The Northern Agrarian

Dylan Waco, writer of the Left Conservative and a friend of The Northern Agrarian, has some wonderful points to make regarding this election and Naderconservatism. Having previously been posted on the Conservative Heritage Times, I repost it here in its entirety:

The greens are decentralists that lean toward statism as the lesser evil.

The libertarians are decentralists that lean toward big business as
the lesser evil.

The advantage of the libertarians is that they are more consistent
ideologically and far less prone to bureaucratic elitism .

The advantage of the greens is that they at least play lip service to
the “permanent things”, and don’t regard “growth for the sake of
growth” as inherently righteous.

Those that attacked Justin Raimondo’s endorsement of Ralph Nader in 04
(when he didn’t run as a Green, but still ran on essentially Green
principles) as a member of the Old Right would do well to compare
Nader’s record to that of the highly regarded hero of the Old Right
John T. Flynn. On decentralist principles such a comparison is in no
way favorable to Flynn.

Nader is to the populist right of both the major parties and their
likely candidates on foreign policy, trade, sovereignty and if one is
being honest immigration (aside from Tancredo, Nader is the only well
known American political figure I know of who has openly talked about
eliminating Z visas and drastically limiting, if not abolishing the
entry of skilled workers into the American labor force) . Pat Buchanan
himself openly hinted that he would vote Nader in 2004, before lamely
groveling at the feet of the almighty GOP and endorsing George W.
Bush, suggesting that Nader is more principled about his decentralist
and yes “paleo” ideas than Buchanan is at this point.

Nader’s most recent book, “Seventeen Traditions”, is an almost Kirkian
analysis of the old Republic and how to restore America to its
promise, via the promotion of personal and public virtue. Outside of
Chronicles Magazine, such sentiments are virtually never expressed on
the paleo right anymore.

To steal a bit from Clyde Wilson’s description of John Taylor of
Caroline, Nader is both more conservative AND more radical-populist,
then the modern elected officials on each “fringe” of the respected
parties. The only reason people find this confusing, is because people
are reflexively dishonest about the nature of our political system and
heritage due to years of indoctrination and serial lying in the
schools, media, et.

People can point to Chomskyites supporting Nader if they want, but
what they can’t explain is why the overwhelming majority of the left
has a visceral hatred of the man, including a shockingly large portion
of the non-Democratic Party left. The very honest leftist historian
Daniel Lazare made this point in an interview in the aftermath of the
2000 election:

“KW: What about Nader? Although constitutional issues weren’t at the
heart of his campaign, he certainly raised democratic reforms, such as
same-day registration, longer hours for voting, public financing of
elections, and so on. Why didn’t Nader get your vote as somebody who
believes in constitutional and political reform?

DL: Well, I’m not a green, I’m a socialist, I’m a red, and I don’t
especially like Nader either personally or politically. I don’t like
the Green Party platform very much. I don’t believe in
decentralization. I think this election has shown the horrors of
decentralization. I’m a democratic centralist who believes we have to
put together efficient, centralized, democratic mechanisms for running
society. Green talk about community control is really just pernicious
nonsense, as I believe this election has shown.

KW: On the other hand, the Nader phenomenon went way beyond the actual
Green platform. It opened up space for debate on all kinds of issues
that the two parties were intent on keeping out of the political
process.

DL: It represented a small opening-up, I agree, but I think it’s still
very important to cast a vote for the socialist alternative and to
emphasize, as schismatic or sectarian as it sounds, the difference
between a green and red critique of the American democratic process.”

It is worth noting that Lazare is one of the most honest leftists in
America regarding the origins of the Republic, having written an
excellent book, “The Frozen Republic”, which accurately argues that
Jefferson was the ideological forefather of American Conservatism, the
second amendment really does mean we all have a right to own guns, and
that the founders were in large part decentralists.

Nader and the Greens are at their root essentially left wing
distributist, operating in a heavily industrialized society. This
opens them up to Marxists and multiculturalists nonsense that
understandably makes conservatives suspicious of them. But it is
foolish to pretend that Nader is a full blown commie, just as it is
foolish to pretend that the League of the South wants to bring back
slavery, because they regard re-secession as a worthwhile political
goal.

Thanks Dylan.