Month: August 2010

First off a former editor with the National Review speaks out of the current state of Conservatism:

Once, the iconic figures on the political right were urbane visionaries and builders of institutions — like William F. Buckley Jr., Irving Kristol and Father Richard John Neuhaus, all dead now. Today, far more representative is potty-mouthed Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart, whose news and opinion website, Breitbart.com, is read by millions. In his most recent triumph, Breitbart got a U.S. Department of Agriculture official pushed out of her job after he released a deceptively edited video clip of her supposedly endorsing racism against white people.

What has become of conservatism? We have reached a point at which nothing could be more important than to stop and recall what brought us here, to the right, in the first place.

Buckley’s National Review, where I was the literary editor through the 1990s, remains as vital and interesting as ever. But more characteristic of conservative leadership are figures on TV, radio and the Internet who make their money by stirring fears and resentments. With its descent to baiting blacks, Mexicans and Muslims, its accommodation of conspiracy theories and an increasing nastiness and vulgarity, the conservative movement has undergone a shift toward demagoguery and hucksterism. Once the talk was of “neocons” versus “paleocons.” Now we observe the rule of the crazy-cons.

I highly suggest that you go read the rest of that. I know that this might get me pegged as some sort of a faux right winger or whatever. I have but one thing to say about that —- ask me if I honestly give two flips. The answer would be no.

Professor BainBridge sets it out even more:

1. A poorly educated ex-sportwriter who served half of one term of an minor state governorship is prominently featured as a — if not the — leading prospect for the GOP’s 2012 Presidential nomination.
2. Tom Tancredo calling President Obama “the greatest threat to the United States today” and arguing that he be impeached. Bad public policy is not a high crime nor a misdemeanor, and the casual assertion that pursuing liberal policies–however misguided–is an impeachable offense is just nuts.
3. Similar nonsense from former Ford-Reagan treasury department officials Ernest Christian and Gary Robbins, who IBD column was, as Doug Marconis observed, “a wildly exaggerated attack on President Obama’s record in office.” Actually, it’s more foaming at the mouth.
4. As Doug also observed, “The GOP controlled Congress from 1994 to 2006: Combine neocon warfare spending with entitlements, farm subsidies, education, water projects and you end up with a GOP welfare/warfare state driving the federal spending machine.” Indeed, “when the GOP took control of Congress in 1994, and the White House in 2000, the desire to use the levers of power to create “compassionate conservatism” won our over any semblance of fiscal conservatism. Instead of tax cuts and spending cuts, we got tax cuts along with a trillion dollar entitlement program, a massive expansion of the Federal Government’s role in education, and two wars. That’s not fiscal conservatism it is, as others have said, fiscal insanity.” Yet, today’s GOP still has not articulated a message of real fiscal conservatism.
5. Thanks to the Tea Party, the Nevada GOP has probably pissed away a historic chance to out=st Harry Reid. See also Charlie Crist in Florida, Rand Paul in Kentucky, and so on. Whatever happened to not letting perfection be the enemy of the good?
6. The anti-science and anti-intellectualism that pervade the movement.
7. Trying to pretend Afghanistan is Obama’s war.
8. Birthers.
9. Nativists.
10. The substitution of mouth-foaming, spittle-blasting, rabble-rousing talk radio for reasoned debate. Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Hugh Hewitt, and even Rush Limbaugh are not exactly putting on Firing Line. Whatever happened to smart, well-read, articulate leaders like Buckley, Neuhaus, Kirk, Jack Kent, Goldwater, and, yes, even Ronald Reagan?

As someone who grew during the Ronald Reagan era and respects THAT kind of Conservatism and NOT this idiotic crap that being passed off as Conservatism today; I heartily agree with all of the above. The only thing that Mr. BainBridge missed, is the racism and bigotry towards the Arabs, that has been prevalent in the Right Wing Blogosphere as of late.

Update: A perfect example of the warped mindset of the far-right. “Da Tech Guy’s Blog” writes:

…I guess we will have to win without him, won’t we?

Which is exactly my point; pandering to racial fears of black people and Arabs just does not win elections at all. This is especially true among independents — like me.  I mean, I grew up in southwest Detroit (proper, not the “Whitey Tighty Suburbs….) and I find this narrative of “Them dirty socialist niggers and crazy rag heads are going to kill us, our wives and eat our children!! ELEVENTY!1!!” to be absolutely vomit provoking at times. I mean, I am not one to jump on the Al Sharpton bandwagon and wave the race flag and play that card. But, sometimes it is just unavoidable. I mean, when you have people calling Dearborn, Michigan “Dearbornstain“, then something is very wrong on the right and that “something wrong” is just straight up bigotry.

Do not misunderstand me; yes, I know black racism does exist, believe you me. I know it does, I have experienced it myself. I was “let go” or as they called it, “laid off” from a job, because of a black boss who had a grudge against white people. However, what I do not do and will never, ever do, is use that fact as an excuse to smear all blacks as bigoted against whites. Nor will I accuse ALL Arabs of being terrorists, which is what many blogs on the right are now doing. Because that is a liberal line of thought called collectivism; and it is a flawed mindset.

In closing, a little while back, I wrote this:

The real sick and sadistic part of this whole mess is this.  A little while back, the controversial Louis Farrakhan said that Jews have caused damage to blacks for years.  At the time, I thought that to be an outrageous statement, not to mention Anti-Semitic; now it seems that the people like Andrew Breitbart and many others on the right are trying their damnedest to prove Farrakhan right.  I think we as a whole, on the right, need to work on that little image very quick.  Because frankly at this point, we are giving people like Farrakhan and the many people on the left, that think like him; black, White, Latino, and whatever else, the talking point they need to further that “gospel” of hatred.

I feel that way then and I still do. Andrew Breitbart is Jewish, Pamela Geller is Jewish, Debbie Schlussel is too Jewish; what do these three have in common? They all are in the business of smearing Arabs, and I do mean ALL Arabs as Terrorists and are constantly writing stories on their blogs, which are filled to the brim with nuanced bigotry towards blacks and Arabs.

Until we fix that little problem; Conservatives will be where they are now —- on the sidelines.