Off Topic — HabitableZone

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re: Intellectual Republicans
TB — (archived)

I would be interested to hear about a true Conservative equivalent to Al Gore. Somebody willing to compete on a level playing field in a marketplace of ideas. Who are the Conservative intellectuals? Who would be a worthy opponent in a debate with Al Gore? Who can duel with ideas instead of sling mud?

Conservative intellectuals, with few exceptions, don't tend to run for office or seek political or economic power over others.

Sit down for a while and think about that one. It rests on a major difference between the basic philosophies.

Look at current Republican politicians. How many would you consider to have a strong base in the real philosophical background of conservatism or libertarianism? I can probably count them on one hand. The system tends to weed out those who believe that people should be running their own lives, and encourage those who believe the world would be a better place with them running the whole show.

Al Gore believes that the world depends on someone--preferably him--calling the shots, and that opposition to his thinking is not only wrong, but benighted. This kind of thinking has not had good results in the past.

Right now, our media and cultural elite are making a career out of beclowning Bush, and attacking him from every angle. If Gore were president, their fawning worship would have to be seen to be believed.

You might be surprised to find I'm more comfortable in a society that thinks the president is a dick than I would be in one where the press and Hollywood declared our leader to be the second coming of FDR and JFK combined.

O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Coulter, Malkin, et al...vicious demagogues all of them, each one an intellectual pygmy next to Al Gore. Who, then?

You list talk radio hosts and expect me to take your argument seriously? Someone like William F. Buckley, just to pull a name out of a hat, would leave nothing of Gore after a debate except the bones.

Al Gore gripes about how issues are reduced to simple-minded sound bites then tours the country with a fifth-grade slide show pandering to fear and apocalyptic fervor. My comparison with Moore was not a random one.

Al Gore doesn't like the political arena, and is comfortable outside of it. He can look brilliant in public mostly because he doesn't have to let anyone into the room who would make him look otherwise.

If Gore wants "open discussion" of issues like climate, let him debate with the climate scientists and others who have challenged him to.

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