Who are not "Conservative"
The Pope of All "Conservatism" adds another name to his "Hot/Not" Papal Bull:
John Derbyshire reacts to the riots in classic form...
And so the reactionary joins the criminal. It's a useful reminder that whatever Derb is (candid tonic? pub bore?), he is not a conservative. He hates the status quo.
In Mr. Sullivan's Universe, you will remember, "Conservatism" has never amounted to much more than, "People who agree with me at the moment" plus "Oh, shiny!"
It is a cozy little frathouse where Mr. Sullivan gets the inconvenient stink of the lunatic Conservative multitudes out of his pure, imaginary Conservatism in exactly the same way Bill O'Reilly gets the inconvenient stink of the murderous Christian lunatics out of his pure, imaginary Christianity:
by wish-wish-wishing them awayyyyyy.
This is also why people like Mr. Sullivan do not debate these sorts of issues in public.
Because they would be eviscerated.
1 comment:
He hates the status quo.
Ah, we're playing "re-define conservatism" with Andrew again, one of his favorite games. How about calling Derb a "regressive"? Or a revanchist? A reactionary? A right-winger? Or also, what he is – a conservative?
"Liberal" and "conservative" can be defined in different ways, but if we're being honest, the single biggest factor is their approach to power. Generally speaking, liberals are concerned with being fair and making the world a better place for the greatest number of people possible, while conservatives are obsessed with acquiring and holding power... typically, at the expense of the fellow citizens. These are very different paradigms, and not remotely equivalent. "Classical" liberalism most of all entailed embracing the notion that all people are created equal and that monarchy is obviously unfair, if not inherently evil. (David Brooks might not dare go as far as to endorse a monarchy, but he sure as shit pimps an aristocracy.)
Derbyshire is a bigot and a colossal asshole, and he is most definitely a conservative asshole. Like the tea party/right-wingers here in America, he wants it all to burn, but only if he doesn't get his way, because he views any democracy that doesn't enforce his preferred social order as inherently illegitimate. He rails against "government of a modern Western nation... whimpering guilt over class and race." He also writes: " Through British veins runs the poisonous fake idealism of “human rights” and “sensitivity,” of happy-clappy multicultural groveling and sick, weak, deracinated moral universalism." "I treasure my faint, fading recollections of Britain when she was still, for a few years longer, a nation."
He then links a video of "Rule Britannia," which is fine, but he specifically links one that is a "tribute to the British Empire" of yesteryear. Yes, apart from loving imperialism, hating the wogs, hating the lower classes – and also hating multiculturalism, human rights, liberalism and empathy – apart from being the very model of a modern major conservative reactionary asshole – Derbyshire is not a conservative.
As usual on this subject, Sullivan embodies grotesquely comical self-deception at best, despicable intellectual dishonesty at worst. (I must revisit John Cole's "Conservatism as Urine" and the divine Hilzoy.)
In Mr. Sullivan's Universe, you will remember, "Conservatism" has never amounted to much more than, "People who agree with me at the moment" plus "Oh, shiny!"
Ah, but there's nothing as shiny in this world as the comforting, paternal smile of Saint Ronnie, the rage-inducing sight of a welfare queen's gleaming new Cadillac, or the addictive excretions off of Mammon's golden teat.
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