If any convention of rightists should incorporate Ron Paulites, libertarians, paleolibertarians, Constitutionalists, anti-war conservatives, and paleoconservatives, it should be a convention of bloggers and internet activists.
Recently I received an e-mail from Erik Telford of Americans for Prosperity (AFP) informing me that Michelle Malkin had agreed to speak at the upcoming RightOnline Conference. Of course, he was encouraging me to come hear her. This will be the second annual RightOnline Conference. It is an effort to bring together conservative internet bloggers and activists, and is intended to counter the NetRoots Nation Convention (formerly Yearly Kos) of lefty bloggers and internet activists.
What immediately struck me about the list of speakers is how predictable, uninspiring and conservative movementy (is that a word?) it is. Whatever one may think of the NetRoots, they were generally not Democrat Party regulars or run-of-the-mill Establishment liberals. They, whether more or less rightly or wrongly, saw themselves as dissident liberals on the outside fighting the Democrat Party machine. They were fighting to drag their party to the Left. Hence their support for Howard Dean for President and later for head of the DNC, their opposition to Lieberman in the Democrat primary, their harsh treatment of Hillary at their convention, and their overwhelming support for Obama among other things.
I get very little sense of that spirit of dissent based on the speakers at this year's RightOnline Conference. There is that spirit at many of the TEA Parties, something AFP also has some hand in, but what is dissenting about GOP water-carriers like Erick Erickson of RedState(dot)com, whose chief claim to fame (infamy) may be banning Ron Paul supporters from his website. I hate to repeat and give credibility to a frequent left-wing charge, but this looks to me more like Astroturf than grassroots.
I don't have a particular ax to grind against AFP. My impression of AFP is that by focusing on fiscal, free-enterprise and spending issue, while they are not consistent constitutionalists or von Mises-style Austrians, they actually tend to be somewhat more "pure" than many other movement conservative organs. From my limited experience with their Georgia branch during the Ron Paul campaign, they treated Paul supporters respectfully and unlike Erickson's crowd didn't run screeching for the tall grass at the mere mention of his name.
Unfortunately, this conference is simply not the conservative equivalent of YearlyKos. It is a gathering of what my friend Sean Scallon calls Conservative Inc. This is odd because if any convention of rightists should incorporate Ron Paulites, libertarians, paleolibertarians, Constitutionalists, anti-war conservatives, paleoconservatives, etc. (hereafter referred to collectively as the alternative Right) it should be a convention of bloggers and internet activists. The Ron Paul supporters were particularly distinguished by their internet savvy.
The alternative Right is disproportionately represented among thoughtful conservative bloggers and websites, and (how to say this without sounding like a pompous elitist?) they represent the preponderance of the, shall we say, "intellectual heft" of the critique of the current administration and the status quo. Let's face it: it doesn't take a lot of thought to regurgitate GOP talking points. I more than welcome the newfound voice of Conservative Inc. decrying Obama's reckless spending and takeover of healthcare in their role as the loyal opposition, but they lost their credibility to lead an authentic opposition when they defended the previous administration that gave us the massively expensive Medicare drug bill, banker bailouts, and a host of other budget busters including an unnecessary war of aggression. (Yeah, yeah, I know most of the grassroots opposed the bailouts and maybe even the drug bill, but VERY few of them were willing to cast a retaliatory vote for Bob Barr or Chuck Baldwin against one of the leading bailout shills, John McCain, and Conservative Inc. was completely in the tank for McCain.)
The alternative Right has been way ahead of the curve in its criticisms of the Powers That Be; note all the mainstream conservatives now signing on to Ron Paul's Audit the Fed bill. It is the source of most of the fresh and new ideas (actually they are a recovery of old ideas) and critical introspection and self-examination of where things went awry. Please note that I am not talking about centrist hand-wringing critics of the GOP and the conservative movement such as David Frum, David Brooks, Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonan, et al whose advice to the GOP is to move left. I am talking about critics from the right. The alt-Right has earned the right to be represented and heard at a Conference ostensibly dedicated to internet activism and leading the opposition to Obama and his lefty internet supporters. But the alt-Right is nowhere to be seen at the RightOnline Conference.
In order to rectify this grave omission, I would like to make a few suggestions. The conference is Aug 14 and 15 so there is scant time to send out more invites. Of course, Ron Paul, the only consistent upholder of the Constitution in DC, would make an excellent guest, as would any of the leadership of Campaign for Liberty and Young Americans for Liberty. Campaign for Liberty is doing great work on the activism and candidate recruitment front and would surely have something to add.
FOX News' Judge Napolitano could bring us up to speed on the courts and legal issues. Tom Woods could explain to us the folly of the bailout. Kevin Gutzman could give us a tutorial on the Constitution and the new movement back toward federalism and state sovereignty. Daniel McCarthy could represent The American Conservative magazine, one of the primary voices of the anti-war Right, which has been way out in front on the disaster that is the Iraq War and our interventionist foreign policy in general. Daniel Larison could intelligently discuss the intricacies of Middle Eastern politics instead of the shrill "the Islamomeanies are out to get us unless we bomb them first" cries that suffice for intelligent foreign policy analysis at most Conservative Inc. get-togethers.
Potential alt-Right candidates such as Peter Schiff in Connecticut, Rand Paul in Kentucky, Debra Medina in Texas, Ray McBerry in Georgia, and Marshall DeRosa in Florida could update us on their efforts to unseat liberal Democrats or Republican RINOs.
A paleo-sympathetic but still movement friendly voice like Jim Antle could offer some suggestions for finding common ground. Paul Gottfried of TakiMag, who is the premiere scholar of the conservative movement, could give us his insights into why the movement has been such an unmitigated failure at actually conserving anything.
I could go on, but I suspect you get the point. We definitely do not need any more Conservative Inc. confabs with a bunch of inside-the-movement-box thinkers railing against Obama and the Democrats and offering up Democrat-light counterproposals all the while patting themselves on the back for fearlessly fighting the good fight. Been there, done that, and it doesn't work. The far Left NetRoots need an equidistant from the center counterbalance, not more of the same ol' same ol' movement conservative phony opposition.
As a liberal Democrat, I support the political good sense shown in this column. Conservatives should be doing much more to focus their movement and steer it much further to the right than it now is. I believe the present political situation of this country is such that conservatives have a golden opportunity to transform the Republican Party into a party of the Right. The US has never had a major party that was authentically on the Right. Conventional politics is consensus politics and conservatives should be interested in drawing clear boundaries between themselves and the Left.
A meeting of genuine conservative activists should be concerned with doctrinal purity and ideological coherence, along with sound organization. What is needed is the kind of organizational discipline that is rare in, if not absent from, American politics. [As a liberal, I can assure you that those of us on the left are far from well-organized.]
What is needed is to end, once and for all, the 'big tent' inclusion of RINOs and to begin excluding those who don't agree with every important point of conservative ideology. It should eventually become very clear to anyone who is, and who is not, a real conservative.
My approach, however, requires that conservatives recognize that religious and social conservatism is the center of gravity of the Right. Constitutionalists and von Misesians are marginal for political success; the voting base of the Republican Party is not, and that base consists of social and religious conservatives. So-called 'intellectual' conservatives will have to play ball with that constituency or take their marbles, go home, and sulk.
Concretely, conservatives need to require that all those in their movement affirm a basic set of beliefs and positions, including the following: no tolerance of gays, no support for gay marriage, opposition to evolution, opposition to abortion, support for ending all government social programs, including Social Security and Medicare, government censorship of the media to promote morality, removal of all known liberals from all teaching positions at all levels of the educational system, loyalty oaths for all public employees, ending diplomatic relations with any nation whose government disagrees with or opposes the US in any way, a constitutional amendment declaring the US to be officially a Christian nation, reversal of all federal court decisions and repeal of all federal legislation dealing with civil rights, return to the states' rights doctrine. And that's just a beginning.
So, Gestell, you are advocating that the Right do the very same thing that the Left has been doing? Why would we on the Right want to become the intolerant, sanctimonious, hateful little control freaks that the Left is?
I had to submit this in the body of an e-mail because my Word file was corrupted. It appears not to have maintained my links. I will try to post the links in a comment when I have more time.
Also, I noticed from the Twitter posts below after I submitted this that Rachel Alexander, the Editor of this site, appears to be attending this Conference. I appreciate the fact that this essay was posted here in spite of that. IC has always seemed friendlier to me to outside "the movement box" thinking than many other conservative websites which is what drew me to submit my work here originally.
Liberal Gestell, I have never once suggested that my strategy is the path to electoral victory, certainly not in the short run. In fact, I have said otherwise. What I have argued is that we will never get back to Constitutional government as envisioned by the Founders by political pragmatism that concedes 90% of the argument to the liberals. That is a strategy to lose more slowly. You have to make the straightforward case for Constitutional government and live with the defeats or victories that brings. Then you can at least say you tried. The conservative movement as it is currently constituted is not trying to restore the Constitution and the Republic it established. Hasn't since the beginning when it was organized partially on the premise that the New Deal was a fait accompli and no longer to be opposed.
I agree, Mr. Phillips, that there is a distinct problem that amounts to "Conservative, Inc." in the media and related institutions. As a result, I'm surprised that Rachel Alexander is invited. After all, she is not a graduate of an Ivy League law school, nor does she have a pedigree of Washington DC service. That they would let her anywhere near the conference astounds me. They might, after all, be contaminated by her presence in the same way that they would by some of the other variations on the Conservative theme.
Many years ago I encountered a Libertarian economics Professor named Joe Fuhrig in San Francisco. Professor Joe, as he liked to be called excelled in his work as an advocate for the free market. In other area he was less effective because many of his ideas were impractical. The same can be said of Ron Paul in certain respects. Still, Congressman Paul is given short shrift by too many people who could use the benefit of his supporters. We need the "big tent" and these various groups of people could help us fill it if we could bring them sufficiently together.
I'd like to hope that writings such as yours would get broader exposure, and perhaps have some significant influence. It may be a vain hope.
If the "alt-Right" had any relevance outside of opposing a single war overseas they would probably be able to influence their party and movement in the same way that the radical left mainstreamed their viewpoints within the Democratic Party. Since they more or less agree with "mainstream" conservatives on most other issues, and since the conservative movement has not been sympathetic to their single-issue protestations, there wouldn't seem to be much reason to dedicate an entire conference to them. If the "alt-Right" is as influencial and relevant as you seem to think, they should be able to spontaneously organize their own conference — like the loony basement dwellers from DailyKos did.
Oh goody, another rant regarding which of us is the ‘better’ conservative!
In his article, Mr. Phillips complains “it doesn't take a lot of thought to regurgitate GOP talking points”. However, aren’t you also “regurgitating [paleo-]conservative talking-points, Mr. Phillips? How much actual thought did that take, or didn’t you pay attention. In your case, your thought process is ‘outside the box’ only in relation to ours, but I don’t see that you have expended a great deal of ink demonstrating the greater wisdom of the paleo-conservative isolationist/protectionist/pacifist position; just some talking points of your own.
You wrote “they [we] lost their credibility to lead an authentic opposition when they defended the previous administration that gave us the massively expensive Medicare drug bill, banker bailouts, and a host of other budget busters[,] including an unnecessary war of aggression”. Except that, for the most part, few conservatives supported the Prescription Drug Bill, bank bailouts, or the “host of other budget busters” to which you allude. We did support the war, and gave our reasons in response to your several articles posted here previously (I won’t repeat all that all here). Of the Bush Social Security privatization bill, I wrote “I’d rather see it sunk then saved”. If you’d bother reading our many responses (and not just here at IC) opposing Republican welfare-statism, you’d realize you are barking up the wrong base. You loose even more credibility by falsely accusing others of things never (or rarely) done.
Next he wrote, “VERY few of them were willing to cast a retaliatory vote for Bob Barr or Chuck Baldwin”. So, unless we throw away our votes on guys having no chance of getting elected, then we have no creditability as conservatives? Says who? You? Frankly, that cuts both ways, Mr. Phillips, as your whole approach is condescending in the extreme; so much so that it turns people off to almost everything you have to say. If you really want to persuade, I suggest a more inclusive approach (i.e., we conservatives; not we paleo-conservatives v you faux conservatives; better yet, just plain ‘we’).
Your arguments regarding what constitutes ‘true’ conservatism (some of them here, but mostly in prior posts), is both historically and logically inaccurate. To be ‘conservative’ implies you prefer an existing or earlier political system over how others would change it. That’s it! No complicated rituals requiring we adhere to strict rules or passing tests separating the elect from the damned. Only absolutists insist on an return to foundational norms that does not concede at least some irreversible changes (however unfortunate); even to reversing much that is now preferred (slavery ended, voter franchises, &c). Is that the conservatism you would restrict us to? If someone tells me he is a fiscal and rule-of-law conservative, but is socially somewhat liberal, I welcome the fiscal and legalist parts and work on his social part. I don’t carp he isn’t a ‘real’ conservative.
There was no conservative-movement until mid-20th century, only conservative-Republicans and conservative-Democrats (as opposed to the more radical variants) and a smattering of other parties; none of whom bore the title ‘Conservative’. Some of the early leading-lights of the movement were decidedly hawkish, while others were neither hawks nor doves; and it wasn’t until the Vietnam draw-down that the movement split into a large (so called) interventionist faction and smaller isolationist/anti-war faction. Some of this isolationist fringe, it seems, have clung to outdated and outlandish cultural values (e.g., mawkishly veiled racism, cultural-isolationism) which most mainstream conservatives find unappealing (if not downright appalling). What they have done is cherry-picked the writings of select conservative intellectuals for anything giving them pride-of-place in the political pecking-order, focusing on and distorting what were, in the writer’s intent, only minor points; points used in support of conservative positions then extent but not particularly definitions of conservatism. That is the politics-of-class or faction, not conservatism. Yours may also be conservative, but not exclusively or even preeminently.
I have read your responses to these charges, and I accept your own cultural-isolationism is less than racist. However, I have also read some of those who flew to your defense (and some I've read elsewhere), and find the charge does have merit as regards a significant fraction of paleo-conservatives. Given this character of your fraction, why should I abandon my own more mainstream affinity for an ineffectual, sometimes aberrant, fringe? Why must I join or abandon either, rather than simply choose from every viewpoint what I consider to be ‘right’. And, given yours is the smaller subdivision of conservatives, why must I accept your definitions of conservatism over my own? I look on these subdivisions as no more than markers indicating points of view, not as derivationally correct or false.
Where you wrote “The alternative Right has been way ahead of the curve in its criticisms of the Powers That Be; note all the mainstream conservatives now signing on to Ron Paul's Audit the Fed bill”. You seem to think this rant constitutes rational and persuasive argument favoring your faction over ours. Either that or you think we can or should intuit your argument for you from generalized remarks and repetitious criticisms. The fact some of us now sign on to Ron Paul’s audit does not mean we have suddenly discovered fiscal conservancy, nor that we have been ‘behind the curve’ fiscally. All it means is Paul’s agenda and ours currently coincide on this point … and always has.
“…instead of the shrill "the Islamo-meanies are out to get us unless we bomb them first" cries that suffice for intelligent foreign policy analysis at most Conservative Inc. get-togethers”. I suppose, we will find out soon enough (now that Obama is turning his back on security) how long it takes those “Islamo-meanies to kill hundreds more of us.
Gottfried is certainly a scholar and a conservative, but “premiere”? Most people (including most conservatives) have never heard of, much less read, Gottfried. To be the ‘premier’ anything, you have to have a significant impact on mainstream thought and a following. Bill Buckley had that kind of impact and following. Russell Kirk isn’t exactly a household name, but enough people have heard the name and read some of his stuff to qualify, but not Gottfried. Sorry, it just won’t flush.
You wrap things up with the parting shot “… need an equidistant from the center counterbalance, not more of the same ol' same ol' movement conservative phony opposition”. So, after knuckle-dragging us through a whole article lambasting all that’s wrong in us, you offer no counter-proposals representing a ‘slam-dunk’, can’t-loose strategy in accord with the much vaunted superior-to-thy principles? Frankly, Mr. Phillips, for a guy who tells us he is an assistant professor of psychiatry, I am underwhelmed both by the force of logic and by the total lack of articulate persuasiveness I’d expect of a psychiatrist. I am also less than impressed by the quality of writing, which smacks of having been dashed off. I know you psychiatrist are given to sloppy handwriting, but aren’t we worthy of a few minutes spent organizing thoughts and arguments, of parsing arguments so that postulates are backed by factoids, footnotes and links to supporting materials (not just a bunch of politicians hawking the same rant, though in pleasanter language), and of reading back through what you wrote for receptivity? Run-on sentences and structure, confusing punctuations, incomplete ideas, excessive use of declaratives, &c are also in evidence. As a composition, I have to rate this one a ‘C-minus’. As a psychological exercise in persuading others, I have to rate it still lower. And, why do all ideologues always insist it is ‘they’ who represent ‘the center’ and provide the ‘balance’?
Mr. Stapler, I guess I could have written what you seem to be asking for with every assertion meticulously explained and defended, but then it would have been what some of us like to call a book or at least a booklet and not a 1000 to 2000 word essay.
Why is it when people don't like a point someone is making they often attack the prose style or the author, the former we call a red herring and the later an ad hominem?
My point was partially to be provocative and apparently it worked because it seems to have provoked you to look into what I have written previously and type out a rather intemperate reply of almost the same length as my original article.
Mr. Mulligan, the alt-right don't even agree among themselves. Most paleocons for example support fair trade and libertarians support free trade, militantly so. They are alternative primarily by virtue of not being part of the mainstream conservative movement. Currently we share with the movement opposition to the current regime, but we would also be opposing McCain if he had won. Would you?
The alt-right uniformly differs with the movement on foreign policy, but also by degree. If the movement wants less spending, the alt-right wants only constitutional spending. If the movement wants limited government (limited by what? limited to what?), the alt-right wants Constitutional government.
The alt-right do disagree among themselves to what degree they think we should work within or outside of the movement. To what degree the movement is part of the problem vs. part of the solution. I tend to side with the work within and part of the solution crowd, but first the movement has to see the error of its ways.
We have organized our own conferences. The Paul supporters had their own counter convention in Minneapolis which was very well attended. Campaign for Liberty has had and is having several regional conferences. Some events like Freedom Fest have an alt-right feel. AFP can invite whoever they want to their conference. My point was that what resulted was not the opposite of the NetRoots Convention, it was more like a counter conference to a DLC event.
"later" in #7 should be "latter."
So essentially what you are saying is that the virtue of the "alt-Right" is that it is completely disorganized and without agreement on issues and has no ability to impact the government as a whole, nor any one political party, because of its unflinching rigidity on the issues about which it does not agree?
The reason why the "alt-Left", or proably more accurately the "batshit insane" left, was as impactful as it was upon the Democratic Party was because the party was already 99% sympathetic to their views and because the "movement" was/is in lock-step agreement. As I said before, the only uniting issue for the "alt-Right" is opposition to a war that is already scheduled to end in a year and unending loathing of a president who has been out of office for 7 months. You doom yourself to irrelevancy when your only issue is one that is already owned by the opposing side, and which will be a non-issue in the long-term. Have you ever wondered why Ron Paul has the same "R" after his name as, say, Olympia Snowe? It's because life does not often immitate "V for Vendetta". Having wonderful ideas is of little value if you are politically powerless.
>”I guess I could have written what you seem to be asking for with every assertion meticulously explained and defended, but then it would have been what some of us like to call a book or at least a booklet and not a 1000 to 2000 word essay.”
TRANSLATION: Bob, you raise a lot of substantive points that I’m not going to respond to, because you’ve raised a lot of substantive points that I don’t want to respond to.
>”Why is it when people don't like a point someone is making they often attack the prose style or the author, the former we call a red herring and the later an ad hominem?”
TRANSLATION: Bob, you raise a lot of substantive points that I’m not going to respond to, and to keep from being criticized for dodging the issues you’ve raised, I’m going to label them simply as a difference in “prose” or “style” and hope no one will notice the core issues you raised have any real merit.
>”My point was partially to be provocative and apparently it worked because it seems to have provoked you to look into what I have written previously and type out a rather intemperate reply of almost the same length as my original article.”
TRANSLATION: Bob [and Pat], you’ve raise a lot of substantive points that I’m not going to respond to in my “provocative” article, which was deliberately provocative so as to have you and others raise a lot of substantive points that I’m not going to respond to.
Bob and Pat — Good luck in getting a real debate going on the issues.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Welcome Phil. What took you so long? It didn't even feel like one of my columns without you chiming in.
I didn't respond point by point to Bob because I haven't got the time, and I think he somewhat misses the point of this sort of essay, which is not to explain every point in exhaustive detail. To do so would make it something other than what it is, a 1000 to 2000 word column? Does every Pat Buchanan or Walter Williams or whoever column meet his criteria?
To be honest, the essay was initially intended for a different audience which would have been the choir. IC isn't exactly the choir, but I suspect the regular readers here are familiar enough with where I am coming from to understand this for the exercise in preaching to the choir that it obviously is.
I don't have time to deal with all of Bob's objections. He essentially wants me to rehash hours and hours of debate here at IC. I do want to clarify on thing, however. I wasn't suggesting that Paul Gottfried is the preeminent scholar that the conservative movement has produced, although he is near the top. I was suggesting that he is the preeminent scholar "of the movement" itself, meaning someone chronicling and explaining the movement. Quite honestly, he doesn’t really have much competition here. Nash would be the only other possibility. But Nash, IMO, more retells the history of the movement relatively objectively. Nothing wrong with that, but Gottfried looks at the movement more philosophically and examines its shortcomings. This is why I suggested he would be a good person to “give us his insights into why the movement has been such an unmitigated failure at actually conserving anything.”
Ah, and so it begins.
Dan will now spend the next 20 comments and 10,000 words telling us why he hasn't got the time to respond to Bob because it will take too much time and involve too many words.
You’ve got to wonder about someone who put forth an idea, and then won't answer questions about the idea he puts forward. But I guess it is understandable if someone thinks that answering questions raised about one’s essay misses the point of the essay; Pat and Wally’s columns notwithstanding, who tend to be on a different level than us poor slugs here at the IC who write columns expecting debate, and are prepared to defend what we’ve written.
Still, it is an interesting approach, and I’ll keep in mind for the next essay I write. “I’m not gonna answer your questions because Walter Williams won’t”.
Phil you never fail to miss the point. I didn't say answering questions raised by the essay misses the point of the essay. His criticism was that I hadn't adequately dealt with his objections in the essay itself. (I guess I was supposed to have a crystal ball to foresee them all beforehand.)
Phil you never fail to miss the point. I didn't say answering questions raised by the essay misses the point of the essay. Bob's criticism was that I hadn't adequately dealt with his objections in the essay itself. (I guess I was supposed to have a crystal ball to foresee them all beforehand.) My point was that had I done in the essay what he seemed to have wanted me to do, it wouldn't have been an essay. It would have been a book.
Do I have to spoon feed you everything?
Dan, it's okay really. We all understand. If Bob Stapler had sliced and diced one of my essays the way he dismantled yours, I’d run for the tall grass too!
By the way, it’s an interesting dodge to say that you won’t answer a question raised about your essay because you didn’t anticipate the question when you wrote the essay. So instead of addressing the points Bob raised, you’ll just ignore them because it would take too long and too many words to respond.
For those keeping count, Dan has now taken 6 comments, over 2 days, involving 809 words to tell us that he doesn’t have the time to answer any of Bob’s criticisms.
For those of you into “classical” definitions, this is the classic definition of an empty suit.
"809 words"
So now you are counting my words? That's just weird. How did you ever get along these past several months without me to obsess over?
Some things in life are just so predictable:
Dan won’t answer Bob’s questions, because it will involve too much time and too many words to do so.
The Empty Suit Tally now stands at 2 days, 7 comments and 833 words to say this.
Of course the irony of this is lost on Dan, who could have used this time to actually respond to questions raised about his essay instead of continuing to tell us he can’t answer the questions because it will take too much time and involve too many words to do so.
We’re coming up on 3 days, 8 comments and closing in on 1000 words for Dan to say that he doesn’t have the time to answer Bob and any answer would involve too many words.
I think we’ll reach this mark by Thursday. Only 8 months and about 20,000 words to go to break his old record.
Mr. Phillips,
You complain of my critique, “I didn't say answering questions raised by the essay misses the point of the essay. His criticism was that I hadn't adequately dealt with his objections in the essay itself. (I guess I was supposed to have a crystal ball to foresee them all beforehand.)”
First, let’s put to rest what I did or did not 'get' from your article was about. The substance of your article was a) the RightOnline Conference suffers from a lack of “inspirational” speakers and relevance, b) the so-called ‘alternative-right is under-represented at the event, and c) pandered to your preferred audience (the ‘alternative-right’, by scoring as many hits as possible on ideologically-weak mainstream conservatives). Point-a is purely subjective, point-b needs greater proof (i.e., tell us why that is relevant to the outcome of the event, though it is probably irrelevant to the event-organizers as likely to produce a negative outcome; e.g., event purpose squandered in squabbling over movement direction and ‘purity’), and point-c was, as you say, tossed in for a different audience (in which case, you ought to have revised it for this audience, else kept it to that other microcosm). If you feel I missed any import points, feel free to clarify what they were. I realize there were others, but these are what I took away as your main ones.
My criticism was never that you hadn’t “adequately dealt with [my] objections” beforehand. My criticisms were a) you hadn’t adequately dealt with your own subject matter (i.e., haven't really told us that much about the event or why it is important, when & where, &c … basic reportage 101), b) hadn’t bothered researching claims you make, c) spent most of the article maligning your audience to no purpose, d) regularly misrepresent your own brand of conservatism as the only kind valid, e) favor emotion over reason in making arguments, f) expect others to fill in gaps for you, and g) your writing is unacceptably sloppy in an age of convenient research and proofing tools (What Hemingway wouldn't have given for a laptop running MS Word!). It doesn’t take a "crystal ball" to review your own stuff before posting with an eye toward who reads it, eliminating unnecessarily counterproductive barbs, verifying you have provided sufficient background, fact checking so it doesn’t fall like a house of cards at the first push, and is generally readable without your meaning requiring careful parsing every third sentence. And, break up those long sentences into easily digested ones.
Understand, I don’t go ‘gunning’ for every ‘alternative viewpoint’ writer who posts here, nor am I trying to shut you down. To the contrary, I want you to make your case, but make it better than you did here. I am open to well-presented arguments, but was, in this instance, put off both by your clear hostility (candor?) and sloppy presentation (suggesting we aren’t worth the effort it takes to ‘speak to’ rather than scold). If the latter is true, you posted here solely to aggravate; hardly worthy of the praise you think is your due. If I did not address your points in my first response to you, it was only because they are no more than unsubstantiated declarations that could easily have been kept to a paragraph or two; hardly profound stuff. The rest was filler and spleen, with not enough ‘there’ there to parse. Of course, there is nothing wrong with filler if it is entertaining (this wasn't). Put yourself in your audience’s position and ask questions about your assertions they will certainly want answered. That will easily provide all the filler you need and then some, and you won't even have to resort to those nasty barbs to juice things up! Keep trying, though, and do work on the style problems.
Bob, please point out to me the "unacceptably sloppy" writing you are objecting to. Even if true it is a red herring, and it is petulant of you to make it an (the?) issue. Your replies clearly demonstrate your hostility toward the ideas I am presenting. Let’s quit pretending. I hardly think that your obvious emotional investment in this is because you are aggravated by bad prose style. But of course I am the hostile one.
For the record, prior to submitting this here for publication I showed it to two friends who are themselves published, and one of some renown in these circles, and they both complemented me on it.
I don’t deny that part of the intent was to “scold.” Shame is more accurate. It gets a bit tiresome having people who want to “slow the rate of growth” of this or that unconstitutional program claiming the mantle of conservatism. But I find it remarkably self-unaware that in your obviously mean-spirited replies I am faulted for my hostility and scolding. Pot meet kettle.
You are clearly asking for more than can be accomplished in an essay of this length. In an essay of this length the author obviously has to assert certain things and assume the audience is intelligent enough to fill in the blanks. For example, if I said that Obama’s healthcare plan is bad because it is socialistic, would it be necessary to start at square one and make an exhaustive case for why socialism is bad? I’m not sure how anyone could ever write anything with that burden. Likewise, if I “scold” mainstream conservatives for voting for pro-amnesty, bailout shill McCain instead of Baldwin or Barr is it really necessary to also defend the reasonableness of third party voting? That is at least another article, easily a treatise, and even a book. If I criticize mainstream conservatives for their support of interventionist foreign policy is it really necessary for me to rehash that debate about which an untold amount of ink and bandwidth have already been spilt? Or is the generally politically well-informed readership of IC going to read “unnecessary war of aggression” and think, “Oh. He must be one of those Ron Paul style non-interventionists.”
The laundry list of names and organizations at the end was an attempt to name drop and link to people who I think mainstream conservatives would benefit from knowing of and hopefully studying. (Phil “Living and Breathing Constitution” Jackson would surely benefit from reading Gutzman’s Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution.)
Otherwise, my point was I think quite clear. The RightOnline Conference billed itself as the right’s answer to the NetRoots Nation Convention. It wasn’t. Or if it was an attempted “answer” it certainly wasn’t a mirror image opposite. A group of mainstream GOP centrics who gave Toomey a standing ovation even after he said he would vote for Sotomayor is not the right’s equal and opposite answer to a group that booed Hillary for ideological infidelity.
(Although the deference given to Obama by these “anti-war” activists despite his stay the course plan in Iraq and his escalation of the conflict in Afghanistan may mean that I am giving the NetRoots more credit than they deserve. They too may just be a bunch of Democrat party apologists, in which case Erick Erickson would be their polar opposite.)
[...] Dan Phillips, writing for my website Intellectual Conservative, criticized the conference for featur… However, he failed to take into account there were very few Republican politicians or officials who spoke. Simply because one faction of the grassroots right wasn't prevalent among the speakers, the paleocons, does not mean the conference was not a true grassroots conference. Harris lists numerous leaders from the paleocon faction that he would have preferred to see speak, but fails to explain why they would have been more appropriate. Not only are most of them little known which wouldn't help attract attendees, but they are not known for utilizing the new media successfully like most of the speakers. [...]