JONAH DINESH WHO IS DUMBEST

Definitions of patriotism proliferate, but in the American context patriotism must involve not only devotion to American texts (something that distinguishes our patriotism from European nationalism) but also an abiding belief in the inherent and enduring goodness of the American nation. We might need to change this or that policy or law, fix this or that problem, but at the end of the day the patriotic American believes that America is fundamentally good as it is.

It's the "good as it is" part that has vexed many on the left since at least the Progressive era. Marxists and other revolutionaries obviously don't believe entrepreneurial and religious America is good as it is. But even more mainstream figures have a problem distinguishing patriotic reform from reformation. Many progressives in the 1920s considered the American hinterlands a vast sea of yokels and boobs, incapable of grasping how much they needed what the activists were selling.

Ooo ooo ooo but I can't decide!

http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/DineshDSouza/

http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/JonahGoldberg

There's so much to choose from!

Voted Goldberg. Dinesh is not dumb, just completely mendacious.

Evidence from here:

The idea that these things are on a "continuum" isn't all that profound by my lights. Aristotle and that crowd would have bought into that, I would think. The question is, so what? I mean ice and fire are on the same continuum of temperature, but they are very different things . . .

It should be a serious crime to shoot, say, a bald eagle. It should be a routine chore to kill a rat. Killing a dolphin is different from shooting a deer. Whether or not science will "allow" us to draw these distinctions is largely irrelevant because we will rightly draw them anyway and, besides, science has little to tell us about such things . . . But, again, it's worth pointing out that "science" records all sorts of important differences between dolphins and deer, eagles and rats. Dolphins live in the ocean, deer don't. That's an absolute difference, I think.

“If America as a nation owes blacks as a group reparations for slavery, what do blacks as a group owe America for the abolition of slavery?”

Goldberg's dumber, Dinesh is ... well, I hate to say "more evil," but Dinesh is exactly the type who'd encourage firm moral distinctions like "more evil," so I guess he deserves it.

i think dinesh is pretty dumb, guys

have you seen him speak? he's dumb

Dinesh on The Colbert Report trying to big up his book LOL THE IMAMS ARE RIGHT ABOUT US is a classic, though.

jonah embarrasses himself more i guess

Goldberg at least gives the impression that he reads, and his debates with fellow rube Peter Beinart are pretty good.

Dinesh is the worst kind of shill.

dinesh is pretty fantastically stupid

Now let's turn to the issue of equal protection. Clearly this means that people who are similarly situated should be treated in the same way. So men and women, blacks and whites, straight people and gays, all have the right to vote, the right to speak their mind, and the right to marry. But gays already have the right to marry, just like the others. They have the right to marry adult members of the opposite sex. What they want, however, is the right to marry members of the same sex. This, however, is not a right enjoyed by anyone else. In other words, gays are not asking to be treated the same as everyone else. They want special rights that no one else claims or enjoys. They want to rewrite the definition of marriage.

Dinesh did once write a column that talked about why immigrants love coming to America that claimed that roads overseas suck, while streets and highways are as smooth as glass. All I could think was ¯\(°_o)/¯

I want to change my vote.

On the other hand, The Corner looks at Dinesh rather contemptuously these days – maybe that's a vote FOR him.

Although for pure unadulterated stupid Dennis Prager can beat both these people without even breaking a sweat.

i am pulling for d'souza here

And Prager has his own radio show, too. They used to broadcast it on FM in portland, 'til that station switched formats to Spanish language music with no overt irony.

gotta be jonah. dinesh's mindlessness is actually a logical end-point of theoconservate ideas, near as i can figure. say what you will dude but at LEAST its an ETHOS

jonah wants to be a coulter-style bombthrower AND a serious thinker (you know, like VDH and 'america's greatest philosopher' sowell) but doesn't seem to get that there's a difference (but hah maybe there really isn't). he's just clueless and thinks he's brilliant, the worst kind. i don't even think he knows he's lying.

Impossible task. This is maybe the hardest poll yet.

the way in which D'Souza is stupid seems different than the way in which Goldberg is. i will think on it. D'Souza is the one i hate more; he really does strike me as evil, like nabisco said, superstitious though that may be.

D'Souza is definitely crazier, but I think Goldberg is probably dumber.

also, theoconservativism is an idiotic ethos; i don't think d'souza is off the hook for that.

xposts to goole

i will say that d'souza is savvy about the effect his extremism will have on an audience. i think i've mentioned this before, but the time i saw him speak was in college, at a panel discussion on affirmative action. there were many black students in attendance, and d'souza seemed to really relish advertising the exact proportion of black students that would attend the average university had he his druthers: it amounted to almost none. it was one of those audible gasp moments, and he seemed very knowing and delighted about that. i guess this also contributes to my impression of him as the devil.

From a reader:

Watching you go after Pat Buchanan (regularly) and Jesse Helms (recently) smacks of ingratitude. You are obviously free to disagree with them, but I resent your efforts to recast a movement that they represent more authentically than you or more recent converts ever can. What's worse — and most offensive — is that your efforts, and those of the like-minded, have been utterly catastrophic to our cause. The conservative movement was in much better shape under the leadership of those who came before you. So pay your respects and keep silly miniscule differences to yourself (humility is a conservative trait).

Respectfully

[Name withheld]

Me: While I appreciate the civil tone that is so often lacking in emails of this sort, I cannot begin to express how thoroughly I disagree with this nonsense.

First, the idea that I should defer to, say, Buchanan's protectionism, Caucasian identity politics, attacks on Churchill and defenses of Adolf Hitler out of some misplaced gratitude strikes me a wholly bizarre. This is a writ for outright intellectual dishonesty and right wing political correctness. It reminds me of all the liberal bleating about how it's somehow mean-spirited or callous to disagree with FDR or LBJ on the merits. The reader may think my disagreements with Buchanan and Helms are silly and miniscule, but I think that says more about him than it does about me. Regardless, they ain't silly and miniscule to me.

Second, the suggestion that the movement was better led by those who came before me is certainly a defensible proposition, one that I have considerable sympathy for. As a conservative, and employee of National Review, I have enormous respect and gratitude for those who came before me, starting of course with WFB, Reagan, Irving Kristol and countless other heroes of mine. But, there's is so much ahistorical nonsense at work here as well. The conservative movement was in a different stage of development under those guys and the country itself was in a different place. Clicking your heels together, with eyes clenched shut, saying "there's no place like 30 years ago! there's no place like 30 years ago!" is not a recipe for continued or renewed conservative success.

I thought honestly dealing with reality — or at least trying to — was a conservative virtue. It certainly was for William F. Buckley who rarely let emotions like this reader's odd conception of gratitude stop him from speaking his mind.

yeah well that's what i mean -- a dude with enough wits to be a mouthpiece for a system of noxious ideas vs a dude with just enough wits to be a mouthpiece for his mother

xp oh that's rich

There are many shades of right-wing punditry in our country. Among the shadiest is Jonah Goldberg. With arrogance seemingly matched only by his ignorance, Goldberg was just being Goldberg when he offered this wager two years ago:

Let's make a bet. I predict that Iraq won't have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it. I'll bet $1,000 (which I can hardly spare right now).

The two-year period comes due this Thursday. Even Goldberg now realizes his prediction was totally wrong -- with poll after poll showing most Americans do not "agree that the war was worth it." (Not to mention what Iraqis think of the war or Goldberg's boast that "Iraq won't have a civil war.")

So shouldn't Goldberg -- or somebody -- pay off the $1,000?

Clicking your heels together, with eyes clenched shut, saying "there's no place like 30 years ago! there's no place like 30 years ago!" is not a recipe for continued or renewed conservative success.

Change 30 to 55 and I'd say this was, if not the life blood of conservatism, at least its gall bladder or something

Both of these guys should be liquified in a blender, but my favorite right wing talking (shit)head is undoubtedly Marvelous Marvin Olasky. Something about Trtskyites turned near-fascists really emphasizes the asshole. See also: David Horowitz.

I should also say that some of the attempts to turn the lapel flag thing into a de mimimis issue leave me underwhelmed as well. “It’s just a lapel pin!” seems to be a common refrain among liberals flabbergasted that they’re on defense about all this. I understand, at least when the frustration is in good faith. But it’s really not just a lapel pin any more than the flag is just a piece of cloth at the end of a stick. Even flag burners acknowledge this point, which is why they burn flags and not blankets or bar towels. If John McCain wore a confederate flag lapel pin, very few of these people would be saying “it’s just a lapel pin.” Symbolism matters. Symbols stand for something. That’s why we call them symbols.

D'Souza gave props to the philosopher I think is the best of the 20C, and seems to have understood what Taylor is up to. So I don't think D'Souza is dumb.

Clicking your heels together, with eyes clenched shut, saying "there's no place like 30 years ago! there's no place like 30 years ago!" is not a recipe for continued or renewed conservative success.

Change 30 to 55 and I'd say this was, if not the life blood of conservatism, at least its gall bladder or something

seriously. as far as i can tell, inasmuch as conservatism is an ideology, this is it and has been since edmund burke. it's hilarious to cite buckley as some kind of change with the times presentminded thinker when he was the "stand astride the tracks of history shouting STOP!" dude.

I don't know if that's true. Edmund Burke was weirder and less reactionary than modern conservatives (and liberasl) think.

burke was definitely smarter and more interesting; all i meant was he's recognizably a founder of modern conservatism.

goldberg is more interesting because if you actually read his stuff he seems like he's full of doubts about what he's saying. he's always hedging and backing up from what he's arguing, as if some little part of him seems to realize when he's making a crazy argument. like in 'liberal fascism' he says 'now, i'm not saying that FDR was a fascist, that's NOT what i'm saying,' three pages before calling the new deal 'objectively fascist.'

god, I have no idea what "objectively" as an adverb even means anymore.

Mr. Goldberg says one Phil Gramm's remarks 'were politically dumb but substantially correct.'

"nation of whiners" is OTM but not with regards to this issue, particularly since there are about a bazillion ways the substance of Gramm's point could have been spun.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Dinesh

Me and some commie buddies showed up outside an event of his handing out unflattering quotations disguised as programs to people on their way inside. I managed to hand him one as his entourage escorted him inside. He stopped and gave it a once over and said "oh no, you didn't use a CAPITALIST print shop to print these, did you? *tsk tsk tsk*"

As they went inside another friend shouted out "When we hang the capitalists, they will sell us the ropes!"

lol tbf dinesh kind of zinged u

hardcore!

has anyone else read that dinesh article where he reminisces about his college days where he and his buddies would sit around drinking "south american wine" and listening to "great conservative records" like the theme from brideshead revisited and the soundtrack to patton?

they both straddle that is-he-lying-or-just-retarded divide, but jonah lands on the stupid side more often and dinesh on the lying side.

When I wipe my ass from front-to-back, does it smell worse than if I wipe it back-to-front?

I finally voted Jonah; as he seems the ultimate dumbshit, and not nearly mendacious as Dinesh is.

Then again, we got a long way to go...

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

This was so difficult.

It should have been the opposite.

http://news.aol.com/newsbloggers/2007/10/19/why-atheists-are-not-very-bright/

Bestselling atheist tracts like Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell, and Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great portray religion as an unreasonable form of "blind faith," often leading to fanaticism and even violence. Some of these atheists call themselves "brights," implying that they are the smart people who base their opinions on reason and science and don't fall for silly superstitions. But for all their credentials and learning, the atheists have been duped by a fallacy. This may be called the Fallacy of the Enlightenment, and it was first pointed out by that great Enlightenment philosopher, Immanuel Kant.

The Fallacy of the Enlightenment is the glib assumption that human beings can continually find out more and more until eventually there is nothing more to discover. The Enlightenment Fallacy holds that human reason and science can, in principle, unmask the whole of reality. In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant showed that this premise is false. In fact, he argued, that human knowledge is constrained not merely by how much reality is out there but also by the limited sensory apparatus of perception we bring to that reality.

Consider a tape recorder. Being the kind of instrument it is, a tape recorder can capture only one mode of reality: sound. Tape recorders can "hear" but they cannot see or touch or smell. Thus all aspects of reality that cannot be captured in sound are beyond the reach of a tape recorder. The same, Kant says, is true of human beings. The only way we apprehend reality is through our five senses. But why should we believe, Kant asked, that our five-mode instrument for apprehending reality is sufficient for capturing all of reality? What makes us think that there is no reality lies beyond our perception, reality that simply cannot be apprehended by our five senses?

Moreover, the reality we apprehend is merely our experience or "take" on reality. How can you know that your experience of things is in any way like the things-in-themselves? Normally you answer this question by considering the two things separately and then comparing them. I can tell if my daughter's drawing of her teacher looks like the teacher by placing the portrait and alongside the person. I compare the copy or portrait with the original.

Kant points out, however, that we can never compare our experience of reality to reality itself. All we have is the experience, and that's all we can ever have. We have only the copies, but we never have the originals. So we have no basis for presuming that the two are even comparable. When we equate experience and reality, we are making an unjustified leap.

It is essential to recognize that Kant isn't diminishing the importance of experience or what he called the phenomenal world. That world is very important, because it is the only one our senses and reason have access to. It is entirely rational for us to believe in this phenomenal world and to use science and reason to discover its operating principles. But Kant contended that science and reason apply to the world of phenomena, of things as they are experienced by us. Science and reason cannot penetrate what Kant termed the noumena: things as they are in themselves.

Some critics have understood Kant to be denying the existence of external reality or of arguing that all of reality is "in the mind." Kant emphatically rejects this. He insists that the noumenon obviously exists because it is what gives rise to phenomena. In other words, our experience is an experience of something. Perhaps the best way to understand this is to see Kant as positing two kinds of reality: the reality that we experience and reality itself. The important thing is not to establish which is more real, but to recognize that human reason operates only in the phenomenal domain of experience. We can know of the existence of the noumenal realm, but at this point reason has reached its limit.

In Kant's view, the limits of human reason cannot be erased by the passage of time or by further investigation and experimentation. Rather, they are intrinsic to the kind of beings that humans are, and to the kind of apparatus that we possess for perceiving reality. The implication of Kant's argument is that reality as a whole is, in principle, inaccessible to human beings. Put another way, there is a great deal that human beings simply will never know.

So powerful is Kant's argument here that his critics have been able to answer him only with derision. When I challenged Daniel Dennett to debunk Kant's argument, he posted an angry response on his website in which he said several people had already refuted Kant. But he didn't provide any refutations, and he didn't name any names. Basically Dennett was relying on the argumentum ad ignorantium-the argument that relies on the ignorance of the audience. In fact, there are no such refutations.

Although Kant's argument seems counterintuitive-in the way that some of the greatest ideas from Copernicus to Einstein are counterintuitive-no one who understands the central doctrines of the world's leading religions should have any difficulty grasping his main point. Kant's philosophical vision is entirely congruent with the teachings of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity.

It is a shared doctrine of those religions that the empirical world we humans inhabit is not the only world there is. Ours is a world of appearances only in which we see things in a limited and distorted way, "through a glass darkly," as the apostle Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians 13:12. Ours is a transient world that is dependent on a higher, timeless reality. That reality is of a completely different order from anything we know, it constitutes the only permanent reality there is, and it sustains our world and presents it to our senses. Christianity teaches that while reason can point to the existence of this higher domain, this is where reason stops: it cannot on its own investigate or comprehend that domain.

Thus when Christopher Hitchens and other atheists routinely dismiss religious claims on the grounds that "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence," they are making what philosophers like to call a category mistake. We learn from Kant that within the domain of experience, human reason is sovereign, but it is in no way unreasonable to believe things on faith that simply cannot be adjudicated by reason.

When atheists summarily dismiss the immortality of the soul or the afterlife on the grounds that they have never found any empirical proofs for either, they are asking for experiential evidence in a domain which is entirely beyond the reach of experience. In this domain, Kant argues, the absence of evidence cannot be used as the evidence for absence.

Notice that Kant's argument is entirely secular: It does not employ any religious vocabulary, nor does it rely on any kind of faith. But in showing the limits of reason, Kant's philosophy "opens the door to faith," as the philosopher himself noted.

So the new atheists and self-styled "brights" can do their strutting, but Kant has exposed their ignorant boast that atheism operates on a higher intellectual plane than theism. Rather, as Kant showed, reason must know its limits in order to be truly reasonable. The atheist foolishly presumes that reason is in principle capable of figuring out all that there is, while the theist at least knows that there is a reality greater than, and beyond, that which our senses and our minds can ever apprehend.

oh ffs

More of cunt than of Kant about Dinesh.

today's bit

Spends most of the column running on about 'George Obama', then does a sharp turn and winds up using the rest of the space to bash athiests:

I hear a lot from atheists, but interestingly no self-identified atheist contributed a penny. This seems in keeping with sociologist Arthur Brooks’ data showing that secular people are much less generous, both with money and time, than religious people. As Brooks might have predicted, most of my donations came from self-identified Christians, some of them in difficult circumstances themselves. Thanks to this generosity, Barack Obama's half-brother can look forward to the prospect of a better life. George Obama, start packing!

So 'secular people' now equals 'atheists'?

haha this is a pretty low stunt.