Letters to the Editor
-
@tiberius
Bush was never a typical conservative and anyone who says otherwise is just being ridiculous.
Then why not speak plainly about what he really wanted to do? Why abuse the terms of traditional conservative discourse?
Because otherwise no one in their right mind would go along with his bogus plans, that's why.
The neocon movement is fundamentally dishonest. Honesty isn't even considered a virtue among this crowd, more like a sign of weakness.
-
epeoples
Glenn's error, one of some significance, is mistaking that boat for the Good Ship Conservativism. The point here is that NEITHER Bush NOR these so-called rebels are conservative at all. They are ALL authoritarian radicals who share a vision of "conservatism" that bears no resemblance to American traditions or ideas. Bush's blatant antics have simply exposed them all for the world to see.
This is not an "error" in what I'm arguing because I'm not arguing what you attribute to me. I wrote many, many posts when I first began blogging and for a good time thereafter arguging that Bush is not remotely "conservative" in the theoretical, textbook, pure Goldwater/Hayek sense of that term, and that real "conservatives" therefore ought to repudiate him.
They didn't. They embarced him. And at some point, the real meaning of "conservative" is "what conservatives actually do when in power," NOT "what theories are propounded by think tanks and propagandists in its name." The same is true for "Communism" -- its meaning is conveyed far more by the actions of Mao Tse-Tung and Fidel Castro than it is by, say pretty utopian Marxist theories.
Conservatism is as conservatives do.
-
And even worse
There's Mark Steyn, for whom the 'sudden discovery' that Bush is not a conservative is too banal to mess with. No, Steyn says that he knew Bush was *never* a conservative, was always a de facto liberal from day one:
http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/6114.html
-
Conservatism is as conservatives do
Language evolves and words only mean what the person using them means at the time. Unfortunatley during the transition confusion can arise. While its useful to use terms like authoritarian or fascist to describe to current RW political movement, the fact remains that they choose to call themselves conservatives. It looks like it will be up to the paleo's to coin their own term if they want to differentiate themselves.
"True conservative" is being hijacked by the RWA's as we speak.
-
Auto-antonyms
Some words can be their own opposite, or nearly opposite.
"Sanction" means to punish or to endorse.
"Fast" means unmoving or swiftly moving.
"Aught" means all or nothing.
"Skin" means to cover or to uncover.
"Prove" means to question or to answer.
"Resent" once meant both to appreciate and to begrudge."Conservative" means principled, or unprincipled, but as with some of these other words, one of the meanings is archaic and almost obsolete.
Nowadays, in America, "conservative" mostly means worshipping Joe McCarthy and Ann Coulter and Karl Rove, and worshipping Richard Nixon not despite Watergate but because of it.
-
Conservatism is as conservatives do, Vol II
Glenn,
In the context of the previous posts you reference here, which I have read and enjoyed, I see your point. I just wish you'd said more about that important point here. I wouldn't want to see that point get lost in a distracting debate about who among them is a "true" conservative because, as we both seem to agree, none of them are.
-
But Glenn ...
... didn't you already blog this over a year ago on the old Unclaimed Territory?
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/conservatives-try-to-distance.html
Has anything changed except for more of the breathless Bush hagiographers jumping on the bandwagon?
-
4 thoughts
1. What's with so-called conservatives always quoting Mao, Lenin and Trotsky?
2. The Pope should be an easy blush given his ostensible esteem for humility; but even the devil would blush at Noonan's now repudiated hagiography of the codpiece.
3. Following your observation that Bush has not changed and has, indeed, always been valorized as the "unchangeable man of principle", it might be interesting to arrange a series of quotes similar to those you provide for the apostates that show the leader's consistency over the same period that you have mapped his followers' recantations. In other words, along with Goldberg circa 2004 versus Goldberg today, a pair of quotes on immigration from GWB from similar dates would be most instructive.
4. One day a charismatic leader may arrive who having learned the lessons of the "empty suit" will require his followers to take actions which will tie them to him for fear that those actions be exposed. At that time, the dynamic between projection and protection will shift forever.
-
@ L.W.M and Paul R."Group think"
Re your picking up my comment re the use of "group think" on the previous thread. Paul R's comment:
Groupthink is a breakdown within the framework of reality-based, Enlightenment truth-seeking, that applies to specific kind of process--reality-based group decisionmaking. What we're confronting is the intentional destruction of the entire framework of reality-based, Enlightenment truth-seeking.
was really the distinction I was thinking of (only worded better than I could have).
I don't think "herd mentality" really cuts it, either, but at least that term moves us away from the notions of decision-making and some sort of rationality-based process.
I appreciated Paul R's comments regarding the term previously and, given its use in the previous post, wanted to refer back to those distinctions that he carefully noted. Thanks to both of you for your further clarification.
-
What's this "someday" of which you speak?
One day a charismatic leader may arrive who having learned the lessons of the "empty suit" will require his followers to take actions which will tie them to him for fear that those actions be exposed.
I believe you have just described in vivid detail, the reasons the lapdog press STILL lives and breathes White Hopuse talking points. The "actions" in question have alreadty started a needless war and cost tens of thousands of lives while at the same time led to the abandonment the justified battle against the terrorist threat personified by OBL and his henchmen holed up in Pakistan. That the TV press bears significant responsibility for the current mess, is a large part of the reason that they have been successfully blackmailed into submission.