Curmudgeonly & Skeptical

“Suicidal glory is the luxury of the irresponsible.
We're not giving up. We're waiting for a better opportunity to win.”

" I don't think I've ever met a Liberal whom I didn't like on a personal basis. That said, if your goal is to change minds and influence people, it's probably not a good idea to begin by asserting that virtually all elected Democrats are liars. But what the hell."



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The person you call President Obama ... ."

Friday, October 07, 2005

Al Gore's World

Did Al Gore say it? Or was it the Unabomber?

This was a popular theme, back when the nation was just beginning to understand that Al Gore, like Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, had, shall we say, "extreme ideas about the ascendancy of his own ideas (i.e. they were both insane)". I find it hilarious that the internet Encyclopedia page on Kaczynski makes refernce to the test (which you can still take!).

I was reading the text of Algore's speech to the Media conference on Wednesday in New York. Read it. Try figure out what his message is?

gorebomber

"Consider the rules by which our present "public forum" now operates, and how different they are from the forum our Founders knew. Instead of the easy and free access individuals had to participate in the national conversation by means of the printed word, the world of television makes it virtually impossible for individuals to take part in what passes for a national conversation today.

"Inexpensive metal printing presses were almost everywhere in America. They were easily accessible and operated by printers eager to typeset essays, pamphlets, books or flyers.

"Television stations and networks, by contrast, are almost completely inaccessible to individual citizens and almost always uninterested in ideas contributed by individual citizens."

That plays very nicely into my theme (shared by 10 billion), that television news has, for 50 years, force fed us their (quite leftist) world view, facts be damned. Way to go Al. Of course, that's not at all what he meant. As I read Algore's rambling ramble, I think he's suggesting that we, the common man - like Algore - have less opportunity today to engage in the "public forum," despite access to radio call-ins, C-Span, and the freaking internet, which is an "Inexpensive metal printing press" everyone can have. Worse, we don't understand the rules.

gorebomber

"The three most important characteristics of this marketplace of ideas were (in the olden times, when knights were bold ...):

1) It was open to every individual, with no barriers to entry, save the necessity of literacy. This access, it is crucial to add, applied not only to the receipt of information but also to the ability to contribute information directly into the flow of ideas that was available to all; 2) The fate of ideas contributed by individuals depended, for the most part, on an emergent Meritocracy of Ideas. Those judged by the market to be good rose to the top, regardless of the wealth or class of the individual responsible for them; 3) The accepted rules of discourse presumed that the participants were all governed by an unspoken duty to search for general agreement. That is what a "Conversation of Democracy" is all about.

"The accepted rules of discourse presumed that the participants were all governed by an unspoken duty to search for general agreement."

Accepted by who?

"... governed by an unspoken duty to search for general agreement."

I'm calling bullshit on Al Gore. He made that up. It used to be that when a liberal was losing an argument, he yelled "racist." Today it's "Unregulated free speech!"

A grateful nation ought to thank me, every day, for altering Florida's computer software in 2000, and giving George Bush 2 million Gore votes. I mean it. I want a statue.

| E-MAIL Real King of France at 10/07/2005 07:48:00 AM PERMLINK (1) |

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Comments:

"I did not vote for Obama but he is remarkable. In less than three weeks in office he has collected more than $150,000 in back taxes."
Gayle Miller

Algore knows naught of which he speaks (media history): 1. To say that there were no barriers then is ludicrous, as is contending that the "flow of ideas" was available to all - the same general limits pertained then as now to both output and input, though the mechanisms may have changed, 2. The concept of a "Meritocracy of Ideas" never has existed in the media - it has always been agenda-driven, from the pamphleteers to the broadsheets, by those with the most energy - right or wrong, and 3. the newspapers and pamphleteers of neither era are/were in any means driven toward "general agreement", except in the sense that they want/ed everyone to agree with them. What lunacy.

# posted by

Anonymous : 10/07/2005 07:42:00 PM