I'd hate for you to be disappointed:
Posted on 12/13/2021 7:39:38 AM PST by Salman
The slow and often comical decline of Official Conservatism™ starting somewhere in the Bush years has offered many insights into what has gone wrong since the middle of the last century. It is as if the tide is slowing going out, revealing many things that had previously been hidden under the waterline. Or, as Warren Buffett would say it, the tide has gone out and we now see who was swimming naked.
An example of this phenomenon is a piece by New York Times columnist David Brooks in The Atlantic in which he bemoans the state of conservatism. This is becoming a staple of The Atlantic. Two weeks ago, they gave the sanctimonious poseur David French the chance to whine about the “new right’s strange and dangerous cult of toughness.”
In the case of Brooks, he is doing the dramatic-exit act. This is when someone who is about to be escorted out of the party declares she is leaving and makes a big scene on the way out the door. In the case of Brooks, he is stomping off long after everyone at the party forgot he was still there. The only people who think Brooks is right-wing are his imaginary friends he uses in his columns. His sandwich-poor high school dropout friend will be crushed by news of his departure.
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(Excerpt) Read more at takimag.com ...
These people believe that the Right is run by White Supremacist’s because that’s what their television tells them. They don’t personally know any but they believe they are everywhere. Probably the next town over is eat up with them.
What’s your definition of the two?
He is talking in code so as not to be cancelled. He could be alt-right and believe that certain groups of people are on average incapable of civilized behavior. Or he could be a more thoroughgoing populist or neoreactionary than even freepers could tolerate. Which is to say he is someone worth reading.
I'd hate for you to be disappointed:
“Conservatism is supposed to conserve something, right?”
For Brooks, French and their ilk, I think it refers to their fashion choices, not much else.
So you want the abolition of the Constitution and the installation of a monarchy? Monarchy is the only true conservativism? Who will your preferred monarch be?
Actually it’s more like works without faith
Me too. I don't think I've seen a good OPUS since Laz went Amish.
Tank you, tank you berry mush!
Classical Liberalism, or as it is called in the US Libertarianism, is a utopian belief that people are by and large capable of living as rugged individuals. Since most people can’t or won’t live self-sufficiently something ends up being done to protect these people from themselves and minimize the chance they will rise up in food riots. That something is most often a socialist or welfare state government. And the worst kind of socialist government because the people have imbibed what they liked about libertarianism (do your own thing and look after yourself) so the intermediate institutions that provide some protection from the state such as families and fraternal organizations have withered or died away
In my observation, there are two major aspects to the movement now:
Trump supporters and Republicans.
It’s possible for a person to be both, but it sure seems like a large proportion of Trump supporters loath the Republican party as much as they do the Democrats, maybe even more, as one expects one’s enemies to be treacherous and untrustworthy, but it hurts more when the backstab comes from someone with an ‘R’ after their name. And vice-versa of course, many lifelong Republicans utterly loath the populist and stridently ideological motivations and actions of Trump supporters.
As of now the Trump faction controls a large part, and by far the most energized and vital part of the Republican party, but there are still enough non Trump supporting Republicans in the party leadership to make things very difficult as far as getting policy done, or stopping bad policy from being made.
Him, too.....
One of my personal favorites was the Libbylou opus
That we could have somehow stopped at some reasonable compromise between monarchy and mobocracy was always a fantasy. We were always doomed to be eventually outvoted by the illiterate mob.
Conservatism has the advantage over libertarianism in that it tries hard to preserve the intermediate institutions so there is some protection from the state. However, the individualistic streak in America has allowed the "free market" to gut out cities, towns, and rural areas. Individuals don't join fraternal orgs, are secretly okay with social security and the like in that it provides a layer of independence between them and their family, and can stand by as jobs and livelihoods are decimated so long as theirs is not affected or their digital currency or NFT is on the rise.
I think the author nai.led it. Conservatives are the Washington Generals to the Harlem Globetrotter Clowns.
It’s hard to persuade when all you want is to be left alone to conduct your personal affairs with acknowledgment of your contributions to a civil society and a neutral judge in disputed matters. Individual Liberty and Economic Freedom doesn’t mean much these days.
Not only is David Brooks not conservative, he’s one of the least conservative people at the New York Times.
I was deeply involved in her departure.
It remains one of my proudest moments.
Seeing Milton Freedman on Phil Donahue changed my life.
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