Comments on: The American Enterprise Institute says conservatism isn’t dead but “maybe just brain dead”

By: Cait

Cait — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:54:20 +0000

Just replying to Joe:

In the first line, I talked about the comments, not the post. Although the language used that surrounds the well chosen and clear facts of the case is… very crowd pleasing, can I say, gently?

I hope you get that my point is, it’s complacency against them that will kill the civilisation / saving civilisation project. And you’re just about the antithesis of complacent, obviously.

By: SecularAnimist

SecularAnimist — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:33:47 +0000

What is called ‘conservatism’ in America today is a corporate-sponsored, corporate-scripted, focus-group-tested, teleprompted cult whose purpose is to create a legion of mental-slave Ditto-Heads who will do whatever they are told to do, say whatever they are told to say, and think whatever they are told to think, by paid professional multi-millionaire liars — as long as it is branded ‘conservative’. If Rush Limbaugh says that the moon is made of green cheese, then within 24 hours, every so-called ‘conservative’ in the USA will be obediently saying the moon is made of green cheese. The only real content of the fake, phony pseudo-ideology of modern American ‘conservatism’ is hatred of ‘liberals’ just as the only real content of the pseudo-ideology of mid-1930s German brownshirts was hatred of “Jews”.

By: VA

VA — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:45:56 +0000

When the Republicans got into bed with Christian fundamentalists, conservatism was ruined. Faith was substituted for logic, science, and reason. Conservatives used to stand for defensible ideals, but faith has brought them to irrationality, and now we see Boehner, Bachman, Beck, et al. regularly make inane arguments.

By: JJ

JJ — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:43:05 +0000

Sam Tanenhaus, I think, has nailed it. The problem is that the anti-communists weren’t conservatives, but radicals:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCWO-LSszZI

This was one of the best speeches I’ve heard on modern politics:

http://www.aei.org/event/1550

Remember this from Naiomi Oreske’s talk?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T4UF_Rmlio#t=53m14s

By: Cait

Cait — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:01:00 +0000

The trouble is, reading the post and the intellectual backslapping in the comments, it’s all very well congratulating ourselves on being intellectual liberals, the torch bearers for the long march toward civilisation (etc, etc) but meanwhile, this so called confused right wing has:

-Re-employed backroom asttack dogs to spread not even lies, but uncomfortable truthes from prominent (particularly black) liberals’ pasts in order to paint them as dangerous idealogues today
-In the spirit of the way they absolutely would not let President clinton go, they are standing on Obama for purely ideaological reasons and absolutely will not stop, until (if) he can be declared a lame duck, achieve nothing President
-The Republican politicians seem to (from an outsiders’ view) let the non-party-allied right wingers be the public face of the right wing, thus averting any criticism, so your Becks etc get to snarl, yelp and drool all over their juicy tidbits that they have absolute faith will sit well with a – let’s not forget – large % of the US population, who are unthinking, or stupid, or racist, or have suffered a great deal in unemployment and are ready to just about blame anybody…

Look at how the Dems have ballsed up the health bill, under the relentless barrage of lies and negativity from the right. Come on, guys, do I need to spell out how the US prep for Copenhagen is now looking from over the pond in the UK?

What I’m saying is – don’t be fooled into crowing that we’re cleverer, therefore we win. We don’t. Because at heart we’re not self interested short termist profit obsessed er… not terribly nice people. Everything remains a fight.

[JR: Don't misrepresent my post.]

By: paulm

paulm — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:50:08 +0000

worth a watch…the audience were laughing uncomfortably…

Bill Maher Slams GOP Climate Change Skeptics: They’re “So Stupid They Make Me Question Evolution” (VIDEO)
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ 2009/ 10/ 03/ bill-maher-slams-gop-clim_n_308501.html

By: paulm

paulm — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:21:17 +0000

I should have clarified that as GOPs.

But we are all getting a bit disillusioned with the seemingly lack of pace. I guess there is a bit of panic in the air in some camps. This is probably not a good thing, but it may also not be a bad thing.

By: K Nockels

K Nockels — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 23:30:03 +0000

It appears that the Republicans have degenerated into mass fobeism, they seem to fear everything these days and can’t find any other way to deal with that fear but HATE! The greatest fear that they have I think is money it seems to drive them to hate anything they think means they will not be in control of the money. Fashism,socialism,raceism, feels like McCartheryism to me. Also the worse bunch of losers on the planet, fear of not being in control. Grow-up

By: Brent

Brent — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 21:06:59 +0000

By: Jeff Huggins

Jeff Huggins — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 20:25:04 +0000

Just A Little Itsy-Bitsy Thing

That “single largest defect” passage is amazing, truly amazing.

For some context, a few quotes . . .

“Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem, in my opinion, to characterize our age.” (Albert Einstein)

“… and it has to be concluded that the greatest source of harm to man is man.” (Cicero)

“Some people would rather die than think; and many do.” (Bertrand Russell)

“It is all too evident that our moral thinking simply has not been able to keep pace with the speed of scientific advancement.” (Tenzin Gyatso, The Dalai Lama)

“Health is the first requisite after morality” (Thomas Jefferson)

“The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.” (Albert Einstein)

I think that writer (whoever he was) ought to examine the situation he points out, if he’s able. It sounds like he’s characterizing his matter as being aimless. Is being aimless a small defect, these days? And what if such aimlessness is actually harmful and dangerous? Is aimlessness wise?

I think I’d rather agree with Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, and Thomas Jefferson.

Sigh,

Jeff