From: pfcouvar@amhux1.amherst.edu (Peter Couvares)
Subject: Re: GOP Convention, Houston [warning: not a drug topic at all]
Organization: Amherst College
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 16:56:22 GMT

[I apologize for continuing this discussion in alt.drugs, but it's
an interesting one and alt.druggies are usually pretty tolerant of
straying topics...]

cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu (Carl Edman) writes:
>Pete Zakel writes
>> Well, the *intellectual* conservative leadership may
>> have a lot of people in favor of marijuana legalization,
>> the conservative "leadership" that most people pay
>> attention to and support (like Rush Limbaugh, for
>> example) are staunchly against legalization.
>
>Rush Limbaugh is a gutter conservative. Such people may be currently powerful
>but in the long run people with ideas and who are able to think, to write and
>to argue like Milton Friedman or William F Buckley are likely to have greater
>influence. 

	Do you really think so? This is something I've struggled with for a
long time, and I've come to the conclusion that, although most "intellectual"
people aren't persuaded much by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, they tend to
underestimate the effect on people concerned with other things. For example,
while I'm living at school, I doubt more than a handful of people around me
think Rush Limbaugh is worth the shit he craps, and it's easy to start to
think that his effect on people is negligible. But then I go down to
Pennsylvania to live with my grandfather and work on a nearby farm for a few
weeks, and the situation has changed. Rush is an inspiration to these guys!
He, and I quote, "makes sense". He reinforces everything they ever thought
about those nasty homosexuals, those pesky black folks, and those evil
liberals.

I just think that intellectuals have always thought they have a greater effect
on your average person than they actually do. This isn't to say that a
born-again farmer in Pennsylvania is "your average person", but he is one
of many people who could give a flying fart what Bill Buckley or Thurgood
Marshall writes, but can really relate to Rush Limbaugh. In fact, I think
you have it exactly backwards. Over time, people writing essays and arguing
politics have far less of an impact on politics then people like Rush who
get out there where everyone can hear them, and start talking.

-Peter

pfcouvar@amhux1.amherst.edu

>> And as long as the so-called Justice system in our country
>> sanctions civil forfeiture laws, most of the law
>> enforcement community will be in favor of keeping drugs
>> illegal because it is an easy way of getting funding
>> without raising taxes.
>
>The forfeiture laws are a mockery. But again you'll find most conservative  
>intellectuals agreeing with you.

...and most other Americans agreeing with the forfeiture laws. :)

[...]

>At least since 1932 the main enemy of individual rights in this country has  
>been the Left, not the Right.

	I understand what you mean here, so I'm going to resist the urge to
flame, but both the left and right have, in their own ways, done plenty
of damage to the idea of individual rights. That kind of platitude is
meaningless without a slew of elaboration, in which case that kind of
platitude is unneccessary :)

Xref: sparky alt.activism:15205 alt.news-media:866