Goes to Tim Carney at the Washington Examiner:
Carney: The Left’s effort to discredit all conservative thought
Closed-minded dismissal of opposing views has gone from being a bad habit of conservatives to a core strategy of the Left.
As we await the Supreme Court’s Obamacare ruling, liberal commentator after liberal commentator has declared that only a dishonest partisan or a complete fool could find the individual mandate unconstitutional.
This is where the liberal elites have been headed for a couple of years, and not just on health care. In many cases, it’s simply a matter of the liberal bubble. For others, it’s a cynical way of moving the bounds of permissible dissent. This latter phenomenon I’ve given the florid name “Strategic Epistemic Closure.”
Liberals aren’t trying to discredit all conservative thought- they took that thought, the individual mandate, a conservative idea for decades, and ENSHRINED IT INTO LAW.
You know who, in this case, is trying to discredit conservative thought? Conservatives, who suddenly decided their idea sucked when Democrats adopted it.
The Other Chuck
You really should append “So Far” to the article’s title. The day is still young and wingnuts are still awake.
22over7
That’s pretty good, but I think Rand Paul tops it for me today.
MattF
Umm… “Conservative.” “Thought.” One of these things is not like the other.
Raven
Freshman senator or freshman in high school? Kentucky Rep. Rand Paul insulted the highest court in the land Thursday when he declared the health-care decision to be the wrongful opinion of “just a couple people” in a statement. “Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be ‘constitutional’ does not make it so. The whole thing remains unconstitutional,” Paul said. “While the court may have erroneously come to the conclusion that the law is allowable, it certainly does nothing to make this mandate or government takeover of our health care right.” The senator pledged to fight to overturn the decision. “This now means we fight every hour, every day until November to elect a new president and a new Senate to repeal Obamacare.”
Splitting Image
Or in other words, he’s heard people use that phrase about conservatives for the last three years, so his reaction is 1) to claim that it really applies to libberuls (“I know you are, but what am I?”) and 2) to claim he came up with the idea.
dmsilev
Seriously? As noted above, “Senator” Rand Paul’s statement of “Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be ‘constitutional’ does not make it so.” is truly in a class of its own for purified stupidity.
eric
They have also decided that uber-conservative Justice Roberts is a Manchurian Candidate and sucks worse than the Kenyan usurper right now.
JPL
President Reagan decided it was a right not a privilege when he enacted EMTALA. How much money could our country have saved by enacting this bill then?
dmsilev
@Splitting Image: But he added the word ‘Strategic’ to the phrase. That makes everything all good and original and cool and everything.
Keith
I’m enjoying this day quite a bit.
eric
@dmsilev: I think that prayer for UN intervention wins….Rand Paul is second.
General Stuck
Oh christ, you sound like NR. A individual mandate is a no brainer, if single payer is not politically feasible, and it wasn’t, and still isn’t. Not yet. Carney is correct, focusing on the means to get HCR, misses the liberal objective altogether. And that is near universal care for upwards of 50 million people. The means to do that is only the difference between the government fully doing it, or doing through the existing private model. The fact that the Heritage Foundation did a white paper on it, does not mean they were the first to think of it. Especially when they did it for pol cover, with nary a scintilla of desire to pass it into law. Liberals who claim otherwise, aren’t really liberals, but more like statist minded ideologues of the left.
SatanicPanic
Cole you are awesome
Poopyman
I don’t know that it’s so stupid. Then again, maybe I think it’s trying to fan up hatred of liberals with their sneering contempt for conservatives. Attempting to dehumanize liberals, for that matter, rather than arguing against the liberal ideology.
I think his main message is in the emotion, not in the information.
JPL
Reading is hard work but how could the repubs vote for holding Holder in contempt.
Valdivia
@Raven:
I guess that means they also don’t make things constitutional so Citizens United is just what a couple of guys think right? Gah. What an idiot.
Villago Delenda Est
Someone needs to tell Timmeh here that the Left need take no action; the Right is very busy discrediting “Conservative” “thought”.
JGabriel
John Cole:
Ding ding ding!
Give that man the prize for clarity of expression.
I.e., I agree.
.
eric
@Valdivia: i am pretty sure James Madison agreed with Rand Paul. Just saying.
Ash Can
I guess that makes 90 percent of the constitutional law professors polled on the ACA decision “liberals” then, huh?
Bubblegum Tate
Yeah, I have typically found that conservatives do the best job of discrediting conservative thought because their arguments in favor of conservative thought are just so clearly ridiculous and wrong. Liberals just point it out is all.
Villago Delenda Est
@eric:
That high pitched whirring sound you’re hearing? That’s James Madison’s reaction to your post.
Tonal Crow
It’s called “propaganda”, and *you’re* doing it.
JGabriel, Statist Minded Ideologue of the Left
General Stuck:
That is my new handle.
.
eric
@Villago Delenda Est: it has been a long time, but I am pretty sure James Madison is the “Madison” of Marbury v. Madison, and he lost when Justice Marshall said that the Court decides constitutionality. I could be misremembering, but I think that is right.
Villago Delenda Est
@eric:
That may be, but I don’t think Madison would take it very kindly to be in the same sentence as Aqua Buddha as a compatriot.
MikeJ
@eric: Marbury v Madison went Madison’s way.
ETA: The court ruled Madison broke the law, but the law was unconstitutional. That was when the Supremes really became the arbiters of what was constitutional.
MattF
Not to put too fine a point on it, these guys aren’t into ‘thought’ (via LGF):
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/40548_Former_Michigan_GOP_Spokesman-_Is_Armed_Rebellion_Now_Justified
john fremont
@Valdivia: Not only that , what about DC vs Heller
jl
Total BS from Carney.
I am no fan of old school US conservative thought, if that includes stuff like National Review, even in its previous less laughable formulation. But I am even less of a fan of what the GOP reactionaries and fanatics are calling ‘conservative thought’ these days.
That is why I sometimes use the terms ‘reactionaries’ and ‘fanatics’ when I want to be precise about what the so-called conservatives have turned into.
Suzanne
I haven’t been here in a while. I like the new look and speed. Keep it up and you’ll be HP :-)!
Thanks.
David Koch
that’s because the case law supporting the mandate was overwhelming.
just a few years ago, Scalia said you could use the commerce clause to regulate a personal marijuana plant grown in your back yard. Here, the personal use meant there was no commerce (ie no sales were occurring). Marijuana has been banned by federal law, therefore, there was no legal interstate market to regulate. Yet the great, iconic, conservative originalist said you could use the interstate commerce clause to regulate non commercial acts and non-existent legal interstate markets.
Yet no one on the right ever said Scalia was wrong to invoke the commerce clause in circumstances when both commerce and markets were absent.
General Stuck
@JGabriel, Statist Minded Ideologue of the Left:
Good for you. I always respect those who fly their freek flag high. And are honest about where they are coming from. I happen to like statist minded ideologues of the left, though I don’t take them all that seriously, not in this god forsaken country, even though I agree with many of their policy positions. Glad to be of service, sir.
stratplayer
@eric:
Indeed, and I agree with Steve Benen (whom Cole affectionately refers to as the “Benenator”) that Roberts might well have defected because the hysterical extremism of the anti-ACA forces, as embarrassingly demonstrated from the bench by his estimable colleague Nino Scalia, collided with his authentically conservative temperament. These kooks probably scare the living shit out of him.
David Koch
Put it this way: if a republican president and republican congress passed ACA with a super majority would any of the republican appointed Justices sought to strike down ACA? Of course not. That Kennedy, Scalia, and Alito did proves they’re partisan hacks.
JPL
@David Koch: yup..
WereBear
There’s that pesky logic/thought thing rearing its head into Alaskan airspace again…
Mino
@JPL: Hell, the Right wants to repeal that, too.
danielx
What is this “conservative thought” of which you speak? I find this concept…disturbing, since from what I’ve been able to tell over the last 3.5 years the only thing emanating from the collective conservative intellect (or what passes for it) is one long scream of rage and denial.
JPL
@Mino: oh..no…st. ronny can not make a mistake.. oh..no..
JGabriel, Statist Minded Ideologue of the Left
@General Stuck: Thank you. It’s a great phrase. A little overwrought maybe, but I identify with it anyway.
And I mean that sincerely.
.
Mino
@JPL: The Right is not constrained by reality. They create the reality. Get your story straight.
If they repealed that stupid law, insurance would become affordable for anyone with money enough to buy it.
El Cid
Is John Cole suggesting that the past still exists? It does not. I can’t see it or touch it. So therefore what he’s saying that conservatives were doing a long time ago in the past, I deny.
The only way you can know what truly is real is to know what it is that a conservative movement desires to happen next — this will allow you to know the present as well as the past.
Patricia Kayden
Great post, John.
The Conservatives were for the mandate before they were against it. Such flip floppers.
AA+ Bonds
It is a big fucking deal that there was a 5-4 vote against a far right “Constitutional” principle that was invented about two years ago because the President is black
It means we are this close to fucked
AA+ Bonds
“Conservatives” are enemies of the people; they are fascists
Tractarian
That is some serious Brazilian-style verbal jiu-jitsu there, John. Very well done.
Ben
Fucking hell. I went to college with that guy. Played basketball with him many times.
Small world.
Of course, I had to go to school with him and not Natalie Portman.
jonas
@dmsilev: well, they remain unconvinced that just because a majority of Congress voted for the ACA that it’s a legitimate law. It was imposed by Kenyan-born, socialist Muslim anti-Jesus aliens or something. But it’s *not* legitimate.
jonas
@David Koch: if a republican president and republican congress passed ACA with a super majority would any of the republican appointed Justices sought to strike down ACA?
HAAAAAAAH-haaaaaah! HaaAAAAAAAA! Haaaaaaaaahhhaaaa!. Oh? Sorry. It was a serious question. Of course, they would have refused to even hear it. Because it’s a solid, conservative law that totally adheres to the constitution. Like Florida’s random, ad-hoc recount procedures.
jonas
There is no conservative “thought” these days. There is only blind, spluttering rage. A few pitiful fools like David Frum have tried to point out that Republicans are suffering from unsustainable levels of cognitive dissonance, but they’re just met with Bronx cheers and volleys of rotten fruit for their efforts. For the rest, recent deficits have been entirely the result of ni*CLANG*s on food stamps, unemployment is the result of Obamacare, which is a fascist plot to intern everybody in concentration camps (which, ironically, had very low unemployment rates), and American foreign policy has been an utter disaster — as measured by a recent poll of Israeli cabinet members.