Jim Webb and the Philosophical Pharisees--not Philosophical Fairies

Jim Webb and the Philosophical Pharisees--not Philosophical Fairies

Now, I have special loving feelings toward James Webb. I elected him to the U. S. Senate with my $100, the first time of only two that I have sent money out of state to a political candidate for anything but the highest office. I read and re-read BORN FIGHTING,  understanding, sympathizing, and a very few times envying (the times when Webb hears stories from his older kinfolks). I know how risky he was in describing Reconstruction, and I sympathize, because I have lived through the fierce self-righteousness of fanatical Political Correctness in the academy. But something seemed wrong on 244--the same page in the hardback and the paperback--something seemed nasty, cheap. Something did not seem to jibe with the Jim Webb I admire:

THE OCCUPIERS, THE POLITICAL REEDUCATORS WHO THIS TIME CALLED THEMSELVES RADICAL RECONSTRUCTIONISTS, THE PHILOSOPHICAL FAIRIES, THE CARPETBAGGER BUSINESSPEOPLE WITH THEIR GRAND PLANS AND SPECIAL DEALS . . . .

Now, my James Webb would never have said "the philosophical fairies." It's obviously offensive to homosexuals but more important it does not make any sense at all.

 I know exactly what he meant, and he did not mean fairies, folks. Any Southern Baptist and even Methodists would know what James Webb must have written or meant to write-- "the philosophical Pharisees."  Did he read this passage into a tape recorder? If so, whoever transcribed his dictation was not a student of the New Testament! Jim Webb meant “philosophical Pharisees.”