The Right's least-favorite righties
 

Found via Q and O which is neo-libertarian. A right-wing blog asked 200 other righty bloggers to list their least favorite conservatives. Except for McCain and Specter, I find great hope in the fact that they dislike the same ones I do. They recognize morons when they see 'em. (Number of votes in parens.)

9) Sean Hannity (8)
9) Rick Santorum (8)
8) Arlen Specter (10)
7) Jerry Falwell (15.5)
6) Bill O'Reilly (16)
5) Michael Savage (17)
4) Pat Robertson (19.5)
3) Ann Coulter (20)
2) John McCain (21)
1) Pat Buchanan (28)

As goofy as he can be, I like Pat Buchanan. It's not a love fest, but he just seems to have really mellowed in the past 5 years, and is essentially a voice of reason for conservatives now.

I don't keep up with him, but I'm wondering - do you think he's mellowed out, or do you think his competition has gotten crazier?

Both. He's definitely mellowed, based on my watching him on MSNBC over the past 5 years. But then some of the edgier conservatives (Coulter, Savage, Hannity) have gotten more popular as well.

I'm disappointed that Glenn Beck is not on there...he should get an honorable mention at least.

I agree with most of them, but I like Hannity, Savage, Coulter, and Santorum. Hannity and Coulter are our blunt instruments, like Al Franken on the left. Savage is just nutty. He's fun to listen to, but rarely taken seriously by anyone but his hardcore fans (and I suspect half of them are just egging him on to see what he'll say next).

As far as Santorum goes, I don't know anything about him beyond the "oh yeah? What if we bomb Mecca?" flap. And the reaction to that is just standard PC kneejerking. Would've been nice if the same people crucifying Santorum had had the same reaction for the last 40 years' worth of imams calling for the destruction of the US and Israel.

Santorum's other big flap was saying that (paraphrasing here) 'if we allow gay marriages, that's the same as allowing bestiality and incest.'

That earned him this little revenge campaign (subject NSFW, but it's only text): www.spreadingsantorum.com

There's nothing like when Buchanan was on Air America criticizing Republican foreign policy.

Where's Rush? Poor guy. Can't even make the top ten agitators anymore.
Hannity may be a blunted instrument but Coulter is more of a hate-filled media whore.

I really dislike everbody on the list except Pat. He makes me uncomfortable when he talks about Israel. I hope his dislike of Israel is more about our horrendous foreign policy attachment than Jews in general. He is, however, a good old fashioned no bullshit conservative. The kind which is no longer welcome in the GOP. Savage is a lot of fun to listen to but I'd hate to think he's shaping minds out there.

Pat Robertson, or Pat Buchanan?

Ooops!

Buchanan

Dan Qyale was too hated to make the list.

Rush knows that he's an entertainer...and I think a lot of conservative folks understand that. Hannity tries to play the "I'm a regular guy" schtick, but he's not very good at it.

I thought you didn't hate people, tw. :)

I dunno: I've read most of Coulter's literary output, and it starkly poses this question: In view of their record over the past two and a half generations, why is anyone still a Democrat?

The Democrats can't answer. And calling names doesn't count as an answer. Coulter doesn't often say things she can't back when it comes to putting the blowtorch up the leftists' collective wazoo.

Now as I see the Dems, they're an organization that moves in lockstep with greedy and monopolistic unions, and is being led by the nose by crypto- (and not so crypto-) socialists, and the likelihood of anything good for the Republic or the economy emerging from them seems to me small. I am therefore fairly pleased to see them discomfited -- they are too short on libertarianism.

Heh. This in defense of Coulter... Calling names is all she's got.

Its not my list. But I certainly tried hard enough to get on it. Couldn't get on Nixon's list either. Hell. I can't even get excommunicated.

She's got footnotes too, and a knack for poking antilibertarian socialist sacred cows right in the udder as well as other places.

The question still stands: why does anyone still want to be a Democrat?

I think there are other and more sensible alternatives.

Okay, I can't resist: is TW Catholic and/or does he go in the woods? :p

But if you actually follow the footnotes, you find that they don't support her argument.

Merely having footnotes just makes it look good.

Time to acknowlege a classic hit-piece by UT. Coulter

And her footnotes don't hold up too well if you check them out.

edited: sorry HM, you already said that, I missed your post that time

I think looking good is what Ms. Coulter is all about. But her links are really useful. I followed one intended to support her ideas on liberals being against free trade and was able to order a pizza from Papa Johns :lol: (kidding)

Selling books and getting media gigs is what Coulter is all about. (like so many of 'em). She has her tough blonde schtick for her angry niche. eh.

Senior guerilla, why I identify as a democrat and generally vote that way:
1. Privacy issues: Pro woman's right to choose and direct her medical care, gay/human rights and equality.
Secular issues: Separation of church and state (I'd like a stonger Democratic stance on this) Pro Science, strong secular public education, stem cell research, arts and cultural support.
Economic issues: Only political party seemingly aware of the huge health care crisis- thus offering hope for small businesses. Committed to Social security. Push to raise minimum wage, pay equity. family leave. Seem to be less in the pocket of mega corporations, at least they dont sit at the table to develop energy/enviro policy.
Security issues: not afraid of intelligence. not afraid to go get 'em. At home, willing to take on the NRA when logic demands.
Environmental issues: protection of undeveloped lands, not afraid to regulate emissions. promoting Science as reality check and great potential for conservation and economic development.
General Platform: Inclusive, progressive.

Because I voted Libertarian once, thinking that the R's and D's were essentially the same, Bush got elected, and proved me wrong.

Fair enough, Warch, but on these points, I find myself better satisfied by:

1) Privacy: Libertarian. You'd find their position on this comfortable. Some go farther in that direction than you do.
2) Secular: Libertarian. Again, you'd like what they do here.
3) Economics: here the LP parts company with you, as most of the things you cite either make hiring more expensive, are socialistic, or both -- the stuff of economic illiteracy. They don't trust Social Security for anything more than a lagniappe to a properly done private retirement account, and that's if you're lucky. When it comes to money after retirement, there are better things to trust to than luck.
3) Security: in my experience, the Dems are afraid to go get 'em. Have been since Truman's first term, if the Dem Presidents' record of losing wars is to be believed.

Having studied gun rights (Stephen Halbrook, John Lott) and gun control's intimate connection with genocides (Simkin, Zelman & Rice) worldwide, I conclude that logic simply never, ever demands that a civil-rights, antigenocide organization like the NRA-ILA should be taken on. They are doing more than anybody but the GOA and JPFO to keep crime down and genocide away, due credit to the efforts of law enforcement herewith stipulated. You have to read those authors to have any understanding at all of the importance of private guns to a genuine Republic. None are turgid, and they are all quite lucid.

4) Environmental: rumor to the contrary, Libertarians need to live in the biosphere like everybody else. They reckon pollution is bad for business, if you examine the matter exhaustively. (pun not intended, I swear! It just came out.... oh jheeezze :o )
5) General Platform: as for the "inclusive" try being included with the Dem inner circle if your views are divergent from socialism and all its absurdities. That is what's wrecking the Democratic Party right now and they've been in that trainwreck for upwards of two decades. "Progressive?" That has long been a cover for the most unpleasant of running-dog leftist excess. It's primarily a program for oppression of the ordinary folks like you and me, while shielding the new aristocracy of the "New Class." A red flag. I do not trust the promises of those who say "progressive." They do not deliver benefits.

A good thing, actually: of the Big Two, Bush is the more bedrock libertarian. His predecessor very definitely was not. Of the entire Presidential-candidate field, only Badnarik was more so than Bush.

Unfortunately for us LP people, the Libertarians don't yet know how to win wars against anti-libertarian attackers.

That isn't even remotely true. All of Bush's actions are aimed at concentrating power in the exectutive branch, and most of his "big issues" at campaign time are "moral" ones, which are certainly not libertarian.

Did you hear Clinton's speeches in China UG? I was even an LPer at the time and his words ran chills down my spine.

Bah. Wrap the NRA up in the flag and John Wayne and Moses and deer antlers and antigenocide righteousnes(!) all you want. I aint buying. It's a freakin' poltiical lobbying organization for arms manufacturers and a vehicle to promote a political wedge. Guns are getting too old fashioned these days for genocide, anyway. Will the NRA support my right to legally protect myself with a nice dirty bomb?

Ive found that staunch Libertarians are unrealistic, cultish, isolationist, and I think, foolish.

The NRA has never pretended to be anything but a lobbying organization. They are single-issue, as lobbying orgs tend to be. They are the counterpoint to HCI, et al, who seek to take away the right of law-abiding citizens to use weapons to defend themselves. These anti-gun lobbying organizations are no less extreme for their "what about the CHILDREN??" bullshit tactics and fake statistics. Yin and yang -- one is no more [insert cusswords here] than the other. I just hope my side wins; taking away my freedom won't make you any safer, but it will add decades to the lifespan of anyone who victimizes me or my family. Hope that makes you feel better.

No, that's the NNDBA. NRA only cares about guns.

So are Trekkies, Quakers, RPGers, programmers, muzzleloader enthusiasts, skydivers, and any other group worth its salt. :D

But how foolish is the "mainstream?" The real laugh comes from us. We crave government intervention in every aspect of our lives. We want government to provide for our needs while regulating what we eat, drink, or smoke (but not what we have sex with, or what we do with the result). We want them to protect speech that is hateful to one group, while outlawing speech that's hateful to another. We want police to be at our doorstep within seconds when we need them, but to be otherwise invisible.

We think we deserve to buy 50 cent per bale toilet paper from Warehouse R Us, but we don't want the people who own the joint to make any money. We think we deserve to drive cars, but don't want the oil. We don't want anyone cutting down forests, but we buy new houses instead of old ones. We don't want any "racial profiling" going on, so to stop 30-year-old Arab men from putting bombs on busses, we search 80-year-old white women.

Yeah, those libertarians are wacky.

Speaking of Coulter, here's a transcript of her and O'Reilly arguing about Iraq and Vietnam. Deconstruct.

The bitch is nuts. Or, if you prefer, I could summarize. :o

O'Reilly's nuts, too.

People who bank on either O'Reilly or Coulter being nuts end up perennially disappointed. Especially if they keep on believing that.

Study the gun material and the genocide material, Warch. I did, and now I know how to keep the Republic, and to keep genocide far away. Note, too, that I am not an isolationist.

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership is a site you may find interesting.

Mr. Noodle, while the NRA has done lobbying, its fundamental purpose is still promoting expertise with firearms; that is its core. There is another branch of the NRA: the Institute for Legislative Action, or NRA-ILA. That's the lobbying arm and does all the lobby work. When all is said and done, what they promote is civil and human rights -- the right not to suffer criminal assault, the right not to suffer genocide, the right to resist tyranny. When or if all legal checks and balances fail, there is the seventy to eighty million people who can kill off as many government staffers as may be needed to head off government tyranny -- basically by making the machinery for it collapse from missing parts. The effect is multiplied by those citizens who are government staffers -- they too can stymie tyranny, by that very same method, and from within, yet. Having such a check and balance against the insensate power of government does a pretty darn good job of keeping government in its rightful place -- as the public's servant, not its master. The better armed the electorate is, the more likely their rights are to be secure. This is the rightful way to organize a genuine republic, and its record is one of success. Real republics set limits to power -- the pseudorepublics can be detected in their not doing so.

Undertoad, I guess I'd better find and finish reading my copy of Year Of The Rat. I put absolutely nothing beyond Clinton (and am very glad he never fooled me into voting for him), as I regard him as mildly sociopathic. He's got a wife to match.

Well, even if we confine it to just the topic of Vietnam, O'Reilly doesn't think we lost the war, and Coulter thinks Canada sent troops.

You're obviously a serious thinker, so IMO you must give up this kind of shorthand. Completely.

It does one good to earnestly test one's ideas. The biggest and most amazing breakthroughs can happen when you say "OK, I believe I'm right... but what if I'm wrong?"

Muster all your intelligence to question your own philosophy. If you come out the other side still believing as you do, you will be stronger. If you find cracks in it, and change your thinking, you will again be stronger.

And the key word is "earnestly". Even examine your givens. Never dismiss anything out of hand.

sigh. No one wants to talk about the interview or the topics raised therein? Name-calling is easy. I even empathize, since Michael Moore makes me physically ill every time I see his 10 chins dribble out another morsel of political feces. But come on. What about immigration? What about defining "success" in Iraq? How long should it take? They disagree, so one of them has to be right. Now you gotta pick :stickpoke

That's not necessarily true.

Toad, I appreciate your careful thinking here, though while I'm only going to address what I've snipped out for the Quote, you raise good philosophical points.

That's not a shorthand, that's the conclusion, arrived at after eight years of observation. The Clinton Administration literally couldn't do anything right -- and what went right wasn't something they actually did much about. There was that balanced budget, yes, but the reality of any Federal surplus during those years remains under contention. Meanwhile, a permanent gray cloud of scandal and misfeasance hung over the White House the whole time they were there, one scandal, felony, or fuckup after another after another, and such laws they passed! The Clintons were concerned only for the convenience of the Clintons, and the enlargement of Big Daddy Government, in accordance with the more execrable ideals of the socialist Democratic Party. Unlike the Bush Administration, the Clinton Administration treated the Bill of Rights not as a guide to their behavior, but as a stumbling block to their ambitions. What a damnable lot!

Except the only one that turned out to be true, after years of investigation and millions spent, was one that happened as a direct result of the investigation.

No, I mean completely. It's amazing what it changes.

Well, to be fair (and balanced), a number of Canadians volunteered for the US Army. Canada, however, sent no troops and served as a diplomatic link between the parties.

Travelgate they did of themselves, and without any prompting at all. That merely set the tone. Somalia: fuckup. The Great Afghanistan Cruise Missile Raid: might as well have fired the missiles over Point Mugu and its test range for all the damage it did our self-made enemies. Aerial bombardment doesn't do a lot to stop a genocide already in progress, so there was quite a downside to planes over the Balkans. Browbeating Smith & Wesson with the palpable intent of driving them out of business by legislation -- as pointless as it was preparative for genocide. The Clintons never did have any enthusiasm for the fundamental civil rights that keep a Republic. Then there's the selling of the missile guidance technology to the Chinese, with the assistance of a gallimaufry of some of the most singularly shady characters the exotic East can muster and companies that are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Red Army -- and the utterly botched impeachment over that. The utter perversion of the DOJ into a stonewall of bought judges for Mr. and Mrs. Clinton. I'm leaving out all the Bimbogates, save for this scant mention: they demonstrate the man's sociopathy. Were he curable, or blessed with wisdom, he'd not have done these, repeatedly. There are people who actually have a reason to like this character?

This is what happens when a sheep-like electorate permits a damned sociopath like either Clinton anywhere near the halls of power. The Clintons are why the Democrats will stay out of power for some time -- too many of the senior Democrats are too similar to them.