Voting With My Feet
There's a situation developing around a couple of issues involving the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
First, the American Conservative Union (ACU; they're the ones who give us a useful metric with which to evaluate our Congressional representatives) has invited GOProud to set up a booth, pass out literature, etc. As they're not an "agenda" group (more of a missionary group to gays than from gays), this probably shouldn't be too much of an issue; they're not speaking, running conferences, or sponsoring anything, they're just there. But this has given an unexpected number of groups some heartburn, so some prominent social conservatives and their groups have pulled out. Which is fine, part of the reason we're on the right is because we believe in freedom of thought, association, and all that other stuff. I don't understand the huff, but more power to them.
Next up, and a little more serious in my mind, are accusations that one of the board members of the ACU, Suhail Khan, is a closet Islamist bent on the destruction of the conservative movement from within, and he's working closely with Grover Norquist of the American Taxpayers Union to accomplish this. Seriously. World Net Daily has taken the lead on this, but other sites are piling on, including a couple which are near and dear to my heart. I don't expect much from WND, but I'm terribly disappointed in the general conversation on our side of the blogosphere.
Having spent the morning gleaning through contributor and member comments on 10 influential "sites-on-the-right", I've come away with some general points in their conversation:
- Islam is bad for Americans, there's no redeeming value in the faith, and it is a corrupting influence on a representative democracy;
- if you don't love Jesus (the one I pray to, hippie!), go to Hell;
- gays are out to get us;
- the drug war has worked and is continuing to do great things for us;
- libertarians and Libertarians have no place on the Right, and we should shun them;
- the Federal government shouldn't define morality for local communities, but since the Left has already used it to do so, then we should, too;
- if you don't agree with everything above then you are a liberal stooge, a poseur conservative, and a danger to our ascendant movement.
I couldn't avoid the snark, but the above really is the gist of what I've read through this morning, and it's really bummed me out. Am I just too sensitive to this stuff, or is our side really becoming this hardened? What's going on?
- Comment (42)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (1)
Comments :
Jul '10
Re: Voting With My Feet
Casey, you must have a stronger stomach than I. I almost never read the comments on other websites. Those aren't conversations, they're like lunatic asylums, where everyone is milling around shouting and no one listens.
As for Eric Erickson, I stopped paying attention to him long ago. Ever since he managed to leverage himself onto television and radio, he presumes to dictate to the rest of us what the one correct conservative position on every issue is and to banish into the darkness those who disagree.
Honestly, since the advent of Ricochet, I don't go to many other sites anymore. Drudge, NRO, MEMRI, Real Clear Politics, The Hill and HotAir - that's pretty much it.
Oh, and Weasel Zippers. Love their flying Jihadi videos.
Jun '10
Re: Voting With My Feet
It was a rough day. My typical daily intake is Ricochet, Boortz, RCP, Peach Pundit for the local stuff, and the news networks. Since Ricochet came along I haven't delved too deeply into the heat sinks of the Righter-than-Thou sites, and I don't think I will again. I didn't think it was possible to have a 'conservative' mirror of Democratic Underground and DailyKos, but I'll be damned if we're not making the effort.
Oct '10
Re: Voting With My Feet
Ah. I commented on the wrong thread. Eek. Anyway, I must admit I have a hard time believing any of this. No American group on the right has an interest in Sharia law.
Jun '10
Re: Voting With My Feet
It's getting weird out there.
May '10
Re: Voting With My Feet
I agree with most of Casey's snark, except for one small policy difference. The "drug war" hasn't really "worked"; but it is better than the alternative. Unfortunately.
Much of my own distaste for many of the sites referred to above is due to the classless trashing of GW Bush and the shallow silliness of the attendant criticisms.
Jun '10
Re: Voting With My Feet
Duane Oyen: I agree with most of Casey's snark, except for one small policy difference. The "drug war" hasn't really "worked"; but it is better than the alternative. Unfortunately.
Much of my own distaste for many of the sites referred to above is due to the classless trashing of GW Bush and the shallow silliness of the attendant criticisms. · Feb 6 at 7:01pm
I appreciate it, Duane. I'll clarify my drug war position: the war on drugs as we've conducted it has exacerbated the problem, especially the violence associated with drug trafficking. We've created our own enemy, and it's currently destroying Mexico. For me, the negatives far outweigh the positives.
May '10
Re: Voting With My Feet
Hopefully, Casey, it's just the nature of the comment sections of these sites that those sufficiently motivated to rant are not representative of the more silent, and more reasonable, majority.
Jul '10
Re: Voting With My Feet
Mexico is destroying Mexico. A corrupt socialist oligarchic hybrid with no regard for the education and well being of the common man. Rather than open the door to prosperity, a grasping ruling class keeps the society in check to assure their own positions.
The constant flushing of their own failure northward and addiction to the dollars sent back as a result has been pathetic for a long time. Tolerance of bribes and corruption at all levels is the Mexican status quo, and coaching their own people on how to violate American law is official policy.
Their second greatest weapon against us is our own compassion for the penniless pawns being shoved across the border by Mexican inadequacies. Their greatest is the sheer greed of the kings of industries and the households that both prefer access to a cheap, untaxed, underground labor market. Somehow this is not considered imperialist exploitation.
Mexico is broken, and if we were to try to fix it we would exacerbate tensions. They let drug gangs terrorize school teachers.
Relenting on the drug war simply drops the price, removes the stigma, and moves a lot more of the violence and poverty of addiction into the American homes.
Jun '10
Re: Voting With My Feet
I don't know, Scott. I was active with Red State (the worst of the offending sites) from the very beginning up until last summer. I still checked the front page posts every three or four days, but didn't delve too deeply because I just didn't have the time. Working through those today was pretty sickening, and exceedingly disheartening. It wasn't just readers replying, either, it was contributors and moderators adding to the fire. Once instance that stands out from today: a moderator at Red State banned a guy for saying that the attitudes being expressed in the comments were un-Christian, and that the moderator was being as close-minded as the worst liberal. Banned, because the moderator thought he was being called un-Christian and liberal. For serious, dawg. Ugh. That just makes my brain hurt.
Feb '11
Re: Voting With My Feet
Casey, seems to me that for several reasons the schisms on the Right will get worse before they get better. I don't read WND, but Frontpage.com is mandatory in my estimation. (If you're not familiar with the role---the real role that is--- of David Horowitz in contemporary US history, you need to be.) Frontpage has Suhail Khan's ties to known Muslim Brotherhood types.
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/01/24/a-jihadist-in-the-heart-of-the-conservative-movement/
Believe it or not, there is a "grand jihad" program for the US already underway by the Brotherhood. The FBI has the document declaring their intention to subvert the US from within, using lawfare, deception, sympathetic liberal journalists, &c. Here's federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy's book on the subject
http://www.amazon.com/Grand-Jihad-Islam-Sabotage-America/dp/1594033773
Several of the leading public-face Muslim organizations in the US have known ties to Brotherhood figures. Khan appears to be essentially an operative. And Norquist may be playing a dupe role. Keep an open mind. Read the stuff, then judge if it doesn't cohere in light of our other knowledge about Brotherhood objectives.
Jun '10
Re: Voting With My Feet
You make very good points, and you touched on something that I think reinforces my point. Without proper border protection and enforcement to keep the drugs out the market stays supplied and the only groups with real power on the Mexican side of the border get richer. That's exactly what I'm talking about when I say that the drug war, as we've been fighting it, has been a massive failure. Cocaine, heroin, and marijuana are all cheaper and more easily accessible than they have ever been in this country. That's a tragedy. I don't advocate fixing Mexico; what I advocate is closing our southern border, retooling federal sentencing, and letting the States figure out for themselves how best to deal with rehabilitation and sentencing. What we've been doing just isn't working.
Jul '10
Re: Voting With My Feet
Casey Taylor
What we've been doing just isn't working. · Feb 6 at 9:50pm
Legalize it. Regulate it. Tax it.
I haven't noticed any drive-by-shooting wars between my local liquor store and the Manager of my local Safeway.
Jun '10
Re: Voting With My Feet
I'm familiar with McCarthy and Horowitz (Dr. Horowitz is one of my personal heroes), but I remain skeptical. I'll work through this stuff and promise to keep an open mind, but what I've read so far about Suhail Khan himself and especially Grover Norquist seems a little fevered.
Jun '10
Re: Voting With My Feet
Stoopid double posts...
Edited on Feb 6, 2011 at 10:09pmJul '10
Re: Voting With My Feet
Casey Taylor
I'm familiar with McCarthy and Horowitz (Dr. Horowitz is one of my personal heroes), but I remain skeptical. I'll work through this stuff and promise to keep an open mind, but what I've read so far about Suhail Khan himself and especially Grover Norquist seems a little fevered. · Feb 6 at 10:05pm
Frank Gaffney is also claiming that Khan is a sleeper agent.
Jun '10
Re: Voting With My Feet
Kenneth
Frank Gaffney is also claiming that Khan is a sleeper agent. · Feb 6 at 10:08pm
They quote him extensively in the frontpagemag.com article, so I'm thinking that's where most of this is coming from. I remain skeptical.
Jul '10
Re: Voting With My Feet
Casey Taylor
Kenneth
Frank Gaffney is also claiming that Khan is a sleeper agent. · Feb 6 at 10:08pm
They quote him extensively in the frontpagemag.com article, so I'm thinking that's where most of this is coming from. I remain skeptical. · Feb 6 at 10:14pm
Dunno. Norquist married a Muslim, refused to answer a journalist's direct question as to whether he has converted to Islam as "too personal", gave an address to a CAIR conference and supports the Ground Zero Mosque.
Pretty far afield from his tax-limitation portfolio....
Jul '10
Re: Voting With My Feet
Casey Taylor
You make very good points, and you touched on something that I think reinforces my point. Without proper border protection and enforcement to keep the drugs out the market stays supplied and the only groups with real power on the Mexican side of the border get richer. ... what I advocate is closing our southern border, retooling federal sentencing, and letting the States figure out for themselves how best to deal with rehabilitation and sentencing. What we've been doing just isn't working.
The problem with measuring success in the drug war is that the cost of surrender cannot be known with certainty until after the surrender. My much too extensive personal experience dealing with addicts tells me that, for every unchecked addict, there is a cluster of people, children, parents, spouses, employees, subjected to violence and deprivation. Addiction is never victimless.
If by closing the southern border you mean controlling it, I am with you 100%. I go so far at this point as advocating the militarization of the border owing to incursions by the Mexican military and the corruption of some Mexican military elements, as well as the heavily armed gang activity crossing the border.
Jul '10
Re: Voting With My Feet
Kenneth
Dunno. Norquist married a Muslim, refused to answer a journalist's direct question as to whether he has converted to Islam as "too personal", gave an address to a CAIR conference and supports the Ground Zero Mosque.
Pretty far afield from his tax-limitation portfolio....
We are not friends, but I was a guest once at a reception at Grover's town house and for quite awhile was a fan of his work. I followed the events after his marriage with dismay and regret. Muslims were over-represented in the DC area libertarian groups at the time, and while I saw no evidence of it myself, I would not be surprised if they were thought to be a useful target by jihadists.
The recent alarm with CPAC over possible jihadi cooption of conservatism, with Grover's name mentioned, is not far-fetched to me given W's relationship with CAIR and the Saudis or Grover's post 9/11 defenses of Islam. At this point I would look closely at any such accusations.
It is naive to think that the last super power would not see a lot of externals try to influence its politics by any means available.
Jan '11
Re: Voting With My Feet
Casey is right about this.
The hard part, for me, isn't dealing with the Left or the Democrats. That's fairly easy, especially when we commit to intellectual honesty and roll with the evidence.
Selling Conservatism to people isn't hard, either. I'm sure we agree that most of the time people hold Conservative values dear - they just don't always realize it. (I'm reminded of Dennis Prager's recent "Are you *really* a Liberal?" test that shows so many people that they aren't.)
The hard part is dealing with the Conservatives. I'm all for a big tent, but I'm not going to pretend like we're not impeded by the types who believe in what Casey listed.
It's not everyone on our side, but it's a larger number - and with greater influence - than 10 years ago.