Blogging Tory and home-schooled 17-year-old alleged wunderkind Walker Morrow is so adorable when he tries to be politically savvy or whatever it is he thinks he does so well:
Send the Fourniers some dough
Mark and Connie Fournier need money to fight for the online community's right to privacy - feel free to chip a few bucks their way to help make that dream a reality.
Luckily, there's the occasional grownup who tries to set him straight:
Anonymous said...
I regularly donated to her and her husband's website but got chased off the board by a select group of her regulars. Way too high school. Now she can get my money from them.
From what I can tell, Mr. Morrow actually has some writing talent. It remains to be seen whether he can stop writing utter crap by the time he grows up.
P.S. By the way, there have been other notable home-schooled precocious pups who developed quite the reputation in the Wingnut-o-sphere at a tenderly young age. Sadly, a lot of that ended badly.
I'm just sayin'.
9 comments:
Sadly, a lot of that ended badly.
There are legions of people like that on the Right. It's the most unexamined issue in Canadian politics.
The recruitment/indoctrination efforts on the Right begin in high school (even in Canada now). They're overseen by a mature and influential demographic (business leaders, think-tankers and academics) who, when the unpopularity of their ideas can't be hidden any longer, pass the torch on to the next generation of highly impressionable, ambitious, eager-to-please and above all nubile (or what seems nubile to some old swing-sniffer) younglings.
Some outgrow it (where's Aaron Lee Wudrick these days?), some of them just make a career out of it like any other (Stephen Taylor, Kory Teneycke), some find ways to distance themselves a bit to become semi-credible (Tasha Kheiriddin, although she still needs to be monitored) some end up either bitter and/or psychotic (Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn, Stephen Harper) and some just disappear altogether. Very few end up trying to redeem themselves, like David Brock or Ariana Huffington.
Since that type of recruitment campaign isn't as mature in Canada as it is in the US, we haven't seen anyone trying to redeem themselves but I suspect we might eventually.
Er, thanks for the advice, CC...
Walker, just look at the reaction you received when you criticized Harper.
Now if only you'd remove the influence of catamites like Gerry and the Frasier institute....
But I like the influence of catamites like Gerry and the Fraser Institute...
:)
And that's why those of us who actually believe you have some latent talent for writing can't wait for you to grow up, Mr. Morrow.
We'll check back in a year or so.
I'll be waiting with bells on, CC.
They're overseen by a mature and influential demographic (business leaders, think-tankers and academics) ...
This is quite amazingly true, but what makes their process of ideological inheritance so ironic is that the impressionable young people are told that existing institutions, like say, universities, are broken and need to be completely 'reformed.' It is an odd radical approach given that supposedly the whole point of conservatism is to have deference to authority, especially intellectual ones. But it is effective insofar as fashioning the next generation as some sort of outsider yet conservative revolutionary battling "multiculturalism, political correctness, liberalism" or whatever populist boilerplate issue comes to the fore.
James Carville actually did a survey which found this trend to be quite pronounced in the U.S. Specifically, there is a 'conservative' constituent outside the Republican party who genuinely believe that they need to 'show the way' as if though it is some duty or calling. This is the same constituent that overlaps with the Tea Baggers I am sure.
The overall point is that it is easier to radicalize and reject existing norms, even though most of them are the product of Neo-Conservative thought. It avoids the painstaking task of revising positions when you can reiterate over and over again in a way that they are somehow are divinely challenging the supposed status quo. For example, supply side economics have been tried and proven to be flawed, but it easier to invoke a 'no true Scotsman' assertion that it never really was implemented. So, the cycle begins anew.
This is the same constituent that overlaps with the Tea Baggers I am sure.
I don't know about that. David Frum was an early recruit and he rejects the teabaggers.
The teabaggers are another phenomenon, altogether.
The teabaggers are another phenomenon, altogether.
Well, according to Carville's survey, these people putatively exist outside of normal Republican or mainstream Neo-Conservative, which is why I suspect there is partial overlap or a parallel to the Teabagger movement. The Teabaggers though provide a concrete example of what would happen should the Neo-Conservative ethos is taken to its extreme logical consequence.
The Republicans and other Neo-Conservatives are only endorsing as a political means to an end, but it easy to dovetail into the radicalism of the Teabagger by emphasizing this 'lone ranger' or messianic undertone of saving American from whatever new Red Scare that comes their way. It is an effective way for the establishment to maintain its existing power structures while ensuring political influence via populist movements like the Teabaggers. If I were to sum it up, I would call it "faux revolutionism" as nothing is really changing but rather the corporate constituency is reasserting their relevance.
There is also of course the whole angle on how extreme right wing groups like white supremacists are infiltrating Tea Party movement as way of creating some mainstream legitimacy, but that is a whole other matter (which is vehemently denied).
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