Welcome Instapundit Readers!!
Like many intellectually-inclined individuals born in the Midwest, I chose to attend college in New England and settle in cities outside my native region, first living in the Washington, D.C.-metropolitan area and now in Los Angeles. And while many of my peers who made similar journeys share my politics, most do not. It seems that when they pull up stakes, they lose all allegiance to their place of birth–and the people who live there.
They behave as if because they’re so much smarter than the folks they left behind, they know better how to run their lives than they do. They heap scorn on those who don’t know the difference between Hegel and Heidegger and can’t name a single German film director from the 1920s or a French one from the 1960s. In fact, most of the folk left behind probably couldn’t name more than one or two American directors for the 200os.
We conservatives, most of us at least, are a tad more humble. While we appreciate the company of those with whom we can share our intellectual/cultural pursuits, we recognize that our supposed smarts don’t give us the qualifications to run the lives of our youthful companions or to question their world view. Sometimes, we’re even aware that these folks have more practical intelligence than we do; we even turn to them for advice on matters of running our households and managing our money.
Yet, many of our left-wing counterparts just can’t accept that those in the hinterlands just don’t trust the judgments of their betters. How, they exclaim, could anyone find the Blind Side entertaining or, in generations past, couldn’t get enough of John Wayne movies? Just take a gander at Jacob Weisberg’s latest lament: “what may be the biggest culprit in our current predicament: the childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large.”
He then goes on to tell us just what it is that makes the American people so ignorant and incoherent: “We want Washington and the states to fix all of our problems now. At the same time, we want government to shrink, spend less, and reduce our taxes.” Guess he missed the latest Gallup poll. The American people don’t want the the government to solve our problems, well, most of us don’t and I would dare say the better part of the 38 percent who do lives in regions near Mr. Weisberg and, well, myself.
But, I guess he just can’t let go of his prejudices.
In the past few days, I have read two columns taking on people like Mr. Weisberg. In The Great Peasant Revolt of 2010, Charles Krathammer observes that Democrats understand the results in Massachusetts
. . . through a prism of two cherished axioms: (1) The people are stupid and (2) Republicans are bad. Result? The dim, led by the malicious, vote incorrectly. . . . Liberals [believe that they] act in the public interest, while conservatives think only of power, elections, self-aggrandizement and self-interest.
What was “dissent” when a Republican was in office becomes “malice” now that a Democrat leads the nation.
In a more exhaustive piece on liberal condescension (in the same left-leaning daily!), Gerard Alexander contends such condescension is “part of a liberal tradition”
. . . that for generations has impoverished American debates over the economy, society and the functions of government — and threatens to do so again today, when dialogue would be more valuable than ever.
Liberals have dismissed conservative thinking for decades, a tendency encapsulated by Lionel Trilling’s 1950 remark that conservatives do not “express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.” During the 1950s and ’60s, liberals trivialized the nascent conservative movement. Prominent studies and journalistic accounts of right-wing politics at the time stressed paranoia, intolerance and insecurity, rendering conservative thought more a psychiatric disorder than a rival. In 1962, Richard Hofstadter referred to “the Manichaean style of thought, the apocalyptic tendencies, the love of mystification, the intolerance of compromise that are observable in the right-wing mind.”
This sense of liberal intellectual superiority dropped off during the economic woes of the 1970s and the Reagan boom of the 1980s. (Jimmy Carter’s presidency, buffeted by economic and national security challenges, generated perhaps the clearest episode of liberal self-doubt.) But these days, liberal confidence and its companion disdain for conservative thinking are back with a vengeance, finding energetic expression in politicians’ speeches, top-selling books, historical works and the blogosphere. This attitude comes in the form of four major narratives about who conservatives are and how they think and function.
Over the Washington Examiner, David Freddoso, who like me, believes “entire piece is very much worth reading” offers a succinct summary of those four narratives.
In the end, I think the difference between intellectual conservatives are our counterparts on the left is this: when we recognize our preference for ideas over action, for the life of the mind over that of the body, we recognize that we are different from our less intellectual fellows. Our liberal peers, however, believe they are better than the associates of their youth.
We appreciate those differences; many liberals deride them. And they’re the ones who make such a fuss over diversity.
Which may be another reason I continue to deny that I personally should be called a conservative. 😉
For my part: agree with the first, not the second. God knows I don’t want to run anyone’s life. Offered the chance, I run from the chance. But if someone has a really poor philosophy in my view, *and if they choose* to interact with me, questioning their philosophy may well be part of what they end up getting from me.
I think you and Weisberg are both partly right. *Some* Americans, chiefly (but not exclusively) leftists, do want Washington to solve their problems. And there were more of them before Obama’s election. Now that people are seeing the left-liberal project up close – the widespread economic destruction it means – some of them are opening their eyes.
Dan, your take on Weisberg’s column is interesting. I have to say that I took it a different way. I think he’s a little more on the mark – but only if you read it as “one poll shows this, another poll shows that”. So the way I read his essay was more a statement about our poll-driven discourse. That being said, his words are pretty condescending.
I have chosen to live in Nebraska because I’m not smart enough to live anywhere else. I think that everyone assumed that because I’m gay and because I actually do know the difference between Hegel and Heidegger (and Schleiermacher and Kierkegaard), I would naturally live on one of the coasts. But my stupidity led me to believe that Jesus is alive and the Bible is true. And that entirely irrational belief shows how dumb I am and how completely out of my depth I would be in New York or LA. Nothing shows how completely ignorant people like me in flyover country are than being Christian.
It’s true, a lot of liberals in the big cities are transplants who think they can outrun their hokey, poor, small town pasts. But they can’t. They can run but they can’t hide – it always catches up with them in the end. Hence, their defensiveness and inability to accept two sides of a coin.
Weiberg says that the sheeple are idiots… that would explain how we wound up with dolts like Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the gang running the show.
If you have 30 minutes of life you’d like to never get back and are loaded up on anti-emetics, take a gander at the video below. In few minutes in, Rep. Mike Honda delivers the most obsequious and nauseating piece of ass-kissing ever caught on video – fawning over the oh-so-eloquent Nancy Pelosi at a DNC meeting the other day.
About 30 minutes in, you get to hear Pelosi regale the crowd with stories of “black Americans, or whatever they were called in those days” who lined the tracks to watch FDR’s funeral train pass. Brilliance that Jacob Weisberg can appreciate!
(Maybe Nancy should have written “African American” on the palm of her hand…)
http://www.cspan.org/Watch/Media/2010/02/05/HP/A/29274/Democratic+National+Committee+Members+Gather+in+Washington.aspx
And the pity party rolls on…
If you’re an idiot, and you’re trying to help some other idiot get into a position of power to drag down civilization with your collective idiocy, the smarter among your countrymen are going to have some harsh words for you. I’m smarter than most conservatives, this is beyond any doubt. I’m also a better person – you guys have given up any claim to that argument with your morally decrepit positions on torture and wars. If that sounds condescending, it’s because it is. And you should probably spend more of your time teaching yourself things and thinking, rather than complain about the mean people that make fun off you for not being very smart.
People like you need people like me to drag you kicking and screaming into the future. The entire scope of human history has been a march of liberalism, and this jingoistic, laissez-faire, God-fearing path you fools are prescribing is only knocking us off the right track.
Actually, Levi, the entire scope of history, at least recorded history has been the advance of freedom and the overthrowing of privilege and social stratification. Please educate yourself.
From the Logical Fallacies dictionary:
Using stereotypes as if they are accurate generalizations for the whole group is an error in reasoning….The danger in our using stereotypes is that speakers or listeners will not realize that even the best stereotypes are accurate only when taken probabilistically. As a consequence, the use of stereotypes can breed racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry.
Actually, Levi, the entire scope of history, at least recorded history has been the advance of freedom and the overthrowing of privilege and social stratification. Please educate yourself.
Sorry buddy, that’s called Liberalism.
Indeed, Levi, it used to be. And if you’ve been reading this blog, you know it’s my political philosophy. Freedom doesn’t come from the hand of the state, but in restraining that hand.
What, exactly, is it that people in big cities do that I don’t do, here in my, quaint, backward small town? I shop, I eat, I watch TV, I watch obscure movies I get from Netflix, I talk to my friends, I post online. What do you big city folk do? I was thinking the other day–what if I pretended my town was a neighborhood in New York? How would my life be different? What if Manhattan was just a short drive away–would I ever go there? I probably go to downtown Chicago more often from here than I would if I lived in the suburbs.
Indeed, Levi, it used to be. And if you’ve been reading this blog, you know it’s my political philosophy. Freedom doesn’t come from the hand of the state, but in restraining that hand.
There’s other hands out there beyond the hand of state that also need restraining. I won’t disagree that government needs clearly defined limits, but it also needs flexibility to address issues of inequality and corruption. If recent history is any indication, the private sector, especially the banking and finance industries, will be giving this country far more problems than the government.
It shouldn’t be too hard to recognize that the best way for our democracy to work is to have a competitive private sector working cooperatively with an organized public sector. Both entities have their strengths and weaknesses but they’re both fundamentally necessary, and when they’re working together correctly, the strengths are multiplied and the weaknesses are minimized. As it stands, a few corporate interests have effectively captured the government and paralyzed it so they can steal absurd amounts of money. It’s not government that’s causing our problems right now, it’s lack of government.
Says Levi who obviously has never hired anyone or had to run a business in the job-strangling American climate these days.
If you’re an idiot, and you’re trying to help some other idiot get into a position of power to drag down civilization with your collective idiocy, the smarter among your countrymen are going to have some harsh words for you.
Which explains why you get so much criticism for your support of Barack Obama.
I’m smarter than most conservatives, this is beyond any doubt.
Beyond any doubt you have. Out here in the reality-based world, your lack of facts and almost complete dependence on prejudice and bigotry, as demonstrated in your statements, clearly indicate otherwise.
I’m also a better person – you guys have given up any claim to that argument with your morally decrepit positions on torture and wars.
Let’s see; you think the people killed on 9/11 were “little Eichmanns” who deserved to die, since after all, they worked for all those evil capitalist companies, many of them had religious faith, and no doubt all of them were far dumber than you are.
We think the people who killed them are the ones who are to blame and should be treated accordingly so that they can never again kill or harm others.
If that sounds condescending, it’s because it is.
Sour grapes.
And you should probably spend more of your time teaching yourself things and thinking, rather than complain about the mean people that make fun off you for not being very smart.
That one writes itself.
People like you need people like me to drag you kicking and screaming into the future.
Ah yes; it’s not any problem with your theories, it’s the fact that everyone else is too stupid to understand them. Got it.
And now let’s show an example of what Levi supports and endorses.
Long story short: Levi’s beloved government and its entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac simply lied about the characteristics of loans they were securitizing and purchasing.
And of course, Levi’s response, instead of being a man and owning up to the fact that his government, his Obama Party, and his fellow liberals lied and torpedoed the US economy, he tries to blame others.
But your “future” looks a helluva lot like the miserable Socialist failures of the past. Educated folks see that and have no intention of going down that road again. And what’s the difference between torture and dragging people “kicking and screaming” into your “future” of Statism and tyranny?
Just look at Amtrak. No wait, just look at the Postal Service. No wait, just look at Fan/Fred. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Actually, it is the government. More specifically, liberals in government. For example:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703427704575051443279877452.html
Yes Levi, you showed us your incredible intellect in stating that some parts of the constitution are more important than others and that men in black robes get to decide which parts they are.
Then you show your incredible hypocracy in whining when those same men disagree with you.
“Truely, you have a dizzying intellect.”
And Dan, not all of us ‘smart people’ fled the midwest. Some of us are quite comfy here, even with 6 inches of globull warming.
And now let’s show an example of what Levi supports and endorses.
Long story short: Levi’s beloved government and its entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac simply lied about the characteristics of loans they were securitizing and purchasing.
And of course, Levi’s response, instead of being a man and owning up to the fact that his government, his Obama Party, and his fellow liberals lied and torpedoed the US economy, he tries to blame others.
Yes, yes. That’s the ticket – 100% of the blame is on Frannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which isn’t part of the government, although their failure is still the fault of the government, naturally. The billionaires in the private sector that made billions had nothing whatsoever to do with it. George Bush and the GOP simply did not have enough control of government in the 2000s to do anything about this, those insurgent liberals in Congress outmaneuvered him and forced their legislation through at every step of the way. That all makes perfect sense, and the only thing a reasonable person could want is to reduce the size of government further and give more control of our society to the free market, which has only ever proven itself throughout American history and has absolutely no black marks whatsoever.
So Levi’s admitting that the democrats were the party of Obstruction in the last 8 years? Ok, I can agree with that.
Still coming from his stunning lack of understanding of the constitution, this might just be more of his ignorance bubbling up.
Like Ashpenaz, we’ve chosen to live in the flyover Midwest (residing in rural Iowa in a county with less than 10,000 people). While I could spend several hours explaining the differences between Heidegger’s and Sartre’s existential interpretation, am particularly versed in the post-structural school (relating Deleuze, Guattari, Derrida and others to the world of the interpretation and perception of corporate risk), and am a sucker for the modern arts (racing to the Guggenheim when I have a few extra hours to spare), I chose the Midwest because… the people are more genuinely intelligent.
It’s exhaustively tiring listening to poseurs and Czar Obama is the greatest among them. When you know more than the gallery program guide or post-modern book cover details, you find that the liberal social elites are quickly exposed as frauds. I’m no longer surprised with encounters with east coast Marxist philosophy types who adore Zizek yet can’t materially enunciate anything of significance in his views. They buy the books and read the intro and that’s it.
I’ve realized we’re far from unusual, us flyover types. We are not the extremes of excess and outlier productive surplus. Exposed to the Real of the environment and nature, we’re more green than any Seattle progressive. And above all, the frequency of exceptionally read and studied professionals and thinkers is surprisingly significant. One would be shocked to uncover all the farmers who spend a good amount of their time actually thinking about more substantive matters than the price of corn.
“They heap scorn on those who don’t know the difference between Hegel and Heidegger….”
Of course, most of the the left couldn’t tell you the difference either. They just suck up the scornful attitude and then take it out for joyrides at sites like this. Levi, for example, is so clueless, he probably doesn’t even realize when his lunch is being eaten.
step 1: create straw man-all liberals are condescending and think they know better
step 2: pat self and cohort on back for not being like that, for being humble salt of earth with common sense that intellectual liberals lack.
Lather, rinse, repeat. This is not insight. It’s the garden-variety schtick of comparative political demonology. It claims that “our” side is good and “gets it,” while the other side is bad and doesn’t get it. What a waste of time and energy.
“People like you need people like me to drag you kicking and screaming into the future”
Scratch a reactionary leftist, find the fascist gibbering underneath.
“Yes, yes. That’s the ticket – 100% of the blame is on Frannie Mae and Freddie Mac,:
Actually, it’s the Democrats who blocked reform of these two money pits.
“which isn’t part of the government”
But with the gaurantee of government funding, which is a distinction without a diference.
“The billionaires in the private sector that made billions had nothing whatsoever to do with it.”
Like George Soros? The guy who funds all those reactionary leftist front groups?
“give more control of our society to the free market, which has only ever proven itself throughout American history and has absolutely no black marks whatsoever.”
Take a look at that statement and try to figure out where your bulging brain went wrong.
“They heap scorn on those who don’t know the difference between Hegel and Heidegger and can’t name a single German film director from the 1920s or a French one from the 1960s. In fact, most of the folk left behind probably couldn’t name more than one or two American directors for the 200os.”
Why would anyone think this is important information? I wonder how many of the people who know this also know enough math to understand their mortgage or credit card bills. Elitism is not only not having enough sense to come in out of the rain, it is also not understanding why it matters. But they do know about nitwit film directors….
Levi, you provide an excellent case for why government should be shrunk to the minimum possible powers. It clearly has not occurred to you that we are adults, and we already have parents. We don’t need them to tell us how to live our lives, and we certainly don’t need you to tell us how to live our lives as if you were our parents. All of the rest of it is BS; no one cares if you really are smarter (though we doubt that), or really are wiser (though we doubt that) or even if you are a paragon of honesty and virtue (though we doubt that from your lust to power over us alone). What we care about is simply that we should be able to choose how to live our lives. You would take that away from us. That is why we despise you.
Levi #6:
gillie #8 attacks Levi:
Levi brushes off gillie and #12 proclaims:
Whew!
Apparently, the blockhead conservatives (acting as corporate interests) who are mostly all dumber than Levi have raped and pillaged the government (yea, verily paralyzed it!) and stolen obscene amounts of money.
Now, according to the enlightened Levi, this battle can only be fought with more government.
Wouldn’t more government just be a larger village of enlightened smart people for the dull witted corporate Huns to pillage and drag off even more booty?
Certainly it was true that when Rome had grown fat and lazy that all that was needed was to increase the size of government. Had they done so, they would still rule the world.
I have never felt more jealous of enlightened, smart people in my whole miserable life. I may order some waygu beef on a silver toothpick to go with my fries and catfish.
Silly liberal thinks that increasing the power of the State is the same thing as increasing freedom!
That all makes perfect sense, and the only thing a reasonable person could want is to reduce the size of government further and give more control of our society to the free market
The whole idea of the “free market” is that no one gets to control society. That’s why it’s called the “free” market. Because, y’know, it’s actually free. Not “free” in the liberal sense of of “free to do as you’re told under the modern surveillance state,” but “free” in the sense of “being able to do as you like with your body and your property.”
Unfortunately, Levi is right–the march of history was toward liberty and individual rights during the 18th and 19th century, but for the last century, the march of history has been toward concentrating absolute power in the hands of a wealthy, educated class of oligarchs. You know, like the Middle Ages. It’s like were on a road to…something.
People like you need people like me to drag you kicking and screaming into the future.
Dragging people anywhere against their will is called “tyranny” in truly liberal parlance…the fact that so-called liberals repeatedly use this kind of language of “enslaving the masses unto their own freedom” reveals your true colors. I guess the will-to-power requires doublespeak.
Just take a gander at Jacob Weisberg’s latest lament: ”what may be the biggest culprit in our current predicament: the childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large.“
Well, Mr. Weisberg, who’s had control of most school for the past few decades? People like you, mostly, so if people are more stupid than they once were…
Wow. Either Levi is posting in a satirical and deeply ironic way, or he’s utterly clueless in his arrogance.
The condescension, the haughty moral and intellectual superiority–it’s breathtaking.
I’m so glad that we toothless, illiterate bitter-clingers out here in the swamp have such brilliant men to lead us, kicking and screaming, into the bright utopian future! Because, you know, we-uns is too stoopid to know what’s best for us.
And this:
“a competitive private sector working cooperatively with an organized public sector. Both entities have their strengths and weaknesses but they’re both fundamentally necessary, and when they’re working together correctly, the strengths are multiplied and the weaknesses are minimized.”
Fascist much, Levi?
and the only thing a reasonable person could want is to reduce the size of government further and give more control of our society to the free market
Only a truly enlightened intelligence could come up with something this dazzling.
Our society is the free market, Levi. It’s what this country was founded on. As you and your fellow travelers have strangled our freedom in the past fifty years, things have not gotten better.
You may fool yourself, and you may fool your oh-so-sophisticated friends, but the rest of us see right through your line of bullshit and we’re gonna call it out for exactly what it is. You can’t call yourself a friend of liberty and then complain that people enjoy too much freedom. Not if you want to be taken seriously.
I’m not one of those who’ll argue that the free market is perfect, but given the choice between a system whose failure results in ten million people losing 30% of their retirement assets, and a system whose failure results in ten million people killed outright by the State, I’ll take the former every time, thanks.
“…couldn’t get enough of John Wayne movies?”
Miller: John Wayne was a fag.
All: The hell he was.
Miller: He was, too, you boys. I installed two-way mirrors in his pad in Brentwood, and he come to the door in a dress.
All: That doesn’t mean he was a homo, Miller!
(Sorry, a lil Repo Man levity was needed!)
All one has to do to see the “glories” of the way Levi thinks things should be is to look at Detroit.
Oh I don’t know, lots of conservatives are pretty much the same. People on both sides think they know what’s best for you, and want to protect you from yourself. I guess the idea of a political party that doesn’t want to control others is crazy. I mean there are the libertarians, but it’s led by big L “idealistic” “liberty is morally right and we refuse to compromise” instead of small l “pragmatic” “let’s stay out of people’s lives as much as possible because that works” types, which means it will never get anywhere.
I just don’t know anymore. I’ve reached the point where I’ve given up on both parties. They are full of people who think they know better. The funny thing is, I know I don’t know better and that all of history has proven no one else knows better, which is why I want others to stay out of my life.
This is interesting. “You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you…”
President Obama, to host a televised bipartisan health care meeting February 25th.
Rep Thaddeus McCotter On Cavuto 9 February 2010. Sitting in for Neil Cavuto, Charles Payne, asks Rep McCotter.
“Is the GOP up for this, are you going to take the bait.”
Thaddeus McCotter responds “I certainly don’t think we should take the bait.
GOP not goin there.
http://youhavetobethistalltogoonthisride.blogspot.com/2010/02/rep-thaddeus-mccotter-r-michigan-not.html
As one of those weirdos who believe that my life belongs to me and not the State, I’m condescending to “liberals” (i.e., State-shtuppers). It’s hard to show someone respect if they’re stupid enough to believe, for example, our current president (“Il Dufe”) is actually a really smart guy; that the way to prosperity is to take more money from the pockets of the people who earned it and give it to politicians and bnureaucrats; or that despite its horrendous record of rapine, homicide and economy-ruining, the State is our best friend, and giving more and more power to it is the high road to Utopia. It’s also hard to respect people who respects themselves so little that they seem eager to be serfs.
Levi’s comment at #6 is the most egotistical thing I’ve ever read on any blog anywhere. Ever.
What a god complex Levi has. 🙁
The future has been created by free people and their (free) enterprise. Beyond a minimum of government necessary to insure a civil society (protect property, insure the common defense) government largely delays progress and enriches and enshrines itself thereby.
Remember that Marxism, and now socialism (progressive-ism) is largely reactionary – “please slow down the rate of change, creative destruction and need to compete every day. We’d much rather hasten the change the social fabric and attempt to perfect humankind over the keeping society stable, adhering to the old and traditional mores, so all that energy can be invested in competition, improving everyone’s lot.”
The amazing thing here is that supersmart Levi apparently doesn’t realize that Wall Street has purchased the Dem party. I suggest he visit opensecrets.com, the go-to site for info on campaign contributions. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JP Morgan were among the top 10 (legal) donors to Obama and the Dems campaign in 2008. And, guess what, as a result trillions of taxpayer dollars and balance sheet massaging by Treasury/Fed are handed out to these poor souls, making even Bush’s TARP look like chump change. Of course, the unions were well represented there and guess what? They get two new automobile companies to play with and taxpayer financed student loans (maybe) which will only result in even higher university tuitions (use some of that massive economics knowledge you have to figure out why). If we are unlucky they may even get Card Check! Are people like Levi terminally dumb or simply incapable of doing their own research?
Very good and thank you. The real reason they despise the hinterland rubes is that they’ve done their very best to make them all wards of the state in many ways, but they still aren’t as “grateful” as they should be. What has harmed the American way more than anything are all the “government programs” that chip away at self-reliance and make us all beholden to The State in one way or another.
Farm Programs, Loan Subsidies, Free Lunch Programs, Medicare, Energy Efficiency Subsidies, Student Loan Subsidies, Econ-Dev Grants, Cash for Clunkers, 1st Home Buyer’s Credit, etc. etc. etc. It’s really hard to find a single person in this country who doesn’t have some benefit they would like to “preserve”… even if it is coming out of someone else’s pocket. This is not to mention the 50% of citizens who don’t pay ANY income tax… and would like to keep it that way.
What’s baffling the left more than anything is that “we” just won’t stay quiet and show some appreciation for the scraps & crumbs big brother has thrown us, and cheer for more.
We’re doing this to ourselves – every time we gleefully stomp on the next hog over while we belly up to the trough. It’s going to be very hard going backwards on this. The Left knows this, and the RINOs do too. That’s their last best hope in quelling the unwashed masses with the opiate of “redistribution”.
Perfectly illustrating the point abut leftist arrogance. And ND30 capably tore him apart.
Levi must have gone back to his basement to pout.
Or he’s going to get brownshirts to drag us ‘kicking and screaming’ to his re-education camps.