The Conservative Thought Police
Posted by Moonage on 21 Nov 2006 | Tagged as: Opinions
Caught this little bit on Volokh:
….Jonathan Adler cites evidence that the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think thank has "banned" conservatives and libertarians critical of the Bush administration from its events. I don’t know enough to comment on Heritage’s alleged banning of Bruce Bartlett and Ryan Sager (referenced in the links in Jonathan’s post). If Heritage did indeed refuse to invite them to events because of their criticisms of Bush, it is a serious mistake on their part.
Well, I had to jump into this a little deeper. Ryan Sager’s actual reply is a bit softer than the original insinuation on Volokh:
He then elaborates a little more on the why. Could be he’s blackballed, could be a perceived agenda conflict. Read the end of this post before drawing conclusions.
Andrew Sullivan takes a harsher take on things:
The Conservative Thought Police
….I don’t think many Republicans and conservatives have come out of denial yet about what was done to conservatism in Bush-Rove-DeLay years. Or perhaps the first stage of coming out of denial is anger at those who came out of it years ago.
Pretty harsh stuff. Now, the first thing that struck me was that the two fellas claiming to be blackballed have published books:
Now, I link these two books for a two-fold reason. If it’s thought police in action, they’re doing a pretty lame job since I imagine a few more people frequent Amazon than the Heritage Foundation. Secondly, I don’t see why they feel affronted since I can’t really see fault in the people being attacked by these two books just don’t really feel obligated to promote these two books attacking them. I mean, come on, use some common sense before leaping to wild conspiracy theories. There is no theory here to me, "the conservative thought police" generically applies to all who consider themselves conservative, and most of those people are not members of, or subscribe to, the Heritage Foundation. Me being one. The Heritage Foundation is the elitist group of the uppitiest ups. I’m not one of those. I am a conservative that those two books most likely would appeal to. But, Sullivan particularly is rubbing me the wrong with with his over-the-top knee-jerk reaction to what would be expected of any human being when insulted. So, I have to sort of question his grasp of reality.
Secondly, and more importantly, the problem I have with NEO-conservatism, which is not REAL conservatism, is REAL conservatism does not mix social ideology into the political spectrum. Where the conservative movement lost it’s true direction is when the Neos felt compelled to tell everyone else what is conservative and what is not ( see William F. Buckley as the prime example of what went wrong ). So, for these two guys to write books telling me what they think is the cure for conservatives is doing what I think is wrong about being conservative in the first place. So, having more of the same, with a different take and carrying a price tag as well, complaining about not being invited to more of the same, is incredibly meaningless to me. If they want real reform, and mean it, they’d be begging people to read their books for free. And, they wouldn’t be the least bit concerned at all with not being included as members of the group they blame for screwing things up.
However, this is the end of the post I told you not to miss. The resolution of the post from Volokh:
Again, I don’t know if Heritage really did ban Bartlett and Sager from its events. Perhaps the people who made the decision to invite me are not the same ones who decided to ban them. However, it would be strange if Heritage were to start banning people for making criticisms of Bush very similar to those advanced in its own publications.
That was my original gut feeling. The Heritage Foundation has at times agreed with the two authors claiming their criticism of Bush got them blackballed. I think Sullivan needs to re-examine why they didn’t feel compelled to invite him. If it makes any of them feel better, I didn’t get invited either. Doesn’t matter tho, they wouldn’t like my opinion any more than they do theirs.
1 Comment »
on 12 Dec 2007 at 11:21 am 1.Moonage Political Webdream » Blog Archive » National Review endorses Romney said …
[...] The problem I have with Buckley is he picks and chooses which Republicans he thinks are good enough …. It’s not a conservative thing, it’s a Buckley thing. From my experience, he decides he doesn’t like someone, THEN applies the appropriate conservative transgressions to validate his pre-jury guilt. As such, I grew tired of Buckley’s crap a long time ago. I’m gonna guess I’m not the only REPUBLICAN who feels that way. [...]