Wednesday, September 25, 2002

Here's another nugget of wisdom from the far right: according to House Majority Leader Dick Armey, there are two kinds of Jews living in today's America, "One of deep intellect and one of shallow, superficial intellect." Guess which group is which? That's right - Jews that agree with President Bush and his policies are the smart ones, whereas those who dare to question the reigning junta are lightweights. Representative Armey then extends his positively Aristotelian powers of categorization to conservatives and liberals in general (ah, so it wasn't just an anti-Semitic slander!), arguing that due to their deeper intellects, conservatives tend to be practitioners of the hard sciences and engineering, whereas liberals shun eschew practical disciplines for softer vocations like the arts, since they "want to feel good". How I wish I were making this stuff up, but no, one of the most powerful men in America actually said these things. So now not only is anyone who disagrees with the current administration a shallow-minded simpleton, but just to be safe, we'd better keep our eye on people who dabble in music, art, history, literature, philosophy, or any other of those pesky disciplines that form the basis of Western civilization, since chances are they're all leftist know-nothings as well. What would Thomas Jefferson - or any of the Founding Fathers, who steeped themselves in such humanistic "softness" - have to say about that, I wonder?