For some reason we never get nominated for weblog awards. Sure we suck, but that hasn’t stopped anybody else. I figure it has to do with rightwing bloggers hating John and leftwing bloggers not trusting him. Other than our highly unique commenting corps we don’t really have a constituency.
However, the idea that John gave up on conservatism, as opposed to Republicanism, strikes me as unfair. It’s a cliche to say the party left me, but I don’t see any other way of describing it. Today’s Republican party would give Barry Goldwater an aneurysm with its casual wars, borrow-and-spend deficits, torture, wiretapping and habeas-free detentions. The christianist nanny statism by itself might be enough to make him switch parties. If the word still means anything I would say that dissenters like John have a better claim on conservatism than the war-and-torture crowd.
So hell, if you’re in the mood go over to the Weblog Awards and nominate us for best conservative blog. While you’re there I would nominate Sullivan and Greg Djerejian as well. Add us in the liberal category if you like my writing, but John’s the boss here so nominate him first.
***Update***
Vote here.
***Update 2***
You can stop adding new comments nominating this blog. Voting on one of the several dozen that are up now (sorry, Weblog Award moderators) will do.
Jon H
Is there a category for “Most Improved”?
John Cole
I would be a lock for ‘Biggest Asshole.’
Billy K
Sullivan? He’s a great writer, but does that mean it’s a great blog?
OK, OK, it’s a very good blog, but his naivety and “I’ll give you once more chance”-ism drives me up the wall.
Oh, and today’s GOP DID drive Goldwater up the wall. Last time I saw him was on The Tonight Show, complaining about…I think it was Newt’s gang.
You need to hook up with these guys.
grumpy realist
You have to go down to the end of the section of comments in the “Best Conservative Blog” section to find Balloon Juice listed. They request that you click the “+” rather than post the name of the blog again.
Ivan Renko
That’s because Barry Goldwater was a man of principle.
I think he was wrong about the Civil Rights Act of 1964; and I suspect were he still among us he might agree with me– Barry was all about liberty, liberty for all.
Today’s Republican party is the party of white supremacy.
It’s not a coincidence that the states of the old Confederacy (may they rot in hell) are now solidly Republican.
Sorry, if that offends, but that’s just the way it is– the Lee Atwater school of politics has metastasized into the brain tumor that is today’s movement conservatism; and that movement conservatism has made the Republicans “lose they’re minds” (thank you, Mr. Barkley).
There ain’t no brown people they won’t hate on.
And damn few they won’t advocate war against.
Renko
Zifnab
No Comments. So, no.
Shawn
I’m glad to vote for Balloon Juice. I’ve been visiting here since around the time of the Schaivo mess, pre Tim. I almost never post, just lurk. I usually agree with Tim, and often agree with John. But… even when I don’t agree with John, it’s obvious that he’s intellectually honest and that’s a rare thing with today’s conservatives. Keeps me coming back.
Go Balloon Juice!
Mary
I’ve upvoted the original nomination. I respect honest conservatives, even when I disagree with them.
blackfrancis
I am vote #21, and this is currently the leading blog.
I apologize in advance for voting, I never win anything.
The Other Steve
I’m fairly certain he did indeed say it was a mistake on his part. He was against the govt legislating the morality. What I think disturbed him is how many KKK members he got cheering for him.
The Republican Party today is an off shoot of the John Birch Society.
If you don’t know what John Birch is, look it up. Research the history. You’ll find most conspiracy theory, wild accusation and bizarre attitude comes from there. They started in 1958, and their first goal was to get us out of the United Nations.
The Other Steve
Although I should note, John Birch are isolationists. They want out of the UN, but also out of NAFTA, CAFTA, and so on. I’m sure they aren’t pleased about the Iraq war.
Modern Republicans have taken the language of John Birch, and then tried to distort it to use it to support Iraq war, NAFTA, etc.
Billy K
Argh. “You need to hook up with these guys.” should’ve included a link to unity08.com
I give up on teh HTMLs.
Cain
Is there a reward for blog with the best commenters? ;-)
cain
Punchy
Get rid of me, add 3 more Andrews, throw in another Steve just for pure confusion, double the number of cool-as-hell female Canadians, and force TZ to post from the inside of a men’s restroom in the Fo’nix Airport. With those changes you’d have another DailyCole (without the blinding orange) on your hands.
Speaking of…when and where is YearlyJuice going to be held?
sglover
That’s because Barry Goldwater was a man of principle.
I think he was wrong about the Civil Rights Act of 1964; and I suspect were he still among us he might agree with me—Barry was all about liberty, liberty for all.
Did the sainted Barry ever turn down a federal water project dollar? Just wondering….
Dennis-SGMM
I followed the link and voted up Balloon Juice. Then I read some of the other nominations. Strange company, indeed. It’d be a hoot if this blog beat out Malkin’s.
Face
yeah, and when BJ loses the overall lead due to votes cast by bloggers in Ohio, the libtards on this blog will just bitch and blame Diebold.
Mr Furious
Could probably be held in that men’s room with TZ, once it’s revealed there’s really only five people posting here…
[ducks]
Zifnab
hahaha.
PeterJ
From Wikipedia:
Chubbs
I don’t know John, from the information we know now I would say Larry Craig would have that won.
What? What? Too Much?
Ivan Renko
Er… how many congresscritters have ever turned down any damn federal project dollar for their districts? Jeez, you could make the case that bringing home that bacon is part of their bleedin’ job.
That said, BJ is the only “conservative” blog that doesn’t turn my stomach or remind me to keep my weapons clean, oiled, and ready.
Got my vote!
Renko
jcricket
My vote(s) too. Vote early, vote often. It’s the motto of the left, which John is a looney part of now. Or should we start calling him “Radi-Cole” (har har).
I do wonder what John’s politics (views on the issues) are these days. It appears at least on healthcare he’s not a hardcore libertarian (i.e. he’s no doctrinare Lib like Radley Balko, whom I can only agree with about the drug war/SWAT teams).
The Other Steve
As CEO of Diebold I am committed to doing everything I can get see Rick Moran win this award.
Even though he hasn’t yet been nominated, I think we can help with that. *wink*
John Cole
My opinion on health care is that those on the private sector side have lost the argument. We had years to make it work, and we didn’t. My opinion now is moot- we will see single-payer in my lifetime. The public wants it, a growing majority in Congress is friendlier to it, we will more than likely have at least one, perhaps two Presidents that favor it over the next 12 years, and most important of all- BIG BUSINESS wants it.
And they get what they want.
Any opposition to single-payer right now strikes me as a rear-guard action and an attempt to frame the debate on how single-payer will be implemented over the next 20 years. My prediction: it will be implemented in the most acrimonious manner a democracy can come up with.
Xanthippas
Voted for you guys on six out of however many nominations you have. You deserve it.
jcricket
Thanks for the clarification. Don’t forget that doctors also want it now. During the Hillarycare debates back in 93 my father and other relatives (doctors, dentists, surgeons) were vehemently opposed.
Now they are begging (not literally) for someone to kill the insurance industry, as nearly all of them have seem their hours increase and pay decrease in the last 15 years due to the way private insurance companies work. They all realize that the insurance companies represent everything wrong with American healthcare.
You’re probably right now that BIG BUSINESS wants it, it’s going to happen, since they “own” Congress. And while I think it would definitely help both big and small business in the global economy I predict that none of the freed up “extra” money (no longer going to healthcare) will turn into raises for the rank and file.
BTW, I saw this post on another site about healthcare (related to how “well” the private sector has done)
Of course Republicans think the solution is “free-er-er” healthcare markets. Like high-deductibles and HSAs so when we “experience the healthcare costs directly” we’ll make better decisions before we get cancer next time. I think this is like the segregation argument, where Republicans are aligning themselves on the wrong side of history and it will take them easily another half-century to recover from it.
jcricket
BTW – I was also thinking about your opinion on other issues. Might be nice to do a summary post or something (healthcare – x; death penalty – y; abortion – z; funding for public eduction – 123; red sox or yankees? bud light or coors?) You know, the important stuff.
And if those views have changed (significantly or not) over the past couple of years. I’m genuinely curious, and I bet all of the four other commenters (and our sock puppets and spoofs) are as well.
And while there’s no way this will happen, one can hope for an outcome like Taiwan’s recent switch to nationalized healthcare. Their version of the Republicans sent up all kinds of warnings about how dire the outcome would be, and yet people signed up in far greater numbers, and faster once the actual single payer plans were made available. They were able to complete the switch in under 10 years once it was voted on in their Congress.
And everything turned out great.
John Cole
Opposed to the Death Penalty- I don’t like giving the state that kind of power. Not to mention it is cheaper just to keep them locked up.
Abortion and most social issues- It’s your body. Everyone else STFU until your choices are hurting someone else.
Public education is trickier. I would prefer it be financed at the state level, but clearly there is a need for public education. Financing it with property taxes at the local level is insanity defined, though.
I root for anyone playing against the Yankees.
I don’t drink beer. I drink scotch, vodka, and wine. In quantity when I drink it. With cigars.
jcricket
Phew, I can keep reading the blog. Go Red Sox! I was a little afraid of that one.
Otherwise, my politics are the same as all of yours, except the non beer drinking. Can’t cotton to that.
I even agree on the property tax/school thing. I live in WA state and our lack of an income tax has caused us to do all kinds of regressive/weird things with the few taxes we do have (property, sales, car tabs).
And I’m 100% a Democrat. A liberal. A progressive. I’m probably square in the middle of the Democratic party (nowhere near a Green and not Joe Lieberman either). The only Republican I ever voted for was our county’s (now deceased) prosecutor (and that’s because he always ran unopposed).
Feel icky yet?
What about classic libertarian “nanny-state issues” – like smoking bans, seat-belt laws, etc?
jcricket
BTW, this would make you what I call a “pragmatist”, which is a label that shouldn’t really belong to any one political party, but far more often these days applies to Democrats than Republicans.
People who can have an ideological basis for their beliefs but also change if evidence shows there isn’t a good basis for continuing to believe what they originally did.
That’s how I came to be anti-death penalty, for example (the whole it’s applied too unfairly to ever be used “right”, plus the cost thing).
Tax Analyst
Not bad, JC. pretty close to where I stand, although that really doesn’t matter. The main point to note is there is not a lot of “Ideology” in your views, just the application of “Common Sense”, with a Capital “C”.
Yeah, can’t stand the Yankees…always enjoy the moment when they are dumped out of the picture. After that it almost doesn’t matter who ends up with the title.
Used to drink a fair amount of beer, but gave it up…no booze at all now. Never smoked (well, I chained-smoked a half-a-dozen Marlboro’s once when I was about 19 – phew), except for this leafy herb when I was somewhat younger.
Voted for BJ as tops in “Conservative Blog” and “Best Blog” categories. I haven’t seen any others that compare, really. It’s a good mix of the significant, serious, horrendous, humourous, light and ludicrous with just the right pinch of “absurd” thrown in to spice up the dish.
Rome Again
TA has a point, is this really a conservative blog these days? I think the reason why BJ is never nominated is because this blog defies all labels, but that’s just my own personal take.
I don’t think BJ sucks, personally, I only wish I had more time for it.
Ron Beasley
I didn’t see a category for best paleo-blog or best used to be a conservative blog. Or how about the best better late than never blog.
The Other Steve
I wonder if in Slovenia they are so desperate to have children, they go the test tube baby route, have sextuplets, only to watch five of them die?
I have a feeling situations like this skew America’s life expectancy at birth. We have way more premature births in America than other countries.
jcricket
I smell a new award, like those that Andrew Sullivan doles out, perhaps named after John Cole (or even Sullivan himself) for someone who belatedly comes to their senses and stops supporting the Republicans.
If I were a more serious student of history I might name it the John Danforth or David Brock award. But blogs rule my world.
Hey John – while we’re on the topic, how about a list of people you once supported but now wouldn’t save if they were drowning (Malkin) and once dismissed as paranoid nutbags but now realize were just prescient (Neiwart). Might be kind of interesting to leaf through the archives and see that happening.
jcricket
But we also excel at acute-type care, so we have a much higher survival rate for pre-term babies. In fact, ob/gyn members of my family regularly lament some of the advancements in neonatal care (seriously).
They can’t see how spending $500k on every super-pre-term babies with a 1% chance of survival is wise when that same amount would give full-term but otherwise at-risk (due to parental or other genetic factors) babies a much greater chance of thriving.
Krista
You owe me a new monitor, Punchy. Being sprayed with Boddington’s did it no good whatsoever.
grumpy realist
John, you’re just like my moniker–a grumpy realist. Most of us posting here are. If it don’t work, let’s fix it, and we’ll pull from all areas–socialist, free-market, whatever. Does it work? Good. If it doesn’t, throw it out and try something else. Pure pragmatism and efficiency.
And yeah–where the rubber meets the road will be with the health care mess. I used to detest Japanese health care because I found it nannying and often held in pretty grotty clinics. But upon comparison with my experience with the US health system…..!
(Just TRY to get health insurance when you’ve spent 14 years of your prior life abroad in places with national health systems. Absolutely impossible, even though I’m in much better health than people of my age, on average.)
Tim F.
John never supported Malkin.
jcricket
OK fine, linked approvingly too, defended, whatever. My point wasn’t that John was bat-shit crazy 5 years ago, but he had a different “filter” on. People sounding the “alarm” about conservatives, like Neiwart (re: eliminationist rhetoric) and Somersby (re: the media’s uncritical acceptance and elevation of the right’s ridiculous framing of events, including “reporting” on trivial bullshit like Edwards’ haircut).
I even got turned off by Somerbsy a while back, but now I see he wasn’t crying wolf. I just refused to believe it could be that bad.