It is often said or implied on JU that liberals are elitists who contemplate their navels while dismissing the realities of the living world. The inference here is that liberals indeed are individualists who take solipsistic pride in do-nothing as opposed to the brilliant drive of the entrepreneurs to address the pragmatic needs of the nation. Strangely, liberals discount the great deeds of the ilk of Ford, Walton, Carnegie and Gates whose true individualism led to progress in the realm, while men like Jefferson, Lincoln, W. Wilson, L. Johnson, Truman and FDR are praised for being the nation’s conscience and therefore held back the otherwise seamless move forward toward total progress.
The majority of this site also infers that liberals, self appointed noblesse oblige, are above the sweaty thought of inventiveness and subsequent labor, consequently incapable of appreciating the great contributions of laissez faire.
On the other hand, this right leaning majority, too, are elitist in that they worship the political bias toward the business world without regard to the need of reigning in excesses. Though claiming to be realists, they were positively euphoric over the Reagan Revolution to reduce the wave of government to harmless laps in the bathtub so that corporations could develop a Tsunami of supply side economics through corporate welfare and defense contracts leading to lower wages for the masses and a super military complex that contrary to common belief bankrupt us, not the Soviets who were already bankrupt in ideology. The bleeding heart minimum wage is but a another form of welfare for the shiftless who find no internal drive to better themselves. If reconstruction after Katrina is to be driven, wage rates must be put aside — though Bush has since backed down . The volunteer armed services are more inclined to favor war since so many enlistments are of the uneducated and minorities who with little prodding revel in waving the flag and more apt to stay the course. [Yet a funny thing happened on the way to Tar-Heel country — dominated by military bases — 57% of which have become leftist “elitists” by disapproving of Bush’s handling of the war and 56% of the military there disapprove of Bush’s leadership; and worse, only 19% of the soldiers there felt Iraq was worth fighting for. Despite the argument that polls can be misleading, there appears to be a prevailing trend even among the military.] Pardon the digression.
Everyone is against illegal immigration but for exploiting laborers and having to pay social security for the domestics in the homes and castles of the affluent. SUVs are essential for Soccer Moms even though the percentage of use is minuscule and a Minivan would serve the special and family purpose just as well. Luxury tax is taboo and shot through with arguments that Africans in the minds would lose jobs when basketball players and the ladies of Hollywood and Newport would stop buying jewelry; yacht building would be at a standstill; massive layoffs there would be at Luxury car plants; the Waltons and Gates would no longer give millions to “charity.” God forbid — the eleventh commandment — that the affluent be taxed more on capital gains, else results of trickle down investments would collapse. Public education is at the crossroads of failure and termination; never mind that it is continually shortchanged — besides, teachers should stop complaining about low salaries, after all, they can’t very well enter the real world of true competition, since there are those who teach and those who do.
It is my contention that conservatives are as overwhelmed by their own elitist mythology as liberals are of theirs.
Copyright © 2005 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: November 20, 2005.
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