“Small government” conservatives

One of the more fascinating spectacles over the past week has been watching the leading lights of the wingnutosphere react with horror and dismay at Ron Paul’s victory at the CPAC straw poll (Roy has a good roundup here). Let’s take a look at a typical reaction by a typical wingnut, namely one John Hinderaker:

Pee-Wee for President?

Ron Paul has won the CPAC straw Presidential vote with 31 percent of the total. This is dismaying, to the extent one takes it seriously. Ron Paul is the crazy uncle in the Republican Party’s attic. He is not a principled libertarian like, say, Steve Forbes. Rather, as I noted in this post, where I likened him to Pee-Wee Herman, Paul has a rather sinister history as a hater and conspiracy theorist. He has no business being taken seriously as a Presidential contender–and that’s before we even start talking about his inadequate vision of national security or his disgraceful performance in the 2008 Presidential debates.

Now it’s true that Paul has some pretty deep connections to some fringe groups in American politics — for instance, his former aid happens to be the founder of the creepy, authoritarian Oath Keepers group. But is that really any worse than the Moose Eater Formerly Known as the Alaskan Governor? For chrissake, her husband was part of a damned secessionist party!

No, what really upsets the wingnuts about Paul isn’t that he hangs out with gun-toting anti-government radicals but rather that he’s opposed to The Precious, a.k.a. the state of perpetual warfare that gives the wingnuts’ pathetic, mediocre lives a sense of blood-stained purpose. For people like Hindy and Daniel Pipes war is always the answer. It sends a thrill up their leg. Every minute not spent launching missiles at foreign nations is a minute where their collective libido continues on its downward trajectory into an impotent death spiral. For people like this, it’s perfectly sane to use mere video footage to diagnose Terri Schiavo’s condition on the Senate floor or to claim that tears can give you AIDS. But to oppose a state of perpetual warfare against swarthy foreigners? Shit, son, that’s crazy talk.

 

Comments: 61

 
 
 

Bring on the Ron Paultard Blimp!

 
 

No mention of Ron Paul is complete without his crazy racist newsletter history.

 
 

No mention of Ron Paul is complete without his crazy racist newsletter history.

Yep. But the wingnuts would forgive that in a heartbeat if he supported endless wars in the Middle East. Remember how they made fools of themselves trying to spin the racial history of George Felix Allen?

 
 

He is not a principled libertarian like, say, Steve Forbes.

Yes, now there’s a man who’s never benefited from any sort of government protections or oversight.

 
 

That picture is going to give me nightmares.

 
 

Speaking of wingnuts making fools of themselves, my favorite part of that article I linked to actually has nothing to do with race, it’s about Ron Paul’s good buddy Alex Jones:

Jones … details the plans of George Pataki, David Rockefeller, and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, among others, to exterminate most of humanity and develop themselves into “superhuman” computer hybrids able to “travel throughout the cosmos”

We’re fighting them on earth so we don;t have to fight them throughout the cosmos!

 
 

When will they fly the Ron Paul Blimp into an IRS building?

(domestic terrorist Joe Stack, lauded with multiple facebook groups in his honor, was a Paultard: http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?28931046803 )

 
 

Republican yardsign, 2012: “(blank)/(blank) ’12!”

Put the name “Paul” or “Palin” in either of those blanks, and Obama could win, even he was caught in bed with a dead woman or a live dog.

Use both names, and Obama could win if he was caught in bed with Osama bin Laden.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

This is dismaying, to the extent one takes it seriously. Ron Paul is the crazy uncle in the Republican Party’s attic.

I love this, the crazy subset of crazy- I see a Venn diagram that looks like a traditional archery target. Who should be the guy in the “bullseye” position of said Venn diagram.

Now, please note the qualifiers I used for the nouns “target” and “bullseye”- can’t have a troll trying to accuse me of eliminationist rhetoric.

 
 

No, what really upsets the wingnuts about Paul isn’t that he hangs out with gun-toting anti-government radicals but rather that he’s opposed to The Precious, a.k.a. the state of perpetual warfare that gives the wingnuts’ pathetic, mediocre lives a sense of blood-stained purpose.

I think what really upsets Republicans is that the Teabaggers are not the Third Reich of Republicanism, but that John Birchers have grabbed hold tightly and won’t let go to either party.

So what looks like it’s bad for Democrats is in reality worse for Republicans, whatever short term benefits they may get.

 
 

Who should be the guy in the “bullseye” position of said Venn diagram

Pastor Swank, no question.

 
 

Sure, not clamoring for more brown-bombing is a part of it. But it’s not all of it. I think one of the biggest turnoffs is that Paul actually has _reasons_ for his position. Batshit crazy stupid reasons but reasons none the less. He spends far too much time talking about policy to be appealing to the “movement conservatives.”

 
 

I think what Steerpike meant to say was,
Obama could win, even he was caught in bed with a dead woman AND a live dog AND Osama bin Laden.

 
 

Who should be the guy in the “bullseye” position of said Venn diagram

Or, if you’re gonna force me to go with elected officials, I would say Michelle Bachmann or possibly Bob Marshall.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Holy crap, that Bob Marshall guy is beyond the friggin’ pale.

 
 

Ron Paul has won the CPAC straw Presidential vote with 31 percent of the total.

I’d rather see Ru Paul as President.

 
 

his disgraceful performance in the 2008 Presidential debates.

Refresh my memory: was that when Ron Paul pulled out his schlong and waved it at all the other candidates?

Oh, wait, I remember. It must have been when Paul said that W totally fucked up by invading Iraq. How disgraceful of him to say that. After all, as Ann Coulter told us, “We’re enjoying the benefits of the Iraq war now.”

http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/ann-coulter-compares-the-iraq-war-and-wwii-theyre-both-wars.php

 
 

Why is Bob Marshall making fun of Trig?

 
 

I’d rather see Ru Paul as President.

Shouldn’t that be Queen?

 
 

Ron Paultard Blimp

His 2012 campaign slogan:

Gettin’ Triggy Widdit!

 
 

Completely predictable artist rendering of a Paultard blimp.

 
 

Completely predictable artist rendering of a Paultard blimp

Hinderaker’s not that fat, PeeJ!

 
 

Just as predictable but better.

 
 

I thought the reference to one’s own previous post and celebration of one’s own flaccid-the-first-time attempt at humor was Scott Johnson’s beat at Power Line.

 
 

Ron Paul is the crazy uncle in the Republican Party’s attic.

“THE” crazy uncle?? Not in my world. Or maybe there’s just the one that has been donating sperm all over the world.

 
 

Why is Bob Marshall making fun of Trig?

I think he’s just spilling the beans about Sarah Palin’s abortion.

Seriously, though, WTFingF?

 
 

Ron Paul is the crazy uncle in the Republican Party’s attic.

Man, that must be one seriously fucking crazy attic, given the batshit insanity that is the Republican house..

 
 

Why is Bob Marshall making fun of Trig?

I think he’s just spilling the beans about Sarah Palin’s abortion.

I got it! It’s a floor wax AND a dessert topping!

 
 

Ron Paul is the crazy uncle perched on the rafters in the crazy belfry that extends above the attic of the craziest house on Crazy street in Republican Crazytown, the capital of Crazystan.

 
 

they’ve discovered the bugs in their own underpants and are determined to blast them out with nuclear weapons

 
 

I have to admit though, despite the similarity to watching a monkey fuck a football, in all glorious, inept futility, seeing a Paultard’s collection of superclever bumper stickers on his 1976 Ford Rapist’s Special van is a high point in my day!

 
 

similarity to watching a monkey fuck a football

I have to steal this remember that one.

 
 

Shouldn’t that be Queen?

I think Brian May, PhD would be an awsome President – too bad he’s British.

 
 

too bad he’s British

He’d be a….

Wait for it!

…Killer Quee-een!

 
 

I think Brian May, PhD would be an awsome President

Wheeee, “Fat Bottomed Girls” as the new national anthem!

(btw – I thought for a minute that was Billy Mays, who would be a frightening President if he weren’t, you know, dead and all.)

 
 

Republican civil war! Love love love it! My dream scenario would be the libertard/objectivist crowd taking this and running with it, thoroughly pissing off the establishment in the process. Or if Paul even got the nomination, due to some misguided idea that what Americans REALLY want is wacko-smacko bunker-libertarianism. Hell, just pick a random session of congress, maybe where votes against honoring Martin Luther King Jr. with a commemorative plaque or something, and there’s your election right there.

 
 

Anyone who writes a song about relativistic time dilation is alright by me.

 
 

Steve Forbes is a libertarian? I suppose a flat tax may be somewhat closer to “libertarian principles” than a progressive tax, but really, I don’t think you’re going to get far as a libertarian if your major policy issue is any position on taxation besides “it should be abolished”.

 
 

Anyone who writes a song about relativistic time dilation is alright by me.

Your father refused to sign the forms to freeze you

 
 

I actually agree with about 50% of what Ron Paul says.

Maybe agree is too strong a word – I just don’t find it completely deranged.

Which is more than I can say for most Republicans these days.

 
 

“Ron Paul’s good buddy Alex Jones” IS TOO CLOSE TO THE TRUTH and must be SHUNNED.

Jones … details the plans of George Pataki, David Rockefeller, and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands Glenn Reynolds, among others, to exterminate most of humanity and develop themselves into “superhuman” computer hybrids able to “travel throughout the cosmos”

 
 

Also:

None of this is new, of course. Scientific method has been under assault since at least 1978, when a PhD student of astronomy attempted to disprove the theory that the Earth rotates because of residual momentum/kinetic energy from the formation of the Earth and Solar System.

A young Brian May, of the popular music combo “Queen”, astounded the scientific establishment with his assertion that it was in fact Fat Bottomed Girls that made the world go round.

 
 

He is not a principled libertarian like, say, Steve Forbes.

Not wanting to pay taxes on the money you inherit is a principle?

 
 

Not wanting to pay taxes on the money you inherit is a principle?

Only after you’re in the will.

 
 

I actually agree with about 50% of what Ron Paul says.

That’s always been the problem with the populist right. You listen to what they say, and about twice you find yourself nodding in agreement.

Then, out comes the most batshit turn you weren’t expecting, and you realize that these people are the whole package — you can’t just accept the sensible things and throw the over-the-top back to the stone age / disassemble the modern state type views away.

It’s the “Okay… okay… WHAT?” reaction.

I.e. — ‘We shouldn’t be invading foreign nations’, okay, ‘We shouldn’t be concerned with what goes on in peoples’ bedrooms or whether they take drugs on their own time,’ okay, ‘and if only road-building hadn’t interrupted the Scots-Irish culture which made this country great, we could once again have the sort of nation we had back in the 1740s, when there were only states.’ WHAT?

 
 

Anyone who writes a song about relativistic time dilation is alright by me.

Sex, drugs and…wha? Relativity?

Brian May is one of my idols–one of my biggest guitar influences, for sure.

 
 

“…as I noted in this post, where I likened him to Pee-Wee Herman, Paul has a rather sinister history as a hater and conspiracy theorist.”

I never knew that about Pee-wee.

 
 

I don’t know about his being a hater, but Pee Wee was certainly neck deep in multiple conspiracies of silence. Hello, Secret Words?

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

I don’t know about his being a hater, but Pee Wee was certainly neck deep in multiple conspiracies of silence. Hello, Secret Words?

I’ve heard tell that he shot some guy in the back of the head in a movie theater.

 
 

Sick (sic) semper tyrannosaurus!

 
 

I’d rather see Ru Paul as President.

Actually, I think I’d prefer RuPaul to Obama.

 
 

He is not a principled libertarian like, say, Steve Forbes.

Not wanting to pay taxes on the money you inherit is a principle?

It’s Newspeak again. From context, “principled” obviously means “in favour of stomping the brown people in the face at every opportunity”, and “libertarian” means “wants to cut my taxes”.

Somebody should do a wingnut-to-English automatic translator. It would save us all a lot of confusion.

 
 

“I’d rather see Ru Paul as President.”

Shouldn’t that be Queen?

First Ladyboy? (I’m so sorry.)

A young Brian May, of the popular music combo “Queen”, astounded the scientific establishment with his assertion that it was in fact Fat Bottomed Girls that made the world go round.

Well, it’s just the rockin’ world spun by the fat-bottomed girls. The non-rockin’ world just spins on inertia.

It’s the “Okay… okay… WHAT?” reaction.

Yes, this. The first thing of Paul’s I read, he was going on about petrodollars. As I read, I’m thinking, yes, it doesn’t make sense that oil is traded in US dollars, yes, it’s unfair and anti-free market, yes, it harms us and the rest of the world by artificially strengthening the dollar, and then he’s like, “that’s why we need to go back to the gold standard,” and I’m like, “wait, what?”

 
 

…“libertarian” means “wants to cut my taxes”.

Forbes only wants to cut some people’s taxes. Specifically, people like him. He would make up for the loss of government revenue by measures like ending tax deductions for charitable contributions, because why reward taxpayers for giving money to a bunch of no-account poor people who will probably just blow it on Lotto tickets and cheap whiskey.

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

Forbes only wants to cut some people’s taxes. Specifically, people like him.

I get a kick out of the “National Sales Tax” mofos- they are so transparently regressive, it’s amazing they get the play they do with the damn rubes.

 
 

Oh FYWP – I had a nice little post about how good Brian May is and you et it – whaddid I saye?

 
 

Actually, I think I’d prefer RuPaul to Obama.

PUMA!

 
 

Actually, I think I’d prefer RuPaul to Obama.

PUMA!

Hm, on second thought, maybe that should read RuPUMA!

 
 

I wonder how many Real Conservatives realize that Ron Paul resonates with so many people (including a not inconsiderable amount of their voter base) precisely because he’s an anti-war Republican.

In case they haven’t noticed, war isn’t the most popular thing right now. The 2006 election of the Democrats was in large part a backlash against the Iraq war, which a very clear majority has opposed for almost five years now. War with Iran isn’t getting too many votes on its side either (though a quick hit-and-run bombing might). Even in Afghanistan (“the good war,” “the war against the real enemy,” “the response to 9/11”) the number of doubters is substantial.

Not for any moral reasons (the sentiment for many is that hajji freedom just isn’t worth Amurikun $$$ – oh yes, or our soldiers’ lives). But the sentiment is there, and Real Conservatives will be drooling idiots if they ignore it.

 
 

similarity to watching a monkey fuck a football

I have to steal this remember that one.

The image can be scrubbed from your brain with a good dose of Tri-benzo Deportamil.

 
A concerned citizen
 

Ron Paul is the crazy uncle in the Republican Party’s attic.

Are we talking drinky-crazy uncle or molesty-crazy uncle here?

 
 

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