Is a “liberty-advancing policy abroad” a necessary component of American conservatism? Here’s Derbyshire’s pithy response:
Alas, the Communist threat is no longer with us. Nor do we face any comparable threat, unless you think a rabble of delusional goat-herds with box-cutters is an existential threat to the republic. (My opinion: no.)
The “liberty-advancing” thing might be worthwhile, if we knew how to do it, and could afford it. As I read the evidence, we don’t, and can’t. In any case it was no component of 1960s Fusionism, except in the (rightly) fearful and (mostly) defensive sense I just noted.
After boot-quaking over the supposed sharia takeover of central Tennessee, drawing imaginary lines within which free exercise of certain religions is suspended for “sensitivity” the last decade of adventurism in the Muslim world, Derbyshire sums up the ongoing conservative freak-out in one sentence:
“Alas, the Communist threat is no longer with us.”
We should really get these guys into homebrewing beer, birdwatching or some other hobby.Report
The threat of monolithic international Communism? That ended about 1955. Clever of Derb to finally notice.Report
A lot of people had no idea until, like, the 90’s.Report
A lot thought that Mao was only pretending to have broken with the USSR and that Gorbachev was a KGB-trained super-spy who was sucking poor naive Reagan.Report
Ah, the age-old technique of ascribing amazing powers and competence to a chosen enemy to justify pretty much anything. Sound familiar?Report
From what I understand, the fall of the Berlin Wall was a surprise to the TLAs in Warshington.Report
And the poverty and threadbareness of the Russian economy (in general) and military (in particular) was a complete surprise to the CIA? Well, no, but their accurate observations were buried by the usual suspects, who needed there to be a boogeyman.Report
But who’s this “we” that may or may not know about how to advance liberty?
As far as I can tell, the U.S. government is not “us” but Them LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the investment banks and transnational corporations. And the transnational corporations are only interested in the liberty-advancing thing until a foreign government steps on the TNCs’ toes — at which point they bring in a Pinochet or some death squads.
They’re great at talking up democracy — so long as it’s engineered by the Soros Foundation, NED or IRI, and they can slap Havel’s or Mandela’s face on it as a brand icon while the new “democratic” government adopts a structural adjustment orders from the IMF and ratifies the latest authoritarian copyright treaty.Report
You guys realize that Derbyshire is criticizing a democracy promotion agenda, right?Report
Poor old Derbyshire, a day late and a dollar short, marching headlong into the 1980s. Gosh. Everyone who ever did border duty in West Germany knew what he’s just found out: that Communism never works because people like to own stuff.
Iraq’s always the litmus test for the Derbs of this wicked world. While it is true we have little to fear from the delusional goat herders, we never did. The USA’s entire post-9/11 paranoid fugue was delusional in extremis and when it mattered, Derbyshire was right there in the throng, baying for blood. I am still bitter when I recall saying a re-invasion of Iraq would only open the Tupperware of History, exposing the Science Project of Sectarian Feuds. How I was shouted down in those days!
The Delusional Goat Herders were nothing but criminals, hijackers and murderers. We do not send entire armies to fight them, we sent policemen and intelligence agencies. I fear Delusional Cowboys.Report