What Would Reagan Do?
Can the Gipper lead young conservatives out of the political wilderness?
By Kristin Tucker, University of California, Santa Barbara
October 29, 2007
AP Photo/Scott Stewart
These are trying times for young conservatives. With much of America rebelling against six years of conservative rule, and with George W. Bush—who until so recently was the conservative movement’s undeniable face, future, and savior—finding himself marred by historically low approval ratings, the next generation of conservatives is in desperate need of a role model. Though right-wing punditry is as healthy as ever, there is a dearth of conservative politicians who have the charisma, popularity, and vision to be considered good examples for burgeoning right wingers. Every candidate to carry this mantle in recent years has fallen on tough times—legally, politically, or both.
So perhaps it’s unsurprising that, on the eve of David Horowitz’s “Islamo-fascism Awareness Week,” Young America’s Foundation, or YAF, an organization “committed to ensuring that increasing numbers of young Americans understand and are inspired by the ideas of individual freedom, a strong national defense, free enterprise, and traditional values,” brought 33 students from around the country to Santa Barbara, Calif., to convince them that the best hope for fighting terrorism is… Ronald Reagan. “Radical Islam 101: Defining America’s Enemy & Developing A Strategy For Success,” a three-day conference, was billed as a chance for young conservatives to delve “into the history and current threat from radical Islam” and, among other things, “compare and contrast the war against radical Islam to the Cold War,” but it quickly became clear that this was as much a right-wing séance as a serious discussion of counterterrorism.
For a movement lacking a leader, this made perfect sense. Few figures have been treated as kindly by history as Reagan. He is remembered as a bold, charismatic, ideologically pure figure—exactly the type of politician conservatives hope will come along to defeat the threat of “Islamo-fascism” and lead the conservative movement out of the political wilderness.
It was hard for me to resist the opportunity to go undercover and sign up for the conference to see firsthand how YAF intended to pit the specter of Reagan against the threat of Osama Bin Laden.
A half-day of travel didn’t dampen the participants’ enthusiasm as they made their way from the conference hotel to the Reagan Ranch Center, a 22,000-square-foot facility built and operated by YAF in downtown Santa Barbara. As they made their way to the sign-in table, students passed a 2,000-pound slab of the Berlin Wall. This symbol of Reagan’s Cold War triumph foreshadowed things to come.
As they waited eagerly for a tour of the center, the participants shared stories of relatives who had recently enlisted in the military. The 33 attendees ranged from high school students to law students and came from a mix of small and big schools from around the country. They included a predictable number of Young Republicans and a healthy dose of political science and public policy majors, many of whom had experience in fundraising and bringing conservative speakers to their schools. Eleven of the 32 students were female, a fairly respectable ratio. Most were active on their campuses: One bragged that he and other members of his organization protested the opposition to U.S. engagement in Iraq by handing out condoms and yelling “Pulling out doesn’t work!” at passersby; another said that members of her group were planning on egging Barack Obama during an upcoming visit.
Once the tour began, students were led through a veritable church of Reagan: Pictures of the Gipper lined each room; letters and personal artifacts stood as monuments to his presidency; and the former president’s most famous quotes adorned the walls. In addition to the classrooms and conference areas, the three-story center contains a small theater for viewing footage of Reagan’s speeches, as well as a museum-in-progress, where the conference gang posed for a group photo in front of one of Reagan’s old Jeeps, newly restored for display.
Most of the weekend’s events focused on the threats posed by radical Islamic groups. In one early discussion on the topic, the students had trouble defining who, exactly, we are fighting in our war on terrorist networks. After an initial suggestion of “the East,” other students tried to narrow it down a bit by mentioning “terrorism,” “Muslim extremists,” “fundamentalists,” and “jihadists.” Jonathan Schanzer, an analyst from the Jewish Policy Center, led the discussion. He said that “terrorism” is only a tactic, not the enemy itself. (Other speakers would also emphasize this throughout the conference.)
In Schanzer’s view, radical Islam is a “virus” that spreads quickly, turning regular Muslims into terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. The infected now comprise 20 percent of the world’s Muslim population, Schanzer said, which is greater than the population of the entire United States. The groups that make up “radical Islam,” according to Schanzer, include Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Hizbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and more. He drew a large target with concentric circles on the board, locating these “Bad Guys” in their respective danger (and target) zones. The presentation fit into the weekend’s larger goal, of course: lumping together a large number of disparate groups into a supremely powerful über-enemy—and resurrecting Reagan and his steely-eyed legacy as America’s only hope. (Schanzer’s “virus” view, it should be noted, sounded awfully similar to the domino theory about the spread of communism.)
The weekend had no shortage of speakers—the students were addressed at various points by Mike Waller of the Institute of World Politics, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security Ann Korin, Khairi Abaza of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and author Nonie Darwash. But the highest-profile speaker was Michelle Malkin, for whose presentation the students were joined by nearly 100 of YAF’s regional private sponsors. Before she spoke, the students and the sponsors ate lunch together, chatting about their distaste for animal rights activists and debating the merits of their strawberry-brownie desserts. Right before Malkin began, a somber atmosphere descended upon the room: Tables quieted, everyone rose for the flag salute, and one student headed to the microphone to lead a prayer. Invoking God and citing John’s gospel, he declared, “Violence in your name is never acceptable.”
With that, Malkin came onstage and began her presentation, called “Fauxtography 101.” Malkin took the opportunity to lighten the mood of the conference, which was otherwise focused on a pretty grim topic. She pointed out some comically manipulated media photos that she called “outright jihadi fakery,” as well as photography mistakes made by willfully ignorant journalists who were, of course, “aided by college professors.” The idea of liberal professors as a threat, always a popular conservative canard, was highlighted throughout the conference by almost all of the speakers.
Malkin was well-received (with a standing ovation, in fact) but the real highlight of the conference came immediately after. Lathered up into a state of terrified idealism, the students embarked on their own Hajj of sorts to Reagan’s “Western White House,” the ranch the Gipper called home for almost 25 years. The participants loaded onto buses and made their way up a winding mountain road to Reagan’s breathtaking ranch in the sky, enjoying the wide-open view of endless ocean waves.
Once there, they were given a free tour of the place—a considerable perk, since the regular price of admission to the ranch is $1,000 per family. As the tour guide put it, the “young Reaganites” of the next generation deserve special treatment. Inside the intimate space of Reagan’s living quarters, visitors felt his presence even more vividly than back at the center. They walked through his garage and were invited to lift one of the chainsaws he often used to cut firewood. Saddles and pictures of Reagan on horseback were nods to the former president’s love for the open air and traditional Western values. The participants were hit with more warm, comforting nostalgia as they passed through each room: the sofa where he sat with important visiting figures, the dinner table where he ate with his wife, the telephone he used to call family members of Americans killed in a Korean Airlines flight after it was shot down by the Soviets.
Most of all, though, the tour highlighted Reagan’s personal character and his down-home image through the worn-out cowboy hats and boots in his closet, the bedside pillow with “Ronnie and Nancy” stitched onto it, and the old leather-bound Bible that belonged to Nancy’s mom. Here was the kind of man America needed, the objects seemed to say, the sort of grandfatherly leader who could deliver us from evil, chop us some wood, and soothingly read to us in front of the fireplace as we drift off to sleep.
As a climax to the tour, Malkin sat down outside to sign free copies of her book, In Defense of Internment: The Case for ‘Racial Profiling’ in WWII and the War on Terror, at the same front-porch table where President Reagan signed the largest tax cut in modern history. Reagan had chosen the spot to sign the bill because of its symbolism: To him, the view of his ranch’s open land and clear skies epitomized American freedom. Now, before Ron’s chopped firewood and Nancy’s dinner-call triangle, young leaders of the conservative movement lined up to have Malkin sign their books. One happy participant even gave his copy a reverent kiss.
It was at that moment when the state of today’s conservative movement crystallized: Where once a legendary conservative president signed a momentous tax cut, now a hugely controversial pundit was signing copies of a book defending one of the ugliest occurrences in American history.
It was strange, of course, to see kids who were barely (or not yet) born during the Reagan administration engaging in the sort of mechanical, demonstrative Reagan-worship usually reserved for aging television pundits. But this continuing deification is part of a calculated strategy on the part of conservative groups. By reaching back past both Bushes—now firmly entrenched as disappointments to dyed-in-the-wool conservatives—and toward the more popular Reagan, YAF encourages young people to stick it out with conservatism at a very difficult moment in the movement’s history. Whenever a young conservative has doubts about this ideology’s future, all he or she has to do is pull up an image of the brave, heroic Gipper. There’s always reason to hope for another golden age of endless tax cuts and muscular, effective foreign policy. And, of course, Osama wouldn’t stand a chance.
Kristin Tucker is a graduate student in Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
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The Malkin book signing scene was, I think, both more and less ironic than you point out.
— Justin - Oct 29, 08:45 PM - #More because Reagan was the president who signed the 1988 bill providing reparations for formerly interned Japanese Americans.
Less because the “legendary” Reagan was not just about “momentous tax cuts.” One of many unsavory positions: As Boston Globe columnist Derrick Jackson but few others noted on Reagan’s death in 2004, the man was a long time apologist for/supporter of the S. African apartheid gov’t. link
Let’s not whitewash his record.
All in all, nice work on the undercover reportage!
See, this is where I think young liberals and progressives need work at tuning their message.
The point is that YAF and their ilk are weakening America by remaining wilfully blind about the nature of the threats we face. As Americans, our principles are in direct conflict with all the streams of fundamentalist Islam named above. But they’re so different in practice — Sunni Al-Qaeda, Shiite Hezbollah, Saudi Wahabbism all operate in incredibly different ways — that a one-size-fits-all strategy that pretends we can fight, and defeat, a single, collective “radical Islam” is doomed to failure.
A proper foreign policy strategy recognizes that we can minimize the threat to ourselves and to the principles freedom and justice posed by each of these forms of Islamic fundamentalism. We need smart, nuanced, proactive policies that respond to the very real differences between the groups above.
There are other forms of religious fundamentalist fascism that pose a threat to American security, too — theocrats here at home, Hindu fundamentalists in South Asia, Jewish fundamentalists in the West Bank settlements who claim that god gave them the land, etc.
They’re not all equal threats to our security and principles, but they are all threats, and we need multi-faceted policy that addresses each of them individually.
Plain and simple – there is no single, effective policy for combating every form of Islamic fundamentalism. Anyone who pretends that one exists is being willfully blind. That’s one of YAF’s cardinal sins.
— Joe - Oct 30, 01:27 AM - #I, too, attended Young America’s Foundation’s seminar: Radical Islam 101. The very fact that Young America’s Foundation held such a seminar says something about its commitment to ideas. This “field report” speaks to Campus Progress’ preoccupation with investigating the conservative movement which in turn neglects the campus discussions permeating our Nation’s universities. Maybe that’s ok, though, for Campus Progress. Leftist ideas are already represented in the curriculums of universities. Where’s the need for activism?
Despite Ms. Tucker’s superficial representation of the seminar, the speakers and discussions had nothing to do with “mechanical, demonstrative Reagan-worship.” In fact, President Ronald Reagan was criticized for his rather lackluster response to the global jihadist threat brewing during his presidency. If Ms. Tucker is going to go out of her way to “investigate” a Young America’s Foundation event, why not report on it accurately, and let her readers decide?
The Reagan Ranch Center, and ultimately Rancho del Cielo, was the perfect setting to have such a discussion. Ronald Reagan believed in confronting evil wherever it threatened. That’s why there is a “2,000-pound slab of the Berlin Wall” sitting in Santa Barbara and not in Berlin. Had Ms. Tucker actually engaged in the ideas presented at the seminar, she would have understood that conservatives are still inspired by the belief in confronting evil and we’re far from a state of “terrified idealism.” Radical Islam is that evil that we confront today.
Young America’s Foundation is willing to facilitate this dialogue. Conservatives are willing to combat ideas. Where is Campus Progress’ seminar? Where are those progressive students willing to participate in the marketplace of ideas on campuses? Stick to shouting down conservative speakers and name calling, and it will be the Left who is in the “political wilderness.”
— Nicholas G. Hahn III - Oct 30, 05:27 PM - #I also attended this seminar and found it very informational about a very high profile topic that needs to be talked about more. It was interesting to find out that someone who did not hold these views attended the seminar; but I think all the better because they were exposed to the ideas, just as we are on our college campuses. I have to agree with the above post in saying that why not let the readers decide? And it is true, even though everyone may not agree with everything said; at the end of the day, at least it is a topic being talked about.
— Carla Shutrop - Oct 31, 12:08 AM - #ROFL.
““Ronald Reagan believed in confronting evil wherever it threatened. That’s why there is a “2,000-pound slab of the Berlin Wall” sitting in Santa Barbara and not in Berlin.”“
Actually, no. The reason it’s sitting there, and not in Berlin, was because the Soviet economic model was completely fucking insane.
The defense build-up helped speed things up by a few months, perhaps. But the end result was inevitable.
““Radical Islam is that evil that we confront today.”“
All forms of radical religion tend to be, in my mind, evil. Radical, theocratic Christianity strikes me as evil. So, too, does radical, fundamentalist Judaism — which keeps settlements in the West Bank and prevents a two-state solution, which approves the massacre of non-Jews, etc. I say this, as a Jew, because sometimes people are prone to forget there are Jewish crazies out there, too, and they matter. Kahane Chai, for instance, or the JDL.
Some radical Islamic organizations are a greater threat to American interests than the groups above. Some are lesser threats than the groups above.
But a successful approach to defending American interests depends on understanding which approach will work best on each group.
You can’t use the same approach to deal with abortion-clinic bombing Christian radicals that you would to deal with Hezbollah; so why pretend that lumping in Hezbollah with Al-Qaeda is smart when formulating American defense policy?
Our goal is to defend America, as best as we can, against a broad spectrum of threats. The right wing is failing that test with their myopia.
— Joe - Oct 31, 09:45 AM - #“But the end result was inevitable”
There is no evil that I know of which has simply disappeared on its own accord. It took Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and Lech Walesa to assign the repressive Soviet empire to the ash heap of history.
“But a successful approach to defending American interests depends on understanding which approach will work best on each group”
Precisely why abortion clinic bombers are prosecuted in American justice system and the jihadists are confronted in the war they declared on us.
“why pretend that lumping in Hezbollah with Al-Qaeda is smart when formulating American defense policy?”
It is because they both, as with all Islamic terror groups, claim it is Allah’s will to convert or kill the infidel. This is why our foreign policy approach must be global. Iraq and Afghanistan are simply fronts in this war declared, by the jihadists, on us. To argue that all Islamic terror groups are different, you’re neglecting the ideology of jihad which strings them all together.
Moreover, fundamentalist Christians and Jews are of no significance compared to the jihadists. They are not the ones who have flown planes into buildings, strapped bomb vests to their children, called for the destruction of the West, and claim its all in the name of God. Yet, if they do claim it is in the name of God, the use of reason within Christianity categorically rejects that claim.
That’s why Islam needs to struggle with the idea of faith and reason on its own. The Christian God, logos, says, “Violence in my name is never allowed because it is <em>unreasonable</em>.” Islam has yet to come to this understanding.
I would encourage discussions like the ones at Radical Islam 101 to happen on campuses, but Campus Progress is more concerned with ridiculing these discussions rather than actually participating in them.
— Nicholas G. Hahn III - Oct 31, 01:07 PM - #“It took Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and Lech Walesa to assign the repressive Soviet empire to the ash heap of history.”
And they had just a little bit of help from the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, NATO, the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the race to the moon, detente, the Helsinki Accords, the Prague Spring, SALT I, economic stagnation under Brezhnev, the nuclear freeze movement, glasnost, perestroika, the Baltic independence movement, the Velvet Revolution, the failed coup by Soviet hardliners in August of 1991, the Beatles, and the 1980 Miracle on Ice.
— Rick - Nov 1, 01:43 PM - #“That’s why Islam needs to struggle with the idea of faith and reason on its own. The Christian God, logos, says, “Violence in my name is never allowed because it is unreasonable.” Islam has yet to come to this understanding.”
Do you mean Islam itself, or those who use it for violent purposes?
— Rick - Nov 1, 02:20 PM - #“The Christian God, logos, says, “Violence in my name is never allowed…”“
Oh really? Read the Bible much?
— Derek - Nov 2, 11:32 AM - #Oh my… a Conservo-Fascism Madrassa? So who are the real fanatics!
— Michael Thompson - Nov 2, 02:34 PM - #Kristin,
— Simon - Nov 2, 11:28 PM - #Your reporting evidences the threats and dangers of liberal professors – congratulations, you’ve been indoctrinated. You ought to try thinking for yourself instead of spewing your party’s lines. Is this the best we can expect from a freakin’ graduate student? Gimme a freakin’ break Kristin and get a freakin’ clue!
All I did was report what I saw at the conference. It’s true that this is a controversial topic and it needs to be talked about; but the discussions at the conference didn’t actually get beyond a superficial level in discussing terrorist groups. All they did was list them and group them together as “The Enemy.” Then they had speakers like Nonie Darwish bash Islam to reinforce the idea that it’s a monolithic entity inherently inclined toward radical ideas. Even distinguishing between “moderate Islam” and “radical Islam” is essentializing, splitting thousands of people with various goals and reasons for those goals into the “Good Guys” and the “Bad Guys” (language actually used at the conference). You were indoctrinated with these ideas long before I met any liberal professors—they’re often the content of children’s stories and cartoons. Unless we start looking at these problems as the real complexities they are, we are going to head into disaster out of fear and pride. Funny, because fear and pride were the two things emphasized most at this conference, more than any serious debate.
— Kristin - Nov 4, 12:10 AM - #A few quotes I didn’t have room for in the article (I’ll let the readers decide for themselves):
“A lot of people think Islam is a religion. Islam is a state, a radical system.”
—Darwish
“Islamists are like Nazis.”
—Abaza
“Islam is not compatible with democracy.”
—Darwish
“This is extremely, extremely dangerous.”
—Darwish
But it’s not ALL scary:
“Have fun doing these things! I never thought I would miss the communists, but I do!”
—Waller
“I really hate it when I get the facts wrong and a student calls me on it…I don’t allow recorders in my room because I say things that I wouldn’t want to be quoted on.”
—Waller
But, of course, we were urged to record liberal professors. For my article I did what the speakers suggested: report the biased things that people “indoctrinate.”
— Kristin - Nov 4, 01:17 AM - #Part of the issue Progressives need to do here is reframe this particular issue. What conservatives are trying to do is say “conservatism isn’t the problem, Bush is.” They’re trying to say that Bush/non-Reaganites are incompetent, and all we have to do is go back to Reagan and all will be fine.
But the issue here isn’t an issue of competence. It’s an issue of ideology. Bush was such a horrible President not because he poorly applied conservative doctrine. Rather, what has happened under Bush (needless war, corruption, the Katrina debacle) is an inevitable result of the conservative ideology he and Reagan espoused.
Bush and Reagan are very similar in that they tries to have a type of “folksiness” to endear themselves to the public, to try and create a type of conservative populism. That’s why during the campaigns, Bush talked about his distaste in reading and love of naps, and why Reagan tried to appear like a lovable Grandpa who supposedly cared for the people he governed.
And in both cases, their tactics worked because it made their opponents underestimate them. Both Reagan and Bush administered huge tax cuts for the wealthy, tore through the safety net, pushed the courts to the right, started wars in other countries (Reagan: Nicaragua, Grenada, troops in Lebanon), and in Bush’s case, also passed the Patriot Act, NCLB, the Medicare bill, and the Bankrupcy bill, all of which create huge profits for a few companies while destroying civil liberties, and a public education not solely based on test scores.
So, both presidents, despite assumed incompetence, actually did a lot to further a conservative vision. That’s why Reagan is deifiable in the first place, and why Bush won huge conservative support in 2004. Being able to advance that vision as much as they have been isn’t a sign of incompetence.
Instead, the negative results in recent years of these policies comes from the ideology behind them, not the incompetence of leaders. Conservatism says “free market, no government,” Reagan said “you can spend your money better than any government”...How is it surprising then that the government wasn’t there for people when Katrina hit? Conservatives had been drilling home the idea of people being responsible for themselves, without any government aid. The tax cuts meant less $$ for government programs like FEMA and hence a crappy response.
Similarly ~ both Bush and Reagan had the idea to greatly increase military spending, and use it to strengthen/create democracies throughout the barrel of a gun. Hence the Iraq war and troops being sent to Lebanon in the 80’s. This view ignored so many of the lessons of history, but was done on the basis of furthering ideological goals nonetheless. The forging of the evidence about WMD’s wasn’t a mistake ~ it was a product of a conservative agenda.
If any of Reagan’s successors were incompetent, they wouldn’t have been able to get tax cuts or the Iraq war started in the first place.
And then, when they did all these things, the Iraq War and Katrina ended up being conservative “successes.” The tax cuts led to the weakening of the EPA, OSHA, an many other government agencies people rely on – a success for conservatives who want to minimize the role of government. The Iraq War gave huge profits to Halliburton, Bechtel, and other corporations – one success for conservatives championing the free market. Katrina gave conservatives a chance to suspend environmntal and labor laws in LA, as well as completely dismantle the New Orleans public schools – another success for conservatives loving charter schools and vouchers.
None of this was the result of incompetence. These policies were the result of careful planning by conservatives based on what they believe the world should be like. And these policies, while successes for a few companies and conservative ideologues, haven’t been so good for everyone else.
So conservatism is the thing that needs to be discredited. And by glorifying Reagan, the conservative movement is trying to put the attention on the individuals rather than on their ideas and ideology where it belongs.
— Jon B - Nov 4, 02:53 AM - #I wish to address a few issues that have been raised:
1) We must be vigilant when speaking of God, as a polemical tool. First, we should ask ourselves if we are indeed consciously appealing to God in that respect and secondly, we should consider any axiomatic ways in which we refer to God. By citing disembodied textual references or slogans, we are scarcely advancing a nuanced dialogue on a given subject (if dialogue is in fact our goal) and we are not adding anything substantial to our argument since we are appealing to a possibly meaningless concept or quotation with no context.
Both Islam and Christianity (broadly speaking, as global traditions that have spanned geographical, political and intellectual space for centuries) have doctrines that justify violence in particular circumstances (though there are also exceptions within both traditions where acute pacifism is practiced). Therefore to speak of “Islam’s” stance on violence or “Christianity’s” stance on political matters—especially in a polemical forum—is both meaningless and disingenuous. As Carl Ernst reminds us in Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World, “The only thing that can be observed or demonstrated is that individual people who call themselves Christians or Muslims have particular positions and practices that they observe and defend. No one, however, has ever seen Christianity or Islam do anything” (51).
It is also important to understand the position of an opposing political or social opinion before one dismisses it; otherwise one cannot reject the opinion—that person instead rejects a limited understanding of the opinion, which is based on one’s own ignorance.
2) I would now like to address two quotations in this thread, in particular:
“Radical Islam is that evil that we confront today… [and] Young America’s Foundation is willing to facilitate this dialogue. Conservatives are willing to combat ideas.”
“Moreover, fundamentalist Christians and Jews are of no significance compared to the jihadists.”
I congratulate you for you willingness to combat ideas. Just be sure to be informed about these ideas so you are not instead combating your misunderstandings of the ideas (although those should be combated too, in a different way). Radical Islam (leaving the term loosely defined) is part of a much larger system of extremism and absolutist thinking. It is absurd to think of “Radical Islam” as a sole (or even primary) problem in today’s world. By isolating “radical” Muslims from “radical” Christians, Jews, Hindu’s Buddhists, political activists, journalists, school teachers, radio personalities, cattle ranchers, dentists, movie stars, postal workers or any number of individuals/entities that may espouse opinions we deem extreme, we are fueling a destructive form of xenophobia that has acted as a cancer upon the earth for generations—whether against ethnicities, religious affiliations or gender roles. “Radical” Islam is only part of the dire problems we confront today as a global society. Myopic thinking is a much larger problem than “radical Islam”.
Look at the issues that surround the opposition that some of the “radical” groups are confronting and reacting against. Such issues do not necessarily justify violence but that does not make them irrelevant. To give a few examples from United States foreign policy: Colonialism (this is ubiquitous), denial of human rights (Guantanamo Bay—torture, refusal to give trials), deception (US politicians, often presidents, have a history of lying in public—I’m sure you can think of a few).
Also, for the one who has criticized Kristin’s inability to think for herself since she has evidently been brainwashed by the liberal academics, aside from your sophisticated word choice (i.e., “freakin’”), your comment lacked substance and resorted to nothing less than name-calling. If we wish to move beyond a politically polarized understanding of world events (which affect us all to be sure and are therefore important to view intelligently), should we resort to name-calling and insults before engaging in reflective research and consideration?
I applaud Kristin’s creativity for engaging her project and the eloquent article that came as a result. Just as surely as it would behoove me to learn more about conservative worldviews, how and why they function, and what I can do to support my country (and my world), we all need to realize the effects of our opinions when we decide to make them public. Are we hoping to arouse knee-jerk, emotional reactions or are we participating in an intellectual conversation?
While any cogent presentation of an argument will often, no doubt, incorporate a number of persuasive tools, I plead with and encourage each of us not to let our… (fill in the blank) get in the way of critical thinking, critical listening and considerate demeanor when it comes to matters of public debate. Otherwise we will fall victims to our own ignorance and myopia, a malady that has already crippled too many of us.
— Elliott - Nov 6, 02:14 PM - #