I just checked in with Rule of Reason for the first time in a week. Holy cow, I missed a hell of a lot of action over there. Apparently, you can't let more than a day go by without seeing Rule of Reason.
Nicholas Provenzo was on the Laura Ingraham Show, which is, astonishingly, the fifth most popular radio show in America. (Ingraham is rumored to be hell to work for. Watch the video of her complaining to her staff on the set of her Fox News show.)
People like Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity represent the decline of conservatism. They are intellectual lightweights who come to conservatism by reading National Review and listening to Rush Limbaugh. They understand food fight TV journalism, shouting down an opponent and scoring quick points, rather than long, coherent arguments. Modern philosophy infects them to the point that, like the left, they use arguments from intimidation and mockery to shut up their opponents instead of rationally refuting them.
Listen to this MP3 of Ingraham interviewing Provenzo. She reveals herself to be staggeringly stupid and dishonest. She takes one of Provenzo's points -- that a Down Syndrome person is marginally productive -- rips it out of context, and then tries to play "gotcha" by asking if Provenzo would kill actual human beings, such as people suffering from Alzheimer's, because they are marginally productive. Her interview was so unfair and crude that I have to think that any of her millions of listeners who did not sense she was doing something wrong must themselves lack intelligence or listen to her out of focus. (This last happens all the time when people are driving into work with the radio on. They have to split focus between driving and listening, which I would think must affect their ability to judge an argument. There have been studies showing that many people have no idea what was advertised in a block of spots; all they noticed was that the music was not playing.)
In the video linked to above, you can see that she took care to wear a cross around her neck on air to announce her Christianity and her morality. Indeed, that cross and her actions reveal more than she intended about her morality.
5 comments:
There is something I noticed about Conservative female personalities that I saw in the Laura Ingraham video. They are very fond of their looks. Laura was wearing a cross yes. But she was wearing it in a way to highlight her breasts. Laura Ingraham has got a nice figure and she knows it. Ann Coulter does this all the time wearing that skimpy black cocktail dress that is very sleazy looking.
What gets me about this is just how un-Christian it is. These women are displaying pride and and a self-confident sexuality both of which are completely opposed to Christianity. A few Conservatives I have read have pointed this out saying that these women are too "selfish" or demonstrate too much "self love." Christianity's view on women is abysmal. Didn't St. Paul preach that women shouldn't talk during church services? These Conservative women are helping to usher in a world where they couldn't exist in the way they do now and they don't even know it. Or if they do, that makes them even worse.
If they are like most Christians I know, they don't take passages in the Bible seriously as principles. One of my Christian friends is always quick to note that the Bible is a big book, and you can find individual passages that contradict one another. God works in mysterious ways. So American Christians happily take what they like from the Bible and make it work with modern American culture.
Someday a consistent Augustinian Christian will arise in wrath to cow the rest with promises of fire and brimstone. For they will see that the Augustinian has more moral integrity than they do as happy, greedy, profit-seeking Americans. Let's hope that day of darkness is far off.
"Someday a consistent Augustinian Christian will arise in wrath to cow the rest with promises of fire and brimstone. For they will see that the Augustinian has more moral integrity than they do as happy, greedy, profit-seeking Americans. Let's hope that day of darkness is far off."
Here is a link to a Larry Auster essay where he is arguing for a return to that type of Augustinian Christianity. If you ever have time you should read it. If this type of Medieval revival ever occurs, we are screwed.
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/001644.html
Right on, Myrhaf...I have always believed that Hannity, Mike Reagan, and Ingraham are mere shadows of someone like Rush. Although they are often right about many issues, and sometimes entertaining and funny, they are intellectual lightweights.
To Laura, Hannity, Michael Regan and others of their ilk, they define their conservatism based upon their religion. They claim to be for smaller government, but always push for expansion. Their calls for sacrifice run contrary to individual rights and liberty. Bill O'Reilly is in the same vein, just louder.
They, like John McCain, are all collectivists and altruist who support the government bailout (or unprecedented expansion in scope and power over people), and find letting the market sort out the casualties as wrong.
They are fools. The are statists of the worst variety - they claim to be sheep when in fact, they are wolves howling from the gate of oppression and tyranny. Great post.
Post a Comment