Fortunately for us, cancer can be managed. Through chemo, radiation and surgery. If it's a threat, you cut off the infected area, and count yourself lucky.
I'll tell you what, though. The four of us can make a pact, right now, to put more of this stuff on Free Republic, on a daily basis. We'll start a new ping list. ;) Intellectual conservatism and libertarianism. How about it, FRiends?
You want a solution? It can start with us. Ultimately, every populist is an individual human being. And almost every individual, properly educated, can become an individual character, and an individualist.
You want to start undoing the damage? Let's put up great poetry, speeches, essays, letters and summaries of intellectual debates going on. FReepers are pretty damn intelligent, and I bet a lot of people would be interested to read what we put up. As for the others? Eh...Start small, grow big.
In college I once undertook the bold goal of downing a 24-pack in 24 hours. Although I failed, I believe it possible to channel that same spirit toward your proposal, and with similar odds of a hopeful outcome.
So we lead by example, great. I fear that to others we - perhaps rightly - resemble the same "pinheads" O'Reilly admonishes for being clueless of worldly reality (not that I respect his whims... I don't). Notwithstanding, we should all be captioning pictures Hillary's butt, according to many folks here, or instead honing our religious faith to match our political views.
So by all means, I appreciate your thought and would love to have a dedicated ping list for enlightened FReepers. Or heck, just direct me to another website that feeds our elitist egos. I can't apologize for it anymore - we are surrounded by blind masses of tools at work, school, life, family... they're everywhere.
Staying integral to the issue- I think that we can't ignore the "small" things that blind people to great vision, or alternatively, that stabilize the culture. Namely: that others are so focused on Maslowian needs - if not achieving them, then simply appreciating what they own (too often not earned, rather the dividends of others great sacrifice); one can't blame them for cursing out intellectuals. As radicals and other antagonists must try to destroy those comforts, which they term materialism in their "worse, the better" path toward revolution, we instead ought respect and promote them while - hopefully - inspiring plain curiosity within otherwise numb and distracted people.
(But even should we succeed, in the end I must ask: why bother? So that people can't just be contented, but only contented our way? As the communists want folks to be happy... but happy their way. As with the baptists, catholics, jews, and islamists, there is only one religion - not counting all the others. Nobody is ever happy to see other people happy, you see. It must be done RIGHT or not at all. There are way too many -ics and -ists telling us how to live. I'm not sure that I want to become such a prick in my own right... if I am not already there!)
Please add me to that ping list.