Everyone (yes, even me) is a partisan to some degree. And everyone, especially professional politicians, tries to appear not to be one. I'm not sure if politics has gotten more partisan these days but it seems like it has. And since I only vote Republican, it is clearly worse among Democrats. Seriously, political power, not philosophical clarity, is the aim; winning elections, not right and wrong, is what matters to the pure partisan.
But I, Jim, stand boldly athwart the unscrupulous trend and shout "Stop!" Just kidding.
My momentous journey toward starting a blog began when I started asking myself "What is a conservative and what is a liberal? I'm a conservative, but why? Why do the same people who support affirmative action also support abortion rights and generally oppose U.S. military intervention?" And so on.
More about my specific political beliefs later. My essential point is that unless we define what we believe and why we may end up calling good bad and bad good in the name of partisanship. I'm not exaggerating. Here's a link to a great article by one of my favorite political commentators, Mark Steyn, on the Amadinejad visit to Columbia and how, many University types have everything backwards. An exerpt:
The same university that shouted down an American anti-illegal-immigration activist and the same university culture that just deemed former Harvard honcho Larry Summers too misogynist to be permitted on a California campus is now congratulating itself over its commitment to “academic freedom.” True, renowned Stanford psychology professor Philip Zimbardo is not happy. “They can have any fascist they want there,” said Professor Zimbardo, “but this seems egregious.” But, hey, don’t worry: He was protesting not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presence at Columbia but Donald Rumsfeld’s presence at the Hoover Institution.The far left is so extremely partisan that they violate their own philosophical beliefs.
4 comments:
I know a philosopher who said many times that it isn't WHO'S right that matters.....it's WHAT'S right.
Tell us what you think is right about being conservative.
I'm still waiting....
I am interested in having this conversation. I just don't express my point of view as well as you. I think it's human nature to want to be heard, and with politics, people are allowed to express their point of view with a purpose. Makes em feel all fuzzy inside.
Before I tell you my views and why I think they are correct I need to give a little background on the origins of the two major political movements in the USA. Posting very soon.
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