This year could have changed things. The G.O.P. had three urbane presidential candidates. But the class-warfare clichés took control. Rudy Giuliani disdained cosmopolitans at the Republican convention. Mitt Romney gave a speech attacking “eastern elites.” (Mitt Romney!) John McCain picked Sarah Palin.
Palin is smart, politically skilled, courageous and likable. Her convention and debate performances were impressive. But no American politician plays the class-warfare card as constantly as Palin. Nobody so relentlessly divides the world between the “normal Joe Sixpack American” and the coastal elite.
She is another step in the Republican change of personality. Once conservatives admired Churchill and Lincoln above all ”” men from wildly different backgrounds who prepared for leadership through constant reading, historical understanding and sophisticated thinking. Now those attributes bow down before the common touch.
And so, politically, the G.O.P. is squeezed at both ends. The party is losing the working class by sins of omission ”” because it has not developed policies to address economic anxiety. It has lost the educated class by sins of commission ”” by telling members of that class to go away.
Interesting point. However, I would argue that the real culprit in the GOP losing the intellectuals in the coasts is not so much anything being done by the Party but time. 1984 was 24 years ago. College educated persons aged 60 then are now either dead or 84 years old. They were in college in the 1940’s prior to the social upheaval of the 1960s – and the complete take over by academia by the left. Even liberal college professors and the mainstream media in the 1940’s were in the main patriotic ie they supported US involvement in WWII. Todays college educated 60 year olds were in school in 1968 college profs were by then anti US involvement in Vietnam and have been barbarded (until most recently) by a media dominated by liberals (84% of national media voted for Bill Clinton). Thus, the Nations elites are not the same people.
A NY Times opinion editorial on the election? Is there any writing that lacks more credibility or objectivity at this time than this?
But the flip side to this is that, since the “elite” professions are so thoroughly liberal, they are instinctively unsympathetic to the needs of those of lesser means. So the widening of the income gap and the social stratification of our society will proceed. It’s not a pretty picture moving forward.
May I offer a less adjectival comment with respect to the effect of time’s passage? The generation of Americans whom Brokaw dubbed “The Greatest” has been and is dying off. Not only Americans, but people around the world who were born since the Second World War have experienced their own times differently than “The Greatest” did, and therefore evaluate political ideas and governmental policies differently. The “way the world works” and prospects for the future seem different from generation to generation. If on the eve of America’s November 2008 elections, the majority of voters feel that current Republicans have failed the nation, then a landslide for the Democrats will be no surprise.
Brooks is also right in that the party has changed. In 1984 most of the Northeast Republican establishment which covered the spectrum from liberal to conservative had historically been allied with Republicans in the Midwest and West who were moderate to conservative. The conservative Republicans from the south were a new addition (they had formerly been conservative democrats) – hence a national majority had been formed. The Northeast liberal Republicans were Republican based on history (remember the Republicans were a radical liberal party in 1860 – they were a challange to the other WASP party the Whigs (the WASP establishment) which simply folded shop and joined the Republicans ), class (democrats in the NE were working class), ethnicity (WASPS were Republicans ethnics (ie Irish, Italians, blacks,) were democrats. The Reagan revolution made the GOP a conservative party. The GOP has lost its northeast liberals since 1984 to either the grave or the conversion discussed in my first post. Because many northeast Republicans have migrated to the West Coast both before and after 1984 taking their views with them they have also affected the polity as has a large number of Hispanics.
The Republicans have failed the nation. In two ways 1) failure to change the unworkable policies of the new deal and great society; and 2) too much power by the corporate wing of the party ( the old Whig component). The first is lack of courage/conviction and the second is greed. The nation may well be about to opt for socialism after it has been shown not to work (ie Britain 1945). The country wants change – there is good change and bad change – government social engineering and largess laid the foundation for our current problems – it will not fix them.
Recent studies show that there are more millionaire and billionaire DEMOCRATS in both houses of Conress than Republicans. One has to wonder then, which party is truly the party of the “elites”?
How dare that gun-toting evangementacostal hick play the class card! And against decent upstanding educated people too!
Clearly, we deserve what we will get. Remember that!
Unfortunately, in NYT parlance “urbane” means conceding all the principles of the leftist mindset and quibbling about the details.
The divisions between the coastal elite and flyover country are real, and it hasn’t been us stump-toothed, sister-molesting hillbillies who have changed, Mr. Brooks.
I consider myself a Republican – I sometimes phrase it as “a Teddy Roosevelt Republican” — conservationist, business & industry to be regulated for safety & health and prevention of monopolies, positive morals to be upheld. However, the more closely I look at what has been going on in the Republican Party, the more I think that it has become the party of Big Business, and of who knows whom – no longer supporting the rule of law, but the rule of personal interest. (The Dems may be almost the same way, except favoring a different group.)
But #11, Brooks is saying the opposite: The Republican Party has become the party of unwashed rubes and uneducated cattle.
Oh I forgot to mention the other reason the elite has drifted left – in 1980 the top income tax rate was 70% – today it is under 40% – the elite is not feeling the pain caused by leftwing policies – I fear they are about to remember. Its hard to be a limosine liberal when you can no longer afford the limosine.
Chips, you didn’t mention us country hicks!
Apparently the chattering class is feeling underappreciated.
Cennydd-
No country hicks tipically own land (some for generations) and guns (again going back generation) – and fear the unwashed urban masses. They can be trusted.
“The divisions between the coastal elite and flyover country are real, and it hasn’t been us stump-toothed, sister-molesting hillbillies who have changed, Mr. Brooks”.
I agree with you, Jeffersonian, and I always admire your posts. I have a master’s degree and spent a lot of time in New England. My question is, how do you get those who have changed to possibly “change back”?
I always found it interesting, in polite company, how many times I was sneered at because my degrees weren’t Ivy League and I didn’t come from “old money”. And I will also say that all the “sneerers” happened to be Democrats.
Maybe there is no changing it. And because of that, it’s not hard to understand why people like Sarah Palin carry something of a chip on their shoulder and enjoy telling that ilk to basically pound sand.
Just interested in your opinion…thanks…
GiD 🙂
[blockquote]The G.O.P. had three urbane presidential candidates. But the class-warfare clichés took control. Rudy Giuliani disdained cosmopolitans at the Republican convention. Mitt Romney gave a speech attacking “eastern elites.†(Mitt Romney!)[/blockquote]
I have to admit that’s a pretty funny irony. I noticed that as well about the Republican convention that I thought was completely bizarre with Cosmo Rudy trying to be “down home” and Mitt Romney bashing slick fast talking Yankees. Both were pretty good speeches, Guiliani’s in particular, but it did smack of the absurd. I’ve been to conventions, and they are just bizarre affairs these days to start with.
Brooks’s column hit home with me. I was a Northeast/Midwest Republican whose first Presidential ballot was cast for Reagan; I even voted for W the first time. But I’ve felt driven out of the Republican party by absurd anti-intellectualism, demagoguery, and the undeniable coarsening of discourse in the hands of its media arm. I registered as an Independent when I moved to a new state a few years ago. And then, for this year’s primary, I enrolled as a Democrat. My Dad and Grandfather would be rolling in their graves–but then they’d scorn what passes for smart in the Republican party now.
“Once conservatives admired Churchill and Lincoln above all — men from wildly different backgrounds who prepared for leadership through constant reading, historical understanding and sophisticated thinking. Now those attributes bow down before the common touch.”
Mmm. The NYT has clearly noticed that I, together with other conservatives have long since cancelled our NYT subscriptions. However they have jumped to the conclusion that because we are no longer reading the NYT we must have stopped reading. Alas no. The Grey Lady no longer produces any analysis that is worth paying for. That’s all.
We here in flyover country still read widely. Ya gotta do something in between going to church and practicing with the shot gun, and reading and working the vegitable garden make up the remainder of what time is not spent practicing medicine and taking care of my kids. We just don’t bother with the NYT any more. We read blogs, the WSJ, the local news and lots and lots and lots of books.
Alas, it is not the Republican party but the Grey Lady who has lost the “educated classes”. Educated people can recognize propaganda and indoctrination for what it is, and we do not pay to buy it. The NYT has lost many who love reading and can recognize the sham she has become, while sneering at those who do not love reading – the working class who “cling to their guns and God”. What the NYT retains instead are the bureacratic classes who depend on government for a living. She is the newspaper of lawyers, teachers, social workers, bureacrats and politicians.
As for Churchill and Lincoln, I suspect that both of those icons would be currently homeschooling their children (in order to ensure adequate historical understanding), and reading blogs instead of the NYT (in order to get balanced opinion and analysis). And I think that both Churchill and Lincoln would recognize the call to “sophisticated thinking” for what it is: A snobbish attempt to cover up mediocre and partisan writing and analysis by investing it with a false aura of being somehow “upper class”.
Why would I admire Lincoln? He was a racist. He suspended the writ of habeas corpus. [38,000 persons were imprisoned with no judicial proceedings and review.] He trampled on the first Amendment. He was a war criminal. I hold him in very low regard.
I have been a life long Republican. I was a member of the RNC. The party has nearly been destroyed. Its “brand” hasn’t been so toxic since Nixon. I am seriously conflicted over this election. If I vote for McCain [instead of Bob Barr] it will only be because of Palin. Yes, I am a citizen of that “fly over” nation called “Jesus Land”. Liberals fear us. Republicans use and then abandon us. Pundits belittle us, exaggerate our influence, and then tell us how we don’t matter anymore…yet, they can’t stop talking about us.
Lincoln’s racism:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,996904,00.html
http://www.squidoo.com/abraham-lincoln
Habeas corpus suspension:
http://www.civil-liberties.com/pages/did_lincoln.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus
Violation of 1st Amendment:
http://books.google.com/books?id=7LaLxDYKbiYC&pg=PA115&lpg=PA115&dq=lincoln+suspended++1st+amendment&source=web&ots=jLGIhW0h2c&sig=VGnbaeARddmXiTErQD-QlWZd0gA&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result
http://books.google.com/books?id=PfrEhvNs8PEC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=lincoln+censorship&source=web&ots=CsbKlvlidk&sig=WIrN5uddv66zlFMFrlYWR94Zemg&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=8&ct=result#PPA22,M1
War criminal:
http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics and History/Lincoln/targeting_civilians.htm
I think it is a mistake to judge a person outside of his times. Washington and Jefferson had slaves also, and were therefore “racist”. They were still great leaders, and I think our nation owes them a debt of gratitude.
But the point that the author is making is not that Lincoln was a great leader (though I think he was) but that Lincoln and Churchill valued learning. The author believes that education (as defined by the liberal elite) is the same as learning, though I think he is wrong.
I think Lincoln did love learning, (and Churchill did also once he got past his initial school days). For that reason both the author and I find both leaders praiseworthy. Whether either would find the author, the Democratic party (or myself!) similarly praiseworthy is another question!
Sick and Tired, you really should have used the url shortcut instead
of copying-and-pasting the whole thing. Now the thread is going
off the edge of the screen!
Shame on you! 😉
Jim E. <><
WOW! And to think David Brooks, the stalwart neocon/GOP, supporter of the Iraq Invasion (oops, I mean ‘defense’, right??) spokesman wrote it Wonders never cease! If only more conservatives would awaken to the nightmare into which the elitist GOP has led this country. The GOP used to be respected, until it caved in to its far, far right-wing. Of course, it didn’t help that talk radio lowered the tone of civil discourse with its constant smears and inuendo. (Of course, the Limbaughs of the world have made an art of leading the blind working class ‘against’ the ‘elitist’ Democrats, even while shoveling their own outrageously high salaries and outrageously high tax breaks into their fat pockets!) Hopefully, the workers will finally awaken, but it’s a terrible thing to realize that one has been USED for 30 years by the GOP, beginning with Reagan….easier to just keep parroting the same spoon-fed tripe that spouts from corporate-owned ‘talk’ radio….sad.
[blockquote]Brooks’s column hit home with me. I was a Northeast/Midwest Republican whose first Presidential ballot was cast for Reagan; I even voted for W the first time. But I’ve felt driven out of the Republican party by absurd anti-intellectualism, demagoguery, and the undeniable coarsening of discourse in the hands of its media arm. I registered as an Independent when I moved to a new state a few years ago. And then, for this year’s primary, I enrolled as a Democrat. My Dad and Grandfather would be rolling in their graves–but then they’d scorn what passes for smart in the Republican party now. [/blockquote]
I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy this one bit. Every vice you attribute to the Right is magnified tenfold on the Left:
* Anti-intellectualism? Well, if it’s disdain for the latest in Queer Theory or Post-Modern Textual Deconstruction, you’re probably on target as we starboard types think that’s a steaming load of crapola. But I have yet to see any mossback charged in the destruction of an animal research testing lab or burning down a GM crop reseach facility, staples of the Left. And we’re certainly not about to run roughshod over research that threatens certain [url=http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Y2U5YTJiMzhjNDNhZTcwZGYyZjcyMzQyZWNmNjJjN2E=]cherished political views[/url], as the Left is.
The closest you can come to “anti-intellectualism” on the right is an ethical objection to the Mengelian use of stem cells from aborted babies, something that has been apparently made unnecessary by new breakthroughs. But the abortion lobby is so determined to transform their beloved evil into a virtue, they demand that fetal stem cells be used.
* Demagoguery? Did you ever see the Bork confirmation hearings? Opponents of regulating Fannie and Freddie denounced as racists? Sarah Palin threatened with gang rape for venturing into NYC? Please…
* Coarse right-wing media? Olbermann? Matthews? Rhoades? Have you read the things printed and said about Sarah Palin lately? I’m no fan of O’Reilly and Hannity (and I loathe Michael Savage), but for every fire-breather on the right, I’ll show you one on the left. And I’ll hold National Review up to the Nation any day.
Bush and a complacent, corrupt Republican cohort in Congress have brought their party low. They jettisoned fiscal discipline, openness, competence and clean government in favor of the short-sighed acquisition and maintenance of power. When they can regain those virtues, they will again be trusted with the levers of power.
No one claims that Washington or Jefferson were “The Great Emancipators” as Lincoln apologists claim for him. But, let’s agree to judge his racism in light of his times. What about his suspending habeas corpus, imprisoning editors and destroying printing presses, and the deliberate targeting of civilians [and other war crimes]?
Can all things, no matter how repugnant, be excused because of the times in which they were committed? He was a brutal tyrant that led the nation into a needless blood letting of epic proportions. How is it that all other “modern” slave holding nations managed to end the vile institution of slavery without recourse to civil war? Other countries that had ended slavery in the previous 50 years included the British, the French, and the Danish, and they all did it peacefully through compensated emancipation. Rape, pillage, and wanton murder are the legacy of Lincoln. Whole towns, empty of opposing forces, were put to the torch. Starvation, mayhem, and looting were his weapons of choice. Lincoln’s “Anaconda Plan†was designed to starve the Southern populace into submission and deny them basics like medicine.
Randolph, Tennessee in 1862, the entire town was burned to the ground and civilian hostages were taken from the town and some were exchanged for Federal prisoners, while others were just executed.
Jackson and Meridian Mississippi suffered the same fate. General Sherman wrote: “for five days, ten thousand of our men worked hard and with a will, in that work of destruction, with axes, sledges, crowbars, clawbars, and with fire…. Meridian no longer exists.” Sherman wrote to his wife that his purpose in the war would be “extermination, not of soldiers alone, that is the least of the trouble, but the people”. She wrote back wishing: “a war of extermination and that all [Southerners] would be driven like swine into the sea. May we carry fire and sword into their states till not one habitation is left standing.”
In 1864 Sheridan’s 35,000 troops burned the entire Shenandoah Valley in Virginia to the ground. Sheridan wrote to General Grant that he “destroyed over 2200 barns . . . over 70 mills . . . have driven in front of the army over 4000 head of stock, and have killed . . . not less than 3000 sheep . . .. Tomorrow I will continue the destruction.”
Lincoln
– launched a military invasion without the consent of Congress
– declared martial law
– blockaded Southern ports, without declaring war
– suspended the writ of habeas corpus
– inaugurated the first U.S. income tax
– illegally imprisoned, then deported a sitting U.S. congressman from Ohio named Vallandigham…for legally opposing Lincoln’s unconstitutional acts
– raised the average tariff rate from 15% to 47%
– threatened in his first inaugural address to invade the South if they didn’t pay the new triple tariff
– took us off the gold standard for the first time in our history
– instituted a national bank again [after populist President Jackson got rid of the first one]
So, I don’t care if Lincoln valued learning. Many tyrants throughout history have valued learning or any number of other virtuous activities. That doesn’t make them less worthy of scorn
OK, #25, I’ll play…
Let me start by saying that fringe elements on both sides are ridiculous. But the left fringers have been so decimated since Reagan as to be successfully painted by even the MSM as nutty and worthy of derision; the right fringers, however, have had fingertips on the levers of power and policy for the last score of years.
Anti-intellectualism: Exhibit A: Creation “science” and its partisans on local and state school boards. As a scientist, I know that it’s not an empirical science. At least with Darwinian evolution, I know what questions to ask to falsify it–I can practice actual science! Exhibit B: The human influence in global warming–denied, ignored, lied-about by Republican policy makers (maybe because acknowledging the preponderance of scientific evidence would vindicate Al Gore? Who knows…) The lefty nuttiness you cite is in the comparatively useless humanities realm, and it’s already passe, as is so typical of humanistic scholarship in this age.
Demagoguery: Not silencing campaign crowds calling Obama a traitor? The “big government” intervention in the agony of Terri Schiavo? The incessant fear mongering of the endless War on Terror?
Coarse media: Oh, this is rich! I was listening to Limbaugh back in 1989 when he exulted that Nicolae Ceaucescu had “achieved room temperature.” The partisan media is a creation of the Republican conservatives! All the lefty examples you cite are lame reactions to the ascendance of Limbaugh, Hannity, and Savage. Olbermann may be the most clever; and Stewart and Colbert are the funniest. But still, reaction–not cause.
Again, the matter does not hinge on citing the fringe elements, but asking how influential on policy and legislative action they have been. The left is laughable; the right is scary.
You obviously didn’t read the link I provided:
[blockquote]The Democrats do not want the genetic discoveries to lead to widespread knowledge about the truth about human differences. The Democrats are really more anti-Darwinian than the fundamentalist Christians who deny the origin of species …[/blockquote]
But, you see, this is done in a way that is quite clever: Science is strangled in the crib through political denunciation and career-wrecking of those producing heterodox science. There’s not a fundy school board member in America that doesn’t have a Darwinist pit bull on his ankle, but these scientists are just “disappeared.” As Derbyshire mentions in an account of a discussion with this researcher:
[blockquote]And all this work has to be done while keeping a sort of radio silence, because it is deeply unpopular. I know some of the scientists doing this work — people like the Datanaut. They are just like other scientists I have known, driven by a kind of hypertrophied curiosity, by an innocent urge to understand the inner secrets of the world. In other respects, they are just representative human beings, with the normal range of human weaknesses and failings. To the guardians of our public morality, though — the media and political elites, the legal and Humanities academics — they are very devils, peering into what should be kept hidden, seeking out things better left alone, working to secret agendas, funded by groups of sinister anti-social plotters — “bigots!†[/blockquote]
And those squelching the research aren’t backwoods Republican God-botherers, hrsn, but those proclaiming their devotion to progress, free speech and, always, the Democratic Party. They infest the Humanities that you dismiss with a wave of the hand. If you think they hold no sway, why not Google “Group of 88” and see what they were up to at Duke not too long ago.
Your pointing to global warming is similarly hollow. There are very good arguments against its cause being human beings (not to mention cripplingly expensive to even put a dent in with countervailing human measures) but, like the crushing of
As for demagoguery: [url=http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/387.html]Bush[/url] [url=http://www.earthside.com/earthside/2006/07/bush_war_crimin.html]war[/url] [url=http://altahemp.com/warcriminal.html]criminal[/url]. [url=http://www.democrats.com/dick-cheney-is-a-war-criminal]Cheney[/url] [url=http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=9415]war[/url] [url=http://www.workers.org/ww/2002/cheney0822.php]criminal[/url]. [url=http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=321&Itemid=44]Karl[/url] [url=http://www.karlrove.com/]Rove[/url] [url=http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/29/rove-gw-heckling/]criminal[/url]. This is a tiny sample of the rational, measured debate on the Left you claim to have drifted to. I’m sure you frequent dKos, DU and other such sites…you’re no stranger to this, particularly your weird invocation of the death of Nicolae Ceaucescu (??) as evidence of the coarseness of those nasty right wing media. How much symapthy do you, as a supposed Republican, want to see afforded the passing of Communist dictators at the hands of their former victims?
No, hrsn, if you had an ounce of honesty, you’d admit to being nothing more than a moby.
Hmmmm….not sure why that GW paragraph got cut off, but here’s approximately the rest:
“the crushing of research which challenges the secular religion of then Left, it is shouted down by those holding to the new orthodoxy, every bit as smelly as that which had been overthrown.”
libraryjim and everyone else on this thread…
I am REALLY SORRY that I cut and pasted the URLs.
I did not realize what would happen.
Elves, please help!
“Science is strangled in its crib through political denunciation and career wrecking”.
Amen. It happens in medicine. Most all of the diagnoses in the DSM IV have no scientific backing. However it is extraordinarily difficult to stand up to the conventional wisdom of throwing medications at misbehaving children, and then adding more medications in order to deal with the side effects of the first lot. Anybody in academic medicine who did so would have his/her career ruined. Anybody in private practice who did so, can expect to lose money on every pediatric patient, and have more complaints directed at him as well.
The way liberals and their hacks in the educational, psychiatric, legal and journalism fields have stiffled the intellectual debate they pretend to crave boggles the mind.
I read, years ago, about this in the textbook field, too. Liberal groups, in the form of approved minorities, are brought in to scour texts for references they find offensive or insensistive, no matter their accuracy. They were called “positive pressure groups.” Of course, conservatives so offended by these texts are left to criticize them after publication, then smeared as mouth-breathing troglodytes for attempting to interfere with children’s learning.
Yeesh, Jeffersonian…go ahead and prove my points about coarseness. Like you have a clue about my honesty or anything else about me not disclosed in my comment. Instead of pegging me as a moderate and reluctant former Republican, you push me to the left fringe and all but label me a troll.
Of course I read the Derbyshire piece, and found it to be high-minded conspiracy-theory piffle. It belongs to the same genre of “it’s exactly the opposite of the conventional wisdom!” that has given us Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism.”
#10 Jeffersonian and #16 chips —
I’m confused. As a liberal living on the west coast, am I meant to be a “coastal elite” or an “unwashed urban mass”? Since I come from relentlessly middle-class roots it’s about equally a stretch either way; but if you tell me which direction I should shoot for I’ll strive not to disappoint.
Also, when you talk about the “coastal elite,” I’ll thank you to distinguish which coast you’re talking about. I can assure you that I look with equal disdain on everything east of the Rockies, whether it’s Omaha or NYC.
RE: “The GOP used to be respected, until it caved in to its far, far right-wing.”
HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!!!!
First of all, if it “used to be respected” by liberal Democrats like Little Cabbage, then how depressing for it. But the idea that the GOP “caved” to its right wing should induce merriment in the halls of the Republican Party, if they could just muster up the strength from their confusion as to why conservatives have lost respect for the GOP.
And that’s the real issue for the GOP — why conservatives will be voting for someone else over McCain.
The fact that it does not have “the respect” of basic fools is neither here nor there. But the fact that it does not have the respect of conservatives — that’s pretty serious.
RE: “Of course, it didn’t help that talk radio lowered the tone of civil discourse with its constant smears and inuendo. (Of course, the Limbaughs of the world . . . ”
Maybe you can shut him down with your Fairness Act, Little Cabbage. His ability to articulate what millions — yes millions — of conservative Americans believe really does irritate you doesn’t it?
Sucks to realize that millions of Americans are conservative and that a man made a ton of money — in the midst of the liberal idiocy of the MSM and a virtual monopoly on the media — carving out his own niche in as barren a field as AM talk radio once was.
But he single-handedly re-made a media niche.
And conservatives are the richer for it. Thank God for Rush — one of the few people to articulate just how ghastly the bailout package was . . . and articulate so well all of the other beliefs that Little Cabbage so hates, detests, and fumes over, comment by comment by comment.
But to have the likes of Little Cabbage attempt to insult one is a massive compliment.
[blockquote]Yeesh, Jeffersonian…go ahead and prove my points about coarseness. Like you have a clue about my honesty or anything else about me not disclosed in my comment. Instead of pegging me as a moderate and reluctant former Republican, you push me to the left fringe and all but label me a troll. [/blockquote]
No, I pegged you as a moby, not a troll. Maybe it was the bitter tear shed for Nicki Ceaucescu that got me into a doubting mood.
I repeat: Every vice you attribute to the Right is vastly more rife on the Left. It’s not the Pachyderm Club torching GM research buildings. It’s not the YAF sabotaging logging sites. It’s not the College Republicans destroying lots full of Hummers, burning ski resorts to the ground, smashing storefronts and heaving urine-filled Ziploks at police. It’s not Dennis Miller waxing enthusiastic about Michelle Obama getting gang-raped by Orange County Rotarians. It’s those civilized, nuanced, gentle souls who now nestle you in their arms, hrsn. Welcome home.
[blockquote]“The GOP used to be respected, until it caved in to its far, far right-wing.â€
HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!!!! [/blockquote]
I too found that hilarious. As if the “far right’s” agenda was rampant government spending and expansion of the state into areas it does not belong. Lunacy.
It was AFTER the Republican Party abandoned Conservative, ‘far-right’
values that it began to lose it legitimacy and respect.
Jim E.
It’s not quite “on topic,” but I posted this that reminds me that our elites (especially our environmentally “sensitive” ones) [url=http://www.vulcanhammer.org/?p=1278]are in the way of their own progress.[/url]
Such things have always given me a jaundiced view of having our country uncritically directed by them, the shortcomings of their opponents notwithstanding.
Jeffersonian: thanks for the observation that “It’s not the Pachyderm Club torching GM research buildings.” As a member of one of the largest chapters of the organisation, it’s certainly true that we’re not torching that or anything else.
“As if the “far right’s†agenda was rampant government spending and expansion of the state into areas it does not belong. Lunacy”.
Not to mention setting up big GSE’s that thought it was a good idea to give or force tons of subprime mortgage loans on people that could not afford them.
Jeffersonian 39:
In re: Ceaucescu. The context of the comment was that Limbaugh was on the national airwaves by 1989, when he made his commentary on Ceaucescu–which I found rather funny, actually. This is well before Olberman, Air America, et al. Simple chronology.
So, great–I hate Michael Savage too, as well as the left-wing nutjobs whose antics seem to preoccupy you so. Have you no concept of the political and cultural center? I simply reported that I agreed with the context of Brooks’s piece–that there are former Republicans who feel pushed out of the left edge of the party by, well, people like yourself.
“Good riddance,” you might say. Great–what a way to maintain a political majority!
From the tone of the comments on the blog, it seems that the consensus (except for a couple) is that, yes, most GOP has become anti-elite. And That is just fine with us. It reminds me a bit of the book “a Canticle for Leibowitz” by walter miller.
Of course, Brooks avoids the fact that the Elites might just be to blame, as Christopher Lasch (a non-whingy, conservativish historian) pointed out. The elites enjoyed their tax-cuts and disaasociation from the hoi polloi, bribing them with promises of restricted abortion and putting homosexuality in the closet. The elites got what they wanted (more tax cuts and deregulation) but the hoi polloi didn’t.
Did the conservative population really think the elites would send their young Republican kids to schools that taught creationism?
I can understand why conservatives are so angry. They were suckers, buying what the elite told them to: tax cuts, tax cuts, and tax cuts. Deregulation deregulation deregulation.
Jeffersonian’s claim that everything on the right can be multiplied tenfold on the left is interesting, and I’m sure he feels that way. But I’m not sure how you would quantify it. Does he tally blogs? And why would blogs be a reliable source for identifying the wya most liberal Americans truly feel? And what makes a liberal? Horns? A conservative? A lack of irony?
As far as Liberal Fascism goes (Goldberg’s book), while it has an interesting narrative, its insinuation the fascism is just for Democrats is contradicted by the history of the 1920’s, when the KKK was strongest and Prohibition was the law.
RE: “I can understand why conservatives are so angry. They were suckers, buying what the elite told them to: tax cuts, tax cuts, and tax cuts. Deregulation deregulation deregulation.”
lol.
As a conservative, I’m angry because the party that attempted to claim “conservatism” isn’t for tax cuts, or deregulation . . . both good and excellent things.
RE: “And what makes a liberal? Horns?”
Judging by our ability to discern what makes a conservative, you you wouldn’t know.
But based on your comment, I’d think it’d be those people like yourself who think tax cuts and deregulation are bad things.
Sigh . . . like shooting fish in a barrel.
#46: Can you possibly explain how you read #45’s comment and conclude that he’s a person you thinks “tax cuts and deregulation are bad things”?
Do you (And Jeffersonian, too) like simply to jump to conclusions that make you feel all righteous?
RE: “Can you possibly explain how you read #45’s comment and conclude that he’s a person you thinks “tax cuts and deregulation are bad thingsâ€?”
Uh . . . did you even read his comment, hrsn?
The three words “They were suckers” probably would have been the tip-off. ; > )
“Lol” Are you sticking out your tongue?
You’re laughing because you agreed with me? You should be angry. Those who espoused “conservativism” really weren’t free-marketeers, except when they made a lot of money. You’re a sucker. You bought an ideology that, in the end, the elites weren’t going to die for. They’ll let you do the dying.
lol (with a little tear, in sadness and sympathy, that you were betrayed).
“you wouldn’t know”
Actually, I might not know, given the way you’ve defined either conservatism or liberalism. Liberalism seems to be “whatever Sarah doesn’t believe.” Have it your way.
Eventually you’ll back up your definitions and claims, at which point we can all celebrate. I admit when you say “you wouldn’t know” I get this feeling that you just don’t know yourself. But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Here is what I think: I don’t believe in the religion of tax cuts and deregulation. Sometimes tax cuts are good, and sometimes taxes are useful. Investment in education, transportation (roads!). But the economic data indicates there is no necessary connection between high taxes and reduced growth. Both Japan (low tax) and Sweden (high tax) grew. If you want the papers its Stokey of Chicago and Rebelo of Rochester – but very conservative economics departments, and another by Slemrod which I can’t remember off the top of my head. It does seem to me that facts aren’t that interesting to you, which also signifies a difference between us. Taxes can be good, or bad for a commercial society.
The purpose of regulation is to build trust and transprancy; but the rules should be clear, universally supplied, and simple. They are not to discourage investment, although it should discourage shysters. Rules are crucial (say, in the form of titling property) to establish capital (Um you might want to check out Hernando De Soto’s work), but clearly bureaucracies inhibit growth, sometimes, especially when the rules are not clear and they are willfully understaffed so they can’t do their job.
The consequence of not regulating derivatives or credit swaps means that banks don’t trust each other. Because everything was private (the government couldn’t FORCE transparancy) people weren’t telling each other the truth. They didn’t have to. They were deregulated. Those of us who actually believe in Sin could have predicted this, of course.
Is sin a “conservative” or a “liberal” idea, Sarah? I suspect that when If Greed’s a sin, the person’s a liberal. If Sex is the sin, then that person’s a conservative. It is one way of looking at the world, I suppose.
I would also add I don’t believe in regulation for its own sake. Regulation, however helps commerce sometimes because it ensures everyone knows the rules of the game. Even Adam Smith (and Milton Friedman) did not imagine a commercial society with some sort of commonly understood rules. And I could, if I had time, get you page numbers.
[blockquote]Jeffersonian’s claim that everything on the right can be multiplied tenfold on the left is interesting, and I’m sure he feels that way. But I’m not sure how you would quantify it. Does he tally blogs? And why would blogs be a reliable source for identifying the wya most liberal Americans truly feel? And what makes a liberal? Horns? A conservative? A lack of irony? [/blockquote]
Well, I did read an analysis of leading Left and Right blogs a few months back that quantified the vitriol based on the use of profanity in each. The results showed the tolerant, open-minded and cerebral amongst us are far more likely to use profanity to express themselves:
[blockquote]Searching for Mr. Carlin’s seven words and some popular variants at the top 10 conservative Web communities yields about 70,000 results. That is dwarfed in comparison to the 1.9 million instances of profanity on liberal sites.
Things aren’t quite that clear-cut, however, since some Web sites have more pages than others. According to Google, the top 10 conservative sites have about 6 million pages, while the top 10 liberal sites have about 13 million.
Dividing the number of instances of profanity by the number of pages of the sites on which they appear, then multiplying the result by 100 yields what might be called a “profanity quotient.”
The top 10 liberal sites (Daily Kos, Huffington Post, Democratic Underground, Talking Points Memo, Crooks and Liars, Think Progress, Atrios, Greenwald, MyDD and Firedoglake) have a profanity quotient of 14.6.
The top 10 conservative sites (Free Republic, Hot Air, Little Green Footballs, Townhall, NewsBusters, Lucianne.com, Wizbang, Ace of Spades, Red State and Volokh Conspiracy) have a quotient of 1.17.
That’s quite a disparity. Liberals are more than 12 times likely to use profanity than conservatives on the Web.[/blockquote]
Coarseness, they name is Lefty. But hey, Rush Limbaugh mocked a Communist dictator’s death at the hands of his serfs. Shall we now compare the number of research facilities and ski lodges destroyed by each side, John? Careers ruined by heterodox views – does the name Larry Summers ring a bell?
Interesting, too, that you take hrsn’s assertion of mossback venom at face value, no?
[blockquote]As far as Liberal Fascism goes (Goldberg’s book), while it has an interesting narrative, its insinuation the fascism is just for Democrats is contradicted by the history of the 1920’s, when the KKK was strongest and Prohibition was the law. [/blockquote]
If you remember well, John, the KKK was comprised entirely of Democrats, and that Prohibition was enacted as a “progressive” reform (though it had supporters in both parties).
[blockquote]Do you (And Jeffersonian, too) like simply to jump to conclusions that make you feel all righteous? [/blockquote]
No, but I do look at peoples’ words and draw conclusions.
“The KKK was comprised entirely of Democrats”
The kind of Southern Democrats who are now Republicans and form the backbone of the Republican Party.
[blockquote]The kind of Southern Democrats who are now Republicans and form the backbone of the Republican Party. [/blockquote]
Really? The last Southern politician of import I can recall demanding segregation, black vote suppression and Jim Crow was George Wallace…certainly no Republican. It would seem that once old Southern Democrats shed their racist ways, they were then welcome in the GOP. Of course, they were always welcome in the DNC, no matter what their extracurricular activities.
If I can return, briefly, to one argument that Brooks makes that I agree completely with, and that is the GOP’s abandonment of a well-crafted political philosophy based on conservative/libertarian principles of personal responsibility, small government that enforces subsidiarity and free-market economics. George W. Bush saw to the dismanteling of all three of these principles in a very big way, and his caucus in Congress largely went along with it.
Perhaps it’s just politically impossible for any Republican in Congress who has spent the last 7 years validating this evisceration of core philosophy to pivot on a dime and suddenly preach it from the pulpit. It’s going to take some rollover in personnel and the creation of a new leadership in the GOP to undo this damage.
Jefferson, I’ll concede to you that most members of the KKK were
Democrats. What’s the point? Democrats = evil, Republicans = good? I don’t play that game.
That was at a time when it was likely that a liberal would be a Republican, and the Progressive Party had influence (LaFollete, for example) nationally. Prohibition had an interesting mix of anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic and statist influences: its clearly the progenitor of conservative populism. You could compare anti-choice to anti-drinking in its attempt to create a bigger state and an intense form of moral righteousness.
You are aware that the big exodus from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in the South happened after LBJ signed the civil rights act. Are you saying that the Republican party did NOT use racism to build its infrastructure in the deep south after civil rights?
You do recall Helms, Thurmond and Lott. In general, the Republicans, in the South, are the white party.
You have an article that shows that more left blogs use profanity than right blogs. But you don’t seem to much analysis of what the study means.
This may show that left-wing blogs are less likely to be moderated. that’s been my experience (try posting on Michellemalkin.com, or FreeRepublic, or LGF. Heavily moderated!) But it can be analyzed. Further, you’d need to do a regression that counts who makes the comments (do all leftists use profanity? Or just a couple?). What counts as profanity? And you’d also need to add some kind of regression for trolling. Further, is violence profane?
What’s more interesting to me is that conservatives tend only to read conservative blogs. Liberals generally only read liberal blogs. The few that DO read both tend to be leftists. [url=http://crookedtimber.org/2008/07/01/blogs-participation-and-polarization/”]Here is the study[/url].
[blockquote]Jefferson, I’ll concede to you that most members of the KKK were Democrats. What’s the point? Democrats = evil, Republicans = good? I don’t play that game. [/blockquote]
You just tried to “play that game,” John, until it blew up in your face. Spare us the oleaginous side-steps.
[blockquote]You have an article that shows that more left blogs use profanity than right blogs. But you don’t seem to much analysis of what the study means. [/blockquote]
I think it’s pretty obvious what it means, John. Hrsn gasped about, among other things, how the right is “coarsening” debate in America. Yet a quantitiative analysis of leading blogs shows the Left is far more likely to use language (P, S, C, F, CS, MF, T are the “words” searched) that, using any reasonable standard, coarse. Perhaps you’ll make the argument that the underlying arguments are erudite and sophisticated.
BTW, I’ve posted on a majority of the conservative blogs listed…none uses moderation. Red herring…but you already knew that.
Rep. [url=http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/1008/John_Lewis_invoking_George_Wallace_says_McCain_and_Palin_playing_with_fire.html]John Lewis[/url], raising the tenor of the debate.
RE: “Are you sticking out your tongue?”
No need — laughter is best.
RE: “You’re laughing because you agreed with me?”
That’s it, John — fantasy is best for you.
RE: “You’re a sucker.”
Wow — you’re pretty angry, aren’t you John? But why? I’m the one who should be upset because, according to John, I shouldn’t believe in tax cuts and de-regulation.
RE: “You bought an ideology . . . ”
I adore ideology. You have one too — and it shows.
RE: “They’ll let you do the dying.”
We’ll all die — and I’m pretty thrilled at my life.
But what’s wrong, John? Upset because a conservative like me isn’t more bitter, like you?
RE: “Have it your way.”
Thanks, I will. ; > ) Because you certainly haven’t a clue, John.
RE: “I don’t believe in the religion of tax cuts and deregulation. . . . ”
Right — you’ve got a religion — and it ain’t conservative, as you’ve made crystal clear over the past four years.
Maybe a little prozac will help the bitterness, though?
Or how about a little more name-calling. [i]That’ll[/i] do the trick, John.
Jeffersonian — nice work, by the way, on this thread.
Especially in this line: “You just tried to “play that game,†John, until it blew up in your face. Spare us the oleaginous side-steps.”
It’s a common ploy on his part — been doing it for years now here. Tries to make his “point” — then gets called on it, then attempts to accuse the other side of doing what he was doing.
A rabid ideologue, like me only on the opposite side of the fence, who has striven to pretend as if he’s not.
Ireneaus – Sen Byrd is a democrat and the only ex klansman I am aware of in the US Senate. Most of the Klan died off as democrats – it was Midwestern transplants and college educated whites that formed the backbone of the Southern GOP – until Jimmy Carter embarrased most white southerners and convinced them that the Dems were 1) Pacifist; 2) Collectivist and 3) cultural relativists. None of which sits well in the South. Zell Miller’s speech at the 2004 convention is my all time favorite – “We were Wrong”
Bitter?
Rofl
It was more like… pity. With a little fun. Calling them as I see them, as you do. I thought it was playful banter, Sarah, and I’m surprised you took it so… personally. But I apologize, when I said “you’re a sucker” I meant it in that southern way, like “you all.” Bless your heart, dear, you all have been taken for a long ride. Actually, it looks like we’ll all be. Sadly.
But you’re funny with the prozac. I won’t fault you for taking it, if you get to that point. It would be totally fine with me. Seriously.
I don’t mind that cultural conservatives have been betrayed by the elites. I mean, its sad. Here was this great alliance that has just fallen upon the hard rock of reality. Now as far as being an ideologue, I could be one, but I haven’t figured it out. But it would be a great bar game trying to establish what it was. Look, if you do have a clue, you might want to share. Otherwise, I’m suspicious that, in fact, you don’t really know.
But I will say that … cultural conservatives don’t have much to show for their work. So, I understand why, um, you’re [you all] angry. Rather than, say…. bitter. Turns out that the people who run the economy, and have instituted all these tax cuts and deregulated, are scared about the consequences. It’s not my problem “ideologically,” and it does seem that you’ve nailed the hypocrisy. Perhaps the real difference between you and me is that I expected this all the time…. So where is a free-marketeer to go? And Krugman just won the Nobel Prize for Economics, also! Not a great day even for economic conservatives.
Jefferson, you don’t read my comments very precisely. For about forty years, the Southern GOP did use race as a way of strengthening their power. This wasn’t exactly a secret, even among Republicans. And it does explain why few blacks voted for Republicans. It also helps explain why Republicans are having a really hard time right now. Those who vote primarily on race changed parties over the last 40 years and voted Republican. Are there racists in the Democratic party? Yep. No doubt. Does this mean all Republicans are evil or racist? No. Get the Venn Diagram straight. I was a Republican [although of that now defunct NEngland, Lowell Weicker stripe].
I think, in several comments, I’ve said that the Democrats bear some responsibility, like for passing the Gramm rider in 1998 (it passed 90- something, if I recall). The numbers don’t indicate Freddie was as important as you assume they are, although it makes a fascinating narrative. Anecdotally, I see your point. But the numbers aren’t quite there. And I’d change my mind if the numbers did.
As far as profanity goes, the study still doesn’t say very much. One could use a profane word in front of a positive acclamation: “F%&^g awesome.” I think any statistician could dismantle the study, which you still don’t reference.
But since I rarely read dkos or Democratic Underground, I don’t see what you see. There are more interesting sites, like crookedtimber and fivethirtyeight.com which are a bit more elevated.
“I think it is a mistake to judge a person outside of his times.”
This has been bothering me. Lincoln apologists have used this line of reasoning to excuse Lincoln’s racism. “He was just a person of his times”, they will say, as they excuse his White supremacy and White separatism. If that is a legitimate excuse for Lincoln…why isn’t a legitimate excuse for all the Southern racists of that same time period? Why isn’t it an excuse for any behavior prevalent to a particular time period? Can fascism be excused in the same way? Genocide?
Obviously, the Lincoln apologists for his racism are using a double standard. This is a hypocritical line of reasoning if it is not equally applied to all the racists of the mid 19th century. No, there is in my opinion no excuse for Lincoln’s racism if there is no excuse for the slave owner’s racism. There is even less excuse for his deliberate targeting of civilians and other war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Lincoln was a tyrant, just as his assassin shouted. The damage that he did to our Republic is still with us and remains his most persistent legacy.