Buckley Gets It Wrong

Justin Raimundo escreve sobre William F. Buckley, Ayn Rand e e Murray N Rothbard e um pouco da sua história em comum, a propósito do livro (mais um) de Buckley (fundador da National Review).

Ponto de vista interessante sobre Ayn Rand e o seu John Galt:

"Woody objects to the minimalist state advocated by Rand and the libertarians on the grounds that we need to fight Communism with "an air force and a military and a CIA." But it turned out that none of these brought down the Red Empire. In the end, the peoples of the captive nations sat on their hands, and refused to produce, rising up in a massive and relatively nonviolent act of civil disobedience. The Soviet implosion demonstrated, in reality and on a grand scale, the plot-theme of Atlas Shrugged, which tells the story of what happens when the men of intelligence, ability, and integrity go on strike and withdraw their sanction from a system that considers them sacrificial victims. In an important sense, John Galt, the golden-haired hero of Rand's magnum opus and the personification of her ideal man as a free trader in a capitalist society, did take down the Soviet bloc."

Sobre Rothbard:

"Buckley is plain wrong about Rothbard's views on political action (p. 269): far from opposing it as an unprincipled concession to statism, the late libertarian theorist was a longtime Libertarian Party member until he left, in 1991 – when he was of the earliest supporters of Pat Buchanan's 1992 presidential campaign. Buckley is also quite wrong to aver that the Rothbard-Rand split was over "whether there's any life left in the Republican party." As I show in my biography of Rothbard, An Enemy of the State, the issue was the very real personal and psychological abuse Rothbard suffered at the hands of the Rand cult, as well as Rothbard's opposition to the Vietnam war."

Sobre o Causus Bellis no caso do Vietname:

"But the Tonkin Gulf incident, as we know now, was a fabrication: James Stockdale, a Navy aviator who responded to the alleged "attacks" on the U.S. destroyers, says it never happened ... Recently released transcripts of conversations between White House officials and military personnel in the field underscore LBJ's strategy of deception and covert provocation. We were lied into war. Yet Buckley reiterates the lie, as if the truth had not long since been uncovered."

Sobre o ataque a quem luta pela preservação dos States Rights e um verdadeiro (que se prova instável porque não consegue permanecer como tal) Federalismo:

"...and others are utilized to smear supporters of states rights as racist monsters: anyone who challenges the triumph of "civil rights" over property rights is vilified as a segregationist. Getting It Right, in short, tells the story of the American conservative movement as seen through neoconservative eyes."

Passsa pelo cómico: "...Woodroe gets a phone call from General Walker, who wants his opinion on National Review's denunciation of the John Birch Society. "You know," says the General, "A lot of the people who got together to start up that magazine were Communists." He mentions Willi Schlamm, Frank S. Meyer, and James Burnham. Woody testily replies: "Actually, General, Burnham was a Trotskyist." This fails to impress the General, but Woody, determined to stand up to Walker, persists: "The Communists assassinated Trotsky." It was, avers Walker, "a lovers quarrel," and Woody wisely decides he "didn't want to argue that point."

E conclui:

"...conservatives are being asked to throw away their support for limited government and civil liberties in the name of perpetual war – and anyone on the Right who dissents is being smeared as an "extremist," even "anti-American," as David Frum, the neoconservative enforcer of political correctness, has characterized me and others. The smear campaign against authentic opponents of Big Government and Empire continues, and Buckley's National Review is its main conduit. The "Big Government conservatives," who worship at the altar of "national greatness," have their own politically correct version of history."