Immigration

This abstract approach to assimilation derives, ultimately, from the conviction - as naive as it is chauvinistic - that America is an exceptional country, one not rooted in blood, soil, and kinship, but a nation “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Proponents of this are quick to label the more old-fashioned view, that the nation is a metaphorical extended family, as bigotry, but no amount of repetition or rhetorical extravagance can disguise the dangerous logic that is at work. If I love my country because it is mine, I must be loyal to it, even when I disagree with its policies, but I do not necessarily regard it as superior to everyone else’s country, and I may have no inclination to say that all other countries, to the extent that they are legitimate and worthy of respect, must approximate my own.

But that this is exactly what the advocates of the “propositional nation” do insist upon. The United States is not only the best nation in the history of the world, but also it is the beacon to all mankind, the natural home of all the good and decent people in the world and the enemy to all regimes that deny their subjects equal rights. Thus, by the same argument, a propositional nation is obliged to open its borders to strangers “yearning to breathe free,” but it is also justified in engaging in endless crusades to impose its propositions on the rest of the world.

Ron Paul

Dr. Paul has his zany side: He believes in the Constitution of the old American republic, and he actually thinks it has some relevance for America today. God bless him, I would vote for him if only for pretending to embrace such a heartwarming fantasy. As it is, I am convinced he believes what he says. (His candor and sincerity alone are enough to disqualify him as a serious presidential candidate in these United States.) Paul not only wants, in principle, to restore the republic but also opposes the continued erosion of states’ rights and U.S. sovereignty.

Religion

The Eastern position, from fairly early on and down to fairly late, was unequivocal in acknowledging the primacy of the Roman bishop, and even today most Orthodox bishops and theologians I know concede that if the Church were reunited, the heir of Peter (sic) would preside over the meetings of the patriarchs — indeed, in some Eastern ecclesiastical disputes in recent years, appeals have been made to the Pope.

• "Civil disobedience, then, is an unmitigated evil, the doctrine of anti-Christian ideologues like Thoreau, Gandhi, and King. No conservative, much less a Christian, could invoke such a doctrine without discrediting himself." (emphasis added.)
• "In South Africa and Rhodesia, it is hard to understand the position taken by English liberals whose efforts on behalf of Africans reached entirely predictable conclusions. In the post War South, a very basic struggle was engaged between Whites and Blacks. The old Bourbons...who were hardly less racist than the populists who succeeded them...made some attempt to protect the interests of Black people, especially the small middle class and those whose families had been attached to them. There was also a sense of noblesse oblige. These honorable sentiments, however, seemed a bit antiquated in the midst of Reconstruction, and the ill effects of the Second Reconstruction, still being experienced in acute form in most of the USA, is a warning against social revolution." (emphasis added.)
• "What is racial profiling, if not an acknowledgment that different racial and ethnic groups are statistically more likely than other groups to engage in different sorts of illegal behavior. The Irish, who have a genetic weakness for alcohol, are too prone to get into fights, while Sicilians and South Italians have demonstrated an amazing ability to organize extortion, protection, prostitution, and gambling rackets. When O.J. Simpson kills a white woman or engages in other violent acts, he is simply living up to a statistical stereotype that informs us that African Americans, who make up less than 15% of the population, commit roughly 50% of violent crimes. And, O.J. is as exemplary a representative of his grou'’s criminality as Bernie Madoff, John Gotti, Mohammed Atta, and Joaquin 'El Chapo' Loera Guzman (a billionaire Mexican drug lord who made the exclusive Forbes list in 2009) are of theirs." (emphasis added.)

• "Old Rights and New Right" in The New Right Papers, Robert W. Whitaker, Ed. (1982) ISBN 0-3125-6927-0
• The Conservative Movement (1988, with Paul Gottfried) ISBN 0-8057-9724-6
• West Point: Blue and Grey (1988) ISBN 1-59687-356-6
• The Politics of Human Nature (1993) ISBN 1-56000-693-5
• Montenegro: The Divided Land (2002) ISBN 0-9619364-9-5
• The Morality of Everyday Life: Rediscovering an Ancient Alternative to the Liberal Tradition (2004) ISBN 0-8262-1509-2
• Socialism (2007) ISBN 0-7614-2632-9