A Very Good Piece from Vox

No irony here, and no sarcasm. This is a self-critical look that deserves respect for its clear-sightedness. If we had more of this reflectiveness, we would have a better political culture.

9 comments:

raven said...

Everyone is smug until reality smacks them in the head.

questions that pop the smug balloon.

"why am I hungry?"
"why am I cold?"
"why am I bleeding?"
"why do I hurt?"
"why is that guy sticking a knife in me?"
"why is my $180,000 degree in bullshitencapulatedpostmodernistudies worthless?"

I have run into this smugness at the State Capitol in hearings- the gun control crowd is full of sanctimonious smugness, it oozes out of them, reeking of utter disdain, the body language and facial expressions, translated to words, "it is disgusting we even have to have these hearings and listen to these peasants". "Don't they know what is good for them?"




Grim said...

I read a piece just this morning that mentioned that it was "unbelievable" that abortion is still a political issue in 2016.

raven said...

I read a piece just this morning that mentioned that it was "unbelievable" that abortion is still a political issue in 2016.

yeah, it is- but maybe in a different way than the author thinks.

To kill the unarguably most innocent among us, and the most precious gift we can receive on this mortal plane, for the sake of convenience, simply beggars belief. It could be argued though, that the most telling wound is on the woman - that is a piece of glass in the belly of the soul cutting for a long time. "Mommy, Mommy, I hurt!"

I have lost children due to fate, but being the instrument of that loss would be nearly unbearable. May God have mercy on us all. Forgive them Father they know not what they do.

Grim said...

Amen.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

To the comments above, this is because their views are based on fashion, not reason, and being anti-abortion went into the unfashionable category 50 years ago.

The article was long, and he did seem determined to get every bit of it off his chest, but it was pretty good. Bethany at graph paper diaries had sent it too me a little bit ago. Even he believes some inaccurate stereotypes about conservatives, but I shouldn't quibble, should I?

Anonymous said...

I think Emmett Rensin is getting ready to change parties, whether he really knows it, or not.

I started hanging out with the right-wing nut jobs (Jib-Jab) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8Q-sRdV7SY after I decided that the immigration issue would require their consent before a law could be passed.

I found out that Conservatives were striving to preserve the Liberal heritage of this country. In the rest of the world, Conservatism is about keeping the rich, rich and forcing people to stay frozen in their historic roles based on the accident of family. In the US, Conservatives are all about individual determination applying well-supported economic principles in a manner that benefits all people. They want a system where the individual can essentially choose their on economic strata. Oh.

Valerie

Gringo said...

As a former liberal, I have been describing liberals as smug & self-righteous for decades. It's not exactly news. However, it is news that Salon would publish such a piece.

Gringo said...

Not Salon. My apologies.

Texan99 said...

I thought "The wages of smug is Trump" was a good line.

Ironically, while I'm not crazy about Trump's frowsy TV style, that's not what bugs me about the man. What bugs me is that he's not a conservative. I suspect the author of the piece doesn't get that part even a little bit.