Posted on 01/07/2023 7:42:54 PM PST by TBP
The new slim Republican majority in the House of Representatives lacks something besides its slim majority and the battle over leadership positions. It lacks intellectual depth.
The Reagan administration may have been the last one to challenge Americans to think for themselves, and for that matter, just to think. Perhaps this lack of thinking and intellectual depth in our politics is caused by instruments and websites that do the thinking for us. We now tune in to whatever newspaper, cable network or website reinforces our beliefs and care little about how ideas were developed, whether they work and who benefits most from them.
Growing up and into my journalism career, some of my intellectual idols were William F. Buckley Jr., William Rusher, Milton and Rose Friedman, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Gertrude Himmelfarb, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, M. Stanton Evans and Russell Kirk. Most are now gone, and even the few who remain are largely ignored by academic and cultural institutions that promote a singular, secularist and leftist worldview.
Conservative publications I read with some regularity included National Review, Commentary, American Spectator and later The Washington Times, Imprimis, Crisis and National Affairs. These appear almost exclusively to be the reading choices of like-minded people. Reinforcement is OK to a point, but it stifles growth if you can’t understand and possibly even come to believe opposing points of view. How will you comprehend them if you don’t read them?
Liberals, too, have been robbed of their intellectual giants. Recall Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, New York Democrat, Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Washington Democrat, and publications like the once great New York Times before it became mostly a mouthpiece for all things secular and liberal, The New Yorker, The Atlantic and just about anything written by Frank Rich.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
I am a huge fan of M. Stanton Evans. He didn’t change my political foundation the way Whitaker Chambers did when I read his book “Witness”.
But reading his book “Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies” really had an effect on me.
I think what it was, in both books, was that listening to both authors so accurately describe the behavior of the Left back in the Forties and Fifties, simply brightly illuminated the fact the the Left today practices exactly the same behaviors, and employs the same tactics as their forebears did back then.
For them, the politics of personal destruction and the aversion to American values, is a constant.
Technology may change, but for them, the underpinnings are the same.
I had the pleasure of knowing Stan. Quite a character.
I also had the pleasure of knowing Dr. Russell Kirk.
Did you know that Stan Evans is the primary author (with some edits by Bill Buckley, Barbara Branden, and others) of the Sharon Statement, the founding statement of Young Americans for Freedom?
Absolutely. How could Fox not have given Whittle his own show by now?
It reminds me of another injustice: World-class singer Eva Cassidy's primary occupation was not "singer," but "plant propagator at a nursery."
You weren’t invited?
We were a smarter, more serious, less distracted people when those luminaries came up.
The Internet alone is dwarfing brains now.
This concern is ironically an academic irrelevance.
Once we’re done exchanging blows, perhaps the time will come where we can indulge in perfecting an already sound society.
That is closer (in my mind) to the root of the problem.
To be a conservative means you have to think. You have to come to the conclusions necessary to be a Conservative. You have to understand it, because many of the choices Conservatives would support, are often counterintuitive to people who just soak up what someone tells them.
The minimum wage issue is the difference in Leftist and Conservative thinking in a nutshell.
When many non-conservative people hear about proposed increases to the minimum wage, that sounds like a great idea to them. They think “Why not? Don’t people need to make enough money to not live in poverty?” or some such other line of thought. And hey...who doesn’t want people not to live in poverty, right? It is a kid, thinking about an issue because someone told him that was the way to think.
Conservatives may hear about a proposed increase in the minimum wage and think about some guy running a pizza joint, spending his life savings to buy a business, and is probably not making a ton of money, and is working his business from early in the morning until it closes at night. We think “What is it going to do to him? “ And we conclude that the real losers will be the young kids with the jobs, the customers, and most of all, Antonio himself,
The kids are going to lose because fewer of them will get hired and learn how to work. That’s not good. The customers are going to lose, because the level of service and the quality of the product are going to decrease. And Antonio himself loses out, because he is going to have to work longer and harder hours to make the same or less amount of money
So, we, as Conservatives, need to think through aspects of a given situation before we take a stand. We don’t always take the correct stand, but most of the time we will, because we are less likely to engage in “One Stage Thinking” as described by Thomas Sowell.
That takes effort. And a lot of people don’t want to expend the effort. It is easier just to accept something emotionally rather than acquire it rationally.
I suspect there are plenty of them, but they do not fall within the purview of the MSM. Come to think of it, there are a good many six-year-olds with a keener intellect than the entire inner DC beltway combined.
I did not know that about Stan Evans.
I have people in my life I would like to shake their hands if I ever met them. Admiral Stockdale was one. Phyllis Schlafly was another, and Thomas Sowell is too.
M. Stanton Evans was one of those for me. I only learned earlier this year he had passed back in 2015.
I envy you that you knew him.
Wow, the minimum wage is prime example of trying to seperate politics from ecnomic reality. A fool’s errand. Being against an increease in minimum wage makes you the enemy of the working class. A really bad thing and the MSM will portray Conservatives and Republocans who oppose an increase as evil hatea of the working class. That is why a would prefer to tie the minimum wage to inflation take that divice POLITICAL issue off the table.
... The Reagan administration may have been the last one to challenge Americans to think for themselves...
Apparently the writer never attended a TRUMP rally or listened to or read PRESIDENT TRUMP’s speeches.
Doesn't that EXACTLY define Leftism right there?
They want to "...separate insert thing here from insert thing here reality..."
Yes, fighting the minimum wage is an aweful POLITICAL move and not worth it.
1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.
3 The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
4 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.
5 Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.
7 Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.
8 And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.
9 Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.
10 Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.
11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.
12 When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?
13 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.
14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.
15 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
16 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;
17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
21 How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.
22 Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:
23 Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.
24 Therefore saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies:
25 And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin:
26 And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city.
27 Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness.
28 And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed.
29 For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen.
30 For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water.
31 And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.
SLIP OVER TO ISAIAH 3:1-5;
Chapter 3
1 For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,
2 The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient,
3 The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.
4 And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.
5 And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.
Skip down to vs 16-24
16 Moreover the LORD saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet:
17 Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will discover their secret parts.
18 In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon,
19 The chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers,
20 The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings,
21 The rings, and nose jewels,
22 The changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins, 23 The glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails.
24 And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty.
Stop and meditate on who we are NOW, what we have become and why . . . . we allowed it
There are more than a few born again Congressman that cannot speak the words as a sermon and are somewhat limited in what they can do.
THEY NEED OUR PAYERS
Mea maxima culpa
However, the first mistake for anyone these days, is reading the National Review. They are part of the deep state and support the deep state deeply.
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True statement.
Last time I looked at NR, in their comment section they had a moron saying Haley/DeSantis 2024. He could’t even get the order right, as if a politician the caliber of Desantis is going to be Nikki Haley’s running mate....it was laughable.
College Republicans are funny & inexperienced bunch.
Cal Thomas would do himself a favor if he spent some time reading Sundance (@TheConservativeTreehouse), Darren Beatty (@Revolver.news), Julie Kelley (everywhere you can find her), Molly Hemmingway (@TheFederalist). Perhaps not the style that Thomas is keen for, but the research and analysis those folks provide can’t be beat. And I didn’t even mention Steve Bannon and his entire cadre of hard-hitting reporters.
I was simply using it as an example, of which there are many.
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