you people are the same exact clowns as your political opponents

you have NO FUTURE mark my words: stop been a clown it will cost a lot of people their lifes

Here’s the link to The Ripon Society:
http://www.riponsociety.org/

Here’s a link to the latest issue of “The Ripon Forum:”
http://www.riponsociety.org/riponforums/RF%20-%20NovDec08%20-%20final.pdf

Check back in a few weeks. Word is that he wrote an especially interesting article for the next issue.

I suspect that some weighing in on this blog are more moderate or closer to the center than more conservative standard bearers like Rush, Ann, or Michelle and might find something of value and resonance in this organization. It’s not a RINO outfit. According to its statement of purpose, it came into being…

“…Taking its name from Ripon, Wisconsin, the birthplace of the Republican Party, a loosely knit association of young business, academic and professional women and men formed the Ripon Society in 1962 to revive the Grand Old Party’s commitment to inclusion and reform. Founded on the values of Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, Ripon believes in their legacy of innovation, equality of opportunity for all people, mutual responsibility, and self-government.”

I find that I can get behind something like that more comfortably than I can more strident positions held by those further to the right. It’s worth a look-see.

I’ve read with empathy and sympathy the posts from folks trying to make a living in Hollywood while simultaneously trying to remain true to their principles. It has to be tough and I doubt that many who have breadwinner responsibilities would be critical of your reluctance to go public. I once took stand on principle in another profession and was canned. I’m not sure I could bring myself to do again it if it meant more dislocation and disruption for my family. But I do admire and respect people who put it all out there for their beliefs regardless of what those beliefs may be.

At the same time, however, I view you all as potential saviors of an important industry’s soul. I hope that tolerance may at some point in the future reach critical mass in an industry that so often presumes to preach virtues to the rest of the country and world. Then it may be possible for civil discourse and debate among those who reside on all points on the political spectrum to flourish where it can bring so much more to the creative process on which the industry depends. A Utopian dream, I suspect.

I find it supremely ironic and indicative of a meanness of spirit that Hollywood appears to be populated disproportionately by members of groups that were once villified and supressed – Gays, Reds, substance abusers, etc., – and now having achieved acceptance and an element of social validity, these same groups will not now stand up for others’ right to express freely their consciences.

I suppose it is human nature to want to strike back, but at some point rational people should realize that doing so simply perpetuates the legitimacy of suppression and when the pendulum begins to swing back in the other direction, which it always does, they may once again become targets of abuse. Better now to break that cycle and protect everyone’s First Amendment rights.

I just Googled “legitimate” and found on Wikipedia a discussion of Max Weber’s argument that there are three kinds of legitimacy:

Charismatic Authority
Traditional Authority
Regional/Legal Authority

I’m open to other interpretations, but it appears to me that Hollywood is governed more by Charismatic Authority which is defined in the article as:

“Legitimacy based on the charisma of the leader, often partly based on the perception that this leader has certain extra or supernatural attributes. Example: a tribal chieftain or a religious leader.”

What attributes, aside from beau coup bucks, precisely, do the tribal or “religious” leaders in Hollywood possess that allow them to drive the tribe towards such extremes of suppression? Is the so-called creative process there now so dependent on hatred for dissent from positions they hold? If so, then it also appears to me that underlying this aversion to political diversity is a broad base of insecurity.

For one, I’m disinterested in what deeply insecure people have to offer. It’s never balanced and frankly, it’s boring. I suspect that the prolonged drought of original content and groundbreaking film offerings (read something other than liberal content) is symptomatic of insecurity bordering on psychosis. But then, marketing and other executives worldwide uniformly suffer from this affliction so maybe Hollywood’s decision makers and trend setters are just playing it safe.

Or I could be completely full of it. What say those of you in the middle of this industry?

I too picked up immediately on the “conservatism being the negation of ideology” line. What has taken me so far “left” since 2000, when I voted for GWB, is that Republicans like McCotter seem hell-bent on trashing the very concept of government. Why should people elect to government representatives who think government should be decimated? Aren’t you asking to be paid to become part of the problem? If ideology is a set of aims and ideas, is conservatism then a belief with no aim or idea? You can’t run on “we aren’t liberals” any more than Democrats are going to continue to be able to run on not being George Bush.

In fact, it is the extreme ideological narrowness that will keep the Republicans in the minority going forward. Voting against health care for children because you are a “fiscal conservative” doesn’t seem like turning a blind eye to ideology to me. Neither are you being objective if you vote against things like an anti-discrimination measure because it offers protection to gays. Or refuse to allow a victim of incestuous rape the option of a late-term abortion because she may have been to scared to come forward about the pregnancy.

If there is to be a real Conservative Republican revival, it must shed the extremely religious ideology/theology that has perverted it, and put forth an ideology of its own with more substance than “Democrats are Socialists”.