The Right at War

This interesting post appeared on a local conservative blog last week.

The Left and the Moderates are unprincipled. It's dog-eat-dog out there. They don't fight fair. But we don't live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren't for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful tools of conservatism for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of our Conservative Tenets, meeting every loose fact and distortion and unethical practice with the truth of our Conservative convictions. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building the Republican Party back to its days of glory.

Evidently, we are at war. The "massively corrupt" culture is battleground and the enemy is the "Left" and, in a big surprise, the "Moderates." More enemies to shake their sticks at and wave their rattles to the sky. These folks need enemies! The more enemies the better! The Left wasn't good (or bad) enough so add the Moderates! Who's left?

There's a fiercely loyal minority still--not many, perhaps, but probably more than you think. We're holding on, not because of what we think we're going to get out of it, but because we're convinced of the true Conservative Tenets. If we were thinking of our own immediate self-interest, we would have left long ago.

This is the radical conservative movement in our District. Welcome to War! They are fighting a pitched battle, knocking their heads against the walls of culture, crying and bleeding, dreaming of virgins in conservative heaven... Only the pure will survive and only the chaste will win. Into the valley of the death!

This friends and neighbors is what passes for political discourse in the conservative neighborhood. The writer is an officer in the Republican Party. Using the war-like language and the metaphorical "us against the world" cult-speak, they're trying to warp the whole meaning of politics, public service, and civil discourse

...meeting every loose fact and distortion and unethical practice with the truth of our Conservative convictions.

My point is simply to shine some light on the conservative blogosphere and suggest that this is pretty normal for what passes as conservative political discourse these days. The fact that this blog is owned by an officer in the local Republican Party makes it an important measuring stick for the conservative viewpoint. It also suggests that this type of RedSpeak is how conservatives talk to EACH OTHER. I'm sure the conservative readers of the blog pretty much agree with the writer, and usually jump to each other's support at every opportunity.

The good news is that, this is easily recognized in the media and in the Blue Blogosphere and dismissed as simplistic jingoism. It's always interesting to check in and find out what the conservatives are thinking though and how they are girding themselves up against their many perceived enemies, a constantly growing list.