I don’t know what I am politically, Fiscal Conservative for sure, but I’m not afraid of government the way Glenn Beck is. I agree with liberals who think he and his ilk are crazy. Below is a quote from a former-conservative blogger explaining really well why I can’t be with the Republicans.

I cannot support a movement that holds that purely religious doctrine should govern civil political decisions and that uses the sacredness of religious faith for the pursuit of worldly power.

I cannot support a movement that is deeply homophobic, cynically deploys fear of homosexuals to win votes, and gives off such a racist vibe that its share of the minority vote remains pitiful.

I cannot support a movement which has no real respect for the institutions of government and is prepared to use any tactic and any means to fight political warfare rather than conduct a political conversation.

Link

His blog

Here’s hoping we non-crazy libertarians/conservatives get a political party to vote for.

I’ll add a few myself. 

I can’t be a member of a party that cry “small Government!” when protecting the interests of Big Money, while crying “Morality” while empowering Big Government to control the private lives of regular people.

I can’t be a member of a party that embraces fear as a debate tactic

I can’t be a member of a party that aknowledges that “death parties” aren’t real, but readily uses the lie to argue policy.

I can’t be a member of a party that thinks Sarah Palin is capable of being President.

Prominent Blogger Renounces the Right | NJDC Blog.

I probably disagree with him on more thing than I agree, but Charles Johnson, of Little Green Footballs, when presented with a post dated cheque from a crashing bank, rejected it when he saw it. Read his post, and read Andrew Sullivan’s response too.

As I have covered several times before, extremist wingnuts is what the problem with the US Republican Party is. Theocratic, authoritarian, homophobic, and misogynist wingnuts are not interested in governing a country; they are interested in governing you.

I am certain that most right–wingers are not wingnut, the same way most left wingers are not moonbats. And yet the reasonable right–wingers are drowned out by a rabid base that is solidly us–versus–them, where wingnuts think that the “them” are absolute evil and while they hide behind empty words and doublespeaking rhetoric. And they hold the party hostage with political life or death over any moderate who dares to be moderate.

A real party would have principles. Some conservative principles are perfectly reasonable: respect for institutions, personal responsibility, intellectualism, incrementalism, fiscal responsibility; there is absolutely nothing wrong with those. What there is wrong with is denialism, extremism, hostility towards certain groups, misogyny, homophobia, theocracy, and torture are not good principles to stand for.

Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs is once again demonstrating his usual level of moral candor and intellectual honesty with a deep, bold cut to the GOP’s jugular:

Why I Parted Ways With the Right

1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.)

2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)

3. Support for throwing women back into the Dark Ages, and general religious fanaticism (see: Operation Rescue, anti-abortion groups, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, the entire religious right, etc.)

4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.)

5. Support for homophobic bigotry (see: Sarah Palin, Dobson, the entire religious right, etc.)

6. Support for anti-government lunacy (see: tea parties, militias, Fox News, Glenn Beck, etc.)

7. Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech (see: Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Birthers, creationists, climate deniers, etc.)

8. A right-wing blogosphere that is almost universally dominated by raging hate speech (see: Hot Air, Free Republic, Ace of Spades, etc.)

9. Anti-Islamic bigotry that goes far beyond simply criticizing radical Islam, into support for fascism, violence, and genocide (see: Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, etc.)

10. Hatred for President Obama that goes far beyond simply criticizing his policies, into racism, hate speech, and bizarre conspiracy theories (see: witch doctor pictures, tea parties, Birthers, Michelle Malkin, Fox News, World Net Daily, Newsmax, and every other right wing source)

And much, much more. The American right wing has gone off the rails, into the bushes, and off the cliff.

I won’t be going over the cliff with them.

As expected, his post early this morning prompted a predictable response from the right: shrieks of outrage, howls of indignation, venomous attacks on his character and accusations of betrayal and liberal leftism all across the right wing blogosphere… a veritible shitstorm of abuse and hostility, all set to the tune of seriously bad crazy.

Which prompted Charles to follow up on his original post here:

The funny thing is, that post about “Why I Parted Ways with the Right?” I wrote it in about three minutes last night. It’s been brewing in my cortex for years, and something triggered the release; exactly what, I don’t really know. Guess it was time.

Here’s an open thread while I try to get through the 437 emails that came in overnight and this morning. Lots of hate mail as you might expect, dripping with venom and serving as object examples of exactly what I wrote about.

To the surprise of absolutely no-one, the usual mob of venomous frothing Johnson haters are out in force tonight, trying to downplay the post and discredit Johnson’s character on every venue that will allow them the bandwidth to do so, and on every blog post where the writer displays even a modicum of support for Mr. Johnson.

Too late, of course: the mainstream media has taken note. The cats’ out of the bag, and it’s not going back in.

Sigmund, Carl and Alfred have responded to Johnson’s post today with an opinion piece that is absolutely spot on:

Charles Johnson Rides Off Into The Sunrise

Charles Johnson’s critique of the political Right serves to highlight the mess in which the GOP and much of the Right find themselves. His critique is equally applicable to the Left. They have their own set of ugly baggage.

Time has shown that when it comes to politics, Charles Johnson travels light. It is a lesson that Americans of all stripes need to learn.

More support coming in from Andrew Sullivan, here.

UPDATE: I’m feeling generous today. Just for the helluvit, I’ve decided to turn moderation off on this one so that my readers and visitors can see the morally upstanding and highly principaled right-wing that Charles speaks of in full flower.

So spew your filth, folks… rant and rave, spray your venom, get it all out of your system. And don’t say that I didn’t give you anything for Christmas.

The former logo for LGF

Charles Johnson of the popular blog Little Green Footballs has finally explained, in a convenient top 10 list, why he parted ways with the rightwing blogosphere and condemned many of his former allies and friends for their views. The site has been around for almost a decade, and was initially nothing more than a routine blog about bicycle racing, programming, and web design. That all changed after the September 11 attacks, when he redirected his commentary to include the War on Terror, Islam and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Charles initially found many allies on the right, because blogs that promoted an active role in the War on Terror, confronting the enemy in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other rogue states, were key foreign policy planks of the Bush administration. But the real claim to his fame came in the role of exposing the authenticity of the Killian documents pertaining to President George W.Bush’s service records that culminated in the ruination of CBS’s Dan Rather. LGF won the Washington Post’s reader poll for Best International Blog in 2004, and has enjoyed a following of 100,000 unique visitors a day.

Little Green Footballs began to swim against the mainstream right almost a year ago, however, when Charles decided that the political right in America were controlled by racists, fascists, religious demagogues, and bigots. In his list, he explains why he could no longer tolerate being associated with them.

The rightwing movement in the U.S. has been careless in some of their associations with the far-right, and in particular by conflating the War on Terror with a war on Muslims. I see the BNP in Great Britain and Velaams Belang in Holland as being a response to the leftwing multicultural policies enacted over the past several decades that has created this backlash. These countries have seen the face of their nation change practically overnight. But embracing these parties are not the solution.

The only means of bringing about immigration reform and protection of culture and tradition is not through an alliance with the white supremacists and fascists, but through moderate political change that identifies the weaknesses in the current leftwing multicultural state.

There are some very ardent and vociferous groups out there which represent what one might call the “religious right” in America: anti-abortionists, creationists, anti-same-sex-marriage. It’s particularly disturbing to see the War on Terror being articulated as a war on Islam, with some on the religious right calling the Qu’ran a poison like Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Finally, the Obama-derangement-syndrome is evident, even right here in Canada. I think President Obama has done a rather underwhelming job as leader of the free world, marked by embarrassing gaffes and not-so subtle revelations that he isn’t quite the savior he presented himself as. But the amount of out-and-out hatred against him seems, with everything from the absolutely freakish “birthers”, to the accusations he’s actually a fundamentalist Muslim, is at least as ridiculous as the derangement aimed at George W.Bush by the political left.

Charles Johnson now focuses on attacking those things he doesn’t like on the right, particularly with his condemnation of “climate change deniers”, and the description of former allies who criticize Islam as being Islamophobes and fascists. He has become notorious in his control of dissenting opinion, banning thousands of people he calls “trolls” from his site, and deleting the comments of people who disagree with his views. Some call his careful screening of comments and registration as “paranoia” and a sign he has lost his credibility as a serious political commentator. Perhaps this focus on attacking his former supporters so assiduously is the reason why.

But I suppose to understand where he’s truly coming from, one would have to have been immersed in the heart of the rightwing movement in America during the height of avarice for Islam following the invasion of Iraq. I’m not very surprised that he’s tried to distance himself from the anti-democratic elements of the rightwing movement which, it would appear lately, have become indistinguishable from the moderates.

I think that Charles highlights one more problem with the left/right dichotomy in the United States. The middle ground has been left bereft by the polarizing effects of left and rightwing commentators who use emotion, instead of reason, to make their arguments. Whether it’s Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann, or Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter, the more extreme and offensive the statements, the more people tune in. If Little Green Footballs no longer belongs on the right, perhaps it can become the voice in the centre.

Why I Parted Ways With the Left (Politacks Opinion Version)

(Let’s just say that this one was too easy to pass up. The original post by Littlegreenfootballs.com can be read in its entirety here: Why I Parted Ways With The Right and boy he served it up so Politacks knocked it out of the park. Enjoy)

1. Support for marxists, in America (see: Anita Dun, Van Jones, Barack Obama etc.)

2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and black supremacism (see: Rev. Wright, Van Jones, Jimmy Carter, NAACP, Black Panthers, Keith Olberman, Tavis Smiley, Cornel West, Racheal Maddow, Oprah, etc.)

3. Support for throwing humans (unborn babies) back into the Dark Ages, and general religious hatred and disdain (see: NOW, Planned Parenthood, abortion groups, the entire ACLU, etc.)

4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: atheists, climate change hoax, Al Gore, person who changed ‘Global Warming’ to ‘Climate Change’ when it was discovered that the earth is on a 10 year cooling trend, etc.)

5. Support for bigotry (see: Rev Al Sharpton, Al Gore Sr. (voted against Civil Rights Act), George Wallace, Sen. Robert Byrd-Dem (KKK member), the entire atheist movement, etc.)

6. Support for government takeovers lunacy (see: Democrat Party, socialists, MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, MoveOn.org etc.)

7. Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech (see: Van Jones, Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, Obama race-baiters, atheists, climate profiteers, etc.)

8. A Left-wing blogosphere that is almost universally dominated by raging hate speech (see: Huffington Post, Media Matters, Daily Kos, MoveOn.org, SocialistWorker.org, Mother Jones, etc.)

9. Pro-Islamic denial and political correctness that goes far beyond simply apologizing for radical Islam, into support for fascism, violence, and genocide (see: MSNBC, NY Times, Rachel Maddow, etc.)

10. Hatred for President Bush that goes far beyond simply criticizing his policies, into racism, hate speech, and bizarre conspiracy theories (see: Adolph Hitler images, protests, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olberman, Chris Matthews, MSNBC, CBS, 60 Minutes, Ophrah, Talking Points Memo, Media Matters, MoveOn.org, SEIU, ACORN, NOW and every other left wing source)

And much, much more. The American left wing has gone off the rails, into the bushes, and off the cliff.

I won’t be going over the cliff with them.

Charles Johnson just confirmed it.  Basically, Little Green Footballs has gone into lockdown mode because his ideology is driven his own petty hatreds.  It’s a shame; a couple years back, LGF was a decent site with a free exchange of ideas.  Now, the slightest peep of dissent becomes a ban three minutes later.

Plenty of more interesting sites out there, but it’s a shame to see one descend into darkness…

Update : the folks over at Blogmocracy do a pretty good review of The List of Evil.

Now that you have finally come out and said how you really feel about aspects of the “Right“, I wish some of the people you pointed your finger to would do the same.

These past 8 years, the definition of “Conservatism” got real, real muddied. And you Charles, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, The Jawa Report  and a host of you people became “voices of the Right”. Why? Because  they cheered for War. Oh, and for some reason people started thinking they had some sort of Masters Degree  in Islam because they read a few passages from the Koran. That’s all. And with that, the belief was that War and your hatred for Islam, meant you were a Conservative.  When in fact, there’s nothing Conservative about War. ( I think Islam is a very dangerous religion, just for the record)

What amuses me about the whole “coming out” post is, he really only rips into three people who are the Real Right. Pat Buchanan, Lew Rockwell and Stacy McCain. The rest are a smörgåsbord of tyrants, control freaks, and “Johnny Come Lately’s” to the Conservative Movement.  No wonder people have such a screwed up belief on what it means to be a Conservative. (Thank you George W. Bush)

So, Bravo to you Charles on “coming out”. Now I just wish some of the others would “come out” with ya.

Update: Rick Moran brings up a few good points in his post. And I do find myself in agreement with what hes saying. Especially about the “anti-intellectual” belief that does plague most of the Manufactured Right.  This notion that the elected representatives need to talk like “Joe-Six pack”  and not like someone who graduated from High School needs to stop.

But Rick goes off the rails , when he goes into agreement with Charles on the whole “Anti-Government” lunacy.

This anarcho-conservatism, where some kind of 19th century government is envisioned as the optimal solution to our problems, is a throwback to pre-Buckley days. It is unthinking, illogical, and oblivious to how the world has changed since the heyday of Robert Taft. Ultimately, it is a fearful kind of conservatism that can’t recognize or deal with change and seeks the safety of an idealized past.

Two things here: I don’t think the Manufactured Right wants some sort of “anarcho-conservatism”. That’s nonsense.Most of these people want George W. Bush’s Government back. Not some form of Constitutional Limited Government like they claim.

And I wonder how many people even know who Sen.Robert “Mr.Republican” Taft is today? I can almost guarantee that if you brought up Sen.Taft’s beliefs (I happen to agree with a lot of his stances) most Red Staters would think he was some anti-American liberal.

I have to say, this whole “Conservative Crack Up” is really interesting to watch.

Not really too surprising given the overall tone of LGF the last year or so, but in a sense the right wing blogosphere lost something of a rock star with this announcement and ten part list of exactly why Johnson is no longer affiliated with right wing politics.

From the link:

And much, much more. The American right wing has gone off the rails, into the bushes, and off the cliff.

I won’t be going over the cliff with them.

Who back in the Golden Age of Blogging would have ever expected to someday see a post like this out of Little Green Footballs?

• The Superfreaks aren’t the only peddlers of c0unterintuitive best-sellers who eschew depth and rigor [UPDATE: Gladwell pushes back]
• Depressing but fascinating coverage of the sausage-making surrounding forest management under the upcoming international climate treaty.
• Little Green Footballs founder on escaping the blogospheric echo chamber
• It’s hard to read about the failure to successfully regulate the bluefin tuna fishery and not see some climate parallels
• And, related: A Memorial for Vanishing Species

I’d heard he was going into full Jihad mode against dissent over at LGF, but … wow. I posted a single comment expressing doubt the shocking-ness of the list of Limbaugh quote he snaked from “Media Matters”. (Posted – Sun, Oct 18, 2009 6:05:16pm ) and my old comment account from long ago was turned off (Timestamp – Sun, Oct 18, 2009 6:08:20pm).

Wow.

I can kinda see why some folks were annoyed enough to start the “other” Little Green Footballs.

Too funny and devastating not to pass along.

Bite Me! Comics Presents….

Chuck Johnson – Race Detective vol. I. – featuring a smattering of your favorite LGF race detectives in training.

Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the rest of this pure comedy gold.

Several sources are reporting this.

If Limbaugh has indeed been dropped from the group then his potential slander/libel suits will be bolstered by his loss of potential income.  Based on his comments during today’s show, Rush is showing no signs of backing away from legal action against those who published the false quotes and the networks where they were repeated.

Meanwhile, Rick “Hit and Run” Sanchez and Charles “Hit The Tip Jar” Johnson are still waiting for Rush to prove he didn’t make the statements.

Update: It’s official:

DAVE CHECKETTS: It has become clear that his involvement in our group has become a complication and a distraction to our intentions; endangering our bid to keep the team in St. Louis. As such, we have decided to move forward without him and hope it will eventually lead us to a successful conclusion.

No statement from Rush as of the time of this update.