So-called "progressives," (those this writer calls "the protected class"), wherever they are found, portray themselves as the "intellectual" elite, although they appear to be totally bereft of real knowledge or understanding of the great ideas which were the seedbed of Ameria's successful 200-year experiment in liberty.
Today's liberals, especially these so-called "progressives," with all of their domination of academia, Hollywood, and Far Left politics, seem to fit into a category described in an essay by T.S. Eliot on Virgil:
"In our time, when men seem more than ever to confuse wisdom with knowledge and knowledge with information and to try to solve the problems of life in terms of engineering, there is coming into existence a new kind of provincialism which perhaps deserves a new name. It is a provincialism not of space but of time--one for which history is merely a chronicle of human devices which have served their turn and have been scrapped, one for which the world is the property solely of the living, a property in which the dead hold no share."(Bold added for emphasis)
Without intellectual anchoring in the enduring ideas which provided the philosophical foundation of America's Declaration of Independence and Constitution, their vain imaginations of superiority only expose their limited world view.
Yet, the America which rose from obscurity to greatness, from crude hoes and axes to putting a man on the moon, and from oppression by King George to a symbol of liberty for millions all over the world--that America provides shelter for them, even as they attempt to "change" her into something unimagined by the Founders.
If they are allowed to succeed in their own little provincial experiment, their posterity never will know the "blessings of Liberty" proclaimed by the Preamble to America's Constitution.
Now would be a good time for conservatives to read Dr. Russell Kirk's "The Conservative Mind, which can be read online, by the way.
In Kirk's last chapter he reviews the works of poets and writers, quoting lines which now seem to bear a striking resemblance to the players who, though rejected by freedom-loving citizens, simply refuse to leave the stage, as if reality is outside their universe of thought.
For instance, in Robert Frost's "A Case for Jefferson," Frost writes of the character Harrison:
"Harrison loves my country too
But wants it all made over new.
. . . .
He dotes on Saturday pork and beans.
But his mind is hardly out of his teens.
With him the love of country means
Blowing it all to smithereens
And having it made over new."
Yes, the pseudointellectuals who just left the White House, are entrenched in the so-called "mainstream" media, and much of Congress fancy themselves "intellectuals."
By their words and actions, however, they display that provinciality Dr. Kirk recalls as having been described by T. S. Eliot (see above) as being one of time and place, having no intellectual grounding in ideas older than their own little experience in dabbling and discussing Mao, Marx, and other theoreticians.
America's written Constitution deserves protectors whose minds are out of their "teens" in terms of their understanding of civilization's long struggle for liberty.
It certainly deserves protectors who do not consider it a "flawed" document because that Constitution does not permit the government it structures to run rough shod over the rights of its "KEEPERS, the People" (Justice Story).
Blasting it "all to smithereens" seemed to be the goal of the Far Left, which recently had control of the Executive and Legislative branches of the government.
Such politicians rely on what they must believe to be the ignorance of the American people when they make such ridiculous claims. They have been outwitted, however, by an increasingly knowledgeable citizenry who are using the miracles of technology to study for themselves ancient and modern writings on the ideas of liberty versus those of tyranny. As Jefferson wisely observed:
"History, by apprising the people of the past, will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views."
“If he treats it as an opposition party, that’s because it is one. The fury of the media is the fury of exposed partisans, for whom ruling had once come so easy and now is too hard.”
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...and now the ‘very fake news’ is in a heap of torn up pieces of paper on the news room floor, waiting for the janitor to sweep it up and put it in the garbage....
bkmk
Great article. Thank you for posting.
I see so many pundits and hosts on Fox News and Fox Business saying Trump should stop with the narrative that the press is the enemy and just use his accomplishments to expand his base of support. Those advising him to do that are exactly wrong. Bush (W) acted as if he could ignore the attacks by the left-wing press. The liberals were never going to swing to supporting him. All Bush accomplished by playing nice with the press was to make a lot of the Conservatives stop defending him. They figured there wasn't any cause to stand up for him when he wasn't even willing to stand up for himself. For the most part, Bush's approval rating showed a tendency to a persistent decline, only altered when people rallied behind him after 9/11 and, to a lesser extent when Saddam was overthrown.
If Trump keeps pointing out the animosity of the liberal press, more people will be aware of it when they see it played out day-after-day, and night-after-night.
I’m enjoying the heck out of it. The arrogant and obnoxious morons in the “media” have been driving me crazy for years with their lies and BS.