House of Eratosthenes

Something’s going on lately. They’re acting all cornered, wounded, tender, defensive. Since the election of Nancy Pelosi back in ’06 they had been going back to being petty, childish, smug, snooty, “aggressively non-threatening NPR male” Alan-Alda peevish. Now they’re back to the way they were after the Bush v. Gore decision. Us smart and good, you stupid and evil! Grrrr!

Not all twelve of these observations are entirely new. Some of them are things I’ve noticed awhile ago, a few I’ve even written about, but those have become more crystallized with the events of the last two or three months.

1. They want government to manage more and more intimate aspects of our lives, without transparency, oversight or process of appeal, even though six years out of ten they tell us the government is doing bad things because the guy at the top of it is stupid or evil.

2. They’re terribly concerned about the solvency of the government during these debates about taxes, and want the “rich to pay their fair share” so the government doesn’t run out of money and go into debt. But then when it comes time to discuss the continuation of a program, or possibly starting up a whole new program, suddenly their concern about government solvency flies out the window.

3. They seem genuinely agitated about the length and the emptiness of the yawning chasm between the rich and the poor, and rail against the social problems attendant to the preservation of an aristocracy entrenched in privilege which is perpetually renewed without merit. But the very first thing that happens when they’re in charge, is their election of some charismatic individual who is to be entrenched in sustained and unearned perpetual privilege. All of their domestic agenda items have something to do with just a narrow and elite few unilaterally dictating the benefits and burdens to be applied to the many. Everyone is to be impacted by what is done; it cannot be set up in a test bed to see how well it works, it must be deployed for the very first time right on the production floor, and there can’t be any getting away from it. And yet any discussions about how it will work, have to take place behind closed doors, and not everyone can take part.

4. You ask them to point out when & where higher taxes did something good for an economy, and without fail they point to FDR’s New Deal which, along with the opening of World War II, lifted us from the Great Depression. Okay…so your policies, plus the LARGEST MILITARY CONFLICT IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND, will measurably improve an economy?

5. They don’t even seem to have an internal understanding of what an “economy” is. It seems like their point-of-view is that the government is part of the economy, but I don’t hear them actually say this, nor do I hear them dispute the point that the government is outside of what is commonly referred to as the “free market.” It’s like this is a question on which they haven’t coordinated yet; is “the economy” a different, larger thing apart from the “free market”? Or are these two terms used to describe the same thing, the government is outside of the economy — which must mean they think “the economy” is something helped when wealth is removed from it, so that their prescription becomes indistinguishable from the notorious bedside bloodletting of the middle ages.

6. According to them, America has cherished modern liberal values from the very beginning and it is the conservatives who are usurping the constitutional values of the republic by demanding the republic be governed according to the Constitution. The American Revolution, therefore, was a victory of liberalism over conservatism, which was represented by King George III and Great Britain. Yet, also according to them, there is something about America that makes the poor get poorer, allows businesses to run roughshod over “working families”…it’s just a terrible place and we need someone strong to fix everything. Take it all seriously, and it points to an inescapable conclusion that liberalism is destined to fail. And that’s according to the liberals.

7. They say one of the many things wrong with Christians is that the Christians insist their faith is the only path to salvation, therefore there is something wrong with anyone who doesn’t follow it. They then proceed to vilify Ayn Rand as a terrible person…and then throw out the zinger that oh, by the way, didn’t you know she was an atheist? Which seems to have some significance for them. But, according to their own argument, such a thing cannot have any significance in any way whatsoever. Judging from their own conduct, it obviously does.

8. They certainly are fond of diatribes about their ideological opponents being evil or stupid. Produce some evidence unfriendly to their position, ask them for something similar to support what they’re trying to say, and if they don’t have it ready — here comes the snark. It will be bitter, it will be pointed, it will be focused, it will be personal. Above all, it will be a sure thing, like tomorrow’s sunrise. But according to their constant complaints, it’s the other side doing that. Classic psychological projection. Evil, stupid, stupid, evil…with a great flourish, they go through the motions of applying some intelligence test, or “goodness” test, and finding their opponent wanting. But what they’re really applying is a loyalty test.

9. The evil/stupid thing has some complexity to it that’s a little tough to figure out, for those on the outside. Liberals seem united on the idea that George W. Bush is stupid and Dick Cheney is evil. Circulate a questionnaire among a thousand liberals, and all thousand will mark the boxes that say Bush=Stupid and Cheney=Evil. That seems to be the orientation; now and then someone will occasionally pronounce Bush to be Evil, but I’ve yet to hear a single one say Cheney is Stupid. I haven’t heard anybody say Sarah Palin is Evil, either. Did they all meet somewhere and decide Dick Cheney is some kind of rocket scientist genius and Sarah Palin is an okay person, therefore the dogs of Cheney=Stupid and Palin=Evil just aren’t gonna hunt, so don’t even try it? If that’s what they think, they’re doing a great job of hiding it.

10. If they have a plan for improving the economy, and after it’s implemented the economy improves, this is proof that their plan must have worked. If, after the plan is implemented, the economy suffers — this, also, is proof that their plan is the right way to go, we’re just not doing enough of it.

11. I notice when our country is in some conflict with another country, their recipe is for a diplomatic solution. Very often I hear the phrase “sit down and talk out our differences.” They don’t discuss much what exactly is going to be said in these sit-downs, but after you listen to them awhile it’s clear they want America to be making most or all of the concessions while the other country makes none. Another thing I hear from them often is that we are “seen” as arrogant, lacking in humility, and we need to work harder to clean up our rep. Now, when their partisan faction enters into conflict with somebody else, they work this very differently — in that situation, it is the other side that needs to be making more concessions to them, even if they’re the ones who just lost an election. Their party does not have a problem with “humility.” I suppose that reads like I’m saying they’re safeguarding liberals’ interests in a way different from how they’re safeguarding the country’s interests…well, hey. Gotta call it like I see it.

12. They must understand that if we have a pressing and urgent problem with the atmosphere filling up with carbon & the earth heating up as a result, and we also have a pressing and urgent concern with our government running out of money, an individual’s effort to curtail his own carbon emissions isn’t going to make any difference at all with the environmental problem, whereas a few people contributing voluntarily to the Treasury just might change the outcome for the better. And yet, liberal individuals do not brag about donating excess money to the Treasury; they brag about drinking out of eco-cups and driving hybrids. That is supposed to show they’re the ones more concerned about things like “reality” and “science.”

Cross-posted at Right Wing News and Washington Rebel.

I think you have point 11 a little wrong. Note that the complaint is that we are SEEN as arrogant, not that we are. When you think about it, the arrogance is build into the diplomatic solution, insofar as the Democrats do not find our treaties binding, as we saw with the invasion of South Vietnam after the Democrats got control of Congress. So their complaint does make perverse sense. Word of mouth makes it hard to be a Con man……
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 08/21/2011 @ 09:59
1. And my former- lib girlfriend didn’t believe me when I told her the Left would go right back to praising government the minute Bush was out of power, as that would mean the end of the threat of “theocracy.”

2. They’re only concerned about deficits with the subject is taxing the rich or providing for the military. The. Only. Freaking. Times.

3. Have they ever bothered to explain how exactly these “rich” were able to get into a position of ‘exploiting’ the poor in the first place?

4. The New Deal didn’t do that and neither did the war, really. The war years were actually quite lean from what I’ve heard, if only from all the rationing going on. Everyone loves to talk about all the people going to work in war factories putting an end to unemployment. Not really – after all, what became of those jobs when the war ended?

What finally ended the Depression for good was the postwar economic expansion that started in the late 40s after the war, and continued on into the mid-50s: countless soldiers coming home and starting businesses, some of which grew into today’s familiar brands like Burger King.

5. They think the economy can’t function without government acting as a party to it. This is fine if it takes a minimalist, referee approach whose only purpose is to ensure fair play. After all, the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed for a reason. The problems start when government wants to act as a coach, or worse, a player. All a capitalist economy really is, is buyers and sellers meeting directly to negotiate prices for the exchange of goods and services. That, and investors meeting with other investors to buy and sell different investments and securities.

6. The words “conservative” and “liberal” get twisted beyond all recognition if one simply defines one group as resistant to change and the other as hungry for change. A few of the trolls on RWN tried to claim that American conservatives were one and the same with the “conservatives” who rule Iran as a theocracy and try to keep its people repressed. In like fashion, today’s liberals believe they “own” the legacies of such reformers as Martin Luther King Jr and Susan B Anthony. It’s been pointed out again and again that classic liberalism is really modern conservatism, while modern liberalism is really classic socialism. This little sleight-of-hand is one of many, many things that continues to piss me off about the Left, and one of many, many things where I can’t decide if its proponents are really that stupid enough to believe this, or if they’re simply willfully dishonest.

7. If Rand was an atheist, shouldn’t that mean her ideas were good, and/or that one doesn’t have to be Christian to see the wisdom in smaller government and other tenets of free market capitalism? The Rand bashers really need to pick a lane and stay in it…

As for Christians’ supposed arrogance in claiming theirs is the only way….don’t secular liberals do the same damn thing when telling us the right way to solve social and political problems – claim to have cornered the market on truth?

8. Evil, and stupid. Coming from people who don’t believe in absolute standards of good and evil, and who have no way of defining stupid save for where someone went to school. Except when it turns out the stupid people went to the same colleges the smart ones did.

9. This one floored me for eight years straight. One minute Bush was a drooling idiot who couldn’t tie his own shoelaces, and the next he was a diabolical genius who’d masterminded this grand scheme to steal Iraq’s oil and who-knows-what from Afghanistan.

10. Some people are not familiar with the phrase “non sequitur” (it does not follow) or put another way, “Correlation does not equal causation.”

11. Don’t you just love this one? I keep waiting for them to suggest that Iran will settle for developing only half a nuke, or that Al Queda will settle for slaughtering only half the infidels, or that the Chinese will settle for taking only half of Taiwan. Compromise! Discussion! Everyone wins.

The real problem is not using diplomacy instead of warfare to accomplish political goals; the problem is that the discussion is seen as an end unto itself, rather than just another tool in government’s foreign policy toolbox. It’s great when it works – it was pretty much our only option when dealing with the Soviets, lest the entire world be engulfed in nuclear war. But the talk had a point – limit their missile deployments or whatever else.

Isn’t it wonderful that we’re sitting down with the leaders of hostile countries? No….not unless the conference succeeds in getting the other country to stop doing something we don’t like, or start doing something we do like…and it’s also useless unless the head of that government realizes that the US is both able and willing to use military force to achieve its policy goals if necessary.

12. Giving extra money to the Treasury, willingly or otherwise, is a task for someone else. Saving the Earth, for most of them, is also for someone else. (The truly “green” ones I have to applaud as at least consistent, if not misguided.)
- cylarz | 08/21/2011 @ 21:40
Does simply printing more dollars count as “sequestering” excess carbon, and qualify for a carbon credit?

It was bad enough when “suddenly” one could not exchange dollars for gold on demand (in fact, gold was confiscated) can I always get cash in exchange for my
electronic credits on demand, without a “special fee”(tax, rent, “assesment”, whatever)?

What would happen if, instead of transferring more electronic wealth credit
bytes to da gub’mint, all those island (ieMartha’s Vinyard) dwellers exchanged them for actual cash, and burned it for the clam bake/camp fire?

Well, …aside from repatriating carbon to the eco-system.
Can the current EPA ban respiration to, you know…save the planet’s carbon footprint so our children so they won’t have to RIOT for cable ready big screen tee vees?

Anyone care to estimate the carbon/particulates footprint of printing up National Socialist Health proposals, then disposing of them, unread? That CAN’T be good for, you know… asthmatic children
In fact, the idea of FREE HEALTH CARE seems to be entitling a “sudden” rise
in debilitating yuppie flu claims around states with waterfront views.

What was the catalyst of (initially, private)employer provided, third party, “health insurance” anyway?
- CaptDMO | 08/23/2011 @ 11:24

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Twelve Things I Notice About Liberals Since the Debt Limit Debate Started
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