American Conservatives Are, After All, What They Said They Were

Last updated on: November 28, 2015 at 2:13 pm by Artur Rosman

American Conservatives Are, After All, What They Said They Were 2015-11-28T14:13:57-07:00 Artur Rosman

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Motto: “Please step forward to the rear!” This is an approximate translation of a request I once heard on a tram-car in Warsaw. I propose it as a slogan for the mighty International that will never exist. . .

. . . So far as I can see, this set of regulative ideas is not self-contradictory. And therefore it is possible to be a conservative-liberal-socialist. This is equivalent to saying that those three particular designations are no longer mutually exclusive options.

As for the great and powerful International which I mentioned at the outset–it will never exist, because it cannot promise people that they will be happy.

—Leszek Kolakowski, Modernity on Endless Trial, “How to be a Conservative-Liberal-Socialist”

Sam Rocha is Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Education at the University of British Columbia. He is author of A Primer for the Philosophy and Education and the recently released Folk Phenomenology. He is also an accomplished musician who has two albums, Freedom for Love and Late to Love, under his belt. His upcoming third album will not have the noun “love” in the title, but will instead utilize a verbal form of the word.

This week we read still more letters from Sam Rocha‘s monthly mailbag. This is a guest post. All opinions are Professor Rocha’s own.

This week I dug through an old bag I found in a train station in 2004, where I now keep my memories of political dogfights and came across these old letters:

Dear Facebook Intellectual,

Remember when we critiqued the conservatives for really being liberals and tried to hold the line between Buckley, Buchanan, and Benedict XVI? Yea, well, as it turns out, we were mostly being clever with ourselves. Messing with the faucet. Like T Bone Walker sang, “Your love is like a faucet, you can turn it off and on.” So next time our tail wags the dog, don’t be fooled.

Your friends at,

The American Con/medy

Dear Stamp Collector,

I have this lovely tattoo on my lower back. I’d like you to have it.

Send me a text and I’ll get back to you,

Trump4Life

Dear Mr. Rubio,

I just heard that you called Trump supporters “white trash.” Surely you realize that these are the real poor of the nation who take most foodstamps and live in squalor and don’t vote or have all their teeth? Since the GOP has lost it’s G and gone populist, are you not a bit worried about the trailer park vote stealing your Latin thunder?

A concerned Aristocatlick,

Jimmy

Dear Sam,

I’m sitting here in a debate on foreign policy. It seems rather weird since everyone is using powerpoint. Where is the power and the point? And how do I get an academic job like you have?

Jealousy killed the fatted calf,

Simone

Dear Simone,

Words like “powerpoint” should always be read as if it was a Freudian opposite day. Same goes for “foreign policy.” As for Academia, the work is good but the CV building requires lots of cement and will occasionally cause dysentery. You probably will have better luck going on a paleo-diet.

Always,

Sam

After all that interpretive confusion you might want to try something more straightforward such as Conservatives (Not Liberals) Planted American Catholic Dissent.

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