BoatBanter.com - "Crackpot realists" and the torture issue

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
S. Maizlich wrote:
S. Maizlich wrote:

Tim Rutten had a great column in today's L.A. Times, about John McCain
and the bill to outlaw torture by U.S. forces. Full article is he
http://www.latimes.com/news/columnis...a-news-columns

The best part is Rutten describing what C. Wright Mills referred to as
"crackpot realism". Some highlights:

The tough guy wing of the American media's commenting class always has
been prone to what C. Wright Mills once called "crackpot realism."

It's a little difficult to define precisely, but since its relationship
to serious thinking is rather like that of pornography to art, you
generally recognize it when you see it. A crackpot realist usually
assumes an air of weary patience while instructing you on how their
superior grasp of the "real world's" exigencies demands that you accept
a morally preposterous conclusion.

By the way, Rush Limbaugh is the "crackpot realist" par excellence.
Here's an unlearned, uneducated crackpot - really, a *fruitcake* - who
always tries to affect a world-weary, seen-it-all (*know*-it-all)
condescension. His audience of obese red-staters, of course, just gobble
it up like pigs in slop, morally preposterous conclusions and all.

I thought Rush's excuse these days was that he was a drug addict, and
therefore not responsible for his comments...

I thought you told Wayne you were going to stop this?