Rod Dreher burns his conservative card, annoints his forehead with its ashes

When ISIS Ran the American South

There are only a few plausible explanations for this bizarre attempt to out-Obama Barack Obama in morally equating the behavior of ISIS today with Western, particularly U. S. Western historical events, the least charitable being that what they say about black men is true and that Dreher simply could not accomplish his goal directly, on his knees.

However the more likely is also the more pragmatic. Because of the dismal sales of his last book about his sister, Dreher's current Dante book was born out of wedlock, with neither advance nor even publicity tour; the secrecy surrounding the publisher even suggesting Dreher himself may be among the investors foisting it on the unsuspecting public this year.

Accordingly, so as not to end up eating cat food in his twilight years, its author desperately needs every living creature on God's green earth which (unlike his family) doesn't already loathe and despise him to be primed and available to purchase whatever he happens to discharge in life from here on out, a population which logically includes every politically and sexually progressive mammal left of Ted Cruz, but in particular his employer TAC's target audience, the devout NPR listener and contributor.

The clue that Dreher has finally jettisoned any conservative testicular fragment still undescended to become an overt, eager NPR flack is the uniquely shameful blog post linked above itself, because it doesn't just casually reiterate Obama's shameful "high horse" rhetoric in passing but instead dives headlong into one of NPR's signature and most virulent themes: that only progressives born elsewhere or correctly schooled by them are keeping the U. S. South from imminently collapsing into its congenital norm, brutal racist savagery, why, yes, exactly like that practiced by ISIS right now.

But, miraculously if one is to believe it, such historical tragedies occurred nowhere else in America. This is the specific DNA signature of both the NPR meme and Dreher's self- and place-loathing embrace of it.

And of course it enables Ray Dreher, Jr. to take one more passive-aggressive smack at his father, Ray Dreher, Sr., an active, formative citizen of the "ISIS" South that Dreher urinates on about, without the risk that the frail old man still might have the strength to pop him one for such temerity.

Sadly, such is the risk, Mr. Dreher, Sr., when your son escapes, effeminate, resentful, and consumed with lifetime passive-aggressive revenge on you and yours in his heart. Surely you and your land deserve better. At least you still have the memory of Ruthie, the one good and undeformed child you managed to raise, the woman whose life's work as a dedicated teacher of children, unlike the narcissistic pursuits of her more notorious brother, represented the true moral values of the American South

If you don't believe me, read the whole thing.

Gee thanks, Dad

Pauli commented earlier on his cringing of Mick's persona singing "I was raised by a toothless, bearded hag."   Those are sweet words indeed compared to what Rod Dreher said about his father in a piece today, in which he reprises an interview of himself (which is, of course, about himself).  To those who are fathers, may you never read such a thing written about you by one of your children:

I see the error that my dad made. . . . And he confesses this, not in those terms, but it comes out in Little Way.  He deified family and place and sacrificed his life to false gods....

Lovely.  At least it isn't Fathers' Day today.

And not to disappoint anyone, the piece includes yet another gratuitous swipe at his dead sister.

My Daddy Can Beat You Up Morally

Rod Dreher sics his father Ray Dreher, Sr.'s work ethics on the widowed, disabled Alan Beggerow.

You don’t need to sit down with me and talk, Mr. Beggerow. You need to sit down and talk to my elderly father. I doubt you would enjoy it, but it would probably do you some good, like it did me.

I think we all understand why Dreher chooses a proxy for this duel instead of himself.

Beggerow, in Dreher's initial post, reveals details unreported by either The New York Times or Dreher. Mr. Beggerow also, in my opinion, acquits himself as far more of a man temperamentally and rhetorically than Ray Dreher, Jr. or, by the unfortunate route of Junior's proxy, Ray Dreher, Sr.

Having somehow established himself as The Hardest Working Boy in Show Business - Rod keeps this country running, after all - Dreher proceeds to wring this teat out even more painfully by offering up some Cambodian refugees as the latest heirs of the Dreher Family Work Ethic.

So, after this many bracing rounds of Dreher sanctimony shots (like retsina, except crafted with the finest local turpentine), why don't we all cleanse our palates now by wishing Mr. Beggerow well for his remaining years while praying that Rod never finds himself in an occupation like steelworker, McDonald's associate, or flunky when one of his regular mono naps or anxiety attacks comes a-calling.

Oh...would it be insufferably ironic of me to point out that the work ethic of Ray Dreher, Sr., which Ray, Jr. opportunistically straps on here as his battering shield, is that historically well-known  Protestant work ethic fundamental to the Moralistic Therapeutic Deism which Senior shares with his late daughter Ruthie?