Why I Am Not a Conservative, Part II

In the past five years, I've read countless articles and blog posts by paleoconservatives, libertarian-conservatives, constitutionalists, and "traditional conservatives" arguing that the Republicans are not authentic or true conservatives. These arguments strike me as similar to old English teachers who obsess over the use of "who" and "whom." In both cases, they fail to realize that words change. "Conservatism" may have once meant limited government, but it now does not mean that

I probably should have written my original post better, as most of the readers of this blog are probably self-described conservatives, rather than self-described libertarians. I should have focused on the hypocrisy of conservatives (i.e. supporting war while calling for lower taxes, attacking gay marriage while their 17-year old unmarried daughters get pregnant). I also should have focused more on my first criticism of conservatism and how it is a baseless, shifting, incoherent ideology. I also should have made it clear that I don't have a problem with paleoconservatives (although some of my criticisms would undoubtedly apply to them), but rather the mainstream conservatives.

Anyways, I have a lot to respond to. First, I will do so to Justin of The Truth Shall Set You Free:

For example, I would think you would agree that cultural and social libertarianism are abject failures, in fact, totally disgusting and destructive in their support of sexual deviance, for example.

I would argue that there really isn't such a think as social libertarianism. Libertarians believe that people should be free from government interference, but that doesn't mean they have to support the actions they perform.

Clearly, libertarians also fall under condemnation number seven, also being blind on racial issues, and they default to blaming minority pathologies on government programs rather than facing biological realities.

True, although during the 90s, the Rothbardians and Ron Paul understood race. Many of LewRockwell.com's columns from its first year (2000) hinted that their writers understood race - they even had a Rhodesian Bush War veteran write for them. Also, libertarians don't praise diversity to the extent that conservatives do.

As for number eight, don't libertarians also worship democracy? I can't think of any libertarian theorists who have suggested anything else, can you?

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, an Austrian economist and libertarian theorist, wrote a book called Democracy: The God that Failed, eviscerating the concept of democracy. His work is well received on LewRockwell.com, probably the most popular libertarian website. Most libertarians are critical of the 17th Amendment, including the beltway Cato Institute.

Can libertarians claim to have better moral values? Aside from Christian libertarians like Ron Paul, the only other libertarian morality I can think of is Ayn Rand-style Objectivist elevation of selfishness. Which of course lead us into the acceptance of all the moral degeneracy that makes cultural libertarianism attractive to the Left.

I was not saying that libertarians, conservatives, or liberals have better moral values than the others. I was critical of the fact that conservatives use "moral values" as a rallying cry, even though they have no better moral values than people of other political groups.

As for libertarian women's sluttiness, well, I dunno, are there women libertarians? :-) You must admit, they are few and far between. In my own sample, for what it's worth, the girls I knew who were into Ayn Rand were total sluts, and often consciously proud of it.

Female libertarians are rare. Some of them are almost hipster-ish, and hipster girls often seem less slutty than other women. But my criticism is that conservative women, especially young ones, are no less slutty than liberal ones, despite the fact that conservatives attack liberal culture for its sluttiness.

Maybe just being overly semantic here, but saying paleoconservatives aren't conservatives seems a bit unwarranted. In fact, as you seem to recognize, you fit the bill rather squarely as a paleoconservative yourself. I would say you are either a paleocon, or simply Radical Reactionary.

I don't think that paleocons are not conservatives. I just think that when most people imagine conservatives, they aren't thinking of Pat Buchanan and Jared Taylor, they are thinking of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, the kind of people who possess the views and characteristics I criticized.

foseti:

Many of these points apply just as well to libertarians, yet you call yourself a libertarian.

I'd be curious to know why you are ok with the libertarian label.

Only 5 and 7 apply to many libertarians. I'm okay with just being labeled a libertarian because there isn't a term for a race realist who holds libertarian views.

Professor Hale (Rebellion University) wrote an extensive post to argue against my post. My response follows. The numbers in parenthesis were added by me and refer to which of my original points he quoted (I excised the quotations to cut down on the length of this post).

(1)You have made the fallacious argument that the core values of conservatism are unworthy because the practitioners of conservatism do not uphold those values. You are right to point out that censorship and the police state are not conservative values. But your proper conclusion should be that those people who claim to be conservative are not really practicing what they preach.

The problem is, what are conservative values? If you say support for limited government, peace, and liberty, with respect for every person's right to life, liberty, and property, then that would describe libertarianism. American conservatism seems to be a cacophony of various, contradicting ideas.

The size of the military budget is always open for debate among conservatives. But again, BEING conservative means opposing big government and higher taxes, even if that results in a smaller military. Being for a strong defense should always be predicated upon how much is necessary. I, as a conservative, claim we could certainly do with a lot less. A LOT LESS. See? That wasn’t so hard. The fact that other so-called conservatives are for expanding military budgets does not make me any less of a conservative. Conservative principles are against military adventurism, but FOR a strong national defense. Reasonable people can argue about where the boundary is between the two, but the principle is still sound and those who uphold the principle are no less conservative for doing so.

And how many conservative politicians or activists support gutting the military budget? Other than the paleons, none. Instead, they attack Obama for his cuts to the military budget. None of the Tea Partiers, save libetarians, have broached the issue of stupidity cutting taxes while maintaining an empire. Militarism is a tenet of modern American conservatism.

(2)Here you have mistaken the people of the military and its institution with the political powers that control it. It is virtuous to serve others at risk to yourself. Many of those in the military do so at great risk (notably those in the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan). None of those serving in uniform had any say in which countries would be invaded or why. The military service would still be praiseworthy if there were no wars and all of them were at Fort Bragg playing beach volleyball. But according to conservatives, there is no institution IN THE GOVERNMENT more worthy of praise than the military. Conservatives also admire other institutions like industry, church and risk taking. Still, claiming that conservatives "worship" the military is unsupported by your arguments. I tend to think of it as a career choice, like any other. Most of the jobs in the military are just jobs and no more praise-worthy than any other productive employment. The military police is equal in merit to the county sheriff. The nurse at the military hospital is equal in merit to the one at the local clinic.

Worship was hyperbole, but is not far from it. Last year, when Obama slightly cut the military budget, conservatives online and on talk radio were yelling about it for days. Conservatives often attack liberals and libertarians for being "anti-military." Don't forget the early days of the Iraq War, where they were accusing anyone who opposed the disaster as being "anti-American."

The US military is inescapably a part of the federal government. Despite being the most conservative part of the government, as evidenced by surveys of its members, it cannot escape the full control of politicians in congress and politically appointed leaders, who tend to be distinctively not conservative. The military is in no way more PC than other federal or state government agencies. The military is likely the only place in the country where it is still OK to discriminate against gays (for the time being).

Discrimination against gays is still legal in some states, although if a major company discriminated against gays they would end up getting boycotted by liberals. But military has lower physical standards for women than men. That strikes me as being a lot more politically correct than mere affirmative action in civilian departments, considering that physical strength and endurance is necessary in many parts of the military.

(3) I suspect your religious views are a lot less complex than you think they are, but they are not really relevant to this topic. Further, your provably incorrect view of Christianity being detrimental is likewise not relevant. What makes them so is that your initial statement “Conservatives are Christian” is only a half truth. Not all conservatives are Christian. Further, not all Christians are conservative. Our current president was elected by a strong majority of liberal church members. Members of Christianity are a widely diverse and energetic group. As such they are both at the forefront of refugee importation and at the forefront of opposing it. Similarly, Christians were at the forefront of upholding slavery and ending it. You would do better by seeking allies where they are. Defending our national sovereignty is a conservative value. The fact that some so-called conservatives fail at this, does not diminish the strength of the principle. Christianity is the largest religion on the planet. It would be foolish to presuppose that that makes all Christians alike, conservative or otherwise.

I don't disagree with what you wrote. But the fact is, conservatives in America are mostly Christian and I am a non-Christian. Thus, another difference between us exists. And where I live, conservatism and Christianity are thoroughly entwined.

(4) No. Politicians, some of whom claimed to be conservatives, expanded the scope and power of the state. Real conservatives opposed this. No child left behind was written by Kennedy (not a conservative) and passed by a majority of liberals in congress. It was signed by a president who was in practice more liberal than Clinton. Faith-based funding never really panned out and was likely nothing more than a fundraising stunt, but its principle goal was conservative: Faith-based organizations should be able to compete to perform public service contracts on the same basis as non-faith-based groups. Equality under the law is a conservative value. Patriot act has always been a red herring. It was overhyped by republicans for its terrorist-busting ability and overhyped by the democrats for its violations of freedom. In reality, it accomplished little and was no more intrusive than existing law. The homeland security act was in no way conservative. So your point is again comparing the acts of liberals as a failure of conservative principles. The principle of smaller, less intrusive government is still sound and is still conservative.

That's starting to sound awfully close like a No true Scotsman fallacy. What exactly is a real conservative? Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity seem like real conservatives to me, yet they supported Bush's government expansion. Regarding NCBL, it passed with overwhelming majorities: 384-45 in the House and 91-8 in the Senate. It wasn't just liberals who supported it. As for the Homeland Security Act, then why did so many conservatives support it if it's not conservative? Paleocons opposed (and continue to oppose) it, yet the mainstream conservatives promoted it.

That is the first time I have heard John McCain described as a conservative. He lost the election against Obama because he was never able to convince his conservative base that he was worth the effort. Conservatives in the Republican party are tired of holding their noses and voting for another establishment republican. So in this case, you are misrepresenting Republicans as conservatives. Alternate realities are pointless to argue about but there has been growing discontent among conservatives throughout the Bush presidency. That discontent directly led to the Obama presidency. If McCain had been elected, the result would have been further conservative discontent.

Conservatives weren't very discontent when Bush, who was similar to McCain, was in power. Instead they were chanting "Four more years!"

Sarah Palin energized the conservative base due to her conservatism. She meets most of the characteristics of conservatism I criticized. I predicted the alternate reality based on past events: the Bush administration. When Bush was increasing the size of the federal government, there were no conservative protests. Sure, there might have been a couple of articles in National Review, but there was no mass movement similar to the Tea Parties.

(5) As you point out, I don’t think any group is innocent of this. That does not refute the conservative principle that the free market is the best means for the distribution of goods and services and it is a conservative principle to restrain government from interfering in the free market.

I agree with that principle. The problem is, many conservatives conflate the free market with corporatism.

(6) You seem to be advocating that conservatives should use the power of the state to force people to accept their own cultural and social standards. That is not a conservative value. The conservative value is that government, even conservative-led government, has no role in shaping the culture. Those roles rightly belong to the church and other voluntary organizations.

No, I don't think that social and cultural conservatives should have used the power of the state to force changes in social standards. However, I think George W. Bush and conservative congressmen could have used their influence to promote their cultural and social standards, just as the Obamas are doing now.

(9)I am not getting your argument here. I am certain that liberals believe that their moral values are superior but since morality is defined by the user and not by any objective source, this can neither be measured nor rationally argued.

Conservatives generally act as if they have better moral values than liberals, but this is a myth, as anyone who has seen self-described conservative college girls on a weekend night can attest. I was criticizing conservative hypocrisy.

Since neocons have proven to be more “neo” than “con”, anything you wish to say about them is not really a good argument against being a conservative.

They were accepted as part of the conservative coalition during the Bush years. Even now they have not been purged. Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, and other conservative talk radio hosts can be heard spouting out their talking points daily.

Unless it is their war. BTW, I reject that whole “lying to start a war” BS. But since it is not relevant to your argument I won’t bother to defend it here. The bottom line is that a government that is truthful with its citizens on the major issues facing the nation is a conservative value. All conservatives should embrace that value.

Yet from 2002, conservatives didn't defend government truthfulness as a value.

And your 11th point is another variation on a theme that because some conservatives are not “good conservatives” you can’t be one either.

No, my point was that conservatives tend to be white knights and I am not one, so I have yet another difference with conservatives.

In summary, the significant weight of your argument is that political leaders who are Republican are not upholding conservative principles so you deem the principles themselves at fault. In fact, if you identify with those principles (and you seem to) then YOU are the true and authentic conservative. This is exactly how the other authentic conservatives see it and why they claim to be conservatives, despite the failings of other people. Your arguments against Christianity are weak but in the end not relevant to the discussion of being a conservative.

If you understand what conservative principles are, and support those principles, then you should be a conservative, without regard to what other people, acting on other principles call themselves.

Most of the commenters on Professor Hale's post express an opinion similar to those in his last two paragraphs.

A good example of the stupidity of modern conservatism is South Carolina's 2008 senate election. a paleoconservative Democrat was running against Lindsey Graham. He lost 57-42 because the self-destructive conservatives voted for Amnesty Graham.

Conservatives allegedly wish to "conserve" the status quo. I doubt Professor Hale and the people reading my and his posts want to do so. Do you really want to "conserve" Third World immigration, federal income taxes, the degenerate culture, foreign wars, "civil rights" laws (including the Voting Rights Act), social services, and feminism?

I'm guessing they probably do not. Yet, conservatives do. They are fine with Third World immigration just as long as its done with the permission of the federal government. They may attack America's degenerate culture, while at the same time they partake in its degeneracy (see 9 and 10 in my original post). They may laughingly attack abortion ("Abortion hurts women!"), but they won't confront feminism. Instead, they laud it now with Sarah Palin, Nikki Haley, et al.

It should be obvious by now, in the era of Sarah Palin and the Tea Parties, that conservatism is subjective and its definition varies with time and location. A conservative in modern America is much different from the paleo hero Robert Taft. A conservative in Texas is different than one in New Jersey. A conservative in the 1991 Soviet Union would be considered far left in modern America.

Libertarianism, in contrast, is static with regards to location and time. Peace, limited government, and the rights to life, liberty, and property do not change. While circumstances are different - a 1980 libertarian would have had to advocate against much less government than a 2010 one, the principles are the same. But the principles and goals of the conservative movement are much more dynamic.

Perhaps self-described "conservatives" who support limited government (not just regarding economics), peace, and liberty should cease calling themselves conservatives. They are essentially holding libertarian views.

Why I Am Not a Conservative

Libertarians in general are often confused with conservatives. With my particularly reactionary views on race and gender, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm mistaken for a conservative by some. I reject that label for several reasons, some of which I have listed below.

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1. Conservatism is an incoherent ideology.
Like liberalism, conservatism is characterized by cognitive dissonance. Conservatives claim to support limited government, but they also support wars, censorship, the police state, and anything else that increases the scope of the enforcement arm of the government. Also, when was the last time you heard a conservative politician other than Ron Paul seriously advocate abolishing most of the federal government, social services, and income taxes?

Conservatives claim to oppose big government and taxes, but the fact is, due to the giant military budget, it will be impossible to drastically cut the size of the federal government and federal taxes without cutting the military budget and using the military solely for national defense, rather than foreign adventures.

2. Conservatives worship the military.
According to conservatives, there is no institution more worthy of praise than the United States military. Personally, I don't see what's so praiseworthy about invading countries halfway across the world that pose no threat to us and killing thousands of their citizens. If the military was deployed along the Mexican border, I would support it, but the fact is the US military as it currently exists does not defend America, just the interests of certain Americans.

Also, far from being a conservative institution, the United States military is probably the most PC-infested organization in the United States.

3. Conservatives are Christians.
My religious views are somewhat complex and I will probably write a future post describing them in detail, but for now it suffices that I am not a Christian. I believe that Christianity is a detriment to America and all of white European civilization. It is a global religion, not an ethnic religion, and its adherents are generally at the forefront of the liberal agenda, usually unwittingly (i.e. the refugee importation movement).

4. Conservatives are statists.
The current conservative anti-government sentiment is fraudulent. From January 2001 to January 2009, conservatives did all they could to increase the size of the federal government, from No Child Left Behind and faith-based funding to the Patriot Act and Homeland Security Act. Lew Rockwell aptly dubbed this "red-state fascism."

Conservatives only whine about big government when they are not controlling the government. If John McCain had been elected and expanded the welfare state, there would be no Tea Party protests.

5. Conservatives are corporate sycophants.
This applies to many libertarians, too. While liberal attacks on the free market should be opposed, supporting corporations does not defend the free market. Corporations are a product of the state and many of them, such as the military-industrial complex, subsist entirely on taxpayer dollars, while others are privileged by the state, such as media industries with their Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

6. Cultural and social conservatism are abject failures.
The 2000s were a decade dominated by conservatives. And what happened? Our society moved closer to Idiocracy, our culture became trashier, rap music became accepted by whites, women became sluttier, and our values further declined. The Clintonian 90s were more socially and culturally conservative than the Bush 2000s were.

7. Conservatives are blind on racial issues.
Mainstream conservatives are as liberal on race as any Democrat. They may oppose affirmative action, although many don't, but none will defend freedom of association, nor will any acknowledge human biodiversity and racial differences in IQ.

8. Conservatives worship democracy.
Democracy will probably end up destroying conservatism; as the percentage of nonwhites increases in the United States, the likelihood of the Republicans winning the presidency will decrease (John McCain would have won if 2008 America's demographics were the same as those of 1976 America). Yet, conservatives are so fond of this ideology that will destroy them that they seek to export it.

9. Conservatives don't have better moral values than liberals.
Conservatives, particularly those of the religious variety, fashion themselves as having better moral values than liberals. Indeed, this was one of the main themes of the 2004 election. The fact is, outside of the Left Coast, liberals and conservatives have about the same moral values.

Neocons, in my opinion, have worse moral values than liberals. At least liberals acknowledge that lying to start a war that kills hundreds of thousands of people is wrong.

10. Conservative women are no less slutty than liberal women.
This seems like a minor issue, but I've long been irked by the fact that conservatives blame women's sluttiness on liberalism. The fact is, conservative women are no less slutty than liberal ones, especially young conservative women. Plenty of conservative girls go off to college to become binge-drinking dorm rats and if you take a look at pictures from CPAC, College Republican events, conservative internships, etc., you'll find that just like liberal and apolitical women, young conservative women are incapable of dressing professionally.

Sarah Palin's family is a good example. They are often described as a conservative family, yet her daughter spawned a bastard child. Sarah doesn't exactly dress very conservatively either - last year, as the Huffington Post reported, she wore a short skirt, bare legged, with sandals to a Memorial Day commemoration.

11. Conservative men are usually white knights.
While conservatives acknowledge the damage that feminism has wrought on American society, whenever they discuss one of the consequences of feminism, they inevitably find some way to blame it on men. Just like feminists, they believe that women hold no responsibility for their actions, but that men are to blame for every problem women self-inflict. Many also believe that women are naturally morally superior to men.

For example, when they write about campus hook-up culture, instead of blaming it on college girls being sluts, conservatives blame it on predatory men and claim that it harms young women ("women need relationships," etc.). Same with abortion. Instead of blaming women who have abortions, they blame the abortionists - men like George Tiller.

Conservatives also decry the fact that men have responded to female empowerment by becoming decidedly less chivalrous and often question the manhood of men who are reluctant to risk their lives for ungrateful, empowered women. Christian conservatives especially are critical of the lack of gallantry found in the modern American man (there's even an organization of suicidal men and brainwashed boys dedicated to restoring this - the Christian Boys' & Men's Titanic Society). I remember back in 2007, Christian conservatives were astounded that the men at Virginia Tech on April 16 did not throw themselves at Cho Seung Hui to protect the women in their classes.

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Note that most of the items on this list do not apply to paleoconservatives, but paleocons have been excommunicated from the official conservative movement. When the word "conservative" is used, people don't think of Pat Buchanan, Alternative Right, and The Political Cesspool, they think of Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, and talk radio.

Tea Partiers and the Half of Americans Who Don't Pay Taxes

At Feministe, Jill Filipovic remarks on the fact that nearly half of US households pay no federal income tax, as if taxes really aren't that bad because many people don't even pay them and so maybe "anti-tax conservatives" and Tea Partiers should just shut up and go home.

The fact is, many of the Tea Partiers are well aware of this fact and are angry about it (conservative anti-tax organizations have been reporting it for years). They are upset that the money they work hard for is redistributed to "poor" people through the many government welfare programs (it's funny how these "poor" people who can somehow afford alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, electronics, "urban" clothing, and expensive rims, but that's a topic for another post). If you go to a Tea Party protest you will find that the people are working-class, middle-class, upper-middle-class, and even some wealthy people. Virtually all of them are white. And not only do they have to live in expensive neighborhoods and commute long distances to avoid NAMs, but they have to subsidize NAMs' (and lumpen whites') lifestyles, as they are the ones paying the taxes. The Tea Partiers are too afraid to say it, but most of them are probably aware of the racial composition of their group versus that of the people whose existence they pay for.

Each year when they put away money to pay for their young child's future college education, they pay for part of others' in the form of Pell Grants. When they work every day to feed their families, they pay for fat ghetto queens and their broods to consume junk food with food stamps. When they work to pay the mortgages on their houses in nice, expensive white flight suburbs, they pay for Mexican immigrants to pour into the apartments of those neighborhoods with Section 8. When they spend thousands of dollars each year for daycare due to requiring two incomes to support the high cost of a modern suburban lifestyle, they pay for ghetto sluts to nest their myriad children in virtually free child care. While they work because they were raised to believe that's what adults do, they pay for the lumpen to be motivated to do so with tax credits and refunds such as the "Making Work Pay" credit and the EITC (which, by the way, basically cancels out the FICA taxes that the lumpen pay).

Yes, I realize my language in the last paragraph was probably inflammatory, racist, classist, and insensitive. But I don't care. If anyone doubts me, then drive through a white suburb during the day where you will find everyone either at school or studying for it, staying at home with children, working at local businesses, or out of the area due to a long commute. Then drive through a black inner city and look at all of the people driving around playing loud rap music, sitting around drinking, and standing around on street corners doing nothing.

It's ironic that blacks continue to whine about slavery that ended 145 years ago, since in the present-day whites have to work from January 1 to April 9 to pay for them to live.

Conservative Female Supremacists

There have been a couple of columns by white conservative men recently that have essentially said "women are better than men." Roissy took Paul Greenberg on, as did The Spearhead and Dr. Helen. They do not seem to have noticed Jonah Goldberg's similar column from around the same time, so I'll be addressing his column here.

Female worship is popular among conservatives (when I use conservatives in this post - indeed, most of my posts - I'm referring to the mainstream conservatives, neocons, and religions right, not paleocons, libertarians, HBDers, and Patriots). Liberal men might believe that all of women's problems are caused by evil white male patriarchy, but conservatives view women as children and thus not responsible for their actions - there's always a man ultimately behind them. Abortion is a good example of this. Pro-lifers spend their time shutting down abortionists and passing laws that try to restrict them, but they don't go after women who have abortions with that much furor. Instead, they view them as victims (of men, of course) and try to help them - but probably wouldn't do the same for a mafia don who hired a hitman to kill someone for him. The women in combat issue is a another example. While there are reasons to oppose women in combat arms, such as physical standards, conservative opposition essentially boils down to "those poor little women might be killed and if they are captured they will be raped." No mention of the fact that male military deaths in Iraq outnumber female deaths by about 50 to 1. No mention of the fact that women are voluntarily enlisting to fight in the military - once again they are viewed as children irresponsible for their actions. (Also, if they care about women being raped, conservatives ought to focus on the epidemic of black-on-white rape, but that's a little off-topic.)

One of the errors that these conservatives make is assuming that women are responsible for civilization and that without women's guidance, men would be club-dragging barbarians. "Women civilize men," Jonah Goldberg concludes in his column. It would be far more accurate to state "men civilized women." It was men, not women, who established civilization and its laws. If women civilized men, then the ancient civilizations would have been matriarchal, but instead they were highly patriarchal. The ancient Greeks, in particular, had a dim view of matriarchal societies. Today's popular culture views the Amazons as "good guys," but they were villains in Greek myth, representing the uncivilized barbarians of the east and opposing the patriarchal, civilized, enlightened Greek men. Since conservatives like Goldberg are always criticizing liberals for undermining western civilization, I wonder what they would say if they knew that the fathers of western civilization viewed men as the civilizing force?

Goldberg makes more ridiculous statements. For example, in the lead he talks about mothers ironing their daughters' breasts in Cameroon to make them more attractive to boys. Let me repeat that: he thinks women civilize men, yet he opens his column by describing WOMEN WHO IRON THEIR DAUGHTERS' BREASTS! I know neocons aren't supposed to make sense, but really... He of course blames the horrific things that Cameroonian women do to their daughters on men. And this type of conservatism is different from feminism in what way? Sure, he might oppose abortion, but his worldview is eerily similar to feminists'.

Female equality seems to be a pretty reliable treatment for many of the world’s worst pathologies. Population growth in the Third World tends to go down as female literacy goes up. Indeed, female empowerment might be the single best weapon in the “root causes” arsenal in the war on terror.

He does have a point about female literacy being beneficial. Educated people are less likely to do stupid things and are more productive, thus educated societies are better - but how this involves women civilizing men he never explains. As for the War on Terror, the root cause of anti-American terrorism is American support for Israel, which has nothing to do with female empowerment. Plus there's the fact that women are increasingly joining terrorist, insurgent, and guerrilla organizations. Women made up a large percentage of the LTTE including many (most?) of their suicide bombers. Even Islamic militants, including Chechens, Palestinians, Iraqis, and even Pakistani fundamentalists use female fighters. They make up around a third of the PKK, FARC, and the Communist Party of Nepal, which are among the more well-known guerilla/terrorist groups. And what do the LTTE, PKK, FARC, and CPN-M have in common? They all promote female empowerment. This video about PKK women shows it pretty clearly with the interviews of angry young women with assault rifles, especially at the end when they show the feminist indoctrination. Female empowerment does not lead to peace, it leads to twice as many people being capable of waging war.

Looking at their pictures, it's pretty easy to see why Greenberg and Goldberg hold these views. Greenberg is an older man and grew up before the chivalry of the 1800s to 1960s died away and is struggling to deal with the conflicting ideas of chivalry and female equality. Goldberg strikes me as an overgrown frat boy. Maybe he got drunk a lot and did stupid things in college, but stopped when he got married so he thinks his wife civilized him.

Anti-Unionism

Most libertarians and conservatives, with the exception some paleocons and left-libertarians, are staunch opponents of trade unions. Warner Todd Huston, a rather eccentric "conservative" (and from his picture, evidently a donut-eating contest winner) has said "unions are inherently unAmerican", a belief not uncommon on the mainstream right. Libertarian/anarcho-capitalist Lew Rockwell even titled a UAW-related blogpost "Another Criminal Strike". Indeed, the LewRockwell.com writers in general frequently refer to unions as criminal gangs.

As a libertarian, I oppose the privileges granted to unions by the federal government, but nor do I like the privileges granted to corporations and groups of corporations by all levels of government, including eminent domain takings, tax increment financing, subsidies, and insane copyright laws such as the DMCA (which in no way "promote(s) the Progress of Science and useful Arts", but that's a topic for another day). Corporations themselves are government creations and receive special protections and privileges from governments. Now, I realize that libertarians criticize corporate welfare and Big Business, but it is ludicrous that conservatives and Chamber of Commerce libertarians will call Big Labor criminals and anti-American while at the same time verbally fellating Big Business, which can be pretty criminal and anti-American itself (i.e. hiring illegal immigrants).

Sure, the SEIU is probably close to being a criminal organization, but I doubt anyone could honestly call the bricklayers union a group of thugs. In some trades, joining the union means higher wages and better benefit, so it makes sense for the workers to join unions, just as it makes sense for different corporations of certain fields to form trade associations to protect their interests and for white-collar workers to join professional organizations (for example, the IEEE).

The union most frequently targeted by conservatives is the National Education Assocation (NEA). The conservative hatred of the NEA is comparable to the liberal hatred of Wal-Mart. Yes, the NEA is dominated by liberals and feminists, but whenever a conservative bashes the NEA, inevitably they bring up its policies that affect "urban students." These commentators correctly note the fact that urban schools, well, suck.

However, the fact that urban schools suck has nothing to do with the NEA. Suburban students are taught by NEA members and they have decent test scores. The fact is, urban schools suck because they are predominantly black and Hispanic, while suburban schools are attended by whites and Asians. Blacks have a mean IQ of 85, Hispanics 89, Whites 103, and Asians 106. Lower IQ students will simply do worse in school than higher IQ students. Neither the liberal solution, spending more gigadollars on urban schools, nor the conservative solution, abolishing the NEA (and giving the black kids vouchers), will solve this.

Yes, this post was supposed to be about anti-unionism, but I wanted to point out how far conservatives will go just to prove that they are not racist to liberals who will hate them anyways and blacks who will never vote for them.