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Mainstream Media is Too Lazy, Indifferent & Biased to Challenge Leftist Demagogues

Liberals Are a Thousand Times Smarter Than Conservatives—Just Ask Them!


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By —— Bio and Archives October 3, 2011

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One of the truly obnoxious aspects of modern political discourse is the presumption that one holds the political beliefs they do because of intelligence and education, or lack thereof. Further, that liberals are smarter and better educated than conservatives, and so, accept their beliefs as a matter of simple, ineluctable logic over ignorance and stupidity.
This meta-story creates a side-effect of liberals not taking any other ideas, save their own, seriously. As a result, insults and bombastic posing have taken the place of actual dialogue. This has disastrously damage the ability of Americans to work through crises and disagreements into the shared responses of a true democracy. What is missing from this dire situation is the acknowledgment there are often two or more positions which might be true. But instead of doing the heavy lifting of researching, thinking and debating in order to come to the truth, there is today a flurry of insults doled out to shut down any dialogue. Often, liberals attempt to claim higher ground and then launch a broadside of insults, knowing the mainstream media is too lazy, indifferent or biased to challenge the exchange. But there must be a better way to engage in political discourse, which is the topic of this essay.

I. Studies in Progressive Arrogance

A. Raising Cain on Herman

Conservatives whose ideas are dissected by liberals learn to run for cover. Because the merit of these ideas will never be the actual topic of discussion. Instead, how stupid, bigoted and retrograde are Conservative beliefs will be the chief and only subject of discussion. For example, consider the comments of the terminally bitter and exceedingly illogical harridan Janeane Garofalo, discussing Black GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain when he dissed typical African American support of the Democrat Party. Cain said on CNN:
African-Americans have been brainwashed into not being open minded, not even considering a conservative point of view...I have received some of that same vitriol simply because I am running for the Republican nomination as a conservative. So it's just brainwashing and people not being open minded, pure and simple.
Garofalo's response was a predictably shocking expose of her intellectually stunted mind (video):
Herman Cain is probably well liked by some of the Republicans because it hides the racist elements of the Republican party. Conservative movement and tea party movement, one in the same. People like Karl Rove, liked to keep the racism very covert. And so Herman Cain provides this great opportunity to say you can say 'Look, this is not a racist, anti-immigrant, anti-female, anti-gay movement. Look we have a black man.'
So the question of whether American Blacks are unduly beholden to the Democrat Party is completely irrelevant as compared to the hidden motivations of racism--of course! Despite the fact Garofalo offered not the tiniest shred of evidence for her thesis, she was applauded by the host as dutifully as a windup clapping monkey. But must we conclude that liberals have no obligation to make fair, ie provable claims that are then supported by evidence?

B. A Thousand Insults: Progressives & Stupid Conservatives

But now consider all of the recent articles portraying the idiocy of those dumb enough to fall for stupid Conservative ideas. Here are some of the titles and quotes: Kathleen Parker inquires: Are Republicans stupid? (the liberal question whose answer is always, "Yes!!!") Michael Tomasky asks: Are the Republicans this stupid? Politico asks, "Is Rick Perry dumb?"..."Doubts about Perry's intellect have hounded him since he was first elected as a state legislator nearly three decades ago..." (of course!) The New York Times' Maureen Dowd writes, "The Republicans are now the "How great is it to be stupid?" party." Talk show host Chris Matthews said, "We shouldn't forget Sarah Palin...I think she's proven herself to be profoundly stupid." Matt Taibbi wrote in Rolling Stone: Michelle...
Bachmann is a religious zealot whose brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions and paranoid delusions..exactly the right kind of completely batshit crazy. Not medically crazy, not talking-to-herself-on-the-subway crazy, but grandiose crazy, late-stage Kim Jong-Il crazy.
The New York Time's former editor Bill Keller claims Christians believe in space aliens. Oliver Stone opines: George W. Bush 'stupid.'(how original!) Slate: The Misunderestimated Man: How Bush chose stupidity. But Conservatives today shouldn't take it personally--before George W Bush was called an idiot, the greatest president of the last half century (at least) was also called an "amiable dunce." Writes Charles Krauthhammer:
The establishment considered Reagan a simplistic primitive--whose simplistic primitivism was endangering the world. These were the twin themes: Reagan was stupid, and his stupidity made him dangerous. Those too young to remember the 1980s would be astonished to know how common the notion was of Reagan as a warmonger.
Christopher Hitchens: Not Even a Hedgehog: The stupidity of Ronald Reagan. The bottom line is that literally all modern liberals soothe themselves to sleep at night with the knowledge that Conservatives are just a few IQ points and a degree away from understanding and accepting the truth.

II. Jane Fondle--a Shocking Study in Hollywood Marxist Populism

A jaw-dropping article was recently published on Hollywood icon Jane Fonda in the UK Daily Mail. What stood out from that essay, more than anything else, was how mindless Fonda's conversion to extreme leftism had been. Jane, like many other professional entertainers, had no real education to draw upon to form her view of the world, and so simply fell into what was popular and supposedly profound. But the details of her conversion portray an utterly brain-dead approach. According to the Daily Mail this is how Fonda embraced communism....
After deciding to leave Vadim (her husband), she'd cast around for a worthy cause. It was Marlon Brando who pointed her towards the American Native Indians, who were complaining of discrimination. He also told her to check out the Black Panthers, who believed in combating police persecution with violence and revolutionary fervour. Jane was immediately eager to speak out for both. Fired with zeal, she flew to San Francisco to support the takeover of Alcatraz, a former federal prison that the American Native Indians wanted to turn into a cultural centre.
Fonda was a famous know-nothing child of a superstar who fell in with anti-American Vietnam War protestors in a struggle to achieve something meaningful in her life. This inevitably led her to the door of premier 1960s Marxist rebel, Tom Hayden. The article continues:
By mid 1971, her tour of Left-wing politics, with its endless marches & violent arguments, had left her drained. Then Tom Hayden appeared backstage after she'd delivered an anti-war speech, she felt an 'electric charge'. She raced home to tell a friend she'd met the man with whom she was going to spend the rest of her life. A week later Hayden lambasted the 'superficial' sexiness Jane exemplified in the film Barbarella. Agreeing, she began to cry. Within days, they were lovers...For Jane, following Hayden gave her a sense of renewed purpose. 'She sat at Tom's feet, literally,' remembers fellow pacifist David Dellinger. 'She looked up to him like he was a god.'
One need not read the entire article to understand how vapid and unthinking was Fonda's conversion to Marxism. Sadly, instead of being the exception to the rule, such mindless capitulations to socialism are the rule. Why? Because modern liberalism is itself an illogical, anti-scientific set of ideas, best digested whole without a second-thought. Further, this example merely illustrates the manner in which virtually all Hollywood socialists discover the "truth" of leftism. How else could a high-school dropout who earns a living pretending to be other people lecture the whole world on science--"Beware Global Warming!"--economics--"We need more Stimulus!"--international relations--"Israel is evil, Palestine good!" etc III. Question Du Jure: Is Modern Liberalism a Religion? In several previous articles it was argued that Liberalism gets it distinctive outline from medieval Christian sources. In it's present formulation it presents a kind of bastardized Christianity. It features sins, penance, sacred writ, priests and a heaven and hell. In the interest of avoiding a long, redundant analysis, suffice it to say that the individuals least likely to adopt progressive ideas, socialist economics and Marxist politics are traditional Bible believers. And vice verse. So we can argue that modern liberalism takes the place of traditional religious beliefs. Therefore, it either acts as kind of humanistic religion, or--at minimum--blocks the formation as such. So, it takes on the essence of religion, and so is often accepted by instinct instead of mere intellectual assent.

IV. Left Versus Right--The Great Debate

A. Choosing Truth or Selling Out

Instead of assuming political postures are based upon intelligence or education, wouldn't it make more sense to suggest politics, like religion, is a belief systems derived as much by feeling as thought? Of course it would. In fact, choosing a political ideology can either be a very quick decision with apparently inane or wicked motives, as we've seen with sellout Jane Fonda. Or conversely, it may represent a lifetime of serious and profound work which finally results in a titanic decision--as seen in the life of Whitaker Chambers. Chambers describes such a transfiguration in Witness--in his battle for and against Communism and its lies and evil. Former communist Chambers gave up everything when he embraced truth. His nemesis was top Harvard Law School graduate and US Supreme Court clerk Alger Hiss. He wrote later about this fight which involved the Pumpkin Papers and espionage--in his Letter to My Children:
Two faiths were on trial. Human societies, like human beings, live by faith and die when faith dies...At issue was the question whether, in the desperately divided society, there still remained the will to recognize the issues in time to offset the immense rally of public power to distort and pervert the facts. At heart, the Great Case was this critical conflict of faiths; that is why it was a great case....

B. Educating Ourselves Towards Truth

1. Debate But how does one choose between the conflicting claims of justice, truth and reality presented by the main American political ideologies, modern liberalism versus Conservatism? An historically educated person, or soul who was disciplined in logic, would quickly conclude all experiments, and common sense itself, prove the desire for socialism is akin to alchemy and lust for fools-gold. Yet, as opposed to launching into a lengthy expose on the differences between the two mindsets, why not approach the topic from a fresher angle? This would be in the area of critical thinking. 2. Education A new approach to education would focus on setting aside the dreary and stultifying default-leftism found in most educational academies. Instead, what would take its place is a focus on the collection of facts in an attempt to instruct students on how to create plausible theories from them. This would ultimately prove much more of education than simplistic default leftism. 3. Mission for Truth What would such education resemble? First, it would rely heavily on reading comprehension. Second, on creating, defending and criticizing arguments. Third, the major fallacies must be memorized. Then, and only then can the student move onto the classics. This approach uses the Seven Liberal Arts as a skeleton, and Rhetoric as the center. Within this framework, it is assumed argumentation and logic must form the core.

Conclusion

America will never again be great until we return to the brilliant educational roots of our forebears. And this cannot happen until we dedicate all schools to training in collection of data and refusal to traffic in fallacies and brain-washing. It's no coincidence that philosopher John Locke, intellectual exemplar of the Constitution and Declaration, was especially trained in propaganda detection by his tutor. Until we commit to the same for our own children, we will continue to suffer as pawns under the ghostly hands of past failed ideologies, while America heads to Hades in a handbasket.



Kelly O'Connell -- Bio and Archives | Comments

Kelly O’Connell is an author and attorney. He was born on the West Coast, raised in Las Vegas, and matriculated from the University of Oregon. After laboring for the Reformed Church in Galway, Ireland, he returned to America and attended law school in Virginia, where he earned a JD and a Master’s degree in Government. He spent a stint working as a researcher and writer of academic articles at a Miami law school, focusing on ancient law and society. He has also been employed as a university Speech & Debate professor. He then returned West and worked as an assistant district attorney. Kelly is now is a private practitioner with a small law practice in New Mexico.


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