As Andrew Sullivan's critique of the GOP and American Conservatism continues to blend indistinguishably into (as one, long-forgotten Liberal blogger once put it) "...the well-thumbed history and plainsong lore of our Fucked Up Modern Age as it has been long understood and passed down among those awful Liberals" (emphasis added):
-- one question remains conspicuously unanswered.On this important issue, one entire party in our system has simply decided to opt out of these basic demands of democratic life. And this is not restricted to Christianist congressmen who believe the earth was created 6,000 years ago. It’s deep in the bones of what’s left of the intelligentsia as well...A figure as respected on the right as Charles Krauthammer has been reduced to claiming that no reigning scientific theory should be taken seriously because it might one day be adjusted in light of new data or new experiments...This is what happens when reason becomes anathema in one hermetically sealed party...It matters when one major party refuses to accept reality – when it refuses to grasp the fact that you cannot raise revenue by cutting taxes, that the United States practiced torture, or that human-made climate change is real. When one side engages in this surreal debate, the country becomes incapable of engaging in any real debate. I know we’ve become used to this – and the press has found a way to write about the GOP as if they are not a reckless, know-nothing, post-modern fantasy machine. But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t remain capable of shock and anger at this pathetic excuse for a political party...
Who the fuck is this "we" he is talking about?
I understand that Mr. Sullivan is currently occupying himself with being hugely pissed off that he is being zapped out of the history of a cause to which he has devoted decades of his life.
And I get why he is angry. After all, as that, long-forgotten Liberal blogger once said, no one likes it when someone
... use[s] the power of the written word to mutilate history to the point where those 11th hour arrivistes become the heroes of the story, and those who did all the heavy lifting for decades while struggling against an Establishment bent on ridiculing and ignoring them are wiped from history altogether -- made unpersons by the stroke of a pen.,,Which is why I continue to find it hilarious that that the Conservative Andrew Sullivan continues to be unable to force his mouth to form the words "Liberals were right all along."
7 comments:
Which is why I continue to find it hilarious that that the Conservative Andrew Sullivan continues to be unable to force his mouth to form the words "Liberals were right all along."
yeah, but once he started saying it, he would never be able to stop saying it, so you might see where he is reluctant,
"the United States practiced torture"
When did this doofus become aware of this? Five years after it was established fact? Ten years?
I can't search to find out because i'd have to type his name to do it, and he doesn't deserve that.
Sully's review of "How To Serve The Middle Class" by Charles and David Koch: IT'S A COOKBOOK!!!!!
I love the hysteria at the dish on the N Wade POS book, as it were somehow less a POS than the Bell Curve
don't know how to tell you this, but the Libruls that are right. Are going to have to share first place with those dirty fucking hippies....
The Dirty Fucking Hippies were right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKEZoY-TMG4
@Robt
Hmm, well, the DFHs have been so busy stabbing people in the back and throwing elections to the Republicans - for the ultimate greater good of the Noble Leftist Cause, naturally - that the simple fact of holding opinions that are not necessarily hideous will not suffice for their rehabilitation.
Clean up Armenia! Get a harelip!(*)
(*) for the benefit of the terminally stupid and weak minded, this is not a threat of violence but a Firesign Theater reference.
Sullivan is completely right about conservatism's inherent nobility, as long as you completely ignore both his personal history and the history of American conservatism.
Honestly, the only value I get from some pundits anymore is as cautionary tales and opportunities for bullshit detection. Oh, and also as an opportunity to ponder human nature (especially psychopathology).
(To be fair, occasionally I find genuine value in Sullivan's work – such as his many pieces on torture – but his batting average is so low otherwise I don't bother to look unless someone links him.)
Sullivan's indignant, preening myopia is really just the usual conservative defense of unearned privilege as the natural order, plus a mountain of ego protection. (The best defense is a relentless offense. I keep coming back to it, but John Kenneth Galbraith nailed it when he said that "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.")
Besides Sullivan's cognitively conservative psychological needs, you well know that the mark of Sullivan's personal, political and professional conservatism is why he rejects the obvious truth that "Liberals were right all along." There's no money in it.
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