The Boogeyman of hedonists: The Religious Right

I'm a millennial and when the left (which includes social progressive libertarians) throw the 1950s, Bronze Age or Authoritarian Right card out I tend to become suspicious of their own reasoning and immediately my brain puts up red flags that tells me I'm probably dealing with a full-blown idiot.

When Gavin McInnes kissed Milo Yiannopoulos in Orlando to stand against radical Islam, some took offense to it. Both men didn't enjoy the kiss, but it was to show that two people of the same sex in America can freely kiss each other in public without fear of being fined, jailed, physically assaulted or killed, that is up until the horrific Orlando massacre.

I don't consider myself a social progressive - I do not supporting LGBT "rights" which include same-sex 'marriage' and adoption, or the normalization of their own sexual orientation, but I saw where "the kiss" was going and what its point was. For the most the part those that expressed their discomfort were relatively mild about their rejection of homosexuality. Those that did not like this opposing view showed contempt to what they perceived as the Authoritarian Right rearing its 1990s head around the corner, to which I suspect is a similar deep seeded hatred that fueled actual racists back in the Civil Rights Era. Let's see the contempt on youtube -

Jeffrey Tucker says what I was thinking.

It's a dated article, 2001, but even 15 years ago, the LGBT were still playing the same cards as they are today.

Tucker writes about the supposed modern day victimhood status that the LGBT dearly and desperately want to keep alive and believe -

David Tuller writing for Salon Magazine, the left-liberal bellweather, reports that "Virtually every gay person I know is distraught at the rise of the Bush-Cheney presidency and the passing of the gay-friendly Clinton-Gore administration." Leave aside whether this guy personally knows anyone who isn't distraught at the Bush presidency, and suppose that he is right.

Why would gays be upset at Bush? Is the new administration plotting some grand crackdown that would jail people for homosexual acts? Is it planning to send out the BATF to gay clubs to crack skulls? Is it preparing tanks to mow down gay churches or burn them to the ground? Is it agitating for a law that would prevent or otherwise punish private businesses and associations from hiring gays?

Of course not. In fact, Bush went out of his way during the campaign not to offend the gays. He uttered no statements that could be pigeon-holed into the anti-gay category. However, it is instructive to see precisely what Tuller considers to be anti-gay political positions: 1) opposing the extension of hate-crime law to covering gays, 2) cutting back funding for AIDS research, 3) permitting public schools to bar pro-gay seminars for students in the guise of AIDS education, and 4) opposing the extension of "civil rights" to gays at the federal level.

It's an excellent read. Unfortunately, Tucker has "broadened" his views on legal rights since the time of this article and now supports civil unions. As one anarchist puts it, referring to Tucker's original stance on same-sex civil unions, "I may not agree with his stance on civil unions, as I support them as a halfway measure between state-sanctioned marriage and a stateless society."

You see, with anarchists is that they appeal to a moral order but then they play the whole "stateless society" bullshit card. And this anarchist is a Christian. 

Maybe.

'Maybe we should withdraw into our own faith communities and just try to live our biblically-based belief in external reality the best we can.” - Edward Feser

Please, just go live in the woods already.

If you aren't naive modernist/progressive that annoys me you're a wannabe feral child aka The Contradiction Libertarian

These are some possible characteristics of The Contradiction Libertarian.

1. Thinks religion is evil and was made by wackos to control the minds of people, and to oppress woman and to kill homosexuals and other non-straights.

2. Think the US government engages in war mainly for profit (Eisenhower's Military-Industrial Complex) for Big Oil & Big Business.

3. Thinks that our military personnel are henchmen to those in charge in #2.

4. Your "what about the children" concentrates on ending global warming (think Day After Tomorrow or The Road), fracking and want to pass gay mirage because "What if your baby was LGBT?"

5.  Anything corporate is soul sucking.

6. Wants to "live off the grid" but somehow has the internet.

7. Might have this as his avatar -

Like the naive modernists/"progressives," The Contradiction Libertarian wants his cake and eat it too. If you want your cake and want to eat it, then go make your own cake. I did. I made a carrot cake for Easter - turned out alright, definitely nothing prize worthy or any honorable mention ribbon - and I ate it. If the cake layers weren't so darn oily I'd be more proud of it.

There must be something in the water that non-conservatives drink. Combox #1

I think comboxes, to an extent, are a good way to gauge a certain group - be it the regulars or the occasional random posters that deny the article.

Depending on the topic, when I visit non-progressive sites & check their combox, the responses are somewhat predictable to almost "All your emotions are obnoxiously retarded." In case you were wondering, I'm not talking about conservative commentators, but the visitors - the "modernists."

Here are some topics that tend to get non-conservatives, whether they be libertarians leaning left or just flat out modern day leftists/progressives out of the woodwork:

- newly formed conservatives
- critical of homosexual "rights"
- critical of women's "rights"
- skeptical of global warming
- critical of libertarian ideals
- anything defending religion from the criticism of the secular/atheistic world view
- critical of Obama (this topic was a "golden calf" to the left, but now it seems their enthusiasm has greatly been reduced)

This shouldn't be a surprise. The topics basically make up the core of the social issues that are very much dear to leftists/modernists/whatever-you-call-them. (I'm an ex-liberal and I'm starting to get confused on what to call non-conservatives.)

There are probably other topics that have slipped my mind, but those six (not including Obama) are the main topics that tend to get the trolls where the combox reaches 150+. I'll just concentrate on the few listed.

The Newly Formed Conservative
Just recently I read an American Thinker (AT) article on being an ex-leftist. I recommend reading it. I read through the combox, not all 700+ comments (which I think is an AT record) - but most - and those that were not in favor of what was written stated the usual remarks:

- "You were never a true leftist." (Really, now?)
- "So you switched from one ideology for another?" (Let me see, you're a 'libertarian.')
- "This is just rhetoric smearing the left." (So you're saying everything was a lie or grossly exaggerated?)
- "Why should it be always a partisan war? There should be compromise!" (Mr. Naive.)
- "Kumbaya." (Okay, this was never actually said, but it's the 'moderate' card that was being played. )
- "I could say the same thing about conservatives." (So you can replace "leftist" with "conservatives for each point?)
- "Both sides have their bad." (No duh.)
- "This is just BS." (In other words: It hits too close to home OR you think the piece is either lying or over exaggerating.)

Even more interesting is that those that formed these critical comments weren't AT regulars. I presume that the article was posted on a site like reddit (actually no, if it were then the combox would be immensely vial and cruel) or people actively googled for similar posts and up popped the AT article. Or maybe the regulars who liked it circulated it gaining it mass traffic. I'm not sure how it gained that much attention.

Critical of Libertarian Ideals
Again, back to AT. I also liked this article. A good percent of the comments, 200+, are very angry libertarians - most of them first time commentators on the site. The writer's follow up article only received 77 comments, less than half of before. Unlike the above article where many of the commentators where regulars, the comments for this article were mostly first timers. How'd they sniff out this article? I guess that some site dedicated to libertarianism tagged it on its news feed and BOOM, swarming (a technique used to cause high traffic in order to overwhelm the writer and to intimidate regulars).

Critical of Homosexual "Rights"
Way too many to list. There's a few on AT and there's a ton on Breitbart.com. I frequent conservative sites and when something like this s issued I always tend to brace myself. The combox usually gets flooded and a good percent of the comments are "swarmers" - non regulars picking a fight or just mouthing off the cliches I've grown too weary to even care to refute.

On another AT article, which unfortunately I can't seem to find it, not about anything homosexual related, but on Romney's potential to win the 2012 POTUS race, the day after the election I ventured back to it. Like clockwork two pro-homosexual "marriage" advocates started sneering that "they won." Of course this was the same, amongst many other usual gloats, when it came to articles relaying news of same-sex "marriage" becoming law making conservative sites. I distinctly remember one poster saying "My friends and I will dance in the streets!" when DOMA was struck down. This was troll on a conservative site.

And there's this piece of work: 950+ comments on a site that most articles don't get 20. 950+ ... I repeat 950+. And what was the topic you wonder? A rebuttal to an atheistic online comic. I figured it was posted on the comic's Facebook page (it was, I checked) therefore all the followers of the FB page pursued it. Who coined the label "Gnu Atheists"? Whoever it was, good job, cause I like it.

When I venture to HuffPo or DailyKos or Democratic Underground, the chances of me crossing conservatives are few and far between. They're like a rare (fictional) bird - think of Kevin from UP:

Why so few sighting? I don't know. I'll just say that non-conservatives have an anger in them that resembles the tantrum of a 6 yr old, therefore leading them to hunt down any articles - or even keep a list of sites to regularly check up on - that are critical of their precious social issues/causes. They're one bitter angry and irritated group. Meow! 

And when I do cross a conservative their appeal is generally harmless - benign and somewhat squishy, if that makes any sense. They're probably quoting a Bible verse that gets all the angry non-religious riled up. If not they're very "matter of fact", so much so that their tone resembles a history teacher reading from the pulpit.


So here's my round up:
- left leaning libertarians
- self-righteous & smug LGBTAONQPYW people
- angry feminists
- condescending atheists

Is it safe to say that these are "modernists"? I think so. Modernists are very angry people. Why is this? The whole "conservatives are the reason this country is not 'with it'" I don't buy. I've thought about it and it just comes across as an intellectually empty blame. Or as one person (in the 700+ AT article) noted that conservatism has caused problems in his life (though he never went into particulars or gave examples). I also think this person's "confession" is somewhat misguided as well.

One thing's for sure: Conservatism (especially being a social conservative, or supporting traditional mores) is probably the most hated, most mocked and most misunderstood ideology amongst modernists - which, I'd wager, is most of the Western Civilization. It just sets off those "Pissed Me Off I Dare You" buttons.