White Male Identity Poltics

I was reading Unfogged's post regarding this little bit from G. Reynolds and was struck by this comment by PJS

I think that the Schaivo case is somewhat anomalous, and is unlikely to inspire in the Glen Reynoldses of the world much in the way of sustained reflection about the company they’ve been keeping. That’s because the libertarianism of Reynolds, and his fellow "small government" militarists, doesn’t seem to be rooted in a broad-based commitment to monitoring the activities of our government with a suspicious eye. More centrally, it just seems to be a brand of white male identity politics. Hence, its concern primarily with infringements on liberty that are likely to affect his social class such as taxes, gun control, and invasive checks at airports, and its relative lack of concern with such things as torture, extraordinary rendition, use of government funds for partisan propaganda, or wars fought on the basis of constantly shifting rationales. (In the semi-early days of Instapundit, he was obsessed with the creeping fascism represented by Norman Mineta, a kind of concern that, needless to say, has not surfaced much since.) Hence, also, its tough-guy support for Bush’s militarism, weird anti-feminism, and attraction to Road Warrior-style fantasies of armed self-reliance. What’s unique about the Schaivo case is that it actually involves an issue that most Americans connect with their own lives. Most people have gone through something like this with a relative, or expect to, or expect to be that relative someday, and are really creeped-out by the spectacle of government interference. (Incidentally, I think that’s why this might be backfiring on conservatives. I think they thought that this would be another issue like “partial birth abortion” – a chance to flamboyantly side with “values” on a personal liberty issue that most people don’t identify with.) The point, however, is that I don’t think that this case will turn out to possess any generalizable lessons for Reynolds and his ilk. When the next case of egregious Republican overreach comes up we won’t be able to count on him, unless it just happens to affect his social class, and provide no opportunity for macho-posturing about dangerous lefitists.