This is Conservatism
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The trolls over at the Free Republic have set their sights on the Obama children and in decidedly bigoted language to boot:
“A typical street whore.” “A bunch of ghetto thugs.” “Ghetto street trash.” “Wonder when she will get her first abortion.”
These are a small selection of some of the racially-charged comments posted to the conservative ‘Free Republic’ blog Thursday, aimed at U.S. President Barack Obama’s 11-year-old daughter Malia after she was photographed wearing a t-shirt with a peace sign on the front.
The thread was accompanied by a photo of Michelle Obama speaking to Malia that featured the caption, “To entertain her daughter, Michelle Obama loves to make monkey sounds.”
[....]
“Could you imagine what world leaders must be thinking seeing this kind of street trash and that we paid for this kind of street ghetto trash to go over there?” wrote one commenter.
“They make me sick …. The whole family… mammy, pappy, the free loadin’ mammy-in-law, the misguided chillin’, and especially ‘lil cuz… This is not the America I want representin’ my peeps,” wrote another.
Granted Free Republic posters are the most troglodytic of the conservative clan, but they do seem to be pretty numerous, and I worry that these sentiments are far more common on the right than we’d like to admit.
Certainly there are conservative leaders out there who stay out of the gutter, and conservatives aren’t the only ones eager to sling the worst kind of mud, politics being the systematic organization of hatreds, etc. (However, if I may engage in a little armchair psychology, liberal hatred is typically expressed as snark and condescension, and libertarians typically combine condescension with conservative vitriol, the proportion of each depending on which side they lean towards more.) Still, if I have to pick which group is most likely to go all genocidal if they were to achieve absolute power, it’s definitely conservatives–the targets probably being every single Muslim on Earth.
In the late 1950s, Murray Rothbard saw that the Right was hellbent on apocalyptic war with communism. Knowing the destruction their foreign policy would wreak, Rothbard could no longer make common cause with these conservatives no matter how much they agreed on economics. For a similar reason, I have to at least partially disagree with my co-contributor George Hawley’s analysis of how anti-interventionists can reach out to talk radio fans.
Perhaps the strategy can sway some of these people, but in many cases, I don’t think we want these people as allies because they are evil. Well, maybe they aren’t evil, but they certainly hold positions which are evil and repugnant. Instead of reaching out to them, they should be socially ostracized like neo-Nazis and Klan members. If there aren’t saner people for us to reach out to, then we’re already doomed.
Filed under: Uncategorized
“Still, if I have to pick which group is most likely to go all genocidal if they were to achieve absolute power, it’s definitely conservatives–the targets probably being every single Muslim on Earth.”
Even excluding the Muslims themselves, who have been waging jihad on the West for 14 centuries? It is the liberals who typically portray Muslims always as victims of oppression but who was oppressing them in the 7th century? Paleos decry the squalid situations Muslims find themselves and should not do so, for it robs Muslims of any sense of agency or blame in human events. Paleos can find other reasons for supporting Muslims but not because they are group beyond reproach. Further, seeing that Muslims have been an inveterate threat to the West, paleos must not forget to include this in our relations with Islam.
This posting is full of many half-wit “truisms,” but I’ll only address three.
Number one: The modern left (Communists, that is) have engaged in so much genocide over the last century it is hard to catalogue (witness the sheer mass of “Black Book of Communism”.) How any sane commentator views the conservative, with roots in Christianity and the free market system, as more likely to commit genocide, well, to put it lightly, makes me question the sanity of the commentator.
Number two: Conservatives are not committing genocide against Muslims, anymore than Americans were committing genocide against German Nazis. War against a fanatical, suicidal enemy with a 7th century mindset and the conviction of his god necessarily entails bloodshed. (War is hell, remember? I realize that facing a nasty reality is difficult for those who spend most of their time conversing amongst a rather sequestered and bizarrely naive blogging community, but read some history, and try to view your ancestors not as stupid, narrow minded warmongers, but as tragically human as yourself.) The vast, vast majority of Iraqis and Afghanis are much happier under the provisional American authorities than the Taliban or Saddam.
Number three: Despite Prof. Rothbard’s fear, Reagan ended the Cold War without ever turning it Hot.
[...] of Lincoln!” ad nauseum doesn’t really help things when pervasive racism seems alive and well on the right wing of the political spectrum. But Republican operatives have evidently decided that [...]
In twenty-five years of college teaching the only undergraduate I’ve ever encountered who spoke seriously about murdering people for political reasons was a self-identified small government conservative. He expressed more than once the desire to take a sniper rifle and shoot the anti-war demonstrators who massed on February 15, 2003 – i.e., during the run-up to the Iraq war. I have heard countless liberal and left-wing students say things that were vapid, muddled, contradictory,hopelessly idealistic, and so on. But, as far as I can tell, most of the openly murderous discourse in American political culture emanates from the far right.
One in 25 years? ONE? Seems like an insignifcant event.
“Number three: Despite Prof. Rothbard’s fear, Reagan ended the Cold War without ever turning it Hot.”
Reagan was a Pragmatist, he didn’t believe that a Nuclear War should be fought or could be won. Which is very different from someone like say Curtis Lemay or many of the Hardliners in the 1980’s who would often accuse Reagan of being an apologist for Gorbachev. And while it is doubtful that any establishment Republican would go as far as Mr. Payne contends. It is also very doubtful that Foreign Policy in Republican circles will return to Brent Scowcroft Realism, or the “humble” Foreign Policy of the 2000 Republican Platform. Largely though it is not the Right that should be worried about on Foreign Policy. It the Wilsonians and Neoconservatives in groups suchas CNAS, who believe in Nation-building, and Pre-emptive Warfare, that will bankrupt this nation.
To be certain there is a greater level of nationlism on the Right. Combine this with an extreme loyalty to a National figure suchas George W. Bush, during the War on Terror, dissent can often be seen as treasonous. But this has been true through out most of American history under both Democratic, and Republican Presidents. Not mention that nationalism could easily to turn the people against any leader regardless of the ideology.
As for the hatred and ugliness of those blogs, well the only thing you can say is: Our conservative, and libertarian philosphies are dedicated to the belief of individual liberty, and there is no place in it for the collectivist taint of Racism, and Bigotry. We are the movement of Taft, Goldwater, Kemp, and yes even Booker T. Washington, none of these men had any patience for racism, and we won’t either!
http://books.google.com/books?id=1ROi1-O5uxkC&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=Robert+Taft+on+civil+rights&source=bl&ots=A1HazEgozU&sig=1rf8kQ_5hIZC7lMxRW1ufwCLTKQ&hl=en&ei=3l1eSpPbCOCFmQfwy7l6&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5
http://powerblogs.com/pipermail/volokh/2006-March/005837.html
Contemptible conservatives at play…
The little right-wing Marcottes of FreeRepublic are keeping it classy: they’re indulging in disgusting racist attacks against the Obama children. From the Vancouver Sun report: Moderators of the blog left the comments – and commenters – in place until…
Save your sympathy for the whites who will be rounded up and imprisoned under Obama’s new hate crime legislation proposals. Note plural.
Get this John Payne: Black people hate your guts, OK? You are bending over backwards to curry favor with a cohort that would like to see you and your kind exterminated.
Yeah, the comments at Freep *are* conservatism; your faux-con fragging isn’t. I can pick just as many anti-white comments at leftist and black websites, except I wouldn’t cherry pick like that because it’s an immature argument.
You are scoring PC points on the backs of real conservatives. Hatred and ugly? No, your self hatred is ugly. This is America and those Freepers have every right to talk like that about an enemy – enemy – that hates their guts. First amendment.
It isn’t 1964 anymore, sweetie, black on white violence is orders of magnitude worse than it was in the lynchiest of days. Go ahead and be suicidal if you want, but we don’t need a fragger in the tent. It is the age of identity politics and let me tell you your enemy doesn’t share your scruples or love for enemy.
Those men aren’t trolls, they’re men, unlike you Payne, willing to bend over for your enemies to score cheap PC points. Traitor doesn’t begin to cover it.
Let me tell you something: you think Freepers are bad? I have seen the future of American conservatism and it is 4chan. Check it out sometime Payne. Use a proxy
Take a look at the previous comments – it’s all a bunch of “they do it too!” excuse-making. If the Democrats all jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge….
Fair Comment (a contridiction)
Wow…
Kemp and Goldwater would be proud. You know if they were racists who blamed everything on black people, and thought attacking an 11 year-old girl was a good idea. Hell, know wonder Goldwater directly said a couple years before his death to the right wing of his party:”Do not associate my name with anything you do. You are extremists, and you’ve hurt the Republican party much more than the Democrats have.”
You know what he was right, what your spewing isn’t conservatism, but collectivist garbage! You’re what’s killing conseravtism, you’re what’s killing the Republican Party!
Everytime, David Duke ran for public office as a Republican, Reagan, Bush, and most of the party endorsed his opponents. That should be more than just a hint about Republican Party’s tolerance for such bigotry. Take a hint!
“Number three: Despite Prof. Rothbard’s fear, Reagan ended the Cold War without ever turning it Hot.”
No William P, Reagan did nothing but watch it collapse by itself.