I just saw this quote:

A strong middle class equals a strong America. We can’t have one without the other.  This Task Force will be an important vehicle to assess new and existing policies across the board and determine if they are helping or hurting the middle class.  It is our charge to get the middle class – the backbone of this country – up and running again.

Instead of working to make everyone part of the middle class, why aren’t these alleged do-gooders working to make us all part of the upper class?  I mean, judging from their actions and words, they don’t just want to lift up the poor, but they want to knock down the rich and just mush everyone into the middle.

It’s like an legislative orgy of mediocrity there in Congress.

It also strikes me as patently foolish to regard the “middle” of this relative hierarchy as some how a clear-cut objective goal for our economy.  If we want to drag more people up to where the middle is now, shouldn’t we do things to let the upper get even higher? And don’t tell me those folks don’t know that the hierarchy of incomes is relative because they’re constantly looking at how poor the poor are versus how rich the rich are.

Isn’t it clear that this obsession with the middle that so many in Washington have is actually fueled by malice and disdain for Americans both rich and poor alike?

I need to stop paying attention to this man.  It just makes me so angry that people think he’s some sort of middle-of-the-road, voice-of-reason kind of guy when he’s a total loon.

So, I subscribed to the podcast of his show and listening to it now, here’s an exchange:

Maher: Your book is crazy, too. You book is wrong too because you say there are wingnuts equally on left and right and your own book is full of wingnuts on the right and hardly any on the left.

This is comment highlights perfectly Maher’s lack of critical thinking skills.

See, his goal in the context of the conversation is to show how ideologically superior, how much more rational the people on the left are over those on the right because, in his words, the people on the left believe in evolution and global warming. But those aren’t essential aspects of people on the left, are they?

Maher never tells us what the essential ideological characteristics of those on the left are, but he does implicitly identify those on the right as being fueled by religion.  I happen to agree with him on that point. But what is the unifying ideology of the Left in America today? I don’t think he can say, but I would describe it as some sort of melange of semi-socialistic, semi-mystical socialistic pragmatism.

Because the people on the right have a pretty clear, centralized ideology, it’s easy for them to produce extremists or, as Bill Maher calls them, wingnuts.  They are the evangelicals who essentially seek to legislate their own morality down on everyone in the country.

But it seems to me that Maher and most people in the US think the people on the left are communists and socialists.  That’s what they think the extreme left is.  That’s because the Left got its character and definition from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s when communism and socialism were significant political movements in the US.  Today, while there are people claiming to be socialists and communists, they represent an extreme minority for the Left here in the US.

Somehow people missed the fact that what we call the Left isn’t the Left any more.  It’s the Gray.  It’s a muddle.  It’s a sickening evil muddle that takes the worst characteristics of the old Left and the new Right to create a party whose extremists are impossible for a muddled mind like Maher to identify and difficult to unify under a single ideological umbrella.

Who are the extremists of our Left today? People like Maddow, Olbermann, Pelosi, and especially Barack Obama.

I am genuinely surprised at how destructive Obama has managed to be. I thought the Right would manage to stonewall those on the Left well enough to create a gridlock, but Obama has put the political Judo on these people and hammer through some real zingers.

Back to Maher.  He still thinks that extreme on the Left means socialist.  And he thinks that because there aren’t (m)any socialists that it proves that the Left is more sane and rational than the right.  He forgets that he’s measuring success here by adherents.  Without extremists, though, we can only conclude that a not-insignificant number of people he’s counting on the left are people who are there simply because they do not agree with the ideology of the Right.  Not agreeing with the opposition does not represent an ideological agreement.  And that’s where he messes up.

The lack of wingnuts on the Left means:

1) There aren’t very many people who genuinely agree with the ideology of the left.

OR

2) Maher doesn’t know what it means to be a wingnut of the Left.

Given the boisterous popularity of the Left, I think we can toss out option 1.  This means that there is SOMETHING to the Left that people are buying and they’re buying it with vim.

But we would not conclude that because there is a lack of perceived wingnuts — by the way, I have it on authority that the proper term for an extremist on the Left is “barking moonbat” and not “wingnut,” but for the sake of consistency with Maher I’ll keep using his term — on the Left that it means that the ideology of the Left is pure, rational, right, and proper.  That conclusion, Maher’s conclusion, would be a total non sequitur.

Take a drink every time someone says “sustainable.”

Democrats usually use this to refer to Green technologies while Republicans seem to use it a lot to refer to economic policies. In neither case are they genuinely concerned with the welfare of human individuals, though.

Enjoy!

Please go read Doug Reich’s discussion about Obama as a thorough and complete pragmatist.

Obama is unable to generalize. He can only offer a rambling litany of disconnected concretes. [...]

No wonder he is frustrated. But his frustration is not moral or even political. It is epistemological. His mind, like the mind of most modern intellectuals, is wrecked. Without the ability to validly induce general concepts from observation, i.e., without the ability to reason, a man is reduced to the level of an animal. Such an approach would be like attempting to file papers without any categories.

A most excellent discussion.

I woke up this morning and turned on HLN to watch Robin Meade (since I cancelled cable, I only get my Robin fix when I’m on trips ) and they were talking about the Health Care Debate.

This point should have occurred to me sooner and it’s probably occurred to others already, but I recall Democrats responding to Republican criticism with the question, “Well, what’s your plan?”

The idea here is that “everyone” knows that health care in the US is broken and “everyone” knows that the US government needs to step in and do something about it.

On that second point is exactly where I disagree.  I do believe the health care market in the US is deformed, but it’s deformed due to government intervention.  So, obviously, the only action the government should take is to stop doing everything it’s already doing.

But the question “What’s your plan?” presupposes the statist mindset.  And you think the Democrats are the bad guys in this story, just look at the Republicans scurrying around to come up with an alternative.

Republicans are losing the health care fight.

Check out the rationalization behind this madness!

Hat tip: Blue Owl

Perhaps it’s because my political views are so radical and my views on any particular issue may be in incidental agreement with those of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, I find conversational partisanship extremely annoying.

Here’s an example from Passive-Aggressive Notes:

Although, in my direct, personal experience it is more common for Democrats to cast about this sort of generalized, ignorant, snot-nosed, insulting non sequitur, Republicans get their digs in, too.

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2346 feet above sea level. You are 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.”

She rolled her eyes and said, “You must be a Republican.”

“I am,” replied the man. “How did you know?”

“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea
what to make of your information, and I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help to me.”

The man smiled and responded, “You must be a Democrat.”

“I am,” replied the balloonist. “How did you know?”

“Well,” said the man, “you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You’ve risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and you expect ME to solve your problem. You’re in EXACTLY the same position you were in before we met, but somehow now, it’s MY fault!

My apologies for not pulling up an example of something a bit more commonplace.  This blog post is inspired by an IM conversation I had this weekend with someone, a Democrat, who does this sort of thing constantly, and then that post on Passive-Aggressive Notes.

The annoying thing about the person with whom I was chatting this weekend is that he is constantly arguing that I should be more open-minded.  I have no capacity for open-mindedness in the sense that he seems to mean when I ask him to explain it, but it doesn’t strike me as very open-minded to just generalize about people you don’t know because someone like them did something you don’t like.

“You must be Republican if you take up two parking spaces.”

To which a Republican might reply, “Since Democrats are communists and socialists and think everything belongs to everyone, you must be a Democrat if you take up two spaces.”

“If you’re gay, you must be a Democrat.”

To which a Democrat might say, “If you’re married and gay, you must be a Republican.”

It’s all so ridiculous and obnoxious.

The fact of the matter is that neither Democratic nor Republican parties accurately or consistently represent any guiding principles in any very intelligible way.  The Democratic party claims to support freedom and liberty, but they advocate nationalized health care which is effectively enslavement of doctors and taxpayers alike.  The Republican party claims to support property rights, but they oppose gay marriage, which is primarily an issue of property rights.  The Republican party claims to support free markets but have, for the past several decades shouldered business with more and more onerous regulations, taxes, and stultifying rules.  The Democratic party claims to be in support of small businesses and the common man and yet they are constantly trying to raise the minimum wage, assist unions, and enact all sorts of social programs which put everyone, especially small businesses and the common man, under incredible, even fatal strain.

But the lack of consistency in the party at large does not translate directly to the individuals who care to apply those labels to themselves.  Not every Republican is against gay marriage, the EPA, immigration, abortion, and national health insurance.  Not every Democrat is a tree-hugging, dirt-worshipping socialist with jungle fever and a hybrid Vespa scooter.

Forget all that and let’s just get down to the point: if you are a devout follower of one party or another, I do not care what your beef is with the opposition.  You’re at least as wrong as they are, which is to say you’re probably completely wrong.

I’m very willing to be polite to people and help them find rational support for some of their complaints on a wide number of topics.  Are you pissed off that the Republicans want to make fetuses slavemasters over those whose wombs they occupy? I am outraged with you.  Do you hate Rachel Maddow for being a snarky, sarcastic, obtuse, snob with really cute hair? I’m right there with you except I love the color of her hair. Is the idea of bailing out failing businesses offensive to your free-market sensibilities? I say that same thing!

But if you’re going to just say, “This douchebag took up two parking spaces, so he must be a Republican,” or “She did gay porn to cover her crack habit, so she must be a Democrat,” then I’m probably not going to entertain you for long because I think both parties suck and I like gay porn.

Thanks to Adam Baldwin’s tweet, I found this movie review of Avatar, which argues that because of the heavy-handed, simplistic, and down-right farcical presentation of Liberal political values, the film is actually a film about Conservative political values.

And this afternoon, Joe.My.God. linked over to a claim from Glenn Beck that because the birthers are so damn stupid and Conservative, that it’s a plot by Liberals to discredit all Conservatives.

I have an idea: maybe these things are exactly what they appear to be!

I don’t mean to get all snotty by pulling the Occam’s razor out on these people, but what if there really are people out there with stupid ideas in their heads?

And what if some of those people make movies?  What if some of those people make websites and go on television and call in to radio shows and spew their stupidity over anyone who may be paying attention?

I don’t mean to sound cynical, but there are a lot of bad ideas in the world and there are more than enough idiots to hold on to them all.  Sooner or later, you’re bound to run into one of these asshats on the internet, television, movie theater, book , magazine, radio program, sidewalk, grocery store, or, possibly, your own kitchen.

I see absolutely no reason not to take James Cameron at his word.  He made a movie espousing a deep loathing for technology and advanced civilization, so I think that’s what he believes.  Sure, if pressed, I think he’d equivocate, vacillate, and talk all around the question without getting to the logical, essential point behind his philosophy, but that doesn’t change the fact.

And I really do believe that there are quite a few people out there who believe Barack Obama is not a “natural citizen” of the United States.  Many of them are earnest when they argue that there is some alleged lack of evidence for the counter-argument and that proves their case.  Many of them seem to lack even basic critical thinking skills that would cause them to disregard this argument on its face. They really do not care how much testimony and evidence is provided to the contrary — even from people within the Republican party.

These plots simply do not exist.  These things are not satire. There is no cabal nor conspiracy to make Liberals or Conservatives look stupid.  They are doing just fine on their own.

Check out this telling post over at We Stand FIRM: Oh the taxes you’ll pay!

Edit: changed title to “New Taxes under ObamaCare” because these are just taxes under the health care reform bill and not other taxes that Obama may support.

Listen to Barack Obama tell you he ain’t your bitch and you can go buy your own pommes frites.