Saturday, July 02, 2011

Mead on the Progressives

Walter R. Mead, ending a discussion of the Human Car Alarm (Gore) and his monomaniacal interest.

Woodrow Wilson, the Virginia-born Princeton professor who ended up in the White House proposing global peace agreements as unrealistic as Gore’s climate treaty is the archetypal example of the blend of Southern and Northern elite WASP culture and politics. Wilson believed in democracy but not in the people; well educated, well intentioned and well behaved moral leaders needed to guide the masses lest in their ignorance and weakness they fall under the sway of unscrupulous demagogues. North and South the progressives believe that the masses need to be governed: they will drink too much without Prohibition, they will drive too much unless gasoline is heavily taxed, they will eat the wrong things, the poor weaklings, if we allow fried food in the school cafeteria. --Mead, quoted at Cold Fury

Now if you've already figured out how the dots are connected, congratulations.

Otherwise, I'll remind you. In this case, Cullen and Schultz are the unscrupulous demagogues.

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