Who Speaks for Me, Again?
By Socrates Posted in Archived — Comments (13) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
From the Academy:
Lately I've noticed a trend of sorts, or perhaps it's a theme that has always been there: liberals think that famous conservatives are speaking for the great unwashed masses of dittoheads [beware idiotic link], as if conservatives were looking for a leader to tell them how to think. 'Taint like that at all.
I think the error comes from a fundamental difference between liberal and conservative world views: are you an individual, or part of a group? Conservatives see people as individuals first, while liberals see people as members of groups. Conservatives tend to believe it takes two parents to raise a child, while liberals tend to think it takes a village.
Another possibility is that liberals want someone to speak for the downtrodden, and get used to the idea that leaders speak for the group.
Thence the annoying misconception that conservatives look to their leaders for moral and ideological guidance. Conservatives (and for the purpose of this post, libertarians) want someone to articulate the things conservatives as individuals already independently believe.
The conservative movement is all about ideas, not personalities, coalitions, or leaders. There are conservative groups, of course, but their beliefs are not coordinated or cross-checked. The notion that a message would come down from on high about what to believe is so silly it feels like a straw man, yet that appears to be how liberals think conservatives get their beliefs.
- I like Rush Limbaugh, but I'm not his parrot
- I enjoy Ann Coulter's wit and fearless disregard for backlash, but I'm not her groupie
- TV preachers get tarred with the brush of every scandal that any of them triggers, and many of them are intelligent, wise, and good people, but I'm not part of their flock
- I'm a 2nd Amendment hardliner, but the NRA doesn't speak for me
- As far as I can tell Toby Keith is a great American, but he doesn't speak for me, either
- No columnist, pundit, blogger, nor anyone dunked in a think tank speaks for me
- And Bill O'Reilly definitely is not my spokesman
No one has exactly the same viewpoint on every issue, and even if someone shared my beliefs perfectly, I would not want them to take my rightful place on my own soapbox. My voice is my own, and while I may lend it, I will not yield it.
But then, I don't speak for all conservatives.
social and religious conservatives. Robertson, Dobson, Land, et al do not speak to a bunch of lambs whose ears are cocked to get to marching orders.
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson
I've been posting this in comments for months now. The opinions of Dobson, et. al. are mildly interesting, but they certainly don't dictate what this particular Christian does and how he votes, and I daresay that the same applies to most, if not all of my friends and family.
Christian |= lemming.
...when they see me they'll say, "There goes Loren Wallace,
the greatest thing to ever climb into a race car."
In most languages I know, Christian |= lemming would take the value Christian, and do a binary or on it with the value lemming, making the Christian have the properties of a lemming, so to speak. Heh.
You say that Dr. Dobson's opinions are "mildly interesting".
I'm curious, have you ever read (really read, as in end to end) one of his books or listened completely through one of his 30 minute broadcasts?
I ask, because until I had done so, I had little regard for what he had to say and would perhaps have used the same words.
For well over a year now, I've listened to his broadcasts via podcast while running, commuting, etc and I have become deeply respectful of him as a Christian leader and a Conservative leader.
I certainly do not walk lockstep with Dr. Dobson, and no, he does not speak for me. However, when he speaks as a Christian (with extensive knowledge of scripture) and as a behavioral psychologist (with extensive experience both with children and adults), I listen and I am fascinated by what I learn.
If I disagree with something he has presented, I now have to ask myself why. Why is my understanding different than his?
Quite often, I find myself changing my perspective as I find it to be critically flawed in some way.
I would find it difficult to describe him (and FOF, by extension) as 'mildly interesting' any more than I could say that Jesus was just a 'good man'.
If you've not spent time listening or reading, I recommend you do so. Start with the 30 minute podcasts out of Itunes. It is hard to grip how influential he really is on the Evangelical community until you have done so.
have listened to many, many radio shows, and I've read a couple of his books. I certainly respect what he has to say. But my point is that he does not speak for me. Liberals (and apparently quite a few conservatives) believe that Dobson, Robertson, Bauer, etc. are the Pied Pipers of Christianity, and that we all simply dance along behind them.
My positions on Christian issues and on some faith-influenced political positions are dictated by the Bible and by pastors whose theological positions I respect (Piper, MacArthur, Sproul, Wells, Schaeffer, etc.). I don't consider Dobson to be a theologian, although he is certainly more Biblically literate than me!! Your statement "I certainly do not walk lockstep with Dr. Dobson, and no, he does not speak for me." describes my position.
...when they see me they'll say, "There goes Loren Wallace,
the greatest thing to ever climb into a race car."
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson
And it's been a while since I did substantial amounts of coding other than in PHP, but I believe at least one used "|" as "not". In some languages we've used "¬". C, Java, etc. tend to use "<>" but I don't like that notation - always seemed awkward to me...
...when they see me they'll say, "There goes Loren Wallace,
the greatest thing to ever climb into a race car."
in response to Neil. Must. Use. ReplyToThis!!
...when they see me they'll say, "There goes Loren Wallace,
the greatest thing to ever climb into a race car."
PHP? PHP? You think PHP influenced that comment?
Ten paces. Pistols. At dawn. Sir, I'm that offended.
heh.
We won't tell anyone you've coded PHP. Not that there's anything wrong with that ;-).
--
Gone 2500 years, still not PC.
I just said that was the last thing I've coded.
Just for background: In college, my first programming language was FORTRAN. I spent most of my time early in my career with IBM Assembler and PL/I. Even tho' I spend most of my time on mainframes, I have written ONE COBOL program in my entire life, but I "read" a lot of it. Since 1995, I've written in C, C++, Smalltalk, Visual Basic, REXX and PHP (which I only marginally consider a "language"). Nowadays I don't do much coding - I'm on more of the design side. But I'm most familiar with Java and PHP because I use it for web design on the side for my church and kids' school.
So I have a hard time keeping the various syntaxes straight...especially since half of them are mainframe-based and the keyboard mappings are entirely different. Keeps things interesting...
...when they see me they'll say, "There goes Loren Wallace,
the greatest thing to ever climb into a race car."
Well said