Jonathan Krohn: Conservative Wunderkind

I'm sure you've seen HuffPo's coverage of the 13 year-old "wunderkind" at CPAC, Jonathan Krohn. He's a homeschooled, Banjo-playing Baptist from Georgia (life continues to be the greatest parody of itself) who thinks conservatism isn't about issues but principles, namely:

1. Respect for the Constitution
2. Respect for life
3. Limited government
4. Personal responsibility

He's allegedly written a book that elaborates this position, but I can't imagine it going anywhere meaningful with principles like that. It's the regular mix of Religious Right code for:

1. Originalism
2. Opposition to abortion & assisted suicide rights (I personally love this juxtaposition)
3. Tax cuts (especially without cuts in spending), privatized Social Security & Medicare. No cuts on defense spending, though.
   
4. It's your fault (and not the government's job to do anything about the fact) that you

• have HIV
• can't afford health care
• are poor
• are homeless
• are hurt on the job
• are a drug addict
• chose to be gay

But the fact that someone is telling this boy to go on stage and sing (he really does sing) about how Republicanism is just the policy "shell" to the "meat" of conservative "principles" goes to show how totally fucking lost the Republican Party is right now.

There is at last a consensus in America that Big Government is, in fact, the answer to some questions (like health care, building roads, maybe not running schools, but definitely helicoptering you off your roof after a hurricane) and that when those opposed to Big Government are in power, those vital services are neglected. Yet the Republican governor of Louisiana went on national television to criticize the stimulus bill and specifically cited $145 million for volcano monitoring as "government waste."

For starters, that's $145,000,000 or .0002% of the $749,000,000,000 stimulus bill. Secondly, volcanoes are really real and they really do erupt, really. So knowing when they are going to erupt is pretty important so people aren't there when it happens. But most importantly, the fact that the $145 million will mostly be used to fund geological research by universities (and thus pay salaries and tuition for countless professors, grad students, doctoral candidates, post docs, research assistants, etc.) is either totally lost on the GOP or totally ignored.

But what of these principles specifically? The first seems straight forward enough: respect the Constitution. So this is a principle of Conservatism, the opposite of Liberalism. Of course a principle of Liberalism cannot also be a principle of Conservatism, so liberals must not respect the Constitution!

And that is precisely the type of reasoning the GOP has relied upon for the last 30 years -- We are this good thing, so They must be the opposite. You oppose tax cuts for the wealthy? Then you want to punish success! You oppose invading Iraq? Then you don't support the troops!

But as long as the GOP clings to the Religious Right for its base, it will continue to alienate the likes of me for some time to come. I might have voted for Bush in 2004, but that was only because Sen. Kerry is such a douchebag. Plus the tax cuts saved me a shitload.