What a toad Derbyshire is.

You're going to have to wait a while. The idiots are trying to purge the "impure" thinkers from their ranks so not as to be infected by "ideas" that might actually do some good.

of course you never have to point out when they're wrong... they're ALWAYS wrong.

Wow, is that thought ever a breath of fresh air!

So happy just to be alive
underneath this sky of blue
on this new morning...

To quote Bono: Fucking Brilliant.

Well said, and fine, but never ignore an opportunity to step on a cockroach. It just has to be done.

There are plenty of thoughtful, good-faith conservatives who need to be taken seriously.

Name one.

If the moderate left blogs stop writing about what is going on in the Corner, that means I have to go back to actually reading it myself...uuugghh!!!

What use are you?

Hilzoy said:

I wish them well

Why would you want to wish them well? It's not as if they had good intention towards people with progressive ideas.

Sure, I'll hear people saying that you need to be courteous to others' including your opponents.

I'm not saying you have to beat them over the head or be all negative, but there is no reason to wish them well either.

Leave it unsaid. The only thing worse than negative publicity is no publicity at all.

As you said:

...debating only thoughtful, sane conservatives who argue in good faith...

"Name one."

The various conservatives at the Atlantic, The Next Right, Daniel Larison ....

"There are plenty of thoughtful, good-faith conservatives who need to be taken seriously."

You can't take people seriously who rolled over and let lunatics take over the Republican Party. What a disgrace!

The conservative Republican Party did not conduct the nation's business the way it has been conducted for the last 8+ years. There were many thoughtful, highly respected and intelligent conservatives. They were wrong about a lot of things, but they were never as bad as we have seen this decade. There are still a few left, as hilzoy pointed out.

The Corner at NRO has become a bunch of paranoid, raving lunatics. Oh noes, Obama is creating jobs and asking for cooperation in making our nation better. Run for the hills. There's a Democratic President, he's got a brain and he's not afraid to use it.

I can sympathize with the desire not to pollute one's beautiful mind, as Barbara Bush famously said. On the other hand, Comedy GOLD!

I think this message, however, needs to be amplified and spread to the readers of this and other blogs. The progressive public is now almost reactionary to the absurdity of the far right and will need some assistance in not only recognizing this fact, but correcting this behavior.

Let the far right discuss how far center the country is on their own. We need to be assembled and clear if we are to get the type of change we've mandated to this president and the next congress.

Well Hilzoy you might also consider it more efficient to stand out of the way while they are firing upon each other. But it will also be wise to eavesdrop now and then discreetly, to see what's cooking -- as the guards do upon the inmates hatching plots to escape the insane asylum.

The ATLANTIC?!

Oh Jeez. Who, McArdle? Ross Douthat? Or are you just waiting for the inevitable moment when Andrew Sullivan decides, all "honest intellectually" to call us all traitors, Susan Sontags and Fifth Columnists again?

There are some writers at the American Conservative who don't seem to go out of their way to be vacuous idiots and they do so with a semblance of integrity. But the Atlantic's stable of conservatives are nitwits.

The honest fact is that conservatism has cracked-up. But turning your back on the more flagrant types will, as assuredly as the Goldwater fringe became their "intellectual" fathers, will ensure that, once again, progressives are surprised when the darkest corners of conservative "thought" become our mortal enemies again.

Ignore them at your peril.

Probably ignoring them would be the single most effective thing we can do. Probably will drive them crazy (crazier?)!

Why bother arguing with anti-intellectuals?
I agree with Lee though, keep an eye on them.

There are plenty of thoughtful, good-faith conservatives who need to be taken seriously...Name one.

Andrew Bacevitch.

Time for people like Limbaugh and Dobson to crawl back in there holes, not to be heard from again for at least four years.

OK,

Who do you think will be more influential in conservatism as it continues: Andrew Bacevitch or Bill Kristol?

The former is a critic of conservatism, and, as such is a pariah. The latter writes for the NY Times, is constantly on TV, is a power in the Republican and is bankrolled by Rupert Murdoch to run the Weekly Standard.

Why engage Bacevitch except as an intellectual enterprise? Why would you ignore the guy who actually has power? It makes no sense.

Finally:

It behooves progressives and liberal writers to note that, despite the fact they were fucking insane, intellectually dishonest and/or pure evil: the far right, along with an idiotic, compliant media, railroaded Bill Clinton.

Like it or not, they're still powerful enough (Limbaugh alone has 20 million listeners a day) to derail a promising presidency.

It depends what you want to get done, I guess. If you want this to become an academic exercise in "debate", so be it. If you want to expose conservative "thinking" in order to contrast it effectively with a progressive agenda, you have to get in the gutter and slug it out. Really.

I think it is worth repeating that while the left has its share of loons, no one takes them seriously. No one holds them up as serious thinkers as serious thinkers or standard bearers and you sure as hell don't see the left wing equivalent of Michelle Malkin hosting a TV show.

But I think we can all make things just ever so slightly better, make the air less poisonous, by pushing to the margins of our consciousness the crazy, bad, gutter-dwelling, two-faced, tendentious high-school debator kinds of voices out there in the public sphere, including and especially in blogs.

You can have my right to mock these 'morans' when you pry it from my cold dead hands.

Excellent description tho'.

It behooves progressives and liberal writers to note that, despite the fact they were fucking insane, intellectually dishonest and/or pure evil: the far right, along with an idiotic, compliant media, railroaded Bill Clinton.

The article on anti-intellectualism resonates with me. Actually hits my funny cord in many issues, especially “Intellectual Exhaustion�.

For me, that defines the core of the so called Conservatives, and so called Liberals. But the good ones the Conservatives the Democrats know and have a strong relation to have failed to realize how wrong it is for what they have done or what has been going on. Bush and Company have been complicit with the enemy, the Arabs their money for decades, and the Mainstream Media know this fail to address it with the results to aid in wrecking America. That is going to be the painful part of the readjustment America will have to go through. The media is going to go through a very ugly transition admitting in many issues deliberate tinkering which manifests the treachery and slinging going on in America to date.

To realize cowboy George should very well appear before Domestic and International Judgement for deeds and obvious atrocities that violated International law, Domestic law, and real violations to the electorate in basic oath to defend the Constitution of the United States is inevitable to be able to realign America in its leadership goal.

That whole legion of advanced Conservative studies, Limbaugh the laughable, doubled in its sophistry by using entertainment as a loop hole to escape Judgement, or more appropriately polished Journalism, that is clearly at variance with reality, emotional numbing used in terms of breaking news, or the production of out right nausea in what is thought of as resilience in the economy, but really was an avalanche to instant crisis across a spectrum beyond comprehension. Propping up hope with Saturday night live surrealism. Braking or flaking news with Jon Snow or Steven Colbert, elections won by celebrities to get Arnold-ized, Hannitized, or sanitized by O’Reilly, Olbermann, or hate radio, or endure the culture of a lost era in the Reagan theory of politics has driven everyone to vote for some sanity instead of listening to Hannity.

The electorate displayed its anger and hopefully Obama will full fill to address the irresponsibility obviously displayed by Bush and Company this time with the understanding of the complicit media spilling its data gut data base. For heavens sakes the electorate should realize by now after watching the huge technical data base with wonderful screens identifying every niche and cranny in American social thought in the election with red and blue stuff. For me wondering how could mainstream media know all this stuff but give the sense of elusion or out right not knowing what happened to the economy. In a sense it is not exhaustion it is where the cultural feedback, that license to inform and educate the public was never there, here our attention and transparency opened minds to see a naked truth; the media is a wide open lie. Many can laugh when MSNBC stands in front wide screen with color to say what did we learn today? Or CNN, Fox especially telling what some one else really said. Mainstream Media is today a disgusting piece of our culture.

Instead of ignoring them, ridicule this subset of the conservative community. Like others have posted letting them alone allows the spores to multiply as they did as John Birchers and flat earthers in the 60s.

The thing that Bushie Republicans thrive on is the image of being winners, people who others fear and respect. The worst thing for these bullies is be the butt of jokes. They not cool anymore, just sideshow jokes. That will kill off their audience better than consigning them to the dark ages.

And as someone else on this thread noted: COMEDY GOLD.

Good luck to them with that when Democrats firmly control Congress. (Not to mention that Obama is 100,000 times more disciplined than Bill.) This is not a worry that's even on my radar screen. All they can do is rant and rave impotently.

You did live through the 90's right? And you know that Clinton had a Democratic Congress for 2 years right at the start, yeah? And that while I completely agree that Obama is far, far, more disciplined, the whole Clinton problem started with bullshit reports on Whitewater.

Rezko? Wright? An ineffectual Congress that people are already predisposed to hate?

We haven't "won" the argument yet. Progressives have to simultaneously respond to stupid arguments AND support good policy if Obama can be successful.

Unfortunately, if ignored, the right wing narcissists will only get more loony to attract attention. It's never been their intent to be well regarded by reasonable people, only to be in the bright spotlight of controversy for their audacity. The wingnuts will not be ignored, and they will pull the insane shit necessary to ensure they aren't.

You DID live through 1994-2000, right? And you do know that they could only do the impeachment thing because they CONTROLLED CONGRESS then?

Clinton's election was a blip in an increasingly Republican-friendly period, with an intellectually exhausted Democratic Congress hanging on in mere survival mode after three Republican terms in the White House and a long-term rightward shift in the Overton Window. The tide is running the other way bow.

So stop it, people, just fucking STOP IT. I am totally fucking sick and tired of Democrats EXPECTING to get their asses kicked. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. We're not going there now. Not this time.

I don't understand conservatism anymore that I understand religion.

I'm not talking right wing ideology, but true conservatism, small government, rigid fiscal discipline, etc.

It's like throwing half your tools and equipment away. How can you progress if you preempt government from a proactive role in society? I just don't get that kind of thinking. Our goal should be to maximize the common good, to preserve the planet upon which we live, while promoting individual freedom and liberty to the extent that it is consistent with the other priorities. Who cares how it's it done? Whether by individual, or collective effort, or both?

Government is what we want it to be. It is not inherently either good or evil, but what we make of it. Why deny ourselves putting it to use in creating a better world?

I'm truly baffled by the conservative philosophy. The cynical side of me tells me it's just a euphemism for keeping power and wealth in the hands of the few, and away from the many - us. Now that couldn't be, could it?

From change.gov:

...all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.

A lunatic responds:

Arbeit Macht Frei [John Derbyshire]
Corvée labor, a/k/a "community service."
Those of us over 55 are not excluded, I see. Shall we have to build our own camps, I wonder, like zeks?

Yes, Derb. Those who do not obey Chancellor Obama's orders will be sent to concentration camps. The old and infirm will go to the gas chambers as part of The Final Solution to the Elderly Question, and the young will be worked to death.

Obama is a liberal fascist, after all...

The results of the election just keep getting better and better. One can make the distinction between conservative policies and the way they seek to achieve them. Not having to listen or put up with the latter is truly the cherry on top of the sweetest victory in the history of the U.S.

Today we can honestly say the following and mean it: "The ends, most definitely, do NOT justify the means".

My only worry is that the famously short memory of the media and political institution will let slide the actions of McCain, Palin, and Lieberman.

So stop it, people, just fucking STOP IT. I am totally fucking sick and tired of Democrats EXPECTING to get their asses kicked. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. We're not going there now. Not this time.

I don't expect to get our asses kicked. But what I can't fathom is to decide: Oh, well, I'm glad the conservative movement is dead! I can ignore The National Review, Weekly Standard, FOX, the NY Post, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, the Republican Congress and everyone else who isn't intellectually honest. I'm going to argue with the three remaining good faith Republicans.

Conservatives have to argue among themselves, but to think that the gargoyles don't exist, or that their rhetoric has lost all potency, especially with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi being absolute asshats for two years (tell me how they differ from the intellectually-bankrupt Congress from 1992 exactly, FISA? The Bankruptcy Bill?), a media that still doesn't do substance and a substantial audience for their message, is just fooling oneself.

I think the Democrats are poised to do great things -- but they'll need to be pushed. And on the flip side, it's incumbent upon us never to turn our backs on our most dangerous enemy. Not "honest" conservatives. But the motherfuckers who have actually run the country and the conversation for the last 40 years.

NO, Hilzoy, not starting *now* because Bush is still Presnut until January 2009! "All" we just went through was an election, gratifying as it may be, but the old players are still in office! And the Repubs can likely still mount 'busters beyond 1/20/09.

Yes, take the high road, definitely. It worked to some degree in the campaign. But Democrats have to develop a killer instinct, too, if they are going to get their agenda through. Politics is a knife fight, and you don't want to go into it with a dull blade.

Agreed. The Corner is off the table (so to speak). Ditto (so to speak again) Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Kristol, Barnes, Krauthammer, Rove, Malkin, Coulter, Faux Nooz, NY Post, Wash Times, WSJ editorial page. At least for the time being, they are like those foghorn sounds you get at certain frequencies on a shortwave radio: loud but meaningless.

Once again, I searched for Pentagon and Message Force Multiplier before posting; came up empty again.

Do you think they'll just go home and become fine upstanding supporters of the expressed will of the People?

Bamford's trilogy on the NSA should be required reading.

Who are the NSA moles on the Left? Who are the Perkinsian Economic Hit Men? Sure, a lot of the bad faith con artists will fold their tents. Do you think the whole program will stand down?

Neocon Bunker Hunker
Jeff Huber | November 05, 2008
http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,178688,00.html
If you know neither your enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. -- Sun Tzu

It ain't over just because they've been voted out of power. Until January, young Mr. Bush is still commander in chief and Dick Cheney is still in charge. Surge architect Fred Kagan is putting the finishing touches on the "resurgence" strategy, and the neocons have two months left to do that voodoo that they do so well.

A former professor of military history at West Point, Fred knows the components of ***a classic advance-to-the-rear maneuver: the main body backs down toward safe haven where it can regroup for the counter-offensive, leaving skirmishers in its wake to mine, booby trap, burn bridges and otherwise harass the advancing enemy.***
(emphasis added)

Know Your Enemy

In the case of the neocons, safe haven amounts to a well established network of think tanks, academic citadels and media outlets. Among the scholars and fellows camped out at the American Enterprise Institute are Kagan, John Bolton, Lynne Cheney, David Frum, Newt Gingrich, Irving Kristol (Bill's dad and the "godfather of neoconservatism"), Richard Perle, Gary Schmitt, the completely despicable Paul Wolfowitz and the possibly even more despicable John Yoo. Midge Decter, Steve Forbes and Richard Scaife anchor the board of trustees at the Heritage Foundation; Bill Bennet and Ed Meese hang out there too. Meese, Condi Rice, John Abizaid, Tom Sowell and James Woolsey haunt the hallowed halls of Stanford for the Hoover Institution.

John Yoo, whose sophist interpretation of the president's constitutional powers made young Mr. Bush into a virtual deity, teaches law at the University of California, Berkley. Bill Kristol is on the faculty at Harvard's Kennedy school of Government, and Mackubin Thomas Owens, coauthor of the neocon manifesto Rebuilding America's Defenses, is associate dean of academics at the U.S. Naval War College. Donald Kagan, father of Robert and Fred Kagan, is a professor of history at Yale. Condi will doubtless reclaim her chair at Stanford, even if she has to step over the corpses of half the student body and faculty to get to it.

Noted Cheney chamberlain and dumbest freaking guy on the planet Doug Feith finally got the boot from his visiting professor gig at Georgetown University, but don't shed a single crocodile tear for him. He'll be joining Norm Podhoretz and a host of other B-list Likudniks at the Hudson Institute.

Rupert Murdoch has ensured the warmongers will always have a balcony and a megaphone handy. Bill Kristol and collaborator Robert Kagan (Fred's brother) are well established at the Weekly Standard, and Kristol is now a fixture at the feckless New York Times. Charles Krauthammer holds down the fort at the other "liberal" bastion, the Washington Post. Max Boot has a long-standing relationship with the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and many other publications. Ralph Peters and Newt are columnists with the right wing New York Post; Cal Thomas and Suzanne Fields write for the equally laughable Washington Times.

That's just the tip of the print media iceberg....[end quote]

Be on your guard. The game isn't over yet...

but hilzoy, if your premise is correct and we don't have to pay attention to the hardly-ever-right wing nut jobs, what's going to happen to sadly, no! ??

that's all they do!

Please, while we are endeavoring to forget the past, can we please remember that one of the things that made the Bush years possible is that a whole lot of voters simply didn't comprehend what kind of wingnuttery has always been kicking around over there?

In a sane and sensible world, we could safely ignore the lunatic wingnuts, confident in the knowledge that they will never, ever be allowed near the levers of power, so it doesn't really matter what stupidity they would commit if they were enabled to do so.

Obviously, we don't live in a sane and sensible world, and the election of a sane and sensible President has not changed that. It's important to keep the pressure on the wingnuts. Do not let them get away with fooling the public into assuming moderation for the sake of politeness where no such moderation has ever existed.