So I watched this disgusting video from the Daily Caller:
Basically, here we have a man who is afraid of the youth rallying around Ron Paul or the extreme Left-wing. Put simply, his neoconservative brand has been proven to be a failure, given the failures of Iraq and Afghanistan, the failures of the neoconservative economic policy (which comes courtesy of long dead economists and homosexual hedonist Lord John Maynard Keynes), and the outright failures of the neoconservatives to avert the financial crisis, both past, present, and yet to come in the near future, of which their compatriots in the Republican party take much blame alongside the Democrats.
Let me deconstruct some of his arguments here bit by bit:
“Personally I think the voting age should be higher, not lower. I think it was a mistake to lower the voting age to 18 to be brutally honest.”
That’s fair. But I want to challenge Jonah Goldberg with something: where in the Constitution does it say that you had to be 21 or older to vote? In other words, when the amendment was passed to lower the voting age, it did not overwrite any existing articles or amendments to the United States Constitution. Secondly, this was done back when we had a draft and warmongers like Mr. Goldberg were sending 18-year-olds overseas, especially poor minorities, to die without having at least a minor say in their policies.
It is true that young people are largely apathetic when it comes to the political process. They do not care much for voting for some pompous old guy who reminds them of their father. However, like so many other older Americans, they do enjoy their share of free handouts and have no problem mooching off of others. I can say that I am certain that many young people, especially those closer to my age, harbor resentment toward authority figures who have told them to go to college and get a worthless degree and not to worry about the debt they have acquired as a result. Meanwhile, they are having trouble finding jobs related to career fields such as Anthropology, Business Administration, and Communications, not to mention the utterly worthless degrees like basket weaving and <insert supposed victim minority here> studies. So they are saddled with mounds of debt before they even have a job to pay it off and then come to find that the high-powered salary position they should have gotten upon graduation is really waiting tables for other successful people. And we wonder why the Occupy Movement gained so much traction?
Another thing that annoys me about this statement is that even though joining the US military is completely optional, he basically said he wants to nullify their votes and allow politically motivated men to direct the affairs of the military, effectively using our troops as pawns and cannon fodder for personal gain.
“If they’re going to run the country one day, then we should probably explain to them why they are so friggin’ stupid about things and it is a simple fact of science that nothing correlates more with ignorance and stupidity than youth.”
So tell me, Mr. Goldberg, how does one measure stupidity? There must be a way since science requires, first and foremost, some tangible unit of measurement in order to facilitate experimentation. At least the hard sciences do, but I don’t consider “soft” science to be true science at all really.
On the other hand, I am bearing witness to the extreme stupidity and selfishness of the elder generation. So far, they have saddled the youth with debt, flooded the market with money thereby inflated the cost of goods and services, spend themselves into debt where they are totally reliant on government, and voted for the people who will not change any of this but keep the gravy train rolling. They have little regard for the youth of America and see us as little more than producers to be exploited for their own gain. Even the elderly who can afford healthcare are on Medicare, justifying it by saying that they paid into the government Ponzi scheme (and it is a Ponzi scheme) and thus they deserve the payouts, regardless of how bad the return is.
Meanwhile, the youth by and large do not believe that either Social Security or Medicare will be available for them when they reach that age. They know this because they understand how Ponzi schemes work and that there just simply isn’t enough money to be used in that manner. They also distrust many of our leaders to do the right thing.
Since Mr. Goldberg is a little on the arrogant side himself, let me explain something to him: wisdom does not come with age. I know that the motif throughout much of our culture is the wise old man but the truth is that wisdom is not something people get as they grow older. But arrogance and haughtiness is something that many elderly, especially these days, gain as they grow older and become more set in their ways.
The fact that young people think Socialism is better than capitalism, that’s proof of what social scientists call their stupidity.
First of all, the fact that most people cannot explain the differences between Socialism, corporatism, and capitalism, regardless of age, shows that most people are idiots. The fact that Jonah Goldberg and others like him cannot see the difference between capitalism and corporatism demonstrates severe retardation when it comes to the field of economics.
Secondly, one of the primary reasons that is true is largely because of the State-run education system in our country that has favored obedience over critical thinking and collectivism over individualism. If Jonah Goldberg had any sense, he wouldn’t fault the youth for falling for thirteen years of indoctrination from the American Left.
Thirdly, this idiot probably wouldn’t know what true capitalism was anymore than knowing what the true Constitution really says about legal tender, standing armies, and the size of the House of Representatives. I don’t see guys like him calling for limited government, but more government, just a socially-conservative and pro-world police one. That is hardly a model for a free market.
Fourthly, if Jonah Goldberg had any wisdom whatsoever, he would know that our form of government is supposed to be a Republic and not “Democratic capitalism”. This means he is a clear failure at understanding even the basic ideas behind the Constitution, which are taught in high school if you take advanced political science.
The fact is, National Review is, and always has been, a big joke of an organization. It was founded on the premise of big-government corporatism in order to snuff out the Soviets, who were considered enemies not because of Socialism or communism but because they were not Catholic or, at the very least, Christian. The founders of the organization, William F. Buckley, Jr. and Brent Bozell, Jr. were devout Catholics who viewed the Soviets as a threat to their beliefs. They were probably correct, but they also were not conservative in their zeal to expand the military in order to continue the Cold War.
To his credit, William F. Buckley would later denounce the War on Drugs as having been a failure and denounce the War on Terror. I don’t think Jonah Goldberg listened to the wisdom of the his elder in this case and shows the same level of stupidity he mention in the short video clip.
Jonah Goldberg represents the Republican party establishment here. While his words are directed at the Left-wing youth, he considers all youth to be “Socialist” and I assume he probably lumps in groups like Young Americans for Liberty as well because they do not share his socially conservative, pro-war views. Men like him are merely totalitarians (did he not say he wanted to beat sense into us, both literally and figuratively?) who disguise their true intentions with conservative buzzwords like “Founding Fathers” and “constitution” and “liberalism”. The truth is, he is just as bad as the so-called Socialists he opposes, just on the other side of the coin.
As for me, I’m really hoping that the coin will land on its edge.
