Leo Strauss

Who was he: Dr. Leo Strauss was a classical political philosopher at the University of Chicago where he wrote and published some 15 books. While teaching, Dr. Strauss indoctrinated several generations of students on the necessity of American global imperialism and neoconservative wars to force regulatory democracy and debt financing upon the entire world.

Leo Strauss was attacked from the left for being elitist, anti-democratic and not sufficiently liberal. The traditional paleoconservatives also opposed his views for being overly militaristic and neoconservative. We suggest the truth lies where the false right and false left labels are discarded.

Dr. Strauss advocated a powerful, centralized empire – like America is today – grounded on the twin pillars of mercantilism and fascism. Many Americans who value liberty consider Dr. Strauss to be the fascist godfather of the neocon movement and America's interventionist foreign policy today.

Background: Leo Strauss was born on September 20, 1889 in Kirchhain, Germany to an Orthodox Jewish family, which later immigrated to the United States. At age 17, Strauss was converted to political Zionism. Strauss started college in 1917 but was drafted into the German Army where he remained until December 1918. Following his military service, Strauss attended a number of universities in Germany before eventually completing his Ph.D in 1921 at the University of Hamburg.

Dr. Strauss was very active in German Zionist and political circles. In 1931, Strauss applied for a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation for the Social Sciences in Germany. A year later he was studying Jewish and Islamic Philosophy in Paris on another Rockefeller scholarship, following which he moved to London to study Thomas Hobbes' writings. In 1936 Leo Strauss published The Political Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes.

In 1937, Dr. Strauss moved to the United States and was appointed a Research Fellow in the History Department of Columbia University in New York. By 1938, he assumed a lecturing position in political science at the New School of Social Research in New York. This was followed by his appointment as Associate Professor of Political Science and Philosophy in 1941. In 1944, Dr. Leo Strauss became a full professor, as well as a US citizen.

From 1949 through 1968, Dr. Strauss was a Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Chicago. During this period, he wrote books, lectured and conducted seminars and courses advocating his political philosophy. Starting in 1968, Dr. Strauss became a Professor of Political Science at Claremont Men's College in California, where the tie-in began with Harry V. Jaffa.

Straussians today are led by an aging Dr. Harry V. Jaffa. They continue to operate out of the Claremont Institute where they promote their Straussian, neocon foreign policy views, views which have characterized both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Strausians also glorify the worst of American history, including promoting the cult-like worship of Abraham Lincoln as America's best president.

Thanks to the Internet, in particular, the old Straussians and their newly packaged neoconservative spawn are being contained and their timetable pushed back by the empowered voice of alternative media. Only time will tell whether this is just a slowdown or if the tide is turning toward free-market thinking and individual human action to discovering solutions to a world mired in conflict and economic crisis.

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