Still very busy, but wanted to share a few thoughts about why the world is really screwy now, and so morally upside down only a few short, precious decades after the West obliterated Nazism and Imperial Japan and won WW2.
I'll start with the very strange, butthurt reaction to Kathy's article about NRO. It pains me to say that this is something that the left, unfortunately, has in common with NRO and that is being able to dish it out, but not being able to take it.
I was thinking about why that might be?
Why is it that conservatives, who should have tougher skins, and be in it for the long game, get so prickly about disagreements, and are so quick to throw each other under the bus?
That got me thinking in general terms about why things are so screwed up nowadays and these are my main thoughts for the moment.
1) It's about the end result and the power: Leftists are very serious about power and therefore have more solidarity. It's all about the power. They may loathe each other personally, but the goal is power so they protect each other, till death do they part. There is no moral, financial, philosophical 'outrage' so large as to distract from the goal of complete power There is unity in their evil. They are ruthlessly loyal to one another as long as the party line is followed.
2) Corruption pays, lies and morally reprehensible behaviour is encouraged, tolerated and unpunished: There is very little amoral behaviour that gets punished nowadays. It emanates from the White House and that is the example being set by the former bastion of freedom and morality. Even when the disgusting stories of corruption, lies and tyranny get out in the open, most people heave a collective yawn. The individuals who do try to make a difference are punished with lawsuits, intimidation and personal threats to their safety. They are bankrupted, slandered and libeled. Not a single element of their personal or professional life goes unchecked and unexposed. Organs of democratic states are employed against them in order to destroy them.
3) "Conservatives" in the Western world suck at developing leadership it has a lot to do with money and perhaps ego: This is a big one. I'm reading Joseph Telushkin's excellent book about the Lubavitche Rebbe (Rebbe: Harper Collins, 2014) and the Rebbe said that good leaders don't develop followers, they develop leaders.
Unfortunately, I can't think of many conservative "leaders" who develop leaders. Can you?
The market for being a conservative pundit is pretty small, so those jobs are pretty fiercely guarded and nobody wants to have their cushy column, consulting gig, radio show or whatever usurped by other upstart whippersnappers. With the exception perhaps of Heritage House in America, there is no real 'support' network for conservatives who wish to be vocal and transparent about their conservative convictions.
Most conservatives have to shut up in public and on social media because they are afraid. They are afraid they will be punished for deviating from the global, leftist party line. And for the most part, the fear is justified. They are punished. Pummeled in fact.
Very few conservative writers have enough of a conscience about their values, or perhaps enough confidence about their fiefdoms to promote other conservatives. It seems to be a relatively closely guarded little club at the higher echelons.
The only conservative writers and pundits and thought leaders that I regularly see citing other writers or bloggers are Mark Steyn and Professor Glenn Reynolds, and some young conservatives do get some exposure through sites such as Gatestone and the Campus Fix.
So, as Kathy Shaidle often says, and I agree wholeheartedly, we don't need another (f&cking) conservative web site.
We need conservative brains to create conservative web vehicles so that our ideas are not censored by the leftists who own popular, existing social media networks.
Moreover, we need individuals with conservative convictions to stop being so pathetically afraid, and take baby steps toward freedom at the very least, in order to put a halt to the disgusting climate of fear and omerta that exists today.
And we need to understand the roots of some of the non-collegial behaviour cripples otherwise bright "conservative" pundits, thought leaders and writers from making a real, world impact, because of a stubborn and selfish refusal to develop leaders instead of followers or paid subscribers.
The left currently beats us on all of these fronts, hands down and that's pathetic and infuriating but reversible-with guts and effort.
