Now THERE's a winning political formula (/sarc).
No skepticism and irreverence here. We love Dear Leader 
(He so Ronery)
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.
I, too, may have to regretfully inform my wife that we'll someday become homosexuals due to her malicious act of growing older due to the suddenly changed definition. I live in Massachuseets, maybe I'd better change my mind and start supporting this gay marriage thing.
Desperate Housewives, Sundays on ABC.
That said it is well known fact that homosexual men have many more partners than heterosexual men.
Links or sources, please? I'd tend to think this is true, but tend to feel doubt when I here the phrase "well known fact".
There is a reason AIDS showed up first amongst homosexuals.
Of course! Everything that happens has a reason. I put a lot of the blame on the ease of transmission through certain acts, and close knit, geographically clustered communities.
And who said anything about legislating, it seems you would like to go to the Canadian route and legislate that there cannot be any discussion or criticism of the homosexual lifestyle(deathstyle).
I agree with you there, I don't like how even DISCUSSING certain things becomes taboo in society (for instance, discussing that AIDS appeared to be in larger percentages of the gay community than the hetero community in the U.S). It can have easily apparent negative effects, such as causing us to be unable to accurately chart disease factors or speak about REAL methods of prevention (you know, have your partner tested, stick to one person, that sort of thing).
Har, har. I've never watched the show, but I bet you that the housewives aren't portrayed as being happy and normal.
Amyway ping me when there is a real adultury pride parade, you know with signs and flags.
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You'd "rather die than legislate another adults behavior"?
So you have no problem with murder and rape? How about stealing?
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Murder and rape harm other people. How does someone's being gay harm you?
No skepticism and irreverence here. We love Dear Leader (He so Ronery)
Yeah, it was a bit of a flippant response, and I've never actually watched the show, so I don't know how they're portrayed. But, knowing drama lives on conflict, I'm sure the characters are no portrayed as perfectly happy, and have some abnormalities to make them stand out.
Frankly, I had trouble deciding between the Desperate Housewives crack, and commenting on how the media tried hard to portray adultery as nothing abnormal at the same time thry tried to claim oral sex was not really sex.
I assume you want answers other than "when I'm falsely imprisoned, and have an unlucky draw of the cellmates". :)
I thought he was just a normal guy who liked to see handsome youths wearung tight leather shorts.
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Well there is one study that is completly independent and based on facts and that is the vast majority of the AIDS/HIV cases in the US are either homosexual men or IV drug users.
Two behaviors that Libertarians think cause no harm.
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No harm but to those directly involved. Stupid? Yes; but that's their business.
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
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I assume you want answers other than "when I'm falsely imprisoned, and have an unlucky draw of the cellmates". :)
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Hmmmmnnnnn . . . you may have a point there.
Opps; poor choice of words. Ouch.
You should not use something thats a little to big for yourself. You may hurt yourself. Also......
Using the "John Kerry technique" (ie. I voted for it before I voted against it) is not allowed at FR.
So tainting the worlds blood supply with aids, is no one elses business?
I hope that's a bit of hyperbole, because that sounds like the scheme of a Batman villian ...
HOWEVER, your question does provide backing for my concern that the inability of us to discuss frankly the actual progression and population loci of a deadly disease does allow such a disease to spread further and cuase more damage than it would have otherwise. This is a broader issue than just homosexuality, though.
If we can't advise people of possible behaviors that may need to or populations that are prone to certain diseases, due to some misguided opinion that it's worse to OFFEND that group than to protect everyone INCLUDING that group, something is messed up. We can point out that sickle cell anemia is more common in a particular race (and therefore we can be led to greater understanding of the casues of and treatments for that disease), why can't we do the same with AIDS? Especially asit's not a homosexual disease (see Africa), but it would have been good for the homosexual population to know that, IN AMERICA, the disease appeared to be a much greater ris amongst their social circles than amongst the non-homosexual population. I mean, we had no problem saying that the problem was spreading in the IV drug use community ...
Aaargh. I'm angered when imprtant discussion is blocked by PCness ... if I accidentally offend someone in an effort to save their lives, so be it. It's like telling an overweight man to stay off thin ice ... I'm not commenting on the validity of your weight, just advising that the weight may be a problem with the thin ice.
I'm starting to make no sense even to myself, so I think I'll go to sleep soon.
Um ... please read the rest of my comments in the post you quote. Thanks. (I was trying to lead with a joke.)
I skipped to this part:
I'm starting to make no sense even to myself, so I think I'll go to sleep soon
And figured there was no reason to go back and read the rest.
Oh well . Good Night!
But my point was that the government already legislates morality. Simply in declaring things like robbery and insider trading illegal, for example, it's legislating morality.
People can have the same values and different priorities, right? So who is to say whose priorities are higher? You?
Why not me? Aren't you telling me right now that you think your priorities are higher?
I am sure there is someone who is just as religious as you, within your sect of Christianity (as I presume you are Christian), who would vehemently disagree with you over what are priorities. Which of you should legislate?
The one who prevails at the ballot box.
We must legislate universal goods, like freedom, tolerance (though not love), rights and duties. Not individual codes of morality.
Who says we must legislate these things? And on what basis do you call them "universal goods"? Certainly some Muslim societies don't value tolerance the way we do, so how have you come to the conclusion that tolerence is good? Isn't that your morality? (Are we perhaps operating on different definitions of the word "morality"?)
I should make it clear that I don't want a theocracy in this country. I think the Constitution is a brilliant, miraculous document. I'm just saying that everyone brings their morality to bear--in the way they vote, in the way they live their lives. You do when you say we must legislate tolerance. I did when I voted for Bush because I think he's a moral man and Kerry isn't. Socialists and other lefties did when they elected Bernie Sanders to Congress in Vermont.
All I'm saying is don't ask Christians to leave their beliefs at home when they enter the political arena. No one else does.
Well, I was sort of argeeing with you, but if you'd rather argue with me than people who think we should honor hurt feelings more than public safety, go ahead.
I would have voted for Bush too, if I was American. Here in Canada, I vote for the Conservative party. My priorities are not higher than yours. In fact, as I have told (i think) bobhoskins, our priorities are very likely very similar. I hold strong Judeo-Christian values. The difference is, I don't believe it should be forced on others. Tolerance, as I said, is not about loving anyone or loving their beliefs or their practices. It is about living with them.
Tyranny of the majority, as the ballotbox or elsewhere, is still tyranny. And will always be. No ifs or buts. Thats how it is.
The government does not have to legislate morality. And that is, in fact, why its run into such trouble in the last few decades. The culture war was brought to Washington. Unsurprisingly, we conservatives are losing it (and yes I AM a social conservative). If your town, for example, were built around Judeo-Christian premises, that would be another matter. In that case, I would expect and encourage you to legislate Judeo-Christian morality.
I am operating on WESTERN universal values, which granted owe a lot to Judeo-Christian values. If Muslims want to come here, they have to live by our laws, or face the consequences, or get kicked out. I think we are operating on the same defintion of morality, but with a distinction between morality and values. And our differences are expressed in the quandary that I believe we should not legislate morality on a federal level, or even state (for most values), while you seem to be on the other side.
THe problem is, once you start legislating morality, then you inevitably have a tyranny. You turn into a theocracy, however good your intentions were.
Basic tolerance (and NOTHING more), is not a moral value. It is a pragmatic value. You can criticize homosexuals all you want under tolerance. You just don't go around killing them, or imprisoning them or stopping them from having sex in the privacy of their own house. That's it. I don't mean anything else when I say tolerance.
Because anything more, and you fall down the slipper slope on one side to the socialists/communists. And anything more on the other side, you fall down the slipper slope to tyranny of some sort.
I think we all agree on general values here, with some disagreement on specifics. It is on what we should do that libertarian conservatives (classic liberals basically ala Locke etc.) and authoritarian conservatives normally disagree on.
For me, freedom means letting me choose how to live my life within reason, and letting you choose how to live yours. Our forefathers didn't fight and die to form a land of Judeo-Christian morality. They fought for a land where they could be free. Almost all of them (with the exception of a few Jews) were Christians, and decent upstanding men at that, but they came fleeing religious persecutation and dedicated themselves to building and fighting for a land where men could be free to worship and act as they pleased (again, within reason), not a utopia of their religious beliefs.
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