Joel HOver the weekend we had a few good laughs about how our friends on the right were once more debating the state of their Intellectual Movement, especially in regards to whether or not they have one.

Of course, if you have to ask this kind of a question at all it is usually a pretty good sign you don’t. And if you are reduced to citing as evidence of your Intellectual Movement’s gravitas and vitality Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism: Please Pretend This Is a Big-Boy Book, Look I Have Endnotes, well, about all you have left to do as far as deep thinking about your movement goes is come up with a snappy epitaph.

Not that, say, Jonah Goldberg agrees. To be fair, he couldn’t really be expected to, though he does anyhow come up with something that could very credibly be chiseled into the tombstone: "the right-wing blogosphere is festooned with sparkling intelligence." Festooned!

And indeed, it’s totally so fucking festooned. See, for instance, just today, TS speculating as to the possible advent of The Wingularity, which would be this, a resuscitation of the William Ayers wrote Obama’s book stuff.

Speaking as a scientist, one of the key distinctions between a specifically Intellectual Movement and any other sort of Movement (insert obvious joke here, I’m too classy for sort of thing) is that, you know, as a bare minimum, intellectuals kind to need develop some sort of ability to distinguish between empirical reality and comical hooey. Oh hello again, Jonah Goldberg!

"Movement Conservatism" was never an intellectual movement. It was and remains identity politics, shilling, wanking, and make-pretend. Disagree? Detect an intellectual idea in here, and let me know what it is when it’s at home, would you?