Oh, they do jest, don't they?
Jeez, I get that the guy is in, like, Englandia and stuff, but where has he been, really? Look, Brit Van Winkle, for one, the people who consider themselves "conservative" in America are anything but, as far as the traditional definition goes. They are reactionaries, about as far from "conservatism" as one can get.
The modern traditionalists, bravely trying to hold on to a powdered-wig philosophy, like to think they are upholding Burke and Locke, John Stuart Mill, David Hume. Maybe Bill Buckley casting himself as the man bravely standing athwart all the scary civil rights movements of fifty years ago, crying "Stop!". Nice try. This is Hofstadter country, this here.
For one -- and maybe Professor Oxford doesn't realize this -- American conservatives don't read, at least not the founding documents of the traditionalists' proto-views. Hell, plenty of American liberals don't read outside their self-affirming bubbles either. But the current strain of American "conservatism" is really just anti-"liberalism," counter-reformationist swag against what is really just corporatism with a sprig of fake conscience for garnish. All they want is one of the flying monkeys to convincingly walk them through the Two Minutes of Hate on any given day.
It took this guy this long to get embarrassed by the barmy stumping of Ted Nugent, after years of countless cartoon characters making names and careers for themselves talking shit and peddling lies about Democrats too weak-willed to punch back with any real conviction? Sure, Nugent's an asshole on wheels. But A, he's been their asshole for a very long time; and B, he's one of a seemingly endless collection of assholes.
The only thing that makes Nugent stand out a bit is that he plays guitar and speaks perhaps a bit more colorfully than the pecksniffs would prefer. That Nugent trucks in what he thinks is referring to a, um, spade as an entrenching implement merely clarifies what they are all really thinking.
It is a point of more recent observational "liberal" humor to proclaim this or that shithead flyover state -- Texas, Kansas, Florida, etc. -- as the "meth lab of democracy." I'll go you one better -- American democracy itself is a meth lab. Hell, bath salts is more like it, the shit that turns you into a face-eating zombie.
After two or three generations of elitist indoctrination from the Himmelfarb-Kristol high-falutin bullshit factory, and another generation or so of Limbaugh and his infinite homunculi, and an ever-escalating glossary of calumnious nonsense, it's no wonder the electorate is as polarized as it is stupid. Why read Locke when you can just crank up Michael Savage, or vote for some jabbering teatard? Why learn to think for yourself -- or even think at all -- when you can just slap some bumper-sticker horseshit on a meme generator and inflict it on all your Facebook friends?
This sort of thing has been going on for a long damned time, there is simply no excuse for plainting why or when or how it got "like this." It has always been like this, it was just never this quick and easy to spread the virus to so many so quickly.
When did conservatives become prisoners to idiotic vulgarity?
Jeez, I get that the guy is in, like, Englandia and stuff, but where has he been, really? Look, Brit Van Winkle, for one, the people who consider themselves "conservative" in America are anything but, as far as the traditional definition goes. They are reactionaries, about as far from "conservatism" as one can get.
The modern traditionalists, bravely trying to hold on to a powdered-wig philosophy, like to think they are upholding Burke and Locke, John Stuart Mill, David Hume. Maybe Bill Buckley casting himself as the man bravely standing athwart all the scary civil rights movements of fifty years ago, crying "Stop!". Nice try. This is Hofstadter country, this here.
For one -- and maybe Professor Oxford doesn't realize this -- American conservatives don't read, at least not the founding documents of the traditionalists' proto-views. Hell, plenty of American liberals don't read outside their self-affirming bubbles either. But the current strain of American "conservatism" is really just anti-"liberalism," counter-reformationist swag against what is really just corporatism with a sprig of fake conscience for garnish. All they want is one of the flying monkeys to convincingly walk them through the Two Minutes of Hate on any given day.
It took this guy this long to get embarrassed by the barmy stumping of Ted Nugent, after years of countless cartoon characters making names and careers for themselves talking shit and peddling lies about Democrats too weak-willed to punch back with any real conviction? Sure, Nugent's an asshole on wheels. But A, he's been their asshole for a very long time; and B, he's one of a seemingly endless collection of assholes.
The only thing that makes Nugent stand out a bit is that he plays guitar and speaks perhaps a bit more colorfully than the pecksniffs would prefer. That Nugent trucks in what he thinks is referring to a, um, spade as an entrenching implement merely clarifies what they are all really thinking.
It is a point of more recent observational "liberal" humor to proclaim this or that shithead flyover state -- Texas, Kansas, Florida, etc. -- as the "meth lab of democracy." I'll go you one better -- American democracy itself is a meth lab. Hell, bath salts is more like it, the shit that turns you into a face-eating zombie.
After two or three generations of elitist indoctrination from the Himmelfarb-Kristol high-falutin bullshit factory, and another generation or so of Limbaugh and his infinite homunculi, and an ever-escalating glossary of calumnious nonsense, it's no wonder the electorate is as polarized as it is stupid. Why read Locke when you can just crank up Michael Savage, or vote for some jabbering teatard? Why learn to think for yourself -- or even think at all -- when you can just slap some bumper-sticker horseshit on a meme generator and inflict it on all your Facebook friends?
This sort of thing has been going on for a long damned time, there is simply no excuse for plainting why or when or how it got "like this." It has always been like this, it was just never this quick and easy to spread the virus to so many so quickly.
No comments:
Post a Comment