I can never figure out if the journalists who publish in The New York Times are serious or sarcastic. Here is an example:
At least part of the schism between Republicans and Democrats is based in differing conceptions of the role of the individual. We find these differences expressed in the frequent heated arguments about crucial issues like health care and immigration. In a broad sense, Democrats, particularly the more liberal among them, are more likely to embrace the communal nature of individual lives and to strive for policies that emphasize that understanding. Republicans, especially libertarians and Tea Party members on the ideological fringe, however, often trace their ideas about freedom and liberty back to Enlightenment thinkers of the 17th and 18th centuries, who argued that the individual is the true measure of human value, and each of us is naturally entitled to act in our own best interests free of interference by others.
Republicans and Tea Partiers as defenders of Enlightened values would make sense as part of a comedy routine. However, I’m not seeing huge respect for individual rights in the Republican Big Brother policies of extreme state intrusion into every aspect of citizens’ lives, including their internal organs and their beds.
As somebody who specializes on the Enlightenment, I fail to see even a minimal overlap between the Enlightened philosophy of the XVIIIth century and anything whatsoever in the Republican platform. Enlightened thinkers, for instance, lived and died for the separation between church and state. The entire era of the Enlightenment is one enormous attempt at liberating human beings from the shackles of religion.
What a stupid newspaper, seriously.
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