Date ►►► September 28, 2011

Obama: Everything But the Kitchen Synch

Hatched by Dafydd

Barack H. Obama has always been the master of zigzag:

  • He sits for twenty years in the pews of the Trinity United Church of Christ; then during his first presidential campaign, he throws Rev. Jeremiah Wright under the bus, weeping like the Walrus and Carpenter that "this is not the Jeremiah Wright that I knew."
  • As senator, he denounces the Iraq War as the wrong war; as president, he continues fighting it.
  • As senator, he declares the Afghanistan War is the right war, the one we should be waging; as president, he can't wait to announce a date for withdrawal into ignominious defeat.
  • Two days after inauguration, he announces with fanfare that he will shutter the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within one year; two and a half years later, it remains open and in full operation with no plans for a shutdown.
  • As senator, he scoffed at the idea of raising taxes in the midst of a recession; as president, and during a recession that may well already be double-dip, he has already rammed through the biggest tax increase in history and is trying to top it with another one.

I'm not talking about grandiose plans that went awry, like ObamaCare, his environmentalist schemes, and the colossal failure of his stimulus package; by zigzag, I mean the art of being the Weathercock in Chief: major goal reversals on cue, in the wink of an eye. Obama is more than Clintonian; his presidency verges on multiple policy disorder.

And for a while he got away with it; folks cheered his "post-partisan" and "post-racial" presidency, giving him sky-high approval ratings.

But something has happened in the last year; somehow, Obama has gotten "out of phase" with the rest of the world. He zags everyone else is zigging...

  • After acknowledging many of the failures of the stimulus package, this month he zigs, announcing Bride of Tax and Stimulus; but even ultra liberal Senate Democrats (like Chuck Schumer, D-NY, 95%) zag, denouncing the plan as crazed and working to derail it.
  • He zags to inject American forces into the Libyan War, hoping to tap into patriotic Americans' tendency to rally behind the president great martial causes (the Civil War, World War II, the Libya kafuffle); but at that very moment, conservatives zig to denounce the engagement for lacking congressional approval and for Obama's decision to try to "lead from behind," while the Left likewise zigs to denounce the engagement due to a general rejection of and revulsion for any more wars in that region of the world.
  • In a swerving effort to shore up support on his left, he zigs again, demanding a "kill and eat the rich" tax policy; but his leftist constituency zags, hitting the ceiling over his right turns on Israel and Cuba.
  • Losing the Left, hence desperate to grab a chunk of the Right, particularly in Florida (which he won in 2008 but looks increasingly likely to lose next year), he zags, promising an immediate veto of the fiat PLO state. Then today, he announces as part of the same "Barack the Strongman" zag that he won't lift the embargo on Cuba until "we see positive movement" in that country. (Both are flipflops). But instead of zagging to embrace Obama's newfound conservatism, his Republican audience zigs, still screaming bloody blue murder about the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell!

It's not that he's "snakebit," as some put it; he has fallen out of synch with the electorate, so that every turn he makes puts him 180° off course compared to the rest of the country, left and right. At this point, the percent of people who believe President B.O. is doing a good job and who actually look forward to reelecting him (as opposed to holding their noses and voting against the GOP) can probably be numbered on a single hand... of a three-toed sloth.

And it's only going to get worse. Like a beginner in flight school, he overcorrects and re-overcorrects, oscillating back and forth with increasing amplitude. There is only one finale to this out-of-control lobster quadrille, and it looks very like the 1940 collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, a.k.a. "Gallopin' Gertie," when a steady wind set the bridge twisting at its resonant frequency in an almost surreal structural failure:

 

 

Keep in mind the money-shot of the bridge rockin' and rollin', as we converge on November 6th, 2012. I expect that image will more and more take on an eerie prescience.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, September 28, 2011, at the time of 9:32 PM | Comments (3)

Date ►►► September 27, 2011

Another Voice From the Peanut Gallery

Hatched by Dafydd

And here's Peter Orszag, former Director of the Office of Management and Budget under Barack H. Obama, writing in the New Republic (clipped from the free excerpt):

To solve the serious problems facing our country, we need to minimize the harm from legislative inertia by relying more on automatic policies and depoliticized commissions for certain policy decisions. In other words, radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic.

Yuck yuck, just joking; jooooooking!

My word; those witty, witty Democrats.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, September 27, 2011, at the time of 6:13 PM | Comments (2)

Can'tcha Take a Joke?

Hatched by Dafydd

Speaking at the Cary Rotary Club, here's North Carolina Gov. Beverly Eaves "Bev" Perdue (a liberal Democrat -- and if you didn't already know, this quotation should make it plain):

You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines. It's a little bit more contentious now but it's not impossible to try to do what's right in this state. You want people who don't worry about the next election.

If Gov. Perdue is worrying about the next congressional (and presidential) elections, she's got good reason!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, September 27, 2011, at the time of 6:02 PM | Comments (2)

Prager University Calls to You, Too

Hatched by Dafydd

"Prager University" -- which comprises radio talk-show host Dennis Prager delivering a series of four to five minute lectures on sundry interesting topics on YouTube -- has a video out on the question of whether Israel can rightly be considered an "Apartheid state."

The charge is repeatedly lobbed at the Jewish state, almost certainly in the hope that people will begin associating "Jewish" with "Apartheid," South Africa's regime of racist laws designed to prevent the black majority of South Africa from ever achieving political power or overthrowing the white majority colonial authority (and I use all those words literally, with great deliberation).

Prager's lecture is well done, though somewhat shallow; how much profundity can you pack into five minutes, forty-six seconds, including intro and outro? Here is it:

 

 

It's obvious to the point of tautology that Israel is not an Apartheid state, since it hasn't enacted any of the laws that formed the basis of South Africa's Apartheid system. The accusers are on the level of those who routinely refer to "Tea-Party Nazis." (Yep, tea partiers demand a cheaper, smaller, weaker, and less intrusive government, just like the Nazis did!)

But the more interesting question (not covered by Prager) is, Who was responsible for implementing actual Apartheid in the first place -- socialists or Capitalists?

That question is brilliantly and definitively answered in Walter Williams' seminal book, South Africa's War Against Capitalism. Not surprisingly -- else why would I bring it up? -- Williams concludes:

  1. That it was the labor unions in South Africa and their socialist allies among Boer politicians that assembled the system of racial laws, and
  2. That the central purpose of Apartheid was to thwart the march of Capitalism -- which was, inter alia, rapidly eroding the racial gap in South Africa between white, black, and coloured (as they called anyone not strictly European or African), in employment, wages, promotions, and even socially, among younger citizens (hence the anti-miscegenation laws within Apartheid).

The unionistas then (as now!) were enraged that the prospects of black and coloured workers were rising, since they were willing to work for less; while white laborers -- who had pitched their labor price much too high -- were plummeting, forcing them to reduce their wage demands lower and closer to black and coloured workers. Capitalism, in other words, was leveling the playing field among the races. So the South African unions and socialist politicians deliberately designed a system to set racial differences into concrete.

One of the first laws enacted in the Apartheid system was to make it a crime to pay non-white workers less than white workers. This had the effect, then as now, of eliminating the economic incentive to hire blacks and coloureds.

Earlier, they had been able to get jobs by undercutting the wages of white workers; thus racial discrimination against non-whites carried a huge price tag of increased labor costs. But with the new law requiring equal pay for equal work, racist businesses that hired only white workers suffered no increased cost whatsoever. That completely eliminated the greatest possible incentive for judging people by the content of their characters, not the "colour" of their skins: money.

And don't imagine for a moment that it was mere serendipity, the law of unintended consequences; Afrikaner politicians knew exactly what would happen when they enacted that statute. (Other South African laws, such as the Group Areas Act and the Racial Classifications Act, were more blatantly racist.)

Read the whole book, expensive though it is: Cover price was probably less than fifteen bucks when I bought my copy in 1989; today, Amazon.com is selling used copies for $67; and if you want a new one, be prepared to shell out $375! (Funnily enough, the book was published by Praeger Press -- no relation.)

I wish Dennis Prager would try to get Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Dinesh D'Souza, and other fascinating, scholarly authors to record some five-minute lectures to compliment Prager's own talks. For those who prefer audiovideo to reading a thick tome, it could form a fine introduction to a number of deep thinkers; and it could make "Prager University" something greater than just a showcase for Prager himself.

Nota Bene: The proprietors of Prager University have been pushing bloggers to link to the YouTube videos or embed them on their sites; I'm happy to comply. My only quibble is that they seem to have disabled the ability to add color borders and background, leaving the video unnecessarily Spartan. If they could revisit that decision -- or has all of YouTube gotten rid of such minor fits of individuality? -- I would be much happier.

Hah, I suppose I must now exonerate Prager University from this annoying Spartan-ness mentioned in the blue letters; I now can actually restore the cool purple borders... but I have to roll up my hands, spit on my sleeves, and edit the HTML code directly.

Some YouTubes include an easy interface that allows an embedder to change the embed code to include the borders and set their colors. Others, however, including the Prager University videos, have no such interface. But at least I now know what to do in the latter case.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, September 27, 2011, at the time of 3:03 PM | Comments (0)

Date ►►► September 21, 2011

Who's That Creepin'?

Hatched by Dafydd

Why it's good, ol' Mr. Sanity, the prodigal son come home at last!

One of my greatest frustrations for the past two and a half years has been the persistence of blindness: In the eyes of the American voter, the Untouchable who currently squats in la Casa Blanca, has somehow eluded and evaded all culpability for the fiscal calamity that has overtaken us. "It's Bush's fault!" has been the order of the day for 974 of them; Barack H. Obama's greatest eloquence has always come when pointing the finger at somebody else.

But as the man said, you can run on and on, but great God a'mighty gonna pull you down. And that's just what is finally happening: According to a USA Today/Gallup poll, Americans have finally dumped ownership of this wretched economy into the One's squirmy lap:

A slight majority of Americans for the first time blame President Obama either a great deal (24%) or a moderate amount (29%) for the nation's economic problems. However, Americans continue to blame former President George W. Bush more. Nearly 7 in 10 blame Bush a great deal (36%) or a moderate amount (33%).

Those assigning Bush significant blame have steadily dropped from 80% in July, 2009 to 69% today; at the same time, those assigning significant blame to Obama have steadily risen, from 32% then to 53% today. I suspect the lines will cross over sometime within the next year, and more Americans will blame Obama than Bush.

Gallup notes that the reason Bush still receives more blame than Obama is that Democrats are loath to blame Obama at all:

Americans are more likely to blame Bush than Obama mainly because a much higher percentage of Republicans assign a high degree of responsibility to Bush compared with the percentage of Democrats blaming Obama, 50% vs. 25%. At the same time, partisans are equally likely to say the president of the opposing party bears significant blame: 83% of Republicans blame Obama and 86% of Democrats blame Bush.

Only a quarter of Democrats blame Obama for the rotten economy even a little! Methinks a bit of wagon-circling hath crept into this Gallup poll. (The GOP is significantly more just and fair-minded, as usual; that is because staunch Republicans support philosophies and ideas, while yellow-dog Democrats support their leaders, with all the fervor of Nicolas Chauvin.)

But reality cannot long be denied: Simply looking at the annual deficits, how they sprouted like virulent weeds as soon as Obamunism took hold in America, should make it clear as can be who has done the most harm to our national finances:



United States budget deficits

United States budget deficits 2000 to 2021 (actual and projected)

  • Note that George W. Bush's last budget, FY 2008 (from October 1st, 2007, through September 30th, 2008) -- under a Congress completely controlled by Democrats -- showed a deficit of $450 billion.
  • The first budget to be substantially affected by the economic policies of Barack Obama was FY 2009, which ran from October 1st, 2008 through September 30th, 2009; Obama was the POTUS and gleefully ramming Obamunism down our throats for more than eight of those twelve months. That first Obama-driven budget showed the nation's very first unlucky 13-digit deficit, $1.4 trillion, more than thrice Bush's last deficit.

We can all agree that even a deficit of nearly half a trillion is unconscionable, and surely W. could have fought harder against the insane spending priorities of the Democratic Congress. Still, it's impossible to ignore the stunning increase that accompanied President B.O.'s ascension to the Delphic Throne.

And at long last, the American people are starting to wise up. They no longer fully swallow the One's self-serving blame shifting; and by the time of the next election, November 6th, 2012, I confidently predict that the percent still blaming Bush after four years will be in the teens, with 80% plus putting blame where it belongs... squarely on the pointy head of Barack H. Obama.

As that happens, get ready to start licking your chops; for the only thing rising faster than Obama's deficits will be his disapproval rating in the polls.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, September 21, 2011, at the time of 4:09 PM | Comments (4)

Date ►►► September 20, 2011

Dancing Dilemma

Hatched by Dafydd

Gaagh!

I cannot in good conscience support my favorite "pro" from Dancing With the Stars, Lacey Schwimmer, because her "am" partner is Chastity Bono, daughter of Sonny and Cher -- but now with whisps of hair on her chinny-chin-chin!

Why don't I want to watch Chastity and Lacey form a chickwich every week?

  • I find Bono repugnant in the extreme.
  • She is also delusional, thinking she is a man.
  • Finally, the entire setup is offensive: In ballroom dancing, women dance with men, not with other women. At best, a parody; at worst, a travesty.

Abraham "Stretch" Lincoln once asked, "If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?" The correct answer is four, of course, "because calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."

So I ask, If you call sexual mutilation surgery a "gender transformation," then how many testicles does Chastity Bono have?

Further, proponent sayeth not.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, September 20, 2011, at the time of 3:39 PM | Comments (5)

Hypo Hypos

Hatched by Dafydd

I been waiting for someone on Patterico's Pontifications to point out the ultimate fallacy of those on the Left calling Sarah Palin a "hypocrite" for (a) advocating "abstinence-only" sex-ed classes, while (b) having had an affair with a basketbrawl player when she was in high school.

Nota Bene: We pause for a moment to pass lightly over the actual facts, which are clear: Palin committed neither of these offenses. There is no shred of evidence that a teenybopper Palin boffed any ballplayers; nor has she ever demanded that all sex-ed classes consist solely of ritual chants of "Just say no to sex!" Each charge is a complete fabrication.

So why do we pass lightly? Because the unwillingness of the facts to line up with leftist wet dreams interferes with our point, which is that the "hypocrisy" conclusion is a foaming non-sequitur -- and would be so even if Democrat delusions were reality.

I'm less interested in the Left's hallucinations than its paralogia.

The problem is that liberals, Progressivists, and Democrats in general do not understand what the word "hypocrite" actually means. Not surprising, as they have their own idiosyncratic definitions for many common English-language words; "to lie," for instance, which they evidently believe means to say something that later turns out to be inaccurate (or quite accurate, but not in accord with liberal dogma). It's easy to tease out the liberal definition of hypocrisy...

  • The proper definition of hypocrisy: Preaching a moral standard that applies to everybody except you and your cronies; that is, falsely saying one thing while actually believing another.
  • The liberal definition of hypocrisy: Preaching a moral standard that, try as you might, you do not always achieve.

Am I right about what the word means? From Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Vol II:

The act or practice of pretending to be what one is not or to have principles or beliefs that one does not have; the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion.

Falsity is an integral part of the definition, but perfection is not required. Suppose I say "everyone should exercise at least four times a week;" but then one week I just can't work up enthusiasm to exercise more than twice. Does that make me a hypocrite?

No it does not, for I don't say that I do well by going only twice. Rather, I admit that I should have gone more often... but I'm not perfect, and sometimes I slip up.

However, it would be hypocrisy indeed for me to say "everyone should exercise at least four times a week," if in fact I have no intention of exercising that much and clearly don't believe the rule applies to me... just to you peons!

Another hypothetical musing on hypocrisy (a hypo hypo): Suppose an alcoholic preaches that drink is the tool of the Devil and everyone should become a complete teetotaller; but then he falls off the wagon and gets blotto. Is he a hypocrite? It depends upon what he says when he sobers up:

  • No hypocrisy: "I feel so ashamed; I must redouble my efforts to steer clear of booze and urge everyone else to do the same!"
  • Hypocrisy in spades and doubled: "I wasn't drunk -- I'm perfectly capable of handling my liquor; it's you lot that need to abstain!"

Back to our real point; time to state the obvious once again: Sarah Palin did not do any indoor body surfing in high school; at least nobody has ever given us reason to think she did. And she does not insist upon abstinence-only sex education. So let's talk instead about another hypothetical politician, this one named "Parah Salin;" and this Bizarro-world version actually did that which causes liberals to salivate like Pavlov's dogs:

  1. When not dangling from a boat-drawn parachute, Parah Salin runs around the country preaching that abstinence from sex is the only thing that sex-ed classes should teach.
  2. But yesterday we found out that Parah Salin was a real wild one in high school: She is known to have done the entire boys' basketball team, the entire lacrosse team (male and female), and half the faculty lounge. Hypocrite!
  3. But wait... when questioned about her porn-star past by some smarmy "reporter" for Pink Throgress, this is what Parah Salin says:

    It's the most humiliating memory of my youth; and all the time I was sleeping with anything that didn't run away fast enough, I hated myself. I even thought of committing suicide; thank God I didn't, because now I can try to redeem my life by warning other kids away from the horrible ruin I made of my own childhood!

I defy any reader to read me the riddle, where is the falsity? Does Parah Salin falsely claim she was a virtuous women in high school? Does she tell others that out-of-control sex is awful, while telling herself it's all right for the morally exempt Parah Salin to do it? Or perhaps she says "abstinence is vital" merely to avoid public opprobrium, while in reality believing that there's nothing wrong with promiscuity.

No, no, and no; under the terms of this hypothetical, she appears to sincerely believe what she says, even if she did not always live up to that standard throughout her life.

We agreed earlier that hypocrisy requires falsity; without the false, there is no hypocrisy, hence Parah Salin is no hypocrite.

In other words, this isn't an example of hypocrisy; it's an example of wising up. And don't we routinely expect people to wise up as they grow older?

I suppose such growth (real or imagined) seems like hypocrisy to the Left because they, uniquely, neither wise up nor grow up. Since they cannot imagine or understand growth, they see it only as fickleness, disloyalty, treason, heresy! For whatever cause a liberal espoused as a teen he carries with him to the end of days.

And that, serendipitously, pretty much explains Barack H. Obama, too.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, September 20, 2011, at the time of 12:53 AM | Comments (6)

Date ►►► September 19, 2011

Quote of the Decade - So Far

Hatched by Dafydd

President Barack H. Obama, explaining why he is demanding $1.5 trillion in new taxes in the depths of a recession:

 

 

"We can't just cut our way out of this hole," the president said.

 

 

 

No, of course not. Sheer folly. We must tax our way out of this hole!

That's the Chicago way.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, September 19, 2011, at the time of 12:18 PM | Comments (3)

Date ►►► September 15, 2011

The Story of "O" in the French-Fry Spring

Hatched by Dafydd

Thirst Lady Michelle Obama has a wonderful announcement to make:

Darden Restaurants Inc. is pledging to cut calories and sodium in its meals by 20 percent over a decade. Among promised changes for children, a fruit or vegetable side and low-fat milk will become standard with kids' meals unless a substitution is requested.

No more French fries for the little ones unless an adult asks for them.

So the Thirst Lady has but to demand, and a monster restaurant chain -- 1,800 restaurants across the United States, including Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, and Red Lobster -- cannot wait to begin bullying its customers.

Now let's see how this works: The government gives the orders through a back channel (in this case, the president's wife), but doesn't actually seize the corporation itself; the central authority makes all decisions, but Darden's owners are free to continue accepting the profits.

A public-private partnership; what will they think of next? Though it seems to me there's already a fancy Italian word for that sort of arrangement...

"With this new commitment, Darden is doing what no restaurant company has done before," said the first lady, who joined executives of Orlando, Fla.-based Darden for the announcement at an Olive Garden restaurant in Maryland, just outside Washington.

Yep, Evita Obama has that right: No restaurant company in the United States has ever before bowed down to literal food fascism to this extent, not even McDonalds with their Unhappy Meals. Even the food rationing regime during the Great Patriotic War World War II didn't actually tell ordinary people what they could and could not eat for lunch. It's a first!

Old records keep falling like dropped french fries in the age of Obamunism.

Meanwhile, will Mrs. O. begin to taper off those 1,200-calorie cheeseburgers, those chocolate shakes, and yes, her own double orders of french fries? (It's all right; she chugged it all down with a large Diet Coke.)

This hagiographic AP story enthuses that "the industry" is "working behind the scenes" with Congress to enact food directives into law. It's not surprising; Big Food supports anything that makes food production more expensive, so long as it applies to all restaurants: The big chains can afford to spend the money to buy pricey ingredients, label everything, and keep copious records to prove they're following orders and not allowing people under the age of eighteen to order their own meals.

It's only the small mom and pop restaurants that will go out of business. Applebee's, McDonalds, and Darden's will make out just fine.

 

P.S. Some clown with the initials "DaH" reported this post to Barack H. Obama's "AttackWatch" website. The nerve!

I sure hope none of you other readers report the post to AttackWatch by clicking on this link; think of the horrible publicity it could bring to Big Lizards!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, September 15, 2011, at the time of 3:50 PM | Comments (0)

Date ►►► September 14, 2011

Predictions, Predilictions UPDATED

Hatched by Dafydd

I've been bruiting this about among friends, but I feel strong enough to go pubic...

We all know that something is rotten in the state of the European Onion; but I'll be the boldest by staking out this prediction:

Within six years from today, by September 14th, 2017, the European Union as a political body will cease to exist except on paper. And the whole sorry farce of "United in Diversity" will be nothing more than a vivid and utopian opium dream.

Similarly,

The Euro will no longer be a semi-pan-European currency; each country will revert to its native currency -- lira, deutschmark, drachma, pound sterling (all right, all right, the last never actually disappeared) -- and the Euro will only be honored as trade-in on the local national currency.

Remember, you read it here first!

I have a bit of vigorish here; I believe the EU (pronounced eeew!) has never really existed except on paper in the first place. Nobody really believes that Greece, Portugal, France, Spain, Germany, Bulgaria, Latvia, and the UK (pronounced yuck!) are all contained within a single geopolitical unit. It's impossible and insane.

But I mean something stronger: Under my prediction, nearly all the political entities putatively absorbed into the EU, and all of those with functioning economies without exception, will have formally repudiated any supernational "sovereignty" of the European Union; if it exists at all, it will be only as a "free-trade zone."

That's my prediction, and I stick to it. Señoritas und gentilhommes, place yer bets!

UPDATE 14 September 2011: Commenter Snochasr asked, "Any idea HOW this dissolution could be accomplished?"

Well, it's already happening; and the trigger has been the looming debt defaults (often driven by bank failures) and proposed and actual bailouts of perpetual paupers Greece and Portugal; countries with serious deficit and debt problems, such as Italy, Ireland, and Spain; and even the very powerhouse economies that are called upon to bail out everyone else: Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. (Ireland and the UK are in trouble mostly because their banking systems are integrally tied into their federal budgets.)

The most prosperous EU member states are now faced with having to choose between:

  1. Loaning staggering amounts of money to a country whose economy has (by definition!) totally tanked, money that will likely be as useful as pounding sand down a rathole. Loan packages already approved for €110 billion for Greece, €85 billion for Ireland, and €78 billion for Portugal. In May of 2010, the gnomes of the EU concocted the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), funded by €750 Billion -- about the size of one of Barack H. Obama's "stimulus" packages.

    (But who says these welfare recipients will actually fix their economies? If they don't, they'll demand and endless conveyor belt of future bailouts.)

  2. Refusing to join the lemming-like rush over the fiscal cliff, which would lead to serious legal consequences for the "stingy" member state in international courts.
  3. Or else simply quitting the EU altogether and telling their courts of "universal jurisdiction" to go suck rocks.

While the beggar's banquet of EU member states with rotten economies have their own decisions to make:

  1. Accept the bailout -- and the "austerity" measures demanded by the lenders, along with the permanent state of riot and bloody violence that invariably accompanies externally imposed austerity measures.
  2. Reject the bailout and either severely inflate their currency to pay off the debt; or else simply dafault on all or part of it, triggering a whopping fiscal crisis EU-wide.

Take Germany as one example; it doesn't want to bankrupt its relatively good economy with a succession of bailouts to the many countries in the EU that face imminent economic collapse. But on the other hand, I doubt Germany is anxious to be made into the scapegoat for the political implosion that might result from denying those bailout loans.

And there are likely legal consequences, too: By joining the EU, Germany and the other member states accepted the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union. If the other strong economies (France, the UK, others) bought into the loan package, but Germany refused, the contributors might be able to go to the Court of Justice and try to force Germany to comply.

I have no idea whether the CoJ has either jurisdiction or authority to force a member state to join a bailout... but my guess is that neither does anyone else; I strongly suspect that the rules of that court are kept deliberately vague, allowing tremendous latitude for the court itself (and favored litigants), and tremendous risk for Germany, or any other member state thwarting the decisions reached at the upper reaches of the European Parliament. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some provision allowing Germany to be haled into the dock at Luxembourg and hit with fines and potentially political punishment.

Bottom line, I don't think it's feasible for Germany to refuse to lend the money, but still remain in the European Union. (Note that this same analysis applies to every other member state expected to pour its treasure into rescue packages for the basket cases.)

So Germany, et al, have only two practical choices:

  • Bail out Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and any other collapsing state into the foreseeable future;
  • or bail out of the EU.

In the end -- if not for this bailout, then for the next, or maybe the one after (that's why I gave my prediction a six-year time span) -- the rich states will not crucify themselves upon a cross of continentalization. Either the current government, or else the next, after that government falls, will run for election on the platform of withdrawing from the EU, notwithstanding the fact that there is no provision for unilateral withdrawal.

Once some nation, Germany or another, punches the first hole in the dike, the other EU member states who have a functioning economy will disassociate from the Union rapidly. If stable states are reluctant to bankrupt themselves propping up the perpetually collapsing states, think how much more reluctant they'll be when one of more of their fellows in stability opt out: "Why should we pay tens of billions to Greece and Portugal when Germany isn't paying a single deutschmark?", the next state will cry... and that argument is pretty unarguable.

But there is another pressure pushing the EU apart: I believe that in the 2012 elections in the United States (or no later than the 2014 elections), Republicans will win the fourteen Senate seats necessary to have a filibuster-proof majority; there are 23 Democrats up for election next year, many from normally Republican states elected in the Democratic congressional landslide of 2006, versus only 10 Republican seats, pretty much all safe; and I believe Republicans will likewise win the presidency (Obama is toast) and retain the House.

The GOP will control all levers of government, and tea-party activists will control the GOP. (That reminds me of one of my favorite quotations from 1984: "Who controls the past controls the future: Who controls the present controls the past.")

If the GOP succeeds either in 2012 or at least by 2014, then we will see a flurry of pro-Capitalism and anti-Progressivism legislation, including:

  • The repeal of anti-business laws and regulations
  • The repeal of insane laws requiring banks to make home loans to applicants who clearly cannot afford them
  • The repeal of administrative rules and regulations that close off 95% of our own energy resources to exploration and exploitation
  • The repeal of ObamaCare
  • The repeal of cockamamie EPA rulings erecting a Cap and Tax regulatory regime in spite of Congress' refusal to enact Cap and Tax
  • The repeal or vacating of many endangered species declarations by the Department of the Interior, such as the Delta Smelt, that have resulted in massive economic dislocation to human populations in the United States

I predict this will induce a Reaganesque economic boom in the United States... and the contrast with the economic bust of the last few years -- as well as the economic and fiscal desolation in Europe right now -- will finally cause the non-protesting majority in the EU (which wants countries to get their own economies in order) to rise up and challenge the socialist minority, the permanent, floating protests demanding ever more government control and subsidy.

When the sane majority finally goes to war against the delusional minority, the former will start throwing out internationalist, totalitarian politicians -- not by violence but by voting them out along with their parties; this is civilized Europe, not the so-called "Arab Spring"! And again, once that "popular front for Capitalism" begins, it will snowball into a continent-wide movement.

That is how I envision the EU finally falling: via a combination of the elites refusing to bankrupt their economies in order to bail out failing member states, quitting the EU instead; and a popular uprising against socialism and Progressivism that sweeps many more capitalists into public office in European countries.

My bottom line: If a situation is intolerable, then sooner or later, it will cease to be tolerated. I have yet to see an exception.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, September 14, 2011, at the time of 1:10 AM | Comments (6)

Date ►►► September 13, 2011

A Fistful of Spam

Hatched by Dafydd

After President Barack H. Obama gave his inspiring "jobs" speech at an embarassingly delayed joint session of Congress last Thursday (at least it inspired me to write this post), he decided to follow up and make sure that his pet reporters in the press really got the message: Obama's winning, duh!

But how to do it? Putting on his thinking cap, President B.O. came up with a cunning plan: He would use his favorite "new media" to let the press know just how much support there is nationwide for his magical mystery jobs plan.

And so he did; or rather, "and so he delegated," inducing the White House Press Office to send some e-mails touting support by a bipartisan cross-section of the nation. Just a few: The WHPO group-spammed hapless reporters with more than fifty unsolicited e-mails apiece, leaving them sputtering and furious at the administration:

"The White House Press Office has vomited all over my inbox," wrote Talking Points Memo's Callie Schweitzer.

"White House Press Office says Malia and Sasha support Obama's jobs plan," cracked Washington Examiner opinion columnist Phil Klein.

(For those of you not on the Obamic speed-dial, those last would be the First Offspring, Malia Ann Obama, 13, and Natasha "Sasha" Obama, 10.)

But as the Batman narrator frequently says, the worst is yet to come! For who were these average Janes and Joes whose unexpected support proved how universally beloved was the Obamacle? Just about the last people you would expect to support enforced unionism, higher taxes, and yet another "stimulus" package: a cauldron of lefty/green special interests, lobbyists, and pressure groups; a bludgeon of national labor unions; a corruption of ultra-liberal Democratic senators, representatives, governors, state legislators, and other luminaries of the Left; and amazingly, even a seize of members of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness -- several of whom were actually present at Obama's speech as invited guests. Who'd'a thunk they actually supported it?

Obama's tax attack and spending spree received rave reviews from the AFL-CIO, the United Steel Workers, the Teamsters, the SEIU, and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. The Center for American Progress is onboard, as is the Hispanic Federation, the BlueGreen Alliance, and even the Small Business Majority (last seen heavily promoting ObamaCare and the president's Cap and Tax bill to heal the Earth and cause the oceans to recede). Heck, he even managed to get House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury) on his side. What a coup!

All this he triumphantly spammed to his cohorts in the muss media, just to reassure him that, while the rabble may chafe under Obamunism, the Democratic elite like it just fine.

I'll lay all my beans on the table: What infuriates me most about this character currently occupying la Casa Blanca (as Sheridan Whiteside occupied the living room of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Stanley) is not that he is corrupt, which he is; nor that he is a rigid ideologue, which I reckon he is also; nor even that he is ignorant of every subject in the world but political skulduggery. What chaps my hide is President B.O.'s ham-fistedness. He's like Enron, a company that couldn't even make a profit out of accounting fraud and bribe-taking.

Obama is particularly inept at political skulduggery. If all of his cronies, bad eggs,and codependents in the Rive-Gauche media were not constantly concealing his clumsy criminalities, he would be universally seen as the Inspector Clouseau of political machinations.

And how perfectly humiliating for us to be ruled by an evil overlord who has vastly less Professor Moriarty than Edmund Blackadder about him!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, September 13, 2011, at the time of 3:15 PM | Comments (0)

Date ►►► September 11, 2011

Where We Were

Hatched by Dafydd

My own story is not particularly inspiring: I was still sleeping (morning does not become Dafydd) when Sachi, who had left for work long earlier, came bursting home, shook me awake (none to gently), and breathlessly announced, "Dafydd, something terrible has happened -- the World Trade Center is gone!"

As I tried to make sense of what she was saying, she spilled the rest of the news -- that a barbaric and evil terrorist attack brought down both the Twin Towers and leveled one of the segments of the Pentagon, or the five-sided triangle, as I call it. Worse, that there were still unaccounted planes in the air, other targets, and that Southern California could be in the crosshairs as well.

We spent the day glued to the television while calling friends and relatives, naturally; but my own experience of the enormity was neither interesting nor personal but purely communal. (I found out later that one of my cousins, who worked in a building just a few blocks from the WTC, had actually eyewitnessed the second plane striking the south tower.)

But Sachi's tale is rather more interesting and cautionary, speaking to the heart of why the September 11th attacks could succeed in the first place. So I turn the forum over to her...

~

That day, Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I left home a little after six in the morning, PST. When I turned on the radio, I heard the excited voice of a local Los Angeles radio show host, Larry Elder. I thought it was strange, because his program usually came on in the afternoon. I don't remember whose program I expected, but normal programming was not on. The first words I heard Elder say were "-- the worst terrorist attack in the US history!"

I remember shouting at the radio: "What? What happened?" It seemed like forever before Elder came back to the point that two jet airliners had slammed into the World Trade Centers, and that several planes were still unaccounted for.

Elder was on with another news reporter from New York, who talked about the many people still trapped inside the two towers. The New York reporter said people were actually jumping off the buildings to their deaths rather than brave the heat and hopelessness on the roof. Then suddenly, he stopped and shouted, "What was that?"

A terrible sound came over the radio, like something big exploding. It was the sound of the first tower collapsing, the south tower (which was actually the second tower struck).

Still driving, I started to feel dizzy. I thought it was not safe for me to drive any longer. But I was very close to the Navy base where I worked as a civilian engineer, so I kept on going. A half an hour after the south tower collapsed, while I was waiting in a terrible jam-up at the security gate, I heard the second tower disintegrate.

The base was at Threat Condition Delta, the highest alert condition. Sailors with automatic weapons, not the usual security guards, were checking our credentials and cars a lot more thoroughly than usual. Needless to say, it took long time to get through the gate.

Over the next thirty minutes or so, I began to hear what had already happened to United Flight 93, which had crashed into Stonycreek Township, PA; and to American Flight 77, which had crashed into the Pentagon.

Finally I parked and headed for the office, but I felt disconnected. I had to lean over the car to stop myself from falling. I kept saying out loud, "Oh my god, oh my god!"

As soon as I got to my desk, I tried to call Dafydd. But for some reason, the phone in the office was out of order, and I didn't have a cell phone back then.

In a stunning instance of irony, the attack fell on a Tuesday; and in 2001, an anti-terrorism brief was given every Tuesday at our base. As a new employee, I was scheduled to attend a brief that very morning!

At 0900 PST, I attended the brief. But the instructor just shook his head and said, "Everything I was going to tell you is out the window. I was supposed to tell you that a highjacking is a survivable situation, as long as you do what the highjacker demands. Don't be a hero. See how that turned out!"

So instead, we just watched the TV. For the first time, I actually saw what I had only heard before: planes driving into the towers, people jumping off the buildings, and the two towers crumbling like waterlogged sand castles, one after another.

I couldn't cry; I just felt sick to my stomach.

After the brief, we non-essential employees were all dismissed. "Go home, don't come back until we call you." I drove home.

I went into the bedroom and woke Dafydd. I remember saying, "Dafydd, something terrible has happened...!"

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, September 11, 2011, at the time of 4:33 PM | Comments (0)

Remember: September 11th, 2001 - September 11th, 2011

Hatched by Dafydd



Never Again



September 11th memorial

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, September 11, 2011, at the time of 12:00 AM | Comments (0)

Date ►►► September 7, 2011

I Can Hear the Cuckoo Singing in the Cuckooberry Tree...

Hatched by Dafydd

Two seemingly disconnected stories bound together by a theme: the complete nervous breakdown of the liberal massmind.

First, House Minority Leader and erstwhile Squeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury) is simply irate at the latest outrageous Republican attack on President Barack H. Obama. What did the GOP do this time? They cast a despicable slander against America's first black president, one so dastardly that Democrats couldn't even find a response:

Republicans have decided they're not going to give a rebuttal to President Obama's jobs speech later this week, a decision House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi took as a high affront to the White House.

At least three GOP lawmakers also have announced they're not going to show up for the presidential address. House Speaker John Boehner's office then confirmed Tuesday evening that nobody from the party would deliver an official televised response.



Fool on the Hill

The fool on the Hill

Pelosi is hopping mad. She is beside herself with resentment at such shabby treatment:

Pelosi said the party's "silence" would "speak volumes about their lack of commitment to creating jobs."

"The Republicans' refusal to respond to the president's proposal on jobs is not only disrespectful to him, but to the American people," Pelosi said.

The GOP seems unmoved by Pelosi's high dudgeon:

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said there will be "plenty" of response to the president's speech on Friday, but told Fox News he suspects the reason there's no formal response is "the speaker doesn't expect to hear much to respond to."

Ow.

Meanwhile, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-, %) was blunter than Blunt:

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., has said he doesn't think he'll attend -- he told Fox News he's "sick and tired of speeches."

Perhaps DeMint is still a bit disgusted by Obama, who claimed in his Labor-Day Speech to the United Auto Workers (UAW) in Detroit that he had passed "the biggest middle-class tax cut in history." No, really:

That’s the central challenge that we face in our country today. That’s at the core of why I ran for President. That’s what I’ve been fighting for since I’ve been President. (Applause.) Everything we’ve done, it’s been thinking about you. [Uh-oh! -- DaH] We said working folks deserved a break -- so within one month of me taking office, we signed into law the biggest middle-class tax cut in history, putting more money into your pockets. (Applause.)

This "whopper" was awarded the coveted and rarely granted rating of four "Pinnocchios," the highest possible, by the Washington Post. When you've lost -- but you know the rest.

Of course, as Friend Lee noted, suppose Republicans had given a response or rebuttal; then Minority Leader Pelosi (that Nancy-boy) would have been just as steamed at the GOP... this time for having the effrontery to brazenly reject the Obamamunist solution to the jobless non-recovery: higher corporate and personal taxes (because we just don't pay our fair share); more regulation of the economy (by those "experts" who gave us Obamacare and a backdoor "cap and tax"); and of course, yet another trillion-dollar stimulus package to boost the nation's economy (one Progressivist payoff at a time).

The incredible shrinking presidency has just about reached molecular size. By the time of the 2012 election, Obama's nickname will be "bottom quark". (Or maybe even "strange quark" -- caution, quantum-mechanics joke alert.)

In the meanwhile, even at the lower levels of the great heirarchy of Progressivism, the liberal brain is shrinking like Alzheimer's. Here is your future, if you happen to live in a liberal big city (and what percentage of big cities are not liberal?):

The measure introduced by [Los Angeles] City Councilman Paul Koretz would prohibit all single-use plastic and paper bags in L.A. supermarkets and would require stores to sell or provide complimentary reusable or fiber bags only or risk a fine.

Shoppers seem "less than enthused" about the bill, which some have labeled a "nightmare." But with an overwhelming liberal-Progressivist majority on the L.A. City Council, why should the voices of mere peons even be heard by their betters?

The measure still has to clear the Energy and Environment Committee, but proponents believe the waste reduction aspect of the bill will be a strong selling point that would leapfrog L.A. ahead of cities like San Francisco and Santa Monica in the battle against bag pollution.

Bag pollution? I reckon that goes along with secondhand smoke pollution, carbon dioxide pollution, and Happy Meal pollution. (While the invisible hand of the market guides buyers to sellers, the invisible foot of the nanny-state always finds a way to trip them up.)

At one time, liberals championed great causes: civil rights, voting rights, freedom of speech, workplace safety, the plight of the aged in penury, and a great, patriotic war against Fascism and Naziism. Today, peevish liberal scolds whine that they're not getting enough attention, then punish us by taking away anything that makes life convenient or pleasant. Quite obviously, President Obama is America's Nudzher-in-Chief.

Now I understand his plummeting poll numbers: Obama reminds every man of his overbearing mother-in-law and every woman of her husband's grasping, demanding "ex."

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, September 7, 2011, at the time of 3:57 PM | Comments (1)

Date ►►► September 4, 2011

How to "Outargue" (Frustrate, Stifle, Drive Away) a Radical Right-Winger - the Good Liberal's Guide to Successful Debate Avoidance

Hatched by Sachi

In 2005, I was a regular participant on a Yahoo Japan political topic bulletin board. After a couple years of debate (non debate) with internet liberals, I began to observe the debate-avoidance techniques of the liberal mind.

I learned a lot from those master non-debaters; the number of methods they had devised to avoid, sidestep, and duck the actual exchange of ideas is breathtaking and impossible to catalog. But I can demonstrate a few of the most used tactics.

So for the rest of this post, I must channel Farley Resistance Gompers -- former community organ-sizer and current head of the Union of Progressive Youth Opposing Unconstitutional Reactionary Speech, Neo-American Zionist Infiltration, and Capitalist Hogtying of Internationalist Monetary Policies. (One of our lesser-known liberal/Progressivist change agents, to be sure, but overrepresented in the only field that counts for the left side of the aisle: unparalled fundraising for Obama 2012's "Project Vote" campaign -- an eerie echo of the recent past.)

~

We understand that a number of you feel upset and nervous when confronted by racist, sexist, homophobic and transgendophobic, violence threatening, harassing, rampaging, extremist right-wingers (in urgent need of anger-management classes) in a so-called "debate." Not to worry; we at UPYOURSNAZICHIMP have refined a number of tried and feelgood techniques to avoid such unpleasantness, which can leave you with frustration and hurt feelings.

Please memorize these tactics and begin employing them immediately; you may not "win" these "debates," but at least every casual spectator or internet lurker will think you have -- which is the same thing, of course.

Phase One, red-state baiting for beginners: Never argue -- sloganeer

As an entry-level Progressivist, you cannot possible win an argument against those sneaky, lying liar, right-wing nutballs. It's like "arguing" with a talking dog. (They've never even heard of the Vision!)

So for the time being, the most effective way to stymie one of them and leave him/her/indeterminate grabbing for the supplementary oxygen is to memorize a few short, catchy slogans and phrases... then repeat them aggressively and relentlessly:

  • No blood for oil!
  • War is not the answer!
  • Give peace a chance!
  • The survivors will envy the dead!
  • Freeze now!
  • No peace without justice!
  • All you need is love!
  • A woman's right to choose!
  • End poverty now!
  • Health care is a civil right!
  • Food for all!
  • Land for use!
  • Heal the wounds of Gaea!
  • Hope and change!
  • Yes we can! (or Sí se puede!, depending)
  • Four legs good, two legs bad! (or two legs better!, depending)

Or if you're not sure what the secret Klansman is on about this time, try the universal vanilla comeback suppressor:

  • Hey hey, ho ho, Western Civ has got to go!

At the same time, it is more effective if you pepper your jingoisms with a few complicated but meaningless statements that feign deepness, such as:

  • You can't hug your children with nuclear arms.
  • If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
  • The majority is the minority; black is the new white; women are the new men.
  • When Obama's polls are going down, that's the exact moment they're skyrocketing!

It doesn't matter if even you yourself don't understand what you are saying, so long as you confuse your opponent (since you're unable to convince the radical Right of the joys of liberalism, or indeed anyone of anything).

The important thing to remember is never argue. Don't answer any questions. A mere Progressivist acolyte like you cannot possibly explain the inner profundity of your shallow and contradictory slogan: unity is in the contradiction, the opposite of a great truth is equally true. If anyone asks, announce that it is self evident, and the fact that they even have to ask such a question proves they're too stupid to understand the answer.

"You don't even understand such a simple thing? It's sooooo obvious. You just don't get it!" Then MoveOn to your next demand.

If the opponent won't let you go, escalate to personal attack, such as "Why do you hate poor people? You just want to see children blown to pieces! You seem to have a real problem with people of color -- racist!" That will shut most opponents up. (Possibly because they simply find you intolerably offensive -- but WTF, a win is a win!)

Phase Two, journeyperson level: The Ten-Million-Questions intermediate technique

Once you have sloganeering down pat, try the next level. But before attempting this technique, pick your opponent very carefully: If the he/she/indeterminate is actually knowledgeable, this tactic can backfire on you.

Pick an easily riled or frustrated Fascist Republican who is not used to to liberal Progressivists, one who values so-called "objective truth" and thinks he/she/indeterminate is really good at research. The key is to use their willingness actually to look things up on the internet (at your demand) as the ultimate paralysis beam. Here's how:

  1. Whatever your opponent is actually saying, pretend you've never heard of such an outlandish idea. Goad him/her/indeterminate into actually pasting a link; when he/she says "here's the proof right here," you're halfway there.
  2. Do not make the rookie mistake of commenting on any "evidence" your opponent presents! Never argue the contents; ask another seemingly related question that is in fact a complete left turn.
  3. When he/she responds to question two, ask question three. And four, five, fifty. If you've done it right, he/she/indeterminate will be reduced to doing nothing but answering your insipid and meaningless questions.
  4. Wash, rinse, repeat until your opponent forgets what they were talking about. If both your opponent and the readers forget the original point of argument, you've won!

For example, if the extreme right-winger says, "The purpose of the Iraq War was to democratize Iraq from the very beginning," you say, "Then how come Bushitler never said any such thing?" After a day or two, he/she/indeterminate posts one of Bush's old speeches; you immediately demand, "What about all the missing WMD he talked about that never existed? What does that lie have to do with democracy in Iraq?"

As he/she/indeterminate posts some nonsense about WMD, you're ready with a few more Herculean research projects:

  • Why were we so upset about Saddam Hussein having WMD, when we were the ones who gave it to him in the first place?
  • Why did we attack Iraq, when they had nothing to do with al-Qaeda or 9/11?
  • Since we created and funded al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the first place, isn't 9/11 our own fault?
  • You claim we were attacked by Arabs, so why don't you demand we attack Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, and all those other Arab countries? You're a hypocrite!
  • If Iraq was a threat to the whole world, why didn't we organize a coalition, like Clinton did against Serbia?
  • If only three thousand Americans died in 9/11, why did we kill 600,000 innocent Iraqi children, women, and civilians? Doesn't that make us worse terrorists than al-Qaeda?
  • And the Israelis have killed a lot more than 3,000 citizens of Palestine; shouldn't we invade Israel?
  • Why did Bush include North Korea in his goofy 'axis of evil'? Just because they weren't white?
  • If Saddam Hussein was so evil, why didn't the first Bush overthrow him when he had the chance?
  • Who gave us the right to cram "democracy" down everyone else's throat? (The scare-quotes are a bonus, as the radical right-winger will probably spend an extra ten minutes orating (or three screens posting) his "explanation" of why scare quotes are unpatriotic.)
  • If you want democracy, why did you overthrow Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, who were both democratically elected?
  • Instead of spending trillions of dollars on wars all across the planet, why couldn't Bush use that money to end all poverty on Earth?

When your opponent finally grows weary of wasting his time and energy "researching" his right-wing trash-mags to prove his point and stomps off in a huff instead... you win!

Phase Three trifecta, the expert at the internet: Selectable amnesia, paralogia, and creative paraphrasing

If you can master this technique, you're a full brown Progressivist activist; please apply to Ezra Klein for your membership card to postJournolist. (you will receive the real name after you send in your dues... your union dues; and yes, we really do know how much you still owe!)

The first tactic of Phase Three, selectable amnesia, seems as if it would be easy; but you might be surprised how hard it is to remember to forget:

  • Before the Iraq war, nobody was talking about any connection between Sadam Hussein and Bin Laden. How convenient of you to suddenly discover it now!

Choose to forget the fact that media all over the world had been discussing those connections since 1998. Don't forget -- remember to fuhgeddaboudit!

Among these three tactical techniques of Phase Three, selectable amnesia will always be your workhorse: No matter how many times certain facts are proven, no matter how many times you're forced to back away from the ideologically pure position and admit the existence of a fixed "reality," tomorrow is always another day month year. "Yeah? I don't remember you ever posting that so-called evidence. You're making it up!")

Paralogia, the second tactic of Phase Three, means responding to argument or interrogation with a complete, logical non-sequitur:

  • You claimed that Saddam Hussein attempted to buy yellowcake Uranium; but Ambassador Joe Wilson reported that he was completely unsuccessful in those efforts. That completely debunks your charge that he attempted to buy yellowcake!

Creative paraphrasing is the third tactic of Phase Three; if Mr./Ms./Indeterminate Hard Right Turn points out that Bush said, "We cannot afford to wait for Iraq to become an imminent danger;" you paraphrase thus:

  • When Bush claimed Iraq was an imminent danger to the United States, that was a flat-out lie, an impeachable offense! Why wasn't he prosecuted? Did Dick Cheney pull strings? Be honest, now!

When the enemy responds that Bush said we "cannot wait" until Iraq becomes an imminent danger, you paraphrase again:

  • Darn right he couldn't wait -- he was just salivating to invade Iraq and steal their oil!

"No, no, no! I mean with all the murderous attacks, terrorist connections, and history of WMD, we knew Hussein would never stop voluntarily; it was better to attack sooner, before he had nukes or biological weapons, than to attack later and lose more American soldiers to a stronger Saddam Hussein!"

  • You said it yourself: Bush was determined to conauer Iraq "sooner or later;" so he seized upon 9/11, politicized it, and launched a unilateral, pre-emptive strike on the pretext of a handful of lies!

By this point, the hypocritical reactionary will be gibbering and foaming at the mouth with frustration. So long as you cleverly mischaracterize everything he/she/indeterminate says, not only will none of the spectators have any clue what he/she/indeterminate is really trying to say, but you will also likely drive him/her/indeterminate away into the night/day/twilight... and the side of truth, justice, and the Progressivist way will rule.

Final feelings

Your Fascist, racist, sexist, genderophobic, running-dog, imperialist opponents will doubtless try to discriminate against and harass you by claiming you are avoiding debate because you have no arguments -- no evidence, no principles, no point. Do not allow yourself to feel hurt or inadequate.

The Progressivist purpose behind debate-avoidance techniques is not to make up for any supposed "deficiency" on our part; as keepers of the Vision, we have absolute moral authority and a collective intelligence we can tap into; this collective intelligence gives every liberal the functional equivalent of an IQ of 732!

(This is not an estimate; it has been measured in a study by the independent, bipartisan Center for American Progress, funded by the highly respected Open Society Institute, which has never been accused of partisanship. You don't have to take our word; Google it.)

The reason we use these beginner, intermediate, and advanced techniques for dodging debate is that we're so intelligent, so scary-smart, that (a) we don't want to take unfair advantage of the animal-like "intelligences" on the other side, and (b) it would demean us, the anointed, to stoop and "debate" criminals, liars, and fools who reject the spiritual Vision. We would become attainted by treating the dhimmi on the Right as if they were our "equals."

So take heart, fellow Progressivists and liberals; our refusal ever to stand our ground in honest debate is a feature, not a bug; it demonstrates our superiority and actually proves that our side, as expected, was right all along.

To quote one of our greatest philosophers of Progressivism:

And so... these Learned Men, having Inquir'd into the Case for the Opposition, discover'd that the Opposition had no Case and were Devoid of Merit, which was what they Suspected all along, and they arriv'd at this Happy Conclusion by the most Economical and Nice of all Methods of Enquiry, which was that they did not Invite the Opposition to confuse Matters by Participating in the Discussion.

(From "The Persecution and Assassination of the Parapsychologists as Performed by the Inmates of the American Association for the Advancement of Science under the Direction of the Amazing Randi;" p. 85, Right Where You Are Sitting Now, ©1982, And/Or Press, Inc. -- first printing.)

So there.

Hatched by Sachi on this day, September 4, 2011, at the time of 10:25 AM | Comments (2)

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