[lit-ideas] Chortles refudiate frumiously

From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2010 13:52:14 EDT
Geary:

"However, I don't mind ridiculing Sarah Palin's misuse of  language"
 
William Kristol in
 
_http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/refudiate-liberalism_ 
(http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/refudiate-liberalism) 

"The  case for linguistic innovation is this: We need a word that captures 
and  conjoins the meanings of refutation and repudiation. And we need it 
now. To save  the country from the ravages of contemporary liberalism, we have 
to refute  liberal arguments and see liberal politicians repudiated at the  
polls."

"So the conservative agenda is, in a word, refudiation. Indeed,  given the 
dramatic moment at which we have arrived, one might say that we now  have 
the prospect of a grand refudiation of liberalism.
The meeting of  intellectual refutation and political repudiation is, after 
all, the usual  prerequisite for the establishment of a new political 
order. The Tea  Partiers—the most striking political development of our 
day—have 
understood this  well. The movement is an assemblage of arguers and 
activists. Indeed, they might  be called refudiators avant la lettre. 
The original Tea Party was followed,  of course, by the Declaration of 
Independence, which proclaims certain  truths—that all men are created equal, 
that they are endowed by their Creator  with certain unalienable rights, that 
governments derive their just powers from  the consent of the governed. 
These truths are based on a rejection of other  claims to rule, monarchical and 
aristocratic claims—a refutation of them based  on “the palpable truth, 
that the mass of mankind has not been born, with saddles  on their backs, nor a 
favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them  legitimately, by the 
grace of god” (in Jefferson’s famous words). And the  proclamation of 
irrefutable truths is combined with the assertion of a  particular act—that the 
American people repudiate “all allegiance to the British  crown” and “
political connection” with Great Britain."
 
"The Declaration of Independence—and the successful struggle for freedom  
that followed—depended, then, on a grand refudiation of the existing  
arrangements under which America labored. The Constitution similarly depended 
on  a 
refudiation of the Articles of Confederation. It required both an argument 
as  to why they were failing and action to replace them. Each of our big, 
realigning  elections—in 1860, 1896, 1932, 1980—reflected a refudiation of 
the political  status quo. Politics is both argument and action. Realignment 
depends on  refudiation.
We are conservatives. We ordinarily shun novelties of all kinds,  including 
new words. But desperate times call for desperate measures. The Obama  
project is one of noxious ideology and wild political overreach. The challenge  
before conservatives is to beat back both. So say it loud and say it proud:  
Refudiate liberalism now!"
 
Speranza, Bordighera
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[lit-ideas] Chortles refudiate frumiously

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