One Crazy Ride

Bill Hicks could be seen as the prototypical South Park conservative: an individual who promotes conservative -- in his case, libertarian -- values in a manner that offends conservative sensibilities.

Hicks, who died of cancer in 1994 at age 32, used a style since emulated by comedians like Denis Leary and Dennis Miller to rage against what he perceived as the injustices of American society. He railed against censorship, political correctness, and government waste.

Some of his ideas seem to veer outside of the traditional American conservative program. For example, he once suggested that the money spent on nuclear arms could instead be spent feeding and clothing the world. That, coupled with his criticism of the 1990 Gulf War, seems to be out of step with conventional American conservative values. However, think of both in terms of a criticism of government wastefulnes, and there is certainly a conservative flavour to Hicks' comedy.

That, of course, is the most intriguing element of South Park conservatism. It offends many of the values of traditional conservatives, particularly valuing a morally cleansed society. However, South Park conservatism recognizes that, today, it's liberals who often take -- or at least feign -- offense at the comments and ideas of their political rivals.

In this way South Park conservatism acts as a back door for politically incorrect sentiments to flourish within a conservative movement. Many social values that are otherwise considered ill at ease with conservatism can -- and do -- sneak in through that back door and effectively try their hand within the conservative movement.

The likelihood that Hicks' anti-war message would ever find traction within American conservatism may at first seem remote. But then one considers the number of Republicans who have come to oppose the Republican-initiated war in Iraq.

While many American conservatives have embraced this new breed of conservatism -- the recent rash of anti-tax tea party demonstrations is a prime example -- individuals such as Hicks certainly helped plant the seeds.

Janene Garofalo's Limbic Brain

Is oversized

The recent "Tax Day" protests in the United States have received an incredible surplus of coverage based on their comparative size. Clearly tailored for vulgar sensationalism, the "tea bag the White House" demonstrations were a perfect example of South Park conservatism.

But many people clearly didn't appreciate the calculated nature of these protests. Among them were CNBC's Keith Olbermann and a recent guest on his show, Janeane Garofalo. On a recent Countdown segment, Garofalo insisted that the tea bag protests were about nothing but racism.

"Let's be very honest about what this is about," Garofalo mused. "It's not about bashing Democrats. It's not about taxes. They have no idea what the Boston Tea Party was about, they don't know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is about racism straight-up."

Certainly, some people have managed to find some examples of signs at these protests that are either overly racist, arguably racist, or at least can be conflated into being racist.

But interestingly enough, the Ku Klux Klan -- the American cultural leader in racism -- doesn't seem like they've had anything to do with or say about these tea bag protests. Ever.

If these protests were really just about "racism straight-up", it's interesting that a group that is all about "racism straight-up" seem to have no interest in these protests.

Certainly, it couldn't possibly occur to either Olberman or Garofalo that even if most of those people participating in those protests are due for a tax cut, that this couldn't possibly be about government debt and the future taxes that would be necessary to pay back that debt.

No, like many left-wing ideologues, Garofalo and Olberman seem to have only one angle to play here -- the racism angle, even it is an incredibly ill-fitting frame.

Well, OK. Maybe not quite. Garofalo also took some time out of her interview to play amateur neurologist, and indulge herself in the intellectual folly of trying to write off fiscal conservatism -- even as poorly-conceived as these particular examples of fiscal conservatism are -- as a mental illness.

"The Limbic brain inside a right-winger or Republican or conservative or your average white power activist, the limbic brain in much larger in their headspace (Gee, does anyone think that's the technical term for that? -ed) than in a reasonable person and it's pushing against the frontal lobe so their synapses are misfiring," Garofalo muses. "It is a neurological problem we're dealing with."

In the end, Garofalo's conclusion seems to be based on the crowds being mostly- or all white. By almost any standard of evidence this is extremely thin gruel, particularly when these protests are taking place in so many communities that are predominantly caucasian.

It's amusing to witness Olbermann's toadyism in the course of the interview, not stopping once to question or challenge Garofalo on her inflammatory rhetoric. This is nothing new to anyone who's paid so much as passing attention to the American media -- one sees this kind of Toadyism on Fox News quite frequently, especially on shows hosted by arch-conservatives like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly.

It's just ironic to see this on a CNBC program complaining about the alleged media malpractice of Fox News.

But it's hard to hold this against Keith Olbermann or Janeane Garofalo. Their limbic brains must be oversized.