Posted on 01/12/2011 9:34:06 AM PST by Kaslin
“Unfortunately, this sort of battle over brains undermines the most potent and valuable thrust of traditional populism: the opposition to an arrogant, hereditary establishment that closes off access to money and power to even the most gifted products of ordinary American families.”
I have no concerns wrt access to money and power. What I do have difficulty with is the dissolution of the constitution and the empowerment of a self-anointed ruling class at its expense. This is not about educational status per se, but the tendency of such to seek this centralization of power and control through the usurpation of rights vested with the governed.
The argument that Yale and Harvard degrees somehow more fully prepare an individual to adjudicate and govern others has however been called into question recently. The consoldiation of financial power and ensuing meltdown and bailouts, the policies leading to the hollowing out of the manufacturing base and takeover of much of what is left by Washington, the takeover of healthcare with crippling mandates and the granting of exemptions to cronies like AARP are but a few examples of why the wisdom of the establishment is being called into question.
Things aren’t working and its time to infuse some new blood into a system that’s become far too incestuous.
Men like Medved, Huck, Frum, etc, are proud of their passive-aggressive style.
Number one...is does not work, it has never worked.
Number two...it is unseemly in a man, and especially in a President.
Its easy to tell whether certain hosts truly are the conservatives they represent themselves as, or simply have adapted that POV because it pays better, by the way they treat extremes on either end of the political spectrum.
Medved is a little too tolerant of liberal positions; while often patient (in his condescending way) with wacko leftists, he sometimes reveals a frothing contempt for those a little to far to the right.
Interesting take, but I’m not at all sure it works. The “brains” aren’t always from Ivies (Nixon, McArthur . . . even Peggy Noonan who has exhibited Krauthammer-like elitism); and the Ivies certainly fail to graduate “brains” (all the Kennedys, Kerry, Bushes, Clintons, Obama, and the list could go on and on). Exceptions on both sides, of course. WFBuckley & Brent Bozell were Yalies, brains, but no elitists. So it’s clearly not the brain-factor that separates elites from Conservatives (who aren’t necessarily populists). If any quality can be attached to Ivy elitism, in particular, it’s the ability of its alums to connect easily with media, academia, and money.
The "Hammer" has lost all of his credibility with me. He has outted himself as a progressive 'beltway' egghead. What has Krauthammer ever run but his mouth? Who or what has he ever lead? What these eggheads like Krauthammer will NEVER understand is that others are often smarter and wiser than they are, without the ivy league education or Daniel Webster-like wordsmithing. Krauthammer agrees with the McCain/Kennedy bill to grant amnesty for ILLEGAL CRIMINAL ALIENS. Krauthammer is for homosexual perverts openly, proudly DISRUPTING, (through lawsuits), and DEGRADING, (through filthy behavior), the U.S. military. The "Hammer" has defended a few of Obama's big spending sprees as well. So who is he, anyway? Just another egotistical mouth on TV.
As for knowing what's right or what's wrong, what's good or what's bad for America, I would take Sarah Palin's education and proven leadership ability, along with her Christian wisdom and heart, before I'd take Chuck Krauthammer's egghead and secular humanist heart. Krauthammer has proven conclusively that he doesn't know the difference between a liberal progressive Republican and a liberal progressive Democrat. I just love it when the "we the people", just regular Americans, make fools of the eggheads like Krauthammer, who condemned our backing of Christine O'Donnell because she was "unwinnable". Why didn't he and Rove get behind her and help her win? Because they're inside the beltway progressives, that's why.
I am sick and tired of RINO’s preaching to the base.
...agree with your thoughts, but I think Mikey “I love RFK” Medved is actually working for the other side. He HATES any conservative out there and is the first to attack them from his supposed Repub perch. He is a sold out Israel firster and should be put in the same awful catagory as Brock, Frum, Gerson, and any other NWO puppet...
ymmv
Medved is an elitist squish coming to the defense of another elitist squish.
Piffle...
Putting aside one’s opinion of Krauthammer and Palin, the article makes a good point. There is a healthy revulsion to pseudo elites and an unhealthy populism that seethes with envy. The latter is employed by the left to mobilize the masses against achievers. This is the tactic of demagogues and I have a strong distaste for it, having had my fill of it here in Vermont from Bernie Sanders and the Progressive Coalition.
Charles Krauthammer wrote, "it is not enough for the deviant to be normalized. The normal must be found to be deviant."
HA HA HA HA HA!!!! Oh he so jumped the shark with that one.
Hucakbee impresses people with his “get out of jail free” policy, or how it is “Unchristian” to deny illegal aliens government benefits political idea?
Oh yeah! Really impressive there. What a moron!
Don’t like meddled and krautie is becoming quite the anti-Palin snob. But “no one questions the presidential Qualifications of huckabee?”
Huckster is the Michael Vick of candidates, literally, and he will lie about Anything, no matter how insignificant. He has indirectly caused too many deaths with his pity for killers, and he abuses his power to protect his kids from justice. Huckabee is a dangerous, needy candidate, much like Obama was.
Agree, but any good point Medved made was entirely unintentional.
Here he's rushing to the defense of an intellectualism that really does hold Joe the Plummer types and their opinions in contempt. IMO.
K: "I think it is a mistake for society to make this ultimate declaration of indifference between gay and straight life, if only for reasons of pedagogy."
So the fact that Ivy Leauge schools use affirmative action in lieu of family connections for a certain % of enrollment means what?
Look at the “quality” of the graduates. Big buck schools do not teach wisdom. Never have.
Were the highly educated aristocrats of England wiser than Franklin, Madison, Washington, etc?
Were the trained engineers from the finest schools smarter and more elite than the self made engineer Henry Ford or the home schooled Thomas Edison?
Were the Yale and Harvard intellectual class republicans more insightful and wiser than one Ronald Wilson Reagan from Eureka College?
And today, do the Michael Medveds, Krauthammers, Kristols, Brooks, Romneys, and such hold a candle to the intellectual firepower of the lowly educated Limbaugh, Steyn, or Malkin?
Speak for yourself, Medved.
BTW - Michael sure worked hard to get into Yale. But not as hard as he did to avoid the draft! He left that part out.
While I do know people that I respect that went to Ivy Schools, most I know are pretentious blowhards that have a much greater respect for their intellect that do I.
I respect achievers in the real world over academic achievers.
Supporting the war in Afghanistan and Iraq has no bearing on whether one is a so called neo-con, a tea partier, or a simply a conservative.
OTOH, if one opposes them, you find they generally fall into one of two camps - contrarian morons (Scarborough, Buchanan, and Tucker Carlson come to mind) or Liberaltarians (Paul).
The thing that really creeped me out about him was the way he'd talk about his son on the air. He'd make remarks about how he wasn't as smart as his sisters, blah, blah. Not in a cute Smothers Brothers way. The fact that he'd do it repeatedly on the air made it just cruel. One time, his son had a house guest over and Medved railed on the air about how horrible the kid was. What a sadistic creep.
From not allowing TV, video games (except one approved by the US Army), and stopping in traffic to pick up litter, the guy raised his kids like lab rats. I see that, as soon as he got out of HS, his son ran off to Israel. I don't blame him.
One Solitary Life
He was born in an obscure village, a child of a peasant woman.
He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty,
Then became an itinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book.
He never held an office.
He never did one thing that usually accompanies greatness.
He had no credentials but Himself.
While still a young man, public opinion turned against Him. His friends ran away.
One denied Him.
He went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.
His executioners gambled for His only piece of property - His coat.
He was laid in a borrowed grave.
Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone.
Today He is the centerpiece of the human race.
All the armies that ever marched,
All the navies that ever sailed,
All the parliaments that ever sat,
And all the kings that ever reigned put together,
have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as that
One Solitary Life.
Adapted from Dr. James Allan Francis' sermon
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