Will Kevin Michael Grace Go Back To His Roots?

Yesterday I posted my letter to Kevin Michael Grace, after he responded to my blog post on disappearing conservatives. I asked where all the conservatives had gone (including him).

His response was to send me an article he wrote in 2004 for Reason. It is well worth reading this article, since it captures the absurdities of "freedom" which our society espouses. I neglected to provide the link to that article in my copy of the email for my blog post, so here it is.

But, that was five years ago, and people can change quite a bit in five years . And many libertarians love to write about what unrestrained freedom does to people, which is what Grace has done in Reason. Madonna and Dennis Rodman are certainly not ordinary - in fact they're pretty crazy. We can all (liberals, conservatives and libertarians) have a lot of fun mocking them.

An article five years ago about extreme individuals abusing the freedoms of society doesn't necessarily make one a non-libertarian. Here is a much more succinct and realistic critique of libertarianism that commentator Ferg made at the View From the Right:

True there are individual exceptions to this, but the large majority of people who identify themselves as conservative do not really WANT to give up their rent-a-spouse easy divorces, their we can not have a baby NOW abortions, their government bailouts, their abdicate parenting leave it to the professionals mind set, their religion is not literal faith, their easy credit and two income families, their sexually liberated women, their dump the old people on the nursing homes and let the professionals deal with their infirmities attitude, their self fulfillment dreams, etc. etc. etc. Expecting conservatives to be better than liberals on these things is like expecting one group of fifteenth century Venetian noblemen to be better, more honest and more moral than any other group of fifteenth century Venetian noblemen. Not going to happen. Hence, the dodge into libertarianism. Timothy Leary is alive and well, and harder to kill than Ozzie and Harriet. Indeed, Ozzie and Harriet have become objects of derision today, while Leary is just someone who went a bit too far. People today, even conservatives, do not believe in original sin. But we are all fallen, and that is why society is supposed to be structured to contain our fallen natures, not glory in them Beware of what you celebrate, for what you celebrate you encourage.

After a prolonged absence from his website and other media, Grace's "comeback" article at Vdare is also a disappointment. I have already critiqued that article, but I will repeat my qualms more succinctly .

- Grace doesn't take seriously the multicultural/immigration link to the Human Rights Commissions and the Canadian Human Rights Act. In fact, he claims that there is no connection at all. Yet the two most notorious HRCs cases directly involved immigrants and Canada’s multiculturalism, where Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn were brought to the HRCs by offended Muslims.

- Grace emphasized the censorship aspect of the HRCs and the CHRA, which is in effect saying that they curtail free speech. This is the line that Levant, now a proven libertarian, has taken all along. When I challenged Levant via my blog posts about this, I have received no comment so far. When I tried to ask him a related question at an open meeting he held, he clearly avoided my question.

- At a time when huge societal changes are taking place, and especially on the Muslim front, I was surprised that Grace's article at Vdare never discussed those issues. In fact, he dismissed them by saying:

Canada may have the highest immigration rate in the world, but this is not an issue. Canada’s major cities may have been turned into simulacrums of the Third World, but this is not an issue. Quebec is the tail that wags the Canadian dog, but this is not an issue. There is little left of what we used to be, and what little that exists steadily disappears, but this is not an issue, either.

Self-censorship has become a defining Canadian characteristic.

He clearly means in the context of the HRCs and the CHRA. But, I have argued against that perspective here, and have been writing about it throughout my reports on Levant and the HRCS. I have stressed that high immigration and Canada's multiculturalism do indeed have a lot to do with these institutions and policies.

Until Grace starts addressing these pressing issues once again, like he used to, I will continue to question his core beliefs. But, I would rather he returned to his previous hard-line perspectives and write the kind of incisive articles he does so well.