Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

šŸŽ¶ Those boots were made for mockinā€™ šŸŽµ

… among the most cringeworthy communications in the history of the alphabet!

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

if you canā€™t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

This year has been the longest three days of putinā€™s life.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, youā€™re having a great week and itā€™s only Thursday!

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

You can’t love your country only when you win.

The revolution will be supervised.

You come for women, youā€™re gonna get your ass kicked.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

This isnā€™t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Donā€™t expect peaches from an apple tree.

You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute / So ambitious for a juvenile

So ambitious for a juvenile

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For me, the best CPAC speech of all time was the one that 13 year-old kid gave a few years back. It seems to me that at the heart of conservatism, there’s a belief that conservative truths are obvious and timeless in a way that should be obvious to children but are, sadly, less obvious to world weary adults, especially those who have been propagandized by soshulist teachers and eaten too many gubmint T-bone steaks.

Are there other examples of starchild conservatives? There must be.

Reader Interactions

67Comments

  3. 3.

    General Stuck

    When you are spiteful, vindictive and hateful about everything, it’s only a matter of time until the last thing to direct it all towards is yourself. The boomerang effect of patient zero for rage virus, if you will.

    When that point is reached, we can call it Peak Wingnut and it is time for the rest of us to form a perimeter. I figure we have anywhere from one to twenty Friedman Units left, give or take a Palin presidency.

  4. 4.

    13th Generation

    C’mon Doug, it’s too easy. When you put a 13 year old up as a champion for your philosophy, what else needs to be said?

  5. 5.

    DougJĀ®

    @Cat Lady:

    That’s a great story! Your tips have been fantastic the last few days, I watched that Fernwood tonight clip twice last night.

  6. 6.

    MattR

    That a 13 year old kid is thought to be a spokesman for conservative ideas says a whole lot about the simplicity of their worldview.

    (EDIT: Unfortunately, I think they view that as a feature and not a bug)

  11. 11.

    MattF

    I think the real parallel is to children preaching at evangelical gatherings. There are lots of examples of this, and memoirs by ex-child preachers is a genre in its own right. Googling ‘child preacher memoir’ raises a dozen right off the bat.

  14. 14.

    FlipYrWhig

    Ben Shapiro (a/k/a “The Virgin Ben”) had his moments, and there was an even younger guy who made a bit of a splash until, IIRC, he recanted some of his views. Kyle Williams, maybe? Sadly, No! and World O’Crap used to pummel Ben Shapiro regularly. Has he been heard from lately?

  19. 19.

    13th Generation

    When I was 13, there was a kid in my class who liked to draw cartoons featuring Nazis, he also liked to burn shit and bully other kids. Does that count?

    ETA: Hand to FSM, his mom worked for Nixon.

  22. 22.

    Liberty60

    This is just another example of why I consider today’s conservative movement to be the doppleganger of its nemesis, the old Left.

    Back in the day, say the early 1970’s, it was the Left that championed the notion that its truths were childlike in their simplicity and pureness- recall the santimonious slogans about war being harmful for children and other living things.

    It is the hallmark of dying movements that they adopt the posture of both intellectual gravity- Palin reading “all the papers” or Beck with his professorial chalkboard- and simplistic slogans like “power to the People”.

  25. 25.

    jonas

    I think Bristol Palin is probably the next closest thing, though she’s not exactly a kid anymore. I think the idea of having child spokespersons appeals to conservatives because it suggests that right-wing ideas are somehow inborn, innocent and natural (“look, even a twelve year old intuitively understands that labor unions are incompatible with democracy and a free market!”).

  26. 26.

    DougJĀ®

    @Liberty60:

    I agree completely. So much of what I hear from conservatives is in some ways an even dumber version of the dumbest things the left ever said 20-40 years ago.

  31. 31.

    Mark S.

    How could you all forget eleven year old Sam Besserman?

    I had to listen to such feminist ideas every day, and at times, I actually bought into them. Months later, I still didn’t know whether mothers were really more important than fathers. Once I even felt like going into the bathroom and trying to pull off my pen1s. It wasn’t that I wanted to be a woman — I had just lost my enthusiasm for my embattled gender.

    Doug, you even wrote about him.

  33. 33.

    General Stuck

    @Liberty60:

    It is the hallmark of dying movements that they adopt the posture of both intellectual gravity- Palin reading ā€œall the papersā€ or Beck with his professorial chalkboard- and simplistic slogans like ā€œpower to the Peopleā€.

    It is why I distrust all political “movements” in this country. At some point, almost always, it becomes about the movers themselves, and not about a better country and world. And has a way of alienating dissent and moderation in service to pragmatic results of adjusted viewpoints.

    When that happens, it always fails to produce a usable product for the people it was originally meant for, in this case, the average American.

    And when there is failure of this movement, almost always, pathological self parody ensues and loads of butthurt resentment fill that void of governing failure of vaunted movement philosophy. We are seeing it in real time in the conservative world with tea baggers and increasing demands for purity of thought. opponent demonization and hyperfearmongering from the disappointed. The wingnut version of this is far more dangerous than the liberal version, imho. Though the liberal version is bad enough.

  34. 34.

    MonkeyBoy

    Can anybody come up with any examples (YouTube a plus) where a leftist/liberal/progressive child has been promoted as a spokesman?

    [ videos of cute little girls saying we have to love each other and puppies don’t count unless 1) the contain explicit political content, and 2) they are presented as spokesmen ]

  35. 35.

    Jack Bauer

    In the UK there was a 16 year old who gave a speech (BBC link) to the Tory conference in 1977, William Hague. Now he’s secretary of state.

  36. 36.

    barkleyg

    Glenn Greenwald had a piece about 4 years ago( when Conservative REPUGS started throwing King Geore under the BUS), that Conservatism is not static, but instead it is fluid. What this means is that conservatism, and liberalism, are identified as “currently viewed”, and that we are talking about fluid definitions as to what is appropriate for the time.

    Back when,

    conservatism was pro life, keep out of my house(and phones, and e-mails), should be smaller, and self sufficiency.

    Today Conservatism is pro- life, even at the expense of the mother’s life, pro small AMERICAN government while calling the current administration a large Socialist government, PATRIOT ACT above all civil liberties, because, hey, I don’t do nothing wrong, and most importantly, don’t let government come between the citizen and his doctor, or Big Bank, or Wall Street stockbroker, and yea, we don’t need no stinkin Education department, nor an EPA.

    Conservatism today is we would all be better off if government stayed out of our lives, and let Corporations decide what is right or wrong.

  38. 38.

    MikeJ

    @General Stuck: Movements suck because they’re made out of people.

    Every now and then they get some good stuff done in spite of that. The civil rights movement hasn’t produced a colourblind nirvana, but a lot of good did come out of it.

  39. 39.

    Villago Delenda Est

    “Respect for the Constitution”

    Except for all the secular parts in there.

    Oh, and the concept of balance of powers. As it applies to the private sector.

  40. 40.

    General Stuck

    @MikeJ:

    The civil rights movement was not about ideological niceties, it was about realization of a basic human and constitutional right. Those kinds of movements often work with the right leadership as do other movements, like in Egypt for the basic right of some degree of self government and self determination, when those movements are generated by the people themselves, and not imposed from without.

  44. 44.

    MonkeyBoy

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    The closest equivalent that I can think of is the kid with the granite countertops.

    Graeme_Frost was more of a poster child than spokesman in the radio spot he made for the Democratic Party. I don’t think anybody thought he wrote his own material. Poster Children are common in every political persuasion especially when something is framed as a “think of the children” issue.

    I guess I was asking for any examples of a non Poster Child liberal/leftist/progressive child being treated as an “on top of the issues” spokesman.

  45. 45.

    DougJĀ®

    @UmYeah:

    I used to write for a blog where posters would do posts that were all “my six year-old said mommy, why does the preznit want to take food away from poor people” and stuff like that. It’s a dumb form of argument.

  46. 46.

    Scott

    Maybe it’s related to the way everyone loves cute baby videos on YouTube, especially when they do something “grown up.” Kids who know all the presidents or all the state capitals, kids who stomp around the house trying to force-lightning the cat while dressed as Darth Vader, etc. The Rethugs go crazy for a kid parroting their slogans because it’s “soooo cute!”

  48. 48.

    aimai

    @Liberty60:

    Wait! Did it turn out that war was really great for children and other living things? Also, dimly remembered buttons worn by flower children is not equal to “the left.”

    aimai

  49. 49.

    Scott

    If the GOP could somehow dress up a kitten in a suit and get it to meow “George Bush was right!” during CPAC, you’d get a bunch of Republicans ascending to heaven (or at least the ionosphere) in pure religious/political ecstasy.

  50. 50.

    agrippa

    Conservatism is a set of attitudes; it is not a philosophy or a coherent set of ideas.
    Disreali call ed the Conservative Party an ‘organized hypocrisy’; he was correct then; he remains correct.
    Edmund Burke remains the best conservative thinker, after Benjamin Disreali.
    The USA does not actually have any conservative thinkers. It has commentators with conservative attitudes; the very best of which was Bill Buckley.

  51. 51.

    Ailuridae

    I seem to remember that the GOP always rolls out some minor during their convention – am I just remembering that wrong?

    The better moment of CPAC was Pawlenty’s speech. Not that I ever suspected Pawlenty was a classicist but he really doesn’t understand what “might makes right” means.

  52. 52.

    agrippa

    These conservative attitudes resonate with about 40 to 45% of those who vote ( 40 to 60% of the leigible voters do not vote at all). These attitudes are not logical or factual, as Burke’ s writings make clear.

  58. 58.

    Liberty60

    @aimai:

    Did it turn out that war was really great for children and other living things?

    Well, not that I know of; but is that statement really the most powerful argument you can think of against the war in Vietnam? Or Afghanistan?

    There were serious thinkers and valid arguments made in the American Left, both old and new during the 60’s and 70’s; but the above slogan wasn’t one of them.

    Likewise, there is somewhere a cogent argument about limiting the size of the government’s intrusion into the private sector- but I doubt it is going to be made by a precocious child.

  59. 59.

    bobby

    @Ken Lovell: good one

    everyone, listen to him speak (negatively) of the fervor of the ‘other guys’.. and then listen to the way he speaks of ‘his guys’..

    ‘conservatives’.. know all the right words.. have all the wrong actions.. kind of like Al Gore.. Oh, wait.. he’s conservative too… never mind.. ;-)

    The only thing Palin has over this kid is she can get drunk with me.. and that’s a scary thought! ;-)

    @Liberty60:
    Government does not intrude into the private sector, Government is the handmaiden of the private sector.. HLS & the FBI working for the RIAA being one _very_ obvious example..

  60. 60.

    DavidTC

    I actually know Jonathan Krohn, believe it or not. I was the stage manager, and he played Dill, in a 2007 community theatre production of To Kill a Mockingbird.

    He was fairly smart, but had absolutely no life experience, of course. Everyone avoided talking politics with him, because he thought he knew a lot more than he did. Basically, he thinks conservativism is self-evidently correct, and the problem is that no one knows what it ‘really’ is, so he will happily define it for you.

    He was one of the kids who got involved in community theatre because he was home-schooled and the parents thought that the kid should have _some_ outside interaction. And his mother was an actor.

    However, like some of the home schoolers, he wasn’t kept out for religious indoctrination (In fact, religiously, he’s sorta random, and left private school for that reason, IIRC.), but because he actually was fairly smart.

    I haven’t seen him since the play, though, so I have no idea what’s going on with him.

  63. 63.

    Nick the Australian

    I just watched the video of the 13-year-old at CPAC.

    He didn’t say anything! It was three minutes of waffle.

  64. 64.

    Anne Laurie

    @jonas:

    I think Bristol Palin is probably the next closest thing, though sheā€™s not exactly a kid anymore. I think the idea of having child spokespersons appeals to conservatives because it suggests that right-wing ideas are somehow inborn, innocent and natural…

    Small gods preserve us, I just had a vision of poor Trig Palin stuffed into a tiny suit and forced to lisp Conservamantras(tm) for his momma’s customers. They can give him a Beibercut(tm) and advertise him as a Shirley Temple for the Last Days 21st Century!

  66. 66.

    Judas Escargot

    @Liberty60:

    is that statement really the most powerful argument you can think of against the war in Vietnam? Or Afghanistan?

    …well, yeah. Actually.

  67. 67.

    DavidTC

    @Jeanne ringland:

    Oh, I think he’ll be fine.

    Like I said, he seems to think conservativism is _obviously_ correct, and the problem is defining it. It’s like someone who decided that the differences in Christianity sects is that no can define transubstantiation. He’s rather hilariously naive.

    He seems to think conservativism is ‘doing what worked before’ and progressivism is ‘trying new random shit’.

    I’d actually love to talk to him about, for example, health care, or wall street reforms, because, like I said, he’s not stupid, and he thinks the vast majority of Republicans don’t know what they’re doing. Remember, he became politically active during Bush’s term, and decided that Bush was the Republican who didn’t know anything.

    I.e., he think conservative ideals are some principled thing that the Republicans recently betrayed.

    At some point, I fully expect him to have a ‘conversion experience’ also, and realize that his version of ‘conservativism’ isn’t anything like Republicans, ever, under any circumstances. Republicans don’t do ‘old things that works’. Right now, it’s _progressives_ that want to try shit that has been demonstrated to actually work, like in health care, and I’d like to have a chance to talk to him just to point that out.

    Of course, it’s possible he’s gotten stupider, but he’s essentially a very smart kid who bought the conservative ‘truth, justice, and the American way’ lie they peddle about the conservative platonic ideal, and he decided to set out to teach people about it. At some point he’s going to get incredibly frustrated with Republicans who refuse to actually do what he thinks ‘they used to’, but never did, that he’s going to defect somewhere, either to Democrats or Libertarians.

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