Comments for Regarding Bill's post, and the reaction thereto...

Regarding Bill's post, and the reaction thereto...

2009-08-11T12:56:06Z

I got into an email exchange, of which this was a part.

1. First of all, no one here is suggesting that the Left is doing anything. Bill's off his rocker thinking that this is a collection effort to get an "enemy's list."

2. The hypocrisy of the Right is really the issue here, and it's amazing that your readers don't see it at all. Bush was the fascist, not Obama, and it's laughable to hear your readers go on.

See "Skunk, woodpile," if you need to catch up.

Heh. Lay aside the emotions all wrapped up in the word fascist, and you'll see that with the exception of the color of his skin, there is very little that Obama is doing on the domestic front that Hitler and Mussolini would be unhappy about. (Heh. Bet that will cause some heads to explode.)

Especially the bit about large state ownership stakes in industry and finance.

Which, admittedly, started under the Bush administration as the government panicked over the meltdown in the markets caused... by the government's distortions of the market and the greedy people who leveraged 'em, first for self-defense against the increased risk, and then being seduced by what looked like pretty easy money, too. And no one wanted to look too hard at it, because it felt so good.

Doesn't mean Obama is a fascist, per se. Of course, it doesn't mean that President Bush was, either. It does show how convoluted the thinking is around that word.

Hitler and Mussolini would both approve of the Dem's wish for a single-payer health care system - with the attendant rationing that is going to be inherent in it. Because that can be used to "shape" the demographics. Shaping the demographics has actually been a long-time goal of Progressive thought. Take a look at the thoughts of some of President Obama's health and science advisors.

Oh, I know, there's rationing now, after a fashion. And I support some aspects of the proposed reforms in terms of changing the regulatory environment to encourage automation and information exchange, and a regularization of claims processes, to ease the admin burden of a doctor's practice dealing with numerous insurance companies, all with differing forms of paperwork. You'd think the industry might try to do some standardizing there, on it's own.

Of course, I also wish they'd take it the step further and include the tort reforms, but that's not going to happen with this bunch. They owe too much to the trial lawyers. Gotta love how they smack on Doctors for the expense and inefficiencies of practicing defensive medicine, but won't smack on the lawyers, judges and juries that make practicing defensive medicine simply a best practice from a business point of view.

It's funny to watch, though - how hypocrisy from the Right is anathema, and grounds for removal of our voice from the public square, and yet it's simply pragmatism or community/union organizing when practiced by the Left. Both sides are hypocrites. We the People force them to be because we reward them for lying to us.

I tire of the intellectually lazy argumentation that says "Your side did it, therefore you can't criticize it when we do it, because it's hypocritical to criticize us, but not your side, therefore, we win." Because, simply put, that's the substance of the argument. Note, it's not about the substance of the argument itself, it's about the form. Because you're a hypocrite, you lose. Regardless of the merits of argument in question.

It's the Western equivalent of the pass offered by "Insh'allah."

It completely ignores the underpinning of the fact that whatever the core issue is we're talking about is wrong or distorted, it's about "but because you did it, you can't criticize me for doing it, and if you do, it invalidates your entire argument and anything attached to it so therefore we get to do it my way. Oh, and that rule doesn't apply to me when the situation reverses."

Children are smarter than this. It takes an adult to get to this level of poltroonish buffoonery.

And no, I don't believe that President Obama turned to a flunky and said, "Get me names."

But I do believe that if the only difference in this issue was President Bush in the White House, you, along with the media, would be screaming bloody murder. For exactly the same reasons the Right is now. You didn't trust Bush, the Right doesn't trust Obama. You trust Obama, therefore this is all innocence. And, it probably is. Doesn't change the fact that it's illegal for it to be done using government machinery. Leave aside the fact that we have several mutually exclusive laws and regulations on the subject that make it all unenforceable.

Admit it at least to yourself, sir. If Bush was doing *exactly* what Obama is doing, you'd be screaming bloody murder.

Comment from BillT on 2009-08-14

2009-08-14T20:57:30Z

Wouldn't an ad hominid argument be one in which you claimed your opponent was insufficiently evolved to be aware of the facts?

Comment from Cassandra on 2009-08-14

2009-08-14T19:34:03Z

What John describes is a form of the ad hominid argument.

Instead of refuting the principle or the facts, you seek to discredit your opponent. Because, as we all know, in human affairs everything is black and white. Everything a good person says is wise and true.

Everything a bad person says is stupid and wrong.

It would be a great theory if the world were that simple, but it's not. All humans are flawed to some degree, and if that argument held water it would mean that all we had to do was find a single flaw to prove them wrong.

Pretty dumb.

Comment from Casey on 2009-08-12

2009-08-12T15:48:17Z

Geez, John, double-posting a comment on your own blog? :)

I recognize rules 4 and 12, so I know where that list came from. Heh.

I can appreciate J's frustration, but his kind of argument is fingernails on the blackboard to me. It's a very good example of the 'intellectually lazy argumentation that says "Your side did it, therefore you can't criticize it when we do it, because it's hypocritical to criticize us, but not your side, therefore, we win."' It's also a good example of tu quoque; "Bush did it more than Obama, so that makes him [Bush] worse!"

Comment from John of Argghhh! on 2009-08-12

2009-08-12T15:10:56Z

I will jump in to J's defense here - Let's not go after J in that regard, Oldloadr. His arguments, fine, leave the ad hominem out of it, please.

And I would say that even if J were not a veteran himself, who works in the defense arena doing good things.

Heh. See how our filters trip us up?

Comment from Oldloadr on 2009-08-12

2009-08-12T14:07:33Z

I guess J is too young to remember the Viet Nam war protesters...
Of course, I'm sure he sees no problem with spitting on GIs. After all, we are willing pawn of the ringht-wing establishment.

Comment from og on 2009-08-11

2009-08-11T21:34:49Z

my God, i think he actually believes all this is true.

Comment from John of Argghhh! on 2009-08-11

2009-08-11T21:07:42Z

I know it's a cherry-pick, but it's not a singular event. In regard to J's assertion:

- get the angry villagers to shout down and actively disrupt townhalls? No, there is no parallel to the left,

I offer this.

And, of course this. Care to elaborate from which side of the spectrum this set of rules comes (which side appllies them much better, though there is always whinging when they get applied in reverse)?

RULE 1: "Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have." Power is derived from 2 main sources - money and people. "Have-Nots" must build power from flesh and blood. (These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.)

RULE 2: "Never go outside the expertise of your people." It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone. (Organizations under attack wonder why radicals don't address the "real" issues. This is why. They avoid things with which they have no knowledge.)

RULE 3: "Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy." Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)

RULE 4: "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules." If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity's very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)

RULE 5: "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)

RULE 6: "A good tactic is one your people enjoy." They'll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They're doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones. (Radical activists, in this sense, are no different that any other human being. We all avoid "un-fun" activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.)

RULE 7: "A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag." Don't become old news. (Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)

RULE 8: "Keep the pressure on. Never let up." Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)

RULE 9: "The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself." Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. (Perception is reality. Large organizations always prepare a worst-case scenario, something that may be furthest from the activists' minds. The upshot is that the organization will expend enormous time and energy, creating in its own collective mind the direst of conclusions. The possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.)

RULE 10: "If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive." Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. (Unions used this tactic. Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management's wrath, often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)

RULE 11: "The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative." Never let the enemy score points because you're caught without a solution to the problem. (Old saw: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power. So, they have to have a compromise solution.)

RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)

Comment from John of Argghhh! on 2009-08-11

2009-08-11T20:54:37Z

I didn't name names, J.

Lessee. Have you read the bills, J? The ones that essentially, while providing a fiction about ERISA plans staying the same, move everybody under an ERISA plan to the insurance exchanges in 5 years?

The ones where if you have and like your private (non-ERISA) plan you get to keep it - until the plan changes one iota, when you are then required to drop it and shop the exchanges?

My post was more about the nature of the argumentation than it was the details, and your response doesn't really do much to change the perception.

I would note that with a few changes, if you change the perspective around in your examples... nothing changes, just which seat you're in. The behavioral perceptions simply mirror each other. And of course, we can pick and choose our examples to support any thesis, I'm talking about overall gestalt.

Even as he created the largest govt in history, eliminated habeous corpus, suspended FISA's authorities, ignored science as a basis for decision-making, made really bad national security decisions based on his staff's interpretation of intelligence, and wrote over congressional law, we protested, the media snoozed, and the right cheered.

Heh. I don't remember having any problem reading about your objections in any of the major outlets, J. President Obama is doing exactly what to reduce the size of the government - as I read the tea leaves, he's going to expand it pretty significantly, in both size, scope, and reach.

"Science as the basis for decision-making." Heh. You can make one hell of a lot of scientfically supportable but ethically-challenged decisions based purely on science. What you mean is "the science I support that reinforces my views-based decision making." Something both sides do, and it's intellectually dishonest to suggest otherwise.

You work with and for the FedGov, J. D'you really think that DC-Template GS-administered one-size-fits-all solutions is a good way to go? Honestly? It isn't that civil servants aren't good people with good intentions, but that they get to do what they do with the hint of a gun and guard tower behind them, and their performance metrics oft times are based on a purely bureaucratic norm or are influenced by the whims of politics.

The difference is, unless they're propped up by the government, businesses run that badly end up reforming or failing. Be hones with yourself - even if we sent 70% of Congress home, the Federal Civil Service, and it's leviathan momentum, will still be there. Funny how, when we change the guy in the front office, we assume all the schlubs (and we've both been those guys) now are suddenly transformed from drones to genius servants of the common weal. And if the guy or gal in the front office changes again, they suddenly morph into the Agents of Satan, too stupid to succeed, but capable of performing legendary feats of conspiratorial legerdemain.

Heh. Your guy sucks, J. So did ours. Best we can do is fight them all, tooth and nail, and slow the beast. In that much, I am at least consistent.

I don't believe in any of 'em any more. I only believe they must be resisted. There's room at the margins, but not much.

Remember me? I'm the one who wasn't all that fond of invading Iraq. I also have such little vision that I wouldn't have tried to rebuild Afghanistan. I just would have made it clear to them that if they let AQ or a surrogate/replacement use them like the Taliban got played, that stuff would start exploding again until they rectified the situation.

But, that's why I'm not the President. That and I would flee to Canada rather than get drafted into the job.

Comment from Fishmugger on 2009-08-11

2009-08-11T20:53:22Z

Wow...too bad his opinion don't square as facts. We sure like throwing names around like fascist. But then, truth never seems to catch up with a lie and a most repeated lie. OK, things got a little noisy at some of the meetings. Where do you think we learned that?? And it is still free speech we're exercising. Maybe we should whisper our feelings.

Obama won but no big deal, it is my opinion that any of the top 5 Dems would have won considering the nose dive the economy took just before the election. A good portion of the vote wasn't for the Dems it was against the Reps. And that economy was in the crapper due in large part to Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, not anything Bush did. Talk about filibuster, the Dems wouldn't put in a fix to the mortgage problem.

There have been threats of filibuster from both sides over the past ten years, but I can't find an actual filibuster. But I just read the funny papers.

Obama is condemned as a socialist out of his own mouth. He is the one making the statements. We don't have to invent anything. Truth is truth and facts are facts as long as you're not a Lib.

Comment from Beth Donovan on 2009-08-11

2009-08-11T20:36:36Z

I think this post came about partly from a discussion John and I were having last night about how irrelevant anything anyone else did is to what Obama's White House is doing. There is no logical correlation - just a well, he did worse, n'yah, n'yah.
What is relevant is that it is occurring, it should not occur, and Obama is not above the law and damn well ought to obey it!

Comment from BillT on 2009-08-11

2009-08-11T20:29:49Z

- get the angry villagers to shout down and actively disrupt townhalls? No, there is no parallel to the left,

In addition to your Remedial English Comprehension course, I recommend perusing the archives of any major newspaper from the '60s through 2008 and check the political bent of 100% of the disruptive protests that took place.

I don't usually come over here because the right doesn't want debates, they want to yell and stomp and refuse to debate facts.

Odd. All the yelling, stomping, ignoring of the basic statement in this instance came from the "projective" side of the aisle.

Comment from J. on 2009-08-11

2009-08-11T20:06:43Z

Really, John? You felt the need to "share"?

First of all, we were screaming 'bloody murder' every step that Bush took towards his control over the government. Even as he created the largest govt in history, eliminated habeous corpus, suspended FISA's authorities, ignored science as a basis for decision-making, made really bad national security decisions based on his staff's interpretation of intelligence, and wrote over congressional law, we protested, the media snoozed, and the right cheered.

here's the difference - between 2001-2006, the Repubs held all seats of power in fed govt, and kept the Dems out of any substantive policy/lawmaking. Let's ignore the whole issue of raising the national debt to $10 trillion, deficit spending, giving rich folks tax breaks and deregulating entire industries. Dems were too stupid to fillibuster in the grand style that we've seen the Repubs do, but let's let that slide. Obama wins, Dems get control of the govt because the public is exhausted by it all, and Obama says, come on in Repubs, let's do something together.

Answer, not no, but HELL no. Repubs start fillibustering, start saying "no" more than a catholic nun. No solutions but be damned if the Dems get to move any piece of legislation, even if the Repubs like the topic. Fine. But this BS you call Obama socialism? and you want to hang this on the single payer program when he's already made clear you can keep your private health insurance? That's just dishonest. And the Repub solution - get the angry villagers to shout down and actively disrupt townhalls? No, there is no parallel to the left, and please, don't throw Code Pink at me. There was no DNC sponsorship or corporate interests behind them.

I don't usually come over here because the right doesn't want debates, they want to yell and stomp and refuse to debate facts. I can understand that. Reality does have a liberal bias. Later, dude.

Comment from fdcol63 on 2009-08-11

2009-08-11T18:01:46Z

" ... And no, I don't believe that President Obama turned to a flunky and said, "Get me names." ..."

I do. He's a Chicago thug, thoroughly schooled in the methods and tactics of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Gramsci, and Alinksy.

Comment from BillT on 2009-08-11

2009-08-11T17:28:49Z

Bill's off his rocker thinking that this is a collection effort to get an "enemy's [sic] list."

First, I don't own a rocker.

Second, I neither said nor implied that this was a collection effort to get an enemies' list -- what I kept repeating, and which our "projecting" commenters kept missing, was simply this:

The law specifically states that you can't collect information about how anyone exercises his right to Freedom of Speech unless it is to be used for LEA purposes.

A simple, declarative sentence.

And they completely missed it. They immediately went into auto-mode and leaped to the Administration's defense, postulating all sorts of mundane purposes to the information gathering, and I never made the claim that they were gathering information for nefarious purposes in the first place -- I specifically stated that, if it *was* for strictly mundane purposes, that it was illegal under 5 USC 552a (e)(7), but if it was for the purposes of a Law Enforcement Action, then it was *legal* under that same section.

Plain English. I can guess who your e-mailer was, John, and my advice, in addition to my reply in the original post, is, take a Remedial English Comprehension course, preferrably in connection with one on Logic...

Comment from Neffi on 2009-08-11

2009-08-11T16:31:41Z

Poltroonish buffoonery? I can't say it five times fast but I am *so* stealing it...
And that lack of righteous outrage from the MSM on the issue speaks volumes, methinks.