Monk

♠
We need a change in nomenclature. Those who continue to support the administration’s radical theory of executive power are properly described as authoritarians. Once upon a time they may have been conservative but I think it’s safe to say that circa February 2008 conservatism has been orphaned by its ostensible champions. As a philosophy for governance it has no meaningful support on the national stage and hasn’t for years. I won’t dwell on long-forgotten odes to small government and fiscal responsibility, the counseling of prudence and pragmatism in foreign affairs, or reverence for tradition and precedent in conducting the nation’s business. All of it deserves more attention and the erstwhile conservatives served us all very poorly by abandoning it, but what bothers me most is their enthusiastic embrace of militarism, torture, fearmongering and a near-voyeuristic obsession with surveillance.

-- Pruning Shears Blog

I think the people he is talking about are also the same ones who have a real hate-on for McCain. I guess "authoritarians" is a pretty good name, but I still prefer the classic "Nazi" designation.

xXx

♠
If one wants to get into how a group of Trotskyists became anti-communist liberals and then turned into firebrand neo-conservatives (or just outright firebrand conservatives), Jacob Heilbrunn has got a book for you, "They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons". He should know something; he was a neocon. Though, as the reviewer says, this perhaps carries some disadvantage since he has an axe to grind, but that might be a selling point for a lot of us.

I don't think the book is going to fit in my crowded reading list. I'm pretty happy with just this book review, heh.

( book review )

xXx

♠
The Times touches on the evolution debate again, relating that it has opend some fissures within conservative circles:

Evolution has long generated bitter fights between the left and the right about whether God or science better explains the origins of life. But now a dispute has cropped up within conservative circles, not over science, but over political ideology: Does Darwinian theory undermine conservative notions of religion and morality or does it actually support conservative philosophy?

... For some conservatives, accepting Darwin undercuts religious faith and produces an amoral, materialistic worldview that easily embraces abortion, embryonic stem cell research and other practices they abhor. As an alternative to Darwin, many advocate intelligent design, which holds that life is so intricately organized that only an intelligent power could have created it.

Yet it is that very embrace of intelligent design — not to mention creationism, which takes a literal view of the Bible’s Book of Genesis — that has led conservative opponents to speak out for fear their ideology will be branded as out of touch and anti-science.

Some of these thinkers have gone one step further, arguing that Darwin’s scientific theories about the evolution of species can be applied to today’s patterns of human behavior, and that natural selection can provide support for many bedrock conservative ideas, like traditional social roles for men and women, free-market capitalism and governmental checks and balances.

One is reminded that conservatives at the turn of the twentieth century had really taken to evolution, but turned it into Social Darwinism, distorting evolution theory into a scientific validation of the worst forms of racism and power politics, and that it is from this checkered history that conservatives have come to shy away from Darwin. Still, it knocks me back in the chair to hear that three Republican candidates for the presidency said they did not believe in evolution in a televised debate. But maybe that shouldn't be shocking, since we already have a president who does not believe in it.


(Source: Patrical Cohen for The New York Times)

xXx

♠
“When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can't help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.”

-- Thomas Sowell

This quote has been getting some play, at least on the Web and perhaps in print media. I hope Mr. Sowell is just having a bad day. Or maybe he was just joking around with some right-wing buddies. Chill, dude!

xXx