"There's a lot to grapple with there. Here's one succinct way to put the question to Tea Party leaders: if we're choosing our ruling class the wrong way now, what alternative do you recommend?"
Elites and the Tea Party - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
A thousand random names from the tax*paying* rolls.
ReplyDeletePerfect answer Thrill.
ReplyDeleteThe whole original article in the Clairmont Review is really worth a read.
ReplyDeleteA meritocracy? Where? Here? You must be joking!
ReplyDeleteExcuse me, but the whole question is wrong. We're not electing a "new ruling class"; we're electing people to represent us in Congress and the White House. We're electing people to be our servants, not our "rulers".
ReplyDeleteAnd to answer the question, I personally would rather elect someone who's humble enough to remember that every second of every day in office.
Superb comment, Mr. Monteith
ReplyDeleteThere's more to the blog entry and article than getting wrapped around the blogger's poor choice of shorthand...
ReplyDeleteDid anyone read the clairmont review post at all? Just wondering
Thorn--yes, I read the Claremont post.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you want me to comment on the Claremont post, then perhaps you should have linked to IT, rather than to Andrew Sullivan's blog, where one of his guest bloggers made what you believe to be a "...poor choice of shorthand..."
But my friend, it wasn't a poor choice of shorthand....it was a telling choice of language from a guy (Conor Friedersdorf) whose reputation in the world of conservative thinkers is in marked decline. My own familiarity with his writing led me long ago to question exactly which team he was on--and I still wonder.
That said--he used the phrase "ruling class", because that's how he thinks of it. Mr. Monteith has rightfully called him on it. In Monteith's disputation, and in the activities of the Tea Party, is an organic, patriotic, rejection of any such THING as a ruling class.
The Claremont article is wonderfully done and worth reading in total. And when I finished it, my answer to Friedersdorf would have been the following: "We're not looking to replace a "ruling class". We're looking to elect people who tell the truth and who don't talk down to us. We want to vote for people who understand that the money they are spending is OUR money, and not some version of the opposite in which we are somehow considered fortunate to be able to keep what we do. We were all ready for a new spirit of positivism when the President came into office--but that spirit was replace by a sense of over-reach and encroachment. The President ran as a moderate and has governed as a man of the left. This country is now and always has been a center-right country, and people have begun to realize the extent to which a bait and switch has been perpetrated. No one's advocating a new "ruling class" or a new "governing class"--we're advocating a government that rewards hard work, that understands the source of its revenue, and that recognizes the continuing singular greatness that is the United States of America."
Point taken. I'll remember that I can lead a reader to excerpts, but I can't make him click through the links.
ReplyDelete