The Northern Agrarian

No rightward-thinking person is ever comfortable in the company of Reds. I was a contented and passionate Ron Paul supporter during the primaries, and I remain an unapologetic admirer of the man and his accomplishments during the primaries. But even in a campaign I supported wholeheartedly, the “9/11 Truth” wackos and militia types left me a bit uncomfortable. If one of the unavoidable facts of endorsing a Presidential candidate is the necessity of dealing with some unsavory fellow supporters, nothing challenges the tenacity of a traditionalist, Old Right conservative more than the socialists and beatniks that hitch their wagon on the Nader campaign. But in an election year with two horribly unacceptable candidates, a wealth of knowledge and understanding can be found amongst a supposed man of the Left. The two most obvious conservative alternatives, Libertarian candidate Bob Barr and Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin, are unacceptable for a few reasons.

Bob Barr is very clearly an opportunistic man. Whereas Paul was a terrible politician with earnest passion in his cause and in possession of sincere goals, Barr has been a political chameleon for years. Swept into office during the 1994 “Republican Revolution,” Barr carved a political career during the 90s as a Drug-warrior (even as far as keeping medical marijuana illegal), author of the “Defense of Marriage Act” in 1996, a supporter of the PATRIOT Act after 9/11, a supporter of the Iraq War Resolution in 2002, and was the author of a silly ban on Wiccan practitioners in the military. He has since renounced his views on each of those subjects, opposing the Drug War, federal legislation protecting marriage, the PATRIOT Act and the Iraq War. Republicans rightly attacked Kerry for his lack of political principle, and Barr deserves similar scrutiny.

Chuck Baldwin represents ideological purity for traditionalist conservatives but is accompanied by some serious problems as well. His desire to reopen the investigation into 9/11 is an early warning sign, and further investigation reveals radical comments on 9/11 as “punishment from God for American sin” and his numerous affiliations with anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic characters in radical Baptist circles. Character counts in a candidate, and his tendency towards the support of extremist theories is enough to worry any clear-headed intellectual. Neither a political chameleon nor a radical conspiracy theorist, Ralph Nader offers a conservative alternative.

That being said, there is more to supporting a Nader candidacy than settling for a third-party candidate not named Barr or Baldwin. Nader is a clear and articulate voice for the small-is-beautiful, “Come Home America” Old Right. While both major candidates debate the issue of American intervention abroad form the Old Left, Neo-Wilsonian perspective, sparring over how many years in Iraq are appropriate while not even addressing the vast American Imperium upon which the sun never sets, Nader hopes to return to a humble foreign policy. While “conservative” John McCain has more in common with the leftist Progressive Godfather Woodrow Wilson and foreign-provocateur FDR than with “Mr. Republican” Robert A. Taft, the “leftist” Nader offers a chance to return to traditional conservative foreign policy . Wilsonian progressivism, so arrogant in its stifling of civil liberties and constitutional freedoms that it made Bush look like an attorney for the ACLU, has now become a staple of the Right. But Nader wants to end both foreign-policy products of that ugly word, “Progressive.”

On economics, Nader–an enemy of the large and friend of the small–even discusses the threat big business and big government has on competitive markets:

“ Concentrated corporate power violates many principles of capitalism. For example, under capitalism, owners control their property. Under multinational corporations, the shareholders don’t control their corporation. Under capitalism, if you can’t make the market respond, you sink. Under big business, you don’t go bankrupt; you go to Washington for a bailout. Under capitalism, there is supposed to be freedom of contract. When was the last time you negotiated a contract with banks or auto dealers? They are all fine-print contracts. The law of contracts has been wiped out for 99 percent of contracts that ordinary consumers sign on to. Capitalism is supposed to be based on law and order. Corporations get away with corporate crime, fraud, and abuse. And finally, capitalism is premised on a level playing field; the most meritorious is supposed to win. Tell that to a small inventor or a small business up against McDonald’s or a software programmer up against Microsoft.

Giant multinational corporations have no allegiance to any country or community other than to control them or abandon them. So what we have now is the merger of big business and big government to further subsidize costs or eliminate risks or guarantee profits by our government.”

Even movement, populist conservatives have reasons to support Nader. While the major candidates bow at the alter of Israel, supporting billions in aid without any check on where it goes and unwilling to sheath their sabers in regards to Iran, Nader represents real, productive change on the topics. While both candidates pucker up to La Raza and have no concern about vast amnesty programs and open borders, Nader takes a surprising stand against both. On immigration:

“This is very difficult because you are giving a green light to cross the border illegally. I don’t like the idea of legalization because then the question is how do you prevent the next wave and the next?

We have to control our immigration. We have to limit the number of people who come into this country illegally. First of all, we have to say what is the impact on African-Americans and Hispanic Americans in this country in terms of wages of our present stance on immigration? It is a wage-depressing policy, which is why the Chambers of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, Tyson Foods, and the Wall Street Journal like it. The AFL-CIO has no objection to it because they think they can organize the illegal workers because they have been so inept at organizing other workers.”

Conservatives find themselves in the wilderness again. It could be argued that true conservatism never quite found its way out. But now conservatives face another election where key issues are left unaddressed by major candidates. While Bush deficits spiral out of control, neither candidate offers a real solution. Nader offers a conservative alternative, eliminating the income tax for people making under $100,000 a year, and cutting it for those above while simultaneously cutting the ridiculous amounts spent overseas on foreign adventures. Conservatives are upset about billions of tax dollars being used to bailout Corporate Republican fat-cats, undermining capitalism and market competition. Conservatives are wary of any policy that takes power out of the hands of Americans and into the hands of foreign governments and bureaucrats, and Nader hopes to roll back the sovereignty-shredding WTO and NAFTA. Patriotic conservatives worry about millions of jobs and billions of dollars going to Communist China. Federalist conservatives want more state power and less federal power; in education, in the economy, in privacy and social issues. A Nader presidency would deliver conservatives from the wilderness that finds them with all of these concerns and no answers.

But beyond a policy based argument, Nader speaks to the heart of conservatism. Maybe not mainstream conservatism, but a conservatism separated from mass-consumerism and talk-radio, Fox News demagoguery. A candidate that is an enemy of corporate America and a friend of the environment is not a pinko-commie, but a conservative.

“The resources of nature, like those of spirit, are running out, and
all that a conscientious man can aspire to be is a literal
conservative, hoarding what remains of culture and of natural wealth
against the fierce appetites of modern life.”
-Russell Kirk

Is there a candidate speaking more directly to America-First, localist, populist, agrarian conservatism than Ralph Nader? I think not. Go, Ralph, go!