Conor Friedersdorf: Hammered on Multiple Fronts, Threatens Dan Riehl

The Big Baby at Big Ideas has refused to engage the substantive points at my post, "Conor Friedersdorf: Small-Minded Narcissist." In his own posts, Mr. Friedersdorf makes provocative assertions, and then he whines when you call him out on them. He then accuses others of "ad hominem" attacks as if that relieves him of the responsibility of defending his allegations.

So to be clear: I'm not attacking Mr. Friederdorf "against the man." I'm arguing "descriptively" against his behavior, which is objectively childish and selfish. His small mindedness is also objectively demonstrated by making what would be playground copycat allegations:

It's quite a paranoid theory you've developed. But it is unsupported by any evidence. Should you take the time to converse with me like a gentleman, I'll happily engage your substantive arguments, and I think you'll find that your wrongheaded assumptions about me will change.

Actually, to say I'm "paranoid" is a claim that itself needs to be substantiated by "evidence." And of course, the "theory" in question at my post is itself a logically-derived claim on Mr. Freiderdorf's arguments. It's a method of substantive debate. Ignoring the argumentative power of my claims doesn't make them go away.

But frankly, Mr. Friederdorf is not known for much intellectual firepower.

Cranky Conservative eviscerated him at this post, "How Do You Like Dem Apples?" I got a kick out of this passage:

I wasn’t really going to comment on the 3578734895723894569783th (give or take) debate on “real conservatism,” this time involving RS McCain, Dan Riehl, and Conor Friedersdorf, but after reading Friedersdorf’s take, I couldn’t help but think of that scene from Good Will Hunting.

WILL: Of course that’s your contention. You’re a first year grad student. You just finished some Marxian historian, Pete Garrison prob’ly, and so naturally that’s what you believe until next month when you get to James Lemon and get convinced that Virginia and Pennsylvania were strongly entrepreneurial and capitalist back in 1740. That’ll last until sometime in your second year, then you’ll be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood about the Pre-revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization.

CLARK: Well, as a matter of fact, I won’t, because Wood drastically underestimates the impact of –

WILL: “Wood drastically underestimates the impact of social distinctions predicated upon wealth, especially inherited wealth…” You got that from “Work in Essex County,” Page 421, right? Do you have any thoughts of your own on the subject or were you just gonna plagiarize the whole book for me? Look, don’t try to pass yourself off as some kind of an intellect at the expense of my friend just to impress these girls.

Friedersdorf, again, ends up making it all about him! After being thoroughly schooled by Cranky Conservative at the comments, Friederdorf has the temerity to demand a retraction!

I should have chosen my words more carefully ... I do thank you for alerting me to the error, and apologize for my imprecision. However, I think the rest of my comment stands, and refutes the argument in your post. I wish you’d correct your mistake as readily as I’ve fessed up to mine.

Cranky Conservative responds beautifully:

You fess up to a blatant misreading of McCain, and that means I am supposed to “correct” a mistake that I did not make? In the very body of the post I said that I did not think you were stating that Kirk is the sole authoritative voice of conservatism. As for the remainder of the post, I stand by the analysis. You haven’t offered up anything more meaningful than name dropping.

But note something else: If Friederdorf can't win an argument on the merits, he'll make implied threats - which, in the case of Dan Riehl, means that he'll mention the publication of private e-mail communications to get you to STFU. Here's the comment from Mr. Friederdorf:

Time and again I have addressed the substance of your arguments, while you've responded with little more than ad hominem attacks. I have unfailingly refrained from responding in kind, kept the confidence of private e-mails you've sent me, and otherwise excerpted far more material from the folks I'm criticizing than you do in a typical blog post on your own site ...

So, readers can discern the pattern: Friederdorf loses an argument. Then he alleges you've slandered him with ad hominems. Then to ice the cake, he'll hoist the maganimity of NOT publishing your e-mails as some kind of macabre badge of debating honor.

And here's the thing: Friederdorf argues like a lefty! Not only is he enthralled with the leftosphere's "association with academia," but he smears and threatens with the best of its representatives.

And all of this points back to the orignal points at issue between myself and Mr. Friedersdorf - and apparently many others on the right: Conor Friedersdorf is a "faux" conservative. He can be aligned him with a group of postmodernists that I've identified as "neoclassicons." Dan Riehl characterizes these same folks as "worldly, nonreligious conservo-libertarians." Robert Stacy McCain just calls out Friedersdorf for his pathetic "intellectual scam."

I'll have more later. But in the meantime, look forward to Mr. Friedersdorf showing up here in the comments section, where he'll (1) avoid the argument presented, and (2) attack me personally while alleging ad hominems.

I've never e-mailed him, so he won't be able to threaten me with that one.

Conor Friedersdorf: Small-Minded Narcissist

I'd be charitable to say that Conor Freidersdorf's comment at my post last night was "odd." To say it was "egocentric" would be closer to the mark, and "narcissistic" also comes to mind.

The post was about the debate on the right between traditionalists and those who I've identified as neoclassical conservatives, or "neoclassicons." I mentioned Friederdorf and his debate with Dan Riehl. The exchange has been covered at The Other McCain. But the Friederdorf/Riehl debate was simply a pointer to the larger schism that's been roiling the conservative waters since at least the election of President Obama.

But Friederdorf wants folks to make it all about him:

I haven't any desire to purge social conservatives. I spent 14 years attending a religious private school ... I mean, how inaccurate! In a post ostensibly about me, you get most of your facts wrong, and spend most of your time talking about Andrew Sullivan.

Oh, poor, poor baby!

Actually, no, I don't get the facts wrong, Mr. Friedersdorf.

The post isn't "ostensibly" about you. And indeed, as for Andrew Sullivan, my point is precisely that we have a clique of Sullivan myrmidons that's emerged from various perspectives on the postmodern right - folks who I've loosely lumped together as neoclassicons. But it's by no means just you. So, once more, I'm struck by how you think its "odd" that I wrote primarily about Sullivan! You tender little attention-whore! "Oh, Dr. Douglas, you nasty!" You spent "most of your time talking about Andrew Sullivan." How dare you, you cad!

And, of course, the facts in question aren't wrong. At your original post I cited weeks ago, "A Question for War on Terror Hawks," you assert moral equivalencies between a lone U.S. murder suspect and the untold number of violent jihadists within the global terrorist network - including many, of course, who were captured on the battlefield and held as enemy combatants in a real war on terrorism. Your post, as it proposes partisan payback for the robust anti-terror policies of the Bush years, basically endorses an Obama administration policy of declaring domestic anti-abortion terrorists as identical enemy combatants; you also deploy taunting language in saying, "I wonder how 'War on Terror Hawks' would react" if President Obama had the "prerogative to order the waterboarding of the uncharged, untried detainees." The scenario is not simply a hypothetical. It's transparent advocacy in furtherance of ideological retribution. Most of all, your post is dishonest hackery, and your defense of it is peurile idiocy.

And that brings me to something else: It turns out that Dan Riehl points to your underhanded attack on Mark Levin and conservative talk radio. Interesting how Dan refuses to mention you by name, better not to besmirch his page it turns out:

While many people may have taken exception to some of Andrew Sullivan's Palin posting at The Atlantic in the past, I find it somewhat troubling that they would hire a blogger who seems to have a serious problem understanding blog ethics, if not journalistic ethics, as well. Frankly, this is unethical and lazy blogging at its worst. So much so, one almost wonders if it isn't by design.

Their newbie blogger has spent the last two days presenting extremely small snippets of text to represent Mark Levin's broadcasts, almost to the point of obsession - see here and here. Along with being unethical, this makes no sense.

He links to Talk Radio authorities, David Frum and copiously back to himself. I thought blogging was about both documenting one's source material - and sharing same with your reader whenever possible? ....

It isn't simply unethical, it's poor blogging and bad etiquette, to boot. Assuming they are paying this guy money for his blogging, one would think an organization such as The Atlantic could do much better than that.

It's my hunch that the endless attacks on Mark Levin are not just about "improving" talk radio. They're about "improving" (purging) right-wing ideology - which you allege is a system that's "damaging to public discourse" - in favor of Sullivan-styled neoclassical conservatism (which, don't forget, is really a euphemism for the right's postmodern program of marching with leftists on social issues, civil liberties, and foreign policy). So, yes, Mr. Friederdorf, you are attacking social conservatives. These are exactly the "Rovians" and "theocrats" that you and the neoclassicals are out to destroy.

God have mercy on your soul, son.

P.S. Don't miss Jimmie at Sundries Shack as well, "Conor Freidersdorf is Not Ready to Take on Mark Levin."

Neoclassicons

I'm involved, just a teeny-weeny bit, in this flame war Robert Stacy McCain's having with Conor Friedersdorf.

At Stacy's post yesterday, "Conor Friedersdorf vs. Dan Riehl" (on the debate between Friedersdorf and Dan), I left the link to Conor's post, Iran, Twitter, and The American Information Elite." That link goes to the Atlantic, where Freidersdorf's now a "big ideas" blogger. Stacy's been hammering Friedersdorf pretty hard anyway, but even more now that news of the Freidersdorf's Atlantic gig got out.

I've been thinking about writing something about this. So, I might as well comment on Dan's remark earlier on the conservatives schism (David Frum vs. Rush Limbaugh, etc.), when he noted that "To be honest, I wonder if this whole moderation movement isn't simply about purging the social conservatives."

Well, yeah. I'll just say here that Conor Freidersdorf is an Andrew Sullivan myrmidon. As anyone who's followed the recent conservative debates knows, especially in the months since the election, there's been an amalgamation of moderate conservatives, left-libertarians, and unpatriotic paleocons on the postmodern right. I wrote about this (only slightly tongue-in-cheek) the other day, in "What's Up With David Weigel?" From Conor Friederdorf to David Frum, to Daniel Larison to Andrew Sullivan, and then E.D. Kain, there's a movement afoot that wants desperately to be "conservative," but one that is failing miserably.

The reason is simple: These folks, let's loosely call them neoclassical conservatives, or neoclassicons, are driven by an essentially leftist-libertarian domestic policy orientation that is primarily animated by an intense hatred of "theoconservatism." That's the term Andrew Sullivan deploys in his book, The Conservative Soul: Fundamentalism, Freedom, and the Future of the Right. In Sullivan's case in particular, hatred of theoconservatism emerges out of the psycho-sexual torment of his own homosexuality. For a man who has apparently long preached a standard of homosexual monogamy, his own personal moral breakdown into wild sexual excursions of high-risk barebacking and alleged steroidal drug use makes it difficult for reasonable people to take him seriously. Sullivan's own considerably masterful writing, of course, and his ability to put his finger to the pulse of the latest ideological hot buttons, helps to give him some cachet among those on the left looking for some type of pop-legitimacy to their postmodern agenda.

What's striking about all of this is not just how wrong these folks are on most of the main issues of contemporary conservatism, but also how, from my perspsective, the Sullivan-cadres mount their ideological program completely bereft of decency. Andrew Sullivan himself, as is well known, practically lost his mind last year after Sarah Palin's nomination as the GOP presidential running-mate. His attacks on the Palin family have hit bottom and he keeps digging. Beyond that, I routinely see his followers and allies making the most ridiculously unhinged attacks, allegations, and arguments. Conor Friedersdorf put up a totally absurd piece a couple of weeks back, in an essay called, "A Question for War on Terror Hawks." Friedersdorf advocated waterboarding for folks like the suspect in the murder of George Tiller. I took him to task in my post, "Is Waterboarding Worse Than Abortion?," and he left a hopeless comment noting his exception.

E.D. Kain, another neoclassicon who practically worships Sullivan - and not to mention, Daniel Larison - is himself like a confused adolescent, afraid to engage in an intellectual debate with me at this blog. E.D. Kain was once in regular communication with me as the publisher of Neo-Constant, which was described as a blog of "Hard-line neoconservative political commentary, global politics, and foreign policy." Like Andrew Sullivan, E.D. must feel a need to float along the tides of partisan popularity. He's certainly denuded himself of moral standing among those with whom he had previous communications. But that kind of childishness appears to characterize the neoclassicons overall. Recall that Andrew Sullivan attacked Ann Althouse for her simple decision to get married. Why? Jealousy most likely, but also spite for hetersexuals and traditionalists. This is how these guys roll.

And what for? For all intents and purposes these guys have joined the other side. They're not conservative by any sense of the imagination. One doesn't have to be a devout church-goer to be deeply conservative on the issues, and that includes on such starkly moral questions as the right to life for unborn children. One of the most important conserative intellectuals in the last few decades is Robert Bork. And he claims to be just mildly religious (see Bork's, "Hard Truths About the Culture War" for a penetrating expose on the mainstreaming of postmodern radicalism in contemporary public affairs).

Robert Stacy McCain mostly just writes these people off as little men, a bunch of immature pseudo-conservative social climbers. My take is perhaps rougher. From social policy to international affairs, I see these folks in bed with the hardline activists of the nihilist left. On gay marriage to Iraq, there's little that differentiates them. For them to suggest they're "reclaiming" conservativism is preposterous. No smart conservative on today's right would even deign to associate with views like this. Rush Limbaugh is popular for a reason. Mark Levin's Tyranny and Liberty remains at the top of the bestseller lists, and the mainstream press has refused to give him the time of day. David Frum and Sullivan, on the other hand, are feted like they're top political soothsayers of the age. It's a strange thing.

No matter. Analysis of election data, as well as recent polling, indicates how far out on a limb the neoclassicons have placed themselves. The genuine conservatism of folks like Robert Bork, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin will be making a huge comeback in no time. Frankly, the Obama administration's deficit-driven agenda is already being repudiated in public opinion, and former Obama voters are now having remorse.

It's good to put these neoclassicons in there place, of course. Conservatives have to fight for every inch. The media's in the tank for Obama, and Andrew Sulllivan and his stooges are simply seeking a path of least resistance in their hubristic attempt to excommunicate the traditional right-wing from the political spectrum.

I'll have more on this debate in upcoming posts.

Is Waterboarding Worse Than Abortion?

Check out Conor Friedersdorf and his essay, "A Question for War on Terror Hawks."

Friedersdorf basically equates the actions of one lone wacko with those of an international terrorist network that's responsible for the 9/11 attacks, as well as a number of other terrorist atrocities around the world in recent decades.

Why such equivalence? Friedersdorf wonders what the reaction would be had President Obama "declared two or three of these extremist pro-lifers" as enemy combatants? "Should President Obama have the prerogative to order the waterboarding of these uncharged, untried detainees?"

Folks can read the whole thing for a sense of Friederdorf's total unseriousness. But my friend Jan at Vinegar and Honey has written along these lines in her post, "It Will Never Make Sense To Me." Jan compares waterboarding and late-term abortions. Maybe Mr. Friedersdorf might like to respond to her questions:

There has been much discussion about the pros and cons of "water boarding" and whether or not it constitutes "torture." Also, of great concern are the "rights" of the recipients of the water boarding technique.

I know what the word "torture" means, as defined by a dictionary, and I know what the word conjures up in my own mind. What I really don't understand is what the difference might be if a "terrorist" is tortured by the water boarding method, as compared to an abortion, and especially, a partial-birth abortion performed on an innocent fetus, in terms of suffering.

Maybe what I'm really trying to reconcile in my own mind, is how the opponents of water boarding, who vehemently protest the cruelty of it, and diligently pursue "justice" and "protection of civil rights" for the recipients of it, justify the pain and suffering endured by the innocents who have done nothing, but are tortured in the most inhumane way during an abortion--while at the same time loudly protesting the mistreatment of some very bad people intent on killing us, one and all.I looked up a few things about both subjects. Perhaps, you will tell me what you think, after we compare the two.

Water Boarding

Water boarding as it is currently described involves strapping a person to an inclined board, with his feet raised and his head lowered. The interrogators bind the person's arms and legs so he can't move at all, and they cover his face. In some descriptions, the person is gagged, and some sort of cloth covers his nose and mouth; in others, his face is wrapped in cellophane. The interrogator then repeatedly pours water onto the person's face. Depending on the exact setup, the water may or may not actually get into the person's mouth and nose; but the physical experience of being underneath a wave of water seems to be secondary to the psychological experience. The person's mind believes he is drowning, and his gag reflex kicks in as if he were choking on all that water falling on his face.

Pain In The Unborn

“The neural pathways are present for pain to be experienced quite early by unborn babies.”– Steven Calvin, perinatologist, University of Minnesota.

An unborn child at 20 weeks gestation “is fully capable of experiencing pain... Without question, [abortion] is a dreadfully painful experience for any infant subjected to such a surgical procedure.”– Robert J. White, MD., Ph.D. professor of neurosurgery, Case Western Reserve University.

“At 20 weeks, the fetal brain has the full complement of brain cells present in adulthood, ready and waiting to receive pain signals from the body, and their electrical activity can be be recorded by standard electroencephalography (EEG)”– Dr. Paul Ranalli, neurologist, University of Toronto.

An unborn child has less legal protection from feeling pain than commercial livestock.

In a slaughterhouse, a method of slaughter is deemed legally humane only if “all animals are rendered insensible to pain by a single blow or gunshot or an electrical,chemical, or other means that is rapid and effective, before being shackled, hoisted,thrown, cast, or cut.” (Section 2 of the Humane Slaughter Act, 7 USC 1902).

By contrast, D&E abortions, performed as late as 24 weeks (well after the child begins to feel pain), involve the dismemberment of the unborn child by a pair of sharp metal forceps.(9) Instillation methods of abortion (performed even in the third trimester) involve the replacement of up to one cup of amniotic fluid with a concentrated salt solution, which the unborn child inhales as the salt burns her skin.The child lives in this condition for up to an hour. In neither of these techniques is the unborn child provided with any form of anesthesia(1013)http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/Fetal_Pain/FetalPain091604.pdf.

Robert George writes in his essay, "Obama and His Pro-Life Apologists," something rather thought-provoking: President Obama knows that an unborn baby is human. He knows that the blood shed by the abortionist’s knife is human blood, that the bones broken are human bones. He does not deny that the baby whom nurse Jill Stanek discovered gasping for breath in a soiled linen bin after a failed attempt to end her life by abortion, was a human baby. Even in opposing the Illinois Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which was designed to assure that such babies were rescued if possible or at least given comfort care while they died, Barack Obama did not deny the humanity of the child. What he denied, and continues to deny, is the fundamental equality of that child—equality with those of us who are safely born and accepted into the human community."

The sad part of all of this, is that the President is not the only one who persists in defending the rights of the women who choose to abort, and the abortionists, but sadder, still, is the fact that they all put more value on the well-being, and lives of a terrorist, than they do on an innocent little child who has no one to come to his defense as a human being with the right to live.

Is water boarding worse than being burned alive, poisoned, or torn to pieces?

From Vinegar and Honey, "It Will Never Make Sense To Me."

Mark Levin on David Frum

There's a genuinely bitter partisan brawl going on between Mark Levin and some of his prominent faux-conservative antagonists.

You might have caught the initial attacks on Levin last week, from Conor Friedersdorf and then Rod Dreher. I first caught wind of all this in Dan Riehl's response to Friedersdorf, "In Defense of Mark Levin." Dan has a number of other posts covering various iterations of the debate. In an earlier post, Levin suggested that "I have to lower myself to deal with the undeveloped minds of kooks like Rod Dreher." Then Dreher returned fire, calling Levin a "bumptious vulgarian."

You might have also caught David Frum piling on to Conor Friedersdorf's attack: "No Wonder People Hate Us." I also read this last week. I didn't think much of it, since I see Frum as a marginal faux-conservative on the wrong side of the big issues of the day.

Now Levin has responded to Frum, at Riehl World View (and there's a thread at Memeorandum):

David Frum was never much of a thinker. Try as he might, he just can't seem to attract interest, let alone a following, even when stabbing his old boss, President George W. Bush, in the back with a rambling screed. Profiting from a confidential relationship with a president is about as low as it gets. But Frum, the ex-speech-writer turned self-hating blogger, isn't done descending. Now he spends his lonely days and nights at his keyboard trying to settle personal scores and demonizing those who dare to dismiss his ramblings as the work of an emotional wreck.

My interactions with Frum have been minimal, despite his past suggestions that they were something more. As best I recall, I met him first on an Amtrak train. He was sitting near the restroom feverishly working his lap top's keyboard. We exchanged pleasantries, and that was about it. I believe the next time I met him was at the Ledeen's home. He seemed harmless enough. The next thing I knew, he had a blog at NRO. I rarely read it, but when I did, I noticed he displayed a quirkiness and psuedo-intellectualism which suggested to me that something was a little off with the guy. But I didn't give it much thought. I became reacquainted with Frum after he viciously attacked Rush Limbaugh, after having attempted to spar with Rush over a period of months. And it was this unhinged, emotional outburst that caught my attention. I then realized, as did others, that Frum was a truly pathetic character subject to wild personality lurches and obsessed with drawing attention to himself.

In one truly bizarre incident, after I responded to another of Frum's hate-Rush outbursts, Frum had his own 15 year old son call my talk show. Realizing Frum had become emotionally uncontrollable, I told my producer to tell his son that it would not be appropriate for him to come on the air. If his father called in, I would put him on the show. Within minutes, Frum called, and he proceeded to make a fool of himself by interrupting, name-calling, etc. He could not gather his thoughts or make coherent, reasoned points. So, as the host, with a responsibility to my audience, I had to repeatedly lower the noise-level on his rantings. Frum made a fool of himself.

There's more at the link.

This is especially interesting to me, as I'm blog buddies with Dan Riehl.

But if you check over at Rod Dreher's blog, and click the "conservative" tag, you'll find that he's also been attacking Robert Stacy McCain (as a side skirmish in the debate). Dreher cites Freddie de Boer for support, which is even more interesting. Freddie's the resident left-wing extremist at Ordinary Gentlemen. That blog, as I've written many times, is the home of the net's Andrew Sullivan myrmidon project. A classic essay which encapsulates the ideological foundations of this project is "Twenty-First Century Conservativsm."

And therein lies why Levin's engagement in this debate is important. The attacks on Levin by Friedersdorf, Dreher, and Frum are like the wobbly swings of a late-round boxer on the ropes. The challenger's last-breath hope is that he might land a blow on the champ, securing a fleeting chance at taking the championship belt. But Levin's takedown today has knocked Frum off his feet, and the rest of his postmodern allies aren't far behind.

These people are kind of sick, actually. But that's where such "Meghan McCain Republicans" have been taking the debate over the future of the right. These "twenty-first century conservatives" have basically pitched their tent with the likes of Andrew Sullivan. It's thus no surprise that their attacks have taken on the unhinged likeness of "trig-trutherism."

There's a principled conservative movement currently making a comeback. Levin's #1 book is the right's manifesto for the fight back to power. As folks can see from the pushback against Levin, it's not just the Democrats who are standing in the way ...

Dick Cheney on "Face the Nation"

Via Flopping Aces, here's Former Vice President Dick Cheney's with Bob Schieffer yesterday:

CQ Politics has the transcript, via Memeorandum:

CHENEY: Well, Bob, first of all, it’s good to go back on the show.

SCHIEFFER: Thank you.

CHENEY: It’s nice to know that you’re still loved and are invited out in public sometimes.

The reason I’ve been speaking, and in effect what I’ve been doing is responding to press queries such as yours, is because I think the issues that are at stake here are so important. And, in effect, what we’ve seen happen with respect to the Obama administration as they came to power is they have moved to take down a lot of those policies we put in place that kept the nation safe for nearly eight years from a follow-on terrorist attack like 9/11. Dealing with prisoner interrogation, for example, or the terrorist surveillance program.

They campaigned against these policies across the country, and then they came in now, and they have tried, very hard, to undertake actions that I just fundamentally disagree with.

SCHIEFFER: Well, do you -- I mean, should we take that literally? You say that the administration has made this country more vulnerable to attacks here in the homeland.

CHENEY: That’s my belief, based upon the fact, Bob, that we put in place those policies after 9/11. On the morning of 9/12, if you will, there was a great deal we didn’t know about Al Qaida. There was the need to embark upon a new strategy with respect to treating this as a strategic threat to the United States. There was the possibility of Al Qaida terrorists in the midst of one of our own cities with a nuclear weapon or a biological agent.

It was a time of great concern, and we put in place some very good policies, and they worked, for eight years. Now we have an administration that’s come to power that has been critical of the programs, but not only that, there’s been talk about prosecuting the lawyers in the Justice Department who gave us the opinions that we operated in accordance with, or referring them to the Bar Association for disbarment or sanctions of some kind, or possibly cooperating with foreign governments that are interested in trying to prosecute American officials, those same officials who were responsible for defending this nation for the last eight years.

That whole complex of things is what I find deeply disturbing, and I think to the extent that those policies were responsible for saving lives, that the administration is now trying to cancel those policies or end them, terminate them, then I think it’s fair to argue -- and I do argue -- that that means in the future we’re not going to have the same safeguards we’ve had for the last eight years.

More here.

Also, Conor Friedersdorf demonstrates that Cheney derangement lives!

Defending Traditional Marriage

Okay, as promised, my essay on the implications of the Iowa Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling is published at Pajamas Media: "An Attack on Traditional Marriage in Iowa."

My argument at the piece distills a lot of the commentary I've offered here over the last few months, so readers may see some familiar themes. The push for same-sex marriage is more than about non-traditional wedded partnerships. It's about achieving a social revolution of nihilism and extreme secularization. One of the more interesting debates on the topic this week is the discussions by Rod Dreher, and the attacks on him by Damon Linker and Andrew Sullivan. Conor Friedersdorf jumps on the "pomo-con" bandwagon here.

Actually, Dreher doesn't do justice to the complexity of the issue, and thus he's easily attacked and ridiculed remorselessly as a theocon homophobe. Dreher makes it easy for his antagonists because he sets up opposition to same-sex marriage as opposition to homosexuality in toto. My personal experience in writing about this topic for the past six months, and in discussing it with people of various persuasions, is that people don't hate homosexuals. There's little homophobia per se. What gay hatred we do see, no matter how isolated, is highlighted and enlarged by the gay extremists as respresentative of an alleged hegemonic hetero-dominant dictatorship. Yet, when examining polling data, Americans demonstrate huge support for a type of civil unioin that affords all the legal guarantees of rights and responsibilities of marriage, while at the same time recognizing "marriage" as it's been historically substantiated - normatively and politically - is between one man and one woman for the regeneration of society.

Robert Stacy McCain's been shifting over to social conservatives issues in his writing this week, and he's got a really powerful essay up at the American Spectator that make the case for traditionalism, "Marriage: A Hill to Die On."

Robert notes that "Over and over, we find ourselves fighting what is essentially a defensive battle against the forces of organized radicalism who insist that "social justice" requires that we grant their latest demand." And further, "Such is the remorseless aggression of radicalism that conservatives forever find themselves contemplating the latest "progressive" demand and asking, 'Is this a hill worth dying on?'"

Yes, marriage is a "hill worth dying on." That is to say, there's not a whole lot left in the culture that hasn't been broken down and destroyed by radical individualism. Conservatives, as Mark Levin points out in Liberty and Tyranny, borrowing from Edmund Burker, are not opposed to change. But change absent of prudence is radical and destabilizing.

But let's go back to Robert's essay on why traditionalism is worth the fight:

Some conservatives are wholly persuaded by the arguments of same-sex marriage advocates. Others, however, are merely unprincipled cowards and defeatists. Concerned about maintaining their intellectual prestige, some elitists on the Right do not wish to associate themselves with Bible-thumping evangelicals. Or, disparaging the likelihood of successful opposition, they advocate pre-emptive surrender rather than waging a fight that will put conservatism on the losing side of the issue.

Yet if the defense of traditional marriage - an ancient and honorable institution - is not a "hill worth dying on," what is? In every ballot-box fight to date, voters have supported the one-man, one-woman definition of marriage. As indicated by exit polls in California last fall, this is one issue where the conservative position is widely endorsed by black and Latino voters. Should such a potentially promising political development be abandoned? ....

It is only by the activist rulings of judges and other officials, never at the behest of voters, that the radical crusade for same-sex marriage has advanced this far. We know which side the people are on. Even Barack Obama was shrewd enough to declare his opposition to same-sex marriage during the presidential campaign. We have seen voters in 30 states pass constitutional amendments to defend the "one-man, one-woman" definition of marriage, and conservatives in Iowa are now planning efforts to add their state to the list.

Having been given an inch, the radicals now attempt to take a mile. But this is a hill to die on.

Read the whole essay at the link.