There’s a bit of a debate going on over whether not hurling personal insults at people constitutes letting liberals dictate the terms of debate. Having lived in leftie college towns for most of my life, I know what life under the liberal thought police is like; hence I deliberately ran for office as a Republican twice, simply as a reminder that we still live in a free country and that not all Republicans are necessarily the bigoted demons they are depicted as being.
The idea being discussed is a simple one. Telling the truth about Democrats should be part of Republican ideology:
We do not have to lower ourselves to their level. We merely have to tell the truth about who the Democrats are. People who voted for Obama (or any other Democrat) should be ashamed of themselves.
The GOP’s ridiculous defensive flinch reflex — “Oh, no! Somebody said rude things about Democrats!” — is symptomatic of a larger problem: Republicans let liberals dictate the terms of debate.
OK with that? No one should have a problem with the truth, and my initial reaction was that he had a good point. Until I read the truth about who the Democrats are part (in a post titled “The Filthy Rotten Party of Corruption, Treason, Fraud, Sodomy and Abortion”):
Most Republicans are born and raised Republicans, and are spiritually attuned to the sentiments of bourgeois respectability that are core values to the decent, honest people the GOP represents. By contrast, Democrats owe their power to the vilest dregs of humanity — corrupt union goons, Marxist academics, criminals, drug addicts, sexual perverts and race hustlers — who have no respect for the values of decent, honest people.
Correct me if I am wrong, but the argument here is not only that gays and drug addicts are the “vilest dregs of humanity,” but that to not tell this “truth” constitutes letting liberals dictate the terms of debate.
Sorry, but that just plain sucks.
I know I’m repeating myself here, but if the above statement in fact constitutes conservatism, I am not now, and will never be, a conservative.
Of course, as a libertarian I have never laid claim to being a conservative, so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal (indeed, the more repellent on a personal level conservatism becomes, the easier it is to disavow and avoid). However, if conservatism is in fact to be the bigoted ideology some people want it to be, it’s going to be awfully hard for libertarians in the Republican Party to ever get along with conservatives. And even harder to get the hated squishy independents to hold their nose and vote for Republicans.
“Oh, no! Somebody said rude things about Democrats!” is not the way I would frame my objection, for the simple reason that the Republican Party also includes some of the vilest dregs of humanity. Included among these vilest dregs are of course those who consider me and my friends to be the vilest dregs of humanity.
Seriously, it is no exaggeration to say that some of the vilest dregs I have ever met are Republicans.
I’d say “Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em” but that would be trite. It also might be wishful thinking.
Maybe it’s time to admit that we cannot get along.
Comments
17 responses to “Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the vilest of us all?”
Thanks for the links! Well said!
The man who fancies himself another Hunter Thompson is just a plain old bigot. Who knew?
Thanks for stopping by!
I’m a bigot too. That’s why I try to be polite. The Democrats are of course bigots who deny being bigots.
bigot = “obstinate adherent of a creed or opinion.”
Wow… I have never in my life been called the “vilest dregs of humanity” just because I love a man instead of a woman.
What Republicans don’t get is that these dregs – the object of so much government tyranny – are our natural allies.
We have been divided. Can conquered be far off?
John,
“Wow… I have never in my life been called the “vilest dregs of humanity” just because I love a man instead of a woman.”
It has just happened. Or didn’t you notice?
It is not who you love that matters. It is “what are you going to do about it?”
It is not your choice of drugs that matters. It is “what are you going to do about it?”
Are you a “live and let live” guy? Or will you marshal the power of the state against those who don’t live like you?
“Maybe it’s time to admit that we cannot get along.”
Coming around to my view are you?
@ simon…tolerance. Tolerance is the answer. Really. In its original meaning, before the left made it mean “approve”. Tolerance meant “Leave him/her alone if s/he doesn’t harm me. I don’t like it, I don’t approve, but s/he’s done me no harm”. And it worked QUITE nicely for years until the left insisted that you LOVE what you once tolerated (then proved they couldn’t do it either).
Oh, there will always be the Mrs. Grundys – but they aren’t really the problem – they just disapprove of everyone. Tolerance, in the old meaning. You don’t have to like it, but you don’t kill anyone over it either.
I think Larry Niven said something like “there is no cause so noble that it won’t attract fargheads”. No reason that won’t apply to conservatives.
Parody, ridicule and mockery are all acceptable polemical tactics. This isn’t angels dispassionately deciding how many can do a tango on a pin head. We’ve devolved into what Florence King calls the Republic of Nice where not hurting someone’s precious feelings trumps anything.
(and god damn these assholes who think whining that an argument is “mean spirited” is somehow dispositive)
Leftists always claimed that the political was personal. They really mean it. Making a rational, fact-based argument against a leftist is considered a personal attack. They can’t tell the difference, their politics is their existence.
Bunch of crybabies.
Exactly right. There are few good Republicans, but there are no good Democrats. A libertarian party must be right around the corner.
Can one really be fiscally conservative and socially liberal?
Whatever “fiscally conservative and socially liberal” is supposed to mean.
Let’s see…
I want low taxes, and limited government. On the other hand, I don’t give a sweet shit what consenting adults do with their genitals in private. I guess that makes me socially conservative because I don’t want people doing it in the street.
Never mind.
Darleen I see no contradiction between a belief in economic freedom a belief in social freedom. Liberalism of course abhors both. As I have argued many times, their claimed support for social freedom is bogus, as it is not philosophical, but doled out on condition of agreement with identity politics ideology.
Eric
You’re right, their social “liberalism” is entirely quid pro quo. Problem is, they have so made their ‘freedom’ culturally ubiquitous that any attempt to even merely dissent is met with derision and dismissal.
And as far as id politics go … I haven’t read the whole link at McCain’s, but I note in the litany excerpted that every ‘group’ is an ideological group until he says ‘gays’. Now either he meant people who happen to be gay or he’s referring to gay-political ideology (a subset of Leftism — kind of like gender feminism is a wholly own subsidiary of leftism).
by and large, Conservatives don’t give a fig “who you love”, just when one is either using the Government or tearing down Free Speech walls in the name of “tolerance”.
I prefer the Oxford definition of bigot:
Origin: late 16th century (denoting a superstitious religious hypocrite): from French, of unknown origin
Superstitious religious hypocrite. Yes indeed.
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