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Showing posts with label Conservatives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conservatives. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
The Death Of The Republican Party. . . again
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Monday, August 20, 2012
Republican Wacko Should Resign Now
Akin was asked this weekend during a television interview about his view on whether or not abortion should be allowed in the case of rape. His answer was this:
“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”By which he meant that victims rarely get pregnant from “legitimate rapes.” He then stated that he thinks abortion should be banned in the case of rape.
Uh... f*ck you.
First of all, what is a legitimate rape? And what kind of piece of sh*t would believe that rape comes in degrees of legitimacy? I hate the word “insensitive,” but I can’t imagine a better use for it than the way Akin just smeared rape victims. This is so reminiscent of Texas gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams, who obnoxiously said about the rain: “It’s a lot like rape. As long as it’s inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”
That a human being would utter either of these statements is frankly incomprehensible to me. How f*cked up do you need to be to believe that only certain rapes matter or that rape is something women should enjoy? Where does the Republican Party keep finding these sex-obsessed troglodytes?
Secondly, what is this crap that somehow the female body “has ways to shut the whole thing down”? Where does this medical quackery come from? If a doctor said this, they would lose their medical license for incompetence. If a teenager said this, we would laugh at them for being stupid. Yet here a grown “man” says this? This is dogma, this is not science. This is a man who believes in witchcraft, who sees women as unclean deceivers, and who fears the atheists under his bed. This is not a man whose judgment can be trusted. This is the kind of crap which gives Christians a bad name.
Akin, of course, apologized for this obscenity, but this is one of those moments where you can’t un-ring a bell. We now know what he believes, and this is not a man I would want near any female I knew and I sure as heck don’t want him in a position to represent my side of the aisle on women’s issues. He is unfit and needs to resign.
And let me say, this is exactly why young professional women will never vote Republican, but that’s not even what bothers me here. What bothers me is that a man with a Fourteenth Century understanding of sexual relations could be chosen to serve in the United States Senate. He needs to resign. If he doesn’t, I will support McCaskill.
Conservatives need to rid themselves of these people.
And while I’m at it, let me say that if you believe women should be forced to carry children to term when they’ve been raped, then you are wrong. There is no legal or moral justification for your position. You are suggesting sexual slavery. You are suggesting that you have the right to victimize these women every single day until they give birth because you think your religion tells you to use the force of law to control others. You are wrong.
UPDATED: It is now being reported that Akin will resign. Good. But there's one more bit to add to the story. The mouth-breathers at the Family Research Council have been giving strong support to Akin throughout the day. Their president Tony Perkins claims this is nothing more than an attempt to distract from the record of that unclean woman Claire McCaskill and Satan’s workshop at Planned Parenthood. Pathetic. Seriously, if you don't see the problem with this, then there is something wrong with you.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
More Elective Thoughts
● Thought No. 1. Village Grade Idiocy. Obama really is a fool. Check out this quote: “If you’ve got a business – you didn’t built that. Somebody else made that happen.” W.T.F.?? This is the kind of ignorance only a man who never created a single thing could possess.
When you start a business, you take your own risk. Unless you’ve got a crooked financier behind you (like a certain “first black President” and his worthless wife), then you take your own money and your own time and your own labor and you bring them all together to create something that you hope to sell. If you do it right, and there is a market for what you are offering, then your business grows. Soon you hire other people to help expand. But you need to manage them, and everything is still your risk, your money, and your time. Only a man who thinks there are 57 states could suggest otherwise.
This actually gives us insight into why he’s failed as president, because this is how he understands leadership. He thinks you sit your skinny ass in a big leather chair or hide on a golf course as other people make things happen. That’s why ObamaCare became a cluster fudge, why he didn’t get card check or cap and trade, why financial regulation became such a mess, and why he can’t get any budget deals. Pathetic.
● Thought No. 2. Just Shut Up Already. I’m really sick of “conservatives” attacking Romney and offering retarded advice. Charles Krauthammer wants Obama to issue an apology for RomneyCare so Obama finally has something to attack. HotAir does too. Bill Kristol is demanding that Romney release his tax returns because that's what Obama wants. This needs to stop. How about these people go after Obama instead of Romney?
Interestingly, of all the clowns in the circus, Donald Trump had the best take on the tax issue. He said that Romney should agree to release his taxes only when Obama agrees to release his college applications and records. Yes! He then said, “I'll tell you what — the Republicans have to get a lot tougher. They have to get down and dirty also, because that's what's happening to them.” I never thought I’d agree with Trump, but this is absolutely right. It’s time that guys like Kristol learn that you can't win by crawling on your stomach to meet the politicized demands of your opponents.
● Thought No. 3. VP-arama. Romney is supposedly getting close to naming his choice for VP. I don’t think he can hurt himself with any of the names mentioned so far, but he can waste an opportunity if he picks the wrong person. I’ve said it before that I think he need a minority to send a clear message that the Republican Party has changed. In that regard, the short list includes Rubio, Jindal and Rice. I would prefer Rubio or Jindal to Rice, but I’d take Rice too. Also on the list apparently are Ryan and Pawlenty. I respect both men greatly, but picking either would probably make the ticket easy to lampoon as Dull and Duller. Both would be excellent once in office, however.
I would prefer Rubio (Allen West actually), but my money is now on Kelly Ayotte. She represents New Hampshire in the Senate and was previously the state’s Attorney General. She’s strongly conservative across the board. I’ll profile her if she’s chosen.
Whoever he chooses, it’s worth pointing out just how great Romney’s search has been. Rather than do the usual thing of trying to get a couple weeks of national exposure by dropping names, Romney has spent months now going from state to state, being seen each week with a possible candidate from that state. In the process, he’s generated buzz at the state level in key states (for himself and the local Republicans), and he’s used this as a way to deflect all of Obama’s attacks by each time suggesting he was getting close to making his choice. It’s been brilliantly done. Let’s hope his choice is as brilliant.
● Thought No. 4. The Bain of Obama’s Existence. I was a little confused this week when Romney strategist Ed Gillespie suggested that Obama’s attacks on Bain Capital were working. This clearly is not the case. For one thing, there’s nothing to attack. Bain bought and sold businesses, big deal. That hasn’t been controversial since the 1980s. For another, once you say the word “finance” people’s eyes glaze over. For yet another, Obama’s attacks have been esoteric, “lost in the weeds” attacks. Indeed, does it matter to any voter exactly what level of control Romney had as Chairman? Hardly. And if you want proof, look at the number of MSM types who have NOT dug into Bain. They know no one cares.
So why suggest these attacks are working, especially as there’s no evidence Romney is working to counter them? The answer is simple: Team Obama doesn’t seem to realize they’re beating a dead horse, and this was an attempt to make them think they were on to something so they would continue with this useless attack. Nice.
● Thought No. 5. Money Troubles. Obama made news last week by whining that Big Bad Romney has so much more money than poor little Red Obama. Interestingly, that’s not actually true. Since this election cycle began, Romney and the RNC have taken in about $425 million all told. Obama and the DNC have taken in $550 million.
So why the whining? Because in the past few months, Romney has blown Obama away. In June, Romney took in about $106 million compared to Obama’s $71 million. In May, Romney raised $77 million compared to $60 million for Obama. And apparently, Romney is now getting increasingly bigger checks as GOP whales are starting to give. Obama, meanwhile, isn’t. Obama is worried by the trend and acted desperately.
● Thought No. 6. DOOMED!! Finally, we have more evidence that Obama is doomed. One of the key demographics Obama need is young people. They are the one group he carries overwhelmingly and he needs them to make up for all the oldsters who will be turning out to toss him out. But the news isn’t good for Obama on the youth front. Gallup tracks enthusiasm by age group. In 2004, young people (age 18-29) turned out at 6% below the national average. In 2008, contrary to popular belief, they turned out 7% below the national average. If what they told Gallup is to be believed, they will turn out 20% below the national average in 2012!!! At the same time, old people who turned out 1% below average and 2% below average in 2004 and 2008, intend to turn out 7% above average in 2012. That’s the group that hates Obama the most. All of this will crush Obama and suggests that we are looking at a blow out.
Thoughts?
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
My Advice To Social Conservatives
I said last week that social conservatives have not done a great job winning over the public on social issues. There are some minor advances here and there, but for every advance there is full retreat in some other area. I think a change of strategy is called for on all fronts.Let me start with three broad principles:
● Principle One: It’s time to get rational about the goals social conservatives want to achieve and how to achieve them. This means putting an end to pie-in-the-sky ideas like constitutional amendments to force change. Not only is that easily lampooned in light of the conservative claim to states’ rights, but it’s pointless because there is simply no way to get any constitutional amendment through the Congress and then passed by enough states. It is impossible, and talking about it wastes time and diverts resources from better causes. Moreover, talking about changing the constitution, scares the public, who will automatically see this as extreme and dangerous. So drop the idea of trying to solve everything with one shot and learn the art of incrementalism, i.e. achieving your goal little by little. This isn’t sexy, but it’s the only effective way to achieve controversial goals under our system.
● Principle Two: Drop the harsh rhetoric. The fiery pulpit speeches may work well in church, but the public sees them differently. To the public, they are evidence that social conservatives are hateful people who can’t deal with the modern world and who want to judge everyone else. This is a self-inflicted wound.
● Principle Three: You can’t win with religion-based arguments. Those simply don’t work with the modern public because the vast majority of the public doesn’t see the Bible as the thing which runs their day-to-day lives. Indeed, while 90% of the public claims to believe in God, only 40% claim to go to church “regularly” (there is reason to believe the real number is closer to 20%). And even of those who go, there is a disconnect between what the churches teach and how people live their lives -- the classic example of this are Catholics, who love the Pope, but ignore his rules. And even then, different denominations and different religions have different views about what their religion tells them, e.g. some accept gay marriage, some don’t. So premising arguments on religion is a bad start because you lose most of your audience. Moreover, in making these arguments, social conservatives end up bypassing the stronger arguments they should be making.
Ok, now let’s look at specific policies.
● Abortion: Abortion is an area where social conservatives are largely doing it right because they’ve adopted incrementalism. In the 1980s and early 1990s, abortion opponents kept looking for the home run, and it never came. It wasn’t until they learned to take the issue step by step that they began to make progress. The goal right now should be to entirely eliminate public funding, which is what keeps the abortion lobby alive, and to impose restrictions which the public will find reasonable.
One thing that needs to be dropped is this ridiculous idea of extending 14th Amendment rights to fetuses. Not only does this scare people, and thus is counterproductive, but it cannot pass, and it is almost the classic example of unintended consequences. Give fetuses rights and they can sue pregnant women if they don’t stop smoking or drinking or otherwise fail to follow doctor’s orders. This is a Pandora’s box of legal insanity which liberal interest groups will gleefully use to invade families. Think twice people.
● Gays: The gay marriage battle is lost. Yes, it won’t gain any more support in conservative states for the moment, but this issue is inevitable because the younger public really doesn’t see gays as a threat. Indeed, gays have pretty much proven there is nothing to fear from gay marriage. So so-cons better find proof fast to refute this.
A better strategy would be to switch over to a religious freedom argument. Right now, social conservatives have let themselves by placed on the wrong side of the gay marriage debate because gays have argued they are the ones seeking “freedom.” The reality is they have freedom and they are really seeking to use government power to impose their beliefs on others. But so-cons aren’t arguing that. Instead, they talk about “morality,” which is a loser. What they need to do is argue the religious freedom aspect, i.e. that gays are seeking to take away freedom by forcing others to accept them. Americans always vote for whoever is offering the greater freedom, so-cons need to learn to explain this better.
I also recommend giving serious thought to getting the government out of the marriage business entirely, as I discussed HERE.
● Drugs: Social conservatives are losing the drug war, particularly marijuana, because they’ve adopted the wrong argument. They’re arguing that drugs are bad for you/society. But that’s a nanny state argument. And indeed, the pro-pot people have merely had to argue that pot isn’t that bad to slowly win over a near-majority. The better argument involves civil freedoms. If we allow people to take drugs, then we either need to change negligence laws dramatically (in ways people really won’t like), or we will end up imposing huge costs on employers, employees and the economy because of the need for widespread drug testing. Why? Because any company that makes any product or provides any service which can injury someone (i.e. any company) will need to take steps to ensure that their workers are not high when they are working. That means widespread drug testing of everyone with a job. Right now the argument is “should the government be allowed to stop Person X from smoking pot at home.” But the argument should be, “are YOU willing to undergo constant drug testing to protect your employer from lawsuits just because the government decides to legalize drugs for the few who want it?” That’s a very different matter. I’ve discussed this HERE.
● Religious Freedom: This one’s a can of worms. A lot of social conservatives are going down a very dangerous path with the idea of religious freedom laws. Specifically, they are pushing bills which prohibit employers from stopping employees from engaging in religious practices or wearing religious items, e.g. crucifixes. This should send up huge red flags for conservatives. For one thing, conservatives have opposed employment-discrimination-based lawsuits almost across the board when it comes to gays, blacks, women and disability. Why make an exception for religion? Shouldn’t a private employer be entitled to impose whatever restrictions they want on the people they pay to be their employees? Can’t the employees just go elsewhere if they don’t like it?
Further, there is an obvious flaw here which social conservatives are overlooking because they tend to equate the word “religion” with their brand of Christianity: our Constitution doesn’t allow discrimination amongst religions. Thus, if you give people absolute power to act out their religious beliefs at work, that would include things like the wearing of the Islamic veil or separation of men and women, the handling of snakes, the smoking of peyote and whatever other crazy ideas these fringe religions can dream up.
This also applies to things like prayer in schools. If you seek legislation to allow that nice Protestant Principal to say a prayer each morning, except that your kids may also find themselves forced to sit through an Islamic prayer or Buddhist ritual or even an atheist’s speech. Unless you want other religions forced upon you and your children, it is best to always keep in mind that any new power you give yourself can be used by others as well.
Frankly, the best bet here is to vote with your feet and your wallets. Don’t support businesses which are hostile to your religious beliefs. Do support friendly ones. Stop seeing movies, watching television shows, or buy videogames with bad messages in them. Use the power of boycott. Send your kids to religious schools and volunteer to make sure those schools are the best (a shining example). In this regard, support legislation which lets federal money follow the students to whatever schools they choose -- trust people to make the right choices rather than trying to use the government to force the right choices upon them. Remember, you have to win people over, you can’t force them to believe what you want them to believe.
The big takeaway here is that social conservatives need to learn to speak to people who don’t share their religious beliefs -- framing things in religious terms simply will not work for anyone who doesn’t agree with your religious beliefs. They need to learn that a thousand small victories are better than the false hopes of complete victory in fell swoop. And they need to think more about the unintended consequences of the policies they propose and they need to realize that others will get to use the same powers they create in the law.
Thoughts?
P.S. Don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site.
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Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Americans Are Conservative
Every year, Gallup asks Americans to identify their ideology. And every year the answer is roughly the same. This year, as usual, conservatives outnumber liberals by about 2-1. Let’s discuss.Here are the headline numbers as to how people identify themselves:
Hmm. So what does this tell us? Well, for one thing it tells us that Americans still can’t stand being labeled as liberals, as only 2 in 10 embrace that label. As an aside, the number of people calling themselves economic liberals has been falling steadily since 2001, when it peaked at 38%. That suggests the Bush/Obama years have discredited liberal economics for a large chunk of Americans.● Overall: 41% conservative v. 23% liberal
● On economics: 46% conservative v. 20% liberal
● On social issues: 38% conservative v. 28% liberal
These numbers also tell us that Americans are much more conservative than you would think. What do I mean? I mean this: because of the herd instinct, which is alive and well within human beings -- with peer pressure advertisements being the most glaring bit of proof -- humans tend toward the center. Our culture actually reinforces this. Indeed, we teach people “moderation in all things” and “extremism” is considered a bad word in almost any endeavor. We tell people to worry about what society thinks, to try to fit in, and to follow the well-chartered path. This is so ingrained that both rich and poor people will identify themselves as “middle class” because they just don’t want to stand too far apart from the crowd. Moreover, on any measurable issue, trait or test, humans form a bell curve in which about 60% fall tightly into the middle with another 20% less tightly in the middle, and the remaining 20% outside on either end. That is the story of humanity.
And that means that if America were “a fair coin” (i.e. randomly distributed) then you would have 60% calling themselves “moderates”, 10% calling themselves “moderate-conservatives” and another 10% calling themselves “moderate liberals”, and 10% calling themselves “conservative” with another 10% calling themselves “liberal.”
But that’s not what we have. Instead, we have 40% calling themselves “conservative.” That means that in America, conservatives are 400% over-represented from what they should be here. Now, it's possible that Americans just drop the “moderate” portion of the “moderate conservative” and “moderate liberal” label, but even if we factor that in, then liberals are exactly what nature predicts -- 20%. But conservatives are still 200% overrepresented. And those extra conservatives have come from the ranks of moderates.
Here are my thoughts on this:
1. This means that conservatism is strongly attractive to Americans because it has yanked away 20% of the public from intense herd-instinct pressure and gotten them to abandon the “moderate” herd. Liberalism, on the other hand, has zero pull.
More than anything, this tells me that conservatives MUST return to selling conservatism to the public and must abandon being just anti-liberals. This is because liberalism is at its core-level of support and cannot be eroded further. Thus, tearing liberalism apart gets us nothing. Instead, we must convince moderates that they are really conservatives. And doing that requires selling our ideas to them so that they join the 20%+ of moderates who have already swung to the conservative camp.
2. We are very close to shifting the heard instinct. When enough people believe something, the herd follows. If conservatives can get above 50%, the rest of the moderates will follow because they are classic herd-followers.
3. This poll also tells us why conservatives need to keep making economic issues front and center. All conservatives need to win over the moderates to their cause on economic issues is about 1 in 4 moderates, whereas we would need to win 1 in 3 moderates on social issues and we face stronger opposition. Conservatives need not fear social issues, but economic issues are where their strength lies and that should always be the lead issues.
4. Conservatives have not yet done a good enough job winning over the public on social issues. I would suggest finding a new strategy to try to convince people that social conservatism works -- I’ll save that for another post.
Finally, I want to point out something said by Joe Scarborough. I don’t like Scarborough because he’s weak-minded and weak-kneed. He is the kind of Republican who is more comfortable as a Democratic-pet than putting in place his own ideas (assuming he has them). He thinks these numbers are generally overblown and he makes the point that even though the public is more conservative than liberal, he thinks conservatives don’t really mean it about being conservative:
This has become a standard liberal/RINO talking point about conservatives and it really highlights the problem with RINOs. The conservatives I know, and their Tea Party allies, are actively trying to shrink all of these things. They’ve vote for politicians promise to cut these things. They even tried to stop the budget because it funded them. They don’t find any cows sacred. Only the RINOs and their big business friends are fighting to the death to defend these things. And liberals use this as cover to keep spending on their friends. This is where things need to change. Conservatives need to get behind proposals to slash all these areas and take away this bit of false cover. And they need to call out the RINOs who make this claim.“The obvious irony is that while Americans like to think of themselves as rugged individualists who are perfectly capable of pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps, these same cowboys would tar and feather any leader who tried to curb spending on Medicare, Social Security, farm subsidies, defense contracts, student loans or any other part of America's $4 trillion budget.”
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Thursday, April 5, 2012
Liberals Are Not Smartier Than Conservatives (redux)
The study (LINK) was done by a University of Arkansas psychologist and claims to have found that conservatism is the result of “low-effort thinking.” Essentially, the study claims that when the brain is firing on all cylinders, i.e. when it is engaged in “effortful, deliberate responding,” the mind tends toward liberalism. But when those deep thoughts are disrupted for various reasons (e.g. alcohol or time pressure), people become evil, stupid conservatives. How convenient for liberals who want to kid themselves about their own stupidity.
Let’s debunk this.
First, look at the labels this dipsh*t is using. Labeling conservatism as “low-effort” thinking is strong evidence of political bias. How do we know? Because what this study labels as “low-effort” thinking is actually defined by the study as the brain processes becoming “quick and efficient.” Thus, they have chosen a negative label (one implying limited brain power) to describe something which is actually a positive process (efficient use of brain power). Therefore, a more accurate description of the results of this study would instead be: “efficient thinking processes result in conservatism.” But that won’t comfort liberals.
Secondly, the study defines “conservative” wrongly. The study claims that conservatism “may be identified by several components,” which include: “an emphasis on personal responsibility, acceptance of hierarchy, and a preference for the status quo.” Wrong. Conservatism absolutely believes in individual responsibility. But individualism and acceptance of hierarchy are contradictory beliefs. And it is liberalism, not conservatism, which is marked with subservience to hierarchy. Liberals believe in leader worship, strong government, supremacy of experts and the superiority of certain classes of people. And if you want real world proof of this, look no further than any liberal country (e.g. Europe, Japan, South America) and you will find a heavy emphasis on strong government and social class, i.e. hierarchies, with a strong deference given to superiors telling inferiors how to live their lives. Only in America, the most conservative country on earth, is class minimized.
Moreover, if it were true that conservatives were beholden to hierarchies (and the status quo) then how can one explain that conservatives go against the MSM? America’s media and political class are center-left. If conservatives followed the herd, they too would be center-left. Yet, conservatives fight those groups and actively disbelieve what these authorities tell them -- again, it is liberals who do what they are told. Thus, again, we see that the study has tried to define conservatism as consisting of the worst traits of liberalism.
Third, the study is obviously wrong on its face because it is trying to explain ideology as a matter of brain function. Yet, ideology must be cultural in nature. How do we know this? Because different cultures produce different ideological results. The vast majority of the populations in Europe and Japan are far left by American standards and the vast majority of the populations in America and China are far right by European standards. This cannot be explained by brain function, it can only be culture. In other words, if ideology were the result of brain function, then all countries would exhibit similar ideological characteristics. Yet, they do not. That means brain function is not a predictor of ideology. And this study’s attempt to find such a link is a fool’s errand.
Fourth, the study looked only at political centrists, i.e. moderates. So the obvious problem here is whether moderates can be used as a proxy for conservatives? In fact, the authors admit that they do not know if conservatives get more conservative or if liberals get more conservatives (or more liberal) if tested in the same manner. Basically, the only thing they can say for certain is that when you put moderates under pressure, they give more conservative responses. This could mean they become more conservative under pressure. Or it could mean that moderates are more likely to fake liberal views until they are put under pressure, at which point their “real” beliefs appear. Or it could mean moderates are inherently conservative thinkers who delude themselves until it comes time to make a decision. Or it could be that conservatism is the human default for problem solving. Or it could just be that moderates realize that conservative ideas will give them the best result.
All we know for sure is that the study found this:
And the reasons for that are unknown. What cannot be concluded from this study, however, is that “low-effort thinking results in conservatism.”When moderates are put under pressure, so that a quick and efficient response is needed, they will resort to “conservative” thinking.
Once again, what we see here is how far liberals will go to convince themselves they aren’t idiots. This study took the worst parts of liberal thinking and re-labeled them as conservative, conducted a useless test on moderates, and drew untenably broad conclusions while simultaneously ignoring overwhelming contradictory real world evidence all in the hopes of telling liberals that conservatives are stupid. Pathetic.
This is all starting to explain a lot, isn’t it? Who are your top five stupid liberals and what are their “shining moments” of stupidity?
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Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Primary Plus Election Thoughts
● Rick’s Done: There are three primaries tonight and Romney should win them all. In Wisconsin, Ricky is losing by 13% in the most recent polls -- though Democrats are allowed to vote so it will be closer. In Maryland, Ricky is losing by 25%. And Romney is winning with all groups -- Tea Party supporters, registered Republicans, self-identified conservatives, women, men, and everyone else. . . except evangelicals. Even in Ricky’s home state of Pennsylvania, they are now tied.
Equally interesting is the recent HotAir poll. For those who don’t know, HotAir has become a hotbed of retardism as they and their Kool-Aided followers have spit out every conceivable conspiracy theory known to man about Romney -- everything from Romney paying his endorsers to Romney causing the 2008 financial meltdown. I keep waiting to hear that Romney is the real Alinsky Trojan Horse Obama was supposed to be. . . or the love child of Hitler and Eleanor Roosevelt.
In any event, they did a poll of their readers the other day and lo and behold Romney won by 61% to 20%. Imagine that. Naturally, the comments are full of claims that Romney must have rigged the vote because the HotAir poll is soooooooo influential Romney knew he had to win it. Stupidity and self-delusion aside, this is pretty strong proof that even though talk radio hasn’t come around to Romney yet, their listeners very much have and conservatives are overwhelmingly behind Romney now.
(FYI, we’re not covering the primaries tonight, but I’ll check the comments here if you want to share your thoughts.)
● Ann Romney: There was an article yesterday about Ann Romney being the Romney the Democrats fear the most. I think that’s right. Part of the whole package of judging candidates comes down to judging their wives. The wives give us an insight into what kind of person the man is behind the public relations package. And in that regard, Ann Romney is great. She’s warm, she’s funny, she’s an excellent public speaker and appears to be a great mom. She’s June Cleaver meets Maggie Thatcher. By comparison, Madame O is this:
● Moderates Ready To Turn On Obama: There seems to be a human need among many people to feel they have been forced into making decisions. This is why your last girlfriend/boyfriend suddenly decided that all the things about you which were once cute suddenly became annoying right before they dumped you -- because they didn’t want the responsibility for dumping you, they wanted to feel like you forced them to dump you. The same is true in politics, especially among moderates.
The best way to tell when a politician is losing moderates is when the moderates start to find personal reasons to dislike the politician. That’s happening now. Indeed, this week, Peggy Noonan suddenly discovered that Obama is “creepy.” She didn’t mention anything new or anything that wasn’t already obvious. What she did instead, was to re-characterize his record in personal terms. She lumped together his attack on the churches about contraception, his lies to church groups, his making the Trayvon Martin case “about himself,” and his focus on things other than economics at a time when the public supposedly only wanted the economic crisis solved. And she defined these incidents as a pattern of behavior showing that Obama is “devious” and “dishonest” and an “operator who’s not operating in good faith.” And this makes him “creepy”: it’s not me. . . it’s you. This is how moderates change their minds. Obama is toast.
● Paul Ryan’s Future: Many are now pushing Ryan for VP, but I think that would be a mistake. VP is nothing more than a glorified organ-donor position, a spokesman who cuts the ribbons at bank openings and waits like a vulture for his boss to die. Ryan does more good in the House. But someone raised an interesting point the other day: what if Ryan got appointed to be head of OMB (the Office of Management and Budget)? That actually makes sense. As the guy who writes Romney’s budget, with a willing Congress, Ryan might have a lot more power and lot more freedom to put his skills to use. That said, I wonder if the other bozos in Congress could get budgets through without him? Good question.
● No Condi Rice: There is a renewed push. . . again. For Romney to pick Condoleezza Rice as VP. Please do not do this. Rice has never impressed me. She got run over at the State Department by weak-links like Colin Powel and power-players like Dick Cheney. She is not an effective speaker and she lacks the one skill modern VPs need -- attack dogginess. Please do not choose her.
● Still Rubio: BTW, I still think it will be Rubio. All the signs are there including a non-rejection rejection. But I would also accept Bobby Jindal, Allen West, or Herman Cain.
Thoughts?
Don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the Film Site!
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Monday, March 26, 2012
Conservatives ARE Smarter Than Liberals
Here are six reasons why we know liberals are simply not very smart:
1. They support liberalism. No, I’m not being facetious. Liberalism has been an unmitigated disaster everywhere it’s been tried. It has bankrupted countries, destroyed inner city families, and made a mockery of education. Indeed, any area of our culture or economy which is dominated by liberals is a mess. And the more liberal a country is, the more likely it is to be broke with massive unemployment and little idea how to turn itself around. Not to mention that liberalism runs contrary to human nature, and its cousin socialism has slaughtered hundreds of millions of people. Einstein defined insanity as repeating the same behaviors and expecting different results, yet that is exactly what liberals are doing. Hence, anyone who still believes liberalism can work is either stupid or insane.
2. They reject reality. Anyone who ignores facts they don’t like and insists on believing things that are provably false just isn’t very smart. Yet, that describes liberalism to a T. They will believe things which have been debunked and ignore all evidence that disproves their beliefs. And, not only do they ignore evidence they don’t like, they attack the messenger and try to force people to accept their fantasy version of reality over genuine reality through groupthink and political correctness.
3. They accept contradictions. Anyone who can accept a logical contradiction is an idiot because it shows they have no ability to reason and they are willing to believe that which cannot be true just to maintain their worldview. And liberalism is crawling with logical contradictions. My recent favorite is Keynesian thought, which says that spending money helps the economy because it adds to the economy but simultaneously claims that taxes don’t hurt an economy even though taxes pull money from the economy.
4. They lack a principled framework through which to see the world. The liberal decision-making process is emotive and reactionary, it lacks consistency and any sort of framework upon which to base decisions. It is essentially “reasoning through gut feeling.” Inconsistency and lack of problem-solving methodology are evidence of weak, useless minds.
5. They are incapable of seeing the long term. All decisions have short-term and long-term consequences, yet liberals simply cannot grasp the concept of long-term effects. Only being able to grasp half an answer is evidence of stupidity.
6. They “admit” it. Liberalism’s most obnoxious trait is that liberals project their own worst traits onto others. Thus, while they act like racists/sexists/homophobes/ageists/etc-ists, they deny being any of these things and instead project these flaws onto others. They whine about conservatives speaking in code because they themselves speak in code. They accuse people of being liars when they are the liars, they accuse others of being “haters” when they have the hate, and they accuse others of being “fascists” when they are the fascists. So what do we make of liberals accusing conservatives of being closed-minded (a distinctly liberal, but not conservative, trait) and stupid? Hmm. Sounds like an admission to me.
And now we have more from Pew. Every year, Pew asks people a variety of questions to gage the public’s knowledge of various topics. If liberals are indeed smarter as they claim, they should dominate these tests, but they don’t. To the contrary, conservative blow them out.
Here are the results from the 2010 quiz:
● Men did better than women (50% to 35% correct) and in fact beat women on every question.In fact, it was even worse than it appears for the Democrats. On the 2010 Pew survey, Republicans outperformed the Democrats on 10 of 12 questions, with one tie and the Democrats winning the other question. On this year’s survey it was even worse. This year, Pew asked 19 questions and Republicans outperformed the Democrats on ALL 19 questions. Imagine that.
● College grads did much better than high school grads (61% to 33%).
● Age-wise, those in the 30+ brackets did much better than the 18-20 bracket (50% to 32%).
● And Republicans (50%) and Independents (47%) did better than Democrats (40%).
So these condescendingly smug liberals who see themselves as vastly more knowledgeable than Republicans. . . after all, they watch Stephen Colbert while you hillbillies are watching NASCAR. . . got smoked on 19 out 19 questions. And this continues a trend of Republicans smoking Democrats.
Sadly, the Democrats are probably too stupid to understand what this means, but feel free to try to explain it to them the next time they claim they are smarter than conservatives. I suggest using puppets to make it easier for them to understand.
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Thursday, March 22, 2012
The Conservative Tantrum Continues
Yesterday, Romney’s campaign spokesman was asked whether or not Romney had moved too far to the right to win the general election. He said:
Conservatives went insane. “This proves Romney’s a flip flopper” they whined. Meanwhile, last week, Santorum was asked how he plans to win over voters seeing as how he has no plan to create jobs. Said Ricky:“Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.”
Conservatives stuck their fingers in their ears and pretended not to hear this one.“I don't care what the unemployment rate is going to be. It doesn't matter to me. My campaign doesn't hinge on unemployment rates and growth rates.”
So which one is more important? Or said differently, if conservatives weren’t acting like retarded children, which one of these should have bothered them more?
First, note a critical difference between these two gaffes in terms of who said them. Santorum’s gaffe was said by Santorum himself. It thus provides an important insight into his mindset. The Romney “gaffe,” however, was made by a spokesman. It is therefore inappropriate to attribute this to Romney or to whine that he’s gaffe prone or to claim that this gives us an insight into his true mentality... as conservatives are doing. Instead, the proper response to such a comment is to seek clarification from Romney himself. Romney, by the way, immediately rejected this quote when asked about it -- though conservatives continue to whine about it. Santorum, by comparison, doubled-down on stupid and conservatives doubled-down on intentional blindness to keep ignoring it.
Secondly, the biggest test to determine whether criticism is valid or just hypocritical is to ask if the critic would still be upset if someone else had said it. If the Romney question had been asked of Santorum and he gave the same response, would conservatives get all whiny-outraged? Hardly. They would have said, “well, that’s true. That’s why it doesn’t matter that Santorum’s been whining about pornography and Satan because the general election is a whole new contest and everything said now pretty much disappears.” In other words, if Santorum had said this, conservatives would not have called it a gaffe. So calling it a gaffe because Romney’s spokesman said it is hypocritical.
Now compare the response to Ricky’s gaffe. There is no doubt that any candidate who claimed that the unemployment rate doesn’t matter and who says they don’t care about unemployment would be viewed as having committed an horrific gaffe. Yet, conservatives hypocritically ignored this one.
Third, lets look at what was really said. In the Romney case, the aid was responding to a specific question about whether or not Romney could compete in the general election. His answer was both truthful and essentially what any candidate would have said -- general elections are fought differently from primaries and they essentially begin with a clean slate. He never said Romney planned to abandon his values. In fact, Romney’s values weren't even under discussion. What was under discussion was simply the question of candidate packaging. To interpret this as evidence that Romney has no values requires a deliberate misinterpretation because it requires assuming that the answer addressed a different question than what was really asked.
Now lets look at what Santorum said, because unlike the “Romney” quote, this one is vitally important. Rick has claimed repeatedly to be a Tea Party candidate despite the utter lack of an economic plan and lack of any plan to cut spending or the size of government. Rick also has whined that he’s been unfairly maligned as being concerned only about social issues despite the fact he has no economic plan, and he’s spent the campaign slurring Romney’s religion, slurring Obama’s religion, declaring himself the arbiter of what constitutes Christianity, waging a war against contraception, promising to push gays back into the closet, promising to somehow make people marry, and promising to focus the powers of the federal government like a laser beam on pornography.
So when Rick says that he doesn’t care about unemployment, Rick is accidentally admitting both that he does not care about Tea Party values AND that his attack on the MSM for “mischaracterizing” him is a lie. Indeed, Rick entirely confirms everything his critics have been saying with this quote, i.e. that he does not care about economic concerns.
Further, Rick wasn’t done talking when he said the above. He went on to say this:
Think about this. Rick is essentially saying that HE BELIEVES conservatives should not get involved in trying to make the economy run better -- an interpretation which is completely confirmed by Rick’s lack of any economic plan. This is a declaration of satisfaction with the government the way it is today. And yet, conservatives weren’t stunned by this?“We have one nominee who says he wants to run the economy. What kind of conservative says the president runs the economy? What kind of conservative says, 'I'm the guy because of my economic experience that can create jobs?' I don't know.”
Moreover, Ricky then laughably claimed that his candidacy is about “freedom” (unlike Romney who wants to “control” the economy). Only his definition of “freedom” includes leaving Big Government unchanged, pushing gays into the closet, stopping people from having sex unless they intend to procreate, letting the government decide what people can read, having the government control the internet, forcing taxpayers to pay billions so Ricky can have HHS "promote families" (that’s his economic plan), having the government forcibly unionize companies like FedEx, etc. etc. etc. Again, conservatives ignored this.
Let’s be honest. To attack Romney for something his staffer said, which Romney immediately refuted, and which was both truthful and accurate and wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow if some other candidate had said it, and which wasn’t even discussing the point over which it has been used to attack Romney, is hypocritical and ridiculous and reflects very poorly on conservatives. To simultaneously ignore Rick's quote, which confirms all the worst fears conservatives should have of Santorum -- that he cares about nothing more than forcing his hateful version of Christianity on the country and that he utterly disdains economic conservatism and Tea Party values -- is even worse.
Conservatism has gone off the rails. It is in the midst of a temper tantrum and is acting hypocritically and childishly. It is making itself a laughing stock. And it’s going to take a lot to prove again that conservatives aren’t the mindless, idiotic zombies the left claims. Ug.
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Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Fighting Fire With Fire
The reason the Bigs are annoying is because they are jumping on minutia and mercilessly pounding it into the ground. Game Change had some inaccuracies, but is it worth 500 articles calling Tom Hanks everything from a truth rapist to the last American communist? Tom Hanks also appears in a video with someone in blackface. Is that worth pounding away? Bill Maher says much worse things than Rush ever said, but do we need to hear about it 10,000 times? Etc. All of this seems petty and it’s somewhat hypocritical in the sense that the Bigs are judging these people under politically correct standards which conservatives don’t accept. And frankly, I don’t personally like it. I don’t find this interesting and I would rather they were more constructive.
So it’s bad, right? Well. . . no.
Here’s the thing. For at least two decades now, the left has worked to isolate conservatives from the culture and make them pariahs. Every time a conservative spoke their mind, the left attacked them using some faked-sleight invented by the left. They would feign offense at some non-offensive word or act and then smear the conservative as racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. It didn’t matter that leftists routinely said the same things, they still attacked. In fact, they would hound these conservatives until the conservatives either left the public sphere or surrendered to the mercy of their persecutors. In this way, they made it impossible for conservatives to have their voices heard because every time a conservative got noticed, they were destroyed personally and professionally. The idea literally was to make sure conservatives were afraid to speak.
And how did conservatives respond? Most cringed and did nothing. And when they saw leftists saying or doing the exact same things the left had attacked conservatives for doing, they remained silent. Why? Because they decided to take the high road. They reasoned that if it wasn’t fair to attack conservatives because of X, then it wouldn’t be fair to attack liberals for X either, so they refused to attack. This was stupid.
For twenty-plus years now, conservatives have let the left destroy conservative after conservative with hypocritical attacks without a peep of challenge except to whine about the hypocrisy. Public life became intolerable for conservatives (look at what they did to Palin for example), while liberals got to skate through saying and doing anything they wanted, secure in the knowledge that conservatives were unwilling to attack them.
No more. The Bigs have declared war. They have taken the same pathetic, petty attacks the left has used to smear conservatives for years and they are now applying those same attacks to leftists. They are fighting fire with fire, because that's the only way to stop what the left is doing. When someone has a weapon they can use with impunity, they will. But when they suddenly realize that others will use it against them, they will stop. Think of it as the cultural version of Mutually Assured Destruction: if you want to try to destroy a conservative as racist/sexist for using a particular word, then we will destroy every liberal who uses that word. This may not make for a pleasant world in the short term, but it is the only way to put an end to these attacks.
Indeed, fighting fire with fire is the only technique which works against the left because they win through incremental progress. In other words, they can win by getting a little bit at a time each time they come to power unless conservatives roll back their gains. For example, for decades, the left concentrated power in the executive branch and the courts. They used that power to force leftist ideas onto businesses, schools, state governments, charities, churches and individuals. When conservatives came to power, they would stupidly declare that they would take the high ground and not use the powers created by the left. The left laughed. And once the conservatives lost power again, the left picked right up where they were before and kept right on pushing -- secure in the knowledge that conservatives lacked the will to use these instruments of power against them.
All of that changed under Bush, particularly in education where Bush used the levers of power liberals created to push liberalism onto schools as a means to impose conservatism instead. Suddenly, the left started howling about state’s rights and attacks on personal freedom and they did their best to strip away the powers they had created. Ditto in the courts, where the left now squeals about legal principles like stare decisis, binding precedent and judicial restraint. . . things they ignored for fifty years while the courts were pushing the country to the left.
It’s the same thing here. Taking the high ground equals surrendering. Conservatives must learn to make the left pay for creating these weapons. This means using the government to bring lawsuits against liberal businesses that violate the laws, sending the IRS after liberal churches, unions and charities which engage in politics, going after race hustler groups and black racist organizations under the civil rights laws, targeting Obama-crony companies like GE with the environmental laws they demanded. . . and making life hell for liberal celebrities who step into the traps liberals have set for conservatives.
That’s what the Bigs are doing. And while I don’t personally enjoy it, I absolutely recognize the value of what they are doing. They are firing back the same nuclear weapons the left has been lobbing at us, and they’ve been rather successful at it. And when the left starts to realize that they are living under an unfair microscope of their own making, they will surrender. . . just as they have every other time conservatives have fought back.
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Thursday, March 8, 2012
The Ridiculous “Anybody But Romney” Spin
1. Romney underperformed. This is garbage. This is a trick pundits use to make you think someone is winning/losing when they aren’t. Once they know how a race is likely to go, they set fake expectations just beyond what the polling suggests and then declare the candidate a winner/loser for exceeding/failing to meet those arbitrary “expectations.” This lets them declare any winner to “really” be a loser and vice versa.
Michigan gave the perfect example of this. Michigan was ignored until the polls showed Romney losing Michigan. The pundits ran with this and said Romney would be finished if he couldn’t win Michigan. Then the vote came in and Romney began to pull ahead. Suddenly, they raised the expectations. Now Romney needed to win by 10,000 votes to be credible. When he passed that, they raised it to 20,000. Then they just gave up and talked about his failure to connect even though he had exceeded all the expectations they set for him. They did the same thing with Ohio.
They tried to claim Romney “underperformed” in Virginia because he only got 60% of the vote. Yet, they failed to mention that only 250,000 people voted (5% of the state) because they were told the race didn’t matter. That makes this an outlier which can’t be used to judge Romney’s performance.
They even tried to argue that Romney “underperformed” in Oklahoma. Huh? Oklahoma is evangelical country. Evangelicals have been backing Santorum 51% to 19% in other states, so Santorum should have won by 25% easily, but he won by only 5%. Yet the pundits claim Romney underperformed? How?
Further, to promote this under-performance meme, they’ve ignored all contrary facts. For example, after spending the week saying Massachusetts was not excited about Romney, Romney won with 72% of the vote. That’s a blowout. Yet it was quickly dismissed as “expected” even though the pundits laughingly suggested the opposite a few days before. Also, compare their dismissal of this with their initial glorification of Newt’s 47% in Georgia.
The truth is this:
● Romney won 216 delegates on Tuesday compared to 84 for Santorum.You tell me who’s winning? Also let me ask: if Santorum can’t win in Ohio or Michigan where will he win?
● Romney won 6 of 10 states on Tuesday.
● Romney has blown the others out several times. Santorum’s wins have come in small states and he failed to crack 40% in any state last night.
● Romney has won both “key” states where Santorum needed to win -- Michigan and Ohio.
2. Primaries versus the general election: gaps. The pundits are trying to mix the apples of the primary with the oranges of the general election to attack Romney. Specifically, they claim Romney’s inability to win over evangelicals and hillbillies will hurt him against Obama. Huh? To suggest, that these people might flock to Obama because they don’t like Romney is ludicrous. They would rather vote for Hitler than Obama, who they see as a Muslim who is waging a way against Christianity.
But what if they decide to stay home? First, that won’t happen. These people will turn out to vote even if it’s raining fire to be rid of Obama. Moreover and more importantly, these people live in states like West Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Georgia, Mississippi. . . where Obama will lose in a landslide. In other words, they are irrelevant to this election.
Hence, the pundits are fretting over something which simply cannot happen and which will not matter.
At the same time, they are openly ignoring the real gap in this race: Santorum’s problem with women. As with Michigan, Santorum lost women in Ohio by about 9%. That’s conservative women. In a general election he will probably do what he did in Pennsylvania, when he lost “women” (liberal and conservative combined) by 19%. Women make up about 53% of the electorate. That means Santorum needs to win 65% of men just to break even. That’s impossible. So why are the pundits ignoring this or dismissing it?
3. Primaries versus the general election: RomneyCare. The pundits also want you to believe that it will be hard for Romney to win in November because of RomneyCare. Their argument is that the public will be uneasy with Romney because the base has proven to be uneasy about RomneyCare. Give me a break.
The base is not the public. The November election will be fought in the middle and will likely be won or lost in New Hampshire. That means, whoever wins the moderates wins. Because Romney is not a doctrinaire, fire-brand conservative, it will be easy for him to appeal to moderates. Santorum, on the hand, scares moderates. They will not support him. As for RomneyCare, what better person to propose killing ObamaCare than someone who has done something similar and can look voters in they eye and say, “I know why this doesn’t work, because I’ve tried it.” Or do you think the guy who says, “Jesus told me to kill it” is going to be an easier sell to moderates?
4. Can’t buy me love. This has been a consistent pundit meme throughout the primaries: Romney only wins because he has money. Except. . .
● The other candidates also have millions of dollars they are spending.5. Newt + Rick = Nothing. The latest meme is that if Newt would just drop out of the race, then Santorum would win. I doubt it. There is little reason to think Newt’s supporters will jump to Santorum. If that were the case, they would have abandoned Newt in places like Ohio and Michigan where Newt could not win and would have worked with Santorum to take down Romney. They didn’t. It is more likely these are people who aren’t thrilled with Romney but like Santorum/Newt even less. And when Newt drops out, they will switch to Romney or Paul rather than Santorum.
● Unlike Romney, Newt and Santorum have vast amounts of free paid-in-kind cheerleading from talk radio. They don’t need ads when they have all of talk radio ripping into Romney every day.
● Advertising cannot sway people unless there is reason to be swayed. Or are conservatives zombies who do what Romney commands because they see his ads? If that’s the case, why don't they do what Obama commands or talk radio? Why does this only work for Romney? Magic?
● Finally, if we assume this is true, then doesn’t that mean we need Romney as our nominee because Obama has even more money than Romney, so Santorum will be even more outgunned?
Indeed, if you want a sense of the actual strength of the Anybody But Romney crowd, look at Virginia. In Virginia, the only challenger was Paul. That made Virginia a free vote for the ABR crowd because they could all vote for Paul as a protest against Romney without hurting their own guy (Gingrich/Santorum) by helping the other guy (Santorum/Gingrich). And how did the ABR crowd do? They won 40% of the vote, that’s it. Moreover, only 5% of the electorate turned out even though they had a chance to smack Romney hard (i.e. only 2% turned out to oppose Romney). That’s hardly earth shattering opposition.
The idea that Santorum or Gingrich would win if the other would quit is just more spin. It’s designed to give their supporters hope that something will happen soon to change the race dynamic. But it’s mathematically impossible. Romney only needs to win 48% of the remaining delegates to win the nomination. Santorum needs to win 65% and Newt needs to win 70%. If Newt dropped out and Santorum somehow got 100% of his supporters (an impossible task), he still would only have gotten 51% in Ohio and 45% in Michigan. Even in their best state Georgia (an outlier because it’s Newt’s home state) they would have needed 100% of the vote just to get to 66%. It's just not enough. Romney wins. All Santorum is doing now is playing the spoiler.
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Thursday, March 1, 2012
The Importance of Andrew Breitbart
Why does it matter whether films and television shows are liberal, conservative or neither? The answer is simple: films influence America.
Culture defines normal. It is through our culture that we pass our values and our beliefs from one generation to the next. Hollywood defines modern American culture, there’s no escaping that. It influences the way people see the world, how they solve their problems and whom they look to for solutions. It tells them how they should live, how they should act, and what they should believe. It is the parent so many parents are not. And unless conservatives want Hollywood raising a generation of reflexive liberals with no sense of personal responsibility, we need to depoliticize the film industry.
Hollywood continuously smears conservatives and the conservative label while whitewashing liberals and liberalism. This infuses the culture with the idea that being a conservative is a bad thing and being a liberal is a good thing. Consequently, many people are uneasy about being considered conservatives even though their beliefs are by definition conservative. It also creates boogeymen which have turned normal occupations like being a soldier or a businessman into villains and undermined the very spirit of America. And unless conservatives want Hollywood defining the culture against them, this need to change and Hollywood needs to be depoliticized.
Andrew realized that and told conservatives that they needed to fight back from within Hollywood rather than just moaning about it as consumers. He created Big Hollywood for that and the message took off. Suddenly, rather than dismissing Hollywood as hopelessly leftist and seeing it as a fact of life, conservatives came to realize they needed to start working to seize back the culture.
And I am seeing the fruits of this everywhere. I’m seeing conservative filmmakers and actors come out of the closet. I’m seeing public backlashes that are changing the way Hollywood acts. This year’s Oscars were short on politics. . . Matt Damon and George Clooney both have begun trying to hide their politics. . . pro-Obama films have been withdrawn when they were called election propaganda. . . and networks like HBO have begun having to explain themselves.
This is all because of Andrew. Andrew is the one who woke everyone up to this.
Even on a more personal note, Andrew is directly responsible for all of us meeting each other. Big Hollywood is the first political site at which I participated and it’s where most of us met each other. And I thank him for that.
Bless you Andrew Breitbart. Rest in peace.
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Monday, February 27, 2012
I'm Calling Out Rush
After last Wednesday’s debate, Team Santorum immediately suggested that Romney and Paul had cut a dirty deal to work together in the debates. Hence, we should ignore Santorum’s belly flop because the others cheated. Of course, Santorum has ZERO proof of this.
The following morning, Rush, who feigns neutrality in this race, ran with Santorum’s talking point. Only, Rush didn’t present it as a Santorum talking point, he claimed it as his own “epiphany.” Here’s what he said:
What I had detected, like an epiphany, all these debates I had never seen Ron Paul attack Romney, nor had I seen Romney attack Ron Paul. I saw Ron Paul attacking everybody else. . . .Let’s break this down.
The point is that there is an alliance between Ron Paul and Mitt Romney. This is what I have been remiss in not mentioning. So last night after the debate, I start doing show prep and I see all this stuff in the British press about Romney may be offering Rand Paul the vice presidency and I'm saying to myself, "I know I mentioned this in an e-mail to some of my friends.". . .
I'm not being critical here. I'm just pointing out something that is obvious. Romney is never criticized by Paul but Paul has criticized everybody else that has become the most popular not-Mitt of the moment. . . And, by the way, if you are a Romney guy and a supporter, you're thinking, "This is brilliant, a brilliant campaign tactic."
Whether it's true or not that there has been an actual meeting of the minds in conversations and strategy developed between the two guys, it is clear that there's a hands-off policy between Paul to Romney and vice-versa. Paul does not attack Romney. Ron Paul attacks every one of Romney's opponents; Romney doesn't attack Paul.
And so last night, we start seeing these stories in the British press. One of them, Toby Harnden, was that Ron Paul would be offered the veep slot. Then another one followed that and said maybe Rand Paul, and then Rand Paul put out a statement saying he would be honored to be Romney's VP. And that's when I said, "Damn it! Damn it, I wrote that e-mail on the 13th of January. I saw this, I knew what was happening, and I didn't say anything about it."
First, it’s not true. Ron Paul has attacked all the other candidates when he has attacked. By and large, however, he has not attacked anyone. Paul is an issues candidate who is there to talk about his issues. He mostly ignores the others. And when he has attacked, he has attacked each of the others as having a fundamentally flawed view of government. He has not omitted Romney from that. And his attacks on Santorum have been in response to Santorum attacking him as not a conservative.
Secondly, what Rush is doing is a standard smear tactic:
1. He argues in the conspiratorial. Indeed, the crux of his argument is this statement: “Whether it's true or not that there has been an actual meeting of the minds. . . it is clear that there's a hands-off policy between Paul to Romney.” Translate this logically: “whether it is true or not that there is a deal, there is a deal.” This is meant to mislead you by making it sound like Rush is only floating the possibility of a deal, when he is actually telling you the deal is a fact.
2. Then he suggests that this is more than mere speculation by telling you how it is being reported by others (i.e. the British Press). Except, the British Press were repeating what Santorum’s strategist said right after the debate. Basically, just like the MSM did with the Herman Cain smear, Rush is using the fact that an allegation has been reported as evidence of its being true. Then he doubles down by saying Rand Paul hasn’t rejected a VP slot, thereby implying Paul has affirmatively confirmed the deal.
Then he tries to confirm it himself by claiming that he told his brother about this back on January 13. This is the Herman Cain smear to the letter: (1) multiple people are repeating the same allegation so it must be true, and (2) I told my family before it hit the press, so it must be true. This is shameful reasoning.
3. Rush then misleads you further by suggesting that he’s not actually criticizing Paul or Romney for this deal, even though that’s exactly what he’s doing. Again this is meant to make Rush sound disinterested. But Rush isn’t disinterested. He supports Santorum, which is why he said this (which is now being used in Santorum mailers before a key primary): “Rick Santorum is ‘the last conservative standing’.”
And why he would say this about Romney:
“Something else I’m confident about saying: As hard-hitting and go-for-the-throat and take-no-prisoners as Romney’s going after Newt, he will not do this going after Obama. If you like Romney’s toughness in the way he’s taken out Newt, I’ve got a thing for you: He isn’t going to do that against Obama.”Even though Romney is the only candidate primarily targeting Obama, and even though Rush said this in 2008 about the man he now treats as a RINO:
“There probably is a candidate on our side who does embody all three legs of the conservative stool, and that’s Romney. The three legs of the stool are national security/foreign policy, the social conservatives and the fiscal conservatives.”What changed?
4. Third, note that nowhere does Rush mention that this is the same talking point Santorum’s people are spreading that very morning. Yet, this is the same man who often attacks the MSM for repeating Democratic talking points without pointing that out.
5. Nor does he mention that Romney and Paul both denied this. Nor does he give the more likely reasons for his (wrong) observations. Ganging up on the frontrunner has been the pattern throughout. Moreover, Paul strongly opposes Santorum’s brand of “conservatism,” (i.e. big government economic liberalism + neocon foreign adventuring + federal government intrusion in the bedroom). Also, it has been widely reported that Santorum has been entirely disrespectful of Paul. Those are all the likely reasons he attacked Santorum, not some dirty deal. But those don’t let Santorum claim he’s a victim of cheating.
But this issue goes beyond Romney/Santorum for me. For years, Rush excelled at rising above the smoke and mirrors and explaining genuine conservatism in a way that won people over. He did it with good will and good faith. But all that changed during the Bush administration when Rush began vehemently knee-jerk attacking anyone who dared to point out that Bush was not a conservative.
Since that time he’s been nothing but knee-jerk. He, like most of talk radio, jumped on every bandwagon he could find. He refused to vet people like Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, whose loss may be THE loss that keeps us from getting a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. He’s attacked everything the Republicans have tried to do, squandering every single long term opportunity just so he could scream loudest that he’s more conservative than those RINOs in Washington. Now he’s about to repeat the same mistake with the candidates because he won’t examine them with his mind rather than his ratings detector.
Conservatism needs better.
We are in the current problem precisely because people like Rush failed to vet candidates before the primary began. They went into this thing blind and without a plan, and have gone wherever the soundbites have taken them. They are stirring up the mob for no reason except ratings and he's no longer willing to take correct but unpopular stands. And that has brought us to this point, which should be the crowning moment of a new conservative age and instead has turned into a cluster-fudge of epic proportions.
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Thursday, February 23, 2012
Debate Wrapup: Some Did Worse Than Others
● Romney: Romney gave a solid performance all around. There were no slip-ups. He was solid on economics and foreign policy. He threw some social conservative punches at Obama. He had a great answer to the question of education reform. And he used Rick Santorum like a punching bag. Rather than recapping his performance, however, let me summarize an article Ann Coulter wrote. Here is her truly insightful conclusion:
“Meanwhile, Romney cheerfully campaigns on, the biggest outsider and most conservative candidate we've run for president since Reagan, while being denounced by the Establishment as ‘too Establishment.’”Here’s her reasoning. First, why Romney is a conservative:
1. He balanced the budget without raising taxes, something even Reagan never managed in California.She then points out that many of the people attacking Romney (Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Rick Santorum, Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage, etc.) not only enthusiastically endorsed Romney as the conservative in 2008, but they are part of the establishment against which they rail. She also points out that these same people refuse to examine the issues because Romney comes up more conservative than the candidates they are pimping. She seems to suggest that their behavior is the result of a desire to have the Republicans lose to Obama. She doesn’t directly say why, but others have suggested that a second Obama term would help each of these people in the ratings department or in intra-party fights.
2. He became a “deeply pro-life” governor of a liberal state.
3. His approach to illegal immigration in Massachusetts is the same approach Arizona is using.
4. RomneyCare was the conservative alternative to HillaryCare.
Essentially, she is saying that for self-interest reasons or tantrum reasons, conservatives have closed their minds and have proven themselves “morons.” If she’s right, then nothing will change conservative minds. Here’s the full article (LINK). I recommend reading it.
● Santorum: Rick got taken apart last night, largely by himself. Rick’s record is that of an unprincipled big government liberal. Yet, throughout this campaign, he has freely lied about his record and then attacked others for things he actually did himself. That behavior caught up to him last night as Romney and Paul took turns tearing him apart.
(1) Here’s Rick trying to explain away his votes to fund Planned Parenthood: Rick opposed the funding, even though he voted for it, and he only voted for it because it was in bigger funding bills which included other stuff he wanted. Hence, we should ignore his lack of principles because that’s how Washington works. But don’t worry. Even though he didn’t have the courage of his convictions to vote against these bills, he would veto them as President because he’s courageous when it comes to standing on principle.Basically, it was a supernova of hypocrisy, circular logic, and contradictions all wrapped up in a nice, smug package. The bleeding only stopped in the second half of the debate when Rick just starting saying, “I agree with the others.”
(2) Here’s Rick explaining his stance on women in combat. Part One: It’s misleading to say he opposes women in combat because all these “noncombat” military jobs are just as dangerous as combat jobs. Ergo there really is no such thing as a “noncombat” job. And since Rick won’t force women back out of those jobs, it’s wrong to say he opposes women in combat. However, he won’t open “combat jobs” to women just ’cause. Part Two: Rick has made up his mind, but he would let the generals weigh in on the issue if they want to. Although, Rick won’t accept any “social engineering” because this decision needs to be based on what the military says.
(3) On Romney’s foreign policy positions: Romney is right, so vote for Rick because he’s the only one who knows what needs to be done.
(4) On voting for No Child Left Behind: Rick voted for NCLB even though he never supported it because he was told to do that by the Republican Establishment, the same Republican Establishment he “courageously” stood up to repeatedly. Why did he go against his principles? Because that’s what you do when the “team” tells you to do it. But vote for Rick because he won’t do things just because the team wants him to.
(5) On supporting Arlen Specter: Rick supported turncoat Specter over conservative favorite Pat Toomey because Rick got a promise from Specter that he would support every Bush judicial nominee if Rick supported him, and in fact Specter kept his promise (Rick then named judicial nominees from ten years prior to the endorsement, like Reagan appointee Robert Bork). Then he tried to talk over Romney as Romney asked, “are you saying you think Pat Toomey couldn’t be trusted to support George W. Bush’s judicial nominees?” Rick kept talking over Romney until CNN cut them off. CNN also stopped Romney from asking why Santorum endorsed Specter for President.
(6) On earmarks: Rick opposes earmarks, but did them himself because everybody else did them and that’s how government works. And it’s hypocritical for Ron Paul to attack Rick on this issue. In fact, earmarks are a great thing because they let you help people you want to help, but Ron Paul is evil for using earmarks.
There was one particularly galling moment when Rick tried to claim he worked to reform entitlements, “unlike Paul Ryan’s budget.” Not only is it false that Ryan’s budget didn’t reform entitlements, but don’t forget that Rick created a $550 billion medicare drug entitlement.
By the way, here’s an interesting quote which surfaced yesterday by Santorum about the Tea Party he now claims to represent: “I’ve got some real concerns about this movement within the Republican Party and the tea party movement to sort of refashion conservatism, and I will vocally and publicly oppose it.”
● Newt: Good Newt showed up and he stank. He was dull and forgettable, and he’s making South Carolina look like a total fluke. A couple of the pro-Newt analysts (notably Eric Erickson) tried to declare him the winner, but no one’s going to buy that.
Oddly, this may ultimately work for him.
On the one hand, Newt should have torn into Santorum to show that he’s the only legitimate Anybody-But-Romney candidate. But on the other hand, Newt’s popularity in polls has crashed since South Carolina, i.e. ever since he went negative. So I think he was banking on Paul and Romney taking Santorum out, and then having Good Newt win people back. I guess we’ll see if that works. The problem is that Good Newt just isn’t very interesting. Also, his grand ideas are starting to sound very confused and jumbled.
● Paul: Paul ripped Santorum apart with wit and facts. In particular, he kept on attacking Santorum about his Washington ways, and Santorum had no idea how to handle it. Beyond that, Paul had a foreign policy problem last night in that every single answer eventually went back to surrendering in the Middle East. Even his answer on illegal immigration came down to Pakistan.
What does this mean for the next round of primaries? You tell me.
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Monday, February 13, 2012
Obfuscating CPAC
● Santorum the Winner? Politico declared Santorum the big “winner,” even though he came in second to Romney, because last year he had only 2% support and now he has 31%. This is ludicrous.
Let’s start with the obvious fact Politico skipped: Romney won. That makes him THE winner. Indeed, the real story here is that in the “anybody but Romney” world of conservatism, Romney should not have won this straw poll at all. He should have come in dead last. Instead, he won by 7% (38% to 31%) topping last year’s score of 22%. That makes him THE BIG winner.
If you don’t think that’s true, then ask yourself why Ricky went out Sunday and whined that the vote was rigged? He wouldn’t do that if this loss hadn’t hurt him. (As an aside, note that once again a “conservative” is playing into liberal smears by attacking other conservatives as vote riggers.)
And why did this hurt Ricky? Because with his huge margins of victory in Minnesota and Missouri, anything less than a 50% total among a gathering of 10,000 of the country’s most highly conservative activists must be seen as a declaration of a lack of faith in Santorum. That makes this a HUGE loss, and it means the real winners are Romney (as stated above) and Newt. Why Newt? Because this result tells us that Santorum can’t seal the deal and become the “anybody but Romney” guy. To the contrary, this vote shows a tremendous amount of unease among conservatives with Santorum.
That unease, by the way, was encapsulated by Christine O’Donnell who accidentally said into an open mic, “Santorum’s fiscal record is more liberal than Romney’s social record.” That plus some conservatives fear the whole Torquemada thing won’t sell.
● Obama the Loser? Politico also declared Obama a CPAC loser. They claim his contraception policy controversy couldn’t have happened at a worse time because it “galvanized conservatives at the conference.” Give me a break.
Let’s play Devil’s Advocate. Isn’t the timing a win for Obama? With one well-timed policy, he’s got all the CPAC lemmings worked up into a tizzy over abortion. They will now go home, full of rage, and tell all their friends that abortion needs to be THE issue for this race. That means supporting Reverend Ricky, the weakest candidate in the field. It means spouting a LOT of rhetoric that will freak out the straights. And it means taking their eyes off the real issue -- economics. Indeed, on Tuesday, Obama will unveil a new budget with a $1.3 trillion dollar deficit which lavishes money on his crony friends and raises taxes on everyone. . . but these CPACers will be busy foaming at the mouth over abortion.
Call me crazy, but it sounds like a brilliant bit of timing by Obama.
The real problem for Obama on the contraception issue is that the Catholic Church has declared war against him, and they have a lot of power in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, where CPAC has less influence than a jelly donut.
Politico also ignored something else that was significant vis-Ã -vis Obama and CPAC, even after mentioning it in their article. To stop Ron Paul from winning their straw poll, CPAC made it much easier for everyone to vote. And guess what? They still got 300 fewer votes than last year. And that’s despite this being an election year with a highly contested primary. That’s a sign of trouble for conservatives. Win for Obama.
● Palin the Winner? Politico declared Palin a winner because she drew a large crowd. From this, they concluded she would be “a major figure on the right for decades to come.” Ok, but keep this in mind. Despite claiming to be neutral, she unofficially endorsed Newt right about the time polls showed that he would win South Carolina. He did win, which was no surprise. Then he got his butt handed to him in Florida by Romney and then by Santorum in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri. Which is more telling of Palin’s power, that a group of activists crowded around her celebrity-style at a conference or that conservative voters in four states ignored her endorsement?
● Ron Paul Loser? Politico says Paul lost because he did much worse in this straw poll than the last one, which “shows the limits of his support among conservatives.” Wrong. This completely misjudges Ron Paul’s goals.
There are many forms of winning. Paul knows he will never win the White House. That’s not his goal. His goal is to get the Republican Party to adopt his views. And with guys like Jim DeMint saying the Republican Party better listen to his views, Paul is riding a heck of a winning streak. Judging him on a straw poll he did not contest (at a convention he did not attend) is as stupid as judging Palin’s political reach on her ability to draw a crowd at CPAC. This is insta-nalysis and it’s crap. This is analysis designed to create a trend rather than expose a trend.
● Anybody But Romney Tantruming. Finally, Politico along with several conservatives are attacking Romney over his statement that: “I was a severely conservative Republican governor.”
See, it turns out that no conservative would say this, just as no British secret agent would order red wine with fish. Said a shocked Rush: “I have never heard anybody say, ‘I’m severely conservative.’” Added the always-perfect Newt, “Some things are too funny to comment on.” Several others called for an “explanation.”
The meme behind this is that conservatives shouldn’t trust Romney because he “doesn’t speak the language” of conservatism. This is ridiculous. Splitting hairs over a poor choice of words is not reasoned analysis, it’s a prejudice desperately searching for validation.
But I guess they’re right. How can we trust a man who would say “I’m severely conservative” in an off-the-cuff comment. We should instead put our faith in genuine conservatives like Newt who says conservative things like calling deportation of illegals “heartless” and “inhuman,” who pimped global warming as “settled science,” who attacks “bad capitalism,” and who supported RomneyCare and TARP because everybody was doing it. Or we should support genuine conservatives like Ricky Santorum who supported the creation of new entitlements, gun control, higher taxes, higher spending, a healthcare mandate (i.e. RomneyCare), and illegal immigration, and who also disapproves of “bad capitalism.” Why? Because Rick’s a real conservative, and he would never misspeak, like he did about women in combat this weekend.
My point is this. Conservatives need to stop playing these games. Disagreeing over the importance of particular aspects of the candidate’s records is fine, trying to invent things to dislike is not. Stop parsing words and crowd size. Stop trying to turn mirages of molehills into mountains. Let’s use our brains, not our knee-jerks, and demand that conservative talkers start using theirs as well. . . assuming they have them.
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