The vast majority of people on the Left have gone completely nuts in the way they think and act about contemporary political matters.
One of the first things you learn in any course on statistics is that there’s a danger in extrapolating global trends from personal observations.
Your friends, neighbors, the people you correspond with, even the community as a whole in which you live does not constitute a wide enough group from which to draw generalized conclusions about human nature or human behavior. I learned this in a practical way in 1972 when I visited New York City in the aftermath of the 1972 presidential election. While wandering through the streets of Greenwich Village I overheard a woman lament to her friend, “I still don’t understand how McGovern could have lost. I don’t know a single person who voted for Nixon!”
And so, it is with a fair degree of trepidation that I offer some personal assessments about the trends I see in contemporary American politics — not regarding the outcome of discrete events which lend themselves to a certain amount of verifiable objective analysis, but to the more esoteric matter of whether the vast majority of people on the Left have gone completely nuts in the way they think and act about contemporary political matters.
To begin this discussion we first need some kind of baseline. However, the problem here is similar to trying to measure the impact of man-made global warming. If you start with an unusually cold period, like that which occurred in the late 1800s, then everything beyond that point will appear “warmer.” Start with the last fifty years or so of recorded temperatures, and the trend appears stable, or even getting cooler. Go back to the 1500s and you have a mini ice age. Go back a few centuries before that and the ice is definitely melting.
And so it is with measuring political discourse. Contrary to the grade school myth about George Washington never telling a lie, political speech in this country (or any other country for that matter) has always been filled with lies, distortions, hyperbole and exaggerations. In one sense there’s never been a period of time when two opposing views were expressed cordially and with great respect for the facts of the matter, rather than simply making up the facts to support a preconceived position.
What’s at stake, then, isn’t a return to some “purer” previous time when all points of view were discussed rationally and respectfully, but rather a sense of where we are now along this continuum of hyperbole and deception. In short, is the bulls*it that passes today for informed political judgment different in any substantive way from the bulls*it that passed for political discussion in a previous era?
My political awakening began with the election of John F. Kennedy in the 1960s, so that’s my personal frame of reference. Nixon was confronted during the debates with a phony “missile gap” that Kennedy knew, from confidential briefings, did not actually exist. Nevertheless, as a matter of national security Nixon could not reveal sources and methods and give the correct assessment to the American public that Soviet technological capabilities had been greatly exaggerated. The people of the country argued back and forth about who would protect the nation better in a time of increasing global tension, the hawkish Democrats or supposedly asleep-at-the-switch Republicans.
I’ll use this seminal event in my life to judge the present state of political discourse. As I’ve pointed out through my Looney Liberal Chronicles, I detected a noticeable shift in political rhetoric beginning with the election of George Bush in 2000. Previously, only Democrats were supposed to steal elections and get away with it. A few thousand last minute votes mysteriously appeared in 1960 to put JFK over the top in Illinois, and that was just politics as usual. Nixon was expected to accept defeat, as he did, and end the matter there.
But in 2000 the Democrat candidate came out on the short end of the political stick. Despite a dozen or so independent recounts that always showed Bush with more votes in Florida than Gore, partisans on the Left continue to this day to charge the Republican Party with election fraud. In 2004, when Kerry was soundly defeated in Ohio thus giving the election again to Bush, the charge of “stealing the election” continued unabashed. In fact, the only fair election held this century in the eyes of the Left is 2006 when — by an astounding coincidence — the Democrats happened to win.
Should the Republican candidate prevail in 2008, there will be additional charges from the Left that the election was stolen. Democrats, today, no longer lose political contests. Every defeat is a stolen victory. The only difference today is that eight years ago it was Bush and his evil war-mongering oil buddies who stole these elections. Today, many Hillary supporters refuse to accept the fact that she ran an incompetent campaign, and maintain that Obama and his minions stole the election from them. Think I’m exaggerating just to make a point? Consider the March 11, 2008 headline from the Huffington Post: “Obama backer: Clinton Lies and Stolen Election.”
If McCain loses in November, the Right will analyze his loss as a variant of two general themes. We should have nominated [insert preferred candidate’s name here], or McCain ran a lousy campaign. Yes the press was in Obama’s tank, but what’s new about the press always favoring a Democrat for president? That tidbit is a footnote, not a factor in explaining McCain’s loss.
If Obama loses in November, the Left will see things a bit differently. The election was stolen from him in [insert state here] by [insert nefarious forces here]. The country is too racist to elect a black man for president (never mind his political views). Fox News poisoned the voters' minds, even though their market share is infinitesimal compared to ABC, NBC, CBS, The New York Times, etc. Talk Radio poisoned the voters' minds, and thus the Fairness Doctrine must be reinstituted so people will be forced to listen to liberals tell them how rotten the country is and how great the Democrats are, whether they want to hear this important message or not. The war in Iraq diverted key funds from voter education back in the United States. It rained in Nebraska which gave the Republicans an unfair advantage. The victims of Hurricane Katrina are still suffering, and that kept them from casting their votes because they were discriminated against as people of color.
The list of excuses will be endless. In short, Obama will not have lost the election. His rightful place in the Oval Office will have been denied him unfairly.
To be sure, there are nuts in every political movement and political party who see conspiracies under every rock. What distinguishes these nut jobs of a few years ago from the Right and Left then, and the political Right today, is the fact that these beliefs have gone completely mainstream on the Left. Whether it’s multiple stolen elections, deliberately manufactured intelligence by Bush showing WMD in Iraq (that was also embraced by Bill Clinton during his time in office), or 9-11 Truthers who can’t explain where the missing passengers are on the non-hijacked plane that didn’t hit the Pentagon, the facts don’t matter anymore. The Left today refuses to recognize any facts that either demonstrate their inability to win an election because of their candidate’s political philosophy, or contradict their multitudinous conspiracy theories to explain why certain things didn’t work out the way they wanted them to.
There are a couple of reasons for this, I believe, both interrelated. The first is the existence of the Internet, where any fool with a computer can create his own history and give it worldwide exposure. I’m not talking about someone laying out a reasoned argument in support of their position. I’m talking about the Dan Rather make-it-up-and-claim-it’s-real kind of scholarship that we see increasingly on the Left and extreme Right. Where in the past idiocy of this sort used to be reserved for the neo-Nazis who wanted to prove the inherent superiority of the white race, today we see the institutionalized insanity of the Daily Kos, Huffington Post, and other great paragons of Leftist thought which gives rise to political pabulum disguised as political analysis.
Anyone, anywhere today can publish anything as fact, and through the Internet get an instant global acceptance of those “facts.” Couple this with the basic illiteracy and obvious immaturity of those pushing these views, and you have the perfect political storm. There’s intense emotion, commitment, bluster and conviction, all based on feelings rather than objective analysis.
Strongly held beliefs don’t require, in and of themselves, that the person holding these beliefs act like a moron. It’s certainly possible for two intelligent people to look at the same set of data and come to opposite conclusions. Paleontologists do this all the time when they try to classify a newly discovered fossil. This task becomes infinitely more complex when the subject isn’t science, but political opinions. And yet, even when people from widely divergent perspectives meet, genuine discourse is possible if each side holds itself to a minimum of standards. This isn’t possible, though, when someone says it’s a “disgrace” that younger people are forced to fund the social security payments of present day retirees because the government has used all of the collected SSI funds to subsidize other programs, only to see the media and his political opponents report the candidate as saying that “the social security system is a disgrace.”
Yes, both sides of the political spectrum do this kind of thing, and with some frequency. But not every smear or distortion is identical in scope or its insidious nature. Just like embezzling a million dollars is theft, and taking home a ream of paper from the office is theft, we need to look at more than the act itself and ask questions about the motives and, dare I say, intellect of its authors.
A couple of recent examples in the pages of The Intellectual Conservative illustrate this confluence between inventing facts and the basic illiteracy of the Left. By illiteracy I don’t mean poor grammar, although there is certainly a lot of that, and I’ve been known to toss out a tortured phrase or two myself. I’m speaking more about a basic lack of understanding about how things actually work, or any real effort to relate what that individual believes is true to what the objective reality of an issue is.
More and more I’ve seen this kind of typical response to something said by me or others at the IC:
I strongly know that if Sen. Obama losses [sic] in November, it wouldn’t be because of all your stated points but it would be because of more compelling issues. However, Sen. Obama will not loss [sic] because he is still the best among the current presidential candidates. Not to say too much, I think age, health and intellectuality would be part of numerous elements to consider. Above all, you should know that age, experience and education do not necessary equal wisdom. Wisdom is always a gift and it is a divine gift. Regardless of age or experience, some are gifted than others and I think Sen. McCain is not all that gifted.
Okay. I laid out ten reasons why Obama’s presidential aspirations are in trouble, some dealing with institutional factors, others dealing with the candidate himself. What I get in return is new age drivel disguised as creative thought. When I pointed out the lack of substance in this counter-analysis, I was treated to another compelling, follow-up reason disregarding everything I previously wrote.
November will be here soon and my fingers are crossed. BTW, Sen. Obama has achieved more than you will ever accomplished [sic]. So come November, he has nothing to loss [sic] except you. … People like you make the world to laugh at us. I wonder what John Adams is thinking in his grave right now.
Since John Adams died a couple of hundred years ago, I doubt very much he’s thinking anything at all in his grave right now. Nor, apparently, are some still-breathing contemporaries of this era. Agree or disagree with my position, there were ten points I laid out. Rather than take the points on and show me the error of my ways, I get some semi-literate buffoon talking about “gifted” politicians. Emotions become facts, wishes become reality, wants and beliefs become analysis.
Then there’s the second example of new Left thought. It contains a lot of CAPITALIZED WORDS and multiple exclamation points to show that the author of these remarks is a SERIOUS GUY!!!!
For example, one typical response begins with, “How is Obama going to lose when he will get so much more VOTES in November than John McBush??”
Well, I guess the answer is, as Al Gore discovered in 2000, the Constitution establishes the mechanism for selecting a new president, which involves the Electoral College, not the popular vote.
“[If] ANWR is so small and so filled with oil, Why not slant drill into it ?? Do you really think that the ONLY oil in Alaska is DIRECTLY under ANWR ?? SERIOUSLY !!!”
Well, we’ve had a pipeline in Alaska for a number of years, so I guess one might reasonably conclude there is oil in places other than ANWR. The issue, though, is whether we’ll be allowed to recover the oil in ANWR too, or just leave it in the ground and buy more from the Middle East or Chinese drilling offshore the United States. As for slant drilling, I think that’s a pretty good idea, but the Democrats won’t allow it . . . which was one of the points my original essay made. Seriously.
“You do know that the Oil companies are only drilling on a fraction of the land they currently have leases for ?? Why is that ?? Maybe because there are no more rigs to send out, no more ships to transport, and no more capacity at the refineries we have today. have you thought of that, PHIL ??”
Well, actually I have. When an oil company identifies a potentially attractive area to drill, this area could be attractive because it’s near another major discovery, or because it used to be an operating well that has now dried up, or because government has released some data that suggest the presence of hydrocarbons (i.e., gas and oil). Next, the company and/or the government conducts initial surveys, such as seismic mapping, to better understand the presence and availability of hydrocarbons under the surface. At this point, the company considers a number of factors in its decision about whether to drill a well: How deep are the hydrocarbons? What rock formations are beneath the rock and above it? Is there porous rock which might serve as a "sponge," soaking up an oil? How big might a potential hydrocarbon discovery be?
There is no way to know for certain how much oil either (a) exists, or (b) is recoverable in a cost-effective manner, at the time the initial lease is acquired. This is what the “exploration” phase of the lease and exploration process means. Leasing land does not automatically mean that oil exists and is recoverable.
This last point prompted a response from same individual that, “I guess since you are so well versed on oil recovery why do they lease so many acres and only find it on a miniscule percentage?? They have 68 MILLION acres that have NO OIL ON IT??”
Now, here’s where one has to make a decision about continuing the conversation. When you’ve just explained to someone the actual process of oil leasing and exploration, as well as the relationship between these two activities, and the only thing that person’s neural synapses are able to process is, “why do they lease so many acres and only find it on a miniscule percentage??”, we have a bit of a communication problem. Either that, or the person is an idiot as I posited, only to be told that no, really, I’m the one who is mentally deficient.
And why is that? Because in thinking that Obama’s electoral chances are nil, I’ve failed to recognize that, “Iraq and Afghanistan were supposed to instill fear in the mighty American war machine and make the terrorists think twice about attacking us. Instead, the bush/McCain war plan has made us the laughing stock of the planet and emboldened the enemy. We have zero credibility, we now are the torturers, we are the ones with secret USSR like prisons, we are the ones who refuse fair trials, we are the ones who spy on our own citizens. This is what Obama brings to the table. If its CHANGE from Bush/ McCain failed policies that’s all we need.” Oh, and by the way, “Bush stole the office” in 2000.
All of which brings me back to my central theme. Dialogue is impossible with a moron, regardless of how many capital letters and exclamation points he uses to convey his thoughts. Knock one straw man argument down and he ignores it, only to raise another superfluous issue. I noticed this first in my Looney Liberal Chronicles where Harry also had a penchant for EXCESSIVE CAPITALIZATION and multiple exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now, in less than a decade the world has become populated with super-Harrys who are off on an even more bizarre tangent. At least Harry would stay on point when he ranted about Katherine Harris, switching between her decisions and her eye shadow/makeup. The new Harrys start with one thought (oil), and wander all around the map from torture to secret USSR-like prisons, to get back to evil Republicans and the 2000 election.
The Left and Right today live on entirely different planets, so there’s no common point of reference to have this discussion — even if the Left was seriously interested in a dialogue, which it isn’t. The Left is only interested in a platform to promote its agenda. There’s no way to tell someone who quotes EIA (Energy Information Administration) studies to assert that “oil drilling in ANWR would not impact the U.S. oil supply for at least a decade” and that “the opening of ANWR would reduce the price of imported low-sulfur, light crude oil by [only] $0.75 per barrel in 2025”, that the EIS has been noticeably and embarrassingly unreliable in its statistical analyses. Its projections routinely differ from actual oil prices — and not just by a few points, but substantially. They have a bad history of internally inconsistent and routinely incorrect forecasts where oil prices are far too low. Since 1998, for example, 42 of the 45 annual forecasts from the EIA have significantly under-predicted the price of oil.
Tossing this bit of information into the discussion would be met with another round of, “oh yeah, there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” or “McCain is too old to be president,” or some other irrelevant issue that would prompt another round of Leftist insanity. So the conversation with the Left ends, because the definition of insanity is to do something over and over expecting different results.
One day, presumably, when the population of the fringe Left has been aborted into insignificance by its pro-choice advocates, there may be an opportunity to exchange real ideas again. Until then, their occasional forays into political discourse provide only a certain level of predictable comic relief.
Postscript: This essay was submitted prior to the 8/16/08 McCain-Obama presidential debate at Saddleback College. Following a dismal showing by Obama in which McCain clearly dominated the debate, the Obama campaign is accusing the McCain campaign of “cheating” to account for his superior performance.
Very interesting read and with out throwing bombs. I can't really think of a time in my political life, a child of the sixty's, and a proud member of the Peace and Freedom Party, that they haven't been unhinged. I actually had an epiphany my first vote and voted for Nixon. The rest is history, independent reading since the days of the mind washing I received in college has led me to some strong beliefs that are diametrically opposed to those that were taught. (Pick up Samuelson't Econ 101 book he is still teaching the wonders of deficit spending) Same book I used in the 60's my daughter had foisted upon her in the 90's. Are members of the far left unaware of the consequences of their failed and recycled programs? Absolutely, the more you can control people and make them beholden to you, you own them. Thus we cannot let 17% of the GDP fall into the hands of central planners with their utopian ideas of health care. Let's not bother to check facts, the systems they are trying to emulate are failing world wide. Much work needs to be done on a bi-partisan basis to solve this issue in the private sector. It can and will happen.
After reading Morris' book fleeced I come to view members of both parties as arrogant, wasteful people with a lust for getting re-elected and stealing our wealth so they can remain employed long enough to lobby for foreign countries. If the average voter had a clue as to the game these folks have been running on us there would be a new Boston Tea Party, this time throwing all the politicians into the reflecting pool on the Capital Mall.
Phil I go with Grover Norquist's contention that within 50 years people will start getting it, and then we will have the "Leave us Alone" group vs the Takers. It's time for the takers to quit whining and become contributors.
There are numerous ways we can take our government back, witness Nancy "I'm saving the word Pelosi' realization that Democratic seats would be lost if she didn't bring off shore drilling up to a vote. In closing, the lesser of two evils is evil and I see no redeeming qualities of any politician, particular those on the far left that have hijacked the Democratic party. Great read thanks
What I wonder is when Obama loses what does he do? After giving speeches to 200,000 in Berlin, after the adoration that was placed upon him by the press, people fainting when he speaks, thunderous applause, and his own inflated sense of his self, what does he do?
I can not see him going and becoming one of one hundred. I have managed losing campaigns. The day after the election everything is gone. The press, the adoring masses it is all gone and you have to go back to being just one of many with the highpoint of your life maybe making an American Express commercial.
It happens instantly. One day you are the messiah and the next day you are hailing your own cab in DC. He has not really served in the Senate. He chairs a subcommittee that he has never held a session. There are pages that have spent more time on the Senate Floor then him. What will he do?
This will be scary to say the least. Will he go quietly into the night? Will he turn bitter and vicious? Will be accept his position and just try to become the greatest senator in US history?
When you have been likened to a savior sent from God (paraphrasing Nancy Pelosi, but close). What do you when you are rejected by the people that in your own mind you were sent to save?
All Excellent points and real questions. Perhaps with his "Rock Star Image" and European appeal he can figure a way to become President of the EU? He clearly feels more comfortable with their policies than the traditional values held by 60% of Americans who still lean center right.
GREAT PIECE PHIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But what I want to know is, if the beginning of life is above his pay grade and he is aspiring to the highest position in the know world, then who would be qualified to judge? Are all females above the President? Or should it be Patriarch Alexius II, Pope Benedict XVI, or Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi? It’s very hard for me to imagine who he was trying to satisfy with that answer.
Ivan: Obama has no core values (or at least none he can share with the American people and hope to get elected), so he comes up with hopefully "cute" answers. He can tell you precisely who is rich — people making more than $249,999.99 — but he can’t tell you who is “human” or not. He is the ultimate empty suit. Seriously. I mean, SERIOUSLY!!!!!
It’s kind of embarrassing to think he taught law at the university I attended. Fortunately, I received my degree in 1981, so I can’t account for standards after I left.
Great article mirroring many of the "discussions" I have had with liberals. It seems like we are moving toward a society of producers and takers particularly with the trend toward relatively uneducated legal and illegal immigrants making up all of our population growth. For those with a bent toward philosophy Ayn Rand would be saying "I told you so" and wags might say Atlas Shrugged.
Take a few minutes to reflect on many of our country's current problems and the effect on them by this deluge of immigration:
Oil dependency: Even better than the Omessiah's solution of inflating your tires would be removal of all illegals for a net saving of around 6% overall. The math is easy 20,000,000 (conservative estimate) of 300,000,000.
Each student in schools costing $10,000 per year until they drop out. If the average immigrant family is almost 3 children that comes out to around $360,000 before adding ESL and other perks given to non-English speakers.
The list goes on but all liberals and most Republicrats will duck the questions. McCain is still a very poor choice although the Omessiah is an abyssimal choice.
Mickey, that's absolutely brilliant! I never thought of calculating the energy savings we might have from reducing illegal immigration — not to mention the "carbon footprint" savings within our borders!!!!
(I've used multiple exclamation points so any liberals looking in on this comment section can understand the point better).
Well Done !!!!!!!!!
Phil,
Isn’t that an unfair question, asking us to pronounce ‘lunatic’ those who are, by definition and inclination, mentally-challenged? It has always been my observation the over-excitable, obsessive, and easily deluded tend to one party while the majority either avoid politics (as the province of lunatics) or else weigh in hoping to counteract the parade of bad ideas. And have done so for many decades. Over time, this has produced such a concentration of extremists in the liberal camp we naturally and automatically assume the term itself connotes mental-illness; and, only rarely the product of reasoned (if faulty) consideration. Long ago, liberalism was about freedom expressed as the simple and natural proposition men are created free, that there is no divinely bestowed domination. Over time, liberalism has evolved into such a mindless passion for change [change we can all get behind (so long as we don’t look too close at it)] as the original meaning is completely lost on the nitwits who proudly and profanely assume it describes them.
Phil: Re your comments about the Oh Man only taxing people up to a certain degree of wealth as he tells us in his commercials. Facts bare out that he signed a tax increase on people making $38,000 per year, and increase in income taxes from 25% to 28%, but what's 3% to a lying socialist? This guy need to be exposed. You are doing a great job of it, the key is getting it out to the "true believers". That is why in my opinion his VP pick has to be somebody that can go out and explain taxation and it's consequences to the common voter. They just don't get it. That's all I would have him do, stump on failed economic policies and how we are still paying for them of the agenda on the left and how lowering marginal tax rates increases net proceeds to the government for them to squander.
Bob: Both my wife and daughter teach people with genuine mental illness. They were born this way, and deserve our (society's) attention.
As for the self-made lunatics of the Looney Left, well, this is something they've worked long and hard to achieve. Calling them what they are — idiots, fools, lunatics, etc. — isn't an insult. It's a description they've striven long and hard to acquire. This is what modern day liberalism has become, not by accident, but by design.
As Conservatives who respect hard work and initiative, we should accept their accomplishments for what they are. It takes a lot of energy to re-create reality and avoid learning anything about how the world actually works. Besides, in a reality of their creation where feelings and intentions matter more than facts and results, there's nothing any of us can do to interact meaningfully with them, except laugh at the unintended comedy they provide, defeat them at the polls (and be accused of cheating every time we succeed), and then wait for them to abort themselves out of existence.
Take care, Phil
JC: Everything I wrote about Obama having already lost the election presumes that McCain doesn't pick a liberal (or former Democrat now Independent) for his VEEP. If he does, all bets are off.
As for the Oman, his people will care less about what his VEEP says/does/stands for than whether the individual stands or sits when they pee; if they sit, whether or not they have a husband (in name only) who was a former president; and if they stand, have the right skin color to appeal to the right constituent groups (i.e. racist Democrats who wouldn't want a Black-Hispanic ticket).
The membership of today’s Democrat party is incapable of moving beyond race/sex/class warfare rhetoric in making their decisions. Facts are just things that RWOGs (rich old white guys) trot out to confuse you. Everyone “knows” what the definition of “rich” is to a Democrat. It’s not 30K, 50K 100K, 250K, etc.
It’s anyone who has more money than you do.
[...] Intellectual Conservative Politics and PhilosophyLong but interesting view of the current state of the political left. addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fasecondhandconjecture.com%2Findex.php%2F2008%2F08%2F19%2Fhas-the-left-gone-nuts%2F'; addthis_title = 'Has+the+Left+Gone+Nuts%3F'; addthis_pub = "; Sphere: Related Content [...]
P
GRATE POSD FELLAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Seriously, your point couldn't have been more timely in view of the whining from the Left about how McCain was listening to Obamessiah's presentation.
As some wag noted, if McCain had been listening, he'd have toned down his own presentation lest the Dems switch in panic to Hill at the Convention after such performance.
But re cheating, you have to understand Liberal "root causes". They know that Socialism works & that its failures up to now (everywhere!) result from the fact that it's never been tried correctly because so many have cheated.
Funny, so many of the cheats are the Liberals themselves.
For instance at lunch on a Monday, some Liberal co-workers would tell me that candidate Reagan, yes Reagan, was gonna untax the Rich & starve the poor; on Tuesday they would tell me how they (NYC residents) had bought clothes in NJ or had had NYC-bought clothes shipped to a relative in NJ, thus avoiding clothing taxes since NJ does not tax clothing sales. I reminded them that as NY residents they had a legal obligation to pay "use" taxes. When they gave me that old "10,000 yard" stare, I suggested to them that they were betraying the Liberal cause by cheating. They replied "don't be a schmuck".
Another Liberal friend (quite rich, tho neither he nor his wife will admit that they are) has retired to FL but visits his daughter in LI & goes to play free on the public golf course in her town as if he were a tax-paying resident, strictly illegal. (I won't explain how he does this lest others follow suit.) I tell him he's cheating on taxes & depriving some poor orphan of another bowl of porridge. His reply. "Don't be a smuck." Ya think he's a plagiarist from my luncheon companions?
So you have to understand that Liberals think that everybody cheats & thus when their candidate loses, his/her opponent must have cheated.
This is especially funny when one considers that Dems control inner city precincts which consistently report Communist-like majorities in favor of Dem candidates. (Liberal defense: Oh, yeah? Well, Upstate NY, Downstate IL & the vast middle between Philly & Pittsburg cheat for Republicans, so there.)
Anyway, re Saddleback, Liberals should admit that Obama is omniscient & thus knew McCain's answers before McCain even uttered them, so that, to even things up, McCain needed to cheat & hear Obama's answers through his upper Left molar (or which ever side he hears better from)! Notice the swollen face? Hmmmm? Key Twilight Zone Music, please…. :-)
Finally, I assume you've read where Bobby Thompson supposedly knew from signals from a spy in the outfield clubhouse what the pitch was gonna be when he hit his historic Home Run, & thus cheated &, QED, the HR was tainted. But he still had to hit it. So Obama knew what three of the questions were gonna be & hit foul balls Sat nite.
Conclusion: Obama is a foul ball.
Phil,
Contemporary society's yawning communication gulf is fascinating, however dismaying. Often, while responding on blogs, I feel as if I am in a parallel universe. As I am currently in university, the lack of rationality is sometimes overwhelming. Just this morning, I heard several MSMers wail that BO had to stop being such a nice guy and take off his gloves and fight back against the McCain attack machine. On what planet, I ask myself????
Here are a few thoughts on the subject:
1. The inability to carry on rational, substantive dialogue is as prevalent among educated individuals as it is among morons.
2. Individuals often mistake cynicism for sophistication while thinking that cynicism means ascribing the most virulent of motives and deceit to the other side; facts are irrelevant because everyone knows….yadayadayada
3. Post-modernist thought is obsessed with motives; dialogue with liberals often involves knee-jerk assumptions about the inner world of others. As mind readers, they suck.
4. Individuals often project their own ugliness onto others.
5. Liberals have lost the distinction between what constitutes an attack and what does not.
6. Words are increasingly valued over actions.
7. Racial identity politics, in particular, has had a malignant effect on rational discourse.
8. While we may think we are having a discussion about the most effective problem solving techniques, the other side believes that the discussion is about who is the most compassionate. Ergo, conversations often do not intersect in a meaningful way.
9. Often, when leftist comments are dissected, lefties think that it is the downtrodden that are being attacked, rather than their own flawed assumptions.
Well, I have indulged in a rant, so I will stop here.
jb: The biggest morons I know often have an advanced university degree.
Your points are dead spot on. They deserve at least 9 exclamation points !!!!!!!!!
I know you're in university now, but don't give up hope. Once people have to make their way through life after school, reality has a way of bringing everything into focus.
Hang in there. You're light years ahead of your contemporaries in understanding the real world, which means being successful at whatever you do.
Take care, Phil
Phil,
Thanks for the encouragement. The truth is that I spent several decades overseas, raising my five children and starting businesses for poverty stricken individuals from third world countries. When I returned to the US a few years ago, I was gobsmacked by the socialist trajectory and the rancid nature of political discourse.
Further, I was stunned/shocked by the failure to educate that was rampant in the US, despite the extraordinary infusions of $$$. Long story short…I found myself living in a low-income area and was sickened by the poverty culture in the US. The kids in my area have been told they are disadvantaged for so long that they are seething with rage. Very often criminal, they are grotesquely obese, well dressed, have every electronic toy known to man, can go to college for free, and feel the world owes them. Meanwhile, they cannot bother to go to class and do the work. Why should they?
At the end of the day, it became apparent to me that I needed a Ph.D. in economics to be taken seriously. Ergo, I have set forth on that path and can only say that I am appalled by the degraded nature of education in the US. I have teachers who have little grasp of the English language. Obsessed about economic disparities, they unwittingly do everything in their power to ensure that the disparities will continue as they give feel good grades and expect very little of their students.
As a long time fan of Intellectual Conservative, I can only give a high-five to y'all for bringing a substantive element to the discussion.
jb
Wonderful post.
With a slight emendation, your #8 sums up almost any political discussion I've ever had with almost anybody.
When I'm expressing an opinion in favor of capitalism in front of a group of folks, many conservatives, moderates, independents, & beyondists, & virtually all liberals seem to feel that they have to play to the crowd by immediately affirming, even interrupting, often loudly, that they are really, really compassionate, sometimes using me as a foil, a contrast.
When a Liberal is expressing an opinion in favor of Big Government in front of a group of folks, again many conservatives, moderates, independents, & beyondists, & virtually all liberals seem to feel that they have to play to the crowd by immediately affirming, even interrupting, often loudly, that they are really, really compassionate, sometimes using me as a foil, a contrast.
Enough to give one an inferiority complex!
I almost never see a parallel need for such non-liberal people to interrupt Liberals & tell them that the results caused by following any specific Liberal nostrums being propounded is ultimately a power grab by a bunch of bureaucrats & a lessing of freedom, except in the moral realm.
Phonies!
OOPs make that "lessening" of freedom.
Phil,
I live in Austin. Austinites are inordinately enamored of their so-called-compassion-quotient. Thus,the elites in our midst foisted a half-way house next door to my family and sprinkled section eight housing throughout a three mile radius of our homw. Note, those same elites would NEVER countenance the socio-economic havoc foisted upon their own children. Basically, Austinites LOVE the poor and dysfunctional as long as they don't have to interact with them or have their children's education and safety compromised by their good intentions.
I am still twizzling over what it means to love one's fellow man. Under the rubric of the elite, it seems to be little more than one's good intentions. So often, the metric of their compassion is little more than what they say. I always thought that words were cheap and that one was accountable for one's actions.
At the end of the day, I believe that individuals should be able to choose failure. Meanwhile, I think it is incumbent upon the rest of us to ensure that failure is a choice….
Oh, I know Austin well from my days lobbying the Texas State Legislature. Again you and Inwood are right on the mark.
Inwood,
I feel your pain. As you might imagine, living overseas gives one a real appreciation of the consequences of policy…When you see chilluns with flies on their eyeballs and ribs etched in bas relief, one no longer has the luxury of spouting "compassion crap." Consequences are defining/ informative.
jb
Sometimes it seems plus ç change… both my young liberal friends & young moi moved out en masse from our respective apartments, er, flats in Inwood (Uppa, Uppa Manhattan) in the ‘60s & ‘70s, for which, well, see, for instance: "Beyond The Melting Pot", Moynihan & Glaser (1970) ed, a dead-on description of NYC race relations in the ‘60s as a game where low & middle class whites were classified as racist & told, by upper-class Whites who made sure that they themselves didn’t also have to live with (or near) Blacks, or in fact suffer any unpleasantness, that they, the low/mid whites, had to live with Blacks in the interests of Justice & other Good Things, or "Parish Boundaries", McGreevy (1996), a serious study showing that ostensibly paranoid, vociferous clods had real grievances & real enemies, & were real victims of social planning from on high, aided and abetted by people not so affected, a hostile snobbish media, & a judgmental do-gooder academic community, as they watched their homes & neighborhoods – defined by their parishes – destroyed for little positive good.
Hope things work out for you. They did for me, tho not for the then older folks who, for one reason or another, couldn’t move early on. But, my dears, they don’t count. Odi profanum vulgus et arceo, you know.
P
"Flies on their eyeballs, ribs in bas relief…"
Indeed.
Aren’t you aware that if only Socialism had been tried by the right people, there would’ve have been, on the chilluns you refer to,
"Rings on their fingers, bells on their toes…"
Funny, but Liberals believe that.
And your failure to see the Liberal Vision, defines you as per se uncompassionate! :=).
Zogby publishes a poll showing Obama behind by 5, and he responds that it is all due to the lies of books being written against him, negative campaigning made of lies and FOX television broadcasting them all.
Phil the Messiah makes you a prophet.
Inwood,
I spent a year and a half on a task force desperately trying to combat the crime in our area. During a fourteen month period, my family and I experienced sixteen crimes. While a number of them were hit and runs [four occurred while we were parked], each crime fractured our sense of community. I have difficulty sleeping at night because I know that it is only a matter of time before some thug breaks into my house, not content with just snatching my purse or trashing my car while parked in front of my house. 97% of the original inhabitants of this area have fled the crime. The houses that are maintained still show vestiges of how lovely this area was back in the day.
Meanwhile, there is a minority area in East Austin that is undergoing gentrification. Property values have sky-rocketed. As property taxes are so high, people are having difficulty paying them, though there is little evidence that any have lost their homes.
Community activists and the "judgmental do-gooder community" and the media have mounted such a hue and cry over the tragedy of lost community scenario that the city has decided that certain low-income folks will be exempt from property taxes. Also, there is a program for low-income folks to remodel their homes with forgiveable loans.
So, here we have a situation in which people lost all the wealth in their homes, fled their tight knit community with nothing, often victims of ugly crimes, and have had to start over. This is considered perfectly acceptable by those who have never been impacted by the policies they forced upon others. I would imagine that the property wealth in America lost under this rubric is in the trillions of dollars. The pain of this situation can never be estimated.
There is something so essentially corrupted about the thinking patterns of so many of our elitists. And, while it angers me that the low income people in this area have so little regard for what it means to be a neighbor [In addition to the crime, they throw an unbelievable amount of trash everywhere, drive cars up and down the streets with boom boxes blaring in the middle of the night, and on and on and on], my outrage is focused squarely upon those who foisted this tragedy down the throats of others and have the temerity to be judgmental.
Meanwhile, these elitists impose incredible regulations in their area to maintain a pristine aesthetic trope. Heaven forbid that someone build a home in their midst that is not designer perfect.
The insanity of it all is staggering.
Phil:
jb forgot my favorite: the “divisive” accusation that goes something like this: A social innovator [“progressive” if you will] supporting such “innovations” as sodomite “marriage”, infanticide up to 30 days after birth, assisted suicide, euthanasia, etc., accuses his conservative opponent of being “divisive” for opposing his innovations. It never occurs to him that HE might be the divisive one for promoting society- and self-destructive behaviors.
I still think the best course of action for conservatives is the one you took in Chapter 8 of your Loony Liberal Chronicles: to become a liberal Democrat yourself, because, “…by changing my party affiliation I am now unfettered by the need to actually know what I’m talking about before I make a categorical statement. "Fairness” (that is, what I define as "fair"), now guides my actions, rather than some archaic, abstract notion of the law, ethics, or morality. People who oppose me or call my motives into question are evil. The end justifies the means if the end is good and just, as I define those terms. What I say [today] is valid only insofar as it supports my present arguments; if I need to change my reasoning tomorrow to support a contradictory position, it’s unfair to bring up my past position, because that is no longer relevant.” [Emphasis added]
It’s so much more fun being a liberal Democrat.
Sedona: I'd almost forgotten about those rules! The sad thing is they are as relevant today (even moreso) than when I first wrote them in 2000.
Take care, Phil
sedonaman;
I gather that you have noticed the BO predilection for defining any opposition to his viewpoint as divisive. :) I have long thought that the ONLY divisive aspect of talk radio is that it gives a voice to those who disagree. I guess a world in which the MSM holds total sway with their corrupted gate-keeping and squelching of divergent opinions is less divisive……..according to those who agree with them.
jb:
Right you are! Although it's not just BO I've noticed it in. It's the entire Left. A good example is colleges and universities that claim they are all for free speech, but have speech codes that are selectively enforced to squelch speech that they disagree with, usually Christian ideas.
jb
I know what you're going through. I fled. You are brave.
jfk
The MSM is already discounting Zogby's recent poll as an outlier because he "tweaks" the results. But so far as I know they all tweak the results. That is if any pollster calls say 1000 people & 425 say Obama & 415 say McCain or vice versa, with the rest answering undecided, for third parties, or refusing to answer, pollsters never report exactly 42.5% for one & 41.5% for the other.
Anyway, the real news is that Obama is not 20 percentage points ahead in every poll as we all assume Hill would be at this stage.
Ad finally, no "accepted" poll uses a scientifically representative sample, as well as truly neutral questions. Finally, most ask whether the person called is gonna vote (OK, likely to vote). As if all respondees will give a truthful answer
Sedonaman
Your point about Talk Radio as the best (really only) forum for diversified multicultural callers is an important one. Interestingly. the NYT, for one, has this strange gaggle of interview-ees who call themselves "Republicans" whose family has allegedly been so since John C. Fremont in 1856, but who the internet quickly identifies as Presidents of the Local Planned Parenthood or Teachers Union.
Inwood:
Thanks, but the point about Talk Radio was made by jb. I think what you are referring to is called "spiking" when a Democrat, for example, calls a conservative show and pretends to be a Republican. I have seen a Democrat occasionally call CSPAN Journal on the Republican line, but when it becomes apparent by his questions that he is really a Democrat, the host hangs up on him. I have never seen a Republican try the same scam.
How can the left support the "Fairness Doctrine" and not have it apply to TV news? I'd take that in a heart beat. Can you imagine the average voter not having their brains washed each evening but getting a little truth or at the very least some counter balance?
jcscuba:
"How can the left support the 'Fairness Doctrine' and not have it apply to TV news?"
By selective enforcement, just like college speech codes are. Leftist might claim to be all for free speech, but what they really mean is free liberal speech. Anything else is “oppressive” and/or “offensive”, and therefore not allowed. I don't think you'd "take that in a heartbeat."
In an incident now lost to history, one Leftist professor’s argument against conservative speech took on a grotesque form when he essentially said it should not be allowed because, in that particular case, it was “effective”. But what other goal could there be for political speech?
Sedonaman: Points well taken, I wouldn't take it in a heart beat, but it will probably be foisted upon us with the next congress. That's OK McCain will just veto it. LOL
First, it is a pleasure to read high-quality writing by someone with whom I disagree. I know other writing exists out there, but I've been too busy working to stumble over most of it. I hope to not fall into the traps that have been listed. As you have observed, argumentation is becoming a lost art when people prefer telling and reporting.
I wonder whether the main lines of thought contradict the way you started out the article. You begin, after the initial sentence, "One of the first things you learn in any course on statistics is that there’s a danger in extrapolating global trends from personal observations."
That is true. While anecdotal examples may be useful as illustrations, there is little that they can prove. They are facts only on a minuscule level, and it is only with thousands or millions of those facts that generalities can be accurately derived. So, when you use commented examples to demonstrate that the mainstream Left is crazy (as opposed to the normal assortment of nuts), you use too few examples. You could have been tapping into a vast (but empty) resevoir of idiocy, and it could've been a pocket smattering just below the surface. I could reproduce similar comments from elsewhere by people on the right.
Now, you provide other evidence of insanity as well, ones I'm more willing to admit. The response to the 2000 election was initially brought on misleading media reporting, and officially worked itself out with appeals to the Supreme Court. Many people I have talked to have treated that instance as more nuanced than you present it; they would prefer a popular vote in general, and use the election as an instance of supporting their thought, but they don't dispute the legitimacy of it. The real nuts came out in 2004, as you indicated they had, but I would still call the Democratic response exaggerated by the media. And while I, too, have nothing more than anecdote to offer, that is because a discussion on how widespread political insanity has spread cannot be proven one way or another without the statistics we both lack.
Now I just hope that the loudmouths in the left and the right don't make asses of themselves in November. May the best ideas win.
Gareth: I began my essay this way precisely for the reason you picked up on. I can't (and won't) claim the looney libs who comment on my essays are representative of all liberals. And like my criticisms of the man-made global warming hysteria that starts with an exceptionally cold period (the late 1800s) from which everything else appears "warmer", I need to be clear where my analytical starting point begins (1960) so one can evaluate the validity of what I say.
Having said all this, the reason I'm willing to hypothesize that the looney left examples I cite are more representative of modern liberalism than not, is that — in addition to my Looney Liberal Chronicles in the IC archives under my name that further document these things, particularly the 2000 election issue — I can point to numerous websites (Huffington Post, Moveon.org, Democratic Underground, Daily Kos, etc.) where these same rantings proliferate.
Unfortunately, I don't see any battle of ideas in the near future, like you and I would both like to shape political debate. Politics are about power, and the people who have controlled government for most of the past 60 years see their hold on power slipping away. Their focus is to regain that power, not put their ideas to test in a public debate.
On a personal note, I always appreciate an opportunity to debate ideas, and enjoyed reading your comments. Glad to see you don't take my political satire personally, or as a blanket condemnation of everyone I disagree with. It's just that I've found humor to be a perfect substitute for getting my points across when legitimate debate isn't possible.
Some of these are a bit long, but they’ll help you better understand how I, at least, approach a debate on substantive issues.
Phil
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2006/09/11/in-their-own-words-the-undisguised-racism-of-the-far-far-far-right/
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/07/13/the-true-nature-of-human-morality-a-response-to-the-critique-%e2%80%9cuniversal-morality-and-the-morality-of-the-universe%e2%80%9d/
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2006/07/31/an-even-more-inconvenient-truth-the-myth-of-man-made-global-warming/
Gareth
Perhaps you can explain how Obama's "World as it should be" differs from the Russia National Communist Party candidate, Prokhanov's "Utopias, after all, happen"?
Or is that anecdotal?
Yes, this is the same Mr. Prokhanov who tried to explain that his party was more socialist than communist, but National Socialist had a bad connotation attached to it. (beginning in 1939)