From a reader:
Jonah:
One of my favorite expressions – I have no clue as to the source – is that for Liberals, “history began this morning”, or variations thereof. Of course it is too broad-brushed, and there are many conservatives who are also too intellectually lazy (or dishonest) to bother with understanding the historical context or philosophical background to any particular argument of the moment. But even so, it does often seem to be the case that in political debates Liberals appear to forget what their side was arguing or supporting yesterday, let alone decades ago. This seems to me to be a related phenomenom to the “who cares?” criticism that you’ve been hearing – and to one of the main points of your book, that our cultural and academic elite has white-washed the intellectual history of the Left.
I can recall having friends demand that I justify the opposition of many prominent conservatives to the enactment of Civil Rights legislation in the 1960′s, as if I wore the stain of that in my political DNA. However, if I was ever nervy (or stupid) enough to point out that supporters of that legislation insisted it would never be used to justify quotas, no one ever felt the need to explain or defend those mistaken promises.
Still waiting for the book to arrive, and looking forward to it.