CPAC's boy wonder swings left

Politico ^ | July 2, 2012 | Patrick Gavin

[Free ThinkerNY]

Jonathan Krohn took the political world by storm at 2009’s Conservative Political Action Conference when, at just 13 years old, he delivered an impromptu rallying cry for conservatism that became a viral hit and had some pegging him as a future star of the Republican Party.

Now 17, Krohn — who went on to write a book, “Defining Conservatism,” that was blurbed by the likes of Newt Gingrich and Bill Bennett — still watches that speech from time to time, but it mostly makes him cringe because, well, he’s not a conservative anymore.

“I think it was naive,” Krohn now says of the speech. “It’s a 13-year-old kid saying stuff that he had heard for a long time.… I live in Georgia. We’re inundated with conservative talk in Georgia.… The speech was something that a 13-year-old does. You haven’t formed all your opinions. You’re really defeating yourself if you think you have all of your ideas in your head when you were 12 or 13. It’s impossible. You haven’t done enough.”

Krohn won’t go so far as to say he’s liberal, in part because his move away from conservatism was a move away from ideological boxes in general.

“I want to be Jonathan Krohn,” he said, “and I’m tired of being an ideology, and it’s not fun and it gets boring and it’s not who we are as individuals.”

But a quick rundown of his current political stances suggests a serious pendulum swing away from the right.

Gay marriage? In favor. Obamacare? “It’s a good idea.” Who would he vote for (if he could) in November? “Probably Barack Obama.” His favorite TV shows? “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report.” His favorite magazine? The New Yorker.

[Reagan69]

I’d be checking for a brain tumor.

[T-Bird45]

I suspect he will eventually be a poster boy for the famous Churchill quote about hearts, brains, and age. The kid still hasn’t started a family, bought a house, gotten a consequential job, completed an education, or begun paying taxes in a real way.

[vladimir998]

Teenage rebellion. When his own kids to it to him he’ll be a conservative again.

[12Gauge687]

Once this nimrod starts paying property taxes, he should see the wisdom of conservatism.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"The speech was something that a 13-year-old does. You haven’t formed all your opinions."

And of course at 17, those opinions are all well formed. Yeah, right. BTW, whose bright idea was it in the GOP to have a 13 year old giving a speech at a CPAC convention anyways? Pretty dumb if you ask me.

[HangnJudge]

I’d be checking for a brain tumor.

Subfrontal - probably a meningioma
as him if he's lost his sense of smell too

[A_Former_Democrat]

“it’s not fun and it gets boring”

There you go, folks, the political mindset of a teenager. Hey if it’s not fun, who cares about right or wrong, values or anarchy?

But let’s lionize a 17 year old, way to go Politico.

[montag813]

Sounds like a weak-minded kid without parental guidance, who is easily influenced by whoever he is exposed to. First “Georgia talk radio” and later Jon Leibowitz and Colbert. Pathetic.

[GraceG]

His favorite TV shows? “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report.”

He was poisoned

I recommend making him sit through all seven seasons of Penn and Teller’s BULL$H!T. I know it is a last resort, but it could wake him the heck up.

[throwback]

Well, he’s smarter than Roberts. He figured out he was a liberal 40 years sooner.

[webheart]

I’d be checking for a brain tumor.

That is a ridiculous comment. Brain tumors do not cause people to become liberals. I am restraining myself from saying what I really think. Maybe the first post to an article could be a bit more thought out. It really messes up a perfectly good discussion about an issue that might be somewhat thought provoking.

[Paleo Conservative]

Is he a sodomite?

[theDentist]

Well, you know that old saying about being liberal when you’re young... my nieces are presently liberals, but the older one is beginning to come around again.

[Colonel_Flagg]

But a quick rundown of his current political stances suggests a serious pendulum swing away from the right.

I'd be checking his family tree for a relationship to Mitt Romney.

[Buckeye McFrog]

more likely high-scrool faculty preparing him to apply to Liberal colleges

[ScottinVA]

First item was gay “marriage.” Perhaps he`s been convinced he “qualifies.”

In any case, the words of a 13-year-old, no matter how bright he or she happens to be, should be taken as just that.. a bunch of words. Because their “opinions” can change upon the sight of the next shiny piece of bling, teenlets should be patted on the head, smiled upon, and thanked for playing.

[LearsFool]

This is why a young man is not a fit person to attend lectures on political science, because he is not versed in the practical business of life from which politics draws its premises and subject-matter. Besides, he tends to follow his feelings, with the result that he will make no headway and derive no benefit from his course, since the object of it is not knowledge but action.

It makes no difference whether he is young in age or youthful in character; the defect is due not to lack of years, but to living and pursuing one's various aims under sway of the feelings; for to people like this, knowledge becomes as unprofitable as it is for those without self-control.

- Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

[Sir Napsalot]

And of course Patrick Gavin of Politico was TOO busy tracking down Jonathan Krohn, instead of searching for all those young women, Obama zombies (Obama stash, and the don't need to pay rent, etc. etc.) in 2008.

A simple question put to them “Are you better off 4 years later” would do. If the ‘reporter’ is brave enough, “What did you do with your Obama stash’.

[publius911]

The speech was something that a 13-year-old does. You haven’t formed all your opinions. You’re really defeating yourself if you think you have all of your ideas in your head when you were 12 or 13. It’s impossible. You haven’t done enough.”

You are evolving, Johnathan, and I have disturbing news for you.
Seventeen is not the zenith of sober adult judgement, either.

Winston Churchill is credited with saying it, and he may be somewhat closer reality.

If you do not embrace socialism when you are 17, you have no heart.
If you still embrace socialism at 35, you have no brain.

True as a general statement, although it can be demonstrated that some really old people never enjoy a totally mature human brain. Frances Fox Piven comes to mind.