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Title: Anger and Citizenship
Source:
First Things
URL Source: http://www.firstthings.com/web-excl ... /2016/02/anger-and-citizenship
Published: Feb 3, 2016
Author: by George Weigel
Post Date: 2016-02-04 17:34:22 by redleghunter
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Keywords: None
Views: 2836
Comments: 15
The Iowa caucuses are in the rear-view mirror, the New Hampshire primary looms on the horizon, and by most media accounts, the leitmotif of Campaign 2016 is “anger.” As in: a lot-of-Americans-are-angry-and-that-explains-the attraction-of-certain-candidates, whether that be the anti-political-correctness anger of Donald Trump voters, the anti-government anger of Ted Cruz voters, or the Obama-hasn’t-been-radical-enough anger of Bernie Sanders voters. For those of us with long cinematic memories, it’s rather reminiscent of the Howard Beale character in Network, urging people to stick their heads out the window and holler, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
I get it. My own reactions to the papers I read daily, the magazines I read weekly, and the news programs I watch occasionally are not often conducive to a happy blood pressure reading. Yet whatever my sympathies may be with this, that, or the other wrath du jour, I hope that, as the 2016 campaign unfolds, the electorate will begin to understand that anger is not a particularly healthy metric of public life.
The first Marquis of Halifax, George Savile, a 17th-century English statesman and a notable phrase-maker, ranks second only to the immortal Dr. Johnson in the number of entries in The Viking Book of Aphorisms. There, I find this small gem: “Anger is never without an argument, but seldom with a good one.” Does that ring a bell or two, my fellow Americans? It should, given the character of the presidential “debate” thus far. And that warning bell suggests that we’ve got a problem. For serious debate, conducted with civility, is the lifeblood of democracy.
Civility does not preclude passion. Given the gravity of the issues before us in 2016—which involve the future of freedom around the world and the dignity of the human person here at home—passion is entirely welcome. But passion is not anger. Anger is a glandular thing. An angry politics is a politics of the gut. A passionate politics, informed and disciplined by reason, can be a politics of the intelligence, a politics of great ideas: a politics, if you will, of sound moral judgment. And sound moral judgment is rarely, if ever, the child of anger.
Most of us recognize that in our personal lives. We ought to recognize it in our public lives, too.
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Bum bum bum...
#2. To: redleghunter (#0)
I hope that, as the 2016 campaign unfolds, the electorate will begin to understand that anger is not a particularly healthy metric of public life.
The hell it isn't. Anger was given to us by nature as a healthy reaction to insure survival in life. Those who are on a mission to repress anger are: 1) Manipulators seeking pacified and timid victims. or 2) People who have already been made into submissive victims and are defending their condition of timidity and subservience.
#3. To: rlk (#2)
I agree righteous anger is healthy. Not the idiotic type.
For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8)
#4. To: redleghunter (#3)
I agree righteous anger is healthy. Not the idiotic type.
There are some people who are like rabid animals furious at everything their entire life. There is anger over petty jealousies and frustrations that can develop into the idiotic type of anger. This is not the anger I am talking about.
People in this country are being used maliciously and with increasing defiance by classes of elite who tell them their anger because of it is wrong.
#5. To: VxH (#1)
or the Obama-hasn’t-been-radical-enough anger of Bernie Sanders voters.
Bernie Sanders and Hildabeast voters don't want changes, they want REVOLUTION. That is what they were revved up to do. Riots in the streets, burn down the city, KILL DA MAN starting with banksters of course. They were promised this by multiple Democrats, now they are pissed off that they haven't delivered. The revolutionaries were promised a free reign in the hell they want to bring, so they turn from Cankles to Bernie giving them the key to the US treasury. Hill wants to get them to total communism slower than Sanders, that is all.
#6. To: rlk (#4)
Anger is the first stage, I hope the second one is justice for THEM. If anyone needs to know who THEY are, I don't want to explain it, and you don't matter anyway. Without the anger that brings justice, we will end up with violence. I don't want it, but it doesn't frighten me as much as the road we not only travel, but are nearing the end of. Violence will most assuredly come if we finish the trip we are on. We can avoid it now, but only if we do a complete 180 and HIT THE GAS.
#7. To: jeremiad (#5)
That is what they were revved up to do.
Yep. Don't need a Weatherman to see which way their wind blows...
#8. To: redleghunter (#3)
What mirror where!?
#9. To: VxH (#8)
You start early tonight?
For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8)
#10. To: redleghunter (#0)
A passionate politics, informed and disciplined by reason, can be a politics of the intelligence, a politics of great ideas: a politics, if you will, of sound moral judgment. And sound moral judgment is rarely, if ever, the child of anger.
Have you even see this in your lifetime?
Vegetarians eat vegetables. Beware of humanitarians!
#11. To: CZ82 (#10)
No
For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8)
#12. To: redleghunter (#9)
Forget your lines did you? Here let me help you with that:
I feel stunning and entrancing
Feel like running and dancing for joy
For I'm loved by a pretty, wonderful boy
#13. To: CZ82 (#10)
Vegetarians eat vegetables. Beware of humanitarians!
Yep. Columbus didn't eat the Anasazi!
#14. To: redleghunter (#0)
It's political ignorance on the Left, and anger on the right.
The Sanders phenomenon is explained thusly - the current "center" of the democrat branch of the Ruling Party is slightly to the left of Xlinton/Obama. That being said, the Marxist Side (Sanders) is simply the fringe Left - made up of economic illiterates and Millennial products of public school indoctrination - i.e. socialists.
There is no real anger there.
There is anger on the Right, however. And "our favorite cable network" (as Ma Mark Levin puts it) doesn't get it and cannot explain it. None of the remainder of of The Media can explain it.
The explanation is rather simple: A sizable minority of the voting population has no voice. Obozo was elected in '08 (running against an Establishment R), and promptly put in place the prime socialist wet dream of the last 100 years - Obozo Obozo care.
The response was We The People rose up in 2010 - turned over the House to the R R branch. Nothing happened.
Another establishment R ran against Obozo in '12. He lost. Obozo continued his wrecking ball administration unabated.
We The People rose up in '14 in even greater numbers, giving the House and the Sena Senate to the R's.
Nothing has happened. Again.
If this pattern repeats in '16, anger will be the least of our problems.
"Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD . . . "
~Psalm 33:12a
#15. To: Rufus T Firefly (#14)
It's political ignorance on the Left, and anger on the right.
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