Holy Synchronicity, Batman

So I have drafted a post about the emerging or rather emerged paradigm and I run across this post that says much of what I want to say.

http://clashdaily.com/2013/02/taking-back-the-language-they-are-not-liberals-they-are-leftists/

Years ago Dinesh D'Souza wrote a book called "Illiberal Education." My heart melted. A conservative with a dictionary! Not that anyone would follow his example.

Anti-Semantics like Limbaugh, Coulter and Savage stack the deck in their arguments. Anything and everything that can go wrong is blamed on liberals and liberalism. Never mind that liberals are more or less a vanished species replaced by leftists.

 Leftists are here defined as advocates of collectivism and central planning. By definition they are authoritarian. They are also elitist but do not necessarily endorse elitism based on merit. Anti-egalitarian might be more accurate than elitist. Any Kennedy, Cuomo or Daley is more suited and deserving of public office than any soul not born of noble circumstance. Any hack from the Beltway or New York or Boston is better suited to manage the details of your life than are you.

I do not use the term right wing because it makes no sense to do so. The leftist who compiled the spectrum long ago assigned  the National Socialists to the right wing. Radical individualists are forced to bunk with the Bennetts and the Borks and the Ashcrofts. The big government conservatives have more in common with their friends across the aisle than with Tea Party activists.

Right wing might be an imprecise label but it is used to describe anyone who challenges the dominant religion of the day, media orthodoxy. Anyone who is politically incorrect is branded a right winger. This might not make sense to the reader of this blog but it is performed with the same laziness that assigns anyone who disagrees with Rush Limbaugh to the liberal scrap heap. The vast right wing is the media's Not Us. Liberals are talk radio's Not Us.

The liberal vs. conservatism paradigm has long been commercially viable. It would be bad radio to abandon the pulpit and explore the meaning of words. Us vs. them is always popular. There can only be one devil.

A couple of parting shots. I believe that fiscal conservatism is incompatible with social conservatism. Teavangelicism is a shotgun wedding. When forced to choose, the social conservative will run to to the open arms of his charming mistress and her big government bazookas. He just can't help himself. Can you think of any exception?

Michael Savage wrote a book entitled "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder." I have never read Dr. Savage so I don't know if the title is tongue in cheek. Assuming the title is meant to be read at face value, there is unintentional irony in the extreme.

Mental illness is a liberal construct. It is possibly the hallmark of liberalism. The Enlightenment challenged the idea that all of humanity's flaws could be attributed to sin. Medicine, crude as it was, brought empiricism into the conversation. Good health habits seemed to affect the righteous and the wicked in much the same way.

At some point someone applied the medical model to what is now called mental illness. Maybe it's not the devil. Maybe it's a disorder. The medical model would go unchallenged until the mid-twentieth century when heretics like the great Thomas Szasz challenged not just the abuses of the construct and its political underpinnings, but the very premise of mental disorder as well.

Putting aside Szasz et al for now, the concept of mental disorder was in all ways an improvement over the concept of sin. Obviously, it was more forgiving and accepting. But mental disorder is still a hypothetical construct and wittingly or otherwise, Michael Savage endorses liberalism when he calls it a mental disorder. It's like an atheist calling religion the work of the devil. It makes no sense, but it sure does sell.

Back to the new paradigm. I could never enjoy shows like "Crossfire" because of the left-right false dichotomy. The William Bennetts and John McCains and Tommy Thompsons had more in common with their Democratic counterparts than they had with the peasants in flyover country. The true conflict was between insiders and outsiders. The connected and the disconnected. When Codevilla wrote his classic analysis in 2010, it resonated with a lot of us. At last!

But insider/outsider was yesterday. The constancy of this Administration's falsehoods coupled with an obsequious media that will edit and delete and yes, even lie to help the White House, has given birth to a new paradigm. Now it is truth versus falsity. The differences are that stark.

I don't see the whole country singing "Kumbaya" anytime soon. Civility is dependent upon honesty. A certain amount of spin has always been fair game but we have crossed a line and we can't go back. As my friend John stated, Obama is not the first politician to lie but he is the first politician to lie with impunity. I can't tell you how things were in Teddy Roosevelt's day but in my lifetime I have only seen one politician who was granted the license to fib without consequence. Barack Obama, because of his unending duplicity, will be the most polarizing figure any of us will ever see.

True or False is now the great divide.

Breaking News: It's The Fault of Refineries!

Just when you thought it was safe to blame the Chinese, we find out that high gas prices are actually the fault of oil refineries.

 http://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-gas-prices-suddenly-high-184200089.html;_ylt=AoQN6n2eFrZWcpfBOTTPaPuCuodG;_ylu=X3oDMTNkcTZkZDU0BG1pdANGaW5hbmNlIEluZmluaXRlIEJyb3dzZSBTcGxpdARwa2cDNzBkMThjMGQtN2Q4YS0zMzRiLWFlMDgtNmQwOTIzYjM0ZWZkBHBvcwNsMgRzZWMDbWVkaWFpbmZpbml0ZWJyb3dzZWxpc3Q-;_ylg=X3oDMTJucjc0bnEyBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDMGNlMzYyMTUtNjU3MC0zYWJjLTg1OTktNzA2MmExMzk5ZDUzBHBzdGNhdANjbmJjBHB0A3N0b3J5cGFnZQ--;_ylv=3

It's never Barry's fault.

It's never Barry's fault. 

It's never Barry's fault. 

The New Scapegoat in High Gas Prices...China

Can't keep the George Bush thing going forever (but the O'Man will drag out the blame machine again to be sure) and the evil speculator thing will not hold up if the price increases are permanent (and they will be long-term if not permanent.) So who do we blame for this sudden spike in fuel costs?

It's those wily Chinese, that's who. Never mind the unconstructed Keystone Pipeline, The unconstructed ANWAR pipeline, the out of bound regions off both coasts, as well as the Gulf and off-limits fracking areas. It's those industrious Chinese and all their new cars.

It's never Barry's fault.
It's never Barry's fault.
It's never Barry's fault

http://news.yahoo.com/high-gas-prices-driven-demand-china-142429070.html

"The Worst Generation" Or "This is One Long Short Bus"

Yes, I am demoralized. Not so much by the election as by the GOP caving when they did not have to, first on the "fiscal cliff" and then on the debt limit. The political class owns two parties. We own none.

There are a few things I have wanted to comment on and I will in good time. In no particular order.

1. There can be no civility without honesty.
2. The new political paradigm.
3. Sticking up for our rivals. Why the Obama re-election will hurt his supporters more than it will hurt us.

Let's start with the last one. Warren Buffet and Jeffrey Immelt and John Corzine will benefit from Obama's re-election. So too will a truckload of fat cats and special interest groups. The rest of us are screwed.

I don't have a civil service pension but if I did and I was voting only for my self interest, I would have voted for Romney. I would have donated to Romney and I would have campaigned for Romney. Whom would you rather managing your finances? Civil servants voted for Obama in overwhelming numbers. Talk about sanction of the victim...

America is on life support and will soon be shrouded. Fortunately, America is a country, not an organism. An organism cannnot rise from the dead. A country can.

But back to the civil servants and their pensions. I do not have much to lose in America's impending demise. I won't get a Social Security check or Medicare but I realized a long time ago that those wells would run dry before I would have my chance to drink. And yet, I went to bat for those pensioners and future pensioners who have the most to lose from fiscal recklessness. Why? Because it is the right thing to do.

Why did I lose sleep worrying about America's insolvency when her payees voted overwhelmingly for Obama? I do seem a bit foolish now. And it is not just Federal pensioners who will get screwed. If I was a retired teacher from a blue state, I would be nervous. Even red state pensioners should tread cautiously. Putting one sixth of the population on food stamps and extending unemployment benefits for two years greatly compromises Uncle Sam's capacity to insure rickety state pensions.

And I will dry my tears for the generation that has given us school shootings, couch potatoes and an unwavering support for Barack Obama. Every demographic makes snide remarks about the next but we have never before seen such mass stupidity. A hippie choking on his vomit seems scholarly by comparison. Jay-Z and Justin! Woo Hoo! This is one long short bus.

Oh, but the Sniper Generation will have its day of reckoning. Everyone knows it but them. Obamacare. Gas prices (subject to availabilty of course.) Inflation and much, much more. It might be fun to watch them burn their "Hope" t-shirts to stay warm and peel off the "2012" bumper stickers to make soup. Yes we can.

Will the Snipes ever shed their dunce caps? I don't hold out a lot of hope for someone who runs up a six figure tab to earn a degree in feminist theory. Should have looked up the word "loan" in the dictionary before you signed all those papers, by golly. One more victim of white paternalism. Barry will lose his luster but there will be another charming teleprompt reader to sweep them off their feet. Jay-Z and Justin! Woo Hoo!