It is my opinion that many many Leftists (from moderate Democrats to radical Greens) do not think at all, but merely operate straight from the medulla oblongata.
Didn't Sir Winston Churchill say something about the political leanings of men younger than 30 and men older than 30?
And this propensity to emote and feel rather than to think results in all sorts of bad Leftist polices and positions......
Like the well-hashed Leftist stances on gun controls, for example.
But I found the following column and analysis rather interesting.
http://www.cjonline.com/stories/120803/opi_will.shtml
By George Will
Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON -- Howard Dean is no fool. He is, however, not much of a thinker.
His talk flows as rapidly as a mountain brook, but is no deeper than one of
those.
He is the candidate of America's professorate and others whose strongest
passion is as much aesthetic as political -- intellectual contempt for
George W. Bush. But Dean's bantam-rooster pugnacity is not unlike Bush's
shoulders-squared jauntiness that critics consider an enraging swagger.
Bush's imperturbable certitude infuriates Dean's supporters because they
believe it arises not from reflection but from reflex. Actually, Dean really
resembles his supporters' idea of Bush.
Appearing on "Hardball" with the human Gatling gun, Chris Matthews, Dean
said that in terms of legal rights there is no practical difference between
same-sex civil unions and marriages. Matthews: "So why are we quibbling over
a name?" Dean: "Because marriage is very important to a lot of people who
are pretty religious."
So, the argument about the public meaning of marriage is merely a semantic
quibble important only to the "pretty religious"? Dean has said of his faith
that "I don't think it informs my politics," and that he became a
Congregationalist "because I had a big fight with a local Episcopal church
about 25 years ago over a bike path." Fine. His faith, whatever it is, is
his business and no disqualification for the presidency. But his
qualifications supposedly include a searching intellect. Where is the
evidence?
Asked by Matthews whether he supports state right-to-work laws protecting
the right of workers not to join a union, Dean said no. But he also said "I
very much believe that states ought to have the right to recognize -- to
organize their own laws. So I'm not likely as president ... to order states
to change them."'
Order states? Imagine the media derision if Bush ever suggested such an
understanding of federalism.
In his next breath, Dean said that if Congress sends to his presidential
desk legislation denying states that right that he "very much" believes they
ought to have -- the right to have right-to-work laws -- "I'd sign it in an
instant." This is the intellectuals' candidate?
If Osama bin Laden is captured, Dean says "it doesn't make a lot of
difference" whether he is tried in America or the International Criminal
Court. After all, "we are allowing the Bosnian war criminals to be tried" in
the Hague. Question: Is it relevant that the Bosnians' crimes were not
committed in America?
Dean promises "to break up giant media enterprises" -- General Electric,
News Corporation, etc. -- because there is "information control" that "is
not compatible with democracy." Question: Given the Internet and other new
media, and the consequently declining importance of broadcast networks and
other traditional filters of information, has there ever been less reason to
use "information control" as an excuse for expanding government regulation
of information media?
Asked to name his favorite philosopher, Dean named Lao-Tse because "my
favorite saying is, 'The longest journey begins with a single step."' That
might make a better bumper sticker than anything David Hume said, but if
that measures the depths of Dean, he and his supporters should take a
sabbatical from deriding Bush's supposed shallowness.
America needs what Dean seems intellectually and temperamentally
ill-equipped to provide -- truly thoughtful opposition in an election that
should turn on two huge issues. One is: How do we guarantee economic growth
sufficient to generate tax revenues to finance a welfare state whose
entitlement menu is being substantially expanded just as 77 million baby
boomers are about to retire? The second is: Can America's security be
attained without adopting foreign policy goals of unattainable grandiosity
-- nation-building, regional transformations?
Dean has provided no reason to expect from him especially elevated reasoning
about these things. He seems to be an Everett Wharton. "The Prime Minister,"
one of Anthony Trollope's parliamentary novels, introduces Wharton, who was,
Trollope wrote, "no fool":
"(He) had read much, and although he generally forgot what he read, there
were left with him from his reading certain nebulous lights, begotten by
other men's thinking, which enabled him to talk on most subjects. It cannot
be said of him that he did much thinking for himself -- but he thought that
he thought."
Dean seems like that, which is not surprising or disqualifying: Most
political leaders are not people of reflection, but of ambition-dictated
action, living off borrowed intellectual capital. Given the accumulating
evidence, the professors' pin-up should dismount his intellectual high
horse.
Didn't Sir Winston Churchill say something about the political leanings of men younger than 30 and men older than 30?
And this propensity to emote and feel rather than to think results in all sorts of bad Leftist polices and positions......
Like the well-hashed Leftist stances on gun controls, for example.
But I found the following column and analysis rather interesting.
http://www.cjonline.com/stories/120803/opi_will.shtml
By George Will
Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON -- Howard Dean is no fool. He is, however, not much of a thinker.
His talk flows as rapidly as a mountain brook, but is no deeper than one of
those.
He is the candidate of America's professorate and others whose strongest
passion is as much aesthetic as political -- intellectual contempt for
George W. Bush. But Dean's bantam-rooster pugnacity is not unlike Bush's
shoulders-squared jauntiness that critics consider an enraging swagger.
Bush's imperturbable certitude infuriates Dean's supporters because they
believe it arises not from reflection but from reflex. Actually, Dean really
resembles his supporters' idea of Bush.
Appearing on "Hardball" with the human Gatling gun, Chris Matthews, Dean
said that in terms of legal rights there is no practical difference between
same-sex civil unions and marriages. Matthews: "So why are we quibbling over
a name?" Dean: "Because marriage is very important to a lot of people who
are pretty religious."
So, the argument about the public meaning of marriage is merely a semantic
quibble important only to the "pretty religious"? Dean has said of his faith
that "I don't think it informs my politics," and that he became a
Congregationalist "because I had a big fight with a local Episcopal church
about 25 years ago over a bike path." Fine. His faith, whatever it is, is
his business and no disqualification for the presidency. But his
qualifications supposedly include a searching intellect. Where is the
evidence?
Asked by Matthews whether he supports state right-to-work laws protecting
the right of workers not to join a union, Dean said no. But he also said "I
very much believe that states ought to have the right to recognize -- to
organize their own laws. So I'm not likely as president ... to order states
to change them."'
Order states? Imagine the media derision if Bush ever suggested such an
understanding of federalism.
In his next breath, Dean said that if Congress sends to his presidential
desk legislation denying states that right that he "very much" believes they
ought to have -- the right to have right-to-work laws -- "I'd sign it in an
instant." This is the intellectuals' candidate?
If Osama bin Laden is captured, Dean says "it doesn't make a lot of
difference" whether he is tried in America or the International Criminal
Court. After all, "we are allowing the Bosnian war criminals to be tried" in
the Hague. Question: Is it relevant that the Bosnians' crimes were not
committed in America?
Dean promises "to break up giant media enterprises" -- General Electric,
News Corporation, etc. -- because there is "information control" that "is
not compatible with democracy." Question: Given the Internet and other new
media, and the consequently declining importance of broadcast networks and
other traditional filters of information, has there ever been less reason to
use "information control" as an excuse for expanding government regulation
of information media?
Asked to name his favorite philosopher, Dean named Lao-Tse because "my
favorite saying is, 'The longest journey begins with a single step."' That
might make a better bumper sticker than anything David Hume said, but if
that measures the depths of Dean, he and his supporters should take a
sabbatical from deriding Bush's supposed shallowness.
America needs what Dean seems intellectually and temperamentally
ill-equipped to provide -- truly thoughtful opposition in an election that
should turn on two huge issues. One is: How do we guarantee economic growth
sufficient to generate tax revenues to finance a welfare state whose
entitlement menu is being substantially expanded just as 77 million baby
boomers are about to retire? The second is: Can America's security be
attained without adopting foreign policy goals of unattainable grandiosity
-- nation-building, regional transformations?
Dean has provided no reason to expect from him especially elevated reasoning
about these things. He seems to be an Everett Wharton. "The Prime Minister,"
one of Anthony Trollope's parliamentary novels, introduces Wharton, who was,
Trollope wrote, "no fool":
"(He) had read much, and although he generally forgot what he read, there
were left with him from his reading certain nebulous lights, begotten by
other men's thinking, which enabled him to talk on most subjects. It cannot
be said of him that he did much thinking for himself -- but he thought that
he thought."
Dean seems like that, which is not surprising or disqualifying: Most
political leaders are not people of reflection, but of ambition-dictated
action, living off borrowed intellectual capital. Given the accumulating
evidence, the professors' pin-up should dismount his intellectual high
horse.
) get what we ask for. There are political machines out there that really fade under tests. Gray Davis was a political machine all his life with no real world experience. Every minute of every day was spent raising money and reading polls. Klinton was the same, as are many pols. They exist to perform, to tell us what we want to hear. Gray Davis' recent failures were monumnetal because he was afraid to lead: budget, electricity, illegal immigrants, etc... Anything to curry political favor from select groups.
). 