just like fruit falls from a tree after ripening
Will sent me this yesterday:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/27/jonathan-krohn-13-year-ol_n_170642.html
It is about a 13 year old conservative pundit who wrote a book and spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
I listened. What the kid said could be summarized as this:
Conservativism is based on four categories of values:
-respecting the constitution
-respecting life
-less government
-personal responsibility
That's it. Four vague and general platitudes being emphasized. Some liberal pundit could give the same speech replacing "conservative" with "liberal" and "Republican" with "Democrat" and throw out four equally random stated liberal "values", such as:
-respecting the constitution
-protecting civil liberties
-government which balances power
-social responsibility
Equally nice-sounding and also meaningless on their own without the typical associations and further explanation. They are merely rhetoric.
Certain phrases only mean something because there are policies associated with them. Everybody knows that when a self-declared conservative says "respect life" they mean that they are anti-abortion, but that doesn't get to the value of why they are against legal abortion because those reasons vary. And when a liberal says "respect the constitution" they mean different things than when a conservative makes the same statement because there are differences in interpretation and emphasis. Nobody says things like Ignore the constitution! Piss on life! Civil liberties are stupid!
I'm sure this kid has a great future career as a politician or pundit, because he has the qualities which are necessary both: the ability to assertively and charismaticly present himself in a way that makes it seem like he knows what he's talking about. But I doubt this is going to be any great political thinker.
Oh, and Will also sent me this:
Here is some monkey poop because it is funny.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/27/jonathan-krohn-13-year-ol_n_170642.html
It is about a 13 year old conservative pundit who wrote a book and spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
I listened. What the kid said could be summarized as this:
Conservativism is based on four categories of values:
-respecting the constitution
-respecting life
-less government
-personal responsibility
That's it. Four vague and general platitudes being emphasized. Some liberal pundit could give the same speech replacing "conservative" with "liberal" and "Republican" with "Democrat" and throw out four equally random stated liberal "values", such as:
-respecting the constitution
-protecting civil liberties
-government which balances power
-social responsibility
Equally nice-sounding and also meaningless on their own without the typical associations and further explanation. They are merely rhetoric.
Certain phrases only mean something because there are policies associated with them. Everybody knows that when a self-declared conservative says "respect life" they mean that they are anti-abortion, but that doesn't get to the value of why they are against legal abortion because those reasons vary. And when a liberal says "respect the constitution" they mean different things than when a conservative makes the same statement because there are differences in interpretation and emphasis. Nobody says things like Ignore the constitution! Piss on life! Civil liberties are stupid!
I'm sure this kid has a great future career as a politician or pundit, because he has the qualities which are necessary both: the ability to assertively and charismaticly present himself in a way that makes it seem like he knows what he's talking about. But I doubt this is going to be any great political thinker.
Oh, and Will also sent me this:
Here is some monkey poop because it is funny.