Nov
24
2008
1

“Drop Dead” Conservatism, Part One

This entry is part 1 of 4 in the series "Drop Dead" Conservatism

Drop Dead. That’s the best answer that some conservatives have been able to offer to a country in teeth of the worst financial crisis we’ve faced in a generation. When the Wall Street crisis loomed and the bailout was being debated: let the market fail, and risk another Great Depression, “for the sake of the altar of the free market.” Now, the economic downturn having worsened — and in ways that are more deeply felt in parts of the country far from centers of financial or political power — their response to rescuing the largest remnant of our manufacturing sector? “Drop Dead,” and devil take the hindmost.

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Written by terrance in: bush,current events,economics,politics |
Nov
26
2008
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“Drop Dead” Conservatism, Part Two

This entry is part 2 of 4 in the series "Drop Dead" Conservatism

There’s a literary reference that comes to mind when I consider “Drop Dead” conservatism. (My English Lit. degree occasionally comes in handy.) It’s a Shakespearean reference, actually, to a character from one of his lesser known plays. Timon of Athens made an impression on me in high school, when we read it in my senior English class. The title character was a man so embittered with humanity that in the he basically crawls into a hole in the ground and pulls the earth, writes his own epitaph, and dies.

That’s the kind of anger and nihilism — “total and absolute destructiveness, esp. toward the world at large and including oneself” — that “Drop Dead” conservatism brings to mind. But there’s a historical reference — involving another opening in the earth — that’s necessary to complete the picture of “Drop Dead” conservatism.

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Written by terrance in: bush,current events,economics,politics | Tags: ,
Dec
19
2008
1

Unpacking “Drop Dead” Conservatism

This entry is part 3 of 4 in the series "Drop Dead" Conservatism

A commenter at Pam’s asked me to “unpack” some concepts I brought up in my second “‘Drop Dead’ Conservatism” post.

I’ll do my best….

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Written by terrance in: current events,economics,politics |
Feb
25
2009
1

“Drop Dead Conservatives”: The Winners’ Circle

This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series "Drop Dead" Conservatism

A while back I attempted to define “Drop Dead Conservatism.”

High on delusion, denial, and derision, it’s the face of a conservatism unequipped to recognize — let alone meet — the challenges America and the world now face, and blind to the possibility drowning itself in irrelevance. It’s the face of a conservatism that, facing the failure of its ideology, has more anger than answers.

In other words, it’s a conservatism fresh out of ideas, unwilling or unable to “get it” when it comes to the challenges we’re facing today.

Well, if “not getting it” were an olympic event, these guys would “medal.” No question.

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Written by terrance in: current events,economics,politics |

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