September 29, 2004
Pure Punk Politics?
Garrison Keillor's recent rant--what else can you call it?--is a real eye opener. Count it as another in a long series of American intellectuals dropping their pants for the world to see because, as they see it, Bush is so bad that he inspires this sort of soul baring. "Why they hate Bush" is another topic on which I will write soon (short answer: he is a born-again Christian and says so), but the hatred is real and it has produced some real doozies. Keillor's is a good example of this phenomenon.
First, notice the essay is virtually content-less about anything other than Keillor's emotional state. He has a thesis, to be sure, but it is an old one--the Rebuplicans we know are vile, greedy lunatics without a moral bone in their collective body. What is important is that all of his evidence for this point is an odd piece of culture history that reveals more about Keillor's angst toward the more energetic elements of the Republican party--those who drew me to it, I might add--than it does about anything an historian might recognise as history. I refer to Keillor's linking up of Newt Gingrich-style Republicans and the punks, what he calls the "pure punk politics" of the Republican party.
On the one hand, I think I can see his point: Republicanism since Reagan has shared some cultural association with New Wave and, therefore, I suppose, punk. I felt this connection in my youth--I listened to Elvis Costello, despised the flabby art rock of the '70s, and I loved Reagan; and I was sickened by Clinton's choice of music (Fleetwood Mac) when he was elected.
But to link the party of John Ashcroft with Sid Vicious? That boggles the mind. What is Keillor talking about?
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Barbra Streisand's Latest
"Yes...the documents CBS presented could not be confirmed for their authenticity ..." From Where is the free press?
They just can't say it -- the documents are fake, moron! And never mind that all of people she mentions in the first paragraph are (1) not from the press, and (2) had a huge megaphone in the press. In the case of Mr Wilson, this was in spite of the fact that it was he who was "misrepresenting the facts and misleading the public." Where have you been Barbara?
But this is the most egregious statement: "And, if you choose to air a story about George Bush's military service, or lack thereof, like CBS did last week, you and your award winning news anchor, get investigated by the FCC." Is that why they are being investigated? Hmmm, it wouldn't have anything to do with the outright fabrication of documents?
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September 28, 2004
On the words "progressive" and "liberal"
A word of explanation: I use the word "progressive" to designate those whose ideas are antithetical to conservatism, as oppsed to "liberal," for a couple of reasons. For one, the latter is used in political economy to describe the very conservative position of being pro-free market. Second, the word "progressive" concedes what lefties think they are engaged in -- progress. (Part of what is wrong with progressives is that they think that by razing traditional institutions, such as families and churches, they are ipso facto making some kind of progress.) And finally, it is the term used by the sociologist James Hunter in the very good book Culture Wars.
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A progressive is ...
Someone who goes to sleep at night worrying that somewhere someone is making a profit.
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Four Reasons to Despise the Left
Some of my best friends are Democrats. Actually, all of them are. That's why I am a "closet conservative." I have learned to negotiate the situation with irony and metaphor. Anyway, when folks do discover a conservative leaning during cocktail conversation about, say, the upcoming elections, I justify Why I Am Not A Democrat by naming these four:
1. Dan Rather
2. Michael Moore
3. Jamie Gorelick
4. Sandy Berger
In each case, we have an example of extreme--indeed maximum--arrogance in their own sense of exceptionalism regarding fairness and the truth. Each has committed a crime or impropriety greater than that of Nixon who, remember, suffered more because of the cover up than the actually petty crime of busting into the DNC (something that happens all the time now electronically, I am sure). And in each case, but espeically in the cases of the first three, we have people who think of themselves as the great Do Gooders of the World, for whom the ends justify the means.
The greatest outrage is Rather's, though. Moore is an buffoon and most people know that--even the Democrat friends of mine. But rather--to blame has lies and outright deceit on--bloggers! Thank God for the blogosphere, without which this jackass would remained the unexposed propaganda machine that he is now proven to be, although we always knew it.
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September 15, 2004
Harry Potter a Closet Conservative?
The English surprise me sometimes, and I say this as an ardent Anglophile. Here is a blog entry about how J.K. Rowling must be a conservative because she supports the English system over the metric. See how doctrinaire these "free thinking" folks can be? You have to use the metric system or you're a reactionary yokel. All of her good progressive credentials go out the window because -- AHA! -- she was busted for possession of an idea remotely resembling that of a conservative. Lock her up! Sounds like how some literary critics work these days -- "I have definitive proof that Austen was a Royalist!"
At any rate, the metric system is good for the lab, where measurements get fed into complex equations, but it positively blows cookies for any practical use, such as carpentry or cooking. The great advantage of the English system is that it is based on the practical logic of halving and doubling. Try making a cake in a base 10 measuring system.
And of course the metric system is ideological.
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September 14, 2004
An Explanation
OK, here's the situation. I am a conservative in spite of the fact that I have spent years (YEARS) in academia and surrounded by progressives, liberals, and lefties of all kinds. I have Marx, the Franfurt School, all manner of deconstructivist texts, you name it, sitting on my bookshelf. But I have never been able to shake being a conservative and now I have decided to hell with it, that's who I am. I listen to Rush Limbaugh and I don't hate W. I got pissed off at the democrats for embarrasing the country with the Florida vote fiasco -- something I intend to write about. And I think that Jamie Gorelick, Sandy Berger, and Dan Rather have each committed sins greater than Nixon was impeached for. Seriously.
I call this blog the Closet Conservative because I feel like a gay guy must feel around straight people all the time. It's beyond a concern for bigotry. What can you do when you are surrounded by people who, to agree with you, have to undergo a religious conversion first? Who will think you are crazy or stupid or evil for not following a party line that they can't even admit to following? Who are so self-righteous in their condemnation of "fascism," which they see everywhere, never having lived in a country without the freedom they take for granted? Who think "freedom" means individual rights at all costs?
No, it's not that I am surrounded by "bigots" -- a stupid word to begin with, reserved always for the Other Guy. It's that I don't belong to the social world I participate in. So this is an outlet. Be warned.
And to anyone, conservative or otherwise, who thinks being in closet is cowardly, believe me, I have expressed my opinions before in the hopes of "honest discussion." It doesn't work. Inevitably someone gets pissed off, and it is not always me. I don't need that. It just alienates people.
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