The death of the conservative intellectual

[Carmen813]

http://www.becker-posner-blog....5/is_the_conserva.html

My theme is the intellectual decline of conservatism, and it is notable that the policies of the new conservatism are powered largely by emotion and religion and have for the most part weak intellectual groundings. That the policies are weak in conception, have largely failed in execution, and are political flops is therefore unsurprising. The major blows to conservatism, culminating in the election and programs of Obama, have been fourfold: the failure of military force to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives; the inanity of trying to substitute will for intellect, as in the denial of global warming, the use of religious criteria in the selection of public officials, the neglect of management and expertise in government; a continued preoccupation with abortion; and fiscal incontinence in the form of massive budget deficits, the Medicare drug plan, excessive foreign borrowing, and asset-price inflation

That would be the most important paragraph.

Found this article while checking out Nate Silver's website. It's a fairly interesting read, as the author describes what he sees as the cause of failure for conservatives during the past few election cycles. I find myself agreeing with the majority of his points, such as the requirement to pass a "religion test" and the lack of following fiscal conservative roots while in power.

I also think liberals need to be wary of the same possible problems. The implementation of poorly thought out policies could easily lead to an even larger backlash ("we trusted you to fix this mess, and look what you did." )

Any thoughts?

 

[techs]

I agree 100 percent.

 

[QuantumPion]

I agree 25%. The first three items in the list are red herrings.

 

[Phokus]

I agree, it'd be a shame if liberals became brain dead like the rightwing trolls on this forum (genx, jbourne, et al)

None of those you've mentioned as being 'rightwing trolls' had been posting in this thread, that makes it a callout post and those aren't allowed.

Consider yourself warned

T.I.A.

Fern
P&N Moderator

 

[Stuxnet]

Originally posted by: Phokus
I agree, it'd be a shame if liberals became brain dead like the rightwing trolls on this forum (genx, jbourne, et al)

Awww... someone must have really had their feelings hurt :laugh: .

Never mind that your own fellow libs frequently distance themselves from you...

Anywho, the whole thread is troll bait. Should be fun to watch, that is if it isn't locked.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: Phokus
I agree, it'd be a shame if liberals became brain dead like the rightwing trolls on this forum (genx, jbourne, et al)

Awww... someone must have really had their feelings hurt :laugh: .

Never mind that your own fellow libs frequently distance themselves from you...

Why would me owning the shit out of you make my feelings hurt?

 

[Stuxnet]

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: Phokus
I agree, it'd be a shame if liberals became brain dead like the rightwing trolls on this forum (genx, jbourne, et al)

Awww... someone must have really had their feelings hurt :laugh: .

Never mind that your own fellow libs frequently distance themselves from you...

Why would me owning the shit out of you make my feelings hurt?

How about you keep your crying confined to one thread? Point people there if you wish/dare, but really... grow up, kid. You're the worst kind of troll... the neglected kind.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: Phokus
I agree, it'd be a shame if liberals became brain dead like the rightwing trolls on this forum (genx, jbourne, et al)

Awww... someone must have really had their feelings hurt :laugh: .

Never mind that your own fellow libs frequently distance themselves from you...

Why would me owning the shit out of you make my feelings hurt?

How about you keep your crying confined to one thread? Point people there if you wish/dare, but really... grow up, kid. You're the worst kind of troll... the neglected kind.

Neglected? That's hilarious, considering you rightard trolls have been paying a ton of attention to me. Again, bizarro world, etc.

 

[Stuxnet]

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: Phokus
I agree, it'd be a shame if liberals became brain dead like the rightwing trolls on this forum (genx, jbourne, et al)

Awww... someone must have really had their feelings hurt :laugh: .

Never mind that your own fellow libs frequently distance themselves from you...

Why would me owning the shit out of you make my feelings hurt?

How about you keep your crying confined to one thread? Point people there if you wish/dare, but really... grow up, kid. You're the worst kind of troll... the neglected kind.

Neglected? That's hilarious, considering you rightard trolls have been paying a ton of attention to me. Again, bizarro world, etc.

Wasn't talking about the forum, you dimwit.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: Phokus
I agree, it'd be a shame if liberals became brain dead like the rightwing trolls on this forum (genx, jbourne, et al)

Awww... someone must have really had their feelings hurt :laugh: .

Never mind that your own fellow libs frequently distance themselves from you...

Why would me owning the shit out of you make my feelings hurt?

How about you keep your crying confined to one thread? Point people there if you wish/dare, but really... grow up, kid. You're the worst kind of troll... the neglected kind.

Neglected? That's hilarious, considering you rightard trolls have been paying a ton of attention to me. Again, bizarro world, etc.

Wasn't talking about the forum, you dimwit.

Wow, you really are stupid:

"You're the worst kind of troll... the neglected kind."

Do i even have to explain, or... i mean god damn, you even fail at reading comprehension of your own writing.

 

[Lemon law]

While the blog of Becker and Posner make some conclusions, I think they entirely miss the point. And maybe might be better titled, conservative thinkers meet the scientific method and are in despair.

Even though GWB&co were poor implementers of what conservatives had been bellying aching advocating for in the past 50 years, they still saw all their hopes and dreams realized as more liberal ideas were routed and everything they advocated was realized in what amounts to a living laboratory experiment. And to the real conservative thinkers with integrity, which certainly includes the late William F. Buckley, they found most of their ideas flat out did not work in the real world. And as a result, some of these real conservative thinkers, insteaad of just blaming GWB&co, realized their ideas and theories were flawed. And to their credit, for the real conservative thinkers, it was back to the drawing board without a the necessity of buying into more liberal arguments.

And because real conservative thinkers are still analyzing where they went wrong, it leaves the field to intellectual flyweights like Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and Joe the Plumber who understand nothing of logic and testable hypotheses. And if the GOP wants to follow that latter set of Pied Pipers, they will find nothing at the end of that path but a dead end.

 

[racolvin]

Dear Phokus/Jbourne77: its your sort of back and forth name calling crap displayed here that gets threads locked. The OP brought up a legitimate topic for conversation and you two managed to bring it down to mudslinging childishness at the 4th reply - it didn't even make it to page 2. If your only contribution is going to be this sort of thing, kindly make a thread where the two of you can have your own shouting match that doesn't interfere with the topic at hand.

 

[Fern]

To Phokus and jbourne77:

Do not hijack/derail this thread with your bickering.

T.I.A.

Fern
P&N Moderator

 

[racolvin]

OP:
I'll have to read and digest that blog entry you linked later and respond but it was an interesting read through at first. More later

 

[teclis1023]

Posner's an established intellectual in the field. I don't always agree with him, but he's good and what he does.

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: Carmen813
http://www.becker-posner-blog....5/is_the_conserva.html

My theme is the intellectual decline of conservatism, and it is notable that the policies of the new conservatism are powered largely by emotion and religion and have for the most part weak intellectual groundings. That the policies are weak in conception, have largely failed in execution, and are political flops is therefore unsurprising. The major blows to conservatism, culminating in the election and programs of Obama, have been fourfold: the failure of military force to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives; the inanity of trying to substitute will for intellect, as in the denial of global warming, the use of religious criteria in the selection of public officials, the neglect of management and expertise in government; a continued preoccupation with abortion; and fiscal incontinence in the form of massive budget deficits, the Medicare drug plan, excessive foreign borrowing, and asset-price inflation

That would be the most important paragraph.

Found this article while checking out Nate Silver's website. It's a fairly interesting read, as the author describes what he sees as the cause of failure for conservatives during the past few election cycles. I find myself agreeing with the majority of his points, such as the requirement to pass a "religion test" and the lack of following fiscal conservative roots while in power.

I also think liberals need to be wary of the same possible problems. The implementation of poorly thought out policies could easily lead to an even larger backlash ("we trusted you to fix this mess, and look what you did." )

Any thoughts?

Okay, this is probably the 3000th time this has been said.

Obama won with 52% of the vote. You guys won by 4 points.

Reagan won 58-40 in 1984. Was the democrat party dismantled?

Gimme a break.

 

[Lemon law]

In somewhat related news, the GOP, in a rare bit of rationality, has dropped efforts to rename the democratic party the national democratic socialist party.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200...l_ge/us_gop_dems__name

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
In somewhat related news, the GOP, in a rare bit of rationality, has dropped efforts to rename the democratic party the national democratic socialist party.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200...l_ge/us_gop_dems__name

Well that's good.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: Carmen813
http://www.becker-posner-blog....5/is_the_conserva.html

My theme is the intellectual decline of conservatism, and it is notable that the policies of the new conservatism are powered largely by emotion and religion and have for the most part weak intellectual groundings. That the policies are weak in conception, have largely failed in execution, and are political flops is therefore unsurprising. The major blows to conservatism, culminating in the election and programs of Obama, have been fourfold: the failure of military force to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives; the inanity of trying to substitute will for intellect, as in the denial of global warming, the use of religious criteria in the selection of public officials, the neglect of management and expertise in government; a continued preoccupation with abortion; and fiscal incontinence in the form of massive budget deficits, the Medicare drug plan, excessive foreign borrowing, and asset-price inflation

That would be the most important paragraph.

Found this article while checking out Nate Silver's website. It's a fairly interesting read, as the author describes what he sees as the cause of failure for conservatives during the past few election cycles. I find myself agreeing with the majority of his points, such as the requirement to pass a "religion test" and the lack of following fiscal conservative roots while in power.

I also think liberals need to be wary of the same possible problems. The implementation of poorly thought out policies could easily lead to an even larger backlash ("we trusted you to fix this mess, and look what you did." )

Any thoughts?

Okay, this is probably the 3000th time this has been said.

Obama won with 52% of the vote. You guys won by 4 points.

Reagan won 58-40 in 1984. Was the democrat party dismantled?

Gimme a break.

However, the Democratic party was in no sense as in disarray as the Republicans are now. The Republicans have pretty much radically altered their parties policies and at least at this point, it looks like it will take a long time to just figure out just what they are, much less re-establish them with the public. When the Dems lost power in the 80's they moved towards the center and began redifining themselves as centrists. When the Repubs lost power in the 00's they turned to the far right and are redefining themselves with the minority radical right.

 

[Carmen813]

The Obama-McCain election was only a small part of the Republican downfall. They've lost control of the Senate and House as well. McCain, if anything, was probably one of the most moderate conservative to run in a long time. IT would be foolish to judge the state of the Republican party based on a single matchup between a relatively moderate Republican and Democrat who (at least campaigned) as a centrist.

I didn't bring up this thread as an insult to conservatives. I for one, believe some of their principles are good ideas (such as balancing the budget). However, I feel that since the Conservatives embraced the religious right they have been on a downfall. The policies seemed to have drifted, as the other said, from intellectual to emotional roots. That has results in policies that are not only bad for the GOP, but in my view are bad for the country.

The one point I disagree with is the author blaming the military. The military has performed commendably given the ever increasing operations tempo since the end of the Cold War.

 

[Darthvoy]

I give the Republicans about 40 years to regain the status they once had. I say so because that's how long it took the Democrats to regain the power they lost back in the 1960's. Hopefully, the Republicans will morph into something better this time. I'm hoping they become more moderate and wont have to pander to the fundies/extremes. It is better to have political parties that are in middle, rather than the two extremes. The republicans are far from dead.

 

[JSt0rm]

I hope this transformation takes less then 40 years. I still don't want 1 party in power. They will corrupt just like the republicans did.

 

[Moonbeam]

How much intellectualism do you expect from a wedge issue party that depends on bigots for the vote? Intellectualism is the enemy of bigotry.

 

[MagicConch]

Since 1980 there hasn't been much room for intellectual conservatives in Washington unfortunately, and we are all worse off b/c of it. Imo they play a critical role in govt in reigning in spending, controlling the expansion of govt, buffering from war. Now we have two pro-spending, pro-military-can-do-no-wrong, no tax parties. It is clear with their choices of leadership in McCain (2009 version), Palin, Limbaugh, Boehner, etc that they are not welcoming intelligence back yet. I seriously doubt America will thrive in this century if they don't return soon and the debate in congress doesn't return to "spending vs. taxing" instead of "how much can we borrow" and "it's okay to throw away money if it indulges the need for patriotism"

 

[Darthvoy]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01
I hope this transformation takes less then 40 years. I still don't want 1 party in power. They will corrupt just like the republicans did.

I say 40 years from a historical perspective, but I doubt it is going take that long. The media is much more intrusive this time around, i.e. it can change perceptions much quicker. The Democrats could also mess up so badly that they could quickly lose all the newfound popularity. I suspect that if the Obama administration is not able to control the inflation that should hit the ecnonomy within the next year or two, the Republicans could capitalize on that opportunity should they be a more cohesive force by then.