The ever-impolitic Canadian commentator Kathy Shaidle weighs in with her non-sissy take on the "fall of conservatism" essay. Excerpt:
Here's the real problem with Establishment/Movement Conservatism:It refuses to address the very issues that working class people bitch about among themselves and that the elites won't even acknowledge:
* racial/cultural divides and differences, such as taxpayer sponsored serial unwed motherhood that's become an institution among blacks, hispanics and lower class whites
* illegal and legal immigration, its effect on everyday life ("press one for English") and the resentments these effects engender among immigrants vs citizens
* tort reform (because most politicians are lawyers, we'll never see that happen)
* the sense of entitlement that seems to be the one thing all Americans have in common anymore, from the "right" to hog the sidewalks with their goddamn giant baby strollers to the "right" to blast their goddamn rap music out of their ugly cars while talking to their stupid friends on their stupid cellphone. Jezuz.
Read the whole thing. And be afraid, because she's going to get liquored up on Molson's and come across the border and kick our sissy right-wing [deleteds]. Heh.
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The problem with cult capitalists is that they deny the sin nature of humans in order to make their system work. Every capitalist model that I have read has this mytical character in it called the "informed consumer." All businesses behave ethically because they will lose money if they don't. No rules are needed because of this. Business never takes a short-cut, nor does it treat its workers poorly.
Unfortunately, as history has shown, capitalism provides ample opportunity for sinful humans to exploit other humans. All that needs to happen is to look at recent headlines here in Iowa to see how this exploitation takes place.
So please, spare me the "we have not had too much capitalism" drivel. Capitalism is simply economic darwinism...only the strong/wealthy survive.
"But an irrational market is preferable to central planning, incompetent government interference, and any other socialist whatnot you can come up with."
Typical cult capitalism speaks again! An irrational market is preferred to "socialist" interference.
Yep...let Exxon ship oil everywhere in single-hull ships with drunken captains. Let the oil flow...all over the oceans.
Let companies go ahead an put PCBs in asphalt and spread it in your neighborhood.
Let companies bring in laborers from some third world nation to work here at slave wages.
Let the market prevail! Such is the mantra of capitalism, and by God we must worship at its altar.
After all, as Donny keeps telling us, Jesus was a conservative. And we know that all conservatives are capitalists.
"Bombing Hiroshima was a bad idea..."
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Thank you for playing. Your consolation prize will be waiting for you at the door.
Kathy, Kathy, Kathy..
So, this is what "conservatism" has come to? Undead armies of Anne Coulter doppleganger grotesques, all spewing misanthropic nonsense? Defenses of Hiroshima and spasmodic kneejerk attacks on the Great Society?
I'm so glad I've never registered Republican. Look at what it's all come to. Rabid screeds defending rapacity. They'll not even overturn Roe, which was all I really ever supported them for.
Nietzchean will to power. That's all it finally boils down to? Flaccid bloviations and toothless ranting over "eurotrash" four hour lunches? Pathetic stuff. Truly sad.
Look, if civilization means anything at all, it's found in leisure. In things like four hour long lunches & liturgies.
And yet somehow, I doubt that Leo XIII of blessed memory, memory eternal (Pray for us, Holy Father!) ever took a four hour lunch in his life. Read Rerum Novarum. If only we had the wisdom to attempt to form a society along the lines articulated by that great pastor.
I'm sure that Chesterton and Belloc lunched long, and quite frequently, however. And you can read "The Servile State" and "The Party System" and you will find prophecy now fulfilled in the obsolescence of the Republican Party- it's moral and intellectual bankruptcy and coming utter irrelevance. None too soon, and very very good riddance.
Anyhow, I'd bet our esteemed host here, Rod Dreher, has enjoyed a couple of those repasts, himself. And wishes he could enjoy more.
It always disappoints and dismays me to read someone like Rod - whom I respect for many reasons, not least his conversion to Orthodoxy, and continuing respect and concern for the Western Church (which I see as a prophetic stance, one that presages what I hope to be an inevitable annihilation of the Schism, and a restoration of the Faith and all it's traditions) - admires this sort of hideous inhuman and cowardly poison. These people who glorify violence and rapacity.
Opposing them and their sickening ideology has nothing to do with liberalism and socialism. Even the leftists and irresponsible are iconic images of the Living God. Even cretins like Kathy Sheidale and Hillary Clinton.
No, it has to do with the Beatitudes. Would that Kathy re-read that passage (Matthew 5:3-12), and rethink her words.
Capitalism works. Communism doesn't. All the rest is splitting hairs.
In my personal opinion the purpose of government is to ensure that rules are fair without killing the Golden Goose that brings prosperity to all. If the rules are fair then the meek shall inherit the earth.
By definition the meek are individuals without an organisation. Rules and laws need to protect those individuals from excesses of the law and from excesses of capitalism.
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