Professor J,
"Mad Dame M" made me laugh out loud, literally. Clever! :)
In the media it seems that the Sunday morning round table discussion shows are the only place to hear any kind of thoughtful idea exchange between reasonable individuals. In real life it seems nearly extinct. How very sad. As for it being the reason we founded this blog, well, no one can say we didn't try. :)
Your Roe vs. Wade example is the one that comes closest to illustrating my problem with some judges and their decisions. To me the difficulty arises when a federal judge overturns something a state has come to a decision on. A great many things that divide us as a nation should be left up to the states to work out, the best option available for allowing the full expression of the plurality of ideas and morality in such a diverse country. Those unable to abide the idea of abortion being illegal or same sex marriage being legal could move to another state which would be (logistically) not all that difficult and would save all those celebrities from idly threatening to leave the country every time an election doesn't go their way. It even seems plausible that in some areas within a state where an entrenched culture of one kind or another already exists that may be at odds with the rest of the state (San Francisco or New Orleans for instance), that a city could declare itself a sort of "city state" and its residents could maintain authority over themselves on certain issues. It would be a bit chaotic, perhaps as a way of governing but would allow optimum freedom for individuals and decentralize thinking and control on any number of issues. Isn't freedom always going to be kind of messy?
I could not help wondering while reading Obama's book how I might have felt about it had I read it prior to his presidency. Knowing what he has chosen to do once he had the chance and the condescending air with which he has treated some of his critics caused me to scoff at times. While the hope for bipartisanship (though the book is more partisan than I expected), understanding, and reaching out were worthy goals for Senator Obama, President Obama's hope for those things in the last two years has been less than audacious. He has refused to listen and then seems shocked that an angry populace gave him (and his party) a "shellacking" in November. A cool demeanor is fine but the kind of dis-ingenuousness involved when a leader claims not to be aware of tens (or hundreds depending on whose numbers you believe) of thousands of citizens on the mall protesting his policies and asking to be heard, is not. People resent being dismissed out of hand even by a charismatic leader, and as you pointed out he has turned out to be less of that than we might have expected.
My favorite parts of his book haven't been his political or social commentary but his charming descriptions of his relationships with his wife and daughters to whom he appears completely devoted, and his worries about if he's doing it well (which by all outward indications he is) given the lack of a reliable father figure in his own life. A man being honest about such things is endlessly fascinating to women, a rare glimpse into the struggle from the other side. We so desperately need in this country examples of family men especially in our inner city communities. I find it troubling however that he stalwartly defends many of the policies that have ravaged poor families families over the last 50 yrs, policies that have often pushed fathers to the sidelines only to be replaced with a government program and some massive bureaucracy to go with it. In his chapter on family he lays out statistics that show how families have been damaged by these policies but refuses to connect the two, which I found to smack of intellectual dishonesty. More about all of THAT in future posts. :)
If Obama reads cool and restrained, Beck runs hot and pokes his finger in your chest. He's trying to get an emotional reaction which is due in part to his determination to shake the electorate from its apathy. I get that and I think it is necessary to some extent. It has been nearly impossible to get people emotionally stirred up enough to be vocal with their elected officials about the debt and the demise of the dollar (look how long Ron Paul has been saying the same thing) or for people to think about it and talk about it in their daily lives. It's fairly dire water cooler talk. And of course, what sort of people launch into this kind of discussion with someone they just met? (Oh, wait...;)) So I do think he does a great service in that, just as he does in getting people to study history or to read something not normally on bedside tables like The Federalist Papers and biographies of the founders. As for his "historical interpretations" that give you and other historians pause, they must be viewed alongside his admonitions not to listen to him, but for people to read and study for themselves. He loses ME when the lines on the chalk board on his show become too connected. Everything can't be a conspiracy. Even Freud said "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." (Insert your own Clintonian joke here. ;))
You call him on the "mocking dismissal of teachers, and
particularly professors, a sort of reverse intellectual discrimination" and rightly so. He does frequently blame the "tweed jackets" for quite a lot and in a few cases he may have a valid point. Some of what Beck complains of and parents of college students fret over however is a distinct lack of preparation for, or exposure to, a variety of other world views prior to the college experience. A direct result perhaps, of people doing what you point out and only listening to/reading those whose opinions they agree with. An alternate view then presented by a professor to the student may, in fact, feel like an attack. I do find it interesting that for all his fear of our barreling headlong into socialism and communism making fun of intellectuals doesn't bother him. Just a passing familiarity with the cultural revolution of China should make the hair on the back of the necks of his audience stand up when he does it.
If I had a big problem with Obama NOT mentioning the national debt often enough and CERTAINLY not strongly enough in his book I also had a little problem with his constant use of the word democracy. Democracy. Democracy. I seemed to find it on every other page but I kept looking for another word. Republic. No where to be found, though he does use the phrase "republican form of government" in his chapter, "The World Beyond Our Borders". Aside from that he shies away from using the correct term for the kind of government the founders gave us, even in an entire chapter on the Constitution written by an (shall we say) instructor of Constitutional law. I found it hard to believe that would be an accident. Why mislead instead of instruct if given the chance?
Blast! And I was so keen on letting YOU continue to be the windbag. ;)
"A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men." ~ Henry David Thoreau
No comments:
Post a Comment