So yesterday, I was reading stuff at Huff Post and they had an article about Jonathan Krohn, described as an author of the book Define Conservatism and 13-year-old political prodigy, who spoke at CPAC. I listened to his 2-minute speech in which he mainly laid out a few platitudes about what conservative and who was very well received by the audience. Normally, I would just laugh this off but for some reason, the whole thing really struck a chord with me, not that I think he's right, in fact,I think its the same generalities and tired buzzwords coming from a 13 year-old but it made me think about how many holes were in even his 2-minute outline of this philosophy. It got me thinking about how we need to
Define Conservative Hypocrisy.
I see parallels in this kid to someone I know: my partner's nephew. See, his family, including 87 year old father, his mother, his brother and one sister are quite liberal. Aside from the occasional Israel/Palestine squabble, we are pretty much on the same page politically, about 98% of the time. But then there is the other sister, the one who married an archetypal Republican and who changed herself. Who is devoutly Catholic yet has no problems with wars that kill hundreds of thousands. I put up with them roughly once a year, at thanksgiving.
But it was their son who reminded me of this Jonathan Krohn kid. Extremely bright kid, studying engineering at college, but who grew up in an upper middle class to upper class home in Westchester. He never really had a thing to worry about, he could receive any educational tool he ever wanted, was afforded every single comfort he could ever want. Never had to really worry about trivial things like saving or getting a loan for college, overcoming prejudice, getting health insurance. Oh and he had no problem collecting college scholarships even though his parents could easily afford to send him (but would tell some poor inner-city kid to pull himself up by his bootstraps) In short, he was in the bubble of comfort, provided the easiest of living and - you guessed it - is an arch-conservative. To the point that he is a carbon copy of his father, in terms of likes and dislikes. But this is what got me thinking about Jonathon Krohn - how easy it is to be a conservative and rail against all of the evil government programs and social policies when none of it is anything you have to deal with or worry about. It's so easy to define policies from a pulpit when they involve things you personally will not have to worry about.
So that go me thinking about Krohn. I was wondering if he was like my partner's nephew, an arch-conservative in an environment where everything is handed to him and the living was easy. So I checked out the Wiki page on him:
The 13 year-old home schooled young man was the talk of the Conservative Political Action Conference for a brief portion of the afternoon session[1]. His two-minute address on "Conservative Victories Across the Nation" covered the lost principles of the Republican Party, which he called the "shell" to conservatism's "filling." Krohn is more than four years away from being able to vote .
The 13 year-old home schooled young man was the talk of the Conservative Political Action Conference for a brief portion of the afternoon session[1]. His two-minute address on "Conservative Victories Across the Nation" covered the lost principles of the Republican Party, which he called the "shell" to conservatism's "filling." Krohn is more than four years away from being able to vote .
Jonathan has been performing on stage since he was eight. Inside Edition’s Debora Norville named him "Atlanta’s Most Talented Child" in 2006. Jonathan has had 3 call-backs for the Broadway part of Michael Banks in Mary Poppins.
So, unless my assumptions are very off-base here, we are talking about a child from a pretty well-to-do family. Home-schooled, meaning he doesn't want to deal with/be exposed to the realities of Atlanta public schools. None of that nonsensical reality stuff of seeing children who come to school with no breakfast or who can't afford to see a doctor, not hearing about the mommies and daddies who were laid off because their plant moved to India - it was all brought right in for him to see and hear, in the comfort of his own home! And he says he is a real fan of Bill Bennett, known for his famous quote
Well, I don't think it is either,... But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could ... abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down
So young Krohn had all of the ideology brought right into his home, surely got to hear Bennett via a nice broadband connection, didn't ever really have to worry about all that unsightly inner-city stuff where children lack basic materials or where millions of children are indeed left behind.
And then of course, the performing side of his life. Certainly young Krohn must be extremely talented and very intelligent - but how interesting, he spends his time doing theater, and they gleefully announced at CPAC that he had numerous callbacks for a role on Broadway. Must be nice to be whisked back and forth from Atlanta to Broadway for the chance to play before the godless commies in a New York City theater. I wonder if young Mr. Krohn supports unions for his fellow actors, has considered joining the Actor's Equity Association. Nah, he probably doesn't think about things like that but, you know, will reap the benefits the godless commie union members got for him.
So the point is, I see where young Jonathan Krohn is likely coming from. Conservative in a bubble, so much to say about principle and policy but has experienced so, so little about the real world - beyond the ephemera of Never Never Land and other productions that is..
[The Conservative Bubble Ideology]
So that get's me to young Jonathan's little speech at CPAC
So little Johnny want's to talk about the PRINCIPLES OF CONSERVATISM and says that the Republican Party is the shell, it is conservatism which is the FILLING. Sounds good - and something a PR firm would come up with, but ok, he says the 4 tenets of conservatism are:
- Respect for the Constitution
- Respect for life
- Less government
- Personal responsibility
Ok, nothing new there. But it immediately raised some questions in my mind for young Jonathan:
- Respect for the Constitution
So would you say it is respect for the constitution when American citizens can be wiretapped and eavesdropped upon at any time and this data collected? What about when a US citizen like Jose Padilla can be held for years without a trial? What about the thing the constitution says about only CONGRESS can declare war? How about protecting the inalienable right to vote ? (You'd support prosecuting anyone who suppresses the rights of Americans to vote, right?) What about the idea of the "signing statement" that says the president can basically ignore the parts of laws he dislikes? Doesn't the constitution have something to say about free speech? So I'm sure you'd vociferously object to putting protesters in pens, arresting them for no reason or the T-shirt they wear. One could ask just so many of these questions.
- Respect for Life
Which of course means you are anti-choice. But, um, what about the children who die because they insurance company won't give them coverage?
What about children who die in gang shootings in inner-cities because someone in the suburbs, who was never stopped from owning guns, objects to gun control in gang-ridden urban areas and he doesn't have to see the blood and the carnage on a daily basis? What about the species that would be and will be eliminated from the earth after millions of years because environmental protection laws have been gutted? What about the lives of the thousands and thousands of children who don't get adopted yet can't go to loving gay and lesbian homes? What about the people who die from Salmonella because the greedy corporation wants to turn a profit at the price of people's lives, yet conservatives want to shut down the FDA.
What about the lives of hundred of thousands to millions who have died because of aggressive US policies in other countries? What about our own elderly who die much too early because they cannot make ends meet?
What about people infected with HIV/AIDS who died because your idol Ronald Reagan refused to address the crisis for years? What about the millions who could someday benefit from stem-cell research yet you let them die because a cytoblast is somehow more important than a real person?
What about the women who would die from back alley abortions because you would make abortions illegal?
C'mon, Jonathan, I'm sure Bill Bennett has provided you with the answers to these questions!
Less government
I hear this claim often but I'm confused. Does less government mean something like the massively inefficient Department of Homeland Security under Bush or the incompetently run FEMA, where the size of government ballooned to huge new proportions?
Or do you mean the role of small government like in Katrina? Where, let's see, funds were cut back on essential infrastructure that could save lives. Then when tragedy strikes and the poorest and most desperate die, you blame them. You see New Orleans as the conservative laboratory, force it to rebuild on its own while its own National Guard is mainly away in a war it's national government said it HAD to participate in. Now, of course, when Hurricane Andrew struck, people were encouraged to apply for
that government aid but when it was in a Democratic, less white area, it was all about the evils of government handouts. So a national jewel was allowed to rot because government deprived it of resources essential for its survival.
Oh and does small government mean slashing things like health care for the poor, essential infrastructure to get people to work, healthy environment? Does it mean not investing in schools so everybody can be home-schooled like you? (For those homes where both parents work, I guess the maid can do it or something...)
Oh, and the less government thing - so less government unless it comes down to whom I want to marry and what I do in my bedroom, whether I belong to any subversive peace groups (many I can be spied on), whether a woman wants to choose what to do with her body.
And apparently less government means letting corporations do what they want - piss away people's pensions, outsource labor to other countries so our citizens are massively unemployed, not have safe food, drug, environmental standards, limit our free speech and monopolize to destroy any small-business which can't afford to compete with the giants..
Personal Responsibility
How do you define personal responsibility? Does it have to do with the ability to control one's own destiny and accept responsibility for one's own actions? But what about the millions of Americans who can't be responsible because that ability has been taken away from them? Because they have no job, because they got sick and went bankrupt. What if they can't afford to get their kids to college? What if the government prays on the most desperate, offering them money in exchange for "tests" with dangerous chemicals? What if we are placed into more and more wars over resources which are getting more and more scarce? What if the cost of fuel becomes so prohibitive people cannot go to their places of employment yet our government doesn't provide us with better alternatives?
What if people's pensions and savings can be wiped out overnight because a company decides it no longer wants to pay pensions? What if the educational level in this country has gotten so poor that a whole new generation lacks critical thinking skills?
All of these and more are ways in which conservative policies have taken the ability AWAY from people to be more responsible and have more of a say on their lives.
Dear Jonathan, in your brief talk, you mention two key points: conservatism is principle-based and "people first". Can you explain those talking points to me?
Does principle-based mean that the principle never changes no matter the changing circumstances, i.e. we should hold on to biblical principles of a nomadic societies of biblical times that had certain things to say about divorce, homosexuality, eating practices etc.
If so, why did you not protest against John McCain, an adulterer and a divorcee? Why do you like Newt Gingrich, an adulterer and a divorcee who was cited for numerous ethics violations? Why is Sarah Palin so inspirational when she supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it, speaks out on abstinence only but could not even make that work in her own home? Does principle-based mean that you always act on that principle, no matter what the circumstances, i.e. I don't like the idea of gay marriage so I'm going to stop people from being happy, even though it will never affect me. Or does "principle-based" mean that you are against big government spending in general so you will deny unemployment benefits to people in your state who can't feed their families? Does principle-based mean that you never, ever shift your stance, i.e. the Iraq war, when new strategies were required. Or does principle-based mean you switch principles when convenient, like when Reagan, Poppy and current conservatives drove up huge deficits yet you are fiscally conservative when Democrats are in power?
Does principle-based include Jim Bunning who threatens to resign his senate seat and have it handed to a Democrat if he is challenged in an election? Or perhaps it includes Jim Inhofe who is against the principle of global warming but by massive coincidence gets millions in support from the oil and gas industry? Or is principle-based Norm Coleman who has moved out of his office, got a new job, yet deprives the people of Minnesota with a senator for a frivolous, long lawsuit? Or perhaps principle-based is Judd Gregg who took a position in Obama's cabinet, weaseled out of a stimulus vote, praised Obama, then quit again.
Oh, and what does "people-first" mean - does that mean we have to fight tooth and nail to get a bill through that has the silly notion women should be paid the same for equal work? Or does people first mean supporting corporations time after time? Does people first mean bailing out the airlines after 9/11 but none of their employees who lost retirement and benefits? Does people first mean your constant opposition to letting the people in the District of Columbia vote for a representative in their government? Does people first mean you side with the health insurance HMO's over the people every single time? Does people first mean you give company's tax breaks for moving overseas? Does people first mean arresting seniors who try to get drugs they afford from Canada or the sick who get relief from medical marijuana?
So there's a lot of filling for you Jonathan. I hereby DEFINE CONSERVATIVE HYPOCRISY. You look like an incredibly gifted and smart young man but I hate to break it to you, inside your home-schooled, affluent, on-stage world
YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT THE REAL WORLD
But enjoy your pretend world with your talking points. Enjoy your lobster lasagna with the Republican shell and the conservative filling, because there' a lot more out there in the world you've never experienced!