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Conservatives, don’t legitimize the left’s tactics against Arnold!
Alan Keyes and other moral conservatives—a camp with which I’m generally in agreement—have taken an excessively stern view of the sex charges against Arnold Schwarzenegger. As one of our participants has pointed out, the moral conservatives criticize other conservatives “who want to give the actor a free pass on the groping charges which of course leaves them with no basis for having attacked Bill Clinton apart from blind partisanship.” This is wrong-headed in my opinion. Moral conservatives such as Keyes, Joseph Farah, and Tom McClintock ignore the fact that we’re not in a pristine environment here; there’s some history here, the working rules have been changed. The liberals, who control the ground rules for public discourse, established that “private” sexual misbehavior, particularly a “single grope” which when rebuffed was not followed by another, was not a basis for criticizing a public official. While conservatives certainly have the right to keep to the old moral rules that existed before the liberals re-wrote them, the liberals do not have the right to invoke the old rules whenever it suits their purposes; and conservatives should do nothing that helps them do that. Second, substantively, the cases of Clinton and Arnold are entirely different. Arnold’s behavior was mostly decades ago as a body builder and actor, he was not a public official, there was no intimidation, no coercion, no use of state troopers, no bringing a young woman into a gubernatorial guarded hotel suite and dropping his pants, no sodomistic use of a 21-year-old secretary in the office of the President of the United States, no rape of a political supporter in a Little Rock hotel room followed by “Put ice on that.” In contrast with those monstrous abuses of power by Clinton, Arnold’s behavior seems more that of a boisterous boy. A lady friend tells me she doubts whether any women were really traumatized by his conduct. But the most important thing is that to jump on Arnold for this now is to legitimize the “hit-job” journalism practiced by the L.A. Times. Remember, they didn’t bring out this story to inform the public. They brought out this story in order to kill Arnold’s election at the last minute. As detailed in an incredible story in the L.A. Weekly, the L.A. Times even informed the Davis campaign when the story would be coming out, so that Davis would be ready with his own attacks on Arnold last Thursday. To let the left get away with this would be to let them have a potent weapon that they can use at any time to destroy their political enemies, namely us, even as they remain permanently immune to the same sort of charges. This political misuse of the media is far more dangerous to the rule of law and public morality than a governor who when he was an actor playfully grabbed women on a movie set.
I write this as one who does not support Arnold Schwarzenegger politically and would probably not vote for him if I were a Californian. But to allow him to be defeated over these groping charges would hand a huge victory to the evil left. I almost think I would vote for him, in order to prevent that from happening. Comments
Here is another way of looking at it. The left in California goes beserk at the idea of a relatively liberal Republican winning the California governorship. The lesson for this is that we might as well go conservative all the way. Since we are going to be demonized anyway, why not stand up for what we believe, rather than wasting our time with someone like GWB. This lesson never does sink in with Republicans. Yes, I agree that Davis must be defeated in the Recall. Posted by: David on October 7, 2003 2:14 PMI agree 100 percent with David. For the same price, we could tell the truth and stand for what we really believe in. What would the left do? Call us haters, bigots, oppressors? Speak as though American democracy is about to be destroyed if one of us got elected? But the left is _already_ making such attacks, against liberal leaning Republicans like Bush and Scharzenegger. Posted by: Lawrence Auster on October 7, 2003 2:21 PMI agree that the LA Times has been induging in “hit-piece” journalism all the way with this issue. The difference in importance between what may or may not have been bad behavior on the part of an actor in private life as opposed to the confirmed abominable behavior an elected a state official is likewise a legitimate point - one that would be utterly incomprehensible by the majority of the electorate I expect, given the leftist defined ground rules in place. I think the best thing for conservatives to do about the accusations is to point out the illegitimacy of the source and reserve judgement for the time being. That said, why do we have to agree to leftist ground rules at all? Aren’t we indulging in a bit of mambo dancing ourselves by doing so? The thrust of my criticism of Schwarzenegger, like that of Keyes and Farah, is that he is yet another liberal Republican who will do nothing to change the disasterous direction that California is headed in. With Arnold in the governor’s chair, there will be even less opportunity to oppose the radical leftist agenda of the California lkegislature. Since he is basically a political enemy, there is little point of supporting him when there is a more conservative alternative on the ballot. Refusing to support Schwarzenegger insn’t the same thing as joining with the hard left in an illegitimate attack. One of Keyes’ main points was that pseudo-Republicans like Arnold are even worse for conservatism’s survival than overt out-of-the-closet leftists like Davis and Bustamente. The same can be said for George W. Bush, who has done as much damage to the nation’s fabric as his predecessor with hardly a squeak of complaint form all the mainstream conservatives. It’s better to face an enemy head on instead of hoping for the best while getting repeatedly stabbed in the back. The whole affair points up another phenomenom that has been mentioned on this forum: The Hagelian mambo has carried things so far leftward in this society that liberals like Schwarzenegger are demonized by the hard left while any actual conservative is simply off the radar screen altogether. Posted by: Carl on October 7, 2003 5:08 PMCarl agrees with me on the main point, that conservatives should not join the leftist-generated attack on Arnold over the groping charges. On his second point, I did not mean that we should accept the left’s ground rules, but that WE should not rush to allow THEM to alter THEIR (previously re-written) ground rules when it suits them. I don’t have any disagreement with Carl’s political critique of Arnold. If you want to oppose him, oppose him. As I said, I don’t think it should be on the basis of the L.A. Times’ hit-job. Posted by: Lawrence Auster on October 7, 2003 5:32 PMPrior to the revelations about impeached former “president” Clinton’s ( * ) extra-marital sex life the Dems, under the control of butch lesbians and their allies, had instituted a veritable reign of terror surrounding the entire subject of men’s private non-marital affairs with women, as part of their general anti-white-male campaign. A third or more of women’s-lib leadership being lesbian (as high as two-thirds has been claimed), the idea of men having physical intimacy with women is for much of that leadership (and much of the heavily-lesbian rank-and-file) a cause of furious, violent jealousy and passionate hatred directed against men. Those who’ve seen at first hand lesbian jealousy of men the lesbians view as rivals for the affections of women will know what I’m talking about. It’s jealous rage of a scope, an immenseness, that can be frightening to see. It’s not for nothing that Somerset Maugham (himself a homosexual, as is known) suspected that Emily Brontë was a repressed lesbian: Heathcliff by this scenario represented a literary personification of precisely that volcanic, diabolical, all-destroying blind jealous rage lesbians are capable of feeling against those they perceive as rivals for the women they covet. It had gotten to the point where the lesbians hounded liberal Republican Bob Packwood out of the Senate for peccadillos as insignificant as having given an unsolicited peck on the cheek, or a gauche, unwanted hug or something, to some female office staff person thirteen years previously (as if anybody in his right mind cared, or would want to dredge stuff like that up from some creep like Packwood’s past or listen to it told by the even creepier former office staff coming forth to solemnly, “oh-so-woundedly” recount thirteen years later how they’d gotten hugged once without really wanting it), and fabricated the Tail Hook “scandal” out of nothing — the one in which a woman Air Force officer who did her best to provoke hot-shot combat jet fighter pilots at a party where they’d all been drinking, including her, to touch her leg, or shave it, or whatever it was, then decided to complain about it the next day out of embarrassment at her own behavior and because she was tired of being in the military and saw a chance to get out with a cash settlement from the government and a lucrative book deal. The Dems and their media allies built that non-event up into a major scandal, though nothing had happened. And for that piece of pure fabrication by the lesbians heads rolled, four-star generals were cashiered, one admiral committed suicide if memory serves, and careers were ruined, in a shockingly brazen display of unbridled dyke power within the D.C. bureaucracy which put men everywhere on notice that the castration shears were out and being stropped to a razor-sharp edge in case any men so much as dared to look crossways at some female the dykes might covet for themselves. Men throughout the federal government and the military were quaking in their boots. Then here comes Clinton and Paula Jones, Juanita Broaderick, Kathleen Willey, Monica Lewinsky, etc., ad nauseam, ad infinitum — the list just didn’t end. Republicans couldn’t BELIEVE what had dropped into their laps: the Clinton administration was as good as over. But it wasn’t to be. THAT was the outrage. The outrage wasn’t what Clinton did in private with consenting females. It was the realization that what was sauce for the goose turned out not to be sauce for the gander — not even close. The dykes and their allied liberals closed ranks behind one of their own because principle had never been their interest in the first place, only tactic and expediency — a brazen case of the ends justifying any means whatsoever. And there was not a thing our side could do about it. No one cared what Clinton did in his private life with his befuddled Dem-worshipping groupies. But everyone expected principle from the other side — and didn’t get it. ( * President here is in quotation marks because certain individuals do not merit having certain titles placed before their names. I would not refer to Joseph Mengele as “Dr. Joseph Mengele,” since his actions made it that he wasn’t a real doctor no matter what diploma he had acquired. I would not refer to Bill Clinton as “President Bill Clinton,” since his actions made it that he wasn’t a real president no matter what election he’d won.) Posted by: Unadorned on October 7, 2003 8:01 PMThat’s a wonderful thumbnail sketch of the late 80s and 90s history of the leftist/feminists’ amazing 180-degree turnabout on sexual harassment after Clinton’s escapades from Unadorned. Given who they are (leftists, with their long history of doing anything for political expediency - like opposing US involvement in WWII until Stalin and Hitler parted company), this behavior should have been expected from the feminists and allies by the Republicans. The real shocker for me was the horrendous realization that Mr. Joe Six-Pack and his wife Ms. Soccer-Mom bought the whole bag of lies generated by the feminazis without question as they were spoon-fed by the media. That’s what a fine Publik Skool edukashun can do for you! Posted by: Carl on October 7, 2003 9:40 PMThat’s a wonderful thumbnail sketch of the late 80s and 90s history of the leftist/feminists’ amazing 180-degree turnabout on sexual harassment after Clinton’s escapades from Unadorned. Given who they are (leftists, with their long history of doing anything for political expediency - like opposing US involvement in WWII until Stalin and Hitler parted company), this behavior should have been expected from the feminists and allies by the Republicans. The real shocker for me was the horrendous realization that Mr. Joe Six-Pack and his wife Ms. Soccer-Mom bought the whole bag of lies generated by the feminazis without question as they were spoon-fed by the media. That’s what a fine Publik Skool edukashun can do for you! Posted by: Carl on October 7, 2003 9:41 PMThe thing you have to keep in mind about Keyes (and, I guess, Farah and McClintock, too) is that his brand of moral conservatism is based upon principle and not upon pragmatism and/or the demands of party politics.(*) Thus, to Keyes, it matters not that Schwarzenegger’s precise case is or is not analogous to Clinton’s precise case, but rather only whether he (Schwarzenegger) is or is not guilty of some moral misbehavior. If he is, Keyes says, and we don’t call him on it, then we have no room, in principle, to call Clinton on his own misbehavior. (*) I don’t believe this is necessarily always the case. There have been times when Keyes has indulged in blatant, albeit relatively mild, party skulduggery of one kind or another. But the important thing is that *Keyes* thinks it’s the case, and it’s what drives him to say the things he says. Posted by: Bubba on October 8, 2003 12:14 AMWell, the tactic has evidently failed in any case. Gov. Schwarzenneger will be an interesting figure to watch in the next few years. Posted by: Joel LeFevre on October 8, 2003 1:00 AMUnadorned’s blistering little polemic was great fun to read, and it reminds me of a commanding essay by Norman Podhoretz (of all people) in the late 90s where he laid out in detail the total bankruptcy of feminist “principles” when they were immolated to the Clintonian cynicism. Posted by: Paul Cella on October 8, 2003 9:22 AMKudos indeed to Unadorned! And the ever insightful Larry Elder has weighed in on this as well: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35001 Posted by: Joel LeFevre on October 9, 2003 2:39 AM |