Citizens, Rejoice! The State Will Tell You What to Think!

So I have a question: What's wrong with Cindi Scoppe? I mean it. I'm really concerned.

It's pretty clear that she doesn't understand what it's like to live in an Open Society. It's as if she didn't grow up in a free country (so doesn't understand the blessings of liberty), nor did she grow up in a tyranny (so she can't understand what it's like to always have other people tell you what to do—at the barrel of a gun).

Since America is (still) a free country, I worry that Cindi Scoppe might have some trouble getting used to it.

I kid, I kid. But Cindi Scoppe's most recent article is truly bizarre. First, she attacks bloggers as "loud-mouthed know-it-alls on the political extremes who delight in their uninformed ignorance and spew disdain upon the rational among us who actually know what they’re talking about."

Now clearly, with regard to some bloggers, she's right. But, really, who else could she be talking about? Is she talking about Laurin Manning? Or Tim Kelly? Or Jeff Quinton?

Scoppe goes on for another few hundred words to herald how important it is for people to know what they're talking about. But, of course, Scoppe's idea of people "knowing what you're talking about" means that ordinary citizens can't simply talk about politics. It's not their area of expertise, you see. In order to talk about politics, you have to be a politician, or the editor of a newspaper, or, well, Cindi Scoppe.

When it comes to minor, unimportant concepts like a citizen's right to freedom of speech or public debate in a free country, Cindi Scoppe doesn't know what she's talking about.

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