Image courtesy of Bonnie Natko under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Well it seems the neoconmen are all in a lather about Thomas Woods’ excellent new book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. They have quickly acted according to the neocon rules of engagement and begun their usual hysterical smear campaign.
Dr. Woods has refused to dutifully regurgitate the neocon version of historical groupthink, and like all those who have challenged them before, such as Pat Buchanan and Thomas DiLorenzo, the lockstep groupthinkers have unloaded the heavy artillery at Dr. Woods as well.
One prime example is the hit piece by Max “Jack” Boot in the Feb. 15, online version of the Weekly Standard, the leading neocon journal of misinformation.
Since its initial publication, the “Jack” Boot article has been the subject of much discussion, including replies from Dr. Woods himself on LewRockwell.com and in the March 28 issue of The American Conservative and defenses of Dr. Woods from such conservative luminaries as Paul Gottfried and Justin Raimondo. I hesitate to step into this fray. What could a fledgling columnist for EtherZone.com have to add that has not already been said? Also, Dr. Woods is perfectly capable of defending himself. But there is one aspect of the “Jack” Boot article that has not generated as much reaction as I expected. Surprisingly, it is an aspect of the article that I believe Mr. “Jack” Boot got right, and I would like to thank him for enlightening us regular conservatives.
There is so much about the “Jack” Boot article that could be attacked, that it would take several columns to do so adequately. So I will mention two complaints briefly, then, because I am a positive guy, I will praise Mr. “Jack” Boot for his courageous truth telling.
The first problem has already been the subject of much comment. Note for example, the article “’Politically Incorrect:’ History has Neocons Steamed” by EtherZone.com’s own Justin Raimondo. It is this; Mr. “Jack” Boot seems never to have met an American foreign intervention that he does not like. As Mr. Raimondo pointed out, he even defends our intervention in WWI which most scholars, both liberal and conservative, agree was a tragedy. But whether Mr. “Jack” Boot likes it or not, nonintervention was the historical position of the American Right until the neocons, “Jack’s” intellectual forebears, interloped into and then high-jacked the movement.
The second problem is, as I asserted in my last column and Mr. “Jack” Boot graciously illustrates in his article, Lincoln and the War are a conservative litmus test, and “Jack” fails it. He likes Lincoln, and he isn’t one. “Jack” takes great exception to Dr. Woods’ membership in the League of the South, an organization that advocates the social and eventual political independence of the South. It is quite audacious for someone who is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations to criticize anyone for their affiliations. For the sake of brevity, I will leave it at this; the Council on Foreign Relations seeks to de-emphasize traditional regional, linguistic, religious and ethnic boundaries in the name of some glorious Global Village, which is how no society has ever spontaneously organized itself. The League of the South seeks to re-emphasize regional, linguistic, religious and ethnic distinctions, which is how societies have always spontaneously organized themselves, in order to protect the South from encroachment and destruction from a Yankee and World establishment that despises it. I will leave it to the EtherZone.com readers to determine which group represents the more conservative instinct. (Just so the fellows at the Southern Poverty Law Center don’t blow a gasket, the ethnic distinction I am referring to is between Celts and Anglo-Saxons.)
Now, enough bashing. Like I said, I am a positive guy, and now it is time to praise Mr. “Jack” Boot for his enlightening analysis. He was especially upset that Dr. Woods’ book had been mistakenly identified as a “neocon retelling” by the New York Times Book Review. Relax “Jack.” This is not evidence of some sort of conspiracy to smear neocons with Dr. Woods’ dangerous ideas. It is simply another illustration that the New York Times and liberals in general know nothing about the Right. But it was in Mr. “Jack” Boot’s indignant response to the Times’ ignorant choice of words that he, perhaps inadvertently, stumbled onto the truth.
“Jack” states emphatically, “The original neocons, like Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, were former Democrats who accepted the welfare state…” That is exactly the problem! (I desperately want to modify the word “problem” with a certain expletive, but since EtherZone.com is a family website, and I am trying to set a good Christian example, I will reframe.)
From a conservative who neither needs nor desires a prefix to modify my beliefs, let me humbly offer to educate Mr. “Jack” Boot. Sir, accepting the welfare state and being a conservative are mutually exclusive. One can no more be a pro-welfare state conservative than one can be a Christian atheist, a stupid genius, a generous miser or, for that matter, a conservative member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Mr. “Jack” Boot deserves our eternal gratitude for so wonderfully illustrating how far the conservative movement has fallen. What he pointed out, apparently as a defense of his neoconservative heroes, against one of “those types” of conservatives, had been precisely the indictment of the neos by the original conservatives since the neos joined the movement during the Cold War. One would hope that there was a time when what Mr. “Jack” Boot admitted in defense would have been something the neos endeavored to hide in order to gain acceptance by the larger conservative movement. Now, “Jack” apparently thinks it is a badge of honor, to be used as a shield against the scurrilous charge that us real conservatives often have to deal with, that we actually want to conserve something, like the Old Republic. Imagine that.
(Just to avoid critical e-mails, I think someone could be a real conservative and believe that quickly abolishing the welfare state is not politically feasible at present, but one can not “accept” the welfare state as either a “necessary evil” or as a good thing. It is an unmitigated evil, and as such, any acceptable “reform” of the welfare state must go in the direction of shrinking it with the goal of eventual abolition.)
I have never been one of the people who believed the neocons were the wrong type of conservative. They are not conservatives at all. And I have never been one who believed the primary debate was between different types of prefixed conservatives, but as Mr. “Jack” Boot helps to illustrate, it is between real conservatives and phony ones. Mr. “Jack” Boot, the battle is joined.
In conclusion, I would like to offer Dr. Woods a word of encouragement. Your book is great. My thirteen year old daughter is going to be using it as part of her home school curriculum. Don’t let the liberal Gestapo get you down. As you said in you’re American Conservative reply, Mr. “Jack” Boot’s “opposition is the best endorsement I could have asked for.” Maybe someday, he will see fit to attack this fledgling columnist. At that time I will know I have made it.
Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”