I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.Wow, what if teh democratic party were stuck with it's own collection of Conservatives who are impeding the government from doing what must be done...
- John Stuart Mill, Letter to the Conservative MP, Sir John Pakington (March 1866)
[ cited in Diagrams on Conservatism ]
WHY LIBERTARIANS SMELL. Here's a cute video about the "libertarian paradise" of Somalia, which I found at Wonkette: WOW! now that is a lovely way to drive that big stake into the HORRORS of ideological deviationalism....
So it would help if we could work out some of the semantic arguments - and get to places where we can construct useful terms. I like The Chart That Explains It All! since it shows a the delta between mere authoritarianism and principle driven perspectives - and that it is Important to recall that little bit of often time overlooked issue from logic The Appeal To Authority as a logical fallacy.
Where the diagramme that vagabond scholar fails, is when the presumption is that Democrats are in some majik way all driven by principles, rather than their mere blind loyalties... What gave the authoritarians of the psuedo-conservative the ground to stand on, were the authoritarians of the neo-liberal stripes, who opted out of a rational system in favor of various forms of mere blind loyalty. So when we are dicing and slicing. It is important to remember that stoopidPeople make their own group, and that while they have a habit of following the leader for lack of any internal guidance, this is as problematic for neoLiberals as for psuedoCons.
So as we work on restoring reasoning as a worthwhile habit, who knows where we can go.