Aesthetic Conservatism

Have you ever tried talking about the French with a social conservative? My experience is that they nearly always respond with dismissive contempt and a sneer whenever that nationality comes up in conversation. Same thing with academia, environmentalism, secularism and anything else that wouldn't get a tip of that hat on Fox News.

This video of Rand Paul is one of the most perfect specimens of this phenomenon I've seen in a long time. How are you supposed to have a productive conversation with a person like that?

I find Libertarians to be especially adorable. For far too many of them their socio-political 'philosophy' is rooted more in a gut feeling for what the world should be than by any type of analytical thought. The fundamental flaw of Fox News Libertarianism is that it's ultimate goal is "Freedom". Freedom is by nature an impossible ideal; in order to grant one person the freedom to do as they want you must deny another person the freedom to stop them.

For example; if you gut the EPA and allow coal companies the right to mine the Appalachian Mountains however they please, how are the people living downstream from those mines going to enforce their right to drinkable water? By not buying coal? Not paying for goods or services that consume that coal?

Give me a fucking break.

American conservative thought, of all types, has become the realm of fuzzy tabloid-inspired doublespeak. The noxious mixture of religion, corporate interests, and insipid Sarah Palin folksiness has resulted in a culture of conservative thought that is as intellectually bankrupt as it is hypocritical.

But that's okay.

It feels right.