Culture Warriors category archive
Forget the Race; Look at the Racers 0
Chauncey Devega argues that far too much attention is paid to the differences amongst the Republican candidates for the presidential nomination. He find their similarities to be much more important–and troubling. Here’s a bit from his typically long and tightly-reasoned post:
1. That the United States should bomb and kill many thousands of innocent people in the Middle East and elsewhere in order to supposedly stop the spread of ISIS and other terrorist organizations.
2. Torturing suspected terrorists—even though such acts are both immoral and ineffective in retrieving actionable intelligence information—is acceptable.
3. “God’s law” should supersede the United States Constitution.
4. They are anti-science and do not believe that global warming is a real, scientifically proven, empirical fact.
(Follow the link for the rest of the list)
The contemporary Republican Party is a radical political organization that has betrayed the core tenet of “conservatism,” what is a belief in stability in the face of radical change. To that end, movement conservatism seeks to undo the consensus politics of the World War II and post-World War II era because it views the great successes of the New Deal, the Great Society and the civil rights movement(s) as a threat to the excesses of unrestrained capitalism and white male power.
Potty Mouths 0
One more time, persons who complain loudly about “political correctness” demand license to be offensive without penalty.
“Because It Says in the Bible, That’s Why” 0
Paul Prather tries to understand why persons who call themselves “Christian” support Donald Trump. He expresses his wonderment:
And yet a great throng of Christians love the guy.
Follow the link for his theory as to why he attracts them.
Aside:
That whole “2 Corinthians” flap was stupid and silly (sort of like Trump). It wasn’t even a mistake, it was just a less common usage.
Bigots Reaching beyond the Grave 0
Shorter Minnesota court ruling: Live and let die.
Trumped 0
Christian Schneider, a “conservative” columnist for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, wonders what went wrong. Here’s part of his lament:
For instance, a conservative who listens to talk show radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin or Sean Hannity likely has a far different assessment of the Republican Party than those who curl up with copies of National Review or the Weekly Standard, or even my regular column. While ostensibly working for the same goals, these groups might not even recognize each other if they walked by each other on the street.
Missing from his tua culpa is any recognition that his vaunted Republican intelligentsia has been complicit in rationalizing Republican lies, such as trickle-on economoics and the Great and Glorious Patriot Lie for Irag, and Republican bigotry, such as the right-wing culture war, mass incarceration, and the war on black and brown people drugs.
The difference between the “conservative intelligentsia” and Rush Limbaugh is a difference in style only.
Genteel venality is still venality.
Fantastic Voyage 2
Josh Marshall tries to make sense of the Bundy Bund. A snippet (emphasis added):
(snip)
As I said at the outset of this story (and it’s not over), in the context of the on-going dialog about race, police use of force and violence and all the ways these wrenching issues interweave with each other, this whole ridiculous episode amounted to a sort of white privilege performance art.
Do please read the rest.
The Pervy Party 0
Honest to Pete, you can’t make this stuff up.
The Right To Rude 0
In my local rag, Phil Terrana explains in detail what has been mentioned here from time to time: Those who complain of “political correctness” demand the privilege to offend others without penalty. A nugget:
For these people, becoming better people has a ring of phoniness to it, a sense of dishonesty. Because they can’t change their ways, they can’t understand how others can. They’ve began calling this civility by a new name — political correctness — and attached a stigma to it.
Read the rest.
The American Taliban’s Sagebrush Sharia 0
Y’all Qaeda institutes Sagebrush Sharia in Oregon.
Afterthought:
No self-awareness. No self-awareness whatsoever.
“Frontier Town” 0
Frontier Town was an Western-themed amusement park near that far west resort town, Ocean City, Maryland, in the era when every little boy wanted a cowboy suit and a Mattel Fanner Fifty. (It seems to live on as a campground.)
Like Hollywood’s versions of the Wild Wild West, it was not then and has never been a real place.
Paradise Lost 0
It seems that all is not well in the Bundy Bund’s Shangri-La-La-Land.