Some days, I really think he is trolling us:
I think it’s fairer to say it was about both. I do believe that the reaction to the end of the cold war was a classic moment in conservatism’s divide. I was relieved we no longer had to fight a global war, with all the draining of resources and fraught spasms of McCarthyism and far leftism it created. Others – mainly neocons – were desperate to fight another war. They picked China first, but then Jihadism took its place. There is a conservatism of nonviolence and a conservatism of violence. There is the covert ideology of Strauss or the overt anti-ideology of Oakeshott.
Serenity now.
What does this even mean? What was the far leftism created by the fall of the Berlin wall? Clinton? Did I miss something between 1989 and now? I need a drink.
*** Update ***
Apparently I misread, and he is asserting that the cold war caused far leftism. Which is probably most certainly a shock to Eugene Debs, Meyer London, and Victor Berger, but fuck it, he’s on a roll. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
ed
Others. Huh. I forget, what was Sully’s position on the Iraq Invasion? It couldn’t possibly have been consistent with those violent Conservative Others, right?
Bob
It’s about Catholicism, probably.
SFAW
Damn, my browser must be hosed, because I STILL don’t see Sully in “Blogs We Monitor And Mock As Needed”.
Because there’s NO FUCKING WAY that Cole would start YET ANOTHER Sully thread without first putting him into that classification.
Right?
horatius
There was this movie made about an autistic lady professor who used to have a little contraption in her room that hugged her when she began to hyperventilate.
The reflexive blaming of liberals is Sully’s contraption. It makes him feel like he’s not a complete dumbass, who cannot see the failure of his failed ideology when it’s slapping him in the face.
Martin
Ok, I think I’m convinced now.
Cole is really Sully. Sully trolls Cole over at the paid gig, and then Cole trolls us over at the free one, creating a perfect vortex.
CJ
Unserious hippies and their free love maybe?
The Claw
I don’t even…
Right, Sully. There is a magic rational conservatism. It just has no funders and no feet on the ground.
Other that that, it’s unstoppable.
Andre
You guys are terrible at this “never reading Sullivan ever again” thing.
He’s obviously speaking about how higher-than-Dubya taxes are exactly the same as the War on Terra (TM).
soonergrunt
That’s why I stopped reading the guy. You can only get whiplash so many times before it just hurts too much, and you start getting pre-emptive neck-strain as you tighten up just waiting for the hit.
Hawes
In other news, I think I have hit on Glenn Beck’s next meme whenever he gets his spot at the Corner.
http://zombieland-nowbrainfree.blogspot.com/2011/05/bin-laden-went-galt.html
Basically, bin Laden went Galt.
Or DID HE?
hilts
OT
It’s official. Frank Luntz focus group declares Herman Cain the winner of tonight’s Republican presidential debate in a landslide.
Cacti
When has conservatism ever practiced non-violence?
Just Some Fuckhead
Any upshot from Oakeshott is stripped by the stress on Strauss.
Corner Stone
AAAARRRGGGHHH!!
Me brain! it justy gots broke, broke.
Omnes Omnibus
There is a conservatism of greed. There is a conservatism of rapacity. This is kind of fun. Thanks, Sully.
freelancer
But where does Burke stand on this? And when’s Sully gonna channel him to let us know?
MikeJ
@Cacti: It depends on how highly thought of the practitioner is. Republicans will happily tell you that MLK was conservative.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Cacti: There have probably been moments after massive brutality and with a population shaking with fear that they’ve been able to be peaceful for a while. Til they have to start teaching lessons again.
@Omnes Omnibus: Basically conservatism is a huge bundle of deadly sins. Celebrated by good Christians like him.
megamahan
I took his statement to mean that “far leftism” was created by the Cold War itself, not the end of it.
arguingwithsignposts
@SFAW: This.
Clear trollery of the highest order – almost Brooksian in its majesty.
SFAW
Nowhere – he’s dead, Jim.
Andre
On the one hand, we have people who do too much of one thing, and on the other, we have people who do too little. Happily, I am above the fray, being wise, and occupy the serene middle. Everyone else is thus wrong because they do not agree with me and my arbitrarily defined positions.
opal
@hilts:
The what now?
Barb (formerly Gex)
@arguingwithsignposts: Only Sullivan could consistently pledge fealty to a non-ideology so…ideologically.
That excerpt read like word vomit to me. I’m not sure it even means anything.
joeyess
At this point the only thing to do is mock the man. So…….. I think this is what he’s talking about:
Cry Havoc and Let Slip The Cats of War.
sturunner
Dana Milbank took a month off from Palin, prehaps . . . .
Nemo_N
Michael Moore, Paul Krugman, maybe even Al Gore.
Omnes Omnibus
@Barb (formerly Gex): You had to bring his weight gain into it, didn’t you?
David Moyes
Instead of grabbing a drink, just maybe learn to read. He talks of the far leftism created by the cold war, not by its demise. Are you a freshman?
I really don’t get the creepy Sullivan obsession. By all means disagree with the guy, but this is just getting weird.
Suffern ACE
O.K. I am going to do something that is going to make me ill. As someone who writes poorly myself, I can understand what Sullivan is writing about.
That which spawned both McCarthyism and far leftism was the cold war, not the end of the cold war. When the cold war ended, far leftism collapsed, but McCarthyism did not.
That is all. The rest of that crap about the two “conservatisms” locked in a deep dynamic struggle of violence versus non-violence is shear crapitude that is also a relic of the cold war and a response to the far leftist dominance of academic discourse in Europe at which time it became necessary to put the history of all ideas into a framework of the dialectic struggle between two antithetical camps (it looks marxy/hegely). However without the necessary grounding of that struggle within social classes, the conservatives could pretend to understand Marx without dealing with inequality.
In other words, dreck.
WereBear (itouch)
What, Sullivan again? I’ve never read him, because he’s flat out annoying and borderline stupid and I remember one of his Bill Mahr appearances where he spent the whole of the closing credits massaging his own behind.
Quit chasing the Sensible Conservative. It’s a mythical creature.
And I remember now; I wanted to vent about the mobile site. It had white on white links and I couldn’t edit and it finally got a Reply button but I had to sacrifice a chicken each time. So I gave up and kept asking to be treated like a desktop and it told me many times about Open DNS. It finally agreed and now I know I can never ever go back but it made me that annoyed that I went all Little Mermaid on it and I hope you’re happy Johm Cole!
fasteddie9318
Why stop at two conservatisms? There’s also the conservatism that dances the tango with Billy Dee Williams every other Thursday night at the club. There’s also the conservatism that eats caramel bon-bons and pisses into champagne flutes. There’s also the conservatism that reads 19th century French poetry when it’s not smoking a mean brisket or working on its short game. There’s also the conservatism that enjoys hot air balloon rides when it’s not skull-fucking kangaroos. And so on. Any of what I’ve just written makes as much goddamn sense as anything Sullivan manages to spew out.
Andre
@joeyess:
That link is my new favourite thing this week.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Omnes Omnibus: Funny, I didn’t even know he’d been gaining weight. But I’m not at all surprised. I think the only one he shows any disapproval for is envy. And that’s only because he thinks starving peasants looking at the lord in the castle don’t deserve to not be starving, so it must be envy.
RossInDetroit
Well, there was Conservatism that wanted to gin up international conflicts as an excuse to enrich defense contractors from the public coffers. Other Conservatives wanted to just hand them the money on principal and cut out all that inefficient war stuff.
Is it clear now?
opal
@opal:
Nevermind. I’m watching Hannity interview Santorum on FOX.
fasteddie9318
Also too, does Sullivan not understand that the reason he has to substitute the generic “far leftism” instead of an actual specific movement in his attempt to balance McCarthyism is that there was no fucking far left counterpart to McCarthyism?
Davis X. Machina
You can laugh at the man — in fact, the categorical imperative may require it — but there’s a lot to be said for the idea that there at least ought to be ‘a conservatism of non-violence’.
There’s nothing ‘conservative’ about your state maintaining, never mind using, the necessary apparatus for permanent war.
It’s expensive to maintain — and you should be fighting the expenditure. It’s corrosive to the established legal order. It’s conducive to rapid, and massive, changes in society, which both should be something you’re trying to prevent.
It makes emperors of corporals. It makes emperors of failed art students. Jumped-up manufactures of blankets and bullets elbow their way into your landed aristocracy, and marry your titled daughters.
Anyone who looks at Napoleon, and thinks ‘conservative’, isn’t thinking very hard.
Valdivia
totally ot and banal but any thoughts on the fact that Carla Bruni is Teh Pregnant?
fasteddie9318
@opal: I hope Hannity washes his hands afterwards.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@fasteddie9318: Good catch. The far right class has been instantiated. The far left class has not. Too bad we don’t have error handling for Sully.
@Davis X. Machina: How do you keep stopping others from doing making changes? Conservatism requires force. But usually violence is required to keep people down. I’m not sure a non-violent conservatism is possible.
Suffern ACE
@RossInDetroit: Where’s my peace dividend? “Clinton isn’t taking the Chinese control of the Panama canal seriously enough!” What peace dividend were you expecting Mr. Ace…
I think that’s how it went back then.
soonergrunt
@hilts: Not that there’s anything remotely desperately “see-how-non-racist-we-are” about that.
The Dangerman
WTF? I am apparently two sober to understand that Sullivan content. Roughly many +’s should it take?
That being said, the Soviet Union really did fuck with us without warning; we were completely “happy” having an unending Cold War with that Nation State, but when that State failed, well, shit, that screwed things up royally. So, develop an enemy that doesn’t have that problem of disappearing like a Nation State might and, presto, war without end. Some people got “lucky” 9/11 came along, huh?
Just Some Fuckhead
Sorry, should have elaborated more in my earlier comment. Sullivan thinks there are two kinds of conservatism, the reactionary conservatism of Strauss and the reticent conservatism of Oakeshott. This sets Andrew apart from other mainstream conservative intellectuals like Jonah Goldberg and the Indian Fucker With The High Pitched voice who automatically give our side the Straussian contigent and keep the manly John Wayne reticent conservatism myth for their own side because it’s the “good” conservatism.
Sullivan is trying desperately to justify his own Oakeshottian conservatism as more valid than the predominant Straussian conservatism that so infects the right today. Most sane people, like John Cole for instance, look at the trainwreck that is modern American conservatism and rightly reject any association with all conservatism, period. Andrew, not quite sane, feels he is powerful enough to turn the tide back away from reactionary conservatism to reticent conservatism single-handedly, in perhaps the same way William F. Buckley marginalized the Birchers in the ’60s.
The problem is Sullivan doesn’t have the stature to pull this off, is too infected with his own Straussian impulses and the reactionary movement as a whole has become too drunk on it’s own power to alter now.
So my original point, any upshot from Oakeshott is stripped by the stress on Strauss remains.
Sarah Proud and Tall
@hilts:
I hope Herman has his birth certificate and college transcripts available.
PeakVT
@fasteddie9318: You forgot the conservatism of blowing smoke out of one’s ass.
MikeJ
@Valdivia: Sarkozy found a stepladder.
Keith G
So to Sully, the excesses of the right (i.e. McCarthy)led to excesses on the left. But he does not exemplify.
Maybe someday he will type that out so Cole can tell me.
Suffern ACE
@fasteddie9318: Yes there was. Its just that in the US it was “Hollywood values!” Which sometimes looked a lot like “the way that people who weren’t scared of their shadows” would live.
Valdivia
@MikeJ:
full of win.
I think in this country it would be thought obscene to have a first lady over 40 pregnant. Specially if it were Michelle Obama.
ETA: I don’t think it is, I just assume the uterus brigade would find it too sexual or something.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Valdivia:
not as exciting as the news that harriet miers had a gig as a lobbiest for pakistan, zardari. and the people’s party of pakistan…
9.0 mil a year, lucrative work if you can get it.
joeyess
@Andre: ;^)
hilts
@soonergrunt:
I might consider a vote for Herman Cain if it means unlimited free pizza deliveries for the rest of my life.
The 5 stooges who debated tonight in South Carolina can’t hold a candle to Stephen Colbert.
Valdivia
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:
yes saw that. My first thought is: these guys really are that incompetent they hired this woman?
SFAW
Two conservatisms? I’m still trying to figure out “the two dirts”.
MikeJ
@Valdivia:
Remember the media circus when they got a dog?
Valdivia
@MikeJ:
yes. and the hateful people making a case because the dog was not from a kennel? but a gift from Kennedy? I don’t want to even imagine how they would deal with it.
Given media insanity Carla has been trying to be discrete and not officially announced, but it can’t be hidden anymore. When you’re that slim and your coat totally sticks out in the middle everyone knows your expecting.
Barb (formerly Gex)
So since T-Paw was part of that clown circus tonight, the local news is covering it. They had a political science professor from the U of M on to analyze it. No analysis on what he said. Just meta-analysis on what he wanted to accomplish in terms of positioning himself and setting up his image.
Well, that sure informed the viewers. We’re f’ed.
General Stuck
All I can say is, the higher you rise in the Village, the better the glue. I have no idea what he is talking about, just like I have no idea why John Cole would care. Nor why I am currently writing this comment on this whackadoodle blog.
I know you all are atheists here, but I swear to gawd, there is a puppeteer running the clown show. There can be no random in this perfection of nonsense, spinning around the universe on our mortal coil. Let Sully opine on that, and the violence of stoopid afflicting my tender neurons.
Suffern ACE
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: Wait. Harriet Myers is making 9 million a year to have meetings with reporters and policians? I didn’t think they were so expensive to buy.
Little Boots
would you goobers wander upstairs, por favor?
LittlePig
@Suffern ACE: But even that is codswallop.
“Far Leftism” was (much more) alive and well long before the Cold War was an itch in Vladmir Illych’s pants. Hello, the Wobblies? “Far Leftism” was a lot weaker in the 50’s, its just crazy-ass McCarthyism moved the Overton window to make anybody not kissing McCarthy’s ass a God Damned Red. Like today when anybody that thinks government regulation has a place is a God Damned Socialist.
As usual, Sully falls for the appearance of the thing, and not the thing itself. He praises himself for his objective viewpoint while seeing the world through Sully-colored lenses.
Omnes Omnibus
@General Stuck: Some of us are agnostics, if that helps at all.
Davis X. Machina
@Barb (formerly Gex): You stop revolutionary change. By changing slowly yourself.
Thus Burke.
Viva BrisVegas
There is only one war, the Class War, and such it has ever been.
The Cold War, WWII, WWI all the biggies and the littlies are fights over the ownership and distribution of resources.
The purpose of the Right is to ensure that those that have much get it all, and that those that have little need to be convinced they have too much. Any further discrimination is unnecessary.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Suffern ACE:
well its more so they say good things about her and her clients, its a tougher job than it sounds.
LittlePig
Oh pooh. Moderation.
Anyhow, shorter me: The Wobblies were a lot stronger force before the Cold War began. Sully doesn’t know his history.
SFAW
Better yet, how about you go and sleep it off?
Yeah, I know, that conjunction is coming any day now. I’ll wait by the door for it.
General Stuck
@Omnes Omnibus:
It certainly can’t hurt
Suffern ACE
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: True. I guess that’s why the tobacco industry spends so much lobbying as well, whereas fluffy kittens need to spend hardly any money on image management at all.
cleek
really, JC. stop reading him.
he’s not really worth it.
Omnes Omnibus
@General Stuck: I’m not sure about that.
Left Coast Tom
So if we’re all “fifth columnists”, then can I assume Sullivan sees himself as part of the “Conservatism of Violence”? If not, because he supposedly regrets that nonsense, then in what way does he now take the opposite positions that he did then? Does he now regret pushing the Charles Murray idiocy? Where’s the dramatic change?
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Davis X. Machina: Yup. And the sensible Burkeans are always coopted by those who want no change because they want to preserve their power and status. And a good Burkean like Sullivan will always go with them because THE FAR LEFT and all.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suffern ACE: And how much does the fluffy kitten industry gross every year? A couple of cans of tuna and a saucer full of milk? They need lobbyists.
Hawes
The New Left was partly a result of Vietnam which was a direct part of the Cold War. So if we leave off the Civil Rights Movement, Second Wave Feminism, Economic Prosperity and its Discontents, the Demographics of the Baby Boom and the Kennedy Assassination, then… Yes, the Cold War created the New Left.
SFAW
I thought it was because Michael Moore is fat?
Omnes Omnibus
@Barb (formerly Gex): It is true that all progress, nay, all change leads inexorably to the Terror.
patrick II
@Suffern ACE:
I agree with you on this (and disagree with John and just about everyone else on this thread).
The cold war created the McCarthyism (of the 50’s.) The Far Leftism (of the 60’s) was a reaction to “it” — probably McCarthyism since that is the last proper noun before the referencing pronoun, but perhaps the cold war.
I don’t necessarily agree with dialecticism, but the idea he is expressing is not what you are discussing.
schrodinger's cat
@SFAW: Well Sullivan is not a string bean either.
Omnes Omnibus
@Hawes: What about Otis Redding, where does he fit in all this?
SFAW
Understood. But I don’t think his girlish figure was the subject of a wingnut slur.
fhtagn
@schrodinger’s cat:
String beans have fiber, after all.
General Stuck
things are the way they party wise, as the end game for the passage of Civil Rights leg in the 60’s, the ensuing Southern Strategy by the wingnuts and everything shaking out along those lines. It is the broad default position in this country, race,, always has been. The only times things get jumbled up is with a World War, or some other catastrophe that causes the need to cooperate with a semblance of kumbaya. But barring that, we get what we have. The left hasn’t changed, nor the right, it’s just now there are few great outside intervening factors of national emergency. Terrorism did it for a few years after 9-11, but the left, or center left, isn’t getting in that crazy boat as being something to obsess over. That is a simplistic take, as it is more complicated than JUST race, but that is the background energy that powers this country politically. Unless we get hit by a meteorite, or invaded by aliens with ill intent.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: In case you’re running low: ,,,,,,,,,
I’ve nothing really to add, wrt to Sully. Have a nice night folks.
Suffern ACE
@Omnes Omnibus: When you are as clean as kittens, politicians bribe you. Their lack of revenue is a sign of thir honesty.
Just Some Fuckhead
Jesus, it’s no wonder you people ain’t conservatives, yer too freaking stupid to get it. Burke encompasses Oakeshott and Strauss – he is not antithetical to them.
Think of them as the trinity of conservatism. Burke is the Father, Oakeshott is the Son and Strauss is the Holy Spirit. Each of them acts independently of The Others and yet each is still The One True Conservatism. We all aspire to reign with Burke but ultimately we must use Oakeshott as an intermediary position while Strauss guides us, whispering murderous things in our ear.
SFAW
Kinda like Greaser’s Palace, only making less sense?
Anne Laurie
@hilts:
Is the Godfathers pizza any good? I know the mantra is ‘bad pizza is better than no pizza’, but I still won’t eat Dominos/Pizza Hut/Sbarro. Cain’s stuff would have to be at least as good as, say, the California Pizza Kitchen objects before I’d consider selling my vote, secure in the knowledge that Obama would reach 73% for re-election even without my soiled ballot.
Left Coast Tom
@Just Some Fuckhead: Which member of the trinity of conservatism is responsible for the love affair with cross-burners?
I’d assumed it was Strauss, the “conservatism of violence”, therefore my reference to Sullivan’s infatuation with Murray.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Just Some Fuckhead:
so when do they sacrifice the virgin? or transubstantiate the rentboy?
Left Coast Tom
@Anne Laurie: As a Californian, I denounce California Pizza Kitchen. Me ‘n Ed’s, on the other hand, is quite good. There’s no Godfather’s nearby, so I can’t compare with products of the batshit crazy.
4jkb4ia
You know, John, there is a difference between the Old Left and the New Left. And the New Left was born out of disillusionment with the Soviet Union in part. Sully can’t have been that dumb. But I will check and see.
SFAW
Of course, back where you can get real pizza, there’s Ray’s, “Original Ray’s”, “No WE’RE the Real Original Ray’s”, “Nah Youse Guys What Sez You’s Ray’s is Lyin'”. and “Nguyen’s House O’ Pizza”, to name but two.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@SFAW: Sometimes it is because of THE FAT LEFT as well.
Left Coast Tom
@SFAW: I’m actually looking for the paper-thin-crust stuff I had in Rome (Italy, not Georgia). Served with outrageously-priced 8,000 lira ($4) half-liter carafes of wine (outrageous because comparable wine in Firenza was half that price). Yum.
micah616
@Just Some Fuckhead: I get it, and I think you might be brilliant. That may well be the best breakdown on modern conservatism that I’ve ever read.
SFAW
(Golf clap)
SFAW
Left Coast Tom –
What the hell do Italians know about pizza, anyway? I mean, they stole it from the
GreciansGreeksOmnes Omnibus
@Left Coast Tom: I was doing that just about a year ago.
Just Some Fuckhead
@micah616:
*blush*
I used to hang around the men’s washroom at the local country club, back when real conservatives would help each other with the hard parts. I may have picked up a few things.
tomvox1
Yaaargh! Here is the thing: You cannot be a pot smoking, human rights-oriented, logic-based, sexually-free conservative. It rebels against itself because these are all traits of a Liberal. Sullivan cannot be honest with himself and so he cannot be an honest commentator because basically all he is left clutching to his oh-so-overwrought bosom is: “Debt is bad and taxes on the wealthy are bad and that is why I am a Conservative…except I’m a Liberal for everything else that really matters in the world.”
Also, too, this is why Mr. Cole cannot quit Sully because he once was this sort of “Conservative” (give or take) until he woke up one day and saw the lie within himself. The difference between the two men is that Cole accepts that he was lying to himself and believing in bullshit for all those years and has changed his perspective accordingly. Andrew, on the other hand, has such an unnaturally outsized opinion of his intellectual and moral capacities that he may never admit to such profound failure to understand just what being a Conservative in modern day America really means.
That is all.
Ruckus
@Just Some Fuckhead:
It explains the stupid.
It explains the lack of empathy.
This still does not explain the crazy, batshit, moron factor.
Unless conservatives are just batshit crazy morons.
Well there you go then.
goblue72
@Left Coast Tom: You can find plenty of pizza like that in the Bay Area. Its chock a block with ultra thin crust artisanal pizza fired out of wood fired ovens. Beretta, Flour+Water, Boot & Shoe Service, Pizzaiolo, Zero Zero, A16, Delfina, and so on. Its kind of running joke that its hard to find a pizzeria in the Bay Area with pepperoni pizza, since pepperoni isn’t an authentic Italian salumi…(but rather an Italian-American invention)
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ruckus:
Oh precious, priceless Ruckus! If you invented a concept like three people being one and yet being all three at the same time, who else could believe it but crazy people?
tomvox1
Wait…I thought the Cold War caused far McCarthyism. Sully is engaged in some high Roveism here, to be sure. Vietnam, bombing Cambodia & Watergate caused “high Leftism”…whatever the fuck that means (a reasonable understanding that the government and military/industrial complex is trying to undermine American democracy maybe?).
In any event, by Iran/Contra, far Leftism was too pooped to pucker.
handy
I miss me some Me ‘n Ed’s. Haven’t had that since I went away to college.
4jkb4ia
@Just Some Fuckhead:
That’s beautiful. But what I was going to say is–
Despite my knowing nothing about Oakeshott, I could see Sully’s point just from reading The Weekly Standard and National Review off and on in the 1990s. The writers for both relished the use of military images and metaphors even if there was no war on the horizon to fight. But just because modern American conservatism as a movement was held together by the determination to fight Communism or whatever monster Bill Kristol could adopt, when TNC calls “The Age Of Innocence” conservative with a small c that has nothing to do with the military, or wars. That has to do with skepticism about remaking social institutions.
The only way you could say Sully was that dumb was that he said something specific on the right–McCarthyism–and didn’t say something specific on the left.
Serenity now :)
Cliff in NH
Bush won’t swat the fly.
what date does Obama SWAT the fly?
Is the fly swatted on the day Obama discovers Osama?
The timeline may fit…..
Grins! =)
Ruckus
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I was/am pretty sure that conservatives are all batshit crazy morons but it’s nice to get theoretical conformation.
Without having to actually having to talk to one or worse, be in the same room. Even though that gives real time conformation.
Comrade Mary
Terrific. Now all I can see is Sully performing his imitation of a zit being popped.
Villago Delenda Est
Sullivan again is in the FAIL mode, because modern “conservatives” aren’t conservative. They hate conservation, they actively seek to upset social stability through wealth redistribution upwards, they foment race divisions to maintain their position, further eroding social stability.
There’s a reason why Bismarck is the guy who introduced old age pensions and a social safety net in Germany. He was coopting the social democrats’ talking points in order to conserve (there’s that word again) the existing social order. Otherwise, he knew, the Junkers would be made exinct.
Well, Hitler took care of that for him by losing a war in a major way. There are no more Junkers. They’re gone.
Modern “conservatives” work against their own label’s root all the time. Splurge on war (wars create social change by their very nature…a reason to avoid them, if you’re actually a conservative), give the masses reasons to revolt: just look at the teahadists who are all for upsetting the applecart and don’t give a rat’s ass about the consequences.
That’s not conservative. At all.
Yutsano
@goblue72:
Ironically enough so is pizza. It just got back on the boat with a few Italianos who weren’t making it in the New World. And pepperoncini is now adopted and used in Italia as well now. There’s a lot of flux and sharing like that between America and Italy. Though good luck ordering cioppino in Roma. That was invented in your city.
RadioOne
Current conservative thought is rooted in the culture wars against the hippies in the 60-70’s, and against the Hollywood and musical pop culture world of the 80-90’s. They’ve been sticking popular culture for the demise of America for almost two generations now, and no doubt they’ll stick to that narrative.
On the other hand, the US is a country that has experienced change on an exponential level since it’s founding. I don’t see any historical reason why the conservatives will win this fight.
RossInDetroit
The “Conservative” label is a sick joke. Name one thing the GOP has conserved in the last generation besides their own power. I want the Dems to take the term back and return its original meaning. The Democratic party is the one doing the most to conserve this country and they shouldn’t let the reckless, spendthrift opposition own the term for what they’re doing.
goblue72
@Yutsano: I’m not sure where you get your facts (or lack thereof), but pizza is a Neapolitan tradition dating back centuries. The city’s oldest pizzeria dates to the early 1700s. Pizza didn’t appear in much later (19th century).
Now I will grant, that the Greeks claim they invented it even earlier.
patroclus
There’s also the conservatism of lying; the conservatism of smearing; the conservatism of whacking Social Security; the conservatism of union-busting; the conservatism of destroying Medicare; the conservatism of warmongering; the conservatism of baldfaced WMD whoppers; the conservatism of invading the wrong country; the conservatism of unregulated credit derivatives and credit default swaps and the conservatism of Enron-style accounting; the conservatism of teacher-bashing; the conservatism of climate change denying; the conservatism of immigrant-bashing, gay bashing, women’s rights restricting; the conservatism of torture and the conservatism of Katrina-ignoring.
piratedan
in the immortal words of Andrew Dice Clay… “fuck this guy”, he is intellectually bankrupt, morally and ethically inept. So he can string a phrase or a sentence that sings once in a while, I have a cat that rubs my ankles when its hungry. The cat deserves more attention and is less intentionally dishonest.
Yutsano
@goblue72: Teh Wiki says you’re right. I could be just cornfuzzled as to how the sharing happened, as pizza became quite a different animal on these shores. And the Greeks could have a case for at least producing an ancestor of pizza, though proving that would be rather difficult.
SFAW
Or the Chinese, for that matter. (I.e. making a case, not being produced by the Greeks.)
After all, moo shi (or moo shu, depending on if you’re from Sichuan or New Jersey) is Chinese for “Smaller version of something that looks like the Italians will claim to invent it”. I just don’t know if it’s Mandarin/Putonghua or Cantonese/Guangdonghua or perhaps Shanghainese.
jomo
Jeez. That was a blink and you miss it tangent of a cut at the left. I wouldn’t have even noticed it without this post. Yes he has a reflexive, cultural need to proclaim that he is not a total leftist – so what? But he remains interesting, maddening, and engaging.
BDR
Sully’s right that there are two kinds of conservatism.
There is a conservatism of selfishness, a conservatism that withdraws from society like a greedy sniveling Gollum, stealing what it can and lashing out like an animal against anyone who might come steal the prreeeecccciioouss.
And then, completely different, there is a conservatism of pushiness, a conservatism that forces itself upon the world, trampling on other people’s wishes, pissing on their religion, ignoring their right to self-government, killing their kids indiscriminately with bombs — just generally cramming a boot up the world’s ass, Toby Keith-style.
I’m not sure which one is supposed to be the “good” kind, though.
ornery curmudgeon
And every damn day Sully fails to close the circle and justify becoming a Conservative again … but there are a thousand tomorrows, huh Cole?
It is a pathetic thing to watch though. Hey Cole want a topic? How about the state of liberal/progressive radio in America, or how propaganda works?
jonas
I don’t get what JC’s dander is up about this time. Sully basically seems to be saying that the neocons’ obsession with communism and now jihadism has less to do with the actual threat those things posed and more to do with using them as a bogeyman to demonize liberalism. Which is exactly right. Now whether or not there has ever been a significant conservatism in a America since WWII that did _not_ do this is another question. But Sully’s basic point stands, I think.
moron
John– It’s time to admit you have a problem.
Emma
General: I consider myself an agnostic, but all I can say to this:
I know you all are atheists here, but I swear to gawd, there is a puppeteer running the clown show. There can be no random in this perfection of nonsense, spinning around the universe on our mortal coil.
is AMEN, brother! Preach it!
Emma
Left Coast Tom: After I had pizza in Italy (Firenza and Cortona) I won’t touch the American stuff. Lord, that stuff was good!
BTD
Continue. Well done.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
There was never more than a miniscule “far left” during the Cold War period, and most of them were killed by the police and FBI. As for what the rest of the paragraph means, not a clue, but there’s enough phony profundity to make it a keeper in the Museum of Pablum.
BC
Shorter Sully: Conservatives just use whatever hammer handy to bash liberalism because they can’t win on the merits.
oliver's Neck
Not that anyone necessarily cares; but Sully’s reading of Oakeshott (admittedly a standard one) as “conservative” 1.) abuses Oakeshott 2.) conflates the modern U.S. definition of “conservative” with a word that is spelled the same but means something completely different 3.) and is completely crap.
I give it a 1, but the only reson is beacuase the voices where pretty good.
invisible_hand
i think sully is referring to the advent of the New Left in the sixties, which is (at least according to neo-con self-conception, e.g. podhoretz) the point when the neo-cons broke with liberalism.
but his larger point is completely correct: the right has used their militarism to fight against the left within america, utilizing an eliminationist discourse that allows for there to be only one real kind of American {tm}
Cerberus
Hey now, let’s be fair.
There isn’t just two conservatisms, there is an infinite spectrum of conservatism, encapsulating every flavor and combination of conservatism.
And each one is terrible, horrifying, evil, or otherwise inhumane.
But uniquely so.
Perhaps this one erases the humanity of women. Maybe this one really misses slavery. Maybe this one just wants Kings back because they think they will be Dukes.
Whatever the flavor, there is always something to hate. So let’s explore the infinite spectrum of conservatism.
There may even be an anti-violence conservatism deep in the well of suck, of course it’s probably offset in heavy defense of rape or maybe just exploitation of emotional abuse, but it may be out there.
Anything is possible in the Conservatism Zone.
Cerberus
@General Stuck:
Basic summary, as best I can figure:
The media has passed the Wingnut Event Horizon.
In their effort to fluff “conservative icons” to protect the “objectivity” that can only be achieved through avoiding accusations of liberal bias, they have lost grip on all sense and devolved into speaking entirely in different flavors of buzzwords and bullshit.
In another 10 years, the headlines of the NYT will simply read “9/11 Young Bucks T-bone steaks Entitlement Program”.
SoINeedAName
Say, John … have you ever looked into “Obsessive Disorders”?
Give it a rest!