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The interaction at David Yeagley’s blog, after his write-up on three non-liberal commentators, sparked a theme of mine I had been trying to broach for a while, but didn’t know how to do it without coming off negative and overly critical.
Patience usually rewards with opportunity, and these last few days, there have been plenty of opportunities.
The theme that I have been pursuing is the non-conservative nature of non-MSM (NMSM) conservatives.
This is my analysis of the situation:
1. NMSM so-called conservatives tend to form a clique against those evil liberals, so anything liberals say, however true (or false, it doesn’t really matter), is to be categorically dismissed and ridiculed. So truth becomes secondary to attacking liberals.
2. Many of these NMSM conservative commentators spend an inordinate amount of time "expressing" themselves with quaint writing styles, caustic expressions, clever turns of words with which to insults liberals, and an anger which is always present, which I’ve discussed is what often fuels their energy and writing. This results with writing full of ego, which I call vanity.
3. In reality, many of these NMSM conservative writers are not conservative at all. But they need somewhere to publish their works. So they depend on true conservative media sources which often have the largest readership. When a true conservative reads their material, he is left confused with what appears to be muddled, and at times incoherent, writings which don’t really support conservative ideas.
This actually supports point #2. If the truth (of conservatism) is not their main point, what then is their purpose? To write to "express" themselves, which ultimately showcases their vanities.
In my post "Like Clockwork", Peter Brimelow provided me grist for the mill, so to speak.
And more recently I linked to Ilana Mercer, to read some of her comments that David Yeagley wrote about in his article mentioned above.
I have maintained for a while that Mercer is no conservative. She calls herself a classical liberal (as a step closer to a conservative?) on her blog, but I don't think she's even that. But more on that a little later.
Mercer’s articles get published at Taki’s Mag (another "conservative" site I will leave for another blog post). The title to her latest article included an immature expletive, which was what the editors at Taki's Mag decided on (you can still see the full title in the web address).
Shortly after I saw that post, the expletive was deleted.
This article had been up for a couple of days before this word was removed, and most likely not until Taki's Mag fans had read it and the article.
Any self-repsecting writer would have asked immediately that the word be removed. Did Mercer do this? No, and even the later removal was the work of the editor. Mercer's excuse was that she has no control over this. Well, writers who say they have no control over such things are afraid of not getting published.
I might be picking on an unnecessary detail here, but I think it is the same character revelation as Brimelow’s "strikingly handsome" quote. And this proves my point that writers form cliques, mainly to find places where they can get published, and principles are distorted or even discarded for the sake of the writing.
Despite describing herself on her website as a classical liberal, Mercer’s article at Taki's Mag was reprimanding libertarians to not alienate their followers, and more importantly to act as good ambassadors for the Libertarian leader Ron Paul, whom she clearly supports. So, what exactly is Mercer, a conservative, a classical liberal, or a libertarian?
One final point. How can someone who talks, albeit rather confusedly, about conservatism, write for an online magazine whose editor regularly admits to his past adulterous, drunken and prison experiences?