Conservatives You Like

This makes it sound like racists are selective in who they are racist against - that they only dislike non-White Democrats. And if you don't think about it too hard, that could make sense. After all, they only hate government spending when it's a Democrat. Or adultery when it's a Democrat. So maybe they're only racist when it's a Democrat too.

Except that racism isn't a logical position. It's not a selective political position (like spending) or a selective/hypocritical morality. It's this insane, illogical, batshit crazy thing. And I can't imagine that racists would suddenly give up being racist just because Jindal is a Republican.

I am so not interested in discussing the intellectual dishonesty of ross douthat.

Fair enough. For what it's worth, I don't think he was being intellectual dishonest. I think he just overestimates the Republican constituency.

willful ignorance in the service of your own bias is a form of intellectual dishonesty, isn't it?

I think this vastly, vastly overestimates the extent to which the attempt to "Otherize" Obama has been about race qua race (and racism qua racism), and vastly underestimates the extent to which it's been about the way Obama's name, ancestry and skin color have dovetailed with other aspects of his background - from his liberation-theology church to the academic-lefty and urban-machine milieu in which he spent much of his early political career - that the GOP would have tried to play up against any Democratic candidate (and especially in a year when the party didn't have much else going for it).

this is how he starts the argument.
nevermind, I posted this to the wrong thread.
this guy sucks.

Did Jindal just hire a publicist or something? Someone was big-upping him on MSNBC on Tuesday afternoon.

I liked Christopher Buckley even before his recent Obama endorsement. He's very funny and seems willing to skewer even his side's sacred cows.

Yeah. In context, his argument is even shittier. I'm gonna try to figure out more things to add to the NRO thread.

Except that racism isn't a logical position. It's not a selective political position (like spending) or a selective/hypocritical morality. It's this insane, illogical, batshit crazy thing. And I can't imagine that racists would suddenly give up being racist just because Jindal is a Republican.

I dunno about this, check out all the quotes on 538, etc. from voters who'll say shit like "we're voting for the n****r." Contemporary racism seems to be broad, not deep.

I believe that they'll vote for a black man despite being racist, but I won't believe that they'll stop being racist for the right non-white person.

In the sense of Jindal being a viable candidate, though, what's the difference?

Or perhaps I'm missing your point, I'm not the soberest of internet intellectuals on this fine night.

i regret my dismissal of buckley upthread, a bit.

Ironically, I haven't found most of the Conservatives who have repudiated the McCain campaign to be the least bit sympathetic. The vast majority of them (esp ones like Noonan, Parker, or Frum) seem like they're jumping on the bandwagon. Only people who are generally iconoclastic - like Sullivan and Hitchens - have really struck me as sincere with their Obama endorsements.

(what's tagalog for "uncle tom" or "tio taco"?)

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Wednesday, June 16, 2004 9:46 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark

Chuck Hagel
The McCain 2000
Mark Pryor

and Dan Lacey.

Only people who are generally iconoclastic - like Sullivan and Hitchens - have really struck me as sincere with their Obama endorsements.

well, Hitchens is not a conservative.

What don't you like about Malkin?

i think that she's nasty, ignorant, and throws off an evil "i've got mine!" vibe -- i.e., i'm the daughter of (nice) immigrants (from a spanish-speaking country), but THOSE immigrants from spanish-speaking countries are wrecking the country. (what's tagalog for "uncle tom" or "tio taco"?) and that's what i could make out -- the rest of her written spiel is illegible ranting.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, June 17, 2004 1:46 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Mmm. I disagree, but I can see where you'er coming from re: her arrogance, sometimes. The "I Got Mine" tag is apt, too, but I don't find her ignorant at all. A lot of what she's saying - and being the daughter of immigrants you have to admit it takes balls for her to say it - is right on.

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Thursday, June 17, 2004 1:49 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^ classic exchange

nyer article about hagel made him out to be the nicest/smartest guy in washington which im not sure if i believe

then again, anyone who cheney hates is a-ok with me

Conservatives I like: Burke, Macaulay, Cardinal Newman, Eliot, Hayek. Sullivan and Douthat are batshit, their most admirable qualities. Douthat's a better David Brooks than David Brooks.

haha lol at this: Hagel has a tradition of wearing costumes to work on Halloween, usually masquerading as colleagues or other notable political figures. He has arrived at work dressed as Joe Biden, John McCain, Colin Powell, and Pat Roberts in past years.[9]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/10/31/will-the-real-joe-biden-please-stand-up/

pics of Hagel as Sarah Palin, plz.

I believe that they'll vote for a black man despite being racist, but I won't believe that they'll stop being racist for the right non-white person.

What does the second statement have to do with the first? People are perfectly capable of voting for minorities while being racist; it ties into the whole "you're not like the rest, you're special" rationalization.

A lot of what she's saying - and being the daughter of immigrants you have to admit it takes balls for her to say it - is right on.

wau

In Canada: Bill Davis and Joe Clark.

In the US: John McCain circa 2000. This most recent incarnation is a desperate, creepy lying dick.

Is David Gergen a conservative? Because I like him.

Gergen is Jodie Foster in The Inside Man.

alfred, if you haven't already read garry wills's "confessions of a conservative" i highly recommend it -- equal parts hilarious stories about working at national review in the '50s (wills was unnerved by the fact that everyone there talked like WFB) and interesting musings about what it means to be so old-school conservative you find yourself disagreeing with virtually everything in the modern GOP platform.

pat buchanan is right about american foreign policy, but regarding everything else he can go eat a dick.

http://www.amconmag.com/article/2008/sep/22/00006/

^^^ this is pretty much otm, too.

isn't buchanan a staunch apologist for the vietnam war?

current american foreign policy, i mean...

Nancy Pfotenhauer <3

thanks for the recommendation, J.D.

Except that racism isn't a logical position. It's not a selective political position (like spending) or a selective/hypocritical morality. It's this insane, illogical, batshit crazy thing. And I can't imagine that racists would suddenly give up being racist just because Jindal is a Republican.

this is an interesting topic and probably deserves its own thread, but i actually sorta disagree with this. Douthat makes the (in my mind accurate) point that many republicans are eager to somehow prove that they arent racists. (contrary to douthat, i think it probably stops there). However, I think that a candidate like jindal would get suppot from the more insidious forms of racism within the USA, the kind that tends to deny racism on a personal level while ignoring more ingrained institutional racial problems. in that sense, a candidate like jindal would get support for the same reason people say "some of my friends are black!"

NBA analyst and former player Greg Anthony

shockah! turn in yr soul patch, soldier

they've all been downhill since edmund burke

I like the more intellectual ones, because all of the "conservatives" I don't like also don't read very much.

i recently discovered (via facebook) that a former coworker is...if not a conservative, a libertarian, or something equally inane. his political opinions are naive and bizarre, but I still really like him, he was funnier than shit and never talked about this stuff in the office.

He's the only conservative you know?

Well, AKM *does* live in SF.

i enjoy reading ross douthat, and was pretty happy w/ the times replacing kristol w/ him. will result in columns x10000 times better and actually worth reading.

same goes for douthat's buddy reihan salam. i like him, too. andrew sullivan's good but i hardly think of him as a conservative in many ways. i enjoy reading david brooks, david frum, too.

i like emund burke, ts eliot and heidegger

I like my parents and most of my family.

he is the only conservative I know that I like.

Vincent Gallo, Ted Nugent and my immediate family...

Alice Cooper, too...

The amount of intellectual dishonesty among public conservatives is simply breathtaking. Almost all the people who are presented as conservatives in the public media confine themselves to finding arguments that bolster their foregone conclusions.

For all these folks it is ideology that tells them what is true and facts are things which must be made to conform to and serve their ideology, in precisely the same way that medieval scholastics took the Bible and catholic doctrine as their unquestioned starting point and constructed the whole world around these. Whatever did not conform was argued away, based on doctrinal arguments that could not be supported apart from divine revelation.

At least the batshit libertarians try to think for themselves.

OK this was 4 years ago, but how did no one condemn Andy (still posts here, right?) for naming FRANCISCO FRANCO? I suppose he was the least of 3 evils when compared to his pals Mussolini and Hitler, but LIKEABLE? "Benevolent"?