LibraryThing

LibraryThing is a site where people catalog their books online. I recently got an account, and most of my books are listed there.

Scott Horton interviewed Pat Buchanan about his new book on Antiwar Radio. We've had two posts so far about this book, so here's some more material on the subject.

The Nietzsche Family Circus

The Nietzsche Family Circus pairs a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche with a panel from the The Family Circus.

Pat Buchanan's new book

The last post was about Churchill, Hitler and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, Pat Buchanan's new book. I read all the articles linked to in the post. I also read Patrick Buchanan and the Necessary Book and Morality — Trotskyite vs. Christian (comparing Christopher Hitchens views on the issue and Buchanan's). I also watched interviews with Buchanan on The Colbert Report and The Situation Room. Having absorbed all of this, here's my view.

Buchanan repeatedly admits that Hitler was a violent, vicious, antisemite who targeted Jews before the war. He's saying that it was the war that magnified his campaign against them to the point that it resulted in the Holocaust, and that the war might have been prevented if the British had acted differently. His case is that essentially, Hitler lit a fire and Chamberlain (with his war guarantee to Poland) and then Churchill tried to put it out with gasoline.

Buchanan is not denying the Holocaust, he is arguing that it might have been prevented. He is not saying that Churchill wanted it to happen. He is not saying that Hitler was not a murderer who was fine with killing 6 million Jews and many others. He's talking about unintended consequences of taking the wrong course of action in foreign policy. In my analogy for his argument, Hitler starts the fire, and Churchill tries to put it out. However, doing things the wrong way can be disastrous.

I don't think I can speculate exactly on what would have happened if Chamberlain and Churchill hadn't pursued the course of action they did. I can, however, think of a few possibilities.

The first is what he speculates, that the war could have been prevented. If the war didn't happen, the Holocaust might not have. Here is why I think this is possible. In the U.S., Japanese people were rounded up into camps because their loyalty was held in question. There would never have been such camps if it weren't for the war. If, similar to Germany, we had had 10 years of a viciously racist anti-Japanese dictatorship which repeatedly used Japanese people as scapegoats and perpetuated the idea that they were subhuman, and it was that dictatorship that put them in those camps, those camps would have been deadly. Someone in that dictatorship may have cooked up a "final solution." In a time of war, whatever freedom you have shrinks, as government demands you give up more of it out of "necessity." In the case of Jewish people, Hitler demanded the last one, the freedom to live.

A second possibility is that the Germans may have gone after the Russians, but not fought Western Europe. This would have spared French Jews, Belgian Jews, etc., but the fate of Jews East of Germany would have been the same. I don't see a reason why the victims of the concentration camps would be treated differently in this case. As Buchanan says, British troops wouldn't have died fighting on the side of Stalin, and the British Empire might not have crumbled, at least the way it did (although I don't support empires). It's a better scenario for the British and the rest of Western Europe, but no different for anyone targeted domestically by the Nazis, the people of Eastern Europe, or anyone living under Stalin.

The last possibility is that the Chamberlain and Churchill couldn't have avoided the war, and things would have been the same all around. In that case it wouldn't matter as much what they did.

Given all of this, it seems that there could have been either a positive effect if they followed his advice, or no effect. Taking a gamble between an improvement and no change seem like good odds to me. There's nothing to lose and millions of lives to win. This man is not a "freaking idiot."


As for the question at the end of you post, I wouldn't say he represents the conservative view. He represents a conservative view. Conservatives disagree with each other on plenty of things. As an example, Buchanan called Barry Goldwater, who some called "Mr. Conservative", "the father of us all" (conservatives). He also wrote an introduction to Goldwater's book The Conscience Of A Conservative. However, if you compare their views, you'll find that Goldwater supported Planned Parenthood, gays in the military, seperation of Church and State, and was a saber rattling hawk. Buchanan on the other hand, opposes abortion, gays in the military, and separation of Church and State, while he is a non-interventionist in foreign policy. However, their views are much closer when it comes to issues like gun rights, states rights, and reducing taxes.

Lecture series and book excerpt.

The author of The Politically Incorrect Guide To American History gave a series of lectures under the same name, which is available at Mises.org. Given that a Garden member brought his book to a meeting, this might be of interest to some of you.

Also, at the pub on Sunday, I referred to "What is Fascism?" which is an excerpt from John T. Flynn's 1944 book As We Go Marching. It is also available on Mises.org as an article and as an audio file. Although the author refers to Italian Fascism as capitalist, I think it shows that Fascism is more about concentrating political power than about being ideologically "capitalist" or "socialist."

What happened when Israeli Arabs met to remember what happened 60 years ago?

"It was a reminder, if we needed it, that this is a Jewish state and we are even less welcome than usual when we meet as Palestinians."

Given our discussion of Israel last Sunday, I would like you all to read this article.

Here is video of the incident that the article describes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-P4LI1ceGA

Expelled Exposed

The National Center for Science Education has a website whose purpose is to counter the claims in Expelled.

http://www.expelledexposed.com/

Ben Stein Expelled On Intelligent Design

Ben Stein's movie Expelled On Intelligent Design is coming out April 18th. I think it might make a good movie night. Allan W. Bokros

Those Little Rascles

Here is an article I thought worth talking about at the meeting Allan W. Bokros

Children of the Damned: When Third Graders Attack
By Doug Giles
Saturday, April 5, 2008

Nine angelic third graders in a Waycross, Georgia elementary school were harassed by the police this week for plotting their teacher’s bloody demise.

It seems as if these tiny sweethearts had their day ruined when some judgmental kid snitched on them and they were caught—innocently enough—with a steak knife, duct tape, handcuffs, and a to-do list for each of the pre-pubescent playmates. I’m sure they meant no harm.

The industrious wee little honeys were so meticulous in their plans to proactively adjust their instructor’s bellicose behavior that they even had detailed arrangements to scrub the crime scene of any trace of evidence. Those little rascals. Brings a tear to your eye, eh? Now, why were these darlings so righteously indignant that they were compelled to act in such a way that, possibly, might not positively release their full potential in a self-esteem enhancing manner? Well, it appears that their repressive, anachronistic, locked in a 1950s time warp where the teacher in fact ran the class, educator actually crossed the line by correcting one of the honeys who was simply trying to entertain the class by standing in his chair while the instructor was attempting to teach. What a witch. What was that nazi chick thinking? Doesn’t the teacher know that she can’t correct these children who are simply displaying their creativity and releasing their unique gifts in a demonstrative way? Doesn’t the teacher know that such an authoritative and harsh action on her part (e.g. attempting to stifle the child’s free spirit by telling him to sit his butt down) could forever bruise the student’s inner child? Hey, teacher. Leave them kids alone! Y’know, according to the experts, it’s because of a teacher’s power trip, Christian values and lack of sensitivity that students (and their parents, too!) are: • forced to drop the F-bomb upon educators with regularity, • forced to threaten them with lawsuits, • forced to create utter chaos in class, • forced to slit their teacher’s tires if need be, • and, as in this case, left with no other option but to tape ‘em down and carve ‘em up if the school marm ain’t going to bow and kiss the kid’s ring. What sane person among us would fault these wounded leaders of tomorrow? What’s that, you say? You say you would? You think they’re spoiled demoniacs? Yeah, I guess you’re right. Sometimes I get loopy after I watch the Bravo network or listen to too many Reverend Wright sermons. It appears that young students today have now solidly tapped into ancient demons, and I pity the grossly underpaid teachers who have to field their crap in class on a daily basis. I speak to teachers across the nation via my Townhall.com column and ClashRadio.com, and the good ones are at wit’s-frickin’-end because the kids have figured out that they can do whatever the heck they want—and there’s really nothing a teacher can do about it. I was watching a cable talk show featuring a panel of morons sitting around speculating about what had gone wrong in the Waycross, Georgia incident to spawn such children of the damned. I was sitting back thinking, this is easy math, Goober. Are you ready? Here’s your answer: Pathetic parents + kids who’ve never had their butt whipped + psychobabble BS + a whopping entitlement mentality + Johnny can do no wrong attitude from the parental unit + too much self-esteem + blowing off God for secularism + violent movies, music, and video games + educators getting their hands tied behind their backs (both figuratively and now, nearly literally) = demonic third graders who’ll plan to duct tape a teacher and slit her throat if she happens to righteously rebuke them. • Log on to http://www.ClashRadio.com and check out Doug Giles’ latest video – “The Audacity of Hype!”.

Doug Giles’ new book “A Time to Clash: Papers from a Provocative Pastor” is now available. Ann Coulter says "Doug Giles’ A Time to Clash is a substantive and funny tour de force for traditional values.” Doug’s award winning talk show and video blog can be seen and heard at www.ClashRadio.com.

"The Immorality Of Voting"

I recently listened to a lecture by Wendy McElroy titled "The Immorality Of Voting", delivered on February 25th. We've all been inundated with the message that voting is a social duty, and that if we don't, we're doing something wrong. She claims that the opposite is the case. Even if you find that you disagree, it would be worth considering the alternative arguments to something most of us take as a given. I would like for us all to listen to her view and discuss whether we can justify our decision to vote in light of those arguments. If anyone is a nonvoter, it would also be interesting to hear his or her view. Here is the link.