Look Who’s Talking

This interesting article on the long term plan for SS privatization in today’s LA Times contains a shocking, shocking revelation!

“It could be many years before the conditions are such that a radical reform of Social Security is possible,” wrote Stuart Butler and Peter Germanis, Heritage Foundation analysts, in a 1983 article in the Cato Journal. “But then, as Lenin well knew, to be a successful revolutionary, one must also be patient and consistently plan for real reform.”

…analysts Butler and Germanis argued in their prescient 1983 article — provocatively titled “Achieving a ‘Leninist’ Strategy” — that privatizing Social Security required a calculated, long-term campaign to transform the political environment.

Now that’s odd. It seems like just a minute ago that I read a scathing take down of “the left” that seemed to indicate that such imagery wasn’t exactly, well …. patriotic:

And this review of Steve Earle’s concert in Knoxville — in which he performed before a hammer and sickle — observes:

The Soviet imagery might have seemed corny five years ago, but in the current right-leaning climate, a left-wing backlash is inevitable. Expect to see more of it.

If Kerry had won, would it be understandable for Republican artists to perform in front of swastikas? And how seriously should we take people who wish we had lost the Cold War, and who want us to lose this one?

Well, there aren’t any Republican artists so that point is moot. There are, however, VMI cadets who think that dressing up in nazi gear and blackface is training for future leadership and anyone who doesn’t like it should just STFU:

Numerous VMI supporters defended the students’ right to enjoy themselves during a break from their rigorous training program and attacked what they perceive as political correctness run amok.

“You have no idea what we go through here at VMI, and if the cadets and rats choose to have fun on Halloween, you should not have anything to say about it,” a VMI cadet wrote. “Just remember, we are the future leaders of America, and we will be the ones defending your rights.”

I wonder which party that young man belongs to?

You would think that those on the right would find it a bit alarming that right wing analysts were openly apeing communist revolutionary tactics even before the cold war was “won,” too, but apparently there’s nothing wrong with a little sincere flattery.

When it comes to obscure left wing professors who nobody has ever heard of, though, the buck has come to a full stop at the door of us decaying immoral liberals who must be held accountable for every word he said.

And they are right. This kind of nutty talk shouldn’t be allowed to pollute the discourse without somebody standing up and saying no. So I’ll tell you what, fellas. I’ll disavow this joker from Nowhere University when you guys disavow the vomitous spew with which your millionaire pundits and “entertainers” disgrace this nation’s airwaves every single day to tens of millions of listeners, ok?

Here’s a little sample of the fetid swill that passes for political discourse on the right in this country:

LIMBAUGH: We killed his sons. We took his country. We put him in jail. He is still calmer and more rational than Howard Dean after he lost Iowa. He’s calmer and more rational than Gore after he lost his mind. He’s calmer and more rational than George Soros is.

LIMBAUGH: I mean, if there is a party that’s soulless, it’s the Democratic Party. If there are people by definition who are soulless, it is liberals — by definition. You know, souls come from God. You know? No. No. You can’t go there.

LIMBAUGH: Women still make up an average of only 13 percent of police officers… They’re never happy. And I don’t mean women. I’m talking about the activists. Don’t lose your cookies out there. This is according to the National Center for Women and Policing, which is a division of the Feminist Majority Foundation of American, which is the feminazis. This is exactly what I’m talking about. So what’s the reaction to this? Well, here’s my reaction, in the typical Rush fashion: If we’ve got four new female police chiefs out there, then I guess we can watch out for some naked pyramids among prisoners in these new jailhouses that these women ran, because we had a woman running the prison in Abu [Algore pronunciation] Grab. That’s how you do it.

VESTER: You say you’d rather not talk to liberals at all?

COULTER: I think a baseball bat is the most effective way these days. [FOX News Channel, DaySide with Linda Vester, 10/6]

“My pretty-girl allies stick out like a sore thumb amongst the corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie-chick pie wagons they call “women” at the Democratic National Convention.”

SAVAGE: And we have all of the leaders — we have Obergrupenführer Clinton; we have Grupenführer Carter; we have Brigadeführer Daschle. … There are only a few rotten führers on the bottom of the corporals; they’re the ones wearing the little funny green costumes down there. But they’re all there. That’s how I see them.

Instapundit: There was a time when the Left opposed fascism and supported democracy, when it wasn’t a seething-yet-shrinking mass of self-hatred and idiocy. That day is long past, and the moral and intellectual decay of the Left is far gone.

This particular type of rhetoric using violent imagery, nazi and terrorist comparisons, revolting physical descriptions,and characterizations as irrational, soulless, fragrant, hirsute, rotten, far gone can only be described as eliminationist. Its tone is so derisive and so relentlessly contemptuous that it becomes difficult for people who listen to this stuff everyday to even think of liberals or “the left” or Democrats as even human much less fellow Americans.

There was a time when I thought that someone like Instapundit was a cut above this type of thing, but no more. It’s no longer just right wing talk show hosts ostensibly “entertaining” the folks. It’s law professors and Claremont fellows publicly accusing “the left” of being terrorist sympathizers.

Some people need to get out of the right wing echo chamber and breathe some fresh air. They have lost the capacity to see and hear what they and their allies are really saying. This is a very destructive genie they have let out of bottle.

Update: Now this is just funny. Instapundit quotes Ed Driscoll writing:

In the 1950s, Bill Buckley was able to create a new conservatism by casting out the John Birchers and their anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories. Now it’s the left’s turn to try to do much the same.

Uh huh. That’s a nice story. It’s true that William Buckley chastized the birchers for accusing Eisenhower of being a communist. But cast them out? Nah.

From the Columbia Encyclopedia:

“…the society was founded to fight subversive Communism within the United States. Its other objectives have included the abolition of the graduated income tax, the repeal of social security legislation, the impeachment of various high government officials, the end to busing for the purpose of school integration, the end to U.S. membership in the United Nations, and the nullification of the treaty that turned over the Panama Canal to Panama.”

Now where have I heard that agenda before? Give me a minute….

Replace “communist” with “liberal” (when they even bother with the distinction) and there is very little difference between what you hear coming out of the mouths of modern conservatives and the John Birchers. As far as conspiracies go, there is nothing like the myth of the liberal media to keep those paranoid juices flowing. They weren’t cast out, they were simply asked to be loyal Republicans.