[quote=eavesdropper]
Allan, *love* that word “perfervid”. My vocabulary has been ratcheted up a notch since I started following this blog.
I don’t know that I completely agree with you on Ms. Palin’s words and actions of late. I think that, foremost, she gets off on the response she gets from her followers, and she’s essentially spouting the same vitriol today that she was in the beginning of her political career. The unquestioning devotion from her fans has convinced her that she’s the Second Coming, so she just keeps repeating the same lines, with a steady dialing up of the heat. There’s no question that she’s out for as much money as she can get, but I believe that money is second to the blind worship she’s enjoying.
My biggest problem with Ms. Palin is not her lack of knowledge, but the fact that she appears to be totally deficient in intellectual curiosity. She won’t acknowledge that there is anything, much less many, many things, that she should know but doesn’t. And she just doesn’t give a damn. After all, she’s expressed that she believes she has a sacred calling to this mission. Who needs brains when you have God guiding your every move?
There are many women in the current political spectrum who are true conservatives, but are educated, experienced, and who are well-versed in the concept of critical thinking. The one thing that we don’t need are leaders with no working brain cells who shoot from the hip and talk tough.
You’re right, Allan: it IS government by talk radio. With the full endorsement of the American people. And, unfortunately, this wingnut rhetoric does taint the efforts of organizations who represent valid concerns. However, when leaders and organizations, on all sides, use vitriolic events and writings as endorsements for their views, or against the views of others, they are playing a dangerous game. Their original message becomes lost, and in the subsequent increase in the intensity of the fighting, our unity as citizens of one nation is seriously threatened.[/quote]
Eavesdropper: Great post (and not just because we’re in accord). I read some of these rants from the Right and the Left, and am left with the sense of “how do you believe this shit?”.
I’m not advocating we all sit down and sing “Kumbaya” together, but a little civil and REASONED discourse would be nice. It can be hard to refute the notion of conservatism as a dying light (especially with Buckley’s passing and Podhoretz writing that ghastly encomium about Palin), when all we see are spittle-flecked Tea Partyers or Beck pulling a Jimmy Swaggart every chance he gets.
I get the sense of that same Fr. Coughlin-esque, 1930s populism (see his “Somebody Must Be Blamed” speech), but spreading virally, thanks to the internet, Twitter and Facebook. As the newspapers die, and the MSM adopt a more tabloid style approach to the 24 hour news cycle, we’re left with far fewer true sources of news and commentary and more HuffPo and Drudge and TMZ.
Sadly, I think you’re right about both the quality of the message and the willingness of ALL parties involved to play fast and loose and reckless, regardless of the consequences or the ultimate outcome.
