Kathleen Parker and the Oogedy Boogedy Blues
The only thing scarier than the Christian Right are pundits who believe that they cost the GOP the election.
In this, the interregnum between the end of one administration and the beginning of another, there’s not much for Republicans to do except look for ways to entertain themselves while Democrats are occupied with the serious business of creating a government.
The problem — and the GOP is just waking up to this — is that there is absolutely nothing for them to do but wait. No one cares what they think of President-elect Obama’s choice for attorney general or any other cabinet post. The Clinton drama has always been a Democratic farce and only involved the Republicans as onlookers, cheering on the inevitable car crash at the top of turn #3.
The agenda in Congress is being set with no input from the losers. The titanic struggle for control of the House Energy and Commerce Committee saw the really, really ancien régimeof Representative John Dingell, who began serving in Congress when Eisenhower was playing golf on the White House lawn, replaced by the Watergate Baby Henry Waxman. Republicans had absolutely no say in this changeover — a product of being soundly and roundly beaten at the polls. “To the winner belongs the spoils” the saying goes. To the loser belongs spoiled milk, rotten tomatoes, and rancid meat.
Without anything constructive to do, Republicans have apparently decided that being destructive might not be the wisest course of action but is a far sight better than sitting around and twiddling their thumbs. And that brings us to Kathleen Parker, conservative columnist with the Washington Post Writer’s Group and, lately, the bane of the GOP base.
Parker, who became the model for thousands of conservative voodoo dolls when she wrote a few weeks ago that Sarah Palin should resign from the GOP ticket, enjoyed the response she got to that suggestion so much that she decided to take her fight with the base several levels of magnitude higher by offering her opinion that conservative evangelicals are scary beasts who so frightened the electorate that they ran screaming into the polling booth and punched the card for the Democrats.
No doubt believing herself quite clever and amusing, Parker offered this “analysis” of why the GOP got shellacked at the polls:
As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.
Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.
I’m bathing in holy water as I type.
To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn’t soon cometh.
Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth-as long as we’re setting ourselves free-is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.
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70 Comments
1. BMoon:Methinks Parker will be the next conservative candidate to pull a Arriana Huffington, and whore herself out to Leftists for popularity and elite celebrity status.
And what’s with all the suicide chic? Reps nominate a RINO. The country elects a dangerous novice at its most critical juncture who wants to raise taxes on the producers and reduce our military. Throwing gazillions down the drain, not to speak of every economic principle that ever existed, in bailout mania. Letting Dems take over the country after they wrecked it. And now kicking God out of the Conservative movement? Why not just self-immolate and get it over with?
What the hell is in the water in the States anyway?
Nov 21, 2008 - 1:24 am 2. TomF:If it wasn’t for the Christian right in the Republican party, the Election would probably have been a complete landslide for Obama. All things considered, McCain did not fair too badly considering what he was up against.
Nov 21, 2008 - 1:59 am 3. cedarford:To Parker and Kevin Drum’s list, add another really grating thing about the Religious Right, typified in BMoon’s post.
Calling any Republican outside the Evangelical South a RINO.
Made even more grating by the fact that most of the “RINO-demouncers” are one generation removed from being yellow dog Democrats and 3 generations removed from wearing KKK sheets and going around denouncing blacks, college-educated, Catholics, damn Northerners and so on.
*********************
The change in just 15 years is amazing in the Rocky Mountain States. You go to a shooting competition and you find men who hate the Republicans but will stick with them “despite the religious nuts” over gun rights. Not so our “shootin’ mamas” – they used to go Republican, now they are almost all voting Democrat. Their issues are Christian Zionists and Neocons wanting the US to wage endless war, mainly for Israel. The Terri Schiavo mess transformed several into Democrats, others into being independents. The anti-gay, anti-abortion Republicans that veered into near or actual fanaticism on the two subjects in the last 15 years. Three years ago, they turned against local Republicans after 2 Southern transplants and a local on County Board tried putting creationism and intelligent design in the schools.
And more and more, fed up of Religious Right accusations of this or that Republican living outside the South and not being born again is a RINO…
Oh, and need I add we are in an area with a significant Mormon and Latino minority – and while not adulated, both groups are well-liked and well regarded and we didn’t appreciate “The Base” calling the Latino Catholics “RINOs & invaders” and saying they would never ever vote for Romney because of his religion.
Nov 21, 2008 - 2:21 am 4. syn:The worshippers of Collectivist’s Golden Entitlement Coins, not worhippers of God, which helped Democratic Party. In fact, the only mention of God throughtout this election was from Rev Wright who damned America.
Unfortunately 52% of the American population do not know that the Golden Entitlement Coins have no value and will be looking to God to relieve them from the pain the Collectivists brought to their lives.
Collectivism kills everything, this is a fact of life.
Nov 21, 2008 - 3:05 am 5. Rose from Ohio:When Kathleen Parker finally admitted that her husband found Sarah Palin to be “hot”, her writing on the subject finally made sense.
Sadly, too many women will lash out at other women for no other reason than they feel personally threatened by them.
The rest of Parker’s writing on the subject is simply an attempt to rationalize her position.
Nov 21, 2008 - 3:15 am 6. Snorri Godhi:One might think that I am the kind of person that Ms. Parker is appealing to: I am agnostic and European, and believe that some European cultures have managed to preserve bourgeois values reasonably well without much church-going. All the same, I think that Parker got it almost completely wrong.
Two whoppers stand out in Parker’s article.
First, the demands of the American religious right are very modest: it is only a slight exaggeration to say that all what they want is to be left alone. It is revealing that Parker assumes that Sarah Palin belongs to the religious right, even though Palin has done exactly nothing to promote a religious agenda.
Second, Parker confuses race, marriage, and religion. This is especially stupid, since California’s referendum on Proposition 8 shows that ethnic minorities can be more religious than whites: if the GOP wants to appeal to them, then they should put even more emphasis on faith.
As for marriage, the main reason there are fewer married people is high house prices: the way for the GOP to gain votes is to make housing more affordable — and that is just what happened over the last couple of years, but the benefit to the GOP will take time to show.
And yet, there is an intuition hidden in Parker’s article beneath all the silliness and nonsense: the intuition is that the GOP has an image problem, and that the very word “conservative” repels young people and minorities, even when they do hold conservative values. What should be done to solve this problem, I do not pretend to know.
Nov 21, 2008 - 3:42 am 7. SiouxLady:Ms. Parker is not kicking G-O-D out of politics. She’s kicking a white G-O-D out in favor of Jeremiah Wright’s (talk about spittle)G-O-D. It’s always been okay for the Rev. MLK, Re. JJ and the Father Drinans to put G-O-D in politics. As an atheist, I fear the G-O-D of the left a heck of lot more than I do that of the right.
Nov 21, 2008 - 4:06 am 8. cfbleachers:Well, yes….and no.
Look, there is not a bit of doubt that very dishonest and extremely disgusting caricature of all things non-leftist in this country has taken hold in pop culture and has apparently seeped into the public consciousness of everyone who doesn’t steadfastly inoculate themselves against the disease and remain on awares at all times against the places where the might become infected.
Public discourse by cartoonish animations in the debate is the rule of the day. Demonized and “fringe tied” is de rigeur when talking about an opponent’s position on any subject, but most importantly “hot button” or lightning rod topics.
It’s quite telling as one witnesses the stark differences in the post mortem in a sweeping defeat between the right and the left. The right looks inward and struggles with shifting more rightward or towards the center. The left simply blames the vast right wing conspiracy for stealing the election. In both instances, the pop culture blamefest of all things non-leftist…wins the day.
The answer as I see it, is none of the above.
First, everyone who is a non-leftist (this included everyone from traditional or “classic” liberals, libertarians, centrists, moderates, RINO’s, fiscal Republicans/egalitarian Democrats [FRED's], center right Republicans and faith-based Republicans) must immediately CEASE AND DESIST from feeding the beast of leftist propaganda in pop culture.
It is bad enough that they own the information stream and have infiltrated EVERY venue whereby opinions are formed en masse and impressionable minds and weaker thinkers populate to get their “facts” about virtually everything in this society. They frame the issues, they invent the language, they lampoon and make caricatures of non-leftists, and they infuse their propaganda into the culture. (hollywood, academia, alphabet newsrooms, print media, periodical media, leftist blogs, wire services, international media broadcasting here, “grassroots” organizations that are merely fronts for leftist groups)
By subtle and increasingly “in your face” tactics they get the entire culture to begin to use their language and believe their caricatures until they gain a foothold in the subliminal mind’s eye, and finally become accepted as “truisms”.
Calling this shill media “mainstream” is one of my pet peeves. But more than being peevish about it, I am adamant in not fostering the disease by promoting its sepsis. I have written repeatedly that if they are the “main stream”, I don’t want to drink from it. It is polluted, toxic and diseased.
They do NOT represent the “mainstream” of American thought, they represent the brainwashing, cultish extremes on the left side of the spectrum. Cease and desist from using their language, their framing of the issues, their caricatures of all things non-leftist, their cartoonish animations of important issues for public discourse…and you begin to kill the disease. Do it not and you help to spread it. Fair warning is forewarning. Ignore it at your will and whim, enhance it at your peril.
If we are too lazy, too unengaged, too apathetic to remain vigilant against the creeping cultism of leftist ideology into our cultural landscape, then we deserve what results.
Now…and only now, can we assess what Parker and Drum are feeling and saying and respond to it. Evaluated in the light of the foregoing, Parker and Drum are recoiling against the pendulumic arc which swings more wildly in each successive election. The visual image is of a mass of people on a boat which is capsizing. They rush away from the side listing toward the crashing sea en masse and thereupon THAT side gets all the weight and begins listing…whereupon they rush back to the other side. This is a “throw the bums out, bring in the other bums…and heaven save us from the new bums, please, please, more than the last bums” reaction…nothing more, nothing less.
But Parker and others want clarity. They want a formulaic “reason”, they want to divorce themselves from the caricature and the cartoonish…they don’t want to be “stained” with the lampoon any longer. They don’t want to be identified as the “framed” non-leftist anymore. Bigoted, homophobic, NASCAR loving, ignorant, not chic, not nuanced, not educated, not articulate, bitter/clinging, gun loving, religious troglodytes.
They are recoiling from the pop culture brainwashing that has infected them. And so, they lash out at the victims of it, instead of the perpetrators.
Yes, it is true that the fringes have the loudest voices. Yes, it is true that the fringes get the most attention. But the right fringe is so marginalized…it is toothless. The left fringe is anything but toothless. Those of us not on the fringes have to seize the public discourse, own the language and frame the issues. We can’t do that, if we can’t recognize where the problem lies. And we can’t get Parker back …if we can’t identify what the disease is and how she got infected with it. And yes…we want her back. She is a symptom, she is not the disease. It’s time to stop treating the symptoms.
Nov 21, 2008 - 4:23 am 9. Brian Richard Allen:“” …. the bald faced lie that McCain’s position on immigration was exactly the same as Rush Limbaugh’s …. “”
Whoa, there, young Rick!
Be real.
What about the bald faced lie that (Mr) McCain’s position on immigration was exactly the same as the bald faced lie that Mr Limbaugh’s position on immigration was anything like that misrepresented as Mr Limbaugh’s and presented in the bald faced bunch of bloody lies in that obscene commercial?
Brian Richard Allen
Nov 21, 2008 - 4:40 am 10. Terry Gain:Los Angeles – CalifornOBAMAcated 90028
“Reps nominate a RINO”.
Not just a RINO but a RINO unwilling to stand up and fight – and incapable even if he’d had the stomach for the fight. McCain had the Democrat-created CRA- Fannie Mae financial crisis handed to him and had no clue how to use it to his advantage.
More clueless prattle from Parker. The reality is that Sarah’s skirts were not wide enough to carry McCain to victory.
Nov 21, 2008 - 4:43 am 11. sugarcat:To cfbleachers: Right on!!! The transformation into groupthink and groupspeak is not yet complete…I would like to help re-frame the language of the discourse, so far other than O’Reilly on Fox, you are the first to mention the takeover of the language. Within that PC framework, none but leftists can have the advantage. Please share any links to similar thinkers!
Nov 21, 2008 - 5:24 am 12. Andrew Ian Dodge:And a good example of social-con lunacy is Huckabee. His style of Christian Democratic socialism is just as bad as Obama’s. The social-cons need to realise that you can do squot if you aren’t in power. Huckbee and others of his ilks trashing of the libertarians on the right is just foolish and counter-productive.
And the strop that the social-cons put on this election cycle was pathetic, at least in early demographics it seems many could not even be bother to vote.
Nov 21, 2008 - 5:32 am 13. HardHeadedWoman:I’ve always thought that Kathleen Parker was far too ambiguous to be considered Conservative. I think that many have made the same mistake with her that they have with Christopher Hitchens, Andrew Sullivan and Dick Morris to name a few. They all have, at one time or another, disagreed with a liberal talking point or said/wrote something that Conservatives liked or agreed with and were then mistakenly viewed as Conservative. Parker is just another Maureen Dowd, in my opinion, but a much better writer.
Nov 21, 2008 - 5:51 am 14. Rashputin:Parker is indeed positioning herself to remain “relevant” in the eyes of those who now dominate. She is the perfect example of who to avoid when we regain a dominate position, and we will.
Decades of creating ever more narrowly defined special interests for their own ends has turned the democrat party into a river of complaints unified only by the fact that the discontented are all going towards the same waterfall. Democrats haven’t elected Obama president as much as they’ve elected him to play the role of Gingerbread Man and force him to ride the fox of broken promises across the river they created. The tough economic times were facing means that the river will be wide and turbulent. He’s going to need the support of someone who has core beliefs they don’t shed at the drop of the media’s hat and he can’t find that amidst the democrats who elected him. Look at the way they treated the ever faithful Hillary and you can plainly see that there is no honor among the thieves. Where there’s no honor, there can be no core beliefs.
SouixLady hit it on the head. The left will sooner or later promote and enshrine a counter-religion as surely as the Nazis did. The left has already decided that freedom of religion really means that the government is free to tell people what they are not allowed to believe in public. With the efforts to allow “gay” marriage, they’re even claiming the right to redefine the traditional Christian sacraments as they see fit; a claim to be the arbiters of theology if ever there was one. The book burnings and Krystal Nachts can’t be far behind. Once “The One” is officially president, it won’t surprise me if we see him appealing to faith more often than Huckabee did. The last Malaise we elected sure did.
All you leftists get ready to be cut down on the verge of total victory, not by evil conservatives, but by a new opiate passed to the masses by your own hand.
Have a nice day
Nov 21, 2008 - 5:56 am 15. Rashputin:Andrew Ian Dodge – would you be offended if I say, “Amen”?
Nov 21, 2008 - 5:57 am 16. MarkD:I suspect the “get out of my life and get out of my wallet” platform would have swept the election. People who run for power are not going to give up power.
The Republicans proved that. They swept to power in 1994, then became what they ran against. Our current “compassionate conservative” president is compassionate, but hardly conservative.
The choice was between McBad and worse. The Republicans lost, because of inadequate turnout. So the answer is to shrink the party? I don’t think so. The answer is to offer a limited government vision for America, where Americans of all persuasions can flourish.
Nov 21, 2008 - 6:02 am 17. David:All the election babble is about how the Republican Party can retool, reorganize and reinvent itself to gain back political control.
It is not about political control. It is about core principles and the political high ground.
All this chatter about who we should morph into is more self-loathing than instructive. When the religious right starts rioting like the Prop 8 gays in California, I will pause to reconsider. Meanwhile, Rick Warren was the only person anywhere who gave us a good look at the candidates.
Clinton was a church-goer and Bible toter. Reagan was neither. Which one put his faith in God?
The Republican Party just needs to stand up and stand firmly on its conservative principles.
Nov 21, 2008 - 6:27 am 18. Lynn:Ladies and Gentlemen strap on your seatbelts we are about to bank hard to the left and our destination is in sight. For you middle of the road sceptics G-D is not on the plane …. well… a wishy washy, hides in the public square and stays out of the public discourse g-d is here, but only to keep us in secular line, is aboard. Relax and enjoy the ride.
Nov 21, 2008 - 6:38 am 19. Bill in NY:MarkD: you said it, and it’s really that simple. There are more “conservatives” than there are “Democrats” or “Republicans” who want what Americans have always wanted: freedom. Freedom comes with responsibility, and that’s the opposite of a nanny-state. One only has to travel the countryside, whether red or blue states, and see the sheer number of churches to know that Christian people have not, and will not go away. But, even Christian people (most) don’t want the government to dictate to us.
Nov 21, 2008 - 6:44 am 20. cfbleachers:Sugarcat, protein wisdom is written by Jeff G and he regularly assaults the leftists from a worldview of “classic liberalism”.
Bill Whittle at ejectejecteject (also at NRO and Pajamas TV) is stellar at grabbing the reins.
But, I want to help lead the battle to take back the language, to not always be reactive in the framing of the issues, and in destroying the caricatures and cartoonish animation of non-leftism. I have called out to everyone who is not marching in lockstep with leftist indoctrination to join in an alliance to give principled dissent a voice, to stop the crushing of its windpipe. I fear as a commenter, I simply am not very effective.
Perhaps I give myself too much credit, and it’s not my station as a commenter (rather than a blogger…or heaven help us…a “journalist”) and my voice is simply not powerfully enough conveyed. To state it another way, maybe I give my articulation way too much credit in my own mind and it’s not the fact that I don’t have the faintest clue (nor inclination, time or wherewithal) to create my own blog…but rather, I simply am not convincing enough in what I do write. It’s not the vehicle, it’s the message that lacks. I don’t know.
All I know is…I’ve had more than enough digestion (and indigestion from) all the vitriol on the side of folks who ought to be linked arm in arm in alliance…against each other, and not nearly enough recognition that we have a common bond, a common goal, a common interest and a common foe to defeat.
Pernicious leftism and its vicelike grip on our information stream, our pop culture, our development of ideas and the framing of our issues…is a metastisized disease. Each and every dissenting voice…anywhere on the spectrum to the right of leftism…has been drowned, strangled, choked and beaten down. And still we fight between and among ourselves while they snicker and revel in their mischief.
Non-leftists need to unite for the sake of principled dissent and to have our voices heard. We have been losing an internal war for nearly 50 years…and we have been the boiled frog, where the temperature in the pot has been raised one degree at a time.
Picking on Kathleen Parker (or the idiotic attack on the Anchoress), is giving the leftists front row seats in the divide and conquer strategy that they set in motion. How stupid can we act? How oblivious can we become? If they breach the center of our alliance, they win…I can’t put it any more plainly.
They have nearly destroyed the communications systems, which they now own and dominate. They have filled the alliance with self-doubt and made it halting and hesitant. The infighting is a by-product of their propaganda. I refuse to dance on a stage to their tune.
We may not always agree on a particular issue, but let’s keep our eye on the ball here. Take back the language. Frame the issues articulately from a base of common ground. Regrasp the arms and link up the alliance. Cut the puppet strings that they create in their divide and conquer strategies. The enemy of freedom and liberty is the chokehold on principled dissent. We need to stop feeding the beast.
Nov 21, 2008 - 6:49 am 21. view from afar:Really agree with 6, 16 and 17, sorry I couldn’t concentrate on cfbleachers as I’m quickly reading today. I do need to point out to rashputin that the new religion already exists, in the humanist twist that is on Washington DC buses this holiday season… It’s just treading carefully as there are still enough Judeo-Christian values that hold the American culture together.
Nov 21, 2008 - 6:59 am 22. Commentary » Blog Archive » Re: What The Huck?:[...] pursuing the presidency in 2012 and not book sales and TV ratings. Certainly, a conservative can raise her profile, get on the short list for a New York Times column, up her bookings on MSM outlets, and get [...]
Nov 21, 2008 - 7:00 am 23. Tex Taylor:Hey, great post Cedarford! Religiously bigoted, anti-Semitic, freedom from religion, evolving from the chimps, euthanasia, and infanticide! Sounds like the platform we need to adopt – a European model! That has served them so well the last 100 years.
Nov 21, 2008 - 8:12 am 24. Shane from PV:Excellent article Rick, as usual.
It’s true we’re in a battle to define the language the political armies are using on the battlefield – the right likes to cry “socialilsm” at the fearful prospects of an Obama takeover, but it doesn’t help that President Bush dug the hole we’re throwing taxpayer money in to. It also doesn’t help that the American voter has no idea what socialism is – you say the word and they think gulags and stern, cold Russian menace. They know Russia is not what it once was, so they think the charge is just political theater. It’s an example that our problem might not just be that the language has been co-opted by the left, but that such co-option can’t happen unless Americans are ignorant of the meaning and history these words are born of. We’ve all seen by now the John Ziegler video about Obama voters, it’s heartbreaking. Surely there’s some of that thoughtlessness on the right as well. The opportunity Obama might give us is the chance to teach Americans the history of power and the consequences of ignorance. We’ve got a big job ahead of us.
Lastly, I think we throw around the word ‘conservative’ too easily. What makes Kathleen Parker a conservative? Conservative philosophy means support of the free market, respect for tradition and religion, modesty and humility – the dignity of life and the power of individual liberty. When we begin to water this down to appeal to voting blocs seemingly out of reach, what of the damage to culture even if political victory is achieved? Political power is not a straight line on a graph, it’s a pendulum nudged by economic, nationalistic and cultural forces often beyond our control. Trying to fashion a platform that will appeal to the fickle attractions of the young makes no sense. The independents will go where the choice profits them. The liberal will shriek and swoon with every passing secular messiah. Let’s stick to our conservative principles and teach them – if we begin to doubt them, there is no reason to believe that we convince anyone else that American culture is worth saving.
Nov 21, 2008 - 8:17 am 25. John the Libertarian:Parker is no friend of conservatives and no friend of women.
She’s a 4-pinger, when the conservative movement has V-8s like Krauthammer and Coulter.
As Malkin suggests: Don’t Feed The Troll
Nov 21, 2008 - 8:25 am 26. trangbang68:I think the mistake the Christian church has made is to identify so solidly with the Republican party that we are taken for granted (like Blacks who regularly say yes sir to their Democrat plantation masters.) The best thing the church can do is be iconoclastic. Both parties are owned lock, stock and barrel by the corruptocrats on Wall Street and K Street.
Nov 21, 2008 - 8:29 am 27. Jack Okie:McCain was a lame old man with any principles he may have had long cast aside in DC. Obama played him like a drum by being cool and aloof. Enough fools drank the Koolaid. Palin was refreshing and energizing to the heartland because she represented the traditions we have long held and hope can yet be resurrected.
Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonen, Christopher Buckley and the rest of the Quislings are nobodys who think their opinion means something.
Pundits are occasionally interesting, but soon forgotten.
Cedarford claims Christians are a dinosaur in the Republican room. In reality paleo- conservative anti-Semites of his ilk represent not even a blip on the statistical map. Outside of Rockford, Illinois and a couple of compounds in Idaho they don’t exist. Who has more influence in the public square, James Dobsen or Thomas Fleming? Rick Warren or Justin Raimondo?
If a true conservative party arises, Christians and other traditionalists will flock there and the Republicrats will sink into oblivion. If not the Church will stand on its own merits and a pox on both houses.
There is much on the mark in this thread (thank you, cfbleachers), but like so many other comment threads, too many conservative commenters do not seem to understand politics: “the art of the possible”. “Compassionate Conservative” was GWB’s attempt to counter the leftist caricature of the mean, selfish, heartless conservative they so like to portray. It was the Republican congress that spent like there was no tomorrow. There was excess spending under Reagan as well – spending he had to go along with to get what he needed in military spending. Was the fall of the USSR worth it?
It was Republicans like Denny Hastert and Ted Stevens who voted to spend the money. Should Bush have refused to negotiate and lost the funds to prosecute the Iraq war, which was only and ever about nuclear proliferation and having to do the UN’s job? Far too many “conservatives” blame Bush for things that belong at Congress’ door, that only a dictator could have prevented. In the real world, principles collide, and the choice is sometimes between being rigid or being responsible.
Nov 21, 2008 - 9:02 am 28. Dlanor:Oogedy-boogedy?
What about the “Black Liberation Theology” Obama listened to for more than 20 years? Did it not advocate the killing of any God inconsistent with Black values?
BTW, much of Christian theology is based on parables, metaphors, models — as interpreted and made relevant to the context of one’s life. Christians tend to be humbly receptive about praying to God for guidance, not for kool-aid or proof.
But, in all humility, what is Kathleen’s favored flavor of kool-aid?
Kathleen, grow up. Please.
Nov 21, 2008 - 9:15 am 29. Paul From Hamburg:SiouxLady: Well said as always. Remember folks, when Parker, Drum, or any leftist says “You can’t impose your morality”, the key words are “You” and “Your”.
Nov 21, 2008 - 9:34 am 30. arthur:the GOP needs to move away from the religious extremists. these people have too much say and too few votes to make it worth courting them over every other principle. this is not to say that religious people etc are not welcome, or even that there is a change in values, or that there is anything wrong with any of those values or those people etc. but there is a change that with other demographics growing as far as what is the single most important thing people vote on, extreme positions on religious-based voting has lost its impact. the big influence of the past 28 years needs to be curbed. Palin was not the first shot of the new, she was the last desperate cries of the old.
Nov 21, 2008 - 9:38 am 31. Pajamas Media » Kathleen Parker and the Oogedy Boogedy Blues:[...] Pajamas Media » Kathleen Parker and the Oogedy Boogedy Blues Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth-as long as we’re setting ourselves free-is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that … [...]
Nov 21, 2008 - 9:46 am 32. JMH:cfbleachers is, once again, right on. View From Afar, go back and read his posts, they’re worth it.
The problem we have is that the two wings of the Republican party (call them “values” and “libertarian”) have their tactics mixed up. Success in a democracy requires activity in both government and civil society (defined as all aspects of puplic life other than government). You can’t pursue government policies that a large segment of the voting population don’t believe in or trust. Civil society needs to pave the way for government policy. Likewise, civil society can thrive without government help, but can’t thrive if it is actively opressed by government policy.
The libertarian and values wings are perfectly positioned to support each other. A libertarian “leave us alone” government policy gets government off the backs of people promoting traditional values. A traditional civil socieity promoting values of responsibility, accountability, and community involvment gives voters the outlook and social framework to reject a big government nanny-state. Neither can survive without the other.
Unfortunately, the “values conservatives” have been putting their energy into government policy instead of civil society, and the libertarians have been most active in civil society (think tanks, blogs, publications) instead of government policy. They’re each playing to their weaknesses, and it’s killing up.
Americans get nervous about “values” groups pursing government policy. Most Americans feel that, if the values you are promoting are good and worthwhile, you shouldn’t need government authority to force them on people. You should be able to convince people with the merits of your position. This goes for the left and the right. The Left has its own values after all, and here in Deep Blue Seattle, the city tax on grocery bags (a green favorite) has provoked an anti-tax, anti-green, revolt among the people who send Bagdad Jim McDermot back to congress every election. For that matter, Prop 8 in California was not really a case of the right wing pushing it’s values via government, but rather a reaction to the left wing pushing theirs. The more anyone is seen trying to use the law to push a set of values on voters, the less support they get from those voters. The “values” message is weak when pursued through government policy.
Likewise, the “leave me alone” message is weak when pursued through civil society. The most effective criticism of libertarian ideas is that they are uncaring, leaving people out in the cold if they hit a string of bad luck. Society needs some kind of safety net, after all. The best one is a voluntary one provided by civil society (family, friends, community, church) rather than a coercive one from government, but if people don’t trust civil society to provide a safety net, they will vote for government to provide one. Libertarian messages about social values don’t resonate with people.
Our failures have come from the two wings pursing the wrong objectives. Leftist ideology (look at all the groupism going on) is trumping libertarians in civil society, and Leftist politics (look at Congress) is trumping values conservatives in government. We need to trade objectives. We need to deploy our libertarian wing on the government front (”get the government off our backs”) and our values wing on the civil society front (”a strong community doesn’t need a big government”).
Nov 21, 2008 - 9:49 am 33. Valerie:Kathleen Parker has found out that the Washington Post likes a “conservative” who is in reality a jealous b*tch. I never read her articles before, and after her attack on Sarah Palin, I’ll skip anything they publish with her name on it.
Nov 21, 2008 - 9:59 am 34. Rashputin:view from afar – “I do need to point out to rashputin that the new religion already exists, in the humanist twist that is on Washington DC buses this holiday season”
I see that as fishing expedition to see what level of protest and disgust there is in reaction. Naturally it would be characterized as misplaced, but test marketing has long been standard practice on the left and they always advance as far as a lack of resistance to their test marketing permits. I figure the ads for the Obama coronation are something similar, really. First elevate someone in politics to the idol stage Hollywood and sports have risen to, and then elevate them further as the opportunity arises. The model of Nazi Germany will unfold here unless there’s a return to seeing politicians as our employees rather than as our “saviors”.
Many a conservative is guilty of the same mindset, though, thinking that the right leader on a white horse can turn things around. The truth is that constant effort towards consistent goals is what we need, and having the likes of Parker claiming to be on our side and getting away with it is totally inconsistent. Far from being too engaged in politics, the Church has allowed itself to be cowed into withdrawing from the public life and building extra-societal enclaves for itself. No matter what you might think Christ would have done in a particular circumstance, you can’t argue that he was withdrawn into a community that avoided interaction with the society at large.
Regards
Nov 21, 2008 - 10:11 am 35. BMoon:Excellent comments all (well, almost.)
Facts are, given the almost complete Media sellout to the Dem Party and Leftist academia’s stifling chokehold on the university and even High schools, both libertarian and religious Conservatives are truly the counter-cultural, subversive element of the new secuar-statist religion being formed around a cult of personality.
The fat of conservatism currently getting trimmed off is not the religious conservatives like myself, but the mealy-mouthed rootless opportunists like Parker. Along with some of the good suggestions being batted around on PJTV, and comments like bleacher’s and JMH’s, let us accept our mean and lean role with grit and humor.
Nov 21, 2008 - 10:34 am 36. Sandra:She’s with the Washington Post writers group? The paper that admits post-election that it was in the tank for Obama throughout the campaign? She is polishing her resume, ingratiating herself to the liberals who control the newspaper and ensuring she will continue to have a place at the editorial table. As for being a conservative of ANY kind – please! Why do you think the Post runs her columns? People, this isn’t rocket science. She is obviously not a conservative, nor is she a rational, critical thinker. She joined the stampede with the rest of the Post writers. She wasn’t going to sidelined by supporting a team of electoral “losers.”
Nov 21, 2008 - 10:56 am 37. Dlanor:JMH (“Most Americans feel that, if the values you are promoting are good and worthwhile, you shouldn’t need government authority to force them on people. You should be able to convince people with the merits of your position.”)
Well, it is not so much the values conservatives who are using law, legislatures, and courts to promote their values. Rather, it Democrats, Gay Activists, Secular Humanists, ACLU, and Community Organizers.
So, you are saying values conservatives should just, like, lay down and enjoy it? Come on! Values-neutrality is not some sort of elite, superior position, nor does it persist any longer than any other vacuum. If conservatives do not conserve even the most basic of values, just what the hell are they “conserving”? In your values scheme, do you somehow expect government should conserve a “matrix of human batteries” more so than mothers should be expected to defend their unborn children?
BTW: Overturning Roe v. Wade would not impair any “right” to abort. Conservatives who seek to overturn RVW would not thereby be requiring women not to abort. Conservatives are not asking the Supremes to rule that women cannot abort. Rather, they are saying the issue should be resolved by States. Why think it “right” for liberals to have pushed the Supremes to intrude in this issue, but not right for conservatives to ask them to butt back out?
*****
Snakes Among Conservatives:
To be anything, a thing needs to have defining characteristics. For example, “America” is a country of boundaries that are physical, political, moral, and aspirational. “Conservatives,” wishing to conserve America, defend borders, restrict in-comers to legal immigrants, extol an informed electorate, promote family values, and fight for individual liberty. International “Socialists,” wishing to see America torn to bits and fed to ravening primatives, defend no borders, advocate “rights” to cross borders, whip up, mislead, and indoctrinate electorates, cede responsibility for rearing children to the State, and seek the security of mobs of protesters.
So, many Conservatives, out of sense of human morality: oppose blanket amnesty for invaders; detest the enabling of voter fraud; want States to decide how to regulate abortions; defend the authority of parents; and do not seek to undermine efforts to conduct the nation’s defense.
Faux Conservatives (what are they “conserving,” apart from self-delusion of elitism?), while denigrating homage to any basis for morality as “oogedy boogedy,” mock such concerns and values, even going so far as to argue, illogically (albeit, in cutesy language), that Conservatives reduce their electoral power by actually standing for such things.
And so, this last election cycle, we ran a “Republican” who actually acceded to most arguments of faux conservatives. Problem: Democrats already own the monopoly on voters who lack moral values (i.e., unwillingness to defend partially born babies, unwillingness to defend borders, willingness to gather in groups in order to expropriate the production of others). That is why their candidates run on vapid notions of “change.”
A Republican cannot defeat a Democrat by trying to out-do vapidity or the trashing of moral values. (Well, duh!)
Modern Democrats (and faux conservatives) spend little time discussing moral values, except to ridicule values of Conservatives. Values of Democrats are not moral, but selfish. Yet, Orwellian Democrats take taxing others in order to vote for handouts for themselves as “unselfish.” Remarkable! Democrats: give less to charities; want government to take from workers to redistribute to layabouts; want or claim “rights” and entitlements to free health care, free college education, and free equality in income (i.e., “free lunch”). When Conservatives advocate the contrary, faux conservatives (spineless snakes) spit poison in our eyes and complain of splitting and losing the base.
But nothing could be more fork-tongued. One does not defeat the free-lunch crowd by joining them. One defeats them by joining with the non-free-lunch crowd. When everyone waits for free lunch, no lunch comes to anyone. That is socialism.
Nov 21, 2008 - 11:06 am 38. JMH:Dlanor,
Please hear me out and let’s try to work together. Your reaction (not you, just your reaction) is the absolute epitome of what’s wrong, and why we’re struggling. I said nothing about being value neutral. I said nothing about laying down and taking it. I said nothing about Roe v Wade. I didn’t say libertarian ideas could stand on their own without strong values backing them up. All I said was that we – both sides of our house – are playing to our weaknesses instead of our strengths, and that we need to change our tactics. You interpreted that as me saying to Hell with you.
Why are you so combative? Why aren’t you the least bit interested in working together? Look, you and I agree that the Left is using the government to push their values agenda, and neither of us likes it. Would you like to work together to oppose that?
Let’s take Prop 8. I think marriage is the most important institution in any society. But frankly I don’t think some pasty-faced government bureaucrat in the county administration building rubber-stamping Fred and Bob’s “marriage” License is the biggest threat government poses to the instituion of marriage. It’s not even in the top three. I think the top three government threats to marriage are:
-a welfare system that not only enables but encourages single motherhood.
-a public education system that teaches girls to despise boys.
-a family court system so hostile to fathers and husbands that it is causing young men to develop an aversion to marriage because, whatever the moral virtues of marriage, legally it has become a nearly insane risk for them to take.
If Fred and Bob said they were willing to work with me to reform our welfare system, implement shcool vouchers, and fix the family court system, I would gladly agree to support the county clerk accepting a $35 fee for their “marriage” license (he’ll probalby misfile the paperwork anyway). I would agree to it because the good done for the institution of marriage by halting the government assault in those other areas would far, far outweigh the damange done by letting gays call themesleves “married.”
But that good will only happen if “values conservatives” are working in private society to foster the values that hold families together. No government agency can make a marriage work – that’s up to the husband and wife. And for them to make it work, they need the support of a values framework that teaches self-sacrifice, self-reliance, forgiveness and accountability, enough respect for the past to understand the tradtions that got so many prior generations though troubles, and enough respect for the future to invest in raising a family. None of that can come from government, and it has to be learned, not coerced.
We can work together on this. But we have to play to our strengths. A libertarian government backed by a civil society of traditional values is unbeatable. Absolutely unbeatable. But a government that tries to legislate morality backed up by a libertine society is easy prey for demagogues and scam artists.
Nov 21, 2008 - 12:37 pm 39. Joe_the_Socialist:Republicans are the only political party in history to lose an election and subsequently decide they need
LESS people in their coalition. (RINO’s, moderates, etc.) That kind of flawless logic is what got you idiots into this mess. Congratulations, you’ll win Mississippi and Utah in a landslide
And as for the rank hypocrisy of saying “we just want the government to leave us alone”? Tell that to gay people in California, or Terry Schiavo’s husband, or women who don’t want to be forced to carry their rapist’s babies.
Face it, the Right tried for years to use political power to inflict their moronic beliefs on other people just as much as the most wild-eyed radicals on the Laft, and you are now quite deservedly getting creamed for it by voters.
If the Dixiecrats want to regain the power to further ruin this country, they better find a way to appeal to people outside of “real America”, or their suicidal path to oblivion will just continue. Good riddance to you all.
Nov 21, 2008 - 12:48 pm 40. FLMom:“Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth-as long as we’re setting ourselves free-is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.”
The party intelligentsia is part of the problem. The sooner they are relegated to irrelevance the better for those of us who actually believe in limited government, freedom of speech, religion and expression.
“As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat…”
If bailouts, big government and bigger debt now define the Republican Party, defeat was well deserved.
While the party intelligentsia cry into their martinis and look for someone to blame, true conservatives have a glorious opportunity. Let us begin again, from the ground up, to define conservatism.
Nov 21, 2008 - 12:51 pm 41. cedarford:Part of the problem of “true, Southern Base Republicans” looking back in history is that they have formed a narrative of (1)Rejection of the 100% wonderful and perfect Goldwater in 1964…then (2) Nothing Happened except Carter’s failure (3) Then Saint Reagan came and redeemed us all and proved the Correctness of Goldwater…
1. In 1964 true, Southern Base evangelical Republicans were mostly Democrats who voted against Goldwater. Though, “in their hearts, on the grave of their dead KKK grand-daddy, they knew Goldwater was right.”
2. In 1968, the Republicans headed by the man historians are now grudgingly calling the 2nd most consequential President of the 20th Century (next to FDR) took office. They were a Republican Party that regrouped and won office with a coalition of a changing South AND the Republican Party outside Dixie (which is where most of their leaders and Congressional strength was.) In 1972 they won the whole country but for DC and Massachesetts.
3. After Goldwater, you had a rebuilt Party that stood less for imposing “God’s values” on others and more on bringing America along, domestically and internationally. School desegregation happened under Nixon, not LBJ. The EPA was created. Regimes to ban WMD and initiate Detente happened. Nixon saved Israel in 1973.
4. Reagan had few values different than Eisenhower and Nixon, or even Truman, for that matter. He left what Nixon had done stand in domestic programs, and in continuing the work Nixon had largely started to end the Cold War.
5. Reagan was carrying solid majorities in States well outside the evangelical South. He brought in union-loving, had a pic of JFK&FDR on their mantlepieces Reagan Democrats. He was uncomfortable with “excess religious values” in his personal life, friends with many gays. He at times thought the Southern Religious Right were strange birds. He did diminish the power of New England Republicans, the East Coast and Taft Reps of Ohio through Illinois in recognition power had shifted Westward and to the South, Southwest…But in doing so, he never, ever sought to make voters in Connecticut, Illinois, California fear Republicans. Nor did Reagan act abroad but in a carefully measured way.
6. The Party of Reagan was a Big Tent with the 11th Commandment and no RINOs. It was a Party well beyond the Rich and Religious. A Party in balance where people were told to get on or move along. Reagan was 1st and foremost a champion of the middle Class and their pocketbooks, not Jesus or the wealthy. Both Bushs got that formula wrong.
7. Were Reagan and his people around now, as George Shultz is and had written on…he would consider losing all areas of the country but the remnant “old” South and a few Rocky mountain Statess intolerable. And the housecleaning would not be of the so-called “West Coast, New England, Florida, Great Lakes States RINOs and heretic Mormon States” – but of the Southern fried “Values Conservatives” out to demonize the rest of the country.
**************
Good 9:49 post by JMH. Religious Right overinvolved in government, Libertarians underinvolved to what is healthy for Republicans.
And Post #30 by Arthur is prescient. Captures my feelings about Palin’s worshippers perfectly.
**************
cfbleachers – Yes, it is true that the fringes have the loudest voices. Yes, it is true that the fringes get the most attention. But the right fringe is so marginalized…it is toothless. The left fringe is anything but toothless.
I disagree. The Christian Taliban was powerful enough to destroy the chances of abortion moderates like Rudy and Tom Ridge, then derail Romney as not “pure and sincere enough all his life on ‘babies from conception on”" Plus hit Romney as a religious heretic. Keeping Pastor Huckleberry in the race ended up giving the nomination to McCain, from the 3-way split of the Thompson-Huckabee-Romney conservatives. Then McCain was forced by the religious base to reject all the well-experienced Republican women as RINOs and go with “Pure Sarah, Our Sarah…” which excited Fundie-Land, but repelled voters in the rest of the country.
The Right fringe is well-despised in women, independents, Jews, blacks, hispanics, college-educated, in New South areas, and in most states outside the Mason-Dixon line – yes. But they controlled nominations and took the lead along with southern “compasionate conservatives” in navigating the Party from 1994 right into the tar pits..
The Left fringe may or may not have power. Obama’s appointments so far show they have less power than they anticipated. It goes to how well they work with centrists and if the Democrats as a Team can clean up the colossal mess of voodoo economics, the neocons, Dubya..If the Dems suceed and the country stabilizes, America’s global isolation and condemnation outside “Israel” ends – you may see Left fringe projects happen.
Nov 21, 2008 - 12:59 pm 42. locomotivebreath1901:“Arm band religion.” Listen to the crickets chirp.
But hint at armband politics of a far, far left variety, and spittle flecked invectives will fly, from op/ed rooms on high!
Parker’s another clueless zwonk to join the ranks of Noonan, Brooks, et al, who’ve swallowed the swooning prop wash from S.S. Obama.
I had a whole post on this called RINO Recriminations when Whitman and Bostock bleeted ‘i told you so’ in the WaPo a few days back:
My guess is Parker’s still mad at the nuns, and her word processor is cathartic.
Let’s hope calmer heads prevail in the RNC.
Nov 21, 2008 - 1:24 pm 43. alice L.:Kathleen Parker has gone off the deep end. Her hatred of Governor Palin was palpable. She and George Will need to be ignored and ignored now. They have nothing of use to say. They are tottering on the verge of irrelevancy. If the GOP becomes like the Demos and starts defending abortion on demand and gay marriage, it will be the end. Parker has turned into another lefty elitist fool.
Nov 21, 2008 - 1:25 pm 44. lee:If you abandon the religious right (which includes protestants and Catholics), who’s left to vote for the GOP? Secular seniors, farmers and militray personnel?
Parker’s type of argument assumes that there’s a whole lot of untapped “moderate” or “independent” voters who will flock back to GOP if the party decideds to be a variant of the democratic party. How many of their principles must the GOP abandon to attract the manna? Nationalized healthcare? gay marriage? Illegal immigration?
If the religious right ditches the GOP, then the party must replace the base AND find additional voters to put them ahead of the democrats.
Nov 21, 2008 - 1:49 pm 45. The Whale:And yet the Left has elected a man Who has the best Collection Plate Sermon i have ever heard. That is the problem with not taking your children to church, they don’t know it when they hear it and they fall for it from Politicians everytime. The Only thing missing now is the old sedition law from 1800. I am sure Nancy the Red will bring it up for a vote before March 1st. Because, that is the approximate date when the Left and the Reagan Democrats will realize they have been had( as in conned). When that happens, it will make Bill Clinton’s darkest days look a picnic on THE MALL.
Nov 21, 2008 - 2:12 pm 46. EW:Parker is forgetting that the leftist illuminati won the election this year, partially because of their cohesion. Blaming a large and powerful segment of “your team” isn’t creating cohesiveness and won elections in the future, it is further diving it and allowing the success to be less likely.
Nov 21, 2008 - 3:23 pm 47. cedarford:lee:
If you abandon the religious right (which includes protestants and Catholics), who’s left to vote for the GOP? Secular seniors, farmers and militray personnel?
No, the goal is to reattract the people who once gravitated to the Republican Party that the Religious Right repels. Women, the middle class, the college-educated, middle class Catholic ethnics including hispanics. The techies, scientists, engineers of a libertarian bent that used to flock to Republican ranks now completely put off by “southern-fried” morality and the ambition of theocrats to use government to enforce their morality.
To reattract youth who see the Republicans tarnished by relious types like DeLay, Lott, Tauzin, Hastert looting the taxpayer – acting like Al Sharpton blacks. Youth and Midwesterners who also have no taste for endless neocon-evangelical wars calling for them to risk their asses for countries other than the USA
Parker’s type of argument assumes that there’s a whole lot of untapped “moderate” or “independent” voters who will flock back to GOP if the party decideds to be a variant of the democratic party.
There are. Look at Reagan and Nixon’s electoral maps. Even Clinton and Bush’s close ones. There is a lot more to being a national party than just Sarah palin throwing out red meat to increase the rural Alabama turnout.
How many of their principles must the GOP abandon to attract the manna? Nationalized healthcare? gay marriage? Illegal immigration?
Probably a few real loser ideas have to go.
Nixon called hard-working Americans living their lives and their families unprotected from losing everything with a major accident or illness “unconscionable” and proposed a universal health insurance plan. Republicans like Chaffee were also key players in getting health access to welfare kids..Reagan opposed it thinking that “free market genius!!” would somehow fix this stain on America. Reagan was wrong. Since his time, the healthcare inequities have gotten worse, private health insurance increasingly unaffordable, and costs have skyrocketed to 50% more per capita than our competitor nations while not covering 1/6th of the American population.
Republicans must get in the boat on health insurance, or the 1/3rd of the country that see it as one of the three biggest issues America must address will leave them in the water.
Screaming “gay marriage, gay marriage!” with massive problems America must address that 95% of the country thinks matter far more than “gay marriage” wedge issue politics – is a big a non-winner as trying to make the 2008 Election all about Obama’s long-past association with a creep or two – as what voters should care about.
Illegal immigration – A great place to start would be for Right-Wing Republicans to knock of the racism and xenophobia..
Nov 21, 2008 - 3:49 pm 48. Herb:“Parker is saying that belief in G-O-D is scary — “Oogedy Boogedy” — and that such belief is an affliction, or disease.”
Rick, did you actually read Kathleen Parker’s essay before you wrote this statement? Or are you intentionally trying to mischaracterize it?
Were you hoping no one would actually read her column and just take your word for it?
What part of “the privacy of one’s heart where it belongs” do you not understand?
Nov 21, 2008 - 5:04 pm 49. Rashputin:Cedarford – “The techies, scientists, engineers of a libertarian bent that used to flock to Republican ranks now completely put off by “southern-fried” morality and the ambition of theocrats to use government to enforce their morality.”
How exceedingly odd that I not only teach techies but also work with the scientists and engineers of the libertarian bent of which you speak. Nary a one mentioned anything like that in conversation prior to the election in spite of my being right in the heart of the “southern-fried” morality belt. Almost all of them, however, did mention Bush and his Medicare drug benefit, characterizing it as yet another freebie for the boomers (albeit in much more colorful terms). They also decried the lack of fiscal restraint on the part of the republicans republicans and called the republicans these days nothing but “democrat lite”. The vast majority of these folks, male and female, didn’t vote at all in this election.
Cedarford –“Look at Reagan and Nixon’s electoral maps. Even Clinton and Bush’s close ones. There is a lot more to being a national party than just Sarah Palin throwing out red meat to increase the rural Alabama turnout.”
Another exceedingly odd point of view given that the majority of the successful manufacturing of such things as automobiles now takes place in states more like Alabama than like rustbelt states. Were your point of view and the general democrat point of view that democrats garner the votes of the working class true, then those states you so readily and gleefully defame would be comfortably in the democrat camp.
You’re spouting clichés’ as if they’re fact and nothing else. The reason you and others of your mindset want republicans to be imitation democrats is exactly because it reduces republican turnout and makes the election of democrats easier. It has nothing to do with there being too much religion involved. That is the democrat party line and you repeat in on command. The elitist republican crowd likes nothing better than being the minority on the hill. They are much larger fish in their own eyes every time they manage to shrink the pond.
Have a nice day
Nov 21, 2008 - 5:36 pm 50. Winston:Kathleen Parker is not a Conservative. She is a Liberal
Nov 21, 2008 - 7:43 pm 51. gus3:@ Joe_the_Socialist #39:
And as for the rank hypocrisy of saying “we just want the government to leave us alone”? Tell that to gay people in California, or Terry Schiavo’s husband, or women who don’t want to be forced to carry their rapist’s babies.
Or, better yet, tell that to Terri Schiavo herself. Oh, that’s right, you can’t.
If that’s all the value you have for the defenseless, then your “socialist” moniker fits you well.
Nov 21, 2008 - 8:48 pm 52. Rachel Peepers:I’ve never seen Kathleen Parker, but I can picture her.
Sharp boned face. More handsome than pretty. Long dark hair. Tall. Somewhat attractive. Anybody? Am I off target or on?
While I think there’s a chance I can describe what she looks like, I bet, for sure, I can describe what she wants.
What every writer wants.
To be read. Recognized. Talked about.
Well, she got her wish.
She took this route, I believe, because she knows the elite media will never criticize her for bashing the religious.
Blame them for racism. No problem. Blame them for gay persecution. No one’s stopping you. Blame them for the Republicans losing the 2008 election.
Not so much.
The reason Barack won and John lost had nothing to do with religion. It, however, had something to do with the Republican Party’s inability to take the persuasive powers out of a thorny problem; the biased mainstream media pricks.
What would I have done? Glad you asked.
On every billboard in America during the entire campaign, I’d have had messages. I’d have messaged them to death. I’d have started with something like:
Main stream media 6. American values 0.
Or Washington Post 14. Unborn rights 0.
The Surge, A winner. The NY Times: Losers.
You get the point. Among other things, what I’d have done(along with a lot of guerilla marketing)would have been to make a major campaign issue of bias in the media so everybody was aware of it, making it a lot less effective. Kind of like removing the venom from a snake so it can’t really hurt you.
Which would have made the playing field a lot more even. Of course, it’s not all I’d have done. But it’s one of the things.
When you spend 28 years as a creative director selling everything from the other white meat to corona beer to not just oil, pennzoil, you learn a thing or two.
Sometimes, even when a Barack Obama is running against you, you can run him ragged till he drops from message madness. “What are they going to hit us with today” I’d have them one day say. I’d have the brown eyed handsome man not knowing what state in was in, or how many states there are, or why his campaign was in such a sorry state.
You don’t have to out spend your opponent.
When you can out think them.
Nov 22, 2008 - 12:15 am 53. cfbleachers:JMH #32. Brilliant analysis. Truly wonderful stuff. It should be copied and reprinted everywhere. It was filled with clarity and insight not often seen, even by folks with a byline.
Frankly, it was one of those moments when one reads something and says “aha” upon finishing, as if with a great discovery. Positively diamond cut stuff. Well done.
Nov 22, 2008 - 4:13 am 54. Master Cranky Hucklebubble:I find it quite interesting that the majority of the comments here seem more insightful and mature than what we have received from the professional pundits.
Nov 22, 2008 - 8:04 am 55. FLTom:I believe “oogedy-boogedy” derives from NASCAR and describes the feeling a driver gets when the race begins. “Pedal to the metal, oogedy-boogedy, let’s go.” It’s got nothing to do with Christian fundamentalists, except to the extent that they might be NASCAR fans. It’s a redneck term, popularized by former driver Darrell Waltrip, a color analyst for NASCAR television broadcasts.
Nov 22, 2008 - 9:26 am 56. Briarhopper:Good article. The main thing wrong about KP’s article is that she has bought the media produced stereotype of evangelical Christians. Does anyone really know what evangelicals believe as a group? No, because we are a very diverse group. I know what the media (and apparently KP) thinks evangelicals are–closed minded, vindictive sheep without an orignal or even, an intelligent thought in their head.
However, the evangelicals I know are the very people who sacrifice to keep food kitchens operational, run homeless shelters, provide emergency disaster relief, build homes for the poor, send care packages to troops. Because most really want to treat people as Jesus did.
I believe the main reason some of the liberal persuasion are so quick to dismiss and stereotype people who selflessly provide these services, is that a stongly held belief in what we consider an absolute truth is itself considered ridiculous. Just the fact that we believe in absolute truth is enough to fear us (oogedy, boogedy!) because there are certain positions of thought that we CANNOT be swayed from or intimidated into abandoning.
So, no matter what happens in our society, I will always believe that same-sex marriage is a very bad idea, and that abortion is wrong (AUGH, she actually said WRONG!)
I also believe government should be small, protecting national sovereignty should be a priorty, and that national defense is the main function of the federal government. I believe our Constitution is great, and doesn’t need a “re-interpretation” for our times. If something in the Constitution needs to be changed, we the people will change it. Anyone who most closely reflects those views will have my vote, whatever their party. But I’m not going to believe it just because you say it. Prove it.
I wonder if KP even knows an evangelical?
Nov 22, 2008 - 10:17 am 57. JMH:Thanks cf, that means a lot. We seem to be president of each other’s fan club on this thread…
Nov 22, 2008 - 10:59 am 58. lindaB:What a snide dim wit. Armband religion? what in the heck is Parker talking about?
Nov 22, 2008 - 12:32 pm 59. David Brooks:Parker isn’t a conservative she is an idiot.
Don’t worry Rick. Now that all these really smart Ivy Leaguers are taking over our government, we will all be much better off! Ooggedy-Boogedy only gets you so far. Besides, you are in Chicago. Chicago? West of the Hudson! Rubes like you need to beat it, and leave it to smart people like Kathleen and me.
Nov 22, 2008 - 2:45 pm 60. G Alston:#44 lee — “If you abandon the religious right (which includes protestants and Catholics), who’s left to vote for the GOP? Secular seniors, farmers and militray personnel?”
Short Answer — almost everybody.
The religious right is 17% of the republican party. That’s it. They seem bigger because they’re vocal. Being vocal must really work… e.g. most democrats don’t buy into massive taxes etc to “fix” global warming. The far left eco-fringe does, and that faction is much smaller than 17%. But to hear the democrats you’d think that the eco-green types were “typical” of the party. This is no different.
Religious types are featured in the mainstream news because they are religious, not because they are typical. The mainstream news refers to them as typical though. That’s because most of them come off as morons. They use this to paint republicans as backwards. Congratulations on your purchase — you bought their line. The TV doesn’t lie, does it?
You and countless others have made the same mistake, assuming that a vocal minority constitutes the average party member. It’s not even close. Most republicans (83%) are moderate (not part of that 17%.) That vocal 17% has managed to ruin a great number of things, and it’s time they found a new home.
Nov 22, 2008 - 10:02 pm 61. Dlanor:JMH –
Re: “-a family court system so hostile to fathers and husbands that it is causing young men to develop an aversion to marriage because, whatever the moral virtues of marriage, legally it has become a nearly insane risk for them to take.”
Well, there is an aversion to marriage because the concept is being cheapened. I doubt aversion is the best way to put it. More like, who cares?
Once society no longer discriminates to afford special recognition to the sorts of relationships that tend best to replenish a healthy work population, then we more quickly become like Italy and other European countries, failing to replenish populations, in danger of soon being overrun by other cultures.
So, it is hardly without reason for a society to wish to confer more favorable tax incentives on those sorts of relationships that most tend to replenish a healthy, socially responsible work force.
But, why do leftists, libertarians, and bluebloods (”LLB’s”) think it such a great thing that a country or culture should idly preside over its own disintegration? An odd sense about LLB’s — do they not tend to be so tolerant as not even to notice when someone else is “chewing off their arms,” so to speak? Do LLB’s ever sense (before catastrophe, I mean) when the time for tolerance is over?
A small part of my posted comment was responsive to yours. Most was for “KP-type” bluebloods. However, assuming you side with them on social issues, I should say that I doubt Gay activists want a “right” to “marry” because they are being deprived of anything they could not achieve with a contract or civil union.
Rather, I suspect they mainly want to force the rest of society to recognize or say that they are “normal.” More than anything, Gays want their behavior “normalized.”
Now, educated social conservatives do not especially care what Gays do in their bedrooms. But we do care when some group uses mob tactics (and purchased politicians and judges) to try to force us, and schools, to bless to our children all manner of behavior as being “normal.”
I know you will say there is no slippery slope, that you and society will surely draw a line when polyamorists point to the Gay marriage example and demand their own “equal rights,” and that the lecher class will surely be stopped from lowering the age of children they prey upon (even though schools will already have been used to ready such children to the normality of it all), and that Nambla (you know, the running “joke” with Stewart and Colbert?) would not be allowed to follow.
But, you know what? I do not believe you.
After all, it is not like there are not cultures that do practice such things. And why should you, as a sophisticated, cosmopolitan libertarian, ever think to interfere with the “diversity rights” of whatever culture may next swamp us?
But, humor me — if you do have spine to accept the burden of proof before advocating a violent change in historical American notions about marriage, please draw a line of argument or empirical evidence against polygamous marriage and polyamory. Please, do share.
Until then, I remain of the opinion that Gay marriage (at least when solemnized and favored by government with tax incentives) is a slippery slope — an unnecessary, unhelpful, fundamental (i.e., not minor) danger.
Simply put, the notion cheapens traditional marriage, against which there is already too much aversion for the safe replenishment of American society.
So far, most voters agree. And there is little reason to suppose that most young voters, once a few years away from their sophisticated professors, will not be educable to agree.
Bottom line: LLB’s are far more concerned to try to “educate” Social Conservatives than Social Conservatives are with keeping Bluebloods in the party. If Gay marriage is the issue deemed important enough to send Bluebloods running to Obama, then I, for one, am content that their masks are off.
Nov 22, 2008 - 10:39 pm 62. JMH:Dlanor,
Of course gay activists are trying to use government recongition of their “marriage” to make their lifestyle seem normal to the rest of us. But if government is the source of legitimacy and morality in our social lives, then whatever virtue we ever had a society is already gone.
It baffles me why people who care about morality and know it is the foundation of our society continue to seek it from politicians. Have you looked at that lot lately? How many members of congress, even Republican ones, would you trust to baby sit your kids? How many would you loan your car to? How many would you pray that your kids grow up to be like?
Fact is, government is a poor source of moral virtue in a society, because government is where compromise must be made. 300 million people are not going to agree on anything. Even if there is general agreement on an issue (e.g. murder is bad), there’s disagreement on the details (what should the punishment be? The electric chair? Life in prison? 20 years?). Compromise is easy and good for some things, like taxes. If I think the tax rate should be 10% and you think it should be 30%, we compromise on 20% and we can both walk away feeling okay. But moral issues don’t compromise very well, do they?
Which is why they’re best dealt with in civil society. But you’re helping the Left move morality under the government’s ever-increasing umbrella, where you will be forced to compromise your morality to no good ends. You are the one stepping out, hand in hand with gay activists, onto the slippery slope of government-authorized morality. I’m the one standing back here on solid ground saying “Please come back. Churches marry people, not governments.”
If you persist in this political wrestling match with gay activists on that slippery slope, the best outcome you can achieve is a watered down, heavily compromised morality promulgated by the government. A morality that few people take seriously because it is so obviously deficient. The worst you can achieve is losing and allowing the Left to create another toltalitarian state as amoral and evil as all those that have come before.
Nov 23, 2008 - 9:21 am 63. Lynn:JMH: I hope that Delanor will continue to wrestle with gay activists on the precipice of that slippery slope. Where is your outrage at the gay activists who are using children as pawns in their game to equate the union between a man and woman with their unions? Why can’t my mommies marry each other? Why can’t my daddies marry each other? Why can’t my kindergarten teacher marry her girlfriend? Their are all of these warnings out there for you to see but you suggest that it is those opposing the redefinition of marriage as fighting a losing battle. If the government stays out of this argument than they should also get out of the public school system or any other entity that deals with the union between a man and woman and their resulting offspring. It continues to baffle me why some do not think we should expect our elected officials to be of good moral standing while they are in office and it continues to baffle me why some think that moral issues can be put into little convenient boxes to be packed and unpacked as the need be.
I disagree with your best outcome scenario which in my opinion would be that the definition of marriage as the union between one man and one woman would remain the definition of marriage.
Nov 24, 2008 - 5:57 am 64. JMH:Obama and Soros don’t care about Gay Marriage. But they do care very much about putting as much of civil society under government control as possible. This debate is just a baited trap, and lots of people seem perfectly happy to walk right into it.
Nov 24, 2008 - 9:19 am 65. Old Wife:I believe Shakespeare said it best, “methinks (s)he protests too much.” Something has happened in Ms Parker’s life and she is mad at God. She has some need to beat up evangelicals. Don’t worry about God, He can take it.
Nov 25, 2008 - 1:02 pm 66. Tom Grey:Obama’s not quite as against gay marriage as McCain would have been — he’ll very likely nominate SC justices who, if asked, would agree with the Mass. State Supreme Court that forbidding gay marriage is a violation of their rights.
McCain probably wouldn’t nominate such judges.
If the Rep Party needs to choose between the millions of voting pro-life, God-fearing folk, versus the dozens, maybe tens of dozens, of elitist moderate secular Reps more willing to demonize Christians than terrorists — I think the choice will be easy.
Too easy, in fact. Most anti-Christians in the Rep top echelons will be about as honest as … Obama on gay marriage.
The Reps need more anti-elite real conservatives, like Sarah Palin. Or Mike Huckabee.
Nov 25, 2008 - 4:55 pm 67. Michelle Malkin » Giving thanks for self-reliant Americans:[...] Like our Founding Fathers, they are God-fearing people – the ones elitist pundits deride as “oogedy-boogedy” – who will never put their faith in The Cult of You Owe [...]
Nov 27, 2008 - 6:03 am 68. Giving Thanks For Self-Reliant Americans « Count Us Out:[...] Like our Founding Fathers, they are God-fearing people – the ones elitist pundits deride as “oogedy-boogedy” – who will never put their faith in The Cult of You Owe [...]
Nov 27, 2008 - 6:46 am 69. True Thanks…. | Pirates! Man Your Women!:[...] Like our Founding Fathers, they are God-fearing people – the ones elitist pundits deride as “oogedy-boogedy” – who will never put their faith in The Cult of You Owe Me. They are people like my reader Jen, [...]
Nov 27, 2008 - 10:41 am 70. The Cult of You Owe Me « Right Minded Online:[...] Like our Founding Fathers, they are God-fearing people – the ones elitist pundits deride as “oogedy-boogedy” – who will never put their faith in The Cult of You Owe [...]
Nov 28, 2008 - 5:09 pm