QotD: Elites

Ben Shapiro skewered "elites" in his recent column (here). It's funny, but it's sad because it's what we're becoming. Here are just a few.

• You’re an elitist if you quote the Book of Matthew to justify socialism, cite the Book of John to defend Bill Clinton, write off the Book of Romans as “obscure,” or deride the Old Testament as a collection of antiquated messages about shellfish and animal sacrifices.


• You’re an elitist if you think Joe the Plumber’s income and license status are more important than the question he asked Barack Obama (or the answer!!).
  

(Have you noticed that Mr. Obama's answer has been smothered by the left? It's like trying to ignore a high-lighted and dog-eared copy of the Communist Manifesto that had fallen out of his backpack.)

Picture of Joe & O by Jae C. Hong, AP

Political/cultural web-sites: An assessment

**Warning: While you'll find nothing objectionable within this post, I have linked and discussed a site and articles that, quite frankly, I find objectionable.**

If you've tripped through any of my blogs, you know I highly tout Townhall.com as a great place to get smart on issues. With few exceptions, most of the columnists write utilizing facts and keep inflammatory comments to a minimum (a few exceptions: Ann Coulter, who in my mind has grown tiresome, and Mike S. Adams and Doug Giles, who I happen to enjoy).

For sake of balance, I offer to you the Huffington Post. I know my brother, who is a liberal/progressive, gets much of his information at that site. This morning, in hopes of being enlightened by rigorous rhetoric on the planks of the Democratic platform, I waded into the Huffington Post this morning.

Thoughts and warnings:

• Outside of the three columnists cited from Townhall, you'll find nothing objectionable on the Townhall site. If there is something remotely edgy, there will be warnings about graphic content, etc. Not so on Huffington's site. It is replete with stuff that you'd not share with your children.
  
• Huffington has ample information on Democratic thought; the second columnist on the list today is Barbara Streisand (compare that with Chuck Norris being a regular at Townhall). Of note though, the argumentation within the columns about why "progressive" application tops "conservative" application is disconcerting. Where inflammatory commentary is the rarity at Townhall, it is the norm at Huffington. What do I mean by inflammatory commentary? Unsubstantiated name-calling. In commenting upon a recent Rush Limbaugh radio broadcast, columnist John Ridley wrote:

  "What is it with bigots that makes them think there is a context for bigotry? When much was made of that paragon of virtue Bill Bennett's assertion "if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country,"

  "Bill and his supporters claimed that statement was taken out of context.

  "No one who wasn't wearing a white hood has ever fully explained to me what the context is for positing the extermination of black children to lower the crime rate."

  Context does matter from right to left and left to right. That is why I will try to link to the sites that I quote so you can see all of what was said...in context! But context and rhetoric are sparse. Cutting the sound-bite, glomming onto the gaffe, and inciting the masses with us/them labels seem to be the tools of the trade for such sites.
  

I found the Huffington Post disturbing. A great example came from the pen of Francis Schaeffer's son, Franky. I admire much of the late theologian and his works. His son has deviated far from the path of his father. The link is here. There is some vulgarity. The article illustrates the name-calling, negative associations, and general lack of support for its assertions common in what comes from the left. Is he effective? Is the Huffington Post effective? Note the comments below Schaeffer's article.

Anyway, there you go. Townhall vs. Huffington. Right v. Left. Red v. Blue. McCain v. Obama. Now, friends, it is incumbent upon us to determine which stands for biblical principles and which does not.

E'08: Surface or substance?

Great ideas wrestled and wrangled birthed this great nation.

In November, our nation decides its future's path. Many times in our history, the two pathways separated very little, appearing to disappear in the distance at the same point. The end desired by all parties was the same, the means to that end nuanced.

Not so today. From the point of separation the vector of the two parties, while not 180 degrees, are as divergent as I have ever known them to be.

Here's what troubles me. I hear very little about the ideas and their implementation from Progressive America. Even the national media speaks little about the substance of the Democratic Party. The things that I have read from the left trouble my soul.

"But you only stew in conservative writings," I hear you say. Only is a powerful word. My news intake comes from all over. My prominent five sites: CNN, Fox, Drudge, Pravda, and the Jerusalem Post. Others dipped into: NY Times "International" site, Al-Jazeera. I do delight in the clear, cogent, mostly reasoned writing found at National Review, the Weekly Standard, and Townhall.com. I have not found such well-reasoned sites on the left. It's time to go looking.

The most neutral site, though, simply because he links you to other news sources is Drudge. From his site, you can go to the right of anarchy or to the left of dictatorships.

In recent days, while scanning current events, the liberal end of the political spectrum reared itself in shocking ugliness. Consider:

• Michael Moore considered it an act of God, even thanking Him, that hurricane Gustav distracted America from the Republican National Convention. I used to think that MM was considered a cartoon by the left, not really a mouthpiece of that for which they stand, but I have never read nor heard anyone from that side distance themself from the filmmaker.
• If you merely think that Balaam's ride had again begun to speak, not so. the National Chair of the Democratic National Committee, Don Fowler, joked about the same thing to a friend on a plane.
• Note the thick insults toward Sarah Palin from a columnist who finds her selection as the VP candidate insulting (here).
• Extremes. Hyperbole is a wonderful and artful tool...when used like salt. Too much and the entree becomes inedible. This piece from the Philadelphia Daily News illustrates much of my concern about what's coming out of the left (here).
• If that weren't bad enough, Pravda's work is slanderous (here, there are two pages to the article). "Yeah, but that's the sworn enemy of the United States." I might agree with you if it didn't echo the standard commentary found on MSNBC. Notice the author. It's not a Russian. David R. Hoffman is an American, an attorney and a college professor.

Dictatorship. Unjust. Unjust invasion. Stole the election. Empire building. Rich getting richer. Stepping on the poor. Racist. Economic havoc and devastation. Environmental cataclysm. These are the deceitful and incendiary comments regularly leveled by liberals against the current administration or its ideals, unsubstantiated and disproven all.

In deepest sincerity, would someone point me to a site where liberal ideas are clearly articulated? If you know some sites, please include them under comments and leave yourself "anonymous." The stuff I've been reading makes me want to take a bath...and that from the pens of the left.

Can anyone explain why America ought dive headlong into a socialist way of life? We need to wrestle these ideas. Some of them have been in the dark too long and need to be exposed to the scrutiny of the light.

Perhaps such scrutiny will reveal an ideological monster, and after wrestling, we might once again find our paths drawing closer to a common end and the monster defeated. Perhaps.