Tom, you're responding to SDAI-Tech1's silly post trying to reframe what I wrote, and not to anything I actually wrote. I'm not interested in categorizing Zoners personally, nor am I looking to put anyone so identified on the spot. In fact, to do so would be inconsistent with the idea itself, since it's not a distinct creed so much as an attitude, one that most people possess to the degree that they feel obligated to submit to Authority.

Dean's thesis is a lot more than SDAI-Tech1, out of total and willful ignorance, portrayed it. Dean's a Conservative of the old school, and his book is written more with you in mind than it was written for me. Dean may be a "paleoconservative", but he's still a Conservative, and I'm surprised that modern Conservatives so easily and scornfully dismiss the traditional wisdom of their elders. It's internally inconsistent, and you might benefit from wondering why.

The concept of authoritarian conservativism is meaningful to me personally, as someone not a member of that group, because it brings into focus my perception that modern Conservatives are very different from the traditional Conservatives I grew up with. It explains my nostalgia for traditional Conservatives in contrast to the modern type, for the traditionalist's qualities of integrity, honesty, honor, and civility.

In the intro, Dean quotes Barry Goldwater on modern Conservatives, and it ain't pretty. Unless you're willing to go so far as to claim that Goldwater never was a Conservative, I'd suggest that you have an intellectual obligation to listen to what Goldwater and Dean have to say.

It's a foregone conclusion that Republicans will get their asses kicked in the upcoming election, and likely in the next one after that. I should think that there'd be not only comfort, but perhaps a path to redemption, in understanding that Americans are rejecting specifically authoritarian conservatism, and not Conservatism in general. The fearmongering necessary to maintain Republicans in power based on exploiting authoritarian conservatism is getting old for many people, and the natural optimism of Americans seems to be reawakening and wanting to emerge back into the light.

Conservatives didn't always have to resort to instilling insecurity and authoritarian conservative attitudes in people. Traditional Conservatives have held high office just as much as Democrats, and many of our finest Presidents have been traditional Conservatives. Nixon was an AC, and look how he turned out; yet Reagan exhibited little of the tendency, nor did Eisenhower, Bush I, Ford, Hoover, etc.

I'm not trying to play the sly serpent counseling you to cut your own throats; you can win power without giving in to (or exploiting) authoritarian conservatism, and win power with your honor intact and America well-served. I'm not kidding when I say I miss traditional Conservatives.

There's power in understanding, including the understanding that comes from introspection. I think Dean's insights are correct and thus powerful; do you want me alone to possess this power, or shouldn't you have a piece of it yourself?

(Just as an aside, Dean too brings up familial archetypes. It occurs to me that it was inevitable that George W. Bush would turn out an authoritarian conservative, as the son of the ultimate Authority figure, Daddy Bush. As I've noted, authoritarian conservatives tend to be ill-suited to be authority figures themselves, and perhaps this notion explains the hesitancy I've always sensed in Dubya, that feeling that he's trying to fill a suit larger than he really is. If they took away the desk when he addresses us seated in the Oval Office, might we see that his feet don't touch the ground?)