First time diary-- cross posted from my own
Xanga. Posting this more for my own edification on how diaries work here, with the hope to contribute more later when schoolwork isn't quite so heavy.
I recently made the mistake of leaving a comment on a fellow Xangan who calls himself "Conservative_Kyle." Basically, I informed him that I found his site unreadable and his opinions and writing completely stultifying. Actually, what I really said was that I was dumber for having come across his site and that I nearly had a seizure trying to read it.
I'm not really sure what possessed me to do that except that this particular gentleman is apparently so ensconced in his little-- um-- conservative coccoon that the primary focus of his site is less to convince others of the validity of his opinions than to simply rail against "liberals"-- whoever those might be. As far as I know, according to him, "liberals" consist of anybody who is gay, likes people who are gay, don't like George Bush, don't like Republicans, doesn't support the war in Iraq, and so forth. Far be it from me to apprise this young man that with these criteria he really hates most of the people in the United States, and in fact the world, but I thought-- naively, perhaps-- that by leaving my comment on his site I might be able to disabuse him of some of these notions.
I really should've never done that. After all, a person who first names himself for being "conservative" and then writes that one of his primary interests is "being conservative" probably can't be reasoned with in any fashion-- not that my comment was particularly reasonable anyway, but I think I wrote it in a pique of hideous distaste for horizontal stripes. (And how exactly is "being conservative" an interest? Are there clubs you can join for that? I mean besides the Moose Lodge.) Furthermore, the man-- actually, he's just a kid, younger than me-- frequently cites as proof of the evils of liberalism random rock bands and polls that all-too-frequently lack any citation or semblance of scientific rigor (you know, like the kind that states that 99% of liberals and only 20% of conservatives are capable of propagating the species).
What's worse, Mr. Conservative has a picture of himself as his profile-- which actually is very revealing. I don't mean in the Jeff Gannon sense-- that would be gross-- but revealing inasmuch as it captures the basic mindset of the conservatives these days. These days, conservatism isn't about limited government, individual rights, and an uninhibited marketplace. Actually, as time goes on, these positions are more frequently ascribed to both paleo-conservatives (people like Pat Buchanan, who've been marginalized by the Republican party) and liberal-libertarians-- but hardly mainstream conservatives. To wit: most liberals these days would advocate limited governmental intrusion, reduced government deficit spending, and some might even go so far as to promote greater transparency in our stock market (some, but not all). These were heretofore rather conservative positions to take-- but somehow, in the last few years, there's been a role reversal.
To know why, and to know what direction the "conservative" movement has taken, simply look at Mr. Conservative here. His portrait reveals a young white male in a white T-shirt, with closely cropped hair and a goatee. His eyes gaze coolly at the camera, regarding the viewer with self-assured aloofness-- and perhaps, with regard to our female readers, a sense of seduction. His expression is determined, his jaw is set. His logo, then, is the sum of his political convictions: were one to perhaps judge based on appearances, one would surmise that Mr. Conservative is pro-military, vehemently heterosexual, but not so much that he forgets what's fashionable. In short, his picture presents himself probably much in the way that he would like to be perceived: masculine, confident, virile, rugged, independent. These are adjectives favored by most conservative males-- just do a random search on Hannidate sometime-- and might possibly be ascribed to the image conservatism in general likes to promote.
But appearances are deceiving (aren't they always?). Like so many other conservatives these days, Kyle appears to favor a military appearance, with all the niceties it entails, without actually being in the military. His goatee is a dead giveaway that he's not actually in the military, despite his best efforts to look like a member of SOCOM: ask anybody who's been in the service how long they were able to keep their goatees when they entered Basic. This concerted effort to look like a part of the military without actually being in the military is part and parcel of most conservatives: despite the ample opportunity afforded them to volunteer their services to their country by joining the armed services, conservatives have not been signing up in droves to go to Iraq, and recruitment efforts have suffered so much in recent years that the Army has had to resort to recruiting kids without high school degrees. The military persona conservatives like to put on hides the fact that despite their blatant militarism, advocacy of blowing shit up and hating all Arabs, conservatives-- for the most part-- are unwilling to put their money (and their lives) where their mouth is. (Liberals, at least, can't be accused of being hypocritical; after all, they're not pro-war by definition.)
Furthermore, the confidence exuded by conservatism these days is a confidence rooted in faith and ideology, but very rarely on facts and scientific rigor. Witness Kyle's opining on how homosexuality hurts America by raging against-- of all things-- an 80's hair band. He needs no further proof of how evil these things are than his own opinion; no need for surveys or for studies; no room for any sense of objective reality. There is Conservative_Kyle, and then there is the Other-- in the form of liberalism, and all its evils, including gays, communism, gays, minorities, fey artist-types, and mostly gays. People who don't already subscribe to the theory that only white males-- the long downtrodden, hard-working plebicites suffering at the hands of a vindictive liberal-Hollywood-queer-French-socialist conspiracy-- can be part of acceptable society, well, they need not apply. The same reliance on inner faith instead of cold reality to inform political opinion is echoed in the new conservatism's stances on global warming, homosexuality, evolution, and the war in Iraq-- which is to say, all forms of liberal conspiracy against an embattled white minority.
In short, what Conservative_Kyle reveals himself to be-- and what the new conservatism has indeed become-- is simply reactionary. Theirs is the last bastion of masculinity and individualism, of military might, and morality-- lost in a sea of disgusting liberal culture. Conservatism has become the politics of fear-- the fear of the unknown, the fear of the metaphysical Other, the fear of existential uncertainty. The new conservatism's response to these challenges is not a vigorous, intellectual effort but a mental retreat into the visceral response of fight versus flight-- and while the former plays better to focus groups, the latter is always present, hanging at the edges, just barely held at bay by a sort of political reaction formation.
How, then, does this new conservatism compare to liberalism? Not well. Liberalism, at its best, fights for new rights and the inclusion of all humanity on equal terms. Liberalism, when fought for well and hard, works for individual justice and universal understanding. Liberalism is objective, and while liberalism can recognize the power of private faith, it does not call upon faith to inform its positions. Instead it relies on objective results and social conscience. But though the same can't be said, at this point, for the new conservatism, much less for Conservative_Kyle, Liberalism at least recognizes that conservatives themselves, per se, are not inherently evil. Liberalism, by its very nature, doesn't pronounce moral judgements. After all, one's morals really are between that individual and God.
I'm not sure what Conservative_Kyle would have to say in response to all of this. I do know that he thinks I'm stupid. That's all right with me, I guess. I can respect that. I guess I'll let our respective readers be the judge.