Posted on 03/23/2017 5:18:03 AM PDT by Kaslin
For some unfathomable reason, conservatives always seem to get excited when a moderately articulate post-puberty pundit comes along and parrots some simulacrum of conservative doctrine – except it almost always ends up like when my retriever-corgi mix tries to walk on her stubby back legs and we gasp in delight, “Look, Bitey thinks she’s people!”
This is not a criticism of young people; it’s a criticism of us grown-ups, and a recognition of reality that keeps biting us on the Jeb. We need to dispense with the cute kid conservative novelty acts and understand that our ideology – unlike liberalism – is not based on feelings and preferences but is instead drawn from a wisdom and understanding of human nature that comes only from hard-won life experience. That’s not to say young people should sit down and shut up – far from it. They have valuable insights we need to hear, especially from worlds they uniquely inhabit, like colleges or the company-level military. Sometimes they have done in-depth study and reporting on specific issues, including writing books. That’s earned expertise, not some mere knack for viral ranting, and that’s not what we are talking about here.
It’s our own fault for letting them represent us to the world – maybe we do it because they flatter us by offering a dim reflection of what we believe. But when they recite conservative chapter and verse for us, that’s all they’re doing – reciting. It’s not ingrained, it’s not seared into them through study and experience. It’s a stunt, a parlor trick. One of several reasons we conservatives need to stop putting them out there is because most conservatives have a youthful liberal phase and the kid who delights us today by mimicking our views will likely take a misguided off-ramp or two along the road to adulthood.
Remember 13-year old Jonathan Krohn, who wowed the 2009 CPAC with a collection of clichés that would have been utterly unremarkable had it come from someone not wearing Superman Underoos? Someone even published his book, Defining Conservatism; the adolescent’s three star-rated definition of conservatism is currently lurking at about Number 2,605,952 on Amazon. He’s liberal now, if you care.
Then there was C.J. Pearson. He was the teen sensation who liked conservatism, then hated conservatism because of racism, then decided that he liked Trump. It’s been a few months, so he’s probably morphed into something else. I’ll be looking for him in the background at the next #TheResistance rally, wearing a genital beanie and screaming about patriarchy.
The latest is Tomi Lahren, whose media profile, social and otherwise, has exploded thanks in large part to her popular video rants. Lots of people listen to her say unremarkably conservative stuff in a fairly aggressive way, but the fact that she is on camera all over the place obscures the fact that she has yet to mature as a conservative thinker.
Lahren recently decided to reveal, on The View, that she is now pro-choice. But don’t worry – she assured America that she is still “a constitutional, y’know.”
Phew. That’s a relief.
She got suspended from her gig after calling her audience “hypocrites,” which some life experience might have taught her was a poor idea. Here’s another thing she tweeted – oh, and is it ever the kind of sentiment perfectly suited for a venue as fundamentally unserious as Twitter: “I speak my truth. If you don't like it, tough. I will always be honest and stand in my truth.”
Wow. Here’s “my truth.” That’s about the dumbest combination of words strung together by an alleged conservative I’ve had the misfortune to encounter since Jeb Bush decided to compassionate consplain to us about illegal aliens and their acts of love. Let me put it in terms Millennials might understand: OMG :(
“My truth” – can you imagine a less conservative concept? “My truth” sounds like the kind of self-affirming nonsense she likely got out of a lower-division UNLV gender studies seminar. And I love the part about how she’s going to steadfastly defend the dumb no matter how many people warn her that, “Hey, that’s super dumb.” At least I assume that’s what “stand in my truth” means – how deep is your truth, anyway? Like, whatev. You keep fighting the power.
There’s nothing more tiresome than Millennials’ certitude in their claims to moral superiority when combined with their hilariously pretentious posturing as stalwart defenders of their unprincipled principles against some on-rushing charge of imagined haters. Move over, Jews at Masada and Brits at Rourke’s Drift – here’s Tomi Lahren, courageously defending her right to be ridiculous by standing, resolutely, in her truth.
Where’s her parade? Sheesh, if you want snowflakery, it doesn’t get much snowflakier than embracing the notion of “my truth.”
And yeah, I’m being totally condescending, because that’s the proper response to this kind of silliness. Quick, cue the classic distraction, “Oh, my critics are against me cuz I’m a girl!” Among Millennials’ least charming habits is their tendency to attack the motives when they can’t deny the substance. Again, like, whatev.
Hey, I don’t blame the conservakids for cashing in on the spotlight. If I was 24 and someone offered me a gig and a boatload of cash, game on. But as it happens, when I was 24, I was a platoon leader in Germany during the last years of the Cold War leading other young people. That’s not like when you’re a TV star, where everyone tells you how awesome you are – and that lack of pushback against your bad ideas is hardly conducive to developing anything except a personal ideology that makes your thoughts and feelz the foundation of your ideological paradigm. Hence, Lahren’s John McCainian maverick approach that treats conservative tenets like just another entrée at the all-you-can-eat Cafeteria of Principles: “I have moderate, conservative, and libertarian views. I'm human. I will never apologize, to anyone, for being an independent thinker.”
Take that, all you monsters out there demanding that Tomi Lahren apologize for being an independent thinker!
That deserves several more “like, whatevs.” See, being an “independent thinker” is the absolute opposite of being someone who has learned, tested and embraced an ideology over time. You’re either conservative, or you’re something else. And if you identify as something else this week, own it.
Sorry – conservakids who can merely rant a good rant cannot be the voice of the conservative movement and still have it be conservative. We aren’t Rousseauian liberals suffering under the delusion that children have some sort of shortcut to wisdom denied to those with actual life experience and the knowledge gained over time. The leaders of our movement should not be cute kids who are merely reading off of a script that they have not yet lived. I wish Lahren nothing but success – she’s not a bad person, just a young person – but I’m just not interested in what she has to say right now. She can come back in a decade after she’s lived a little and rethought her recent rethink regarding killing babies, and maybe I’ll give her a listen.
Maybe.
Liberals do this a lot more - out of the mouths of babes, and all that rot. I don’t accept this from either side. In most cases they are just parroting what they heard from their parents or teachers.
I get called a curmudgeon a lot. I were it proudly, along with deplorable, and slimy bottom feeder, which I was called when I questioned a municipal action which had every appearance of a payoff in exchange for a favor for a city councilman.
This is exactly why young people are easily seduced by the left; the left actively courts them, likes them,does everything they can to keep them.
we just yell at them, you kids with your greasy hair keep off my lawn..!
conservative people are old and crabby and don’t welcome stupid young people:
it’s a strategy for short sighted losers who’ve given up on winning.
Tomi does have potential. She will grow in knowledge, understanding and wisdom.
bkmrk for later
I think the author may be overly critical. It’s safe — even wise — to be a little skeptical of the tyro conservative, but young people with unabashed conservative values are refreshing. And if we’re going to survive as an ideology, conservatism can’t rest solely in the hands of grizzled old fogeys like us.
Wow - IMHO this really hits the nail on the head. Nothing drives me crazier than this “I think I’ll show how much of an independent thinker I am by saying something that is fundamentally inconsistent with what I said yesterday”. Although, to be fair, it is not solely a young-person’s problem (e.g., John McSongbird).
And the author is right - I think that the concept of “my truth” is the antithesis of Biblical/Western thought and has done an incredible amount of damage.
The old adage comes to mind (paraphrasing):
“It’s better to be silent and thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
You are precisely correct.
There are hundreds of quality commentators on places like You Tube that have woken up to find themselves on the political right and are really fighting the political war with the best of them putting out hours of talk and interactive discussion with young people trying to figure it all out themselves.
But too many older people that came up with conservative AM talk radio would never want anything to do with them because they aren’t the “traditional” 1983 image of the young conservative. It is a blown opportunity that will leave a lot of them either giving the right the middle finger or just heading back to the left, where it is easy to blend in.
I guess we have run out of things to talk about.
“...they aren’t the “traditional” 1983 image of the young conservative”
Aww, come on it’s not that bad.
I start with the question “do our freedom, rights, and liberties come from God or from government”. Many young will say goverment and cite law. I then start with the DoI and point out the addition of the Bill of Rights was a pre-requisite for States before they would ratify the Constitution and thereby create the goverment. Together they show that Americans freedoms are derived from God (DoI) and are specifically enumerated and stipulated to be beyond the purview of government.
It’s a very inflammatory argument to Leftists. Be prepared for violent objection.
The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing. - Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
Yes-—Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)——one of the first books to be stripped from the canon of Great Books—for our so-called “education” system of America. Can’t have truth and real wisdom instilled in our children. Can’t have minds like the Founders who all had read Adam Smith and grew up on John Locke and the Bible.
Can’t have the ideas which created the most free and just and rational culture (men) of all time-—because free will and individualism (Christian understanding of uniqueness and dignity in every human being) has to be erased for the “collective” mindset of Marx, where idea of mother and father have to be eliminated along with the concepts of the Founders and great men like Adam Smith and John Locke and St. Thomas Aquinas.
Why do you think only White heterosexual Christian males are being vilified and demeaned in our culture? To destroy the concepts that created freedom and individualism and free will in the World. They want to return us all into non-thinking “tribal” mindsets (collective “group” thinkers) so agency is destroyed in our children. That is what Common Core (NCLB/Goals 2000) does-—it destroys the time of great learning of children-—puts them into prisons of programming, where they are hyper-sexualized and agency is destroyed, so virtue is destroyed and they will be ignorant and immoral (lazy/addicted) for life-—just drones for the State.
All the great ideas/thinking (curricula) was destroyed by the communist, humanist, sodomite, John Dewey, who wanted to program children instead of “educate” them——just use conditioning-—use biased “texts” and remove original source documents, so ideas could be warped, and Words (meanings) “changed” so Slavery could be Freedom and Boys could be Girls so children will be made irrational and dumb.
Today’s curricula embeds hate for white Christian males, Western Civ and glorifies evil, vice, and tribal cultures so that virtue is destroyed in our children with dying Traditions and no Wisdom passed on to the next generation.
Schlichter is the best follow on Twitter, IMHO.
Very few people can be like James Madison or Nietzsche in their 20s. That genius at really young ages takes decades of studying and reading the great books, and I doubt very much that todays young—most never even come close to a mind like Madison or Nietzsche.
It isn’t really possible which kids sitting in front of screens, the TV type of “programming” which embed emotions (irrationality) only, never wisdom— since *reading* and real life experiences (with other humans/not screens and superficial Facebook/twitter which distracts and keeps from wisdom and real “learning”) are necessary for wisdom of the ages which are only gained by reading the Great Books which includes the Bible and interacting with real people in real time (so understanding of human beings and agency (control of own emotions/virtue) will occur. I doubt that she has read the Bible all the way through (The Book of Wisdom)....and, I agree, “”her” truth” is the dumbest, most irrational (and most evil) thing ever stated.
I thought Dominic was absolutely bat-crap crazy.
In retrospect, of course, not only was he absolutely spot-on, but my friend Dominic (God rest him) predicted the coming of the Clinton era and the restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms it brought.
She'll learn. Give her a couple decades, and she'll either be a Progressive, or a rock-ribbed pro-life conservative.
My only fear is that she's already killed her child, which tends to bias a woman toward a defense of abortion, our of guilt and shame.
Speaking of books of wisdom— one of the best things one of my Sunday school teachers in high school ever did for me was teach me three solid years of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and James — all wisdom books. That man saved me many a trial by implanting that wisdom in me while I was young.
We should be mentoring these promising young people, not pulling rank on them. Conservatism is a large club that doesn’t require seniority to get in. The only credentials necessary are common sense and a basic unity of ideals. And if some tweaking of opinions is required, that’s where the mentorship comes in.
If we isolate these young people, we’ll do so at our peril.
“...but young people with unabashed conservative values are refreshing....”
And need to be encouraged, taught, mentored, and turned loose on the world.
Teach. Coach. Get involved.
That’s how you take back your culture.
Great and overdue rant!
Unfortunately it should also include all the other deluded children way over 35...
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