Dumb-founded

David Brooks, the Times‘ conservative cultural columnist who all too often likes to frame his op-ed contributions in fleeting terms and feuilletonistic sophistry, betraying his intellectual lazi- and sloppiness time and again, recently speculated on the merits and prospects of current Republican incumbent Governor of Texas Rick Perry as 45th President of the United States, a frightening thought indeed given Mr Perry’s inclinations towards the New Apostolic Reformation movement and its fundamentalist Christian teachings (including dominionism and the fight against witchcraft, Islam and demons), and the Governor’s proneness towards nepotism, corruption and hypocrisy.

Mr Perry, whose unnerving resemblance of actor James Brolin’s Governor Ritchie on The West Wing complements him in his embodiment of today’s GOP’s agenda of anti-intellectualism, anti-scientism, anti-liberalism, anti-progressivism, anti-multilateralism and anti-welfare, ever so often boasts about his successful term as Texan Governor, and his track record is impressive indeed if one takes a closer look at his policies and what they have yielded for the people and state of Texas, and whose modicum of humility is yet to be found as he gathers the citizens of Texas in a phillistine event to pray for rain.

That is minimum government at its best, a starved one even, one might think. Unless, of course, one remembers his use of the federal Recovery Act first. Nevertheless, the following comment by a reader on Mr Brook’s piece caught my attention even more than the blatant hypocrisy exhibited by Rick Perry and the disingenuous, yet obvious way David Brooks is currying favour with a power to be, as I feel pretty much dumbfounded by the point of critique therein which calls into question not, as one would suspect, in birther fashion the obvious, but rather what we take for scientific consent:

It is unfortunate that Mr. Brooks‘ article included the following snide, patronizing remark: „[Gov. Perry] does very well with the alternative-reality right — those who don’t believe in global warming, evolution or that Obama was born in the U.S.“ I fail to see a valid reason for Mr. Brooks to lump together those Americans who refuse to believe an established fact (i.e. that President Obama was, indeed, born in Hawaii) with Americans who take issue with a contested theory (i.e. global warming as an impending disaster, and a man-made one) and those Americans who take issue with an unprovable theory (i.e. Darwinian evolution as the explanation for the origins of human life).

(Posted by AlbanyAttorney40, Albany, NY, August 26th, 2011, 1:46 am)

Category: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , | estienne210 Comment »


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