Thad McCotter: We fit our mind to the world, not the world to our mind.

"Congressman, does this make marriage more or less appealing? More marriages where you toss the 'I'll be faithful' vow?" Greg Gutfeld teased an impassive, pink-tied Thaddeus McCotter on Red Eye a couple of weeks back. The MIchigan Congressman's answer nonplussed the assembled guests of Fox News's fast-moving NSFW wee-hour gabfest.

"Love is a very ephemeral, it is a very delicate flower, and you never know when it's going to bloom, not," deadpan comic/philosopher king Michigan Congressman Thaddeus McCotter shocked Greg Gutfeld's bleeding-edge irregulars on Red Eye the other night with an unexpectedly thoughtful and drawn-out answer to the host's toss-away question about celebrity marriage vows in Fox News's wee-hour theater of the absurd. The topic was what possible effects dropping the fidelity vow might have on marriage. McCotter expostulated:

And so I would think when you go into this, you go into it with your eyes open, and you take the person as they are, and you try to go from there …

In many ways we've become a generation or a nation that has traded romance for relationships, and this goes down the way where this is some scientific equilibrium you can keep between two people, and that's not how human beings work. And I think that the removal of that type of vow is an indication that somehow you have less than realistic expectations about [whether] human beings, sentient beings with hearts and with dreams and aspirations, can bond together or not."

McCotter's like that. Stands out in a crowd. He has a quiet, almost introspective way of public speaking that makes listeners lean in to hear what he has to say, the total opposite of the hand-pumping, in-your-face Mayor-Shinn-like bombast of old-fashioned rhetoricians like President Obama. Take McCotter's CPAC speech yesterday, where he expressed the same idea about our effanineffable human nature — those "sentient beings with hearts and with dreams and aspirations" — in a larger context:

Now the question is, what is the state of the movement, even post the election of Senator Brown?

I would argue it is strong, it is healthy. I would argue that we remain philosophical, not ideological because as those who've read Russell Kirk understand, conservatism is the negation of ideology. We fit our mind to the world, not the world to our mind.

It's the tragic view of human nature vs the utopian, the very foundation of this Shining City Upon a Hill, flogged here early and often.

Update: Maggie's links:

Our favorite Congressman, Thad McCotter, on love and sex.

See also the Congressman's interview at Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson, with thanks to Yehudit in the comments.

Comments

[Yehudit]

I love this guy. Watch his interview at Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson

[goomp]

Anyone who is not ignorant and unable to make reasonable analysis can see that a civilization based on family values will be stronger than one whose values are variable. Humans will at times fail to honor these values but saying that one should not have them as goals to strive for is supreme ignorance.

[Laura Lee Donoho]

I saw Congressman McCotter's appearance on Red Eye live. (or as live as you can be at that hour) He even had Greg Gutfeld nearly speechless (or as speechless as Greg Gutfeld can be) You could tell that the whole crew of Red Eye was also leaning in, waiting for the wise words that invariably come from the lips of such a sage. Thad McCotter is a treasure.

[Sissy Willis]

Laura Lee: Don't you LOVE the guy? He makes just about every other pol pale by comparison.

[KingShamus]

"I would argue that we remain philosophical, not ideological because as those who've read Russell Kirk understand, conservatism is the negation of ideology."

Yeah, McCotter is rad.

Mentioning Russell Kirk in a CPAC speech: WIN.

[Laura Lee Donoho]

McCotter reminds me of my paternal grandfather, a quiet, introspective kind of man but when he spoke everyone leaned in to listen to his words of eloquence.

Politically, McCotter reminds me of the late, great President Calvin Coolidge.