Because Andrew Sullivan says it is:
Dear DavidMr. Sullivan is a gay Catholic Tory who has built an entire career carrying water for the Conservative Movement.
My friend David Brooks writes the following:
I’m to Rick Santorum’s left on most social issues, like same-sex marriage and abortion.No, no, no. David is to Santorum's right on both issues, if left and right retain any meaning. Same-sex marriage is arguably the most successful socially conservative reform ever, as Conor Friedersdorf notes...
The Conservative Movement is fueled by people who really hate people like Mr. Sullivan.
Because the Conservative Movement is fueled by people who really hate him, Mr. Sullivan has invented a wholly fake history of the Conservative Movement to explain away his delusional, self-contradicting bullshit.
One of Mr. Sullivan's pet projects has been spending much of the last three years castigating a woman named Sarah Palin for making up wholly fake history of Conservative Movement to explain away her delusional, self-contradicting bullshit.
One of the side effects of Mr. Sullivan's delusional, self-contradicting bullshit is that he has been rendered incapable of understanding why this is hilarious.
Sad, really, but not in any way career-limiting because Andrew Sullivan has internalized the only important lesson in pundit social climbing: always, always, always kiss up --
I found the rest of the [David Brooks] column, by the way, surpassingly sane.and punch down.
10 comments:
Actually Sullivan is correct. The problem is that most people who define themselves as conservatives are hypocrites.
The true conservative position on gay marriage is that the state's only interest is to uphold the legal contract. As far as the government is concerned, marriage is a corporation formed by consenting adults. And yes polygamy should be legal as well. Churches on the other hand, are free to define marriage as they see fit.
Abortion is a little more complicated morally, but again the conservative position is to protect the constitutional rights of the individual. Communists on the other hand, wouldn't be hypocrites if they forced women to either carry every pregnancy to full term or have an abortion.
Reducing politics to left and right is a meaningless semantic exercise.
It's time to call "conservatives" what they are -- wreckers.
From Sullivan:
"Same-sex marriage is arguably the most successful socially conservative reform ever"
This only makes sense if you look at "conservative" in an abstracted form, and remove it completely from the self-identifying voting block. It is "conservative" in that it protects familial units and legal contracts. It is "progressive" in that it broadens rights to a larger group of people.
In the important way, "conservatives" (people) vs. "conservative" (abstraction), it is utter bullshit. Conservatives have nothing to do with classical conservative ideology. They are under-educated, under-informed troglodytes who idolatrously worship a book of badly (and purposefully) mistranslated writings of bronze-age sheepherders who were rebelling against the founding of large cities. They are so threatened by others questioning the supremacy of their simplistic ^* beliefs that they seek to destroy all advances in theology, philosophy, politics, and social ethics so the remaining rubble is simple enough for them to understand.
^* I'm not saying Christianity is simplistic. There is a great body of theology and art. I'm saying their understanding is that of a selfish, petulant child who wants attention and praise.
Mike.K.
Splitting this so it doesn't hit the length limit.
DG passed down on golden tablets among the singing of angels:
"Because the Conservative Movement is fueled by people who really hate him, Mr. Sullivan has invented a wholly fake history of the Conservative Movement to explain away his delusional, self-contradicting bullshit."
You quoted me earlier when I said he doesn't understand that pig-ignorant, aggrieved, and paranoid religious fundamentalism is one of the bases of the U.S.'s conservative movement. I said something to the effect of, he doesn't understand why Christians who are conservative hate gays so viciously, and he doesn't understand why conservatives who are Christians allow so much religion to be mixed in.
I really think in his case some of it is, as you put it, the isolated dorm room he lives in. In a way it was Obama's problem with conservatives. Obama was used to hanging with the educated, refined conservatives at Harvard. He refused to believe that conservatives in the real world answer to ignorant and rabid dregs of society who have their resentment, ignorance, and paranoia "validated" by a media that echoes it back to them at will. (Fox News is the Harlot of Babylon.)
Sullivan was raised among conservatives who were educated, fairly cultured, and who may call him a poofter behind his back but would still respect his bank account. He refuses to believe that a great swath of this country genuinely believes that striking him dead where he stands would make Baby Jesus smile and would make his killer a good Christian, just as would killing an abortion doctor.
I have to cut him a bit of slack, though, as it is a terrifying thought.
Mike.K.
There was a news blurb this morning about a law introduced in Tennessee? which would allow children who bully other children a legal defense if they could cite a "religious" reason to justify their bullying.
I wonder how long Mr. Sullivan would continue to defend his "false history" if instead of being schooled in the wealthy ivory towers of his youth, he were made to attend the institutions made possible by the passage of that law?
I am sure there is some appropriate biblical passage that would allow for his daily beatings based on his accent alone, much less his sexual preferences.
What worthless labeling. I can define "conservative" as wanting to go back to safe, boring old policy that is proven to work and carries no risk. Then I'm a conservative for wanting 70% tax rates, massive government stimulus to escape depression, strong unions, and socialized medicine.
blackdogg:
I don't think Sullivan, in his mind, has to create a false history. I think he's convinced the "real" US conservatives are like the Brit tories, and that the pro-bullying law is a problem caused by "those people", not "real conservatives'.
Mike.K.
Sullivan's musings about True Conservatism are as earnestly vague as a treatise upon the Holy Spirit.
I was just recalling some of Sullivan's vehement defenses of religion on Maher's show after "Religulous" came out.
The level of cognitive dissonance it must take to follow not only a political movement that hates you but a religion that feels the same way, must really do a number on the mind. Something akin to being a black evangelical republican.
I guess the big paychecks help with the therapy sessions...
Sullivan's real problem is that, as a rich white dude, he'd be on the top of the heap where he oh-so-obviously belongs, kicking down at all his inferiors and whooping it up at Versailles along with the rest of the 1% (and their courtiers) if it were not for the solely inconvenient fact of his sexuality.
He has the bad luck of existing at a point in history where his people are not automatically being burned at the stake as witches and heretics as a given right from the start; where, in fact, they're actually treated as human beings, at least to a greater extent than they've ever been before. (Note: As a gay male myself, I know this is only on a comparative basis, but I'm trying to channel Sully's "thoughts" on the matter, so bear with me.)
So he has the opportunity of being able to live as any free citizen in a civilized society should be able to in regards to his sexual preference, but the side he's on, which he needs in order to justify his existence as a rich (or rich-wannabe) white dude, either has to persecute people like him in order to appease religious primitives, or they want to persecute him and all his kind because they sincerely believe it's the Godly thing to do. That, or because they're bullying thugs looking for a weaker target to beat up on.
So instead of manning up and taking a cold, hard look at the reality of the situation, Sully takes the weaselly route of being a whiny little bitch, determined to live in Fantasyland as long as he can. Because it soothes his ego and suits his own immediate, selfish short-term well being...and never mind about what potential unpleasantness is lying in wait down the road.
Right up to the point, no doubt, where actual violence on a scale impossible to ignore finally breaks out, and his fine friends on the right decide they don't need him anymore.
And he's sent to the ovens/the firing squad/the camps...or he finds himself the recipient of his own personal little Necktie Party, and ends up swinging from a lamppost.
If it does end that way for Sully, one can't very well say he hasn't courted just such a moment...not that he'll ever accept any responsibility for his own role in such an outcome.
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