Category Archives: Conservatism

Pretty, But No Picture of Conservative Courage

Ann Coulter, Conservatism, Crime, Family, Political Correctness, Racism, Republicans

The crowned queen bees of conservatism have it so easy. They say hardly anything original or gutsy. But because Boobus Americanus is so blinded by boobs of the mind and the mammary glands—these women keep their crowns.

Ann Coulter isn’t going to tackle—at least not until it’s safe—the hot white issue of feral- flash mob violence that has spread across “Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, in the upmarket area of Streeterville, in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., in Las Vegas, in St. Paul, Minn., in Philadelphia, on and on.”

That’s a partial excerpt from my upcoming WND column, “Sacrificing Kids To PC Pieties,” in which the immigrant (guess who?) does the dirty job the natives (queen bees of conservatism) won’t do (looks out for the kids).

Rather, Ms. Coulter touches on the attack against Glenn Beck and his family in New York, to drive home her recycled thesis (Democrats are bad and Republicans are good). In “Glenn Beck vs. the Mob,” Ms. Coulter, in PC fashion, promises that, “Beck and his family would have been fine at an outdoor rap concert.”

Really?

According to the Philadelphia Business Times, “100 or more teenagers who left a concert night committed a series of violent crimes.” I wonder if it was a “rap concert”?

Another picture of conservative courage is Laura Ingraham, who guest hosted for O’Reilly last tonight. As the blunt bloggers of “View from the Right” noted, “She covered the black thuggery problem without mentioning the race of the thugs or the distinct possibility that they were singling out Caucasians. That’s all, folks!”

Christie & The Coquettish Coulter

Ann Coulter, Celebrity, Conservatism, Elections

Why I always hold my tongue when speaking about this supercilious woman, I don’t know. Here the coquettish Ann Coulter simpers sexually about Chris Christie, her choice for president. Christie is not even running, but “Annie” wants to have her way with him.

The rest of her analysis is utterly vapid.

Perhaps E! Online! can run a reality show/competition. The challenge? Motivate Christie to make a run for president—and you get a night out with “Annie.”

I certainly like that Christie is capable of telling a whiny woman to get her nose out of his business. We need more boundaries between the private and public spheres, not fewer—and Christie put it magnificently. But where is he on any issue? Nowhere.

William N. Grigg is far less charitable about Coulter. But he gets the Mercer Wordsmith Award for coining a “slatternly succubus.”

UPDATE V: ‘The Mainstreaming of Michelle Malkin’

Ann Coulter, Conservatism, Gender, Human Accomplishment, Media, Republicans

Given the perpetual parade of “intellectuals” who are not intelligent in our media—Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, PBS and the “parrot press”—I don’t expect many Americans to be familiar with political philosopher Paul E. Gottfried. Nevertheless, Paul (he’s a friend) is one of the most important intellectuals in the United States. In “The Mainstreaming of Michelle Malkin,” he writes:

“A recent syndicated column by Michelle Malkin indicates what happens to interesting conservative commentators when they sign on as GOP flacks: They become predictable Republican mouthpieces and attack dogs against the Dems. For years I read Michelle with delight as she railed against weak-kneed politicians in both parties. She was murder on Republicans as well as Democrats—indeed, on anyone who truckled to the Hispanic immigration lobby. Even more refreshingly, she never indulged any politicians who caterwauled about victimized minorities. Michelle happily banged around the NAACP and other groups that played the victim card. The fact that she’s Filipino may have allowed her to get away with some of her rhetoric, but I doubt that particular ethnic background has provided her with much benefit. Being a devoutly Catholic Filipino doesn’t bring much in the way of liberal grace. That identity is far less useful than being an angry black woman like Michelle Obama screaming against American white racism.
“Yes, there is corruption in the Democratic Party, but this disease is hardly limited to those who bear the ‘D’ label.”

Then I noticed Michelle editorializing against corruption in the Democratic Party. On December 10, 2008, she began her new career with a long screed for National Review Online on the “Democratic Culture of Corruption.” After a series of polemics against Reid, Pelosi, and Barney Frank on Fox and in the usual GOP venues, Michelle came out with a well-publicized book, The Culture of Corruption, thanks to the tiresomely Republican publishing house Regnery. …”

MORE.

While I agree with Paul—and have expressed similar misgivings, for example here and here— I still harbor some fondness for Malkin and Coulter. Yes, they are of and for the mainstream, but they both have talent.

Next, Paul needs to tackle the second-tier, mezzanine-level, Republican tart brain trust: SE Cupp, Margaret Hoover, and similar heavy hitting idiots, who’ve never uttered an original thought, and whose writing is like Ann Coulter’s vomit (to paraphrase Kevin Michael Grace).

UPDATE I: I have to disagree with Brett Gerasim on the wonderful job Mouths of the Republican mainstream are doing. Someone who spouts half-truths is still a wholesale liar. Moreover, he/she lacks the intellectual wherewithal to grasp the whole picture—of what a devotion to limited authority and republican virtues actually mean.

UPDATE II: Prof. Gottfried replies:

“Like Ilana, I would prefer to listen to Michelle or Ann than someone like Sean Hannity. But that’s not the issue I address in my commentary. What irks me is that perfectly intelligent and highly articulate conservative commentators have turned themselves into GOP hacks to advance their careers. This is not something that Ilana or I, even if we had the opportunity to sell out, would be likely to do. Moreover, Michelle and Ann would hardly be paupers even if they behaved with dignity and stopped kissing up to the GOP. They raked in loads of money before assuming their present abject roles. Although I’ve only heard him a few times, I have a much more positive impression of Mike Savage, who is quite happy to sock it to both of our zombie parties. Savage does not look as if he’s hurting financially because he’s failed to line up.”
Paul

UPDATE III: I think Paul takes for granted his analytical gifts. My good friend imagines that these women are capable of his insights, but are holding back. But anyone with such well-honed herd instincts is not that bright. Both are brighter than average, but that’s not saying much in “Age of the idiot,” as my father has termed the times in which we live.

Coulter is smarter than Malkin. Malkin believes every warring word she’s ever uttered. Ditto Monica Crowley, who is no fool, but is a statist to the core. These ladies are limited in their analytical capacities and in their individualism. Their integrity is also capped.

UPDATE IV (June 24): MONICA MINDLESS? I made a horrible mistake. Prof. Gottfried was kind enough to correct me:

“I agree with your update. By the way, I knew Monica Crowley when she was still serving drinks for Richard Nixon during my visits to the former president’s home in New Jersey. She is far less clever and pretty than Michelle or Ann. Paul.”

UPDATE IV: Not Cueing The Mariachi Band For Perry (Female Self-Ownership)

Abortion, Conservatism, Crime, Elections, Individual Rights, Political Philosophy, Politics, Private Property, Republicans, States' Rights, Welfare

I “Cued The Mariachi Band” when Rick Perry, the (dashing) governor of Texas, defied Mexico City, The Hague, and their enablers in Washington, and ended José Medellin’s miserable life. Bush, on the other hand, was willing to wrestle a crocodile for Medellin, the man who raped Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Peña in every which way possible and then proceeded to strangle, slash, and stomp the young Texan girls to death.

And it is a happy occasion when any American politician whoops it up for the Tenth Amendment, and speaks about property rights, as Gov. Perry did at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, La. Have you noticed that almost none does? It’s usually, “The right of Boeing to open a business,” rather than the title an owner has in his property, as an extension of the individual’s self-ownership (and they always preclude a woman’s right of self ownership, for some reason). (“The right of ownership is an extension of the right to life. In order to survive, man must— and it is in his nature to — transform the resources around him by mixing his labor with them and making them his own. Man’s labor and property are extensions of himself.”

Fair enough: Seventy percent of all jobs created in the US last year were in Texas. Alas, the governor’s record is at best spotty. And at a time when no one but a minority cares to sweat the “social issues,” these, unfortunately, formed a good part of his address in New Orleans.

UPDATE I: I’d like to clarify (but not discuss abortion, because the abortion issue is one hill upon which I refuse to die): When, last night, I praised Gov. Perry for “whooping it up for property rights,” I added in parenthesis that “this precludes a woman’s self-ownership.” What I meant is this: I always wonder why it is that, when speaking of the right of ownership (property), which is an extension of each individual’s dominion over his body and the things he homesteads—conservatives sidetrack the problem of a woman’s dominion over her body. I don’t wish to discuss abortion. However, conservatives never flesh out this inconsistency. Perhaps they believe human beings, women in particular, don’t have a property right in their own bodies. How does ownership arise, in the conservative mind? Does property not include one’s own body?

UPDATE II (June 20): Cross-posted @ facebook: Kevin (Williamson), I have worked out a formulation about abortion that appeases (as opposed to pleases) me as a paleolibertarian and an absolute propertarian. But is it safe to share it? I worry, because I die on enough hills. It seems prudent not to come out on this issue. Libertarians can agree that no state funding, local or federal, should be allocated to such a procedure. Liberals should be exposed, but never are (certainly not by conservatives), for conflating this position (no public funding) with a denial of what they term “abortion rights.” However, it’s highly problematic to say that by virtue of her fertility, a woman loses a property title in her body. She doesn’t.

UPDATE III (June 20): Kevin, Myron, Don, Joseph, Guy, etc: The tone on this Facebook thread/Wall is pleasingly rational and civil. It’s not surprising among these respondents/writers/thinkers, here. I wonder how many friends I’d lose if I shared my solution, which is still unsatisfactory. Look, abortion is a horrid procedure; especially now that what was promoted as a “blob,” can be viewed by available technology. At 6 weeks in utero, my daughter’s heartbeat was loud—it melted me. Walter Block, a dear friend, has developed “the evictionism theory of abortion.” I don’t subscribe to it, needless to say. But any traditionalist/libertarian solution to the abortion vexation has to be rational, and consider a person’s dominion over his body.

UPDATE IV: From the Facebook thread/Wall: It’s, however, incontrovertible to say that “late-term” termination is a euphemism for cold-blooded murder. Not to evoke the Argument from Nazi-ism (one of the laziest and lowest forms of argument); but it’s the stuff of Josef Mengele, or his female counterpart (his right-hand “service provider,” the proverbial Brunhilda).