It's time to vote. To understand why I should be the Grande Conservative Blogress Diva, read this and this, including the comments, or use the comments section here to devise your own reason. You know there are so many.
UPDATE: The Anchoress, one of the nominees, links to all the other nominees, and just says to vote for your favorite. That makes her much nicer and more gracious than I've been, but does that make her more of a diva? That's the question you have to ask yourself, isn't it?
१८ डिसेंबर, २००६
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You're up against MKH, you know. This is going to be a tough decision.
"including the comments"
Hehehe! You may be too conservative for my liking, Althouse, but you sure show some b.., uh, boldness.
Respect.
Since I'm probably the least conservative of the candidates, I should get the entire left wing vote! Maybe that Ezra Whatever-the-hell-his-name is should do a post about it.
Been there, done that.
Ok, maybe I'm a bit unfair cause I really dunno most of the other blogresses, but wtf...
However, the link in your post is false, Althouse. It only goes to the result page. Use this one.
I fixed the link in the original.
You have to admit that it might be rather amusing to see Greenwald, Atrios and Ezra endorsing someone like Mary Katherine Hamm or Tammy Bruce in order to thwart your obvious and nefarious plan to dominate the blog world. (As if any further confirmation that you "have arrived," were needed... ;-)
It could be worse - if you were a student at Michigan State University, I'm sure that you would be too busy with re-education camp to blog right now.
BTW, FWIW my Word verification is: "annfdgvw"
"You have to admit that it might be rather amusing to see Greenwald, Atrios and Ezra endorsing someone like Mary Katherine Hamm or Tammy Bruce in order to thwart your obvious and nefarious plan to dominate the blog world."
Well, those blogresses aren't really popular in blogistan, either. Imho Althouse and her fans should root for the 'anybody but Malkin' vote. I guess all liberals agree that MM beats everybody in the field in negative rating (as long as Coulter isn't running, too)...
Maybe that Ezra Whatever-the-hell-his-name is should do a post about it.
That would be funny, but I'm not sure your detractors would mind especially if you took home Conservative Blogress Diva honors, since that at least fits better than Best Centrist Blog.
Also, I like that Ann is still doing a formidable impression of a vindictive, petty blog-warrior. This was surely written with delicious irony (like all the stuff about Greenwald), but if you didn't know better...
K-Lo??
Wow.
Reader_iam: Would you care to expand on that thought? (Inquiring minds want to know, and all that rot... ;-)
Dear Internet Ronin:
No way.
(You baiter, you.)
'Tis true. I admit it. But I'm not a master (of the art).
The words Althouse and Conservative just don't go together like peanut butter and jelly, but maybe I missed the day Prof. Althouse announced she is a conservative.
She didn't, DRJ, and that's the point. Of course, if you have to have the point explained to you...
DRJ
In point of fact, she seems to have announced quite the contrary within the last week, although it remains to be seen whether that is a repudiation of conservative ideas generally or simply what was discussed at the conference.
“Bush-follower” is probably a better term than conservative.
If there were a category for people who were reasonable until 9/11 at which point they started believing everything Bush told them, no matter how stupid or demonstrably wrong, she’d win handily.
Fortunately, it's a shrinking field.
We know that Althouse cares about National Security and prefers to fight rather than give in, in this she can be considered a "National Secuirty conservative." However, with social issues, Althouse is not a conservative - she is more libertarian, the live and let live type. I wouldn't call Althouse a liberal on social issues because I do not recall her arguing that the white male should be restricted through the use of government power. However social issues are not everything...
Perhaps Althouse should enlighten us with some of her views on economics and the role government should play in our society economically.
If she belives that the government's role should be limited, perhaps Althouse is more conservative than she thinks she is. However, if Althouse believes that economic (and cultural) equality is a more desireable goal than individual economic and cultural freedom, then Althouse is not a conservative.
Hmmm..... what a worldy thing to ponder...
Reader: That's Mister Baiter to you.
Absent abortion and sexual freedoms, someone tell me where Althouse is not a conservative.... maybe she is a conservative. Does she identify with Margaret Thatcher or Bernie Sanders?
Drj writes: The words Althouse and Conservative just don't go together like peanut butter and jelly...
I think that she should pursue the fluffernutter campaign. Part fluff, part nutters. A whole new taste in diva blogginess. PB&J? Way too boring.
We know that Althouse cares about National Security and prefers to fight rather than give in...
Well not really fight. More like support the president who sends American soldiers to invade Iraq and then stay there dying while the country implodes, the region destabilizes, and private contractors rob the American taxpayer.
But as long as pork fried wingnuts like Sloan get to preen about how tough they are, it's surely well worth it.
Sloanasaurus said...
"someone tell me where Althouse is not a conservative.... maybe she is a conservative. Does she identify with Margaret Thatcher or Bernie Sanders?"
Margaret Thatcher doesn't really fit well into the U.S. political spectrum - she was a free marketeer who supported deregulation, but where Reaganism emphasized federalism and small government, Thatcher supported centralization and expansion of government power.
In America, I'm a Republican, a conservative, a Burke sympathizer. But if I was still living in England, I would not be a Tory.
And here's the historical Althouse reference to fluffernutters.
Well not really fight. More like support the president who sends American soldiers to invade Iraq and then stay there dying while the country implodes, the region destabilizes, and private contractors rob the American taxpayer.
Like I said, Althouse prefers to fight rather than run with the Copperheads like Doyle.
Margaret Thatcher doesn't really fit well into the U.S. political spectrum - she was a free marketeer...
Anyone can nit-pick - However, it is pretty clear that Margaret Thatcher is conservative. You only point out that America is traditionally more conservative than Europe which is true... even many of our democrats are considered conservatives over there (except the communist-surrender types like Doyle).
Copperhead?
Longer Sloan: Opposition to the Iraq War = Sympathy for Confederate Secession
Where do you get this stuff? I can’t find anything this absurd or historically inept on any right-wing sites, and I read the big ones semi-regularly.
Is there a secret stash of highly-enriched wingnuttium that only a chosen few are granted access to? Seems kinda unfair if you ask me. How are all the other children going to embarrass themselves properly if you’ve got all the best material?
I can’t find anything this absurd or historically inept on any right-wing sites, and I read the big ones semi-regularly.
Copperhead is a fitting term to describe you Doyle and the other the anti-war crowd of today. The copperheads were not for southern succession, they just were not for fighting a war to prevent it. In fact they did their best to undermine the war and blamed the whole war on the neocons of the day. Like them, you wear your copper penny with pride and you will in due course dishoner yourself through history just as the copperheads did.
Sloanasaurus: "Perhaps Althouse should enlighten us with some of her views on economics and the role government should play in our society economically."
Haven't you noticed how rarely I talk about economic policy? This is where I'm really a moderate. I'm agnostic. I want to hear from the experts. I think things are complex, and I won't resolve such things using an abstract principle. This is where the libertarians bother me. I can be quite libertarian with respect to the things that social conservatives fret about, but not on economic things.
I suppose, Althouse, that you could put aside "menu-conservatism" and re-read some Edmund Burke. Some argue that Burke describes conservativism from the most pure philosphical standpoint. If you find yourself agreeing with Burke generally, perhaps you are a conservative.
The problem with libertarians is that they have no respect for tradition. There is always a libertarian out there somewhere tipping over the gravestones at the local cemetery. Curse the libertarians!
Oh Mark, why'd you do it? Why throw yourself on a rhetorical grenade like that?
I weep for your credibility.
Sloanasaurus said...
"I suppose, Althouse, that you could put aside "menu-conservatism" and re-read some Edmund Burke ... If you find yourself agreeing with Burke generally, perhaps you are a conservative.
I would think that Ann would be more sympathetic to Oakeshott than Burke, if we are in the business of recommending texts.
I suppose that there is a difficulty in suggesting "essential conservative reading" that there is no really good conservative text that is entirely free from problems; when I read The Conservative Mind, it struck me how unfortunate it was that conservative principles - like every other political principle - have been used to defend the indefensible. Calhoun, for example, probably horrifies Ann, because in his time, he enunciated principles of sectionalism and federalism which, freestanding, are not without merit, but that were used to defend the indefensible practice of slavery.
Although, that having been said, the statement that "I think things are complex, and I won't resolve such things using an abstract principle" is, potentially, quite Burkeian, insofar as Buke observed that:
"The nature of man is intricate; the objects of society are of the greatest possible complexity; and, therefore, no simple disposition or direction of power can be suitable either to man's nature or to the quality of his affairs. When I hear the simplicity of contrivance aimed at and boasted of in any new political constitutions, I am at no loss to decide that the artificers are grossly ignorant of their trade or totally negligent of their duty. The simple governments are fundamentally defective, to say no worse of them."
This would be my reading recommendation to Ann on conservatism, if she has yet to read it: Oakeshott's Rationalism in Politics. I knew it would be available online somewhere.
"Do you really think that economic systems are more complex than cultural systems?"
No. I just think they are more in need of govt regulation, and I am less concerned about individual rights in the economic sphere.
Ann Althouse said...
"[Do I really think that economic systems are more complex than cultural systems?] No. I just think they are more in need of govt regulation, and I am less concerned about individual rights in the economic sphere."
But: "a stark dichotomy between economic freedoms and civil rights does not exist. Human liberties of various types are dependent on one another, and it may well be that the most humble of them is indispensable to the others - the firmament, so to speak, upon which the high spires of the most exalted freedoms ultimately rest. I know no society, today or in any era of history, in which high degrees of intellectual and political freedom have flourished side by side with a high degree of state control over the relevant citizen's economic life. The free market, which presupposes relatively broad economic freedom, has historically been the cradle of broad political freedom, and in modern times the demise of economic freedom has been the grave of political freedom as well." A. Scalia, Economic Affairs as Human Affairs, 4 Cato J. 703, 704 (1985).
Sloanasaurus said...
"someone tell me where Althouse is not a conservative.... maybe she is a conservative. Does she identify with Margaret Thatcher or Bernie Sanders?"
Margaret Thatcher doesn't really fit well into the U.S. political spectrum - she was a free marketeer who supported deregulation, but where Reaganism emphasized federalism and small government, Thatcher supported centralization and expansion of government power.
I disagree. She led privatization efforts in the UK. Here's the wiki section:
Thatcher's political and economic philosophy emphasised free markets and entrepreneurialism. Since gaining power, she had experimented in selling off a small nationalised company, the National Freight Company, to its workers, with a surprisingly positive response. After the 1983 election, the Government became bolder and, starting with British Telecom, sold off most of the large utilities which had been in public ownership since the late 1940s. Many in the public took advantage of share offers, although many sold their shares immediately for a quick profit. The policy of privatisation, while anathema to many on the left, has become synonymous with Thatcherism. Wider share-ownership and council house sales became known as "popular capitalism" to its supporters.
Sarge,
I don't disagree that Thatcher led the way in deregulation and breaking the backs of the unions. And I said as much; in that regard, she was very much kin with Reagan. The point that I was making to distinguish her from Reagan is that she agressively moved centralized political power in the hands of central government. The poster children for this tendancy are the abolition of the GLC and the gutting of the local control over education in the Education Act 1988. This isn't to say that there weren't strong reasons for this; the GLC, for example, would have unilaterally surrendered to the Soviet Union had it been within its power to do so, and you only have to look at what Militant Tendency was doing in Liverpool City Council to understand why Thatcher might have taken that view. But none-the-less, that determination to seize the reins of power stands in stark contrast to Reagan's federalism.
You're rather snarky today, Internet Ronin. Are you having a bad day?
Ann Althouse said...
"[Do I really think that economic systems are more complex than cultural systems?] No. I just think they are more in need of govt regulation, and I am less concerned about individual rights in the economic sphere."
As Simon suggested above with his quote from Scalia, individual economic rights are closely tied to individual civil liberties. That said, I have much less of a problem with government regulation of corporations, which are by their very nature souless entities in regard to which our most fundamental rights (e.g. to freedom of speech) do not really seem applicable. Not sure how far I can go with that thought, though, since we also have freedom of association, and non-profit entities which are formed to speak and advance ideas in the public square are also technically "souless." Perhaps the important distinction to be made is that many people support and justify libertarianism on the basis of Darwinian ideas that unfettered capitalism leads most efficiently to economic progress and economic development ("trickle-down" economists). That theory is indeed complex and questionable, and we may indeed need the insight and research of experts in economics for evidence of its validity, both in general and in specific instances. But I think the real (and less complex) justification for libertarianism is where it touches on and affects individual liberties (civil, economic, and political), and that justification may support libertarianism in some spheres but not others (e.g. big business).
Moreover, I think it's clear that big government is spending a whole lot of its taxpayers' life blood on things government really has no business concerning itself with. Liberals are prone, for example, to complain about all the government money being spent on national defense as compared to medical research, when in fact the former is clearly an essential function of government while the latter is not. The question may sound harsh, but how pressing really is our national, collective interest in extending individual human lives as long as possible? In the absence of government funding, medical research will still be carried on through private funding, and even if it could be shown that it would not be carried on on the same "scale" (I doubt it could be shown that privately-funded research is carried on less "efficiently" than government-funded research), this would not be enough in my opinion to justify forcing taxpayers to pay so much for something that is not clearly in the national interest. Admittedly, this opinion is based in part on my direct experience of how awfully and dishonestly (i.e. politically)the NIH (particularly the National Cancer Institute) has disserved the public interest with respect to the evidence linking induced abortion with increased breast cancer risk (see, e.g. my Wisconsin Law Review Comment at www.proinformation.net).
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