Posted on 02/22/2017 11:04:51 AM PST by Rummyfan
Once asked by an aide to respond to a letter to the editor from one of his critics, Vladimir Lenin refused, saying: “Why should we bother to reply to Kautsky? He would reply to us, and we would have to reply to his reply. There’s no end to that. It will be quite enough for us to announce that Kautsky is a traitor to the working class, and everyone will understand everything.”
That has been the modus operandi of the left for decades. It doesn’t respond to arguments with arguments but with stigmatizing names designed to end debate. As the communications arm of the left, the media conforms perfectly to Lenin’s method. Instead of rebutting the arguments of conservatives, it has found it easier to brand them as “enemies” of science, women, minorities, the poor, and so on.
Whenever editors say that they refuse to acknowledge “two sides” on such matters as “marriage equality” or Darwinism or climate change, they are paying homage to Lenin’s devious politics by shorthand. They pay homage to it whenever they substitute their opinions of the news for actual reporting of the news. Even the squabbling among journalists recently over whether or not to suspend “conventional reporting” in Trump’s case, or whether front-page stories should declare his misstatements “lies,” is a tacit acknowledgment of that politics. With Lenin, the Christiane Amanpours have no use for the peskiness of precise responses. Just call Trump a “liar,” their attitude goes, and “everyone will understand everything.”
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
So-called "progressives," (those this writer calls "the protected class"), wherever they are found, portray themselves as the "intellectual" elite, although they appear to be totally bereft of real knowledge or understanding of the great ideas which were the seedbed of Ameria's successful 200-year experiment in liberty.
Today's liberals, especially these so-called "progressives," with all of their domination of academia, Hollywood, and Far Left politics, seem to fit into a category described in an essay by T.S. Eliot on Virgil:
"In our time, when men seem more than ever to confuse wisdom with knowledge and knowledge with information and to try to solve the problems of life in terms of engineering, there is coming into existence a new kind of provincialism which perhaps deserves a new name. It is a provincialism not of space but of time--one for which history is merely a chronicle of human devices which have served their turn and have been scrapped, one for which the world is the property solely of the living, a property in which the dead hold no share."(Bold added for emphasis)
Without intellectual anchoring in the enduring ideas which provided the philosophical foundation of America's Declaration of Independence and Constitution, their vain imaginations of superiority only expose their limited world view.
Yet, the America which rose from obscurity to greatness, from crude hoes and axes to putting a man on the moon, and from oppression by King George to a symbol of liberty for millions all over the world--that America provides shelter for them, even as they attempt to "change" her into something unimagined by the Founders.
If they are allowed to succeed in their own little provincial experiment, their posterity never will know the "blessings of Liberty" proclaimed by the Preamble to America's Constitution.
Now would be a good time for conservatives to read 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 striking resemblance to the players who, though rejected by freedom-loving citizens, simply refuse to leave the stage, as if reality is outside their universe of thought.
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."
Yes, the pseudointellectuals who just left the White House, are entrenched in the so-called "mainstream" media, and much of Congress fancy themselves "intellectuals."
By their words and actions, however, they display that provinciality Dr. Kirk recalls as having been described by T. S. Eliot (see above) as being 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.
It certainly deserves protectors who do not consider it a "flawed" document because that Constitution 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" seemed to be the goal of the Far Left, which recently had control of the Executive and Legislative branches of the government.
Such politicians rely on what they must believe to be the ignorance of the American people when they make such ridiculous claims. They have been outwitted, however, by an increasingly knowledgeable citizenry who are using the miracles of technology to study for themselves ancient and modern writings on the ideas of liberty versus those of tyranny. As Jefferson wisely observed:
"History, by apprising the people of the past, will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views."
“If he treats it as an opposition party, that’s because it is one. The fury of the media is the fury of exposed partisans, for whom ruling had once come so easy and now is too hard.”
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...and now the ‘very fake news’ is in a heap of torn up pieces of paper on the news room floor, waiting for the janitor to sweep it up and put it in the garbage....
bkmk
The old saying goes, “The Left has causes, not principles.”
Like a cult, they blindly follow their causes without reasoning why.
Like a cult, you are either for them — i.e. part of the cult of The Left — or against them. If you are against them, they will try to destroy you.
This was true in climate change, where anyone against it was villified and destroyed.
It is true on most issues. They don’t want to talk about the principles. They don’t want to debate or even think about the details.
Ask anyone from The left, “What is so wrong about securing our borders?” and they will not have an answer. They will think you are against them and you must be a racist.
Ask anyone from The Left, “What is so wrong with making sure with a little more vetting that dangerous terrorists don’t enter our country, “ and they will think you are racist.
Ask anyone from the The Left, “What is so wrong with deporting dangerous criminals, “ and they will think you are the enemy.
To The left, it is evil to be open-minded. They are not allowed to watch or read conservative news. Anyone who watches Fox News or reads Free Republic is evil.
You are either with them (and part of their cult) or you are the enemy.
.
Great article. Thank you for posting.
I see so many pundits and hosts on Fox News and Fox Business saying Trump should stop with the narrative that the press is the enemy and just use his accomplishments to expand his base of support. Those advising him to do that are exactly wrong. Bush (W) acted as if he could ignore the attacks by the left-wing press. The liberals were never going to swing to supporting him. All Bush accomplished by playing nice with the press was to make a lot of the Conservatives stop defending him. They figured there wasn't any cause to stand up for him when he wasn't even willing to stand up for himself. For the most part, Bush's approval rating showed a tendency to a persistent decline, only altered when people rallied behind him after 9/11 and, to a lesser extent when Saddam was overthrown.
If Trump keeps pointing out the animosity of the liberal press, more people will be aware of it when they see it played out day-after-day, and night-after-night.
I’m enjoying the heck out of it. The arrogant and obnoxious morons in the “media” have been driving me crazy for years with their lies and BS.
“I see so many pundits and hosts on Fox News and Fox Business saying Trump should stop with the narrative that the press is the enemy and just use his accomplishments to expand his base of support. “
Yes, they remind me of the “pussy contingent” of Islam. They are not capable of carrying out the “jihad” but they still want the same outcome. O’Gasbag is their “leader.”
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