Posted on 08/05/2010 6:04:18 PM PDT by pissant
These days it's getting increasingly embarrassing to publicly identify oneself as a conservative. It was bad enough when George Bush 43, the K Street Gang, and the neo-cons were running up spending, fighting an unnecessary war of choice in Iraq, incurring massive deficits, expanding entitlements, and all the rest of the nonsense I cataloged over the years in posts like Bush 43 has been a disaster for conservatives.
These days, however, the most prominent so-called conservatives are increasingly fit only to be cast for the next Dumb and Dumber sequel. They're dumb and crazy.
Conservative pundit David Kilnghoffer has a great op-ed in today's LA Times that nicely captures what I'm on about:
Once, the iconic figures on the political right were urbane visionaries and builders of institutions — like William F. Buckley Jr., Irving Kristol and Father Richard John Neuhaus, all dead now. Today, far more representative is potty-mouthed Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart, whose news and opinion website, Breitbart.com, is read by millions. In his most recent triumph, Breitbart got a U.S. Department of Agriculture official pushed out of her job after he released a deceptively edited video clip of her supposedly endorsing racism against white people.
What has become of conservatism? ... With its descent to baiting blacks, Mexicans and Muslims, its accommodation of conspiracy theories and an increasing nastiness and vulgarity, the conservative movement has undergone a shift toward demagoguery and hucksterism. Once the talk was of "neocons" versus "paleocons." Now we observe the rule of the crazy-cons. ...
Conservatism wasn't just a policy agenda, a set of partisan gripes or a football team seeking victory on the electoral field. Above all, it was a satisfying, sophisticated critique of modern, materialist culture, pointing a way out and up from liberalism.
Let's tick off ten things that make this conservative embarrassed by the modern conservative movement:
1. A poorly educated ex-sportwriter who served half of one term of an minor state governorship is prominently featured as a -- if not the -- leading prospect for the GOP's 2012 Presidential nomination.
2. Tom Tancredo calling President Obama “the greatest threat to the United States today" and arguing that he be impeached. Bad public policy is not a high crime nor a misdemeanor, and the casual assertion that pursuing liberal policies--however misguided--is an impeachable offense is just nuts.
3. Similar nonsense from former Ford-Reagan treasury department officials Ernest Christian and Gary Robbins, who IBD column was, as Doug Marconis observed, "a wildly exaggerated attack on President Obama’s record in office." Actually, it's more foaming at the mouth.
4. As Doug also observed, "The GOP controlled Congress from 1994 to 2006: Combine neocon warfare spending with entitlements, farm subsidies, education, water projects and you end up with a GOP welfare/warfare state driving the federal spending machine." Indeed, "when the GOP took control of Congress in 1994, and the White House in 2000, the desire to use the levers of power to create “compassionate conservatism” won our over any semblance of fiscal conservatism. Instead of tax cuts and spending cuts, we got tax cuts along with a trillion dollar entitlement program, a massive expansion of the Federal Government’s role in education, and two wars. That’s not fiscal conservatism it is, as others have said, fiscal insanity." Yet, today's GOP still has not articulated a message of real fiscal conservatism.
5. Thanks to the Tea Party, the Nevada GOP has probably pissed away a historic chance to out=st Harry Reid. See also Charlie Crist in Florida, Rand Paul in Kentucky, and so on. Whatever happened to not letting perfection be the enemy of the good?
6. The anti-science and anti-intellectualism that pervade the movement.
7. Trying to pretend Afghanistan is Obama's war.
8. Birthers.
9. Nativists.
10. The substitution of mouth-foaming, spittle-blasting, rabble-rousing talk radio for reasoned debate. Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Hugh Hewitt, and even Rush Limbaugh are not exactly putting on Firing Line. Whatever happened to smart, well-read, articulate leaders like Buckley, Neuhaus, Kirk, Jack Kent, Goldwater, and, yes, even Ronald Reagan?
Update: Patterico says the foregoing are "reasons that conservatives should not support the Republican party," not reasons for being embarrassed about being a conservative. Fair enough. I'd accept that as a friendly amendment, but we're not friends.
I am reminded of Russell Kirk's great essay on Republican errors, in which he wrote that "in my lamenting of the present state of Republican leadership in Washington, I am more moved by sorrow than by wrath." Unfortunately, the present GOP leadership in Washington continues making many of the same errors of which Kirk complained 20 years ago. As such, sorrow begins to give way to wrath.
A real conservative will stand by principles and not be embarrassed by what others are doing.
Well, it's like this, "Prof": Nobody else on the GOP side is articulating our core platform, is engaging the atrocious violations of the Constitution, and is energizing crowds like Gov. Palin.
And I'll take someone with an un-prominent education over an Ivy Leaguer any day of the week. Remember a certain graduate from little Eureka College?
2. Tom Tancredo calling President Obama “the greatest threat to the United States today" and arguing that he be impeached. Bad public policy is not a high crime nor a misdemeanor, and the casual assertion that pursuing liberal policies--however misguided--is an impeachable offense is just nuts.
Stealing from secured bondholders and handing over the assets to cronies, approving the release of the Lockerbie murdering bomber back to Libya, and failing to execute the Gulf of Mexico clean-up for political purposes are all fine and legitimate reasons for impeachment.
3. Similar nonsense from former Ford-Reagan treasury department officials Ernest Christian and Gary Robbins, who IBD column was, as Doug Marconis observed, "a wildly exaggerated attack on President Obama’s record in office." Actually, it's more foaming at the mouth.
I haven't read the articles referenced, so I won't comment. But if it follows my above line of reasoning, they can't be half-bad.
4. As Doug also observed, "The GOP controlled Congress from 1994 to 2006: Combine neocon warfare spending with entitlements, farm subsidies, education, water projects and you end up with a GOP welfare/warfare state driving the federal spending machine." Indeed, "when the GOP took control of Congress in 1994, and the White House in 2000, the desire to use the levers of power to create “compassionate conservatism” won our over any semblance of fiscal conservatism. Instead of tax cuts and spending cuts, we got tax cuts along with a trillion dollar entitlement program, a massive expansion of the Federal Government’s role in education, and two wars. That’s not fiscal conservatism it is, as others have said, fiscal insanity." Yet, today's GOP still has not articulated a message of real fiscal conservatism.
True, the '94 to '06 GOP spent, and to be sure, wasted money. The '06 to '10 DNC is TRIPLING THE NATIONAL DEBT! And the the "Tea Party" branch of the GOP is "articulating a message of real fiscal conservatism", which you'd notice if you weren't such a fool, "Prof".....
5. Thanks to the Tea Party, the Nevada GOP has probably pissed away a historic chance to out=st Harry Reid. See also Charlie Crist in Florida, Rand Paul in Kentucky, and so on. Whatever happened to not letting perfection be the enemy of the good?
Here you're counting your chickens before they're hatched, "Prof"....
6. The anti-science and anti-intellectualism that pervade the movement.
Ho ho HO! I guess this guy hasn't gotten the memo that it's the conservative wing that recognizes the simple, basic, SCIENTIFIC definitions of human life:
7. Trying to pretend Afghanistan is Obama's war.
The mission in Afghanistan has been under Obama's control for 18 months now. It's his war!
8. Birthers.
All we ask is that Obama, the supposed "Constitutional Scholar" (HA!) actually respect the part of the Constitution that stipulates the qualifications to legally hold the office of President.
To evade showing this simple proof shows either a) an inability to meet the qualification requirements, or b) a tremendous disrespect for the Constitution and the Nation that it forms the ultimate law for. Both of those are valid reasons to see that he (peacefully) is brought under compliance of that Supreme Law of the Land.
9. Nativists.
Well, with unemployment through the roof, and the foreign "visitors" not abiding our law, language, or culture, what the hell do you expect, "Prof"? Unemployment is a great reason to limit radically legal immigration, and enforcement of laws against illegal immigration is simply RESPECT FOR THE LAW!
10. The substitution of mouth-foaming, spittle-blasting, rabble-rousing talk radio for reasoned debate. Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Hugh Hewitt, and even Rush Limbaugh are not exactly putting on Firing Line. Whatever happened to smart, well-read, articulate leaders like Buckley, Neuhaus, Kirk, Jack Kent, Goldwater, and, yes, even Ronald Reagan?
Beck, Limbaugh, Levin, et. al. are actually addressing the numerous, large-scale, and disasterous unconstitutional actions by the Obama Regime. And you, "Prof", aren't. So you don't care for how they ring the alarm bell when you're lazing about in your Barcalounger? Tough crap!
He sounds just like a progressive. Everybody but him is stupid....just like Glenn Beck has been telling us.
I am kind of embarrassed for the guy who wrote this. He is either a fake, or very confused.
We embarass the “smart” ones; our betters... We are crass and we fight back against the smears of liberal racists and that is just an embarassing brawl! We don’t know our proper place in life. The Tea Party crackers...well, they should not be involved in the political process. And the most disgusting thing about us is that we would consider a non-ivy league woman as president who has not even been vetted by the CFR, and all the other globalist ole boys clubs.
I’m taking it in like a small person should... .... .... .... .... ....
What do you think crawled up the professor’s butt and died, pissant?
That was fairly well written. Though perhaps too polite a response considering the drivel the professor spewed.
Drama queen conservatives just like the White Rose people were in the Third Reich. All yap yap yap.
Yeah, and biting a pillow all night too!
“Apparently anyone who does not attend an Ivy League school is poorly educated.”
It’s one thing I can’t stand about the breed. I attended what would be the equivalent of an Ivy League school in the south, graduating less than a decade ago. There was a sheer arrogance to the place I found very offputting by the time I graduated, and they haven’t seen a dime from me after I’ve graduated.
When given the chance, I attended by state school over Ivy League medical schools, namely because tuition was half as much, cost of living was lower, and I wouldn’t have to put up with insufferable smugness that comes from those places.
But why call them elitists (as some have done on this thread)? Sorry, I don’t give them that leverage. There was more common sense and more reasoned debate (though I doubt this holds true for many facits of medicine) at my southern state school than at my alma mater or in the Ivy League schools I’ve visited.
Obviously written by a left-wing nut job who thinks conservative = Republican. Standard liberal tripe.
Somebody I never heard of wrote an incoherent 3rd grade rant. BFD.
Charles Johnson disease. It’s when your desire to fit in and be cool overrides the principles you apparently hold. It’s something we see a lot of in high school hallways.
Not with people like you giving aid and comfort to people that write pseudo intellectual, surrender monkey drivel like this, it won't.
Jack Kent? Is that Clark Kent’s superbrother, who leaps over matters of principle in a single bound to curry favor with his friends on the left?
left wingers projecting.
The country is dominated by conservatives, the left is spining to manipulate search results.
That only proves that the White House and the NAACP are "Dumb and Dumber". Breitbart never suggested that Shirley Sherrod be fired. That kneejerk reaction occurred even before the tape appeared on FoxNews or any other news channel.
the Nevada GOP has probably pissed away ...
I'm sorry who has the potty mouth ?
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