Quite a bizarre sight in the U.S. House the other day: Hundreds of Democrats waved the Ukrainian flag and chanted the name of a foreign nation as they voted to send still another enormous “aid package” to anyone on earth other than Americans.

Now I expect this kind of behavior from Democrats, because they are enemies of civilization and because they think nothing of looting productive Americans.

The smarter and more decent Republicans know better, though the America Last Romney wing is still dominant in Congress.

But as the Democrats continue to morph into the war and intervention and CIA party, and a wing of the Republican Party (and a sizable chunk of the intellectual branch of conservatism) by contrast grows weary of the dumb bipartisan foreign policy and no longer has much interest in parroting the CNN/CIA narrative 24 hours a day, it’s been interesting to watch the gatekeepers of conservative opinion grow concerned.

For example, on Joe Rogan the other day, Tucker Carlson made neocons’ heads explode when he said that the atomic bombings of Japan had been moral abominations. Now I know I will receive some replies assuring me that the bombings were wonderful, the best thing that ever happened to Japan, the only way to bring about a Japanese surrender, etc. You can rest assured that I am familiar with the arguments.

As were G.E.M. Anscombe and Pat Buchanan, for that matter, who both condemned the bombings as moral enormities, and who were both ever so slightly more conservative than the world’s Sean Hannitys and Bill O’Reillys, who can always be counted on to make excuses for the regime.

The gatekeepers won’t allow us to think like Tucker. We are evidently confined to analysis that runs along the lines of “USA! USA!”

Here’s the response of The Spectator‘s Ben Domenech:

Tucker is dumbass evil, and he's a fake Cali AOC uptalk version of it to the hilt. I couldn't be happier about an aging Xer revealing his true self we all knew in the green rooms. Keep doing it, jackass. https://t.co/xDXBZ5i9bY

— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) April 20, 2024

The truth is this: Tucker is in every way the superior of Ben Domenech. Despite my disagreements with him, I consider Tucker to be one of the best communicators I have ever come across. I could not improve on a single one of his monologues.

Then Jeremy Boreing of the Daily Wire said this:

People who deny the moon landing or suggest America is evil for its use of atomic weapons against Imperial Japan or who say that George Bush was behind 9/11 actually hate this country.

— Jeremy Boreing (@JeremyDBoreing) April 21, 2024

These are not the words of a confident man. These are the words of a man who senses the movement he has spent years policing beginning to slip out of his grasp.

And notice the neoconservative mind at work. Neither Tucker nor anyone else says “America” is evil for dropping the bombs, or whatever other complaint you and I might have about what the American government does. The regime is not “America,” though neocons and leftists have their own reasons for wanting to conflate the two.

If I accuse the U.S. regime of lying or of engaging in wicked behavior, that has nothing to do with “hating this country,” since, thank goodness, the U.S. presidents are not “this country.”

At the time of the Spanish-American War, U.S. Senator Carl Schurz had had enough of the “be loyal to the country” nonsense. He, too, could see the games the warmongers were playing:

Again in our own time, we hear with the old persistency the same old plea to the voters of the nation to be loyal to the country, right or wrong. And when we probe the matter—nor is much probing necessary—we find that we are being urged to be loyal not to the country right or wrong, but to President McKinley right or wrong.

President McKinley wasn’t the country in 1898 any more than Harry Truman was in 1945 or Joe Biden is today.

This is where the Ben Domenechs and Jeremy Boreings join hands in happy concord with the Democrats. Sure, you’re allowed to have this or that criticism of the government, but when it comes to the truly defining issues, issues on which the regime relies for its moral legitimacy, you are expected to be in lockstep—as Ben and Jeremy are—with the very Romney/Clinton/Bush/Biden Axis of Evil they pretend to oppose.

Now with that off my chest, I can head to dinner at Per Se, here in New York City, where I’m visiting this week.

This article was originally featured as a Tom Woods newsletter and is republished with permission.