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A fascinating read is this article by a reporter on a Pacific cruise organised by National Review. Read for yourself:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2766040.ece

 

This can't be true, it just can't. No way!

 

Please don't think these people represent the average American conservative. These lunatics are the hackiest of the hacks. Who else would pay six grand to vacation with politicos?

Though it's clear the average Bush supporter would agree with at least SOME of what these people stand for, I can assure you they represent the most absurd among the right. Which I'm pretty sure was the author's intent.

 

True. But, unfortunately, they do represent the average American neo-conservative. And, just as unfortunately, it's the neo-conservatives who've been running the republican party of late.

 

Oh no, I don't think they're representative. No worries.

And I do not think they represent the average neo-conservative. I strongly advise to use this term neo-conservatives carefully. The travellers were customers that were served by likeminded neo-cons. Likemindedness alone however doesn't make you a neo-con. I do not think for a moment that these violently confused people are indeed neo-cons. They are their 'sheep', to be lead with noble lies - only that in this case they are among true believers in their message, that means they have succeeded in shaping their opinion. That however doesn't make their audience less 'sheepish'.

These people rather represent what Paul Craig Roberts calls the 'Brownshirts' of the conservative movement. Details, details, I know. All that doesn't make them any less scary though.

 

Well, yeah, that was pretty much what I meant. Real neo-conservatives aren't actually stupid enough to believe this bull****.

 

I have seen a couple of people on these boards expressing pretty much the opinions expressed by the people on that cruise. I do not think it is something extremely rare.

 

It is a little strange, and troubling. If someone from my country made claims like those I read, I would dismiss him as a nationalist wack. Yet here are people who presume themselves pillars of society - and I would say that perhaps some of them are not entirely alone in their presumptions.

I sometimes wonder how the big parties in the US maintain such a wide area of interests within their "big top" structures. I suppose the rules of the game have been made so that only the top two remain, but still it feels a little strange if, say, libertarians, religious groups, and neo-conservatives are supposedly the same group.

[ July 16, 2007, 12:59: Message edited by: The Shaman ]

 

I do find it both comforting and sad that George Will and William F. Buckley, two pioneers of the American conservative movement (and two conservatives who I admire a great deal) were (and have been for the last few years) rather put off by neo-conservatives and their inane rantings. At least the madness isn't systemic. But then again, it was pretty clear that these "dinosaurs" were being shunned by most of the attendees as being "senile." They'll be dead soon, after all.

The intellectually honest are the infidels to these people.

@ jaoquin,

And the few you refer to (if we're thinking of the same people) aren't good examples of an average American conservative, either. PM me if you'd like to share who you mean.

 

These people are wacko's. I've only met a few people this far over the top in my life. I don't even consider them conservatives -- these are examples of people who allow their prejudices and fears control their lives. Sad. They jump on the conservative bandwagon because that is the side closest to their troubled beliefs (much like PETA being tied to the liberal cause).

It is truly criminal that such individuals are allowed to gather together and inbreed.

 

DR - For someone who lives in Texas, you don't get out much. You don't need a cruise, instead take a short drive over to Cut'n Shoot, New Caney, Porter, even Pasadena and shake hands with some of the natives. Or, turn on your AM radio and take a listen to one of our local political "call-in programs."

 

Chandos, that's my point. This is south Texas. This is Bush country. This is Tom DeLay country. This is big guns, big trucks, big god country. We live in the fever swamps of ignoramus conservatism.

There is roughly 25% of the country who still give Bush a favorable rating. I would say about half of those are unhappy with Bush, yet are invariably of the "yeah, but Democrats are worse" persuasion. The remaining 12 or so percent are what are now being referred to as the "dead-enders." The people whom, no matter what Bush does, will still adore and support him because he's "my kinda guy" and he "gets it."

These are the knuckle-draggers who go on NRO cruises, call in to Sean Hannity by the throng to tell him he's "a great American" and to Mark Levin to rail about "Hitlery," are motived in their actions at least partially by a desire to annoy liberals, or make idiotic statements like "not all muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are muslims." These are people who swear up and down that we're winning in Iraq, and that if we lose or withdraw we'll have no one to blame but "the liberal Defeatocrats," who should be put to death for treason.

In short, dumbasses.

Considering that most polls, on average, put the number of self-identified "conservatives" in the United States at around 40% or so (though this number is dropping), I think it's safe to say that these NRO cruisers don't represent the average American conservative (who are typically thoughtful and relatively well informed) any more than a Che T-shirt-wearing Berkely anarchist represents the average liberal.

EDIT - But then, that's my take - and given my previous status as a Bush-supporting conservative I may be giving "the average conservative" far too much credit. But I think if I were wrong Bush's poll numbers would still be in the 50's, and not currently tied with Nixon as the 2nd-worst President in history. I give him a few more months before he hits #1.

[ July 16, 2007, 19:08: Message edited by: Death Rabbit ]

 

My only complaint was that the jumbo shrimp were much smaller this year.

 

But those are the guys who run the Republican (read as conservative) Party. There is no denying that the rest of the conservatives have traveled this road, while at the same time claiming to have never wanted any of it. When they voted for Bush they knew what they were getting (and giving the rest of the world). Those "happy cruisers" have defined the Bush policy, while the rest have all gleefully signed off on it. Their smugness sets in when they annouce, "At least we don't have a Democrat in the White House."

 

So really a better term might be 'extremist reactionaries'?

Actually, isn't that (apart from the italicized words) what we ALL do - join whatever organized faction that is closest to our own beliefs?

 

My point exactly, je.

 

That's the real catch 22 for moderates of any persuasion. You join the group that you're closest to, but then some people say that means you're supporting the whackos in that group.

I read an article by a stay at home Christian woman who stayed with the Dems for a long time but left them as they consistently embraced causes that she could not in good faith support (not to mention that she felt insulted and belittled by the radical feminist wing of the Dems.) But where is this woman to go? To a Republican party dominated by whackos like illustrated here? I wouldn't make that jump!

 

I think the larger point of Ragusa's satiric article is that the "reactionaries" now OWN the bandwagen. Referring to Buckley and the old guard as "old conservative ghosts," demonstrates just how far off the bandwagen the old guard has been pushed. Rather than struggle to take back the old conservative ground they used to occupy, they concede almost everything to Team Bush. GWB is, after all, their belated spawn.

It was GWB who was the conservative hope of ending the largest demon in American domestic politics: Social Security. There have been old guard Republicans who have struggled almost their entire political lives to see the "glorious day" that SS became a private institution - and for profit, no less. And the hope was that before long even more of the public sector would be off-loaded onto the corporate greed mongers' domain, leaving even more Americans at the mercy of the "for profit" Wall Street crowd.

With the disaster of the War in Iraq, all those broken conservative dreams have nowhere to go. There is even serious talk of reviving the great liberal "demon" of public healthcare. But who can blame GWB? He banked-rolled the entire conservative future on the War on Terror, and came up with snake-eyes. Just three years ago, with the ignoble defeat of John Kerry, it looked like such a "sure thing." It must be quite painful to be a conservative during these last days of the golden Republican regime that was to be the end-all of everything conservative and the endgame for American style "Liberalism." Looks like Liberlism will be around just a little longer.

 

Hmmm. I guess the true conservatives are far more marginalized these days than I'd like to acknowledge. Good points all, Chandos.

And I agree completely with the concept of hitching one's wagon to the party that closest fits your priorities, and that in doing so you're not necessarily going "all in." Before 9/11 I didn't really consider myself politically active, though I did lean conservative. After 9/11, I decided my priorities and beliefs were most in line with the President and his party. In the months and years after, it was the president's actions and the rhetoric of his supporters (some of whom are members of this board) that made me run screaming in the other direction, perhaps rebeliously so.

Now, despite my disagreement with portions of their agenda, I support and defend the Democrats, with reservations of course. To me, they're the only rational option at the moment. Though many of my personal beliefs are traditionally "conservative" ones, there's too much I can't stand about the current Republican party to call myself one for the forseeable future. I guess that makes me an Independent.

Meh, labels schmabels.

 

Heh; s'funny - I remember a time loooong ago when there used to be liberal and conservative elements within EACH party - a two-dimensional 'playbill' instead of one-dimensional...