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...
Very well-worded comment left over at Legal Insurrection:
In every movement, every revolution…hell, in every PTA, there are two diametrically opposite personalities that, like two poles of a magnet, are needed to make the motor spin.
For every calculating thinker, there needs to be a person of action and fluidity. For every ordered mind, there needs to be a passionate one. For every bomb maker, a bomb thrower. For every Lenin, a Trotsky. For every Bill Bennett, a Rush Limbaugh. Otherwise, any revolution, or movement or PTA bake sale ends up one dimensional, flat and appealing only to a narrow band.
Yes…the “good cop, bad cop” thing.
Incidentally, I find Professor Jacobson to be one of the more well-written and well-thought-out bloggers out there, in fact, this might be the first thing he’s ever jotted down that made me stop and go, “huhwha??”:
The “be happy warriors” theme makes sense at the political level. Look how far Obama has gone on those fumes.
This is in the context of, browbeating the Republicans about working too hard to gin up outrage about Benghazi and Fast & Furious and the like, and not putting enough effort into articulating their cause, so I’m left to envision President Obama as a “happy warrior” for a defined cause. Um…this creates problems. I know Obama likes to be thought of in that way. But when has this ever matched up with reality? Ever?
Actually, if I understand these roles, the “bomb maker” is the articulator of the vision and the “bomb thrower” is the pit-bull character whose talent is in winning all the arguments. Obama is absolutely, positively, the winner-of-arguments. He does not define visions. He puts on a good show of doing this, but listen to Him some time. What’s the vision? Something like “Let Me be absolutely clear, we reject the belief that…” followed by something nobody actually says they believe, anywhere. In short, His speeches say nothing whatsoever. Nothing besides “I’m the alpha dog.”
As Jacobson points out, “the role we and other bloggers play is not necessarily the same as the politicians.” This nails it, I think.
I do believe a problem exists in the sense that conservatives are thought to exude negative energy. It is unclear to me how much of this is coming from within the movement. There is always room for improvement, of course. But, when your whole point is “people should be free” and someone sees that as hateful, you’re probably dealing with someone who isn’t going to see anything as non-hateful except for just a very narrow selection of things they’ve already chosen, and even if you can find some common ground with that, they still won’t stop seeing you as hateful.
Which, by the way, you won’t find that common ground. That’s my prediction.
But the author of the comment is entirely correct. Every movement has an asshole. And it’s an important job.
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Your description of the President resonates with me, but we’re probably both missing how he comes across to middle America, where he appears in the guise of the “Happy Warrior.” He expresses confidence that all kinds of good things will happen. That irritates us, because it seems emptily disconnected from the actual results of his specific policies, but middle America isn’t paying much attention to cause and effect. They just like hearing that problems will magically disappear when other people pay for them, as long as we have the right thoughts. Contrast him, for instance, with Jimmy Carter, who was a “drink your cod liver oil” type, always trying to get people to learn to live with disappointment. Obama is more like Reagan, who talked about the good effects of “getting the government off the back of people” rather than concentrating on the sacrifices that would be expected of people who would have to pull up on their own bootstraps.
- Texan99 | 01/27/2013 @ 07:53Oh, and about the common ground, you’re right: support freedom, and you’ll hear how hateful you are to let anyone, anywhere, sink for any reason. Even if your policies will lead to fewer people sinking, the very idea that everyone isn’t guaranteed to float is hateful. Well, unless they’re fat Republican smokers, in which case they deserve to lose their medical insurance, because that’ll teach them.
- Texan99 | 01/27/2013 @ 07:58Exactly right.
And what to do about it…well, we’re made in God’s image. How does God handle it? He watches us blow our toes off with a gun yet one more time, maybe spares us a curious glance to see if we’ve been hurt enough to mend our ways, which is a yea or a nay…if not, then, well that’s too bad, here it comes again.
Or, as the secular types prefer, that’s just how life works. Lessons will be re-taught until such time as they are learned, at which time the learner will proceed to the next lesson. Republicans do have some big problems, and they need to fix those, but I do not think they should take responsibility for the learner to be unready to proceed to the next lesson. That’s something that simply is.
- mkfreeberg | 01/27/2013 @ 08:03Here’s what I struggle with. On the one hand, we know what a terrible idea it is to stand between someone and the disastrous consequences of his actions. On the other, we want to help people who are suffering. We know we can’t always draw a bright line between someone’s who suffering out of sheer meteor-struck-my-house bad luck and someone who’s calling disaster down on himself every day of his life. All I know to do is to alleviate some of the worst suffering, but never so much that the guy loses sight of what keeps making all this stuff happen to him.
And of course, unless we have rough agreement on what causes disaster, it’s hard to see eye-to-eye with people about this. Is my neighbor or my nephew out of work because we need to overhaul the schools or the labor laws, or because he routinely sabotages himself with employers and makes dumb decisions about where to live and what kind of skills to acquire? Is it something he does to himself, or is it really like a meteor strike? The last thing I want to do is subsidize his continuing self-sabotage, but I don’t want to watch him starve, either.
- Texan99 | 01/27/2013 @ 08:38