The brand of conservatism embodied by the teabaggers is nothing but an adherence to a defined ideology. Andrew Sullivan has written many blog posts discussing conservatism’s movement from a pragmatic resistance to ideology to nothing but demagogic propaganda. His best definition of this new, strict ideology comes after reviewing Sarah Palin’s new book:
“In this, the book is emblematic of late degenerate Republicanism, which is based not on actual policies, but on slogans now so exhausted by over-use they retain no real meaning: free enterprise is great, God loves us all, America is fabulous, foreigners are suspect, we need to be tough, we can’t dither, we must always cut taxes, government is bad, liberals are socialists, the media hates you, etc etc.”
My sister, who belongs to this new movement, updated her facebook status a few days ago to say, “If being conservative means loving America, supporting capitalism, and being against terrorists, then I am proud to be a conservative!”. That’s her short definition of the new ideology – not very different from how Sullivan described it. The parts that I particularly find offensive are “loving America” and “being against terrorists”. Hidden in there is an implication that if you’re not a conservative, then you don’t love America and you’re not against terrorists.
If she had to add an amendment to her definition of conservatism, I’m sure she’d add something about loving the Constitution. Oh, the Constitution. The last resort of a teabagger who has no idea of what she’s talking about. Just a few weeks ago, my sister and I were having an argument over health care reform. While making my defense of HCR, she interjected, “I believe in the Constitution”, as though this non-sequitor was enough to defend her position. When I asked what this had to do with what we were talking about, she responded, “no, I’m just saying that”. I’m not making this shit up folks. She probably felt that she needed to define her underlying ideology, and having a solid ideology was a strong enough defense on its own.
Look, I too believe that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, but I understand that when laws or policies do not violate the Constituion, they need to be evaluated on their own merits. My sister could not recognize that her ideology did not apply to this case. But that’s not the point. The problem is in having an ideology in the first place. There’s a serious problem when a group of people, the teabaggers in this case, can only view policy in terms of a strict code. Teabaggers believe that even in the face of objective evidence to the contrary, “free enterprise is great, God loves us all, America is fabulous, foreigners are suspect, we need to be tough, we can’t dither, we must always cut taxes, government is bad, liberals are socialists, the media hates you, etc etc.”.
My Sister Is A Teabagger: Ideology
The brand of conservatism embodied by the teabaggers is nothing but an adherence to a defined ideology. Andrew Sullivan has written many blog posts discussing conservatism’s movement from a pragmatic resistance to ideology to nothing but demagogic propaganda. His best definition of this new, strict ideology comes after reviewing Sarah Palin’s new book:
My sister, who belongs to this new movement, updated her facebook status a few days ago to say, “If being conservative means loving America, supporting capitalism, and being against terrorists, then I am proud to be a conservative!”. That’s her short definition of the new ideology – not very different from how Sullivan described it. The parts that I particularly find offensive are “loving America” and “being against terrorists”. Hidden in there is an implication that if you’re not a conservative, then you don’t love America and you’re not against terrorists.
If she had to add an amendment to her definition of conservatism, I’m sure she’d add something about loving the Constitution. Oh, the Constitution. The last resort of a teabagger who has no idea of what she’s talking about. Just a few weeks ago, my sister and I were having an argument over health care reform. While making my defense of HCR, she interjected, “I believe in the Constitution”, as though this non-sequitor was enough to defend her position. When I asked what this had to do with what we were talking about, she responded, “no, I’m just saying that”. I’m not making this shit up folks. She probably felt that she needed to define her underlying ideology, and having a solid ideology was a strong enough defense on its own.
Look, I too believe that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, but I understand that when laws or policies do not violate the Constituion, they need to be evaluated on their own merits. My sister could not recognize that her ideology did not apply to this case. But that’s not the point. The problem is in having an ideology in the first place. There’s a serious problem when a group of people, the teabaggers in this case, can only view policy in terms of a strict code. Teabaggers believe that even in the face of objective evidence to the contrary, “free enterprise is great, God loves us all, America is fabulous, foreigners are suspect, we need to be tough, we can’t dither, we must always cut taxes, government is bad, liberals are socialists, the media hates you, etc etc.”.