It’s not often that a sound bite from a Democratic candidate gets so under the skin of my distinguished colleague George F. Will that he feels moved to quote it in full and then devote an entire column to refuting it. This is instructive.
The declaration heard ’round the Internet world came from Elizabeth Warren, the consumer champion running for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. Warren argued that “there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own,” that thriving entrepreneurs move their goods “on the roads the rest of us paid for” and hire workers “the rest of us paid to educate.” Police and firefighters, also paid for by “the rest of us,” protect the factory owner’s property. As a result, our “underlying social contract” requires this hardworking but fortunate soul to “take a hunk” of his profits “and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”
In other words, there are no self-made people because we are all part of society. Accomplished people benefit from advantages created by earlier generations (of parents whom we didn’t choose and taxpayers whom we’ve never met) and by the simple fact that they live in a country that provides opportunities that are not available everywhere. The successful thus owe quite a lot to the government and social structure that made their success possible.
Will is a shrewd man and a careful student of political philosophy. I am a fan of his for many reasons, but more on that in a moment. In this case, he demonstrates his debating skills by first accusing Warren of being “a pyromaniac in a field of straw men,” and then by conceding the one and only point that Warren actually made.
“Everyone,” he writes, “knows that all striving occurs in a social context, so all attainments are conditioned by their context.” Indeed. He gives us here a rigorous and concise summary of what she said.
Will then adds: “This does not, however, entail a collectivist political agenda.” In intellectual contests, this is an MVP move. Having accused Warren of setting fire to straw men, Will has just introduced his own straw colossus.
There is absolutely nothing in Warren’s statement that implied a “collectivist political agenda.” Will simply ascribes one to her by quoting a book published 53 years ago, “The Affluent Society,” in which economist John Kenneth Galbraith spoke of how corporate advertising could manipulate consumer preferences.
From this, Will concludes that liberals hold a series of terribly elitist beliefs and that by extension, Warren (who is, conveniently, a Harvard professor) does too. Will’s straw liberal is supposedly committed to “the impossibility, for most people, of self-government”; “subordination of the bovine many to a regulatory government”; and a belief that government “owes minimal deference to people’s preferences.”
Well. On the one hand, this is a tour de force. My colleague has brought out his full rhetorical arsenal to beat back a statement that he grants upfront is so obviously true that it cannot be gainsaid. Will knows danger when he sees it.
What Warren has done is to make a proper case for liberalism, which does not happen often enough. Liberals believe that the wealthy should pay more in taxes than “the rest of us” because the well-off have benefited the most from our social arrangements. This has nothing to do with treating citizens as if they were cows incapable of self-government.
Will, the philosopher, knows whereof Warren speaks because he has advanced arguments of his own that complement hers. In his thoughtful 1983 book “Statecraft as Soulcraft,” Will rightly lamented that America’s sense of community had become “thin gruel” and chided fellow conservatives “caught in the web of their careless anti-government rhetoric.” He is also the author of my favorite aphorism about how Americans admire effective government even when they pretend not to. “Americans talk like Jeffersonians,” Will wrote, “but expect to be governed by Hamiltonians.”
In light of my respect for Will, it seems only appropriate that I close by offering words of admiration—for him, and for Elizabeth Warren. Will doesn’t waste time challenging arguments that don’t matter and he doesn’t erect straw men unless he absolutely has to. That Warren has so inspired Will, our premier conservative polemicist now that William F. Buckley Jr. has passed to his eternal reward, is an enormous tribute to her. And remember: On the core point about the social contract, George Will and Elizabeth Warren are in full, if awkward, agreement.
E.J. Dionne’s e-mail address is ejdionne(at)washpost.com.
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By Beltwaylaid, October 13, 2011 at 12:22 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
George Will gets it right about as often as he smiles.
With all due respect, Mr. Dionne, your admiration for Will is misplaced unless you ascribe credence to the inane ramblings of a pathologically precocious and pedantic elitist shill and fascist apologist who corrupts the meaning of language in an effort to bamboozle the frightened and intolerant rubes into consistently striving against their own self interests. Perhaps Georgie-Boy should ditch his current skull rug and replace it with a more appropriate powdered wig as his tired sermons are too reminiscent of the hollow pronouncements of our saintly “Founding Fathers” whose real concern was personal enrichment while conning the vile and unwashed masses into doing the dirty work of getting rid of their British rivals in the never ending quest for hegemony over the colonies!
Thanks for the complement She. And the information Night Guant, I watch no news from ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN, I must admit for now I am leaning so far to the left I watch MSNBC some PBS and when the mood strikes me LINK. I can ask you how are these less left channels covering the Occupy Wall Street folks?
I do not consider myself a lefty in the orthodox sense, for I may agree with some things which sound just Goldilocks right.
Elizabeth Warren makes so much sense to me, which I gather upsets people like this George Will guy, it sounds my ignorance of George Will sound like I am missing absolutely nothing?
As a lefty, I get some of my right leaning turd bits from the Speaker of the House and friends like ass wipe Canter, who seem to me to have nothing but contempt for the populous and the people they are supposed to represent, but not the ones who have the money.
And I will never understand why anyone would not want to support Social Security, Medicare or better yet nationalized medical care? Well I understand why the 1 percent do not support it, and their bought and paid for politicians, but what of the people who support the 1 percent?
Lets face it, history has had a cornucopia of charlatans who dupe many if not all of the people to support them. Here in the USA they get people to vote against their own best interests. Of course who am I to say what other peoples best interests are, though they seem to have little trouble telling me mine.
In India they have classes of people without class welfare, so maybe the Republicans would feel better if the real poor people here became like the untouchables? Guess this is a tribal mentality, sort of like what they do in DC. Recently I heard an author of a new book saying the people in Congress are good people, but tribal mentality forced them to just became that way? I guess once a person becomes a politician they become an opportunist and go with the flow. (not all, just most). That is to say, politicians become charlatans because it is their choice, like what Republicans say about gays?
This may be why they seemed so upset about Occupy Wall Street the trivial leaders fear they may loose some of their power.
Errata: I meant she, Elizabeth Warren, was a graduate of Rutgers,
she is a stellar scholar of contract law, bankruptcy, and commercial
law at Harvard holding a prestigious professorship. My apologies,
but I’m so glad I can make mistakes of such a minor amplitude or
I’d have to give up my truthdipping stick. Duh I’m not ready to do
that! Yet.
Leefeller, you walk in good company, Aristotle is known for his
peripatetic style (a walking about as would a pedestrian). I know
I know, you meant it as if you were a kind of Philistine, but you
don’t appear to be in my opinion.
Leefella I guess you don’t watch the Talking Heads on Sundays? He has been on ABC for many years as part of a round table. Plus his carefully worded screeds are republished in many local newspapers. And now with the Internets you can look them up. He also get’s his column in Time also at the back page.
He is one of the more studious ones but still a Reich winger just smooth as shark skin rather than rough and spiky like Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. He is in fact a cultured barbarian. He will go all the way to the wall to defend his versions of the falsity of Global Climate change perpetrated by humans.
It just means that it would take someone equally or greater educated than he to take him on and win in a debate.
Must be because, I don’t read conservative punditry, just as I do not listen to the likes of Limbaugh, Beck and others… though I am forced to occasionally see soundbites on my Commie pinko, liberal news channels… especially of the girthy Limbaugh.
Never recall having ever seen this George Will guy, guess this makes me so pedestrian.
Agreed. I also think he does not know. I think he felt he had to
make some comment about Warren that sounded erudite to try to
impress his audience. After all she is a Harvard grad who didn’t
have to disrobe to get through school. There is a bio on Will at
Wikipedia that might give a clue or contact him at the TownHall
ultraconservative website: http://townhall.com/columnists/georgewill/page/2001 An email
link is printed under his name. Too bad as a philosopher (lover of
wisdom), he cannot convince his cronies to be more circumspect.
Maybe it’s just me, but George Will’s arguments always seem to get lost behind his
toupée. Even when I read his columns, all I can picture is that damned half-living
creature he puts on his head each morning.
George Will is a philosopher distinctly of a conservative
persuasion whose narcissism forced him to use the rhetorical
phrase “collectivist political agenda” in his professional
philosopher’s pseudo sagacious jargon. It would be interesting
to have heard his argument to himself about which political
playground was the more fun when he turned about face from
the liberal corner. So it is not ideology but filthy lucre that
convinced him? Well the Nazi’s had their favorite philosopher too
(whose ideas were prostituted for their Uberman cause).
Collectivism is defined in contradistinction to individualism, as the
theory and practice that makes some sort of group rather than the
individual the fundamental unit of political, social, and economic concern
and in theory, collectivists insist that the claims of groups, associations,
or the state must normally supersede the claims of individuals. Warren
does seem to have some collectivist genes but I don’t think she is as
rabid a collectivist as Will would like her to be so he could legitimately
crucify her, since conservatives love to hammer nails through palms and
feet to crisscross pieces of wood. She is quite the individualist in a sea of
spineless Democrats. For instance, contrary to Will, a distinction can be
made that there is an “individualistic” left wing, and a “collectivist” right
wing. Does this need further clarity?
He is wrong that all striving occurs in a social context. Psychopaths strive
but gain satisfaction in antisocial behavior. Frankly, pangolins , leopards,
hamsters, jaguars, camelions, hermit crabs (obviously), rhinoceroses, all
strive and are very antisocial animals, and I’ve heard the Desert
Grasshopper is not very social either. Hamsters f’sure are antisocial and
must be kept singly in order to avoid fights with deadly or injurious
outcomes. The only occasion at which hamsters may be brought together
is in connection to mating, in which watchful overview and readiness to
intervention is still required. Who woulda thought? But we would not
want to leave out the greedy and rapacious hermaphroditic snails and
slugs. Snails strive carnivorously and don’t share their booty with
anyone. They just feed and don’t horde any vittles for later.
For Dionne makes a lame admission to being a fan of Will at least in an
article like this without saying why he is. Some people like Will (mostly
but not all certifiably nutso conservatives), and some people don’t (see
truthdippers on this forum for a handful).
Will is eloquent and learned but still a Conservative who finds the rank and cranks among the newly minted House reps to be an embarrassment to the Party. He also doesn’t approve of the John Birch Society that was tossed out of the Republican Party by Wm F. Buckley Jr. in the early 1950’s and soon after his death they were welcomed back into the GOP just a few years ago. Don’t underestimate him he is no stooge. He may be a shill and used in its broadest meaning so are we all.
There is nothing more virulent than a convert. And as George Will found it pays so much better in the halls of the elites, the rich both old and new. Hobnobbing with the nabobs of High Class über-rich. The hallowed sanctums of the closeted fascists. That’s their boy. Fair haired and has a loquacious forked silver tongue. His defense of the fallacious anti GCC groups who are just protecting their way of life. They don’t care what they are doing to the earth. They will simply be the ones on top while the rest of us live miserable lives and will die young, while they live artificially extended lives of luxury and comfort. He knows he’s lying but he has other matters of greater import to protect than the truth.
Does anybody listen to George Will anymore? Knee-jerk conservative, mamby-
pamby pseudo-intellectual that he is. Talk about thin gruel. I can’t think of
anything of relevance that he’s said since Agronsky and Company went off the air.
George Will used to be a liberal/moderate in the 70’s
and early 80’s before he jumped on the Reagan
bandwagon. Never has a more influential and gifted
journalist so obviously sold out to the dark side. I
would love to know what happened to him.
By Mike Strong, October 10, 2011 at 8:58 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
George Will has always been too smart for himself “by half,” as the Brits say it. Nothing like a convert (Will used to be a liberal, probably just a debate-class liberal). Now he is so stuck in his corner, not to mention so stuck on himself. I never pay attention to him (exception, today, for this short message).
By jdean, October 10, 2011 at 8:09 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Will is merely an apologist for the corporate state as his 1983 book cited above testifies. A rhetorical corrective was needed to reign in the reaganite fascism that threatened the stability of the monied interests as the mindelss public cheered on an idiot thus threatening rational corporate interests. This is how pathetic the US has become as people like Will frame the debate between abject fascism and corporate statism. Go OWS.
Anarcissie, October 9 at 8:22 pm Link to this comment
What, exactly, is a ‘collectivist political agenda’? The national polity is a collectivity, as are the governments, the corporations, the political parties, the organized religions, the baseball teams, and so on down the line. Politics is collective, patriotism is collective, the economy is collective, the social order is collective. Does anyone know how to translate the phrase so that it differentiates one political agenda from another?
***************
Anarcissie: I don’t think I’ve ever seen you quite so eloquent as you are here.
Will is using obfuscation and rhetoric SOLELY to protect privilege for the rich and powerful.
Anarchissie: I think Will employs the word “collectivist” not for its literal meaning,
but purely for the fact that it keys in the knee-jerk “anti-communist” fever of
bygone decades heavily flavored with McCarthy-era fear and loathing. The
hysteria of that era robbed millions of people of that generation of common sense,
and they have never recovered.
prisnersdilema -Thank you for an almost perfect description of George Will. I have NEVER liked him or his obsequious (and truly phony) worship of “conservative” ideals. He’s the kind of guy we used to beat up in gym class at school because they were such smug, condescending assholes.
What, exactly, is a ‘collectivist political agenda’? The national polity is a collectivity, as are the governments, the corporations, the political parties, the organized religions, the baseball teams, and so on down the line. Politics is collective, patriotism is collective, the economy is collective, the social order is collective. Does anyone know how to translate the phrase so that it differentiates one political agenda from another?
Reason can be a perfect desguise, behind which to hide predjudice. Mr. Wills
longstanding defense of conservative, politics, testifys to this effect. Rationalizing the
political right is what he does, expressionless, with what can be called anal intent. Which
makes him little more than a cheap asshole. He has stood by and watched this country
taken apart pice by piece, bit by bit, by the right, while the laws are twisted and turned
in favor of nothing but avarice. And now he gets excited. And crys foul because
someone namely Elizabeth Warren, questions the delusions it is all built on. That’s what
happens when you confront the the tactics of self deception of lunatics.
Too Soon to Tell: The Case for Hope, Continued
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By Beltwaylaid, October 13, 2011 at 12:22 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
George Will gets it right about as often as he smiles.
Report thisBy berniem, October 13, 2011 at 12:12 pm Link to this comment
With all due respect, Mr. Dionne, your admiration for Will is misplaced unless you ascribe credence to the inane ramblings of a pathologically precocious and pedantic elitist shill and fascist apologist who corrupts the meaning of language in an effort to bamboozle the frightened and intolerant rubes into consistently striving against their own self interests. Perhaps Georgie-Boy should ditch his current skull rug and replace it with a more appropriate powdered wig as his tired sermons are too reminiscent of the hollow pronouncements of our saintly “Founding Fathers” whose real concern was personal enrichment while conning the vile and unwashed masses into doing the dirty work of getting rid of their British rivals in the never ending quest for hegemony over the colonies!
Report thisBy Leefeller, October 12, 2011 at 4:22 pm Link to this comment
Thanks for the complement She. And the information Night Guant, I watch no news from ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN, I must admit for now I am leaning so far to the left I watch MSNBC some PBS and when the mood strikes me LINK. I can ask you how are these less left channels covering the Occupy Wall Street folks?
I do not consider myself a lefty in the orthodox sense, for I may agree with some things which sound just Goldilocks right.
Elizabeth Warren makes so much sense to me, which I gather upsets people like this George Will guy, it sounds my ignorance of George Will sound like I am missing absolutely nothing?
As a lefty, I get some of my right leaning turd bits from the Speaker of the House and friends like ass wipe Canter, who seem to me to have nothing but contempt for the populous and the people they are supposed to represent, but not the ones who have the money.
And I will never understand why anyone would not want to support Social Security, Medicare or better yet nationalized medical care? Well I understand why the 1 percent do not support it, and their bought and paid for politicians, but what of the people who support the 1 percent?
Lets face it, history has had a cornucopia of charlatans who dupe many if not all of the people to support them. Here in the USA they get people to vote against their own best interests. Of course who am I to say what other peoples best interests are, though they seem to have little trouble telling me mine.
In India they have classes of people without class welfare, so maybe the Republicans would feel better if the real poor people here became like the untouchables? Guess this is a tribal mentality, sort of like what they do in DC. Recently I heard an author of a new book saying the people in Congress are good people, but tribal mentality forced them to just became that way? I guess once a person becomes a politician they become an opportunist and go with the flow. (not all, just most). That is to say, politicians become charlatans because it is their choice, like what Republicans say about gays?
This may be why they seemed so upset about Occupy Wall Street the trivial leaders fear they may loose some of their power.
One person, one dollar, one vote!
Report thisBy Shenonymous, October 12, 2011 at 2:45 pm Link to this comment
Errata: I meant she, Elizabeth Warren, was a graduate of Rutgers,
she is a stellar scholar of contract law, bankruptcy, and commercial
law at Harvard holding a prestigious professorship. My apologies,
but I’m so glad I can make mistakes of such a minor amplitude or
I’d have to give up my truthdipping stick. Duh I’m not ready to do
that! Yet.
Leefeller, you walk in good company, Aristotle is known for his
Report thisperipatetic style (a walking about as would a pedestrian). I know
I know, you meant it as if you were a kind of Philistine, but you
don’t appear to be in my opinion.
By Night-Gaunt, October 12, 2011 at 2:27 pm Link to this comment
Leefella I guess you don’t watch the Talking Heads on Sundays? He has been on ABC for many years as part of a round table. Plus his carefully worded screeds are republished in many local newspapers. And now with the Internets you can look them up. He also get’s his column in Time also at the back page.
He is one of the more studious ones but still a Reich winger just smooth as shark skin rather than rough and spiky like Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. He is in fact a cultured barbarian. He will go all the way to the wall to defend his versions of the falsity of Global Climate change perpetrated by humans.
It just means that it would take someone equally or greater educated than he to take him on and win in a debate.
Report thisBy Leefeller, October 12, 2011 at 7:16 am Link to this comment
I do not know George Will from Will Tell.
Must be because, I don’t read conservative punditry, just as I do not listen to the likes of Limbaugh, Beck and others… though I am forced to occasionally see soundbites on my Commie pinko, liberal news channels… especially of the girthy Limbaugh.
Never recall having ever seen this George Will guy, guess this makes me so pedestrian.
Report thisBy Shenonymous, October 11, 2011 at 10:49 pm Link to this comment
Agreed. I also think he does not know. I think he felt he had to
Report thismake some comment about Warren that sounded erudite to try to
impress his audience. After all she is a Harvard grad who didn’t
have to disrobe to get through school. There is a bio on Will at
Wikipedia that might give a clue or contact him at the TownHall
ultraconservative website:
http://townhall.com/columnists/georgewill/page/2001 An email
link is printed under his name. Too bad as a philosopher (lover of
wisdom), he cannot convince his cronies to be more circumspect.
By Justin Weleski, October 11, 2011 at 8:20 pm Link to this comment
Maybe it’s just me, but George Will’s arguments always seem to get lost behind his
Report thistoupée. Even when I read his columns, all I can picture is that damned half-living
creature he puts on his head each morning.
By Anarcissie, October 11, 2011 at 6:56 pm Link to this comment
I would like to know what he meant in that particular case. Or rather, I would like to ask him; I am not sure at all that he does know.
Report thisBy Shenonymous, October 11, 2011 at 6:26 pm Link to this comment
George Will is a philosopher distinctly of a conservative
persuasion whose narcissism forced him to use the rhetorical
phrase “collectivist political agenda” in his professional
philosopher’s pseudo sagacious jargon. It would be interesting
to have heard his argument to himself about which political
playground was the more fun when he turned about face from
the liberal corner. So it is not ideology but filthy lucre that
convinced him? Well the Nazi’s had their favorite philosopher too
(whose ideas were prostituted for their Uberman cause).
Collectivism is defined in contradistinction to individualism, as the
theory and practice that makes some sort of group rather than the
individual the fundamental unit of political, social, and economic concern
and in theory, collectivists insist that the claims of groups, associations,
or the state must normally supersede the claims of individuals. Warren
does seem to have some collectivist genes but I don’t think she is as
rabid a collectivist as Will would like her to be so he could legitimately
crucify her, since conservatives love to hammer nails through palms and
feet to crisscross pieces of wood. She is quite the individualist in a sea of
spineless Democrats. For instance, contrary to Will, a distinction can be
made that there is an “individualistic” left wing, and a “collectivist” right
wing. Does this need further clarity?
He is wrong that all striving occurs in a social context. Psychopaths strive
but gain satisfaction in antisocial behavior. Frankly, pangolins , leopards,
hamsters, jaguars, camelions, hermit crabs (obviously), rhinoceroses, all
strive and are very antisocial animals, and I’ve heard the Desert
Grasshopper is not very social either. Hamsters f’sure are antisocial and
must be kept singly in order to avoid fights with deadly or injurious
outcomes. The only occasion at which hamsters may be brought together
is in connection to mating, in which watchful overview and readiness to
intervention is still required. Who woulda thought? But we would not
want to leave out the greedy and rapacious hermaphroditic snails and
slugs. Snails strive carnivorously and don’t share their booty with
anyone. They just feed and don’t horde any vittles for later.
For Dionne makes a lame admission to being a fan of Will at least in an
Report thisarticle like this without saying why he is. Some people like Will (mostly
but not all certifiably nutso conservatives), and some people don’t (see
truthdippers on this forum for a handful).
By Jimbo, October 11, 2011 at 5:21 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
“Will ... doesn’t erect straw men unless he absolutely has to.”
Funny, I thought that was his bread and butter.
Report thisBy Night-Gaunt, October 11, 2011 at 1:39 pm Link to this comment
Will is eloquent and learned but still a Conservative who finds the rank and cranks among the newly minted House reps to be an embarrassment to the Party. He also doesn’t approve of the John Birch Society that was tossed out of the Republican Party by Wm F. Buckley Jr. in the early 1950’s and soon after his death they were welcomed back into the GOP just a few years ago. Don’t underestimate him he is no stooge. He may be a shill and used in its broadest meaning so are we all.
There is nothing more virulent than a convert. And as George Will found it pays so much better in the halls of the elites, the rich both old and new. Hobnobbing with the nabobs of High Class über-rich. The hallowed sanctums of the closeted fascists. That’s their boy. Fair haired and has a loquacious forked silver tongue. His defense of the fallacious anti GCC groups who are just protecting their way of life. They don’t care what they are doing to the earth. They will simply be the ones on top while the rest of us live miserable lives and will die young, while they live artificially extended lives of luxury and comfort. He knows he’s lying but he has other matters of greater import to protect than the truth.
Report thisBy Hollywood Russ, October 10, 2011 at 4:05 pm Link to this comment
Does anybody listen to George Will anymore? Knee-jerk conservative, mamby-
Report thispamby pseudo-intellectual that he is. Talk about thin gruel. I can’t think of
anything of relevance that he’s said since Agronsky and Company went off the air.
By Leefeller, October 10, 2011 at 1:38 pm Link to this comment
ribbie149,
One may follow the money?
Go Elizabeth Warren kick that Wall Street Pimp Punky Browns butt cheeks and his 10 million dollars back to whence they came.
Go Occupy Wall Street, finally fresh air on the putrid mess we call economics.
One person, one dollar, one vote! (except in the Red States).
Report thisBy ribbie149, October 10, 2011 at 9:29 am Link to this comment
George Will used to be a liberal/moderate in the 70’s
Report thisand early 80’s before he jumped on the Reagan
bandwagon. Never has a more influential and gifted
journalist so obviously sold out to the dark side. I
would love to know what happened to him.
By Mike Strong, October 10, 2011 at 8:58 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
George Will has always been too smart for himself “by half,” as the Brits say it. Nothing like a convert (Will used to be a liberal, probably just a debate-class liberal). Now he is so stuck in his corner, not to mention so stuck on himself. I never pay attention to him (exception, today, for this short message).
Report thisBy jdean, October 10, 2011 at 8:09 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Will is merely an apologist for the corporate state as his 1983 book cited above testifies. A rhetorical corrective was needed to reign in the reaganite fascism that threatened the stability of the monied interests as the mindelss public cheered on an idiot thus threatening rational corporate interests. This is how pathetic the US has become as people like Will frame the debate between abject fascism and corporate statism. Go OWS.
Report thisBy traynorjf, October 10, 2011 at 6:59 am Link to this comment
Will has always been in need of a good enema. But he is the perfect replacement for Buckley, an enormously overrated intellect.
Report thisBy george c., October 10, 2011 at 6:27 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
i have never listened or trusted george will ever since HE GAVE THE STOLEN JIMMY CARTER DEBATE NOTES TO RONNIE RAGUNS CAMPAIGN !!! CHECK IT OUT !!!!!
Report thisBy george c., October 10, 2011 at 6:21 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
what
Report thisBy Inherit The Wind, October 10, 2011 at 3:52 am Link to this comment
Anarcissie, October 9 at 8:22 pm Link to this comment
What, exactly, is a ‘collectivist political agenda’? The national polity is a collectivity, as are the governments, the corporations, the political parties, the organized religions, the baseball teams, and so on down the line. Politics is collective, patriotism is collective, the economy is collective, the social order is collective. Does anyone know how to translate the phrase so that it differentiates one political agenda from another?
***************
Anarcissie: I don’t think I’ve ever seen you quite so eloquent as you are here.
Will is using obfuscation and rhetoric SOLELY to protect privilege for the rich and powerful.
Report thisBy Marc Schlee, October 9, 2011 at 9:50 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
*******
I thought George Will was dead.
FREE AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY (DIRECT) DEMOCRACY
*******
Report thisBy gerard, October 9, 2011 at 9:36 pm Link to this comment
Anarchissie: I think Will employs the word “collectivist” not for its literal meaning,
Report thisbut purely for the fact that it keys in the knee-jerk “anti-communist” fever of
bygone decades heavily flavored with McCarthy-era fear and loathing. The
hysteria of that era robbed millions of people of that generation of common sense,
and they have never recovered.
By mrfreeze, October 9, 2011 at 8:38 pm Link to this comment
prisnersdilema -Thank you for an almost perfect description of George Will. I have NEVER liked him or his obsequious (and truly phony) worship of “conservative” ideals. He’s the kind of guy we used to beat up in gym class at school because they were such smug, condescending assholes.
Report thisBy Anarcissie, October 9, 2011 at 8:22 pm Link to this comment
What, exactly, is a ‘collectivist political agenda’? The national polity is a collectivity, as are the governments, the corporations, the political parties, the organized religions, the baseball teams, and so on down the line. Politics is collective, patriotism is collective, the economy is collective, the social order is collective. Does anyone know how to translate the phrase so that it differentiates one political agenda from another?
Report thisBy prisnersdilema, October 9, 2011 at 8:06 pm Link to this comment
Reason can be a perfect desguise, behind which to hide predjudice. Mr. Wills
Report thislongstanding defense of conservative, politics, testifys to this effect. Rationalizing the
political right is what he does, expressionless, with what can be called anal intent. Which
makes him little more than a cheap asshole. He has stood by and watched this country
taken apart pice by piece, bit by bit, by the right, while the laws are twisted and turned
in favor of nothing but avarice. And now he gets excited. And crys foul because
someone namely Elizabeth Warren, questions the delusions it is all built on. That’s what
happens when you confront the the tactics of self deception of lunatics.
By Inherit The Wind, October 9, 2011 at 7:21 pm Link to this comment
IOW, Elizabeth Warren is 100% correct, Will absolutely knows it, but STILL doesn’t want to pay HIS fair share of taxes!
That’s all that means.
Report thisBy Morpheus, October 9, 2011 at 7:16 pm Link to this comment
I concur, we are in the midst of a world revolution. We have to stay focused.
Don’t be Afraid!
The Revolution has started -
Read “Common Sense 3.1” at ( http://www.revolution2.osixs.org )
FIGHT THE CAUSE - NOT THE SYMPTOM
Report thisWe don’t have to live like slaves anymore!
By LostHills, October 9, 2011 at 7:03 pm Link to this comment
George Will is a stooge and a shill. Don’t waste time worrying about what he says.
Report thisThere’s a lot more important shit to write about.