Joseph Sobran’s Conservative Foreign Policy
by Jack Hunter Recently by Jack Hunter: Ron Paul’s Pledge to America
I’ve only subscribed to two newsletters ever, one being former National Review editor Joseph Sobran’s “Real News of the Month.” In the mid-1990s I was in my early 20s and the discovery of past conservative thinkers like Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver encouraged me to seek out their contemporary intellectual descendants, of which Sobran was one of only a handful. Most right-wingers in the ’90s, including many pundits and intellectuals, were so obsessed with Bill Clinton that conservative first principles took a backseat to hyper-partisanship and conspiracy theories, neither of which interested me. No doubt Clinton was an awful president, but so was his predecessor, and of course his successor proved far worse – yet even today most conservative journalists cannot bring themselves to bash in a bipartisan fashion. Sobran was not only one of the few exceptions to this rule, but would combine news and politics with deeper philosophical and civilizational concerns similar to men like Kirk or Weaver. At the time, I realized that if being a conservative simply meant hating Democrats then it meant nothing. But if being conservative was to think like Sobran, it had immeasurable meaning precisely because he constantly encouraged his audience to remember and reexamine what that term meant. Learning of Sobran’s passing last week at the age of 64, I began to recall so many of his conservative reminders, particularly his Jeffersonian views on foreign policy and how valuable they are today. One of the beautiful things about the Tea Party is it now encourages conservatives to remember and reexamine what they stand for – Sobran’s specialty – a reflection that was even less in evidence under George W. Bush than it was under Clinton. Sobran had to leave his 18-year job as editor of National Review in 1993 due in part to his traditionally conservative views clashing with the neoconservatives’ agenda for the Middle East, or as he wrote in his final column before his death: “I saw thirty years ago that we were headed for needless war with the Arabs, and I had two boys in their teens. By 1991 I hated Bush with a murderous fury. He was willing to get young men like my son Mike killed for no clear reason. I didn’t want them dying in the Middle East, where we always seem to be defending democracy and freedom these days… Nobody else at National Review seemed to have this worry.” Today, the neoconservatives that so worried Sobran are worried themselves about a Tea Party movement hellbent on cutting spending, particularly if grassroots conservatives begin critiquing the monstrously big government program of American empire. Last week, columnists representing the American Enterprise Institute – Danielle Pletka and Thomas Donnelly – warned in the Washington Post that Tea Partiers should stay away from the likes of Ron or Rand Paul, Sen. Tom Coburn, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, and any other Republican who would dare question our current foreign policy. Neoconservatives Pletka and Donnelly seem to believe that America’s superpower status is what makes it great, forever spreading “freedom” and “democracy” around the world through perpetual war. Needless to say, the conservative Sobran took a more traditional view: October 8, 2010 The "Southern Avenger" Jack Hunter is a conservative commentator (WTMA 1250 AM talk radio) and columnist (Charleston City Paper) living in Charleston, South Carolina. He blogs for The American Conservative. Copyright © 2010 The American Conservative
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