THE CONSERVATIVE TAKE ON THE CULTURE WAR: “YEAH, YOU WON, PROGRESSIVES, BUT YOU CHEATED!”

I am currently reading John Nolte’s article on 11 reasons the Left has not won the Culture War at Breitbart.com. Simply reading this is making my day because I love to laugh in the morning. Millions of conservatives have likely read this today and more than a thousand have commented. Those comments will be covered by Fred Schwartz later in the day.

Nolte begins with same sex marriage which I see as a full faith and credit legal issue not a moral and religious one. I don’t think, however, that any shop owner has a right to refuse service to a gay couple anymore than they have the right to refuse service to a person based on their race, religion, gender or disability. The author feels that the “voice of the people” has been tossed out in favor of the rulings of “activist judges.” In a bizarre twist John Nolte points to a rise in “Christian entertainment” as proof that Americans really do not want people they do not know of the same sex to get married. The singular example is the film “Heaven is for Real” which has grossed nothing yet because the film is to be released today. Nolte’s point is that Sony TriStar Pictures has decided to release the film on a Wednesday in 2,417 theaters. This film and others like it are one point Nolte shows as proof that on the topic of same sex marriage the Right is winning. I will make a claim here: Heaven is for Real will not make more money between its premiere and the end of the box office weekend than “Transcendence” will make from its opening until Sunday night on a theater by theater basis.

The next Culture War issue is the legalization of marijuana. Both Washington state and Colorado have legalized the weed most notorious to conservatives and more states are moving to decriminalize small amounts. Most recently the state of Maryland did just that becoming the first state south of the Dixon-Line to decriminalize pot. Fourteen other states and the District of Columbia have also done so. Nolte does not address any of the medical reasons for pot use or even recreational ones as a justification for a victory here in the Culture war. Instead he states that abortion rights activists are on their heels quoting an article on Breitbart.com no less about a poll conducted by the Knights of Columbus regarding abortion rights. The Gallup Polling Service numbers show that those who view themselves as pro-Life vice those that are pro-Choice are nearly equal at 48% to 45%. The numbers of those seeing abortion as federally defined from the same poll vice those who do not believe abortion should be legal at all is 52% vice 20% as of May 2013. Nolte loses this battle as well.

Nolte sticks with entertainment decrying the amount of sex on television but reveling in what he calls the return of the masculine male on the National Geographic Channel. These shows according to the author “celebrate the working class and their traditional values.” What he really means is they celebrate being white, Christian and living in the woods or where it’s very cold. The next “reason” the Right is winning the Culture War is the ascendancy of Jimmy Fallon to the Tonight Show as a counter to Stephen Colbert stepping into David Letterman’s slot after his retirement next year. There is no rhyme or reason to this at all.

The next nugget reveals something about conservatives. They like strong male characters. Nolte point to Don Draper [Mad Men] Walter White [Breaking Bad] and Tony Soprano [The Sopranos] as examples of these. They are called “flawed” and “anti-heroes” and I imagine that takes the guilt away for all the nudity, sex, drugs and violence which conservative say they are against on TV.

More entertainment, really? Miley Cyrus is popular but unions are dying says Nolte. I fear conservatives may never come out of this irrational abyss. As if the weakness of unions in America is a good thing for those working class people they say they love?

Conservative media is on the upswing says Nolte. Well get back to me in 20 years when most Fox News viewers are either dead or senile or have slaughtered their family. There is a trend in there demographically if you just take the time to look.

Women are getting birth control but conservatives have their guns! This is awful. War on women much? The fear of the Other is oozing here.

Nolte sees more money in politics as a solution to what ails the Right politically. No John, the key would be to make your tent bigger. Oh, that’s right you can’t do that because you’d have to let in all those brown people, women and gay people on a level playing field.

Yes, Occupy is dead but given time the TEA Party will wither as well. I think the date on that tombstone will be somewhere around 1 February 2017.

What John Nolte needs is a time machine so he can return to that conservative era of his father the 1950s. Back then by conservative standards women were in their place (not barefoot and pregnant but seen and not heard), minorities were second class citizens and it was a crime to be gay. It must be awful for John Nolte to have to watch as all that unearned privilege is redistributed in the form of earned civil rights.

Qu’ul cuda praedex nihil

Sarah Bloch, D.S.V.J., J.F., O.Q.H [Jur.]
Amici Bax Demvolu Comnu
Politics & Culture Wars Managing Editor
The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork
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