South Park Conservatives. (Book Review)

By Bruce Thornton

"In the sixties, many of us were pulled to the left because we thought it was the ideology of liberty. Duped by a false caricature of the conformist fifties as a neo-Puritan, repressed enemy of the individual, we were attracted by the spontaneous, exuberant celebration of individual freedom we thought characterized that decade. Those of us with intellectual pretensions further asserted that the sixties sensibility was squarely in the American tradition of autonomous individualism. Surely, as the movie Easy Rider suggested, the hippy was the new mountain man, the new Huck Finn, the new frontiersman — and so, more quintessentially American than that conformist, buttoned-down "company man" worried that he'd get fired for folding, spindling, or mutilating something.

Well, we were wrong for many reasons. We ignored the confusion of license and liberty, ignored the destructive consequences of liberating the appetites from social restraints, and most of all, ignored the simple fact that the hippy "if it feels good, do it" creed had been appropriated by a totalitarian ideology that has been history's greatest enemy of freedom and the individual. By the early seventies it was clear that the New Left's hijacking of the hippy movement had resulted in a new conformity, one more sinister and destructive than what we thought was so oppressive in the fifties.

As time passed an odd transformation occurred: the Puritans were now all on the left. Dour, humorless, self-righteous, eager to use the coercive power of the state to impose ideological orthodoxy, so-called "liberals" and "progressives" had become enemies of freedom. These days the humorless, repressed enforcers of rigid standards of behavior are the politically correct professors and media pundits, the dour feminists ("That's not funny!"), the race-tribunes, and the identity-politics hacks that monitor the media and popular culture for any deviations from the party line of liberal dogma, multiculturalism, and victim-politics.

The champions of freedom, in contrast, today are more likely to be found on the right, where one can find diversity of thought, freewheeling discussion, impatience with orthodoxy, a commitment to individual freedom, and anarchic humor. And, as Brian Anderson documents in his fast-paced, entertaining analysis of how conservatism has flourished in recent years, the result has been the weakening of the liberal dominance over the media and popular culture.

Anderson starts with a quick survey of "the old media regime," as he calls it, and its propensity for selecting and shaping news to suit its liberal biases. In the Reagan years, for example, the media depictions of what they called a "homeless" person "looked like your hard-working family-man neighbor, suddenly, catastrophically down on his luck because of a bad economy and a lack of 'affordable housing,' not the drug-addled, gibberish-spouting, fist-waving deinstitutionalized lunatic he was likely to be in the real world." So too with abortion: supporters are rarely called "liberal," but opponents are regularly tagged as "conservative." Pro-life protests get scant coverage, even though a 2003 survey found 51% of women either don't support abortion at all or do so only in cases of incest and rape.

More recently, the coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with its emphasis on civilian and U.S. casualties and setbacks, has reflected the media's liberal prejudices. At the same time the U.S. army was achieving one of the swiftest victories in military history, "the elite press proclaimed imminent U.S. defeat, trumpeted every purported injustice or error committed by our troops, and, Cold War-style, even sympathized with the enemy." Coverage of antiwar protests, most of which have been coordinated by leftist if not outright-Communist organizations, was as "indulgent and celebratory" as coverage of the war was grim and critical. Worse, the coverage implied a greater support for the protests than actually existed: "In thirty-eight different stories on antiwar street demonstrations, CNN noted only once that most Americans did not support the protestors' views." And of course, popular culture has been as biased liberally as the media, demonizing businessmen, Christians, and conservatives even as it celebrates and approves sexual deviancy and heathenism.

The liberal-leftist monopoly over media and popular culture has fostered as well what Anderson calls "illiberal liberalism," "an ugly habit of left-liberal political argument to dismiss conservative ideas as if they don't deserve a hearing, and to redefine mainstream conservative views as extremism and bigotry." Many liberals and leftists are enabled in this addiction by a media that seldom calls them on their use of question-begging epithets like "racist," "sexist," "homophobic," and "insensitive" in order to avoid serious debate and defense of their ideas. Thus reasoned debate, the lifeblood of participatory government, is excluded from much of the public square, and politics degenerates into a quasi-religious obeisance to ideas and values no matter how worn out or pernicious.

Anderson argues that this liberal dominance and the hypocritical denial of it, though both have long been undergoing erosion, were exposed in the last presidential election. That the mainstream media had opted for Kerry was obvious in CBS's eagerness to attack President Bush's National Guard service based on a patently forged document. At the same time, nearly all the big media shamefully ignored the Swift Boat Vets' allegations of irregularities in Kerry's war record. Add outrages like the ABC memo counseling reporters to be tougher on Bush than on Kerry, and it's no wonder that nearly half of Americans in several polls believe the press tilts left. As Anderson points out, "The old-media regime long made it hard for the Right to get a fair hearing for its ideas and beliefs." The bulk of his book tells the tale of how this stranglehold was broken and the conservative resurgence that followed.

Anderson tells the story of how Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk radio began the reclaiming of the public square for conservative ideas by outflanking the liberal media monopoly. The creation of cable's FOX news channel kept the momentum going: by June of 2003, "FOX was winning a whopping 51 percent of the prime-time cable-news audience — more than CNN, CNN Headline News, and MSNBC combined. During the second ratings quarter of 2004, FOX owned nine of the top ten highest-rated cable shows," including powerhouses like the O'Reilly Factor. And FOX is strong with the demographic Holy Grail, the 25-54-year-old viewers. If nothing else, the hysteria FOX induces in liberal pundits and media dons makes it the best thing to happen to television news in years.

Anderson also recognizes and discusses the important role conservative presses like Regnery, ISI Books, Encounter Books, and Spence Publishing have played in providing a wider forum for conservative ideas. And of course the "blogosphere" has created a democratic forum for ideas and critiques that taps into the expertise and brains — and sometimes the lunacy — of millions of average people no longer beholden to the ideology and prejudices of a few media corporations: as Anderson puts it, the blogosphere is "samizdat multiplied by orders of magnitude." Blogs may be on occasion be "unfounded gossip, misinformed venting, or just plain trivial," as Anderson admits, but the power to discern and correct is now put into the hands of citizens, who no longer have to rely on the selective decisions and judgments of a tiny elite of self-selected media "watchdogs" and "experts."

For me the best part of the book is the chapter on "South Park Anti-Liberals." The raunchy, foul-mouthed, frequently vulgar show on cable television's Comedy Central provides some of the most devastating puncturing of liberal pretensions and smug self-satisfaction. Liberal sacred cows such as the environment, sex ed, and the normalization of homosexuality are slaughtered right and left — as are many conservative ideals as well. Along with other cable shows such as Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn and comedians like Nick Di Paolo, South Park uses obscenity and vulgarity much in the way Aristophanes did in ancient Athens: in the service of satiric humor. Such humor is a powerful weapon for sweeping away the lies and evasions those in power use to protect their ideologies from scrutiny, and for opening up space for a more wide-ranging and inclusive discussion of political issues.

The popularity of such shows among the young has contributed to what Anderson calls in his last chapter "campus conservatives rising." From being non-existent or nearly invisible on college campuses a decade ago, conservative students have increased their numbers and become much bolder at challenging their professors and college administrators on hot-button issues such as affirmative action and abortion. College Republican groups, for example, have tripled in just six years, with 120,000 members (compared to 100,00 College Democrats). And surveys of student attitudes find a corresponding increase in conservative and libertarian views among college students, a change reflected as well in the increasing numbers of conservative college newspapers. Anderson also rightly credits organizations such as the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which since 1953 has fostered and supported conservative ideas in higher education. Thanks to ISI and other groups such as the Students for Academic Freedom and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, "the Left's hold on academe is beginning to loosen," as Anderson writes. The consequence will be the creation of the intellectual diversity that universities are supposed to promote, but have sacrificed in the last few decades to a rigid ideological conformity harmful both to democratic politics and to the development of a critical mind.

Anderson ends with some salutary caution about thinking that the culture war is over and the left has lost. Yet all the trends are in the right direction. Mainstream media can no longer get away with partial or biased reporting, now that cable news alternatives and Internet blogs are around to monitor them. And the fact that these days liberal dogma is the elite authority in schools means that the rebellious and populist inclinations of young people will be focused precisely on the those smug and sanctimonious authorities. The net result will be to compel the liberal-left "to reexamine, argue, and refine its positions, so many of which have proved disastrously wrong, and stop living off the past. It's hard to imagine that this development won't result in a broader, richer, deeper national debate." And in a greater scope for the liberating power of truth."

I very much agree with what he says, although gloryfying the Iraq War as one of "the swiftest victories in military history" is a bit like saying the Italian invasion of France after the latter capitulated in 1940 as "the most succesful campaign in military history".

South Park is not a conservative show. It's libertarian.

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South Park is not a conservative show. It's libertarian.

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He said that. It attacks both sides and thats different. They certainlly have shot down many liberal sacred cows on that show. Besides that Libertarians here in the US tend to be conservatives for the most part. Yours truly included.

BEST LIBERTARIAN BASHING EVER

~:cheers:

Giving out toy guns to kids in Harlem is too funny. I can hardly believe he really did it.

Smoking is a tricky issue, though; smoking with other people does affect their health, so I suppose it would only be okay if everyone else around was okay with it. There are always ways around it, though. My city has an indoor smoking ban (not for their houses, obviously) and a lot of bars circumvented the ban by becoming "Private Clubs".

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Originally Posted by Pindar

Anderson ends with some salutary caution about thinking that the culture war is over and the left has lost.

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From the rest of the review it would seem that the point is that the culture war and the tension between left and right is partly what creates a 'free' environment. The complaint the the left has biased society is true to a point, but right has done the same in other places (or other times). I think a good democratic society always has to be able to balance the left and right sides of the debates.
So wouldn't it be better to say the left is losing some ground to the right again, instead of speaking of 'winning' and 'losing' ?

And South Park did have an episode in which Cartman learned to accept that his dog was gay, damn liberals ~D

Good review though, nice work ~:cheers:

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Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny

He said that. It attacks both sides and thats different. They certainlly have shot down many liberal sacred cows on that show. Besides that Libertarians here in the US tend to be conservatives for the most part. Yours truly included.

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Yes, Libertarians are generally conservative. It is an interesting ideology, but like Communism on the other extreme it is not pragmatic. It is not hard to understand the minimalist govt lure that many Libertarians adhere to. It has serious problems in practice.

Any student of history knows that we have to accept some level of united govt with some level of burden. It is what level that is at the heart of debate for the various parties and ideologies. Those that were truly independent at local levels tended to be gobbled up and swallowed by others who were not. There was a reason for the formation of city states, regional states, then nation states, and since then even broader multi-national pseudo states. The trick is striking a balance of individual liberty. Contrary to popular belief, govt programs are not all bad and about limiting ones freedom or taking away ones harvest. Most of the infrastructure of the world came from govt tapping of resources. Without it we would not be nearly as advanced as we are, and we certainly wouldn't be able to discuss these issues today (no internet.)

I also have to scorn at Anderson's "swiftest military victory" comments. I'm still waiting for that victory...after over 14,000 casualties (note that this includes wounded, not just deaths, and that over half of the wounded were not able to return to duty within 3 days.) If one were to adjust for the much reduced fatality rate of our soldiers compared to historical losses (severe wounds are much less likely to be mortal), the casualty rate probably exceed that of the American Revolution with its 4,435 American deaths. It certainly exceeds that of the War of 1812 (2,260 deaths) and of the Spanish American War (2,446 deaths.) These are DoD figures.

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Any student of history knows that we have to accept some level of united govt with some level of burden. It is what level that is at the heart of debate for the various parties and ideologies. Those that were truly independent at local levels tended to be gobbled up and swallowed by others who were not. There was a reason for the formation of city states, regional states, then nation states, and since then even broader multi-national pseudo states. The trick is striking a balance of individual liberty. Contrary to popular belief, govt programs are not all bad and about limiting ones freedom or taking away ones harvest. Most of the infrastructure of the world came from govt tapping of resources. Without it we would not be nearly as advanced as we are, and we certainly wouldn't be able to discuss these issues today (no internet.)

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You will get no argument from me here. But can you deny that the current system has become far too large, bloated and Bureaucratic ? Also looking at some of the recent Supreme Court desicions the constitution is pretty much a thing of the past.

Sum content of the original article:

"When I was young and had nothing, I was a liberal; now I'm old and have lots, so I'm a conservative."

The fallacy is in assuming that everyone else's life cycle was synched to his.

What was it Churchill said about liberals and conservatives...

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Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny

You will get no argument from me here. But can you deny that the current system has become far too large, bloated and Bureaucratic ? Also looking at some of the recent Supreme Court desicions the constitution is pretty much a thing of the past.

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I'm not sure, there are certainly areas that are that way. There are also places that clearly need *better* regulation (notice I didn't say *more*; well applied regulations are much more useful.) Healthcare is one. There is more inefficiency being produced by lack of uniform regulation than bureaucracy that would be produced by it. Any system that effectively holds a gun to the customer's head needs regulation. I see the economy as being crippled by a lack of regulation that provides accountability and financial transparency. It is almost impossible to properly prosecute white collar crimes, and the punishments are far too mild. This allows organized deceptions that make incredibly poor use of investment dollars (Enron, Worldcom, Tycho, other frauds that wasted untold billions.) This is a primary reason for opposing private SS accounts. I don't see an unreformed market as being able to provide any real return to investors.

Where you and I differ most is that I believe in individual property rights and freedoms, but also in my personal liberty and independence. I do not believe in criminalizing many things that those on the right want. I don't feel a need to force others to do as I do, or believe as I believe. I also want church and state kept separate. I go to church for my religious edification. My children go to a Sunday school of my choice and I provide my own teaching to them in every day life. I do not want them being taught some other church's view of the world in public schools. I also recognize that most evils done in the name of religion have been state sponsored/supported.

I like SouthPark altough it's very vulgar.... I laugh all the time....

Good review.

The Iraq war was one of the swiftest victories in history. The Germans were still better though. ~;)

The organized army and the government were taken down and the country was occupied, thus making it a victory.

I think historians will look at the Iraq war against Saddam's government and the Iraq war against the insurgency as two different conflicts.

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Where you and I differ most is that I believe in individual property rights and freedoms, but also in my personal liberty and independence. I do not believe in criminalizing many things that those on the right want

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We dont differ here. In fact thats my biggest gripe with the government. Too many damn laws.

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Healthcare is one. There is more inefficiency being produced by lack of uniform regulation than bureaucracy that would be produced by it.

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Now heres whwere we part. Its just the opposite. Its the over regualtion and bureacracy thats has caused this mess. Much better to just pay the doctor as you go like in the old days.

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This allows organized deceptions that make incredibly poor use of investment dollars (Enron, Worldcom, Tycho, other frauds that wasted untold billions.) This is a primary reason for opposing private SS accounts. I don't see an unreformed market as being able to provide any real return to investors.

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Take any 40 year peroid and invest your money in the stock market during it. You will make out far better than SS. SS should be banned. Its unconstitional and immoral. Its nothing more than a governement rip off scheme. How can you claim the the market as not being able to provide any real return to investors?

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I also want church and state kept separate.

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So do I but in the manner the founding fathers meant not this twisted thing we have now. Again there is no seperation of church and state in the constitution.

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I do not want them being taught some other church's view of the world in public schools.

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Well the founding fathers believed just the opposite. In fact religous instruction was mandatory in the US school system until sometime in the late 1800s or early 1900s. Nowdays it seems only non christain beliefs can be taught or celebrated in school.

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Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny

Take any 40 year peroid and invest your money in the stock market during it. You will make out far better than SS. SS should be banned. Its unconstitional and immoral. Its nothing more than a governement rip off scheme. How can you claim the the market as not being able to provide any real return to investors?

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Amen brother Gawain. :bow: SS is a sure thing arlight- sure to get lousy returns. For your entire career, put 13% of your income into a 401k and when you retire compare it to SS. Anyone wanna guess which will pay out more?

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"When I was young and had nothing, I was a liberal; now I'm old and have lots, so I'm a conservative."

The fallacy is in assuming that everyone else's life cycle was synched to his.

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I didn't get that at all from the article. Maybe it's because I'm young, have nothing and am conservative.

It seems to be another, feel sorry for me book. Americans seems to be busy with bashing ideologies rather than fix the issues present today......

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Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny

Take any 40 year peroid and invest your money in the stock market during it. You will make out far better than SS. SS should be banned. Its unconstitional and immoral. Its nothing more than a governement rip off scheme. How can you claim the the market as not being able to provide any real return to investors?

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Remember, "Past Performance Does Not Guarantee Future Results." There are shorter periods where you can do far worse then SS. (The best returns my money has gotten over the past 15 years have come from a small older public retirement account.) If you look at how little current SS recipients actually contributed throughout their careers, their money was better invested in the SS fund.

If I though the privatization would give better returns AND the debt would be manageable, I would favor it. At the moment, I don't see either as being a solid bet. It's not a political philosophy issue at all for me. When I was getting good 401k's returns for many years, I also wanted to see privatization of accounts. It seemed like a good proposition. After watching the bubble burst and its effect on the market for the past 5 years...my enthusiasm for it is completely gone. I do not want all my eggs in the same basket.

I also watched my corporate pension package largely disappear in a puff of smoke due to a similar scheme. They cut my future benefits by 60% in a fell swoop while showing how great this new scheme would be...eventually (the numbers were misrepresented in several ways too, it was just a corporate money grab.)

Going forward, I don't see great returns in our markets for several reasons:

1. One of the issues is that the "incredible returns" charts have no way to look at what an actual investor would have gotten as a net. What we get presented are *maximum* possible returns. Fees and such are not deducted. To get an idea of how this adds up, shave 1% off the investor's return margin each year...with compounding it will really add up. I can tell you that my 401K's never benefitted as much as the charts for the funds said they should have even though I was doing quite well.
2. The world is catching up with us. Our corporate outlooks and returns for the next 20 years don't seem inclined to grow that much above the inflation rate. The R&D pipeline at corporate level is running close to empty. I don't see any strong new sectors emerging for the US to use as a future growth driver.
3. Without true reform of the funds industry, and very careful regulation and transparency of the new accounts, the new proposal will simply create a bonanza of seperating folks from their money.
4. We are behind the curve on energy policy and addressing greenhouse gas emissions.

A more immediate problem is how to pay for the upfront costs. The program creates a problem for the deficits immediately. Bush already spent the money when he added $2 trillion in debt. If he wanted to do this, he shouldn't have done the other. He effectively made the decision earlier, and must accept the consequences of his own fiscal actions--fiscal accountability and responsibility. He isn't credit worthy and I don't see any reason why the nation should write him any more blank checks.

With the combination of high upfront costs, large annual and accumulated deficits, continuing war costs, and the high inherent risk of failure of the program, I see this as a high risk gamble at best. I don't see much potential reward.

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Remember, "Past Performance Does Not Guarantee Future Results." There are shorter periods where you can do far worse then SS.

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The only way you can do worse than SS is to lose money ~:) Besides is SS a short term option? Again over the course of ones working life their mony would certainkly go up far more in the market than in SS . As ive said just putting your money in a regular savings accont would give you more. SS is unconstitutional and should be repealed not fixed. Why anyone would opt into it is the reason they dont want it privatized. Soon no one would but their money there and they
government would loose some of their power.

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When I was getting good 401k's returns for many years, I also wanted to see privatization of accounts. It seemed like a good proposition. After watching the bubble burst and its effect on the market for the past 5 years...my enthusiasm for it is completely gone. I do not want all my eggs in the same basket.

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And how would that 401k perform over a 40 years period. Much better than SS I garuntee you. I belive most peoples 401ks are in pretty good shape again now.

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We are behind the curve on energy policy and addressing greenhouse gas emissions.

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The arguent has been made that we have done to good a job of it and now theres nothing blocking the suns rays. In other words as Ive said before the fix may be worse than the problem.


And stop worrying about the debt. We were in much worse shape under FDR.

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Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny

And stop worrying about the debt. We were in much worse shape under FDR.

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FDR inherited a real mess, and went through a real war of survival on top of it. You might not like his programs and might be one to label him a socialist, but I believe those jobs programs were brilliant. Had he not done some things to get people working on public projects, I believe we would have had civil strife and quite possible a nasty civil war that very well could have produced a REAL socialist/communist govt. Idle hands do the devil's work or something like that. If you look at history, extreme economic crises, with poverty, hunger, and worsening conditions often topple govts. His jobs programs also contributed to our infrastructure, one of the things that has made us so economically vibrant.

The deficit by '45 really didn't matter. Our industry had no competitors to rebuild the world. There is no parallel. The massive industrialization and mobilization had essentially lifted the economy up by the bootstraps as well.

There is an interesting parallel with Reaganomics that I forgot to mention earlier. The defenses of Reaganomics by conservative think tanks tout economic growth and revenue growth (and ignore the Bush senior years, LOL) and attribute it to the tax changes. There is a HUGE hole in their reasoning. Remember the military spending numbers I posted? They fed the deficit, but they did more than that...they were also in effect jobs programs and industry building programs. (I benefitted directly, I paid my way through engineering school doing working my tail off doing contruction work on an Alaskan naval base during summers.) Volcker fixed stagflation, an action that was a major stimulus itself once the initial shock was absorbed, while the defense buildup strengthened the economy at a critical time.

One thing I neglected to mention was the tremendous trade deficits. These, combined with anemic growth, high energy prices, the death of manufacturing in the US, and humongous federal deficits are a horrible combination. I can't paint any of these in a positive light. Taken together, they are making me an extremely reluctant investor.

No, the markets have not fully recovered from the bubble burst. Take a look at the Nasdaq...if being at ~40% of the high is recovery, then I want no part of that recovery. The NYSE looks awfully pricey again--valuation concerns. There are no drivers for sustained growth. Show me the drivers. I don't see them, and I'm looking because I have half my money sitting on the sidelines at the moment for lack of a better option. (During this recent few years of "recovery" my more fixed accounts are still out performing the mutual funds over the same post bubble period.)