Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
I was making a reference to that particular TIK in a comment I left at the home place of one of our occasional comment-posters, who tends to lean leftward. He’s none too fond of the leggy former Governor of Alaska, which suits us just fine…but where we get into a scrap, is where he joins a large body of thought that starts from this dislike and allows it to discolor reality as they are in the process of perceiving it.
Sarah Palin, cocooned as she is in the conservative media echo chamber which never, ever calls her out on her patent falsehoods, not only seems incapable of admitting fallibility, but also thinks that compounding lies with even more egregious and disingenuous ones is no problem as long as it placates her fawning admirers who can see no wrong in anything she does and who see her as combatting that evil, “lamestream” media for daring to point out her lies. There is just no way that a serial liar like she is should have any business even being close to the Presidency.
The scrap is unavoidable because the discoloration of reality is absolutely, positively consistent. Every single time the Wasilla Wonder can possibly be wrong about something, she must be. And anybody who defends her in any position at all, must be the one who is incapable of perceiving reality accurately. If Sarah Palin is caught eating her dinner with her salad fork, it must be an indicator of something deep, dark, unscrupulous and haywire in her very soul, and we know this is the case because they know what they know.
Under no circumstance can there possibly be any doubt. Ever. About anything Palin-related.
Aside from that, all the ingredients in the now all-too-familiar Palin-argument-stew are present and accounted-for. This is one of the special concoctions, in which Palin herself has felt inclined to revisit something, tempted by the opportunity to lay an awesome smackdown upon a smarmy WSJ Palinphobe.
The original disagreement, forgotten now to all, has to do with Quantitative Easing, a Keynesian move that enjoys common initials with the current monarch of Great Britain: QE2. Does it work? Well, as is the case with a movie title, the “2” at the end does not portend success beyond the “1.” And since it’s a government effort, you know the “2” is necessary because the “1” failed.
Palin made a comment about food costs gong up, and Sudeep Reddy nailed her on it because they have not been. So we have a situation here: If food costs have been going up, Palin is right and Reddy is wrong; if they have not been, Reddy is right and Palin is wrong. Well, not only have food prices being going up but the Wall Street Journal said so. So Reddy is not only wrong, but gloriously wrong. He’s been exposed as not even bothering to read his own paper.
This entire thing, to me, is ludicrous. The Palin bashers enter the argument with this preconceived notion that, as I said, if Palin can be wrong then she must be. A disagreement starts and then both sides are expected to play along with this fairy tale fantasy that the Palin bashers first soaked up all the relevant information, and then came to a dispassionate, reasoned conclusion about what is happening…and then, oh dear, discovered Sarah Palin is in error. Why do we play this game? Seriously, why even bother. We just got done with that Party Like It’s 1773 thing where the Palin haters made absolute fools out of themselves, by flying on the seat of their pants and letting their passions take them for a ride. Next time they make the same noises, they want us to pretend it didn’t happen and we somehow accommodate them.
So now we are to pretend food costs have not been going up.
To diminish the reputation of some housewife out in Alaska, who just happens to have once held an elective office? A housewife? We’re to gang up on a housewife with our superior knowledge and wisdom about whether food costs have been going up? Gee, uh…arguing with a housewife about how much food has been costing…who we going to argue with next, I wonder. With a fisherman about what fish do? Wouldn’t the cool-headed dispassionate observer who knows how to think…like…fly up there and go on a shopping trip first, if he really wants to be “right” about something?
Oh yeah, it’s Sarah Palin who is the housewife. That changes everything. Dumb ol’ broad must not know what she’s talking about.
Anyway…that’s a summary of the whole situation. I’ve already written more about it than I wanted to, and I said at the time I don’t really care about the other details like QE2, or whether Jimmy Carter’s second presidency is screwing up the economy as badly as his first one. I care about PDS. These people seem so certain that they’re perceiving reality as it actually exists. But when they give you a link to show you how wrong Palin is, and you actually chase it down to read what is said on the other side…you find it boils down to something like that. They form their speeches for the benefit of people who, clearly, are expected to just believe what they are told.
So here’s the “D’Jever notice??” moment. I formed a comment for HuckUpChuck’s place, and since he’s still on Blogger it wouldn’t accept more than 4,096 characters. A “Blogger Character” is something like a “Microsoft Minute”; I had my reply nicely polished down to 3,900+something and it was still complaining about length, just like all the humans who read my stuff.
I’m not going to abuse Huck for being on Blogger, I know lots of people who are on it. I was on it. It’s a little tough to move off.
I like everything about Blogger, apart from the experience of using it.
But here is what did not make the cut. It’s something I have been noticing for a long time, since before PDS existed, back in the BDS days.
And it’s got to go somewhere:
Go back and look at my article again. Look at it on a BIG monitor…maybe print it out, tape it to a wall, and look at it from across the room. There are only minimal remarks from me, before I start quoting people. Two mini-paragraphs of two lines each, then an indent. AFTER the quote, I give my opinion about it, then I go into the next quote, give my opinion AFTER the quote, and on and on. By the time I come to the situation that is the focus of this current disagreement, I’ve quoted everybody who’s said anything that matters…then I give my opinion on the whole thing.
Palin’s FaceBook commments, I see, are structured the same way (although she quotes inline).
Palin-bashers…work the opposite way. We get to the quotes in the bottom of his article, after we plow through two…three…four…five or more paragraphs telling us what we’re supposed to think about it. It is an exact reversal. Your own post is a single article containing your thoughts, with a link we have to go follow to find out who said what. And the link is to Chittum [the upside-down article with the quotes in the second half].
So even the writing style represents the thinking style. It just has to do, I think, with how the universe is seen, felt, heard, sensed, perceived. We form an inference about something, and in that space in our heads, a story forms alongside the inference. Recorded in that brain tissue somewhere is a story alongside every little thing you know…and as time dulls the outline of the memory, the story lasts just as long as the thing learned.
With some of us, the story is the thing, and it is told before all of the facts are in. That’s what a cognitive bias is. It is harmful because it tends to filter out any information that doesn’t fit the narrative.
Example: Ask a Palin hater what’s the last thing Palin did right? “Quit as Alaska’s Governor because she sucks so much” doesn’t count; what complimentary things do they have to say about what she’s thought, said, done? Ever? If there isn’t anything, anything at all, that could be the symptom of a deeper problem.
And the contrast you see in the form and shape of these essays that hit the web, as I said, remains more or less consistent. It isn’t a “Love Palin/Hate Palin” contrast, because it predates her presence in our popular culture.
But you do see it in the Chittum piece. You see it in a lot of DailyKOS treatises. Lots of paragraphs about what you’re supposed to conclude…and okay now that we’ve got that spelled out, let’s go look at some quotes. It’s upside-down thinking.
And yes, I realize this particular item more-or-less follows that other, upside-down, form and shape. <grin> Doesn’t count. I’m providing further comment on something I’ve already described elsewhere.
Bottom line, some of us base our conclusions on observed or demonstrated fact, others only pretend to. Perhaps when Ralph Waldo Emerson said that thing about consistency and simple minds, this is what he was talking about.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Not to be all reductive or anything, but leftists argue like this because they’re all Marxists at heart, and Marxism continues to exist because it’s never, ever wrong on its own terms — whatever Marxists get right is attributable to the theory; whatever Marxism gets wrong is due to false consciousness, which in itself proves Marxism right.
There are some people in this world who simply cannot function without a Big Theory of Everything to explain the world to them. Used to be it was Christianity, and reading the blogs of thoughtful liberals (which, in my brief look, Huckupchuck appears to be) reminds me of nothing more than those big musty tomes of medieval theology — the logic’s impeccable, the learning is esoteric and formidable, and it’s all intimidatingly dense… but it’s all in the service of proving the unprovable, or refuting the irrefutable.
It’s all a big exercise in circular reasoning, in other words. That so many demonstrably intelligent people are sucked in by it is a sad comment on human nature.
- Severian | 11/11/2010 @ 10:41…(which, in my brief look, Huckupchuck appears to be)…
Yes, generally he does show some indicators of being thoughtful, and there are times where he can put out some nuggets that would be truly impossible to achieve for a thoughtless person. He’s not a good example of what I’m talking about overall…although that one paragraph of his is.
There is just something about that name “Sarah Palin.” If you belonged to a liberal social-circle back in the eighties, and once in awhile you were heard to say something like “Ronald Reagan made the right decision here, BUT…” or something complimentary to The Gipper followed by a “but”…if you played your cards right, your social standing was preserved.
Not so with the Thrilla From Wasilla. One positive word about the bored-housewife-who-holds-no-office-whatsoever, or even a remark that could be interpreted as positive, and you are drummed out of the club forever.
You just have to love someone who inspires that kind of anger from the right people. Still wish I had a better understanding of why, but whatever.
- mkfreeberg | 11/11/2010 @ 11:36I’d just like to see a list of all these things Palin’s been “wrong” about and have an actual discussion about 1) what it was she said, and 2) why it is wrong.
I think it would be an enlightening discussion.
- philmon | 11/11/2010 @ 12:15Morgan,
I’m with you about the PDS. I’m not even kidding when I say that it, like BDS, really should be a DSM-V condition when that new edition comes out. Sadly, psych people are all liberals too, so they won’t include it…. score one for the “medicine is just a social construction” folks, I guess. Torquemada himself wasn’t as dogmatically certain of a proposition as the left is that Palin and Bush are Teh Stoopid.
Phil,
It wouldn’t matter, because we, being conservatives, recognize that Palin is just a politician. That is, a human being doing a job. Humans sometimes screw up; sometimes a job requires us to do things that we personally would prefer not to do. Recognition of these two facts is what makes us conservatives; denial of them is what makes one a communist (and our modern leftists are, for all intents and purposes, communists. Yeah, they’re not trying to convene the Fourth International, but in attitude and outlook they’re Leninists). In other words: we might argue about whether statement X or policy Y is a mistake, but we’ll acknowledge that Sarah Palin, being both a human and a politician, is capable of making mistakes. The left, by contrast, acts as if its leaders are infallible god-kings, and assumes we do, too. This makes them like terminators — they can’t be bargained with, they can’t be reasoned with, and they absolutely will not stop until you acknowledge that Palin is — essentially, metaphysically, Platonically — Teh Stoopid.
- Severian | 11/11/2010 @ 12:55This makes them like terminators — they can’t be bargained with, they can’t be reasoned with, and they absolutely will not stop until you acknowledge that Palin is — essentially, metaphysically, Platonically — Teh Stoopid.
But if this is, in their world, an axiomatic rule that defines and binds the structure of the cosmos…like the tangent of 45 degrees is 1…why is there this necessity to keep revisiting it over and over again?
Here we are debating what the cost of food has been doing over the last year. Why, because we wanted to? No, because a pipsqueak thought he caught her in something. Just like we had to debate what year the Boston Tea Party happened for the same reason. They did their chortling, it turned out Palin was right, then they wanted to debate the interpretations of what their chortling was about…we the normal-thinking people rolled our eyes and went “yeah, whatever.” Now here we are right back at it again.
- mkfreeberg | 11/11/2010 @ 13:18why is there this necessity to keep revisiting it over and over again?
Why do Catholics go to confession? Why do Muslims pray to Mecca five times a day? Why do Obama’s supporters (and I’m not trying to imply a connection there) keep insisting, in the face of all available evidence, common sense, elementary logic, etc., that’s He’s the most brilliant super-duper fondue of incredible with extra awesome sauce?
Leftism is a religion. All religions have devils. Palin is theirs.
Or, if you prefer secular analogies: they’re O’Brien, she’s Goldstein. Ingsoc requires a daily Two Minutes’ Hate. You can’t change their minds. As I’ve always said: if they were susceptible to facts and reason, they wouldn’t be liberals.
- Severian | 11/11/2010 @ 15:18I admit that I have a visceral dislike for Palin. And, yes, it sometimes causes me to go over the top. Frankly, though, I’m not all that different from many, many conservatives when it comes to their attitudes towards Obama. I’ll try to explain why I think I respond the way I do to Palin in a moment, but I first wanted to comment on Morgan’s theory on how people think, which he uses my blog posting as evidence of. I have to say that when I write on my blog, I write mostly to rant and vent. Blogs are meant for those kinds of expressions. In fact, I’m not trying to be a journalist, nor am I trying to be measured and dispassionate. Sometimes I write measured essays on my blog; but mostly I just vent. But I am not unique. I read enough conservative blogs to know that many, many conservatives also post the kinds of comments like mine above that Morgan uses as evidence of some kind of pattern of thinking that describes only liberals. So, I think his overall thesis, especially as it relates to some kind of ideological hardwiring regarding thinking processes, is wrong. Anyway, back to Palin …
A few thoughts: (1) Morgan may perceive that all liberals think that when Palin could be wrong, she is wrong; but the flip side of that idea I think describes many Palinite defenders: when Palin could be wrong, she never is. The perception I have of Morgan is that he has never, ever acknowledged or considered anything that Palin has said or done as either factually or tactically or strategically incorrect. And it is a perception that I have of many rock-ribbed Palinites. So that’s one thing that tends to make many people like me, who see a very fallible and flawed person in Palin, sometimes go overboard with her — because we notice that so many people seem to be wilfully blind to Palin’s obvious (to us, at least) deficiencies. (2) There is a personal reason why I tend to think the way I do about Palin. And it has to do with the fact that my life story is in many ways the life story of the average, working-class American who managed to make something of himself — a story that Palin often uses as evidence of what “real” America is like and also a story that is used to pummel people like me as an effete, liberal, elitist snob. My parents never finished high school, much less went to college. My father is an electrician and my mother was a stay-at-home mom (I’m one of six kids in a very Catholic family) who is now a simple office clerk. I worked every summer and every weekend from the time I was fifteen and throughout college as an electrician’s apprentice – digging ditches for running underground PVC conduit for the electrical system in slab houses, running romex cable under raised houses and in hot attics, etc. And when I wasn’t helping out my family by working, I was busting my ass in school. My efforts, coupled with the talent with which God saw fit to endow me, landed me a scholarship to a prestigious university, where I did well enough to get a full scholarship to graduate school and to obtain a Ph.D. in a field of study that I love. Along the way, I fell in love and married a beautiful woman who is still my one and only wife today — and we’re coming up on almost 20 years of marriage. We have two beautiful children. I’ve never declared bankruptcy, paid all my bills, live within my means. When Katrina destroyed my city and flooded my house, I neither received nor expected to receive any government bailouts — unlike, I should add, many of my conservative relatives, who milked the opportunity for all it was worth. And throughout it all, I have been a liberal Democrat who values integrity, honesty, humility, and achievement. I am a liberal university professor who holds a different view of the proper role of government than Palin does, who holds a view of social justice that Palin would likely disagree with, who interprets and lives a Christian life that Palin would disagree with. And yet I know also that Palin would look at me and deride me as an intellectual elitist and sneer at me as a freedom-despising socialist — all because I lived and continue to live a life informed by my liberalism that I would hold up against any self-righteous social conservative like Sarah Palin anytime. For her to go around speaking about my “type” — an urban, liberal, university professor as something disconnected from “real” America is offensive.
- huckupchuck | 11/11/2010 @ 15:25“we the normal-thinking people rolled our eyes”
This is what I’m talking about. And Palin embodies that entire sentiment. I show up to work every day, pay my taxes, go to church, have a loving family, well-mannered children, etc. And yet I’m the one who is somehow the abnormal-thinking, Leninist sociopath terminator here bcause I’m a liberal/leftist/Democrat. This is what passes for rational conversation among normal-thinking “real” Americans?
- huckupchuck | 11/11/2010 @ 15:40But I am not unique. I read enough conservative blogs to know that many, many conservatives also post the kinds of comments like mine above that Morgan uses as evidence of some kind of pattern of thinking that describes only liberals.
Okay, I’m going to give you that one. I’ve gotten lots of e-mails & seen blog postings of conservatives who do this.
Still, though, the overall trend is there. You’d probably notice it if criticism of Palin didn’t resonate so strongly with you — most of what’s out there, is formed the way your own posting is formed: You have to chase the links down, and read through several paragraphs of Chittum-twaddle about what you’re supposed to think, before you get to the evidence. Overall, I think if you were to conduct a fair statistical survey, you’d find the “rock-ribbed Palinites” do what I called out: They do what I did and say “let’s look at who said what.”
Now I’ll admit overall they might just skip the entire exercise if they perceived it was not a winning argument. But that’s not behavior exclusive to them, is it? Can you point me to a Ted Kennedy fan who’s eager to discuss Chappaquiddick? Or an Obama/Biden fan who’s eager to discuss “clean and articulate”? In politics, all sides tend to ponder repeatedly the stuff that makes their side look good. It’s not by any means exclusively a Palinista attribute.
There is a personal reason why I tend to think the way I do about Palin. And it has to do with the fact that my life story is…
…a lot like mine. And, pardon me for saying so, it reads a lot like Sarah Palin’s apart from her being a Protestant chick and you being a Catholic dude. And, that you actually went through the formal system of higher education and earned a Ph.D., whereas Palin earned a Bachelor’s in communication-journalism…and I earned nothing at all. It’s fair to say all three of us have done alright.
Frankly, this part of it looks a little bit like “everyone has to do it the way I did or they don’t count, and if they do then they shouldn’t.” Which is precisely the rep the Ph.D. set has earned for itself.
Palin actually handles a LOT of things differently than I would. I haven’t been to church in years; people generally irritate me, whereas Palin’s excitement about being “around all these wonderful, wonderful folks,” when she’s inspired to comment on it which is often, seems genuine. I’m an introvert and she’s an extrovert. But if I lived in a small town with her in the city council or as mayor, I’d be very comfortable with the whole arrangement because I’ve gathered exactly the opposite perception you’ve gathered: If I’m different from her, she’ll leave me alone about it. Vast amounts of energy have been channeled into finding some anecdote about Palin being unkind or discriminatory toward homosexuals, and not a single grain of dirt has been found, instead they found the opposite.
The whole thing about Palin behaving in an exclusionary way, phrases like “holds a view of social justice that Palin would likely disagree with, who interprets and lives a Christian life that Palin would disagree with,” is just a great illustration of what I’m talking about. People who despise Palin tend to make up stories and then believe those stories because they like to. Sadly, these made-up-stories seem to constitute much of the evidence, nearly all of the evidence, that Palin allegedly “dislikes” or “disagrees” with such-and-such a thing.
The evidence just doesn’t support it. For example, I have yet to hear Palin do something so asinine or stupid as to complain about people in such-and-such a region bitterly clinging to their guns or Bibles…
- mkfreeberg | 11/11/2010 @ 15:51In all fairness, this is a reaction to the fact that, if you listen to most of the media — outside of Fox News and Talk Radio, you’d think that anyone to the right of John Kerry is some fringe radical.
This is how we on the right feel, and we’re all like, “what the f—???” I’m against hiring quotas, so I’m a racist, sexist, redneck homophobe who lives in a shack in the backwoods and only wears shoes on Easter?
I believe that private enterprise creates jobs and wealth and that that’s a good thing, so I just want the rich to feed off the poor?
I believe in the limited Government outlined in the Constitution, so I’m an anarchist who believes in no taxes whatsoever and I want sick little babies to die after I kill their puppies in front of them?
I see that American Culture has historically been strongly laced with Christian values and idioms and holidays, so I’m for a theocratic dictatorship?
If you ask me, this is Palin saying “I will no longer idly let the Left define me. I am not abnormal, a majority of America is actually very much like me.”
She’s not afraid to say it, say it out loud, proudly, in public, and with poise. This is why so many like her.
And again … somebody give me an example of one of these things she’s been so wrong about. What? This whole “well it’s everything”, or “all the time” … that is an assertation, not an example. If it’s so pervasive … let’s have 5 examples. Hell, let’s start with one. Then we can talk about if it was wrong, how it was wrong, and why it matters.
Otherwise it’s just “Everybody knows she’s a wrong, wrong liar who is also an idiot who talks funny from a small town. And besides, she’s pretty. How can you take her seriously? You’re just Hot for Teacher. So there!”
- philmon | 11/11/2010 @ 17:40If you ask me, this is Palin saying “I will no longer idly let the Left define me. I am not abnormal, a majority of America is actually very much like me.”
But that’s my point. What grates on me about Palin and the movement that supports her is that a large part of that movement is complaining about being misdefined while doing exactly the same thing about others — purely on the basis of ideological difference. For instance, am I all that “abnormal” just because I’m a liberal Democrat? Because that’s how I’ve been defined on this very blog. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard liberals defined by conservatives as suffering from a mental disorder. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been accused of racism by conservatives simply for having voted for Barack Obama. Or how many times my patriotism is questioned because I don’t think waterboarding is an acceptable practice on suspected terrorist prisoners. And that’s how Palin defines me every time she refers to the “real” America, an America that is clearly the antithesis of who I am: urban, highly-educated, liberal.
- huckupchuck | 11/11/2010 @ 17:59We ought to be able to agree on what “normal thinking” is, just disagree on whether it’s good to be normal or not. Maybe it would be more precise to call it “ordinary” thinking. For example, “ordinary” thinking would be, if that guy who runs a company makes 40,000 times as much in a year as the lowest-paid employee…then no problem-o. But to say a “wealth gap” is posing an imminent danger to our society is “extraordinary” thinking…and that is one of the reasons we go to colleges to earn these fancy sheepskins, right? And in this paragraph, I’m not passing judgment on either one (although you can certainly tell how I come down on the question). I’m just saying one is an ordinary conclusion, the other one is what you’d come to after…learning, or going nuts, depending on your point of view. This ought to be within the realm of agreement.
Also, “normal,” “ordinary” thinking would lead a person to conclude a final outcome should be reached after the facts are in. The people I’m singling out as being “not normal” are the ones who write articles that look like the right-most box figure in that picture I put together — conclusions first, evidence be damned, and then after we’ve told you what to think here are some quotes we don’t think you should be bothering to read. That is abnormal, extraordinary thinking. We can disagree on whether it’s a good thing, but we shouldn’t disagree on what’s a virgin beverage versus what is spiked.
For the record, I do think there is value in an institution of higher learning asking the hard questions, like “under what abnormal conditions could the things we take as a given, cease to be true?” But after watching so many young “educated” people criticize Palin just for the sake of criticizing Palin, and adore Obama just for the sake of adoring Obama, it seems to me we’re instilling this habit of ironic thinking in minds that are too young to handle it. If you have some curve to throw into the highway of the laws of the universe that causes two and two to equal something other than four, all fine and good; but until that magical warping has been demonstrated — two and two are four, and the best way to fix an economy in a free society is to make it okay to earn money. It all comes down to: Sometimes, a lot of the time, the simplest answer is the right one.
- mkfreeberg | 11/11/2010 @ 18:03The evidence just doesn’t support it. For example, I have yet to hear Palin do something so asinine or stupid as to complain about people in such-and-such a region bitterly clinging to their guns or Bibles…
Then what did Palin mean when she referenced “real” America in that campaign speech in Northern Virginia? When she talks about “taking back our country,” who is the “our” that needs to do the taking back, and who are the folks that need the taking back from? Has Palin not expressed disdain for liberal academics? Does the “we” in “We, the People” include “me” in Sarah Palin’s America? You act as if Sarah Palin doesn’t believe in a bifurcated America where one side is the “real” America and the other side is apparently not. Her statements indicate otherwise.
- huckupchuck | 11/11/2010 @ 18:11That is abnormal, extraordinary thinking.
You are wrong here. What you are referencing has nothing to do with thinking at all, but with form or style. As I said above, I sometimes write a blog posting, and sometimes on the fly, and often out of passion and feeling, to vent or rant. What I put down on the blog has come most usually at the end of a considered process of thinking. The links are references to some of what has informed my thinking. My comments are conclusions. When I post a blog, I’m not always trying to engage in a scientific expostulation of a thesis. But I contend that what I do with blogs is actually more the norm and more ordinary for blogs than what you do. Check out Drudge, InstaPundit, Hot Air, RightWingNews, PajamasMedia, Redstate, FreeRepublic, MichelleMalkin, and do your own survey of how blog postings are formulated on conservative sites. See whether what comes first most often is a “conclusory opinion” or an antiseptic, unbiased presentation of data. If anything, Morgan, the process that you advocate might be considered extraordinary. And, yet not even you in this very blog posting adheres to this practice you call for. Look, you start off this blog posting with a Freeberg Proverb that projects a particular framing of what is to follow and then introduce the entire posting with a prefatory comment about me: “he joins a large body of thought that starts from this dislike and allows it to discolor reality as they are in the process of perceiving it” — which actually precedes my comment — as precisely conditioning and informing the reader about how to interpret what comes next. How is that letting your readers ponder my thoughts so as to come to their own conclusions about my dislikes and discolorations of reality? Political blogs are what they are. Mine is very much ordinary and “normal” in the big scheme of ideologically leaning blogs.
But even still, there is a bit of deflection going on here. You are shifting the focus on what the context of your “we the normal-thinking people” comment intended to convey. It did not intend to convey a kind of procedural difference in thinking, but rather a value judgment about the thinker.
- huckupchuck | 11/11/2010 @ 18:46Huck,
admittedly, I called you a Leninist terminator… at least by implication. That was a little over the top, homie, and I apologize.
That said… I’ve kinda lost what exactly it is you’re objecting to in the course of this thread. For instance: You act as if Sarah Palin doesn’t believe in a bifurcated America where one side is the “real” America and the other side is apparently not. Her statements indicate otherwise. Is this only problematic when Sarah Palin does it? I seem to recall one John Edwards, or at least his super sexy haircut, going on about “Two Americas” at length not so long ago….
I don’t want to put words in your mouth — so please correct me if I’m wrong — but I sense that this is “just politics” when one of your guys does it, but “dangerous extremism” coming from one of ours. For instance: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard liberals defined by conservatives as suffering from a mental disorder. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been accused of racism by conservatives simply for having voted for Barack Obama. Or how many times my patriotism is questioned because I don’t think waterboarding is an acceptable practice on suspected terrorist prisoners. And that’s how Palin defines me every time she refers to the “real” America, an America that is clearly the antithesis of who I am: urban, highly-educated, liberal
When Edwards, or Joe Biden, or Our Own Glorious Leader does precisely this — “acted stupidly; typical white person; etc.”, this is…. what?
- Severian | 11/11/2010 @ 19:01Well Huck … I won’t speak to Morgan’s characterization because I haven’t read your blog. But I will say that Morgan definitely has a degree of respect for you. What was that Dave Mason song? “We Just Disagree”.
I’m a highly educated conservative, probably, relative to the bulk of conservatives. Not that there aren’t a lot of highly educated conservatives, many even more highly educated than I.
One thing I can say, though, is, I’m not highly educated in a lot of psuedo-scientific theory, although I was exposed to a lot of it in my higher education, it wasn’t what I majored in.
Here’s my question to you. What is America?
To me, it is our founding ideals and the basic values that precipitated them.
To others it’s some borders and people and a newspeak ideology of “freedom” and “rights” which mean something far different from what our founders meant.
When Palin speaks of “real” Americans, I believe she speaks of people who believe in my definition of America. America the Classical Liberal experiment.
If your ideology is socialistic and/or statist, then …. you’re not a “real” American in my view and in her view. Simple as that.
We do not believe that all ideologies were created equal.
We believe that all men were created equal, and were endowed by their creator certain unalienable rights. Those do not include a job, health care, or indeed any other sort of care at all, frankly. Social status is earned, not endowed — from immediate families on up through communities and the State.
The state, outside of protecting the inalienable rights, should butt the hell out.
There is no scientifically perfectible society. That road leads to ruin and totalitarianism. Every. Single. Time.
Our Founders were well read in matters of history. They knew this. They wer flawed, to be sure, but their basic ideology took into account the imperfection of man in a way no previous government had.
I, for one, am here to fight tooth and nail for it.
And so is Sarah Palin.
- philmon | 11/11/2010 @ 19:20There is a distinction to be made here between alienating a person or class of persons, and alienating an idea. This nation is founded on the alienation of certain ideas. Chief among these — imperialism. Dictatorships. Concentrations of power.
Palin, like nobody else, has earned a privilege to give some speeches about “taking the country back.” I would expect a consensus of Palin-haters and Palinistas to come to agreement that whether she’s overdue to arrive at an office of high authority, or grossly unqualified, the one identity characteristic that makes her that way is that she is not “on the ins”…of high education, high society, blue-blood pedigree, you name it. It is her detractors that have bifurcated America. And if you don’t agree with that, then you would surely have to agree, at the very least, that the bifurcation antedates her arrival by a good stretch. One would have to assume a certain level of obtuseness to assert we had first come to know of it with the recounts in Florida a decade ago, but even then you can’t blame Palin for creating the situation.
Her litany of complaints against President Obama, unleashed against the then-candidate as she accepted the nomination two years ago, has become chillingly prophetic. Checks and balances have become almost a thing of the past. Czars, czars and more czars. Obama gets it in His head that the leader of GM needs to step down, so it just happens…now, what kind of discussion goes on about something like that? Anyone in the inner circle saying “No Barack, you are wrong about Rick Waggoner, and here’s why…”?
Bottom line: If you have applied some kind of process-of-elimination to conclude when Palin talks about “taking the country back” she must harbor some secret plan to exile somebody…you need to revisit it. There is a “them” from which the country needs to be taken back. She has revitalized the interest the electorate takes in the government that “rules” over them. That’s a good thing.
- mkfreeberg | 11/11/2010 @ 19:52There is an important concept here that I think is being overlooked. Karl Popper wrote a devastating critique of Marxist thought when he pointed out that a theory that explains everything actually explains nothing. If Sarah Palin, is nice homosexuals’ the left will claim it is because she is secretly ashamed of her position, you lying to get votes. If she were to make some obviously bigoted statement about them they’d say “See we told you she is that way.” It is impossible to argue with people that use such arguments because they have a theory that cannot be disproved. The political left, are Marxist because they do not believe that their political vision is ever in error. Because it is universally right they never feel the need to examine their truth claims.
This can be seen in the history of political scandal, out right fraud and illegality that the left tolerates from its own while claiming the moral and legal high ground against any minor sin or flaw from the right.
Tell me was it wrong that Sarah Palin’s private Email was hacked into by a left-wing intellectual? Did the fact that he claimed he had to do it to see what illegal things she was up make it right?
What about the obviously photo-shopped pictures of her trying to prove she was the actual mother of her daughter’s child?
What about publishing her daughter’s cell phone number on face book? Tell you God Damned hypocrite would you think that was OK if they did it to Obama’s kid’s.
If Andrew Bretbart moved in next Al Gore in order to gather information for a book about him would you say that is crass and rude and borderline ethical?
What about the snide remarks about her grades in college and how a degree from a state university was simply not the same as a degree from a famous institution?
This despite fact that those making that charge supported a candidate who is so embarrassed about is academic history that he didn’t even release his?
What about ignorant remarks that appeared in print that basically claimed that Sarah Palin must be stupid or she wouldn’t (a) go to a Pentecostal church, (b) have that annoying accent (c) wear clothing from J.C. Penny’s; were those fair?
Ethics, lets talk about ethics, tell me sir, how do any of the supposed ethical lapses Sarah Palin had as a candidate compare to those by Mr. C. Rangle of New York? Did she fail to file income taxes on over a million US worth of property? Did she manipulate the rent laws in Alaska to keep her mortgage low? Did Sarah Palin EVER leave a campaign worker to drown in a car after an accident Like Ted Kennedy and use her power and position to cover up her crime? Did her husband ever run a homosexual prostitution service out of the Governor’s Mansion like Barney Franks lover did from his office? Was Sarah Palin ever caught plagiarizing the speeches of a British politician like Joe Biden? Did she ever have an affair with state intern and give him blow jobs while she was supposed to be on government time? Did Sarah Palin ever like AL Gore did, and this is the truth even though you do not wish to hear it, try to steal the presidential election in Florida through endless recount even though he lost every one? Did Sarah Palin ever write a letter in which she stated “I loath the military?” Did she ever illegally engage in a conspiracy to appoint a Senator to a vacant seat as Blogovich and Obama did? Was she ever a member of the Klu Klux Clan like Robert Byrd? The list goes on and on of the sins crimes and ethical lapses committed by democrats and generally LIBERAL democrats. There is no question that these things occurred. I have not exaggerated or embellished to the best of my knowledge; yet, liberals happily support such candidates. What about Alcee Hastings in your own state; what he a good man? May I suggest that you quit straining at gnats and swallowing camels?
Tell me just exactly how much filth does it take on the head of a democrat for a democrat to revile them the way Palin was reviled?
Or, are all your dislikes about her really a smoke screen? Could it be that she is not afraid to stand up to you? That she articulates a different vision of the US than you do? That you cannot kill the message so you try and kill her? This the same thing that happens in my nation (PRC) this week a man was jailed for 2.5 years because he embarrassed the government by organizing parents against dairy farmers that were selling poisoned milk. His crime was causing a public disturbance. It is a crime that is not even listed as a crime in China. The left do this. They shout down the opposition and threaten them while ignoring the evil their own do.
Sorry for the rant. I just get tired of the “Can’t we just all get along …….. and everybody agree with me so the world will be a better place even though nothing I advocate will actuallly make the world a better place” argument of liberals. They are not rationsal and conservatives need to realie that the opposite of illogic is not logic but force. BTW force and violence are not always the same thing.
- Fai Mao | 11/11/2010 @ 23:03Sorry for the typoes. I am listing to people talk in Chinese and trying to type in English. It messes with the grammar.
- Fai Mao | 11/11/2010 @ 23:05Reminds me of the following:
How To “Reach A Conclusion”
Begin with a half-baked assumption based upon equal parts of unverified rumor and illogical reasoning.
Mouth these ingredients together piously, mixing in overly generous portions of interminable, falacious
arguments. Bring to a hot temper. Stew around in little circles until you reach an inescapable,
irreversible, erroneous conclusion. Sprinkle liberally with meaningless cliches, and serve up in
stiltifying quantities. Rehash daily.
No idea who wrote it; only that it’s at least 25 years old.
- Sam Hall | 11/12/2010 @ 01:27This is all good. Thanks for engaging me thoughtfully and respectfully. (This is one of the reasons I like to frequent conservative blogs. I have to admit that conservatives generally are more respectful commenters in this regard. Not always, but usually. Anyway …) I’ll start from the back up.
Fai Mao – Don’t worry about spelling mistakes and typos. I really don’t care all that much about them. Your ideas are clear, and that’s all that matters. But I do have to say that your ideas are worrisome. What is this defense of “force” over logic as a response to illogic. All force is, in a sense, violence because it advocates coercion over persuasion to change behavior. When has the “left” in the US ever constrained anybody’s freedom to express himself how he sees fit. This myth of liberal totalitarianism in the US is simply hogwash. In fact, if there are any recent examples of totalitarian-esque behaviors these days, they have come from the Tea Party right — just take Joe Miller’s use of active duty US troops working for a private security company in Alaska to detain a reporter and then try to illegally eject other members of the press from a public space. Sure, there have been unfair attacks on Sarah Palin. I don’t support any of those behaviors, such as hacking into her email. And there is paparrazi-esque attention given to Palin that is unseemly, but is certainly not illegal. That reporter who rented the home next to her did absolutely nothing wrong. I understand why Palin didn’t like it, but she’s a celebrity and such things come with the territory. All those things you object to about how Palin is treated are, essentially, no different than how Obama is treated. In fact, Obama gets worse, in my view, because he has his whole identity as an American citizen questioned as well as his faith maligned. If you think that Sarah Palin doesn’t claim any kind of high ground relative to the urban, educated, elite, then I suggest you haven’t been listening to her speeches. They are all predicated on establishing a hierarchy of value regarding certain types people in this country, and she represents the group that is much better intrinsically than that other group, a group which I think she would say includes people like me. Even still, your whole point is essentially based on the notion that just because the other side behaves badly, then this gives license for Palin to do it, too. That’s not a very convincing argument.
Morgan – True, the bifurcation predates Palin. But I don’t think I ever said that Palin created this bifurcation from scratch. Rather, I think that she has amplified it and used it as the fundamental measure of her appeal. She points to the “other” and says: “I’m not like those ‘not real American’ losers” and expects that to be enough. The funny thing, though, is that she is really not much of an outsider these days. She has a sweetheart deal with FoxNews. She’s cashed in on the speaking tour and celebrity. She’s a multimillionaire because of her popularity rather than her economic productivity. She is much more on the “inside” of a particular realm of privileged America than most of us are, but she gets to pretend that she isn’t and people buy it. But that’s just my take. You will probably disagree. I don’t think she represents an image of what constitutes my daily life and struggles. Maybe you think she does when it comes to your daily life and struggles. So, I don’t blame Palin for creating the situation. I do blame her for exploiting the situation, perpetuating it, and even exacerbating it. I really don’t think she cares all that much about all America, but just a particular slice of America. I don’t believe she is interested in unifying America. I don’t think she considers me and what I have to contribute by way of how I would like my government to function to be as relevant to the project of America.
Philmon – Your idea of “real” America is quite exclusionary. And I guess that does reflect our Founding fathers, because their ideas of America in the late 18th Century certainly were also exclusionary. Remember that women didn’t get the right to vote until 1920 and the slaves weren’t freed from bondage, much less allowed equal participation in our democratic system, until the Emancipation Proclamation. So the notion of “real” America evolves. And I would argue that “real” America is precisely this evolution, which is grounded in freedom and the adaptation of our social contract over time by the people (government of the people, by the people, for the people, as Lincoln beautifully said) as truth becomes more revealed. I am part of that people, just like you are. And you don’t get to decide that my path, because it conflicts with your path, is somehow therefore not really American. The fact is that I am no less committed to the ideals of freedom, liberty, and justice as you are. We have different paths for realizing these goals. But you choose to define real America as those who agree with your path.
Severian – When these other folks from my side market a divided America and exploit that for political gain, I would say they are also participating in an unhealthy aspect of our political system. I would say that there is one thing in acknowledging difference, but valorizing such differences in a hierarchical way predicated upon demeaning the very Americanness of those who are on the other side of these differences is another thing altogether. And, yes, even when Obama does this (which he has done on occasion), plays into this destructive element of our current politics. But I also know that Obama has at least tried to acknowledge that there is value in Red and Blue America, and that all of us have an important place in contributing to our national project. I don’t think Palin really holds this belief, even rhetorically. In fact, I think her whole image is wrapped up in an unapologetic rejection of the legitimacy of the many people like me in forging the American project. And I really think this will be her Achilles heel should she run for President in 2012.
- huckupchuck | 11/12/2010 @ 06:30Obama is very good at saying things that sound like they mean one thing, but they really don’t mean much of anything at all.
For instance, if Obama indeed said there is “value” in Red America (horrible sleight of wording, since “Red” used to mean something completely different, and indeed opposite of what “Red” America wants) … what does he say that value is?
From the “it depends on what the definition of the word “is” is” people, one can well imagine that in his head, “value” is a spectrum from negative to positive. Perhaps he means that “Red” America has negative value, but he’s not saying it explicitly. Saying there is “value” in Red and Blue America might also be a plural obfuscation…. Add them together and you have positive value, much like 0+5=5.
Or it could possibly mean that he needs a “Red” America to play the villain, and therefore there is “value” in Red America in that it serves a purpose — perhaps to get Blue America riled up enough to push it far to the Left, with him, turning it back into that older meaning of “Red”.
But really, the fact of the matter is is that that man will say anything he thinks will get people to behave a certain way. He’s a calculating man who sees people as groups of oppressors and oppressed, not as individuals, and he is here to punish perceived enemies, and right wrongs in his own morality play where he is the protagonist and we are characters to be manipulated.
“They’re drinkin’ the juice!” His words.
I don’t take anything he says at face value, especially when it comes off that teleprompter. And it’s when he’s let his guard down in front of an audience he feels is a friendly one and speaks candidly, that’s when we find out what he really thinks.
- philmon | 11/12/2010 @ 07:27Huckup,
I owe you a big thanks for proving my point. Back up at the boxes again…the conservative who links to something (hard evidence) and then forms an opinion after reading in the information, then the liberal who tells us what to think and then tosses out a couple one-liners and links he’d just as soon his audience not go chasing down. Now, go back to your response to me in your latest — just the one to me. Chock full of “I think” from stem to stern. You think Sarah Palin is talking about you when she minimizes, alienates, marginalizes others. Well, if you still support Obama, maybe so. If she were endorsing all these people and signing on to Fox News, but exposed as not really trying to fix a problem, I wonder what you’d say about that. Good things? I’m a little bit doubtful of this.
The idea that Philmon can be exclusionary is quite simply a jaw-dropper. Compared to who, I wonder? I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: I became a Palin fan during that speech in which she accepted the nomination — in fact, beforehand I had the same strong doubts as anybody else. But the one gem within that that I still see today as her strongest selling point, is (paraphrased) “This is a man who can deliver speech after speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word ‘victory’ except when talking about His own campaign.” Now, this has been borne out to be true. The people in charge right now, who might I remind you are the ones we really need to worry about as far as them being exclusionary (always the case, no matter which side is in charge) have had two years to talk about America winning at something. Kicking ass. Doing better at something than somebody else. Taking a prize. Two solid years…they haven’t done it once. Not except to talk about America being transformed into something they like better.
Now chew on what comes next very, very carefully: Is that because they don’t believe in competition? Because “kicking ass” is too unfriendly in their world? That we all ought to get along? We need to find a way for everybody to become a winner without anyone else becoming a loser — that is their worldview — that’s why they never talk to this way about America? Well. Listen to them campaign. Listen to what they say about winning elections. Bzzzt, a theory has just been eliminated.
Listen to them talk about campaigns, they do believe in kicking ass. They don’t think America should be doing it. They think that’s for the democrat party to do. When the time comes to win an election, they very much become what they insist Republicans are.
It seems Sarah Palin becomes somebody you think is need of reform — or extinction — the second she becomes a transforming figure, an agent capable of changing the state of something from the way she finds it…that the only way she can be redeemed in your eyes is to become ineffective, a sideliner, a parade-watcher. I cannot help but wonder if, were she to become neutralized this way, would you begin to like her. Again, I have doubts.
And Fai Mao is right. It’s a rather old story of dictatorships, really. “Support our cause, or there is something personally wrong with you.” What’s the nastiest thing, I wonder, that Palin has had to say about someone who will simply not support the cause? Not oppose it either…just sit the whole thing out. By and large, it seems to me she leaves them alone. Obama/Biden and the current crop of power brokers cannot say the same. They’ve said many things to indicate you have to support what they’re doing, you MUST, or else you have a personal problem, it’s really all about race after all, and as they construct this new perfect society that has a place for everyone, it won’t have a place for you. They’ve had many snippets and speeches to offer like this.
- mkfreeberg | 11/12/2010 @ 07:35No it is not, because my idea of “real” America is in its ideals, not in it’s imperfect practice. The ideals haven’t evolved — our adherence to them has.
Many of the founders were abolitionists. Many others were not. There was a big fight over this from the very beginning of our country — but there may not have been a country at all had a compromise not been reached. The framers, to get the south on board, did several things to curb and to try to phase slavery out. One of them was the famous 3/5 rule. The slave states wanted to count their slaves as citizens to increase the slave states’ representation in Congress, while not allowing the slaves the basic inalienable rights the Constitution guaranteed. The compromise was to throw the slave states a bone to sign on to the Constitution while explicitly watering down their representation so that, in the end, abolitionists would have a fighting chance in Congress.
The other thing they did was put a sunset clause on importation of slaves after 20 years. This was to have been in 1807.
Now that didn’t ultimately work, and we ended up fighting a Civil War over it in the 1860’s, which finally settled the issue.
It is not the ideals that have evolved, it’s who is considered “men” that has evolved. It was an egregious injustice that slaves were considered basically “non persons” (except where it worked to the advantage of the slave states) and women were not allowed to vote.
But it wasn’t the ideals that precipitated the Constitution that caused this. They are ultimately what ended it.
- philmon | 11/12/2010 @ 08:13What’s hogwash is that there is some sort of myth of liberal totalitarianism in the US — at least not one enforced literally by force. There is certainly a thought police mentality in the media, but in the end if you’ve got the guts to endure the all-permeating, scathing ridicule and character assassination that will surely follow. [A certain Alaskan woman comes to mind, suddenly …. hmmmmm]
There certainly has been violence from the left. I mean, you could google “kenneth gladney” … but I don’t blame that on the whole Left. Just Andy Stern and union thuggery. But the media either ignores that, or just calls it “tea party violence”
No, as I’ve said many times before, the left argues verbal technicalities, the right extrapolates the real world consequences. The consequences of going socialist totalitarian are well documented. Stalin. Mao. Pol Pot. Che. Castro.
When intellectuals on the left revere these people and think they can do it differently … they are saying that it has never worked because the right people haven’t been in charge.
But Marxist thought runs counter to human nature, and in the end force must always be used to subdue the thirst for liberty and bettering one’s lot in life.
- philmon | 11/12/2010 @ 08:38Morgan – Your sticking to this whole commentary format thing as a reflection on the invalidity of my thinking is getting a bit tiresome. Now, you are expecting me to hold to a particular form even in comments to blog postings! And it is a form that you yourself don’t hold to! What am I supposed to do in my comments? Not express my thoughts or opinions? And what would I call your comment in response to my comment? Is that not your thoughts about my thoughts? After a while, in your schema, conversation becomes useless because there is never any room for a back and forth on ideas without criticizing the form — and it’s a criticism of form that you only levy at me, though my comments are essentially no different in form than any other comments in this thread. We are sharing differences of thought and opinion here around what I thought was a fairly clearly understood set of premises. Your tactic is a tactic to constrain debate and deconstruct the validity of your opponent without really engaging the ideas. Look at your own form: first question the legitimacy of your opponents ideas by critiquing the form of exchange, and only then delve into the issues. Yeah, that really sets up an objectively legimate intellectual playing field before the debate is engaged. In some ways, it’s just another manifestation of the very problem you seek to be addressing. Now, I have no problem with that tactic, but what bothers me is that you do proclaim have a problem with such a tactic all they while you use it yourself. As I pointed out earlier, in this very posting (not the comment thread, but the actual blog posting itself) you fall into this practice of pre-conditioning the opinions of your readers to my comment even before you cite my comment. And your whole comment about Obama (and by extension the left generally) as not being interested in this country “winning” is just not true. I think Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan is a mistake (as does Rand Paul and a lot of Tea Partiers, by the way), but Obama has always defended his decision using the language of victory over Islamic terrorism. There is such a thing as winning the battle, but losing the war. We surely will disagree on what Obama’s vision for America is in terms of “winning,” but I see Obama’s domestic agenda, his advocacy for health care reform, his support for the stimulus and the bailouts, etc., as part of a long-term strategy for “winning the war” in preserving America’s greatness so to speak. Ditto on his pragmatic foreign policy. You and I just see Obama differently in this regard.
Philmon – I agree about the resiliency and values of our founding ideals/ideas. That’s precisely my point. I hold to those ideals/ideas as you do. But you refuse to acknowledge that about me. You think I simply can’t hold those ideas because I don’t ascribe to the same path for realizing them that you do. And because I deviate from the path of realizing those ideals/ideas, you label me as not part of “real” America. That is intentionally exclusionary. And, I would argue, it is actually outside of the both the spirit and the application of the ideals/ideas of our founding fathers and documents. Moving on to the notion of liberal totalitarianism. Do you actually believe that liberals are totalitarians? Show me how, in your personal life under any liberal authority, you have suffered totalitarian repression? I mean real totalitarian oppression, not the silly reference to random acts of violence like the Gladney episode. Really. I mean I could just as easily point to a recent head-stomping incident byt he right wing. But that would be equally silly. And let’s remember that right-wing totalitarians are out there, too, such as Pinochet, the Argentine Junta of the 1970s and 1980s, the dictatorship of Burma, etc. We live in a free country where I can get up and go to church on Sunday without fear of repression, or where I can marry someone of a different race without discrimination, or where I can put up a Christmas tree in my house without any realistic threat of repression, and where I can peacefully express my ideas in a public forum without being carted off to jail. The idea that there is a liberal totalitarianism in the U.S. is a myth.
- huckupchuck | 11/12/2010 @ 09:50Morgan – Your sticking to this whole commentary format thing as a reflection on the invalidity of my thinking is getting a bit tiresome. Now, you are expecting me to hold to a particular form even in comments to blog postings! And it is a form that you yourself don’t hold to!
You’re absolutely right.
That’s what I’d be saying if you were completely accurate in interpreting my critique; but it seems you don’t even try to understand it, you’re just looking for ways to fling around accusations of hypocrisy.
In fact, I addressed this right in the posting above. It doesn’t work as an example, because it re-examines something that’s been delved into before. Did you go to the top link, the link back to my own treatment of the Palin/Reddy conflagration, and see how that first treatment is put together? You must not have; it doesn’t read like this entry of yours from 11/12/10 06:30. What you do with Palin is commonly referred to as “going off on a wild tear.”
“I think that she has amplified [the bifurcation]”…”I don’t think she represents an image of what constitutes my daily life and struggles”…”I really don’t think she cares all that much about all America”…”I don’t believe she is interested in unifying America”…”I don’t think she considers me and what I have to contribute by way of how I would like my government to function to be as relevant to the project of America.”
All of that might be true. And a decent treatment given to inspecting the evidence you have for thinking such things, might very well find it to be abundant and solid. But, it might not. So my critique is, with your style of arguing it falls to others to question what experiences you might have had to lead you to think Sarah Palin is apathetic and ambivalent about America, which we’re not equipped to do since they’re your experiences — or, to simply presume you must know what you’re talking about, and absorb every little syllable you have to utter about your feelings & thoughts, presuming not only that you’re honest, but also that you are (owing to factors left completely in the dark) absolutely correct about everything you’ve concluded.
The question I’m left with, is: Are you really confident about what you’ve concluded? Because as a general rule, I think when you read something unflattering I’ve concluded about Obama, if someone were to ambush you with a pop quiz like “why exactly is it that Morgan thinks that about Obama?”, agree or disagree, you’d have some nugget of good information to offer about why it is I think that. Not along the lines of “because Morgan’s a dick!”, but something from what I’ve written detailing exactly how it is that alternative explanations were dismissed, or demoted as likely explanations.
Yes, you’re right, I don’t build from the ground floor every single time. I’ve had three years, nearly four, to write about this guy and if I started from Square One every single time re-telling the story of why I see Him the way I do, it would become very boring. But I don’t place the emphasis on the conclusion, to the point where the evidence that supports it is trivialized, concealed, hidden, buried, or left out of the equation altogether. Most conservative resources don’t. Yes HotAir does have a habit of “blurbing” the conclusion in the first couple of lines and supporting it afterward. But by the time you reach the end, you know why the author thinks what she thinks. And, most of the time, if a link helps to buttress this viewpoint, it is excerpted. What you’re left with is an artifact you could present to a hostile mindset, a mindset not pre-inclined to show sympathy with the stated conclusion…and that mindset would at the very least see the logical reason why the conclusion was reached.
This charge of hypocrisy of yours is becoming threadbare and fragile. You seem to be engaged in a statement that I’m not following my own hard rule (which was never stated as a hard rule, might I add)…at the same time as you are protesting, and demonstrating, your failure to understand it.
I just think when people have an opinion, and want that opinion to resonate, affect things like elections, and the policies that will directly affect millions of fellow citizens they will never meet…they should be taking the initiative to transparently display the evidence upon which such things are based. I’m to support a massive health care plan run by the government that is supposed to bring health care costs down, when our government has NEVER put together a plan that has brought down the cost of ANY commodity ever…I’m supposed to support massive debt that will cause massive inflation, condemn future generations to not be able to earn anything, to be the first generation in centuries to wrestle with a standard of living beneath that enjoyed by their parents…because Sarah Palin is an effete snob who doesn’t care about America? If that’s your argument, give me your reasons for thinking Sarah Palin doesn’t care about America. Stop flinging around lip-service about engaging in a robust, productive exchange of ideas, and let’s see you really do it. You say you appreciate that when people do that around here, so let’s see the supporting evidence. Show your math.
Without that, it looks kind of like the speech an empty-headed girl gives her father about why her new life with this druggie rocker boyfriend is going to be so idyllic, because after all he only beats her when he’s drunk. “I just feel, I just feel, I just feel…” This is not the stuff of which wise decisions are made.
- mkfreeberg | 11/12/2010 @ 11:25So…. after all that…. is the fact that I’ve been consistently spending more on groceries here in Seattle for quite some time a factor?
- vanderleun | 11/12/2010 @ 12:13If I understand it right, if the prices have been actually increasing over the last year it makes her a rocket scientist, but if they’ve just been pegged really high and flatlined up there (like our nation’s unemployment rate) then she’s a dumbass.
- mkfreeberg | 11/12/2010 @ 12:30This just in (wanna bet it is the first of about a metric ton of such surveys telling folks what they already know?):
Secret Walmart Survey Shows Inflation Already Here
There might not have been a second round of quantitative easing, if Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke shopped at Walmart.
A new pricing survey of products sold at the world’s largest retailer [WMT 54.06 -0.28 (-0.52%) ] showed a 0.6 percent price increase in just the last two months, according to MKM Partners. At that rate, prices would be close to four percent higher a year from now, double the Fed’s mandate.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/40135092
- vanderleun | 11/12/2010 @ 12:57Well, Huck, you kind of did bring it up first (the “violence” thing). I was merely providing a counter example, and I even stated explicitly that I didn’t blame it on “the left”. I do blame it on SEIU, though. You can’t tell me they weren’t sent to the rally to agitate and try to provoke a violent reaction — anything that could be used for headlines. Some of their guys got frustrated that they weren’t getting the reactions they were looking for and went over the top. I’ve read Alinsky. I know the playbook.
And look. I don’t know you. At all. If you’re for the limited government outlined by our founders, then yay. Hop on board. There’s plenty of room.
The founders outlined a path, based on extensive study of history and human nature. I read their reasoning and I agree with it. So if you’re for government-run health care and a large nanny state, then you are not for the limited government outlined by our founders, and you’re not just taking a different path to achieve what we both believe in …. because we apparently believe in different things.
I have not been oppressed by a totalitarian government in the US, no. And I would like to keep it that way. I’m not at all sure what your point is. I didn’t say the Gladney incident was an example of totalitarian oppression.
On so-called “right-wing” totalitarians … nobody but nobody has praise for non-Marxist totalitarians. The people on the American right have no love for statism. On the other hand, hoards the left routinely apologize for the totalitarians I mentioned. The more highly educated the leftist, the more likely the apologetics.
Yes, I am saying that for Marxism to work, you will necessarily end up with a totalitarian government.
As for “liberal” … for the most part I avoid using that word. It used to be a good word, but it’s been tarnished by progressives. I myself should be considered a Classical Liberal … because I believe that I am born with rights and do not give them to me but rather need to be restrained from taking them from me.
I think it says a lot that those who believe the government gives you rights are now called liberals, and those who believe that we are born with them and that governments need to be restrained from taking them are now called “right wing extremists”. Up is down. Left is right. Strength is weakness….
- philmon | 11/12/2010 @ 13:00….I am born with rights and [governments] do not give them to me …
- philmon | 11/12/2010 @ 13:02There’s gotta be a word for the phenomenon we’re seeing in this thread (and everywhere, since the descent from on high of Our Glorious Leader (pbuh)). Morgan, you’re the word-making-up-guy; help me out here. What word describes a situation where….
— food prices rising, or falling, or whatever doesn’t matter… because Sarah Palin’s an idiot.
— whether socialism is good or bad for business is immaterial…. because Barack Obama is black (and therefore criticism of Him is racist).
— nobody is out in the streets protesting that Guantanamo bay is still open, and Predator strikes are up, and more American troops are in Afghanistan — all of which were crimes against humanity until January of 2009 — because…. we passed “health care reform.”
etc. etc.
“Solecism” isn’t quite right, and it’s too deliberate to be a plain old non-sequitur.
Oh, for the record, I put Huck’s statement that Obama has always defended his decision using the language of victory over Islamic terrorism to the test. Lexis/Nexis results for [Obama victory “Islamic terrorism”] = 0. Results for [Obama “islamic terrorism”] = 0. Results for [Obama victory] = over 3000 hits.
Make of that what you will.
- Severian | 11/12/2010 @ 13:09You’re referring to supposed crimes against humanity suddenly becoming quite alright once a different person commits them? Or a desire to reach a consistent conclusion with a complete disregard for whether the evidence carries a thoughtful mind to that destination, or whether the evidence is entirely absent…
Prerationalism maybe? Behind the link, I argued that humans evolved into a mindset of solving only very simple problems in solitude and carrying more complicated matters into the townhall forum, which is in fact undesirable and unsuitable for such a demanding mental task. My suggestion was that “prerational” applied to this situation, because our liberals were demonstrating how silly, logically unsustainable ideas were being offered to elevate the social stature of an individual in a group setting, and for no other purpose.
- mkfreeberg | 11/12/2010 @ 13:24How is force not violence; through the use of law. But, at some level yes, you are correct. To paraphrase two of the most notorious statist tyrants, the final argument of kings extends from the barrel of a gun. Why is that disturbing to you? This is essentially what the democrats in the USA and the CCP in my country believe. Every time the SEIU rigged a voting booth in Nevada to vote automatically for Harry Reid – and there are credible reports at least some of them were so rigged, the democrats in the US have used a form of force to achieve their goals. Every time the DoJ fails to prosecute the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation as quickly as it would the KKK the Democratic Party has, in a very real sense used force to achieve their goals. Every time the Democratic Party “Finds” three boxes of ballots which are all marked for Al Frankin in a close race and you let it happen you are guilty of violence. This is universal. I have to deal with it here as well. Every time a judge in Hong Kong gives Amina Bakari a slap on the wrist for a crime that would put me in jail for 24 months then violence has been committed against the rule of law. Every time that a court in the PRC puts a man in jail for organizing parents to press for damages caused by poisoned baby formula it is an act of violence against freedom and justice. When Nancy Kissel is in jail for murdering a cocaine addicted, abusive husband but a drunken Australian man kills three people after stealing a taxi and rams into another taxi while driving down the wrong way down a freeway is sent to jail for 2 years the justice is perverted.
When the democrats in the US fail to rid their party of the corrupt practices and continues to elect criminals like Charles Rangle they pervert justice. Tyrants of all nations, in all moments in history use force, violence, collusion and deceit to gain or maintain their power. I actually have some respect for the very hard left who are at least open about what they are trying to do and clearly state that the end justifies the means in their eyes or the hard right who would rather lose than elect a RINO.
This is particularly pathetic in that if the left ever really take over in the US then you sir as a University professor would be the one of the first with your back against the wall of sandbags or to face the noose because tyrants don’t like anyone would might even possibly disagree with them. You’ve said that you have problems with Obama, well in a leftist state that is a death sentence or at least a trip to the re-education camp.
All ideologies have a certain internal logic. They make sense if you accept the foundational premises. Believers, followers, adherents, or disciples of that ideology then base all of their other assumptions on the foundation. But if the foundation is wrong then everything else is doomed. It appears to me that one of the foundations of the modern left is that most problems in society are solvable by the application of an all-knowing government and that government, if manned by persons of the proper morality is a good thing. This is simply not true. Because it is not true then any political ideology based upon it will fail.
If it is possible for a government to oppress a group it eventually will because in doing so it perpetuates itself. Thomas Hobbs was right in that the natural state of humans is wars and we are all of us, desperately selfish if left to our own designs so that each would have “only so much as he could get for as long as he could keep it.” However, he was wrong when he said the solution was to create the Leviathan to govern us. The leviathan would simply eat us.
History shows us that any power that a government can abuse it eventually will abuse. Machiavelli, who was early proponent of an all encompassing government was, absolutely, irrefutably correct when he said that the primary purpose of a government is to perpetuate itself. He was also correct when he said that the all powerful prince should never steal from his supporters but steal from his enemies and then use the plunder to placate his supporters.
The better answer is to limit government. I believe in democratically elected governments not because I believe all people are so good that their opinion and guidance is of use but because only by our selfish desires as thinly as possible can the common good be achieved.
Look carefully at statist programs in the US. Argue with the assertion that the “War on Poverty” started by LBJ has not had an adverse affect upon the black family. Ask yourself, have these policies made life better for these people or have they made the situation worse? Ask yourself, and look honestly, have statist policies actually made not just the US but any nation, a better place? Ask yourself, can I morally support a party or organization that routinely ignores the law to cheat, steal, and swindle to win close elections using groups like ACORN?
In each of these case and many others you will see that the goal of helping the poor, the children, the elderly, the disabled and the whatnot have been devoured to by the governmental agency that was designed to provide help. The goal is no long to solve the problem for the mandarins and paper-pushers to keep their jobs. The Leviathan is the source of corruption. It must be slain or caged.
Ask yourself, can I support a movement which must lie to achieve its goals. For it is only by lies, deceit and violence that the statist, who make up the 21st century US liberals can ever claim any success. I still believe that what you really don’t like about Sarah Palin is that she at least tries to point this out. And, by the way, I agree, she is not the brainiest person alive, but if she can see the problem most people can.
- Fai Mao | 11/12/2010 @ 19:26[…] Priorities For You, So You Don’t Have to Read Them” Skeet Shooting for Real Men DJEver Notice? LXII Sunburned Whales Raccoon Disables Car Not Worried About Unequal Wealth “Emotionally […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 11/13/2010 @ 10:27I think I like this Fai Mao.
I work with three Chinese women, a Romanian woman and a Ukrainian man. We were all at a party at the Romanian’s house during the 2008 campaign. They saw the game the Obama campaign was playing and asked if we could not see what was coming, what path we were on.
Of course, none of this is possible because I, being a Tea Partier, clearly hate immigrants — you know, anyone who is “not like” me, and so how could I possibly be hanging out at this party? Well, we must have all been uneducated peasants … except that we all have bachelors and masters degrees (and there were even a couple of PhD’s in the room) and we all work at a University.
- philmon | 11/13/2010 @ 18:20[…] morning, in a post that received much attention and inspired much discussion, I made an observation about the way liberals tend to introduce their […]
- “I Will List Palin’s Priorities For You, So You Don’t Have to Read Them” | Washington Rebel | 11/13/2010 @ 19:36[…] also don’t understand something else: What the heck happened here. As I’ve pointed out before, lefties tend to lead with the outrage, which sometimes — a whole lot of the time, actually […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 11/28/2010 @ 10:47