(crossposted on five before chaos)

It's not easy being a right-winger in Vermont. They're a real minority,  especially the far right-wing variety, such as WDEV's blowhard crybaby  hatemonger Paul Beaudry, or corporate apologist “anything for the almighty  dollar” John McLaughry, both great cases of “reality-challenged” people if I've  ever seen any.

And that's not likely to change anytime soon. The neo-con agenda is about as  popular as spring-thaw dogshit, as is its President, the healthcare crisis is  getting out-of-hand, there's that disastrous war of choice, and many people are  slowly waking up to the fact that the private sector doesn't always do certain  things better than the public sector (yeah, I know, there's a million other  things, but if youre' reading a political blog you know about them already). And  it's becoming very apparent that when you have people in charge who feel that  the government should be doing as little as possible, well, that's what  happens. They do as little as possible, not a good thing when  you have disasters such as Katrina or ever-increasing numbers of children who  don't have access to quality healthcare. You can only sing the praises of “the  market” so much before people start figuring out that “the market' could really  care less about them in any way except as a dollar sign, and the hell with their  well-being if it doesn't make someone some money somewhere.

But that's not stopping the downtrodden few in Vermont who like to think of  themselves as the “right-wing intellectuals” of the state. C'mon, don't laugh,  that's mean. There's a new Vermont right-wing think tank out there, the Lyceum Society of  Vermont. What's this all about? Jump below the fold for more.

From the front page of the Lyceum Society:

The Lyceum Society of Vermont is an intellectual forum founded in  2007 which  is dedicated to providing an exchange of ideas among  traditionalists,  paleoconservatives, classical liberals, libertarians,  neoconservatives, the New  Right, and others devoted to a philosophy of ordered  liberty…

The mission of the Lyceum Society is to promote the intellectual  discussion  of principles and ideas essential to the preservation of traditional  culture and  human liberty, the creation of abundance, and achieving a good and  just society. 

So it seems like it's trying to unite conservatives of all stripes together.  This is even more clear in their links page, where you can see a rogues' gallery  of the various stripes of what is known as conservatism, in all its shades of  turd-brown. There's everything from the well-known libertarian Cato  Institute, chickenhawk and perpetual liar Bill Kristol's The Weekly  Standard, and a host of other known and not-so well known organizations.  I'm having a really hard time seeing how the society's aim of a “good  and just society” fits in with groups like The Christian  Coalition and hate groups such as  Tony Perkins' American Family  Association, or the Traditional Values Coalition, which boasts  such headlines as Pro-Homosexual/Drag  Queen Bills Coming Back In  September! and Planned Parenthood’s Child Molester Cover Up  EXPOSED!  What? No link to Worldnut Daily? There's even VT  Commons on there, those people who didn't know about the racists in the  secession movement, and quite frankly, didn't care, according to VTC's Rob  Williams.

It's a really big tent, I guess. Even though the various factions are really  diametrically opposed to each other in many ways (like how the corporatist wing  exploits of the oft-poorer and less educated theocratic wing) you gotta give 'em  props for trying. 

Now, I'm not judging it soley on the content of its links page. Its intention  is to bring together cons of all stripes, and it shows in the links page, so I  can't fault them for that. But who's behind all this, you ask? Again, from the  Lyceum site:

In 2007 John McClaughry of the Ethan Allen Institute and former congressional  campaign staffer N. P. West envisioned the creation of a forum for the  intellectual Right in Vermont and the Lyceum Society of Vermont was  born.

Ah, shoulda known. We all know John McLaughry, from his curmudgeonly op-eds  praising the virtues of the mythical “free-market” in local newspapers and VPR,  where he rails against anything that might keep someone, somewhere,  from making a buck. In the last year or so, he's been on this big global warming  denial kick (because, you know, certain people might make less money if  we had to do something about it), where he often quotes  questionable and/or thoroughly discredited scientific reports to make his  case. 

Having one think tank that nobody listens to or takes seriously wasn't enough  for John, so one night, after his eighth snifter of Hennessy, instead of  rambling for the umpteenth time to the portrait of Ethan Allen hanging over the  fireplace in his den about how wealthy businessmen just can't ever seem to get a  fair shake, he got a brilliant idea: form another think tank that  nobody cares about or takes seriously.

And who's the new sidekick, this N.P. West?

He was a volunteer for the gubernatorial campaigns of former State Rep. Ruth  Dwyer (Ret.) (1998, 2000) and has served on the congressional campaigns of  attorney Bill Meub (2002), Lt. Col. Greg Parke, USAF (Ret.) (2004), and former  State Sen. Mark Shepard (Ret.) (2006).  His writings have appeared on  TrueNorthRadio.com and he maintains a web log, the Vermont  Traditionalist.  

Whoa, that's quite the resume, eh? Ruthless Ruth Dwyer? The gay-obsessed Mark  Shepard? Bill Meub? I'd completely forgotten about that guy. It's like a who's  who of Vermont political losers. He's quite the poli-sci wonk too, not a bad  thing by any means, but it might be a problem when reaching out to some of those  on the right who speak in monosyllabic words or consider the writings of Ann  Coulter as an example of literary genius. Or the majority of people on all sides  who could care less about the nuances of agrarian distributism and just want you  to tell them what you're going to do and what you stand for in less than a  book-length diatribe.

So we now have another right-wing think tank, heavily involved with the guy  who has the other right-wing think tank. And if you sign up and pay  your dues to the Lyceum Society, you get a complimentary membership to  that other think tank, the Ethan Allen Institute. McLaughry's so desperate, he's  giving them away! Like the EAI, its real effects will be hardly noticed in the  political landscape, but now when VPR or the Times Argus needs a token  conservative to write an op-ed, at least they have another choice.