Enough!
Gaius says something that sparks me to finally get off my lazy butt and say some things I’ve been wanting to say since 2005:
If the Republicans are smart, though, they will refrain from the same factional warfare that is tearing the Democrats apart.
It’s an excellent piece of advice, except that we have been doing the same thing, and are still doing it, since the races for the 2006 elections began. Go to any web index, say technorati or memorandum, plug in (any) one of the Republican candidates’ names, and count the number of links to conservative blogs smearing that candidate. Then repeat, this time plugging in (any) of the Democrat candidates’ names, and I’m willing to bet that you’d find at least twice as many hits on Republican bloggers beating up on Republicans as Democrats. Actually, I suspect it would be at least three times as many, and possibly more.
The GOP — and I’m not talking about the party, but the base — is turning into the LP. Every candidate has to pass a litmus test, and if he doesn’t score at least 90%, then it’s one great big hate fest. I’m not naming names here, but if you follow any blogs, you know who I’m talking about.
I hate to throw water on your little party, but ideology is for idiots and kids in their twenties. The reason the LP is wholly irrelevant is ideology — that, and it’s made up almost entirely of Bill Maher clones who refuse to grow up and want to sit around sucking on bongs and banging whores, and feel that for some bizarre reason, that would be a political utopia. They’re utterly indistinguishable from the neo-hippies, except that the writer who makes them go weak in the knees is Ayn Rand instead of Karl Marx. They even have warring ideological factions, just like the Marxists, except instead of Trotskyites v. Stalinists v. Maoists it’s proto-anarchists v. pre-social-anarchists v. neo-objectivists (or whatever).
They’re children. Ideologues. Same thing.
What I want to know is where are the adults among the self-described conservative bloggers? And by adults, I mean those who live in the real world and not some fantasy land? You know, pragmatists? Where are you?
The only thing easier to find than porn on the web is conservatives who habitually and energetically proclaim that they hate <insert Republican candidate here>. Every frakking day, half of the blogs I hit feature some slobbering hate fest.
Sure, we’re in primary season, and sure, pick a favorite. But what is the point about doing everything you can to tear down every candidate who isn’t your favorite? And what if your favorite isn’t nominated, but that candidate you have said five thousand times you hate is? What are you going to do then? Vote for John Edwards instead? Exactly what do you think you are accomplishing by spewing all this blather and trying to get other people to hate the candidate like you do? If I had been born with the conspiracy gene (I wasn’t), I’d wonder if you were a Democrat plant.
Back in 2005, I said repeatedly that there is a difference between a politician who is reliably opposed to his base on nearly every single issue (Lincoln Chaffee) and a politician who doesn’t always, on every single issue, vote the way you want him to. Look at the good it did. The blogs are at least twice as vitriolic, and unrealistic, now than they were then.
I have a favorite candidate (and if you don’t know who it is, you’re blind). There are only two candidates who are unacceptable: One because he’s a nutcase whose foreign policy would be suicidal and whose every other pet issue is complete nonsense, and because he actively courts the support of the sewer scum, like the Birchers and paleocons, and worse; and the other because, like Chaffee, he is so fundamentally oppositional to the Reagan coalition that he’s just in the wrong party. Yes, I have problems with McCain, Rudy, and Romney, a lot of them, but I’m not posting daily hate-filled diatribes about any of them, am I?
There’s a reason I haven’t said anything about my reservations about any of the acceptable candidates. Some loon will turn it into some kind of I’LL NEVER VOTE FOR MCSHAMNESTYMCCAIN! drivel.
Grow up. First, you have no right to create a litmus test, and second, nobody has to agree with all of your pet issues. Who do you think you are, Kos?
Sure, if you really dislike Rudy, then fine, say so from time to time. But unless you’re trying to sink the GOP in the next elections, cool it, and use some of that energy against the Democrats instead.
The other problem is that half of these rants I read more than anything else demonstrate how ignorant the author is of how our government works, specifically the separation of powers. The President is the President, not an absolute monarch. He can’t wave a magic wand and undo Roe v. Wade. The highest priority issue for the President — highest as in light years above all of the others, including, no especially social issues — is foreign policy. How he feels about your pet social issue is relatively unimportant, since he can’t affect it. Ride your legislative candidates on those. But the President? Not so much. Judicial appointments? Important, but no more important than who we elect to Congress, specifically, the Senate.
To be quite frank, all of this “He makes me feel good!” “We’ve been taken for granted!” “We’re victims!” identity politics makes me want to puke. I got enough of that from the left-wing morons on campus; from the right, it’s way beyond just disgusting. If you’re really that mindless and juvenile, you shouldn’t be voting. Leave that up to the adults.
And that’s all — for now. Probably not forever. The genie is out of the bottle.
rightwingprof :: Jan.12.2008 :: '08, Conservatism :: 9 Comments »
9 Responses to “Enough!”
[…] UPDATE: I set Right Wing Prof off bigtime with this post. Go read it. […]
Socialized medicine, immigration, taxes, expansion of federal powers…which issues can I simply discard in this ethereal quest to become a non-ideologue? I count those issues, and more, to be very important in my own political philosophy. Foreign policy? That, too. But this isn’t a one-issue race. For several years, elected Republicans have spit on the people who voted for them. Personally, I’ve had enough. I will not vote for a RINO, and this isn’t a purely ideological posture. Rather, it comes from years of observing the Republican Party become the lite version of the Democratic Party.
So, I guess I’m one of those execrable and repugnant conservatives who are fracturing the right. So be it. I’m not going to defect to the Green or Libertarian Parties, because neither reflects my own values. Then again, neither do Huckabee, Romney, Guiliani, or McCain. I am as staunch a conservative as anybody, but I will not vote for any of those people. I am compelled, if the Party insists on fielding a liberal candidate, to vote for the Democratic nominee. I’ve wasted my vote on “conservatives” previously, only to be disappointed by their liberal actions. If I’m going to hire a liberal, why not go for some intellectual honesty and just…elect the liberal? RINOs don’t deserve my vote.
Conversely, I think “voting for whoever gets the nomination” is the blindest ideology in which one can engage. There is no viable option for a protest vote other than voting for the opposition, otheer than staying home and refusing the obligation to participate in the election process. That won’t do. I’ll make well-informed votes for my congressmen, but I will not vote for the Republican presidential nominee unless he is thoroughly conservative and honest. Thompson is the only man running who is suitable–to me–and the only man that I will vote for. I am not blindly ideological, but I am principled.
I don’t think it’s necessarily harmful for us to talk about the pros and cons of all our Republican candidates. Hopefully it will get us the best candidate possible.
As for not having a “right” to create a litmus test–says who? I have a couple. My candidates *cannot* be socialists and *must* be friends of the 1st Amendment.
I agree with you about the distinction between an executive and an absolute monarch, but disagree that we shouldn’t debate amongst ourselves. After all, the Dems have no debate and are all in lockstep–is that how you want the Republicans to be as well?
I disagree with your assessment of one of your “unacceptable” candidates. I don’t believe the attacks about his fiscal policies are correct. And what are you going to do if he manages to win the nomination? Are you going to vote for Hillary or Obama?
In short, you are guilty of the very thing about which you are complaining.
You candidate of choice is my second choice (and had been my first choice before and right after he announced), and if he had shown even a slight inkling of really being interested in winning before this past week, I might have stuck with him.
I am fortunate to live in a state (Texas) in which I do not have to worry about aiding a Democrat if I choose to cast a protest vote in November.
If I lived in any state where it will be close, I’d be willing to vote for 4 of the 5 main Republican Candidates (I don’t count Paul as a main candidate). The 5th one, I don’t trust one bit, and no, I won’t vote for him under any circumstances.
There are only two candidates that I really don’t like and yes I have dissed them - badly. And there’s one who to me is so outre that he’s irrelevant but I’ve criticized them all at one time or another.
Maybe you knew everything about all of them from the beginning. I didn’t and I tend to think aloud during the the sorting out process.
I hope you don’t mean us to discount ideology altogether in an attempt to be pragmatic and not like the LP dreamers. There’s a balance.
That’s like saying you don’t believe water is wet. The data are the data. You can believe his lies all you like. If we’re going to have a soft on crime socialist who spits in the faces of crime victims, let it be a Democrat. That’s not acceptable for a Republican.
I have no problem with discussing the pros and cons of candidates. I do have a problem with this juvenile, childish MCSHAMNESTYMCCAIN! crap, which is on the same level with the idiots on Kos and Huffingpost. As far as this not being a single-issue election, you could have fooled me, from what I’m seeing on some of the big conservative blogs.
If you want to disagree, fine. If you want to spew over the top crap and make an idiot of yourself, that’s not fine.
Please explain the difference between:
“a soft on crime socialist who spits in the faces of crime victims”
and
MCSHAMNESTYMCCAIN!
Just because one is in all caps and a silly name doesn’t change the fact that both are divisive and ideological.
As I said before, you are guilty of the same conduct you are condemning.
If you don’t know the difference, you really are an idiot of the amoral variety.
The evidence is public, for all the world to see.
Now, if you have something intelligent to say, you’re welcome to do so. If you insist on demonstrating what a moron you are, I won’t approve the comment.