It’s gotten so bad that even Howie Kurtz is starting to notice it. See, if you think that the definition of marriage is between a man and a woman, you’re a bigot. Toss gays off buildings? Who are we to judge?
And this exchange between Ben Smith and Hugh Hewitt was in fact very enlightening:
Elsewhere, John Nolte of Big Journalism listens to Hewitt’s interview with Smith and spots this juxtaposition: “BuzzFeed Pledges Allegience to Gay Flag — Editor Ben Smith Won’t Call Shariah Evil.”
Or as Ace notes, “it is quite obvious that [Smith] has never even thought about the questions Hugh Hewitt poses before. Simple, obvious questions everyone even pretending to be a thinker must ask himself, like ‘Why is it I feel comfortable declaring there are no two sides on gay marriage, and yet I cannot bring myself to criticize Shariah law?’”
Which dovetails well with this observation from Matt Lewis of the Daily Caller, when as a (more or less) conservative, he debates leftists: “I’ve noticed an uptick in the following phenomenon: I go on a TV debate show, and the people I’m talking to fail to grasp my points. I don’t mean they disagree with me — I mean they don’t comprehend what I’m saying.“
Why, it’s as if the left and right are speaking an entirely different language — as Insta-guest blogger John Tierney noted here yesterday.
Yes. And that’s partly a difference in world views, and partly a deliberate attempt to obfuscate and Newspeak the language.
Plus, the lefties are intellectually flabby. They don’t grapple with conservative or libertarian ideas in any meaningful way among themselves so they expect to debate the cartoon character in their heads instead of a real, determined opponent.
In my more paranoid moments I wonder if that’s why they send the likes of Jim to blogs like this: to atrophy our own debating abilities and level the playing field.
No, intentionalism didn’t kill the rule of law, and putative conservatives should know better than to claim otherwise – See more at: http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=57159#sthash.8fwn8Lwn.dpuf
We swim in a sea of Newspeak. The legal system is an ocean of Newspeak–see also, “legal formalism” vs. “legal realism” vs. “critical legal theory,” articles on all of which can be found at Wikipedia for those who can tolerate reading them. The short version is that “legal formalism,” this idea that words mean things and the written words of the law have meaning. “Legal realism” is this Marxist judicial-activist theory going back to the 1960s in which it is held to be appropriate for the authorities to be “informed by” “their personal sense of social justice” when reading the law, and “critical legal theory,” the hot new concept all the future US Circuit Court judges are writing papers on at Harvard, is even more aggro, stating basically that the perpetually aggrieved Social Justice Warriors of the judicial branch are perfectly entitled to make as much shit up as they want as they go along, as long as it serves the interests of The Movement. Smash capitalism! Kill Whitey! Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc!
What the future holds, no man can say. Where duty lies, is a matter between each of us and his own conscience. But this much is already clear: we ain’t gonna be voting our way out of this.