On the ‘intellectual superiority’ of conservatism: reply to James Delingpole
Posted on Tuesday 9 March, 2010
Filed Under Conservative Party
I’M ALL for the coinage of snazzy neologisms, and I have never been big on political correctness. But premising an argument for the intellectual superiority of conservatism on the contention that anybody not blinded by the right is perforce a ‘libtard’ seems to sink the underlying contention straight away.
Yet such is the thesis of a blog post hosted by the Telegraph website yesterday, hot off the keyboard of one James Delingpole. For those that haven’t had the pleasure, this guy is a two-bob shock jock wannabe, who routinely adopts a writing tone reminiscent of Rush Limbaugh going cold turkey on the hydrocodone. That’s just to prove how really, really outrageous he can be, you understand.
Let’s leave aside what the casual deployment of a portmanteau word conflating ‘liberal’ and ‘retard’ reveals about his attitudes towards people with learning disabilities. Sick jokes can make a point, if they are funny. But it is not just humourless lefties that won’t feel particularly inclined to ROTFLMAO at this one.
Cutting to the chase, Delingpole knows why British politics is in such a dire state. No, nothing to do with popular distaste for politicos who stick their moat cleaning and duck house purchase bills on their exes.
Nor is it down to the electorate’s realisation that all major parties are intent on huge scale spending cuts to pick up the tab for bankers’ bonuses. The explanation really is rather more simple than that; evil libtards are stopping the punters from hearing the ideology of the one true free market right.
‘[T]he language of debate has been hijacked so comprehensively by the liberal left that not even conservatives dare speak up for right-wing views any more for fear of being dismissed as extremist.’
Yep, we’ve have got our oars in everywhere, with the BBC in the clutches of a brand of ‘insidious leftism’ inculcated by ‘socialists like Ken Livingstone, Tony Benn, Ken Clarke, [and] Dave Cameron’. The baleful influence of ‘Guardianistas and redbrick-junior-common-room-Spartists’ is apparent everywhere, not least in the ‘student-rag left-liberal blogosphere’.
The problem with the Young Britons’ Foundation – the hard right faction that takes Tory teenyboppers to rifle ranges and argues that the NHS is the biggest waste of money in the UK – is that it is ‘not extremist enough’, Delingpole opines. Presumably he thinks they should be learning to drive tanks as well.
But then again, we libtards probably just don’t get it. That’s because we are characterised by an aversion to big ideas. Liberty, empiricism, small state, low taxation? They don’t get round to teaching us that shit in state schools, so we never debate on this terrain.
‘[T]hese are right-wing arguments which [libtards] will always lose. Hence their tendency to shut down the debate whenever they can by shifting the argument ad hominem.’
Read that one again, slowly. The man who starts off by branding those who disagree with him as retards then turns around and accuses his opponents of mounting … ad hominem attacks. Logical consistency is not your big thing, is it, James?
What’s more, the assertion is simply wrong. There is nothing inherently rightist about either liberty or empiricism, and states don’t get any smaller than after they have withered away. Oh, and any on-the-ball leftie will be au fait with current rightist thinking on economics and the failings thereof. We are not as dumbass as Delingpole would like to think.
And James, to put the matter in language of which you would presumably approve; if your team are too pussy to speak their brains, it’s hardly our fault, is it?
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29 Responses to “On the ‘intellectual superiority’ of conservatism: reply to James Delingpole”
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Classic tactic of the apologists for the ruling class, when their system fucks up lets blame it on socialism.
They have been trying this for decades. So their system is beyong criticism – that really is shutting the debate down.
It couldn’t possibly be anything inherently wrong with their system.
Though I am guessing Modernity agrees with everything he has to say. Come to think of it, it couldn’t be could it?
Come off it Dean, Modernity may be an irritating ****, but he’s our irritating ****.
Possibly but he makes the same arguments – the left are intellectually bankrupt etc.
I don’t think he blames capitalisms crises on socialism however.
All well put Dave, though I don’t really think this feeble streak of piss is worthy of you wasting your metaphorical ink in reply (have you ever seen Delingpole on TV? Its always pleasing when someone’s speaking and presentational style are every bit as underwhelming as their writing.)
James Delingpole seems to be another one of those useless rather slow-witted products of Oxbridge.
His arguments are largely co-opted (as Dave points out) from rightwing conservative headbangers in America.
Delingpole’s arguments are paperthin and wouldn’t convince a drunken, aged ex-Colonel sleeping his way through another rubber chicken event on the Tory circuit.
Delingpole is probably positioning himself for some job in a conservative think tank or still worse a Thatcherite Cameron government.
But no one really gives a shit what some mouthy young Tory says.
And certainly not the working classes/underclass we’d heard such lies and stupidity all our lives, still it doesn’t make it any better as New Labour politicians scamper around trying to copy a watered-down version of the Tory cretins’ agenda.
I notice the QT referred to doesn’t seem to be the one pictured. Though that didn’t stop one of the commenters from patronising Salma Yaqoob for wearing a headscarf indoors.
I’d disagree with modernity that this can be dismissed as meaningless,there is an ongoing attempt by supporters of capitalism to distort political debate so that only right-wing answers can appear to provide any solution, and the more they succeed in dominating the media the more they can achieve such distortion. Delingpole may be more devious than dumb in being an outrider for this process.
I didn’t say it was meaningless, I said we’ve heard it all before.
I do wonder if the default position of some people here is to **disagree**, irrespective of the merits of the discussion.
I suspect that if I said “the Sun is hot” then some argumentative eejit would want to argue the contrary!
Modernities view that if he said the Sun was hot many of us would disagree for the sake of it is wholly mistaken.
having said that johng,
Per square foot the sun is actually cooler than a human being!
modernity. You are right but maybe not all have heard it all before. I have been listening to the Tory machine since MacMillan. Same old right wing crap. Blame the workers and dole scroungers. Then along comes the single mothers issue to give them more crap. The trouble is a lot of the workers fall for this until they themselves end up on the dole. It goes on and on.
Like it or not, the NHS is a wasteful mess, with too many Chiefs shuffling papers and staring at computer screens and spending time in endless meaningless meetings … and not enough people doing humble jobs for the patients’ welfare well and effectively.
Ask any nurse.
While we’re on the subject of the Tories and what they have in their skulls, some of them are prepared to talk about real issues, unlike – say – Postman Pat and the appalling Harperson:
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2010/03/09/paul-goodman-mp-we-need-a-select-committee-inquiry-into-anti-muslim-hatred/
And, if clicking here, DO follow the link given to CONSERVATIVE HOME
I deliberately refrained from checking the site out for ages because of the sheer awfulness of the associations of the words ‘Conservative’ and ‘Home’ together; budgies and cardigans and Union Jacks and standing up for the anthem after the Queen’s Christmas speech on telly … but in fact CONSERVATIVE HOME is not at all a bad site and one is NOT booted off, as one is on SOCIALIST UNITY!
And talking of thoughtful stuff from ungoodthinkful sources, there’s this:
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4350
I am NOT an unswerving fan of Brussels Journal but they do say some good stuff some of the time!
Brilliant stuff Dean. I’m glad to see that you have exposed the pre-scientific buffoonery of MR modernity. Lets see him try and get out of that one.
Bill Corr. Someone has to do the admin in hospitals. Are you an expert on the staffing levels!
Hydrocodone? I suppose I could look it up, but … ‘ROTFLMAO’ ? ‘ Roll on the floor laughing my ass off’? Do you DO that? Is that what Hydrocodone does?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/09/smoothies-party-rich-tories-brand
Delete Corr and his fellow travelers.
See below comments for desired method.
Thank you.
Delingpole makes Dan Hannan appear sensible. He’s completely off his face, and like Hannan, is one of those baby faced rightist Tories that really get on my nerves.
Do I have fellow-travellers? News to me! I can only hope that the next step is becoming a gay icon?
Will deserves our thanks to the Al-Grauniad link but why he feels I deserve deletion is beyond me.
Being deleted from SOCIALIST UNITY is something one reasonably expects as a consequence of expressing ungoodthinkful opinions but this is a more tolerant place.
Right?
And Jimmy – my info. about the NHS is from nurse-moles [a word most of you/us never saw before.] One nurse-mole – now in her fifties – told me how furious she was to learn that a short course on geriatric care was further shortened so that trainee nurses could watch a video about poverty in Russia.
Will, 01:59. Excellent Link and so true for a change.
Bill Corr. I have been attending hospital for as long as I can remember and have received an excellent service from the NHS. Any organisation can have local problems and politicians of all persuassions will use this as a political football. The hospital and clinic building programme in Scotland moved at a fast pace (although it does take time to build them) since 1997. Remember who turned our hospitals into filth with the cleaning privatisation contracts! Who got the contacts Bill! Maybe friends of the Tories. Remember the retired army officers being put in charge of the Tory Trusts. You do need solid good men to make the cuts Bill, dont you.
Jimmy – PFI and outsourcing / privatisation was the very worst way to go, agreed!
If ever a situation called for workers’ power, it would be the NHS; the BMA, Royal College of Nursing [and so on] would know how to run a hospital; I’m appalled that this has never – to the best of my knowledge – been tried in the Uk.
Correct me if I’m wrong.
I can tell by that comment that you’ve never worked in a hospital Bill. They do require some sort of administration and paperwork, and most doctors and nurses couldn’t give a toss about them.
Oh, and it’s not just doctors and nurses that work in hospitals, as many people forget.
Despite my username (as Jimmy Glega wittily noted recently) I work in public sector administration. Though there may be some frontline staff – doctors, nurses, teachers, etc – who think that their patients/students/clients just magically appear in the right place at the right time with the right papers, and their salaries, equipment and messages magically all also arrive on time, most (in my experience) are well aware of the importance of backroom support staff.
It’s a shame that so many, like Bill, appear not to be.
Bill Corr. The people doing the admin are workers just like the rest. In any case the Tories never wanted the NHS. Imagine all those tens of thousands of armed forces returning from WW2 and demanding a better deal on health. Only to be told by the well off we dont mind you fighting for us but dont expect us to help you when you are unwell. Attlee had to pay off the SCUMBAG Tory doctors to get the NHS. Same old Tories Bill they are greedy baskets.
Whenever anyone mentions the NHS, everyone has a valuable experience to relate.
There’s this from Al-Grauniad about a place nobody would be eager to live:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/11/debora-orr-immigration
He does have a point though. The left have been working from the inside for the last 50 years to make the UK a deeply unpleasant place. It seems to have worked too as Britain is a land of zero aspiration, where the poor are kept down in their place (who else would vote Labour in their right mind?) through terrible education and the Labour idea of charging everyone to go to university, regardless of ability. It can’t be a coincidence that almost all teachers are unbelievably left wing, Guardian reading lunatics.
The state we’re in is largely down to the success-hating nutters who have infiltrated our town halls, our schools and the Civil Service. They’re even now pulling the debate in Parliament to one side to the extent that immigration, the climate change myth, benefit reform and a myriad of other subjects can’t be discussed properly for fear of upsetting some sensitive souls in Islington.