Boy, I guess Mr. Fleming is referring to people like me when he mentions the "left wing" of the Republican party. One small problem: Among my friends, I'm generally considered to be, as Florence King has put it, "slightly to the right of Vlad the Impaler." I'd hate to see what the author thinks a true conservative looks like.

This article is based on a misconception about conservatives and conservatism. The idea of "paleo-" conservatism is somehow mixed up with ideal types of 19th Century social Darwinism and vested-interest Tory-ism.

We are going to neither of those places. The Left would like us to, because those ideas are easy to fight. What are conserving are the unbroken traditions of our civilizations, which we held long before this or that economic system, and which, God willing, we shall continue to hold.

The so-called Paleoconservatives are nothing more than a group of Nazis, Klansmen, Arch-Catholics and other professional haters who pine for the days when they could put Jews in ovens, lynch Blacks for looking at a White woman or burn heretics at the stake. To treat their 'movement'(it is a movement only in the sense that the excretion of solid bodily waste can be called a 'movement') as having any legitimacy at all is a disastrous mistake for the GOP. They have no votes and they exemplify all the worst traits of Western culture.

The GOP should tell these clowns that they are as welcome as boreworms on a wooden ship. They are a pestilence and should perhaps be rounded up and shipped to Molokai or Carville, Louisiana with the other lepers.

Bart, Bart, Bart. You obviously have no idea what a Nazi is, or a Klansman, or, least of all, an "Arch-Catholic." You need to read up on what the Nazis and the Catholics really thought about each other, and what Catholics think about things like race and state.

You may be p.o.'d because because Pacelli deftly played the Nazis and the Communists against each other, as deftly as JPII finished off the Reds a half-century later. Whatever your beef, lumping Catholics with our worst culture-enemies is simply ignoring history.

Tell that one to the Jews of Slovakia who were rounded up by Msgr. Tizo, or the Jews of Croatia whose extermination was ordered by Cardinal Stepinac, or the Jews who lived in the Papal States who were treated to cruel discrimination including Popes who felt free to kidnap their children.

Don't waste my time. I'll stick with Goldhagen and Cornwell.

Lou:

Perhaps you should get better acquainted with the more-strident Catholics.

I can't remember the name of the periodical--Crisis, perhaps?--that feels a civil war in the US is required in order to reshape the US according to their lights.

Jeff:

It could obviously come to that, though demographics suggest we'll win without war.

So, Bart, as proof that *American* Paleocons are the kinds of people you claim them to be, you cite incidents that happened in EUROPE MORE THAN 4 DECADES AGO?

Gawd, that is SO STUPID.

And now it's immortalized in electronic amber...

Amazing. He's advocating that half a loaf of bread is better than none. I wouldn't have thought I'd see that much sense.

"I'll stick with Goldhagen and Cornwell."

Of course you will. Forever and ever and ever.

"I'd hate to see what the author thinks a true conservative looks like."

How about a person who doesn't launch into hysterical, excrement laced attacks on the Roman Catholic Church -the bulwark and the dynamo that has propelled western culture for the past two thousand years.

"Tell that one to the Jews of Slovakia who were rounded up by Msgr. Tizo"

The Slovakia that -against heavy Nazi oppisition-refused to deport Jews? That was a last resort for Jewish refugees in the region? Tiso was no hero, but he was better than most of the men who ruled in Nazi occupied Europe. The only reason to single him out is his affiliation with the Catholic church.

"or the Jews of Croatia whose extermination was ordered by Cardinal Stepinac"

That is simply discredited communist propaganda. Tito could have used a man like you.

"or the Jews who lived in the Papal States who were treated to cruel discrimination including Popes who felt free to kidnap their children."

The Papal States who sheltered some 5000 Jewish refugees in (the utterly miniscule) Vatican property? The pope who was, after the war, was celebrated by Golda Meir and the chief rabbi of Rome? The Catholic church that caused Einstein to make the following remark:

"Only the Catholic Church protested against the Hitlerian onslaught on liberty. Up till then I had not been interested in the Church, but today I feel a great admiration for the Church, which alone has had the courage to struggle for spiritual truth and moral liberty."

Some history that is always interesting is seeing how the Big Lie transformed the view that Pius XII and his Papacy were moral champions who helped the Jews to the idea held now that they were Hitler's henchmen.

On of America's most outspoken, pro-nazi Roman Catholic priests, Father Coughlin, "served" at the Shrine of the Little Flower in my hometown of Royal Oak, Michigan.

OJ:

"It could obviously come to that, though demographics suggest we'll win without war."

At first glance, that seems plausible. However, civil wars are never avoided due to some state of affairs representing an unreachable foreign shore to mortal litigants.

Pope Pius XII succomed to indifference (as per another article posted on this site) and intolorance. He was afraid of the Nazis. He could have become a shining example of what it means to stand up in faith, no matter the cost, and carry the cross of Christ!

At any rate, Thomas Fleming ought to get together with Barbara Strisand, that way they could make each other miserabe about the same things, though for different reasons. It might be therapeutic for them both.

Jeff:

They're almost always avoided--we didn't have one over labor issues for example.