Sophistication or substance?
By Michael Moriarty
web posted November 1, 2010
The coming election – perhaps the most important mid-term election in American history – is only five days away. At the time of this article's appearance, it will only be one day away.
The polls predict not just a landslide victory for the Republicans but an "avalanche".
However, I am only interested in the outcome of Colorado's Amendment 62 bestowing "personhood" upon gestating infants at their creation and not upon a grotesquely arbitrary decision called the third trimester of gestation.
"Sophistication."
That is the only word that can describe the Progressive rationalizations for what amounts to murder. Progressives are just more "sophisticated" than the rest of us. To be "sophisticated" is to be Progressive.
The most sophisticated city in the world has, for the most part, been Paris, France. Despite the vibrancy of New York, the most sophisticated New Yorkers, from the readers of Vogue to those worshippers of the New York Times, generally hold Paris on a higher level than their own, limitlessly exciting city.
The real and, most significantly, the "Progressive" reason for that is the difference between the American and French Revolutions.
The American Revolution succeeded and out of it came the legendarily unsophisticated United States.
The French Revolution didn't so much fail as delay its ultimate triumph by raising the bar of its sophistication repeatedly.
What do I mean by that?
To put it succinctly, Napoleon's dream of complete world domination has always been the ultimate dream of the French Revolution.
Secretly the French can feel that the New World Order will primarily be a French achievement.
The Soviet Union and Maoist China, if seen through the eyes of that "most sophisticated" of French existentialists, the Communist Jean Paul Sartre, was the inevitable triumph of Robespierre.
A French version of Ronald Reagan, if you can believe it, was Charles De Gaulle.
De Gaulle arrived to declare a fine distinction between a French-style Revolution and the Communist Revolution. He wanted a Gaullist Revolution in the same way there came a Reagan Renaissance of Traditional American Values. With such an interruption, the French Revolution is now progressing in two separate directions: Gaullist and Communist. That can partly explain the protests going on in French streets.
President Nicholas Sarkozy is clearly more Gaullist than Communist.
Despite this French identity crisis, the worldwide French Revolution, in the guise of a "Progressive New World Order", is still Napoleonic but with Robespierre and his successors, Stalin and Mao Zedong, waiting in the wings.
Why?
The death toll from Progressive Abortion alone dwarfs not only the body count of the "Final Solution", it has by now surpassed the "cleansings" of the French guillotine and its inheritors, the Cultural Revolutions of both Stalin and Mao combined.
Legalized abortion in America began in 1967, six years before Roe v Wade was decided, legalizing abortion nationwide. Legalized abortion in the United States began in Colorado.
In this mid-term election, Amendment 62 is on the ballot to remind Coloradans of the meaning of "personhood". Personhood begins, according to the amendment, upon creation.
It doesn't mysteriously appear at the beginning of the third term of gestation because of some arbitrarily chosen moment of "viability".
However, as I've stated, my inability to "work with" the meaning of Roe v Wade clearly reveals my lack of sophistication.
What is sophistication?
It is the ability to "look the other way" but with a smile on your face and a witticism with which to entertain the "insiders"… all of whom, by pre-arrangement, are "looking the other way".
This Saturday, October 30, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will be at the Lincoln Monument to have a gathering of the "more sophisticated Americans".
It is anticipated to be a counter-protest, meant to challenge Glenn Beck's impressive half-million, generally pro-life conservatives and Tea Partiers, all of whom attended at Mr. Beck's request.
With two well-known, Progressive wits and satirists such as Stewart and Colbert, the afternoon should be filled with many more laughs and, need I say, much greater "sophistication" than Glenn Beck's prelude to the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
Does America really want sophistication in the midst of so many meat and potato issues, such as: "Where are the jobs?"
Sophisticated comedy.
Like Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Lady, sophisticated comedy must always have an inner code or set of chord changes that impress but mysteriously elude the simpler folk.
Here is where both Stewart and Colbert must draw the line. Where do those two comedians leave off the "inside jokes" in order to do the job they have been asked to do: counteract the Glenn Beck Fallout and draw new voters in to approve of the Obama Nation's Agenda. It will certainly be interesting to see how Stewart and Colbert perform tomorrow.
Can the general TV audience for that event grow up fast enough to stay with Stewart and Colbert's sophisticated badinage?
Or can Stewart and Colbert put the brakes on their own wit enough to be taken seriously by the kinds of simple folk that understand and greatly appreciate Glenn Beck's teaching abilities?
Sophistication or substance? Which will win?
My bet is on substance.
The intellectual supremacism of Stewart and Colbert is by now so international and "Internationalistic" that the old American terms of "city slickers" and "slick Willies" come to mind.
During the Great Depression, millions of Americans flocked to such entertainment in the movie houses, even when they could ill afford it. Running sophisticated comedy acts against the backdrop of the Lincoln Monument and the bloody gravitas of the Civil War?
Hmmm … we'll see. 
Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and Order from 1990 to 1994. His recent film and TV credits include The Yellow Wallpaper, 12 Hours to Live, Santa Baby and Deadly Skies. Contact Michael at rainbowfamily2008@yahoo.com.