Many of us (including myself), are simply former conservatives who have gone through the five stages of grief, and no longer see conservatism as effective, or even coherent. If you understand neoconservatism, I shouldn’t need to rehash how throughly corrupted modern conservatism is by liberalism.

As to Sarah Palin, and the Tea Party movement in general, I see them as proto-reactionary. I am strongly sympathetic to their cultural loyalties, and have a strong affinity to their cultural affectations. I would like nothing better than to be surrounded by kind-hearted surburban evangelical Christians in pleasant Midwestern towns. I certainly harbor no contempt or hostility towards them.

However, they simply do not recognize the threat against them, and their flag-waving patriotism, while admirably loyal and honorable, merely invites the knife that seeks to kill them.

It’s a different angle on the Californian techno-utopian libertarianism that has reached new levels of boldness and influence recently, and it highlights an important difference between the Tea Party “Calhounians”, and the free-love, have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too “Heinleinians”.

Unfortunately, this is about as far as the analysis can go without HBD, and without HBD, it is incomplete and inadequate. The Calhounians are at least implicitly HBD-aware, given their anti-immigraition stances, while the Heinleinians live in their high-IQ bubble where immigrant disfunction is non-existent.

It will be interesting to see what happens when their Silicon Valley paradise is finally swamped in a LA-riots style orgy of underclass violence. My guess is they will flee to Singapore, or space.

Michael I’m from Salt of The Earth people [mountain foothills , Rust Belt].

While you didn’t mean it this way, when I hear the “Salt of the Earth” I distinctly hear a snub.

From Frauds BTW. The only industry they’ve built is Industrious Fraud – Finance – and it’s already eaten America and the world.

Yes they hate conservatives because they’ve been taught to look down on them. The snobbery of reaction remains, along with the addiction to intellect. We have the Intellectual ruling class and they are utterly mad. Perhaps politics isn’t about Intellect. We could refer to Plunkitt or perhaps Stalin.

Sarah Palin isn’t just looked down upon personally, she’s a symbol of that which is feared and loathed. Because the Salt was wronged and betrayed on every point of the last 50 years. The guilty know this better than the victims, who only have awakened the last five years. The guilty, neurotic behavior of our elites towards the Piedmont and points West is right out of The TellTale Heart.

Also Sarah Palin personally is a threat, and took on and defeated corruption in Alaska. Hence the pychosis. “Big Breasted Warrior Mother” and the rest.

We were raised in institutions and in a society in which liberalism has been the only (acknowledged) game in town. Liberalism isn’t only not deep, it’s not even shallow. There is nothing new to be learned about it other than from the perspective of the far right.

Michael, you have some really interesting points, but you need to try for some concision. Your comments and VXXC’s are unclear for opposite reasons.

But fine, we’ll discuss the rest of it:
“Second, there’s the reality that some systems are naturally, even necessarily, big.”
Uncontroversial, AFAIK. I don’t see why it requires something like the federal government, which is the author’s objection.

“Industries need big markets to enjoy economies of scale, and they need rationalized systems of money and credit and contract-enforcement.”
Just how different does the author think the markets and contract laws would really be in the several states? Do currency exchanges really cripple international commerce?

“Commerce also requires robust infrastructure.”
This is a fact. Again, I don’t see why it requires something like the federal government. The recent discussion on plutocracy is extremely suggestive of the kind of infrastructure it’s possible to establish if you’re a monomaniacal robber baron.