Thursday, March 5, 2009

Sane or insane?

How do you tell the difference between sane conservatives and insane ones? You may be thinking it's a trick question, that there are no sane conservatives, but it turns out there are. John Cole, Lord of the Juice, cites the following post by Daniel Larison which includes the following sentence: "As we all know, income stagnation is something that most conservatives and Republicans have spent years pretending was not happening, because it did not fit in with the assumption that working- and middle-class Americans were thriving as part of the 'greatest story never told.' ”

So, having established that there are sane conservatives out there, how do we distinguish between them and the insane conservatives? A rough and ready guide is to note that insane conservatives are addicted to a series of words and phrases describing a parallel reality, while sane conservatives are not. Here is a sample list of these words and phrases. Remember, if you find any of these terms being used by a conservative, it's a sure sign of insanity:

ACORN
Fairness Doctrine
marsh mice
maglev train
birth certificate
porkulus
drill, baby, drill
Vince Foster
Islamofascism
liberal fascism
homosexual agenda
socialism

Just keep this list handy, and you'll be able to tell at a glance whether you're encountering an insane conservative.

(This has been a public service announcement by the Johnny Pez blog.)

UPDATE: Nemski at the Delaware Liberal blog (ah, the old home state) went and linked to this post and solicited more terms to add to the insane conservative terms list. Here's a few culled from the comments:

messiah
The One
abstinence-only
Bush was really a liberal/wasn't really a conservative
volcano monitoring
Democrat Party
class warfare
generational theft
wealth redistribution
liberal media
welfare queen
War on Christmas
feminazi
tea party

And I've come up with a few more of my own:

Christian nation
rapture ready
intelligent design
Long War
World War IV
appeasement
Neville Chamberlain
Community Reinvestment Act
country first
George Soros
Barney Frank
dijon/gray poupon
arugala
Teleprompter
empathy
Chrysler dealerships
Death panels
Euthanasia

If you can think of any more that we've missed, post them to the comments.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post.

Anonymous said...

We at Delaware Liberal have added some other words and/or terms to your list, http://www.delawareliberal.net/2009/03/05/insane-in-the-membrane/

Though as one of our moderators said, "Maybe it would have been easier to make a list identifying a sane conservative."

Here's the list:

volcano monitoring
Ted Kennedy
discrimination against white men
Messiah.
Abstinence Only.
Bush wasn’t a true conservative!
Democrat (as an adjective)
Class warfare
Fiscal conservative
Bipartisanship
Rush who?
Palin Power
raise the roof not our taxes!
“There’s plenty of blame to go around.”
Generational theft.
wealth redistribution
teleprompter
family values
Bill Ayers
I’m not a racist
liberal media
I have a wide stance
traditional marriage
conservative underground
viscous left-wing commentators
“I apologize to my wife, my family, and my supporters”
It’s all the unions fault.
the economy is sound.
nothing wrong with are health care system, nobodys dying in the street. A Hannity favorite.
Corporate tax cuts will create millions of jobs
poor people
welfare queens
(just because no one has REALLY blamed us in a few decades) the Jews
The War on Christmas
Abolish the Federal Reserve
The One
Monica Lewinsky
Cheese-eating surrender monkeys
Rooting for failure (any theme on Obama is a failure)
Tea Party/Teabag
Feminazi
Franklin Delano Raines
private property rights
takings
free market economy
war on terrorism
war on drugs!
War, War and More war
Muslims are all terrorists

Anonymous said...

Marriage Defense
Flag (Love)
Patriot

Neo Tuxedo said...

state-run media

Neo Tuxedo said...

After reading Martin Schram's column about what Obama should've said at Blair House, I think "trial lawyer(s)" needs to be added to the list.

Neo Tuxedo said...

Also also, I see "Long War" is on there, but several related terms aren't:

Century War
dhimmitude
Eurabia
Londonistan

Neo Tuxedo said...

Also one more time, how is "amero" not already on the list? Is it simply because that's so insane that even a liberal becomes obviously insane by making non-mocking reference to it?