House of Eratosthenes

I’m pleased as punch that President Obama’s idiotic remark about the private sector “doing fine” is getting so much play and so much attention. But, truth be told, the enormous damage this is bound to do Him in the upcoming election, is not the true source of my pleasure, or at least, not the primary one; rather, I am gratified to see a mask ripped off a vicious monster, a monster much bigger than Barack Obama, one that has been on the political scene much longer.

To understand what I’m talking about, think about these conversations you & others have had with a dedicated, hardcore lefty type…the part where you start to figure out this is a lefty type. You know, where they start to defend the indefensible; from Palestinians dressing up their kids in explosive belts and sending them into crowds of Israeli civilians, to able-bodied people here at home, making a lifestyle out of our social services, womb to tomb and generation after generation. Or start to wax lyrically of the “qualifications” of people who really don’t have any qualifications at all…Hillary Clinton, for example. Note how little has to be done by these people & groups who receive and benefit from the progressive sympathies, to receive said sympathies. Suffering. Oppressed. Worked very hard. Discriminated against.

The cognitive dissonance that says, when Al Gore has a larger carbon footprint than the average American, somehow, at the same time, he really doesn’t.

The truth that emerges, is that being a modern lefty has a lot to do with re-writing social protocols. And an important part of that, is declaring who is & is not to receive public sympathy. Distressingly, it seems they have it all figured out who is to be denied this public sympathy, and why, before they have a good understanding of who is to become the focus of it, and why.

It was in this context that President Barack Obama said the private sector is doing fine. What He really meant to say is, alright, okay, the private sector isn’t doing well at all, but let’s concentrate our attention and energies on the other thing, which is the public sector.

So Barack Obama thinks the private sector is “doing fine” the same way radical feminists think men and boys are doing fine. The same way a hip Hollywood lefty might think Sarah Palin is doing fine. The same way Cindy Sheehan thinks George W. Bush is doing fine.

Kind of a “wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire, and neither should you” sort of doing-fine.

It’s an important part of the modern progressive movement. This is a particularly execrable type of slithery fanged creature under the big rock just overturned; when otherwise-decent friends and neighbors start turning all dogmatic-lefty, this is where their humanity starts to drain out of them. When they start to pick up the battle cry, and pass it around, that this person or group, over here, should receive more sympathy from the public-at-large no matter what he, she, or they have done…and that other person or group, over there, should never receive any of this sympathy no matter what is done to them. When they start to get the idea that ideology is bigger than justice.

That is the point where they start to become political vampires. It’s when they start to declare that, when an undeniable wrong has been done to someone they have declared to be a target — or have declared some antithesis of it, to be an object of this desired grokking and social feeling of support — their passions are poured into some meandering and senseless monologue, the primary thrust of which is that justice can take a holiday on this one.

Certain undesirables cannot ever have grievances worth being addressed. Ever. They’re “doing fine.”

This is an important part of what being a modern liberal is all about. This is where they stop being nice, decent compassionate people, and start to become…what’s the word…jerks. Destructive, unbalanced jerks.

We do owe a debt to our current President for shining a light on it. Not every day some dark slithery nasty thing, through its ineptitude, kicks over its own big rock. We should make the most of it by learning as much as we can, while we can.

Lenin said that all political questions boil down to: “Who? Whom?”

Which is why I have something of a soft spot for the old monster, truth be told. Marx, Mao, Castro, Stalin, Che…. they’re no doubt roasting in their richly deserved spots in hell, but at least they were up front about what they wanted to do to you. Ever read things like Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism? It sounds like your basic Kos blog post after being run through the secret decoder ring. They’re not aware of it, of course (they’re as ignorant of their own intellectual tradition as they are of basic economics and elementary history), but it just goes to show how far we’ve fallen as a culture — they’re regurgitating third-hand versions of discredited crap that somebody said better in a foreign language 100 years ago.
- Severian | 06/11/2012 @ 07:34
The truth that emerges, is that being a modern lefty has a lot to do with re-writing social protocols.

A point Hayek got to in The Fatal Conceit

I’m not done yet, but when he talks about “between instinct and reason”, without specifically saying what it is he means by that (yet, anyway) … it’s culture. It’s social protocols. It’s not instinctual, and it doesn’t fall from reason. But it’s what makes us tick.

They [claim] to want a culture based solely on reason.

I don’t know about you guys, but I think Christmas is pretty awesome. But it, nor anything like it, fits in their worldview.
- philmon | 06/12/2012 @ 10:05

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The Fine ZoneMonday, June 11th, 2012

The Fine Zone
Monday, June 11th, 2012