Don't even get me started thinking about the ignorance of history, philosophy, culture and politics: before studying economics and the law, I aspired to be a European intellectual historian, lacking but a dissertation (and a job) for that when I switched fields. I am particularly struck by the lack of understanding of the philosophical and historical bases of classical liberalism (which, as you know, undergirds economics) and the misunderstanding of the Enlightenment. I especially love the ultramontagne religious conservatives -- Catholics with views that would have made Bishop Boussuet or Joseph D'Maistre blush and Protestants whose views make William Jennings Bryan at the Scopes Trial sound like a Unitarian -- whose defenses of the Constitution fly in the face of the dogmas they hold. This is not just Emerson's foolish consistency [which] is the hobgoblin of little minds, much beloved by small statesmen and divines, it is ignorance so colossal as to beggar the imagination. My only consolation is that, whereas liberals once (40 years ago or so) were better educated and more cultured, now liberals are such caricutures of political correctness that they know even less history or philosophy.
TTFN!