Posted on 06/23/2005 9:51:17 AM PDT by quidnunc
The central theme of Brian Anderson’s "South Park Conservatives" is that a new kind of anti-liberal counterculture is emerging comparable in tone, if not substance, to the 1960s New Left.
Like the nasty and funny TV show from which the label comes, South Park conservatives are characterized by skepticism and irreverence, with a special animosity reserved for the doctrinaire political correctness and limp-wristed liberalism that pervade Hollywood, the media and academe.
South Park conservatives make fun of everything and everyone, but especially those they see as hippies, tree-huggers, feminist dykes and fruity multiculturalists. Conservative on matters of economy and foreign policy but socially liberal, they can probably be best characterized as particularly cheeky libertarians dedicated to lampooning leftist dogmas and shibboleths.
That contemporary liberalism has become so easy to ridicule testifies to both its intellectual sclerosis and the broader shift in the political balance of power in recent decades toward conservatism. As New Republic editor Martin Peretz recently bemoaned, the left is increasingly "bookless" and brain-dead.
But the emergence of a powerful libertarian strain within an increasingly triumphant conservative movement also suggests an almost impossible to avoid future clash between those libertarians and the social conservatives who have provided so many of the foot soldiers and so much of the energy in the rise of the right.
Liberals claim, of course, that the religious right dominates the Republican Party to such an extent as to threaten the separation between church and state upon which the nation’s liberties rests. While such a characterization is almost certainly more a byproduct of liberal hysteria and further evidence of liberalism’s intellectual demise than an accurate description of the Bush administration’s intentions, there is no denying that "South Park" and evangelicalism represent extreme ends of the cultural continuum.
The source of the problem is not just that libertarians often tend to be closer to leftists on questions of abortion, gay rights, drug use, etc., but that they also tend to view social conservatism, with its ecclesiastical foundation, as every bit as doctrinaire, intolerant and generally oppressive to the human spirit as leftism.
For many libertarians, the left wishes to silence freedom of expression and association, confiscate the fruits of our labor and leave our nation defenseless in the face of its ugly enemies. But the right is suspected of seeking to rule from the pulpit in an effort to ban drinking, drugs, fornication and just about anything else that smacks of fun.
As the old cliché suggests, the left seeks to pick our pocket while the religious right tries to look under our beds. Each represents, with its respective orthodoxies and dogma, an assault upon the individual freedom and choice that South Park conservatives value most highly.
Because they have already decided how everyone should live and tend toward absolutism, both religious right and humanist left feel justified in imposing their values on others by force at the expense of individual liberty.
When Republicans last week voted overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives to uphold the federal government’s power to prosecute those who use marijuana for medicinal purposes, they were providing a perfect example of precisely such coercive intolerance. It was the kind of political performance in which the mind was shut down, reason took a vacation and moralistic breastbeating took center stage in the worst holier-than-thou fashion.
Libertarians don’t have a vision of the good society, except to the extent that they wish for everyone to be able to live as they please so long as they respect the right of others to do the same. Rather than dispensing with morality, as often claimed by their critics, they have such great reverence for it that they don’t feel entitled or qualified to determine it for anyone other than themselves.
How strange, then, that a misguided moralism masquerading under the phony rubric of the "war on drugs" could lead Republicans to do such an immoral thing as denying a harmless substance like marijuana to people in pain.
James Dobson undoubtedly approved, but the growing number of conservatives who watch "South Park" almost certainly didn’t.
Thank you. I try to be a reasonable person. I am personally socially conservative, but I try to prevent it from making me a jerk to others. I have openly gay friends, even as I personally find even the thought of the act somewhat disturbing. Nonetheless, it doesn't change that they have been good friends to me, or that they've helped me. The morality I subscribe to, which focusses on the action of the individual, therefore dictates I must treat them as well as they treat me. Which, in this case, is well. Therefore I recriprocate and just don't think about what they do behind closed doors. Not my business, since it doesn't hurt or threaten me or mine, and not my concern.
If they were handing out illustrated pamphlets with illustrated homosexual positions in schools, then I WOULD have a problem with it. But we are fighting a war against an enemy that would joyously kill himself for the CHANCE to take any of us with him, including our children. We have an economy that could be doing much better, and will be soon, God willing, with hard work and the American (or Western, since I am personally Canadian) spirit. We are losing our rights to activist judges. And we are losing a cultural war, of which homosexuality is perhaps the least of the battles within it.
The state should get out of the church's business, only religious ceremonies can bestow marriages, and everyone has the rights to civil unions.
Ultimately, God will judge everyone, including homosexual. I'm not God, though. And I can pretty much check off each of the seven sins. I am prideful always, frequently greedy gluttonous and wrathful, fairly often lusting, I do envy from time to time, and slothfulness has been known to plague me as well. ANd when I get through those, I have other problems to worry about to make me perfect, so fighting homosexuality is low on my list of concerns. So long as they stop with the Pride parades (and the gay education at schools), I got no problems with them.
Tolerance doesn't mean liking it. Tolerane just means gritting your teeth when you dislike it and living with it. /rant
Sorry for going on at length. I also don't mean to trample on the beliefs of anyone here. I just don't like ANYONE imposing their views on anyone else. THat's why I'm on the right wing, and not the left wing. Tyranny from any side is still tyranny.
Libertines
I do find it disconcerting when it moves past telling ANY specific class of people that it's not only all right, but possibly BETTER or somehow MORE NOBLE to be in that class.
"Sexuality, in human development, is influenced both genetically and socially. Homosexuals are born with a curtain proclivities, similar to the way an alcoholic may have a weakness. But as a society, we don't encourage alcoholism and we shouldn't encourage homosexuality. Like alcoholism, homosexuality is a destructive behavior for the individual and society as a whole."
That's a much better argument, Mulch. I agree with much of it. Nor do I say Christian Conservatives, or Jewish Conservatives, or whatever cannot comment or chastise homosexuals and homosexuality. They can, it's freedom of speech. Just like neo-nazis (and I AM NOT saying that Christians are anywhere NEAR neo nazis, this is just an example) can say Jooooooos are the devil and should be purged, black people are inferior, bla bla bla. They are nutcases, but entitled to their opinion. They cannot LIMIT THE FREEDOMS of anyone, though, or threaten their wellbeing directly.
Unless its in the direct, extreme and immediate benefit of the whole state and almost everyone in it, and even then it shouldn't be a sure thing.
We're conservatives, guys, we support RIGHTS and FREEDOMS. Let's not forget that. Part of that is the freedom of speech, even for people we disagree with, or even hate. As Voltaire said "I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your God-given right to say it."
My own take on this, take with a grain of salt..
Libertarians - No government intrusion in social or economic matters at all, just provide for the basic services, make sure constitution is followed.
Conservatives - Minimal intrusion, read moral values intrude to some extent (individiual items like drug use etc - IE Victimless Crimes)
Liberals - Nanny state, tyranny of the minority - minority rights protected at the expense of the majority.
I am probably a Conservative/Libertarian: I think conservatives sometimes get a little too restrictive but a libertarian world is scary in different ways (Have looked at the platform and disagree with a substantial number of stands)
Within each movement I feel their are swings and some differences on individual issues, their has to be. It is deciding where you fit best that decides your affiliation. So it is not black and white, lot of shades of grey. Again this is all from feverish and often wrong brain!
Harmless? Burnout can't see the other burnouts for the trees. Everyone is in "pain", just different types and levels!
I think this is what Christians mean to say when it comes to the homosexual debate, but the emotion that can surround that debate may mute those sentiments.
Homosexuals aren't normal. But they aren't bad, or evil, necessarily either.
Hitler was a vegetarian because he hated to see animals hurt. He loved children, and was heterosexual. He was evil. Not because of what he was, but because of WHAT HE DID TO OTHER PEOPLE.
One of the most fundamental tenets of Judeo-Christianity, if not THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL, is "Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself". We can wage war on our proven enemies. BUt don't go looking to make new ones unless they've done something to you. And don't treat people in a way you wouldn't want to be treated. Protect and defend rights and freedoms. That's why America is great.
We are losing a cutlure of rights and freedoms. That is what's troubling. Not the rise of a subculture of metrosexuality or homosexuality. And the former is a fad and will pass in time anyways.
So if I'm a 'realist' for individual freedom both in economic and social contexts -- I'm not a conservative?
I agree about the Libertarians. They're not realists, in far too many of their policies.
In fact, I don't even agree with the 'non-initiation of force' across the board. I believe there are times when a pre-emptive strike is the best option -- like in Iraq.
And that's what we should be worried about. Not the gays themselves. Don't lose sight of the forest for the trees.
By the by, glad we are all approximately on the same page now. We must be unified, or we WILL lose the culture war to the nanny state tyrants on the 'progressive'/socialist/liberals/social democrat left. Or whatever they call themselves these days.
Homosexuality is destructive behavior.Why should the government not try to curtail destructive behavior?
Because overspending your money is destructive behaviour as well. Does that mean the government should control your personal finances, or limit what you can or can't do with your money within reason?
Of course not. Nor can they prevent you from insulting people. "You're a jerk and I wish you were dead" is destructive behaviour as well.
You have to give people freedom, and trust they will do the right thing. Most of them will. A few won't. THat's life.
Fine, but it would need to be consistant. Curtail drinking (in everyone, as you MIGHT be an alcoholic), smoking (oops), overeating (oops), driving without a seat belt (oops) ...
Well, they do it already, so I guess it must be okay ...
Except, where does it stop? Someone dies from video games --- gotta stop that.
Voting? The people might make the wrong choice. Let's protect them from themselves.
I'm against legislating any of the above, so I've got to be against it for homosexuality ... just so we stop ceding power to the government. Doesn't mean I have to like it.
You enjoy being a "liberal cross dresser"?
Ditto. Casinos are a big hot button for me, but I try to ignore it most of the time.
There's not much that mixes the feelings of amusement and disgust in me like seeing an ad for gambling addiction followed by the drawing of the state lottery numbers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.