Santorum
Watch the video below. At about 2:35-2:40, we hear a United States Senator come out against "the pursuit of happiness."
posted by Joshua @ 7:12 PM
Watch the video below. At about 2:35-2:40, we hear a United States Senator come out against "the pursuit of happiness."
posted by Joshua @ 7:12 PM
2 Comments:
Well, we can at least take heart in the fact that he won't a a United States Senator for much longer.
More than anything, this pointed out to me the paradoxical divide between the left and the right with respect to freedom vs. responsibility, where the right promotes social "responsibility" but complete commercial freedom elsewhere, and the left promotes complete (or nearer to complete) social freedom and commercial restrictions in the name of regulating economic responsibility. It makes it difficult to put together a true broad-scope ethos.
Of course, I'm okay with it, because I see the economy as more of an instrument of societal welfare than personal gain, ideally, but I know that many if not most people would disagree with me. Still, neither side can really lay claim to "freedom" or "responsibility" without twisting like a contortionist when the next issue comes up.
And of course there's the fact that all of the responsibilities he speaks of are extraordinarily personal and specific, and thus nigh upon impossible to legislate, even if that were his actual agenda, which it isn't.
This is a classic case of the problem that I believe Tacitean and I both ran into in one of our philosophy classes back in college. Hume pointed out, speaking of art, that everyone agrees on the goodness of "beauty" but that agreeing on it doesn't get us anywhere because it's goodness is almost tautological. All the relevant differences of opinion come from how people classify the various abstract concepts they bander about. Here, Santorum has pulled the classic political speech maneuver by sketching very reasonable and broad ideas which every rational person would agree to (liberty = freedom + responsibility to the society which grants that freedom) and then making a quick leap to very specific applications and interpretations of that principal without a shred of reasoning to link the two, hoping that people's general agreement with the broad principles will somehow spill over into his loopy interpretation.
Anyway, as Bookie pointed out, we'll be rid of the maggot soon enough. I mean seriously, anyone who seriously supports a position that is against oral sex has no place in a reasonable conversation, let along the US Senate.
Post a Comment
<< Home