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Note. Israel sent me this one last week during the period I went quiet so I apologise for the delay in posting it.

By Israel

Dear Shockwaver,

I only choose to single you out on this because of our discussion regarding Glenn Beck’s appropriateness as a voice of the right.

During Scott Brown’s acceptance speech, he made the reference to his daughters being “available”. It was clearly an off the cuff remark by a man clearly excited by his win, clearly proud of his daughters and their prominent role in the campaign and clearly wanting to continue to project his image of being “of the people”. Perhaps in the cold light of day it was a statement he might regret but I think any serious person would acknowledge that it was a statement born of the moment and not worth considering further.

Not Glenn Beck it seems. Here’s what he had to say about Brown’s “available” comment:

“I want a chastity belt on this man,” he said, while his producer tried to justify Brown’s comments. “I want his every move watched in Washington. I don’t trust this guy…This one could end with a dead intern. I’m just saying, it could end with a dead intern.”

So my question to you is this. Do we really want to be spending our time defending Glenn Beck when he makes such idiotic statements like this? What do we as conservatives get out of defending him? Doesn’t doing so make us look just as stupid as him?

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have embarrassed themselves in the past week with their statements. If conservatives are to be taken seriously, it’s about time they started acknowledging that fact and holding Limbaugh and Beck accountable for their very bad taste remarks.

Keith Olbermann and Arianna Huffington debate Glenn Beck and the supposed threat of violence from the right.

So to get this started, is it just me, or does anyone else see the irony in something Keith Olbermann says:

The Fear-Monger in chief title is just frightening.

A spot of fear mongering going on there by himself I’d suggest. Because the truth is, there has been nothing that amounts to violence from the tea-party protesters. Some raucous town halls and some unpleasant signs, but no violence. Glenn Beck is not promoting violence, he’s not even creating the atmosphere for it, he’s only creating the atmosphere for peaceful protest; exactly what the tea-partiers are doing.

On the other hand, the Huffington Post is political correctness central on the web, a political correctness that resulted in the murder of many in Fort Hood. and both Arianna and Olbermann are strong advocates for health care and ad hominem critics of the right. And what violence there has been this summer has come from the left, usually in relation to advocating for health care reform.

Do I think Huffington and Olbermann are cultivating an atmosphere of violence? No. But I do think they are cultivating an atmosphere of hate? Yes. And by speculating about Glenn Beck and the tea-partiers propensity for violence, they are doing exactly what they are accusing Beck of; fear-mongering.

Excellent point by Nate Silver at 538.com:

But if a Glenn Beck-ian conservative is able to win a district that shares a frontier with Vermont and Canada, ought that not be at least a little bit worrying for Democrats in terms of the mood of the country?

A year in politics is one heck of a long time.

Simon posted a comment that Doug Hoffman has signed the 9/12 pledge. To be honest, as someone not a great fan of Glenn Beck, at least his style, the 9/12 pledge is not something I’d paid any interest to. But in the interests of fairness I decided to take a look and see what it consists of.

The 9/12 project is a list of principles and values (9 principles, 12 values). The principles first:

1. America Is Good.

2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.

3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.

4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.

5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.

6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.

7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.

8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.

9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.

And the values:

1. Honesty
2. Reverence
3. Hope
4. Thrift
5. Humility
6. Charity
7. Sincerity
8. Moderation
9. Hard Work
10. Courage
11. Personal Responsibility
12. Gratitude

Apparently, signing up to 9/12 values makes one a “nutter” to quote Simon. Now I can see that some on the left might have a problem with some of the principles and values. “America is good” – well we know that’s not a principle the left sign on to, just witness Obama chasing around the world apologising for America. Believing in God and having him the centre of one’s life is also not something that some on the left would sign onto in a hurry, but does that make one a nutter?

Actually, the one principle I think the left would have the most problem with is that “the government works for me”. But these principles are standard conservative fayre, a person who believes in these values can hardly be described a nutter.

With two caveats, I would happily sign the pledge and I think it is a worthwhile project to get people to think about what they value, and what is required to become a good citizen. These values represent what it means to make a positive contribution to society and I see nothing wrong in that.

By Israel

No, not an oxy-moron.

As I’ve said before, I’m interested in the narrative of American conservative history, and one of the key features of that history, is the intellectual search for the meaning of conservatism. The likes of William Buckley, Whittaker Chambers, Russel Kirk, Irving Kristol and Milton Friedman along with many others attempted to develop an understanding of conservatism that often defied a traditional Burkean conception. The many threaded and often divergent philosophies eventually coalesced into a pragmatic if sometimes fractious fusion that forms what is generally considered conservatism today.

What worries me, is that this intellectual tradition has dried up. Conservatism is now being defined by how to put policies into place at the expense of continuing to explore what it means. And whilst I’m a strong believer in conservative populism, that still requires a  living guiding philosophy, not just a dead canon of thought.

And so this piece by Charles Murray, lamenting the passing of three of conservatism’s intellectual greats struck a chord with me:

I have been brooding about the cumulative void. First we lost Milton Friedman, who died in November 2006, then William F. Buckley, Jr., in February 2008, and then on September 18, Irving Kristol. The respective giants of the libertarian, conservative, and neoconservative Right, all gone within three years.

…

The comparisons with the voices of the Right today are unavoidable (The Left’s no better, but they’re not for me to worry about). There are many exceptions in print and some on radio and television. But who got on the cover of Time magazine the same week as Irving died? Glenn Beck, sticking his tongue out. He and others like him comprise far too much of the public face of the Right today—crudely sarcastic when they are not being angry, mean-spirited, and often embarrassingly ignorant. The antithesis of Friedman, Buckley, and Kristol.

I expect to be told that I’m too squeamish. We’re in a battle for America’s soul at a pivotal moment. But the very truth of that statement—we are indeed in a battle for America’s soul—makes it a good idea to stop and think about when the American Right was truly influential. It didn’t start after right-wing talk shows got big. It started in the 1960s, as Friedman, Buckley, and Kristol were hitting their stride. It flowered in the 1970s, then reached its apogee in the 1980s when their ideas were given political force by Ronald Reagan—another man of civility, good humor, and optimism. Don’t tell me that we have to put up with the Glenn Becks of the world to be successful. Within living memory, the Right was successful.

Whilst I agree with Murray on the timeline of conservative success, I do disagree with him on one point. Conservatism does need the shock and awe value of the rabble rousers; intellectuals aren’t likely to be rousing any rabbles, but it needs to be tempered by an understanding of the nature of conservatism. Resentment at progressive change, blanket obedience to pre-determined dogma and cliched observance of ritualistic America does not cut it. We need to be sold on why conservatism is the right path, and for that, we need a conservative intellectual renaissance that can be filtered through the pundits and politicians to the people.

That was inevitable. There was no way he was going to be able to keep his job with Obama’s big healthcare speech due up on Wednesday. Obama will need all the news cycles he can get to turn around the healthcare debate. Van Jones became too much of a distraction.

But what does his resignation say about the further right? These have been endlessly dismissed as irrelevant by the left and the media. They have been derided for being led by Limbaugh, Palin and Beck, pejoratively dismissed as a rump of a base, tea-baggers, birthers and wingnuts. The contempt has come from the left, the media and more importantly, the moderate right.

But, the thing is, these tea-party activists and ‘wingnuts’ are getting wins. It’s highly unlikely that Van Jones would have been exposed as a truther, without the one-man war waged by Glenn Beck. End of life consultations would still be in the Health Care bill if Sarah Palin hadn’t gone after “death panels”. Barack Obama was supposed to be impregnable. A fairly large electoral win and big congressional majorities were his licence to carry out his chosen agenda with little risk of serious opposition.

And this is where the moderate right should hang their heads in shame. They believed that hype. Rather than focus on defeating Obama’s agenda, they proposed accommodation whilst focusing their energies on reforming their own. Whether it is politicians like Olympia Snowe or commentators like David Frum, these accommodationists would have allowed Obama an unchallenged eight years to radically transform America into a country where unions and special interests have the power and the federal government pervasively encroaches on every aspect of an individuals life.

Some of the tactics employed by the further right may be distasteful and confrontational, maybe they are focused on unnecessary aspects of Obama’s life, like his place of birth, but at least they didn’t just give up. They fought for what they believe in, and have been rewarded with the bursting of the Obama bubble. Obama is beatable now, and it is the wingnuts that did it.

The Daily Kos edits sections of Glenn Beck monologues to show what a loon he is:

Except…

A section starting at 1:16 had an interesting effect on me.

Beck: “I don’t believe in coincidence. When I see a huge bill after huge bill after huge bill, all hurried and given the same emergency, must pass now label, my reaction is whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. Why the rush? Clearly this is a strategy and it is working. It is overwhelming the system. Why would you want to overwhelm the system? You do it to collapse the system, and once that system is collapsed, a new one is put in it’s place. Well what system could possibly be ready to go? I don’t know but what a better time..is there a better time to implement the 1960’s radical ideology?”

Since Melanie Phillips at The Spectator started on her Obama is a marxist/Alinskyite puppet mantra, I’ve never bought into the conspiracy theory. I still don’t. And there is a case to be made that America’s problems require far-reaching solutions. I don’t agree with the policies, or the need for dramatic change, but I can see why a liberal would. Mind you, a liberal would want far-reaching dramatic change even if everything was hunky-dory. It’s what they do. But it is the speed of change, the ‘make the most of a crisis’ rationale behind the bills that makes me think Beck might not be too far from the truth.

Obama is not a pragmatic politician. He is a left-wing ideologue. His comments, his voting record and his actions always tie him to a far-left ideology.* He is about as progressive as they come. and progressives aren’t going to be prepared to take a pragmatic, only what works approach to governance. They have an agenda for change, and what better time is there to effect dramatic change, than when they can paint the country in a crisis. Sell the crisis, and it becomes much easier to sell change as a solution.

This is not necessarily a criticism of Obama. Progressivism is one answer to dealing with the world. Naturally, I don’t agree with this view, as a conservative, I much prefer a more cautionary and considered response to problems. However, America is not a progressive or liberal nation. Whilst it is no longer as conservative as it once was, there is still a general under-current of a mistrust for government.

I’m just not sure that we are going to see a mundane, steady as she goes two term Presidency here. Even if the economy recovers, or Obama passes Health Care reform and/or Cap and Trade, I do not see his progressive urges being satiated. This is particularly true if the Democrats retain power in Congress. Obama is a master at selling himself as the middling voice of reason in a partisan world. Even on health care, he has the left in jitters over the Government (public) plan. But I am sure that no matter how much he talks about bi-partisanship, or suggests moderating the bill, there will only be a health care bill with a radically orientated agenda. I’m sure the same will apply to Amnesty and other legislation that he or the Democrats try to pass in the next 3-7 years.

This will certainly be an interesting Presidency to watch. Unfortunately, for me as a conservative, I am much more disposed to watching a boring inactive Presidency.

* The one aspect of his Presidency that gives me pause on just how far-left his agenda is, is national security. Whilst rhetorically distancing himself from the previous administration on this matter, Obama has actually continued much of Bush’s national security agenda. The cynic in me thinks that Obama realises that a security breakdown will doom his Presidency and thus he does enough to avoid that possibility to protect his ability to carry out a radical domestic agenda,. But part of me is also more tolerant of his motives. Liberalism has a naive, idealistic view of world affairs. But the truth of international security is much more complicated than that. I think Obama now understands this, being in the hot seat will do that. But we shall see.

By Israel

While watching the news this week from the UK l have to say that l admire the rightwing media in the US for being consistent. Not right, just consistent.

Three things have happened this week and it’s hard to find more than a handful of reporting on them on the right wing side of the US news, expecially Fox (aided in most parts by Drudge and the right wing blogosphere) who, if these stories were about Democrats, would have them as banner headlines for the last week.

What are the three things? Well l can’t do them all justice here but here’s one of them.

Voter Fraud:

Before the election John McCain, when talking about voter fraud and ACORN, said that it would be “destroying the fabric of democracy” if they went unchecked. The insinuation was that because of ACORN millions of false votes would be counted for Obama, illegally handing him the election. They would have you believe that a group that pays people to register voters checks the names and, if it finds false ones on there reports it to federal authorities AS REQUIRED TO BY LAW, leading to the person involved being arrested, have actually taken these false names up to the polling booth and pressed a button/punched a card/pulled a lever and registered a vote. Whether the people going back up to vote again took a change of clothes and were wearing fake mustaches or eye patches doesn’t make the reports.

This has been one of the hot button topics of the right before and after the election. The rejection of the core principles, ideals, and the war-mongering reckless blood lust of regular conservatives and neo-cons is still hard for them to take. A community advocasy group with links to a president they dislike for reasons ranging far and wide, be they birther, christianist or McCartyite, gives them a great target, expecially when the media arm of the party and the reincarnation of Howard Beale decide to spend countless hours on something which was not only check into by the Bush administration, but led to a scandal when nine US Attorneys were dismissed for not going along with a blatent attempt of voter intimidation on false evidence.

Go to Factcheck.org and you find this:

Satterberg: [A] joint federal and state investigation has determined that this scheme was not intended to permit illegal voting.
Instead, the defendants cheated their employer, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or ACORN), to get paid for work they did not actually perform. ACORN’s lax oversight of their own voter registration drive permitted this to happen. … It was hardly a sophisticated plan: The defendants simply realized that making up names was easier than actually canvassing the streets looking for unregistered voters. …[It] appears that the employees of ACORN were not performing the work that they were being paid for, and to some extent, ACORN is a victim of employee theft.

Of course none of this will slow down the likes of Glen Beck and this week at ACORN’s 39th Anniversary he sent Fox News “producer” and professional Glee Club Member Griff Jenkins, a man so poor at civics he actually thinks that the US 1st Amendment means that when he asks a question people HAVE to answer him to loiter outside wearing what looked to be his dad’s tux, and standing on a piece of carpet he seemed to have picked up at a flea market, to do the usual peice of quality Fox “journalism” by ambushing people going in and asking them loaded biased questions. There was also bit of an “ahh, bless!!” moment when a left wing blogger tried his hand at fox style “reporting” but due to the fact that he hadn’t been trained in the dark arts of the Sith by the masters at Fox it didn’t go as well as he hoped.

So while all this was going on with ACORN a man named Mark Anthony Jacoby, who owned a company called Young Political Majors (YPM),  plead guilty to voter fraud and in a plea deal was sentenced to three-years probation and 30-days of community service. The thing l haven’t yet mentioned is that Jacoby and YPM are actually REPUBLICANS.

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