13 thoughts on “I Heard It On The NARN”

  2. Hardline conservative and nationalist parties in many countries often maintain or intensify their commitment to catastrophic policies, even as those policies lose majority support. For the constituents of such parties, criticism from opponents tends to be irrelevant: they believe their cosmopolitan, effeminate, ethnically/sexually/religiously/ideologically deviant adversaries have always been united in a conspiracy against them.

  4. Fresh attacks from the out-group tend to merely confirm their pre-existing insular biases, and the fact that the out-group appears to be growing often inspires them to visions of Spenglerian decline rather than prompting them to ask whether there might be a good reason why they’re turning people off.

  5. Yeah, more Emery blather. He never did supply specifics when he claimed that the GOP was ‘lashing out’ at women, minorities, etc.

  6. Oh, and Emery doesn’t seem to know what ‘nationalism’ means.
    In the Olden Days, commies used to accuse whoever opposed them of the same thing Emery accuses ‘conservative and nationalist’ parties of doing. Am I accusing Emery of being a commie?
    Certainly not!

  7. The Republican party coalition of Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan has reached the end of its road. It needs to split, leaving the wacky social conservative wing by the wayside.

    Perhaps a realignment that allows moderate Republicans to find common ground with moderate Democrats would allow the country to move forward.

  8. It’s actually pretty simple. I am a conservative, specifically a fiscal conservative. But I don’t believe that the Republicans in government are fiscal conservatives. Certainly I see no sign of them being so in their behavior.

    On social issues, I would say I’m personally conservative, but tolerant of those with other approaches to life. I may think that they are wrong in many cases, but I don’t think that that makes them evil. Which again leaves me outside the current Republican mainstream.

    Now if you think that what the Republicans are today is conservative, I can see why you don’t think I am one. But that says that we have different definitions of conservative.

  10. Emery,

    Since I have no idea who you are, and know only the rather schizophrenic face you’ve presented here in writing, I’ll reserve judgment.

    So are you a fiscal conservative? That was one of the memes that some lefties – Mark Gisleson springs to mind – were tossing around a few years ago, when George W. Bush was running up a deficit that was, at the time, unprecedented (and after four years of Obama seems pretty modest). The theory: they, the folks who were pressing for socialism-in-all-but-name, were the “real fiscal conservatives”, because…

    …they favored raising taxes to keep the government’s books in balance. They’d have you believe that if government ate up 95% of GDP, but taxed 95% of GDP to cover it, it was “conservative”.

    Which is a cutesy bit of rhetoric that completely ignores several other key facets of fiscal conservatism, most notably “limit the size and scope of government”.

    So are you really a conservative, Emery? Well, we’ll see – and in any case, it’s no more the subject of this blog or this comment section than is “how disingenuous and dishonest is Dog Gone”.

    That being said, Merry Christmas and thanks for stopping by.

  11. Emery – I’ve long believed a person’s placement on the political spectrum can be determined by her positions on three issues: guns, abortion and taxes; or stated more specifically,

    1. What are the proper regulations for civilian ownership of firearms?
    2. What power should states have to regulate abortion?
    3. How should we pay for government?

    The Framers answered these questions in just 4,500 words but they were inventing an entirely new government from scratch. Can you do as well?
    .

  13. There’s a lot I agree with in this post and in particular, the refusal of self-titled to take responsibility for anything that happens to them ever under any circumstances is a good reason to exile the lot of them and preserve our blessed land for the true Americans that just got here.

    But this post also reminds me of one of the vices partisans share, apocalyptic triumphalism whenever a coin lands on your favorite side.

    The GOP is in bad shape and getting worse but they still beat Democrats three times out five or so. Until the new, innocent center-right party of prophesy arrives (and the yuletide is upon us!) the GOP can get a lot worse and still win enough elections to overturn vetoes and lithiate the senate. Even if Boehner loses the internal fight and the tea-party takes over, a lot of us will still have a hard time voting for Democratic candidates.

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