Conservatism, once again, is shown to be less a politics than a diagnosis.
Werner Patels appears to be off his meds. Junior chickenhawk Adrian MacNair spares us, at least, his hopelessly bad writing this time, except for his garbled lede.
No doubt this is merely scratching the reeking surface of Blogging Tory sado-politics. Readers are cordially invited to add to the catalogue.
The students in question, by the way, two of whom were hospitalized, some coughing up blood after pepperspray was deliberately blasted down their throats, are now reported to be filing a massive civil liberties lawsuit. If so, it’ll a slam-dunk for the good guys, and that’s going to have consequences.
The embattled 1%er Linda Katehi is about to offer us all an object lesson in how the system works.
Katehi has already called for an “investigation” into the conduct of the police she herself unleashed, and both the police chief and the infamous John Pike have been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome. The mindless servitors of the 1% are always expendable, particularly when the 1% itself comes under direct threat.
This is not likely to be the all-too-familar faked-up process established to exonerate bad cops. The results of Pike’s actions are far too serious for that sort of foolishness. I suspect that his days in service are about to come to an end, and possibly those of Chief Annette Spicuzza.
But people like Katehi live in a charmed circle. Even if she does finally resign “for the good of the University of California,” meaning that she will have cost it a bundle in reputation and considerable money when all this is over, she’ll fall on her feet or be kicked upstairs. The 1% always takes care of its own.
Which brings me back to the Blogging Tories and their southern cousins—assorted Teahadists, armchair assassins, torture enthusiasts, libertarian-except-fors, birthers, social Darwinists and Franco-nostalgists. They, too, are expendable, every last one of them, convenient cannon-fodder for the 1%. Some will learn this lesson the hard way, others will sleepwalk to their graves.
And speaking of lesson-learning, Dan Gardner points us this morning to a surprisingly good essay by our own David Frum, which can be summarized thus: “My Republican Party has been taken over by crazy people.” It can’t have been easy for him, noticing that the folks that he had ventured south to join were suddenly all wearing clown noses and speaking in tongues.
Kudos to an intellectually honest Canadian, one not remotely of my political stripe. But he’s a voice in the wilderness, and these days he’d be one here as well. Like its American counterpart, conservatism in Canada has become a celebration of ignorance, fear and the infliction of suffering.
Doubt me? Go read the Blogging Tories.