Conservatives Without Conscience

This is a person who never had an original or interesting thought in her life. Reading Miers is like suffocating under a mountain of polystyrene packing blobbles. What on earth does it say about the President that, knowing, as he must have, how completely and irredeemably second-rate she is, he would put her name forward? The world, certainly in places like the Supreme Court, is a never-ending war of ideas. To ask which side of this war Ms. Miers would fight on is pointless. She doesn’t know the war is underway; and if she knew, she’d probably think it could easily be brought to an end if we’d all just be nicer to each other.[62]

Notwithstanding a number of less than subtle signals from the White House that Ms. Miers, a born-again evangelical Christian, would indeed vote the way conservatives wished on issues like abortion, school prayer, sex education, and other social issues, she was eventually forced to withdraw her nomination.

A close study of conservatives reveals an interesting trait: These people do not see themselves as they actually are, but rather as something very different. In short, they seem to have little facility for self-analysis. Consider, for example, Derbyshire’s mean-spirited remarks about Harriet Miers, and now listen to Derbyshire’s take on himself, when he says he “started reading [the National Review] in the late 1970s, and it has always kept that agreeable, tolerant, gentlemanly tone, and as long as it keeps it, I shall be an NR reader (and, I hope, contributor). The tone comes, of course, from the personality of the founder, Bill Buckley, who is one of the most good-natured men I have ever met—a true American gentleman.”[63] Could a man as intelligent as Derbyshire actually believe his comments about Ms. Miers were “gentlemanly”? Not surprisingly, the very conservatives who love to hurl invective against the ranks of their enemies prove to have the thinnest of skins when the same is done to them. Many of the examples are familiar: Ann Coulter, who can trash perceived liberals on national television but has been known to walk offstage when booed, or to start crying when she thinks she is being treated unfairly; Rush Limbaugh, who also makes his living saying unkind things about those with whom he disagrees, thought it unfair, as did his followers, when his addiction to OxyContin was reported, along with the dubious means he serviced his habit, despite his own attacks on others who use drugs. Similarly, Mr. Virtue, William Bennett, apparently found nothing ironic or contradictory in his preaching (and selling) virtue while being a compulsive gambler himself, and was angry when he was found out.

Conservatives Are Often Illogical, Inconsistent, and Contradictory

Many conservatives, particularly those who are clearly authoritarians, are not aware of their illogical, contradictory, and hypocritical thinking. If made cognizant of it, they either rationalize it away, neglect to care, or attack those who reveal their human weaknesses. Because such thinking seems to be a reality of contemporary conservatism, anyone who operates from a logical mind, or has an inclination for reasoned judgment, can have trouble with it. Social conservatives are especially susceptible to irrational beliefs, as a few examples will show.