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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 11, 2024

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I do wish we had more representation for the sort of old-school Reagan/Bush conservatism he embodied.

I don't. I mean, to the extent that having diverse views has intrinsic value, it's good to have more people to engage with as far as that goes, but I don't think it actually goes very far. This strain of conservatism is the most common strain that I encounter in real life, most frequently from family members, and I just don't actually find it interesting at all. I rarely encounter anything original coming from that intellectual position, often to the point that reactions to modern events feel downright stunted by a need to relate everything back to how Reagan would have handled it or drawing tenuous analogies to events from a bygone era. Doing another lap around how Dems are the real racists (did you know what side of the Civil War they were on???) is just not interesting at this point. Overall, it's the same experience as going back and doing the New Atheist arguments all over again as though it's still pretty fresh; personally, I don't really need a center-right version of PZ Myers, complete with all the unearned smugness.

This doesn't all apply to Hlynka, who I liked more than the median poster here apparently does, but it is what I think about '80s conservatism more broadly. I'd much rather engage with a Buchananite than a Reaganite if I'm going to get '80s right-wing politics brought forward.

I'd much rather engage with a Buchananite than a Reaganite if I'm going to get '80s right-wing politics brought forward.

I have a feeling that I'm the closest thing we have to a Buchananite here, and even I have a decent number of views that an 80's-90's era Buchananite would see as beyond the pale. Mostly because I've got a bit of a crypto-anarchist streak. At least when I'm not channeling Uncle Ted.

I am a registered member of the Constitution Party though.