You know it's bad when, over at Power Line, Paul Mirengoff, citing this column by Stephen Bainbridge, wonders aloud whether It is now officially "embarrassing to be a conservative." Bainbridge gives ten reasons why conservatives ought to be embarrassed, and Mirengoff, in his post, chooses to highlight these three:
1. A poorly educated ex-sportswriter who served half of one term of an minor state governorship is prominently featured as a -- if not the -- leading prospect for the GOP's 2012 Presidential nomination.
5. Thanks to the Tea Party, the Nevada GOP has probably pissed away a historic chance to oust Harry Reid. See also Charlie Crist in Florida, Rand Paul in Kentucky, and so on. Whatever happened to not letting perfection be the enemy of the good?
6. The anti-science and anti-intellectualism that pervade the movement.
Three out of three sound . . . --you know, "elitist." It is enough to make you wonder whether Mirengoff reads the blog of which he is a co-author. Anti-science? Here's his friend and fellow Power Line blogger John Hinderaker lecturing on 19th-century intellectual history:
Modern leftism has always been anti-religious at its core. The three great intellectual movements of the nineteenth century, founded by Marx, Darwin and Freud, were all rebellions against the European religious tradition. Marx sought to secularize history, Darwin to secularize biology, and Freud to secularize human nature. All three movements pretended to be scientific, but in reality were pseudo-science. Hostility to religion was their essence and their motivation.
The only thing missing is the name of the mathematician responsible for having secularized the calculus. Embarrassed Republicans have begun floating the idea that not all Republicans are embarrassing. How convenient! The apt objects of their embarrassment, however, tend to be closer than they imagine.
Comments