Future Clash (A 'South Park conservative'/libertarian counterculture emerges)

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette ^ | June 23, 2005 | Bradley R. Gitz

[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.

[.cnI redruM]

Given the recent decision to let New London, Conn seize private property and sell it to another private activity for profit, it's about time that Libertarian thought found a way to gain more power in the US.

[Libertarian444]

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.

Hey, I resemble this remark!

[cryptical]

Would you rather have Christian conservatives in your party or Liberal crosser dressers?

Actual conservatives, or social conservatives? A social conservative is all for smaller government, except the part that regulates things that annoy them.

[Mulch]

The religious right (I'm included here) see the government as already in the business of legislating morality (liberal morality for past 40 years or so). Now, its just a matter of whose version of morality the government will enforce. Quite frankly, I don't think we want a society where homosexuals are determining right and wrong for the rest of society.

[frithguild]

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.

Boy doesn't this fit the template - This will tear apart the Republican Party

[America First Libertarian]

Homosexual soilder? OK but keep quiet about your bedroom pals and bedroom behavoior. What is being legislated? They still should be able to serve openly, not every gay is flamboyant, but if one can say he is writing home to his girlfriend/boyfriend of the opposite sex, so should the one, who has a bf/gf of the same sex. I am not advocating special rights only equal, whatever codes/rules apply to heterosexual soldiers, applies to gays. Homosexual marriage? Well, form a legal contract with whomever you choose. Again, you don't need to bring the behavior to a public place, Do you? Here I believe the homosexuals want the legislation. Somehow creating within the area of sexuality a "civil right". I don't like PDA's (public displays of affection) that much, from straight or gay. But not every gay, is so flamboyant, we as heterosexuals are more apt to notice, because a man/woman holding hands, is so common we would be hard pressed to look at it twice. As I said above, part of the issue is, if you don't associate with many homosexuals, you are prone to only think of gay sex, being what defines them, I have gay friends in longterm relationships, and they don't fit the typical perception of an effeminate, flamboyant gay, just normal individuals, who never talk about their sex life, and are actually rather conservative, but cannot enter a contract with each other, and are denied over 1,000 rights. It doesn't have to be equal in the eyes of a citizen, but the state, as I also said above, no special rights, just equal. I look at it as a contract, and two gay men or lesbians surely can buy cars from each other, but are forbidden from a marriage contract. I agree with you about the religious right. Religion is a private matter, and I am as irratated over the door to door evangelicals as the next person. I don't care whether homosexuality is a sin, it is enough for me to realize my feelings run counter to public variations of sexuality. (Actually too much public heterosexuality is too much as well.) But I don't worry about offending someone when I say you can't join our club and stand for open homosexual behavior. It should not be an area for the courts or the legislature. But remember who is pushing the agenda, and who is simply resistant to it The courts are prone to get involved in civil rights issues, people don't like to hear the comparison to interracial marriage, but in a few respects it is exactly identical, in 1964 80% opposed it, most citing moral reasons, and it took loving v virginia to allow legal interracial marriage in every state. It is a volitional contract, and it is a severe violation of rights. I would prefer the Unsupreme court be left out of it, because they are growing ever more tyrannical, but as a pragmatist, I doubt they will be able to.

[Mulch]

I think your right. The debate will be between conservatives and libertarians. Both are more in sync with the founding principles of America

[riri]

I am what you would call a secular conservative. But, I have no issue with Religious conservatives. I don't agree with all of them but I would choose one in the foxhole with me over a liberal any day of any week.

[America First Libertarian]

Ah, sorry about the formatting.

[bobhoskins]

"skepticism and irreverence"

Now THERE's a winning political formula (/sarc). Another term for it is "political nihilism."

If intentional, that was the best post I've seen all day, and I applaude you at your wordplay.

If not, I just need more caffeine.

[Alexander Rubin]

Wow. This describes me pretty well. I'm personally socially conservative to boot (by Canadian standards, roughly equivalent to a right wing democrat), but I don't believe in enforcing it on anyone.

[corkoman]

Boy doesn't this fit the template - This will tear apart the Republican Party

An enemey of liberty is an enemy of liberty.

Left or right, that 'ol totalitarian spirit is just so hard to keep in check.

[George Smiley]

No, political nihilism is what you see at the anarchists' convention.

: ^ )

[LizardQueen]

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.
Boy doesn't this fit the template - This will tear apart the Republican Party

It could also tear apart the Dems to some extent. I know quite a few Dems who aren't on the bleeding-heart Liberal bandwagon but vote Dem because of their stance on social issues and because they don't like the perceived moral instrusiveness of the Christian conservative wing.

A third party with a strong South Park streak could end up sucking up the fiscally conservative Dems and the socially liberal/moderate Republicans.

LQ

[Mulch]

I have a question, and to make it easy, you only have to answer "yes" or "no".

Do you think the homosexual act is sexually perverted?

[America First Libertarian]

No

[Mulch]

Then you're a homosexual. Your attempting to enforce your morality on others. I refer you to my post #24.

[frithguild]

Left or right, that 'ol totalitarian spirit is just so hard to keep in check.

You will respect my authoritah

[subterfuge]

What the hey?

You'd "rather die than legislate another adults behavior"?

So you have no problem with murder and rape? How about stealing?