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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Camille Paglia: Sarah Palin was right! |
| 2009-08-12 |
| (Emphasis added.) ...And what do Democrats stand for, if they are so ready to defame concerned citizens as the "mob" -- a word betraying a Marie Antoinette delusion of superiority to ordinary mortals. I thought my party was populist, attentive to the needs and wishes of those outside the power structure. And as a product of the 1960s, I thought the Democratic party was passionately committed to freedom of thought and speech. But somehow liberals have drifted into a strange servility toward big government, which they revere as a godlike foster father-mother who can dispense all bounty and magically heal all ills. The ethical collapse of the left was nowhere more evident than in the near total silence of liberal media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable "casual conversations" to the White House. If Republicans had done this, there would have been an angry explosion by Democrats from coast to coast. I was stunned at the failure of liberals to see the blatant totalitarianism in this incident, which the president should have immediately denounced. His failure to do so implicates him in it. As a libertarian and refugee from the authoritarian Roman Catholic church of my youth, I simply do not understand the drift of my party toward a soulless collectivism. This is in fact what Sarah Palin hit on in her shocking image of a "death panel" under Obamacare that would make irrevocable decisions about the disabled and elderly. When I first saw that phrase, headlined on the Drudge Report, I burst out laughing. It seemed so over the top! But on reflection, I realized that Palin's shrewdly timed metaphor spoke directly to the electorate's unease with the prospect of shadowy, unelected government figures controlling our lives. A death panel not only has the power of life and death but is itself a symptom of a Kafkaesque brave new world where authority has become remote, arbitrary and spectral. And as in the Spanish Inquisition, dissidence is heresy, persecuted and punished.... |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #13 Update: the moonbats are already denouncing her. |
| Posted by: Mike 2009-08-12 20:20 |
| #12 True "social justice" for the Lefties would involve a good punch in the mouth, Grenter. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-08-12 18:16 |
| #11 Don't forget "social justice". |
| Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats 2009-08-12 17:32 |
| #10 Bush bashing, claims of racism and nazism, level playing fields, fairness, |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-08-12 17:11 |
| #9 Take the Bush bashing as a way for her to convince liberals to continue reading. It's like a badge of liberalism and without she risks being called a conservative (especially with the LIbertarian comment). |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2009-08-12 17:07 |
| #8 The Bush-bash is a rote ritual, like lawyers saying "May it please the Court"--what's far more interesting is what comes after that. Camille Paglia isn't on "our" side, but she's no knee-jerk partisan. She calls things as she sees them--and she doesn't like what she sees. I see a potential convert to conservatism, or at least a person we can do business with on an issue or two. |
| Posted by: Mike 2009-08-12 15:20 |
| #7 "Don't these morons ever get tired of blaming everything on Bush?" No. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-08-12 13:22 |
| #6 She lost me on the first paragraph. Don't these morons ever get tired of blaming everything on Bush? |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2009-08-12 11:51 |
| #5 They are losing their Vietnam-era democrats (at least from around here). If Nixon was over the top, then what is this? There are honest to themselves liberals out there and they have to look themselves in the mirror in the morning. I have an anarchist friend who was all rock chalk barack until 3 months ago...big brother government, high taxes, and mandatory government service pisses them off as well. The neo-hippies, they have pride too. Only a certain type of person wants free money but is too lazy to go get that free money themselves and wants another to divvy out that money. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2009-08-12 11:48 |
| #4 I thought my party was populist.. See, no matter how well educated and positioned in the social structure or urban culture, we all still cling to our fairy tales. That party died with Hubert Humphrey. It's the real Patrician Party which is sustained by a smug elitist cabal not only of the moneyed and academic coastie set, but the upper echelons of our legal class of mob Dons in union clothing. Unfortunately, [or fortunately if you're a Donk] the upper echelons of the Trunks have been likewise infected with those who absolutely disdain the small business-worker-traditional masses and lust for the salons and power of the Beltway. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-08-12 08:54 |
| #3 This just gets more and more interesting. I'm beginning to wonder if this year will one day be looked back on as "The Great Awakening of 2009" when the American people took their country back from the feckless, corrupt, and degenerate politicians infiltrating OUR government. |
| Posted by: eltoroverde 2009-08-12 08:39 |
| #2 If she's a libertarian, what the hell is she doing in the Democrat party? |
| Posted by: Spot 2009-08-12 08:24 |
| #1 As a libertarian and refugee from the authoritarian Roman Catholic church I must say I love Camille Paglia! |
| Posted by: Parabellum 2009-08-12 08:19 |