I have always liked Barack Obama. I have spent most of my adult life in academia; I like the life, I like the people. I don't sneer at credentials; I covet them. The former president is an academic, from his ears, to the tips of his toes. He is familiar to me, and he speaks the language of which I am familiar. I get why people don't like him; after all, the sexual libertinism and murder that are now the defining characteristics of the Democratic Party were underlined under Obama, as opposed to muted. Moreover, the former president was not content to simply advocate those things, but to use the government to conscript participation in them.
Most of the other stuff is made up.
But I don't carry around a similar affection for the sitting president. I just don't. And I might even admit that a person who is known for thinking and speaking well will get a break from me, even if he is terrible. I'm an academic, if not in profession, then in manner of life. I don't live in a world where that is a swear-word. I also don't live in a world where a man creates a comfortable enclave of support in an academic environment, whilst propounding bad arguments. (See Sowell, Thomas)
The president is uniquely dangerous, because he doesn't know what he doesn't know, and isn't too interested in finding out. Scads of conservative pieces would call what I just said "the sneering of the intellectual elite." That's fine. The problem with conservatism right now is that it makes sneering at the intellectual elite an art form, and mistakes that for an affirmative case.
If I were young, I'd drop the mic right here.
Most of the other stuff is made up.
But I don't carry around a similar affection for the sitting president. I just don't. And I might even admit that a person who is known for thinking and speaking well will get a break from me, even if he is terrible. I'm an academic, if not in profession, then in manner of life. I don't live in a world where that is a swear-word. I also don't live in a world where a man creates a comfortable enclave of support in an academic environment, whilst propounding bad arguments. (See Sowell, Thomas)
The president is uniquely dangerous, because he doesn't know what he doesn't know, and isn't too interested in finding out. Scads of conservative pieces would call what I just said "the sneering of the intellectual elite." That's fine. The problem with conservatism right now is that it makes sneering at the intellectual elite an art form, and mistakes that for an affirmative case.
If I were young, I'd drop the mic right here.
Comments