Tuesday, June 27, 2006

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.

10 comments:

megan said...

It is indeed news to me that "they"
are the ones with ideas. All I have seen for the past 6 years is bitterness, vitriol, personal attacks, etc. even on their own.

Anonymous said...

Nice rant of your own, Drummond, but what a massive waste of time and space and energy.

There wasn't one word in that liberals post that merited a response. Not only was it, as usual, vapid and empty and sophomoric, it was also entirely unoriginal, as you yourself noted. Not one thing that person said isn't seen in every thread on every blog that any liberal shows up in.

All you just did was give that silly lib exactly what he wanted.

Most of all, you gave him legitimacy. You made it look, to any who come here, like that post needed to be debated. Like there were arguments in it that needed to be countered.

Should have yawned and hit delete. Or spent your time writing a substantive post.

Ironically, you just acted like a liberal. Attacking rather than offering an idea.

You oughtta know better.

The only winner here was that dumb liberal.

DJ Drummond said...

How predictable, a guy who won't even post a name claims the Liberal won.


Yeah. Uh-huh.

Welcome, Mini-AlGore.

Anonymous said...

The reason discussion is so toxic, is that the right cannot be debated with. Rather than refute the liberal claims with any sort of solid rebuttal, you turn and attack the other side. That's snake talk.

If you do not like liberals, their discussion, or their participation, you can do what republicans in government do: Hold exclusive discussions with only republicans present. This may alleviate your dislike of them - not talking to anyone who disagrees with you. Running things with only one party and no dissent makes things smoother doesnt it?

+ Fascistic governments existed before communist ones, tend to favor single party states, and tend to invade the middle east.

If the military inspires the appreciation and cooperation of iraqis, there would not be support for anti-US insurgents, and any insurgency requires the support of the local populace. Is it possible that this war conducted by civilians driving a bloated pentagon with anemic intelligence and too few soldiers (as foretold by high level military personnel who were shown the door by the administration) isnt all it was cracked up to be? If it were a democracy as you said, I would be able to vacation in Baghdad today.

Learning from the mistakes of past wars is progressive, fueling yourself on past victories is fascistic.

The liberals one the second you posted.
SSSssss...

Anonymous said...

D. J.

The only thing that will shut up liberals will be when they lose seats in both houses of Congress on Election Day this year.

That will only work for a day or two, unfortunately. Then the "reality based community" (sushisnark is a good example of the breed) will start bleating yet again that the wascally Wepublicans AGAIN stole the election.

Like frogs croaking near a lake they are just backround noise to be borne.

Anonymous said...

"Fascistic governments existed before communist ones"

Are you sure about that?

The communist revolution in Russia took place in 1917.

The first fascist dictator, Mussolini, took over in Italy in 1922.

jd watson said...

Jainphx asked: "What new idea has the left had, for let's say to start, the last 30 years?"
Actually, it's much worse than that. In the July 3rd National Review is a book review on William Jennings Bryan, serial losing Democratic Presidential candidate from 1896-1908. His platform? "... regulation of corporations, an income tax, direct election of senators, ... nationalize the railroads, legislate a living wage, and public financing of political campaigns."

The modern 'progressive' programs of sticking it to business, raising taxes, raising the minimum wage, eliminating the Electoral College, public campaign finance, &tc. are 100+ years old.

Anonymous said...

Thank you DJ, I shall remember this.

Anonymous said...

Nicely done, DJ!

Anonymous said...

D J

I agreew with everything you wrote except for the part about the smaller military. I think we need a larger military. We are having trouble in Iraq right now. The biggest problem ssems to be we don't have enough troops. I think it should have been obvious that we did not have enough troops early on in the war on terror. Not commiting enough troops at the start is forgiveable. People make mistakes. What is harder to understand is that this still has not been corrected. This is just my two cents. Its easy to be an arm chair quarterback. I'm just writing it as I see it.