In the midst of making an essential point about American intolerance of politically incorrect views, moderate Republican and New York Times author David Brooks took a cheap shot at the likes of Ann Coulter:
… there are some people like, frankly this show, we’re at the adult table of conversation. Some people like Ann Coulter; they’re at the kiddie-table. Charlie Hebdo, that’s the kiddie table. Let the kiddie table have the kiddie table. Because sometimes they’ll say things that those of us at the adult table need to hear. Don’t crack down on them.
Though we might appreciate his advocacy for free speech, Brooks’ characterization of certain political commentators as “kiddies” severely blunts his point. We should be tolerant, he says, especially of those immature folks who expect their government to abide by something resembling principle.
Brooks may not mention the Tea Party by name, but his dismissal certainly proves emblematic of the divide within the Republican Party separating an establishment focused on electoral victories for the sake of electoral victories and an activist base tired of compromising their liberty. The former think themselves the adults in the room, while regarding the latter as unsophisticated.
A question emerges regarding the nature of political sophistication. Is jockeying for marginal gains in hopes of blunting government’s continuous mission creep really the mark of maturity? Or does true maturity manifest in the realization that politics as usual can no longer be tolerated?
Perhaps Brooks has confused maturity with a surrender of idealism. Perhaps he thinks principles are for the young and inexperienced. Those who know better, those like Brooks, understand that the progressives won in the last century. It’s their world now, and we conservatives just live in it. Thus the “mature” politico assumes a posture of resignation, advocating for a gradual reduction in liberty and a slower march to insolvency. The idea that we might actually stop the Left, that we might actually reduce spending, that we might actually restore liberty – that’s a childish pipe-dream.
I would submit to Brooks that the real pipe-dream is believing resignation leads to anything resembling victory. Maturity is best defined as the capacity to deal rationally with the facts of reality and act accordingly in furtherance of our lives. Capitulation to tyranny and fiscal insanity doesn’t fit that bill. On the contrary, perhaps it’s Brooks and his ilk who hold seats at the kiddie table.
(Today’s Fightin Words podcast is on this topic available here.)
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