because agreed with what they had to say...

I thought you were going to say they agreed the US had no business interfering in Muslim affairs. In this context paleocons and anti-war peaceniks have much in common. But its easy to call conservs' racist -- neocons want to kill foreigners and paleocons want nothing to do with them. That seems to be the baseline argument. nobs^{I was in Bagdad when u wer swirling in yur Dads' bag.} 21:06, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Yep, and it's mighty weak sauce indeed. Burkean (talk) 04:07, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Is Trump really a paleoconservative?

He at least appears to want to spend heavily on the military, wants to increase US interventions in the Syrian civil war and in combating ISIS. He also has less that conservative social views. The areas i think where Trump could be considered paleoconservative is in his views on global trade and immigration, but does that constitute categorizing him as paleoconservative in the future. Maybe, but i dont think he fits the mold of Buchanan, Schlafly or Chronicles. Petey Plane (talk) 19:03, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

He's less of an intellectual, but the policies are mostly the same. I think Trump would be more libertarian on various vice issues than say a Buchanan or a Trifkovic. See Paleolibertarian. Burkean (talk) 00:21, 10 March 2016 (UTC)