TAC'S DECLARATION OF IRRELEVANCE

Daniel McCarthy, one of TAC's dwindling number of adults, weighed in on the Hobby Lobby decision after a long silence.  He wanted to make his displeasure with traditional conservatives  clear, deriding their "Buy your own contraception' Snark." Why is this reasonable observation "Snark?"  MCCarthy goes into a tortured exposition that in essence grants the government's right to force citizens/businesses to purchase things they don't want.  Further, the government can then quibble with the citizen/business about the extent and all the particularities of the forced purchase.  Pointing out the obvious, that Hobby Lobby employees have multiple means both within and without their insurance coverage to avoid pregnancy is simple common sense.  It's a fact.

That's what you get when so called conservatives ceed unconstitutional powers to the state, then try to find "Conservative" positions in the mess that follows. Frankly, I don't intend to bother with his sophistical point making.

What depresses me is the tendency of McCarthy and almost all the TAC writers to feel the need to position themselves to one side of any orthodox conservative position.  It's hard to see this as anything but a posture designed to differentiate themselves from other strands of conservatism.  All well and good if you have some alternative.  But all they seem to embody in a sort of offended sensibility.  Trying not to be FOX news is hardly  a worthy exercise in itself.

They classify themselves as Burkians.  So do many Neo-cons and other political mountebanks.  They expelled all the Paleocons.  Perhaps they though divorcing themselves from their own traditions and wisdom would free them to create some new conservatism.  Someone should have told them that that is an oxymoron.  They grasp at every floating bit of the zeitgeist, like Reforma-cons, Crunchy Cons New Urban-cons, etc.  Of course these are just marketing mechanisms designed to sell books.

McCarty was just meeting with Ralph Nader, the great shaman of self promotion disguised as moral principle.  Perhaps this is the new model for TAC?