Oliver Stone for Pres? Nixon at 100 Everyday Anarchy The Pope’s Other Brain JOHN BUFFALO MAILER PAT BUCHANAN GENE CALLAHAN JEREMY BEER JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013 ì ì#ììeìì ì ì # An agenda for a greener, freer, smarter right $4.95 US/Canada theamericanconservative.com Enjoy TheBlaze at no extra charge with America’s Top 250 package add it to another package for just $5 a month GLENN 1-888-675-6174 dish.com/theblaze BECK DISH Qualifying DISH service requires participation in qualifying plan and subscription to qualifying programming. Depending on qualifying plan, one or moree of the following will apply – activation fee (minimum $99), Social Security Number, credit approval,approval, 24-month Agreement, early cancellation fee. Offers end 1/16/13. Offer is subject to the terms of the Promotional and Residential Customer Agreements. AllAll prices,prices, packages, programming, features, functionality and offers subject to changechange withoutwithout notice.notice. © 2012, DISH Network L.L.C. All rights reserved. 252326_7_x_9.5.indd 1 12/6/12 4:43 PM Vol. 12, No. 1, January/February 2013 7 15 18 ARTICLES COVER STORY ARTS & LETTERS 15 Free Kentucky Project 12 Counterculture Conservatism 42 Two Cheers for Anarchism: Rep. "omas Massie continues An agenda for the right Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Ron Paul’s revolution. ANDREW J. BACEVICH Dignity, and Meaningful Work W. JAMES ANTLE III and Play by James C. Scott FRONT LINES GENE CALLAHAN 18 Oliver Stone vs. the Empire He talks to TAC about 7 Want to #x America? 45 Debating Same-Sex Marriage the bipartisan security state. "ink local. by John Corvino and JOHN BUFFALO MAILER ROD DREHER Maggie Gallagher ANDRE ARCHIE 22 Nixon at 100 8 Our generals can’t win wars "e Old Man shaped a WILLIAM S. LIND 47 Sweet Tooth: A Novel generation. by Ian McEwan 9 George W. Bush’s best idea PATRICK J. BUCHANAN JORDAN MICHAEL SMITH GEORGE SEAY 25 Crony Copyright 48 Iron Curtain: !e Crushing 10 "e Korean conundrum Will Republicans reform of Eastern Europe, 1944–1956 DOUG BANDOW intellectual property? by Anne Applebaum JORDAN BLOOM LEE CONGDON COMMENTARY 28 From War to Welfare 50 Joseph Sobran: !e National 6 Four conservatisms How militarism gave us Review Years ed. Fran Gri!n the income tax 27 Drone doubts at the CIA R.J. STOVE IVAN ELAND PHILIP GIRALDI 52 Oakeshott on Rome and 32 Philosopher of Love 37 Capitalism goes childless America by Gene Callahan David Schindler’s critique JOSEPH A. SCHUMPETER KENNETH B. McINTYRE of liberalism 55 Manufacturing Hysteria: A JEREMY BEER 41 Lit for Little America BILL KAUFFMAN History of Scapegoating, Surveil- 38 Friendship’s Garland lance, and Secrecy in Modern Getting to know Bill Buckley 58 How to get an interview America by Jay Feldman and Russell Kirk TAKI CLARK STOOKSBURY TIMOTHY S. GOEGLEIN Cover illustration: Michael Hogue JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 3 Reactions TRUE CONSERVATISM ris’s friend and ally, Senator John or in academia—have been willing to 10 years! Wow! I can hardly believe the Marshall, helped pass a bankrupt- do the same. passage of time. I cannot tell you how cy law in 1801 and Morris was re- PAUL KRUGMAN much this magazine means to me, a leased. He attempted to restart his Excerpt from a New York Times true conservative—and as Taki put it career, but the world had changed blog post so well—NOT a neocon. and he was discredited. Gouver- Pat Buchanan leads the !ght. What neur Morris invited him to spend What Bruce and I shared was a belief a pleasure it was to be his colleague in some time with him and provided that the conservatism of the 1980s, while the Reagan White House. His column Robert with an annuity for the defensible in its time with a few obvious every month is must reading for all of rest of his life. Robert Morris lived exceptions, was irrelevant for the world us. Additionally for me, what a nice quietly with his wife for another that Reaganism had created. … Taxes surprise to be told [in Michael Brendan !ve years. Robert died of asthma were way lower than they had histori- Dougherty’s November 2012 pro!le] on May 8, 1806 and was buried in cally been, and conservatives should be that his favorite Buchanan book the family vault of William White glad about this but vigilant about debt Churchill, Hitler, and “!e Unnecessary and Robert Morris behind Christ and spending—not eager to cut taxes War” is mine also. I o"en dip into it to Church in Philadelphia. even more, especially in wartime. Amer- !nd so many lessons for today. ica was more multicultural, and one mi- #ere may come a day when what Mr. Lind’s inaccurate portrayal nority, gay citizens, was actively seeking we know to be true will be recognized of Mr. Morris provoked my wife to greater responsibility and inclusion. But and accepted. I surely hope it won’t ask the poignant question: “Why do by the new millennium, low taxes were take another 10 years. ‘they’ [the liberal elite] always have to unbreakable theological truths on the ALFRED H. KINGON change history?” My response to her right and gays were Biblically repellent Former U.S. Ambassador to the Euro- was as follows: “#ey” have to change and had to be re-ostracized—by amend- pean Union 1987-1989, Assistant to the history because it is not their inten- ing the federal constitution no less. #en President and Secretary of the Cabinet tion to write history in the !rst place came the crash of 2008 and a whole set 1985-1987 but to express a version of what they of ideas about self-regulating markets via email think ought to have occurred, which and risk had to be re-thought (as intel- we know is not the conservative view lectually honest libertarians like Alan IN DEFENSE OF ROBERT MORRIS of history! Greenspan and Richard Posner conced- As a descendant of the Morris family, JOHN BRAUND ed). Facing this reality, Bartlett rediscov- I must object that your book reviewer, via email ered Keynes as he actually was and rec- Mr. Michael Lind, ought not to at- ognized the salience of Keynesianism for tempt the reading of history (more BRUCE BARTLETT, APOSTATE a new crisis that was an almost textbook likely in the case of !e Founders of Former Reagan economic adviser Bruce case for government intervention... Finance propaganda from the liberal Bartlett’s December article, “Revenge of We can easily become cynical about nabobs of Harvard) without know- the Reality-Based Community,” quickly Washington. It contains a hundred times ing the history of the subject matter became #e American Conservative’s more schmoozers and social climbers to begin with, the historical error in most popular article ever, garnering and lobbyists and parasites than it does his [November 2012] review of the more than 200,000 page views and individuals genuinely committed to the aforementioned book with regard to 18,000 Facebook “likes.” common good in di$erent ways. And of Robert Morris being his assertion that those earnest individuals, only a few are Mr. Morris died in debtors’ prison; he All hail Bruce Bartlett, who writes ballsy enough to follow their own reason did not. To correct the record for your movingly about how he came to real- doggedly enough to su$er social ostra- readers in this regard, I quote the fol- ize that movement conservatism and cism, removal from all conservative me- lowing from the “Descendants of the its economic doctrine weren’t what he dia outlets, and loss of a job—because Signers of the Declaration of Indepen- imagined them to be, and in particular their mind is not for sale or rent. dence” website: how he came to realize that Keynesian Bruce Bartlett is that kind of guy. analysis had a point. We need so many more. With Morris in debtor’s prison, Bartlett’s essay only drives home, of ANDREW SULLIVAN and the Federalists weakened, Jef- course, how very few economists— Excerpt from a blog post at ferson won the presidency. Mor- whether in the policy/think tank world !e Daily Beast 4 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013 THE MERITOCRACY DELUSION 600 percent or 800 percent more likely percent Asian students is more than Ron Unz’s massive examination of elite to apply to Caltech and MIT than to three times the Asian proportion of the college admissions policies in the Decem- those other elite schools, which tend to American population. ber issue prompted a “Room for Debate” have a far higher national pro!le?” #e I don’t have a problem with the need feature on the New York Times website answer may be precisely that Caltech for a student body with diverse strengths and won one of David Brooks’s annual and MIT focus on math and science, in and personality types. Harvard is a bet- Sidney Awards for the best magazine es- which Asian students achieve the very ter place because it does not select a says of the year. “You’re going to want to success that Unz documents. … class consisting exclusively of applicants argue with Unz’s article all the way along, I don’t know if any of the possibilities with perfect SAT scores. But a candid especially for its narrow, math-test-driv- I’ve mentioned are true. In combination statement of the rationale that has led en view of merit,” Brooks wrote. “But it’s with the narrowness of Unz’s de!nition to the 16±2 percent solution can’t stop potentially ground-shi"ing.” of academic achievement, however, they there.