Per the email below this, this is not to engage in another exchange with Tom Pauken, as much as I enjoy the vitriol on his side, nor to respond to his continuing disparagement and contemptuous smears of me for being in disagreement with his reverence for the ideological founders of the “Conservative Movement,” particularly Willmoore Kendall. But it is to “correct the record,” historically and ideologically, once again as he continues to promote Willmoore Kendall as the "Traditional Conservative,” par excellence. Which I agree with. Which is why I am so harshly critical of “Traditional Conservatives,” the more I read them, and read their latter day interpreters, as their CIA officer founder’s ideas now infect both political party’s doctrine of Perpetual War. (Read Preface below, bearing in mind what a false dichotomy was created in a debate by Kendall with a “pacifist,” as if there is no position in between.)
That is, with a common “National Security State Ideology” descended from those ideas of Willmoore Kendall which called for “two political parties,” but in full agreement with each other, as “consensus,” with woe to anyone who dissents from that “consensus.” Which is the basis he defended McCarthy on. An ideology which, though it can be seen in how the Biden administration is going (almost) all out to suppress dissent, “almost” because the USG has yet more “instruments of repression” passed into law principally by Republicans in 2012, is so celebrated today by Conservatives and Libertarians, as can be seen in this video of the Conservative/Libertarian Philadelphia Society. Which has all the supposed factions of the Right represented, in seemingly full harmonious agreement on what is being said (though in fairness, the Q and A is not shown).
https://vimeo.com/790492410
Willmoore Kendall despised libertarians and non-Straussian Conservatives like Russell Kirk, with the latter type of today claiming to oppose “Straussianism,” while calling themselves “Traditional Conservatives,” even though Kendall himself adhered to Leo Strauss and his “political theory.” But here, at the Philadelphia Society, all are clustered together in this audience, figuratively, as they are so fully assimilated/intermingled wherever Conservatives and Libertarians are gathered. In spite of Kendall’s open contempt, as he wrote, of the non-Straussian Conservatives. Yet here all “factions” sit together agog as Kendall is praised by Owen for the hostility he had for the Constitution! So one must ask: is this just plain stupidity on their part? According to Owen, writing approvingly, Kendall was fully aligned by common “political theory” with Leo Strauss, and yes, Harry Jaffa, and friendship, as I pointed out in the past. Both of whom Kendall tried to entice into coming to the University of Dallas to teach in his new “Politics Program." With the term “Straussian” commonly used to identify their disciples. Which includes Willmoore Kendall, as Straussian’s themselves recognize, favorably, to include both Leo and Harry.
I use the term “Straussian” generously as a pejorative, as do so many others, but I include the “Disciples” of Willmoore Kendall in that, whom I won’t name, even if they don’t realize that in Kendall, they’ve imbibed Straussian “political theory.” In showing that, if one gets by the “Double-talk” in both Kendall, and his disciples, like Owen, Owen has done a(n) (unintended) service in understanding the Straussian Willmoore Kendall (look at the chapters yourself, don’t take my word for it, or anyone else’s!). But in line with that, I also use the term Straussian as synonymous in “political theory” with “fascism,” albeit in an early stage here, just as it was when Strauss desired to stay in Germany under the Nazis, as an already developed Fascist State, in 1933. And I use the term as to accurately point out that there is in fact, no distinction between “Traditional Conservatives,” and “Straussians,” as Kendall/Strauss made clear. Which was fully revealed in the Trump administration when they all came together, to include Republican “Zionists,” as Trump was fully in spirit, and in performance. And with the many other Republicans/Conservatives who regularly pass through Hillsdale College and/or the Claremont Institute to be anointed by the High Priests of Straussianism, now fully in partnership with The American Conservative magazine in joint “educational” programs with Hillsdale College in DC.
Owen’s book doesn’t hide that Kendall was so close to Leo Strauss, but celebrates it! (See the Index attached, and apologies for not having Chap. 8 to share which the index shows is where Harry Jaffa is mentioned. Hand-scanning with a phone was not easy so I didn’t include Chap. 8 due to time. But the book is on its way to me from a library so I will get a better scan of it when I receive it, which will only corroborate even more what I am saying, though the chapters attached are all that is necessary to do that.) But watch the video, particularly the introduction by the “Moderator,” and even more importantly, from 24:30 - 39:40 (not discouraging watching the whole thing, but the section referred to above captures Kendall’s Rousseauist "Absolutist Democracy” in perfect summary.
I can only view it with jaw-dropping incredulity, though not surprise, as these Libertarians and Conservatives sit silently by, in seeming acquiescence, while Owen promotes with Kendall’s words the most anti-Constitutional doctrine ever proposed in this country. To include echoing Confederates, like John Calhoun, though not by name as Kirk favorably referred to him, who too denounced “rights” for human beings. Kendall did that with Orwellian-like reinterpretations of written documents, which he called “textual analysis,” leading to his own politicized, idiosyncratic “revisionism” of the “text,” identical to Leo Strauss’s method. Beginning for Kendall with John Locke while still a Marxist, and picking up steam on that same theme of “Absolute Majoritarianism” when he turned to the extreme-Right as a “Traditional Conservative.” While he regularly denounced those who were less extreme, like Russell Kirk (who was too stupid to recognize that) and Eisenhower, with Kendall in league and in full agreement with Joe McCarthy. Don’t take my word for that but listen to the Kendall biographer whom Tom extolls as the “Authority” on Kendall, and with the attached files, read what he says in glowing praise of Kendall in quoting Kendall’s views, as in his panegyric to him. Which is necessary to understand the “Ideological Foundation” of the Military Industrial Complex, and the ideological architects of that, the Conservative Movement's founders. Read Owen’s book which fully substantiates that! (Tom and I must have read different versions of Owen’s book.)
One can’t call Owen’s book a “Freudian slip” in revealing what Kendall was actually promoting as “Democracy,” which was in fact ideologically what Jacob Talmon labeled “Totalitarian Democracy,” because it is plain that Owen is equally enthusiastic for Kendall’s Rousseauist ideas of “Absolutist Democracy” as was Kendall. And Conservatives in general as this “Doctrine” is in plain view at Israel’s fascist strategy of “Judicial Reform” (first, kill all the lawyers, or at least the “liberal” Judges). But this is what Kendall’s “Democracy” was, if one can see what is in “plain view” as “political theory,” and what is intended as the “Final Solution” for Israel, to exclude
any dissent, now to include Jewish Israeli dissent as well, going beyond the Palestinians, which has already been developing ever more harshly for decades:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarian_democracy#:~:text=Totalitarian%20democracy%20is%20a%20term,decision%2Dmaking%20process%20of%20the
But listen to the complete video if you have time, but for sure listen to, and concentrate upon, the section from 24:30 - 39:40, as well as the the introduction by the Hillsdale College Straussian at the beginning.
Owen begins his spiel with this: "Sometimes called an “Absolute Majoritarian,” he believed that 50% plus one of the people had the right to decide matters, and 50% minus one had the duty to obey.” (Obey, you hear that Jim Bovard, you must obey Joe Biden! :-)
Okay, it’s settled, Biden has every right to repress any dissent to his rule! He had more than 50% plus one of the people vote for him (just ask Tucker Carlson!) And let Jim Bovard stop complaining, and disrupting “consensus,” and acknowledge that under the “Traditional Conservative” doctrine of Willmoore Kendall, Biden has an "absolute right,”née, duty, to incarcerate him or otherwise punish someone, like Joe McCarthy did (whom with his students, Buckley and Bozell, but mentoring them, Kendall was the ideological brains behind) to anyone disrupting the consensus. And Owen doesn’t hide that, as he obviously approves of it, perhaps from his and Kendall’s common Southern roots (with Kendall from Little Dixie in Oklahoma, look it up, a cultural extension of “Dixie”).
Explaining as well as Murray Rothbard said, from page 132 I believe: "Rothbard recognized Kendall's arguments as an attack on libertarianism. He labeled him "the philosopher extraordinaire of the Lynch mob whose majoritarian principles might be used to justify the crucifixion.” As I’ve said, Kendall certainly was compatible with the Segregationists right up until he died, and since, and would certainly have been greatly appreciated by the Ku Klux Klan, as Rothbard recognized! And by Pontius Pilate, and the howling mob in Jerusalem who called for impaling Jesus Christ on a cross.
So what’s this with “libertarians” joining together with Kendall worshiping “Traditional Conservatives,” and listening to Owen denounce, with Kendall’s words, “Constitutional rights,” especially free speech? When I hear Kendall being denounced by the factions he denounced, and defending the Constitution from Kendallian inspired attacks, I may begin to get over the contempt I’ve come to feel toward those people, like Owen, who indirectly by quoting Kendall, or others referring to him as someone whose “political/legal theory” we should turn to today, with his outright attacks upon the U.S. Constitution, and the few remaining “rights” we have left today, after Kendall did so much to inspire in the Republican Party the evisceration of! With that bacillus coming to infect the Democrats now as well, not that they were ever “Saints” either.
That Trump (and Biden) didn’t/don’t incarcerate more people for that is only because the “Legal Revolution” against the Constitution begun by Willmoore Kendall (and later, joined by George Carey - see "Basic Symbols”) and fellow ideologists within his faction of the Conservative Movement hasn’t been completed quite yet. Though it damn near has in Israel, supported in large part by American Conservatives who obviously have imbibed Kendallianism, as that is the political/legal ideology the Legal Revolution taking place in Israel is attempting to put in place. Right off the pages of Kendall’s books, particularly “Basic Symbols!) (I have never seen such a conspicuous public display of “symbols,” flags, as I saw in Israel, and specifically in Israeli occupied East Jerusalem and occupied Bethlehem. Except in pictures I’ve seen of 1930’s Germany!)
I will bring this to a close as anyone with ears to hear can hear what Owen boasts of, correctly and approvingly, of Kendall’s “genius.” And have eyes to see can read of it in the attached book chapters (I’ve highlighted their most egregiously anti-constitutional passages), and in the other file, one can see the “Renaissance” of Kendallian “Conservatism,” as just one example. With much more to say on that as it also represents far more than did the Neoconservatives and their "East Coast Straussianism,” the far more dangerous, and now virtually openly revealed, fascist doctrine of the “West Coast Straussians,” and the complete capture of the “Conservative Mind,” such as it is, and represented in the “New Right,” composed of the “China Hawks, the NaziCons, etc.
But here are a couple quotes from Owen’s talk, with context added to a couple:
"Changes only after consensus developed . . deliberative process,” meaning, “no rights for you boy, there’s no consensus yet!"
Going with, in re Kendall: he “looked askance at rights talk, . . . rights were undemocratic . . . "
Definitions: “Justice" - receive what he deserves, “'Deliberation' above rights and equality,"
All “legalistic word play,” which Kendall excelled at, above all others!
Democracy? Quoting Owen: "The True role of political thinkers like himself, Kendall believed, was to guide the people to know their own strength and to learn to use it against those who would undermine their ability to rule themselves.”
Right out out of Leo Strauss’s favorite books by Machiavelli and Hobbes, and The Republic, calling for the Dictator, to keep everyone in line, as "Order."
At a talk by Kendall (forget which page it is from, but it is highlighted in a book chapter below, when Kendall made some particularly egregious statement, Owen wrote that Kirk was “amused,” Rossiter “intrigued,” which says all one needs to know of the quality of their minds. Only Rothbard was horrified, in recognizing the inherent fascist nature of what Kendall was saying, and stood for.
To quote Maxwell Smart: If only he had used his genius, for niceness instead of evil!
P.S. Tom sneeringly tells me to “get a life.” In addition to work with fellow lawyers on nuclear arms issues, and a Law School’s Human Rights Center, and some antiwar activism, and remaining involved on Guantanamo issues, I thought I “had a life” :-) But my main avocation today, regardless of capacity, is for sure, at a minimum, what Susan Eisenhower called “alert citizen.” And as an “alert citizen,” even if Willmoore Kendall would have denounced me for “disrupting the consensus” (to include on this email list, as I’ve seen that extreme right-wing “consensus” take shape here since 2016), and a couple of his idolater wish for me to “just fade away,” and not call out the Straussians/Schmittians/Kendallians/NatCons, who together constitute the “component parts” and main ideologists of the New Right, and revealing that what they are about isn’t "defending the Constitution,” but destroying it, by reinterpreting it, as a retired Army Officer, my Oath to Defend the Constitution didn’t cease with my retirement from the Army. But it continues as long as I continue to draw retired pay, in addition to the moral duty created by such an Oath. As that, from the evidence provided here, means opposing the anti-Constitutional ideas of Willmoore Kendall inspiring the “New Right,” it necessitates me to do with the First Amendment what James Madison called for with it, to act as a Centinel (sic) over those in power. Which Kendall so vigorously opposed with his outright hatred of the First Amendment as he and his radical-right ilk demanded they be the sole authority “guiding” the American people, just like the Politburo once was in the USSR, to include Khrushchev’s Ukraine and Stalin’s Georgia. Which requires the "alert citizen” making an effort to know what our ideological “guides” are up to, using that as Kendall wrote as (the one thing I agree with him on) the means to anticipate what they are planning. He argued that for intelligence analysis of foreign countries, but it applies as well to our own ideological leaders and “Movements” even more. And "unmasking them,” revealing their lies, when called for. Hannah Arendt “theorized” (a politically neutral term, except for people like Strauss, Schmitt, and Kendall) how to do that. It begins with locating the “Origins” of political phenomena. All of which can be considered as what I am working on, which is “The Origins of American Fascism.” And for that, Tom has been a never-ending inspiration, and mentor, in directing my attention to Willmoore Kendall!
Thanks to Christopher Owen’s unintentional assistance, Kendall’s extreme right-wing thought is clarified in Owen’s book. And when next one of the Conservatives here see him, pass on my gratitude to him in revealing the full-scope of how extreme Kendall really was, on the furthest right side of the the political spectrum, just this side of . . .