Monday, October 12, 2009

Extremists

Jonah writes in defense of Glenn Beck:
If you think it's racist to oppose Obama's health care reform efforts, it goes without saying that you'll think Beck is an extremist. This is what liberals always say about popular right-wingers, including Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley.
Hmm, Barry Goldwater ran against the Civil Rights Act, Ronald Reagan started his campaign in Philadelphia Mississippi running on the Southern Strategy, and William F. Buckley wrote some famously racist things.

Now, what Jonah's probably meaning here is that those three were also called "extremists" as Beck is, rather than "racists" as they all seem to be, but it's not hard to imagine the "extremist" set containing the "racist" set these days, and Jonah once again farts away his own argument.

Also:
Not only is Beck good at that, he actually gets people to read serious books in ways Buckley never could. Why defenestrate him from the house of conservatism merely to preserve the rarefied air?

12 comments:

guitarist manqué said...

First, that house of conservatism is gonna need some windows, like with a view outside, before they can defenestrate anyone. Mirrors don't count.

And 'rarified' only for some values of rarified.

It is to laigh.

Rusty Shackleblart said...

I don't believe anyone ever called John McCain a racist, and he was a popular or semi-popular right-winger for a while there.

mikey said...

Quite interesting, this Goldbergian conflation of "racist" with "extremist".

Sometimes, as idiot-boy pecks desultorily away at the keyboard, while watching YouPorn in another window and trying to remember who he was supposed to call back, he accidentally and without conscious thought or intention provides us with a glimpse into the all-encompassing ideological fever-swamp of the American Political Right.

When they hear people refer to their worldview as extremist, they cannot really understand what's being said, for within their indoctrination an extremist is someone whose politics are to the left of Ronald Reagan, say a Castro or a Clinton or an Obama.

So instead of hearing extremist, they hear something else, something that actually does describe them, whether or not it actually functions as a synonym for extremist.

Our friend Jonah cannot understand how a right winger who isn't Terry McVeigh might be fairly labeled "extremist", but he knows that the vast majority of his ideological fellow travelers (see what I did there?) are racists, so it is inconceivable to him that, at least in the mind of the collective "left" that is both his nemesis and his straw man, that these can be separate concepts...

ckc (not kc) said...

...he actually gets people to read serious books in ways Buckley never could...

oh, Jonah, Jonah, Jonah ... it's so easy to just say things, isn't it.

Another Kiwi said...

By "serious books" he means his own efforts, I presume.

Rusty Shackleblart said...

The great books of Western thought all featured smiley faces on the cover.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

It is difficult, indeed, to defenestrate an indidual from the basement. So Beck's got that going for 'imself.
~

Substance McGravitas said...

Our friend Jonah cannot understand how a right winger who isn't Tim McVeigh might be fairly labeled "extremist"

That's pretty much the deal right there.

M. Bouffant said...

Can he prove that Beck "gets" people to buy any books beside Back's own mawk, let alone read any?

Substance McGravitas said...

Beck did do a lotta shilling for Liberal Fascism.

Another Kiwi said...

It is hard to imagine the Beck audience being interested in "page turny not TV things" McGravitas (2009).
But when The Great One speaks I guess Pa Kettle would hop into the Four Wheeled Horseless Carriage and skedaddle into town. Returning 4 hours later to tearfully show Ma Kettle "I gots a book Maw, a book".
The book is placed reverently on the family mantelpiece to be read a paragraph at a time every Christmas Eve.

Substance McGravitas said...

Good to see Young Master Goldberg doing his mommy proud by inviting someone into the conservative house who actually worked to get there.