House of Eratosthenes

The print media leans hard-left. If you haven’t noticed this yet, you’ve been living in a cave. If you’ve gone through the motions of inspecting it and you have concluded something different, you are a shill; you have some kind of an agenda, personal or professional, and it has very little to do with the truth.

The talk-radio media leans hard-right. Attempts have been made to launch left-leaning talk-radio vehicles, and they’ve all either run aground or they’re headed there.

The liberal’s solution to the talk-radio-lean-right problem is the Fairness Doctrine. And no, it isn’t just something Sean Hannity screeches about to get people riled up. Fairly regularly, a prominent democrat politician will come out in favor of it, and the frequency of these utterances seems to be increasing under the tutelage of The Holy Administration. Clearly, they’re in a process of dipping their toes in the water and waiting for it to warm up.

The conservative’s solution to the print-media-lean-left problem, on the other hand, is a sigh and an eyeball-roll. This is in my file folder of evidence to offer to the “Dime” people who insist there isn’t a dime’s wortha difference between the parties: The Libertarian spirit is alive and well. At least, there’s a definite overtone of “That’s things the way they are, now do your best” in conservatism, even in what we in 2009 call “conservatism.” A distinction between playing the cards you’re dealt as best you can, and changing the rules of poker in the middle of a hand. It’s good to see.

Getting back to the liberal solution, though. It isn’t just the under-the-capitol-dome liberals who support the Fairness Doctrine. It’s man-in-the-street liberals too. And this is a difference between liberalism and conservatism that often goes undiscussed. Sort of our unofficial, “For Everybody” Fairness Doctrine: We don’t like to notice differences in the ways conservatives think versus the ways liberals think. It makes you look like an extremist. It’s not too hard to be accused of being an extremist, an agitator, someone who thinks about politics ALL THE TIME — for simply noticing these differences, pointing ’em out, and not doing a single other thing. Even if someone else was responsible for bringing up the overall subject on which you were commenting.

There are personal values and there are party values. Liberalism, I see, suffers from an erosion on the barrier that separates those two; they become one and the same.

“People should be required to present ID in a voting booth” is a party value, not a personal one. “No, they shouldn’t,” likewise, is a party value. We feel strongly about these things because obviously they can have an effect on the outcome of an election. That’s the definition: A party value is something that enhances, or diminishes, the likelihood of getting your candidates in charge of things. What’s an example of a personal value? “Abortion is murder”; and “Womens’ right to choose” (not sure if I’m supposed to be capitalizing Right To Choose.) You can win and win and win at those, and it won’t affect the determination of who has authority, and who doesn’t. Abortion has more of an effect on who gets to exist in the first place — not who wins an election. Personal values are things like: Slavery is bad. Things you’d be willing to invade a sovereign nation to enforce. Or, at least, give some serious consideration to doing that.

What we now call liberalism, seems to depend on those two realms melting together, blending in one with another. This is easily demonstrated by placing the liberal in a position in which he’s required to separate them. Try it sometime; so long as you aren’t putting a treasured friendship in jeopardy, it can be great entertainment, not unlike toying with a cat with a bit of yarn, or a laser pen. One of my personal favorites is “If I have an absolute right to vote and to have my vote counted, and women have an absolute right to control their bodies; if, through the unfortunate chaos that governs the cosmos, some mistaken referendum pops up on my ballot that would outlaw abortion forever, do I then have the absolute ‘right’ to vote yes on that?” If liberals made a distinction between party values and personal values, it would be a laughably simple conundrum for them. As it is, it’s like handing the imbecile the card that says “Turn this over and follow the instructions” on both sides. They’ll struggle and struggle, and not do too much to produce anything that could be termed a decisive intellectual triumph. Not even close.

In the case of not proving who you are when you go to vote, that mission masquerades under the sheeps’ clothing of a personal value: Poor people would be unfairly disenfranchised if we required identification. Well, that’s a big crock. The issue is that the democrat party depends on dead and non-existent people to win their elections. Down in Georgia, concession after concession after concession was made to the poor, poor, pitiful poor, so they wouldn’t have an aristocracy of people-with-drivers’-licenses, but the campaigns were organized nevertheless to have the new law voted down, and then slapped down in court. Last I read about it, they were still haggling it out.

When it comes to the Fairness Doctrine, the wall of separation between party values and personal values is chipped down into non-existence — because “The Public Owns The Airwaves.” What this is, is a holdover from the 1960’s, when it was uncool to crusade against communism; and, therefore, cool to defend it, and embrace at least the central underpinnings of it. Chief among those, is the notion of vox populi vox dei, that whatever is good for The People, is cosmically righteous and cannot be enduringly or effectively criticized. And, that whoever is elected to represent The People, is like sort of a statist Pope — one step removed from Heavenly Glory — they’re here to say what’s-what and what-for.

Well, conservatives have one very good reason to adopt opposition to the Fairness Doctrine as a personal value, not a party one. And that reason is this: It would put the Government in charge of balancing right-rhetoric with left-rhetoric. That means, it would put Government in charge of saying what exactly those are.

Here’s just one example of how that would lead to abuse: We need to ban all guns! Is that left-rhetoric…or central-rhetoric? I think it’s left-rhetoric. But there are folks who disagree with me about that. And the folks who disagree with me about that, seem to have won this little thing called an “election” and are now insisting, rightfully, that they ought now be allowed to make some decisions about things. Who is to say the argument is not “Should we ban all the guns or should we not?”…but rather…”When we ban all the guns, should we wait for people to turn them in voluntarily, or go door-to-door and start grabbing ’em?”

The point is, this blending of personal values and party values, is sort of a “borrowed trait” of communism. What it leads to is a crushing of the minority. You see it in the party schisms that erupt now and then. The Republicans made a decision that Fred Thompson had all the opportunity he should’ve required to showcase something called “charisma” or “fire in the belly” or what-not, something John McCain was somehow never called-upon to display, even once. In so doing, they decided against the wishes of people like me. We bided our time, spoke out, wrote to people…yes, we blogged too…and by the end of August, McCain threw us a bone by picking Sarah Palin. Then he got his ass whipped, and now we have to argue about whether he lost because of Palin, or in spite of her. We can quibble about that, but the point is, all this debating between stalwarts and milquetoasts will remain lively and vigorous, in lean times as well as fat.

The democrat party doesn’t work that way. The dust-up between Obamatons and Hillary supporters was heated, enduring, embarrassing…and desperate. Each faction in that schism was in a battle for its continued survival, because each faction understood, once the other one prevailed, the commandment that would emerge would be “convert or die!” And so it was. Once Obama was the nominee, the call went forth for “party unity.” Very much like, once a labor union votes to strike, the wishes of those who don’t want to strike (or cannot afford to strike) are marginalized. Who cares if you, as an individual, don’t want to strike? Who cares if you need to be working? The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few…or the one. We voted on this, and you don’t count anymore; you’ve been effectively “zombie-fied.” The majority needs your body, but not your mind. Yesterday’s desire is today’s requirement. Party values become personal values.

The whole thing works very much like a religious cult that way.

Perfectly stated. The world is increasingly filled with putative “adults” who always want the Cosmic Mommy to appeal to, and refuse to acknowledge the existence of people who find the whole idea of “Mommy” just stifling.

Good point about the ’60s, too. It was decidedly uncool to notice the politics of reality (as opposed to the politics of “it should be.”) All the people who threw tantrums about their parents have now projected their perfect introject onto the state – just like drugs, Mommy’s always available, always listens to you first, always feels your pain.

The ones who actually used the freedom of the ’60s to accomplish something (i.e. grow up) are now Conservatives who really don’t want to be told what to do, and their boundary between Personal and Party has never been in question. And the problem is, it’s difficult to deal with people who are always only emotional (Liberals) when part of your time is spent in thinking instead.

In my opinion.
- rob | 02/13/2009 @ 14:02
On that voter-ID thing, the argument being made against it here in Oklahoma is that there is insufficient fraud to justify inconveniencing all those people. Same argument on tort reform: not enough wild jury awards to justify any action against trial lawyers.

Which suggests a pattern: a little wrongdoing on our side can be ignored, but the slightest bit of folderol on your side is evidence of malfeasance, corruption, and Downright Evil.
- CGHill | 02/13/2009 @ 23:51
Even though he lost the last seven primaries, after the Wright blowup, the superdelegates ratified this fraud. But the opposition , us, is bourgeois in character, and we don’t go for that carp.
Thompson was good enough to be the foil to the liberals on law & order, but he was sabotaged by the likes of Carl Cameron (sound familiar) before he was even out of the gate. We don’t go for cult of personalities, well usually not, after this last round lets
change the rules.
- narciso | 02/15/2009 @ 01:27

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D’JEver Notice? XXIVFriday, February 13th, 2009

D’JEver Notice? XXIV
Friday, February 13th, 2009