Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Focusing

Most left leadership doesn't care about truth; in large part doesn't believe truth is an actual, real thing. They care about power. My proposition is that left intellectual leadership - in Congress, in Dem political organizations, in media - are acting like former communist David Horowitz' radicals:
"[W]hen you are a radical, what you are thinking of is power. It’s about power. You adopt this position. You take up that issue, but it’s all to advance the power. They never think about what it’s going to look like or how to put it together.

I can tell you, a radical never spends five seconds on thinking what makes a society work. That’s not the way they work. They want to know, you know, what they can get away with to advance this big agenda, which is you get power and you change everything."



So, a couple of observations:

First: Left leadership doesn't believe Obamacare will provide healthcare which will make Americans healthier and which will help Americans live longer. The left is about gaining power over that 1/6 of the U.S. economy. "[W]hen you are a radical, what you are thinking of is power. It’s about power."

Americans who oppose Obamacare, including myself, have often forgotten the point. We keep arguing something like:
Obamacare is insanity. It will increase suffering and death.

We ought equally be arguing something like:
Dems want government to gain power over an additional 1/6 of the American economy; Dems are trying to further eliminate protections and freedoms which are gifted to U.S. citizens in the U.S. Constitution; Dems are trying to further press the weight of American Government upon American citizens.

Cartoon: Liberty vs. Serfdom.

Michelle Bachmann, R-MN, says Obamacare is "Gangster government at its worst." She's digging towards the core. Few Dem Congresspersons believe Obamacare will alleviate suffering and delay death. That's not what its about for them.



BTW: Michelle Bachmann is getting slandered like there's no tomorrow. Why? Is she some incompetent extremist who is bad for America and decent society? No. It's because they fear her. She's attractive. She's a wild card who speaks some inconvenient truth. The left prefers Repubs who are cowed into issuing bland statements. They fear her.

I've been watching Bachmann for a while, looking for signs of extremism. Nothing exists. I like her. A lot. I'm now embarrassed that I bought the media spin and went looking for extremism. I ought have known better.

They say Hoffman is Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Shoot, MICHELLE BACHMANN is Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. She is great. This is a woman who has 5 children and 23 foster children. We need 435 of her in Congress. She's being slandered because they fear her.




Second, regarding today's elections:

The left are arguing that the right electorate are going extreme, are refusing to be moderate and reasonable, are being taken over by psychos. Right pundits are responding with logic - as if the left allegations are serious charges. These allegations are not serious charges. These allegations are mere labeling: are positioning to help the left win future elections and gain more power.

Everyone can see what happened in NY-23. Faced with a choice between a liberal and a liberal, a sizable portion of the electorate revolted. A sizable portion of the electorate wanted to vote for a conservative. This was not wacko pyscho extremism, except insofar as the left believe in or label conservatism itself as wacko psycho extremism.

That Repubs, today, will either win or come close to winning in VA, NJ, and NY-23 actually refutes the attempt to label either the candidates or the voters as psycho extremists.

NRO mocks left voices: nothing ever reflects upon President Obama!


Peter Wehner's Commentary Magazine commentary on Mr. Frank Rich of the NYT:
For most people, [NY-23] is an interesting intra-party skirmish with some potentially important political ramifications. But for Mr. Rich, it’s so much more than that. It’s going to set off a “riotous and bloody national G.O.P. civil war.” The northern district in New York “could become a G.O.P. killing field.” What’s going on there is evidence that “the right has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama.” And conservatives are “Jacobins” who are “re-enacting Stalinism in full purge mode.” And in case that was too subtle, they are “the Stalinists of the right.”
[...]
But Mr. Rich’s latest tantrum is an indication that conservatism, rather than being “dead,” is actually doing quite well. After all, if conservatism were as moribund as we’re told by Sam Tanenhaus and others – and if the Left was in the ascendancy – then the latter would presumably be in a relatively cheerful and celebratory mood, ignoring conservatives because they were irrelevant. Instead Rich and others on the Left are going around the twist because they sense that the political ground is shifting beneath their feet. Their political Messiah is turning out not only to be mortal but also deeply flawed. His policies are generating widespread and intense opposition.




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At some point, I don't know when - probably after the 2012 election, maybe not until 2020 or 2030ish - the left is going to turn on Barack Obama with a vengeance. History will remember him as an incompetent. As a newsreader. As a weatherman (see that pun I threw in there!).

Here's why: the left still believes that big government works. Much of the left still believes communism works. All of the left believes Euro style democratic socialism works.

Historically, communism has never worked, and has often resulted in incredible atrocity. The Global Museum of Communism: "In less than 100 years, Communism has claimed over 100 million lives."

To much of the left, communism has not worked b/c of incompetent leadership. For them, the failure of communism amounts to a horribly inconvenient run of bad luck, i.e. a horribly inconvenient string of incompetent leaders. Much of the left still waits for a competent leader who will show the world how well communism works.

It's not so easy to see that Euro democratic socialism does not work. It's easy for us on the right to see it, yet history has not yet made things extremely clear to everyone else. European nations still benefit from being protected by the U.S. military, thus having to spend little national treasure on their own defense, and being freed up to spend that national treasure on social benefits. The inevitable societal and cultural stagnations of Euro socialism are underway, but are not yet perfectly clear to most Europeans, nor to the American left which lionizes Euro socialism.

Therefore, the failure of democratic socialist policies in the U.S. will not be blamed on the intellectual barrenness of socialism, but on the incompetence of the leader who failed: Barack Obama.

The left will excoriate Barack Obama b/c they must have a scapegoat. If it's not Barack Obama's fault, then it is the fault of democratic socialism - which cannot be! Think like a left person:
OF COURSE democratic socialism is the only equitable and humane form of government. EVERYBODY knows that. If you don't know that, you are a hater.

Therefore, it will become Barack Obama's fault. Left persons will have only two choices: blame Barack, or convert themselves into free market, small government right wingers. Most left persons will not convert. Therefore, Barack will become an incompetent clown. The left will shred him. Shred. Like spurned lovers. I don't know how soon it will happen, but it will happen.

10 comments:

emjay said...

I've lived a long time - through a whole lot of both liberal and conservative presidents and congresses. Why do these liberals turn a blind eye to what has happened before? Why cannot they see that socialism and communism DO NOT WORK, have never worked and will never work? Such stupidity.

gcotharn said...

You have hit on the question which tortures the right. The answer, I suspect, has little to do with logic and everything to do with tribes, belonging, and the familiar.

Just as I am most likely to be Presbyterian, or Baptist, and less likely to be atheist or Catholic, so the left are most likely to belong to the left. Their family are on the left, their friends are on the left, their self-justifying sense of personal virtue is tied up with their being on the left. They fear the ideas of the right - actively block out those ideas, actively refuse to consider those ideas - out of fear that some of the right's ideas might have merit. Seeing such merit would mean leaving their family, leaving their friends, and leaving their cherished and familiar sense of personal virtue. Seeing such merit would mean leaving their tribe, leaving the familiar and comfortable, and casting themselves into the lonely and frightening wilderness.

Therapist "Robin of Berkeley" is living such a casting-into-the-wilderness experience, and writes about it.

Paul Gordon said...

On the NY-23 race, neo-neocon summed it up perfectly...

If Republicans want to win, they should nominate Republicans in the first place, not RINOs who will be challenged by Conservatives and end up splitting the vote.

Paul Gordon

gcotharn said...

Hi Paul. Good to hear from you.

Paul_In_Houston said...

Thank you, Greg.

You may notice, from the link attached to my username (this time) that I've contracted the bug too.

Lord knows where this will go. :-)

Donna B. said...

gcotharn -- I agree to some extent about belonging and tribes... but not fully.

My sister and I were raised by the same parents and we could not be more politically different. My brother, a quintessential liberal is much more conservative than my sister, though he wouldn't freely admit it. He had formal training in logic and it pains him at times.

From my perspective, I see so many of my relatives adhering by knee-jerk to liberal memes when they are living their lives as conservatives.

THAT's what I don't understand.

gcotharn said...

Hi Donna. I've added you to the blogroll. If it's not b/c of desire to be part of a certain group, then I don't know why people thoughtlessly adhere to liberal dogma. If anyone finds out, please let me know!

gcotharn said...

BTW: any dogma. I don't know why people thoughtlessly adhere to any dogma.

Donna B. said...

I don't disagree that belonging to a group is a huge factor in adherence to any dogma...

It's just that I don't understand it, being perversely individualistic.

Have you read "From Dawn to Decadence" by Jacques Barzun? In it he chronicles the historic pendulum swinging from individualism and collectivism over the past 500 years.

It's possible we're in a period where the pendulum is at the bottom... and it's undecided which way it will go. I'm pushing from the individualist side.

gcotharn said...

Thanks for the tip on Barzun. Collectivism, in an age of advanced technology, surely cannot be the answer. Individual initiative must be the answer. Hopefully - for your perversely individualistic nature(!) - that pendulum is reaching the end of its arc, and will swing back towards individualism.