Tag: Paul Gottfried

Michael Anton Quotes From OCF – That’s Pretty Cool

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Back in the before time when 2016 was shaping up to be a contest between Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush I first read Michael Anton’s essay “The Flight 93 Election”.  And the fact that someone with an academic background and a connection to Washington understood just how bleak the Uniparty options were for this country impressed me greatly.

And afterwards as I perceived that he was pursuing those at at the far outer edges of conservative thought to provide fresh ideas for a political movement that was hollowed out at the top I was encouraged   Because we really do need much more coordination and honest dialog if we’re even going to survive the onslaught of the monolithic Left.

Now I’m not a great thinker.  I’m just a schmoe who got tired of being thrown off of photography and science fiction websites because I didn’t kowtow to the Left’s shibboleths and put together my own site where I can say whatever damn thing I want to.  But I practiced in my own humble way what Anton was doing.  I read far and wide on the on the internet.  Back in 2015 and 2016 there were all kinds of crazy people involved in the pro-Trump movement.  And beyond the pro-Trump movement there were the dissidents for whom Trump was just a symptom.  And I learned quite a bit about the various factions and ideologies and to be honest, the various hates that exist on the Right.

And I can see that there are strengths and weaknesses in each of them.  But what is also true is that the Left’s use of surrogates on the Right to disqualify anyone dangerous to the Left has been one of their most successful strategies.  William F. Buckley was famous for this.

And the neocons tried to do it to Donald Trump to stop him from being elected.  So I made a point to keep an open mind about fringe thinkers.  And so I read people like the Z-Man.  And I’ve found him to be spot on about a whole raft of things that affect our lives.  He’s a very smart guy.

But he’s just one guy.  We need about thirty million guys working together just to stop this train from going off the cliff.  So on balance I have to give the prize to people like Anton and even Gottfried who may disagree on a multitude of intellectual points but at least are willing to hold a discussion about their differences.  To my mind honest disagreement can be enlightening for both sides.  You don’t have to convince the other guy but you do have to make an effort to clarify your position for the readers.  And I believe that’s how we’ll end up with some kind of a coalition.

So I woke up this morning and I saw I had some traffic coming over from American Greatness.  Now I wrote a couple of posts for them a few years back but nothing recently so i was interested.  and there I saw this post by Michael Anton.  He quoted a blog post I wrote a week or two ago going over my thoughts on the Anton / Z-Man war.

I won’t deny I was pretty happy thinking that somehow Michael Anton had visited my site.  After all I had read his article about seven years ago and it had been one of the inspirations for my blogging and many other activities I had engaged in over the years.  He had crystallized many of the thoughts that had been growing in my mind ever since the George Bush presidency had destroyed my belief in the Republican establishment.

But beyond my own private satisfaction in being noticed, it gives me hope that there are people trying to build something bigger than just Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis or Twitter.  We need an actual identity and a mission to save this country.  We at least have to agree on what we’re trying to save.  I think Anton believes that.

It’s a start.

Michael Anton, Paul Gottfried and the Z-Man – A Fractured Spectrum on the Right

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I have been an advocate of dialog on the Right.  And recently there has been quite a bit of it.  And now I think I can see the present limits of what can be achieved by dialog.  Based on what I have seen I would say that at the point on the Dissident Right where Civic Nationalism starts to be viewed as anathema, then from there on, common ground can no longer exist with the more mainstream right.  The level of hostility is too extreme to allow for civility or even meaningful communication.

So be it.  But that still leaves plenty of latitude for dialog.  After all, the Z-Man and Paul Gottfried have several times shared the stage on various podcasts and they have been extremely cordial.  And Gottfried and Anton have debated on the pages of various right-wing publications with clearly evident collegial respect and politeness.  So, there is a bridge across the chasm but it is more of a shuttle that on its own can visit the two sides.

I can see the point of view of both these sides.  But I will say I have more sympathy for Anton because he has extended himself to try to communicate across the divide in a friendly manner.  The Z-Man was far from friendly.  In fact, he was pointedly hostile and rude.  And maybe that’s the requirement of the position he has staked out.  He has readers who exceed him in their anger toward any moderate figure or group in America.  Maybe politeness toward someone like Anton is a disqualifying act.  But maybe I’m wrong about that.  Maybe he truly feels that Anton is part of the enemy he faces.  And that is every man’s prerogative; to select his own friends and enemies.  But I give the moral high ground to Anton.  He wasn’t demanding any concessions, only extending an olive branch or a flag of truce for a parley.

Almost equally I think I know why the Dissident Right resents the Civic Nationalists.  They see them as the descendants of the mainstream conservatives who allowed themselves to be led along by the Buckleyites and the Neo-Conservatives and never did anything to prevent the takeover of the country by the Left.  They see the egalitarianism of the Civic Nationalists as the stepping stone to all the evils we see today; the LGBTQ madness and the destruction of personal freedoms in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion.  And there’s some truth in that.  In fact, I feel I was one of the pawns who believed in men like George Bush Jr. and his endless wars that accomplished nothing but killing Americans.

I see myself as someone who sees both sides of this divide.  But even though I have sympathy for the dissidents I think Anton’s side is where there may be a chance to take constructive action.  Someone like Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis will reach out to a Michael Anton or a JD Vance because they are interested in practical steps that can actually be accomplished.  Anton has reached out to people on the fringes of the Right like Curtis Yarvin and BAP in order to try to understand their point of view.  And while his viewpoint is still quite different from any of these people he is at least engaging in dialog.  And if nothing else it allows for some measure of coordination on practical things like supporting political candidates and networking.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised at how this contact between two worlds ended up.  But I am a little disappointed.  I wasn’t hoping for rapprochement but some kind of dialog and détente with a little glasnost thrown in for good measure.  Oh well.

But something was learned and nowadays that’s the first step to constructive actions.  Apparently, it’s not yet time for the opposite ends of the Right to talk to each other.  Whatever coordination gets done it will not include the Dissident Right.  At least not yet.