R.I.P. GOP establishment

[Guest StuCotts]

Is there anything in politics more obsolete than the Rep so-called establishment? The mainstream media don't think so.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/11/30/2009-11-30_rush_limbaugh_voted_.html

[Guest Conway]

Is there anything in politics more obsolete than the Rep so-called establishment? The mainstream media don't think so.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/11/30/2009-11-30_rush_limbaugh_voted.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/11/17_glenn_beck_is_scarier_than_rush_limbaugh_sean_hannity_says_antidefamation_league.html

FYI, your links don't work.

[Guest StuCotts]

FYI, your links don't work.

Remaining one does.

[TampaYankee]

Is there anything in politics more obsolete than the Rep so-called establishment? The mainstream media don't think so.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/11/30/2009-11-30_rush_limbaugh_voted_.html

Good news IMO. Anything that narrows the base of the GOP will hasten it's demise and eventual rebrith as a genuine American Political Party that has diverse perspectives and offers diverse views and policies. By definition, orthodoxy cannot coexist with democratic thought and practice.

For me as a former conservative voter, this guy fairly captures about 50% of what I find objectionable to the modern day conservtive/GOP establishment. (The other 50% has to do with the financial raping of America during the Bush years abetted by the GOP controlled Congress along with extreme incompetence in foreign policy, war management, and disaster relief.) Never heard of this guy before this article although he seems to be well known in conservative blog circles. Here is the link to the HuffPost article that gives some introduction to this guy for those who may not know of him.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/01/little-green-footballs-ch_n_375357.html

Here is is column (reprinted below) that has attracted so much attention in the right wing blogosphere. Scroll down to Nov 30 column.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/

Why I Parted Ways With The Right

Opinion | Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 6:49:45 pm PST

1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.)

2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)

3. Support for throwing women back into the Dark Ages, and general religious fanaticism (see: Operation Rescue, anti-abortion groups, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, the entire religious right, etc.)

4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.)

5. Support for homophobic bigotry (see: Sarah Palin, Dobson, the entire religious right, etc.)

6. Support for anti-government lunacy (see: tea parties, militias, Fox News, Glenn Beck, etc.)

7. Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech (see: Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Birthers, creationists, climate deniers, etc.)

8. A right-wing blogosphere that is almost universally dominated by raging hate speech (see: Hot Air, Free Republic, Ace of Spades, etc.)

9. Anti-Islamic bigotry that goes far beyond simply criticizing radical Islam, into support for fascism, violence, and genocide (see: Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, etc.)

10. Hatred for President Obama that goes far beyond simply criticizing his policies, into racism, hate speech, and bizarre conspiracy theories (see: witch doctor pictures, tea parties, Birthers, Michelle Malkin, Fox News, World Net Daily, Newsmax, and every other right wing source)

And much, much more. The American right wing has gone off the rails, into the bushes, and off the cliff.

I won’t be going over the cliff with them.

[TampaYankee]

Andrew Sullivan: I'm Breaking From The Right

And now Andrew Sullivan speaks his mind. While not exactly a card carrying American Right Wing Conservative he has a long-term conservative bent but far from a rigid ideologue. Nevertheless, he is not to be dismissed as any liberal or progressive. Thus his comments on the present American Conservative Movement warrant notice.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/12/leaving-the-right.html

01 Dec 2009 12:31 pm

Leaving the Right

It's an odd formulation in some ways as "the right" is not really a single entity. But in so far as it means the dominant mode of discourse among the institutions and blogs and magazines and newspapers and journals that support the GOP, Charles Johnson is absolutely right in my view to get off that wagon for the reasons has has stated. Read his testament. It is full of emotion, but also of honesty.

The relationship of a writer to a party or movement is, of course, open to discussion. I understand the point that Jonah Goldberg makes that politics is not about pure intellectual individualism; it requires understanding power, its organization and the actual choices that real politics demands. You can hold certain principles inviolate and yet also be prepared to back politicians or administrations that violate them because it's better than the actual alternatives at hand. I also understand the emotional need to have a default party position, other things being equal. But there has to come a point at which a movement or party so abandons core principles or degenerates into such a rhetorical septic system that you have to take a stand. It seems to me that now is a critical time for more people whose principles lie broadly on the center-right to do so - against the conservative degeneracy in front of us. Those who have taken such a stand - to one degree or other - demand respect. And this blog, while maintaining its resistance to cliquishness, has been glad to link to writers as varied as Bruce Bartlett or David Frum or David Brooks or Steve Chapman or Kathleen Parker or Conor Friedersdorf or Jim Manzi or Jeffrey Hart or Daniel Larison who have broken ranks in some way or other.

I can't claim the same courage as these folks because I've always been fickle in partisan terms. To have supported Reagan and Bush and Clinton and Dole and Bush and Kerry and Obama suggests I never had a party to quit. I think that may be because I wasn't born here. I have no deep loyalty to either American party in my bones or family or background, and admire presidents from both parties. My partisanship remains solely British - I'm a loyal Tory. But my attachment to the Anglo-American conservative political tradition, as I understand it, is real and deep and the result of sincere reflection on the world as I see it. And I want that tradition to survive because I believe it is a vital complement to liberalism in sustaining the genius and wonder of the modern West.

For these reasons, I found it intolerable after 2003 to support the movement that goes by the name "conservative" in America. I still do, even though I am much more of a limited government type than almost any Democrat and cannot bring myself to call myself a liberal (because I'm not). My reasons were not dissimilar to Charles Johnson, who, like me, was horrified by 9/11, loathes Jihadism, and wants to defeat it as effectively as possible. And his little manifesto prompts me to write my own (the full version is in "The Conservative Soul"). Here goes:

I cannot support a movement that claims to believe in limited government but backed an unlimited domestic and foreign policy presidency that assumed illegal, extra-constitutional dictatorial powers until forced by the system to return to the rule of law.

I cannot support a movement that exploded spending and borrowing and blames its successor for the debt.

I cannot support a movement that so abandoned government's minimal and vital role to police markets and address natural disasters that it gave us Katrina and the financial meltdown of 2008.

I cannot support a movement that holds torture as a core value.

I cannot support a movement that holds that purely religious doctrine should govern civil political decisions and that uses the sacredness of religious faith for the pursuit of worldly power.

I cannot support a movement that is deeply homophobic, cynically deploys fear of homosexuals to win votes, and gives off such a racist vibe that its share of the minority vote remains pitiful.

I cannot support a movement which has no real respect for the institutions of government and is prepared to use any tactic and any means to fight political warfare rather than conduct a political conversation.

I cannot support a movement that sees permanent war as compatible with liberal democratic norms and limited government.

I cannot support a movement that criminalizes private behavior in the war on drugs.

I cannot support a movement that would back a vice-presidential candidate manifestly unqualified and duplicitous because of identity politics and electoral cynicism.

I cannot support a movement that regards gay people as threats to their own families.

I cannot support a movement that does not accept evolution as a fact.

I cannot support a movement that sees climate change as a hoax and offers domestic oil exploration as the core plank of an energy policy.

I cannot support a movement that refuses ever to raise taxes, while proposing no meaningful reductions in government spending.

I cannot support a movement that refuses to distance itself from a demagogue like Rush Limbaugh or a nutjob like Glenn Beck.

I cannot support a movement that believes that the United States should be the sole global power, should sustain a permanent war machine to police the entire planet, and sees violence as the core tool for international relations.

Does this make me a "radical leftist" as Michelle Malkin would say? Emphatically not. But it sure disqualifies me from the current American right.

To paraphrase Reagan, I didn't leave the conservative movement. It left me.

And increasingly, I'm not alone.

[TampaYankee]

Good news IMO. Anything that narrows the base of the GOP will hasten it's demise and eventual rebrith as a genuine American Political Party that has diverse perspectives and offers diverse views and policies. By definition, orthodoxy cannot coexist with democratic thought and practice....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/01/little-green-footballs-ch_n_375357.html

Here is is column (reprinted below) that has attracted so much attention in the right wing blogosphere. Scroll down to Nov 30 column.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/

Why I Parted Ways With The Right

Opinion | Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 6:49:45 pm PST

1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.) ...

Here is what happens to principled Conservatives that break ranks with the conservative right wingnut agenda.

Charles Johnson Got Threats After Breaking With Right, Relocated

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/08/charles-johnson-got-threa_n_416145.html

Prominent blogger Charles Johnson announced last month on his blog, Little Green Footballs, that he had "parted ways with the right." He gave a list of reasons, including "support for fascists ... support for bigotry ... hatred, and white supremacism ... support for anti-science bad craziness" and "support for conspiracy theories and hate speech.

Some conservative readers were apparently not pleased with Johnson's critique. In a profile of Johnson, the LA Times reports that the blogger moved into a gated community partly due to violent right-wing threats.

As I talked to Johnson in his office, an alert flashed on one of his two giant computer monitors. An angry screed targeting him on another website concluded: "I think a visit to Mr. Johnson's home might be warranted. Anybody got his address?"

Such veiled threats are at least one reason why Johnson, 56, relocated not long ago. He remains in the Los Angeles area, but now is in a gated community.