A Constitutional Conservative
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
***************
There's
a new term being tossed about today by the folks on the political
left. Not surprising since they seem captive more to their emotions
than folks on the political right.
The term I see and hear continually popping up in leftist writings and chattering is "Anti-Intellectualism."
Sounds like a pitch fork and torch crowd about to lynch an elitist
college professor in the middle of the night. That's what it is
supposed to sound like and that is the scene it is designed to conjure
up in the minds of the reader and hearer.
Now, yours
truly is one of those characters the left just LOVES to hate. I am what
they call today a constitutional conservative. Simply put, it means I
believe in the tenets of the ORIGINAL constitution and I further believe
the US government has strayed far from the boundaries of the
constitution and we, the people, have an obligation to drag them back
within those boundaries, kicking and screaming if necessary, but, for
our own protection as a free people, we MUST regain control of our
government.
So how does that make me an
anti-intellectual. Truth be told -- I haven't a clue. But somehow, in
the minds of our leftist adversaries, it does.
I
looked-up anti-intellectualism and here is the definition I found:
"Anti-intellectualism is hostility towards and mistrust of intellect,
intellectuals, and intellectual pursuits, usually expressed as the
derision of education, philosophy, literature, art, and science, as
impractical and contemptible. Alternatively, self-described
intellectuals who are alleged to fail to adhere to rigorous standards of
scholarship may be described as anti-intellectuals." That's from
Wikipedia here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism
Wow! Them anti-intellectuals must be some purty dumb folk, right?
Hang
on because we are about to see how the left has created a derisive term
to cover anyone who believes in speaking the truth about the socialist,
progressive, liberal, academic, political left.
The
very next paragraph from the Wikipedia article says the following: "In
public discourse, anti-intellectuals usually perceive and publicly
present themselves as champions of the common folk — populists against
political elitism and academic elitism — proposing that the educated are
a social class detached from the everyday concerns of the majority, and
that they dominate political discourse and higher education."
Before
I tackle that allow me to offer this: Down south, where my life and my
heart resides, we have "a saying," which I believe was tailor-made for
the academic elite. "He/she is educated beyond his/her ability." See,
we believe that is a very real, actual, affliction. We have all met,
heard, seen on TV, read in the newspapers, read in magazines, the
pontification of those people with a string of letters after their names
which is supposed to just impress the heck out of us. Often, their
sincere take on the human condition, politics, science, the arts, etc,
is, frankly, only amusing.
Why?
Because they lack "common sense."
There
is another "old saying," actually two, I'd like to offer for your
consideration: One -- "Common sense isn't very common." And two: "It
is better to remain silent and allow folks to THINK you're a fool, that
to speak out -- and remove all doubt."
I am afraid our
friends on the left have yet to confront those two pearls of wisdom,
therefore they prattle on and as the scriptures tell: "Thinking
themselves wise, they have become as fools."
Now, I
have spent a few minutes considering the definition of
anti-intellectualism as rendered above, and after that painful exercise,
I have concluded that the left is correct in including me within the
bounds of their definition.
Here's why I say that. I
happen to believe, along with a few million other Americans, that the
folks who wrote and ratified our constitution said what they meant and
meant what they said. I DO NOT believe the constitution is a "living,
breathing, document." For it to have any power at all it must remain a
document set in stone. Change is allowed but it must be by an act of
Congress and then that congressional act must be approved by the people
of the country in a state by state ratification BEFORE it becomes a part
of that document. Changing, or amending, the constitution was MEANT to
be a difficult affair. So much for my political views.
Now,
as far as being anti-education, that is pure bovine scatology. Some of
the smartest people I know are highly educated people. Some of the
dumbest people I know are highly educated people. Another "old saying"
pops to mind: "There's no fool like an educated fool."
If
the left were to accuse me of being distrustful of direction handed
down to the great unwashed masses by academics who have no real life
experience other than that they have had on a college campus, then -- I
plead guilty.
If the left were to accuse me of being
disrespectful of America's public education system and its utter failure
to educate America's youth -- again -- I plead guilty.
If
the left were to accuse me of being distrustful, derisive, and even
dismissive of pseudoscience, which claims human beings are the direct
cause of something they like to call "global warming" and "climate
change" and that over population of the earth BY HUMANS is bringing on
the end of the world as we know it -- absolutely, I plead guilty.
I
have just touched the TIP of the iceberg here. It would seem that
yours truly is everything the left loves to hate. And that is fine with
me.
What the left cannot grasp, however, is that my
conservative faction feels as strongly about our belief as they do. As a
result, we will fight their efforts with everything we have -- for as
long as it takes. It is a sort of checks and balances system. It works
by not allowing America to go too far either way. That, in my
estimation, is a good thing.
We have learned a thing or
two from history that serves America well. We have learned that the
political pendulum swings both ways and just at the second it appears
the pendulum is not going to swing back, it stops, reverses itself, and
swings all the way across the spectrum 'til it stops at the opposite
extreme.
I believe America's pendulum is, at the
moment, stopped at the left extreme of its swing. We have a
Presidential Administration which is so far left it is socialist.
Americans are sick at heart about it and they intend to shove the
pendulum hard -- back towards the right.
The
infantile whining and over indulged angst of the of the left, and their
broad attempts to define and redefine those of us on the right side of
America's political spectrum, only lends credence to the right's claim
that the political left is simply not up to the job of governing a
country in crisis. There is no time for a vision quest (as some have
referred to it) or social experiments. America desperately needs
experienced leadership to begin the long climb out of the morass we have
gotten ourselves into by implementing the leftist agenda.
It
won't be easy. It will be a long hard grind -- and it will hurt. One
pays for one's mistakes. America made a huge mistake in 2008 and now we
are paying dearly for that error in judgment. But we can and WILL
survive. Such is the faith I have in America and her people.
J. D. Longstreet
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