Remember Grandma's Advice: Never Argue With Drunk, Crazy or Stupid People

No, it's not you; there really is no point in trying to have a rational discussion with people who deny gravity.

tristero on the failure of movement conservatism to engage any ideas that don't fit into its dark, cramped worldview:

What Sanchez gets wrong, at least as far as I'm concerned - ie, as someone who neither seeks to, nor will engage neo-fascist movement conservatives beyond mockery and the expression of contempt - is the issue of insecurity. I, for one, am quite secure about the quality of my ideas. I am, however, quite terrified at the political insecurity not merely of liberal ideas, and not only of liberal politicians, but of liberal democracy itself. I mean that in the broadest sense of the term: what is sometimes called a democratic government, or more pretentiously, "the Enlightenment project," ie, a society that privileges reason over adherence to any specific religious creed, a society that governs itself rather than one that is constructed as the personal property of a single member of an aristocratic class.

I'm quite certain about the high intellectual quality of liberalism and the notion of a democratic republic. I am extremely uncertain, to paraphrase Franklin, about whether or not we can keep it.

As long as we continue to engage modern conservatives and take their ideas seriously, we continue to provide them intellectual and political status they neither deserve nor should have. Again: you don't argue theology with a Bible thumper who tells you the world was literally created in 6 days. Not even William Jennings Bryan was so ignorant and stupid. You laugh at him. And you most certainly make sure he gets nowhere close to obtaining a seat on a local school board, let alone hold national power. And, as Howard Dean so intelligently understood, you challenge the rightwing and Republicans everywhere.

Read the whole thing.