Also, Reagan's enormous popular success is a datum contradicting Brandeis' theory , given that public exposure of Reagan's noxious doctrine did not cause it to be defeated by a mass of rational critics in the marketplace of ideas.
Of course, you in particular do participate in public debates more often than the average person, countering bad ideas in that marketplace.
CB
>>> jkschw at hotmail.com 03/22/01 11:06PM >>>
Hitler was pretty smart and Reagan, though not analytically sharp, was a
political genius. However, your point about the need to refute lying
blowhards is well taken. (Many politicos of all stripes fit that bill.) We
needn't refute all of them, though. I guess it depends on the context
whether it is worth doing. My original response to the idea of debating
Horowitz was: only if he can be utterly demolished.
>. . . . >
>CB; I don't see how you can confine responses to the intelligent. Plenty
>of successful demogogues are liars , blowhards, unintelligent even. What
>was Hitler's IQ or Ronald Reagan's ? Reagan was an unintelligent, lying ,
>blowhard, with millions of followers.
>
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