Korean Job Discussion Forums

Gopher · Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Call them what you want. Unless you have gone beyond the hostile, popular press and Youtube.com, and all of this during an election year, no less, and looked at the historical, anthropological, and sociological literature on the post-Goldwater American right in such places as Orange County, California, then I do not see how you have informed yourselves on this issue at all. Unfortunate.

You apparently know little more than what you have seen from selective vantage points re: several partisan groups at J. McCain's rallies last week -- a few hundred people at best. One of the ways the pro-Obama mob completely alienates me and others like me is their opportunistic use of them as a foil to present themselves as all of those things that those people allegedly are not. Disingenuous. The Democratic left has more than its share of shriekingly hysterical and intolerant people.

W. Bush's Inauguration

Also, nice catch, above. I missed that. That is right, Kuros: B. Obama is going to make America color-blind. He is going to eliminate racism everywhere. B. Obama is going to invent warp drive and attract the Vulcans' attention.

Kuros · Joined: 27 Apr 2004

Gopher · Joined: 04 Jun 2005

You could be Ronald W. Reagan's grandson and you still have not read the literature I have referenced. Thoughtful people have described and explained American conservatives at the grass-roots level. And you have not looked at this.

Whether you want to call them "true conservatives" or, failing that, something else, I cannot speak to. This becomes a discussion that I am not interested in. We are talking about the Republican Party's grass-roots supporters.

Also, whether or why the Reagan coalition is fragmenting, I cannot say. I do not know and it has no relationship with the discussion I have engaged in here.

Reducing American conservatives at the grass-roots level as Mises, supported by you, has done here, based on Youtube.com, Google, and your association with a congressman by marriage, is fundamentally superficial, reductionist, and fatally flawed.

I could start posting selective information on the antiwar left, on Rev. J. Wright and his followers, on feminists and their followers, on the lesbian and gay community and their followers to show you how it works the other way around if you like.

Kuros · Joined: 27 Apr 2004

mises · Joined: 05 Nov 2007 Location: retired

Gopher · Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Still off on the sources, Kuros. The Federalist Papers? Yes, I have read many of them. What do they have to do with this post-Goldwater discussion? Reagan's speeches? I imagine they remain relevant. Most historians would immediately dismiss all of your listed sources as hopelessly "top-down," however. Rather, I am discussing those professional scholars who have studied the Sunbelt at the grass-roots level to get at American conservatism and the New Right: who they are, including their educations and professions, their religious beliefs, how they approach politics and the left, etc.

You have your uncle or your cousin and you have met "these people." I have reviewed much of the literature and teach the thing in the American history post-1945 course to undergrad juniors and seniors.

In any case, I no longer believe we have even sufficient meeting of the minds here to call this the same issue, the same discussion.

My position remains this: reducing the Republican Party's conservative grass-roots base, however exactly you want to label it, to cherry-picked Youtube.com and Google soundbites of those who feel strong enough to attend political rallies and chant the chant, and this goes for either side, actually, is a fundamentally unsound way to determine who these people are and what they believe -- and let me remind you that we are discussing tens of millions of people across the country.

Do you truly want to stand with Mises in assigning them mental illness?

Kuros · Joined: 27 Apr 2004

Gopher, you need to read what I wrote.

I didn't say they had mental illnesses. They aren't conservative though. They are radical right.

The other sources are not to refer to grassroots. They are to refer to conservatism. Yes, conservatism has become something different from what it was.

Gopher · Joined: 04 Jun 2005

(1) Mises on "the base of the Republican Party: "hyper-religious," "bigoted, all-white mob...living in a parallel universe," "lunatics."

Also, B. Obama, as opposed to Republican candidates and their abnormal supporters, "can hold a conversation like a fucking normal person."

I disagree. This is far too hyperbolic and out-of-touch with ground conditions. It relies exclusively on high-profile and sensationalist news footage and especially Youtube.com clips. See Lisa McGirr's book to get back in touch with reality.

(2) Kuros, agreeing with Mises on Mises and my exchange: "he is right...the Republican base are not conservatives. They're radical rightists," "the Republican Right has travelled far in exodus from its roots. The Party is in chaos," and "they aren't conservative though. They are radical right...Yes, conservatism has become something different from what it was."

I disagree. This is not even the same issue (actually you pose several issues and advance several assertions here) I was arguing with Mises. You cannot explain the people who appear in the Youtube.com clips through the Federalist Papers or a Ronald Reagan speech. Neither can you claim that they represent America's grass-roots conservatives.

You are off point here. What "true conservatism" means, whether today's conservatives are "true conservatives," and whether the Republican Party is in chaos, I do not have the information to discuss this, especially not while standing in the middle of change during an election year, with this or that charge and countercharge flying all around us. And are you telling me that you would go into a court of law on the question of American conservatives' perceptions and motives at the grass-roots level with Youtube.com clips, the Federalist Papers, and Goldwater, Reagan, and Buckley speeches? This is your method for interpreting, quantifying, and measuring these Youtube.com clips?

Read Lisa McGirr and some of the sources she cites and get back to me. Or do not. I do not believe you are listening to me on this and we can probably go no further from here.

Partially available here: Suburban Warriors