Now it’s back. ....
Kevin Horrigan, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
a liberal intellectual media elite.
Talk about storing your head where the sun don't shine! They really need to get out more.
Education obviously does not guarantee possessing knowledge or leaving you with the ability to THINK critically.
Since about the same time that illegal aliens became "victims".
And, now might be a good time for "conservatives" to focus on defining for Horrigan what it is they value enough to "conserve." It is they who are most likely to have read great literature from the ages--not the likes of this newspaper writer and his pseudo-intellectual buddies.
This also may be a good time for conservatives to read or re-examine Dr. Russell Kirk's "The Conservative Mind, which can be read online, by the way.
In Kirk's last chapter he reviews the works of poets and writers, quoting lines which now seem to bear a strikinig resemblance to the players on the stage in American politics and mainstream media today.
For instance, in Robert Frost's "A Case for Jefferson," Frost writes of the character Harrison:
"Harrison loves my country too
But wants it all made over new.
. . . .
He dotes on Saturday pork and beans.
But his mind is hardly out of his teens.
With him the love of country means
Blowing it all to smithereens
And having it made over new."
The pseudointellectuals who occupy the White House, the media, and much of Congress fancy themselves "intellectuals."
By their words and actions, however, they display a provinciality reminiscent of that Dr. Kirk recalls as having been described by T. S. Eliot--one of time and place, having no intellectual grounding in ideas older than their own little experience in dabbling and discussing Mao, Marx, and other theoreticians.
America's written Constitution deserves protectors whose minds are out of their teens in terms of their understanding of civilization's long struggle for liberty.
The Constitution certainly deserves protectors who do not consider it a "flawed" document because it does not permit the government it structures to run rough shod over the rights of its "KEEPERS, the People" (Justice Story).
Blasting it "all to smithereens" seems to be the goal of the current Administration and so-called "progressives" who control the Executive and one-half of the Legislative branch of government.
The Founders' Constitution's strict limits on coercive power by elected representatives are being ignored and disavowed; the free enterprise system which allowed individual citizens to achieve and excel in their chosen pursuits is being co-opted by elected and unelected bureaucrats; and the rights of conscience, speech, and religion are being trampled as we post here--yet, the persons who could influence minds and hearts are quibbling about petty politics of the day instead of debating great ideas such as how to preserve liberty, or, in economic matters, discussing the conclusions of the great moral philosopher, Adam Smith's "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations."
When, in 1776, our ancestors felt the heavy hand of the British government "taking" their earnings, regulating their lives, interfering with their beliefs, and asserting coercive control over their actions, they did not waste their time on such trivia.
They wrote great treatises such as "Thoughts on Government" and "Common Sense." They educated their young on the merits of liberty, as opposed to slavery to government, and they did the groundwork which allowed for a written Constitution for self-government to be ratified in the states only eleven years later.
America is about to be bankrupt, both financially and philosophically, and those who have benefited from the Founders' ideas, who call themselves "conservators" (conservatives) of those ideas, should come together to place those ideas before millions of young people who must participate in voting in November on whether they desire liberty or slavery.
Women, youth, men, so-called "seniors"--all need to have the choice presented clearly that this election pits the ideas of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and America's other Founders against the ideas of Marx, Lenin, and Keynes.
There are always "useful idiots." That's what every oppressive regime has relied upon. A "useful idiot" with a big megaphone is more dangerous to liberty than millions of ordinary ones, because of the ability to lull more people into a sense of complacency.
America, awaken! This decades-long battle for your liberty has been engaged. But, for decades, you have allowed the ideas of your liberty to be censored from your nation's textbooks and public discourse.
Your best weapon is contained in your Declaration of Independence and the Constitution which leaves all the power in your hands. Read them, amplify upon their principles and ideas by accessing the Founders' writings and speeches.
For a quick review of those principles and your nation's first 50 years under its Constitution, consult John Quincy Adams' "Jubilee" Address here, or a recent reprint of a 1987 Bicentennial collection of the Founders' principles, here.
James Madison stated: "Although all men are born free, slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant—they have been cheated; asleep—they have been surprised; divided—the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson? ... the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government, they should watch over it ... It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently free."
Mr. Horrigan, "conservatives" do not express a "hostility" to "intellectuals." They admire and revere America's true intellectuals too much to be fooled by the very provincial and pseudo-intellectual ignorance parading itself before them today.
Intellect and education are great things. Thinking that it makes you superior to other people and entitles you to rule them is NOT a great thing.
It’s real simple - it’s all in how you define “educated.”
A lot of the elite think that knowledge is the same as judgment. Here is the difference between knowledge and judgment: You show knowledge by knowing that a tomato is a fruit. You show judgment by knowing that you do not put a tomato in a fruit salad.
Intellectual? He's putting us on. Right? Liberals haven't had a new idea in 50 years - most older. 'Elites should run things' is the history of human misery. Powerful small groups of elites and masses of the downtrodden have been the norm. Not a pretty norm.
Elites propped up by a criminal class is banana republic - and just as 'old'. Just as 'intellectual'. The writer of this piece wants to march backwards with liberal flags flying.
What conservatives are calling for is revolutionary - that 'the people' make the choices NOT the 'so called, self described' elites.
These types are so afraid of 'diversity of ideas' the average newsroom doesn't have ONE conservative on staff. I'm embarrassed for this guy ... I'm embarrassed for all of them.
And if this idiot reads this I'd like him to point out a stable culture - a working culture - ( not ideas from Plato's Republic) but a WORKING STABLE CULTURE run by 'intellectuals'. It's never worked - well, not without massive misery...
In short, a disdain for French-style 'sophistication'. That same 'sophistication' which embroiled the entire world in warfare no less than three times, in the space of a century and a half. Now, I might just be a dumb ol' country boy, but I think I'll pass on that, thank you kindly sirrah...
the infowarrior
Never, Kevin. Are you under the impression you have them?
Probably has something to do with the attitude...
We are your betters...kneel when we pass you peons.