Let me just say that I am overwhelmingly sympathetic to what Conor and Rod are saying regarding the punditocracy on the right and the futility of engaging the base. In other words, I go against my own instincts in my disagreement with them. I go against the grain of my own visceral reaction to the nonsense regularly espoused on Fox or by Limbaugh, Beck, Bachman et alia.
It is therefore not an easy argument to make. It would be much easier and much more popular to agree with them and to continue going after the right the way I once did. I imagine I’d garner a few more Dish links in the process, to boot. I’ve simply come to a place in my own reasoning that tells me that this is – in the end – the wrong approach to reform. Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know. It’s where I’m at now, and as always, I’m open to the possibility that I’m wrong. (I’m married, after all.)
Perhaps there is a balance to be struck.
Anyways, as Rod says – the conversation is fairly well exhausted at this point. And Ross Douthat still doesn’t have a blog. (Though he will soon!)
Dude, how boutchu just man-up and tell the base that racism is WRONG, homophobia is WRONG and neocon interventionist meddling is WRONG…..and throw in survival of the greediest(aka capitalism) is WRONG.
Get some nads.Report
How about – instead – you quit repeating yourself over and over again? Maybe that would be better.
Quit thinking one-dimensionally about everything and, well, grow up matoko. This juvenile nonsense is getting old, and quite frankly is starting to break our commenting policy.
I’ll say it once again: shape up or ship out.
P.S. How exactly based on my writing would you ever get the notion that I might decry capitalism? Do you even read the posts around here before you add your two cents?Report
I’ve been banned by waaaay better then you.
The truth is, until you recover your honor……you will just continue to drive off youth and the college-educated and minorities in revulsion.
Have a nice extinction.Report
Matoko – do you realize what your suggestion amounts to? “Tell the conservative base that they’re homophobic racists.” What then? Voila, all is well? How about you go tell the vast majority of Muslims in the world that their religion treats women like crap. I’m sure that after you tell them that, suddenly Islam will be all peaches and cream. Subtlety really has no place in your repertoire of ideas, does it?Report
Actually al-Islam doesn’t treat teh XX anymore like crap than xianity.
Cite, chattel slavery of women and children is still a strong WEC theme.
Cite, denial of reproductive rights and sex education.
Cite, Manzi’s small distributed jesusland federalism.
Also, too. How al-Islam treats treats teh XX is NOT YOUR BUSINESS, WEC.
The conservative base is your bidness. al-Islam has ZERO to do with your extinction problem.
What about doing the right thing for once?
The honorable thing, the noble thing.
Tell the base is is wrong to be racists and homophobes.
It is wrong to try to force creationism on other peoples children.
I don’t see Charles Johnsons traffic dropping off.Report
Are you saying that how Islam treats people isn’t my business but how conservatism is formed and operates (or Christianity for that matter) is your business? Because you’re constantly rambling about that, regardless.
Also – did you just call me a WEC? Do you have amnesia or something? Since when have I ever identified as evangelical?
Really, try to think past your emotional response and actually analyze whether simply telling people they’re wrong (or racist or whatever) actually works. Charles Johnson is preaching to the choir. He is not changing the hearts and minds of the conservative base.
One day you’ll wake up and realize that all you are is the reflection of things you despise. An evangelical preaching your own narrow beliefs.Report
“That’s different.”Report
Are you saying that how Islam treats people isn’t my business
Yes.
And yes, you are a WEC.
You just evangelized christianity over al-Islam in treatment of women.
And yes I am entitled to crit both christianity and “conservatives”.
I am a fourth-generation republican.
I was raised republican and catholic. I am in revolt against the horrorshow ugliness and dishonesty of my grandfathers party.
The last thing he said to me was always vote republican.
Never again.Report
Actually I never once said a thing about Christianity vs. Islam. You really do need to start reading before you write.
Anyways, I’m pretty much finished here. Like I said, shape up or ship out. We have a commenting policy and you’re in violation of that policy. If you have nothing to add, well – here’s the door. Don’t let it hit you on the way out, as the saying goes.Report
Here’s the deal matoko. You can improve in one of two ways or you can find another blog to comment on.
You can either grow up and start using actual grammar, correct spelling, and proper formatting in your comments like someone not living in the stone age days of the internet (no it’s not hip to type like a fifth grader) – or you can start acting polite. Your choice. If neither of those options is to your liking, then you can find new stomping grounds.
Capiche?Report
Shouldn’t matoko be off playing Counterstrike or something?Report
why would i want to?
’tis pointless.
Conservatism has sold its soul to the villagers with the pitchforks and torches for power. The Honorable Stewardship of the rights of the Noble Yeomen Farmers was to lead them to greater good, but you only seek to exploit their base passions for political gain.
Have a nice extinction.
You deserve it.
Report
It’s not pointless, actually.
This is a written medium. As that Canadian dude said, “The Medium Is The Message”. (Watch the Heritage Minute here: http://www.histori.ca/minutes/minute.do?id=10226 )
We use the medium of words here… moreover, with the exception of the Pinstripe Mafia members, we are limited to the written word.
The medium of the written word is one that carries with it many, many connotations. When someone writes with poor grammar and poor spelling, it communicates poor thought. Indeed, when someone consistently uses poor grammar and poor spelling, the communication can get entirely blurred after a tipping point within the signal:noise ratio.
Moreover, when the content of the post is sifted by people determined to give the thoughts obscured by the medium of poor grammar and poor spelling a fair reading and the content seems to be more or less independent of the post or comment to which it was addressed, it becomes very, very easy to reach the conclusion that the person behind the poor grammar and poor spelling is also a poor thinker… someone to be pitied rather than engaged as a peer.
Indeed, it was only in the last few months that the suspicion that English might, in fact, be your first language had started sinking in. When I stopped saying “her English is better than my Japanese”, I began to feel sorry for you.
Whether avoidance of my pity is something that provides a point to, you know, typing like you have actually received an education is a point is still up in the air, of course.Report
Before you grace us with your absence, can I get a hug?Report
“I don’t see Charles Johnsons traffic dropping off.”
I do. I don’t care so much about his flame wars but the upshot of all of it is that he has no influence with any significant political or demographic element. IIRC, you are the only one who’s cited him in the last couple of months or so, which should tell you something.Report
I actually find this critique somewhat incompatible with your repeated assertions that WEC is a demographic dinosaur, assuming that premise is correct, why waste the time, resources, and clout?Report
Kyle, Rush and Beck are cheerleaders for homophobia, racism and con-serf-a-tism. The GOP leadership and soi-disant intelligentsia are ENSLAVED to the WEC base.
I repeat…..
Have a nice extinction.Report
Capitalism is wrong? My goodness, what precisely are you seeing as the alternative system? Even modern liberals for the most part are embracing markets with at least one arm, usually two. Say what you will about the republicans (and I say a lot) but they successfully moved the dialogue a long ways to the right in terms of economic thought.Report
Freemarket capitialism in it’s purest form brought us the Econopalypse.
Survival of the greediest.Report
It’s always funny to listen to this coming from someone who is actively participating in the capitalist system, utilizing capitalist means to rail against the very system they’re immersed in and have obviously no understanding of. That’s the price of trying to be hip all the time, I guess.Report
Unbridled stupidity is a prerequisite for hipness?
It’s always funny to listen to this…
I would have stopped right there. 🙂Report
“Econopalypse”
Words abandoned:
“Econami”
“Econaster”
“Econocaust”
“Economic retraction that understandably followed a period of rapid growth as part of what some call The Business Cycle.”Report
I love the smell of burning CDOs in the morning!Report
Uh, you didn’t answer my question miss. If not capitalism then what are you advocating? Communism? Sharia? Localism? What?Report
That silence you hear is matoko not commenting here anymore.Report
Your call but I strongly disagree.Report
Bob, I can only take so much ad hominem and other such nonsense from a commenter who offers no substantive commentary to balance that out with before I’ve had enough. We have a commenting policy, and I’ll be damned if these threads turn into the same trash I see in 99% of the rest of the internet. If matoko wants to comment here she can abide by the rules. She can stop calling names and act her age.
She can also email me if she wants to be taken off the blacklist.Report
I know you were provoked but you you threw a good bit of gasoline on the fire.Report
I’ve mainly ignored her, Bob. Until this thread. And this is quite a lot of pestering and name-calling with basically no gasoline thrown on any fire from my corner. Sure, on this thread I shot back. That’s my wits end.Report
I only wanted to voice my feelings. I did so, the end. Later.Report
Thank Allah/God/Richard Dawkins.
That drivel really was degrading what is generally one of the best comment sections of any blog I’ve come upon.Report
Well now I’m not going to get an answer. I’m going to guess sharia then.
But the league is civil and she was being consistantly frenetic so it seems fair to me.Report
In Matoko’s defense, she didn’t read your question.Report
I now see that that comment of mine is exceptionally tacky, given her inability to call me, at least, evil in response.
My apologies.Report
You were much nicer than I would have been.Report
As it sunk in that her spelling and grammar were reflecting a limitation rather than laziness, I realized that I was being cruel, rather than merely “in kind”, if I responded to her like I would have, say, anyone else in comments.Report
Well if she didn’t read it then how’d she manage to reply to it? It’s in my box damnit. Oh wait, it was E.D. in the drawing room with the banhammer.Report
My (now classless) joke was something to the effect of “she saw it, she replied to it, but she didn’t read it”
And it’s a joke that grows less funny by the second…Report
Hah! I like it. Who said libertarians don’t have a sense of humor?Report
Which comment are you referring to Jaybird?Report
“Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.” — EB White.
(“It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.” — Winston Churchill)
Anyway, the process went something like this.
North commented on Matoko’s comment, then Matoko wrote back in her own inimitable style and then North pointed out that Matoko did not read his question. At that point, I made my joke that she didn’t read it (the implication being that certain key words automatically result in her belching out a response).
That’s all.
Indeed, the frog is toast.Report
I hesitate a little bit, for fear of turning into the photographic negative of matoko_chan. It is true this conversation is more or less exhausted, in the direction it’s been going. But that’s not the only direction to go.
From what I can see, there’s two things about the dissident Right which have gone unremarked. Much of the energy behind it comes from personal antipathy toward President Bush and his Administration more than substantive disagreements with the mainstream Right. Second, the dissident Right partakes, even more than the average bear, in the general sense of hopelessness and despair permeating the culture. Neither does anything useful for anybody.
Given that, the answer is actually pretty simple. Get over Sean Hannity and hook up with the mainstream Right for the benefit of the US as a whole. We, the mainstream Right, can get America out of the hole it’s in, and it looks to me that we’re the only ones who can.Report
Well considering ya put it in in the first place there’s an intuitive merit to the idea that only the conservative right can get it out again. That said, there’s also merit to the idea that with the conservative right having screwed things up royally the other side now gets to try and clean up the mess first.Report
“We, the mainstream Right, can get America out of the hole it’s in, and it looks to me that we’re the only ones who can.”
Maybe, but first you gotta get the Republican Party out of the hole it’s in.
But, I’d like to see a few bullet points of the plan the mainstream Right has to offer.
Number one, tax cuts.Report
“From what I can see, there’s two things about the dissident Right which have gone unremarked. Much of the energy behind it comes from personal antipathy toward President Bush and his Administration more than substantive disagreements with the mainstream Right. Second, the dissident Right partakes, even more than the average bear, in the general sense of hopelessness and despair permeating the culture. Neither does anything useful for anybody.”
I disagree. It wasn’t a personal dislike of the man, Bush, that was the motivating factor. It is the irresponsible policies he undertook and the consequences for our country. His actions did then affect how many felt about him, but he personally was not originally a target of acrimony. That distinction is important.
And as for “hopelessness and despair,” such a characterization suggests a misunderstand. Very conservative people (I don’t label myself or others with whom I share at least some agreement as “dissidents”) are certainly worried about the state of our country. But I think it is fair to say that at least many of us believe firmly that it is still possible to steer this nation back on solid ground if we can rally enough people to properly focus on the most important issues, the most looming threats to our republic. We are trying our best to look honestly as what is really happening and not stick our heads in the sand about what could potentially hit us. That is simply facing up to actual conditions around us and what could be coming down the pike — and it is a necessary prerequisite before anyone can decide to work to change the underlying causes.Report
ED, tell me you’re not going to kick our sweet desert flower off the site?
Re: reform, I’ve got the feeling that those conservatives that left by the droves in the previous election will either vote 3rd Party conservative or ‘real’ conservatives in the GOP, no more neocons, no more RINOS and go from there.
I think the commie-dems are going to provoke the unwashed, eventually, when the bill comes due or grandma passes away ’cause she smoked back in the 60’s and can’t get health care. My goodness, might end up in a little gun play…one never knows.
Then there’s the “Oath Keepers.”Report
Bob – I appreciate your input. I may be wrong on this, of course. I’m just in no mood to actually be wrong at the moment. My patience has been tried.Report