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.
Um, did I say I disagreed? I was just asking for a link to back up your unique definition of homosexuality. It's a pet peeve of mine when people try to state the definition of something and then make something up.
You should have plenty of other arguments to use, please don't weaken your own arguments by making up definitions.
Such a party already exists. If they would get on board with a strong national defense, support the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan, and change their tune on border security, they'd be a force to be reckoned with.
I was 50/50 on whether that would be a link to the Libertarians or to the Republicans. :)
Finally, another sensible person. The states getting out of the marriage business would put an end to all of this.
Please add me to the South Park Ping list!
How dare you restrict their freedom to infringe on the freedom of others.
Can you get me a cite for that definition? Strange, I never realized that one could be a homosexual without ever engaging in a same-sex act or even having the slightest inkling of desire to do so. Seems things are a little different in your dictionary, so I'd like to know what your 'definition' says.
Bonus question: Is the human body "designed" for masturbation and, if not, is that "perverted"?
Your point being???
Okay, I asked for a link, but we'll work with this. You've stated the definition of homosexual as "Sex between two people of the same sex." ... I'll give you the benfit of the doubt that this is shorthand for "SOMEONE WHO HAS sex with someone of the same sex".
It still doesn't support your statement from before:
If you don't think the homosexual act is perverted then by definition you're a homosexual.
As I stated previously, you might want to back that up with a major dictionary, or revise your statement to something along the lines of "If you don't think the homosexual act is perverted then WHILE NOT BY DEFINITION A HOMOSEXUAL, you are by the rules of logic saying the homosexual act is NOT perverted, thereby accepting the homosexual act."
Otherwise, by making up definitions, you become easily ignored by your opponents as a "nut", and don't even get the change to put forth your position.
Of course, if you can LINK to a definition that states what you said ... not infers or anything, as your statement did not say "then by INFERRENCE you are a homosexual", keep that link handy to back up your argument!
And, for everyone else watching, I'm not trying to flame or berate or support or deny anything here ... I'd just like to understand the arguments on both sides, and if there IS a definition somewhere in the dictionary supporting what was said (I know mnay words have a variety of definitions), I be curious to see it.
Unfortunately this gets me labeled both as a homphobe and a leftist weenie!
I am of the conservative branch that wants less government intrusion. I have a sneaky suspicion I might be more libertarian then conservative...
There's too many fruitcakes in the LP right now for it to be a viable party. I don't know if this will shake out with the SP Repubs taking over the LP or creating a completely new party. A new party would probably be more credible than the existing LP.
LQ
That says it all. Socially liberal. They are on the wrong side of the culture war.
I think a whole new party would be better...
The liberal cross dresser would likely mind his own business and not interfere with my pursuit of happiness. The Christian conservative would sermonize, pontificate and generally try to outlaw as being "sinful" things that I enjoy.
Do you still want this question answered?
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