Sensible Erection | GOP's Robot Boy Malfunctions, Becomes Self-Aware, Seeks More Input

Saturday, 7 July 2012

GOP's Robot Boy Malfunctions,
Becomes Self-Aware,
Seeks More Input

quote [ Jonathan Krohn took the political world by storm at 2009’s CPAC when, at just 13, he delivered an impromptu rallying cry for conservatism that became a viral hit and had some pegging him as a future star of the Republican Party. Now 17, Krohn — who went on to write a book, “Defining Conservatism” — still watches that speech from time to time, but it mostly makes him cringe because, well, he’s not a conservative anymore. ]

First Roberts, now Johnny Krohn? Lightning strikes twice?

"One of the first things that changed was that I stopped being a social conservative," said Krohn. "It just didn't seem right to me anymore. From there, it branched into other issues, everything from health care to economic issues.… I think I've changed a lot, and it's not because I've become a liberal from being a conservative — it's just that I thought about it more. The issues are so complex, you can't just go with some ideological mantra for each substantive issue."

Follow-up to: GOP Hatch Scientifically Created Conservative Robot Boy To Run In 2012

Cringe-worthy former praise for his book, Defining Conservatism.

And cue the attacks: Jonathan Krohn Responds to Attacks From Conservative Former Fans

Gratuitous nostalgia:

[politics] [by Ankylosaur@6:31pmGMT] [+10 Funny]

Comments

arrowhen said @ 7:33pm GMT on 7th Jul [Score:1 Insightful]
So Conservative Kid sits behind a cute liberal girl in Algebra II or whatever and suddenly realizes he's actually Liberal Kid, (or, rather, Don't Label Me, Free Thinking Individual Kid, which is pretty much the same thing but with fewer talking points to memorize.) OK, thats

arrowhen said @ 7:37pm GMT on 7th Jul
cute. What I want to know is why on earth would anyone take a child's politics seriously in the first place?

(fucking phone!)

Anti-fuites said @ 7:46pm GMT on 7th Jul [Score:5 Funny]
We were short on plumbers that week?

lilmookieesquire said @ 3:06am GMT on 8th Jul
Oh snap.

mechanical contrivance said @ 8:11pm GMT on 7th Jul
For propaganda purposes only.

foobar said @ 9:07pm GMT on 7th Jul [Score:5 Funny]
Because he's the only person in the room under 60.

ring riot said @ 8:11am GMT on 9th Jul
Apparently, Republicans did - which isn't too surprising, considering that their current Presidential candidate lives in a fantasy world.

sanepride said @ 5:56pm GMT on 9th Jul
Well to be fair, when you have lived as insular a life of privilege as Romney you can afford to live in any world that suits you.

arrowhen said @ 7:56pm GMT on 7th Jul
"Yeah, I've been reading a lot of philosophy lately. Mostly that scary German dude you might recognize from the 'stare into the abyss' quote at the beginning of, like, every movie ever, and the guy with the really long name, not Schopenhauer, because I can't remember if he was a philosopher or a composer, but the other one.

My favorite philosophers are all pretty obscure, though, so you've probably never heard of them.

I'm really smart."

Little fucker sounds just like I did at 17. :)

Garr123 said @ 8:43pm GMT on 7th Jul
Maybe he actually read them and actually did realize that genuine ideas feel different than rote shibboleth horseshit.

arrowhen said @ 9:01pm GMT on 7th Jul [Score:2 Funny]
Shibboleth Horseshit? I used to be into them, but their new stuff is a little too mainstream.

Dioxin said @ 10:44pm GMT on 7th Jul
Every floopy hat wearing coffee house hipster ever has read Wittgenstein and Kant. They're about as mainstream as you can get when it comes to philosophy.

arrowhen said @ 11:24pm GMT on 7th Jul
Back in my day, the floppy hatted coffeehouse hipsters who talked about liking obscure bands often turned out to mostly listen to fairly well known bands in relatively obscure genres, i.e., "I like obscure Bay Area hardcore bands like Flipper."

radioelectric said @ 12:31am GMT on 8th Jul
Really? Kant? Really?

Dioxin said @ 12:53am GMT on 8th Jul [Score:1 Underrated]
There's no Kant in team.

azazel said @ 1:34am GMT on 8th Jul
Kant always reminds me of this: "Heralds don't pun - they cant."

granitewitch said @ 2:53am GMT on 9th Jul

sanepride said @ 8:02pm GMT on 7th Jul
Of course Roberts didn't really turn. Despite the eagerness of the right to vilify him, his ruling was a purely strategic maneuver to ultimately strengthen the position of the court's conservative majority. Very clever, really.

Cakkafracle said @ 8:23pm GMT on 7th Jul
This is a great example of what I have come to believe is the crux between right and left (politically) thinking.

You learn more stuff about life in general, you tend to pull away from the extremes of either 'side' (as if life is binary), and move towards being moderate.

Life seeks equilibrium; in everything it is all about balancing what IS so that you can make the best decisions (whether you're an amoeba or a hairless monkey) to be healthy.

SO, this kid who was inundated with indoctrination his entire life, because a really good parrot. 12-13 year olds are fantastic parrots.
And if they are kept stunted from then on, they become great soldiers and front men to the cause.

But let them see for themselves what is going on, from all sides of the issues, and you will lose them to tides of equilibrium.

I was indoctrinated into a life of hardline conservative fundamentalist baptist quaquiri for about 5 years, form 10-15 years old. It took a long time (relatively speaking), but by the end of highschool, much of all that I 'believed' (or was scared stupid into reciting) was ridiculous and naive, and I have since become a moderate in most things. except for certain things, where I am still a little hard core.

Anyways, my point is, learn everything you can before you take a stand, and even then, know that you might have to adjust your footing as things come along.

/yadda

Cakkafracle said @ 8:33pm GMT on 7th Jul
oops, how'd I lose that fragment
**
SO, this kid who was inundated with indoctrination his entire life and recites it verbatim, because he's a really good parrot.

happiest_sadist said @ 6:01am GMT on 8th Jul [Score:1 Informative]
So, is he now an ex-parrot?

arrowhen said @ 8:56am GMT on 8th Jul
Polly wanted a cracker! CAW!

KingPellinore said @ 11:00pm GMT on 8th Jul
E's pinin' for the fjords!

arctan said @ 4:55pm GMT on 8th Jul [Score:1 Insightful]
I self-identified as a "moderate" when I was in college and now I'm a raving hardcore left-wing socialist.

I attribute this entirely to learning more about life over the years -- in college I was a "moderate" mainly because listening to the two "extremes" and charting an arbitrary middle course between them seemed like a safe thing to do that would keep people from being mad at me.

Now that I don't care about people being mad at me, it's become clearer and clearer to me that one of the so-called "extremes" is correct and the other is raving insanity. (Which is why outside of the USA's benighted political scene nearly all the political parties of the civilized world are in the zone the USA would call "the Left" or "the extreme Left".)

ring riot said @ 8:13am GMT on 9th Jul
Most of my views would be classified as "left-wing", I guess - you know - wacky, crazy stuff that the right wing hates; like wanting a Democracy instead of a Plutocracy.

Ankylosaur said @ 11:11pm GMT on 7th Jul
BREAKING NEWS: We interrupt your daily 20 hours of patriotic music to report that Dear Comrade has visited a sock factory in Pyongyang. For more overly emphatic coverage, we go to Sun in the studio. Sun...

blacksun said @ 3:31am GMT on 8th Jul [Score:1]
tl;dr Kid smokes a joint

mechanical contrivance said @ 4:17am GMT on 8th Jul
Like those nazi girls.

sanepride said @ 3:25pm GMT on 8th Jul [Score:2 Funny]
If that was all it was he could have ended up as a libertarian.

pleaides said @ 9:05am GMT on 8th Jul
+1 Title :)

SnappyNipples said @ 11:33am GMT on 8th Jul
Pffft, if the Rebs were to make a robot, the ED 209 would be their choice.