Sheavinism

Shea, as usual, has it half-correct. ~80% of the libertarians I know are certifiable misanthropes.

Guess what, though? So are the vast majority of Paleocons I've known--Shea's "traditionalist conservatives" and libertarians share more personal qualities than I think either would care to admit, and one quality in particular:

Poliphobia. It is one of the great practical fallacies of both libertarianism and even religiously tinged Paleoconservatism. Both are philosophies that tend to attract disproportionate numbers of people who have no real public spirit whatsoever, no poliphilia.

For all their talk of "little platoons" or "subsidiarity" or "small is beautiful", I've never yet met a bow-tied, suspendered paleocon ready with his book of Anti-Federalist quotes who'd ever worked as, say

* a suicide hotline volunteer, or
* a member of a local professional organization, or
* even as a Little League coach.

I'm sure there are some out there, (probably the types of organic farmers that Rod profiled in his book, who live that kind of involved life but who wouldn't recognize names like Chesterton or Sobran if they bit them) but a clear majority of hardcore paleos are virtually indistinguishable from libertarians: folks who feel that the rest of humanity is, well, stupid, and sort of worthless, and who vaguely wish that we'd just go away and stop bothering them. The libertarians feel this way because they intellectually superior, while the paleo adds the additional gloss that God Is With Him as opposed to those great unwashed.

Quick: name the recognizable paleocon writer, journalist, blogger, what have you who has ever held public office, been appointed to a board or commission, been an active party organizer, or worked on the steering committee of a political campaign. Or has regularly attended town meetings, organized petition drives, marched in rallies or protests.

Nothing wrong with not doing those things... but to then turn around and tell the rest of us how we should be organizing our political lives are like virgins telling the rest of us how to have sex. It's literally idiotic, in the original sense of the world.

Politics, like sex, is a subject in which no amount of reading can compensate for a complete lack of practical experience. A pox on both their houses.

>Quick: name the recognizable paleocon writer, journalist, blogger...

You could probably add joined the Army to that list.

The Man from K Street, if I correctly understand your point, it seems to be akin to this point Shea makes in the same link: "At present, the Morphed Conservatives are running the show. And their spectacular failures mean that they will soon *not* be running the show as our emotionally incontinent culture throws the rascals out and votes in an even more catastrophic liberal regime...".

Seems to me to be a matter of arrogantly cutting off our nose to spite our face; something friends like Pat Buchanan do very well.

Erin, to be fair to the K Man, he said it would be like a virgin telling us HOW to have sex. Generally speaking, priests who are orthodox Catholics shouldn't try to tell us about the mechanics and techniques of sex, whether they are virgins or not. :-)

Mr. K, I assume you would put fusionists like me in the same category with your paleos and libertarians, in that I am sort of in both camps.

I cite the following as evidence of poliphilia: I'm a "block captain," which means I'm on the board of my historic neighborhood association. I've volunteered to be on the neighborhood task force that deals with proposed changes to houses and whether they comply with the historic preservation ordinance (or should receive a variance). I'm the treasurer of my church and have been on its vestry and chaired an ad hoc committee charged with handling a matter that was very controversial within the church. I'm a member of the council of the tax section of my city's bar association and speak there fairly frequently. All of those roles involve dealing with real people who are sometimes lovable and sometimes not. I'm also, btw, a registered lobbyist who gets to DC at least once a month, so I'm not an utter naif when it comes to the political process.

I think humanity is both fallen and of immense worth.

I took Mr. K's main point to be less about good works in general than about political involvement.

Paleocon here. CCD teacher for 4 years; member of multiple bar associations from the ABA on the national level to my local county bar association, where I serve on the courthouse committee; public speaker; community and church volunteer. Chaired my parish's Respect Life committee. Member of a food coop. Coached kindergarten YMCA flag football team to unbeaten 13-0 season.

Involved enough for you?

Paleocon here...member of multiple bar associations from the ABA on the national level to my local county bar association, where I serve on the courthouse committee

As an admitted attorney myself, color me deeply unimpressed. Harriet Miers tried to spin the same sow's ear into a judicial silk purse, but while some non-lawyers may believe that bar association schmoozing (in between hustling for speeding ticket cases and getting the monthly cut from the mortgage broker who shares your office building) makes one a real man of the polis, there are others who know better.

Coached kindergarten YMCA flag football team to unbeaten 13-0 season.

Congratulations, seriously. Plus you put yourself in a position where there were plenty of potential clients if one of the little tykes got hurt.

20 years as a Republican volunteer to various local, state and national campaigns. Volunteering, contributing, active Republican (til George W. Bush, that is.) Precinct captain, delegate to state Republican convention.

Twenty years of activism and you finished as precinct captain? With one state convention thrown in as a sop? That's kind of sad, actually. I can understand your disillusionment with the GOP. You'll be happier in your state Reform Party organization.

pure unadulterated bullsh*t

I guess the asterix is what paleos mean by "striving for a culture of virtue."

Mr. K, the reason that fbc and I both cited bar association work is that, in your initial post, you say you have never met a paleo who is "a member of a local professional organization." To then say how unimpressed you are with bar association work is pure unadulterated goal-post shifting. Color me unimpressed.

Fair point, I apologize. Still, the spirit of mentioning professional associations was meant to imply something of a true give-and-take guild, where the members are constantly refining standards of quality, weeding out the bad apples, and driving the profession's evolution. Something I think we can all agree bar associations have generally failed to accomplish in the past few decades.

What pro-paleo lawyerly professional activity outside the billable hours would I be impressed with? Organizing and chartering an Inn of Court. Working with a diocesan chancellor (or his/her Protestant or Orthodox equivalent) to build a diocesan legal network that would be a pro bono machine equal to any secular counterpart in your area. Establishing a local version of the Becket Fund. Working with the county and state GOP general counsels to lead the deployment of teams of polling place watchers and recount observers, and organizing seminars on election law to train them.

Man from K Street - Your whole post is a complete generalization. Just because you haven't witnessed the libertarians/paleocons you've run across engaged in certain activities doesn't mean libertarians and paleocons in general shouldn't suggest ways to order our lives.

The idea that being a baseball coach, serving in the military, or being a member of a professional orgnization somehow gives one unique experience to comment on how to structure society is ridiculous. I've met people who are members of all sorts of organizations and participate in their community in all sorts of ways, yet they're complete buffoons. There's no corrolation.

Cleveland, Erin, your exchange made my day. Thanks.

Damn, too late. Now there'e two of them from K Street. I feel... surrounded.

Just teasing, guys. I'm here to suggest a different perspective.

I grew up surrounded. 80% Catholic, 90% Republican. Almost without exception my experience was the exact opposite of the first Mr. K's, but it was also 35 to 45 years ago.

What you (general) really want to be observing is a cultural/societal shift. Remove the labels: everyone is shying away from the sorts of service roles Mr. K lists. Risking my own broad brush criticism here, but it has become much easier to throw money at a charitable non-profit than it is to join them in serving soup, collecting homeless people during blue alerts, or cleaning up vacant lots. My constituency (regional, pagan) is as liberal and service oriented as it gets, and I couldn't get three people together to coordinate our org being a clean highway sponsor.

We've gone from being a country of neighbors to a collection of houses. We've gone from chatting from our stoops to avert-eyes, hands-off, MYOB/NIMBY isolationists.

If you're going to criticize paleocons (and I do know quite a few who deserve it), you really should criticize everyone else.