Best comment on Charles Murray’s new bestselling Social Darwinism apologia comes from Doghouse Riley:
It turns out that Charles Murray is to the “conservatives” at the Times what Halley’s Comet is to a superstitious medieval peasantry.
And yet, Murray’s call for a rekindled attention to Mad-Man– style social hypocrisy has leaked downward from the dutiful reviews by A-list NYTimes columnists and similar social parasites to the groundwaters where dwells Erick “Voice of the GOP Gated Community” Erickson, or so his CPAC coda leads me to assume:
… After RedState got started in July of 2004, blogging on the right became all the rage, though it was correlation and not causation. By 2005, CPAC had a Bloggers Row and I went for my first time… Being the good, intrepid blogger, I ran across the street to a CVS to buy a notepad, having left mine in my office back in Macon, GA. There in line were a half dozen young men, each with CPAC credentials around their necks and each buying condoms.
__
That is part of life on the college circuit. Young men, regardless of political persuasion or ideology, are intent on having sex, being boys, getting drunk — doing what young men in college often do. All to often there are also a few young ladies willing to shame their parents if their parents only knew.
__
But — and I wouldn’t be writing any of this had I not had a series of email exchanges on this subject in the past few days — I am more than a bit shocked by the young men at CPAC this year who just seemingly refuse to grow up or act their age. More troubling, while in 2005 it seemed to be just college kids, as the years have passed it is not just the 18 to 21 year old set, but the twenty and thirty somethings who just can’t seem to grow up. It’s like they started out at CPAC this way in college and each year at their CPAC reunion descend back to their freshman year rush week…
__
I am not even sure that there is a solution to the problem. But we should not think it is anything but a problem. It is not every young man, but there are many. They risk dragging the whole affair down to some bawdy, rowdy distraction. They risk embarrassing themselves and the conservative movement. They risk the perception premised on their own actions that conservative men of a certain age think that good manners and decorum around women of the same age is unneeded or unwanted.
__
This is not to say CPAC cannot and should not be fun. This is not to say that CPAC cannot and should not be a party. But it is to say that I hope the college groups bussing in students next year, the out of college set there to network, and CPAC itself encourage behavior we all too often don’t talk about anymore in our society — the behavior of gentlemen. Eat, drink, smoke, be merry, but be chivalrous too. There really is, regardless of your age, no need to play the cad at CPAC to score points with conservative ladies…
Especially with the easy availability of both Craigslist DC and Grindr! Ross “Chunky BoBo” Doubthat, be warned: Mr. Erickson is gunning for your position on the NYTimes op-ed roster…
John O
You keep some weird hours when you’re unemployed. Anyone up?
JGabriel
Erick Erickson:
But the young men aren’t a shame to their parents?
I hope some young conservative woman has the self-esteem to rip Erickson’s cock out of his groin with a hacksaw and a pair of tweezers and shove it down his throat.
Metaphorically, literally, either way is fine — by which I mean literally is better.
.
Pat In Massachusetts
“All to often there are also a few young ladies willing to shame their parents if their parents only knew.”
I guess if you are a conservative parent it’s ok for your son to fuck his brains out, but if you are a daughter of a conservative parent you will only bring them shame.
Eric, pray tell, who in Ron Paul’s name do you think conservative boys will get to fuck? Conservative women that’s who; either that or they will solicit the oldest profession in the world and pay for it, just like the leaders they aspire to!
Biff Longbotham
CPAC frat boys have dicks? Who knew!!
MTiffany
I’m sure the “America is a Christian country yet somehow simultaneously Christians are an oppressed minority” types at CPAC would love a similar type of “justice” put on the law books where Jeebus is concerned here in the good ‘ole U-S-of-A http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/world/asia/saudi-writer-is-deported-over-twitter-posts-on-prophet-muhammad.html?_r=2
max
After RedState got started in July of 2004, blogging on the right became all the rage, though it was correlation and not causation.
Curious how one no longer hears the name Tacitus anymore. (Or Trevino either.) Of course the whole Tacitus schtick was way too William Buckley and pseudo-highbrow for the Republican party.
There in line were a half dozen young men, each with CPAC credentials around their necks and each buying condoms.
That’s where it starts. Condoms. Available. In public. Six weeks later, you’re a Democrat. Oh, noes!
There’s only one thing to do guys! Get the House GOP to pass a bill banning SEX! And FUN too, while they’re at it.
max
[‘You can be the new promise keepers!’]
wilfred
Call for Papers:
Another Halocene Human
@Pat In Massachusetts:
Each other, duh, or have you missed the internets gawking at the hilarious CL sex-trolling at this year’s CPAC and the last?
Heck, the fact that Erick son of Erick keeps mentioning “the ladiez” means he either missed out on half of the party or he thinks it unspeakable for some reason. (Slut-shaming women, of course, is always in good taste.)
Another Halocene Human
@John O: Employed and work the grave.
Alex S.
@Pat In Massachusetts:
See, that’s how young republicans are turned into homosexuals. To save the ladies’ honor, they are forced to have sex with each other.
Xenos
@max: as to ‘Tacitus’, tacitus.com is no longer registered. His wikipedia entry refers to the site at tacitus.org, which now hosts a German amateur sexcam site.
He sounds familiar, though… who the hell is he again? Was he the guy who built a sanbox diorama in order to disprove Beachamps dog-driving-over allegations?
Seems like 20 years have passed in internet-years.
MikeJ
I was actually puzzled by this. They shouldn’t act like cads? Of course not. Nobody should. What does that have to do with fucking?
No, don’t tell the girl you just met you’re madly in love with her and then laugh at her naivité and leave her an hour later. I would guess that women that want to hook up at a convention wouldn’t fall for it and would find it unnecessary.
So my advice, don’t be cads. If all you’re interested in is a fuck, tell her so! There’s a good chance that’s all she wants too. And if not you’ve cleared it up before anybody has reason to be upset.
Stentor
@John O: I’m up, I do the same thing in order for my wife to sleep in the same bed with me, I have to stay up all night long so she won’t have to listen to my god-awful snoring.
But I digress, I originally came here to the comment section to express a bit of schaudenfreude that I think will actually occur at some point. What I’m really waiting for is CPAC to have their very own live TailHook scandal. Wouldn’t that be glorious. Because Erick the Red sounds like some sort of paternal scold with this column.
I will say I have a specific list of people, that if I ever meet them in person, & I have the chance, I’m going to punch them in the mouth as hard as I can, hard enough to knock them down. I should mention by the way, that I’m 6’1″, 250lbs, & a former Marine, so it’s not an untoward possibility that it couldn’t happen. Sean Hannity’s on that list, so’s Glenn Beck, Steve Doocy is too, & his offspring just got added recently, the youngest guy on my list. Ross DoucheHat is very close to making it, Erick the Red is dangerously close. Krauthammer was on the list until I found out that he believes in evolution, plus he’s my only wheelchair on the list. But I’m not afraid to punch old men either, Brit Hume, Bill O’Reilly, both those fuckers, Pow! Right to the moon.
pablo
Outlaw condoms. Problem solved.
harlana
Behave Yourself!
harlana
i cannot believe i went there but i read the companion piece for girls. them CPAC girls are doing more than showing ankles, that’s for sure.
and, “coffee rape”??
harlana
but it’s good to know those nice, young conservative men believe in birth control. who knew?
harlana
@Stentor: Glenn Beck is starting a comedy tour, VIP tickets are $500 – doesn’t seem to be a lot of demand, thus far, however
Q. Q. Moar
It’s my day off, so I get to stay up late. Not to mention the cocktail induced six-hour nap from which I just awoke.
@Stentor, I approve of your reverse hippie punching agenda. Are there separate lists for neck-punching and ball-kneeing, or can we incorporate all three into the repetoire?
Infinite Ericks, as Tbogg has dubbed him, is barking up the wrong tree here. Conservatives adore raffish fraternity brothers; they got one elected President.
Drinking it up at parties with like-minded boors, being cads (aka showing women all the respect they deserve as commodities in the free market), hypersexually chasing every female they see in a desperate effort to prove they’re straight; Erickson is extra out of his mind if he thinks any of that will stop happening at CPAC.
JR
When I was an undergrad, my school of around 700 students had exactly two open Republicans. One of them started a College Republicans chapter. He was the only member. And it was a brilliant racket! The Right has way more money than sense, so he would get flown to conferences and conventions, where they’d comp him his room and meals (and usually drinks), expect him to go mingle for an hour or so a day, and then let him party like there was no tomorrow. It was a free vacation on someone else’s dime: why wouldn’t he go nuts? If that behavior really surprises Erick son of Erick, then he must not understand the Wingnut Welfare recruiting pitch that’s been around since forever.
Q. Q. Moar
@pablo: “Outlaw condoms.” For a moment there I thought you were promoting a brand. “Outlaw Condoms, for sex so good it oughta be illegal.” Except that would never work for CPAC attendees. “Outlaw Condoms: maybe this time if I get her drunk enough.” Help me out here, slogan writers.
amk
so did lil ricky get his own ss detail yet, now that mitt has hit the ditch?
Chuck Butcher
@JR:
Well hell, all I got was sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll…
oh.
hippie stuff…
No damn sponsors…
Another Halocene Human
@JR: I’m sure he’s intimately aware of wingnut welfare, being a particularly fortunate recipient thereof. It sounds more to me like EE is trying to change his image now that he’s gotten a taste of those fat CNN checks. In a few short years he’s gone from burning envy of his fellow congoers who were getting some (note that Erick was not buying condoms with his hemorrhoid cream or whatever… picking up chicks requires social skills, not that I would lay money on the idea that the condom buyers were intending to use them with chicks, exactly), to YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN.
Ouch.
Citizen_X
@Q. Q. Moar:
Oh, that’s good. It’s Ericks all the way down, people!
WereBear
If my daughter slept with a CPAC frat boy I would be ashamed that she did not have better taste in men.
MBL
BEHAVE YOURSELVES!!
Sarah Proud and Tall
@harlana:
I’m betting they don’t. I’m with Another Halocene Human – chances are, if they were buying condoms, they were using them on each other….
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Stentor:
I like you.
Frankensteinbeck
@JGabriel: and @Pat In Massachusetts:
The sexual double standard is a cornerstone of conservative thinking. I personally believe it has more to do with their horrible treatment of women than a desire to control women overall or anger towards women.
Conservatives are the Sitcom People. They’ve completely absorbed our society’s simplest prejudices. Our society believes that sex is the Little Red Riding Hood story, that it’s a process where men are predators and women are victims. By its logic their daughters must be precious, innocent snowflakes and are shaming their parents if they have sex because sex is something that hurts and reduces them – they’ve successfully been victimized, maybe even let it happen to themselves. It’s way less an issue with their sons, who are merely proving themselves successful predators. And crucially, since that’s the way they approach their own sexual relationships, they know for sure that women are victims and are just being used.
You can throw in a dollop of whatever outside flavoring you want – hate, control freak patriarchy, conformist anxiety and tribalism – and they all just reinforce that basic thinking.
Samara Morgan
its a call for a return to the White Patriarchy Social Cohesion Model.
that model was destroyed when blacks and women got the vote.
Say what you like, it was a successful paradigm for a while.
Nostalgie for a white supermajority is what it is.
But Murray has true things to say about culture. Culture doesnt shape society as much as it reflects society.
You have to read between the lines to get that, because its anathema to conservatives, that they cannot shape culture. consider the mission of Breitbarts “Big Hollywood”.
Look at black dominance in entertainment, music and sports for example.
pop culture is the leading edge of the wave of the demographic timer.
RedKitten
@harlana: Yeah, that companion piece was CHARMING.
Uh-huh…and are these women all having one-night-stands with each other? No? Then why is the author not calling out those whorish men who will NEVER find a nice wife to have babies with if they don’t keep their peckers corralled?
Yes, because goodness knows that conservative men have been utterly FAMOUS for their fidelity and high morals…
Schlemizel
@Citizen_X:
ITS FULL OF ERIKS!
Adrian Haiwei
Note to next year’s frat-boy CPAC attendees: Erick Erickson seems to be feeling a little left out – would it be too much to invite him into your parties?
He’s got connections, so it would probably be worth it for you to rope him into a conga line and set him up with some freshmen girls (perhaps twins, if you brought any along – but only US citizens, please).
El Cid
Yeah, this is such a shame; all the College / Young Republicans I ever met were such nice, polite types, all Alex P. Keaton and no foul language and crude homophobia and snotty mockery of the poor and pure and unfettered respect for women abounded…
Come to think of it, the right needs to formally have their own Renaissance Faire, maybe the Pre-Renaissance Fair, or, the Crusade Faires, or maybe even Ten Commandments World — ‘we do the Old Testament as we’d like to think it was done!’
JPL
@RedKitten:
Newt’s motto is at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
Personally, I’m impressed with the born again virgins i.e. Palin’s daughter.
gocart mozart
Leave that job to the CPAC speakers as God intended.
jefft452
@Stentor: “Steve Doocy is too, & his offspring just got added recently”
Who is Doocy’s offspring and what did he do to get added to the list?
DanielX
Erick haz a sad….again. So much fail, so little time.
Young ladies willing to shame their parents….those shameless trollops! And those young men buying condoms, do they not realize that Rick Santorum does not approve? Even if they are just having a little harmless premarital fun…what am I saying? They’re not supposed to have premarital sex and sex is not supposed to be fun. That’s the ticket, Catholic guilt and telling people that nastydirtymonkeysex is to blame for all society’s problems. Get rid of all those sex enablers like contraceptives, outlaw those disgusting ‘devices’ and magazines and publicly shame those harlots who tempt godly young Republican men by wearing skirts that, yea, are shorter than knee length. We’ll work out how all this fits into the ‘less intrusive government’ thing later…much later. Yes, this is the solution for the Republican Party in the 21st century.
The stupid, it burns…
DanielX
@harlana:
Most excellent…da crystal ball says that will go viral by the end of the day, immortalizing Breitbart as a complete screaming wingnut to lots of people who have never heard of him.
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.
kay
I don’t believe it. I don’t think he saw anyone buying condoms and I don’t think he’s at all concerned about bawdy or rowdy.
I think it’s meant to attract younger men to CPAC.
I think every word Erickson writes or says is carefully calculated to promote the GOP. Even when he’s sympathizing with the base over the dearth of choices this year, he’s doing that to keep them “in”, and keep them on board.
Every word. Pure operative.
Litlebritdifrnt
So which brainiac in the Santorum campaign thought it would be a good idea to produce an ad where Romney (Rombo) is shooting shit (santorum) out of a gun? I know they SAY it is supposed to be mud, but come on when I saw it this morning I couldn’t believe the stupidity.
DanielX
And a little surreptitious sexytime at CPAC is going to accomplish this? Dude, the conservative movement cannot be embarrassed. It’s impossible, kind of like repealing gravity or the Second Amendment.
kth
Silly libs, young men who have premarital sex are sowing their wild oats. Young women who do the same (with the same young men) are sluts.
handsmile
@amk: (#22)
Reading your comment, it took me a second or two to process what you meant by “ss detail.” Because if there’s one candidate who I can imagine surrounded by brown shirts and black leather, it’s Li’l Ricky.
harlana
@Sarah Proud and Tall: WORD. in any case, I guess they wanted to avoid the Santorum (i know, i know, i just had to)
Joey Giraud
Erickson is really quite a fool.
Tacitus was a great place to engage with conservatives who fancied themselves as intellectually honest.
I had my expert fun there, pushing a dog who boasts of being able to walk on two legs to dance the Charleston.
Applejinx
Who the hell says ‘bawdy’ outside appropriate places like Ren Faires?
wenchacha
Must be Erick the Erick agrees with those Godless Mooslims about the power of one woman fucking to shame an entire family.
lacp
Play the cad? Damn your eyes, sirrah! I’ll have your guts for garters!
ErickSonofErick sounds like he’s trying to write Dangerous Liaisons while terminally constipated.
kindness
I think the appropriate right wing answer to these sex crazes CPAC conventioneers is to make condoms illegal. Hey, they want to do it with women’s birth control so why not men’s?
Emma
@max: Whatever the hell happened to Tacitus? His was one of the first blogs I ever read.
lacp
Since this is an open thread, thought I’d share some more of Arizona’s awesomeness:
http://open.salon.com/blog/amy_mcmullen/2012/01/23/dropping_out_of_school_lunches
Interrobang
Chivalry is for suckers. To paraphrase a great little poem I read on the subject yesterday, it’s like buying someone a beautiful gift when you owe them a large amount of money, but not bothering to pay the debt.
Mouse Tolliver
He should’ve known that when CPAC decided to give an award to a gay prostitute the whole affair would be taken over by libertine men and scarlet women!
Barry
@Xenos: “@max: as to ‘Tacitus’, tacitus.com is no longer registered. His wikipedia entry refers to the site at tacitus.org, which now hosts a German amateur sexcam site.
He sounds familiar, though… who the hell is he again? Was he the guy who built a sanbox diorama in order to disprove Beachamps dog-driving-over allegations?”
Josh Trevino turned out to be a PR type, so it’s likely that his blog was just astroturf.
Redshift
What a shock — when you recruit out of the asshole pool at colleges, they’re the ones that want to keep being frat boys the rest of their lives! Whocouldanode?
kvenlander
And what was Erick doing in the drug store?
Eric the Infrequent
Is Rick Rickson chastising Breitbart here or what?
g
Men attending out-of-town conferences are looking to get laid? Who’da thunk it?
rea
@JGabriel: And who are all these young men having sex with, if only a few young ladies are willing participants? Are they all rapists?
Rafer Janders
Young men, regardless of political persuasion or ideology, are intent on having sex, being boys, getting drunk — doing what young men in college often do. All to often there are also a few young ladies willing to shame their parents if their parents only knew.
Let’s puts this into the handy Reverse-A-Tron and see how it reads:
Young women, regardless of political persuasion or ideology, are intent on having sex, being girls, getting drunk — doing what young women in college often do. All to often there are also a few young gentlemen willing to shame their parents if their parents only knew.
Ah, much better….
Rafer Janders
Yeah, this is such a shame; all the College / Young Republicans I ever met were such nice, polite types, all Alex P. Keaton and no foul language and crude homophobia and snotty mockery of the poor and pure and unfettered respect for women abounded…
Y’know, it’s funny, 25 years ago you could have an Alex P. Keaton character on TV and, despite him being a conservative, have him also be a nice, kind, funny, charming guy. But these days, in order to be a credible conservative Republican, the things that that character would have to believe in to be in line with current party orthodoxy — torture, wars of aggression, banning contraception, destroying the American auto industry, etc. — would make him so abhorrent by definition that you could never have him be a lovable sitcom hero.
Svensker
I can’t believe no one linked to that photo Josh Marshall had the other day of the junior horndogs at CPAC — so perfect with this story.
I mean, who WOULDN’T fuck those two?
ChrisB
I’m really glad Erick wrote that piece since I’m sure all those right wing frat boys will listen to him. Then maybe I can go to CPAC next year and play the cad. The field will be wide open.
MosesZD
Ummm… Why aren’t the boys a shame to their family? The girls aren’t doing anything the boys are aren’t also doing…
Terry
@harlana
“but it’s good to know those nice, young conservative men believe in birth control. who knew?”
They don’t. But the women they want to fuck do. Ergo, the men buy them.
The women are probably all still on their parents’ health insurance (Thanks, President Obama.) and have birth control, but condoms are for more than that, and good Republican girls don’t carry condoms around, although they most likely require them.
I wonder what young Republican women think about the Catholic bishops, right now?
I wonder what kinds of video escapades young Democratic women operatives might be able to get young – or old – Republicans to pose for? Think the female James O’Keefe, with an actual sense of humor, and far more brains :)
MosesZD
@Sarah Proud and Tall:
Actually, I’m guessing it’s camouflage. You can’t let people know you’re a lonely virgin and the closest you ever got to laid was your right hand and a magazine.
So you buy condoms. “Hey I’m a playa… Got me a case of condoms…” Only to turn them into water balloons or let them languish in a suitcase for next year’s convention…
Maus
“ladies”?
This is “family values” CPAC, we’re talking about. You should see the lines at the crystal meth dealers…
Catsy
@max:
Speaking as someone who used to be a regular on Tacitus and who remembers the comment thread where the idea for what became Redstate first came up, I think it’s a damn shame. Tac’s blog had days where it was really a great place for right and left to have a genuine conversation about their differences and what was happening in the world. There were always shithead trolls like Bird Dog scumming up the place, but for the most part they didn’t prevent the sane people on both sides from having a dialogue.
Don’t get me wrong–Tacitus was a dyed-in-the-wool, true-believer theocrat with some very extreme views. I found him difficult to engage on a personal level because of how balls-out condescending he was. But he was mostly honest and I do miss those days–and those Republicans.
Joey Giraud
Second Catsy on that; Tacitus himself wasn’t very open minded or intellectually honest.
But he was far better then the Red State crew he joined.
Brian
I liked parts of tacitus, although the condescension was pretty overwhelming (and it got worse over time); and Obsidian Wings was an offshoot of that. It’s a shame that ObWi has slowed down so much in the last few years — at its peak, it was one of my favorite sites on the net.
Tehanu
@Stentor:
A nitpick — not that I disagree with your plan for one moment; in fact, I applaud it enthusiastically — but it’s “Bang! Zoom!”, not “Pow!”