Intellectual elitists see red all over
[All emphasis ours]
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.[The Ponderosa: Well, we never claimed we WEREN'T boorish!] 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.
Hey, this fella's pretty good! And we say that pretty much coz he sounds just like us.
"Smarter-than-thous". Hee hee heeeeee.
T'other day we found ourselves in a position to be able to explain the folly of "liberalism" (damn, we hate how they appropriated that term and applied it to their toxic admixture of libertinism and Socialism, but that's a subject for another day) to a young future voter whose innate common sense is currently under assault by Public Education apparatchiks.
Since the '60's, the Left has preached a nihilist gospel: you get an urge, act on it. Sex, drugs, booze ... whatever ... drop outta school, conceive or impregnate out of wedlock, bugger at will, divorce-remarry-repeat ... When it all blows up in your face, worry not: we'll tax someone else and fix your boo boos -- and oh-by-the-way those higher taxes are good for the economy so shut up and pay 'em -- or eviscerate that unwanted parasite in your womb.
This is "smart"?
Nowhere near as haughty as our opponents, we would never question the intellects of the architects of the Free Sex and Drugs Culture, The Great Society or FDR's New Deal. We believe they knew exactly what they were doing: creating new and permanent constituents. People who rely on you for their sustenance, will vote for you.
For example, the KKK could not have done a more thorough job destroying the black family than the "best and brightest" did when they replaced fathers with government checks as elsewhere the Children of Aquarius were encouraging people to boink anything that moved and follow that up with a bong hit. For this, the Dems are regularly rewarded with 90% of the black vote, even as they reject ideas that would truly benefit this constituency, like school choice. After all, once blacks ascend to the middle and upper classes, they no longer need the liberal politico and are more likely to vote GOP. In light of this, our opponents prescriptions seem rather smart, at least politically.
But for those of us who see society as Edmund Burke, later echoed by Russell Kirk, did "as joined in perpetuity by a moral bond among the dead, the living, and those yet to be born-the community of souls" there is more to existence than mere politics.
The recipe of staying in school, learning a trade, marrying before having kids and deferring gratification is nearly foolproof and should be shouted from the mountain tops loud enough to drown out the noxious rhythms of the Hip Hop and Britney Spears cultures.
But that would be "moralizing", and that would frighten Maureen Dowd.
