The Cult Of Orignalism

From my piece in Creative Loafing,

The 17th Amendment was debated for the country's first 100 years. And it has worked for the past century. But the current claimants to the priesthood of conservatism choose to ignore all history between the then and the now. In their world, only that which was written in the beginning can define today. Genesis defines the course, Revelation the destination, and all between is vague parable and psalm.

I hope that those on the Republican side of the fence will see the criticism as constructive. Honoring the past is one thing; obsessing about it is another. One way preserves the conservatism envisioned by Burke and others. Down the other lies the Whigs, Copperheads, etc.

P.S. I always knew I needed a real editor and I was fortunate my first official one was a good one. Thanks TW.

Quote For The Day

This one hits a little close to home.

The Republican Party of Reagan who defended gay rights in the 1970s, of Bush 41 and even parts of Bush 43 is now emphatically and increasingly a party of the fanatical Christianist right, based in the South, and dedicated not to conservative politics but to dogma, theological and political.

At first glance, it may seem overwrought, but is it? Too often these days, conservatism is not a philosophy, it's not even an ideology; it's a checklist. And in a Republican dominated state like Georgia, it is easy to be convinced it is the one true way. Fortunately, there are those who see beyond the bounds of current dogma and insist on saving the philosophy if not the ideology before it rots from the innards.

Of course, those few are usually called RINOs, if not outright liberals.

Quote Of The Day

From the bearded one; on the hesitancy by the majority of the GOP establishment to call out Rush Limbaugh:

He is their Sistah Soldja. And the GOP awaits its Bill Clinton.

I listened to El Rushbo the other day. A schedule change around lunch time and his move to the premier radio station in my town led to this unholy convergence. I snickered mostly. He still peddles the same brand he did in 1996 when Bill Clinton was the devil and America was being "held hostage".

Now it's all about "the regime".

But no matter how absurd he becomes, no matter how stagnant his audience becomes, he remains a whistle stop on the tracks of the GOP express. It wouldn't take too many people bypassing him to make him a ghost town.

But as the linked article implies, who will be first?