Wednesday, February 08, 2006

The Vice of Conservatives is Believing that Conservatism is a Morality Test; The Vice of Liberals is Believing that Liberalism is an Intelligence Test

That pretty much says what I have to say today.
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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Then what is the vice of centrists?

11:26 PM, February 08, 2006
Anonymous said...

To support your point, Mill said that, 'although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative', while Alan Simpson, former Senator from Wyoming once said, 'We have two political parties in this country, the Stupid Party and the Evil Party. I belong to the Stupid Party.'

In a similar veing, Chesterton wrote that 'the business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.'

In my opinion, however, these claims apply more readily to political activists than to other citizens. For example, the most profound philosophers of the 20th century (Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Gadamer) and the most compelling literary artists of the past 100 years (Eliot, Joyce, Faulkner, Pound) were either uninterested in political life or hostile to liberalism.

7:32 AM, February 09, 2006
Gruntled said...

Which raises the interesting question: is liberalism inherently middle-brow?

7:33 AM, February 09, 2006
Gruntled said...

I find that my life follows the path described by Churchill (among others):

Any man who is not a liberal at 20 has not heart; but it he is not a conservative at 50, he has no brain.

7:35 AM, February 09, 2006
Milliner's Dream, a woman of many "hats"... said...

WOW! May I quote that?

Shows you that pith, not length is oftentimes (usually?!) more important.

Hh

11:42 PM, February 11, 2006
Gruntled said...

Amen -- spread it to the four winds.
(Though it is a little long for a bumper sticker ...)

12:20 AM, February 12, 2006

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