Latimer on Law

On Wingnuts, Moonbats And Neo-Con Men

                                                   On Wingnuts, Moonbats And Neo-Con Men

                                                                  "Politics is the art of the possible."

                                                                         Otto von Bismarck, 1867

                                 "I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left

                                                             and hurl rocks at those in the center."

                                                        Dwight D. Eisenhower, Time (25 Oct. 1963)

          The first post that appeared under this by-line explained the general theme of all of  subsequent posts as follows:

Our determinedly secular Constitutional democracy is based on specifically enumerated but not rigidly defined ideals, which is to say it is not based on ideology, and these ideals can only be effectively advanced through the testing and application of flexible ideas which are calculated to create the optimal degree of inclusivity and consensus among all citizens, consistent with the rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution itself. Whenever the government or any person, institution, faction or party attempts to force those ideals to conform, by redefinition or by operation of law, with any a priori belief system, which is again to say any rigid ideology, our unique American experiment in self-government to that extent is damaged at best, if not made vulnerable to ultimate failure. 

For the past thirty or so years, ever since Ronald Reagan told us about "morning in America," that has been the political reality that finally, in 2008, brought our economy crashing down and created the greatest socio-political crisis in America since the 1930s.

A.        The Present Crisis In American Politics Is Not The Result Of Any Genuine Conflict Between "Liberal" And "Conservative" Principles, But Is Due To The Ascendancy Of Extreme Anti-Constitutional And Anti-Democratic Ideological Concerns From Both The Left And The Right.

          Many of my positions on specific issues can fairly be considered "liberal," but there are many which might also be considered by some as "conservative."  Both labels, while perhaps convenient shorthand for my substantive opinions in specific cases, are both inadequate and inaccurate to describe my general approach to issues of law and public policy. 

          That general approach is a decidedly non-political and non-ideological concern that our government always fulfill its constitutional mandate to promote the "general welfare" and a "more perfect union" of all Americans, as well as provide for the common defense, through the exercise of the powers expressly granted to it in our determinedly secular Constitution.  It might best be described as a "radical Constitutionalism", which should not be confused with "strict constructionism" or "original intent" or other similar glosses applied to the Constitution by ideological sophists in service of their particular political or socio-economic agenda.

            It is in this context that I vigorously attack the "wingnut" agenda that promotes governmental imposition of politically divisive, extreme ideological beliefs including states rights, school prayer, racial discrimination in voter districting, Creationism, NRA gun rights absolutism, homophobic opposition to gay rights, religion based opposition to abortion and, ultimately, the pseudo populism of the neoconservative Bush administration that governed America for the past eight years, with the first six years supported by a neoconservative GOP majority in Congress, bringing all those narrow ideological interest groups together in order to advance its extreme "free market" capitalist ideology and its catastrophic policy of deregulation of all aspects of the economy.

          The important point is not that these various positions are considered "conservative" rather than "liberal," but that they are both extreme and divisive, and therefore ultimately damaging to the proper functioning of our Constitutional democracy.  And it is for this reason that I attack with equal vigor certain elements of the extreme "moonbat" agenda from the left, such as gay "marriage," animal "rights" posing as environmentalism, and handgun bans as opposed to reasonable regulation of firearms. 

           The main difference between these two extremes, in terms of their effect on our secular constitutional democracy, is that the leftist "moonbat" agenda, per se, is relatively harmless to our democratic values and our Constitutional rights, but it plays right into the hands of the GOP neo-con men who have become politically ascendant by their purposeful manipulation of the "Southern Strategy" devised by Pat Buchanan for Nixon's election in 1968, and detailed demographically in Kevin Phillips' 1969 tract The Emerging Republican Majority.

           The GOP's electoral success was fashioned by creating a popular majority based on exploiting  divisive, ideological "values" issues.  And they were very successful this way in using various agenda from the extreme left to conflate  them with the rational "liberal" agenda in the minds of many otherwise non-ideological middle Americans.  Animal "rights" activists, for example, were identified on Fox News as "environmentalists."

           The proponents of banning hand guns became identified with other "liberals", like this writer, who believe in our Constitutional right to own firearms, subject to reasonable governmental regulation, not outright bans of weapons which are not inherently dangerous per se.  You want to ban machine guns?  I agree as do most sane and responsible gun owners I know.  You want to ban my handgun because somebody else might misuse a handgun, even an old social liberal like me is going to say that's nutty, and that's the very kind of thing that has driven so many American voters into the GOP, against their real economic interersts, over the past thirty years or so.

            My vehement opposition to the extremist "moonbat" agenda, therefore, is solely in terms of practical, electoral politics.  It has proven to be catastrophic for those of us who strongly believe in the constitutional principles of civil rights, equal protection of the law, due process of law, promoting the general welfare and, ultimately, forming a more perfect union.  Indeed, I deliberately use the two derogatory and inflammatory terms here, "wingnut" and "moonbat",  just to illustrate the problem.  So,  if anyone is offended by them, you will perhaps understand my deep offense at what has happened to our constitutional democracy over the past 30 years of divisive GOP ascendancy based on its exploitation of that kind of mindless, gutter politics. 

            Personally, I don't hesitate to hurl such rocks back at the wingnuts when they start throwing them, but I am standing in the road just left of center when I do, tossing them back to the gutter they came from, and I still find it disgusting.  This is why I admire President Obama's valiant effort to establish a bi-partisan consensus by seeking  a measure of political compromise with the GOP, even though I don't necessarily agree with all of the specifics.  It is the correct way, and the only way, we can ever dig ourselves out of the hole dug for us by the neo-con men who control today's Republican Party, and if the GOP continues with its ideological obstructionist intransigence, then there will be no ground for them to complain if Obama finally has to just say "enough" in six months or so and start really "socializing" the economy.

B.   Politics Is The "Art Of The Possible," And It Cannot Be Used To Promote Our Constitutional Ideals Of Promoting The General Welfare And Forming A More Perfect Union When It is Based On Exploiting Divisive And Irreconcilable Ideological Hostilities As The GOP Had Done So Successfully Over The Past 30 Years.  

            Politics, as "the art of the possible" described by von Bismarck, can best serve our Constitutional ideal of forming a "more perfect union" -never the impossible perfect union mind you, only if our political leaders work on building the broadest possible consensus as to what government can and should be doing.  This cannot be accomplished by focusing on divisive and irreconcilable "values" issues as the GOP has done over the past forty years.

           In 2004, when the GOP's ascendancy was beginning to falter, it was gay "marriage" that resuscitated the Bush presidency and thereby allowed our catastrophic slide toward financial collapse to continue.  But don't just take my word for all this.  Consider Kevin Phillips' own view of what has happened to America since he devised the GOP's "Sunbelt Politics" in 1969.

          Phillips' 1969 tract was based on sound political science which has proved only too accurate over the past forty years.  But in his 2006 book, American Theocracy, he alludes to it in a chapter heading as the "erring Republican majority."  Here, Phillips lambastes what has emerged over the past eight years of GOP ascendancy, with full control of  the government for six years,  based on its ideological extremism, catastrophic fiscal irresponsibility, free market capitalist greed and dangerous shortsightedness.

           Phillips expressly attacks such factors from right of center, as I do from left of center, for being a dire threat to the future of America.  He describes our abject dependence on foreign oil as both defining and distorting our foreign and domestic policies, he sees radical Christianity as the threat it is to our ability to function as a free constitutional democracy, and he uses the term "financialization", to describe how our economy has been perverted from a viable concern for production, manufacturing and wages to the irresponsible focus on speculation, debt and profit as facilitated by the past eight years of GOP malfeasance in government.

           Equally astute insights into this issue, from left of center, can be found in Thomas Frank's 2004 tract, What's The Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won The Heart Of America.  Frank, as a journalist and historian, describes the process of how, in the microcosm of Kansas politics, this unholy alliance of fundamentalist Christians, with other socially conservative ideological interests, was manipulated by the corporate business class to form the "neoconservative" GOP majority that began its ascendancy with the election of Ronald Reagan.

C.        Today's Neoconservative Republicans Are Essentially Neo- Con Men Who Achieved Political Ascendancy By Exploiting Irreconcilable Ideological Differences Among Various Segments Of The Middle Class And Working Class In Order To Advance The Economic Interests Of The Corporate Elite In Industry And Finance, Enabling It To Implement Its Own Extreme Ideological Belief In "Free Market" Capitalism Through Catastrophic Policies Based  On Principles Of Small Government And Deregulation.

             I use the term "neoconservative" here advisedly, mindful of its former limited reference to a bi-partisan belief in using American power overseas to create democracies that would be congenial to our foreign policy concerns.  But originally, neoconservatism was more concerned with domestic policy, as Irving Kristol, father of William Kristol, attacked the idea of liberal government planning in his journal, The Public Interest, and Norman Podhoretz, in Commentary, attacked what he considered to be the "excesses" of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

            Even William Kristol, the present-day "godfather" of neoconservatism acknowledges this bastardization of the term based on having several different origins and purposes:

The steady decline in our democratic culture, sinking to new levels of vulgarity, does unite neocons with traditional conservatives. . . . The upshot is a quite unexpected alliance between neocons, who include a fair proportion of secular intellectuals, and religious traditionalists. They are united on issues concerning the quality of education, the relations of church and state, the regulation of pornography, and the like, all of which they regard as proper candidates for the government's attention. And since the Republican party now has a substantial base among the religious, this gives neocons a certain influence and even power.  

"The Neoconservative Persuasion: What it was, and what it is." The Weekly Standard, August 25, 2003.

            Thus, as Thomas Frank illustrates, the limited definition of neoconservatism, confined to purely geopolitical concerns, is no longer valid.  It is outdated because the corporate elite and Main Street business coalition that is historically the GOP's only true political base, began building its emergent majority on the demographics of "values" voters outlined by Phillips in 1969.  It did so, specifically, to promote its ideology of unregulated "free market" capitalism and to promote American intervention in other nations like Iraq, under the pretext of a neoconservative concern for "regime change". 

            This neoconservative principle of nation building, however, was implemented by the newly ascendant GOP, primarily to advance the overseas interests of corporate capitalism rather than any genuine concern for national security or national defense, or even Main Street prosperity.  That is precisely why the real threat to our security posed by al Qaeda in Afghanistan was ignored for the eight years of Bush administration misgovernance, while it sought to create a "democracy" in oil rich Iraq.  Never mind that it is really an elected theocracy,  much closer to the government of Iran than ours, a theocracy which persecutes Christians and makes women cover themselves in public, as opposed to what we would consider a democracy based on individual liberties. 

            So it came to pass,  in the name of a psuedo populism, and a false concern for spreading "democracy," the  neo-con men of today's Republican Party were able to enrich themselves and their corporate sponsors over the past 30 years, by dividing the middle class and the working class against themselves, driving us into an economic catastrophe and potential constitutional crisis, based on divisive "values" issues which really have nothing to do with the proper role of government in a secular constitutional government like ours.