House of Eratosthenes

Regardless of who is right or who is wrong, it seems to me when victories by one faction over the other are scored in a society’s significant political events, the assault that lead to the victory more often than not has been spearheaded by the battering ram known as the question-mark.

We may debate why that is, but for the purposes of this immediate thought that isn’t too important. What is important is that when one sincerely thinks one is right, and one sincerely seeks to make “points” against one’s enemy using the question-mark, one can do this honestly or dishonestly. An example of doing it dishonestly would be the attempt to legitimize same-sex marriage. “What’s normal?” “What’s a normal marriage?” Or, to make the devastating battering-ram extra heavy and extra pointy…”who is to say what a normal marriage is?”

The honest way to do it would be to find genuine contradictions in the argument of your intellectual opponent, and use the question mark to highlight them rather than to portend a spooky other-wordly future in which an there’s an elite aristocratic layer of corrupted clergy who go around deciding people’s marriages. (Just by way of example, in our plane of reality, if you don’t trust or like a clergyman — don’t have him perform your wedding ceremony. Problem solved.)

There is a great deal of fussing…and it probably rises well above the consternation, conflict and uncertainty that actually exist where it counts…about what the conservative base is to learn from the NY23 contest this week. How is the conservative message supposed to be advanced in a way that it takes hold? Here’s an idea. Use the question mark. And use it honestly. If it is to be used honestly, the immediate task that arises is to find a crack in the wall of the hardcore liberal fortress, against which the battering ram can be used. A crack that is a logical contradiction. Need we labor long or hard to find such a crack?

Their core mission as they see it: To create a wonderfully advanced society, free of any problems or as free of problems as possible…functioning for the benefit of, and in the interest of, everyone. It sounds so nice I want to sign up right now. I’m reminded of the vision’s toxicity when I simply look upon the machinery that is put in place to deliver the utopia. Health care, for example. Sarah Palin’s death panels, far from being an urban legend, are part of a natural force like gravity. They are quite unavoidable. All programs must be managed by someone. Management is ultimately about making decisions about resources in order to fulfill the most vital tasks within the great body of work that is to be attempted day-to-day.

In this way, the dream of utopia turns into a nightmare rather quickly.

Not only that, but most of the time the American electorate realizes it. Three election cycles out of every four…or at least two out of every three. We spend more time retreating from the utopian nightmare than we spend advancing onto it.

What we realize is the contradiction. The attempt is supposed to be to make a kinder, gentler nation for everybody. But somebody has to steer our great society as it makes its “progress” toward this vision, as a single moving object on a single course. Devil’s in the details. When you get down to the real-world decisions, like does this taxpayer qualify for head-of-household status, or is that company too big and should it be forced to break up…someone has to get screwed so that someone else can come out on top.

This is the direct antithesis of building a society “that works for everybody.” As a crack in the wall, it’s a gaping huge one. And a lot of folks who are tinkering with the idea of keeping our nation’s Congress friendly to The One, and perhaps re-electing Him, would be interested in knowing that. Or being reminded of it.

So I propose going forward into ’10 and ’12, the movement be built up around this simple…honest…question:

Who defines progress?

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

[…] Cross-posted at House of Eratosthenes. […]
- The Power of the Question | Right Wing News | 11/06/2009 @ 08:23
Well, I define Progressive, anyway :

6. Progressive
Real definition: Favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, esp. in political matters.

Agenda Monkey definition: 1. A process through which superior results are gained, because improvement is the only possible result of destroying something that is demonstrably, historically more effective and efficient than whatever new thing is being proposed. 2. Better, always.

Recommended Daily Utterances: Let it fly!!!

Funny, too, because I don’t know from what dictionary I dragged that real definition, but the the part that says “as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, esp. in political matters” is really good enough on its own. Especially if you just add something to the end:

“…as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, esp. in political matters, in spite of overwhelming piles of evidence that the way things are is better than the way you want them to be.”
- Andy | 11/06/2009 @ 10:48
Who defines progress?

Eggzactly. This is the question I’ve been asking proud, self-described “progressives”.

Progress according to whom?
- philmon | 11/06/2009 @ 13:35
Regardless of who is right or who is wrong, it seems to me when victories by one faction over the other are scored in a society’s significant political events, the assault that lead to the victory more often than not has been spearheaded by the battering ram known as the question-mark…(..).. someone has to get screwed so that someone else can come out on top.

Ouch. Really?
Must progress come at such a cost? It would appear to me as though far too many are willing to draw blood just to prove a point – which at times, is very one sided. Not saying that is right or wrong – just saying that rarely, especially in politics, is there any semblance of the truth or right or wrong.

I get your point. I truly do.
I just don’t know if what you are wanting to achieve must come at such a cost… or can it come by any other means?

And I will now reluctantly hit, POST.
- KC | 11/06/2009 @ 15:39
It’s the natural cost of centralizing authority.

Thomas Sowell (somewhere…dammit, can’t find it) came up with the brilliant example of voting on a national car radio setting. If I like rap music — hehe, just go with it alright? — and hate country music, and you like country music but can’t stand rap, there’s an easy way to make both of us happy: You set your car radio to the stations you like, and I do the same.

If we get rid of individual choice and opt instead for a nationalized system of selecting “our” radio station…now we’re left squabbling, in all likelihood with a great abundance of passion, about something that in the final analysis doesn’t even really mean a whole hell of a lot.

That’s where we’re at with “progressive” politics. It isn’t just about hippy culture, and it isn’t even just about sacrificing opportunities & liberties for the sake of ridiculously suffocating degrees of excessive personal safety. It is about centralizing authority. Like I said…and you left this part out of your excerpt:

But somebody has to steer our great society as it makes its “progress” toward this vision, as a single moving object on a single course. Devil’s in the details.

There is nothing that says our great society has to be moved around as such a monolith. It’s just liberals. And the way they think.
- mkfreeberg | 11/06/2009 @ 21:21

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The Power of the QuestionFriday, November 6th, 2009

The Power of the Question
Friday, November 6th, 2009