Mark Shea on the National Review

Of course, it's easy to blame it on the lefty press. However, Austin Bramwell is not a member of the Lefty Press. Indeed, he used to be affiliated with NRO until they decided that conservatism no longer meant things like limited government, respect for the permanent things and opposition to the Nanny State and instead meant global democratic revolution, imposition of a Great Society on the Middle East, Salvation through Leviathan by Any Means Necessary, spending like a drunken sailor, a Permanent State of War Until there is Freedom and Democracy Everywhere, Creative Destruction, Strength Through Evil and various other crazy things that sound more like Trotsky than like anything an actual conservative before Bush might have advocated. . . .

SOURCE: Catholic and Enjoying It January 23, 2008

Mark Shea on Jonah Goldberg

According to Jonah, if you buy sprouts the local organic co-op, you've already used up your 15 minutes.

I've always identified fascism with, oh, you know, smashing free speech and trying to centralize everything in a big centralized political economy. I thought a more noticable feature of fascism was, say, Grand Military Adventures promising an End to Evil and the inauguration of a Golden Age of earthly happiness. I've even tended to identify it with urging us all to hand Caesar the power to torture people and the employment of Orwellian euphemisms and groupthink pressure tactics such as "You aren't one of us if you oppose waterboarding and other forms of torture" to punish dissenters. Indeed, I was quite sure, till I heard Jonah explain it all for me, that apologists for Salvation Through Leviathan by Any Means Necessary bore a much greater resemblance to fascists than advocates of "Small is Beautiful" thinking. I never realized that the real menace to our liberty was a taste for tofu. I'm sure glad that Jonah has broken with that silly old narrative of saying "Anything I happen to dislike is fascist."

You learn something every day from NRO's Mandarins of True Conservatism[TM].

SOURCE: Catholic and Enjoying It January 17, 2008

Mark Shea on Ron Paul (and his critics)

So when I express some pleasure over, say, the way Ron Paul keeps humiliating the thugs, empty suits, and poseurs of the GOP, that's not to say that I "believe" in Ron Paul (who, as I've repeatedly said, strikes me as a bit kooky). It's that I think him a valuable counterweight to the far more pernicious and dangerous kookiness that has infected the GOP with Grand End to Evil Delusions, with huge and cynical schemes for Salvation Through Leviathan by Any Means Necessary arrogance, with a contempt for fiscal responsibility that would do LBJ proud, and with a repellent knack for wrapping all this in fur Kirche und Vaterland rhetoric that constantly makes the suggestion that critics of Bush not only hate America but are enemies of Christ *and* kumbaya idiots who need to read more Machiavelli. I think the stench from that insanity is what makes people appreciate Paul's basically modest approach to what governemnt is capable of. . . .

SOURCE: Catholic and Enjoying It December 22, 2007.