Jonah Goldberg

A Continent Bleeds (2000)

"A Continent Bleeds" (3 May 2000), National Review

• Africa is a mess. It is a mess by any civilized measure of human progress. It is a mess by most uncivilized measures of human progress.

A Truly Great America (2000)

"A Truly Great America" (3 May 2000), National Review

• Great civilizations create great cathedrals, and the cathedrals of this generation should be in outer space. Cathedrals inspire rich and poor people alike to believe great things are possible. The Mars Polar Lander cost the average American the price of half a cheeseburger. A human lander would cost the average American more — perhaps even ten cheeseburgers! So be it. That is no great sacrifice.

Who the Hell Do You Think You Are? (2000)

"Who the Hell Do You Think You Are?" (10 May 2000), National Review

• [C]onservatism is not supposed to be against change or progress... It is supposed to be skeptical of grandiose or reckless schemes which throw out the good in pursuit of the perfect.

Restoring the "Hidden Law" (2000)

"Restoring the 'Hidden Law'" (17 July 2000), National Review

• Imagine if a friend, or even a son or brother, told you, "Hey, guess what I did last night? I stole a car and then I stole a cop car, I shot at some cops (presumably family men), and resisted arrest every step of the way." My response would be: A) "I hope they beat your ass"; B) "Gee, did they beat your ass?"; C) "How come they didn't beat your ass?"; or D) "Come with me right now so I can take you down to the station so they can beat your ass." There is no E) none of the above.

Free-Market Boring…Losing Consciousness (2001)

"Free-Market Boring…Losing Consciousness" (24 January 2001), National Review

• Boredom is a powerful incentive to come up with bad ideas, especially for intellectuals. "Capitalism," says Irving Kristol, "is the least romantic conception of a public order that the human mind has ever conceived." The reason it's so unromantic is that it doesn't tell people what to do and that can be very frustrating for intellectuals who want to tell people what to do. Indeed, court intellectuals have always been more influential where the people are less free, because when an intellectual persuades a dictator or a socialist prime minister (a small distinction to be sure), their advice gets translated into reality. When an intellectual says, "It would be a better society if all beer was free" a free-market politician would, or at least should, say "Maybe, but what can I do about it?"

Cynthia McKinney's Last Stand (2001)

"Cynthia McKinney's Last Stand" (29 October 2001), Goldberg File, National Review Online

• Dissent is morally neutral. You can correctly call yourself a dissident because you like to kick puppies, but at the end of the day, you're just a jerk who likes to kick puppies.

Jersey Dems vs. Democracy (2002)

"Jersey Dems vs. Democracy" (4 October 2002), National Review

• An idiot is no smarter if a billion people agree with him and a genius is no dumber if a billion people don't.

Patriot Games (2004)

"Patriot Games" (21 April 2004), National Review

• Why is it fair game to question conservatives' love or loyalty to children or to their fellow man, but beyond the pale to question liberals' love of country?

Unhappy Warrior (2005)

"Unhappy Warrior" (23 September 2005), Goldberg File, National Review Online

• The porkbusters fight is fun now, but not since early cave men tried to train grizzly bears to give them tongue-baths has a project seemed more obviously doomed to end in disappointment. Expecting Congress — of either party — to give back pork which has already been approved and passed into law is like expecting crack whores to give refunds days after services have been rendered.

Unbelievable (2006)

(12 December 2006); "Unbelievable" an item in The Corner blog at National Review Online, December 12, 2006, posted at 9:37 a.m.

• Making meaningful distinctions is not hypocrisy, it's called "thinking."

Dissident Chicks (2007)

"Dissident Chicks" (12 February 2007), The Corner, National Review

• But, the people who criticized these people were … what? I am so disgusted with people who think free speech is defined as being able to say what you think without being criticized.
  • (In reference to Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks comment at the 49th Grammy Awards that "People are using their freedom of speech tonight [by giving us] all these awards. I'm very humbled.")

Liberal Fascism (2008)

Liberal Fascism (2008)

• [I]n many respects fascism not only is here but has been here for nearly a century. For what we call liberalism--the refurbished edifice of American Progressivism--is in fact a descendant and manifestation of fascism... Progressivism was a sister movement of fascism, and today's liberalism is the daughter of Progressivism.
  • p. 5
• Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common goal. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the "problem" and therefore defined as the enemy. I will argue that contemporary American liberalism embodies all of these aspects of fascism... You can see why the Marxist left would resist the idea that Hitler was a revolutionary. Because if he was, then either Hitler was a force for good, or revolutions can be bad.
  • p. 63

What is Social Justice (2014)

"What is Social Justice?" (24 March 2014), Prager University

• In short, “social justice” is code for good things no one needs to argue for -- and no one dare be against.

Andrew Breitbart would tell Steve Bannon to stay in Europe (2018)

"Andrew Breitbart would tell Steve Bannon to stay in Europe" (14 March 2018), The Los Angeles Times

• One of the things that motivated my old friend Andrew Breitbart was his righteous indignation at being called a racist. That's a running theme in his book, "Righteous Indignation".
• He would also advise conservatives not to be deterred if their opponents on the left unfairly called them racists — something he rightly believed happened all the time. Indeed, one of the things that got him out of bed in the morning was fighting the media-Democratic narrative that conservatives are all a bunch of racists.
• In one famous episode, members of the Congressional Black Caucus walked through a crowd of tea party protesters seeking a provocation. Subsequently they claimed the attendants screamed the N-word and other epithets at them. The press reported it all as fact. Andrew, noting the sea of cameras and iPhones at the event, offered a $10,000 reward to anyone who could provide proof of the CBC's claims. No one came forward. That was the Andrew Breitbart I was proud to call my friend.
• If Andrew were still around, I bet he'd tell Bannon to stay in Europe — and not just because his tendency to wear several shirts seems more consistent with European fashion. Bannon's understanding of conservatism is entirely European.
• Conservatism in America has always been deeply traditionalist, sometimes too much so. But at the core of the modern conservative movement has been the effort to protect, defend and conserve the traditions of a liberal revolution, grounded in the best arguments of the enlightenment (slavery notwithstanding). Bannon's potted blood and soil nationalism and racially tinged populism runs counter to that project and the best and highest ideals of conservatism and America itself. He turned Andrew's Breitbart.com into a "platform" (his word) for the alt-right seeking to inject European swill into the American body politic. Let him stay in Europe and hand out torches for the marchers. His un-American schtick has no place here. I'm sure Andrew would agree.

War on the Right (2018)

"War on the Right" (4 May 2018), National Review

• Life isn't binary — and neither is politics. If you are adrift in the ocean, your enemy isn’t just sharks; it’s thirst, hunger, drowning, and despair itself. If you face your predicament assuming the only thing you have to worry about is being eaten by a shark, you might fend off the sharks, but you will also probably die. Indeed, by ignoring other threats, you’d probably make yourself more vulnerable to a shark attack.

Are We to Blame for the Alex Jones Problem? (2018)

"Are We to Blame for the Alex Jones Problem?" (10 August 2018), National Review Online

• [W]e live in a popular-front moment, where no one on “our side” is worth criticizing too much, if at all, and everyone on “their side” is evil. This has as much to do with ratings and page views as it does with ideology. Moths chase light, but the incentive for politicians, producers, and pundits is to follow the heat. I’m still torn over how people such as Mark Zuckerberg should deal with slanderous carnival barkers like Alex Jones. But I’m convinced a lot of people are to blame for the problem reaching Zuckerberg’s desk in the first place.

When Evil Becomes Inconvenient (2018)

"When Evil Becomes Inconvenient" (24 August 2018), National Review Online

• [N]early every political evil can be found on display in China: slavery, discrimination, religious persecution, xenophobia, tyranny, mass-political indoctrination, colonialism, cultural genocide, and so on. And yet, the outcry against these things in America and the West is a tiny fraction of what it was with regard to South Africa in the 1980s or Israel today. Why? Some of the political answers are pretty obvious — and have much merit. A few that come to mind: China is non-Western, and many of these sins are supposed to be unique to white Europeans; China is a victim (or “victim”) of colonialism, and so we shouldn’t judge it harshly; China is very powerful, and realpolitik dictates that we be diplomatic; and so on.
• The coalition instinct is the programming that helped us form strategic groups that advance our self-interest. We are a social species and cooperation is what helped us skyrocket to the top of the food chain.

Liberals' Irritable Mental Gestures (2018)

"Liberals’ Irritable Mental Gestures" (4 September 2018), National Review Online

• [L]iberals are going to have to make peace with the possibility that their political enemies aren’t always the cartoon villains they so desperately want them to be.

Breaking democratic norms was rampant before the anonymous op-ed. Now it's a free-for-all (2018)

"Breaking democratic norms was rampant before the anonymous op-ed. Now it's a free-for-all" (11 September 2018), The Los Angeles Times

• For Obama, and millions of liberals, Trump is the fruition of years of right-wing perfidy. He has more of a point than many of my colleagues on the right care to admit. For instance, I never subscribed to the “birther” conspiracy theory that Trump exploited to such effect, but I failed to appreciate the damage being done by letting it fester. But Obama also has a massive blind spot that many on the left share. The tit-for-tat dynamic of norm-breaking goes back decades, and Obama has played his part. When running for president in 2008 and 2012, Obama let his lieutenants demonize John McCain and Mitt Romney as racists.

• Obama violated not just democratic norms but also his constitutional oath by effectively granting amnesty to millions of immigrants in the country illegally despite having insisted that he did not have the power to do so.

• Pence has a point. But he has little standing to make it.

• Falsely accusing critics of “treason,” castigating law-enforcement agencies for prosecuting allies, and telling police they should rough up suspects is inconsistent with Trump’s oath — and Pence’s. But these days, oaths, like norms, are for everybody else.

The Government Can’t Love You (2018)

"The Government Can’t Love You" (14 September 2018), The G-File, National Review Online

• [S]egments of the Right, who denounced phrases like “economic patriotism” when it passed Barack Obama’s lips but nod and cheer when similar phrases come out of the mouths of “nationalists.” They see the state as the key to fostering a new social solidarity because it alone speaks for their new idol — or “strong god” — of the Nation. Passionate nationalists, like passionate socialists, ultimately believe that the State can love you, and if the right people take it over, the divisions that are inevitable in a free society will be knitted together by some government initiative. But that is not love, it is lust. It is a lust for power and victory for your vision over all others.

Socialism is So Hot Right Now (2018)

"Socialism is So Hot Right Now" (17 September 2018), Commentary

• One common tactic [socialists like to use] is to point to countries that liberals like and dub them real-world models of socialism. Thus Scandinavian countries with generous social safety nets become the real-world proof that socialism works. Others will just point to government-run programs or institutions—national parks, the VA, whatever—and say “socialism!” (What about Venezuela? “Shut up,” they explain.)

• [S]ocialism has never been a particularly stable or coherent program, a point I made in these pages in 2010. It has always been best defined as whatever socialists want it to be at any given moment. That is because its chief utility is as a romantic indictment of the capitalist status quo. As many of the defenders of the new socialist craze admit, socialism is the off-the-shelf alternative to capitalism, which has been in bad odor since at least the financial crisis of 2008.

• [S]ocialism’s durability as a concept owes almost nothing to economics and almost everything to the desire for power...

• [T]o talk about socialism as a function of practical politics means gliding past its underlying appeal. After all, there are countless other ideologies that can be similarly reduced to the desire for power expressed by certain elites or certain segments of the aggrieved masses themselves. The most obvious example is, of course, nationalism, which has more in common with socialism than is ordinarily believed. From the French Jacobins to the Italian Fascists, nationalists tend to be in favor of state-directed economics, the redistribution of wealth, and a collectivist or communal organization of society. What unites all of these movements is a sense that liberal democratic capitalism doesn’t provide a sense of social solidarity. It is too atomizing, too cut-throat, and mostly unconcerned with how we should all live together.

• Socialism as a thoroughgoing system had failed. But the central emotion behind it had not. And that emotion has only deepened...

• Millennials who supported Bernie Sanders almost certainly don’t care about the weedy specifics of his health-care plans. They do not want to live in a country with an economic system that could never have produced the iPhone or the Internet. What they want is a greater sense of social solidarity.

• Capitalism—at least as Sanders & Co. understand it—is not fulfilling. It doesn’t provide a sense of meaning and solidarity. It rewards—in their minds—the few and punishes the many. There must be a better, more humane way, in which we’re all in it together and sacrifice is shared. The word “social” comes from the Latin socii, meaning allies. People want to feel that they are allied with one another, fighting toward a common goal together for the good of the tribe, marching to the same drumbeats. This is innate in us. Our tribal brains crave social solidarity every bit as much as our palates crave foods that are sweet, fatty, or salty. We can train ourselves to resist the cravings or channel them toward productive ends. But very few of us can eliminate the craving itself.

• The problem is that the central government in a sprawling country of over 325 million can’t provide solidarity (without resorting to anti-democratic means)—only the institutions of civil society (faith, family, etc.) can fill the holes in our souls.

• The major difference between the left and the right when it comes to any movement dedicated to overthrowing the free-market order—corporatist, authoritarian, etc.—is which groups will be the winners and which groups will be the losers. A left-wing system might empower labor leaders, government bureaucrats, progressive intellectuals, universities, certain minority groups, and one set of industries. A right-wing system might reward a different set of industries as well as traditional religious groups and their leaders, an ethnic majority, aristocrats, or perhaps rural interests. But both systems would be reactionary in the sense that they rejected the legacy of the Lockean revolution...

• [W]hat makes a libertarian in America a “right-winger” makes him a “liberal” in most of Europe.

• [C]apitalism is as much to blame for the consolidation and homogenization of nations as champions of progressive central planning are, if not more so.

• As America’s Founders well understood, a society enjoying a multiplicity of institutions, interests, and intact communities (i.e., factions) is much more difficult to subjugate by a single central power, be it a king, a dictator, or a bureaucracy.

• We can debate how much socialism there was in Hitler’s National Socialism. It is remarkable, however, that many of the people insisting that Norway or Sweden is obviously socialist even though they both are more free-market than Hitlerite Germany are aghast at the suggestion that the National Socialists were…socialists.

• The sense of local community, the feeling of espirit de corps, the satisfaction one gets from belonging to a settled traditional or even tribal order, and the feeling of centeredness and place one gets in the family: These are all wonderful things. But they can, and often do, become poisonous, oppressive, and even tyrannical when the state tries to impose them on the entirety of society. When we try to make the macrocosm of society like the microcosm of the family or tribe, we destroy it every bit as much as when we try to make the microcosm operate according to the rules of the macrocosm.

Liberalism, Conservatism, and the End of History (2018)

"Liberalism, Conservatism, and the End of History" (17 September 2018), The Corner, National Review Online

• After the rise of socialism and the retreat of monarchical and clerical rule, liberalism became, in effect, the new conservatism in that it took on the mantle of the status quo.

It's Wrong to Assume Kavanaugh Would Be a Partisan Justice (2018)

"It's Wrong to Assume Kavanaugh Would Be a Partisan Justice" (5 October 2018), National Review

• Progressives have won so many policy battles by relying on activist courts to do things they could not achieve at the ballot box, they’ve come to see an activist Supreme Court as a birthright. As a result, the Court has been politicized far more than it should be.

The Price of Victory (2018)

"The Price of Victory" (5 October 2018), The G-File, National Review Online

• Judges are not typically expected to remain dispassionate when they’ve been accused of gang rape, nor should they be.

If You Think Our Politics Can’t Get Uglier Than the Kavanaugh Fight, Think Again (2018)

"If You Think Our Politics Can’t Get Uglier Than the Kavanaugh Fight, Think Again" (10 October 2018), National Review

• This is how we got here. It will get worse because there are no incentives to be better. It won’t end well either, but at least it will feel familiar.

Nikki Haley's Excellent Timing (2018)

"Nikki Haley's Excellent Timing" (12 October 2018), National Review

• [T]he U.N. is the best arena in the world for picking the right enemies.

A Free People Must Be Virtuous (2018)

"A Free People Must Be Virtuous" (14 October 2018), G-File, National Review Online

• At the end of the day, happiness is derived from love — love for others and others’ love for you. When I say “love” I do not mean simply romantic love, though that is obviously one of the greatest wellsprings of true happiness. I mean the love one feels from friends, and the love for places and things that brings people together for shared purpose.

• The modern doctrines of diversity and multiculturalism are a kind of homogenizing totalitarianism. Its acolytes want every institution to be filled with people who look different but think alike. What our society needs is not more “diversity” of this sort but more variety. Different communities and institutions need to be able live differently, because it is only with this kind of variety that a diverse people can find places where they all feel at home and where they can all find a kind of meaning that suits them as individuals.

• [I]nstitutions and communities need to be able to exploit their comparative advantages. It’s not just that the Marine Corps demands more from its members than the Peace Corps; it’s that the Marines demand different things. For some people, being a Marine would be a kind of living Hell; for others it is a reason to live. That’s what the individual pursuit of happiness means.

• One of the great things about liberalism is that it allows for more paths for just that pursuit. In tribal society, there was little to no division of labor beyond what was rooted in age and sex. In feudal monarchies and modern totalitarianisms alike, there is division of labor, but it is imposed on people by rulers: “You will be a soldier.” “You will be a fry cook.” “You were born to be a slave or a serf.” In a free society, you have choice. It’s not perfect: You can’t choose to be a Marine if you do not meet the requirements, but you are free to try.

• [T]here has never been a society in all of human history where the average person did not have to work. Sure, some crapulent prince could lay around all day and do nothing, but everyone else had to till the soil or pound the anvil or carry a spear.

• [W]ork is good. Work is virtuous and inculcates virtue. Work gives people a sense of meaning and of being needed. Obviously, not everyone feels such satisfaction in the job they have now, but that dissatisfaction is precisely the motivation people need to find the job that might provide it. That motivation inspires virtue, too.

• Some people work just to make the money to support the other things in their life that provide meaning, be it a family or a cause or a hobby that may seem silly to you or me but is central to their individual pursuit of happiness. Some people don’t work for money at all. Priests, stay-at-home parents, and volunteers in a thousand different institutions aren’t pursuing wealth; they are pursuing meaning through love and love through meaning.

• [S]ocialists are romantics in that they want to curate their lives entirely based on their own feelings.

• The only society in which it is remotely possible for people to design their lives in the manner Marx fantasizes is one that is incredibly rich and incredibly free. We are nowhere near there yet, but it’s worth pointing out that if you plucked any laborer from another era and toured him or her around America today, they’d think that we were remarkably close.

Say No to a Parliament of Tribes (2018)

"Say No to a Parliament of Tribes" (15 October 2018), The Corner, National Review Online

• I understand that identity-politics arguments are supposed to trump everything else these days, but the idea that all Americans of Asian, black, and Hispanic heritage have homogeneous political interests and identities is both ridiculous and grotesque.

• Everyone’s decrying tribalism, and yet the idea that we should rejigger the constitutional order to make sure that Asian Americans in California have the same “representation” in the Senate as Hispanics in, say, Texas or Rhode Island is profoundly tribal. Maybe Hispanics in Texas have different political interests than Hispanics in California? Maybe Hispanics — an incredibly diverse category of people — don’t vote based upon an abstract designation?

• [B]ending the system to the idea that the government in Washington should see the country as a bunch of competing racial and ethnic groups with no particular or meaningful attachment to place and community, whose only relationship to government is unmediated through state and local government, is precisely the sort of thinking that Arthur Schlesinger lamented... If it makes you sad that California doesn’t have more clout in the Senate, fine. But playing statistical games based on race and ethnicity is a pernicious way of approaching that problem.

What's So Great About Western Civilization (2019)

"What’s So Great about Western Civilization" (19 April 2019), National Review

• One of the things I tell new parents is something that was told to me when my daughter still had that new-baby smell: “Prepare for long days but short years.” No statement more succinctly captures the exhaustion, excitement, and melancholy nostalgia that come with parenthood. I have no doubt whole books have not covered it more eloquently.

• [T]he immediate assumption that praise for, or pride in, Western civilization is a species of bigotry and racism is a perfect example of the sort of civilizational suicide I describe in my own book on the subject.

• But the weird thing is that many of the people who are outraged by benign nationalism or the benign pan-nationalism that is pride in Western civilization take no umbrage when someone from Iran or China says they think their civilization is best. This of course is a manifestation of the ancient cult of identitarianism, which the best traditions of the West have battled internally at great cost for thousands of years. Saying Western civilization is great hurts the feelings of some people invested in some other source of identity. And it hurts the feelings of some Westerners because they think it’s a sign of enlightenment to get offended on other people’s behalf or to denigrate the society that gave them their soap box.

• We “borrow” stuff from other cultures constantly, starting with Christianity itself. This is particularly true of America, which is why our menus read like the requested meal plans from a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. This profound lack of self-awareness manifests itself most acutely among progressives who wear their Europe-envy on their sleeves. Oh, they’re so much more civilized over there. Well, what civilization do you think “over there” is part of?

• The way you sustain and improve upon a culture is by fostering a sense of gratitude for what is best about it. You celebrate the good in your story while putting the bad in the correct context. Conservatism is gratitude...