[PLEASUREMAN]

Steve Sailer listed "The Atlantic 50", a talking heads ranking, in order to examine the demographics of that list (mostly male, half Jewish, as one would expect), and a commenter riffed on their party affiliation:

Quote

1. Paul Krugman - Lunatic/Demagogue
2. Rush Limbaugh - Demagogue
3. George Will
4. Thomas Friedman - Trite
5. David Brooks - Trite
6. Charles Krauthammer
7. Glenn Beck - Demagogue/Moron
8. Frank Rich - Moron
9. Andrew Sullivan - Lunatic
10. Karl Rove - Cynical/Trite
11. Sean Hannity - Trite
12. David Broder - Dull
13. Peggy Noonan
14. Rachel Maddow - Who?
15. Arianna Huffington - Moron/Trite
16. Fareed Zakaria
17. Maureen Dowd - Moron/Trite
18. E.J. Dionne - Moron
19. Bill O'Reilly - Trite
20. Keith Olbermann - Demagogue/Moron

Of course you can argue about who "belongs" on the list but it's a pointless argument, inclusion in the list is a mark of dishonor given the stupidity of the discourse created by the above men, women, and man-like lesbians. It's mildly interesting to see Charles Krauthammer on the list (at first I wondered who had it in for him) Krauthammer is basically the face of acceptable conservatism among the elite, that is to say he is the face of relatively sane pseudo-conservatism--but once again we have a so-called conservative who appears to define conservatism as anything other than conserving anything.

In fact Krauthammer, like the rest of the neocons, favors revolutionary action and is preoccupied with the fate of Israel, and in the social sphere (wherein lies the heart of conservatism) isn't a conservative in the slightest. He shares with others the violently wrong misconception that conservatism is mainly concerned with liberty--a misconception for which I suppose we can blame the Cold War. On gay marriage, he offers only this argument, notable for its losing quality:

Charles Krauthammer:

As for gay marriage, I've come to a studied ambivalence. I think it is a mistake for society to make this ultimate declaration of indifference between gay and straight life, if only for reasons of pedagogy. On the other hand, I have gay friends and feel the pain of their inability to have the same level of social approbation and confirmation of their relationship with a loved one that I'm not about to go to anyone's barricade to deny them that. It is critical, however, that any such fundamental change in the very definition of marriage be enacted democratically and not (as in the disastrous case of abortion) by judicial fiat.

This is so backward in its conception of conservative thought that one is at a loss for words. In a sense, Krauthammer is a greater danger to a revival of conservatism because he allows the media's version of affirmative action to exclude those who would make a more vigorous argument for the wisdom of conservatism (which is to say, any argument at all). And of course the Jewish psychiatrist, against the death penalty and for abortion, plays into the elite's sense of superiority as well as its unspoken ethnic comity.

That "ethnic comity" is the means by which both Jews and Irish Catholics are overrepresented, not just in this list but in the discourse as a whole, which is where Sailer comes in--relatedness (ethnic nepotism if you prefer) is a factor subject to the will to power. Those groups who have a more strongly defined group or ethnic identity will tend to promote and support peers they feel comfortable with and ignore those they don't. It is of course a great no-no to single out Jews for criticism in this regard, but we have long since lost the luxury of being nice. Our discourse is badly broken--we must start to understand why. (Fools will ignore the observable chauvinism in the list and attack those who simply notice it.)

The new Party often squabbles loudly over policy differences, but as with Krauthammer it has few if any differences over principle. You might say its differences are all in the family.

[antistoic]

Paul Krugman #1? Over Limbaugh? Something's definitely wrong with that equation


Good post...with regards to ethnic nepotism: you might be interested in Kevin Macdonald's Culture of Critique, which studies Jewish ethnocentrism in the realm of business and politics from an evolutionary standpoint; quite interesting


I don't even know that Krauthammer considers himself a conservative, I had always assumed he was a 'moderate' technopolist like Friedman but with perhaps even more of an emphasis on global military intervention...there is nothing recognizably conservative about him whatsoever

I do think the predominance of 'libertarian conservatism' in America was partly a product of internecine ideological struggles among Cold War era right-wing intellectuals (I have in mind the victory of 'fusionism' during the early days of National Review), but it may also be the case that Blood and Soil authoritarian conservatism simply hasn't been a major presence in American political life either now, or in centuries past, owing to our Lockean classical liberal inheritance and the lasting influence of Wilson/FDR and their progressive, interventionist foreign policies, beloved by neoconservatives today

This post has been edited by mlad: 25 September 2009 - 02:58 PM

[PLEASUREMAN]

I think the ranking is supposed to be about influence, so Atlantic has the freedom to stick a big fat thumb on the scale. But Krugman's stock is past its peak, it's time to short him. He'll never be as influential as he was raging about Dubya. I don't know how to assess Limbaugh's influence, because he seems to be running on closed-circuit television. That whole sphere of demagogic pseudo-con media (including Ann Coulter and Mark Levin) is a mystery to me.

I definitely wouldn't consider Krauthammer a conservative, but I think he sees himself as one at this point and more importantly is considered one by the elite (for his opposition to Obama).

[PLEASUREMAN]

I am overdue to read Kevin MacDonald. The thinking in the original post isn't intended to focus on Jews, but they have been notable for being especially aggressive in utilizing relatedness strategies (ethnic nepotism), so they make an excellent case study of how this mechanism works. (Other groups, needless to say, use these strategies also.) Unfortunately it is just very difficult to have a serious conversation on the subject, but a critical look really should be made at Jewish culture, given its outsized influence.

Of course it's sensitive ground, but made all the more sensitive because of the shrieking, overdone complaints by Jewish figures (that itself indicative of a relatedness strategy). The freedom to scream ad hominems and stop all discussion at the first sign of criticism of Jewish culture is becoming a serious problem--even black culture is not this sacrosanct. Although in fairness, people like Buckley bear a huge responsibility for this subject remaining a closed book to all. Of course Buckley was from an Irish Catholic background--it's funny how ethnic nepotists tend to stick together.

And speaking of Buckley, I came to realize that this criticism by Joe Sobran was pretty much on the nose:

Joe Sobran:

Not that his life is discreditable, apart from the things I've mentioned; but somehow he belongs more to the world of Phil Donahue than to the world of Dr. Johnson. His conservatism is a conservatism of image, show business, public relations, stock mannerisms; big words, anfractuous grammar, repetitious Latinisms, implying a depth that isn't there.

[antistoic]

To Buckley's credit, towards the end of his career he did actually pen an essay criticizing neoconservative military efforts in the Middle East, although I did get the impression he deliberately subdued the tone of his arguments. Possibly he recognized that the now neoconservative-dominated National Review and other notable institutions and organizations in the world of center-right journalism would determine how his legacy would be represented to the public after his death - the tarnish of anti-semitism and 'isolationism' would be disastrous to his reputation.

This post has been edited by mlad: 25 September 2009 - 11:25 PM

[PLEASUREMAN]

mlad, 26 September 2009 - 12:19 AM:

To Buckley's credit, towards the end of his career he did actually pen an essay criticizing neoconservative military efforts in the Middle East, although I did get the impression he deliberately subdued the tone of his arguments. Possibly he recognized that the now neoconservative-dominated National Review and other notable institutions and organizations in the world of center-right journalism would determine how his legacy would be represented to the public after his death - the tarnish of anti-semitism and 'isolationism' would be disastrous to his reputation.

Ironically his own son wrote a semi-lurid memoir about him...it is odd that a man who so greatly desired a large family spent so much of his life estranged from his only son...except that there was always something narcissistic and on display about WFB (you wouldn't really know that he had brothers and sisters except for those who helped out with National Review)

As for legacy, I don't know what he was expecting, he was an impotent figure in the decades before his death. Amazon sells old Firing Line shows for $10, and I'm tempted to get one some day just to re-experience that reptilian grin, but the problem with centering your life around current events is that you leave no legacy. He was never interested in conservative philosophy and wrote no memorable books, and was but for his style an indifferent columnist. Within the "conservative movement" he's most notable for the people he feuded with.

He was instrumental in helping the neocons take over, and by the time of his Iraq regrets had all but abandoned any trace of conservatism in his views: for banning tobacco, for drug legalization, for national service, and even in his prime a man for whom anti-communist ends excused nearly everything. Regarding Iraq he was reactionary to the last--agnostic on the initial invasion, souring once things got ugly, against the surge, then for the surge when it seemed to be working--as with most of the punditry he was hopelessly unsure and looked to the crowd for guidance (this is probably the only reason Bush was able to pull off such a gamble).

[Chef Boyhowdy]

There is a painting where an old man lies sprawled with his pants down next to an upset chamberpot. The pathos of irretrievable dignity is nearly unbearable. The title has a "sic semper you, whippersnapper" tone. I thought of this painting a lot as Buckley struggled with the Iraq war. "It seems I've fallen, and I can't get up" delivered with the lock-jawed drawl of the New York Yacht Club.