A rant about stupidity... and the coming civil war...
An article on Salon asks "Why Can't We Have Smarter Right Wingers?"
It's been my own stark plaint for a decade -- and not from any lefty reflex. Rather, as one who openly avows some libertarian and classic "conservative" views, sprinkled in a mostly-progressive goulash.
Shouldn't there be clear-headed voices, articulating the attractiveness of balanced budgets, national readiness, genuinely competitive free enterprise, and caution in international entanglements? Isn't it good to have someone in the room demanding: "Prove that something really is broken, before using the the blunt instrument of the state to fix it"?
I've long felt that the best minds of the right had useful things to contribute to a national conversation -- even if their overall habit of resistance to change proved wrongheaded, more often than right. At least, some of them had the beneficial knack of targeting and criticizing the worst liberal mistakes, and often forcing needful re-drafting.
That is, some did, way back in when decent republicans and democrats shared one aim -- to negotiate better solutions for the republic.
Does The New Right Even Have an Agenda Anymore?
Alas, today's Republican Establishment seems not only incapable but uninterested in negotiation or deliberation. It isn't just the dogmatism, or lockstep partisanship, or Koolaid fantasies spun -up by the Murdoch-Limbaugh hate machine. Heck, even though "culture war" is verifiably the worst direct treason against the United States of America since Fort Sumter, that isn't what boggles most.
It's the stupidity. The vast and nearly uniform dumbitudinousness of ignoring what has happened to conservatism, a transformation of nearly all of the salient traits of Barry Goldwater from:
* prudence to recklessness
* accountability to secrecy
* fiscal discretion to spendthrift profligacy
* consistency to hypocrisy
* civility to nastiness
* international restraint to recklessness
* efficiency to no-tomorrow wastrelness
* personal rectitude to flagrant licentiousness
* cleanliness to filthy habits
* logic to unreason
...and more, reversing:
* from respect for science to incantatory voodoo
* from an almost pedantic love of history to near total ignorance of the past
* from individual-based deliberation to lockstep party-line voting
* from belief in federalism and states' rights to excusing monolithic presidential power
* from negotiated problem-solving to strawman-based politics
* from a bookish love of statistics to justification by anecdote
* from country-first patriotism to the flagwaving kind that can instantly turn into rants about secession, the killing of civil servants and praying for the president to fail, even if that means the country going down with him.
This is not about classic left-vs-right anymore. (As if that metaphor ever held cogent meaning.) Not when every measure of national health that conservatives ought to care about -- from budget balancing to small business startups, to military readiness, to States' Rights, to the economy, to individual liberty, to control over immigration at our borders -- does vastly and demonstrably better under democrats. With nearly 100% perfection.
(Fact avoidance is even worse when you encompass ALL of history. Ask today's conservatives which force destroyed more freedom and nearly every competitive market, across 5,000 years. Which foe of liberty and enterprise did Adam Smith despise? Hint: it wasn't "socialism" or "government bureaucrats.")
No. Given their lack of any other tangible accomplishments across the last fifteen years, one must to conclude that the core agenda of Rush Limbaugh, Rupert Murdoch and their petroprince backers really is quite simple.
To find out just how far they can push "culture war" toward a repeat of 1861.
Is the Agenda Civil War?
Does that sound florid and paranoid? Well, I do try to be entertaining!
Anyway, bear with me a bit, because the parallels are eerie. Not only on the geographical electoral map, but in the way that vast swathes of the South would only see or hear just one point of view (in uniformly pro-slavery newspapers, back in 1861, or via talk radio today), or propounded from every white pulpit -- an incessant drumbeat of regional, ethnic and partisan hatred. With predictable results: the demolition of national discourse, along with the murder of census workers and the bubbling froth of a new wave of Timothy McVeighs.
Obviously, this is blatantly the agenda of Murdoch and Limbaugh and their foreign backers, since they do not even offer their own measures or agenda for deliberative negotiation with the party and president chosen by the American majority. They never even try to assert that any tangible improvements in national health occurred during their long tenure in power. Indeed, can you name any effective accomplishment -- consistently pursued and unambiguously achieved -- other than to push America toward Civil War?
Why they have been doing this is open to speculation. I have my theories. You may have yours.
But even without knowing their true motives, one can look ahead to outcomes. And so, I have to ask these fellows one question --
Let's say that you succeed. Suppose, driven by your potent and effective propaganda, America's "red" population rises up and Culture War finally goes all out... do you actually think that subsequent events will be to your liking?
The Mistake Made by All Our Enemies
Step back for a minute and note an important piece of psychohistory -- that every generation of Americans faced adversaries who called us "decadent cowards and pleasure-seeking sybarites (wimps), devoid of any of the virtues of manhood."
Elsewhere, I mark out this pattern, showing how every hostile nation, leader or meme had to invest in this story, for a simple reason. Because Americans were clearly happier, richer, smarter, more successful and far more free than anyone else. Hence, either those darned Yanks must know a better way of living (unthinkable!)... or else they must have traded something for all those surface satisfactions.
Something precious. Like their cojones. Or their souls. A devil's bargain. And hence -- (our adversaries told themselves) -- those pathetic American will fold up, like pansies, as soon as you give them a good push.
It is the one uniform trait shown by every* vicious, obstinate and troglodytic enemy of the American Experiment. A wish fantasy that convinced Hitler and Stalin and the others that urbanized, comfortable New Yorkers and Californians and all the rest cannot possibly have any guts, not like real men. A delusion shared by King George, the plantation-owners, the Nazis, Soviets and so on, down to Saddam and Osama bin Laden. A delusion that our ancestors disproved time and again, decisively -- though not without a lot of pain
But let's get back to my question for Murdoch and Limbaugh and their puppetmasters. All right, so you are pushing us toward another 1861, betting that we'll tear ourselves to shreds, and that the "red" portion will dominate whatever's left standing.
But do you even remember what happened in 1862? In 1863 and 1864 and 1865?
(A side bet? Ask any of the flagwaving jingo-patriots you know, "Have you ever fantasized about riding with Nathan Bedford Forest?" (Name's unfamiliar? Wiki him and read it all.) My experience, asking that question? A shockingly high percentage of the loudest "patriots" have daydreamed about riding with that brilliant traitor, cutting down their fellow citizens -- both blue and black -- with a whoop and a holler, while screaming damnation at the United States of America. Some patriots.)
Have They Really Thought It Out?
But all right, Rush and Rupert and Sean and Glenn and Tafik. Go ahead. Push hard enough to finally wake up the real United States -- the "Blue America" that seems all mushy because it always tries reason first. The citified sophisticates who have, for generations, sent vast net-flows of their taxes toward the red counties that then bit that generous hand with rants about the "decadent cities..." even though those cities have proved to be more moral, by far. (Compare rates of divorce, domestic violence, teen sex, STDs and yes, even abortion!)
Even though those cities are the front lines in the modern war on terror. Even though it was city folk who proved their courage and resilience, standing up for their country on 9/11.
Remember what finally happened almost a century and a half ago, Rush. Pushed too far, and as a last resort, those "decadent" Americans rose up. They donned that color blue and wore it proudly to defend the Union -- and the dream -- with their very lives.
(And this isn't just regionalist bigotry, speaking. In every state of the Confederacy -- except South Carolina -- regiments of volunteers marched off to wear blue and fight for the country they had given sacred oaths to defend, showing even more courage than boys from Indiana or Maine. Ultimately, it wasn't North vs South, but about future vs. past. And many southern college towns are as eagerly-forward-looking as any places on the planet.)
So, Sean and Glenn. Do you have any solid reason to believe things will go differently, this time? That we, the heirs of Fremont and Hancock, are made of lesser stuff? Really? You think so?
Well, you seem determined to find out. So keep pushing. The Union will awaken. It always has. We always will.
Is it Useless To Say Any Of This?
Folks, the truth is, these guys really haven't thought it out.
It's never occurred to them, for example, to ponder the reason why liberals aren't even tepidly trying to pass Gun Control laws, anymore. Because, after eight years of power-grabbing, centralization and abuse by the Bushite Cabal, they came to realize that they might need protection and militia recourse, someday, after all. Especially at a time when their red neighbors are packing away bullets so fast that the factories have to work overtime, while screeching about using violence against their own freely-elected government.
No, Hannity & co haven't thought that out, so wedded are they to the Decadence Assumption. The smugly satisfying but ultimately fatuous notion that wimpy cowardice is all you can expect from anyone with a post-graduate degree. (Tell it to Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Tell it to George Marshall.)
Why Do All Fools Think They Are Wise?
And so we have circled back to where we started -- the sad decline of American conservatism into cartoonish idiocy. The puppeteers may be rich. They may be talented provocateurs and con artists... but talent does not equate to brains. Not when the GOP has driven off almost everybody in America who actually knows stuff, including nearly all the scientists, the skilled innovators, and most of the U.S. Officer Corps.
Alas. This is no longer even about "conservatism" anymore. Barry Goldwater lived long enough to denounce what he saw happening to his beloved movement, and things have plummeted even farther, since that great man died
Nowadays, bottom-to-top -- and especially at the very top -- it is all about stupidity.
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* Oh. There was one exception to the rule that all our foes have committed the Decadence Assumption. Ho Chi Minh never underestimated America. His avowed hero was George Washington and he remained in awe of the U.S., all his life. He remains the only enemy leader who ever defeated us at war, and then only because our hubris (not decadence) got the better of us.
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Runaway Serfer
Joan Walsh
Kerry Lauerman
Salon.com
Comments
The neocon elite counts on a continuing supply of dumbed down working class military recruits, filled out if necessary by an endless supply of young Mexican males who can form a US Foreign Legion to fight America's imperial wars of the 21st century...backed up by advanced tech, robotics, drones, etc., the US GOP influenced Establishment can afford to act counter productively at home, pursue divisive policies, and get away with it because the cumulative organizational, industrial, techno might of the US is sufficient to pre-dominate in any conceivable setting...there ain't no barbarians at the gates, as faced the Roman Empire, to act as a wake up call to the elites to change their decadent ways.
And the psychological manipulation of the masses will continue, and the Repubs may actually gain support as they play out the trope of Obama....the Magic Negro who has devolved into a Sambo.
Can you play Nero's fiddle as common sense burns?
You are so correct, but I'd like to add a few things. One of the things that is operational here is fear. The economy breeds fear, and the Murdochs of the world manipulate that fear for their own self-interest. The danger to Murdoch is, that this fear can be easily turned and used by others. For example, the conservative wing of the Democrat party could target the Holocaust Museum killer and the Kentucky census worker killers, making them poster boys the way Lee Atwater and G.W.H. Bush did with Willie Horton. And right wing extremism will become more of a priority for our law enforcement community in the future, as the political extremism of these vipers undergoes inbreeding, becoming more extreme and violent in the process. Just as the New Left died in the early 1970s, we can expect to see the Crazy Right follow the same trajectory.
As to regionalism, the future of America depends on its economic health. If our health deteriorates enough, there might be more intense regional conflicts, but this would increase the chances of a new constitutional convention. Although as an American, I receive all of the benefits of US capitalist-imperialism, at some point, under some circumstances, I would be only too happy to see the South secede from the Union and go its merry way. If they did, the rest of the US would get national health care (guaranteed!), and we'd fight in fewer wars in the long run.
Regarding civil war, which it does seem they're nudging, my big fear is that they've imagined they'll be “greeted as liberators” and will find themselves in charge. I don't think they understand that war involves a natural amount of chaos, and many of them are as likely to be casualties themselves as heroes and rulers of what follows. Not to mention the fact that if our nation started to decay visibly in any way, we'd probably immediately be occupied by foreign governments insisting on protecting their investments. They may be willing to play hands off just now because they don't want to destabilize things, but once it's not stable, I think there are a lot more options. Further, I think any America not under central command would be an immediate security threat to the world under pretty much the same rationale as we're always citing about other countries—that bombs need to be in the safe hands of a stable government where rogue elements are not able to act independently, etc. It seems, as you say, extraordinarily poorly thought out, and yet it seems to be playing just as you say. Scary.
I was also just listening to the audiobook of Blackwater, and a small observation made early on in the book continues to echo in my mind—the notion that certain people define democracy as dead when they no longer get their way. That is, there seemed to be a preconception that democracy is “the thing that gets me what I'm used to” and that when things change, democracy must have broken. This reduces democracy from being a tool for serving the majority to instead being a tool of a specific majority to justify why it gets to stay in power. So when that power is threatened, another tool needs to be found to implement and justify that party's continued rule. That's a terrible recipe for disaster.
I refer you, by the way, to my post from last election season, An Inconvenient Hate. It seems suddenly relevant again in this context.
Enjoyed, & rated. Thanks for articulating the situation so well.
I don't agree with the view that government involvement is necessarily bad -- this is how humans & our cultures have evolved to deal with things after all. I'd much rather be governed via an enlightened democratic state in which I have some say than any form of autocracy, whether political or economic. Far better to have government involvement & appropriate regulation than to be ruled at the whims of the mega-corporations.
A second point: the statement that "Americans were clearly happier, richer, smarter, more successful and far more free than anyone else" is an overstatement at best, although more true at some times than others. Comparison with the Western European nations is instructive. "Happier" is probably not true; "richer" often true as an average, though not when comparing impoverished groups; "smarter" probably not true; "more successful" possibly true but difficult to judge; and "far more free" is highly debatable. Americans certainly haven't been 'clearly' those things, as the post suggests. It becomes easier to support those statements if you're comparing the US with its more recent enemies or with 3rd World countries, of course.
Third, it's hard to buy this post's gun control argument: that liberals have given up on gun control so as to stock up on guns themselves, to meet conservatives with force. That seems a bit silly. It seems more likely that liberals have generally accepted the logic of sacrificing gun control as a political issue as part of the price of national electability, following the example of Bill Clinton (and have done since the early 1990s). Gun control is a big enough problem for enough voters that mainstream left-wing politicians generally don't try to push it. Instead, politicians from both sides engage in hunting photo-ops to show their rural American bona fides.
This post is quite correct, I think, regarding the larger point that current conservative goals don't take proper account of urban and left-wing strengths and values. I suspect the failure to understand the flaws in recent conservative ideology goes hand in glove with this failure. After all, if you really believe that left-wing ideas are weak, stupid and decadent, then it makes sense to discount liberals as weak, stupid and decadent as well.
Oh, but it has, it has. It has been fantastically successful in the one thing it wanted, which is the real key to why they are doing this.
But you won't be able to see it until you go to Jackson Hole. Or Aspen. Or Vail. Or any picturesque mountain near a ski resort out West. Or to Miami, or Kiawah, or any piece of unprotected beach property along the coasts.
There you will see the 35,000 square foot vacation homes of the mega-rich, sitting empty 51 weeks of the year, ruining the wild beauty that once existed (and that once upon a time, you could have walked through untrammeled with your beloved, and your children could have skipped through, looking for fossils or seashells and clams) .
The whole purpose of the Republican Revolution from 1981 on was to repeal the Great Leveling that occurred from 1933 to 1973, that made America a middle-class nation and put a ceiling on outrageous wealth. The Republican Revolution succeeded on its own terms, only its terms were never very public. Its true purpose was to turn millionaires in mega-millionaires and billionaires. It was to allow the Walton boys to be worth, what $20 billion? $50 billion?
What can anyone do with that much money, other than to become either a one-man NGO (as Gates, laudably, has become) or a James Bond-style Goldfinger villain?
They succeeded brilliantly.
What's scary is, if the economy doesn't improve, and if Obama and the feckless Democrats don't start proving that they are very very different from the GOP, Rush and Beck and the whole gang could sow the seeds for a demagogue to rise up in America. And that would be terrifying.
At that point, the megarich might discover that they created a monster they can't control.
"Reading is fundamental." Remember that line from the RIF children's literacy program? Adults should sign up too.
Great post. (Rated)
But it is troubling that most am radio nowadays is contolled by these idiots.
Grab grab grab... wait... we are out of x? (tuna, gold whatever... in this case it is power).
The French Revolution, the greed of Spain with the new world / Inquisition, we are good at it as a species. Push, push, push until something snaps.
The salad days will go on forever... until they don't.
The short term over the long term... gets us every time, and probably will continue to do so. Who thinks about oil from day to day? ... tuna, climate change, asteroids? (I'm hungey, excuse al lthe tuna references).
Every day will be as good as today... at least until the people stuck in the same horrible Groundhog Day over and over get sick of things and decide to change stuff (and start a NEW way for things to always be the same forever).
As you said, it isn't about being conservative, liberal, or anything else. It is about being whomever they are... Senator from X, Radio personality for Y. The positions don't mater, but their POSITION (in society) does.
Of course we all desperately want to be part of "us" (as defined by the cool kids)... rather than be one of "them" (whoever they are).
it is the kind of thing that gets to civil wars in the end (or other wars). The sides are not talking to each other, but rather AT each other. The cold war broke down and everyone started talking TO each other (at least until the missile shield thing tried a callback to the "good 'ol days").
I think that in the past Americans were a bit quicker to break out of historical ruts. We prided ourselves on it, and it was that adaptability and maybe reckless disregard that Ho Chi Mihn admired. With our seriously mashed up society, we had advantages over a lot of the more traditional countries.
We've been around long enough now that we have stagnated into a dream of life after WWII. We still think we are the people that did all those great/horrible/incredible things, but in the end are just people scraping by and shopping at Costco for toilet tissue and making fancier cell phones.
The people at the top of the monetary food chain are sitting on the creative people. Unfortunately the bread and circuses are getting too expensive for the population.
I'm waiting for the critical stress moment, when the pressure causes it all to SNAP, and for the American spirit to solve this problem. It could be anything from Election Reform to Revolution, but some of these guys will be the first to be duct-taped to the wall nekkid (upside down) on You-tube when the revolution comes.
it ain't necessarily so. but there is no marx, no proudhon, no ghandhi, all there is , is sniping at personalities. but no amount of invective will get done the aspirations of a nation, if the tools of political action are inadequate. we are using the social structure of a baboon tribe to run america, and over population is increasing the resultant failures to dangerous levels, perhaps even extinction.
the right is stupid, the left not much better, and no one mentions that the laws of the nation were crafted on models from feudal times. let's hear some new ideas, because name-calling isn't gonna get it done.
There really doesn't seem to be a consistent core other than hatred and chauvinism, and I think we ennoble these folks too much when we called them conservatives.
The conservatives are now trading on the politics of fear, gambling that as long as they can keep Americans ignorant and scared, they can do as they like -- feeding the wallets of their supporters and thier egos.
The problem is that the human soul is built for courage, not fear. Our whole existence and evolution has been about that transformative journey out of fear. These new conservatives are not just standing in the way of progress, they are standing in the way of the human spirit itself.
I've heard people say that. Maybe I should have said we are the government until "they" take it back and frog-march (wonderful image) us toward big bro. However, I still think plots and conspiracies are more the right wing's style.
Most of the "wise" gurus and sages of the past were incapable of saying those words and meaning them. Certainly that jerky muppet Yoda never does! But I do... and I hunger to satisfy the one trait most typical of true citizens of the Enlightenment. What trait? Other cultures had compassion (though we have more). Others had honesty (and we need lots more). But none other ever made CURIOSITY a central theme. It is our most admirable hallmark -- the one trait that EVERYBODY agrees George Bush entirely lacked. And the wellspring of our wisdom.
Could all that I just said be just my own rationalized incantation, to deflect your rebuke and convince myself that I am more wise than foolish? SURE! But then... um... didn't I just now say the wise thing? (We could go round and round... all day! ;-)
Oh, Your initial statement is plain wrong. Stupid, obstinate and vicious minded people who happen to say something that is true... that doesn not make them right. Accidents happen.
" It is the one uniform trait shown by every* vicious, obstinate and troglodytic enemy of the American Experiment."
One of the most genius lines I have read at OS. Truly. I see it as an American experiment as well because it was meant to evolve - and so much about conservatism forgets that. You can be "conservative", in this current governmental schema, and use your voice to bring about prudent change. I WANT that from conservatives...it is frustrating they have become have become fragile, dogmatic servants to a few pundity loud mouths. They have lost the ability to legislate. Goldwater is rolling over like a tornado in his grave. (Rated).
Noni, please, you just illustrate the very point of what is frustrating with the right - you insult without even trying to bring something to the table to discuss. I will give you credit for at least being good at it - much better than your contemporaries. Secretly - I think you are a man behind that picture - which makes me laugh every time you joke with the boys around here about taking off your clothes.
Thank God?
I sometimes wonder what would have happened had the rogue states been allowed to secede. My suspicion is that Mexico would extend to the Mason-Dixon line and the Blue States would have eventually formed some tighter alliance or incorporation with our rational neighbor to the north. At least these "faith-based" (anti-reason) folks would have a chance to freely live the dysfunctional life they crave. And I suspect the north would still have a "border problem".
Is this culture war worth fighting? Should we try to save these people from themselves? Or should we just quarantine this madness where it's no threat to us?
I agree with the arc of this and most of the particulars But I think there is something unique happening here.
Until now, the dumb-as-rocks aspect undoes these movements, but each upsurge shows frightening aspects, like the military brilliance of Lee and German corporate support of early Hitler.
What's happening this time is a perfect storm of near invincible mega-corporations and aligned interests, with brownshirt thuggery mentality. It's as if what their frontmen are fomenting is racist/nostalgic populism but with a huge budget and an encroaching media control.
This dooms us, unless we win or stabilize on many fronts:
1. Net neutrality
2. Media trustbusting
3. Divorcing retail and equity/commercial banking
4. Permanent FBI-strength enforcement and technology against corporate fraud and polluters (no more bush-style lax enforcement or lease giveaways; it should be as inviolable as Social Security, because control over fuel trumps all)
5. Re-define Conservatism in positive terms, as a fundamental policy philosophy that elevates sustainability (I'll bet a half-dozen of us here on OS could write the definitive POSITIVE Conservative web site and platform, articulating the real vulnerabilities of liberalism in productive terms! ironic,that)
Our most crucial accomplishment would be to have a mainstream, moderate-policy-based success like the Public Option. Why? Liberalism must be un-demonized; progressive, trust-busting , worker-supportive ideas MUST re-gain traction.
By the way, I don't think we can ignore that, beginning with Reagan, the GOP has rallied hard to get the votes of the crazy, Christian conservative. When you start engaging people who look to the Bible as the only source of wisdom, you can't be surprised when the end result is stupidity. That's not to knock Christianity, I add myself to its believers, but that particular type of Christian brings both "crazy" and "stupid" to the table.
I tend to believe that the rabid discourse from the right is motivated more by $$ than by wanting to incite a new civil war. Controversy sells. The truly scary thing is that too many people listen to the hyperbole and repeat it like gospel. I believe Friedman and perhaps others have written columns about the risk of inciting violence. My fear is that someone will listen to one of these "carnie" guys; grab a gun and take on some mission like he was " the chosen one." If you want to look at history there are too many examples of this in our shared history here in the U.S. I worry for the safety of our leaders when the discourse becomes so vitriolic.
I wonder if the propensity for multi-syllabic phrasing might be off-putting to candid discourse. (Oops, now you have me doing it too.) Those who would be most offended by the more scathing criticisms writ herein will not even be able to get past the first few paragraphs. Intelligent debate requires people to educate themselves, read and listen to more than one viewpoint.
I appreciate greatly that you have given us much to think about. Thanks too for a chance to express some of my own thoughts.
I'm guessing by now the author wishes he had used "insurrection," "guerrilla war," or something like that instead of "Civil War" which, at the same time, insults his admirers from the South and overlooks the wingnuts in the big cities of the North.
Altogether let’s recite
A short re Orientation rite
all face Mecca, to the east
Among Islam’s cities not the least
Except you’ve fared past Mecca;s Light,
Then you must Occident to the Right
Two wrongs don’t make a Right, but two Lefts do
Two Rights don’t make a Wrong, but “Too Right” does
Two Rights don’t make Right. But two Rights often become just a Rite
The upholding of these Rights is not just in observing the Rite,
but in affirming the Rightness of the Right
anything Left is, by definition, Sinister
Liberty and Justice for all, like Civility, cannot be enforced, but can only be encouraged
“Pour encourager les autres” is not real encouragement
Neither can you encourage anyone with mere reason, being encouraged is, by definition,
not a matter of the mind
If you would engage me in reason, don’t leap upon me
Good manners make good neighbors
Am I Right? Of course I’m Right
For when I find I am wrong,
I re Occident. my views
There is a saying left over from the 60’s protests about the difference between Communism and Capitalism, which is that under Capitalism Man exploits Man, but under Communism, it is the other way around.
Those of us who then, as individualists, protested the destruction of civil rights by the federal government, used it as a kind of “Motto” to distinguish ourselves from those protestors who wanted a Communist revolution.
The “Trick” in the saying is to mind “Das Capitalization”
Properly written It is: Under Capitalism, man exploits Man(kind)
Under Communism, it is the other way around.
(Mankind exploits man)
As Individualists, (like our Founding Fathers) we realize that each and every one of us is a “man”, but he who claims to speak for “Man(kind)”, is simply another “man” wanting to exploit “Man”, only on a different level.
“Left” and “Right”, as Labels, chase each other around like the Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat.
I have always differentiated the political leanings as “Individualist” or “Collective”
One must recognize that some things are best done as individuals, and some are best done as a group. Neither view is always Right. (or Left)
If you would engage me in meaningful discourse, don’t insult me, lest I take that as your proper form of address and reply in kind.
A riddle: If the proper form of address for a Frenchman is “Monsieur”, and the proper form of address for a German is “Mein Herr” what is the proper form of address for a Redneck?
Stay Back, I’ve got a gun.
So I have to agree with my mate, who says that Lincoln's biggest mistake - the one that got him assasinated - was insisting the Confederacy rejoin the United States. Southerners have been threatening to secede since Andrew Jackson was President. I say let them go.
And good riddance.
I, too, have been concerned by the parallels to the buildup to the Civil War. I see it all around me -- including in the discussions among on the blogs, and in amongst my friends on Facebook. Remember how the Civil War had brother against fighting brother?
These days, I fear it may be fought in a more distributed fashion, as homebrew terrorism, than by kids marching through muddy fields. Unfortunately, I think that makes it more likely we WILL see it turn into an armed conflict, because, as others have found elsewhere, terrorism is easier. Cowardice is easier than anything requiring courage -- including non-violent but determined opposition.
One thing you don't mention is the role of political parties in fomenting all of this. George Washington warned us in his Farewell Address, and he was dead on the money -- no pun intended.
Party Loyalty is the enemy of actual consideration of the issues.
Okay. But if they leave, they have to leave the Gulf Coast behind. You can play it like a scene from The Road Warrior. Just leave the Gulf Coast. We'll spare your lives.
For example, the way to reduce government meddling -- according to Barry Goldwater -- was not to screech uselessly at agencies like the FTC, OSHA, FDA etc... but instead to create alternative, market-driven solutions to the same problems.
Bear with me a bit. Goldwater realized that almost the entire insurance industry had been "captured" by cheating collusion that lets companies garner profits without competing much with each other. Logically, insurance companies should compete to make their clients live longer! And thus make money by having to pay out less often. Alas, except for Underwriters Labs and industrial Fire Insurance... the whole Insurance Industry has grown lazy, uncompetitive.

In other words, instead of the drooling hypocrisy of most conservatives and libertarians __ who screech that the FDA, FTC and other agencies should be torn down first, crying "the market will then solve all problems!" -- BG said:

"Hey, let's push business to compete with government solutions, and maybe the government solution will THEN wither away."

And in fact, that is precisely what happened, after he helped to usher in relaxation of laws concerning parcel post. Result? Fedex and UPS surged and the Postal Service now struggles even to stay in that business! All it took was some clever re-adjusting of market rules. NOT demolishing the Postal Service first, which dingbat libbies rant for.
I go into this a lot elsewhere:..http://www.davidbrin.com/libertarian1.html
But of course, you'll get none of this from today's "conservatives." The State of Arizona is drawing half of its electrical power from coils set in place around the spinning in Goldwater's grave.
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Noni... we are genetically cavemen. Our inbred government pattern is feudalism and we are all descended from the harems of rapist kings. With all that going against us, the Enlightenment is a freaking miracle! Stop carping at us smart ones and start proving you are one of us! Start by paraphrasing the interesting arguments you hear, especially the ones that surprise you and make you think and research and grow. Then come back here and actually, cogently ARGUE with us!
Billy, I have tried for years to avoid the inevitable conclusion that we are - in fact - spiralling toward Civil War Part III.
Token, I agree that there are few metaphors more stupid (and French) than the hoary/stupid/almost-meaningless "left-right axis"
see: http://issuepedia.org/2006-02-18_Models,_Maps_and_Visions_of_Tomorrow/text
DJohn you are an asshole. I did not call Ho Chi Minh a "hero." I called him a smart and savvy foe who did not fall for the usual mistake of underestimating America. anyone who thinks that having a clear-eyed respect for your enemy is treason is proved to be a total idiot.... like those jingoist lame brains who lost the Vietnam War.
But what's more significant is your behavior. You took an interpretation that was illogical and diametrically opposite to my meaning, IN ORDER to feel smug about yourself and to dismiss your adversary (me) without thinking about the actual topic.
Thanks for ILLUSTRATING the actual topic of this essay.
I am sitting here staring at your comment and there it is, the problem in a nutshell.
1. "He remains the only enemy leader who ever defeated us at war..."
This is a FACT, not a value judgment. Asserting it does not mean one sees Ho as a hero.
2. " ...and then only because our hubris (not decadence) got the better of us. "
This is a FACT -- a debatable one, certainly, in the phrasing of it. But symantics aside, it is true that we over-estimated our abilities to conduct a winnable ground war in adverse (dense wet hot jungle) environs, with a hostile populace, and no formal congressional declarations and all the material and moral support that comes with it. "Hubris" is a defensible word choice for this factual analysis. And the idea that "decadence" was a Marxist complaint against us so surely you don't mean to say we were decadent. Asserting our "hubris" does not mean one sees Ho as a hero; it doesn't even mean you are of the Left.
3. Brian also cites how Ho admired George Washington, tho you don't. Just to complete the thought, this is FACT, well-d0cumented.
So you conclude:
"It figures you would see it that way. So Ho Chi Minh is a hero. Classic."
Tis non-sequitor, I submit.
I assume the best about you: that you are not "trolling" here, despite the appearances, and that you earnestly wish a deliberative encounter. If your point is this seems a typical "left" or liberal essay, make the point more effectively? Cite a credible example?
Otherwise, let me chide you: I "admire" Ho Chi Minh's effectiveness as a guerrilla leader the way I "admire" Red Cloud of the Lakota as the only Indian leader in the 1800s who fought the cavalry to a standstill.
Otherwise, Ho Chi Minh was a Marxist stooge, in the thrall of Mao, and thus part of the single most murderous regime -- communism -- of the 20th century.
I think you need to update your copy of the Left's vitae. Most of us laid aside the SDS bullshit in 1970, if we ever subscribed to it all.
Everything used to be better in the republican memory.
The corollary: "Give the GOP another chance. This time they'll get it right!"
Your own principles barely sound good on paper, but you'll never ever find a politician who would enact them if he could.
It is to the advantage of an educated elite rich class to keep middle class people uninformed, so we won't be able to effectively oppose legislation that harms us. But this is a deeply stupid method of maintaining power, because long-term the EERC is building a nation in which it will need bodyguards to get from house to car and back.
My favorite joke as someone who supported, but was not quite old enough to vote for Goldwater (voting age 21 back then) Is this, circa 1968:
They told me that if I voted for Goldwater, within 3 years we would be involved in an un-winable ground war in Southeast Asia
I voted for Goldwater,
and sure enough, we are
As that applies to the current debate, I view Johnson as the first in a continuous line of administrations who decided that their employers, the American Citizen, “can’t handle the truth”
Which also means that, conveniently enough, while they were lying to us for our own good about the war, we also might as well realize that there are other areas where They, the Government, will tell We the People, what’s best for us and impose it, rather than bothering with any details like Rights or personal preference.
So what’s new?
I’m not noticeably any dumber than any of my fellow opponents of Big Government,
it aint bein dumb,-
I admit I was taken in a bit by that whole “Hope and Change” thing
I actually held my nose and voted for Obama
(Rather than Forcing down my “Vomit” reflex and voting for McCain)
What it IS, is not trusting Government to have anything other than its own interests and those of their multinational corporate and banking interests at heart (Can you say “Halliburton”?
How about AIG and Goldman Sachs? And while we’re at it how about George Soros?)
And that didn’t change with Obama’s election.
And I don’t see it changing anytime soon.
Johnson? The first?!?!
Man, are you a starry-eyed idealist. Google Guatemala, coup. Google Smedley Butler. Google Phillipines, Hearst...o man the list is just way too long.
I admire your mind. You write like someone who thinks. But you also sound like someone who might be taking the easy way out -- Acute Libertarianism -- relying on "a pox on all their houses, none of 'em are any damn good", instead of deliberating patiently.
Politicians disappoint. Surprise, surprise. As if it could be any other way with human beings, or as if that excuses us from parsing the incremental good and bad of each elected official.
At the very least, Obama talks to us like adults. And assumes our best intentions. Once -- if -- he finally transmutes Gitmo, gets SOME kind of half-assed health plan thru, I will be happier about him.
Goldwater matured, too, not just us:
"However, on religious issues there can be little or no compromise.
There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.'
Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even
more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every
religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today:
I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their
moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.' "
He said that in 1981. If he had said it in '63 he would have never survived the primaries.
I didn’t say Johnson was the first to misinform and misdirect the American Public, I view him as the first to view “Lying” as part and parcel of Government, rather than a necessary occasional evil that one hoped one wasn’t caught out in- the beginning of, if you will, misinformation as Policy. I also take into account that, even though “mass media” was existant before Johnson, as newspaper and later radio, it wasn’t until the instant “Battlefield in your Living Room” of television news coverage that it became “Necessary” to lie to the public on a daily basis. Nor was it really possible before the “Mad Men” television advertising geniuses, to lie so convincingly to the public.
I am not except loosely, a libertarian. I am what I can only describe as an Individualist,
Perhaps a (Teddy )Roosevelt Republican, or a Jeffersonian Liberal.
I recognize a need for some government, hence I am not an anarchist, but I strongly believe that all rights are individual, and stem from individual liberty. There is no collective “Right’, only authority as yielded by individuals of their own free will.
I believe that the best government is the least government.
Take some comfort from the Kennedy years. Back then you had crazy governors who had armies -- not just missile battalions -- they could command. Kennedy was able to avoid a confrontation between guard troops and the regular army, much less some kind of war. Today, the governors aren't as nuts, the Guard is part of the "war on terror" and there is plenty of diversity in the South. Underground is where we have to look for the crazy people. Maybe even under NYC, down there with the subways.
* prudence to recklessness
(All-in programs and legislative initiatives without assimilating contrary points of view or listening to opposing, logical fact based
positions; passing 1000+ page bills in days without reading them, etc.)
* accountability to secrecy
(Hiding everything from current White House visitor logs to appointment of dozens of Czars)
* fiscal discretion to spendthrift profligacy
(Congress under Democrat control since 2007 and the current administration rate of spend dwarfs any historical precedent.)
* consistency to hypocrisy
(Too numerous to mention, but you can start with the mortgage marketplace interference by the government.)
* civility to nastiness
(Somehow the left forgets the personalization of issues starting in the 1960's and the continuation of it through subsequent decades and Republican administrations. Insults and death threats have been part and parcel of the left's public pronouncements for 40 years.)
* international restraint to recklessness
(America has been involved in innumerable "small wars" throughout its history. No single party has been the sole instigator of foreign interventions. Today recklessness can be demonstrated through a failure to act, or through undercutting historical ties with allies and casting doubt about the position of this nation on critical issues.)
* efficiency to no-tomorrow wastrelness
(Despite the protestations of Pelosi, the Dems have not been a party of pay to go and still aren't. I refer anyone to the current health care debates where CBO estimates of large continuing deficits related to the proffered plans are dismissed out of hand.)
* personal rectitude to flagrant licentiousness
(Each party has its own icons of licentiousness - equally bad and disgusting in their personal behaviors.)
* cleanliness to filthy habits
(Most on the Right bath as often as those on the Left as far as I know..)
* logic to unreason
("I won" = "Because I said so" in reasoning power. "Because we can" or "Because we can envision it we can/should do it" are also favored by the left. Or the all time, all purpose "It is Bush's fault". Too often someone who refuses to agree with a left proposition is said to be unreasonable on the face of it. Perhaps we can agree that well intentioned people can have equally valid world views that are not in alignment. It doesn't mean that either is being unreasonable.
...and more, reversing:
* from respect for science to incantatory voodoo
(OK, the right seems to have a lock on this..or maybe not. Research the origins of the data used by the IPCC on climate change, embryonic versus adult stem cell usefulness, alternative energy, etc. and ask if turning a blind eye to facts is the sole province of the Right.)
* from an almost pedantic love of history to near total ignorance of the past
(Wilson jailing dissidents who opposed his war plans, Sanger's Negro Project, Roosevelt's setting aside the Constitution because it was too darn constraining, the New Deal prolonging the Great Depression, the Progressive movement's historical association with unsavory characters and ideals, the debilitating affects of the Great Society programs on minority communities, etc.)
* from individual-based deliberation to lockstep party-line voting
(Can you say Nancy Pelosi? Look at the number of straight party line votes by Dems in the past 3 years. Or in the past 3 months on the health care issue in committees.)
* from belief in federalism and states' rights to excusing monolithic presidential power
(Is the correct spelling Tsar or Czar? Yes, it all started with Reagan, but it has hit its peak under the new administration that touts openness and accountability. Look at the movement being made by the EPA, the FCC and other executive branch agencies in promulgating significant new rules. Look at Congress writing legislation that abdicates not only rule making authority but funding authority to the executive branch - in violation of the Constitution.
* from negotiated problem-solving to strawman-based politics
(Seriously? Do you remember the debates over the past twenty years about Social Security or Medicare? The evil Republicans were going to cut Social Security payments or prevent seniors from getting medical treatment. Corpses would be clogging the streets. Ditto on defense, education, agriculture and virtually any other issue that came before Congress. Every time Republicans wanted to slow the rate of growth of a program, the Dems would launch a PR campaign saying Republicans were cutting the program and the apocalypse was near.
* from a bookish love of statistics to justification by anecdote
(I recall during the 2008 election campaign Hillary and Barack were also ponying up one anecdote after another in justification for their proposals. Since January nothing has changed. This week Obama hosted some MDs at the White House as proof that doctors prefer his (?) health care plan. The White House forgot to mention that the attendees were hand picked from a group of MDs that actively campaigned for Obama last year. The statistics revealed by a recent IBD poll showed substantial opposition by doctors across the country to the extent that more than a third would close their practice if the plan is passed. I could cite more use of anecdotes by the President, but you can all recall the people picked out of the audiences at his speeches and town hall meetings.)
* from country-first patriotism to the flagwaving kind that can instantly turn into rants about secession, the killing of civil servants and praying for the president to fail, even if that means the country going down with him.
(Having lived through such taunts during the Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II administrations, forgive me if I am not impressed that the same are hurled at the current Democrat in the White House.)
Anyway. Thanks for the opportunity to ask the readers and author to kindly and truthfully reflect on these things. If your memory is fuzzy, use the internet or your local library to read contemporary newspaper accounts or view videos of marches and rallies - here and abroad.
Victory for the people of this country will only begin when people on both sides of the political spectrum join with the independents in saying ENOUGH! This has got to stop - on both sides.
As long as one side believes it is the only aggrieved group, we will miss the larger picture of what is being done to ALL OF US. Political corruption and unfaithfulness to our founding principals is shared by both parties. Only WE THE PEOPLE can make it stop by refusing to condone or accept it any longer.
In 2010, the people have a chance to vote out the rascals. I'll promise to do so on the Right. What about you?
Also, it is annoying to me and my Redneck neighbors to be conflated with religious extremists and lovers of “Big Business”- nothing could be further from the truth.
Ok, re: Johnson, but I still politely dispute the point. Lying is a necessary part of governing, we seen to agree, but I see nothing exceptional about Johnson in this regard. If anything, he was inept at it; his genuine hurt and surprise at how liberal Democrats turned on him -- in great part because they knew he was lying about the war -- is the cause of, and manifest in the videos of -- his declination speech.
And i also strongly differ regarding the the demarcation of 50s mass media. Not that there wasn't a sea change in total and in the pariculars, but it has always been relative to the media t hand. That is, they lie as much as they can using all the tools at their disposal. Again, see Hearst ("Citizen Hearst"). It's arguable that he did something no single media mogul until Murdoch was able to do: single-handedly start a war with media distortion.
What's more, it took decades to see through it. Ironically, it was the military men, who fought and so admired the Fillipinos, who "broke" the story.
Unfortunately I must also differ, with some confusion, about your last two grafs. You proffer a classic, substantial, and case-book definition of modern Libertarianism with the two tenets of "no "collective" rights" and "...least government."
To which I counter with the usual thing: which of the following would you have foregone?
Highways and Bridges
Public Education
Civil Rights legislation
Child Labor laws
Right to Strike and similar union allowances
Clean Water Act
etc etc etc
The "classic" argument of Libertarianism -- that there are no collective rights -- is like saying the sky is not blue. Collective rights -- the fight over and for them, the assertion of them by documents like the Declaration of Independence (and the happy results), the benefits from them, and social shapes that follows from them -- are manifest and comprise the most salient features of American (and western) life. In fact, the most salient features of your own beliefs: the Enlightenment -- Descartes, Spinoza, Paine, Jefferson -- gave you and I the very idea of Individual Liberty, and are entirely rooted in a collective and mutual share of liberty.
Inalienable requires at least two.
And free will is an illusion! he he.
First time user commenting on Open Salon. Brilliant and timely piece of research and writing. I've held many of your views for nearly forty years, long before I became educated. Now that I have refined tools for critical thinking, I have a great appreciation for your to-the-point perspective and analysis of the REAL ISSUES facing our "once" great nation. First, I'm a veteran of the Vietnam War Era, so I do have a deep sense of what true patriotism means. And, I find it alarming how we have been conned to perceive true patriotism as something else by the greedy neocons, "possibly, a discussion for another time."
Yes, as a whole, we have lost our way. Will we again rise to the call to salvage a nation we were once proud to be a member? In my personal opinion, I feel that the greedy neocons and their mouthpieces, the likes of the "Murdoch-Limbaugh hate machine" that you have commented upon, have deeply poisoned any possibility of a healthy objectives and outcomes. That's why I too agree with your suggestion, if I understand it correctly, that we may now be well past the "red line" of saving this great nation and its damaged sovereignty.
I have one final thought. I remember listening to a well-read retired person in the early 1990s while I was in a coffee shop in Pacific Grove, CA. This was back when the Soviet Union fell apart and the Berlin Wall came down. He asked me a question I've never forgotten. What's the difference between the United States and the Soviet Union? After I thought about this for awhile, he commented, "They got there first." Today, after listening to historians, I fully understand his point. All empires reach a peak, at that peak they typically tend to overextend available resources (through getting too greedy); after which the natural next-step of decline and fall begins (sometimes through complete and unsalvageable self-destruction). We only have to look at recent empires for validation, although this phenomenon is consistent over time.
Again, Thanks!
Holy Crap! I officially don't have to apologize for writing too-long comments now.
I sum: I like the cut of your jib sir, even tho I differ on more than half of the examples or frames you present. I especially like this:
"from respect for science to incantatory voodoo ..."
and this:
"As long as one side believes it is the only aggrieved group, we will miss the larger picture of what is being done to ALL OF US. Political corruption and unfaithfulness to our founding principals is shared by both parties."
So I can conclude that you object to Beck and Rush, and how they are attempting to turn deliberative Democracy on its ear, with polemic, lies, and seditious threats?
You reveal here, I believe, with admirable candor, something I have long believed of the Right: they simply do not forgive "us" for the vicious rhetoric of the 60s ("pigs" et al). Fair enought. Except that 99.9% of "us" left that behind in approximately 1970. let's look at stats: the 60s far-left behavior and rhetoric lasted approximately from 64 (point of origin: Mario Savio, launch of free speech movement) to 71 (the "days of Rage" by the 20 or so remaining SDS Weathermen).
A few thousand hard-core SDS'rs, lasted about 6-7 years.
The modern equivalent -- Rush, Schlafly, Beck, et al -- are finishing their 2nd decade+ and are more violent and treasonous in their rhetoric by the hour.
I know, I simplify, but let me suggest this:
To be consistent with the many admirable aspects of your comment, particularly the bipartisan call at the end, what SPECIFICALLY will you do, as a thining and ethical person on the Right? Task one: declare here that Beck is just another SDS-style asshole, please, who doesn't just flirt with sedition, he calls for it. Poison Pelosi my ass.
Don't just gesture at fairplay. I here and now repudiate, utterly the Stalinist apologists, radical chic revolutionaries, and indecent posturing of the 60s, utterly and without reservation. I stand for the 70s and beyond, wirk-within-the-system, clean uo Lake erie, headstart programs, Church Amendment methods of the former radicals. I embrace local girl's softball and safe parks and civil town halls.
The thing is, tho, I have done all of the above since, o, say, 1970. It is the logical fallacy of false equivalency to equate the (ancient history) 60s "types"* with the gun-toting liberty-bloodletters who smirk at the cameras this summer.
Unless you support Fox's dangerous demagoguery? Repudiate it here, now, and I will be truly, sincerely, in awe.
*with the possible exception of those wannabe tie-dyed kids who demonstrate at the world economic summits. See? I am committed to realistic debate!
Greg, Ho was primarily a Nationalist who fought the Japanese hard on our behalf in WWII, and whom we betrayed by helping the French retake Indochina. He asked first to be an acolyte of the US and turned to Mao out of desperation. Was he neverteless a Marxist? Likely so. But we missed many opportunities to turn local marxists into Tito-style leaders, much milder and outside the Soviet-Chinese orbit. That MIGHT have worked, or not. But we were behooved morally to try. That was the first of many hubristic mistakes.
Kdogg, your simplistic dismissal of all opponents illustrates that dogmatic strawmanning isn't JUST limited to the right. There have been dozens of useful collaborations between the decent left and decent right. Dwight Eisenhower presided over many. The DEREGULATION of trucking, telecommunications (the unleashing of the internet!), airlines, and parcel post were all libertarian-style things that were spearheaded by democrats, because the time had obviously come. And each move was very successful. (In contrast, GOP-led deregulations always turn into legalized graft; e.g. the S&L dereg under Bush Sr and the Investment Bank dereg under Bush Jr.) But, dig it, many sincere goppers were involved in the dem deregs.
Likewise, when Hillary screwed Bill's presidency with the overweening/hubristic health care fiasco of 93, Newt Gingrich came roaring in... and STARTED with a genuine phase of negotiated deliberation that gave us welfare reform, a fix that was startlingly and overwhelmingly effective and right-on. Alas, he then turned rightward and commenced 15 years of right wing insanity and obstinate stupidity that was the topic of my screed. Again, alas.
I only cite all this to show that SOME deliberative sanity HAS happened, sometimes.
Miss Misk says : "It is to the advantage of an educated elite rich class to keep middle class people uninformed, so we won't be able to effectively oppose legislation that harms us. But this is a deeply stupid method of maintaining power, because long-term the EERC is building a nation in which it will need bodyguards to get from house to car and back."
Your overall point is right. But note: at least half of the rich are on our side!" Spielberg, Buffett, Gates, Sergey Brin... they all think of themselves as citizens of the Enlightenment. Their problem is that they are much more poorly organized that Rupert Murdoch's cabal. A problem that Ralph Nader attempts to solve with his book ONLY THE SUPER RICH CAN SAVE US. It is a good point, overdone (as usual) by that brilliant dingbat.
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"in-awe" thank you for your detailed reposte, dealing directly and systematically with a whole list of points. This is the kind of arguing we all wish we got more of, from conservatives. Alas, I haven't time to answer with a detailed remise. So let me just offer a couple of comments:
1) Note that you reply with a whole lot of ANECDOTES. This is what the right is reduced to, because they cannot stand up to the light of day, statistically.
Examples: ALL "red" regions do worse than "blue" regions when it comes to bona fide metrics of "morality" such as rates of domestic violence, divorce, teen sex, teen pregnancy, unwed births, STDS, local corruption, marital infidelity and so on. This is far beyond statistical accident, yet we are still yammered at for "city immorality.
2) There are NO unambiguous measures of national health the did not go UP under Bill Clinton and DOWN under George Bush. The inverse record extends to "conservative issues" like control over our borders, budget deficits, employment, small business startups, military readiness and a long list of other verifiable metrics. When correlations with statistical success/failure are THIS PERFECT, it is no wonder that conservatives flee to stories, anecdotes, pointing to this or that special cases.
But dig it, they fail even there. Because they cannot point to a SINGLE Clinton era appointee who was imprisoned, or even indicted, for any act of actual malfeasance of official duties of office. Not one, ever, despite screeches that the Clintons were the "most-corrupt" administration ever. This should be embarassing! Facts like these should force honest men to back off and re-evaluate! But conservatives almost never do.
3) Yes, Obama has started with firehoses of debt. But dig this too. Voodoo economics of Supply Side -- after NEVER seeing a SINGLE confident prediction come true -- is now in the trash heap. Amid the economic devastation wrought by the Supply Siders, Keynsianism is back. It seems to be working. And it requires we spend a lot, temporarily, during a depression that Obama did not make.
I could go on, but must catch breath.
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Folks, you are all welcome over at my regular blog:
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/
It's a great community.
If we mean to discuss this at any length, we need a common definition of terms.
I have a 60 second proof of the existence of a Supreme Being
I do not doubt my existence as an agent of free will
In short,
I am
If there are no higher communities of spirit, such as are implied by the idea of a “Holy Spirit” or the experience of Agape,
Then I guess I’m it.
I don’t propose or suppose that I am “The” Supreme Being
(God help us/me if I am).
I do unequivocally maintain that, insofar as my Self, is concerned,
I am the supreme Being.
If you have doubts about your own existence as an agent of free will, or as an independent manifestation of Self, we have no basis for communication, as that stance reduces your position to that of (apparently) a non real hallucination, and hence incapable of any real stake in “Reality”- dust in the wind, as it were.
If you accept that you are an agent of free will and that you are responsible for your actions and ideas, we have a basis of communication.
If you are not in charge of your Self, trot out whoever is, and I’ll deal with him.
My Self, as I define it, is not just the corporal sack of flesh that seems to house the center of my awareness, my Self consists of all things that make up my Reality
Hence, it is absolute in my philosophy that My Wife, My Children, My brothers, My (no longer living) Parents, My cats, My Community, My Nation, My World, etc, are all a part of My Self, and hence Selfishness is not at all restricted to gratification of the sack of flesh that houses my awareness. Selfishness is not a vice, except as one limits the scope of one’s Self. I have no limits- you are all an important part of my Reality.
My wife, for one, is more central to my Being than my own vehicle of existence.
I am, however, very well aware that each individual has his/her own Self, which may or may not by times be at odds with mine. I realize all too well, that I do not have direct control of all of my Self, hence the need of cooperation and Community.
To say that Rights are individual is to emphasize the importance of free will to the concept of “Rights”. Individuals have “Rights” because they are individually capable of deciding on and carrying out a course of action without consent or approval of any other. You may tell me I must obey or else, but you cannot force my obedience. You can only discourage my disobedience. That is why earlier I said that Liberty and Justice for all cannot be enforced, it can only be encouraged. You can’t force me to be Happy, you can only strive that I shall be free to pursue Happiness.
Collectives of Free individuals do not have “Rights” over any one of those individuals. They may have designated authority to pursue certain collective needs, or have been authorized to certain duties, and there may be a delegation of certain authorities to certain individuals, but my authorization to exercise authority over me ends with the withdrawal of my consent, else the action is rape. The Concept of “Rights” pertains only to the individual exercise of free will.
Like Humpty Dumpty, my words mean what I say they mean, and appealing to the general consensus leaves me unmoved, for I know what I mean.
That you deny you have free will doesn’t trouble me, so long as you do not try to deny me my exercise of free will
I think the labels serve to divide. Every one means something else to someone else and different in the context of time (i.e. my Goldwater example in which David so eloquently expounded upon). There are things I loathed about Goldwater. There are things I loathe about every politician - its politics and you rarely get to see the man/woman behind the smoke and mirrors. Why I brought him up is the view he had on free market economics and his loathing of the impact of the far right "wing nuts" on the Republican party. He didn't see a place for them, as there never was in the way our constitution was written (most agree the founding fathers were Deists). I mean, "separation of church and state"? How much clearer can it get?
I digress...
What Token and I are beginning to discuss a lot, is dropping the labels, and discussing the issues. I think there are a lot more people both right and left who have more in common than each other thinks. I do not think Civil War III is inevitable. Could it happen? If we stay on the current course and let the view of the minor view, with outrageous, baiting language lead the discussion it is possible. But, if we turn off the TV and sit down and have a reasonable discussion, find new ways to hold our leaders accountable (outside the electorate), and LISTEN a lot more than we have been to each other, I dare say there is a funny little word called....HOPE.
Thanks for your quick reply and sprinkled compliments. My thoughts in response:
Unfortunately, your entire reply seems grounded on a mischaracterization (misunderstanding?)of my initial comments to likening current liberal protests and protesters to those of the anti-war radicals of the SDS of the 1960’s. What I did say is that the Left has a 40 year history of uncivilized behavior: (“Somehow the left forgets the personalization of issues starting in the 1960's and the continuation of it through subsequent decades and Republican administrations. Insults and death threats have been part and parcel of the left's public pronouncements for 40 years.”)
Any reasonable person would stipulate to that. I won’t bore fellow readers by citing numerous examples of outrageous behavior and conduct directed at Republican Presidents post-1971 by activists and politicians alike. If you fail to accept that factual premise then you clearly are unwilling to meet the Right halfway despite your rhetoric.
Your comparison of “Rush, Schlafly, Beck, et al” to the SDS is laughable and diversionary. As to Beck “is just another SDS-style asshole, please, who doesn't just flirt with sedition, he calls for it. Poison Pelosi my ass. “, I beg that you provide a reference for that accusation – a YouTube citation would be terrific. While you are at it, be sure to catch a glimpse or two at Olberman or Rhodes or Garafallo or Mahr in their finest seditionist and hate filled rants. You have 8 years and more to choose from! Many videos list thousands of views. Hmmm, maybe the days of rage weren’t entirely over – just cloaked under new clothing.
“It is the logical fallacy of false equivalency to equate the (ancient history) 60s "types"* with the gun-toting liberty-bloodletters who smirk at the cameras this summer.” As Ronald Reagan would say “There you go again!”
YOU misstate MY comment then attack it – talk about absence of logic (and honesty). As far as blood letting this summer, I challenge you to cite legitimate evidence of a conservative spilling blood. All the reports I have seen show ALL the blood letting was done by liberals attacking conservatives. Indeed, egged on by OUR PRESIDENT, inciting physical violence through his hit back twice as hard comments, and the SEIU instructing its counter demonstrators to drown out and silence the opposition. Do you remember the bags of cement dropped from freeway overpasses onto buses carrying delegates to the Republican National Convention last summer? The vandalism of Republican campaign offices and military recruiting centers? The murder of an Army recruiter earlier this year? I’ll go out on a limb here and say those were not committed by conservatives.
Greg, you miss the bigger point that I was trying to make. LOOK IN THE MIRROR. Your “side” has been just as bad as the other. Unless people of good will ON BOTH SIDES insist on more civil and civic-minded behavior by our politicians and their supporters this will not end. And it must. The first step is accepting responsibility for what is going on.
(And for the record I absolutely repudiate anyone on either side that calls for violence.)
* from a bookish love of statistics to justification by anecdote It might have been different in the 18th and 19th century, but in recent history, Americans have not had any great love for, especially bookish, for statistics. Remember, Adali Stevenson was a bookish guy who loved his stats and research, but was roundly defeated by Eisenhower twice. The election of Bush II was, if nothing else, a vote for the total skepticism of intellectualism, or even education. Bush even gave a speech that seemed to imply that getting good grades was not important since he was a "C" student and became President.
(I recall during the 2008 election campaign Hillary and Barack were also ponying up one anecdote after another in justification for their proposals.
You failed to mention that the absolute master, for better or worse of the "proof by anecdote" style was Ronald Reagan. One staffer, at the time, affectionately noted that the research for Reagan's speeches consisted of flipping through copies of Reader's Digest. Reagan himself was infamous for tearing out articles in newspapers about welfare cheats and such and telling his speechwriters to incorporate them into his speeches. And no, I'm not saying Reagan started the anecdote trend, but he was sure a big fan.
Since January nothing has changed. This week Obama hosted some MDs at the White House as proof that doctors prefer his (?) health care plan. The White House forgot to mention that the attendees were hand picked from a group of MDs that actively campaigned for Obama last year.
Of course they were handpicked. Virtually all the people who go to talk to the president are handpicked. This is not news, nor a particularly "telling" scoop. (After all, you found out, didn't you?) The President had a photo op - big deal. And I would say that about any President.
The statistics revealed by a recent IBD poll showed substantial opposition by doctors across the country to the extent that more than a third would close their practice if the plan is passed. . .
And you believed this? One third? More than a third? Bull hockey! I'm sorry, but anyone who would believe that over ONE THIRD of doctors would give up their practices rather than deal with government insurance is someone who is just too easily manipulated. ONE THIRD!!!
Actually, many doctors will giving up their practices, because they are retiring! Many doctors are boomers and they will be giving up their practices in the next few years, no matter what the payment type will be. If the statisticians interpreted this to mean that as proof of their point about government run insurance, then shame on them and frankly, shame on you for believing it. ONE THIRD giving up their practice? Watch out for those swampland offers.
I maintain Truth
You entertain Delusions
They fornicate with goats
You are Bullheaded
They like goats
I appreciate you taking notice of my comments. I do find it ironic that your first point:
“1) Note that you reply with a whole lot of ANECDOTES. This is what the right is reduced to, because they cannot stand up to the light of day, statistically.”
You do not factually refute any of the assertions I offered as examples to stimulate thought by the readers, you simply make a blanket comment about what everyone on the right does. Hmmm. And of all things, that follows a post that includes such factually grounded statements as:
- “today's Republican Establishment seems not only incapable but uninterested in negotiation or deliberation.”
- “Anyway, bear with me a bit, because the parallels are eerie. Not only on the geographical electoral map, but in the way that vast swathes of the South would only see or hear just one point of view (in uniformly pro-slavery newspapers, back in 1861, or via talk radio today), or propounded from every white pulpit -- an incessant drumbeat of regional, ethnic and partisan hatred. With predictable results: the demolition of national discourse, along with the murder of census workers and the bubbling froth of a new wave of Timothy McVeighs.”
You next create a list of “national health” indicators and make a general statement that Blue regions do better than Red in all cases. But even if this is so, the old adage about correlation is not causation comes to mind.
I’ll be interested in seeing if they stand up to your proposition, and whether other factors such as income levels and immigration patterns have a pronounced impact on the analysis. (For example, it is a fact that recent waves of immigrants have lower income levels, lower education level and lower social commitments to completing high school, have higher fecundity, and a social history that encourages large families started at younger ages.)
As to the political corruption issue, we do have a problem with censored data due the MSM seeming reluctance to either report malfeasance of Democrat politicians or do so without reporting the party affiliation of the wrong-doers. (e.g. NYT coverage re corruption in NJ and Michigan) We also have large urban areas under Democrat control for decades where the “I’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine” makes for less than vigilant public watchguards.
This may be true in Congress as well: say Chris Dodd, or Charlie Rangel, et al. Where investigations are refused or are perfunctory at best before the accused are declared “clean” by their party leadership. And yes there are facts behind these statements – you know them as well as I do. Not citing them does not mean they don’t exist.
You next play the same card when it comes to Clinton versus Bush. I do agree that the economic stage was set by Bush I for the explosive economic growth in the 1990’s, credit for which was claimed by Clinton. (Does anyone else find it odd that while Clinton is hailed by the left for the 1990’s economy while ascribing no credit to the foundations (and uptick) under his predecessor compared with Obama who claims everything economic is the result of his predecessor?) I do recall that Newt Gingrich and the tidal wave of Republican joining the Congress had more than a little to do with balanced budgets and an environment that encouraged business development.
As to military readiness, Clinton was proud to proclaim a sizable reduction in the federal workforce (377,000 fewer workers). The majority of the cuts came from the military. Coupled with that was the Cold War Dividend which translated into such actions as shrinking the active duty military from 1.8MM to 1.4MM and cutting the Navy from 454 ships in 1993 to 341 in 2000 and scrapping several developmental programs underway or planned. Clinton also allowed highly sensitive technology transfers to China that allowed the PRC to significantly improve the accuracy of their ballistic missiles. None of these helped strengthen our preparedness of national security.
“But dig it, they fail even there. Because they cannot point to a SINGLE Clinton era appointee who was imprisoned, or even indicted, for any act of actual malfeasance of official duties of office. Not one, ever, despite screeches that the Clintons were the "most-corrupt" administration ever. This should be embarassing! Facts like these should force honest men to back off and re-evaluate! But conservatives almost never do.”
Then again, here is the rest of the story for the Clinton administration:
- The only president ever impeached on grounds of personal malfeasance
- Most number of convictions and guilty pleas by friends and associates*
- Most number of cabinet officials to come under criminal investigation
- Most number of witnesses to flee country or refuse to testify
- Most number of witnesses to die suddenly
- First president sued for sexual harassment.
- Second president accused of rape**
- First first lady to come under criminal investigation
- Largest criminal plea agreement in an illegal campaign contribution case
- First president to establish a legal defense fund.
- First president to be held in contempt of court
- Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions
- Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions from abroad
- First president disbarred from the US Supreme Court and a state court
Shall we talk about his last minute pardons in exchange for payoffs? How about foreign government contributions to this library or foundation?
“3) Yes, Obama has started with firehoses of debt. But dig this too. Voodoo economics of Supply Side -- after NEVER seeing a SINGLE confident prediction come true -- is now in the trash heap. Amid the economic devastation wrought by the Supply Siders, Keynsianism is back. It seems to be working. And it requires we spend a lot, temporarily, during a depression that Obama did not make.”
I’ll need to do a little research to test your assertion that “not a single prediction came true – ever – for Supply Siders”. As to Keynesianism seeming to work, I’ll refer you to the record of unemployment and job losses since the stimulus bill was passed. When it comes to confident predictions, we do have the Obama record which includes the warning that we will fall into the economic abyss unless the stimulus bill was passed with an unprecedented sense of urgency. We were then treated to the prediction of what would happen to unemployment with and without the stimulus package. Oops! They can't predict economic behavior a month out - despite having the best and the brightest working on it.
It seems that quite a number of economists are fearing a lengthy recession these days, so I am not sure where your confidence in Keynesianism is coming from. We also haven’t yet felt the impact of the Fed printing up a couple trillion in new currency – surely you must be somewhat concerned about an upsurge in inflation?
“The U.S. must address the massive amounts of “monetary medicine” that have been pumped into the financial system and now pose threats to the economy and the dollar, billionaire Warren Buffett said last week.
Nouriel Roubini (NYU professor who predicted the financial crisis) currently expects a U-shaped recovery, where growth will be “anemic and below trend for at least a couple of years,” he said. A full global recovery from the current recession may take two years or more, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman said earlier this month.
“I could go on, but must catch breath.” Me too!
You are proving my point. As long as the Left is castigating the Right and vice versa - each from the heights of Mount Olympus - we won't be doing anything that changes the reality on the ground in Washington DC. Both sides suck! Now what can we the people do to make it better?
Maybe we each start by picking off the most egregious on our own side. A corrupt politician on my team is still a corrupt politician and I want him gone. You should, too. Same thing if he's on your team.
I've got a 21 year old daughter. I do not want her to inherit a corrupt, cynical political system, nor do I want her saddled with state and federal debts that will limit her pursuit of happiness. For the first time in my life I am becoming politically active.
I can start by demanding civility in our halls of government. I can demand that our representatives actually read the f*(&ing bills they are passing. I can demand that my Senators stop dissing my input by thanking me for for supporting something that I actually opposed. When do we get them to understand that they work for US and not the other way around?
I must admit I’m liking this forum – good engaging comments and feedback. Thanks for letting me play!
First, the quote about moving from statistics to anecdote was David’s from the article – not mine. The entire purpose of my original comment was to challenge those on the Left to sincerely reflect on these same issues as they apply to players on the Left. (Along the lines of not complaining about the speck in another’s eye while you have a log in your own.)
The examples I gave throughout were not intended to be exhaustive, but rather to help other readers remember some on the Left doing the things that David ascribing uniquely to the Right. That is why they seem one-sided if you missed the context. (To your point, I can honestly say that Reagan was the king of anecdotes – and their delivery. I doubt anyone can come close to the emotional delivery he had when he recited them. I like your reference to Readers’ Digest – LOL!)
As to the doctor photo op, it is a bit disingenuous for the President to use that occasion to remark about how wholeheartedly the medical profession supports the health care initiatives. A little honesty would go a long way for an administration that loves to throw around the “astro-turfing” phrase at its opponents.
The IBD poll was conducted by TIPP (www.tiponline.com) for IBD. They have partnered exclusively with IBD for 12 years.
The poll itself can be accessed at http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=506199 . The IBD/TIPP Poll was conducted by mail over two weeks, with 1,376 practicing physicians chosen randomly throughout the country responding.
Some findings:
- Two-thirds, or 65%, of responding doctors say they oppose the proposed government expansion plan.
- Four of nine responding doctors, or 45%, said they "would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement" if Congress passes the plan the Democratic majority and White House have in mind.
- More than seven in 10 responding doctors, or 71% — the most lopsided response in the poll — answered "no" when asked if they believed "the government can cover 47 million more people and that it will cost less money and the quality of care will be better."
I haven’t seen the wording of the questionnaire, nor do I have access to the protocol used. The doctors were selected randomly, but I have no insight into what the responder distribution looked like.
...but I sincerely do not have the time.
"You next create a list of “national health” indicators and make a general statement that Blue regions do better than Red in all cases. But even if this is so, the old adage about correlation is not causation comes to mind."
You can answer that, if I were trying to prove causation. But I had a much simpler task. I was placing the burden of proof upon those who were the first to make aggressive generalizations about morality. We blues are relentlessly screeched at, over purported immorality that APPEARS to be decisively disproved by statistics. At minimum, the screechers bear a very steep burden of proof that THEY are not the immoral ones... and hypocrites, to boot.
"I’ll be interested in seeing if they stand up to your proposition, and whether other factors such as income levels and immigration patterns have a pronounced impact on the analysis. (For example, it is a fact that recent waves of immigrants have lower income levels, lower education level and lower social commitments to completing high school, have higher fecundity, and a social history that encourages large families started at younger ages.)"
Indeed. And hence, the fact that blue areas score better DESPITE ALL THIS is an even steeper indictment of red america.
Here's another, related one. Till the 1990s, the GOP bragged they had higher average levels of education, in part tipped by low levels of immigrants and the poor. Who tended democratic. THIS IS STILL TRUE. So.... how is it that democrats have now pulled a WHOLE YEAR ahead of republicans, in average education levels?
The answer is that the GOP has driven away almost everybody with a post-graduate degree in anything other than business. The party's anti-knowledge stance is now renowned and hsterical, in every meaning of the word.
"As to the political corruption issue, we do have a problem with censored data due the MSM seeming reluctance to either report malfeasance of Democrat..."
Har! PATHETIC! Bush entered office determined to send waves of clintonites to jail. In a horrifice scandal, he diverted SCORES of justice & FBI guys away from other duties, looking for smoking guns, JUST BEFORE 9/11. (BTW this was criminal treason.) The goppers owned EVERY lever and corner of government, top to bottom, and yet could not nail a single clintonite for any job-related action, whatsoever!
But look at YOU! You writhe and twist and seek any farfetched excuse except the obvious one that fits Occam's Razor.... thet the right wing propaganda machinery simply LIED!
"This may be true in Congress as well: say Chris Dodd, or Charlie Rangel, et al. Where investigations are refused or are perfunctory at best before the accused are declared “clean” by their party leadership. And yes there are facts behind these statements – you know them as well as I do. Not citing them does not mean they don’t exist."
Blah blah. DIg it, the Republicans OWNED CONGRESS, the Justice Dept, the courts, everything. They tried and tried hard to find things to nail dems with, and came up empty. LET ME ASK YOU THIS. What would it take for negative results to change your mind? The ratio of Bushites sent to prison for malfeasance to clintonites is INFINITE! Yet, you'll twist and rationalize and wave away everything exculpatory.
"I do agree that the economic stage was set by Bush I for the explosive economic growth in the 1990’s, credit for which was claimed by Clinton"
Hogwash! The GOP screamed when Clinton and the dems in 93 reversed Reagan Bush welfare for the rich. They predicted "This will send today's tepid/poor economy into the tank!" Instead, it skyrocketed.
"As to military readiness, Clinton was proud to proclaim a sizable reduction in the federal workforce (377,000 fewer workers). The majority of the cuts came from the military. Coupled with that was the Cold War Dividend which translated into such actions as shrinking the active duty military from 1.8MM to 1.4MM and cutting the Navy from 454 ships in 1993 to 341 in 2000 and scrapping several developmental programs underway or planned. Clinton also allowed highly sensitive technology transfers to China that allowed the PRC to significantly improve the accuracy of their ballistic missiles. None of these helped strengthen our preparedness of national security."
All right, we're done here. These cuts were similar to cuts under Bush #!. They mirroed the end of the Cold War. What you ignore is the STARK fact.
When BC left office 100% of our brigades and naval squadrons were rated "combat ready".
When W left office 0% of our brigades and naval squadrons were rated "combat ready". That's ZERO!
Your list is also pathetic. It is filled with "accused of" and "forced to" and a million ambiguities, including the hypocrisy of a Congressional majority doing witch hunts according to standards that EVERY member of the congressional leadership would have failed. They chose ALL DIVORCEES to prosecute Clinton! Mostly men who betrayed their families. Again... if you claim there's crime PUT PEOPLE IN JAIL! You had the chance. You had every lever of power. Your guys diverted vast resources into witch hunts....
...while damaging america more than . They are pushing for a return of feudalism and the things they claim to love -- free enterprise, capitalism, freedom, and America, are all under attack from the right.
.... and I am through here.
I thought you were writing a serious essay worthy of debate, until I got to the paragraph above and it hit me that you were really just playing with words like a musician playing with cords...but not trying to write a song. You really said much about nothing!
BUDGET BALANCING?
I would be the first to admit that the republicans at the beginning of this century checked any conservative beliefs and spent money as wastefully as any democrat controlled Congress. However, I don't believe the evidence of fact will show that democrats have left any stone unturned to borrow and spend. We witnessed shameless democrat agenda driven spending in the guise of a "stimulus package" that is really a "democrat party 2010 campaign fund",at taxpayers expense. And this waste of almost a trillion dollars at a time when the economy seemed heading for freefall. Thanks to aggressive monetary moves in September and October after the Lehman collapse the world financial markets were stabilized.
HELPING SMALL BUSINES!
Really! Raising taxes helps small business? Raising the minimum wage was an immediate 40% increase in labor costs for small business..not "theory but fact". An unintended consequence of Congressional stupidity is that in raising the minimum wage to over $7.25 (In Pa.) teenagers have been priced out of the job market. Most small business people pay the minimum wage probably to start a job, but if a worker does a job they are earning above the starting level of a trainee. In this economic environment to pay a "teen" $8 or $9 or $10 an hour is nuts since there are "adults" looking for work that would gladly take these jobs until the economy turns. Small business cannot get a loan from a bank for a start-up these days. It seems the only people who are getting help are idiots who bought homes they could not afford and are being bailed out with government programs...or people getting "cash for clunkers"..with half of the trade in cars used to purchase foreign auto's.
MILITARY READINESS!
Really! Obama sets a strategy for Afganistan in March and asks his General to prepare a report on what would be required to perform this mission. A 66 page report is prepared by the hand picked General, and the President lets the paper turn yellow on his desk, unread until "someone" leaked the report to the Washington Post.
In the interim, our soldiers are being killed in record numbers, isolated in the hills and valleys of Afganistan, and even the administration admits that the momentum is on the side of the Taliban. Under Bush, Afganistan was stabile. The Taliban was getting stronger, to be sure, but CIA and others where making inroads with segments of the Taliban. Not all the Taliban love Osama Bin Laden. Now we have "stirred the pot" but the reinforcments that Gen. McChrystal has asked are not there, and may never be sent to Afganistan. It seems the carefully thought out strategy Obama voiced to the world last March "is being studied"!
STATES RIGHTS!!!!!
This is the biggest joke of any in your essay. Do you think that State Legisatures would have signed off on the Declaration of Independence, on the Constitution, if an almight and dominant federal government was the goal of the founding fathers? I don't think so...and there is very little consitutional about what this Congress is shoving on Americans.
THE ECONOMY!
What has this liberal...radical progressive, government done to stimulate the economy? The Stimulus is a failure, government is intent on destroying competitive advantage with a Cap & Trade Bill that is another major tax on corporation, and ultimately to the consumer. One major plant has already been deferred. In the West, the EPA is blocking a $3 billion coal burning plant and don't give a damn that this plant will be the cleanest coal plant in the world! As an aside, the indian reservation depends on royalties from these utilities, and the population is suffering. What has this administration DONE to bolster the economy?
INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY
And, finally, we come to the place where the rubber meets the road.
This government is becoming all intrusive into the lives of Americans. The citizens of this country will not roll-over for Obama, for Axelrod, for Pelosi, or anyone else. What was witnessed in August was not even the tip of the iceberg. There is a glacial force rising up in this country and, frankly, it scares the death out of me. I went to Town Hall meetings here in New Jersey. They were loud, nutty at times, but filled with passion. There were not "leaders" yelling out directions..these people were mostly middle aged and seniors who lost all respect for people who were supposed to represent them and, instead, went to Washington to rubber stamp everything Pelosi sent their way. Hey..not need to even read the legislation. And until today, liberals are in denial that this was a grass roots effort of people who are not the "pansies" of todays feminized males, but people willing to fight for their freedom, as they did in another day. Beware of grandma with a pitch fork coming your way when she learns that medicare is cutting back 11% in cardiologist payments and 18% for oncology radiation in 2010. The budget cuts in medicareare starting, and healthcare hasn't been voted.
But I have to tell you that right now, I don't care if Jesus Christ's baby brother conducted the poll, I simply don't believe their results. Doctors simply do not "protest" by picking up their instruments and going home. They fight the same way anyone with any influence fights - through the media, through advertising, through payola if they have larceny in their souls. So far I haven't seen evidence of this. I have seen a couple of doctors (on TV) voice their opposition, and I have seen some voice their support. But absolutely nothing to indicate the tsunami of dismay that this poll indicates.
By the way, how many people have REALLY emmigrated to Canada after presidential elections? Not many. Yet many, many people have threatened to do just that since Nixon was elected. So yeah, I take dire threats of "I quit" with a very large grain of salt.
When the first Gulf War was fought, a poll was released claiming that 95% of the American people approved of that war in the first few weeks. I took it at face value until a co-worker also read it in the paper and said: "Funny, I didn't think you could get 95% of Americans to agree the earth is round, and they say 95% agree on a war?" She was spot on of course. Frankly, I've regarded stats and polls with a pretty jaundiced eye ever since.
By the way, is it necessarily cause for concern if the murder rate in town X goes up 100% in one year? Answer: Absolutely not. It's a statistics 101 question. Discuss.
Dig it. Clinton had surpluses and Bush cut taxes on the rich so much that we plummeted into fiscal hell. You can writhe around this all year. What you guys WON'T ever do is face blatant facts.
Again... ALL measures of national health nosedived under republican rule. NAME ONE THAT DIDN'T. ALL such metrics skyrocketed under Clinton.
And yes. RATES OF STARTUP OF SMALL BUSINESSES PEAKED UNDER CLINTON. You can writhe and twist but the stark fact does NOT go away.
Or the fact that both Clinton and Obama DOUBLED THE BORDER PATROL as almost their first acts in office... whereas Bush CUT IT IN HALF.
All of these things should elicit CURIOSITY in openminded fellows. Alas.
Likewise military readiness? Dig it. The Officer Corps HATED Bush! With red hot passion. They rebelled in 2006, got Rumsfeld tossed and the apolitical Gates and Mullen put in. Bush virtually destroyed ourt National Guard and reserves. And you CANNOT get around the basic fact. 100% of brigades were "ready" under BC.... and ZERO percent were under W.
States Rights? CVheney OPENLY called the President the sole core of legitimate government in American life. YOU signed off on his absurd declarations, that W could over-rule every state law and answer to nobody. YOU ascribed to the doctrine that -- if you weren't a hypocrite -- would give Obama vast leeway.
Zollo, for you to excuse men who suspended habeous corpus and removed themselves from all accountability, by yattering made-up stories about Obama WHO HAS DONE VIRTUALLY NOTHING.... gawd, thanks for illustrating the point of this article.
---
uv-techie, I never urged you to arm and I believe our civil war will be resolved peacefully, as phase two was, in the seventies.
Indeed, liberals are proving their greater smarts by being QUIET about their weapons. Proof of right wing illogic is their screeching "Look at me!" over guns. Every one is on-record. And they'll be surprised when the feudalists seize all the weapons they can find, evenfrom loyal republicans.
Oh for chrissakes. Somewhere in those wall to wall comments the thread switched tracks. Now we're going to be the insurgency! I'm going to have to read the whole thread again upside down. I thought THEY were going to rise up, and WE were going to crush THEM.
Buy yourself an SKS, a handgun will only get you killed.( you’d be accurate out to 25 yards, I’ll be shooting from 300)
I take wv to be West Virginia.
Assuming the shooting war is going to start around DC, hide in the hills until the shooting is over. I’m going to.
The good news will be that all the Multinational Corporate and Banking Interests who have been concentrating power in the central government since before Ike warned of the Military Industrialist Complex, will decamp to Europe and we Proles, the formerly powerful “ We the People” can have our now devastated country back. Or not.
What better excuse to send in UN troops?
Of course, maybe we should just forget all the BS about who hit who first, recognize that whichever party is in power, it’s the Government that’s the problem, and vote all of them out.
Or insist that our respective states reclaim their sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment. Nah, never happen –we’d rather be Right. That’s the problem.
The problem is People who have to BE Right, no matter what the consequences. , Apparently, what is most important is not avoiding a civil war, but establishing whose fault it is.
What in the world ever gave you the notion that gun owners trust Republicans?
All guns on record? Not even a beginning. But don’t worry about it, while the Repubs and Dems are doing Civil War, the Sequel, we’re gonna be hiding in the hills.
Why should we get involved in an insanity that seems to mostly effect city people?
It is not important that the government be Always Right,
What is important is that it be Seldom Wrong.
Ignorant and dumb people are easily manipulated, but they get just as much of a vote as intelligent and informed people.
I love that you have made this articulate philosophical exegesis for your POV. It is at best oblique to reality, in my own POV.
Here's how I see it: Free will is an illusion, so I cannot permit or deny it to anyone. We cannot act in any way other than our biology and circumstances allow. But understand: Illusion is the key word, and it is a powerful and uncompassing illusion indeed. We effectively have, and act as if, we have free will.
It might be possible to distort this, to imagine and carry out an act that is not-human, not-Person or Self, not-constrained by physical limits and our biological imperatives. But even the act of imagining this, and then attempting it, fits comfortably and rather blandly into the aspects of our biology that compel us thru most of our day: imagination, symbolic reasoning, the urge to narrative and personal excellence, etc. All survival skills, won thru evolution, I might add.
For example: humans stop all that they currently do, and expend maximum energy into reshaping the asteroid belt into a large cube. nd demand of themselves and each other that, insist on it every step of the way, that theer is no "point" to it: it will be no icon or religious totem. To even possibly succeed as an instance that proves free will it must also not serve as the example that we have no free will! It must be, IOW, an effort guided entirely by an original, insignificant expenditure of human resources simply because we chose to do it.
Funny, eh? Ridiculous? Sure. But we all suffer from Ardrey's "illusion of central position", leftover from when we actually were such, as infants. We believe our choices, our meaningfulness, is vast. In fact, as any student of cold reading will tell you, we are incredibly predictable beings, with essentially the same arc of story, same tired narratives, aspirations, pains, outcomes, and choices, since at least the last ice age.
Everything you "choose" -- and your comment is rife with such examples -- are in fact banal, predictable, consistent with our species in every way. Doesn't mean I don't love my family -- I do, fiercely and beautifully -- but I have no Free Will about it, except on a local and small scale, and within the illusion that I am "free" to do these things I rest content. But you posit a great and ideal Free Will, and it is an intellectual construct that has actual presence in the objective world.
Does a microbe in a petri dish have Free Will? can he choose to marry a giraffe, or invent soap, or wear a tuxedo, or even move outside the sealed dish?
Earth is our dish, lovely and full of opportunities for us and I choose to be educated and to promote lovingkindness and speak up. All of them pedestrian, predictable human choices, but very satisfying.
@ in_awe
Happy to oblige, and there is, sadly, a lot more where that came from. You should read/watch outside the Right's box more, methinks:
http://airamerica.com/blog/2009/aug/07/watch-glenn-beck-jokes-about-poisoning-pelosi
And this is a cogent argument for my accepting your critique because----?
I’ve explained myself as much as is necessary for any understanding of my position
You reject my position, ergo I ignore yours
All I hear from you is the howling of dust in the wind
Let me know when I can discuss this with your puppet master
You seem to want to claim the “Perqs” of “Free Will” (ie “Personhood”)
With none of the responsibility for your actions
I don’t care whether you understand my position, or respect it
You’ve been informed of it.
I see no reason to allow you to set up a straw man based on what I “ought” to believe or what you “believe” I believe, much less feel constrained to defend it
You’ll know when you begin to bother me
I don’t’ foresee that happening
The point of this post is apparently to avert a “Civil War” by name calling and determination of fault. Good luck
I maintain Truth
You entertain Delusion
He/she sacrifices children to the goat god
Whoa. OK then. Your philosophy kung fu too mighty for me, and too different from mine. So: you win.
I personally am humble and uncertain as to Absolute Truth.
I was hoping to have a rational dialogue about these classic ideas and conundrums, concepts that greater thinkers than thee and me have failed to resolve with certainty. Apparently in your universe I am Wrong and Heedless and something or other about a goat.
No offense. We just differ, clearly.
(Glad I didn't mention that I see no evidence for a Soul!)
You betcha it is.
If you push me to battle, I don’t believe in sitting in the trees and sniping
I prefer to zoom down from the clouds and strafe
If you get the feeling I might be a “Fundamentalist”
All I can reply is :
“No. I’m a Deist”
As were most of our Founding Fathers
Our Constitution is premised on that worldview
Which assumes the existence of free will and personal responsibility as a prerequisite to citizenship.
If nobody else is “God”, then I guess I have to be (God Help Us) responsible for my own actions.
“Rationalization” is vastly overrated as a means to find “Truth”
If you haven’t, read “Godel, Escher, Bach” by Hofstadter, read it.
Also “Thinking in Pictures” by Temple Grandin
If you have not experienced Agape, then I doubt that it can be explained to you
If you wish to have a dialogue, it by definition, requires the participation of two points of view. I have free will and thus posses a POV.
Do you?
I am confused. On the one hand you declare this and rule on that, ruling me "out" unless it on your terms. On the other, you still want to engage.
I don't do "battle". No one wins online fights. I post on this regularly.
I manifestly have a POV, and one aspect of it is that free will is an illusion, but you "require" me to "believe in it" or else I don't have a POV.
Silly, methinks.
Because if my disbelief in Free Will makes me non-something, or not worthy or capable of being engaged with, as you declare by fiat, then who or what's POV are you engaging with right now, if not mine?
I allow you your terms and POV. Big philosophical tent and all that, but also because we have it is manifest, we have no "choice": you exist, you assert a POV, I respond from mine, rinse and repeat. In your worldview, if i don't subscribe to certain beliefs I am disenfranchised in some sense. I look down, feel all my parts, and yet I am still here, with my POV.
I guess your Philo kung fu failed with me after all.
It would seem we might have re-arrived at David's premise after all: My kind of Left allows for polyglot beliefs and even non-belief. You seem to want to deny me some kind of existential voice based on your "deist" and personal beliefs.
Yet here we are, still struggling to engage.
The heart of it all is lovingkindness. Live and let live. If we "allow" each other a bit, frame our remarks to minimize sarcasm and condescension, stand up and declaim but without arrogance, we might brush against each other in a productive way, and be reminded that we are both sentient beings, entitled by mere existence with a voice and POV.
Surely this is consistent with your deism, yes?
The heart of my “Kung Fu” philosophy is actually my judo/martial arts philosophy that the only fight that is ever “Won” is the one that does not take place.
I think our “common ground” is what you describe as “The heart of it all is lovingkindness. Live and let live”, which I recognize and can classify as at least analogous to what I describe as “Agape”
What I did was an exercise in “Putting words in your mouth”- as you started out stuffing me into the box in your mind marked “Libertarian”
I refuse to fit, much less defend the position.
This is a typical “Redneck” response, though to say that is itself an untenable generalization
It might be characterized as,” Well, if you ain’t gonna TRY to understand what I’m saying, to hell with you.”
The whole premise of David’s rant appears to be that there is such a thing as the “Mass”, “Stupid”, Right Wing Idiot, and all the problems of our Nation are caused by them and they are going to drive us to a Civil War if we don’t get them to change their beliefs, but they are obviously too stupid too recognize the Truth.
I get the feeling he’s talking about me and my neighbors who just flat don’t trust the government. With good reason.
And when someone like Noni objects to his label, he just tries to “Stuff” all the harder.
( I like her remark about reading “Kiln People” to see if she gets any “Smarter”)
So, sauce for the Goose, you stuff me in the “Classic Libertarian” box, I stuff you in the “Dust in the wind” box. Doesn’t work very well either way, if what you intend is to avert a civil war.
For discourse between equal parties to a problem, it is only necessary that I define my position. It is not necessary that I defend it. Any movement from my position is the result of negotiation, or heightened knowledge or awareness, not ridicule.
As to averting the civil war, we seem to have established that Name Calling, Ridicule of Position, and Attempts to Affix Blame are non productive. We do still seem to agree that “avoiding a civil war” is a laudable goal ( we’re both still here)
Now what?
The reference to goats is a steal from ?H.L.Menken? at any rate some literary light of his time frame- who started the game of “Conjugating the verb” in terms of what was actually implied.
My remembrance of the conjugation of the verb “To Believe” seems to be
I maintain Truth We are Steadfast
You entertain Delusion You are Pigheaded
He/she fornicates with goats They really like goats
I think we can call this a win, then, we calmed, engaged, and you seem more real to me nbow.
No "stuffing" intended. My remark:
"Unfortunately I must also differ, with some confusion, about your last two grafs. You proffer a classic, substantial, and case-book definition of modern Libertarianism with the two tenets of "no "collective" rights" and "...least government."
Professing that i differ, and have confusion, is not "stuffing", not to me, anyway.
I checked my sources, and will stand by my contingent belief that you are some kind of Libertarian -- but given how complex and diverse Libertarianism is, I cede the point that this almost a meaningless distinction. And boy is it a moving target: the town hall teabaggers who showed up this year profess a wide range of libertarian and independent POVs, but were operating under the budgets for and the website direction of paid PR consultants for big corporations, whether they knew it or not. And that corporate support/apologia seems anathema to Libertarianism, so who knows?
All the best, Token. Glad we found some civil & common ground.
Peace out! he he
? That wouldn’t be analogous to Fat Freddy Freak’s blessing of “Peace on you!”, would it?
He He
"Happy to oblige, and there is, sadly, a lot more where that came from. You should read/watch outside the Right's box more, methinks:"
Thanks for the link. I am disturbed that Beck went there. He was wrong and no excuses for his behavior. In the period of time I have seen some of his shows all I have heard him do is explicitly admonish violence and threats.
As for reading/viewing outside the "Right's box" what do you think I am doing here? Let's see, what other blogs and sites do I read regularly (some daily, others as linked or weekly)? Among them are Salon (first time on your blog I must admit), Politico, WaPo, NYT, LAT, the occasional foray into the DU swamp (yuck) and HuffPo, Time, Newsweek, ABC online, some papers in the UK and Australia, The Economist, Marginal Revolution and The Week. I get my daily fix of AP news stories in my local paper.
On the tube one can't escape from leftist bias as one watches any of the 3 big network newscasts - I do admit a slight preference for NBC Evening News with Brian Williams, however.
Thanks for asking.
My apologies. Of course, and obviously: you are here.
More than that: your last comment is a great piece of palms-up engagement, across the divide. Not all of us, but MANY, on OS are seriously disturbed by the scorched earth aspect on the Right this summer, AND understand that the Left is not lily-white anything.
I welcome you and Token to OS, and hope we can remember this exchange (thanks, David!) and cut a gallant charm for one another.
Thanks for your kind remarks.
I truly believe that as a nation we MUST rise above partisanship and look at what has happened to our representative government. Both parties have dishonored our Founding Fathers and should be ashamed.
We need a clean break where we put the past behind us and look forward. Many conservatives I know feel the same and are willing to reach out with an open hand.
My brother is a Kucinich disciple from way back in his Cleveland days. We have had some spirited political conversations over the years as you might imagine. They crested last year during the campaign when he let loose with a heap of vile invectives unlike I have ever heard anywhere - directed at me. I was stunned that my BROTHER literally went NUCLEAR on me. It was shocking and extremely hurtful. In hindsight his behavior stunned even himself and he reached out in apology and with a new born true willingness to listen and understand. Since then we have spoken about the need for others who have had similar experiences to come together and find a new way to work on behalf of this country. He has included me in some of his email exchanges with his like minded friends - laughingly admitting he has an OC Conservative in the family. I take it as an honor to be granted admittance to his circle and be able to offer my worldview. Honestly only a few times have the "ah-ha" lights come on, but it is a start.
I hope that you are an example of what I can expect on this blog from others as well. You have made me feel welcome.
Except fewer long spats! Take em outside...
;-)
david brin
"It is not true that all conservatives are stupid, but it is true that most stupid people are conservative."
But I definitely agree with many of your points and your charges and implications are, in my opinion, very relevant.
Good post!
Thanks for choosing to stoke the fire rather than tamp it out.
Don't you get that BOTH sides will reap what they sow? Sigh...
No, the difference between the Dems and gops is NOT whether one side or the other has crazies. It is the fact that (for now) all the lefty crazies are marginalized and powerless, while the Democratic Party is run by its sincere pragmatists. OTOH, the Republican Party is wholly owned and operated by treasonous neo-feudalists, leading battalions of fanatics, tugging on an army of sheep.
in-awe, your are being silly. There comes a point in time when the professorial blue types who keep trying to use reason and negotiate and explain science and argue sensibly... have got to realize that the other side isn't remotely interested.
I’m not sure “Sincere Intelligence”cuts it.
I don’t so much reject the notion of “Left /Right” as political adjectives as find it a sometimes “Relationally” valid description in the same sense as it is relationally valid in terms of Location. It provides no indication of “Absolute Truth”
It is only valid in terms of Relative Position – is Mecca East or West? To answer that question you have to know where you are starting from and where you intend to go.
It fails the test as an adjective describing an absolute “Position”
Am I Right? Of course I’m Right, my Rite for finding Right (orientation to the East)is always Right, provided you turn Right the right number of Revolutions (Nb- the right rite for Revolution is never “Communist or Socialist- these are definitionally Leftist Rites)
I believe our Founding Fathers were Right, in that the Bill of Rights shows their devotion to Rights and basic Right thinking. So the Revolutionary war started out as a Leftist ( anti Monarchy)” We The People’s” Rite, but from our position after the revolution, it was a Rightist, not a Leftist Rite.
But to face Right and Do Right and Maintain Rights, one must know which way one is facing so as to apply the proper Revolution
In order to turn out right, it is sometimes necessary to ignore the rite of the right Revolution being to turn Right, and turn Left.
So know I’m not always absolutely on the Right, though I absolutely believe in the Rights and most of the Rites of government of, for, and by a body of Right thinking Free Individuals who jealously treasure the Right and Their Rights
But
Sometimes in order to do the right rite right, one must turn Left
Personally as a believer in “Free Will Individualism” I usually lean toward individual small government solutions, and in today’s “(mis)undersatanding of the non-absolutist meaning of the terms, that almost always makes me Right.
Am I Therefore stupid?
I feel, rather, that I am Rightly revolving toward my Rights against the concentration of power in the clutches of a federal government that I neither respect nor trust
Back in the sixties that made me “Left”
My position hasn’t changed
I still “Lean” “Individualist” and believe in ”Free Will Individual Consent” to be governed.
So, am I Right (and taken up by the Rapture of Rightness?) or Am I Left(Behind)?
And should we “Revolution” to the Right or the Left?
I can only observe, that Right thinking people do go both ways,
And often, both are Right
So is it surprising almost everyone thinks they are Right?
And has no idea what the meaning of Right is?
Perhaps this is the origin of the notion that people who describe themselves as “Right”
Most often don’t know what they are talking about.
But they are no less often Right than are those who describe themselves as Left
And they are most often not “Stupid”
merely victimized by “Absolute” Confusion.
Rant CR 10/08/2009 Token
In fact, the "left-right axis" poisons discourse and bears little relation to the issues the lefties and rightists believe they do. It is a crutch for saps.
Only deliberately silly?
Shoot, I was going for deliberately confusing and offensive.
I know I could never write anything in a class with a Congressional Health Care Reform Bill, but I was hoping to make it to the level of confusion and offensiveness of a game of 3 card monte, at least.
As I was discussing with Greg, I see absolutely no reason to allow my opponent to define the terms or rules used in a game of “Skinn(er)” me (You recall P.T. Skinner, ”There’s a Pigeon born every second”?)
There is only one way I know of to “win” when someone forces you to bet on a game of 3 card monte.
Pull out a pistol of a caliber approaching a half inch and point it at the dealers head.
Hold down the card that you choose as the Queen
Have the dealer flip the other two cards
Neither of these will be the queen
Ergo, your card is the queen and you’ve won, QED
Actually, any step after the first is just unnecessary showing off.
The characteristic that best defines whoever it is that the (Ruling Class?, Left?Intellectuals?) are trying to define as “Stupid” (Conservative? Libertarian? Right wing? Prole?)
Is: WE DON’T TRUST THEM
Yes, we do understand as much of the proposals as isn’t deliberate nonsense
(lawyer full-employment acts, as a a friend of mine who was a legislative aide in the Ohio legislature used to call them)
That’s WHY we don’t trust them
Is that clear enough?
The congress is a bunch of likeable guys and all that, but they’re so out of touch with day to day reality as it is lived by us Proles, that they actually think that what they’re trying to do makes sense.
We’ll get along fine, as long as they leave me alone, but anymore, they insist I not only play 3 card monte with them, they insist on increasingly higher stakes.
If refusing to participate makes me “Stupid”
Then all I can say to them is
No offense, but peace on you
My position is clear and they can blow dust at it until they have a veritable sandstorm, and when it’s all over, I’ll dig out and be in the same position I’ve always held, and they’ll still be dust on the wind
No Offense Meant.
1) Idiot. 3 card monty guys have partners and enforcers, watching the game. You draw your gun... and you get a pipe wrench against the back of your skull. Dope.
2) Your rant is pure cynicism chic, the most tiresome and noisome religion of young dingbats who have benefited from a civilization that was improved relentlessly by the hard work and good will and negotiations of millions of Enlightenment heroes... scientists, technologists, soldiers...
.... and yes... many, many politicians who did NOT give in to the spoiled-brat drug of cynicism. High on any list of disgustingly filthy personality traits is ingratitude.
Brat.
3) Across 4,000 years of human history, 99% of free markets and moments of liberty were ruined NOT by socialists or bureaucrats... but by crony-boy oligarchies of the rich and mighty. I consider myself a libertarian BECAUSE I know that liberty can be destroyed from that direction, too.
In fact, it USUALLY is destroyed from that direction. And dig it (though you won't), Adam Smith KNEW that direction was the worst danger to liberty. But then, you never read him.
Hence, I am a libertarian -- and most "libertarians" most definitely are NOT. Fixated on ranting at just one threat - "government." Fools.
David Brin has called me an Idiot,
Oh well guess there’s nothing for it but to knip off and shoot myself
Don’t worry, I’ll be humane
You? A Libertarian?
I thought we were discussing avoiding the coming civil war
Great contribution, people who disagree with you are all idiots
Fine illustration of the idiocy you decry
The reason we (NB not libertarians, Rednecks) don’t trust government is that it contains all too many humorless arrogant assholes who would gladly save us from ourselves, if we were only intelligent and grateful enough to let them do it- (like current science fiction, which oddly enough, reads like current health care reform proposals )
Is anyone actually stupid enough to play 3 card monte? Are you actually too dumb to recognize an analogy when you see it? ( The proper critique is “Poor Analogy”- not “Poor Tactics” I’ve been in situations where pointing a gun kept me from being robbed or killed- have you? )
And to be called a “Brat” by someone at least 5 years my junior? Oh Please
I’ve been reading sci-fi since the early fifties
Authors like you are why I don’t read it much anymore
Like Noni, I’m still willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, I’m off to read one of your books to see if I can’t smarten up some.
See you on the battlefield
( Feel free to delete the comment- wouldn’t want you to not have the last word and be “Right”)
“3) Across 4,000 years of human history, 99% of free markets and moments of liberty were ruined NOT by socialists or bureaucrats... but by crony-boy oligarchies of the rich and mighty.”
Just who is it you think is running the government these days except “crony-boy oligarchies of the rich and mighty.”? Like Aig, Like Goldman Sachs, like George Soros ( oh sorry- he is a socialist isn’t he- so by definition he’s not a crony boy with other billionaires) Like SEIU, (oops, they’re a Union, so they can’t be crony-boys either ) or ACORN ( oh shoot, they’re just Gangsters- no crony boys there) And of course it’s utter fantasy to imagine that the UN might enjoy being the World Government, you know, so they can help Al Gore with that climate crisis thing.
Nope, no crony boys in our government.
I guess we really don't need to insist on that inconvenient old Bill of Rights afterall
You've convinced me, we just need to bow to governments benevolent concern for our welfare ---They do know best. they are the government and they're just here to help
And if YOU can use 3 card montey as a metaphor, so can I. Only I got your point and you were too busy whimpering to get mine.
I'll reiterate. Cynicism is the cheapest emotional crutch in existence. It often pairs with contempt for all of civilization, especially its institutions -- a trait that you exhibited in your postings.
You are here because of many, many idealists and pragmatist who overcame the seductive lure of bratty cynicism and instead worked to achieve incremental improvements. And many many of them were politicians, as many are today.
Standing on the shoulders of all those men and women, living a life that they enriched and ennobled -- while snarling that nothing good came of it.... well, I do not claim that you ARE stupid. Your vocabulary and wit are clearly those of a Mensa type. But the ATTITUDE is as stupid and useless as they come.
Fortunately, a smart ingrate can wise up and become a smart optimist-grateful-pragmatist. I hope that can happen.
But a dope who actually believes that bureaucrats are the worst or even most plausible enemy of freedom, is someone who knows so little human history, he might have been born yeasterday... and he's somebody who has ALREADY proved that he will swallow the tricks of con artists.
I’m not sure where you get the “Anti Government” notion from the fact that I insist that I ( and all other citizens) are the source of all legitimate authority in Government, in that legitimate government requires the consent of the governed With me so far?
As the source of authority Citizens have and exercise certain Unalienable Rights
The Bill of Rights spells out some but explicitly Not All these Rights.
The he basis of our government is Majority Rule, Minority Rights.
Insistence that the government respect these Rights is the basis of the Libertarian Party I know.
The first comment Greg made concerned what aspects of Government I would do without, and then listed a whole lot of things that are best, and usually done at a local level.
What I am concerned about is not “Government”, it’s the concentration of power in the Federal Government, much like what Ike and Goldwater warned against.
I have a say in my local county government and in my State government. I don’t want to see the Feds dictating things best handled at a local level.
I also don’t want the feds creating “Crises” so that they have an excuse to “Do what’s best for you, trust me, you don’t have time to think about it, and you’re too stupid to understand it anyway”
Like Global warming? Or is it Climate Change?
I don’t see he proof . Does that make me stupid? How about my brother the Combustion and Environmental Engineer who worked for the EPA on combustion and emissions regulation?
He can prove Global Warming isn’t happening. So who do I believe? Well, since my degree is only in Psychology and Satistics, all I can say is that I like my brother’s statistical ahnalysis better.
I think the problem lies in the fact that I regard myself and others as Free Individuals possessing Free Will and Responsibility for our action. So does the Constitution.
If you don’t believe in Free Will, you can’t believe in the Constitution.
And in the day when “Intellectuals” base their worldview on such Scientific Geniuses as Richard Dawkins and BF Skinner, it’s not surprising that they don’t respect other peoples Rights or Intelligence.
The problem that exists for people who deny their free will and their responsibility is that no matter how large a scientific lever they may possess, they leave themselves no place to stand, and therefore cannot move the world. They remain merely dust in the wind, without free will, without responsibility, without a valid voice, since by definition, they don’t exist.
And I refuse to let such people rule me. I withdraw my consent to be governed.
I had no problem with Eisenhower, I had no problem with JFK
The problems started when Johnson
I don’t really expect it to do any good to try to explain that to you
I do insist that the government respect my opinion
I don’t really care what you think of my opinion, you don’t have authority to bother me.
And I will let you know when you are
You aren’t.
The Government is. (the Federal Government since Johnson)
And, since you recognize my Mensa level intellect,( Member since 1968 –IQ 162) and conflate me with “The Right”, we have disproved your thesis that those on the “Right” are stupid. QED
The "feds" you are talking about have so vastly done more good than harm, across the last 200 years (except to the indians) that you most definitely ARE a churlish ingrate, for automatically and reflexively assuming the worst.
Oh, under some prexies, there have been efforts to turn the presidency into a monolithic obligate tyranny. Cheney's declarations of presidential supremacy were chilling. And those who supported him, yet NOW won't give Obama the time of day, are utter hypocrites.
But I am perfectly willing to exercise skepticism toward federal power. It is part of what libertarians are supposed to be for. I exercise it myself and admired goldwater.
But 99% of libertarians are historical ignoramuses who eagerly swallow Rupert Murdoch's koolaid and ignore the simple FACT that freedom and markets were ALWAYS destroyed by aristocratic oligarchs, NOT by well-meaning paternalistic liberals. The latter are sometimes awful PC dolts. But there is NO proof that they ever did a fraction as much harm as monopolists do, every chance they get.
And that is a fact and you have utterly ignored it, with narrow monomania, for the last 4 exchanges.
As for climate change, the insipid and doltish FRENZY with which it is denied is stark raving lunacy. WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF?
If 99% of climate scientists prove to be wrong, and we spend too much on efficiency... um... how horrible! We'll be too efficient!!!!!!!!
If 99% of climate scientists prove to be right, and you jerks delayed us for 20 years, then it's a calamity and the fault of total assholes.
Hence, it does not matter which side proves right. The liberals are right about WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE. Only oil companies and raging loons would oppose getting more efficient.
If 99% of climate scientists prove to be right, and you jerks delayed us for 20 years, then it's a calamity and the fault of total assholes.
"Hence, it does not matter which side proves right. The liberals are right about WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE." ( and will use any means necessary to do it?)
Well, gee, it's good to know someone knows what needs to be done and isnt afraid to use extralegal means to do it!
Cue the heme song
"Die Fahne Hoch......
Now if someone will just find us an environmental Marinus van der Lubbe.........
What could we possibly be "afraid" of?
Fact: the vast majority of scientists... plkus citizens who actually believe in science ... have NEVER insisted there's only one way to seek and achieve efficiency. We have always been willing to meet conservatives at a bargaining table to hammer out an eclectic range of methodologies by which our nation and civilization might hurry toward greater efficiency.
1) to ease climate change
2) to reduce dependence upon foreign oil
3) to save trillions of wasted dollars leaking out of our pockets
4) to generate new industries and accomplish the same boost the Internet provided in the 1990s
Even if #1 proved out to have been exaggerated, ALL the other reasons were sufficient to make it a priority. There were all sorts of decent market-based solutions that could be added to an eclectic mx.
But negotiation has not been on the right wing agenda. Instead it has been a dizzying array of horrifically ludicrous rationalizations for why "there's no problem at all! Nah!"
20 years of blatant delaying tactics that had nothing to do with logic, science or reason. Just helping the Saudis -- who financed it all -- to maintain their grip around our throats.
Bah. If you could name one metric of national health that unambiguously went down under Clinton or went up under Bush, you would have, by now. The correlation is so perfect, it would be though implausible in a silly novel.
I am done here.
So, let’s review what we’ve learned
1.The Right is always not merely Stupid, but Insane and Evil as well
2.You are always Right
3.The Federal government is kind and benevolent and wise and I am ignorant and cynical and an ungrateful Brat, except for the last eight years, when the federal government was evil and corrupt and dictatorial ( and I’ll bet a nickel that you were then ignorant and cynical and an ungrateful Brat – but gee, at least we both were)
4.We’ve established whose fault the civil war will be
( Ergo we are justified in seizing power to prevent it)
5. Some Ends justify any means, since the people who oppose you are “jerks” and “ignorant assholes” and it is not only necessary but also Just that you use any means necessary to save not just our Country, but the World
Works for me
I am moving on to other things.
If that deal hadn't been struck, I believe that the financial and military debacles which we now face probably would never have materialized. The lunatic fringe would be on the fringe rather than in our face. Our airwaves would not be clogged with more propaganda and hate speech than we got from Lord Haw-Haw. And we wouldn't now be wondering how long we have before some Timothy McVeigh wanna-bes go and do something really stupid.
I hope you're enjoying your swim in the Lake of Fire, Reverend Falwell.