Dan Gilbert commented that:

“Intellectuals” these days are an interesting breed. Historically intellectuals enjoyed exploring all aspects of a given situation. They compared facts, sought out further study if the research wasn’t clear. They enjoyed defending their opponent’s position to strengthen their own case. Intellectuals valued the intellect and constructive debate. They were very concerned with the preservation of the concept of free speech, valuing opinions different from their own.

Today, so-called intellectuals seek to limit speech, ideas, and opinions other than ideologically approved ones. We hear – case closed, the science is settled, alternative opinions are due to ignorance and other statements that no true intellectual in history would be comfortable with. This is dogma masquerading as intelligence and is dominant in today’s academic environment.

Politicians have latched on to this approach because it protects ideas with no depth or factual foundation, it helps to panic people and create a feeling of powerlessness, leading to more control over every aspect of our lives. A true intellectual will welcome debate, not criminalize those that hold different positions. We live in an age of deep ignorance lauded as the height of intellect, fantasy heralded as reality, and inflexible dogma held up as liberalism.

I have personally experienced this phenomena several time in discussion with liberal friends.  I have been in conversations where my more liberal friends are espousing some view on some topic be it the economy, fracking, healthcare, Global Warming, War of Terror, or whatever.  And in the course of the conversation, should you provide any evidence in support of a view contrary to their held views, it is summarily dismissed without discussion or further investigation.  Hardly an “intellectual” response.

A prime example of this is the issue of gun control.  Members of the anti-Second Amendment crowd, such  as Michael Bloomberg’s newly-repackaged “Every Town for Gun Safety” have repeatedly been caught red-handed lying and creating false narratives about gun violence.  And while tragic gun violence should be addressed, as a nation we never want to address the real issues  involved and instead simple want to ban a tool which the U.S. Constitution affirms and guarantees the American people the right to use.  Unfortunately like any tool, a gun can be used for both good and bad.

The truth is that the recent shooting at the Church in South Caroline is a prime example of why stricter gun laws do not work.  Especially if, as Vice-President Joe Biden admitted on national television in the last election, the federal government doesn’t have time to enforce the gun laws already on the books.  The shooter in this case already could not legally own or buy a gun because of a previous felony drug conviction and the family has already admitted, and then later recanted the statement, that the boy’s father bought the gun for him on his 21st birthday.  This would already be a felony under federal law and punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment (perhaps this is why they recanted the earlier statement).  How would a stricter gun lay have prevented this?  Explain it to me please.

Also the church was a “gun free” zone, so the shooter knew he was safe to carry out his plan with little chance of anyone stopping him.  There is another recent and rather similar case in which a woman with a concealed carry permit and a hand gun stopped a shooter in his tracks in her church and saved the lives of many of her fellow parishioners.  Bet you won’t hear about that in the left-wing news.

More to the point, however, is that if you bring up the facts that statistics clearly prove states and cities that allow concealed carry permits all see measurable and significant reductions in violent crime, liberals summarily dismiss that as NRA propaganda that bears no further discussion.  They totally ignore the fact that the NRA gets its statistics from the FBI and, dare I say it, the former Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice.  That is because their “pseudo intellectualism” is driven by blind ideology and it can suffer no dissent.  It is a victimization-based, revenge-driven ideology that plays well to people with bumper slogan mentalities and it is an ideology that does not bode well for the success of Freedom, Liberty, Prosperity, and American Exceptionalism!