House of Eratosthenes

Just had a brain fart on Cassy’s blog and you know, it’s a little bit of a threadjack — kinda. The Obamessiah got all tripped up with his opining, in that cute opining way he has…about whether we’re spinning our wheels in Iraq or not.

My threadjacking comes from my habit of taking a thirty-thousand foot view of this stuff. After all…Iraq isn’t the only thing our democrats say is impossible. I’ve noticed they have a lot of scorn and condescension toward anyone who dares to dream of a day when we’ll have so many violent criminals locked up, that the crime rate drops. They don’t like to hear that. Drilling for oil, over here, and finding some so we don’t have to import so much. Slowing down the sexual hunger of your teenager, especially your teenage daughter — I’m not even talking about keeping her a virgin, just putting a little bit of a damper on things. That’s another thing that brings the bile-snot flowing.

Can’t, can’t, can’t.

There’s a flip-side to that coin. Our liberals think we can do a lot of other things; they insist on it. Negotiating with our enemies is a popular favorite. Tearing down jails. Ain’t that a kicker? To the liberal mind, crime will never, ever, ever drop if we fill up the jails…but if we empty them out, it just might go away. Curing AIDS. Ending poverty. Bringing the carbon content of our atmosphere down to………………some level? Do I even need to argue how silly that one is. The planet is dying, but we can save it by slapping a solar panel on our roof and charging our cell phones with some kind of pedal-power Gilligan-bicycle device.

The liberal mind seems to be stubbornly opposed to the idea that anything can be 30%, 40% or 60% possible. No, it’s all or none. Everything’s either absolutely worth doing, and don’t you dare even suggest it’s beyond our ability or you’re some kind of heretic — or else, anybody who so much as makes a noise or two about trying it, is a damned fool. These are the people who brag about being able to comprehend “shades of gray” in things. When they contemplate what’s possible and what isn’t, gray suddenly disappears. It’s all black-and-white.

So here’s one theory. Among others rattling around in my head…

I’m inclined to believe, against my temptations toward the opposite, that I don’t need to argue how silly it is. I think it’s known. To everyone. I think liberals have just as decent a command of the evidence, and how it brings some objectives into the realm of the possible and easy, and pushes other objectives into the perimeter of mounting difficulty — as anybody else.

I think the agenda they have, is rooted in a personality defect. I say this because the agenda manages to achieve consolidation and coherence, without conspiracy. The communication isn’t needed for the coordination, because it’s a natural syndication among the similarly-handicapped. A conspiracy amongst them, to behave this way, would be needed like you need a conspiracy among hip replacement patients to limp. It’s a natural tendency that arises when something else is missing.

The thing that is missing, is true, productive, determination…stamina…grit. These people are suffering from a phobia against declaring things possible that are actually possible — but challenging. If they can switch these things around, that which is possible & that which is not, they get some sense of security. That means things are declared possible, that are not, and things are declared not-possible, that are. This way, they never have to try.

They say something can’t be done — and it can. If they can prevail, they’ll stop anyone else from trying it, and they don’t have to admit they might have been wrong. But there are some complications; maybe they won’t prevail. If they don’t prevail, and someone goes ahead and does it…that’s a little trickier. But they can just say it was a coincidence. We saw it with the end of the Cold War. Reagan didn’t do it, the Soviet Union just starved naturally, it would’ve happened anyway. Heard that one?

See how easy it is?

Conversely, if something is as realistic as a five-legged unicorn, and they declare it CAN be done, there’s safety in that too. They get their kudos for apparently showing such an impressive resolve. Since they don’t really deserve it, they place a premium value on that. But also, they don’t get nailed on the deception. How could they be? You can’t prove a negative…we’ll just be trapped in an infinite loop. Women — come a long way, but they’re not there yet. How many decades has that been going on? Ethnic minority groups of all kinds — same thing. These are things that can’t really be measured, although you can certainly make a convincing act out of pretending to measure them. And so…the President is a democrat, we’re getting closer, the President is a Republican, we’re getting further away. Who’s to dispute that? It’s so handy.

I think, as I look at all these things democrats tell me ABSOLUTELY can’t be done and these other things that absolutely can be done — the ultimate liberal nightmare, is measurable progress. An ongoing project, transparent, visible to all, at which everyone can look and say “Yup, no doubt about it, that sucker’s 43.6 percent of the way done.” Because the pattern seems to be unbroken, to me: When an objective ends up in the “CAN” column on the liberal-democrat ledger, it’s progress is subject to interpretation, and therefore to spin. Even gun-grabbing. Now that we’ve outlawed guns in City X, how many guns are there? Zero. Whoops, this guy just walked into a building and shot thirty people with a H&K 9mm. Number of guns is still zero. Progress…with things liberals tell us can be done…cannot be measured, or is extraordinarily difficult to measure.

We can measure how much carbon is in the atmosphere, given enough resources. But that’s a special case. You’ll notice, there has been very little discussion of how far down it should be brought.

Drilling stateside…that is always in the “Can’t” column. I dare you to find an exception. There’s the caribou, there’s adorable seal pups, some turd-sucking shrimp has to procreate in the vernal pools, we’re not giving the Indians their due because of some territory boundary dispute…and don’t forget the piddly limits to what lies beneath. There’s always that — it’s a constant. Ten or twenty barrels we’ll pull out, and then it’ll be bone-dry. I know it. I are a democrat senator, and I can feel it in my bones.

Defeating Republicans and conservatives — that is always in the “Can” column.

Defeating terrorists — “Can’t.” That’s a constant too.

Getting rid of discrimination: “Can.” That one actually strikes me as fairly normal. Until I remember, discrimination is pretty much whatever a liberal wants it to be. And they’re honor bound to declare on the side of caution. Ninety-nine sane liberals say “this example doesn’t seem to be discrimination” and then one paranoid raving lunatic liberal says “I think it is” — you’ll end up with a hundred liberals that say, yup-siree, that was discrimination right there.

So when it comes to controlling the private thoughts and property of other people — it’s “Can.”

When it comes to upholding law and order — it’s “Can’t.”

Maybe I’m over-thinking this. Maybe they’re just bossy. They do seem to have a strong tendency to meet behind closed doors, figure out what they want everyone else to do, and then tell us whether it’s a “can” or a “can’t.” Maybe that’s why it’s all-or-nothing.

This year, they’re doing a lot of talking about “hope.” I think, deep down, they don’t really have any. Oh, they’ve got hope they’ll win the White House and they’ll keep the Senate. They’ve got lots of hope when they hope things will be done their way. But I think that’s all they have.

It’s a funny thing about real hope. People who don’t have any, don’t want anyone else to have any either.

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Friday, June 6th, 2008