Snake Talk

I do not like Liberals. I do not trust them, I do not find them decent nor do I enjoy their participation in a discussion. This is because Liberals are not what they used to be; they are in fact “liberal” only in name, and many of their number have even discarded that pretense. Now they call themselves things like “progressives” and other self-adulating titles which have nothing to do with their actual character and works. For the most part, I regard political Liberals as I would snakes and scorpions. They are, for all of that, interesting to study in the collective, which seems to be the way many of them express their political views. To find a independently thinking Liberal these days, one must look hard and long. I know this because the Democrats have slowly begun to understand that they need new ideas in order to gain control of Congress and the White House, and to their horror it is all but impossible to find a Democrat with any originality. Even Bill Clinton seems a long time ago, which is why Hillary is still ascendant – she is no master of innovation or ideas, but she serves as an Icon to the “good old days”, when Democrats ran more than their mouths.

A particularly representative example of Snake Talk, as I call Liberal debate tactics, showed up in the comments of a thread I wrote in the past few days. The writer is not named here, out of a respect for privacy but also because the statements made were so common to others read and heard over the past few months and years from the Left. Said the reader:

“I would like to thank you and other Republicans for bankrupting our country, committing us to a stupid, fruitless war, and pushing to limit our rights just as the terrorists wanted us to do. I know you would rather win than see our country succeed, so keep at it. Maybe in your fascist fantasies, all the lazy will die off, and you can sit around in your perfect world, free markets reigning like they did in the 1800's, women back in the home raising kids, and all of your other fantasies of a world long lost to moral decay and big government.

Having majorities on your side will never make you more right, and the more your power is concentrated and people see how narrow-minded, backward looking and hurtful neoconservative and arch-conservative policy is, they will wake up. They will look for progress again, and progressives will be there with new ideas aside from greed, the laffer curve, hard work for nothing, limited rights, legislated morality and all of the right wing pipe dreams that have yet to pan out. Where are the new GOP ideas?”

Nice rant, huh? Well, let’s dissect this and see what the charges are, and what is the requested response. For civility, I shall pretend that the writer made those statements in good faith, honestly, and with a genuine interest in dialogue [ pauses for laughter ].

All right now, let’s take them point by point and see how it plays out:

= Republicans bankrupting the country
Bush’s tax cuts have led to Federal revenue increases to such a pace that the deficit will be likely cut in half far earlier than even Dubya called. Enough for that claim. And, by the way, the US Economy is projected to generate 13 Trillion dollars this year, which feeds a lot of families and provides a base for all kinds of future growth.


= Republicans committing America to a “stupid, fruitless war”
Iraq and Afghanistan have evicted vicious regimes, elected representative governments and held a series of free elections, including women for the first time. Neither stupid nor fruitless.


= Winning the war would prevent the country from succeeding.

This is patently absurd on its face. Every time America wins a war, thing improve. Walking backwards, winning the Gulf War in 1991 helped convince the Soviet Union they could never win a war against us, and led to dramatic improvements in strategic stability for all major nations. Winning even so minor a conflict as Grenada sent a message that the U.S. would protect its interests, and began a rollback of Cuban military interventionism. Winning in World War 2 made the USA the dominant nation of the world in several key respect. Winning World War 1 forced the world to admit the United States was a “Great Power”, and so on.


= Republicans have “fascist fantasies”

Historically, Fascism rose to power as a socialist rival to Communism, best evidenced by the Civil War in Spain during the 1930s, and the NAZI (National Socialist Workers) Party in Germany. To date, no fascist regime has yet employed doctrines or policies comparable with any American Republican administration. The charge is ludicrously false.


= Republicans want 1800’s type Free Markets

What a strange claim. I suppose it plays out like the Enron claims made so often by the Left. Enron, as we know now, was a large corporation which defrauded customers and employees and investors alike for a number of years. A close look at the details of Enron’s influence-pandering attempts, however, shows that the Clinton Administration had most of the officials who took bribes and campaign contributions, while the Bush Administration was for the most part simply the Administration which refused to bail out the company and whose investigators produced the evidence which sent a number or Enron executives to prison. In the same manner, the accusation fails to consider that during the 19th Century, especially before the Civil War, Democrats had a strong influence on government actions, and in fact more Republicans than Democrats during that century created reform and trust-breaking legislation.


= Republicans don’t mind moral decay and Big Government

Considering the LORAL and Whitewater deals, the acknowledged personal dishonor by Clinton, and the sum effect of six decades of Democrat control in Congress, such a claim is either fantastically ignorant or willfully deceitful.
= Having a majority is not an indicator of moral authority
One may argue so, but there is no reason to believe the opposite, that a majority in seats is in any way morally deficient or the minority party any more moral. And one could make the argument that the party which enjoys the most support from the governed in actual election results to represent the people in legislative work is the most valid of available choices for that role. Certainly individual exceptions can be made to show variance on a given issue or seat, but on the whole the very process of republican democracy confirms this position, rendering this claim to no better than spite.


= Conservative policy is “narrow-minded” and “backward”

I presume that those phrases are used to suggest that Republicans are more exclusive than Democrats, and Conservatives more than Liberals. Given that Republican tax cuts returned money to a majority of Americans, that legal reforms proposed and enacted by Republicans reduce the risk of control of your life by an unelected elite, i.e. activist judges, and that personal opinion on a single issue does not disqualify someone from substantive participation in the GOP, I would have to suggest that the Democrats, not the Republicans, are the party with a closed mind and trying to avoid the future.


= When people “look for progress”, “progressives will be there with new ideas”

It is possible. Yet even in this claim, the advocate for the Liberals is unable to present even a single example of such ideas.


= Where are the new GOP ideas?

A fence along the border with Mexico, reforming Social Security with privatized accounts, replacing Medicare with a more personal and effective plan, replacing the Internal Revenue Service with a consumption-based or flat tax, thus simplifying the process, encouraging savings and eliminating loopholes for the super wealthy. A decentralized, smaller yet more effective military which is unstoppable by any known counterforce, yet which can and does inspire respect and appreciation through its interaction with civilians. And that’s just for starters.

You lose again, Liberal. But America wins.