February
5th 2013
Posted under Interventionism
That’s the sub-title of the leftist, pro-interventionist Little Green Footballs post on Obama’s nifty new power to zap American citizens with a drone.
Remember how Republicans trusted Bush and Cheney? That same faith in big government is now in abundance among the victorious left. And little by little, our freedom is ground into dust.
Kirt Higdon on 05 Feb 2013 at 6:36 pm #
I recall back during the Bush regime when Little Green Footballs was being quoted like the Bible by people of my acquaintance who considered themselves ultra right-wing super patriots.
HarrisonBergeron2 on 05 Feb 2013 at 7:21 pm #
Kirt Higdon,
Yes, I remember those days. Here’s my take:
http://lsrebellion.blogspot.com/2009/09/little-green-meltdown.html
RedPhillips on 05 Feb 2013 at 8:28 pm #
Charles Johnson is no spring chicken as my Mom would say. Shouldn’t he have figured out by now what he is going to be when he grows up? If he had drifted from center right to center left, that would be understandable. But he went from hard-right interventionist to PC shilling, conventional wisdom spouting leftist over the course of a few years. But there is no humility associated with this conversion. He just went from being dogmatic in one direction to being dogmatic in the other. Shouldn’t someone who has changed like that accompany their new position with a little humility instead of sounding like just another Daily Kos ranter as if he had been there all along? The dude has no self awareness.
James on 05 Feb 2013 at 9:21 pm #
Being a politically engaged citizen in America today is no different that being a sports fan. When the team he was rooting for started to have a losing season he just went out and bought the team colors of a winning team. The two parties are, after all, not really different. Both are corrupt and lacking in principle. Republicans, liberals, conservatives, Democrats. Words, that’s all. Just two mafia families battling for control of Vice City. Might as well root for the one that seems like its winning.
HarrisonBergeron2 on 05 Feb 2013 at 9:48 pm #
Red Phillips,
There was no conversion. He was left-wing before W’s war on terror. Like Trotskyite Christopher Hitchens, Johnson detests all traditional cultures. If you have to pretend to like the red-white-and-blue crowd to get your war on, so be it.
HarrisonBergeron2 on 05 Feb 2013 at 9:49 pm #
James,
I wouldn’t compare the Democrats or Republicans to the Mafia.
The Mafia, after all, does have a code of conduct.
RedPhillips on 05 Feb 2013 at 10:21 pm #
HB and James, Johnson says he was center-left before 9/11. After 9/11 he became a terror warrior. The WoT was always his big issue, but he tolerated/embraced his fellow conservative terror warriors because I believe he saw them as his most obvious co-belligerents. But he did for a while take on some of their beliefs. For example, at one point he was a global warming skeptic. Now he denounces global warming skeptics as knuckle-dragging anti-science Neanderthals. I think what happened is that over time he became uncomfortable around the “Red” crowd he had attracted. I think he is a visceral “Blue” and was uncomfortable being identified as a “Red” culturally. His focus against the right has generally been around these type of cultural identification issues. Hence his ranting about racists and “moonbats” and “wing-nuts,” his obsession with denouncing intelligent design, etc.
James, we know the parties are similar politically despite their rhetoric to the contrary, but the type of people that identify with them culturally are very different. Among those people who identify strongly one way or the other, their identification is like a cultural badge to them. I believe Johnson became uncomfortable being identified as on the Red Team culturally even though he shared some political views with them.
HarrisonBergeron2 on 05 Feb 2013 at 10:36 pm #
“For example, at one point he was a global warming skeptic. Now he denounces global warming skeptics as knuckle-dragging anti-science Neanderthals.”
Or it could’ve been an easy lie to convince the rubes he was one of them…
Sean Scallon on 06 Feb 2013 at 6:15 am #
Well they certainly aren’t the ones complaining about this.
Grand Paleocon Inquisitor on 06 Feb 2013 at 7:59 am #
I blame Lincoln. Pretty sure he had some sheisty neocons advising him
JDP on 06 Feb 2013 at 8:11 am #
the conversation above regarding Johnson shows the importance of the GOP settling on an issue as a core principle that appeals to most people, which they haven’t done really.
cutting spending? OK but the public accepts a certain degree of the welfare state. the GOP hasn’t outlined where exactly they draw the line and why. they talk about Obamacare being too expensive and “job-killing” — well yeah, but that’s not an effective ideological argument, and liberals have an ideological commitment to universal healthcare. they’ll just say OK, we’ll raise more taxes to pay for it.
the “social issues” (two really…) well you get the sense that a good amount of Republican politicians don’t trust themselves on gay marriage, maybe self-conscious about being on “the wrong side” or w/e. abortion stays a mostly symbolic issue unless there’s a swing in the Court’s balance.
foreign policy, probably the most incoherent, can’t settle on a critique of Obama’s. ideally they’d ditch neoconservatism and maybe go for a modified realism but it hasn’t happened yet.
sooo…dunno. i’m sure it won’t be long ’til liberals overreach somehow and swing soft support to the GOP at least for a time. they always do.
SoCalPatriot on 06 Feb 2013 at 4:42 pm #
Related:
http://slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/02/silent_circle_s_latest_app_democratizes_encryption_governments_won_t_be.html
An important new tool in our struggle to prevent any further erosion of our priceless freedoms.Spread the message far and wide!
RedPhillips on 06 Feb 2013 at 5:42 pm #
HB, Johnson’s current protestations are of a clearly recognizable type. He is frantically trying to demonstrate that he is not one of those icky uncouth Reds. Even if he may have some Red beliefs he is a sophisticated Blue culturally. I’ve seen it a hundred times and can spot it a mile away. I suspect that it became increasingly unacceptable in his social circle to make common cause with us knuckle-draggers. Think David Frum and Dave Weigel.
IanH on 06 Feb 2013 at 7:55 pm #
LGF is a cult, plain and simple. It consists of the same people commenting over and over and over again praising the Dear Leader and burning heretics at the stake.
As for Johnson himself, I mostly agree with what Red says. I’m not sure what happened between him, Robert Spencer, and Paul Belien, but that seems like the beginning of his abandonment of any pretense of conservatism. But he was never a conservative to begin with. He was one of the those liberals who started hating Muslims for their anti-liberalism.