Ignorance is a bliss indeed. Few years ago (2005-2006 approximately) one poster on a Czech discussion forum linked to two blogs, Gates of Vienna and Little Green Footballs (I will go with the tradition of not linking that place, the link will direct you to a cached version of the site). In the case of the Gates I still return there from time to time, they supply just the information I want, i.e. nice stories from multicultural utopia. With the LGF I came there, I saw, I shook my head and I left. The whole place seemed a little too hysterical and neoconservtive (I will return to this accusation later in the post) and what was that annoying lizard thing about?
The discussion members looked like a pack of rabid dogs fighting over a bone and the content was centered around the idiotic wars in Iraq and Afghanistan something I never agreed with. Neither did I ever agree with pointing out oppressive Islamic cultural practices in traditionally Islamic countries, it is enough that we have minorities in the West who demand Sharia law and what Muslims do in their homelands in none of my business or interest. Pointing out these horrific stories serves the purpose of legitimating Western military interventions more than advancing the anti-immigration discourse. Hunting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan slowly became a fight for democracy and human rights because absence of bin Laden in prison rendered that argument irrelevant, just to give you an example. So I found little of interest there.
Charles Johnson the owner of LGF turned out to be a real Mr.Johnson since the first time I encountered his blog. He kicked out many of the pro free speech and truly conservative posters for simply disagreeing with him or some of his sycophants. I should not care about this because I was never part of the community anyway but there is more to it which is worth my post. Mr.Johnson attacked true conservatives not only in the US (Ron Paul) but in Europe as well, he claimed Vlaams Belang and Swedish Democrats are Nazis basically repeating the lies and smears of the gutter press. In this way he alienated most of the anti-jihad crowd, the Gates including.
In reality Mr.Johnson was never a conservative, he was a neocon, a Trotskyite in disguise. I know he was anti-Islam or that he uncovered manipulating photos from the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war. Being anti-Muslim or cheering up for a war with them (Iraq and Afghanistan was pointless and Lebanon not our business) doesn't make you in any way conservative. Christopher Hitchens is just that and self-proclaimed Trotskyite, the neocons are former Trotskyites who just hate hippies and use conservatism as a cover. Charles started bashing and banning the Creationsts, while I do not agree with the Intelligent design people either, these people are one of the core constituents of the conservatives in America. If Charles was a conservative he would accept those people's presence and make his position known through blog instalments without the unnecessary bans. But Charles is commie, he thinks that people are too stupid and only he and his clique know the answers, if you do not conform to their vision they ban you (or put you in gulag). The idea is very much like the discourse of humanitarian intervention, if the Afghan women do not change burka for bikini we have a right to force them into it.
But just as with the neocon administration of George W. Bush, a lot of conservatives jumped on the train, gullibly believing that Charles and the lizard crowd were their saviours. Many of those that were thrown out of the place still can't get over the fact and establish blogs devoted to their grief (see here and here and here), others periodically return to that place out of nostalgia. I think this phenomenon needs to be studied by psychologists as a case of mass psychosis. Johnson is a neocon, he always was, the proof of it being that he hates the tea-parties that essentially started as a reaction to government bailouts, a policy started by Bush.
A discussion on fake conservatives would be a nice topic for another post, so I just finish this one here and perhaps return to the issue in a later instalment. Meanwhile it is good to discern them before you fall under their spell.
PS: Thinking about the whole thing I came to the conclusion that Mr. Johnson goes about promoting the hype only out of the wish for ratings. He doesn't write his blog just for the sake of writing it but does so out of the wish to make money. Fringe elements in his calculation need to be eliminated so that he can sell his product better. It's all about the money, pure and simple.