Eggheads for Evil

The Herald Sun [Melbourne AU] ^ | June 9, 2004 | Andrew Bolt

[quidnunc]

Recent history is littered with scholars who champion the cause of tyranny. Thank God for the leaders who have ignored them.

History rarely shouts this loudly to beware the intellectuals, because they side too often with evil.

Ronald Reagan died at the weekend, just as George W. Bush and his closest allies, our John Howard and Britain's Tony Blair, met on the beaches of Normandy to commemorate D-Day.

Or let me put it this way. The American president who helped defeat communism died just as the leaders who now fight Islamic fascism honoured the invasion that destroyed the Nazis.

In one instant, we are reminded of the three wars America and its friends have fought in the past 60 years against totalitarianism — the fascism of the Nazis, the communism of the Soviet Union, and the Islamic fascism sponsored by regimes such as Iran's.

And, each time, which class of people in the West tended to side with these enemies of humanity, in thought, deed or omission?

Who? The intellectuals of the Left — the folk who contrast the messy world of free people with the disciplined perfection of steel dreams and paper plans, and find freedom ugly.

Before World War II, many sophisticates in Britain and France urged against confronting Hitler.

It would just goad him, they said. And didn't he have reasonable claims?

-snip-

[null and void]

No fool like an over educated fool.

[bikepacker67]

Nahhh... they're just too sophisticated for common sense.

[SpyGuy]

Excellent article, although I wouldn't refer to the Leftists in government, academia, or the media as "intellectuals." To do so credits them with the ability for logical and rational thought--and they possess neither.

I would also make one other correction to this article: I'd change the statement "the fascism of the Nazis" to "the socialist fascism of the Nazis." The Left enjoys (wrongly) portraying the Nazis as right-wing extremists. The truth is that the Nazis were Leftists. It's important to educate the masses if we hope to turn the tide against those who would destroy us.

[Criminal Number 18F]

Old article, but a nice catch.

If you liked this you'll love Paul Johnson's Intellectuals, a book-length treatment of similar themes.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[The Great RJ]

Good point..many of the intellectual elite in the 1930's thought Hitler could be appeased away or posed no serious threat.

[harrowup]

No fool like an over educated fool

Ph.D. = Piled Higher and Deeper?

But where are our intellectuals? Again warning us to make deals with tyrants and terrorists. Again warning us that defending ourselves will make things worse. Again warning that the fascists are less menacing than our own democracies, led by the US.

I was just thinking today on the way in from the airport and I heard some conservative commentator talking about a pretty mundane local issue dealing with the local school board and his callers and he were having an extremely articulate discussion about the issue, which had passed my notice.

It dawned on me why the left can't get its act together with talk radio. We are too damned intelligent and talented to think anyone is smart enough to understand us and Lord knows we don't need to listen. (Please note that I am speaking slightly left of center myself and am sad that I have to lump myself in with such a tattered useless class; if I was one of them once, and I was, I am ashamed to admit that I was every bit as pompous and overbearing as the lunatic left is today.) I apologize to one and all and ask that you allow me some time to mellow. This will not make me a conservative, and I'll still be left of the most liberal Republicans (well, except maybe not Chaffee).

How telling that Bush, like Reagan and Churchill, is accused of being a dangerous idiot for believing there is indeed good and evil, and evil must be fought if freedom is to survive.

The President has seen his duty and he is doing it and his courage and strength in casting off the insults is a tribute to him as a man and illustrates that his parents raised one hell of a good guy...and very humble, like Mr. Ditka the other day, "...I'm just a guy... and that is how President Bush will win this one...again....by being just as he is...just a guy.

[BabsC]

Ph.D. = Piled Higher and Deeper?

Ph.D = Post Hole Diggers!

[feedback doctor]

This is a MUST READ!

I love the twist on the old commie line:
Communism has long been the "opium of the intellectuals".

Hence, my new tag line

[StriperSniper]

And, each time, which class of people in the West tended to side with these enemies of humanity, in thought, deed or omission?

Who? The intellectuals of the Left -- the folk who... ...find freedom ugly.

'Nuff said.

[rbg81]

Ayn Rand perfectly summarized the behavior of "boot licking intellectuals" in Atlas Shrugged. It was part of speech given by the Union Leader character (whose name escapes me at the moment). He was in league with the looters and explaining why they had nothing to fear from the "intellectuals". Like many themes in Ayn Rand's work (written in the 40s and 50s), it has proven accurate time and again.

[Intolerant in NJ]

Yet it was still thought rude in polite circles to call communism by its true name...and is today - Haynes and Klehr in their book In Denial outline in detail, some funny but most outrageous, how most of our current academic historians, for all their learning and accomplishments, continue to twist and turn to try to avoid coming to terms with the meaning of such documents as the Venona transcripts and such events as the disintegration of the USSR - an interesting read.......

[lainde]

BTTT

[norton]

"The truth is that the Nazis were Leftists..."

Not really, what is 'truth' and what is important is that Nazism arose from the left. Socialist dogma can say anything it wants but it leads to fascism.

Anyone who fails to see the centralized control, repression of dissent, and repression of the individual within society, that permeates todays political debate is blind, deaf, and [but] politically correct.

[Billthedrill]

There's an old book - now - by a feller named Jacques Barzun, entitled House of Intellect that describes perfectly what happened to the intelligentsia. I'm paraphrasing and oversimplifying quite a bit, but what it seems to me to boil down to is a preference on the part of some very intelligent people for what makes sense over what is true. That leads to an overreliance on theory, and a subtle shifting from what is true to what is intellectually satisfying to what is emotionally satisfying. It is decadence in the precise sense of the word.