Bitter much?
Is this insniping really the best that the Republican party has to offer?
Victor Davis Hanson: Why the Elitist Hatred Toward Palin?
Peggy Noonan: A Farewell to Harms
A lot of good thought in both of these pieces. But what they also reflect is the degree to which bitterness over matters of power and privilege drive too much of the thought, in all quarters really, about matters that are too grave to be driven by anything other than more serious and reflective consideration of policies that keep us safer, freer, more prosperous, and, in the end, reflect our best efforts and our better, more decent, more thoughtful selves.
Isn't it about time we had more honest, humble, open-hearted, open-minded discussions about serious policy matters?
Or is bitter the soil of some greater wisdom, these days?
I have my doubts.
2 comments:
honest, humble, open-hearted, open-minded? in politics??????
I myself am guilty of periodic outbursts of naive fantasy, so I'll refrain from throwing stones...
;)
We can keep dreaming, Ben...
That's right, bud. And we might say that Thomas Hobbes was a dreamer. But, thankfully, for us, he was not the only one:).
It's my favorite example, foutsc - other than Jesus, whose ideas also clearly transformed the Roman empire and the world at large, long after his death - because his thinking so clearly did change the way we govern and engage in politics today. It just took a very long time for that to take hold. And Hobbes' work to end how religious sanctimony ended in so much useless and violent conflict, in his day, along with the work of other brilliant like-minded folks, is not even finished today, as the likes of Al Queda demonstrates.
But we've come a long way since religious warfare dominating the European continent.
And we will absolutely move forward from here in a more honest, decent direction, I am confident, bud. Because, in the end, even when things are really bad, all of us want something better.
And, partly as a function of being a teacher for the kids I work with, I've got all the patience in the world:).
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