Remember conservatism before all the crazy? Little Green Footballs' Charles Johnson, a rightward key player in the documents controversy regarding Bush's National Guard service that got Dan Rather fired, has thrown down the gauntlet. He's done some fire-breathing rightward posts, yet has claimed he isn't a conservative. I guess we can now see what he means: in a post called "Why I Parted Way with the Right," he lays out what are, basically, the differences between the current brand of crazy conservatism and old-school conservatism.
He represents the kind of conservatism most of us grew up around–a political philosophy that engaged the world from a position of rationality and simply came to some different conclusions than that of the left. In the era of terms like "paleo-conservatism," it seems clear that old-school conservatism is as much the enemy of the current sort as is the progressive movement. For my money, that's because the template of faith has been superimposed on the old model of reason that used to inform the right.
It's been quite interesting to me to see the dilemma of some of those old-school conservatives among my relatives, those who don't agree with the ascendant crazy wing of the Republican Party, yet have always voted Republican. They've been taken for granted, and some of those folks had a really difficult time last November–at least one of my acquaintance ended up voting for Ron Paul. It's going to be quite interesting to see what political home these old-school conservatives craft for themselves. Here's hoping they do that, since a debate with an old-school conservative isn't an exercise in total frustration–consensus even becomes possible again.
From Charles Johnson's post:
Why I Parted Ways With The Right
Opinion | Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 6:49:45 pm PST
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3. Support for throwing women back into the Dark Ages, and general religious fanaticism (see: Operation Rescue, anti-abortion groups, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, the entire religious right, etc.)
4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.)
5. Support for homophobic bigotry (see: Sarah Palin, Dobson, the entire religious right, etc.)
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9. Anti-Islamic bigotry that goes far beyond simply criticizing radical Islam, into support for fascism, violence, and genocide (see: Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, etc.)
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The American right wing has gone off the rails, into the bushes, and off the cliff.
I won’t be going over the cliff with them.
