Intellectual Flyover Country
By Doug Patton
October 13, 2008
Page 2 of 2
So let's be totally honest. George W. Bush has failed the Republican Party and, more importantly, the American people, in almost every regard. He has spent our money in a manner that would make a drunken sailor ashamed, grown the federal government at a faster rate than any president since FDR, colluded with Ted Kennedy and his ilk on education policy, and given us stimulus checks with the caveat to spend them on plasma TVs and IPhones, rather than existing debt (or the terrorists win). And he has spent eight years asleep at the wheel on illegal immigration.
The Republican Party has not rejected intellectualism. The definition of the word has been hijacked by the William Ayers and the Ward Churchills of the world, with their pithy rejoinders that 9/11 victims were "little Eichmanns." One need only read Jonah Goldberg or Mark Steyn to know that conservative intellectualism is alive and well.
What sets conservatives, and by extension the GOP, apart is that we have always encouraged vigorous debate and the civil discourse necessary for the continuation of this American experiment. It is the foundation of our republic and the catalyst to our best ideas. But we succeed in our intellectual pursuits only because they stand firmly on the solid rock of our morality, our spirituality and our admission of and submission to the God that grants our souls the right to breathe. The sinking sand of liberal dogma will never be a suitable substitute.
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Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and public policy advisor. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online, TheConservativeVoice.com and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.
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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA. >> Back -- Page 1 2
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