Best Letter-To-Editor, Ever!

[proud2BlibKansan]

Steven F. Hayward wrote: “The single largest defect of modern conservatism, in my mind, is its insufficient ability to challenge liberalism at the intellectual level. . . .”

No.

The single largest defect of modern conservatism is that it has ruined the nation.

Conservatives do not have ideas; they have interests.

Conservatives are not “thinkers”; they are rationalizers who give an intellectual gloss to their belief that an alliance of predatory businesspeople and religious extremists should rule the rest of us.

The wreckage caused by modern conservatism lies all around us, and speaks for itself: If conservatism isn’t dead, it should be.

DANIEL ROSEN

Baltimore
Source: Washington Post 10/9/2009 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/08/AR2009100803911_pf.html

http://shoqvalue.com/bestLTEever

[Hello_Kitty]

1. Daniel Rosen FTW!! eom

[CoffeeCat]

2. Well HELLO Daniel Rosen!

How you doin?

:)

[live love laugh]

46. Hahahahaaaaa. Funny. I lol'd at your response. nt

[SmileyRose]

3. Daniel Rosen for President 2016

[HowHasItComeToThis]

41. NO, ROSEN FOR V-P, HELLO PRESIDENT GRAYSON

[kestrel91316]

45. Grayson/Rosen 2016. I'm ALL for it. Plus, I bet Rosen is Jewish like

Grayson, and the explosion of RW heads over that would be truly glorious to behold!!!

[gratuitous]

4. The Nationals could use someone who hits home runs like that

Surprised the Post printed that letter; you have to imagine an entire newsroom full of people reading it and wondering what Mr. Rosen is talking about: "Conservatives do not have ideas"? But, what about Newt Gingrich?

[Joe Chi Minh]

34. What about him? Do you call those ideas? In one way, he's smarter than

all of them.

Unfortunately, it means that, sharing the same false assumptions, his brilliant brain can only deploy itself on the most artistic application of lip-stick on a pig you ever saw. Awesome... just awesome! The Leonardo of stupidity.

[Journeyman]

5. Excellent. . .

Conservatives do not have ideas; they have interests.

And yes, if it isn't dead, it should be.

Gonna keep this for future reference. Should come in handy.

[quiet.american]

6. "An alliance of predatory businesspeople and religious extremists" Ding. Ding. Ding! nt

[baldguy]

12. But it's not so much an "alliance"

as it is a master/slave relationship. Or better yet - a bokor/zombie relationship.

[quiet.american]

16. Indeed. We know it, yet the GOP "rabble" seems determined to never "get it." nt

[Orsino]

21. Plumber/plumber's helper relationship.

The Religious Right are tools of the political Right, swelling the ranks and lending an air of sanctity to cruelty, selfishness and lies.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

30. heee! Yes...

the political rite (can't stand spelling it r-i-g-h-t with regard to them anymore) engineer and sell the toilets (toilets conveniently pre-filled with shit, I should add), and the religious rite stick their heads in 'em.

[RedCloud]

44. Love that one! After they say grace too!

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Good letter indeed

[krispos42]

8. Ouch.

Nicely put. Very nicely put indeed.

I'll have to see if I can put it in my sigline.

[krispos42]

14. Ha! Got it!

Rehosted my sigline pic to tinypic.com, and made JUST enough room for the quote.


I think I used 399 characters...

[BlooInBloo]

9. You might well be right.

[Fridays Child]

10. Daniel Rosen

:woohoo:

[Mind_your_head]

11. When I clicked upon this post, I highly doubted that I would see the best LTE EVER!

But I'm glad I clicked. That's REALLY D*MN good (and I've never heard this before)....

K & R :thumbsup:

[yodermon]

13. "Conservatives do not have ideas; they have interests". Just DAMN.

That is the most succinct indictment/summarization I've ever seen.

[onlyadream]

39. should be a bumper sticker. nt

[Juche]

15. No shit they can't challenge us liberals on an intellectual level

Their movement is made up of protofascist, dogmatic simpletons.

Obama is the leader of the democratic party right now. He is highly educated, introspective and curious. Leaders of the GOP include Palin and Bush.

So no shit. Has Hayward met any conservatives? Why would this surprise him.

Buckley, who he holds up as an intellectual, was also an apologist for fascism and Franco.

I have tried reading Goldwater for intelligent conservatism, but many of his arguments seem like strawman arguments. His arguments against unions may have been true in the 1940s, but the modern labor movement is so gutted that it is like telling an anorexic that she is getting fat.

[grantcart]

17. And the corollary is also true

The Democratic Party is at its weakest when it simply attempts to protect its 'interests' and not follow its ideals.

[HamdenRice]

18. No. The single largest defect of modern conservatism is that it has ruined the nation.

Astoundingly good letter!

[SpiralHawk]

19. ...and that they are not at all conservative

Republicons just use the word 'conservative' to mask their radical stances on the economy and the environment, and their lack of national service or honor.

Republicons embody a Wide Stance, Diaper-clad kind of so-called 'con-serve-a-tism.'

And that is why Americans overwhelming reject them.

[HamdenRice]

22. Another great zinger--->

"Conservatives do not have ideas; they have interests."

How did he manage to get so many insights in such a short letter?

[AlbertCat]

37. How did he manage to get so many insights in such a short letter?

Well, for one thing, he can speak English (better than those who think it should be a "national language") and he has a vocabulary, so he understands that "ideas" and "interests" are not the same words and have different meanings.

[demconservative]

56. Only if your standards are quite low

OK - if you believe as the poster, it provides some statements that you can agree with.

However, there isn't much (anything) to back up the rhetoric - just a bunch of mindless emotional statements.

Conservatism (really, free market economics, to be clearer) is a great thing. The only problem is the same as that in other economic systems - the greed of the individuals that get the power. This is where government needs to come in, to protect us from those that acquire the power. Problem is - they have allowed themselves to be bought and controlled by those with the power. Need to dispose of all of them.

Getting rid of free market economics will just result in having those with power be part of the government - and they will take advantage of their power as well.

[clear eye]

58. You have a firm grasp of the necessity of regulation.

You would be more comfortable w/ the letter if you didn't (falsely) self-identify as a conservative. Conservatives, classic or neo-, have never seen anything positive in regulation. Maybe it's time to let the label go?

[olegramps]

62. Conservatism is just another name for Legalized Greed.

It is the antithesis of real Justice and legitimizes a CEO of a health insurance company making hundreds of millions of dollars a year while denying coverage to customers who bought their lousy policies with a thousand loop holes.

[Betty Karlson]

20. I'm enclined to agree with Mister Hayward, though

Bad as it is that modern conservatism has destroyed the American nation (with collateral damage to the rest of the planet), it is even worse that it continues to NOT intellectually challenge liberalism.

The result of that is:

1) There will be only liberalism as an ideology. Most countries get better from an exchange of ideas. By failing to provide the opposing view, conservatism CONTINUES to fail to America, even out of power.

2) In the (God forbid) event neo-conservatives return to power, they will not have an ideology, leaving naked power in charge. Fail again.

3) Without opposing views, there is no middle ground. By consequence, America in its entirety will loose its already defective ability to compromise. That's the very last thing we all need.

4) Worst, without an ideology to challenge liberalism, modern conservatism will resort to other means of opposition: Birth Certificates, Tea Bags, all Epithets imagineable, even violence. Without an ideology, those who disagree with Mr Obama have no outlet for their frustrations. As such, modern conservatism even fails its own supporters, subjugating them to debilitating expressions of their dissent.

Wrong behaviour is, certainly, wrong. But not repenting is even more wrong. That's what modern conservatism is doing now. How wrong does it intend to become?

[Overseas]

23. K&R. //nt

[DailyGrind51]

24. Thank you! This is, by far, the most succinct definition I have read to date.

[Demoiselle]

25. Wow Wow Wow.

It is the best LTTE ever written!
Thank you. Can we post it permanently somewhere on the DU home page?

[Iwillnevergiveup]

26. Yup - Mr. Rosen nailed it

K&R

:kick:

[SpiralHawk]

27. Bears repeating

"Conservatives do not have ideas; they have NARROW SELF-interests"

[frogmarch]

28. Wow!

Astounding! Pick me up off the floor!

Brilliant LTTE! :thumbsup:

[BlancheSplanchnik]

29. Awesome!! n/t

[ArbustoBuster]

31. "If conservatism isn’t dead, it should be."

Is there some way we can hasten it along on its journey off the mortal coil?

In less poetic language: How can we kill conservatism faster?

[Joe Chi Minh]

33. How about a bath-tub?

[ArbustoBuster]

55. I like your sense of irony.

[Mithreal]

32. K & R

[WillyT]

35. Oooo... That's Gonna Leave A Mark, LOL !!! - K & R !!!

:rofl:

:toast:

:kick:

[Joe Chi Minh]

36. As brilliant as it's succinct. No ideas... just interests.

[bertman]

38. Rec and kick for an excellent LTE.

[classof56]

40. And yet, just yesterday I saw this bumper sticker:

PALIN12
CONSERVATISM LIVES

I stopped. I laughed. I shook my head. I walked on, my heart sinking at what might be behind this sentiment.

Now I know--Conservatives do not have ideas; they have interests. If conservatism isn't dead, it should be.

Thank you, Daniel Rosen, for so succinctly countering the "Conservatism Lives" mentality. I shall remember your words!

[Locrian]

42. best. letter. ever.

Short, honest, to the point. Brilliant.

[Orrex]

43. Daniel Rosen the juggler?

Cool.

[left of center]

47. Conservatives have been wrecking the country by...

... cutting taxes every election year to get elected, distracting us with costly wars, and borrowing more money to fund those tax cuts and wars, and they did it all while allowing our public institutions and infrastructure to literally crumble!

[lisa58]

48. wow...just wow

[moondust]

49. All they really want

is the U.S. Treasury transferred to their own private accounts and those of their cronies. Perhaps they would accept a one-time buyout if they would agree to stay away from our gov't and stop screwing up millions of people's lives.

K/R

[EVDebs]

50. Gore Vidal's comment on 'this odd little woman' Ayn Rand -- classic !

"Now, before I’m investigated for having taken the un-American stand that sex is a minor department of morality, let me try to show what I think is morally important. Ayn Rand is a rhetorician who writes novels I have never been able to read. She has just published a book, For the New Intellectual, subtitled The Philosophy of Ayn Rand; it is a collection of pensées and arias from her novels and it must be read to be believed. Herewith, a few excerpts from the Rand collection.

• “It was the morality of altruism that undercut American and is now destroying her.”

• “Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society. Today, the conflict has reached its ultimate climax; the choice is clear-cut: either a new morality of rational self-interest, with its consequence of freedom…or the primordial morality of altruism with its consequences of slavery, etc.”

• Then from one of her arias for heldentenor: “I am done with the monster of ‘we,’ the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame. And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: ‘I.’”

• “The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man’s first duty is to himself.”

• “To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men.”

• “The creed of sacrifice is a morality for the immoral….”

This odd little woman is attempting to give a moral sanction to greed and self interest, and to pull it off she must at times indulge in purest Orwellian newspeak of the “freedom is slavery” sort. What interests me most about her is not the absurdity of her “philosophy,” but the size of her audience (in my campaign for the House she was the one writer people knew and talked about). She has a great attraction for simple people who are puzzled by organized society, who object to paying taxes, who dislike the “welfare” state, who feel guilt at the thought of the suffering of others but who would like to harden their hearts. For them, she has an enticing prescription: altruism is the root of all evil, self-interest is the only good, and if you’re dumb or incompetent that’s your lookout.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/gore-vidal-archive/comment-0761#ixzz0TfpoQXb3


http://www.esquire.com/features/gore-vidal-archive/comment-0761

[demconservative]

57. Rand would have destroyed Vidal in debate

Watch her debates with Phil Donahue on YouTube - wasn't even a contest, Donahue was completely outclassed.

[Lasher]

59. Rand's work was fiction - all of it.

Amazing how some people still cling to laissez-faire capitalism after what it just did to our economy.

[EVDebs]

60. "She sucks so hard her jaw must still be sore"....

Ayn Rand Sucks (words and music by Matthew Grimm)

She pulled herself up by her bootstraps, from the magnate schools and sandtraps of the
Gritty streets of the northshore burbs
With but her wits and her trustfund, she set herself off from the poor and dumb
Whom she would gladly kick back to the curb

See all her piercings and tattoos belie her straight conformo views as spewed by
Think tanks, Wall Street, all the rightwing thugs
She’s kinda smart but not enough, cause her facebook page lists all the steruff
she likes, foremost them Atlas Shrugged

(But) Ayn Rand sucks
She wrote really badly workmanlike and dogmatically
Ayn Rand sucks like any other high-priced whore
Ayn Rand sucks
Overwrought and deified harlequin romance scribe
She sucks so hard her jaw must still be sore

The Unseen Hand might lift all yachts
But the rest it seems to punch right in the dick
“Enlightened self-interest” is a goddamn oxymoron
Used by lazy-thinking douchebags to be narcissistic pricks

She says Ron Paul is cool, though he’d defund her hipster school
Mainlines Friedman’s fascist crap like bathtub crank
Says the cream will always rise by DNA and enterprise
But denies she’s just another Nazi skank

(But) Ayn Rand sucks
She wrote really badly workmanlike and dogmatically
Ayn Rand sucks like any other high-priced whore
Ayn Rand sucks
Overwrought and deified harlequin romance scribe
She sucks so hard her jaw must still be sore

Ayn Rand sucks
She wrote really badly, hamfistedly, dogmatically
Ayn Rand sucks beyond all circumstance and pomp
Ayn Rand sucks
If rich folks’re all so keen, what’s with the meltdowns and subpoenas
Mein Kampf by other names is still Mein Kampf

http://www.redsmear.com/dea.php

also, hear it at Matthew Grimm & The Red Smear's myspace page at

http://www.myspace.com/redsmear

(it's usually the top song in the
music player box upper right hand area)

[Lasher]

61. Hah!

Well looks like our libertarian wingnut got tombstoned.

[olegramps]

63. Your opinion is just that, not fact.

Rand is the apologist for tyranny. The apologist for the worst of mankind's greedy instincts.

[alp227]

51. kudos to the WaPo editor

for daring to pull an Alan Grayson

[BrklynLiberal]

52. Short and sweeeeeet!!!

I cannot accept the concept of "rational", even in the form "rationalizers", in the same context as Conservatives.

It implies a certain level of intellectual reasoning that I cannot attribute to them. No how. No way.

If anything, they are totally IRrational....

[Mad_Dem_X]

53. Perfect! :)

[yurbud]

54. they published that?! wow.