Let’s do a grab-bag of news issues and a philosophical question. . . oooohm. What is the sound of no hands clapping for Obama? Would it sound like panic? Are they really rights if nobody uses them? Can something that never died come back to life? What is gray? All this and not a word more. . .
1. It’s (Still) Alive!!: Dick Lugar went down in flames last night in the Indiana Republican Primary. For 36 years, this moderate Republican has been a pillar of the Republican Party in Washington and in Indiana. Last night, Tea Party upstart Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock took him down. That has the MSM wondering if the Tea Party has come back to life, especially with Tea Party-backed Senate candidates Jeff Flake (AZ), Josh Mandel (Ohio), and Ted Cruz (TX) likely to join him. But how can something which never died come back to life?
2. Waive It Goodbye: Zimmerman waived his speedy trial rights yesterday in the Trayvon Martin shooting. Some have asked if this is normal. The answer is yes, almost everyone waives their speedy trial rights because nobody wants to rush into a trial because it’s too risky. So are they really rights if no one gets to use them?
3. The Sound of Panic: I mentioned the other day that Obama is having a hard time. Even the MSM is taking note. Jeff Greenfield just wrote an interesting column in which he laments “Obama’s bad week.” He notes, with a good deal of panic, that the empty stadium business has been a disaster for Obama because it has dominated the news. And that’s true. Even Politico just wrote an article whining about how unfair it was for everyone to keep harping on it. Greenfield also adds that the bigger worry should be that this is proof that college kids have abandoned Obama. He then pointed out that Saturday Night Live pulling a skit about Obama politicizing the bin Laden killing was proof that Obama did politicize the killing and that the left is really worried about it. He also mentioned that Obama’s political ads have been underwhelming.
James Carville likewise is panicking. He yelled at his stupid Democratic-voter friends to “wake the f**k up!” Heck, we’ve been telling them that for years, but for a different reason. His reason is that Obama is in danger of losing and yet the Democrats are showing no signs of enthusiasm or urgency. That’ll happen when your administration is a walking advertisement for “FAIL by Obama.”
Obama also is imploding all over the place on the gay marriage thing. Not only did North Carolina toss a lot of cold water on the dream that gay marriage would spread beyond the liberal enclaves (they banned gay marriage AND civil unions 69% to 31% last night), but Obama is being called a hypocrite on the issue by the left. Indeed, after Biden said this weekend that he’s totally thrilled with gay marriage and would have one himself if he could find the right woman, Obama continued to try to be for it and against it at the same time. This has the MSM fuming:
● CNN’s Jessica Yellin asked if Obama was trying to “have it both ways before an election” and whether he should “stop dancing around the issue.”
Sounds like they want to out Mr. Obama, doesn’t it? So what is the sound of sycophancy fading?
● ABC’s Jake Tapper: “It seems cynical to hide this prior to the election” and then attack Obama’s people for hiding behind talking points.
● NBC’s Chuck Todd: “So help me out here. He opposes bans on gay marriage, but he doesn’t yet support gay marriage?”
4. Let’s Get Philosophical: Finally, I want to bring up something we discussed yesterday in the Politics of Trek comments. For as far back as I can remember, conservatives have been accused by liberals of “seeing everything in black and white” and being unable to see shades of gray. But in my experience, the opposite is actually true. Conservatives tend to be very good at grasping how much gray there is in the world and accepting it as gray. It’s liberals who are incapable of accepting gray. Indeed, they seem to have a nearly obsessive need to define everything as black or white and to demand that all the blacks be banned or prohibited while everyone be forced to partake in all the whites, i.e. no grays will be tolerated.
The reason liberals attack conservatives as being incapable of seeing “shades of gray” is because liberals lack consistency and conservatives don’t. In other words, liberals define everything as black or white, but these extreme positions can change at a moment’s notice. Thus, liberals are simultaneously extremists, because everything must be a black or white, and unprincipled, because black and white can change at any time. However, they wrongly see their ability to flop around as a positive, which they define as being able to see shades of gray, i.e. having nuanced minds, even though they really aren’t seeing any gray at all -- just lots of blacks and whites flopping around. It would be like loving or hating everyone on the planet but then claiming you are actually indifferent about people because you can move people from the love to the hate column and vice versa.
And since conservatives rarely tend to change their minds about what they consider black and white, liberals wrongly accuse conservatives of not being able to see gray even though it isn’t really gray the liberals are talking about. . . it’s really “lack” of inconsistency which liberals are calling “incapable of seeing gray.”
Thoughts?
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Political Philosophy
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82 comments:
"In other words, liberals define everything as black or white, but these extreme positions can change at a moment’s notice."
My take on why that's the case:
The basis of leftism is a belief in the supremacy of nurture over nature. This, in turn implies a heavy emphasis on education as the tool to move to a more perfect society. Given that man is perfectible through education, it then becomes a moral imperative to reach said perfect society and an evil to do nothing.
The rest is a function of methods to attain power in order to create the more perfect society - by any means necessary. (Not to do so would be evil!)
1. Become a secular religion by amping up education into indoctrination. Black vs white.
2.Divide the population into a set of warring factions and then ally with a majority of them who would benefit from your being in power.
There will be a reaction to your program - from the groups who don't benefit from your program - those silly people who object to having the fruits of their labor stolen for one. This is where having a widely diverse set of groups with a grudge on your side pays off - when one group's assertions are argued down, you simply switch to another group's issues. Changing extreme positions at a moment's notice keeps your opponent off balance his forces spread out and behind the curve.
Andrew,
Number 1.
To misquote Mark Twain,
"The Tea Parties' demise has been greatly exaggerated."
It is a fervent futile wish of the Legacy Media that the Tea Parties just go away.
Number 2.
I also think the it works in O'Mara's favor as well as Zimmerman's because the longer this case is unsettled and out there, the more likely hood of the prosecution's case of falling apart.
I have been following The Conservative Tree House's investigative journalism and realize that Breitbart is alive and well. The update series is interesting as well as the exposure of certain PR groups that help perpetuate stereotypical memes such as "White on Black violence is heavily present in this society." A patently false statement, but the Legacy Media believes it whole-heartedly.
Number 3.
This is the reason I refuse to believe the polls that state that Obama has any chance this November. People do have long memories when it affects their pocket book. And contrary to popular belief, most people prefer to earn their pay.
Number 4
Your analysis is spot on.
It is the insistence that something is grey when it is obviously black is where the conflict lies between liberals and conservatives.
Yeah. On Number 4, just look at foreign policy. How many times have "black-and-white" conservatives embraced involvement with unpleasant individuals for the sake of maintaining peace globally? And how many times have those liberals who talk about "nuance" and crap thrown a fit and demanded 100% adherence to certain ideals, come what may? Bleh.
On 3, as I predicted, my liberal friends are freaking out on Facebook over the NC gay marriage vote, and I'm loving it.
On #1, the Tea Party's main stay is congress and local spots, just because Santorum didn't make the nomination doesn't mean the group is finished, my best estimate is that they will keep putting up congressional candidates for Congress for a while to come.
#2 is just common sense, any sane person who knows that he/she is on trial will take time to prep for showing up in court, make sure you have the right lawyer, make sure you planned out whatever information will be presented in your favor, etc.
#4 Reminds me of high school arguments, one kid argues the technicalities, the other one argues for the sake of humoring him or herself, essentially a freestyle rap, or the essence of one, anyways. For most people, it's a passing stage.
#3, Well, let's face it, the media's main smear target is a blunder for them in a number of ways: he takes charge of his campaign, he's got that campaigning state of mind, and well, the media is digging real hard to finding something wrong with him. That's Romney I am mentioning there, and yes, he's not like the previous nominees we've had, plus, as I mentioned before, it's hard to find something wierd about Romney that's not also true about Obama.
K, That is an excellent insight. It does very much explain their need to make everyone conform. If man can be rebuilt into the perfect creature, then it would seem perfectly moral to do that and in fact would seem immoral to stand in the way of someone trying to do that... hence the extreme nature of their blacks and whites and their anger at anyone who doesn't conform.
I wonder if this is all a conscious thought or a subconscious reaction?
Joel, The Tea Party's death was definitely wishful thinking by the MSM. It's funny to me how they could declare the Tea Party dead just because it hasn't held a rally, yet keep declaring OWS alive and thriving even though they can't gather enough people to fit into a phonebooth.
Waiving the speedy trial rights is something both sides do because it's rarely possible to prepare for a trial within the time period required.
I got your e-mail about the tree house thing and I'll check it out a little later -- kind of a busy morning.
I agree with you about the polls. And I think the fact he can't get above 50% is the real key. That means everything he's done has fixed the public's opinion. And I think all the MSM frustration reflects their fear that the outcome is inevitable at this point.
On number 4, what's funny is that the more I think about it, I really can't ever remember a liberal accepting a gray -- they made everything black or white and the only things they called gray was the transition from black/white to white/black.
T-Rav, I figured your friend would implode in rage and angst. Ha ha. Reality sucks.
In my experience, conservatives see shades of gray everywhere. Even when they think something is a black, they often admit that opinions can vary or they admit that too many others see it as a white for them to put it into law, etc. And there are tons of things conservatives just have no opinion about.
But liberals have knee-jerk opinions on everything and those opinions are always extreme -- all black, all white and you WILL either ban it to embrace it 100%.
It's kind of shocking difference when you think about it.
obiwan, I think the problem with the presidential election was that there really wasn't a true Tea Party candidate for them to rally behind. Santorum can hardly be considered a Tea Party choice and he never drew more than about 45% of them. If Jim DeMint had run, I suspect we would have seen their power at that point.
2. True. What people don't realize is that only about 2% of criminal cases actually go to trial, all the rest settle. And you never get a good settlement until much later on, when the prosecution starts to fear they are likely to lose. The smartest thing to do is to drag it out and see what happens and take the time you need to find the witnesses and gather evidence and wait for a great offer. Often, you don't even know the prosecution's case by the speedy trial point.
4. Sadly, liberalism isn't a passing phase for more and more people. Liberals have been building these defense mechanisms which keep their people from ever considering that they might not be liberals -- such as attacking conservatives as hateful.
3. Good point, Obama has two big problems. First, for the first time in his life, he has to defend a record and his record is indefensible. Secondly, Obama has always gotten by when his opponents collapsed or were destroyed. That can't happen here because Romney just doesn't present a target they can hit. He may not be Mr. Exciting, but he's also not Mr. Evil. And Team Obama clearly has been wrong-footed by all of this.
They are also regularly shocked - and horrified - to discover someone who disagrees with the current version of canon. Now, I admit to being surprised to discover that otherwise intelligent, kind folks are liberals. However, I do try not assume that everyone in earshot not only agrees with me, but agrees emphatically and totally. I have seen this lib trait play out at most of our family reunions. Not only are they surprised - but they are surprised EVERYTIME they are reminded / rediscover...
rlaWTX, What's funny is that I never understood that until later in life. I've never assumed that everyone agreed with me because one look at the world makes it obvious that people have a variety of opinions on every issue. That never bothered me. And I never realized it bothered liberals until college.
When I got to college, I began to see how shocked they were when they discovered a heretic in their midst, and listened to them trying to explain away the heresy as somehow a lie meant to be provocative or based on some evil motive or simple brainwashing -- never a matter of simple disagreement. (I always found the brainwashing idea kind of laughable since that still doesn't explain away the fact that the people did the brainwashing clearly have different beliefs.)
And it wasn't just politics either. Not only do they think everyone shares the same thoughts on politics and religions (except for those who are evil), but they even have come demand conformity in matters of taste -- like film, music, food, clothing. It's like a truly aggressive version of the herd instinct gone wild.
I think it's hilarious that the MSM is in a real funk right now. Everything they've tried blew up on them and Obama gave them nothing to work with and Romney's given them nothing to attack. I think they know that Obama's doomed and that there's nothing they can do to fix it.
Of the quotes above, I think the Carville on is the most important. That shows frustration that his own base is lethargic.
On issue 4, I thought what tryanmax said yesterday was interesting too that liberals lose track of what they believe because:
They frantically and constantly shuffle their lists of "good" and "bad" back and forth until there is no sense in it.
That's a very interesting take and I think it's true.
The gay marriage thing is starting to take an amusing turn. As would be expected from past performance, the left and the gay lobby are already demanding that the Democratic convention be moved from North Carolina after yesterday's vote on gay marriage. The problem is, they're running out of states to have conventions in. Currently, twelve states ban gay marriage by statute and thirty ban it by their state constitutions. Even Hawaii, which has not banned gay marriage is teetering, having passed a ballot measure allowing the state legislature to ban it. At the rate they're going, the Democrats will soon be down to only four or five states to hold conventions in. Unless, of course, they decide to count San Francisco as a state, in which case they'll have a permanent site for their conventions.
Doc, A "funk" is a great way to put it. It's extremely obvious to me right now that the MSM has no idea what they should be doing. You can hear the depression and confusion in their voices and the listlessness in their stories. It's pretty amazing actually. And if Obama propaganda wing has collapsed, then he's in serious, serious trouble.
trynamax's point was very interesting as it explains a lot about why liberals seem able to accept so many contradictions -- because they are constantly changing their minds on issue after issue, which means they end up needing to be able to compartmentalize their thoughts because they can't recalculate their entire belief system every time.
Lawhawk, I would love to see them rip the convention away from NC. That would seal their fate in NC.
The whole gay thing is really getting pretty funny. They think this is a wedge issue which can expose Republicans as intolerant, yet all it's doing now is causing rifts within the Democratic alliance and exposed Obama as a hypocrite. And I'm amazed how much traction this issue is getting right now in the MSM.
Good times indeed!
I think it's great that the MSM still has no grasp at all on the Tea Party and I'm happy that Lugar is gone. Now is a good time for that.
I also think it's hilarious that the MSM is bailing on Obama. Every day that they fail to pimp for him is another 10,000 voters leaving his team.
DUQ, It's hilarious isn't it that the MSM has no idea what the Tea Party is, what it wants or if it even exists. It shows how amazing out of touch they are.
You're right about the MSM and the voters. Huge numbers of voters still get their opinions from the MSM and if the MSM isn't supporting obama, then he's in trouble.
Andrew, I have never seen the MSM this down on a Democrat in my lifetime. Have you?
I heart the TEA Party. Shocking the sh!t out of democrats, even from beyond the grave!
I hijacked my NC sister's FB account to see what the post amendment 1 reaction was, and big surprise, those who voted against the ban were throwing the words "bigot" and "ignorant" around like candy at a parade. Funny, they didn't realize how intolerant they were of the opinion of almost 70% of the people.
Speaking of ignorant, one person even said that only 4,000 people voted for it and 13,000 against it so it was just a bunch of ignorant, uninformed hateful bigots voting. Uh, wha???
LawHawk - More importantly, Obama can't continue to "swing both ways" on the gay marriage issue. He must make a decision either way. The "he is evolving" on the issue is not cutting it anymore. Either way, he potentially loses a large swathe of either religious black voters or sympathetic gay marriage supporters.
The MSM doesn't like the Tea Party because they can't pin a tail on any leader to investigate. Each group has its own leadership and, as we have discussed before, each group is working on the local and state level to get candidates elected. There is no "national" movement to demean and as the MSM and Congressional leadership (i.e. Pelosi et al.) has found, there just isn't a name they can call us that will make us go away. Though they have sicced the IRS on about 20 TP groups around the US. Not even the IRS can make us go away.
Bev: Obama is having an interview with ABC this morning, and one of the topics is supposed to be a clarification of his stand on gay marriage. I'll bet he makes his stand as clear as mud.
Tam, LOL! I honestly just spit out my drink. "Shocking the sh!t out of democrats, even from beyond the grave!" Bravo!!!
On NC, well Tam, you have to realize that this 31% represent the majority. It's the 70% who are the extremists. (Sadly... liberals actually believe that makes sense.)
It sounds like the ignorant individual you mention really needs a lot of help. First, there are way more than 17,000 voters. Secondly, if more had voted against it, it would have lost -- that's how voting works. Third, I would think the hateful, bigoted ones are the people who run around attacking anyone who disagrees with them as hateful and bigoted.
Bev, If the rumors are to be believed, and I always believe rumors, then Obama has been swinging both ways for some time. ;)
Seriously, he is in trouble. He's got two constituencies who simply despise each other and they both want him to finally make up his mind. I think the blacks bought into the idea that he was lying to the gays when he got elected and the gays bought into the idea that he would give them what they want when no one was looking. But he's done neither and now he risks alienating one or the other or both.
This is a very bad thing for him and I'm shocked the MSM is pushing this so hard. My guess is they are pushing because they are allied with the gays and not the blacks and they don't want to be misled again.
Bev, That's very true. The Tea Party is not at all like traditional interest groups and thus can't be gotten to in the traditional ways. It must be very disconcerting that they can't simply find the head and cut it off nor can they co-opt its membership.
And all the verbal attacks by the Democrats and their fellow-traveler celebrities just highlight how impotent they are.
Interestingly, the Tea Party is like the intellectual version of a communist insurgency and it can't be killed. The only way to beat it is to win the hearts and minds of voters, and attacking the Tea Party won't do that.
Lawhawk, I can't wait to see how he clarifies this issue. I'm sure there will be no confusion whatsoever afterwards! LOL!
"I was for it before I was against it and now I'm forgainst it."
Obama's going to clarify his stance on gay marriage? Oh goodie.
I haven't been to any Tea Party meeting, but I know people who go regularly and they aren't at all what the MSM tries to make them out as. They are just normal people with common sense who are sick of being stepped on by their government.
Excellent!! - "forgainst"
Andrew and Tam, the 31% are the majority because they're enlightened and better citizens than the unwashed hillbillies.
Seriously, I've seen one or two people saying today that this is proof democracy doesn't work. Uh, no, this is proof that when democracy works, it means that sometimes things happen which you don't want to happen.
Ellen, It should be fun to watch how rigid his flexible stance gets... and no, that's not innuendo.
I wrote a thing about the Tea Party a while back in which I called them America's first "do-it-yourself" party and I think that's the best way to describe them honestly.
Bev, If that ever enters the political lexicon, I will kill myself. LOL!
T-Rav, I am so sick of that phrase: "this is proof that Democracy doesn't work." Just running into a result you don't like isn't proof of anything except that your arguments aren't very persuasive.
Proof that Democracy doesn't work is that these idiots have voted themselves more money than the government has and now the whole system is going broke.
It's funny isn't it that they could consider the 31% to be the majority just because they think they're superior. Tell me they don't have fascist roots.
Andrew, That is a really excellent description. It's like a million do-it-yourselfers running around rebuilding the political system! Let's hope they succeed.
Ellen, Thanks! I think that's exactly what is going on. There was an article a couple weeks back in which some MSM-type was writing how the Tea Party people must be upset because they don't control the Republican Party yet. The guy noted that the Tea Party had moved in and taken over the lower levels of the party everywhere, but hadn't been able to take over the top yet -- ha ha what a failure.
Yeah, except, he completely missed the point of what they are doing. They are building the foundation for the future and by taking over all the lower structures and working their way up, they will take over the party and truly control it. It they just ran a guy for the top job and won, that would only be the appearance of power. He completely didn't get that.
The AP is reporting that Obama has announced he backs gay marriage.
I'm honestly not shocked. I figured he always did.
Andrew, maybe liberals think they see gray because if you switch between black and white really fast that is what you perceive. ;)
I think we're on to something with the shades of gray thing. Most people tend to characterize liberalism as the opposite of conservatism. But the more I ponder it, the more I realize that it's just a twisted and gnarled way of thinking that takes rational concepts and distorts them all out of shape.
DUQ, I'm not surprised either. I figured he was for it and that his attempt to evade the question was just meant to keep blacks happy and to draw money from gays.
Now he needs to come through for the gays to keep giving him money, and it's unlikely blacks will turn on him. So what he's done makes sense.
Obama says his view on the validity of civil unions wasn't enough. Now he supports gay marriage "recognizing that marriage is a word that has religious implications." Yep, it sure does. Having said that religious sensitivities are no longer meaningful, and that civil unions are great, the battle begins. How long before the first pastor or rabbi who refuses to perform a marriage ceremony for a same-sex couple finds himself in the sights of the civil and/or criminal courts for "human rights violations?"
tryanmax, I think we're on to something too. And I agree with you. I think conservatives make a mistake seeing liberals as fundamentally similar only with a different belief system. I think the truth is that they aren't really like conservatives at all, they are applying a very different way of "thinking". And that is why so many of their decisions are so irrational, so contradictory and hypocritical and so angry.
It's kind of fascinating, isn't it?
Lawhawk, So he's basically promising to attack religion, isn't he?
I mean seriously, parsing that quote, what he's saying is that it's not enough to just let gays have every single benefit of marriage, they must be given the "religious implications" too. That means, his goal is not about the state recognizing gay marriage, it's about forcing religions to accept and recognize gay marriage.
Yeah, does anyone really think Obama just now came to be in favor of gay marriages? Because, he didn't.
Andrew: That's exactly what I think. Oh, he won't say he's attacking religion, but that's precisely what he is doing by dismissing any difference between the words "marriage" and "civil unions." He's also continues to say he doesn't think it's a federal issue, even though he just made it one. If this man is reelected, Eric Holder's DOJ Civil Rights Division will have to hire an entirely new staff just to sue and prosecute pastors and rabbis who refuse to perform gay marriage/unions/partnerships. I wonder how carefully he considered that he will have to discriminate anyway, since no imam is ever going to perform publicly a gay marriage at the risk of losing his head, and if he did, no imam would ever prosecuted or sued.
T-Rav, You'd have to be pretty naive to think that Obama didn't believe this all along. It was just a calculated move to not say it until he had to.
Lawhawk, "Not a federal issue"? How does that work? If it's not a federal issue, then it's not going to happen. Amazing, he's still trying to straddle the fence by saying he's for it but he's just not for implementing it. What a moron! LOL!
It would be interesting to see if he would sign a gay marriage bill that included an exception for churches or if he would pitch a fit about that?
Obama's "evolved" position on gay marriage put me in mind of another way liberals only see B&W while conservatives can deal with the gray.
Liberals are obsessed with politicians’ views on every issue regardless whether it affects their office. When it comes to Democrats, this makes sense because whatever their personal views are, their policy positions will follow. But liberals are stymied by certain Republicans who are able to express a personal point of view that runs counter to their public policy. A prominent example is Mitt Romney’s abortion stance: he admits he is personally against abortion but has vowed that as an executive he will uphold the law which allows abortion. Liberals (and slow-witted right-wingers) call this a flip-flop.
On the other hand, today we have the president in a moment of embarrassment suddenly reversing his stance on gay marriage. What he used to oppose, he now supports and, because he is a Democrat, there can be little doubt that this sudden change of opinion will have direct policy implications. This is called "evolving" your point of view.
And the dent in my wall just got a little deeper.
T-Rav: I agree with Andrew that he has believed it all along and was just waiting for that recent poll that says 50% support gay marriage as opposed to 48% against. I think he may have counted too much on that. First, I doubt its accuracy. But more importantly, even if completely accurate, how many of that 50% would say "and I support my priest or rabbi being forced to perform gay marriages or face prosecution and crippling lawsuits?"
Obama's sudden love for states' rights on the issue is a sham, and his lack of any genuine discernible religious conviction means he genuinely sees no reason to distinguish between civil unions and religious marriage. They are just "words." Ergo, the First Amendment doesn't apply and religion can go to hell.
tryanmax, And what's interesting is that once his new position is internalized, they will come to believe he always had it no matter what contrary evidence there is to it. And they will happily go with the idea that he's been "right" all along.
On the other hand, if a conservative comes around, they will never forget that the conservative was "wrong" until now and they will continue to apply that label. Thus, even though the conservative now accepts 100% of what the liberal wants, they will still see the conservative as "wrong" on the issue and they will continue to criticize them for it. I can't tell you how often I've seen that.
Also, it's interesting that the word is "evolve" as in "to move to a more advanced stage of human existence" rather than "changed his mind" which would imply that he was once wrong. "Evolved" lets them pretend their beliefs are some club for only the most special forms of human life... those who are naturally superior.
Lawhawk, I agree entirely with your analysis. I think states rights is just another cloak to hide behind and I think he sees religious belief as just words without any real meaning behind them.
I also think he made a mistake here. On the one hand support for gay marriage has yet to be shown outside total liberal enclaves. For another, support for gay marriage does not translate into "and I want to see my church forced to accept it." People are always happy to grant rights but only so long as they think no one else's rights are being taken away.
I can't imagine that Obama cares one way or another about gays or that he ever had any real opposition to gay marriage. I think for him it was just one of those things his constituents want and he just had to balance that against the negative effects on his other followers. But as Andrew points out above, this may all be a headfake anyway because he's claiming this isn't an issue he has control over by calling it a state's right issue.
Tryanmax: You are on a ROLL!!!
"They frantically and constantly shuffle their lists of "good" and "bad" back and forth until there is no sense in it."
"maybe liberals think they see gray because if you switch between black and white really fast that is what you perceive."
Andrew - the discussion about grey/black/white was spot on and thought-provoking...
DUQ, I doubt he cares either. I've never seen anything from Obama which tells me he has any true views on anything other than a belief that giving the government power is always the best answer. In fact, I think the biggest shock for the Democrats was that he just didn't care about their causes. He would pay them lip service and tell them he would sign the bills, but he didn't care at all what the bills looked like.
I think it's the same thing here. He's doing this because an important voter group wants it and he doesn't really care how it turns out.
rlaWTX, Thanks! I'm glad we stretched your mind. I think discussions like this are vital to understanding the kinds of people we are dealing with. The more you know, the better you can predict what they will do and that means the better you get at learning how to handle them.
I agree DUQ, it's pretty much a message to draw upon constituents, which IMO, shows some desperation.
I don't know if anyone heard Romney's statement on comparing Obama's claimed involvement in reviving the petrol industry to the fact that his (Romney's) favorite baseball team, the Red Sox, won while he was governor. It made me chuckle, and it's going up on my quotebook for this year.
obiwan, I haven't seen that quote but I like the way Team Romney seems to be relentlessly mocking Obama on all sides. In this case, taking credit for things he had nothing (or little) to do with other than being the guy in charge at the moment.
Tam, Same here. I think it's great that Obama can't say a word without Romney mocking him. And he's doing it so fast that his mocking becomes part of the original story, so Obama never gets even a minute of the newscycle to himself. It's been a pretty masterful performance. And of course, it helps that Obama's team has been less than competent.
Ask yourself what his slogan is... what his last campaign ad was about... what his platform is. It's all lost in the muck. Even things like the Julia website don't survive the weekend before they are forgotten as yet another failure.
obiwan, That's pretty funny, the idea of Romney claiming credit for the Red Sox winning the pennant really is as silly as Obama taking credit for half the things he's taken credit for. But of course, he did win the Nobel Prize for anticipatory greatness.
It's amazing, isn't it? (Well, not really). How we can peg liberals (what they believe, how they view the world, etc.), and yet, they can't grasp the concept of conservatism, the Tea Party, and anyone sick of what this country is becoming. So, who is the enlightened, intelligent ones?
Jen, It is amazing isn't it (sarcastically speaking) that such enlightened and ultra-smart liberals have no idea what makes conservatives tick. LOL! So much for enlightenment, intelligence, reasoning or empathy.
tryanmax, Obama just sent out an e-mail in which he claims:
I've always believed that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally. . . . So I decided it was time to affirm my personal belief that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.
What was it we said above? When liberals change their minds, they always act like they always believed this the whole time. So here is Obama telling us how he always believed this and now he just felt compelled to finally "affirm" this view he always had. Imagine that.
No surprise there. And, of course, he was never wrong for not affirming those views, either. Keeping his "true" feelings to himself just shows how "nuanced" he is.
Hey, two items of good news: 1) I just did an hour on the phones for Bruning and the feedback is very positive. Lots of supporters.
2) I got a raise today (from the one job I do that pays)! And it exceeds the inflation rate, so that's even better!
rlaWTX, You know who should be put on a roll? The Kaiser!
tryanmax, Yep, it was highly nuanced of him to directly opposite of the true beliefs he always had because it wasn't important for him to act upon those beliefs until today. Just like it's not wrong to pollute until you decide it's for everyone to stop.
Congrats on both points! I'm glad to hear Nebraska will probably be going the right way. And I'm happy for you getting that raise! :)
Jen, I'm sure that's a point of real consternation among liberals, that conservatives (outside of Washington) can predict their every move yet they haven't the foggiest idea what to expect from us. The irony is that, of the two, conservatism is the consistent ideology. But conservatism is also the analytical ideology, so I guess it's not so ironic.
I'm very excited because, after the year I've had with all the PTO, I wasn't really expecting one. But my boss said, "you'd be impossible to replace and we want you to know that." Score! I also just realized that I've been with my current employer longer than any other I've ever been with.
tryanmax, I'm glad you qualified that too -- "outside Washington." I'm not sure if it's pollution or what, but once conservatives seem to get to Washington, they lose their minds.
That's great. Being irreplaceable is good... being easily replaceable not so much. Of course, we can't rule out the possibility that your boss is insane or is just trying to get your hopes us. But absent maniacal laughing, I'd say: congrats! :)
Andrew
With regard to the Tea Party the MSM has never gotten it. They saw a bunch of conservatives protesting their single payer er Obamacare and they yelled racist! racist! racist! in an attempt to stop them from taking out their leftist paragons.
What they fail to realize is that the greatest damage the Tea Party has done to the liberal cause is not to push Dems out of office which they did in 2010 but to push Liberal Republicans out of office in the primary.
Sure the Tea Party is active in the general elections Buh uh uhhtt thye are most active in the PRIMARIES..... this is the key.
What has happened is that the Dems have fewer and fewer RINO Liberals to rely on to backstab those lone conservative newbies when they dare to articulate an idea the Harvard professors would find "Unorthodox". This is why you see Obama's Julia ad attacked so effectively. If Clinton had done this add a Lugar, Jumpin Jim Jeffords, Specter or a McCain or some other Rino would "chastise" any conservative that criticized it for being too partisan and not being "Civil"
Tryanmax, I'm glad to be part of the analytical ideology, although I think my "friend" that I mention on occasion would disagree with me. I made a point about him a couple of years ago, and I said to him in front of another friend, that he was inconsistent, and she said that he was "Consistent in his inconsistencies", which made all of us laugh. He also knows to be careful of what he says because he knows that I'll most likely remember, and won't hesitate to bring it up.
Indi, There's a lot of truth to that. The Tea Party has done a great job of reshaping the Republican Party and giving it new members who aren't afraid to fight and don't like the Democrats very much. And that has definitely hurt the Democrats because there have only been a couple RINOs who dared to defend the Democrats lately (like Schwarzenegger).
Without them providing the Democrats with support, the Democratic propaganda machine has languished.
Whoops. The bloom is off the gay marriage rose already. Gwaker figured out that Obama just promised NOTHING.
Ha ha suckers
I heard Luger on his way out lamenting that the politics have gotten so divisive. He and other leftists still don't get that this is exactly what conservative voters want. Generational debt and crippling bureaucracy don't come out of a contentious politic. We're in this mess because most everybody agreed to wade in.
Andrew, LOL!
As to whether the equal protection clause guarantees gays the same marriage rights as heterosexuals, I contend that it already does. A gay man has just as much right to marry a woman as straight man does, and a lesbian can marry a man just like a straight woman. No? Heterosexuals certainly cannot marry someone of the same gender any more than their gay counterparts. Frankly, I don't see where sexual-orientation comes into play here; everyone looks to be getting the same treatment.
tryanmax, So the love lasted all of 2-3 hours! LOL! That's quite a nasty article too, I'll bet it only gets worse for Obama from here on out.
Lugar and the others don't get it. They are liberals and they don't understand that Americans don't want liberalism or liberalism-lite. And I've always hating the whining about partisanship. That's what politics is about -- partisanship. Without partisanship, they just end up working together to steal from the public.
Try - I'd prefer roast beef & cheddar on the roll... Congrats on the raise!!!!!
Night, all.
Good post Andrew!
A few days ago we happened to have NBC on and I decided to watch their national news cast for the hell of it.
When they showed Obama in the stadium it was a close, tight shot.
The never gave any other perspective, such as the stadium was more than half empty.
I already knew it was a paltry turnout after reading it at Breitbart but one would never know it watching NBC news.
But you are right, there is more reporters who are willing to go after Obama now.
I think part of the reason is the disdain Obama has had for the press. He uses them and then drops them like the jilted lover they are...until he wants to use them again.
After almost four years of that I can see why at least some of them want a bit of payback so they are beginning to do their jobs.
Congrats on your raise Tryanmax!
That's a great work ethic to make yourself indespensable. :^)
Ben, I'm not at all surprised that NBC would try to crop the image to keep the news from getting out. But in this day and age, it's just not possible to hide something like that from the public -- there are too many avenues for people to hear it.
That's an interesting idea too, that the MSM is looking to settle a couple scores. On the one hand, liberals generally get evil with their people when they fail. But on the other, you are right that they may be angry about having to cover up for him so much.
To everyone here, here is the Romney quote which made me laugh when I heard it, and is still up to be read courtesy of Yahoo! Finance:
"The president tries to take credit for the fact that oil production is up. I'd like to take credit for the fact that when I was governor, the Red Sox won the World Series," Romney clucked. "But neither one of those would be the case."
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/romney-says-obama-failed-energy-192606012.html
Andrew, I agree about the passing phase, but the attitude is comparable to my own attitude I possessed as an adolescent, where being the person with the better technobabble was my condition of winning the argument, or a personal pat on the back as to how great I was, things changed a lot since then, I think the biggest factor was becoming the husband and father, where honestly, some things you just can't let yourself get flustered about, because let's face it, you've got little kids with a limited understanding of the world and a sense of humor and fun that is worth enjoying with them. What's the point if you can't relate to your spouse and children over wanting to contend with them all the time, this isn't to say that we always agree, but life isn't so aggravating when I let go of being as nitpicky as I used to be.
Andrew, on a final note, I agree that Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich were far from tea party material, but it was funny how by their defeat, the news media, and left-wing blogosphere seemed to make it seem that the tea party met its demise in a professed conservative candidate not making it, but in truth, the Tea Party is pretty far from it. I've known them to be especially active on Congress, and doubted that something which started as a campaign for Congress would really be considered done, when it was a flexible movement from the start, which was, and still is oriented on the legislative branch.
obiwan, Sorry for the late response. For some reason, I don't get e-mail notices of your comments -- I do with everyone else.
I don't follow you on the nitpicky point?
The thing about Newt and Ricky is that they both tried to claim they represented the Tea Party because it was an easy way for two consummate insiders to try to pretend they were really outsiders. I think the MSM was happy to humor them because it let the MSM define the Tea Party through them and smear the Tea Party with their views and behaviors. And then, when they both failed, it let the MSM claim the Tea Party had failed even though the Tea Party never really backed anyone. It's a great way to smear an opponent if you can define them and that's what I think the MSM was trying to do. If they'd been honest, they would have wondered why the Tea Party would have supported these two and asked where the Tea Party was hiding? Indeed, whenever the Tea Party has backed a candidate, it's been pretty obvious.
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