Balls on a pump handle! Talk about getting out every piece of the old Snob China: Huns, guns, Hee-Haw, racism, rednecks ... even the word "corn-pone".

But this is too much: "anti-intellectualism (how much brain matter is required to go fast and turn left, ad infinitum?)"

The New York Times has got some cheese asking how much brain matter it takes to turn left ad infinitum. That's the very thing somebody ought to ask the NYT.

While we're at it, how much brain matter does it take to score dope in Washington Square, pick up a dose of gonorrhea at your Columbia SoJ reunion, and then make up a bulls--t story twenty minutes before your deadline on Monday morning?

As long your editor is a friend of your daddy, and comes from the same worthless inbred Hampton trash-gentility that spawned you, I suspect it doesn't take much.

No wonder your idiot debutant fiancee would dump you for Jeff Gordon at your own million-dollar wedding reception.

Glen -- anti-intellectualism (which I find ironic) is the new theme on those dumb ol Redstaters who elected Bush.

Ariel Dorfman seems to have resurrected this first in an op-ed piece around late November of Last Year, calling back the election of dumb ol Ike over the smartest guy in the room, Adlai Stevenson.

It seems to have gone from there, picked up by various pundits like Kevin Drum and the Kos kidz.

Ironic since Eisenhower (at a time of great risk, Korean War threatening to turn nuclear and inflicting lots of casualties, only 7 years after WWII, with the risk of McArthur and McCarthy risking demagogery on the right) was the SAFER choice.

Dwight ran the allied invasion of Normandy, and was Allied Supreme Commander in the West when the war was in serious doubt. He didn't panic at the Bulge. He'd managed Patton, Monty, Bradley (burning a bug up his ass); and co-ordinated with Zhukov and Stalin. He personally toured concentration camps. He had the clout and prestige to make McArthur (a West Point classmate) shut the hell up and McCarthy too. What were they gonna do, call him soft? He had the clout to declare victory and end the fighting in Korea and not get into a nuke war with Stalin. Stevenson was a smart man, but with zero leadership track record or credibility. For such a smart guy Dorfman seems unable to figure out that Americans weren't selecting a University Professor but the guy who'd chart a middle ground between nuclear war and surrender.

Ike = defeated Hitler in the West; Stevenson = Senator. Easy call.

I also find the charge of anti-intellectualism ironic since no one in the Left actually KNOWS anything other than Deconstructionism and Chomsky's nutty theories. They couldn't tell you what defeated Von Moltke's version of the Schlieffen Plan at the First Battle of the Marne (short answer, stripping troops to fight Russians and Parisian taxicabs rushing French troops to a gap between German armies). They couldn't say when Islamic society stopped any idea of progress (when Averroes lost to al-Ghazali and the idea of rationalism was tossed for traditionalism in the 1100s). Or tell you why Henry Higgins was important (he produced the Higgins boat or landing craft in WWII, ran full out integrated factories in New Orleans too to make em which for the time was remarkable). They couldn't say why Kemal Ataturk felt it neccessary to westernize so completely down to a latinate script and outlawing the fez and veil (he saw the Ottomans get slaughtered by combined arms that the Brits produced at Meggido and understood the futility of a society trapped in amber). They wouldn't even know how many .44 rimfire cartridges the 1862 Henry Rifle would hold (a total of 16, it had a 15 round tubular magazine).

However, I'm sure they could discuss Noam Chomsky's language theories, or "framing" all day long for anyone who'd listen.

Or basically the leftist line that if you dont buy that moonbat leftist bullcrap, and vote for a man that colaborated with a regime guilty of crimes agaist humanity, that tortured our pilots, and made their trip home in doubt by labeling them war criminals, colaborating with the enemy while in time of war in paris, with a history of sucking up to communist butchers from Moscow to Nicaragua, then you must be stupid.

So basically if your not evil or stupid or ignorant enough to vote Kerry your are evil and stupid and ignorant.

Yeah, ok.

As for Chomsky, here are excerpts of an article by Tom Graves

Best known for his theories on linguistics, but as with his politics, he ignores important facts about language in order to advance his own agenda in the world of academic linguistics.

In the late 1950's, he put forth a theory of language based on syntax, which is the study of word order. This theory is known as transformational generative grammar.

In its earliest forms, it was seemingly simple and easy to learn, so it spread like wildfire in academic circles during the 1960's as American culture (and especially academia) was rejecting the old and uncritically accepting the new. As a result, Chomsky has ended up being the de facto Emperor of American linguistics during the last half of the 20th century.

A a good mechanic should know a lot about a lot of different cars and a good linguist should know a lot about a lot of different languages. A mechanic can look at the auto repair manual and understand how it applies to the car he is working on. Likewise a linguist should be able to look at a grammar of a language and understand how it works.

Unlike cars, languages have a more varied range of underlying structural designs that are more different than that which one finds between a Mazda engine and your common piston engine.

There are synthetic languages like Latin, analytical languages like English, agglutinative languages like Turkish and polysynthetic languages like Mohawk.

Any given language is usually not just a pure example of one of the four types mentioned above but can have properties of more than one type in any given part of the grammar. Still, most languages tend to fall basically into one of these four categories in the overall structure of their grammars.

English is overwhelmingly an analytical language. An analytical language is one where the relationship between the words in a sentence is determined by the order of the words in a sentence. 'The boy sees the girl' is different in meaning from 'the girl sees the boy' because the doer of the action comes first before the verb.

Not all languages do it this way. Latin determines such relationships by endings on the noun which are called case.

You are probably wondering by now what this has to do with Noam Chomsky and his theories of linguistics.

Well, Noam Chomsky is a native speaker of English and most American linguists are native speakers of English, so what would be the best language on which to base a linguistic theory if you were too lazy to take the time to actually learn a lot about a lot of different languages?

It would of course be English. Since Chomsky based his theory of grammar on English and since English is an analytical language, his theory is heavily biased towards syntax, which is the study of word order in sentences.

American linguistics is today divided into two basic camps: the formalists, who follow the teachings of Chomsky, and the functionalists, who follow a variety of different theoretical viewpoints.

The formalists dominate at most American universities but the functionalists have made significant progress in recent years because of the weakness that Chomsky's theoretical approach exhibits when dealing with the actual facts to which one is exposed when researching various aspects of the several thousands of languages that exist worldwide.

One of the goals of linguistics is to discover the properties of Universal Grammar or UG.

UG is sort of the philosopher's stone of linguistics. UG will supposedly unify our understanding of the basic properties that all languages share in common and explain the motivation for the differences that exist among them.

Chomsky's camp claims that studying one or a few languages in depth (basically English with a little Spanish thrown in) will reveal the properties of UG.

This is specious, as another analogy will make clear. Suppose one wanted to study the common properties of the various forms of human transportation.

Would studying a few internal combustion cars in great depth tells us a whole lot about jets or horses or skis? One suggests that the answer is no, but Chomsky insists on ignoring the variety of structural designs exhibited in human languages in order to support his viewpoint.

Chomsky's theoretical stance on language is equivalent to saying that the carburetor of a car and the heart of a horse are essentially the same because they both deliver the fuel that allows motion, while missing the more important differences between mechanical and biological systems.

It is important for Chomsky to vigorously support his viewpoint and ignore any evidence to the contrary because his power as the Emperor of American linguistics rests therein. But to those who actually take the time to examine the facts of language, it quickly becomes obvious that the Emperor's theories have no cloth.

I could have put it shorter, Chomsky is a communist postmodern kook in a school full of communist postmodern kooks.

I wonder how well Chomsky UG would hold up against a ideogramic languange such as japanese ?

But wait, a red stater like me is just a neanderthal knuckle dragger, how dare i even question the deranged postmodern gobbly gook that fill the heads of far too many that exist our once fine but now destroyed halls of higher learning that teaches Peter Singers NAZI Bio-Ethics and Chomsky's Lingustics and where earth science must scream for handover control of the USA economy to the UN via the LOST treaty and Koyoto of Agenda 21 Fame so that Murice Strong and his New Communist Internationale cooked up in Rio can set up their one world government, bring the mandantory end to capitalism and depopulate the earth by 80% to avoid certain planetary doom.

I just dont know my place, how dare I question the current commie Liberal orthadoxy.

Gee, put Al Gore in charge, lets get out our copies of "earth in the ballance" and start contruction of our mud huts and those Soviet modular concrete apartments, complete with the official state grafiti down the sides, if we start now we can have the whole place in a churn and lots of people starving in time for May Day.

I'd be more worried about Nascar becoming infected by the cosmo NY elites. Witness the travesty that is pro hockey today-- would be this bad if it wasn't for all the expansions?

And btw, I'm sure you're probably not entirely against this, but reference "South Park Conservatives" one more time and my head might explode.

Well, i think Steve Sailer is a redstater. ;)
And so am i.
And Chomsky is going down.
Steven Pinker has lost faith in UG. ;)

I can't... help... myself... compelled to say... nooo... "South Park Conservatives"

LOL

Sorry. Couldn't help myself.

Oh man, lurker, you just HAD to do that, didn't you? Now who's gonna clean this up? Who? Who!

Such a pity. His comment on the travesty that is pro hockey was very well taken. Rest in pieces...

Its more catchy than Larry Elder Republicans, who by the way, was perhaps the first to extol that Libertarians had more chance to advance some to their goal with the republicans (due to the Barry Goldwater/Reagan wing sharing so much in common with them) than their current standalone record of success hold out for them.

I agree, and eventually they might figure out that most of the Christian Evangelicals therein value the same Freedom and Liberty that they do and dont really intend to bring back the inqisition and burning witches.

Eric Raymond of Open Source software and CATB fame, is a Liberatarian flavored Anarchist (not commie a anarchist like you see marching with ANSWER) by his own description and a Paegan

We wouldnt expect the guy to show up in a Pan costume complete with fur Leggings and a flute. But I doubt he would get the reaction he would expect if he did.

(Even tho that might be a good stunt, now that I think of it)

The NYT sneers at those who watch auto racing at NASCAR tracks...would they sneer similarly at those who watch horse racing at Ascot? Seems unlikely, and therein lies the truth about what this is really about, which is, of course, class snobbery.

If significant numbers of the "cool kids" (as viewed by NYT editors) became aficionados of NASCAR racing, then you can bet that NYT writers would suddenly disover hitherto-unexpected depthss in this activity....

Raymond:

"I could have put it shorter, Chomsky is a
communist postmodern kook in a school full of
communist postmodern kooks."

MIT is full of communist postmodern kooks? I realize it's not as hard as Caltech, but still.

Yes, and frankly, its rather hard to find a university that isnt dominated by communist postmodern kooks.

Its one of the reasons places like George Mason University, who have people like Walter E. Williams, an economics professor who often fills in for Rush Limbaugh is a first choice for so many.

And companies are taking notice of the better caliber of the graduates at the non-commie schools where objective reality, not papers from a "Postmodern Generator":
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=postmodern+generator&btnG=Google+Search is required to pass muster.

Why would IBM Haleburton or General Electric want to hire some freshly brainwashed leftist moonbat on a holy marxist jihad to uncover the busHitler plot to destroy the planet ?

I damn sure wouldnt hire such clear and present danger to my company, its just asking for problems of the kind I would be far past sick and tired of dealing with already.

The candidate must make me more money than she costs, a business is not a charity for societies dysfuctionals suddenly offended outside the bubble of speach codes and the cult of victimhood.

I'm glad you liked the article, Joe.

It is a companion piece of something I wrote recently, while guest-blogging for Blackfive. That piece was called Red State, Blue Collar.

I also thought of the "New Class," but I thought one citation of Mr. Derbyshire was enough. On reflection, though, his brutal beating of the New Class is probably worth reading. It dates to 2000, but is still insightful -- even if it is entirely hostile.

Wow. "Red State, Blue Collar" was really, really good. And also fits the "New Class theory" frame extremely well.

And compare the average size of hard money contributions for the two parties, the republicans get their money 50 bucks per contributor.

Not from George Soros and the Ford foundation.

The Democrats seem to get their money from rich fatcats, and Clinton era money would come from a fistfull of 1000 dollar checks in the name of every relative and Chinese military money filtered in thru the paws of Buddist monks.

The preposterous conceit that Democrats are the Party of the People and Republicans the Party of the Powerful has been repeated so often that by now it is incapable of disproof. In fact, all conceivable evidence supports the theory that liberalism is a whimsical luxury of the very rich-and the very poor, both of whom have little stake in society.

While the Democratic Party hauls in enormous donations from Hollywood celebrities and multimillionaire trial lawyers,5 the average donation to the Republicans is about fifty dollars.

For years, the Republican National Committee has proudly posted the size of its average donation and tauntingly asked the Democrats to release theirs. The Democrats have doggedly refused to do so. During the 2000 campaign, a Democratic spokesman justified this refusal, saying that an abstract number representing the average donation constituted "proprietary" information.6

Ann Coulter, Slander

Should I include the footnotes ?

Yes Grim, the essay lays it all out so well,

Well, except for the reminder of how bad my writing sucks ;=)

And another thing us working guys know, "tax the Rich" = price increase on everything from bread and milk to a hair cut, any tax increase, anything that increases the agragate costs of putting anything on the store shelf. right down to the taxes paid on the shelf, and the property the shelf sits on, is paid out of the poor mans pocket whom those increases punish the most.

"Tax the Rich" = Poor get screwed

Its that simple

Us red state knuckle draggers understand how that works, so what is the frigging problem with those "reality based" leet snobs ?

They dont feel it happen to them, thats why.

"It's not merely that Nascar has cleaned up its act in the last few decades. That was inevitable, since the South got ''New'' and went from producing Faulkner characters to Grisham's gingerbread men. Rather, it's that Nascar has broadened its appeal by diluting its appeal, shirking its red-state trappings -- hell, it even let Toyotas race last year -- in an orchestrated effort to entice the purplish middle. As it prepares to invade New York City -- along with other Nascar-foreign terrain like Mexico and Canada -- Nascar finds itself at an Elvis-comes-out-of-the-Army moment, in which it must choose between what MacGregor calls its ''red-dirt past'' and its ''gold-lame future."

The South got new there's a novel idea, and if any appeal has diluted or Red State trappings shirked why all the complaints?

I am that NASCAR dad that got bit and involved with racing since the age of 16. Funny how that coincides with DL privileges. For me as well as many of my friends it's not death and risk that attracts us. Pure and simple it's the adrenaline rush provided by speed and competition.

I get a big chuckle out of people who berate the one sport any working person can enter into. Bring your car pay your fee take home some prize money maybe even a trophy or two down at the local race track. You see anyone can own a car. Anyone can modify their car to run down at the local track. In some ways it's as close as you can get to a fourth of July celebration. Family fun, apple pie and the excitement of midway rides all in one. It's not Indy or Formula 1 where the money is out of reach to build a car. It's a place where most fans don't cotton to fancy hats, polo shirts and dockers. Baseball caps, t-shirts and jeans will do. Racing on Mother's day and Easter are family days off. It's a place where a race without prayer and the national anthem are not sanctioned. It's truly an experience and a life style where the spirit of America and family values come together. We don't claim to be what we aren't, we accept our red dirt past and hide it from no-one. All of the bad doesn't wipe out the good. Fact of the matter is most of us are down right proud of it. Gillian Welch sort of sums it all up with Red Clay Halo in being criticized for who and what we are.

If Nascar has a problem it's the commercialization that threatens to destroy its' very roots. The pomp and circumstance that the almighty dollar brings may well threaten and alienate the most avid fans rather than increase them. That decline may well have begun with the change from Winston to Nextel.

So much for Nascar. So why is all the name calling, shame and disgrace showered upon Nascar? It stands out like a sore thumb that represents a class of people that are happy with who and what they are. A class of people who aren't afraid to show who and what they are. A hard working class of people who refuse to let others define their purpose and goals.

USMC, Yup, the ethos of the Individual, also means a space where the Individual can participate, where the seats that arnt going on the track exist under the family of the drivers and those drivers that didnt bring their own car this trip, along with those thinking about building their own.

Same ethos that has us pondering creating our own Job as often as we consider working for others, or if you want to work for others much longer.

A place where when storms come and down trees all over the place, the entire town comes out in the morning with their own chain saws, where the lines to the county crews are as busy as the maytag repairman.

We would swap out our own line fuses and turn our own power back on if fuses crimpers fiberglass poles and insulated bucket trucks was more common in the population.

And self defence is .45 .357 .44 and Glock 9, not 911.

Yeah, we aint known for acting like helpless powerless domesticated socialist slaves looking to govt for the solution to our problems.

And racing is more fun than watching.

We be doit yourselfers, which, dont mean we are not known to call for assitance, the pizza delivery dude, thats assistance, isnt it ?

Too bad they wont deliver the beer too.

Oh, the tolerant left! They rant and rave about how important diversity and tolerance are to them, and in the same sentence prove their own hypocrisy. They remind me of a dog that eats its own vomit. They spew and spew and continue to spew the same old tired vomit that they eat over and over. Will some lefty out there explain to me how you can hate so much while simultaneously claiming to respect other cultures and people?

Actually Chomsky's theories work fairly well with Japanese. (Well, at least they seem to work with the basic syntactic structures while still being hopelessly complicated.) However, with polysynthetics languages like Mohawk and Nootkan, one has to fudge the facts so much that one could start a donut shop.