Donald Pittenger writes:

Dear Blowhards --

-- Jonah Goldberg reflects on his wiseguy past and growing "maturity" due to age, marital status and book-writing.

He also notes that libertarianism should be the starting point when considering policy matters:

... I think it’s better for everybody concerned if we start from a foundation of libertarianism and build up from it. In public policy — as opposed to cultural politics — I think the default position should be libertarian and then arguments should be made for why we should deviate from libertarian dogma. I’m more sympathetic to arguments based on tradition and custom than your average libertarian. But I’m more hostile than I used to be to what you might call neo-traditionalism in the forms of “national greatness” conservatism, Buchananism, Crunchy Conservatism, and the rest....

... Starting from libertarian assumptions puts you in a better place to identify nostalgic toxins. My problem with the so-called paleolibertarians is that they are often more nostalgic than the conservatives they denounce.

-- Not long ago Michael told us about his bout with a cancer five years ago. It was a gripping narrative.

And a while before that, Terry Teachout (scroll, if necessary, to "Time Off for Good Behavior") decribed his bout with congestive heart failure. Another gripping account. Give it a read if you haven't already.

-- Some of you might remember my post about Pino, an artist whose work is a real eye-grabber compared to other gallery fare.

Pino is the featured (cover) artist in the March-April 2006 issue of Art of the West magazine. The short article includes some informative quotes from Pino regarding his career. If my post on him interested you, the article offers added information plus nice reproductions of some of his paintings.

Later,

Donald

I notice that Jonah Goldberg has a book coming out soon. I wonder if NRO will do a special blog for it. And whether the Crunchy Cons will lay siege to him, the way he did to them.

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on March 20, 2006 07:11 PM

This is probably a waste of pixels, as this post is now fairly down the page, but where does the sudden hostility to Jonah Goldberg come from? I've read a plurality of the posts on the crunchy blog and as well as their various comments and critiques out further into web-country, and I did not find Goldberg's comments in any way out of line. He obviously doesn't like crunchy conservatism, for many of the same reasons mentioned in your earlier thread. However, that is neither here nor there, I'm curious about your attacks on Goldberg. Is there something particular you don't like? Also, what do you find so appealing about crunchy conservatism? To me, you certainly seem to have "crunchy" aspects to your personality; the love of yoga for example. But, a primary aspect of Dreher's philosophy is a sexual traditionalism that I doubt would appreciate the Asia Argento movies you so enjoy. Obviously, we all contain multitudes, so to speak, and generalizing about someone's personality from blog posts is probably a foolish effort, but I was curious why my own picture of your personality was so far off. I would have expected more love for the more libertarian Jonah than the traditional Dreher.

Posted by: chris on March 21, 2006 03:08 PM

Michael -- Doubt they'll have a new blog 'cause his book is about fascism, hardly a hot new topic.

Chris -- I agree with Jonah on pretty nearly everything. As for the Crunchy Con thing, it's a topic that, try as I will, I can't get interested in. So I haven't read reviews of Dreher's book, I haven't clicked into NRO's Crunchy blog and didn't follow the comments to Michael's recent post.

I linked to Goldberg here because I thought his article covered a lot of ground, and I thought his reference to Libertarianism was interesting, given his criticisms of it in the past

Posted by: Donald Pittenger on March 21, 2006 10:04 PM






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