For once, I agree with John Zmirak: it is the strength of our communities that makes the West worth fighting for, not our capacity to produce wealth or love of universal reason. This is why activities and discourses which demoralize the community, which seem to make it not worth caring about (such as suburban sprawl or the dictates of political correctness), are so subtly insidious and do more damage in the long run than war. Material bankruptcy proceeds from spiritual and intellectual bankruptcy. We’re finding that out now in the final act of consumerism at the hands of Peak Oil.
Roach is thinking along realist lines, in terms of the interests of the community, instead of through grand abstractions and the faux humanitarianism (a status marker amongst elites) that is so common these days. If this is conservatism (the virtue of prudence), then I am all for it, but with the understanding that a “strong defense” isn’t a mere slogan and excuse for siphoning off the wealth of the nation into the militarist projects of the Pentagon faction. I’m not sure real conservatism, as opposed to conservatism = classical liberalism + a coalition of interest groups, has ever been on offer in the United States.
Where are all these communities that are worth fighting for? My little “bedroom” community is full of soccer moms, inattentive dads and skate punk children. I wouldn’t give up a spare nose hair for the lot of them. Nor would you, Brad. And John Zmirak loves America so much that he emigrated.
The West is worth fighting for because it our civilization. The current incarnation is not salvageable, however, because it is decadent and stupid. Yet there are seeds, genetic and otherwise, of a better society that can be built down the road.
I wasn’t referring to American suburbia.
Even the non-suburbs have access to Fox News, iTunes and MySpace. White or not, anybody who gets a kick out of “Grand Theft Auto” or “Sex in The City” is not part of the civilization I want to preserve. Indo-European ancestry and genetics are not enough.
Race isn’t everything. It hardly follows though that race doesn’t matter.