"Not all liberals are wicked..."Well that sure is mighty white of you, Andrew.-- Andrew Sullivan, very famous gay Conservative public intellectual, Reagan idolater, and tireless battler against decadent Fifth Columnists everywhere.
I also assume, based on the context in which it was given in this post, that "Oakeshott" must have been the nickname of the bong in which you spent most of your adulthood curled up, conspicuously ignoring everything of importance that was going on in the Real World of Real Conservatism, year after year after year...
6 comments:
All quotes from Sullivan's article:
-"poisoned primarily by anti-government fanatics terrified by modernity."
I'm actually inclined to agree with that, though I would add "or the most fleeting glimpse in the mirror". (I recently played a game based on H. P. Lovecraft's "The Outsider".) They are terrified of modernity. They yearn for the simplistic era of bronze-age sheepherders, which is what their intelligence and maturity can handle.
-"Watching an actual conservative, Obama,"
So, Sullivan listens to The Professional Left, and realizes the last two great Republican presidents have been Clinton and Obama....
-"being savaged and brutalized by them makes me want to look away."
Because God or FSM forbid you actually open your mouth and say something against them, or intervene in any way, for you know distracting them from their wrath would bring the same down on you. Family members don't always protect each other from an abusive family member because that can bring worse down on you, and the distilled base that is the Tea Party is quite the abusive spouse.
Mike.K.
Sullivan has been completely out of it because he's never been a part of it. He moves here from Britain at the height of Reaganism, secludes himself in liberal D.C. and Province town, his careers are mainly with liberals his first major being the editor of The New Republic, then working at TIME, then the Atlantic, and his social circles lefties like Maher and Savage.
Andrew Sullivan is and has always been secluded from REAL American Conservatives. Somebody has to ship him to Louie Gomert's district for a year.
"Not all liberals are wicked..."
But all conservatives are?
To RobSPL,
I found a somewhat long comment I did a few months ago. I agree, but I think it's not just isolation. I think he really believes the fundies are fringe that can be kept in check or decanted.
Unfortunately, I thin that if he (someone with Teh Gay!!1! and a "ferinr" [foreigner]) were to ever fully succumb to the intellectual dissonance and try to mingle with the base, it would most likely end with an old-school fag bashing. It would be truly sad and I would not wish it on him, but I could see it happening.
Mike.K.
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I really think Sullivan's problem... OK, his main problem in this political crap, is that he did not grow up in the U.S.A.
I honestly get the sense that deep down, really and truly, he doesn't believe that the religious right is the batshit crazy group of arsonists, bombers, and psychopaths that they really are. I, as someone who grew up in the U.S., know that they really and truly believe that everyone else is wrong, and deserves the raining Hell-fire Jesus will send upon them in the End of Days, and if they can start enough wars and bomb enough clinics and lynch enough educated people, Jesus will have to start the End Times and show up early so he will have enough people to blast into Hell to satisfy his blood-lust. (Apologies for the gratuitously long sentence.)
He, as British, thinks that those people can't be *that* crazy, and the intellectuals like him can keep them properly banished to the fringes. When I have heard him speak, he genuinely always seems to be surprised that Christians who are Republicans genuinely harbor so much blind and pointless hatred for him, and Republicans who are Christians give the former so much power. He still thinks they can be decanted from the mix, and doesn't realize it's one big frothy and incestuous well-blended Santorum.
(And bonus points for using it in a sentence.)
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If Sullivan arrived here in the midst of Reaganism, then he left there in the midst of Thatcherism. What's the difference?
ScarabusRedivivus said...
"If Sullivan arrived here in the midst of Reaganism, then he left there in the midst of Thatcherism. What's the difference?"
Reagan practiced astrology? And was more friendly to the Christopaths?
Thatcher I have always heard was actually very intelligent and sharp.
Mike.K.
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