Especially when you think you speak for God:Being a “public intellectual” has often been used as a justification for being a douche. https://t.co/CJqGKKi81o
— FBIDidARICO!Hat (@Popehat) June 20, 2021
“Who are you to say because I can’t see, I can’t enjoy something or do something,” Dickson said.But Buckley replied, “I’m saying it’s a futile exercise of your time to do something that seems to look God in the face and say, ‘Although I am theoretically blind, in fact, I am not blind.’ ”
Buckley had a grasp of the Great Chain of Being, and he was quite sure where the other humans on the planet belonged on that Chain. His position, of course, was the superior place of judgment. From such position he knew blind people should mind their place; it was clearly below his.
Don't judge, you won't be judged. It's pretty simple, really.
How the hell would Buckley have known if he got something out of sailing that made it worth it to him? Not to mention every other blind person in the world who had the experience of something Buckley couldn't know. He might not take a blind person to the ballet or Grand Canyon, I doubt he was in the habit of doing much of anything for anyone. Though apparently he's more than willing to do their thinking for them, especially when it would relieve him from the inconvenience of having to take them somewhere. I might have been stupid enough to wonder why my mother would take my father on a foliage tour because he was blind, when I was an idiot adolescent, by the time I was Buckley's age I realized she knew him better than I would and she knew he loved taking trips. Maybe to get away from his brats (us) for a while.
ReplyDeleteI can't think that what he demonstrated in this was unrelated to his racism which was strong enough so he advocated in the 1950s the kind of voter suppression the Republican-fascists are reinstituting today with the intellectual aid of John Roberts and the other Ivy League racists on the Supreme Court. It's a miracle that we got the ADA passed and retained in law.
Buckley was "the world's foremost TV debater?" That alone tells you there's always been something wrong with the medium and the people who run it.
Just gonna go on record here and say that this is my favorite blog post title of yours ever. Well done, sir.
ReplyDeleteWe endeavor to give satisfaction.
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