posted by Damozel | This is choice, I promise you. I found it at News Hounds ("We Watch Fox News So You Don't Have To)," soon to become a regular link in my personal sidebar, because as much as I love Fox News for the way it leaves me agog and filled with wonder, I don't actually want to have to watch it. Besides, it's really hard to type when I'm giggling incredulously, let alone laughing hysterically.
The interviewer here is Fox's designated liberal, Colmes. I love the way Colmes [tm Al Franken]---who even looks and sounds like the Republican idea of a liberal--holds Dr. Sowell's feet to the fire and calls him out on behalf of liberals everywhere , don't you? It's almost like Hardball, only without, you know, the hardball.
I don't know why people get so angry with Fox News. They're just telling certain Americans what they want to hear and not confusing them by offering them any information that would shake their viewers' simple faith or interfere with their elegant, ambiguity-free black-and-white worldview. What could be wrong with that?
Anyway, I hope that Ellen at News Hound won't mind me quoting her instead of reinventing the wheel. In pertinent part, her note states:
[quote begins from NewsHounds: Hannity & Colmes Guest Says Military Coup "May Be The Only Thing That Can Save This Country" by Ellen (29 May 2007).
Alan Colmes questioned Sowell about a recent National Review column in which he wrote, “When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.”
Colmes asked how serious Sowell was about that.
Sowell replied, “I’m very serious about whether or not the country can be saved at all in the long run, especially with Iran moving toward nuclear weapons, with so many signs of degeneracy – the schools, whatnot. Heaven knows, I don’t want to see a military coup but I don’t want to see the society disintegrate, either.”
[quote ends]
I wonder what values he hopes the military will restore. I assume---not that he says so--that a military government would make ripping up the constitution its first priority. Yes: rip that sucker up and bring back the pillory and the Reverend Mather! Bill O'Reilly would look super in knee breeches and one of those tall hats our Calvinist forefathers used to wear!
And I can think of quite a few Americans who would be very happy if they could give their opponents a real public pillorying without having to worry about namby-pamby limitations on painful and humiliating (but short term! that's the bright side!) punishments for malefactors and very annoying people such as public scolds and the homeless. [Fun fact garnered from this website, which is a site devoted to stocks and pillories, "whether your interest is historical or otherwise": "Most European countries abolished stocks and pillories by the middle of the 19th century, as did most American states. Except for Delaware, which was reluctant to abandon the pillory until 1905."] PS. My interest in stocks and pillories is strictly historical, in case you're wondering.
Anyway, the military coup part of the interview wasn't really the part that made me boggle. This was:
Later in the discussion, Colmes noted that Sowell also wrote that he has not seen a Republican express outrage since Clarence Thomas in 1991. Sowell must not watch FOX News. But Colmes... did not dispute the assertion. “Is that a negative?” Colmes asked.
Apparently, Sowell thinks Republicans are just too polite and wishy-washy. He answered Colmes, “I think when you have one party that is expressing outrage almost daily and another party which is trying to be polite and low key and so on, after a certain amount of time, that begins to take its effect. There’s no sense that I get that people are ready to spring to the defense of the values they represent.”
He went on to compare Republicans to the Whig party. “Why did the Whig Party disappear? Because they were too wishy-washy. They didn’t really stand for anything after a while.”...
[quote ends; link supplied by me]
Dr. Sowell says all this in what seems to me a depressed and melancholy manner because he would rather things were otherwise. If the oppressed conservatives would but stand up to the outrage of liberals, things might well be different; and yet his demeanor suggests that he has little hope that they will.
Now that Dr. Sowell mentions it, I really do think Republicans---particularly those on the right---should start mincing their words more, or at least those who inhabit the parallel universe which he evidently inhabits. Yes, in a world where Colmes needs to stand down a bit and let the shy, self-deprecating, nonconfrontational Hannity speak his piece, a military coup is really the only solution to our current social problems and the right wingers who really understand the old, traditional American values need to step up for a change and say what's on their minds and hope against hope that they'll get their chance to wield a little political power.
Or maybe I'm the one who is inhabiting a different reality because the one thing I haven't been saying all along is that right-wing Republicans would have much to teach us if they weren't so damned taciturn and lacking in self-confidence.
Anyway, for those interested in the view from Dr. Sowell's window on the universe, here's a link to his National Review Online musings on the sad, sad state of the wishy-washy, oppressed silent majority otherwise known as "Republicans."
And I do hope Dr. Sowell is right about a Giuliani/Gingrich ticket (hard to see either one taking second chair, so maybe they could campaign as co-presidents or agree that they'll flip a coin if they win to see who gets to be president). Even The Southern Lady, bless her, wouldn't vote that ticket ---and she's never voted for a Democrat for president in her life .
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