The past was supposed to be better than today. I’m a conservative, aren’t I?
Did you know that people in America used to memorize poems and read stuff longer than a blog post? Did you know there was a day when kids’ brains weren’t full of Hannah Montana—or Eminem, for that matter? I always assumed these factors would create a higher level of discourse in the nation. But, if anything, political ads in 1952 were worse than today. Click that link for a fascinating site.
Excellent article. Recent abortion cases have uncovered a weakness in the arguments of the Roe court: if the harms of unwanted pregnancy are largely those of future economic and personal hardship, not pregnancy itself, then the fathers of unborn children have nearly...
Praise the Lord, I think. Fuller details will come out soon, I'm sure.
Potato may be spelled with an "e" or without one, but single parenting is not ideal for kids. Dan Quayle was right on the more important issue. So though I'm a little late (almost a year) noticing this article ("20 years later, it turns out Dan Quayle was right about...
Wordsmithy: Hot Tips for the Writing Life by Douglas Wilson My rating: 4 of 5 stars I try to be scrupulous in my use of the five stars allotted to me by the gentle people of Goodreads. Five stars means "it was amazing." And I can't honestly say that about this book....
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Interesting post. However, I must disagree on your proposition here (I confess I didn’t watch *all* of the commercials).
What has improved is the level of technological/marketing expertise, neither of which comes from the general intelligence level of society.
What is missing now is what was present in those Eisenhower commercials – a personal appeal to vote for me and bandwagon to me, instead of a bashing campaign against the other side. On this point, I argue that you really were correct before – society has gotten worse in that we don’t make attempts to promote ourselves, but rather to insult the other guy (easier, and more mindless).
Anyway, that’s just my thoughts on the issue – and campaigning in general. To all politicians: tell me why you’re better, not why the other guy stinks.
-Eric
Good points, Eric.