THE NEW RIGHT'S CREDIBILITY GAP, PART III

    So this morning, the Controlled Opposition's newsfeeds were obsessing over two things: Hunter Biden was charged with some tax-related crimes made up the first big story while the GOP's sudden concern with alleged anti-Semitism made up the second. It's rather strange how the Party Establishment, which gave the Trump Administration zero support in his swamp-draining efforts, are focusing upon what many pundits call "the most corrupt administration in history." While the Biden/Harris Junta is terribly corrupt, criticisms coming from a Political Establishment which supported the Bush Administration are difficult to take seriously. Much of Hunter Biden's activities center upon shady dealings in Ukraine, as if nobody in the GOP leadership wasn't in there plundering whatever they get their hands on too. In fact, the Republican Establishment is still stuffing their own pockets at Ukraine's expense, as well as at the expense of American taxpayers. 

    It's also amazing how, after three decades or so of ignoring American Academia's overt discrimination against White Males and against Asian-Americans, there's suddenly a major uproar  over Political Correctness when the Israel Lobby's interests are being threatened. Conservative American parents and alumni who had absolutely no idea that schools were under the domination of Left-Wing extremists until 2021 doubtless are shocked that such things go on. It's even gotten so bad, that Conservative pundit Josh Hammer---who writes for the Moonie-affiliated media mouthpiece Newsweek---is advising us Conservative Christians to observe Hanukkah and abandon the Graeco-Roman traditions of our Civilization in higher education. True, those traditions were abandoned a long time ago anyway, but Hammer suggests replacing them with Zionist Jewish ones instead. This is because universities no longer respect our shared Christian heritage, I suppose. 

     One story that the Conservative-Industrial Complex discreetly overlooked came with a rare Senate vote yesterday over the Pentagon's illegal occupation of Syrian Oil Fields. Senator Rand Paul, after nearly a decade of inactivity on this issue, came down with a sudden (and probably involuntary) spasm of manhood and invoked the War Powers Act to force a Senate vote to remove US troops. In 2018, the Trump Administration ordered US troops out of Syria, but the Pentagon ignored him and continues to run an illegal smuggling operation from the region. 

    So the Senate voted and Rand Paul managed to gather about a dozen or so Republicans to join with him. By an 84-13 margin, our Conservative Senators joined with the Democrats to back the Deep State. The Republicans' Grand Poobah in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, stated: “Passage of such a resolution would be a gift to Iran and its terrorist network. Driving American troops from the Middle East is exactly what they’d like to see. It would encourage Iran’s proxies to open a northern front in the territorial war against Israel.”

   Naturally, Israel's interests come first, especially when they are deeply tied to Supranational Oil interests. Republican Congressman Mike McCaul of Texas has already drawn up a Resolution to grant the Junta authority (as if they would bother asking Congress) to use military force against loosely-defined 'Iranian interests.' Not that the GOP-controlled Congress could lift a pinkie to do anything to fund our crumbling domestic energy infrastructure: that, of course, would be socialism, and if American consumers have to shell out more for oil, that's just the Free Market. When it comes to subsidizing Big Oil to seize foreign reserves though, we can be a little flexible about that. 

     While there is always a measure of compromise required in self-governing Republics, there comes a point when we have to start asking ourselves what we really stand for. Conservative Christians need to stop and notice that they are supporting a movement which essentially is indistinguishable from what they claim to oppose. 

    There is a fair amount of sophistry being promoted, noticeably among the Churchian Right, which argues that morality is only a private matter with no application to the 'real world' without. The Neocons have been preaching this for a long time: they openly deride ideals like social justice, compassion, etc. The Churchian Right hypocritically (and blasphemously) tries to rationalize the crimes of the Neocons with supposed spiritual justification. Pastor Doug Wilson, whose site features a No Quarter November under header depicting a rabid dog with the description "Theology that Bites Back," lifts some passages from the Bible to shoehorn them into such service.

   Wilson's recent article David and Deception is an example of this kind of perverse exegesis. "Over the years, I have sought to make the point that deception is to lying and bearing false witness what killing is to murder. All murder is killing but not all killing is murder. Murder is prohibited in Exodus xx:13 and capital punishment required in the next chapter, Exodus xxi:12. And all false witness is deception but not all deception is bearing false witness. The rule of thumb, as we see in Scripture, is whether or not it is occurring in time of war, or in what is tantamount to war." 

   Wilson goes on to give some examples, but if he'd read an actual theologian like St. Thomas Aquinas he would see the false dichotomy in a statement like: "Now either David was a hypocrite with a huge blind spot, or those Christians who take an absolutist position about every form of deception . . . have a huge blind spot." (referencing David's feigning insanity to escape the King of Gath). Aquinas demonstrated that, in our fallen world, situations arise where there are no right choices. In such a situation, the greater sin must give way to the lesser. In wartime, for example, a captured soldier may lie to the enemy to save the lives of his countrymen, which would be a greater evil. There is a big difference between that, and say, lying about the character of the Zionist Regime in Israel or the Neo-Nazi Regime in Ukraine because such deception is not intended to prevent evil but to promote personal gain. 

   Reading such ideas as Wilson advocates reminds me of a quote from the film, Judgement at Nuremberg, where the prosecutor said: "The fate of these defendants illuminate one of the most shattering truths that have emerged from this trial. If all of the leaders of the Third Reich had been sadistic monsters or degraded perverts, then these events would have no more significance than any other natural disaster; but what this trial has shown is that, in times of national stress, ordinary---even able and extraordinary---men can delude themselves into the commission of crimes so heinous that they are beyond imagination. No one who's sat through this trial can ever forget them: men killed and sterilized for political beliefs; a mockery made of friendship and faith; the murder of children." {nota bene}.

  "How easily it can happen. There are those in our own country who now say that in order to survive we must adopt the means of the enemy; to do what is expedient; to look the other way. The question then becomes: survival as what? A country is not a rock; it is not an extension of oneself: it's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult, when the grip of the enemy is at its throat. Let it be said now that in this verdict, this is what we stand for: Justice, Truth, and the Value of a single human life." 

   If Americans on the Right still had a capacity for feeling shame, the contrary words coming from the likes of Josh Hammer, Mitch McConnell, and Doug Wilson would be a national disgrace instead of being celebrated all over the Internet. This is another reason why the Right has lost its credibility: the leadership has proven over and over again that it holds no actual principles other than win-at-all-costs and prosperity-at-any-price, things that earlier generations of Conservatives like Theodore Roosevelt warned us against. What the New Right is selling is simply a repackaged version of the Moral Relativism sold by the Left. How else can it be defined? If ends justify the means; if deception and murder are condoned as expedient to an end; then whatever end is proposed is not worth achieving because in essence it is no better than what it seeks to replace. 

Correction: The portion of the article referencing the War Powers Act vote was published before the Congressional Record was. Actually only four Republicans voted with Senator Paul; the others were Democrats and Independent Bernie Sanders. The Republican Senators were Mike Braun (Indiana); Mike Lee (Utah); Tommy Tuberville (Alabama); and J.D. Vance (Ohio).