Quote:
Originally Posted by Solecismic
Sack, that's the kind of character assassination I want to avoid here. I understand your politics. That doesn't make most people who disagree with you mouth-breathers or assholes.
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And if you'll point to where I said that all people who disagree with me are either one, I will cheerfully concede the point. I feel I was pretty narrow in my definitions. I did not characterize all or even most conservative positions as "asshole." I characterized Scott Walker's politics as such. I said explicitly that his politics are not conservative, except to the extent one considers assholery to be a defining trait of conservatism. I don't consider Scott Walker a conservative. I consider him an asshole.
Likewise, I didn't say Republicans are mouth-breathers or that conservatives are mouth-breathers. I said that people who judge the quality of a politician first or mainly on whether he "pisses off the Democrat Party" fall into that camp. Because supporting a candidate on that basis is explicitly not about values. That's about straight up being willing to be an asshole to other people if it pisses off people whose politics you don't like.
And, I'd argue, it's important to remember the context in which I utilitized those terms: we're talking about Jon's assertion that a Republican going negative on Scott Walker's record would be tantamount to losing the "conservative vote." What I objected to then, and object to now, is the assertion that Walker's politics so embody the soul of conservatism that there is no space for any Republican candidate to run to his right. Jon's assertion is that any Republican challenging Walker on those terms is committing political suicide. Mine is that Walker's most rabid support right now comes from people who don't know anything about him beyond "anybody who pisses off the Democrats must be doing something right." I'm not sure you could make the same claim about other Republican candidates who are attempting to carve out space as conservatives right now. Rand Paul? I disagree with him in several places, but he hasn't embraced "asshole politics" to prove his bona fides. Ditto Jeb Bush.
I think that either of those candidates, and possibly others, could make the case to primary voters that Scott Walker is not the Republican who best portrays conservative values, and I say that as somebody who - as I noted earlier - is probably left-of-center by contemporary definitions, and as somebody who is being charitable about what constitutes conservatism.
If I equivocated mouth-breathing assholery with Republicans and conservative ideals, I'd be calling Walker a standard bearer for the party, rather than drawing a distinction between Walker's politics and conservative politics as I understand them.