In the last 20 years we've watched conservatism--as reformulated by the Republican Party--focus-group and popularly poll its way to a "contractual" and thus transactional "philosophy"; shut down the government in chaotic fits of pique; impeach a democratically elected president only because the president was a Democrat; declare that its deficits don't matter but that others' deficits are the Devil's work; slash government revenue because the economy was good--no--because the economy was bad; hype and let loose a senseless, self-perilous, unprovoked war as a foreign adventure; adopt universally condemned brutality as official "intelligence" policy; defenestrate empiricism and science; nominate for the nation's second-highest office (thus merely one cardiac episode away from the nation's highest) a ghastly hayseed of indescribable ignorance; repeatedly hold a knife at the country's throat; and in general react to the incumbent, dispositionally conservative Democratic president as though he's a Trotskyite madman.
Those are but a few of the ignominious themes and abysmal highlights of a chronic pseudoconservatism, which only blind fools have persisted in characterizing as "conservatism" itself. In it there is nothing, really, that is temperamentally new, and to call this demented amalgamation of adolescent Sturm und Drang a "philosophy" may be a liberty-taking of some tongues, but not serviceable minds.
Yet the NY Post's John Podhoretz announces in "Conservatives gone wild" that "over the past week, that is exactly what many conservatives have done. They have violated fundamental conservative precepts"; they have abruptly repudiated conservatism's "worldview dedicated to order and tradition and the proposition that disorder is dangerous and deadly." (Italics mine.)
Only in the dark, shadowy, spidery cave of a profound pseudoconservatism could this aging and otherwise ubiquitous observation come as fresh enlightenment.
Like alcoholics, they have to hit bottom before they can recognize and accept reality.
Posted by: Janicket | January 06, 2013 at 09:51 AM
Christ, what a fag you are. At what age did you start sucking dicks?
Posted by: lh | January 06, 2013 at 09:55 AM
@Ih: LOL Inquiring minds want to know.
So, aere implying being a "fag" a good thing or a bad thing?
What is your time function for assessing the the appriate age for the commencement of "sucking dicks"? Do you use LaPlacian transforms for these equations?
By tying your comments to a discussion of the attributes of the Republican Part, I infer a difference between the parties related to the aage when one commences to sucks. When did you and your cohorts begin?
"What a fag you are" implies ssome "fag"-dom scale that is new to me. Where can I find this? And, is it part of the metric system, or as I suspect in English units?
I have many more questions for you, but I will stop here.
Posted by: Robert Lipscomb | January 06, 2013 at 10:58 AM
For Conservatism there is no Bottom.
Terrorism is the use of violence or threat of violence to effect change in Government.
Conservatism is Terrorism.
Posted by: Grung_e_Gene | January 06, 2013 at 12:05 PM
Channeling your inner driftglass. I like it... "Repeating as breathless epiphany what dirty fucking hippie liberals have been saying for 30 years."
Posted by: Turgidson | January 06, 2013 at 02:43 PM
Ordinarily in comments I would obliterate "conservative" thoughtfulness such as that displayed by "Ih," but then Mr. Lipscomb's whimsy would make no sense, so I'll let it stand, in all its deep splendor.
--PM
Posted by: PM | January 06, 2013 at 07:35 PM
I hate to be presumptuous by saying I speak for others, but may I say we appreciate that Mr. Carpenter.
Posted by: ren | January 06, 2013 at 08:19 PM