Dec 01 2009
‘True’ Conservatives Turning Reagan’s Big Tent Into A Pup Tent
It is not a good day for conservatives when folks like Charles Johnson leave the movement in such obvious disgust
I was asked what went wrong by one of my more ‘pure’ conservative readers (he loves to dig at this independent conservative centrist). What went wrong is the ‘true conservatives’ and their vitriol. Charles Johnson is very sharp and was an asset to ‘the right’. He is I think, on balance, a good person. What people should be asking themselves is how did a good person become so filled with anger.
Johnson clearly has lost his tolerance – which happens when you are around a bunch of intolerant people too long. As he disagreed on some subjects, the vitriol he received just poisoned his view of conservatives. His angry departure is a reflection of what he’s been experiencing. The intolerant folks burned out his tolerance. I have experienced it myself, I just have an easier time dismissing the jabs.
What Johnson forgot is there are a more centrist conservatives than ‘true’ conservatives. When he departed ‘the right’ he sadly turned his back on a lot of good people (Inhofe comes to mind). That is his problem and his mistake. It just makes this situation all the worse.
I agree with Johnson on many subjects. The big exceptions are Palin and AGW I guess. But I don’t throw people under the bus because I disagree with them. And I don’t try to tear them down personally (that’s intolerance in spades). The right is now justifying the snub by throwing more jabs at Johnson. Folks need to learn when to stop digging.
I also don’t group people and spread the sins and failures of a few across them all. It is why I remain a conservative and challenge the drama queens who call themselves ‘true conservatives’. I have not given up on Reagan’s big tent yet.
The fact CJ is both bitter and a lost cause is a reflection on the toxic characters in the far right. It is a sad day for ‘the right’ when you chase someone like Johnson out of the big tent. If this continues all the right will be is a bunch of purists in pup tent.
Besides, AJ, you are a prime example of the kind of person Charles Johnson is raving about. The man is no victim. He hates Palin, and you do not, he despises people who do not believe in man made global warming.
And Pat Buchanan? He actually whines about the right and Pat Buchanan? Pat is a darling the left on msnbc. There is not a dimes worth of difference between his antisemitism and antiBush ranting and half the nonsense from the left…and here is Johnson putting Buchanan in the same category with Limbaugh.
I don’t much like Beck. I think he is an opportunist, and using a few people like Beck to paint everyone on the right is just dumb.
Impressing you? I don’t much care if it impresses you AJ, it is how I feel. I have agreed with you on all kinds of issues. Like immigration. I supported Bush when a lot of people on the right abandoned him, but Johnson is not a victim, he is just having a tantrum and attacking all sorts of people, Christians, pro lifers, he does not care.
the vitriol he received just poisoned his view of conservatives. His angry departure is a reflection of what he’s been experiencing.
AJ:
I don’t know if you’re aware of it but Charles Johnson’s BFF Killgore Trout spent a late night at Hot Air spouting “nigger” on multiple posts. He taunted his late night audience with the fact he hadn’t been immediately banned (even though the site monitors were in bed).
How would you like that if that happened to you?
BTW:
CJ never denounced Killgore Trouts’ behavior.
The posts were authenticated by ISPN.
Vitriol? You mentioned experiencing vitriol?
One time I almost got driven off his site because I jumped on someone for making wet back comments about Mexicans, back then Charles had no problem with that kind of stuff in his comments. You could make fun of Muslims and the way the women dressed. He was always putting up pictures of Palestinians marching with guns and raving about the R.O.P. {religion of peace}.
I was so disgusted by that kind of thing that I stopped even going there…and now here Charles Johnson is talking about other people saying things that pale in comparison to the very stuff he used to put on his own site.
I agree with WWS on this AJ. And you did attack WWS in a very vicious way that made me also walk away from you for a long time. Most of the time you write really good stuff and I really respect you for that. However, when you attack those who care for you and support you, that respect aways drops a good bit.
I think that what you are trying to say when you rant about “true conservatives” is that you feel that there is a point to view that can cause some slightly right leaning people to be put off. Conservatives are far more tolerant and fair than liberals any day of the week. Give people a little more credit than you have. Have a little faith, I do.
Your extreme emotional reaction to some issues resulting in attacks on your readers is not worthy of your intellect. You can do better than that. While I agree that we should respect people, don’t forget that respect goes two ways. I would definitely fall into your “true conservative” category on several subjects, especially immigration (I live in Texas and deal with the by products of rampant illegal immigration every day – Amnesty is not the answer because illegals don’t and won’t care. While a path to citizenship for current illegals can be constructed it comes with a very bad taste to those of us who have been with living the nightmare for so long.), so since you have decided to simply insult me about it, I will take my leave again after this.
When I walked away, I remember you posting a small note to me that said that you as a Marine Dad will always have my back. I wanted to say thank you and that I always knew that and you need to be assured that I have your back too. So, in light of that I have to ask you to stand back and think about what people you intellectually respect are telling you. Only people who respect you as much as many of your regular readers and I do will tell you the truth about yourself. Practice what you preach and stop trying to push people away.
Hooah!! 101st Airborne deploying to Afghanistan in April ’10. God please keep them all safe.
I know he throws me in the camp with the others at times. I still see no reason to denigrate him in return.
Turn thy cheek!
From watching some of the battles CJ has created in the past 1 ½ years I would say this was a self generated exit. Not a matter of being a big tent, as much as one of the persons in the tent attempting to define and drive the terms, agenda, and rules as they go. Reagan and conservatism won out by a clear focus on those ideals and built around them. He comes back or he does not; conservative ideals and by extension the Republican party are fine as long as the party focuses on the ideals, not the idiosyncrasies of one of the members.
A view from the Lizard Bunker:
http://tinyurl.com/cff9fb
CJ was never really from the right and simply it was is user base of commenters that made the site what it was and not the lackluster postings CJ himself did.
Since then he has banned over 5000 of his best commenters and developed a new group of CJbots to take their place.
As far as which way the country is drifting the unregistered voter base of over 44 million in the voter age population per the census is mostly the conservative sleeping giant that all this policy choices will likely awaken.
Even Rasmussen is showing today Dems deserting that party id in droves to near parity and you have to take into account the lopsided balance in the largest blue states.
The distribution is more key than the absolute numbers.
Some just are not going for the new middle the far left progressives keep marking down with all their goal post moving.
Strata,
Are you losing your mind?
It is a good thing this schmuck finally went were his heart and actions were for a long time.
How can you defend somebody like him?
What does it say about YOU?
Do you honestly think calling a fellow American a nutcase is impressing me????
Apparently CJ, who makes a ritual of calling people names has impressed you.
So I won’t call CJ a nutcase, but just casual reading clearly demonstrates that he has severe mental stability problems.
It is not a good day for conservatives when folks like Charles Johnson leave the movement .
He hasn’t gone anywhere, he’s exactly where he’s always been. he has not now nor never has had any redeeming qualities. All his friends are right there where they’ve always been. I won’t bother saying good riddance because he hasn’t gone anywhere.
He was not a conservative, he was an ally from center left
If CJ was ever an ally of conservatives, it has never been apparent. He mostly is an ally of Charles Johnson.
I read him for a while 5 years ago, but have only skimmed infrequently since. Not someone who’s opinion I value, in fact, just the opposite.
sjreidhead:
Huckabee blew it big time with the commutation of Clemmons ( – and it was not the first act of clemency that had gone bad (DuMont). He deserves the heat he gets on this one.
His use of his Christianity to excuse his screwup is, sadly, typical of him. I’m sorry, but his conduct during the 2008 campaign royally ticked me off.
AJ:
While I know some on the right (Malkin, RS McCain, and Mark Levin, among others) are very hard to stomach, at the same time, Johnson was grossly unfair to Glenn Beck (who was debunking the FEMA camp rumors, among other things). Johnson went off the rails a while ago. It was a shame that both he and RS McCain could not lose that dust-up.
Beck lately has become the first person on the right to really try to develop a long-term plan. I am also willing to wager that unlike most of his critics (like Johnson), I have read at least one of the books he recommends (The 5000 Year Leap), and I don’t see much offensive in that.
But Johnson’s screed was way off base.
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2009/12/someone-needs-attention.html
AJ, everyone has an agenda, whether, right, center or left, each with their strong beliefs. You have strong beliefs about being a centrist. I still love you! 🙂
And we have names for all the nutjobs across the spectrum! So what? 🙂
I want to say that, if the Tea Party movement did not have an agenda and strong beliefs, you and I would be suffering from obamacare’s taxes at this very moment, not to mention cap and trade.
There are certain things that conservatives have as core principles, high priorities: smaller government, strong military, free trade, pro-capitalism, low taxes, right to life and the strong belief in human potential NOT government potential. Social conservatives will add some others, I am sure, which I may or may not agree with.
Fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, neo-conservatives, paleo conservatives would all share a belief in the above characteristics. Are there nutcases in all of these categories? Heck, yes. Do they argue and debate amongst themselves? Again, yes.
There are many people and some tenets that my church has instituted that I absolutely do not agree with but I am not going to leave but rather stay to outlast the foolishness.
Personally, I don’t think there was a way to keep Charles happy. Just my opinion.
Here’s a priceless comment from CJ, just today:
I didn’t go into this expecting to come out as a proponent of AGW, but the vast weight of the evidence forced me to accept it.
And, of course, he’s referring to all that faked/altered ‘vast evidence”
wonder if the revelation of the ‘real’ evidence would force him to accept it?
not a chance….
[…] The Far Right has now doomed itself. What a few of us thought was a problem is now turning into a rotten carcass, dead, rank, and full of disease ridden maggots and filth. Not only have they managed to throw Reagan under the bus, but now they are stating that a Christian is not capable of being POTUS. […]
Redteam, the case made by the alarmist is persuasive to many. The Earth is warming. Could you or others debunk it scientifically?
Sadly those who can debunk it ignored it for too long, not thinking it would take hold. Now we have to work 100 times as hard to roll it all back.
That is not Johnson’s fault.
Harold, no excuses for Johnson’s problems, and no excuses for those who drove a left of center icon from ‘the right.
Do you know where this nation would be without Joe Lieberman? We would have run from Iraq and made al Qaeda famous.
That’s what happens when this pattern is repeated.
“Do you know where this nation would be without Joe Lieberman? We would have run from Iraq and made al Qaeda famous.”
Joe Lieberman is a grown up who cares about his country. He doesn’t sit around and whine about how dangerous Christians are and how “far” Right people like Sarah Palin have ruined our country.
Charles Johnson is like Andrew Sullivan. A sad, unserious creature who runs a pathetic blog. He had a reality check like many of us did on 9/11 but that’s apparently ancient history now. Nobody drove him away.
Could you or others debunk it scientifically?
no need to. look at the raw data. it proves itself.
there have been many times, over time, that the earth was much hotter.
the question should be just the opposite. How could anyone take the raw data and convince anyone there is such a thing as ‘AGW’?
I have a tecnnical, scientific, management background and I can say for sure there is no raw data that supports AGW.