[x]

"Keyes is a man of ideas, and I expect he gets into discussions like this that are proper in their proper place, but that he would never vote for reparations. The problem with American politics is that people don't get into deep discussions."

Maybe, but for a long time it looked like a positive advantage for our country. Unlike the supposedly logical French, theoretical Germans, passionate Italians, or profound Russians, Anglo-Saxons tended to deal mostly with practical questions when they talked politics. That's not entirely true. The American founders were quite astute political theorists, as were the English thinkers who inspired them. But it is true enough, and may have had something to do with why, unlike other countries, the US and UK avoided the tyrannies and revolutions that ravaged so many other countries over the last two centuries.

An intellectual or philosopher can endlessly mull over the theoretical rights and wrongs of all sorts of questions, but politics is the art of the possible, and politicians can only get into trouble discussing purely theoretical questions.

[tpaine]

X wrote:

An intellectual or philosopher can endlessly mull over the theoretical rights and wrongs of all sorts of questions, but politics is the art of the possible, and politicians can only get into trouble discussing purely theoretical questions.

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In particular, when those theoretical proposals pay NO attention to the realities of our Constitution.

Keyes plays these games with virtually every speech he makes. I find the man to have little or no respect for our basic constitutional principles.
He seems to think that we could enact a tax 'law' that would blatantly ignore equal protection under our rule of law.

Keyes is a populist rabble rouser, pandering to whoever will listen to his supposed 'conservative' POV.

[unspun]

An intellectual or philosopher can endlessly mull over the theoretical rights and wrongs of all sorts of questions, but politics is the art of the possible, and politicians can only get into trouble discussing purely theoretical questions.

Well put.