Here's my 2 cents on The Urge to Purge ...
There is of course, another side to this story. One, that isn't being discussed in the current debate ... Which is, the possibility that there is an actual conspiracy. So, let's tackle that head-on, right here!
The Gate-Keepers:
From Ruffini's "Can We Have Buckley Back?"
As a fiscal and social conservative, I happen to think Jon is completely in the right here, both substantively and strategically.
I've never understood the label's "fiscal conservative" or "social conservative." To me, they're meaningless. The conservative movement was birthed in the classical liberal, anti-state tradition of our Founding Fathers. The movement focused on their opposition to Progressivism and the New Deal. So adding the words "fiscal" and/or "social" to conservative, is in itself, a repudiation of of the roots of conservatism.
All these modifiers accomplish, is to add the presupposition of the progressive faith in the state, to the conservative movement. Our Founder's gave us a Constitutionally limited-government because they feared an all-powerful state. Thus Buckley's grave error - his trust and admiration for the ruling elite.
So right from the beginning here, I find Ruffini to be only mildly conservative, and unquestionably not an "intellect" (by any stretch of the imagination). I'm not being an ideological puritan in saying this either, because I believe no 2 people share the exact same opinions. I'm just calling it as I see it - Ruffini is a Republican first (NTTAWWT).
Don't raise the canard that we ought to be attacking Democrats first. Conservatives are entirely within their rights to have public debates over who will publicly represent them, and who will be allowed to affiliate with the conservative movement.
Yes, all Americans are "within their rights to have public debates." However, being that there's no official membership list, NOBODY (including Ruffini, Henke, Moran, and McArdle) gets to choose "who will be allowed to affiliate with the conservative movement." It's obvious, that they confuse the Republican Party apparatus, with the (philosophical) conservative movement.
Ruffini, Henke, et.al., are making their case to purge based on fear, not logic. We all fall prey to this now and again (we're only human). They fear a mythical "somebody else" ... They fear progressives will define them by those with whom they disagree. But there's a fundamental flaw in such analysis.
Imagine for a moment, your child just started high school and is upset that she's not "popular." She comes home from school one day and confides in you, that the other kids say she's ugly and stupid. What would you do? Would you tell her the "other kids" are right? Of course you wouldn't!
Yet, we're supposed to believe it's the Left that defines the right in politics?
Who's Paranoid?
The Birthers are the latest in a long line of paranoid conspiracy believers of the left and right who happen to attach themselves to notions that simply are not true. Descended from the 9/11 Truthers, the LaRouchies, the North American Union buffs, and way back when, the John Birch Society, the Birthers are hardly a new breed in American politics.
What is it about those who dare to dig beneath the surface of government programs, looking for ulterior motives, that scares the Establishment Republicans so much?
Are we to believe that even though all humans are sinners, this fact magically becomes suspended when they go to work in the government? Are we to simply pretend politics isn't a dirty business? Should we ignore too, the many warnings of our Founders?
I've got news for ya ... everyone has a boss! Yes, even the President of the United States. Anyone who believes millions of dollars in "donations" don't also come with strings attached ... Well, all I can tell you is ... grow up!
But still, even with the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on various political campaigns, a "conspiracy" can't possibly exist. Right? For example, nobody "[acted] or work[ed] together toward the same result or goal" during John McCain's bid for POTUS. Right? Oh, wait ... they did. Hmmm ...
Just about all of Shakespeare's tragedies were based in conspiracy too. Are we to believe along with everything else, that Shakespeare taught us nothing about the mischief of man?
Boy, it's starting to look like we have to suspend all common sense in order NOT to believe in conspiracies ...
Paranoia is the "baseless or excessive suspicion of the motives of others." Whether we're talking about "truthers," "birthers," or whomever ... they're just groups of people who are suspicious of those in power. And if being suspicious of those in power makes someone "crazy," then we'll have to add Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington, and John Adams (to name a few) to the "crazy" list too!
"At the heart of conservatism, is the suspicion of those in power." - Me.
There exists in the heart of man, the desire to control others. The quest for power is as ancient as humankind. History is full of stories in which the power of the state is used to enrich the few, and control the many. When the quest for power is fused with humanitarian goals (such as it is with the progressive movement), its hard for people to resist.
As Lord Acton famously taught us:
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Sure, some conspiracy theories go a little too far, and others are outright crazy! But the wholesale denial of conspiracy in general, is naive at best.
When President Bill Clinton delivered his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention on July 16, 1992, he said (emphasis added):
"... as a teenager I heard John Kennedy's summons to citizenship. And then, as a student at Georgetown, I heard that call clarified by a professor named Carroll Quigley, who said to us that America was the greatest country in the history of the world because our people have always believed in two things: that tomorrow can be better than today and that every one of us has a personal, moral responsibility to make it so."
Carroll Quigley, a professor at Georgetown University, noted historian for the Council on Foreign Relations, and consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense (among many other high-profile bonafides), is the author of 2 important "conspiracy" books:
The Anglo-American Establishment: From Rhodes to Cliveden (1949):
This society has been known at various times as Milner's Kindergarten, as the Round Table Group, as the Rhodes crowd, as The Times crowd, as the All Souls group, and as the Cliveden set ... I have chosen to call it the Milner group. Those persons who have used the other terms, or heard them used, have not generally been aware that all these various terms referred to the same Group.
It is not easy for an outsider to write the history of a secret group of this kind, but, since no insider is going to do it, an outsider must attempt it. It should be done, for this Group is, as I shall show, one of the most important historical facts of the twentieth century.
Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (1966):
There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the radical Right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other groups, and frequently does so. I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960's, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments. I have objected, both in the past and recently, to a few of its policies (notably to its belief that England was an Atlantic rather than a European Power and must be allied, or even federated, with the United States and must remain isolated from Europe), but in general my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known (p. 950).
Maybe Quigley (and many other authors) are completely wrong. I hope so! But surely, one can see that the idea of a power-hungry conspiracy within our own government, is anything but "baseless."
So, who then... really holds a "baseless or excessive suspicion of the motives of others?" I'd say it's Ruffini, Henke, Moran, and McArdle ... who are the real paranoids.
What are they afraid of? I don't know.
