12 June 2019

Paleoconservatism 101:

Whilst I identify as an European integralist, or High Tory, rather than  any sort of 'conservative', I can agree with most of these points. Remember, GKC said, 'The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected'. 

Of course, I would add legitimist monarchism as yet another point!

From a Facebook post on Paleoconservatives and Traditional Conservatives

Paleoconservative is a label rooted in the Old Right and the writings of certain American intellectuals, such as Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis, Joe Sobran, Thomas Fleming, Paul Gottfried, Claes Ryn, and others. Paleoconservatism has much in common with the Southern conservative tradition though they are not identical in so far as the latter is more of a tradition embodied in a people and not a system of belief.

Some core principles of paleoconservatism follow:

1. Christianity is integral to the historic American identity. Paleoconservatives seek to uphold and transmit Christian teaching, especially traditional Christian moral teaching, in their communities.

2. There are sex differences rooted in biology, and domestic, social, and political roles are derived from these differences. We seek to uphold patriarchy as belonging to the Natural Law and oppose all forms of feminism.
3. The best of American intellectual culture is derived from Anglo, Latin, and Greek sources.
4. The Anglo-American political tradition predates the advent of liberalism as a philosophy, and hearkens back to Greek and Roman notions of republicanism as well as to Celtic and Germanic mores.
5. Paleoconservatives recognize that there is an order of charity, against liberals who level all relationships in the name of equality.
6. True community, a nexus of political friendship, can be formed and maintained only according to a properly human scale.
7. Political friendship is dependent upon a common identity and culture, which is primarily understood here as referring to laws, customs, morals, and traditions, as well as history. Identity should include group membership and loyalties, and has both a subjective component and an objective component, as well as recognition by the group.
8. Paleoconservatives acknowledge that traditional American cultures are associated with various Anglo-American peoples, and that these cultures are parts of their identity.
9. Ethnonationalism seeks to preserve these peoples, cultures, and identity and is opposed to civic nationalism, which is a tool of the state for the control and atomization of peoples, and to create a loyalty to the state apart from the peoples. The identity fostered by civic nationalism is rooted in some set of beliefs or creed, and is rationalistic and opposed to tradition and the ethnic solidarity which is good and natural to a people.
10. The economy serves the community, not the other way around.
11. A healthy economy must have a good agrarian foundation.
12. A political community should strive for autarky/self-sufficiency.
13. Paleoconservatism is opposed to an interventionist foreign policy and the neoconservative project of democracy-building. American foreign policy should be based on what is good for the American peoples and not what is good for another nation-state.
14. Paleoconservatism is opposed to the maintenance of an empire for the sake of economic interests of the few. In so far as empire is necessary for supplies of energy and natural resources, paleoconservatives seek to mitigate that dependence.
15. Paleoconservatism is generally opposed to the development of the nation-state, and the centralization of political power in the Federal Government. The centralization of economic and political power in the hands of the few is a feature of the state, and all errors of statism are merely a manifestation of this fundamental problem of the state. Paleoconservatives are sympathetic to the anti-Federalists.

Based on these considerations and others not listed, paleoconservatives are opposed to liberalism and egalitarianism, as well as their intellectual offspring such as Marxism and feminism.

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Comments are subject to deletion if they are not germane. I have no problem with a bit of colourful language, but blasphemy or depraved profanity will not be allowed. Attacks on the Catholic Faith will not be tolerated. Comments will be deleted that are republican (Yanks! Note the lower case 'r'!), attacks on the legitimacy of Pope Francis as the Vicar of Christ (I know he's a material heretic and a Protector of Perverts, and I definitely want him gone yesterday! However, he is Pope, and I pray for him every day.), the legitimacy of the House of Windsor or of the claims of the Elder Line of the House of France, or attacks on the legitimacy of any of the currently ruling Houses of Europe.