The up-is-downism of American political discourse: Special Mosque of Doom edition

Agh, the "Ground Zero Mosque" (not actually at Ground Zero; and a community centre, not a mosque) issue has had me spouting off with such spittle-inflected bile around the house that I thought that I needed to write this down.

Where to begin?

As usual, I am tempted to once more highlight the complete and utter failure of the American journalistic class. It has, as is par for the course, done a bag-up shite job of: (a) do straight reporting without pushing a meme - only yesterday did AP cotton on and ordered a directive not to call it the "Ground Zero Mosque"; (b) acting as gatekeeper/watchdog of civil discourse by allowing the meme's pusher(!)- the disgusting Pam Geller - on telly to push her flavor of patriot-laden bigotry.

Instead on dwelling on the shititude of the journalistic class, I am much more interested in pointing out how the entire crux of this debate - that, to quote Sarah Palin, "is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing" (bleh) - illustrates how Republican behavior is the very type that they claim to be against.

The Republicans (and now some cowardly Dems) claim that because some people feel "sensitive" about certain issues - in this instance the existence of Muslims,apparently - small-government decisions should be overturned.

Right, so let me get this straight. The Republican party, which claims that the government has no right to interfere with private persons and local government decisions, wants to interfere with private persons and local governemtn decisions. And the reason is that a certain segment of the population wants special and distinct consideration, on the grounds of sensitivity. This is from the party that hates affirmitative action because it privileges one group over others. Have I got this right?

Never mind the fact that the dog on the street, never mind most terrorism experts, will tell you that the best way to shore up support for terrorists is to persecute the group they claim to represent.

Wonderful. So in the up-is-down world that is American political discourse, the party that claims to value private property, small government, equal treatment for all groups regardless of race or creed, and national security wants to jepordize national security in order to persecute private individuals and small government so that the will of a distinct identiy group can be met in order to satisfy their sensitivies.

Once more the emperor has no clothes.

And is acting like a wanker.

The GOP is eating its young

Sorry I have been away for so long. Friends came in from out of town, there was an election, and I am officially up to my eyes in disgusting statistics.

I thought I'd take a few minutes to comment on the current civil war that is brewing in the GOP, between the lunatic fringe and the dwindling moderate conservatives. That these two groups should eventually clash was somewhat inevitible. Nixon's Southern Strategy met with the Goldwater conservatism of the 60s and set the Republican party up to be able to marry the social issues of race and religion to economic issues of lower taxes and free market liberalism. The apogee of this strategy was seen in the coming of Reagan, who managed to obliterate Carter (and later Mondale) by snatching a huge amount of blue-collar Regean Democrats: people who were democrats on economic issues but conservatives on social ones. With them in tow, the Republicans stomped to victory.

Ah...the glory days.

However, such a coalition could not last forever. In this election cycle the big tent, already creaking, finally splintered. The proximate cause can be found in Sarah Palin, but I think the tensions were already showing. Nonetheless, Plain acts as a good symbol of what both sides expected from the party. Moderate Republicans saw Palin as a cynical choice but good enough to get them the tax breaks they wanted; radical Republicans genuinely liked her, much more than they liked McCain. As the election proceeded, moderate Republicans began to jump the sinking ship - many citing Palin as the problem; whereas the radicals complained she was being stifled.

Here, in microcosm, we saw the inconsistencies of the last 30 years of the Reagan coalition. Since the 70s moderates were happy to have the rubes along, provided the rubes didn't get ahead of themselves. But the rubes, however, saw moderates as as pointy-headed as liberals, and certainly had no intention of bowing to them. In time, the rubes ran for office and won. Consider the Republican primaries. 3 of the 10 candidates did not believe in evolution. The words lunatics and asylum jump into the mind.

Now, with the election over, both sides are blaming each other. Moderate republicans are holding their heads in their hands, wondering what went wrong, suggesting the Republicans redefine their brand and ditch backwoods politics. The Radicals argue that the campaign was insufficiently nutso in flavour and are advocating that Republicans tack even further right.

I have been enjoying the public weeping no end. I can remember the time when these thugs were intimidating everyone around them and slowly driving America into ruin and pulling the world along with them. So nice to see them in the wilderness. Even better for my schadenfreude is the public battling and purging that is going on. Any time a moderate jumped ship they were harrassed as traitors and heretics. Now with the election over, McCainites and Palinites are blaming each other for the loss. It seems to me that the radical side - as one might expect from a group which has a, let's say, instrumental view towards democracy - are baying for the most blood. The best example of this is "Operation Leper", the goal of which is to:

[track] down all the people from the McCain campaign now whispering smears against Governor Palin to [journalist] Carl Cameron and others...We intend to constantly remind the base about these people, monitor who they are working for, and, when 2012 rolls around, see which candidates hire them. Naturally then, you'll see us go to war against those candidates.

This program has the backing of loony-in-chief, Michelle Malkin.

The despair, the rage, the desperation. What can I tell you? I'm loving it.


Above: Ann Coulter and David Frum debate what went wrong

On the subject of scapegoating ACORN

Here it comes:

An ACORN community organizer received a death threat and the liberal activist group's Boston and Seattle offices were vandalized Thursday, reflecting mounting tensions over its role in registering 1.3 million mostly poor and minority Americans to vote next month.

Really great

Supporting what I've thought for some time

Interesting article in the Washington Post the other day. The bit that stands out for me:

People who startle easily in response to threatening images or loud sounds seem to have a biological predisposition to adopt conservative political positions on many hot-button issues, according to unusual new research published yesterday.

The finding suggests that people who are particularly sensitive to signals of visual or auditory threats also tend to adopt a more defensive stance on political issues, such as immigration, gun control, defense spending and patriotism. People who are less sensitive to potential threats, by contrast, seem predisposed to hold more liberal positions on those issues.
.....

The study, published in the journal Science, recruited 46 white partisan Republicans and Democrats in Nebraska. The volunteers were quizzed on their views on a variety of topics -- including the war in Iraq, same-sex marriage, pacifism and the importance of school prayer. All the questions were designed to test how strongly people needed to guard against various internal and external threats. None focused on economic issues.

Read the whole thing to get further details on the argument. In a nutshell the researchers are saying there may be biological traits to being a conservative or a liberal. While I have some reservations with that assertion (from my knowledge of political preference, a person's parents are the best predictors of their voting behavior - which strikes me as much as a nurture as a nature argument). Plus, there might be some questions about the methodology used (e.g. sample size).

Nonetheless, it does appear to me that support for policies such as wire-tapping and torture - while often being dressed-up and reported as hard-nosed and tough - actually usually smack of cowardice. As I put it in a comments section about torture a long time ago (when I was obviously very worked up about it):

What really gets my back up [about the torture issue] though, is how the whole issue is framed to begin with. Somehow making the moral argument is characterised as a kind of weak, flabby, naive, and all-round “liberal” point of view. It’s not the hard-nosed stance of Bush and co. and wingnuts consider it indicative of how some people (i.e. the right) are more willing to make “tough” decisions than others. This is total BS.

How does you condoning the torture of another person so that you can marginally increase your own chances of survival make you tough? It strikes me as the essence of cowardice. Being tough means standing up for the principles you believe in, even if it increases the risks of your own demise. I live in DC and know that if anywhere has a chance of getting hit it’s here. Big deal. I’ll take my chances. I certainly am not so craven and terrified that I am willing to compromise pretty much all of my principles (habeus corpus, torture etc.) just so the big nasty Osama bin-monster-under-the-bed won’t get me.

Being tough means standing up for your principles and accepting that living in a free society carries risks. And the test of this toughness comes at times of danger.

Whatever supporters of torture may think they are, tough they ain’t.

Cowardly and pathetic might be better adjectives.

It's nice to see a little evidence backing up my rant.