1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:04,940 The corporate press will obsess over trivial nonsense or non 2 00:00:04,940 --> 00:00:08,320 existent things like Trump, Russia, collusion. 3 00:00:08,320 --> 00:00:13,200 In 2016, Hillary Clinton said 17 intelligence agencies confirmed 4 00:00:13,440 --> 00:00:17,120 that it was the Kremlin who was behind the hacking of my emails. 5 00:00:17,120 --> 00:00:19,640 Turns out that was completely fabricated. 6 00:00:19,640 --> 00:00:23,080 Joe Biden on the presidential debate stage said 50 7 00:00:23,080 --> 00:00:26,480 intelligence officers, 5 directors of the CIA from both 8 00:00:26,480 --> 00:00:29,040 parties have said what he's talking about. 9 00:00:29,080 --> 00:00:32,119 Hunter Biden's laptop is a Russian plan. 10 00:00:32,400 --> 00:00:33,960 Of course, there was no evidence of that. 11 00:00:33,960 --> 00:00:37,840 It turned out it, of course, was Hunter Biden's actual laptop. 12 00:00:37,840 --> 00:00:42,520 Joe Biden then went on to say that Trump won't even condemn 13 00:00:42,520 --> 00:00:46,160 Putin when Putin has bounties on the heads of U.S. soldiers in 14 00:00:46,160 --> 00:00:48,160 Afghanistan. The Pentagon was later asked to 15 00:00:48,160 --> 00:00:51,840 clarify and provide evidence for this claim. 16 00:00:51,840 --> 00:00:55,640 As of today, they still have not provided evidence. 17 00:00:55,640 --> 00:01:00,680 So why is it that when we see actual atrocities by Donald 18 00:01:00,680 --> 00:01:04,920 Trump, the corporate press is completely silent on them? 19 00:01:04,920 --> 00:01:08,440 This is from the Cost of War Project at Brown University. 20 00:01:08,760 --> 00:01:11,560 Afghanistan's rising civilian death toll due to air strikes, 21 00:01:11,560 --> 00:01:15,240 2017 to 2020. So this would be the years that 22 00:01:15,520 --> 00:01:18,240 President Trump was in the Oval Office. 23 00:01:18,240 --> 00:01:21,520 It says on Page Six, the number of civilians killed by 24 00:01:21,520 --> 00:01:27,280 international air strikes increased about 330% from 2016, 25 00:01:27,480 --> 00:01:30,960 the last full year of the Obama administration, to 2019, the 26 00:01:30,960 --> 00:01:35,000 most recent year for which there is complete data from the United 27 00:01:35,280 --> 00:01:37,680 Nations. So the question is, why is it 28 00:01:37,680 --> 00:01:41,600 that they have all of these hoaxes that they're very mad at 29 00:01:41,640 --> 00:01:45,720 Trump about when there's genuine things that he could be 30 00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:47,840 prosecuted for? Certainly, if anyone else 31 00:01:47,840 --> 00:01:51,560 engaged in terrorist activities like drone strikes, which kill 32 00:01:51,560 --> 00:01:56,280 civilians, then we would all agree that that person should be 33 00:01:56,480 --> 00:01:58,760 in jail. But they really, really hate 34 00:01:58,760 --> 00:02:01,080 Trump. They frame him for treason when 35 00:02:01,080 --> 00:02:04,280 they could get him on something very reliable. 36 00:02:04,800 --> 00:02:08,440 Here is a speech from Doctor Murray Anne Rothbard. 37 00:02:08,440 --> 00:02:11,600 This was an economist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. 38 00:02:11,920 --> 00:02:15,800 He wrote a paper in 1992 titled A Strategy for the Right. 39 00:02:15,800 --> 00:02:17,240 This was actually a speech he gave. 40 00:02:17,720 --> 00:02:23,320 Here Rothbard puts forth a theory as to why right wing 41 00:02:23,320 --> 00:02:25,640 populism is so hated by the establishment. 42 00:02:25,920 --> 00:02:29,840 Rothbard says. After this excursion on my 43 00:02:29,920 --> 00:02:33,120 personal activity on the old right, I returned to a key 44 00:02:33,120 --> 00:02:36,920 strategic question. Who are the major bad guys, the 45 00:02:36,920 --> 00:02:39,560 unwashed masses or the power elite? 46 00:02:40,040 --> 00:02:44,040 Very early I concluded that the big danger is the elite and not 47 00:02:44,040 --> 00:02:45,880 the masses for the following reasons. 48 00:02:46,280 --> 00:02:50,000 First, even granting for a moment that the masses are the 49 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:53,720 worst possible, that they are perpetually hell bent on 50 00:02:53,720 --> 00:02:57,520 lynching anyone down the block, the mass of people simply don't 51 00:02:57,520 --> 00:03:01,600 have the time for politics or political shenanigans. 52 00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:06,720 The average person must spend most of his time on the daily 53 00:03:06,720 --> 00:03:10,000 business of life, being with family, seeing his friends, 54 00:03:10,040 --> 00:03:12,640 etcetera. He can only get interested in 55 00:03:12,640 --> 00:03:16,200 politics or engage in it sporadically. 56 00:03:17,080 --> 00:03:20,440 The only people who have time for politics are the 57 00:03:20,440 --> 00:03:24,640 professionals, the bureaucrats, politicians and special interest 58 00:03:24,680 --> 00:03:27,400 groups dependent on political rule. 59 00:03:27,720 --> 00:03:33,040 They make money out of politics and so they are intensely 60 00:03:33,280 --> 00:03:37,400 interested and lobby and are active 24 hours a day. 61 00:03:37,840 --> 00:03:41,960 Therefore, the special interest groups will tend to win out over 62 00:03:41,960 --> 00:03:46,280 the uninterested masses. This is the basic insight of the 63 00:03:46,280 --> 00:03:48,200 public choice School of Economics. 64 00:03:48,600 --> 00:03:53,200 The only other groups interested full time in politics are the 65 00:03:53,200 --> 00:03:58,040 ideologists like ourselves. Again, not a very large segment 66 00:03:58,040 --> 00:04:02,040 of the population. So the problem is the ruling 67 00:04:02,040 --> 00:04:05,560 elite, the professionals and their dependent special interest 68 00:04:05,560 --> 00:04:09,120 groups. The 2nd crucial point, society 69 00:04:09,120 --> 00:04:14,040 is divided into a ruling elite, which is necessarily a minority 70 00:04:14,040 --> 00:04:17,600 of the population and lives off the second group, the rest of 71 00:04:17,600 --> 00:04:21,600 the population. Here I point to one of the most 72 00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:25,680 brilliant essays on political philosophy ever written, John C 73 00:04:25,680 --> 00:04:28,440 Calhoun's Disquisition on Government. 74 00:04:29,080 --> 00:04:32,680 Calhoun pointed out that the very fact of government and of 75 00:04:32,680 --> 00:04:36,680 taxation creates inherent conflict between 2 great 76 00:04:36,680 --> 00:04:40,440 classes, those who pay taxes and those who live off them. 77 00:04:40,840 --> 00:04:44,440 The net taxpayers verse the net tax consumers. 78 00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:48,560 The bigger government gets, Calhoun noted, the greater and 79 00:04:48,560 --> 00:04:51,640 more intense the conflict between those two social 80 00:04:51,640 --> 00:04:55,280 classes. If a minority of elites rule 81 00:04:55,280 --> 00:04:58,800 over tax and exploit the majority of the public, then 82 00:04:58,840 --> 00:05:02,240 This brings up starkly the main problem of political theory, 83 00:05:02,480 --> 00:05:06,080 what I like to call the mystery of civil obedience. 84 00:05:06,400 --> 00:05:10,200 Why did does the majority of the public obey these turkeys 85 00:05:10,200 --> 00:05:13,120 anyways? This problem, I believe, was 86 00:05:13,120 --> 00:05:17,320 solved by three great political theorists, mainly, but not all 87 00:05:17,320 --> 00:05:20,760 libertarian. Etienne de Libretti, French 88 00:05:20,840 --> 00:05:24,720 libertarian theorists of the mid 16th century, David Hume and 89 00:05:24,720 --> 00:05:27,880 Ludwig von Mises. They pointed out that precisely 90 00:05:27,880 --> 00:05:32,520 because the ruling class is a minority, in the long run, force 91 00:05:32,520 --> 00:05:36,560 per SE cannot rule. Even in the most despotic 92 00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:40,560 dictatorship, the government can only persist when it is backed 93 00:05:40,560 --> 00:05:42,200 by the majority of the population. 94 00:05:42,600 --> 00:05:47,880 In long run, ideas not force rule, and any government has to 95 00:05:47,880 --> 00:05:50,280 have legitimacy in the minds of the public. 96 00:05:50,920 --> 00:05:54,400 This truth was starkly demonstrated in the collapse of 97 00:05:54,400 --> 00:05:58,160 the Soviet Union last year. Simply put, when the tanks were 98 00:05:58,160 --> 00:06:01,280 sent to capture Yeltsin, they were persuaded to turn their 99 00:06:01,280 --> 00:06:04,640 guns around and defend Yeltsin and the Russian parliament 100 00:06:04,640 --> 00:06:07,120 instead. More broadly, it is clear that 101 00:06:07,120 --> 00:06:10,720 the Soviet government had totally lost legitimacy and 102 00:06:10,720 --> 00:06:13,800 support among the public. To a libertarian, it was 103 00:06:13,800 --> 00:06:18,120 particularly wonderful thing to see unfolding before our very 104 00:06:18,120 --> 00:06:22,040 eyes the death of a state, particularly a monstrous one 105 00:06:22,040 --> 00:06:25,920 such as the Soviet Union. Toward the end, Gorby continued 106 00:06:25,920 --> 00:06:30,080 to issue decrees as before, but now no one paid any attention. 107 00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:34,920 The once mighty Supreme Soviet continued to meet, but nobody 108 00:06:34,920 --> 00:06:37,360 bothered to show up. How glorious. 109 00:06:37,800 --> 00:06:40,840 But we still haven't solved the mystery of civil obedience. 110 00:06:41,280 --> 00:06:44,240 If the ruling elite is taxing, looting and exploiting the 111 00:06:44,240 --> 00:06:47,880 public, why does the public put up with this for a single 112 00:06:47,880 --> 00:06:50,960 moment? Why does it take so long for 113 00:06:50,960 --> 00:06:54,560 them to withdraw their consent? Here we come to the solution, 114 00:06:54,960 --> 00:06:58,040 the critical role of intellectuals, the opinion 115 00:06:58,040 --> 00:07:01,600 molding class in society. If the masses knew what was 116 00:07:01,600 --> 00:07:04,600 going on, they would withdraw their consent quickly. 117 00:07:05,200 --> 00:07:08,920 They would soon perceive that the emperor has no clothes, that 118 00:07:08,920 --> 00:07:12,360 they are being ripped off. This is where the intellectuals 119 00:07:12,360 --> 00:07:16,000 come in. The ruling elite, whether it be 120 00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:20,200 monarchs of yore or the communist parties of today, are 121 00:07:20,200 --> 00:07:23,600 in desperate need of intellectual elites to weave 122 00:07:23,600 --> 00:07:28,880 apologies for the state. The state rules by divine edict. 123 00:07:29,040 --> 00:07:32,200 The state ensures the common good or the general welfare. 124 00:07:32,480 --> 00:07:35,560 The state protects us from the bad guys over the mountain. 125 00:07:35,560 --> 00:07:37,560 The state guarantees full employment. 126 00:07:37,560 --> 00:07:41,880 The state acts debates the multiplier effect, the state 127 00:07:41,880 --> 00:07:45,520 ensures social justice, and on and on. 128 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:48,800 The apologias differ over the centuries. 129 00:07:49,040 --> 00:07:54,240 The effect is always the same, as Carl Whitvogel shows in his 130 00:07:54,240 --> 00:07:59,280 great work Oriental Despotism in Asian Empires, the intellectuals 131 00:07:59,280 --> 00:08:03,160 were able to get away with the theory that the emperor or 132 00:08:03,160 --> 00:08:08,040 Pharaoh was himself divine. If the ruler is God, view will 133 00:08:08,040 --> 00:08:10,840 be induced to obey or question his commands. 134 00:08:11,680 --> 00:08:15,680 We can see what the state rulers get out of their alliance with 135 00:08:15,680 --> 00:08:19,080 the intellectuals, but what do the intellectuals get out of it? 136 00:08:19,840 --> 00:08:22,560 Intellectuals are the sort of people who believe that in the 137 00:08:22,560 --> 00:08:25,840 free market they are getting paid far less than their wisdom 138 00:08:25,840 --> 00:08:28,880 requires. Now the state is willing to pay 139 00:08:28,880 --> 00:08:32,200 them salaries both for apologizing for state power in 140 00:08:32,200 --> 00:08:35,799 the modern state, for staffing the Marriott of jobs in the 141 00:08:35,799 --> 00:08:38,400 welfare regulatory state apparatus. 142 00:08:38,799 --> 00:08:42,880 In past centuries, the churches constituted the exclusive 143 00:08:42,880 --> 00:08:45,320 opinion molding classes in the society. 144 00:08:45,680 --> 00:08:49,640 Hence the importance to the state and its rulers of an 145 00:08:49,640 --> 00:08:53,440 established church and the importance of libertarians to 146 00:08:53,440 --> 00:08:57,200 the concept of separating church and state, which really means 147 00:08:57,200 --> 00:09:02,160 not allowing the state to confer upon one Group A monopoly of the 148 00:09:02,160 --> 00:09:06,760 opinion molding function. In the 20th century, of course, 149 00:09:06,760 --> 00:09:11,000 the church has been replaced in its opinion molding role, or in 150 00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:14,840 that lovely phrase, the engineering of consent, by a 151 00:09:14,840 --> 00:09:19,040 swarm of intellectuals, academic social scientists, technocrats, 152 00:09:19,320 --> 00:09:22,680 policy scientists, social workers, journalists and the 153 00:09:22,680 --> 00:09:24,840 media generally. And on and on. 154 00:09:25,360 --> 00:09:29,400 Often included for old times sake, so to speak, is a 155 00:09:29,400 --> 00:09:33,160 sprinkling of social gospel ministers and counselors from 156 00:09:33,160 --> 00:09:37,200 the mainstream churches. So to sum up, the problem is 157 00:09:37,200 --> 00:09:41,200 that the bad guys, the ruling classes, have gathered unto 158 00:09:41,200 --> 00:09:45,480 themselves the intellectual and media elites who are able to 159 00:09:45,480 --> 00:09:49,440 bamboozle the masses into consenting to their rule, to 160 00:09:49,440 --> 00:09:53,160 indoctrinate them, as the Marxist would say, with false 161 00:09:53,160 --> 00:09:56,720 consciousness. What can we, the right wing 162 00:09:56,720 --> 00:10:00,320 opposition, do about it? One strategy endemic to 163 00:10:00,320 --> 00:10:03,240 libertarians and classical liberals is what we call the 164 00:10:03,240 --> 00:10:07,120 Hayekian model after FA Hayek, or what I have called 165 00:10:07,120 --> 00:10:11,040 educationism. Ideas, the model declares, are 166 00:10:11,040 --> 00:10:15,800 crucial, and ideas filter down a hierarchy, beginning with the 167 00:10:15,800 --> 00:10:19,560 top philosophers, then seeping down to lesser philosophers, 168 00:10:19,800 --> 00:10:23,960 then academics, and finally to journalists and politicians and 169 00:10:23,960 --> 00:10:26,920 to the masses. The thing to do is convert the 170 00:10:26,920 --> 00:10:29,080 top philosophers to the correct ideas. 171 00:10:29,520 --> 00:10:33,360 They will convert the lesser, and so on in a kind of trickle 172 00:10:33,360 --> 00:10:38,160 down effect, until at last the masses are converted and liberty 173 00:10:38,160 --> 00:10:41,200 has been achieved. First, it should be noted that 174 00:10:41,200 --> 00:10:46,000 this trickle down strategy is a very gentle and genteel 1, 175 00:10:46,240 --> 00:10:51,440 relying on quiet mediation and persuasion in the austere 176 00:10:51,440 --> 00:10:54,760 corridors of intellectual cerebration. 177 00:10:55,280 --> 00:10:59,160 This strategy fits, by the way, with Hayek's personality, for 178 00:10:59,160 --> 00:11:02,960 Hayek is not exactly known as an intellectual gut fighter. 179 00:11:03,320 --> 00:11:06,760 Of course ideas and persuasion are important, but there are 180 00:11:06,760 --> 00:11:09,960 several fatal flaws in the Hayekian strategy. 181 00:11:10,560 --> 00:11:14,640 First, of course, the strategy at best will take several 100 182 00:11:14,640 --> 00:11:18,400 years, and some of us are a bit more impatient than that. 183 00:11:18,680 --> 00:11:21,960 But time is by no means the only problem. 184 00:11:22,320 --> 00:11:26,360 Many people have noted, for example, mysterious blockages of 185 00:11:26,360 --> 00:11:29,360 this trickle. Thus, most real scientists have 186 00:11:29,400 --> 00:11:33,800 a very different view of such environmental questions as Alor. 187 00:11:34,040 --> 00:11:38,360 Then do left wing hysterics. And yet somehow it is always the 188 00:11:38,360 --> 00:11:41,680 same few hysterics that are exclusively quoted by the media. 189 00:11:42,080 --> 00:11:46,160 The same applies to the VEX problem of inheritance and IQ 190 00:11:46,160 --> 00:11:49,840 testing. So how come the media invariably 191 00:11:49,880 --> 00:11:53,320 skew the result and pick and choose the few leftists in the 192 00:11:53,320 --> 00:11:55,320 field? Clearly because the media, 193 00:11:55,320 --> 00:11:59,560 especially the respectable and influential media, begin and 194 00:11:59,560 --> 00:12:02,160 continue with a strong left liberal bias. 195 00:12:02,360 --> 00:12:06,560 More generally, the Hayekian trickle down model overlooks a 196 00:12:06,560 --> 00:12:10,080 crucial point that, and I hate to break this to you, 197 00:12:10,600 --> 00:12:15,160 intellectuals, academics and the media are not all motivated by 198 00:12:15,160 --> 00:12:17,600 truth alone. As we have seen, the 199 00:12:17,600 --> 00:12:21,640 intellectual classes may be part of the solution, but also they 200 00:12:21,640 --> 00:12:24,640 are a big part of the problem. Or, as we have seen, the 201 00:12:24,640 --> 00:12:28,840 intellectuals are part of the ruling class and their economic 202 00:12:28,840 --> 00:12:32,880 interests as well as their interests in prestige, power and 203 00:12:32,880 --> 00:12:38,760 admiration are wrapped up in the present welfare warfare state 204 00:12:38,880 --> 00:12:42,360 system. Therefore, in addition to 205 00:12:42,360 --> 00:12:46,080 converting intellectuals to the cause, the proper course for the 206 00:12:46,080 --> 00:12:49,920 right wing opposition must necessarily be a strategy of 207 00:12:49,920 --> 00:12:53,520 boldness and confrontation, of dynamism and excitement. 208 00:12:53,720 --> 00:12:57,160 A strategy, in short, of rousing the masses from their slumber 209 00:12:57,360 --> 00:13:00,520 and exposing the arrogant elites that are ruling them, 210 00:13:00,520 --> 00:13:03,080 controlling them, taxing them and ripping them off. 211 00:13:03,560 --> 00:13:07,960 Another alternative right wing strategy is that commonly 212 00:13:08,120 --> 00:13:12,000 pursued by many libertarian or conservative think tanks, that 213 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:17,280 of quiet persuasion, not in the Groves of academia, but in 214 00:13:17,280 --> 00:13:20,160 Washington DC in the corridors of power. 215 00:13:20,400 --> 00:13:24,120 This has been called the Fabian Strategy, with think tanks 216 00:13:24,160 --> 00:13:29,760 issuing reports calling for a 2% cut in attacks here or a tiny 217 00:13:29,760 --> 00:13:33,440 drop in regulation there. The supporters of this strategy 218 00:13:33,640 --> 00:13:38,960 often point to the success of the Fabian Society, which by its 219 00:13:39,160 --> 00:13:43,920 detailed empirical researches gently push the British state 220 00:13:44,240 --> 00:13:47,640 into a gradual accretion of socialist power. 221 00:13:48,160 --> 00:13:52,720 The flaw here, however, is that what works to increase state 222 00:13:52,720 --> 00:13:57,120 power does not work in reverse. Fabians were gently nudging the 223 00:13:57,120 --> 00:14:00,680 ruling elite precisely in the direction they wanted to travel 224 00:14:00,680 --> 00:14:03,160 anyway. Nudging the other way would go 225 00:14:03,160 --> 00:14:07,000 strongly against the state's grain, and the result is far 226 00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:11,000 more likely to be the state's Co opting and Fabianizing the think 227 00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:14,000 tankers themselves, rather than the other way around. 228 00:14:14,480 --> 00:14:18,640 This sort of strategy may, of course, be personally very 229 00:14:18,640 --> 00:14:22,560 pleasant for the think tankers, and may be very profitable in 230 00:14:22,560 --> 00:14:25,000 cushy jobs and contracts from the government. 231 00:14:25,440 --> 00:14:27,680 But that is precisely the problem. 232 00:14:28,320 --> 00:14:32,000 It is important to realize that the establishment doesn't want 233 00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:36,280 excitement in politics. It wants the masses to continue 234 00:14:36,280 --> 00:14:39,880 to be lulled to sleep. It wants kinder, gentler. 235 00:14:39,920 --> 00:14:44,440 It wants the measured, judicious, mushy tone and 236 00:14:44,600 --> 00:14:51,000 content of James Reston, a David Broader, or a Washington Week in 237 00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:53,760 review. It doesn't want a Pat Buchanan 238 00:14:53,880 --> 00:14:57,440 not only for the excitement and hard edge of his content, but 239 00:14:57,440 --> 00:15:01,240 also for his similar tone and style. 240 00:15:02,320 --> 00:15:06,080 And so the proper strategy for the right wing must be what we 241 00:15:06,080 --> 00:15:10,520 call right wing populism. Exciting, dynamic, tough and 242 00:15:10,520 --> 00:15:13,200 confrontational. Rousing and inspiring. 243 00:15:13,800 --> 00:15:17,240 Not only the exploited masses, but the often shell shocked 244 00:15:17,240 --> 00:15:19,400 right wing intellectual cadre as well. 245 00:15:19,880 --> 00:15:24,880 And in this era where the intellectual and media elites 246 00:15:24,880 --> 00:15:28,640 are all establishment liberal conservatives, all in a deep 247 00:15:28,640 --> 00:15:33,160 sense, one variety or another of Social Democrat, all bitterly 248 00:15:33,160 --> 00:15:38,160 hostile to the a genuine right. We need a dynamic, charismatic 249 00:15:38,160 --> 00:15:42,200 leader who has the ability to short circuit the media elites 250 00:15:42,480 --> 00:15:45,960 and to reach and the masses directly. 251 00:15:46,240 --> 00:15:49,920 We need a leadership that can reach the masses and cut through 252 00:15:49,920 --> 00:15:55,920 the crippling and distorting hermeneutical fog spread by the 253 00:15:55,920 --> 00:15:59,800 media elites. But can we call such a strategy 254 00:15:59,800 --> 00:16:02,520 conservative? I for 1:00 AM tired of the 255 00:16:02,520 --> 00:16:07,360 liberal strategy on which they have rung the changes for 40 256 00:16:07,800 --> 00:16:13,120 years of presuming to define conservatism as a supposed aid 257 00:16:13,120 --> 00:16:16,240 to the conservative movement. Whenever liberals have 258 00:16:16,520 --> 00:16:19,960 encountered hard edge abolitionists who, for example, 259 00:16:19,960 --> 00:16:24,080 have wanted to repeal the New Deal or feel fair deal, they 260 00:16:24,080 --> 00:16:28,440 say, but that's not genuine conservatism, that's radicalism. 261 00:16:28,800 --> 00:16:33,200 The genuine conservative, these liberals go on to say, doesn't 262 00:16:33,200 --> 00:16:35,440 want to repeal or abolish anything. 263 00:16:35,800 --> 00:16:39,760 He is a kind and gentle soul who wants to conserve what left 264 00:16:39,760 --> 00:16:43,960 liberals have accomplished. The left liberal vision, then, 265 00:16:44,280 --> 00:16:46,440 of good conservatives is as follows. 266 00:16:46,800 --> 00:16:51,200 First, left liberals in power make a great leap forward toward 267 00:16:51,200 --> 00:16:54,160 collectivism. Then, when, in the course of the 268 00:16:54,160 --> 00:16:57,960 political cycle, four or eight years later, conservatives come 269 00:16:57,960 --> 00:17:02,240 to power, they of course are horrified at the very idea of 270 00:17:02,240 --> 00:17:05,200 repealing anything. They simply slow down the rate 271 00:17:05,200 --> 00:17:08,680 of growth of statism, consolidating the previous gains 272 00:17:08,920 --> 00:17:14,680 of the left and providing a bit of R&R for the next liberal 273 00:17:15,040 --> 00:17:20,560 Great Leap Forward. And if you think about it, you 274 00:17:20,560 --> 00:17:23,640 will see that this is precisely what every Republican 275 00:17:23,640 --> 00:17:26,319 administration has done since the New Deal. 276 00:17:26,800 --> 00:17:30,000 Conservatives have readily played the desired Santa Claus 277 00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:32,880 role in the liberal vision of history. 278 00:17:33,240 --> 00:17:36,080 I would like to ask, how long are we going to keep being 279 00:17:36,080 --> 00:17:38,920 suckers? How long will we keep playing 280 00:17:39,240 --> 00:17:42,160 our appointed roles in the scenario of the left? 281 00:17:42,480 --> 00:17:45,320 When are we going to stop playing their game and start 282 00:17:45,320 --> 00:17:49,320 throwing over the table? I must admit that in one sense, 283 00:17:49,320 --> 00:17:53,040 the liberals have a point. The word conservative is 284 00:17:53,040 --> 00:17:55,920 unsatisfactory. The original right never used 285 00:17:55,920 --> 00:17:58,600 the term conservatives. We called ourselves 286 00:17:58,600 --> 00:18:02,360 individualists, or true liberals, or rightists. 287 00:18:02,720 --> 00:18:07,760 The word conservative only swept the board after the publication 288 00:18:07,760 --> 00:18:12,080 of Russell Kirk's highly influential Conservative Mind in 289 00:18:12,080 --> 00:18:16,160 1953. In the last years of the 290 00:18:16,160 --> 00:18:19,760 original right, there are two major problems with the word 291 00:18:19,760 --> 00:18:24,360 conservative. 1st, that it indeed connotes conserving the 292 00:18:24,360 --> 00:18:28,800 status quo, which is precisely why Brezhnevites were called 293 00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:31,200 conservatives in the Soviet Union. 294 00:18:31,760 --> 00:18:35,160 Perhaps there was a case for calling us conservatives in 295 00:18:35,160 --> 00:18:40,480 1910, but surely not now. Now we want to uproot the status 296 00:18:40,480 --> 00:18:43,600 quo, not conserve it. And secondly, the word 297 00:18:43,600 --> 00:18:47,720 conservative parks back to struggles in the 19th century 298 00:18:47,720 --> 00:18:52,120 Europe and in America, conditions and institutions have 299 00:18:52,120 --> 00:18:55,440 been so different that the term is seriously misleading. 300 00:18:55,880 --> 00:19:00,080 There is a strong case here, as in other areas, for what has 301 00:19:00,080 --> 00:19:02,360 been called American exceptionalism. 302 00:19:02,680 --> 00:19:04,800 So what should we call ourselves? 303 00:19:05,280 --> 00:19:08,600 I haven't got an easy answer, but perhaps we could call 304 00:19:08,600 --> 00:19:13,400 ourselves radical reactionaries or radical rightists, the label 305 00:19:13,400 --> 00:19:16,160 that was given to us by our enemies in the 1950s. 306 00:19:16,640 --> 00:19:21,120 Or if there is too much objection to the dread term 307 00:19:21,120 --> 00:19:25,600 radical, we can follow the suggestion of some of our group 308 00:19:25,600 --> 00:19:29,760 to call ourselves the hard right, Any of these terms 309 00:19:29,760 --> 00:19:35,400 preferable to conservative. And it also serves the function 310 00:19:35,400 --> 00:19:38,920 of separating ourselves out from the official conservative 311 00:19:38,920 --> 00:19:43,160 movement, which, as I shall note in a minute, has been largely 312 00:19:43,800 --> 00:19:49,840 taken over by our enemies. It is instructive to turn now to 313 00:19:49,880 --> 00:19:53,800 a prominent case of right wing populism, headed by a dynamic 314 00:19:53,800 --> 00:19:57,680 leader who had appeared in the last years of the original 315 00:19:57,680 --> 00:20:02,760 right, and whose advent indeed marked a transition between the 316 00:20:02,760 --> 00:20:05,120 original and the newer Buckleyite right. 317 00:20:05,680 --> 00:20:08,480 Quick now. Who was the most hated, the most 318 00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:11,880 smeared man in American politics in this century? 319 00:20:12,080 --> 00:20:16,000 More hated and reviled than even David Duke, even though he was 320 00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:21,600 not a Nazi or a Klu Kluxer. He was not a libertarian, he was 321 00:20:21,600 --> 00:20:24,840 not an isolationist. He was not even a conservative, 322 00:20:24,840 --> 00:20:27,760 but in fact was a matterate, a moderate Republican. 323 00:20:28,520 --> 00:20:33,000 And yet he was so universally reviled that his very name 324 00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:36,760 became a generic, a dictionary synonym for evil. 325 00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:41,280 I refer, of course, to Joe McCarthy. 326 00:20:42,240 --> 00:20:46,200 The key to the McCarthy phenomenon was the comment made 327 00:20:46,240 --> 00:20:50,240 by the entire political culture, from moderate left to moderate 328 00:20:50,240 --> 00:20:53,400 right. We agree with McCarthy's goals. 329 00:20:53,400 --> 00:20:58,280 We just disagree with his means. Of course, McCarthy's goals were 330 00:20:58,280 --> 00:21:02,480 the usual ones, absorbed from the political culture, the 331 00:21:02,480 --> 00:21:05,280 alleged necessity of waging war against the international 332 00:21:05,280 --> 00:21:08,600 communist conspiracy whose tentacles reach from the Soviet 333 00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:12,280 Union and span the entire globe. McCarthy's problem, and 334 00:21:12,280 --> 00:21:16,400 ultimately his tragedy, is that he took this stuff seriously. 335 00:21:17,040 --> 00:21:19,760 If Communists and their agents and fellow travelers are 336 00:21:19,760 --> 00:21:22,920 everywhere, then shouldn't we, in the midst of the Cold War, 337 00:21:23,200 --> 00:21:25,520 root them out of American political life? 338 00:21:26,280 --> 00:21:29,960 The unique and glorious thing about McCarthy was not his goals 339 00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:34,240 or his ideology, but precisely his radical populist means. 340 00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:39,600 For McCarthy was able for a few years to short circuit the 341 00:21:39,600 --> 00:21:43,200 intense opposition of all the elites in American life, from 342 00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:46,560 Eisenhower, Rockefeller administrations to the Pentagon 343 00:21:46,560 --> 00:21:50,200 and the military industrial complex, to the liberal and left 344 00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:55,280 media and academic elites, to overcome all that opposition and 345 00:21:55,280 --> 00:21:57,320 reach and inspire the masses directly. 346 00:21:57,920 --> 00:22:02,640 And he did it through television and without any real movement 347 00:22:02,640 --> 00:22:05,320 behind him. He had only a guerrilla band of 348 00:22:05,320 --> 00:22:08,600 a few advisors, but no organization and no 349 00:22:08,600 --> 00:22:12,120 infrastructure. Fascinatingly enough, the 350 00:22:12,120 --> 00:22:15,600 response of the intellectual elites to the specter of 351 00:22:15,600 --> 00:22:21,480 McCarthyism was led by liberals such as Daniel Bell and Seymour 352 00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:26,080 Martin Lips, who are now prominent neoconservatives. 353 00:22:26,400 --> 00:22:29,760 For in this era, the neocons were in the midst of a long 354 00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:34,960 March which was to take them from Trotskyism to right wing 355 00:22:34,960 --> 00:22:40,600 Trotskyism, to right wing social democracy and finally to the 356 00:22:40,600 --> 00:22:42,920 leadership of the conservative movement. 357 00:22:43,360 --> 00:22:48,160 At this stage of their hajira, the neocons were Truman, 358 00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:51,040 Humphrey, Scoop Jackson liberals. 359 00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:55,680 The major intellectual response to McCarthyism was a book edited 360 00:22:55,680 --> 00:23:01,640 by Daniel Bell, The New American Right, 1955, later updated and 361 00:23:01,640 --> 00:23:07,400 expanded to the Radical Right 1963, published at a time when 362 00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:12,200 McCarthyism was long gone and it was necessary to combat a new 363 00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:16,800 menace, the John Burke Society. The basic method was to divert 364 00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:22,200 attention from the content of the radical right message and 365 00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:26,200 direct attention instead to a personal smear of the groups on 366 00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:30,400 the right. The classical or hard Marxist 367 00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:35,160 method of smearing opponents of socialism or communism was to 368 00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:39,520 condemn them as agents of monopoly capital or of the 369 00:23:39,520 --> 00:23:42,360 bourgeoisie. While these charges were wrong, 370 00:23:42,640 --> 00:23:47,360 at least they had the virtue of clarity and even a certain charm 371 00:23:47,360 --> 00:23:51,080 compared to the later tactics of the soft Marxist and the 372 00:23:51,080 --> 00:23:56,240 liberals of the 1950s and 60s who engaged in Marxo Freudian 373 00:23:56,240 --> 00:24:00,040 psycho Babble to infer in the name of psychological science 374 00:24:00,320 --> 00:24:04,160 that their opponent opponents were, well, kind of crazy. 375 00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:08,120 The preferred method of this time was invented by one of the 376 00:24:08,120 --> 00:24:12,520 contributors to the Bell Volume and also one of my favorite 377 00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:15,600 distinguished American historians, Professor Richard 378 00:24:15,680 --> 00:24:18,680 Hofstetter. Hofstetter's formulation. 379 00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:22,680 Any radical dissenters from any status quo, be they righteous or 380 00:24:22,680 --> 00:24:26,200 leftist, engaged in a paranoid style. 381 00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:31,360 And you know, of course, what paranoids are and suffer from 382 00:24:31,360 --> 00:24:38,320 status anxiety. Logically, at anytime there are 383 00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:41,880 three and only three social groups, those who are declining 384 00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:45,120 in status, those who are rising in status, and those whose 385 00:24:45,120 --> 00:24:48,440 status is about even. You can't fault the analysis. 386 00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:52,680 The declining groups are the ones whom Hofstadter focused on 387 00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:56,560 for the neurosis of status anxiety, which causes them to 388 00:24:56,560 --> 00:25:01,280 lash out irrationally at their betters in a paranoid style. 389 00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:05,560 And you can fill in the rest. But of course the rising groups 390 00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:09,280 can also suffer from the anxiety of trying to keep their higher 391 00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:14,480 status, and the level groups can be anxious about a future 392 00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:17,840 decline. The result of this hocus pocus 393 00:25:17,840 --> 00:25:21,960 is a non falsifiable, universally valid theory that 394 00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:27,320 can be trotted out to smear and dispose of any person or group 395 00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:29,320 which descends from the status quo. 396 00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:35,360 For who, after all, wants to be or to associate with paranoids 397 00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:41,200 and the status anxious? Also permeating the Bell volume 398 00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:45,760 is dismissal of these terrible, terrible radicals as suffering 399 00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:51,040 from the politics of resentment. It is interesting, by the way, 400 00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:53,480 how left liberals deal with political anger. 401 00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:58,280 It's a question of semantics. Anger by the good guys is 402 00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:01,800 accredited. Victim groups in designate is 403 00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:05,120 designated as rage, which is somehow noble. 404 00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:09,840 The latest example was the rage of organized feminism in the 405 00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:12,280 Clarence Thomas Willie Smith's incidents. 406 00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:16,600 On the other hand, anger designated by oppressor groups 407 00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:20,600 is not called rage, but resentment which conjures up 408 00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:25,440 evil little figures envious of their betters sulking around the 409 00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:29,000 edges of the night. And indeed, the entire Bell 410 00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:33,800 volume is permeated by a frank portrayal of the noble, 411 00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:38,960 intelligent Ivy League governing elite confronted and harassed by 412 00:26:39,080 --> 00:26:43,000 a mass of odious, uneducated, redneck, paranoid, resentment 413 00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:46,640 filled authoritarian working and middle class types in the 414 00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:52,240 heartland trying irrationally to undo the benevolent rule of wise 415 00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:53,960 elites concern for the public good. 416 00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:58,720 History however, was not very kind to the Hofstarian 417 00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:03,520 liberalism, for Hofstadter and the others were consistent. 418 00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:06,560 They were defending what they considered a wonderful status 419 00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:10,840 quo of elite rule from any radicals whatever by the left or 420 00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:13,320 right. And so Hofstadter and his 421 00:27:13,320 --> 00:27:16,800 followers went back through American history, tarring all 422 00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:20,400 radical dissenters from any status quo with the status 423 00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:23,440 anxious, paranoid brush, including such groups as 424 00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:28,200 progressive populist and northern abolitionist before the 425 00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:32,600 Civil War. At the same time, Bell in 1960 426 00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:37,440 published a once famous work proclaiming the end of ideology. 427 00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:41,040 From now on, consensus elitist liberalism would rule forever, 428 00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:45,040 ideology would disappear and all political problems would be 429 00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:49,160 merely technical ones such as which machinery to use to clear 430 00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:52,680 the streets. Foreshadowing 30 years later a 431 00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:56,520 similar neo con proclamation of the end of history. 432 00:27:56,840 --> 00:28:00,720 But shortly afterwards ideology came back with a bang with the 433 00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:05,040 radical civil rights and then the new left revolutionaries, 434 00:28:05,360 --> 00:28:08,840 part of which I'm convinced was in reaction to these arrogant 435 00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:12,600 liberal doctrines. Smearing radicals, at least left 436 00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:17,280 wing ones, was no longer in fashion, either in politics or 437 00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:21,160 historiography. Meanwhile, of course, poor 438 00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:25,320 McCarthy was undone, partly because of the smears and lack 439 00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:29,440 of a movement infrastructure, and partly too because his 440 00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:33,760 populism, even though dynamic, had no goals and no program 441 00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:36,960 whatsoever except the very narrow one of rooting out 442 00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:40,160 communists. And partly too because McCarthy 443 00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:42,880 was not really suited for the television medium. 444 00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:49,520 He had ridden to fame being a hot person in a cool medium with 445 00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:54,600 his jowls, his heavy five O clock shadow, which also helped 446 00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:57,560 ruin Nixon and his lack of sense of humor. 447 00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:01,920 And also, too, since he was neither a libertarian nor really 448 00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:05,880 a radical rightist, McCarthy's heart was broken by the censure 449 00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:10,280 of the US Senate, an institution which he actually loved. 450 00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:13,560 The original right, the radical right, had pretty much 451 00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:17,680 disappeared by the time of the 2nd edition of the Bell Volume 452 00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:23,080 in 1963, and in a minute, as we shall see, why. 453 00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:27,400 But now, all of a sudden, with the entry of Pat Buchanan into 454 00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:29,560 the presidential race, my God, they're back. 455 00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:33,440 The radical right is back all over the place, fessier than 456 00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:36,840 ever and getting stronger. The response to this historic 457 00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:40,520 phenomenon by the entire spectrum of established and 458 00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:46,560 correct thought by all the elites from leftover to official 459 00:29:46,560 --> 00:29:49,560 conservatives and neoconservatives, is very much 460 00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:53,800 like the reaction to the return of Godzilla in the old movies. 461 00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:57,680 And wouldn't you know that they would trot out the old psycho 462 00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:02,480 Babble as well as the old smears of bigotry, anti-Semitism, the 463 00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:05,120 specter of Franco, and all the rest? 464 00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:11,640 Every interview with an article on Pat dredges his authoritarian 465 00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:15,480 Catholic background. Oh, and the fact that he fought 466 00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:17,680 a lot when he was a kid. Gee whiz. 467 00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:19,840 Like most of the American male population. 468 00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:23,920 Also that Pat has been angry a lot. 469 00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:27,680 Oh, anger. And of course, since Pat is not 470 00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:31,040 only a right winger, but hails from a designated oppressor 471 00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:34,840 group, white, male, Irish Catholic, his anger can never be 472 00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:38,800 righteous rage, but only a reflection of a paranoid status, 473 00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:42,800 anxious personality filled with, you got it, resentment. 474 00:30:43,680 --> 00:30:47,960 And sure enough, this week, January 13th, the August New 475 00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:51,080 York Times, whose every word, unlike the words of the rest of 476 00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:54,680 us, is fit to print in its lead editorial. 477 00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:59,200 That's the established line, a line which by definition is 478 00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:01,440 fixed in concrete on Pat Buchanan. 479 00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:06,960 After deploring the hard edged and therefore politically 480 00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:11,720 incorrect vocabulary, Tisk tisk of Pat Buchanan, The New York 481 00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:15,960 Times, I'm sure, for the first time solemnly quotes Bill 482 00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:19,200 Buckley as if his words were wholly writ. 483 00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:20,440 And I'll get to that in a minute. 484 00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:24,400 And therefore decides that Buchanan, if not actually 485 00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:28,920 anti-Semitic, has said anti-Semitic things. 486 00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:34,480 And the Times concludes with the final punchline so reminiscent 487 00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:37,280 of the Bell Hofstadter line of yesteryear. 488 00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:41,680 What his words convey, much as his bid for the nomination 489 00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:46,640 conveys, is the politics, the dangerous politics of 490 00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:49,280 resentment. Resentment. 491 00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:52,840 Why should anyone in his right mind resent contemporary 492 00:31:52,840 --> 00:31:55,200 America? Why should anyone, for example, 493 00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:58,840 going out into the streets of Washington or New York, resent 494 00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:00,720 what is surely going to happen to him? 495 00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:04,600 For heaven's sake, what person in his right mind doesn't resent 496 00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:06,520 it? What person is not filled with 497 00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:10,840 noble rage or ignoble resentment or whatever you choose to call 498 00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:13,440 it? Finally, I want to turn to the 499 00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:15,880 question, what happened to the original right anyway? 500 00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:20,120 And how did the conservative movement get into its present 501 00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:23,240 mess? Why does it need to be sundered 502 00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:27,240 and split apart and a new radical right movement created 503 00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:30,440 upon its ashes? The answer to both these 504 00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:34,960 seemingly desperate questions is the same What happened to the 505 00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:37,160 original right? And the cause of the present 506 00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:41,040 mess is The Advent and Domination of the Right Wing by 507 00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:44,080 Bill Buckley and the National Review. 508 00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:48,360 By the mid 1950s, much of the leadership of the old right was 509 00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:51,560 dead or in retirement. Senator Taft and Colonel 510 00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:54,840 McCormick had died and many of the right wing congressmen had 511 00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:58,120 retired. The conservative masses, for a 512 00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:02,600 long time short on intellectual leadership, we're now lacking in 513 00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:05,800 political leadership as well. An intellectual and powered 514 00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:09,360 vacuum had developed on the right and rushing to fill it in 515 00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:12,440 1955. Or Bill Buckley, fresh from 516 00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:15,120 several years in the CIA and National Review. 517 00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:18,640 An intelligent, well written periodical staff with ex 518 00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:23,040 communists and ex leftist eager to transform the right from an 519 00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:27,240 isolationist movement into a crusade to crush the Soviet God 520 00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:31,080 that had failed them. Also, Buckley's writing style, 521 00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:35,360 while in those days often witty and sparkling, was rococo enough 522 00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:38,400 to give the reader the impression of profound thought, 523 00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:42,520 an impression redoubled by Bill's habit of sprinkling his 524 00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:46,240 prose with French and Latin terms. 525 00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:50,320 Very quickly, National Review became the dominant, if not the 526 00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:53,080 only, power center on the right wing. 527 00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:57,960 This power was reinforced by a brilliantly successful strategy, 528 00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:01,680 perhaps guided by National Review editors trained in 529 00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:05,520 Marxist cadre tactics, of creating front groups, 530 00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:10,199 Intercollegiate Studies Institute for College 531 00:34:10,199 --> 00:34:14,159 Intellectuals, and Young Americans for Freedom for Campus 532 00:34:14,159 --> 00:34:17,040 activists. Moreover, led by veteran 533 00:34:17,159 --> 00:34:21,159 Republican Politico and National Review publisher Bill Rusher, 534 00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:25,520 the National Review Complex was able to take over in swift 535 00:34:25,520 --> 00:34:28,760 secession the College Young Republicans and the National 536 00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:32,360 Young Republicans, and finally to create a Goldwater movement 537 00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:37,440 in 1960 and beyond. And so, with almost blitzkrieg 538 00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:41,600 swiftness by the early 1960s, the new global crusading 539 00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:44,360 conservative movement, transformed and headed by Bill 540 00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:48,000 Buckley, was almost ready to take power in America. 541 00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:52,960 But not quite, because first all the various heretics of the 542 00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:55,880 right, some leftover from the original right, all the groups 543 00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:59,000 that were in any way radical or could deprive the new 544 00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:03,160 conservative movement of its much desired respectability in 545 00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:07,560 the eyes of the liberal and centrist elite, all these had to 546 00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:11,160 be jettisoned. Only such a denatured, 547 00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:15,280 respectable, non radical conservative right was worthy of 548 00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:17,480 power. And so the purchase began. 549 00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:21,800 One after another, Buckley and the National Review purged and 550 00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:25,920 excommunicated all radicals, all the non respectables. 551 00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:29,560 Consider the roll call isolationists such as John T 552 00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:34,040 Flynn, anti Zionists, libertarians, EIN Randians, the 553 00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:38,240 John Burke Society, and all those who continued, like the 554 00:35:38,240 --> 00:35:42,040 early National Review, to dare to oppose Martin Luther King and 555 00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:44,760 the Civil rights revolution after Buckley had changed and 556 00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:49,320 decided to embrace it. But if by the middle and late 557 00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:52,960 1960s Buckley had purged the conservative movement of the 558 00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:56,560 genuine right, he also hastened to embrace any group that 559 00:35:56,560 --> 00:36:01,120 proclaimed it's hard anti communism, or rather anti 560 00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:06,560 Sovietism or anti Stalinism. And of course the first anti 561 00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:11,040 Stalinist were the devotees of the martyred communist Leon 562 00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:13,400 Trotsky. And so the conservative 563 00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:17,160 movement, while purging itself of genuine right wingers, was 564 00:36:17,160 --> 00:36:22,840 happy to embrace anyone of any variety of Marxist, Trotskyites, 565 00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:27,520 Schmachtenites, Mensheviks, Social Democrats such as grouped 566 00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:31,680 around the magazine The New leader Loves Tonight, 567 00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:35,120 theoreticians of the American Federation of Labor, extreme 568 00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:38,440 right wing Marxist like the incredibly beloved Sydney Hook. 569 00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:43,400 Anyone who could present not anti socialist but suitably anti 570 00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:46,560 Soviet, anti Stalinist credentials. 571 00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:53,360 The way was then paved for the final fatal influx, that of the 572 00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:58,800 ex Trotskyite right wing Social Democrat, Democrat capitalist 573 00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:03,720 Truman Humphrey, Scoop Jackson liberals displaced from their 574 00:37:03,720 --> 00:37:07,480 home in the Democratic Party by the looney left that we know so 575 00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:09,680 well. The feminist deconstructing, 576 00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:13,360 quota loving advanced victimological left. 577 00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:19,000 And also, we should point out at least a semi isolationist, semi 578 00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:22,280 anti war left. These displaced people are of 579 00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:25,880 course the famed neoconservatives, a tiny but 580 00:37:26,200 --> 00:37:29,280 ubiquitous group with Bill Buckley as their aging 581 00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:32,360 figurehead, now dominating the conservative movement. 582 00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:39,000 Of the 35 neoconservatives, 34 seem to be syndicated columnist. 583 00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:42,880 And so the neocons have managed to establish themselves as the 584 00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:45,120 only right wing alternative to the left. 585 00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:48,440 The neocons now constitute the right wing end of the 586 00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:52,800 ideological spectrum of the respectable, responsible right 587 00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:55,080 wing. That is, for the neocons have 588 00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:58,680 managed to establish the notion that anyone who might be to the 589 00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:03,200 right of them is by definition a representative of the forces of 590 00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:08,840 darkness, of chaos, old right, racism and anti-Semitism. 591 00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:14,880 The article ends with a bit of optimism from Doctor Rothbard. 592 00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:19,240 With the inspiration of the death of the Soviet Union before 593 00:38:19,240 --> 00:38:22,200 us, we now know that it can be done. 594 00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:24,520 We shall break the clock of social democracy. 595 00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:26,920 We shall break the clock of the Great Society. 596 00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:29,120 We shall break the clock of the welfare State. 597 00:38:29,240 --> 00:38:31,120 We shall break the clock of the New New Deal. 598 00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:35,120 We shall break the clock of Woodrow Wilson's new freedom and 599 00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:38,160 perpetual war. We shall repeal the 20th 600 00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:41,320 century. One of the most inspiring and 601 00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:44,920 wonderful sights of our time was to see the peoples of the Soviet 602 00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:48,640 Union rising up last year to tear down in their fury the 603 00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:51,640 statues of Lenin. To obliterate the Leninist 604 00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:54,200 legacy. We too shall tear down all the 605 00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:57,800 statues of Franklin D Roosevelt, of Harry Truman, of Woodrow 606 00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:02,360 Wilson, melt them down and beat them into plowshares and pruning 607 00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:07,120 hooks, and usher in a 21st century of peace, freedom, and 608 00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:11,520 prosperity. Links to this entire speech will 609 00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:16,240 be in the description below. Also, if you'd like to read what 610 00:39:16,240 --> 00:39:20,720 William F Buckley's proposal was for what the Republican Party 611 00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:27,360 should embrace, he authored a article titled The Party and the 612 00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:29,800 Deep Blue Sea. This would have been in the 613 00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:33,880 1950s, where he gave some very kind advice. 614 00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:37,400 This means that we have got to accept big government for the 615 00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:40,640 duration, for neither an offensive nor a defensive war 616 00:39:40,640 --> 00:39:44,160 can be waged given our present government skills, except 617 00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:48,080 through the instrument of a totalitarian bureaucracy within 618 00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:50,760 our shores. The question is raised, does it 619 00:39:50,760 --> 00:39:53,400 make a great deal of difference if we lose our freedom to a 620 00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:56,480 Georgian bandit or a Missouri ignoramus? 621 00:39:57,280 --> 00:40:02,920 So this explains why no president has made net spending 622 00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:08,400 cuts since Dwight D Eisenhower, why the regulatory apparatus 623 00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:12,000 continues to grow even under Bush, even under Trump, even 624 00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:16,720 under Reagan, even under Nixon. It's because these people at 625 00:40:16,720 --> 00:40:20,120 National Review completely Co opted the old right. 626 00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:25,800 Rothbard previously in this art in the speech. 627 00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:28,840 Mentions that the old right is basically the right wing 628 00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:35,120 thinkers from 1933 to 1953. They arose in response to the 629 00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:38,400 New Deal programs. Thank you for watching Keith 630 00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:41,160 Knight, Don't Tread on Anyone, and the Libertarian Institute.