Right Wing Nut House

The president went before Congress last night with an almost impossible job facing him; 1) calm the public’s fears and anxieties; 2) try and get some GOP cover for his fellow Democrats; and 3) move the ball forward on reform.

First, looking at the speech from the standpoint of political theater and speechcraft, it was as good as he’s ever been. James Fallows:

- Conciliatory: You Republicans want to talk about tort reform? Let’s hear your ideas.
- Tough: When you tell lies, we will call you out.
- Clarifying: For the first time ever, I felt as if I glimpsed a “larger idea” behind the Obama plan.
- Big picture: The role-of-government soliloquy at the end, including the connection to the moral and social-contract histories of Social Security and Medicare.
- Emotional, sans schmaltz: As he got ready for the end, I feared that he would tell the story of all the Lenny Skutnik figures in the First Lady’s box. Instead, he told Ted Kennedy’s story, with allusions only to Kennedy’s Republican friends.
- Simple performance dynamics: Well delivered, including at crucial points talking over the applause to keep the rhythm going.
- Manners: Will it pay off for the Republicans to have booed him and, in the case of Rep. “Gentleman Joe” Wilson of South Carolina, to have yelled “you lie!” at the President? We’ll see.

I would agree with most of that analysis. Obama implanted his vision of government’s role in society in the public mind - something he didn’t dare do during the campaign for obvious reasons. I disagree with that vision, but it has its roots in neo-liberal thought and modern social democratic philosophy. I can see Nicolas Sarkozy nodding his head in agreement through much of it. It is clear he had thought deeply on the subject and it was also clear that his experience as a community organizer informed at least some of his thinking.

I don’t think either Bush (father or son), or Clinton, had such a well developed political philosophy. Got to go back to Reagan to find someone who had given even more thought to the role of government in a free society. Reagan was older so no criticism of Obama is intended by that. Both men used their experience interacting with ordinary Americans to reach their almost opposite beliefs.

(Note: Critics of Reagan tend to forget that he spent nearly two decades on the “rubber chicken” circuit as both a conservative speaker and, more importantly, a spokesman for GE. Morris believes more than anything, this rubbing elbows with ordinary Americans helped change Reagan from an FDR Democrat to a Goldwater conservative.)

I must say, however, that his calls for “civility” and his outreach to Republicans rang a little hollow. I didn’t hear much criticism coming from the White House at the time as Congressional dems savaged Republicans for their opposition. Evidently, the president agreed with all the talk of “angry mobs,” and “racists,” and “fascists.” But going on national TV, he extends his hand in hopes that he can get cooperation from the other side?

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. It is unrealistic for the president to ask the GOP to support him on issues like the public option, or a “trigger” for the public option (if you believe the triggers will be designed to do anything except lead to an eventual public option, I got some swampland in Florida you can buy). Either provision is a deal killer. It would be political suicide in the party not to mention that it violates fundamental principles of conservatism. You wouldn’t expect Democrats to support and entirely free market approach to reform. Neither should the president expect the GOP to support the public option.

Co-ops are a little different story but I don’t think we need worry about them being in any final bill passed by the Democrats. My personal belief is that eventually, most of the co-ops would fail and necessitate a takeover by the Feds thus bringing us single payer insurance by default.

But it is the “If you tell lies, we will call you out” statement that I have the most trouble with.

Regular readers know that I have taken a dim view toward most of the slippery slope arguments advanced by Republicans and the right. But in the history of government entitlements, if anyone can show me where the law of unintended consequences didn’t emerge - and rather quickly - following their enactment, I would be most appreciative.

Obama is saying that if it’s not written into the bill that a public option will lead eventually to a single payer system, then you cannot draw logical conclusions that such would be the case. I totally reject that idea, based not only on the way the system is set up but also because several liberals have made absolutely no bones about the fact that this is exactly what the public option is for. When your opponent admits that your slippery slope argument is true, why would it be a lie?

The same holds true for the few other slippery slope arguments I believe are legitimate. For instance, is it possible for a bill (HR3200) that contains provisions to create 53 new panels, committees, and boards with regulatory or statutory authority over health care in America really, really lead to more “efficient” and “cheaper” health care?

Not in this universe. And the logical result of reducing Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals means one of two things; either those health care entities will stop or reduce the number of Medicare patients they take on or they will reduce services - i.e., “ration” care. If there is another conclusion that can be drawn from that, I am willing to hear it.

Again, there will be nothing in any reform bill that will mandate that behavior by doctors or hospitals, but the results are inescapable - unless you believe that they are stupid and will perform the same work for less money. Would you? Why should they?

But President Obama says that if anyone makes that argument, the White House will “call them out” for their lies. This is unreasonable and bad government to boot. The reason for Congressional hearings on such important matters is to flesh out these slippery slopes and write legislation that minimizes the chance they will be realized or eliminate them entirely.

Of course, we haven’t had any hearings on the most important social legislation in nearly 50 years so why bother now? These bills - including the president’s version - have been written in secrecy, negotiated behind closed doors. How much input have lobbyists had? How much has the opposition contributed? Who is for what? Who is opposed to which?

This is “good government?”

It’s not that there aren’t some good ideas being put forward, as I made clear in my post yesterday on the Baucus bill. But both sides have certain red lines that cannot be crossed, and for either side to insist that it’s their way or the highway on these deal breakers is unreasonable.

Obama might uncouple some Republicans with the co-op option if certain provisions relating to how they must operate are included while also incorporating some kind of tort reform in the final bill. He will lose liberal support, but probably gain a good 12-18 Republicans in the House and 6-8 GOP senators in the bargain. Not impressive, but considering the partisan nature of our politics today, it would be a significant achievement.

I would look very closely at such a bill if it included a more carefully crafted co-op provision, and meaningful tort reform, along with some of the measures in the Baucus bill I outlined previously. There is a need for health care reform - not a crisis by any means and certainly, not because Obama’s nauseating demagoguery from the speech that made passage a matter of life and death. But somebody somewhere has got to get a handle on skyrocketing costs. And I agree with the president that this is the moment for it.

A bill that may help cut the rate of growth in health care spending while doing minimal damage to the private sector, and improving the quality of care is a bill that I and many Republicans who want to see action on this might be inclined to support. But the chances of that happening are just about nil. The gargantuan mess that the Democrats have created of reform will now be bludgeoned to fruition by the president with several provisions that will be included that are bad for health care, bad for the people, and bad for the country.

Senate Finance chairman Max Baucus has labored long, hard - and in secret - to produce an 18 page summary of what Ezra Klein refers to as a “Not that bad health care bill.” The fact that I agree with Klein shouldn’t worry you. The irony is that he sees fault where I see merit and vice versa.

That should make both liberals and conservative heads explode.

In truth, there are reforms being proposed by Baucus that would do some real good as far as reducing health care costs, getting people who don’t have insurance now covered, and some long overdue Medicare reforms that would improve the quality of care.

There are also health insurance co-ops that will be so complex to set up, the chances of failure are great; expanded Medicaid coverage that will cost too much; and fees on insurance companies that don’t make any sense.

As far as mandates, no employer requirement to offer insurance but a “fee” will be assessed if an employee gets his own coverage equal to the premium and the subsidy offered by government. An individual mandate would be triggered in 2013 - everyone must have insurance either individually or through your employer.

I oppose mandates of any kind based on the notion that it is a violation of one’s individual liberty to have the government force anyone to part with their property (money) without their consent to be given to another entity or government itself. Even - or especially - if it is argued that such mandates are for the “good of all,” a government that can order you to buy insurance against your will can, and probably will, make other mischief as well.

Be that as it may, there is a serious attempt in the Baucus outline to address some fundamental problems with the health care industry. And although it doesn’t go near far enough in attempting to get a handle on Medicare costs, nor does it offer many solutions on the supply side of the health care equation, I consider it a good starting point for discussions on reform.

Ezra Klein mentions what he likes about the proposal:

The legislation really would protect millions of Americans from medical bankruptcy. It really would insure tens of millions of people. It really will curb the worst practices of the private insurance industry. It really will expand Medicaid and transform it from a mish-mash of state regulation into a dependable benefit. It really will lay down out-of-pocket caps which are a lot better than anything people have today. It really will help primary care providers, and it really will make hospitals more transparent, and it really will be a step towards paying for quality rather than volume.

Good summary of what’s good about the bill. I would quibble that the Medicaid expansion into a “dependable benefit” is a dubious idea, but Klein sums up most of what’s acceptable in a reform bill - something that those Republicans so inclined may wish to seriously examine.

But back to the irony part of our piece, here’s Klein on what’s wrong with it from his liberal perspective - most of these “problems” being something to cheer about if you’re a conservative:

The main disappointment is that insofar as you see the bill as a vehicle for moving us towards a better, more efficient, less costly system, there are some problems. In particular, this bill seems to block off a lot of its own possible points of expansion. The health insurance exchanges are limited to the state level, and appear to split the individual and small-group markets apart from each other. There’s no mention of a possible expansion toward larger employers, either. Similarly, the co-op plan is an interesting policy proposal, but unlike a public insurance option, it’s difficult to imagine it growing into anything significantly stronger than what’s outlined in the paper.

A government program with a built in brake on expansion? Be still my heart! That’s just what the doctor ordered. The two tiered employer market is also a good idea considering that for very small businesses, tax subsidies to help them cover full time employees should be generous while larger companies will obviously pay more.

I agree with Ezra that the co-op idea will probably not be as successful as Baucus would hope. This would be a massive undertaking - as big a job as setting up a public option. In the end, I don’t think enough people will participate in all 50 co-ops to give the program enough cash to do things like cover those with pre-existing conditions or who are denied coverage for other reasons. In short, an eventual government take over of the whole co-op system and what amounts to a single payer government run boondoggle would emerge. (For me, this is a deal breaker - a “no go” if it is included).

But there are bound to be things in any reform package that different people will find objectionable. There are a couple of proposals that are especially noteworthy and should be included in any reform measure.

1. Subsidies for those who earn up to 300% rather than 400% of the poverty line. This is fairer to the taxpayer. No one would have to pay more than 10% of their income out of pocket for health insurance.

2.Starting in 2015, states may form “health care choice compacts” that will allow companies to sell insurance across state lines.

3. The aptly described “young invincible” policy:

A separate “young invincible” policy would be available in addition to these benefit options. This policy would be targeted to young adults who desire a less expensive catastrophic coverage plan but with a requirement that preventive services be covered below the catastrophic amount. Cost-sharing for preventive benefits would be allowed.

Last night on my radio show, Rich Baehr, American Thinker Political Correspondent and a health insurance consultant for 25 years, wondered why the “young invincible” policy would be limited to those 25 years old and younger. Why not offer it to everyone, Rich asked?

The point is this; using the analogy of auto insurance, no company covers oil changes, pressurizing tires, or other routine services. This is one way premiums are kept down. And if only major medical problems would be covered, people would be less apt to incur health care costs for minor, non life threatening treatments.

Baehr uses his own analogy involving shoes. If government were to pay for shoes, everyone would have a closet full. Forcing almost everyone to buy “comprehensive” insurance only encourages people to load up on shoes even though they don’t need them.

4. Physician and hospital “value based” purchasing. The proposal would reward hospitals for the quality of their care for high cost services and reward doctors for not ordering unnecessary tests in some cases.

This is a step in the right direction although it doesn’t go far enough. We must change the supply culture in health care so that quality of care is paramount and quantity is discouraged.

5.Incentives to develop new patient care models. Always a good idea to incentivize innovation.

6. Payment penalty for hospital acquired infections. More of this please. Rewarding quality and penalizing poor care should be at the heart of reform.

7. Modest reforms in the Medicare Advantage (supplemental insurance) plans rather than severely curtailing the plans as the House bill would do.

8. There isn’t much to get excited about in the Medicare reform sections except the formation of a full time Medicare Commission to examine ways to reduce costs. Otherwise, there is too much emphasis on costs and not enough on the supply side of the equation.

9. A tax on gold plated plans costing more than $8,000 per year for singles and $21,000 per family. These plans are a waste that we can do without. If you can afford that kind of insurance, you can afford greater out of pocket medical care.

In summary, there is a lot to dislike in the bill. Medicaid expansion will put even more budgetary pressures on states already suffering - even with additional federal funds that would only add to the deficit. The co-op idea is a loser, the Medicare reforms only nibble around the edges of the problem (we must save trillions over the next few decades), the employer requirements are still too onerous for small businesses, and the individual mandate is an affront to liberty.

But for those conservatives serious about reforming our health care industry - and I believe good conservatives should be - then there are some things in the Baucus plan that should be given serious consideration.

John Cole of the blog Balloon Juice and I used to have a rather cordial relationship back in the day. A few angry back and forths later - not so much anymore.

Cole’s party switch over torture and the mismanaged Iraq War (along with GOP corruption and the excessive ideology of the base) endeared him to some on the left but I think even they may be uncomfortable with his demonstrated independence from orthodoxy from time to time. Sadly, his blog has morphed by and large into a collection of bitter denunciations directed at most conservatives who fail to meet his rather stringent ideological standards for relevance and correct thinking.

That said, now that he is a self-identified Democrat, Cole himself can be guilty of being as nasty a partisan as any on the left:

Rick Moran is a libertine the same way Glenn Reynolds is a libertarian. They are both Republicans. Moran occasionally chastises some of the obviously crazy nonsense on the right, but only when he can also include a false equivalency about the Democrats. It sometimes seems like he is making sense, but ignore his schtick of not being a party man. Ask him if he voted for McCain or Obama? For Bush or Kerry? For Bush or Gore? For Clinton or Dole?

I read him for years and finally gave up reading him regularly, because the only core principle I could ever find from him was “The Democrats are worse.”

First of all, I am a libertine the same way the dictionary defines the term:

1. One who acts without moral restraint; a dissolute person.
2. One who defies established religious precepts; a freethinker.

adj.  Morally unrestrained; dissolute.

The first definition could certainly have been applied to my behavior in my dissolute youth. And my atheism would meet the definition of defying “established religious precepts.”

But it is a large part of my self image that I consider myself, and strive to be, a “freethinker.” I make an effort to eschew a dogmatic approach to life and politics - not always succeeding but finding that it is in reaching for the goal that we learn the most and better ourselves. Some may glimpse sophistry in such an admission - nothing I can do there. You either take what I write as being what I think and feel or not.

In Cole’s case, he views my writing through the prism of partisanship. By dismissing my attempts at fully vetting a subject by presenting both sides, or pointing out that whatever nuttiness has been perpetrated on the right finds an equal or almost equally loony counterpoint on the left, Cole himself is guilty of dogmatic thinking.

It is the idea that I am guilty of “false equivalence” that betrays Cole as a less than neutral - and honest - observer. I will admit that there are times that I may, in fact, stretch to make the equivalence point. But does that make it “false?” Only if you have an agenda beyond trying to be objective. I have never knowingly perpetrated a fraudulent analogy and don’t think I ever have. Sometimes, it’s not possible to find an exact counter to the idiocy one side has engaged in. I expect if you were to really examine my 3,200 posts, you would probably find some inexact correlations on both sides. Demanding perfect symmetry is unrealistic and proof that Cole is unwilling to accept the fact that the excessive ideology and hatred of the opposition he so rightly condemns is a mirror image of the same idiocy found among his friends on the left.

Any reasonable analysis of “movement conservatives” and “movement progressives” would find a vast kinship in paranoia, the use of logical fallacies, slippery slopes, strawman arguments, as well as a quest for ideological purity, and other manifestations of a kind of absolutism regarding their political opposites that has infected our politics and made it extraordinarily difficult for presidents over the last 20 years to get anything done.

Guilty as charged, on occasion. I am not immune to emotionalism and spite and I apologize for being human. But it is dishonest for Cole to issue a blanket condemnation of my writing based on his idea of “false” equivalence when I take both sides to task for acting idiotically or saying insane things. You can nitpick my analogies and no doubt find differences in the examples I utilize to make my point. But substantively, I don’t believe you can argue that there isn’t at least a rough symmetry involved in my analyses. Denying such marks one as a partisan more concerned with scoring minor points in disagreement than in taking a hard look at the actions and beliefs of one’s own side to discern the truth.

By the way, why not voting for Clinton makes me a party man is beyond me. And Holy God almighty what conservative in their right mind would have voted for Kerry? Cole certainly has a limited idea of what does or does not constitute blind party loyalty. Perhaps John hasn’t voted much in his life. Most ballots I’ve marked in the polling booth have contained dozens of candidates for dozens of political offices. If Cole’s end all and be all definition of “party man” starts and stops with who I voted for president, that is pretty shallow indeed.

I did not vote for president in 1972 or 92, I wrote in Reagan’s name in 1976, did not vote in 88. I voted for Paul Simon twice because he was the most honorable politician I ever saw (Wellstone runs second there). I have voted for local Democrats for town and township races in the past although not in the last couple of election cycles. I vote for Democratic judges every few election cycles based on the theory that judges should not be career politicians.

I may vote for Rep. Debbie Halverson if the GOP runs Ozinga again (”Everyone in America has health care. All they have to do is go to an emergency room.”). She seems harmless enough and is thought highly of here in Streator, IL. She got on my good side when she introduced legislation when she was state senator that would have effectively killed the white elephant of an airport out in Peotone being pushed by Jesse Jackson Jr.

No, I am not a party man. I am a nominal Republican in that the GOP fields candidates more regularly who reflect my views. Give me a Democrat who does so and I will seriously consider voting for him/her as I have in the past.

For Cole, it would be interesting to find out the last Republican he voted for since he switched sides.

I am getting old.

I’ll be 56 in January and I realize that the days behind me are beginning to far outnumber the days before me. I have lived a lot of history in those years and have seen just about everything in politics imaginable; huge upsets, the triumph and fall of conservatism, a presidential resignation, culture wars - exciting times to have lived.

But I will never understand this:

Van Jones was one of the good guys. A really, really good guy. He used his education and his passion to combat police brutality and the massive, wasteful incarceration of so many of this nation’s young, brown people. Having fought in the trenches for so long, he saw an opportunity to build hope and jobs and tangible communities as the world responds to the climate crisis. He connected the dots and inspired action and had a vision. He was the rare outsider who got a chance to move inside, and move he did.

This same blogger referred to health care opponents as “psychological terrorists.”

The way that some on the left bandy about the word “terrorists,” it sincerely makes me wish that they would demonstrate equal fervor in combating the real thing. Imagine if those who refer to conservatives as “terrorists” in any context would renounce the idea that the “War on Terror” is a made up political gambit of the Bush Administration and support the idea of stopping these fanatics before they attack us. As it stands now, we are geared to respond to terrorism after the fact - a very uncomfortable position to be in when one recalls we live in a world where the day is close at hand when using a weapon of mass destruction in a terrorist attack will be realized.

And then there’s this from Keith Olberman:

I don’t know why I’ve got this phrasing in my head, but: Find everything you can about Glenn Beck,  Stu Burguiere, and Roger Ailes.

No, even now, I refuse to go all caps.

No, sending me links to the last two Countdowns with my own de-constructions of his biblical vision quality Communist/Fascist/Socialist/Zimbalist art at Rockefeller Center (where, curiously, he works, Comrade) doesn’t count. Nor does sending me links to  specious inappropriate point-underscoring prove-you’re-innocent made-up rumors.

Tuesday we will expand this to the television audience and have a dedicated email address to accept leads, tips, contacts, on Beck, his radio producer Burguiere, and the chief of his tv enablers, Ailes (even though Ailes’ power was desperately undercut when he failed to pull off his phony “truce” push).

This is more understandable considering the source. Olbermann enjoys frolicking in the sewer of American politics. He and Larry Flynt should start a mutual admiration society.

And what in God’s name is Jane Hamsher so riled up about?

Now he’s been thrown under the bus by the White House for signing his name to a petition expressing something that 35% of all Democrats believed as of 2007 — that George Bush knew in advance about the attacks of 9/11.  Well, that and calling Republicans “assholes.”  I’m pretty sure that if you search through the histories of every single liberal leader at the CAF dinner that night, they have publicly said that and worse.

So where are all the statements defending Van Jones by those who were willing to exploit him when it served their purpose?  Why aren’t they standing up  and defending one of their own, who has done nothing that probably the majority of people in the Democratic party haven’t done at one time or another?  Is he no longer “one of their own?”

Let me get this straight: It’s ok for Van Jones to be a Truther nut because 35% of the Democratic party are Truther nuts? Holy Jesus, save me from the logic of liberals.

What has me so perplexed this morning is that these liberals and other Democrats are upset that this racist conspiracy mongering Truther is out of a responsible position in government.

It just absolutely boggles my mind that these and most other Democrats have no problem with a guy who is an admitted Communist (”Former” communist? Would that be anything like a “former” racist like Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott, and other conservatives?), a man who pushed the conspiracy theory that white people want to deliberately murder black people by degrading the environment in the ghetto, who supports the cop-killer Mumia, and who signed a 9/11 Truther petition, claiming he didn’t know what he was signing thus making him a liar or an idiot.

They are defending this crackpot?

I don’t see how anyone can rationalize support for someone that the overwhelming majority of American people would agree is unfit to serve in any capacity in government. Forget Glenn Beck and Fox News. This guy was hoisted on his own petard of far left, radical statements and beliefs. For me, it had nothing to do with calling Republicans “a-holes.” I refer to many GOP’ers in such colorful language frequently.” But I draw the line at those who see shadows in the mist around every corner in America. There is no place in government for those whose minds have been captured by paranoid conspiracy theories. Such thinking colors everything else they believe and as such, interferes with sound judgment - a prerequisite for serving the people.

The Jones fiasco highlights how “movement liberalism” is so out of touch with ordinary people - treating those of us in flyover country with such nauseating contempt - that they are totally blind to the sensibilities of the majority.

The American people tolerate a lot in their politicians - in both parties. But they will not put up with conspiracy mongering communists. That’s a bridge too far and Obama and the left should have realized that before putting Jones up for such a prominent position in government.

I could have just as easily titled this piece “Ideologues vs. The Realists” or some other descriptive caption for what boils down to a debate now fully underway among conservatives about the best way back to power.

Are the ideologues in the movement correct? Is a lack of “passion” regarding opposition to the left, as well as a less than 100%, strict adherence to their idea of conservative “principles” responsible for the right’s slaughter at the polls in 2006 and 2008?

Or are the pragmatists correct that the demand for “purity” by the ideologues coupled with the prominence of a conspiracy mongering, angry, paranoid base has connected conservatism to an unsavory, and unelectable politics?

At stake, a battle for the soul of conservatism in America and perhaps even the preservation of republican virtues given the left’s ascendancy and their first real opportunity in 40 years to “remake” America in ways that are an anathema to the tenets of modern conservative thought.

In the midst of this fight, a book by Sam Tanenhaus called The Death of Conservatism has been published which has already added fuel to the fire. Tanenhaus’s thesis is that movement conservatism has undermined the Burkean roots of conservative philosophy and that rather than trying to preserve and “conserve” institutions, movement-cons, who he terms “revanchists,” seek to destroy that which has been carefully built up over centuries.

The book is based on a shorter essay Tanenhaus published in The New Republic (no longer available) that I wrote about in depth here. I found that the essay reflected some of my own beliefs about where conservatism had gone off the rails, but was seriously flawed in its analysis of what Tanenhaus believed were “excesses” of the movement.

In reviewing the book, Garry Wills pointed to the classic tension between Burkeans and the movement personified by one of the most intellectually productive relationships in American history; the friendship and mutual admiration society that existed between Whittaker Chambers and William Buckley:

Tanenhaus is a deep student of modern conservatives. He wrote a biography of Whittaker Chambers, a self-professed Beaconsfieldian (Disraeli was the Earl of Beaconsfield), and he has been working for some time on a biography of William F. Buckley Jr. This short book is a kind of bridge between his two great projects, and it fits his revanchist–Burkean paradigm. Chambers and Buckley, though friends, began at opposite ends of the “conservative” spectrum. Buckley, who admired Chambers’s witness against communism, tried with all his lures and charms to recruit him as an editor of National Review when it began in 1955. But Chambers thought Senator Joseph McCarthy, whom the magazine championed, would doom Republicans. Besides, he was loyal to his ally in the Hiss case, Richard Nixon, and to Nixon’s meal ticket Dwight Eisenhower, while the magazine opposed them both as impure compromisers. (In 1956, only one National Review editor, James Burnham, endorsed Eisenhower for reelection.)

But Buckley finally wore Chambers down—in 1957, with great misgivings, Chambers joined the magazine. Murray Kempton wrote that Chambers finally went to work for a boss he could respect—which was not saying too much, since “Chambers’s former employers happened to be Colonel Bykov of the Soviet Secret Police, the late Henry Luce, and John F.X. McGohey, ‘then United States Attorney’ for the Southern District of New York.”[2] Chambers soon had to withdraw from the magazine for health reasons, but he and Buckley stayed in constant communication, Chambers advising, Buckley deferential. Tanenhaus makes the case that Chambers finally converted Buckley from a revanchist to a Burkean. Kempton, who studied both men closely, doubts that Chambers’s advice ever really took: “Buckley worshiped and did not listen: the Chambers of his vision is a saint whose icon stands in a Church where his message is never read.”

So close, yet so far apart. What we should take away from that extraordinary exchange of ideas between two brilliant men is that it was done amicably, with great respect for each other, and the debate was carried out with the recognition that both were working toward a common goal.

I don’t see that being possible today. With the absolute refusal of the ideologues to abandon their purge of who they consider less than ideologically pure conservatives, and with the pragmatists fighting what amounts to a rear guard action to marginalize the crazies who are, if not embraced then certainly tolerated by the revanchists, there is no “common purpose” that could lead to any amicability or respect.

Indeed, the revanchists look with askance upon most attempts to criticize conservatism at all, believing that “intellectual elites” are simply playing into the hands of the enemy by taking fellow conservatives to task for their idiocy, or paranoia. Relatedly, any criticism of conservatism coming from the left is automatically dismissed - usually without even reading it - because that would be allowing your enemy to define you.

As for the former, the idea that honest criticism is rejected outright because we’re at war with the left reveals a sneering anti-intellectualism among the revanchists that flies in the face of conservatism’s most cherished and important virtue; a duty to the truth above and beyond loyalty to ideology.

And while I sympathize and agree to a certain extent about not allowing your political foe to totally define your philosophy, that shouldn’t preclude anyone from exposing themselves to ideas with which you may disagree or close one’s mind to looking at the world from a different angle.

Tanehaus is a man of the left (former editor of the Times Book Review section) but he has also immersed himself in the history and personalities of modern conservatism more than most. He is a sincere critic of the right, a thoughtful man who wants to engage in serious discussions about the issues he raises. And while there is precious little empiricism on which you can hang your hat in his writings, some of his analysis will ring true with students of history who have given some thought to what ails the right today.

When Tanenhaus points to the very un-Burkean beliefs of many movement-cons, he is questioning how these revanchists can square their conservatism with the more traditional school of thought represented by Buckley, Hayek, Kirk, Arnold, and others who believed that preserving society’s institutions was the right’s highest calling. A reverence for our past has morphed into a psuedo-reformist mantra that seeks to destroy rather than build upon, tear down instead of conserve. Hence, liberals should not be defeated, they must be annihilated, along with the Great Society, the New Deal, and other “socialist” ideas. Supporting anything less calls into question one’s “true conservative” credentials.

The recent efforts by Jon Henke and Patrick Ruffini to counter these destructive beliefs are instructive. Henke’s call for advertisers and the Republican party to boycott World Net Daily for their enthusiastic coverage and endorsement of the Birther nonsense (among other idiocies) and Ruffini’s defense of Jon, along with a general criticism of the revanchists that is both trenchant and on point:

As a fiscal and social conservative, I happen to think Jon is completely in the right here, both substantively and strategically. Don’t raise the canard that we ought to be attacking Democrats first. Conservatives are entirely within their rights to have public debates over who will publicly represent them, and who will be allowed to affiliate with the conservative movement.

The Birthers are the latest in a long line of paranoid conspiracy believers of the left and right who happen to attach themselves to notions that simply are not true. Descended from the 9/11 Truthers, the LaRouchies, the North American Union buffs, and way back when, the John Birch Society, the Birthers are hardly a new breed in American politics.

Each and every time they have appeared, mainstream conservatives from William F. Buckley to Ronald Reagan have risen to reject these influences — and I expect that will be the case once again here.

But there is another subtext that makes Jon’s appeal more urgent. As a pretty down-the-line conservative, I don’t believe I am alone in noting with disappointment the trivialization, excessive sloganeering, and pettiness that has overtaken the movement of late. In “The Joe the Plumberization of the GOP,” I argued that conservatives have grown too comfortable with wearing scorn as a badge of honor, content to play sarcastic second fiddle to the dominant culture of academia and Hollywood with second-rate knock-off institutions. A side effect of this has been a tendency to accept conspiracy nuts as a slightly cranky edge case within the broad continuum of conservatism, rather than as a threat to the movement itself.

In addition to “the trivialization, excessive sloganeering, and pettiness” exhibited by those in the movement, one might add the curious and debilitating attitude of equating thoughtfulness with “elitism.”

Stacy McCain, who can be brilliant when the mood strikes him, wrote this about Henke’s and Ruffini’s efforts at marginalizing the crazies:

Grassroots conservative activists are, by their very nature, not engaged in the political process as a career. They tend to be older, well-established in non-political occupations and less concerned about the Big Picture questions than in finding immediate, practical ways to oppose the menace of liberalism. The question one hears from the grassroots is not, “Whither conservatism?” but rather, “What can I do?”

The Tea Party movement — which will host a major rally in Washington next weekend — has given the grassroots something to do, so that joining en masse to voice their opposition to the Obama agenda, they are actively engaged in the political process.

However, grassroots activism has consequences. One of the consequences of a ressurgent conservative grassroots is that their concerns, beliefs and attitudes are sometimes not in sync with the concerns, beliefs and attitudes of smart young Republican activists like Patrick Ruffini.

Stacy, who later goes on to say that the Birthers “are diverting attention from more valid critiques of the Obama administration and its liberal policies. So they should be discouraged or ignored…” fails to see the Birthers as a symptom of a larger problem; movement-cons rejecting criticism - even of Birthers - as “elitist” and ascribing dissent from their closed, ideological worldview as the critic having insufficient attachment to conservative principles.

McCain doesn’t engage on quite that level but doesn’t mince words when it comes to taking down those he believes have “elitist” attitudes toward the movement (”rubes”). And while he makes some valid points about “careerism” and its deleterious impact on what passes for “acceptable discourse,” methinks he paints with too broad a brush at times. The Ruffini-Henke critique is hardly born out of a desire to advance or augment those two gentlemen’s standing with other conservatives or the Republican party but rather - and I think this fairly obvious - the practical, and pragmatic calculation that we can’t get there from here. Changes are in order so that the public face of conservatism has a smile, rather than a snarl, and promoting the idea that one can vigorously oppose Obama without descending into the fever swamps of conspiracy and hate.

The road back to political power and intellectual relevance for the right will not be found in the rantings of Birthers, the false accusations of apostasy directed against conservative critics, a dogmatic and ideological approach to defining principles, nor an unrealistic and unattainable political agenda.

Nor should we count on the self destruction of the opposition which, at this point, seems well underway. What we do when we achieve power is as important as how we get there. For that, Jon Henke, Patrick Ruffinini, and others like them should be heard out and their call for a return to reason heeded.

The left is discovering that unhinged speech directed at Obama is a very bad, very destructive thing.

Wow. I mean, like, Wow.

This is surreal. If Joe Klein really believes that this is some kind of recent phenomenon, then we must assume that he agreed with the vast majority of the Democratic base when they accused Bush of going to war for Haliburton and oil, for being like Hitler, for wanting to kill black people in New Orleans by deliberately withholding aid, for plotting to take over the government and set up a dictatorship…

Since Klein (and the rest of the hand wringers on the left who are currently upset at the idiocy being demonstrated by right wing talk radio listeners who think Obama is a commie) didn’t write similar warning screeds when the kind of talk above was not only commonplace, but accepted as part of the lefty narrative against Bush (and supported by many, many Democrats on the Hill who fed these nutters by hinting that they were right), it makes bullsh*t like this ring hollow indeed:

The amazing thing remains not only the unwillingness of responsible Republicans–a term that is in danger of becoming an oxymoron–to call bull– on this, but also the willingness of many prominent Republicans to join in the slinging of garbage. Michelle Cottle reports that there are Republican-sanctioned efforts afoot to have parents not send their children to school on September 8 because the President is scheduled to address the nation’s school-children that day and they are afraid that he will fill their little heads with socialist propaganda. That is somewhere well beyond disgraceful.

Could I just say that the intensity of this getting pretty scary…and dangerous? We are heading toward a cliff and the usual brakes of civil discourse are not working. Indeed, the Republicans have the pedal to the metal–rushing us toward a tragedy far greater than the California health care forum finger-biting Karen describes below. I’m usually not one to panic or be overly worried about the state of our country–even when we do awful things like invade Iraq and torture people, we usually right our course before long–but I have a sinking feeling about where we’re headed now. I hope I’m wrong.

WHERE HAS JOE KLEIN BEEN FOR THE LAST 8 YEARS? “Stolen elections” ring a bell, Joe? That one was advanced not only in 2000 (despite massive evidence to the contrary) but also in 2004 - to the point that Members of Congress actually challenged the electoral vote! Talk about intensity!

I am at a total loss in understanding such blindness. The left spends fricking 8 years in refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the Bush Administration, and then Steve Benen has the gall to write crap like this?

Birthers, Deathers, Tenthers. Beck, Palin, Limbaugh. Bachmann, Inhofe, DeMint, King, and Broun. A scorched-earth campaign intended to tear the country apart, questioning the legitimacy of the president, the government, and the rule of law. It’s all very scary.

Allow me to substitute: “”No blood for oil” conspiracists, Diebold rigging voting machines, Bush-Hitler, agents of Israel running government, re-instituting the draft, Bush a tool of the Saudi Royal family, HALIBURTON!, a staged terrorist attack so that the 2008 elections would be canceled, FEMA built sites to house anti-war protestors…and on and on.

Not to mention McKinney, Conyers, and half the Democratic caucus who worked tirelessly to undermine the Bush presidency, attacking him in the most vile personal manner, tearing the country apart with their unhinged opposition to anything and everything he did. And while legitimate criticism of our war effort in Iraq could have been tolerated, very few of the rhetorical bombs tossed at Bush from the left was of the “legitimate” variety and much of it was gross exaggeration, hyperbole, dishonest, and deliberately provocative.

Yes Steve, It’s scary now and it was equally scary back then.

There is no excuse for the unhinged nature of dissent on the right - something I have written about at great personal and professional cost for years. But when lefties like Klein, Benen, and their hand wringing ilk invade the public discussion with their weeping about how extreme the opposition is without even acknowledging the dangerous, delegitimzing, depressing, maddening, and yes, scary rhetoric coming from their cohorts during the Bush years, one can not only question their judgment but their sanity as well.

Who are they trying to kid? I will continue to assault irrational, and shallow conservatives like Beck, Limbaugh, and their rabid listeners. But I expect to see a little context from the opposition as well. Nothing in politics happens in a vacuum. For every action, there is an equal or greater reaction.

These vacuous, easily misled talk show adherents spent 8 years listening to the opposition say the most outrageous, the most putrid stuff about their president. And I have seen it more than once in comments on various blogs (and some have taken me to task for writing against the idea), that now it’s our turn for a little payback.

My response has always been “Why ape the absolute worst in your opponents? How dumb is that?” Of course, such logic doesn’t seem to get anywhere except that these same fruitcakes accuse me of being a liberal.

I see very little difference in how unhinged the opposition is acting towards Obama and those who pilloried Bush. Klein, Benen, and the rest are just being drama queens, solemnly informing us how frightened they are at such rank emotionalism in politics, while intoning warnings of these times being the “worst” this, or the “most dangerous” that. It’s pure poppycock. They either slept through last 8 years of the left’s assault on decency and rational discourse or they have the balls to ignore it in order to make a political point.

Get real guys. You’re still part of the problem. The overwhelming number of people who oppose Obama do so in a rational, respectful manner. They are not birthers, or deathers, or any other unhinged faction. They are ordinary Americans and for you to lump them together with the wild eyed fanatics brands you as being equally culpable for the state of political discourse in this country.

Try the truth. It would be a nice change after 8 years of bombastic lies.

So Van Jones is a Truther. A guy who was once, by his own definition, a fervent communist, morphed into a sort of free market enthusiast (with the understanding of a three year old of what free markets are), signed a petition in 2004 asking the New York Attorney General to investigate the notion that George Bush knew of the 9/11 attacks in advance but allowed them to happen so that he would have a pretext for war.

Jones denies he knew what he was signing, that he didn’t read it very well.

I’d take him at his word - that he’s stupid not crazy - except according to Jim Hoft, even if he didn’t read the petition carefully, the guy is a died in the wool, out of this world, Truther nut anyway. He participated in a demonstration all the way back in 2002 which claimed government involvement in the 9/11 attacks:

Yesterday, news broke out that Barack Obama’s communist Green Czar was a 9-11 Truther. The administration much later in the day released a statement saying Van Jones was “not now or ever” involved in the 9-11 Truther movement.
Jones said the petition he signed in 2004 did not reflect his views and that he did not carefully review the language in the petition before agreeing to add his name..

Not true.
This article at Rense.com from 2002 links Van Jones to the 9-11 Truther movement at its infancy…

Perhaps it’s not surprising that presidents misfire on occasion in their hiring and end up with nutters in high places. I documented plenty of this kind of idiocy during the Bush Administration. The appointment of Paul Bonicelli to be Deputy Director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) - who taught at Patrick Henry College which made faculty members sign a “statement of faith” declaring the earth was created in 6 days among other goofy beliefs - is just one of a series of appointments of radical Christian conservatives, anti-science Luddites, and other kooks that populated the Bush administration.

It’s just that Jones is one of Obama’s beloved “Czars” with his fingers on $30 billion of our tax dollars. Those who lack basic critical thinking skills and substitute belief in rational thought for adherence to paranoid conspiracy theories do not belong in government.

What’s more, lying about it when you’re caught dead to rights should disqualify you from public service period.

It perplexes me that people like Jones, whose radical past is filled with racist, bigoted, statements against white people as well as nutty beliefs that corporations are trying to kill black people, are even seriously considered for important posts in government. It says something worrying about politics and government that constituencies like Bush’s Christian conservative base and Obama’s radical left supporters must be appeased by appointing high ranking managers or bureaucrats who sympathize with or believe the ideas of the most extreme fringes of both parties.

Jones isn’t the only nutter in the Obama administration. Zeke Emanuel’s relationship with Paul Ehrlich, he of the “Population Bomb” pseudo science, whose Malthusian theories may go down in history as the most spectacularly wrong predictions from someone that important people still take seriously, has never been adequately explained.

True, Emanuel’s relationship with the quack goes back 30 years, but I would love to get ‘ole Zeke in front of a Congressional Committee and ask him if he believed at the time that the world would run massive, cataclysmic food shortages in the 1980’s, or that China and India would have hundreds of millions starving to death, or that we would be rationing food in the United States. That’s pure nutter territory - even for back then. It calls into question Emanuel’s judgment as well as his ability to think critically. A lot of the scare quotes from Emanuel are from papers he wrote with Ehrlich that posited absolute worst case scenarios for rationing health care in an overpopulated world.

Might also want to ask Emanuel if he still believes in compulsory birth control and forced sterilization as Ehrlich does.

I don’t know if Emanuel’s views from 30 years ago should disqualify him from being health care Czar. I think it a legitimate question of Emanuel’s ethical grounding if he believed in stuff like shorting health care for the old in order to give it to teenagers. Unlike scientific views, how someone arrives at an ethical conclusion are formed in childhood and very rarely can change.

As for Jones, it may be that he doesn’t really believe in anything except what can advance his career. When it was cool to be a communist after the Rodney King verdict, he embraced it. When he saw a chance to get in the good graces of the far left after 9/11 by touting Truther theories, he leaped at it. And when the tide turned toward green, he jumped on that gravy train as well.

Is it too much to accuse Van Jones of being a cynical opportunist, playing on white guilt, catering to a radical constituency, while dressing himself in respectability by riding the green bandwagon all the way to the White House?

Or does he really believe all that crap?

Either way, Obama should dump him. And soon.

Ezra Klein, blogger for the Washington Post, appears to be a conduit for the Obama administration to both Congress and the American people as he apparently has gotten information on what the White House wants us to believe they are thinking regarding how they are going to rescue health care reform.

There are wheels turning within wheels here, so it is as important to note what isn’t being said as much as what message the White House wants Klein to be sending.

According to Klein there are two camps in the White House on what kind of reform package the president will actually put down on paper and highlight in his joint session speech next Wednesday:

The first camp could be called “universal-lite.” They’re focused on preserving the basic shape of the bill. They think a universal plan is necessary for a number of reasons: For one thing, the insurance market regulations don’t work without universality, as you can’t really ask insurers to offer standard prices if the healthy and the young don’t have to enter the system. For another, it will be easier to change subsidies or improve the benefit package down the road if the initial offerings prove inadequate. New numbers are easier than new features. Creating a robust structure is the most important thing. This camp seems to be largely headed by the policy people.

The second camp is not universal at all. This camp believes the bill needs to be scaled back sharply in order to ensure passage. Covering 20 million people isn’t as good as covering 40 million people, but it’s a whole lot better than letting the bill fall apart and covering no one at all. It’s also a success of some sort, and it gives you something to build on. What that sacrifices in terms of structure it gains in terms of political appeal. This camp is largely headed by members of the political team.

Both camps accept that the administration’s proposal will be less generous than what has emerged from either the HELP or House Committees. The question, it seems, is how much less generous.

For the administration to admit that there is a split into two camps probably means that there are not only more than two but that reform is causing the Obama administration to slowly unravel. There seems to be a rift between the far left, and the practical left, with the ideologues more numerous, but lacking the clout of the Rahmbo wing in the administration.

It is also significant that the ideologues are still pushing a strong public option. I referred to the public option as a “Zombie” on my radio show because it’s still walking around, not realizing it has been killed. The numbers are just not adding up in the Senate for any kind of a public option, but it continues to be pressed because the ideological base of the Democratic party refuses to sign off on any reform that doesn’t include it.

The bottom line is that it is a very difficult uphill climb for Obama to achieve any kind of legislative success on health care reform. At the moment, he just can’t get there from here. The practical left realizes that but will have an enormously difficult time convincing the ideologues to drop the public option and go for more modest reforms.

A couple of thing are certain; Obama going before Congress means that the process will not be shut down, that there will be bills emerging from both the House and the Senate, that there will almost certainly be votes on those bills, and that passage in the House of a more liberal bill is almost assured.

The senate process apparently hinges on one lone senator - Republican liberal Olympia Snowe - who has taken it upon herself to negotiate for the entire party:

The answer appears to hinge on Sen. Olympia Snowe. “I’m a Snowe-ite,” joked one official. Her instincts on health care have proven quite a bit more liberal than those of many Democrats. In the Gang of Six meetings, she joined Sen. Jeff Bingaman in focusing on affordability and coverage - putting her, in practice, somewhat to the left of Conrad and Baucus. The problem is that Snowe is scared to be the sole Republican supporting this bill, not to mention the Republican who ensures the passage of this bill. The reprisals within her caucus could be tremendous.

If Snowe drops off the bill, using the budget reconciliation process will probably be a necessity. The bill then goes through Sen. Kent Conrad’s Budget Committee, giving him much more power over the product. The absence of any Republicans repels at least a couple of conservative Democrats. Passage becomes much less certain, which means a scaled-back bill becomes much more likely. This is the irony of the health-care endgame: The bill becomes much more conservative if it loses its final Republican.

I don’t think Snowe will still be a Republican by the end of the year - especially if she is responsible for the passage of the kind of reform being contemplated. Even on judges, she has become an unreliable vote. The question is going to be asked why she didn’t leave sooner.

At this point, it appears the senate will use reconciliation to pass their version of health care - a considerably more “conservative” version than will be passed by the House. At that point, the real headknocking will begin and we’ll see some blood on the floor in the Democratic caucus. I’d say the chances are no better than 60-40 for any kind of bill by the end of the year. I base this on the fact that the president has failed to show leadership on the issue to this point, and expecting him to suddenly acquire the skills to ram this thing through Congress when he has shown no such ability previously is taking a lot on faith.

A couple of other things.

1. Cost “savings” in any White House package will be nothing more than smoke and mirrors. They will try to sell their version of reform as almost revenue neutral through dishonest accounting, hiding some costs in out years of the budget, as well as grossly exaggerating the dollar amounts that would be saved in specific provisions. Any CBO estimates will be ignored. Even in a scaled down version of reform, it will be the only way to fulfill Obama’s promise of not signing a bill that adds to the deficit.

2. The chances of the White House and the Democratic party imploding over reform are fading as Obama becomes more engaged on the issue. Differences will be papered over to the extent that they can because all sides realize the enormous stakes involved. The president’s defenders may dismiss the idea that his administration would be castrated by a failure to vote out a reform bill, but  the rest of Obama’s agenda is in deep peril unless he can deliver. He is asking his party to go far, far out on a very thin limb. There are enough vulnerable members who would likely not forget being left to hang if the president can’t get anything done.

The posting at Obama’s “Organizing for America” website that referred to conservative opponents of health care reform as “Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process, whipped to a frenzy by their Fox Propaganda Network ceaselessly re-seizing power for their treacherous leaders” has, unfortunately been taken down. No explanation has been forthcoming for why it was allowed to go up in the first place but, hey! Stuff happens, right? Forgive and forget, eh? No harm, no foul.

But I must confess to being a little disappointed. Not because the opposition sees conservatives as “Right Wing Domestic Terrorists.”

We are.

But because I haven’t been whipped into a frenzy yet by that famous television network Fox Propaganda Network. (Did anyone else notice the weird, bizarrely haphazard manner in which the author capitalized letters? “American Democratic Process” but not “treacherous leaders?”)

Given how boring my life has been lately, a little frenzy would be a welcome break. I could really dig getting all lathered up, foaming at the mouth, ranting incoherently at the Communists who are trying to impose Marxist-Leninist ideals and programs on America.

I guess I’ll have to settle for a night of passion with my Zsu-Zsu. And although I often foam at the mouth and get lathered up when in the throes of connubial bliss with my love, I draw the line at ranting incoherently about Communism. Kinda kills the mood, if you know what I mean.

Frenzy or no, the attraction to being a domestic terrorist lies in the sublime effect that the terrorist lifestyle has on one’s outlook toward political opponents. No need to argue logically, or even call liberals dirty names. Just blow the bastards up if they disagree.

Simple, but quite effective judging by the reaction by many to the Mohamed cartoons. Nobody cares if you suspend Jesus on the cross in a glass jar full of urine. But put a funny hat and a comical beard on the Prophet (PBUH) and KABOOM! No more critics of Mohamed. Note the extreme care Yale Press just took to avoid such a fate when they decreed a book about the reaction to the Mohamed cartoons would be published without…the Mohamed cartoons.

Roger Kimball writing at PJ Media a few weeks ago:

I’d like to second the desideratum expressed by the British journalist Charles Moore at the time: “I wish,” Moore wrote in the Telegraph, “someone would mention the word that dominates Western culture in the face of militant Islam — fear. And then I wish someone would face it down.”

Is Yale stepping up to the plate? “Good idea!” you say. “About time someone had the courage to investigate that episode of insanity. I mean, really: you publish a handful of satirical cartoons and then adherents of the ostentatiously misnamed ‘religion of peace’ go postal, start burning down Danish embassies across the globe, issuing death threats to the cartoonists, etc.”

How great would it be to strike that kind of fear in the breast of liberals every time they felt like writing some nonsensical screed about conservatives? The effect a little terror would have on their delicate psyches would be positively delicious.

Unfortunately, I know nothing of explosives and, given my coarse mechanical aptitude, I’d probably end up blowing myself up like Bill Ayers’ terrorist buddies back in the day. Back then, we had real domestic terrorists - or at least they played one on TV. The whole Weather Underground thing always had the stink of sanctimony about it rather than the religious fanaticism, and belief in a higher cause that al-Qaeda demonstrates on a regular basis.

Lefty terrorists at that time were not suicide bombers. It is doubtful the idea even occurred to them. They were too selfish, too self centered to die for anything greater than their own heroic image of themselves. Spoiled rich kids throwing a tantrum with home made dynamite and C-4 instead of flinging their Erector Set through the window. Lethal, but something of a bizarre parody of dedicated Marxists or wacko Islamists.

No matter. I must report that real right wing terrorists are equally pathetic creatures. McVeigh and his buddies may have had a better idea of what they were doing thanks to their military training, but demonstrated similar cluelessness about how to be truly terrifying. Yes, blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma city was a heinous crime but Clinton didn’t blame the bombers, he blamed Rush Limbaugh. I wonder how McVeigh felt about that?

I guess we better face it. We Americans just don’t do terrorism very well. We’re not ignorant enough to be as fanatical, dedicated, and determined to die as al-Qaeda. Apparently, however, the OFA believes that we on the right may indeed possess the right stuff to at least approximate what Islamists pulled off on 9/11. Their confidence in us is inspiring and if they’re very lucky, like those liberals who try to appease the Islamists by not trying to annoy them, we will blow them to smithereens last.

I only hope I can live up to their expectations.

I suggest rather than waiting until we right wing terrorists make it to heaven to enjoy those 72 virgins, we skip the formalities of killing ourselves and indulge our fantasies today. Think of the inducement to recruiting fellow right wing domestic terrorists that would have! We’d be beating potentials off with a stick. I daresay even conservative women would want to get in the act if they had the opportunity to enjoy 72 young, studly men.

Except with all that taking our heavenly reward here on earth, there would barely be enough time left over to blow anything up. I mean, how long would it take you to make your way through 72 virgins? And forget our conservative women terrorists. They’d want to be wined and dined, insist on foreplay, want to cuddle and have a cigarette afterwards, and maybe even go another round with their boy toys. Some of them may even want a second date! The horror.

I want to thank OFA but thinking about it, I think it best to decline the honor of being designated a right wing domestic terrorist. Fox Propaganda Network will just have to muddle through without me. I am much too old and far too large to be playing the internationally wanted, dangerous and desperate terrorist.

I suppose I could always make myself into a terrorist mouthpiece…

This is another installment in my award winning series of blog posts on “What Ails Conservatism?” (Note: The awards have been of the “RINO of the Day” and “Squish of the Month” variety).

The purpose of this series has been to clarify my own thinking about modern conservatism and it’s relevance in a 21st century industrialized democracy of 300 million people.

***********************************************
Conor Friedersdorf, writing at Andrew Sullivan’s The Daily Dish, has a thoughtful critique of Mark Levin’s huge bestseller Liberty and Tyranny.

It caught my eye because I finished the book last week and was as impressed as Conor with some of Levin’s arguments, especially how he constructed a logical, and coherent framework for applying traditional conservatism to problems associated with modern America. It was a brave attempt to marry philosophy with politics and Mr. Levin should be congratulated for going beyond the usual cotton candy conservatism we get from the Hannity’s and Becks of the right.

However, like Conor, I was troubled by what might be termed, Levin’s problem with “enemy identification:

As I reflect on Liberty and Tyranny’s final pages, however, I find myself unable to respond without addressing a larger feature of the book that I regard as its most consequential flaw: Its every section, including the Epilogue, references few if any concepts as often as “Statism.”

[...]

The United States that he comments on isn’t one that pits Republicans against Democrats, or conservatives against liberals, or the center right against the center left, or where citizens of complicated political persuasions — mixing ideology, pragmatism and ignorance — do some combination of participating in politics and ignoring it. Instead Mark Levin’s America is one where the conservatives are pitted against the Statists, or to put things as he would, where liberty is pitted against tyranny.

Freidersdorf never gives us his definition of “statism” so it is impossible to discover why he believes the label is so mis-applied in Levin’s book. Conor quotes Levin’s thesis:

The Modern Liberal believes in the supremacy of the state, thereby rejecting the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the order of the civil society, in whole or in part. For the Modern Liberal, the individual’s imperfection and personal pursuits impede the objective of a utopian state. In this, Modern Liberalism promotes what French historian Alexis de Tocqueville described as a soft tyranny, which becomes increasingly more oppressive, potentially leading to a hard tyranny (some form of totalitarianism). As the word “liberal” is, in its classical meaning, the opposite of authoritarian, it is more accurate, therefore, to characterize the Modern Liberal as a statist.

Do “modern liberals” desire to create a “Utopia?” That is an exaggeration. Liberals are no more enamored of Utopia than conservatives. Both political philosophies seek to create societies that emphasize different virtues; self reliance vs. community; moral order vs. fairness; personal responsibility vs. the collective good.

It is also mis-leading (though not entirely inaccurate) to say that liberals favor the “supremacy of the state.” It is more accurate to say that the modern left favors promoting “the collective good” at the expense of “selfish” individuality. They do not dismiss individual rights. They simply believe that in some instances - more than is healthy for liberty’s sake - those rights should be trumped by what is best for all.

This flies in the face of Kirk’s “voluntary community” but is a far cry of worshiping at the altar of “statism.” And Conor nails it when he takes Levin to task for generalizing and ultimately, mis-identifying the enemy:

Terrible as he sounds, The Statist that Mr. Levin describes—his ill deeds keep growing as the book winds down–would at least play a clarifying role in American politics if he actually existed. Imagine how useful a blueprint Mr. Levin’s book would prove if the primary opponents of conservatives were actually cunning Statists with malign motives and hatred of liberty in their hearts. But re-read all the attributes that describe the Statist. Does anyone in American politics fit that description, let alone a plurality sizable enough to enact their agenda?

In fact, the main antagonists that the American conservative vies with in politics are the independent, the liberal, the center left Democrat, the progressive, even some among the apolitical. The average people who support “Statist” President Obama’s domestic agenda are apolitical African American women who work in cubicles, law firm associates who earn six figure salaries, and working parents who fret about being uninsured—not utopian radicals bent on advancing a counterrevolution that destroys the freedom won by the Founding generation.

Levin obviously has in mind Democrats and liberals who support the agenda of President Obama - an agenda full of “solutions” to problems like health care, climate change, education, the home mortgage crisis, and our economic woes. Is this a “statist” manifesto or an attempt by a political party to curry favor with voters by offering to address their real life concerns?

I have resisted using terms like “socialist” and especially “communist” to describe the Democrat’s ideology because by strict definition, they are not trying to destroy the free market, repeal individual rights (as always, making an exception for 2nd amendment guarantees), set up a dictatorship, or impose “tyranny - soft or hard - on the American people.

Sllippery slope arguments are unconvincing, if only because the logical fallacy involved in the “boiling frog” scenario where we all just sit back and allow the government to descend into a kind of fascism, is belied by the stink being made by conservatives over some of Obama’s more anti-free market actions today. Can you imagine if Obama really tried to take control of the economy? I daresay we wouldn’t need Glenn Beck, weeping on live television about how bad things are with Obama as president to activate conservatives. And we wouldn’t be alone. Moderates, libertarians, classical liberals, and others would be standing with us, side by side, to strenuously oppose any move to socialize the entire economy.

But I too, have been guilty of using the word “statist” to describe what Obama and the Democrats have been doing. My definition is a little more benign than Levin’s in that the agenda being promoted by the left would not lead to tyranny, but rather a highly constricted free market of the sort that is practiced in many European social democracies; over-regulated markets that stifle inventiveness, innovation, and entrepreneurship. With such regulation necessarily comes higher taxes on all: reason enough to oppose the Democrats and thwart their plans for “fairness, transparency, and accountability” in the free market.

But I see Friedersdorf’s point. There may be a small clique on the left that would love to see an America that they could “guide” in a paternalistic sort of way. George Soros and his billionaire buddies come to mind. But in order to kill the free market, enslave the American people, gain control of the media, and destroy liberty, those ordinary folk Conor mentioned would have to be convinced that all of this would make their lives better - a tall order, that.

This problem with mis-identification that Conor writes about as well as the wrong headed definitions of where Obama and the Democrats are trying to take the country, feed what has become a perceived paranoia among many conservatives that is driving people away from the movement rather than rallying them to our standard.

At bottom is the argument I’ve been trying to advance in this series; that the excessive ideology fueling the rage that manifests itself in paranoid rantings on the internet against imagined socialism, the purging of perceived apostates, the obsession with ideological purity, and more recently, shouted down speakers at health care town halls - all of this damages conservatism in the eyes of people who might be inclined to support our cause. It also makes it extraordinarily easy for the opposition to paint conservatives as too emotional to trust with running the government.

Bruce Bartlett has some similar thoughts:

I think the party got seriously on the wrong track during the George W. Bush years, as I explained in my Impostor book. In my opinion, it no longer bears any resemblance to the party of Ronald Reagan. I still consider myself to be a Reaganite. But I don’t see any others anywhere in the GOP these days, which is why I consider myself to be an independent. Mindless partisanship has replaced principled conservatism. What passes for principle in the party these days is “what can we do to screw the Democrats today.” How else can you explain things like that insane op-ed Michael Steele had in the Washington Post on Monday?

I am not alone. When I talk to old timers from the Reagan years, many express the same concerns I have. But they all work for Republican-oriented think tanks like AEI and Hoover and don’t wish to be fired like I was from NCPA . Or they just don’t want to be bothered or lose friends. As a free agent I am able to say what they can’t or won’t say publicly.

I think the Republican Party is in the same boat the Democrats were in in the early eighties — dominated by extremists unable to see how badly their party was alienating moderates and independents.

I don’t think you can accuse Bartlett, Friedersorf, or I for that matter, of lacking principles. I have made the argument that pragmatists are as principled as any ideologue. Where the extremists and I part company is in the application of those principles to real world politics. Not hating your opponent should not disqualify you from being a conservative, nor should dismissing the notion that Obama is a socialist be cause enough to question one’s conservative bona fides. Principled opposition in a republic must be based on the golden rule; respect others as you yourself would like to be respected. No, I don’t always live up to that credo. But I would like to think that I never question the good intentions of my foes. Wrong, not evil.

And on a related note, I would argue with Mark Levin that liberty does not exist in a vacuum, nor can free people exist apart from the community that bred them. There are responsibilities that go along with enjoying liberty that includes the recognition that we are not islands unto ourselves, and that government, however imperfect it can be, is nevertheless not the implacable enemy of liberty some conservatives believe.

A danger at times? Yes. But if conservatism is to triumph again, we must demonstrate that conservative principles can be applied to running government better than the those of the opposition. That is the essence of politics and we would do well to remember it.