Is everyone entitled to own facts?

DMN @ Quad-Cities Online ^ | Dec. 02, 2009 | Rod Dreher

[skimbell]

...As an early Palin supporter, I cheered for the feisty small-town Alaskan who wasn't part of the political and cultural elite. But when she started talking, revealing that she had no interesting thoughts about national governance, I was reminded of why a political elite matters...

[Cicero]

This reminds me of those anonymous man in the street propaganda interviews by the MSM. “I used to be a Republican, but I simply can’t vote for Fill-in-the-Blank.”

Sure, Rod Dreher was “an early Palin supporter.” In the Cretacious Age, no doubt.

[antiRepublicrat]

Palin's vacuous populism is a crude example of intellectual corruption tainting public discourse

Sorry, but there is nobody in recent political history who has explified the concept of "vacuous populism" to the extent of one Barack Obama.

You had to turn off your brain and run on emotion to vote for him unless you were one of those people edging for a payoff in the end (job in the admin, payoffs for your business, etc.). Although it wasn't scientific, I think Hannity's interviews with Obama supporters on the street supports my contention, as few of them could actually give a logical, issues-based reason for supporting him, and those who could weren't able to defend that position.

[Old North State]

Here is an opinion column without a single fact extolling the verity of opinions of ‘the best and brightest’. So what are some of these ‘facts’ the best and brightest have? He doesn't say. He tells us you cannot hold the position that capitalism is good while admitting some capitalists have sold out to collude with government to bilk the public. That opinion is simply childish nonsense. Bad actor are found in every human institution, every adult knows that.
And who makes up these fabulous elites?
Jimmy Carter I? Jimmy Carter II? Barney Frank and Chris Dodd??
Certainly not Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan, poor hicks who had no ‘interesting ideas.’

[HGSW0904]

Leave it to a liberal to smear the statements enough to make them sound unreasonable. I’d love to explain to Mr. Dreher:

1) Regarding ‘corporations and politicians collude against common good’: Yeppers. Which is why government should get OUT OF THE BUSINESS SECTOR...we, the people, can reject the products/services of dishonest companies, and we can vote out politicians...but it’s extremely difficult to ferret out the backroom political dealings and do both...which is in complete harmony with the ‘sanctity of free enterprise’. Ergo, no philosophical contradiction here. Keep fishing.

2)Regarding ‘creative destruction’ and traditional families: allowing failed businesses to continue to limp along hamstrings workers and keeps them in dead-end positions, eventually creating personal and fiscal failure and dependence on government subsidies. Far better for family members to sock away emergency funds (personal responsibility), let the businesses fail, and let the workers move to those businesses who are successful and growing, thereby creating success and growth for the worker/family member. Again, there is no disconnect.

I’m guessing Palin would sum up with res ipsa loquitur. Only liberals are too focused on making up crap to figure it out.

[Grampa Dave]

Actually, she makes them, miserable and unhappy to be what they are.

[VR-21]

"Why do Gays and Gay Agenda pushers hate and fear Sarah so much?

Because she's not Judy Garland?

[TalonDJ]

on the basis of a few speaches.

Just because you only know that much about her does not mean the rest of us have not done more homework.

[rockrr]

“But beyond that, what do we really know about her?”

We know more about her than we know about our current sitting pResident. We know as much about her character, her politics, and her temperament as we knew about the GOP candidate in the last election.

I know enough about her at this very moment to stand behind her.

[Grampa Dave]

Another great answer:

“Why do Gays and Gay Agenda pushers hate and fear Sarah so much?

‘Because she’s not Judy Garland?’

I have never understood their love for Judy Garland.

[pgyanke]

You’re displaying your own ignorance, not ours.

[Tax-chick]

Sounds like authentic frontier gibberish.

LOL! I'm going to watch for an opportunity to use that phrase, myself!

Only an elitist would find defense of the free market "contradictory" to the observation that business and government work together to defeat the free market, or to advocacy of traditional families and private institutions.

Dreher's basic premise - always has been, as far as I can tell - is that, because life isn't perfect, elites such as himself should have the power of government coercion to *make* all those ordinary, smelly people *be* as perfect as he believes himself to be.

[Revolting cat!]

on the basis of a few speaches

's peaches.

[Tax-chick]

We should also find out if she knows how to use a spell-checker.

[VR-21]

"I have never understood their love for Judy Garland."

Neither have I, or Bette Midler, and Lisa Minelli for that matter. Perhaps we really don't want to.

[jessduntno]

Only an elitist would find defense of the free market "contradictory" to the observation that business and government work together to defeat the free market, or to advocacy of traditional families and private institutions.

I'm impressed you figured out what he was even going for...but yeah, that has to be it...the logic is Pretzel at best...

[Retired COB]

“But beyond that, what do we really know about her?”

Yeah, for starters we know that she is a Natural Born Citizen and not the seed of a Kenyan (Brit) and an underage hippy chick.

BTW, has anyone ever checked Zero's mothers passport for entry and exit dates. That could settle the question pretty quickly....he couldn't have been born in Hawaii if she was in Kenya at the time.

[Tax-chick]

I learned to speak Self-Proclaimed Elitist Gibberish when I worked for the government ;-).

[Grampa Dave]

“Neither have I, or Bette Midler, and Lisa Minelli for that matter. Perhaps we really don’t want to.”

You are probably correct. We really don’t to know why the gays love Judy Garland and the ones you cited.

[jessduntno]

“I learned to speak Self-Proclaimed Elitist Gibberish when I worked for the government ;-).”

Hahahahaha...

[Pessimist]

I think you’re using the term “no one” a bit casually.