Posted on 11/17/2004 9:23:28 AM PST by kirkrg
Intellectual Elitists See Red All Over
By Richard Kirk
Writing in The New York Times, author Gary Wills made this observation about the inhabitants of the nation he calls home: "Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?"
Since the re-election of President George W. Bush, several members of the chattering class have complained about the boorishness of their fellow citizens. More specifically, they have bemoaned the voting habits of religiously motivated dolts -- that group whose moral convictions foster such civility as still exists in our country.
These red-state rubes, it seems, have the temerity to ignore the advice of their intellectual betters -- men and women trained in elite institutions and groomed-to-PR-perfection in Manhattan studios. How yahoos who have never appeared on national television, starred in a movie, recorded a top-10 hit or written books reviewed by The New York Times could defy the insight of such celebrated egos is a question worthy of contemplation.
Perhaps the answer to this query lies in the litany of ideas endorsed by Wills' Enlightened chums -- ideas in addition to the incredible efficacy of random mutations.
Most conspicuously, Gary's pals believe (despite biological "hints" and 5,000 years of civilized history to the contrary) that a family comprised of two mommies or two daddies serves kids quite as well as one in which children derive their most intimate portrait of family relationships from a mother and a father -- a domestic unit within which marital vows have actual reproductive consequences.
(Thirty years ago, Bi-Coastal Cosmopolitans dogmatically declared that divorce was no big deal and that the biggest problem facing kids born out of wedlock was the bigoted stigma attached to them.)
Elite Starbuckeroos also believe, regardless of the facts, that underfunding is the real reason public education so miserably fails minority students. With blind faith, they cling to the doctrine that bureaucrats are more trustworthy than a child's parents and that "more of the same" is vastly preferable to options that might undermine political allies.
Smarter-than-thous are also convinced that dismembering a fully formed baby in its mother's birth canal is a woman's choice, while protecting kangaroo rats from extinction is a sacred obligation.
They believe that "Sex and the City" entertainment is morally insignificant, whereas a dramatic presentation of "The Passion" is a cinematic crisis meriting serious editorial response.
They believe that a cross exhibited in a jar of urine is a mark of open- mindedness, but a tiny version of the same figure displayed on Los Angeles' county seal constitutes an intolerant imposition of faith.
Mental Incredibles hail Nicole Kidman's liquid tryst with a 10-year-old as "pushing the envelope," but find the motto "In God We Trust" an international embarrassment.
They declare that Howard Stern's broadcasts are constitutionally protected, but deem it prudent to monitor certain pulpits for hate speech.
They believe that deficits are "generational warfare" when they arise from tax cuts, but "investments in the future" when produced by expanded government programs.
Secular savants believe that SUVs constitute a greater threat than MTV, that minuscule increases in air pollution merit more vilification than a gang of corporate pimps who've been corrupting children for more than two decades.
They believe that secondhand smoke is more deadly than sexual promiscuity, that politics trumps personal morality and that political correctness provides absolution for chronic narcissism.
They think that having three sets of children by at least as many partners isn't nearly as reprehensible as failing to support the Kyoto accords.
They believe, above all else, in the superiority of elite opinion, and in the cultural prestige that attends membership in this mutual veneration society.
That ordinary citizens should veto such advice -- ignoring the enlightened voices that denounced Ronald Reagan and touted the admirable idealism of Marxist regimes -- is hard to understand. Perhaps it's just impenetrable ignorance.
Richard Kirk is a freelance writer who lives in Oceanside. Write to him by e-mail him at kirkrg@nctimes.net .
bump
Maybe the lefties should go to North Korea.
Darwin's theory on evolution has been overturned time and time again. It's as wrong-headed as the Big Bang explanation but idiots still lay claim to it.
ping
They just don"t get it! Religion and Morality are not synonymous words. Morality pertains to character and behavior, from the point of right and wrong. 50% paying 95% of the taxes is not Morality, EPA, EEOC, OSHA, Affirmative Action, Amnesty for Illegal Aliens, no Parental permission for underage abortion, Gay Marriage, etc., is not Morality.
Morality is character and behavior and personal responsibility, not the punishment of those who are and have worked for success.
Ping!
Keep calling Christians "dolts" That will get votes next election.
Evolution cannot be proven. There isn't one single example of it. There is devolution, as is evident in the democrat mind.
There is on the otherhand much more evidence proving creationist theories. What God made before man is irrelevant to the message in the bible and gospel. The Bible isn't about how the he created the earth, It's about the people he created. It's strange that everything said in the bible and places mentioned have come to be and been found in archeology digs. Anything science discovers has already been made by God. Man finds nothing new. Only the Bible has been correct about the future, man can only look to the past at what once was, and dream and speculate about the future. Even looking deep into space with the biggest telescopes, we cannot even see the present, only the past.
Typical liberal nonsense and elitist attitude (not to mention their intolerance and bigotry):
"If indeed all those blue states all got together and seceded from the union, think what would be left for those red states --
nothing. There would be no educational system. You would have
nothing. What would be left to you? I mean, where is all of this talent in this country? It's on both sides, the Northeast corridor."
-Geraldine Ferraro
"GW Bush and the American right wing Taliban are endangering the entire planet. If the rest of the world had a say, Bush and
Cheney would be in jail. Is it now morally excusable to organize
midnight raids on republican [sic] groups in the red states and 'terminate' them with extreme prejudice? Watching Bush's
acceptance speech on [November 3], with the Cheneys on stage as well
... who would not have liked to see a bomb go off under the stage and wipe out the whole despicable slimy lot of them?"
-Bill Maher
I think the fact that in 2004 George W. Bush received more votes and a higher percentage of the votes in Massachusetts than in 2000, demonstrates that all this red/blue state analysis is a bunch of nonsense.
Kerry was an awful candidate, even the rats didn't like him.
There are at least two schools of ethics. One school, (the morality one) accepts that there are certain things that we all understand are against the moral rules and if allowed by society to occur, will eventually ruin society. (These rules can come from scripture, or common sense, but people who believe in them believe they are apriori valid.
The other school, (the secular one) believes that morallity is subject to community standards and can be changed by a community if they so desire. In this way, some Mormans may support a small community of bigamists. The two schools of morality can sometimes both exist as long as there is some separation between them.
But the world is getting smaller and it is harder to argue that what happens someplace does not lead to affects in other places. So which morality do we accept? It looks like the USA is leaning a little towards the fundamental idea of morality. This is good in my opinion. Situational morality has always seemed to be nice in principal, but flawed in usage wherever it is tried.
Ignoramuses like Wills (and yes, I know he has a reputation as a "serious intellectual", however actually reading any of his books will quickly dispel that notion) always forget that there were two "Enlightenments" - the French and the Scottish.
The French one led to the Terror, the Commune, the spread of armed Socialist movements like Communism and National Socialism and finally to the complete moral and metaphysical bankruptcy of deconstruction and multiculturalism. The French Enlightenment produced nothing of any value.
The Scottish Enlightenment, however, produced such lights as Adam Smith who helped put practical concerns like economics on a rigorous analytical footing. It led to the explosion of brilliant scientific and technological innovations that made tiny Scotland the intellectual cradle of the Industrial Revolution.
The Scottish Enlightenment produced or provided the impetus for much of the comforts of modern life, including the economic system that made them possible.
I'll take Hutcheson over Rousseau any day, Wills, you silly old hack.
I have a solution for all these idiotic hateful liberals. get the hell out of the country if you don't like it. Go live in some middle east country and bow to their satanic Allah. I'm sure they'll be much happier. Or go to crumbling Europe, which is about to repeat it's history all over again, because they can't seem to grasp the concept that Christian morality was the glue that finaly held Europe together. Now that they are abandoning it, they are falling apart. Go live in the socialist utopia called Europe, who ironicly are embracing the cult of Islam, Trading the freedom given by God for the totalitarian murderous dictatorship of Muhammads satan, er Allah. Go DemcRATS, get lost.
I am embarrased to be considered a member of a species that claims the ability to reason and still can pose pose a stupid premise in the guise of a question.
They just don't get it!
WOW !!! bump
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