A Libertine Speaks

Eric Olsen of Technorati interviews Andrew Breitbart at Technorati. And a delightful video it is. Worth fifty minutes if you are interested in the state of the culture, the state of politics and how the two intersect.

Andrew Breitbart who broke the ACORN child prostitution scandal talks about his happy time on the left (about 8 minutes 30 seconds in) when it came to sex (who knows about drugs and rock and roll - although he talks about rock near the beginning of the video). He goes into why the left dominates the culture. For instance how many right wing bands do you know? There are a few. How many right wing actors are there? A few. But in general the state of right wing popular culture is abysmal.

He has some very nice things to say about libertarians about 24 minutes in. In that segment he makes a very good point (obliquely) about the social conservatives being on the wrong side of the culture wars and thus losing the more important war for limited government and fiscal responsibility. A point I have been making for a very long time and certainly since I started blogging in September of 2004.

He also talks about how media bias creates great opportunities to present points of view that are shut out of the failing media. This is an expansion on a point that he made earlier in the video about the people running the failing media having no business sense. That they are not there to serve a market but to serve as the propaganda arm of the left.

Here is a link to the Financial Times piece mentioned in the video. And here is the Wall Street Journal on Breitbart.

Then he goes on to say that people should be writing in their own names. I agree. And then he gets into the fact that people can lose their livelihood if they speak out under their own names. Which brings him to the McCarthyism of Hollywood.

He also gets into his libertine side. A side most folks are unwilling to admit. As most of you know I have my libertine side and although it is not my focus I'm not ashamed of it either. All I'm going to say on the matter is "Lesbians. Yummmmm." And one other thing. I love hanging out with musicians. I will add that if you choose to be a libertine be a responsible libertine. Succinctly: Don't drink and drive. Don't have unprotected sex unless you are willing to bear the consequences. etc. Other than that do what I tell my kids to do. Have Fun!

Andrew says he is trying to create a groovier conservative movement. So just maybe there are beginning to be enough libertine conservatives to create a critical mass. I do notice that libertarians - often confused with libertines for good reason - are starting to get more respect on the right. About time. And Objectivists, who have Ayn Rand's personal life as an example of a sexual libertine, are also starting to be accepted as part of the right. It seems to me that the core values of the right are being whittled down to two. Fiscal responsibility (and responsibility in general) and limited government.

He also mentions that the right are the adults in the room and tells social conservatives that they have to come up with a coherent policy on gays that makes gays whole. They cannot be written off. The socons can't pretend that they don't exist or that they can be made to go away. That pretending that gay love is not real love has no future. As I said above. Lesbians. Yummmmmmmm! Then he goes off on the supposed socially liberal Democrats and says - show it. He says that the Democrat constituencies of Hispanics and Blacks are as socially conservative as any white Republican socons and yet the Democrats get the reputation as the socially liberal party.

Breitbart finishes up with the comment that what he does is not about business. It is about his passion for information. When did my passion for information get really rolling? First when I worked for WFMT in Chicago in 1962 and I got to watch the AP news stories come over the Teletype in real time. Stories, many of which I never saw in the newspapers and television of the day. The second place that fired it up for me was when I was in Electronic Technician School in the Navy and we set up one of our receivers with a Teletype to get the AP wire over the air. Getting the news in real time before it was printed in the newspapers or even announced on the radio was a real thrill for me. And the thrill has never gone away.

Cross Posted at Classical Values