I’m a day late for a Presidents’ Day post, but I heard this author, Roland White Jr., interviewed on NPR last night about his new book “The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words” and was bemoaning the absence of a President who could speak so powerfully; a President who wrote most of his own speeches and could deliver them with such sincerity and passion. And he was even a Republican! How refreshing to hear about Lincoln’s distaste for either side in the Civil War using God to promote their own cause. What really struck me were some amazing words from an 1862 message to Congress that resonate so strongly today:
Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.
Hear that, George?
I was listening to radio commentator Dennis Prager this morning. I used to enjoy listening to him but now his ultra-conservative views and smug attitudes so infuriate me that I can only take him for a few minutes at a time. During this morning’s snippet he was posing the question “Why do so many people become more conservative as they get older?” His answer was “because they get smarter as they age.” Arrrgh! There wasn’t an ounce of humor in that, he really meant it. And yet it certainly seems as if many people DO get more conservative as they get older—there's a whole journalistic subgenre of 1960s liberals who have moved to the far reaches of the right. I don’t buy that this is because of increased intelligence, obviously, but I do wonder what is causing it and how widespread the “trend” is. Prager’s related contention this morning was that all contemporary liberal positions rely on “feelings” rather than rational thought. He then offered this pearl:
Dennis Prager: Reliance on feelings in determining one's political and social positions is the major reason young people tend to have liberal/left positions—they feel passionately but do not have the maturity to question those passions. It is also one reason women, especially single women, are more liberal than men—it is women's nature to rely on emotions when making decisions.
Un peu condescending, n’est-ce pas? "Women’s nature?" At this point he always brings up the same examples of feelings-obsessed liberals: he rails endlessly about the so-called “animals-and-humans-are-equivalent” movement and always manages to find some lunatic to get on the phone and talk about how the chicken processing plants in this country are no different from Auschwitz, the "crimes" being committed there are EXACTLY the same. Or he’ll bring on the "liberals" who think that saying “Merry Christmas” is a violation of the recipient’s human rights. Where does he find these people? I have a wide circle of liberal friends and none of us share even a tiny portion of the views Prager uses to bolster his anti-liberal rants. I’m not saying that extremists and PC-obsessed idealogues don’t exist on the left, of course they do, but to constantly use these arguments to decry all liberal thought is just as disingenuous as saying all conservative Republicans are demonic beings who want to warehouse gays, Jews, and ethnic minorities in concentration camps.
I have to admit that I would never call Prager's radio show and engage him in conversation because I'm pretty sure he would wipe the floor with me. He’d be calmly articulating his views and pause just long enough for me to prove his point by hysterically frothing at the mouth. Okay, so maybe the question this liberal wants to ask, then, is why would we WANT to keep our feelings out of the decision-making process?
Oy, I swore I’d leave politics off my blog but I can’t seem to stop myself. I need to stick to Jews and movies. Nothing political about that, right?
I feel as if you wrote this one to get a rise out of me - talk about taking it personally! I have suffered from that all my life starting in Rhodesia when I was young. This argument that being left and liberal is emotional and when one becomes rational and wise one becomes conservative. I have a family member that this happened to and I suffer from it. Being idealistic, emotional and compassionate is very intelligent. As for rational! All those as if "rational" people out there are fighting war after war and committing atrocities non-stop. I feel a mouth frothing coming on! Thank goodness for emotional women whatever that means! Just let us run this world ... or are we also sucked into patriarchy and have women learned that only rational is good too? I have heard that we are our own worst enemies. As Lilian Katz would say - this is for another semester! Wow! and Oy!
Posted by: Tamar | February 23, 2005 at 04:26 AM
Conservatives have plenty of emotion when it's time to argue for more tax cuts or against gay marriage. Compassionate conservatism, remember?
Posted by: nappy40 | February 23, 2005 at 07:29 AM
And of course the whole abortion debate is rife with emotion...
Posted by: Danny | February 23, 2005 at 07:59 AM
Hey, Danny: My father-in-law has gone from raving Socialist to Ranting Reactionary in a couple of decades. My wife and I are collectively known to him by the term of endearment "You Liberals."
On the other hand, my brother-in-law who's the CEO of our business, while growing obscenely wealthy is -- perhaps just to get a rise out of his dad -- getting progressively more liberal, even as he gets smarter and more experienced! He's smart as hell and I've never seen him lose an argument.
(Actually, he lost one argument with me. I said we **had** to give our employees Christmas Day as a holiday, not just a floating holiday that they could use on Christmas Day. It offended his atheism. He was so mad at losing, he threw a paperweight at me. Softly.)
If he hadn't gotten more liberal, I'd have never been able to get my nonprofit affordable housing venture off the ground, and 250 senior citizens in Naples, Florida, would now be scattered to the winds or six feet under, while their former complex was redeveloped as high-end condos. Take that, Prager, you prig!
Posted by: David | February 23, 2005 at 10:30 AM
Dear Danny,
I have been asking "Whatever happened to Kendall Hailey?" for years. My husband loved her book (he was a radical adult educator) and would have loved to correspond with her. Tonight I saw the movie, "Stone Reader" and decided to seriously find out what happened to Kendall Hailey. I found your site as well as information about her acting in a play. My husband died a year ago, but he would be happy to know I found her!
Posted by: Chris Wagner | March 15, 2005 at 09:53 PM