tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19129587.post8361969247950066308..comments2024-01-13T08:49:14.041-08:00Comments on Myrhaf: Will the Big Tent Collapse?Myrhafhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16340507405537605164noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19129587.post-43541035387525877702007-10-14T17:09:00.000-07:002007-10-14T17:09:00.000-07:0050 years ago, I would guess, the fundamentalists i...50 years ago, I would guess, the fundamentalists in rural areas, especially down south, where they have snake charmers and speaking in tongues, might have talked like Ann Coulter. But sophisticated, urban Christians would not have said such things about Jews. I vaguely remember hearing that kind of talk from Christian relatives who grew up in Oklahoma and Kansas, but I didn't pay much attention to it as I was an atheist.Myrhafhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16340507405537605164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19129587.post-62297513671378340742007-10-14T17:08:00.000-07:002007-10-14T17:08:00.000-07:00"Also, I was shocked that she would be so open abo..."Also, I was shocked that she would be so open about the crazy elements of her religion..."<BR/><BR/>Oh yeah, that reminds me. To see how sickening Coulter really is, read her <A HREF="http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=20753" REL="nofollow">eulogy for Jerry Falwell</A>. This should suffice: "Let me be the first to say: I ALWAYS agreed with the Rev. Falwell."Adrian Hesterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13394227341130065130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19129587.post-31046941770383362152007-10-14T17:01:00.000-07:002007-10-14T17:01:00.000-07:00"What shocked me was two things. I didn't know tha..."What shocked me was two things. I didn't know that Coulter was a religious literalist (I knew she was a Christian but not that much of a devout one). Also, I was shocked that she would be so open about the crazy elements of her religion (all religions are crazy but some of their doctrines are just so over the top that most religious people try to hide them)."<BR/><BR/>Just try reading her book <I>Godless,</I> especially her attacks on evolution. She made a name for herself as the frothing rabid attack bitch of the cultural conservatives; while she might have been entertaining because of some of her enemies, <I>Godless</I> shows that her enemies aren't yours--her enemies include you and me and anyone else who doesn't kow-tow to that big bully in the sky who speaks with a still soft voice and carries a big club.Adrian Hesterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13394227341130065130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19129587.post-85812980991630838222007-10-14T15:06:00.000-07:002007-10-14T15:06:00.000-07:00"Regarding Ann Coulter's comments, what is outrage..."Regarding Ann Coulter's comments, what is outrageous, Ann Coulter or Christianity? I've read one Christian commenter on another blog say that she is saying what Paul said in various letters in the New Testement. Are people shocked because Ann Coulter is a consistent, honest Christian?"<BR/><BR/>You're absolutely right. Coulter is being entirely loyal to Christian doctrine. And other religious conservatives recognize this and are not offended by it as they believe in their own version of the flying spaghetti monster.<BR/><BR/>What shocked me was two things. I didn't know that Coulter was a religious literalist (I knew she was a Christian but not that much of a devout one). Also, I was shocked that she would be so open about the crazy elements of her religion (all religions are crazy but some of their doctrines are just so over the top that most religious people try to hide them). To openly say that Jews need to be "perfected" is so overtly irrational that it took me by surprise. Did conservatives talk like that 50 years ago? It really does seem like Peikoff is right.<BR/><BR/>John KimAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19129587.post-55241706687279204502007-10-14T01:21:00.000-07:002007-10-14T01:21:00.000-07:00John, Regarding Ann Coulter's comments, what is ou...John, <BR/><BR/>Regarding Ann Coulter's comments, what is outrageous, Ann Coulter or Christianity? I've read one Christian commenter on another blog say that she is saying what Paul said in various letters in the New Testement. Are people shocked because Ann Coulter is a consistent, honest Christian?Myrhafhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16340507405537605164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19129587.post-70961376227492467442007-10-12T22:52:00.000-07:002007-10-12T22:52:00.000-07:00Jim,Thanks so much. Your blog is filled with aweso...Jim,<BR/><BR/>Thanks so much. Your blog is filled with awesome stuff. I intend to read every word.<BR/><BR/>John KimAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19129587.post-37757888430351088462007-10-12T21:38:00.000-07:002007-10-12T21:38:00.000-07:00Jim, there's some great stuff in your blog.Patrick...Jim, there's some great stuff in your blog.<BR/><BR/>Patrick, thanks.<BR/><BR/>Inspector, thanks. I wouldn't mind getting more notice in the Blogosphere.Myrhafhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16340507405537605164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19129587.post-22426128193035129372007-10-12T21:26:00.000-07:002007-10-12T21:26:00.000-07:00John K and others:Here are some links to my old bl...John K and others:<BR/><BR/>Here are some links to my old blog. Please note that I have not maintained it or written anything since 2005, and some of the links are broken. If and when I decide to start up a blog or site again, I plan to refine and update the better essays and repost them.<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://www.altyna.com/colony/Colony.html" REL="nofollow">Seerak Colony</A><BR/><BR/>Essays relevant to this post:<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://www.altyna.com/blogarch/2004_12_01_archive.html#110223505949848572" REL="nofollow">The Europeanization of American Politics</A><BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://www.altyna.com/blogarch/2005_02_01_archive.html#110931209269363878" REL="nofollow">Rumbles on the Right</A><BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://www.altyna.com/blogarch/2005_09_01_archive.html#112598265882745221" REL="nofollow">Rumbles on the Right II: Evicting Liberty</A><BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://www.altyna.com/blogarch/2005_09_01_archive.html#112647600938925966" REL="nofollow">Tribula Rasa</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19129587.post-44146953034012360052007-10-12T17:34:00.000-07:002007-10-12T17:34:00.000-07:00Myrhaf,No, you misunderstand. I don't mean a forma...Myrhaf,<BR/><BR/>No, you misunderstand. I don't mean a formal paper - I mean this could be influential in the <I>blogosphere</I>.<BR/><BR/>Don't sell yourself short - I really think you have something here.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19129587.post-61560003631176131092007-10-12T16:03:00.000-07:002007-10-12T16:03:00.000-07:00Two tasty posts - this and Atlas Shrugged.Two tasty posts - this and Atlas Shrugged.Jouberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04970872086435575755noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19129587.post-26959205688972223212007-10-12T16:00:00.000-07:002007-10-12T16:00:00.000-07:00Jim,Could you link to your blog?John KimJim,<BR/><BR/>Could you link to your blog?<BR/><BR/>John KimAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19129587.post-77516222952921771552007-10-12T11:35:00.000-07:002007-10-12T11:35:00.000-07:00One minor correction:What Russell Kirk et al have ...One minor correction:<BR/><BR/>What Russell Kirk et al have explicitly stated is emphatically NOT that Americanism is a liberal worldview, but that conservatism is anti-Enlightenment and anti-reason.<BR/><BR/>Instead, they attempt to paint America as a "conservative revolution" against "royal innovation"! I am not kidding.<BR/><BR/>Conservative intellectuals willfully aid and abet the Left's subversion of liberalism, because it serves the one goal that they both have in common -- the utter and complete discrediting and abandonment of the Enlightenment.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19129587.post-55759611988496842532007-10-12T11:29:00.000-07:002007-10-12T11:29:00.000-07:00This is an interesting additional angle to what I ...This is an interesting additional angle to what I wrote on my own blog (which I considered mainly an exercise and therefore never publicized) on this topic.<BR/><BR/>You are right that the pro-capitalist union of <I>turn of the century</I> American conservatism and liberalism was strong enough to keep socialism out of American politics <I>so long as it was identified as such.</I> <BR/><BR/>What I wrote about is how the Left solved that problem. They took advantage of American liberalism's primary vulnerabilities -- its philosophical dependence upon European philosophy and moral dependence upon altruism -- and co-opted it, subverting it from within.<BR/><BR/>America never took to socialism so long as it was openly called that. But when it started coming from liberals like Herbert Croly <I>under the liberal banner</I>, they could not recognize it for what it was, and drank deeply. The Progressives were the first manifestation of this process; the 1960's hippies were its completion. All "liberals" who are Baby Boomers and younger are now effectively socialists.<BR/><BR/>This subterfuge was necessitated in America by the fact that the core principle of the Enlightenment -- the moral sovereignty of the individual -- never "took" in Europe, but was able to put down some roots here because of how this nation was founded. In Europe, the Left did not need to subvert liberalism; it was already dying on its own, and was effectively dead by the end of the nineteenth century. THAT is why "liberalism" still means free markets and small government in other countries... but not here.<BR/><BR/>As American liberalism fell, it cast off the remnants of Enlightenment politics one by one, and is now its own opposite. It sells racism under the anti-racist banner, turns men against each other in the name of peace, and strangles liberty in the name of license. <BR/><BR/>It is against that backdrop that American conservatism adopted the orphaned (and now badly distorted and misunderstood) Enlightenment ideals of limited government and free markets. But there is a big, big problem here: conservatism is at root anti-Enlightenment!<BR/><BR/>THAT is why you are right; the Big Tent must fall, because Enlightenment ideals cannot survive on an anti-Enlightenment base; Americanism is at root a *liberal* worldview, in the original meaning of that term. Conservatives themselves, in particular their intellectual core -- such as Russell Kirk -- have explicitly said so.<BR/><BR/>For me, the question is whether those orphaned ideals will be cast aside again, hopefully to be picked up by a pro-American movement -- or whether they will be warped into theocratic unrecognizability and lost forever.<BR/><BR/>I need to dig up the URL to my original essay when I get home (I'm at work now).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19129587.post-12440427215803939632007-10-12T10:24:00.000-07:002007-10-12T10:24:00.000-07:00Thanks both for your interesting comments. To turn...Thanks both for your interesting comments. To turn a post into something that gets more publicity would mean expanding it into a book. I'd have to give more examples to back up everything and do a lot more reading. The subject doesn't interest me that much to do all that work. You would have to be a historian to do the subject justice. This is just a blog and must be taken for what it is.<BR/><BR/>Much of what I've learned on the subject of conservatives comes from listening to tapes by Ralph Raico, a libertarian historian. I disagree with him about war, but he makes interesting points about the opposition to capitalism in the 19th century.<BR/><BR/>Henry Hazlitt thought America would be better off with a parliamentary form of government, in which many smaller parties compete, instead of the two-party system we have. There is no question that if it were not for the Democrats the Republican Party would splinter into smaller parties. Many people who are called conservative are welfare statists, such as David Brook, the Weekly Standard and neoconservatives.Myrhafhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16340507405537605164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19129587.post-52676401402824243712007-10-12T06:23:00.000-07:002007-10-12T06:23:00.000-07:00Myrhaf,Well... Unlike John, I honestly don't think...Myrhaf,<BR/><BR/>Well... Unlike John, I honestly don't think that you're saying anything <I>new</I>, at least from an Objectivist standpoint. But don't me wrong: the <I>way</I> you are saying it may well be onto something. <BR/><BR/>Something <I>big</I>.<BR/><BR/>If you revised it <I>just slightly</I> to further optimize it for a mainstream audience, I think you have the kind of piece there that could <I>really</I> make a difference. This could make a lot of fence-sitters and religious conservatives <I>very</I> uncomfortable and might even have a few people checking their core premises.<BR/><BR/>And that is what we most drastically need right now. The most dreadful ideologies out there are only successful because there is so little clarity as to what each side ultimately wants. Even if some conservatives read your article and decide that they really do hate capitalism, then <I>all the better</I>. Because if they go around saying that out loud this early in the game, they might lose a lot of support. Let them be consistent - whether they choose reason or unreason, let them at least be consistent so this horrible confusion can end! Because sooner or later they <I>will</I> be consistent, and if that happens too late, we could be in <I>big</I> trouble.<BR/><BR/>I think you should finalize this so that the parts that are an aside to Objectivists instead say a brief word introducing Objectivism. Then start spreading it through all the channels you know how. I really think it's the kind of thing that could make a big, and positive, difference.<BR/><BR/>So in short, really good job, Myrhaf.<BR/><BR/>P.S. Minor changes I'd suggest?<BR/><BR/>1) "United in not being socialists" should read "<I>explicit</I> socialists," as many neocons are no longer distinguishable from socialists.<BR/><BR/>2) "Others quote the Bible and condemn homosexuals as immoral," could be, "and want to outlaw homosexuality with anti-sodomy laws," since lots of people don't exactly think homosexuality is moral for them, but the heinous idea is that the law should have something to say about it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19129587.post-84910694843563128422007-10-11T19:40:00.000-07:002007-10-11T19:40:00.000-07:00Holy crap Myhraf! Your commentary is on another le...Holy crap Myhraf! Your commentary is on another level. You're making awesome philosophical and historical identifications and integrations not too far from what Ayn Rand did in For The New Intellectual. I'm blown away by this. And I agree with every word of it.<BR/><BR/>Oh and by the way here is something I posted about Ann Coulter in the comments to Spark a Synapse:<BR/><BR/>Here is something disgusting as well.<BR/><BR/>http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301216,00.html<BR/><BR/>Its Ann Coulter declaring that "Jews need to be perfected by Becoming Christians." What's more repulsive is that so many Conservatives make excuses for her. For example:<BR/><BR/>Jewish Conservative Debbie Schlussel: http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2007/10/nice_try_media.html<BR/><BR/>And if you have time check out the comments on LGF, one of the premiere Rightist websites, very few seem to disagree: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=27468_Media_Matters_Scandal_of_the_Week#comments<BR/><BR/>Yes the Muslims are the greatest immediate religious threat we face. But Christianity is still a potential menace and always will be.<BR/><BR/><BR/>John KimAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com