Ten Most Dangerous Things that Conservatives Do/Think

Posted on June 1, 2005 in Censorship Liberals & Progressives

There are days when you can’t find one of your shoes. When you go out, you discover another shoe of the same size if not the same style. This happens sometimes. We remember the coincidence because it is meaningful in the context of our day.

I just finished rereading Fahrenheit 451 and took part in a discussion of it last night. Today, I went to check Swerve Left and Karlo has posted a list of what conservatives describe as the “ten most harmful books”. I can sniff the kerosene all over the post. The silhouette of a salamander flutters over it. Light the match, the compilers of the list say, and burn it.

What are the ten? Some will not surprise you. Others tell us a great deal about the paranoid mindset of the censors:

1. The Communist Manifesto
2. Mein Kampf
3. Quotations from Chairman Mao
4. The Kinsey Report
5. Democracy and Education by John Dewey
6. Das Kapital
7. The Feminine Mystique
8. The Course of Positive Philosophy by Comte
9. Beyond Good and Evil
10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by Keynes

I am not one to call for the burning of books. Therefore you won’t read a list of my most dangerous books. Nor will I compile a conservative enemy’s list. Both of these activities call for elimination: of thought or of persons. But it is fair to list the ten worst ideas, actions and attitudes that the extreme wRong perform in this society:

1. The placement of profit over every other value, including moral ones.
2. Denial of atrocity or minimizing the signifigance of atrocity committed by their own.
3. The compilation of enemies lists. McCarthyism/Coulterism.
4. The compilation of “bad” books lists.
5. Insistance that the tax burden be placed on those who can afford it the least.
6. The usurpation of civil liberties in the name of security.
7. Monopolization of the media so that only their voices can be heard. The use of doublespeak in those forums so that people do not know what the administration is actually up to.
8. The insistance that personal character is more important than policy. The use of this to hinder investigation.
9. The use of disinformation to obscure facts in the name of preventing reasonable discourse about current problems. This includes the Straussian technique of writing./speaking in such a manner that your true intentions cannot be discerned.
10. The use of fringe moral values as a way of distracting citizens from issues that affect their prosperity and job security.

If you have your own list or wish to add to mine, feel free to do so. When conservatives place the emphasis on books they are merely attempting to deny the fact that their philosophy is morally dessicated. Liberals and progressives, on the other hand, offer a far more succulent alternative. The wRong are dealers of dried carrots who don’t want you tasting what is fresh.