career ambitions

So, with the National Review shocked, shocked to discover John Derbyshire was a racist, despite subtle clues like "I am a racist," there's clearly a spot on the gravy train of wingnut welfare open for a contender with an English accent and a superior attitude.  Now, obviously going from working indirectly for the Communist Party to working indirectly for the Republican Party is a step down morally, but the money's good. 

I need an angle, though.  Eric X. Li has the "Developmental authoritarianism is awesome and unprecedented and everyone in China really loves it" angle sewn up, but that's more designed to pitch to conventional news outlets looking for "contrarian" views. Plus it's too anti-Western for the wingnut train.  

No, instead my plan is to write articles about how China, especially its thrusting capitalist businessmen, is really the true inheritor of 19th-century Western values, the heir to Greece and Rome, unlike Europe, which has been corrupted by leftism and equality.  

Obviously these values were passed - generously - to China by Europeans through institutions like the postal service, Tsinghua University, and the Hong Kong authorities, and although temporarily eclipsed by the Bad Communists, are now resurfacing under the Good Communists, who are not really Communists at all but a Straussian elite governing society wisely.  Now America must face a choice!  Will it continue down the doomed path of liberalism until it stagnates and divides like Europe, or will it follow China's model, slash welfare and regulatory controls, and enter a new era of prosperity for the hard-working and devout?  

Plus, of course, there's that touch of racism that's essential to the modern US right.  After all, African countries have failed because they adopted the soft lazy liberalism of the 20th century, not the core values of the past.  

And equally, American blacks fail because of their own dependency on the state, in contrast to the Victorian values of Asian immigrants. (Note that these aren't Asian values, of course, except insofar as Asian culture contained trace elements of the true way of 19th-century values, like Baldur presaging Christ. The whole pitch is all about Asia being the carrier of the torch of the West.) Also, Chinese are willing to "seek truth from facts" and accept tough scientific realities like the findings of Philip Rushton and Charles Murray.

You could probably work homophobia in there too. See, China understands that sexual behavior should be kept behind closed doors, and that, while what a man does in Ditan Park at 1 am is his own affair, in public the state must only sanction relationships that strengthen core family values. Gay people can't have children, so they're not invested in the future like good parental heterosexuals are!  

Expect my book from Regnery Publishing: The West Goes East: How China Is The True Heir of Rome, sometime later this year. (Another great thing about wingnut welfare; no fact-checking or editorial oversight.)  Unless, that is, Niall Ferguson writes it first.

Comments

[bert]

Agreed. Something stern and bracing is required.

It's high time the ability of one-party autocracy to "impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century" stopped being invoked on behalf of "the meritocracy, the multinational corporate manager, the eastern financier and the technology entrepreneur" to urge allegedly pro-business action on non-priorities like healthcare and climate change.

Be warned. To go up against these cryptoleftists, you may need your own mustache.

[Barry Freed]

Don't forget James, we still need* a new Hitchens over here. Between Derb and the Hitch can be a tough needle to thread. I'd suggest a book savaging the reputation of Desmond Tutu, that ought to do the trick.

*For some values of need.

[JamesP]

I don't think we should mock Friedman. Recent x-rays have shown that he has a tumorous growth on the part of his brain that handles metaphor. It sits there, squatting like a toad in the center of its web.

Also, Tutu is clearly a patsy for the ANC. Who are the true racists. And also Communists.

[bert]

With that surname, and all that dressing up in purple frocks, Tutu is clearly a pansy. You need to drive home the homophobia too, with repeated thrusts.

[Charlie W]

Whatever you do, never ever mention Japan. Does. Not. Exist. And most certainly was never talked about the way China is today.

[Anon]

I look forward to reading your book. Seriously.

[sglover]

Sullivan could step up to it, and he could get extra performance points for agonizing at length over the anti-gay bits before every on-schedule endorsement of party orthodoxy.

[chris y]

squatting like a toad in the center of its web.

And that's OK. I ask only that it vacate the centre of the world wide web.

[Cian]

Also mention how the elite schools in China are far superior to ghetto schools in the US, while implying (without ever stating it) that both schools are representative of the respective school systems.

Bonus points for both blaming Dewey for American schools, while suggesting that Confucius (remember to emphasise that this leads results in a respect for hierarchy and authority) is responsible for the the excellence of the Chinese system.

[Chris Williams]

Unions are guilds and guilds are medieval and bad.

[bert]

chris y, a classic

I am the Friedman.
I am the Eggman.
Coo coo ca choo.