Right Irrationality: Feature not Bug
I thought it worthwhile to re-post this quote from a time before the Tea Party even thought of being as a reminder that the current struggle between the Republican ‘Establishment’ and the Tea Party has nothing to do with the former being some remnant of the 50s-60s era of mainstream Republicans being the ‘Goo-Goo’ Party. That is the Party of Reason Based Good Government just trying to push back on Wild-Eyed Socialism. That era died in 1964 and had its epitath written with this from a Suskind NYT article in 2004:
Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush
In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn’t like about Bush’s former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House’s displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn’t fully comprehend — but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
The aide said that guys like me were ”in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who ”believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ”That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. ”We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
We have gotten accustomed to citing the ‘Reality Based Community’ as just a catchphrase, an internet meme and not as an operating principle of the modern Conservative message machine as voiced here by what most presume to be Karl Rove. Karl and his counterparts in the Right message machine then and now simply don’t care for anything spelled ‘Truth’ with a capital T. Instead it is all about message reception. Ironically enough an embrace of the doctrine they otherwise denounce as ‘Relativism’. Granted the grandiosity of the Neo-Con PNAC Vulcans as expressed in the above quote has been subdued somewhat, but don’t kid yourself that the underlying pathology is not still working. After all in the words of the Ur-Father of Modern Movement Conservatism in 1964:
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Lets just say you can parse that statement of Goldwater to a fare-thee-well and not find any committment to ‘Truth’ as an important consideration. Because ‘Liberty’ and ‘Freedom’. And BTW ‘Capitalism’ and ‘Free Markets’
Bruce:
GWB was the decider, the one who said ” and he married well,” a master of lies and deception, etc. He wasn’t intelligent and a normal person could beat him intellectually. He was just a man in a position of power who had to be obeyed.
Teahadists, and GOhadists, the Imams are the billionaires.
Select of God.
On a mission for the penguins.
However, keep in mind that their irrationality, however mindboggling, is keenly tied to first principles of domination of the US 99% and, of course, the “99.99%” that makes up the rest of the world’s population. There are domains of lunacy into which they will not set a toe.
I have known people like this, individuals whose behaviour appears erratic, self destructive, inconsistent to the extreme, but who successfully dominate their chosen arena. People who could, at will, enter into a psychotic, frightening mode in order to achieve a goal, but who knew perfectly well what “normal” looked like, and could enter that state at will also, as needed to achieve their goal. People who, though appearing truly oblivious, could spot the seed of a possible hindrance to their goals from a mile away and take disproportionately violent action to prevent it ever sprouting.
Of course, the Republican and Tea Party isn’t made up of such individuals (there aren’t that many of them, thank God,) but instead (I surmise) have ways of unleashing members suited to either psychotic- or sensible-appearing undertakings. Good cop, bad cop, entertaining cop, frightening cop, “wise” cop, stupid cop, cuddly cop, Terminator cop — a neoconservative for every purpose, a Swiss-army-party.
By their works shall you know them. And their works have for forty years progressed in one very focused direction, without pause for rest or refreshment. Crazy? Yes, as needed. But not crazy enough to self-destruct.
Noni
You have to admit though that rejecting bothersome old objective reality and data makes it a lot easier to win arguments! In your head I mean.
Thus the last election which afaik most republicans thought they had “won”.
The Tea Party is simply the John Birch Society.
With the same backers and better wordsmiths.
The creation of the tea party is merely the latest incarnation of the same system of racial and social wedge politics in order to push a system of economics which has never done anything except enrich the wealthy at the expense of the poor and middle class.
Keynesian economics already answered the major questions of how to grow the economy in a way that benefits pretty much everyone.
Since there is no real reason for the neoclassical supply side zombie economic theories to exist, as empirically they have been shown to fail, everyone who is not wealthy. The question of their continued existence becomes obvious, by using racial and social wedge issues, the rich are able to manipulate poor and middle class whites into supporting policies which do not benefit them.
This answers the question about what is wrong with Kansas
And Mississippi.
And Alabama.
And Georgia.
And South Carolina.
And………..
“Conservatism can not Fail. It can only Be Failed.”
By ‘squishes’. Which in practice means people who Don’t Keep Their Eyes on the Prize. As opposed to say paying attention to Enlightenment ideas about ‘reason’ and ‘objective truth’.
Perhaps my favorite book of Political Philosphy is the 2 volume work by Karl Popper “The Open Society and Its Enemies”. This book (which by the way directly inspired Soros’s Open Society Foundation) places the origins of modern totalitarianism in the works of Plato. Now at the time the book was written the most prominant enemies of the Open Society were Fascism and Communism with respective lines of transmission from Plato to Hegel to Nietzsche to Hitler for the former and Plato to Hegel to Marx to Lenin to Stalin for the latter. Which gives us Hegelian Historicism as the hinge. But the modern American version takes a somewhat more direct route of Plato to Leo Strauss to the PNAC Vulcans.
But in all cases there is a common element found right in Plato: nothing is more dangerous than Democracy (Plato hated Athenian Democracy). Somewhat less dangerous is Aristocracy (hence the idealization of Sparta) but best of all would be rule by the Philosopher Kings. Hence the Parable of the Cave http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html
which has a double lesson. First only the Philosopher has the ability to learn to look at the Light, but secondly it is best that ONLY he (and it is always a ‘he’) has the opportunity. Because once the Demos sees the light and starts to draw their own lessons from it you INEVITABLY get the decay from Aristocracy to Democracy to Tyranny.
A horrid fate. Which we can avoid simply by appointing Philospher Kings Cheney and Kristol and Rove to rule the world through their figureheads. (That is Strauss never wanted the Power, while his disciple Cheney never openly wanted the Title).
BTW this idea wasn’t confined to Plato. In my days as a student of classical history you see the same thing running strongly through Thucydides, Cato the Elder, and Cicero. The world was a dangerous place, and certainly nothing to leave in the power of the ‘demos’ or the ‘populus’. That is a lot of things in political philosophy become clear once you understand that for the major ur-figures of conservatism from Plato to Hobbes nothing is more dangerous than small d or large D Democracy. That its suppression might rely on deployment of the Big Lie is just the price of Liberty (as they define it). Eye on the Prize.
‘Fourth Branch’ Cheney.
One of Cheney’s most outrageous claims actually becomes understandable in its own terms and framing. This was the claim that because Cheney was both the Vice-President of the United States (and so a member of the Executive) and ex-officio the President of the Senate that he had both Executive Privilege and Congressional Immunity and so was not exposed to official scrutiny by either the Executive (as Senate President) or the Congress (and U.S. Vice President). Hence the sobriquet of ‘Fourth Branch’. This act of hubris (BTW a Greek concept) was inexplicable from within the tradition of American Democracy (or ‘democracy’) but made perfect sense through the lens of Plato’s Philospher Kings. Who are ye Prisoners of the Cave to Challenge the vision of those who have learned to See the Light.
For those of us who draw our understanding of the world ultimately thorugh Locke this is ouright nuttiness. But it makes perfect sense to those whose understanding comes via Hegel and Nietzsche. I’d expand on this further but am dangerously flirting with a violation of Godwin’s Internet Law..
Daniel Bell -1955 – The Radical Right (updated 1962)
Hofstadter – 1963 – The Paranoid Style
There has always been a lunatic fringe, most usually a highly reactionary Right. There have always been populist movements although in most instances they were co-opted by party elites.
There has always been a strong elite constituency for extreme laissez faire and what is essentially social Darwinism.
Today we see the fringe reactionary Right with greater access to widespread media. This has generated a radical reactionary populism that has been pretty easily co-opted by the laissez faire elites.
It is the Know Nothing/ Nullification/20’s Red Scare/America Firsters/John Birchers movement on media induced steroids being manipulated by the same financial elites that brought us various financial panics, the Gilded Age, the Trusts, and the mistaken idea that this country was founded on some sort of extreme nihilistic idealism which is really a bit of sleight of hand that keeps the .01% ever more in power.
It is Veblen, Bell, Hofstadter in full flower. It is Roth’s Plot Against America come real.
The problem is that the elites who think they control this may have unleashed reactionary populist forces that look a lot like some of the European leftist movements combined with the elements of fascism.
I’d like to think that we’ll survive this, that the common sense that overcame these sorts of forces will help us muddle through to the sort of consensus that drove the New Deal. But then I look at a partisan reactionary judiciary that has no self-awareness and I look at the flaws baked into the Constitution, a document which rests heavily on our ability to find cooperation and a moderate consensus for its effectiveness, and I think we may be in as dire or worse situation as we were in 1860.
Not only do we have the same sort of reactionary political forces that brought us the Civil War but they are combined with the economic forces that brought us 1873, 1907, 1929. Combine that with a dependence on consumerism and the absence of a truly coherent labor movement and it looks like we may be on the brink of a perfect reactionary storm.
“Well yes (Mark), but how did you enjoy the play?”
I want to be hopeful that we can thread this needle. But we have to remember that ‘Reaction’ as originally defined in the early 19th century was not just a reaction against ‘Revolution’ but also against its fellow travellors ‘Enlightenment’, ‘Modernity’, and ‘Progress’. And in turn all those are intimately connected with ‘Science’ and ‘Empiricism’.
All of which leaves us in the odd place we are today where “Family Values” (i.e patriarchy) has been bound at the hip with “Climate Change Denialism”. It is not so much ‘causal’ as ‘continuous’ . It is all part of Buckley’s definition of ‘Consevatism’ as “Standing on the train tracks yelling ‘Stop!”
Shoveling horseshit is the winning ticket in America today. Why ANY Congresscritter can down a plateful in a minute AND lick the platter clean.
REMEMBER the dayz of Baghdad Burning? Oh, the glory!!! When ALL OF CONGRESS stood and CHEERED as the anti-aircraft fire went up and the cruise missiles came down. ALL OVER EATING HORSESHIT!
I’d like to be hopeful too Bruce and too a large extent I am but I have a feeling it’s going to get much worse before it gets better. Ultimately King was right, the arc of the universe does bend towards justice but the Buckley’s of today,standing athwart history and yelling “Stop!” have tools of mass communication that early generations lacked. Combine that with the breakdown in real community and connectedness and our increasing tendency to segregate by class and we’re left in a very difficult place in trying to build the sort of movement that can be effective. Our relative comfort mitigates our ability to build something like the labor movement of the last part of the 19th through mid 20th century. When do people get angry enough to overcome the manipulations wrought by Bernays and his ilk?
I’ve been participating in the Moral Mondays movement here in North Carolina. In many ways it is very exciting to see some people start to catch on still it’s quite frustrating to see how many are only concerned that the cable doesn’t go out.
We’re nowhere near having the kind of energy and commitment needed to build the sort of movements that spurred Labor or Civil Rights. We’re nowhere near having the broad recognition that the reactionary pawns really do want to turn back the clock, not to before the New Deal but to sometime before the Enlightenment.
I look at an issue like gun control. Can people really want a society where every body carries a weapon? Will it take some horrendous event where a “good guy” with a gun totally mucks things up and horribly adds to the toll of a mass shooting before people or more appropriately politicians come to their senses?
Given the money and manipulation in politics how can a progressive movement be effective without resorting to revolutionary change? How does this happen without becoming a mirror of the worst of the Tea Party? Is it even possible to shame politicians? It seems that for every Liz Warren there are a handful of Ted Cruzes. Worse, there are two handfuls of mediocrities like Tom Coburn and Tom Carper.
If so many can deny something as clearly threatening as climate change is it any wonder that so many can ignore the cancer that is eating the body politic and shredding the social contract?
Mark:
“Can people really want a society where every body carries a weapon? Will it take some horrendous event where a “good guy” with a gun totally mucks things up and horribly adds to the toll of a mass shooting before people or more appropriately politicians come to their senses?”
It may come to this as many do not understand the havoc they can wreak by trying to be the hero of which they dream. A teenager’s dream of rescuing the damsel in distress. It just does not work that way. I thinks the pendulum has reached the top of its swing and we are all waiting for it to return. What event will make it do so, we all wait for it to occur. A friend of mine usd to say WWII was not won until the COs got angry. Maybe that is what it takes. Too many of us are passive.
The Bircher thing in the teahadists is likely correct.
When I get exposed to Faux News I am reminded:
“I am in the side of reality, and against horse shit and wishful thinking”
Sam Damon, Once and Eagle Anton Myrer
Think!
Run says: “Too many of us passive.” What amazed me is the concept of the many passivists trying to take the guns away. The cognitive dissonance in that statement is extraordinary. The guns are mostly held by the MAKERS of the underpinnings of our economy, food, manufactured products, raw resources. The TAKERS of those guns are also the TAKERS of those economic underpinnings, and would have to learn how to recreate the roles of the MAKERS to survive.
In today’s political and economic environment trying to take the MAKERS weapons would result in a mostly non-shooting revolution or civil war. Those weapons would mostly be used to protect private property against Government actions to confiscate them. Once that revolution failed the MAKERS would defend that same property in a civil war against the surviving TAKERS triggering internal TAKER enclave battles for survival, and then TAKERS moving outside their enclaves to wrest their real property, food, manufactured products, raw resources.
This apocalyptic view point is held by the survivalists and several religious sects. It is intuitive in the MAKER/gun owning Red states residents living outside the TAKER enclaves and their politicians.
In today’s political/economic environment take away the guns and start the revolution. This country was founded upon APPARENT government extreme actions. That to many falls at the top of the list of government extreme actions.
Bruce, I know of no one who is a “climate change denialist”, but I do know the majority of Americans deny the validity of the exaggerated claims and predictions stemming from warming temperatures.
CoRev:
You do believe in the Constitution and the Amendments? The “Takings” clause is a part of the 5th Amendment which you refer to as Takers and subsequently Takings in your dialogue. The courts are pretty adamant about not allowing “Takings.” At the same time, a person can not impinge upon his neighbors denying them the use of their land as it too is a “Takings” (think Bundy).
What branch of the military were you a part of and where did you serve? What whack-group are you a member of today? If you are all about this, then educate us. By the way, I do not have a gun per say.
OK, that is the worst case scenario if Progressive’s wet dream of gun confiscation actually occurred today. That’s not the plan/tact underway. A slow drip, drip of individual freedoms and reliance on Government is today’s actuality increasing the power of the various levels of Government.
That has different reality, which more often than not leads to a dictatorship or are real power held by the governments. That reality lives while it is a benevolent dictatorship/government and then … Look around the world and at history to see the path of progressive ideals.
Denying human nature and history over their ideals appears to be the nature of progressives. I see little good coming with progressive success, and much eventual bad, very bad.
“The guns are mostly held by the MAKERS of the underpinnings of our economy, food, manufactured products, raw resources. The TAKERS of those guns are also the TAKERS of those economic underpinnings, and would have to learn how to recreate the roles of the MAKERS to survive.”
geez
Do these measurements come from your usual sources?
EM, do you actually doubt it? Care to discuss gun control laws in the red Vs blue states?
This is the by state 2012 election results: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/election-map-2012/president/
But, this is the by county 2012 election results:http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/2012-election-county-by-county/
Make your own conclusions.
I don’t care to discuss anything with you.
Obviously you have no measurements of gun ownership by makers and takers. And your definition of makers and takers is certainly not going to be mine.
Btw, let me know when an acre of empty land has the right to vote.
CoRev,
Libertarians like Bundy enjoy the benefits of the decsions of peaceable, law abiding, gun control suporting citizens of an active government who choose to don’t go out and shoot Clive from 300 yds with their antelope rifle.
While this one does not deny the fact that my 4 banger is better than Bundy’s cow flattus for global warming.
It is anti libertarian to tax cattle flattus?
http://www.businessinsider.com/half-of-the-united-states-lives-in-these-counties-2013-9
ILSM, the Clive Bundy incident is an example of how close we are coming/came to the fire storm. What are you trying to say re: cow flatus and libertarians?
EM, you seem to miss the point those empty acres are exactly where the raw resources and food stuff consumed by the TAKERS reside or are grown. I do agree that the TAKER enclaves is where the national elections are won, and represent the weak link in progressive over reach.
Let me know when raw resources and food stuff are consumed.
You should stick to climate. You are much better at hiding your bs in that area.
oops Should be..
“Let me know when raw resources and food stuff are consumed by just takers, and when those resources and food stuffs can vote”.
EM, your last round of comments convince me you are just reactive actually thinking. You reference well define what I called the TAKER enclaves. Your reference to ~1/2 of the populace actually defines the political problem that would result from an extreme political move such as a sudden attempt to outlaw and confiscate guns.
All politics relies on the acceptance and or will of the people. A gun confiscation would be a catalyst for a massive shift in peoples’ will to remove the government. You seem to deliberately miss the point that vast majority food stuff and raw resources reside your well defined enclaves. Without them the enclaves no longer exist. A revolt caused by extreme government action, and most are so caused, is a no win situation for the enclaves where those extreme actions are preferred.
More government power and control is not the solution, and eventuates in too bad things.
You’re a loon.
No thought whatsoever to who owns that “that vast majority food stuff and raw resources”?
No thought about what part of that area actually has what?
You really need to stay with climate. As little sense as you make in that subject, you excel at cherry picking, hiding and misinforming.
Not one thing you have said has made any sense whatsoever.
Here, peruse this list of makers versus takers(one version). Then compare it to election results you posted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_income
Then compare it to gun ownership
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/06/28/states-with-the-most-guns.html
Then just wander over to watts’ site and leave us human beings alone.
I only have one comment in response to CoRev:
“Right Irrationality: Feature not Bug” (Circularity is so Circular Sometimes)
CoRev may well be a loon. But he is not lacking in intentionality. He knows what he is saying and why he is saying it. The only question is whether he is actually committed to the truth value of his claims or whether he is indifferent to that because he believes those claims advance his cause.
In the past I have called this the ‘Fool? or Knave?’ question. Fools believe what they hear on Fox, or as in this case collect from Climate Denial sites, Knaves repeat it with malice aforethought.
For the record I don’t believe CoRev is a Fool. Which considering the alternative is the farthest thing from a compliment.
EM. you’ve been all over the place on this subject. Voting record? Income? Gun ownership at least was related, and that was just in your previous comment.
Bruce, do you have a point or does calling names enhance your ego? Your the historian, do you have an opinion on the possibility of revolution/civil war I presented?
CoRev:
You are tempting fate with Bruce. Plus you never answer anything. There is no factual basis supporting a negative reaction as you claim for a rifle or pistol confiscation. There is no factual basis to support a negative reaction to an outright ban on automatic weapons as we had previously. There is a 90+% support for background checks of all potential buyers of weapons as suggested by http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2014/07/92_percent_support_universal_b.html
CoRev I call you names for a few reasons.
One, you have not hesitated to label me and others with labels like ‘Communist’ and ‘Marxist’ that have no relation to the history of those movements or conversely to the New Deal tradition I actually subscribe too. Apparently you don’t consider that ‘calling names’
Two you are a despicable human being, starting but certainly not ending with your ‘suggestion’ some years back that the U.S. threaten to A-Bomb Damascus and Tehran to advance its interests during the early stages of the Iraq War. This along with your profound expressed contempt for the people who after all were correct on WMD and just about everything else left no room or reason to hold you in less than utter contempt.
I don’t like sociopathic eliminationists. Oops, two more names.
I also don’t like thread hijackers. Even ones that despite themselves actually validate the theme of the post. For example Right Irrationalism.
Have a nice day.
(oddly I have been foremost in your ‘defense’ when the moderators have discussed banning. I have argued to keep you around as a combination of comic foil and educational tool . But also because I didn’t want to give you the satisfaction of thinking we or me feared you in any way)
Bruce, so you did not have a point in your response to my comment, doubled down on the name calling, and validate the irrationality of a blog article filled with hypotheticals. I readily admit my comment was a hypothetical outcome from the arrogance and incompetence shown by out current round of progressive leaders.
Those leaders evidently agree with the potential for revolt/civil war as they are arming nearly EVERY Federal Agency.
Banning?!? Is that all you moderators consider when faced with alternative views?
“Is that all you moderators consider when faced with alternative views?”
LOL! Nice try rebranding trolling as “alternative views,” CoRev.
“Ultimately King was right, the arc of the universe does bend towards justice but the Buckley’s of today,standing athwart history and yelling “Stop!”…..”
Hmmm!! Exactly what phase of the history of man would support that level of optimism regarding human behavior? Bruce has provoked a long and some what angry series of comments by pointing out that there are a group of reactionary ideologues mucking up the process of government. So what’s new in the world? Extreme ideologies are irrational by definition. That’s how we know that they are irrational, because they are extreme. There is very little evidence of mans’ intellect as a general feature of population behavior. There have always been a few out of the ordinary thinkers who keep moving things along. Some for good and some for self aggrandizement. It’s what we call human behavior. Wasn’t it Benjamin Franklin who predicted the eventual demise of democracy for the very reason that it is a process whereby the
mass of citizens get to take part in the selection of our representatives? And who was it that said, “The masses are asses”? No, I’m not referring to Karl Rove’s cynical use of the phrase. It goes back much farther than that.
We can only hope that as things get worse before they get better that they won’t get too much worse before the masses become tired of being taken to the cleaners by their poorly chosen elected representatives.
I am becoming increasingly convinced that libertarians are the missing link.
Btw,
Whenever i see people talk about our current leaders and use the word “arrogance”, my racist alarm goes off. I mean it’s not “uppity”, but it is close.
I think it’s important to acknowledge CoRev’s role particularly on a topic like this. He provides a useful (and conveniently nearby!) example of what the poster is actually writing about. Like Rmoney a couple years ago he probably thinks he is winning this thing easily.
Don’t ever change CoRev!
I vote “summer fool” as defined by a Russian character in one of Len Deighton’s spy novels, something like this:
“There are summer fools and winter fools. A winter fool comes to your house in a big fur hat and thick winter coat, covered with snow. He takes off his hat and shakes the snow off. He takes off his coat and shakes the snow off – and then you see that he is a fool. A summer fool walks down the middle of the road shouting and everyone can see that he is a fool from 100 feet away.”
(Capitalizing whole words is the shouting ‘tell’.)
Headline on Salon: “GOP now selling I miss W T-Shirts”
QED
Run, you cited a whole bunch of strawmen arguments. The most obvious was re: automatic weapons. You are clearly clueless about what they are.
Am Soc, at my age it is highly unlikely I will change. I am happy you enjoyed the change from what was a boring hit piece.
JimV, capitalizing whole words is also a method for emphasizing the importance where body language and facial expression can not be used.
EM, the use of racism for an argument for the tell that the user has nothing.
Folks, AB is mostly a little echo chamber without any /conservative feed back. Having driven out nearly all the vocal conservatives, where do you go when an alternative view is needed? From the comments few can admit to watching Fox.
Plato is often claimed by reactionaries, but it’s a perversion.
The Republic was a theoretical construction to better illuminate the soul. It wasn’t so clear in Plato’s time but who now would not agree that Reason should rule the soul?
The grades of reality culminating in the highest reality of the forms was a far more important development than Plato’s feelings about Athenian democracy.
To create realities, one must perceive reality. The reality referred to by the Bushie is nothing but propaganda; an image, a shadow.
“MAKERS” vs. “TAKERS” is a variation on Atlas Shrugged.
The “MAKERS” are CoRev’s John Galt. How can we get along with out these.”underpinnings of our economy, food, manufactured products, raw resources”? If CoRev’s “TAKERS” attempt to question the motives of these, their benefactors, why, I guess they will pack up their food, manufactured products, and raw resources and take them somewhere where they will be appreciated.
The problem with CoRev’s Randian vision is that it isn’t the people who actually produce who are getting under the skin of those who work long hours at shitty wages; it is the people who amass obscene wealth without giving society anything in return. Fortunes amassed through manipulation of our financial infrastructure; fortunes enhanced through the bribing of politicians, and through purchased control of media and information; fortunes protected though the enactment of laws and privileges not available to those who do not have wealth; fortunes which are inherited.
The basic social agreements which allow some to gain more wealth and power than others have been violated. And there is only one court which in which such violations are settled. I think Nick Hanauer has it spot on! http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html#.U7uB8lbXmlI
CoRev does have a tendency to hijack posts but that’s why it’s important to have one once in awhile that is really All About Him.
Kudos!
I think in evaluating the feature vs. bug designation for this particular uh syndrome you’d have to consider its actual electoral impact.
From here it looks like the “we create our own reality” scheme has been having real problems at the ballot box. Despite massive investment by the Kochs et al.
It’s one of the reasons I haven’t decided I’m all that concerned about the Citizens United decision (yet). So far Citizens United is mostly a scheme for incompetent GOP consultants and operatives (Hi there Turdblossom!) to lose hundreds of millions of dollars of their clients money. Win Win!
Linus Bell
you are right, but the point being missed is that when you start telling yourself that you are sane and the other guys are not, you end up using rhetoric that drives the real “makers” (the honest rich as well as the honest poor) into the camp of the bad guys.
the honest rich are not after all any smarter than anyone else at the parts of life not directly concerned with how they make their money and it is easy for them to think of “rich white guys” as themselves… when it is only a few rich white guys who are the predators.
and while i would be the first to claim that CoRev is wrong to the point of absurdity on most of what he says, when we start telling ourselves that we are sane and he is not, we fool ourselves into overlooking whatever truth he, even he, might be in touch with.
“From the comments few can admit to watching Fox.”
That is a feature, not a bug.
“Makers and Takers and Guns, OH MY!”.
Indeed.
Coberly,
I agree with your basic sentiment, which is I guess, that we shouldn’t discard everything a person says just because much of what he/she says makes no sense to us. However we do only have so much time to listen to what others are saying, and must have some means of filtering and focusing our attention.
Linus
you are, of course, correct. but my mission here is to try to remind people that they are not helping their cause when they get into a food fight.
not that food fights aren’t fun.
it is highly presumptuous of me to do this, and i don’t win, or keep, any friends. but like Pogo said, it doesn’t do anyone any good, ‘cept maybe us.