There is a slur the Political Class likes to use against Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and, I suppose, even low-level pundits like me: The "Entertainment Wing" of the party. See, the Political Class is the Serious Wing, but we thinkers, writers, and talkers are merely the "Entertainment Wing."
This is precisely backwards. I disagree with Rush Limbaugh from time to time, but I do not doubt that he actually believes in the ideas he transmits to his listeners.
I heard about the Corker Iran sell-out from two members of the "Entertainment Wing" -- Mark Levin and Andrew C. McCarthy. Both of them told me the Corker bill actually pre-approved Obama's Iran deal, and made it nearly impossible to block later.
This turns out to have been true. If anyone from the non-"Entertainment Wing" has a credible argument against this, I have not heard it-- and I've been looking.
So the "Entertainment Wing" told me the truth about the Corker bill, and the Political Class -- the Serious Wing, I guess -- gave me a silly sales pitch.
So, we have a so-called "Entertainment Wing" that actually believes in the ideas it is transmitting, and an allegedly Serious Wing, aka the Political Class, which does not believe in these ideas, but instead cynically deploys them as Sitcom Catch-Phrases every Ratings Sweeps Period (better known as the US federal elections).
So you tell me: Who is the Entertainment Wing, again?
Who seeks to distract us, and who seeks to speak to us about important issues?
Who treats ideas as if they matter, and who treats ideas as if they are merely Commercial Jingles employed in pitches for a product you don't want?
Most politicians are not particularly fluent in ideas. You will frequently hear politicians speaking conservatism as if it is a second language -- if it is that at all. Indeed, politicians frequently only know the language of conservatism the way that business travelers do -- learning some French a couple of weeks before a sales meeting in Paris.
Little wonder that they stick so closely to stock phrases.
Many conservatives are chagrined that few of our leaders are making the case for conservatism. What they seem to do, most of the time, is run away from arguments, or try to soft-pedal them and pretend they're not arguments at all.
They do so because they simply do not have the intellectual musculature to actually fight on the these ideas. If pushed, even a little bit, they will crumble to the ground.
So they hide. And they issue well-scrubbed press releases that don't say much at all.
...Democracy. Debate. Dissent. The Consent of the Governed. Either we insist the Political Class take these ideas seriously again, or we just pack up the whole thing.
We swim in waters made for us -- befouled for us -- by progressive fish. They create the waste-tainted waters we swim in. And these waters we swim in are heavily biased to the left -- the left's talking points are always the Safe Harbor for weak, cowardly minds to parrot.
That is to say, the weaker of mid you are, the more willing to bend yourself to comport with The Collective, the more likely you are to ape the positions of the Left.
You need someone with brains to resist this, and pardon my language, you need someone with some balls.
...Some fights must be had, even if it causes the Political Class intestinal discombobulation and might get them some nasty looks from their progressive pals.
I know a lot of you are beaten up and broken hearted. And I know that many of you think maybe it's time to just give up.
I know I feel that way. I have felt that way for a year at least. I have felt that way so long it feels like I never felt anything but that way.
But every once in a while, it's a good idea to try to believe, and to try throwing a punch, if only to convince ourselves that we still have the starch to do it.
Ace is backing Mike Flynn of Breitbart.com for Congress against the son of Obama's Transportation Secretary.
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