Light On Dark Water

Favorite Political Remark of the Past Week or So

"the right is the party of tragedy"

From Reihan Salam at National Review Online.

The full sentence:

At its best, the right is the party of tragedy and the impossibility of creating a perfectly just human society, but also of optimism about the potential of voluntary cooperation to help us achieve (modest) moral and (immodest) material progress across generations.

The context is a comment on an article in NR on constitutional conservatism, which I haven't read but which could be interesting.

Oh, and while I'm at it, it isn't exactly political, but I really loved something Greg Wolfe posted on Facebook a couple of days ago:

I am the 100%. (Screwed-up, fully implicated, complicit, and responsible.)

(For anyone reading this years from now, the reference is to the Occupy Wall Street movement's "We Are the 99%" slogan.)

Maclin Horton

5 responses to “Favorite Political Remark of the Past Week or So”

  1. Janet

    I really liked that Greg Wolfe comment, too.
    That “We Are the 99%” business really bugs me. It’s like NOW speaking for all women.
    AMDG

    Reply
  2. Mac

    Me too. Artur Davis, who should be our governor now instead of the sanctimonious and not excessively honest Bentley, said something a few days ago about this that I liked: that it puts a well-to-do accountant who took out an ill-advised mortgage that’s now under water in the same category as a seriously poor family.

    Reply
  3. J Dave G

    I like the Greg Wolfe comment too. But OTOH, I am not the least bit complicit for the financial meltdown of a few years back.
    It’s a good point that 99% puts too many people in the same boat. “You are the stinking 1% who got filthy rich crippling the economy for everyone else and are still filthy while the rest of us struggle” would be more accurate but it makes a lousy slogan.

    Reply
  4. Mac

    Yeah, I think the “complicit” part is meant more broadly than that, or at any rate I took it that way. For that matter, I took the whole thing that way–more a comment on original sin than any specific problem.

    Reply
  5. J Dave Greco

    Yeah, I heard that bit in it too. That’s the part I liked.

    Reply

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