This post is making the rounds today on the googlewebs, as is evident by the fact there is so much traffic I can only link to the blog and not to that specific post. You're looking for "An open letter to conservatives".
I link to this not because the guy says or thinks anything new, but because he does an absolutely herculean job of cataloging all of the right wing hot-air/hypocrisy/exaggeration/outright lies that have been repeated ad nauseum over the past few years. The bullshit that floods the airwaves, dominates the conversation, and becomes part of what some people believe. The bullshit that those who know better almost never disavow and are quick to rely on to chase their constituents to the polls when they've got nothing else to offer.
That shit might win some elections, and keep some people in power, and make some other execrable fucks a whole lot of scratch, but it is bad for the soul, corrosive, and ultimately a dead-end. Prominent conservative thinkers knew this 50 years ago. William F. Buckley and his cohorts had no problem pushing the John Birch Society nuts and the Communist-in-every-corner paranoiacs into the fringes where they belonged. This, in part, allowed the modern conservative movement to grow, thrive, and, for lack of a better word, be respectable.
It would be nice to tangle with some respectable thinkers. It would make Democrats and others on the political left think harder and work harder and, most important, produce smarter, better considered decisions to benefit all of us.
Obviously this dude is preaching to the choir, but maybe, just maybe, like former Bush speech writer David Frum did a few days ago, other conservatives will sack up and speak up.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
The Litany
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Buckley didn't push The John Birch Society out because he thought that its members were nuts. He pushed them out because he knew they were right. Buckley had "paleo-conservative" credentials in his early years and he was a vocal critic of Eisenhower. But he eventually turned against his friends. He became a supporter of foreign aid, turning over the Panama Canal, a supporter of the United Nations and a friend of the Henry Kissinger. His televison show on PBS was paid for by the U.S. taxpayer and his gusets were usually his socialists friends like John Galbreath
ReplyDeleteHe was the Left's favorite conservative and his goal was to destroy the effectiveness of the Freedom Movement. As one man summed up Buckley in a letter he sent to him: "Your goal is to have us lose in a gentlemanly fashion."
A great book on the subject is "William Buckley: The Establishment's Man" by John Mcmanus-a former admired of Buckley
Buckley's movement's success was contingent upon pushing to the fringe those perceived as nuts regardless whether he agreed or not.
ReplyDeleteThen, as now, conservatives compromise their objectives by letting nuts hog the spotlight.
In any case, thanks for the comment and the book recommendation.