Leftists Disinterested in Real Conflicts of Interest
It’s really been something watching the government go after Toyota for a gas pedal problem that even a Consumers Union official described as “putting an awful lot of effort on a very small risk.”
Has a head of the U.S. Department of Transportation ever previously told a group of vehicle owners not to drive their cars until they’re fixed? After doing just that, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said he misspoke. But the damage was done.
Or was it really “mission accomplished”?
Observers wouldn’t be asking that question if the government didn’t control General Motors and Chrysler, two of Toyota’s largest competitors, and if those two entities hadn’t gobbled up over $100 billion in government money and creditor assets in the past year. But it does and they have, which makes raising the issue perfectly fair to everyone except far leftists and apparently the vast majority of establishment media journalists (but I repeat myself). The only wire report I’ve seen that has addressed the issue — and to its credit, did so aggressively (“Is U.S. bullying Toyota on recall?”) — is this one from AFP. I hope for her sake that AFP reporter Mira Oberman has built up a comfy financial reserve.
Now it seems that Honda is going through its own costly, possibly defensive recall, “even though recent testing of [airbag] units from this production process performed correctly.” Meanwhile, this historical list of recalls shows that GM and Chrysler, even though they were collectively involved in efforts relating to over 8.9 million vehicles from 2004 to 2008, have not been involved in any since Uncle Sam began sending them money. How convenient. Maybe GM and Chrysler are benefitting because their safety watchdog has been instructed to bark only at companies not controlled by the boss.
Leftists and journalists almost never acknowledge drop-dead obvious conflicts of interest when bringing them to the public’s attention might hurt their pet causes. Have you seen anyone bring up the point that Ford, in negotiating with the United Auto Workers union last year, was bargaining with an entity that through benefit plan affiliates has an ownership interest in two of its competitors? Not surprisingly, Ford was unable to strike a bargain with UAW negotiators that the rank and file was willing to support. Excuse me for speculating that the union agreed to an offer it knew Ford’s hourly workers would refuse.
Faced with a video-driven scandal that threatened its very existence, the political activist organization ACORN nonetheless shunned doing the logical thing, which would have been to hire an independent CPA firm to conduct a comprehensive financial review. Instead, it chose former Massachusetts attorney general and, uh, political activist Scott Harshbarger. Seemingly focused only on the work of James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles and not the organization’s awful to nonexistent financial controls and chronically illegal electioneering, Harshbarger found that, in the words of the Apparatchik, er, Associated Press, “There was no criminal conduct by employees who offered advice on how to hide assets and falsify lending documents.” Harshbarger said in a statement that “no action, illegal or otherwise, was ever taken by any ACORN employee on behalf of the videographers.” That’s very clever wording, because giving people illegal advice may not be an “action,” but it is, well, illegal. Whether it could be successfully prosecuted is irrelevant to the question of legality.
Uninterested, not disinterested.
Well, of course. There’s nothing a left-liberal hates quite as much as someone who’s proved that he can do more than trawl for votes and bribe special interests. It undermines their government uber alles worldview.
On the other hand, dare to call some left-liberal nostrum by its right name and they unleash all the demons of Hell on you. Dare to suggest that people have some right to their own money and you’re “practicing genocide.” Dare to differ with their “experts” and suddenly you’re worse than a Nazi.
These people cannot argue. The facts are against them. History is against them. Logic is against them. What else do they have left but a “gag rule” that would forbid anyone to disagree with their gospels?
I agree with Arhooley. Seeing the first word in a headline grossly misused makes one rather… (dare I say)… uninterested in carrying on. (No matter how guilty the leftists undoubtedly are.)
Sorry — as long as we’re being pedantic, here, make that “SECOND word in a headline…”
Liberals are strangers to the truth, “noble lies”, because they know better than the hoi poloi! Just read the history of the leaders of USSR’s leaders. They operated on the principle of “…..if you want to know the truth, MAKE IT UP!…….” Now we all see their accolytes here in America the Progressive, radical Liberal, Democrats one and all strangers to the truth.
In the earliest days of Barack Obama’s first year, I struggled with understanding what the man was trying to accomplish. I couldn’t figure it out. I found so many of his actions confusing because they seemed contrary to long held American practices. Since however, more and more evidence has surfaced which connects Barack Obama and many within his circle of friends to the Radical Progressives. And, once I understood the Radical Progressive plan for America, it became clear what Obama’s agenda truly is.
In regards to the way the leftists seem to get away with saying things which a Conservative never could, Barbara Curtis’ article, Blogging Rules For Radicals: Chapters Six Through Nine, posted on PJM, January 24, 2010 states it quite well, by including a quote straight out of the Saul Alinsky playbook. “4) Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. Which explains why conservatives face greater consequences for moral failures than Democrats…”
A further example occured just last week when Bill Maher was on one of the last of the 10:00, Jay Leno shows. Maher laughingly told a joke which equated something to, “selling a Boyscout to a Pedophile”. When the audience groaned its disapproval, Maher commented, “Well I’m not condoning it.” No, perhaps not, but apparently he does find it quite funny. This ‘joke’ went pretty much unnoticed and I believe it is because it was told by the Left-leaning Bill Maher. Leftists merely dismiss it as comedy, not warranting an uproar.
Once one is aware of the methodology described in Alinsky’s, Rules for Radicals, the Leftists’ reaction to conservatives becomes predictable. Even their efforts to minimize or defame anyone who opposes their views becomes predictable, as seen by the Leftist Progressive reaction to the Tea Party Movement.
This makes me believe conservatives can plan for such a reaction and should be able to capitalize on it.
Have you seen anyone bring up the point that Ford . . .
Yes — ME.
The gross antitrust / restraint of trade implications of the matter is too obvious for words.
Conservatives/Libertarians/Right?Republicans will always be held to a higher standard. This is never going to change. Being held to a high standard is not always a bad thing!
I think we really need to hold ourselves up to a higher standard. We still have genuinely corrupt scum in congress calling themselves Republicans etc. What are we going to do about it?
Think about the mileage that one Republican senator have a gay bathroom tryst gave the Liberal Democrat Media!
i want you people to think about this. It’s not like we didn’t know that the media would have a filed day with this and all the other dirty laundry that got aired at the end of the Bush years…So, being that we are all adults, and we all know this, whose fault is it?
Yes, it’s unfair, but get used to it because it will never change!
Now, what can we do about this?
First, we can simply create a rule at the party level that bans the legislative practice of deficit spending and the executive signing of it. The elected republican will be required to resist this spending in any and all means at his/her disposal. Any violations result in immediate expulsion, no chance of reinstatement.
Second, We create a similar rule for no earmarking. Any violations result in immediate expulsion, no chance of reinstatement.
Third, We have a set of ethical expectations for standard common sense stuff i.e. no cheating on your wife, banging the intern, or taking kickbacks form lobbyists. Any violations result in immediate expulsion, no chance of reinstatement.
BTW–this is not difficult stuff, corporations do this everyday. But, will it ever happen? Don’t hold your breath.
8 baal:
no deficit spending, no earmarks, no adultery, no kickbacks from lobbyists
Those are the conservative standards?
How’s that hghery standardy stuff workin for ya?
The only double standard that exists is between what conservatives profess to be (defenders of family values, oath keepers, promise keepers, good, solid Christians, Catholic priests) and who they actually are. Just ask Newt.
9. skeeziks:
Your messiah turned tricks for a slumlord. Yep, he got his knees dirty for a slumlord. And that was just a warmup act.
But he became…a GOD! And that lasted for a few weeks.
Now he’s polling neck and neck with a generic republican…who were polling up there with dog food less than a year ago.
How’s that hopey changey stuff working for ya?
Aha! So under The Gospel According to Skeeziks, ’tis far better to profess no standard, and then conduct one’s life like Jim McGreevey, Ted Kennedy, Gerry Studds, or Mel Reynolds, than to profess one that you might not be good enough or strong enough to meet at every moment of your life!
Have a little Neal Stephenson, Skeez ol’ buddy:
There are only two positions one can take on moral standards, human failings, and so-called “hypocrisy.” The one you choose speaks an encyclopedia’s worth about your trustworthiness…or lack thereof. It also tells us how to assess your criticisms of others. Verbum sat sapienti.
If you profess no morals, you are immune from criticism for failing to live up to them. It’s a simple solution for a simple people.
11. Francis W. Porretto:
The fact that skeezer mocks my idea I think means there may be something to it. What do you think of the republican party simply adopting a uniform code of conduct?
I’m not talking about mandating legislation, I’m talking about there simply being one legislative iron clad rule-zero deficit spending.
Other than that I’m talking about there being simple commonplace ethical requirements to kick out actual ethical offenders.
13. baal:
Wait, wait, I got it . . . how about A PLEDGE? We could call it THE PLEDGE.
You miss a strong point, it is not about the conflict of interest, it is about purity. The left does not want anyone who has any experience in anything but politics to be included in the power structure, lest they pop the fantasy bubble the left lives in.
Progressives gleefully trot out hypocrisy, as if that is some kind of ultimate weapon that will forever silence Conservatives on any issue. But the rejoinder for all those kneejerk leftists begins with definitions and language.
A hypocrite by definition can only be someone who disingenuously proclaims high moral values as a cover for deliberately performing opposite actions, the former in public, the latter in private.
Traditional Conservatism rests on a Judeo-Christian ethos. Christianity per se is self-correcting, and as such is hated by the left because it promises only optimality on earth, and not the perfection demanded by resentful, infuriated progressive zealots. Historically, Christianity has been able to evoke over time whatever positive internal transformations were necessary because of its innate self-correcting Christ-like qualities.
The left sees any such dynamic, self-correcting system as imperfect and therefore wrong; for them, perfection resides in the stasis of equal outcomes manifested everywhere at once. There is one perfect goal (equality), and one perfect way to achieve it (refusal to make distinctions imposed by an all-encompassing government); if it is currently not working, then simply re-apply the one solution.
This all means that true Conservatives can NEVER be hypocrites, because our Judeo-Christian values allow us to understand that we can never be perfect (since only God is so), but must individually reassert ourselves to try again whenever we make a mistake.
Alternatively, by professing no personal moral standard other than a hedonistic “do what you feel”, progressives can rearrange communal reality according to their latest postmodernist narrative. Thus in reality, progressives are ALWAYS hypocrites, because their reliance on subjective thought processes causes them to do one thing and say another, while that same mindset absolutely prevents them from seeing it or acknowledging it.
Regardless of their sanctimonious cries to the contrary, progressivism is a religion. Our society is thus enganged in a religious struggle, internally with progressivism, and externally with Islam. If Conservatives cannot muster the will, creativity, and energy required to win, then our society is doomed. I pray we have finally awakened at last.
14. skeeziks:
FAIL. Now go cut yourself.
Charles Stevens:
Hence the Progressives’ need for the complete secularization of our Society. If there is no moral compass to guide one’s actions and no ability exists to pose judgement and hold someone accountable for their actions, there exists no dispute as to whether the end is justified by the means. The end is only what matters. Progressives can utilize virtually any means to obtain their desired end, moral, immoral or otherwise.
Hypocrisy and b.s. is rampant in every ‘side’ of politics unfortunately. Pubs & Dems both have their proverbial grubby paws in the cookie jar. Rather than ‘accepting’ this as the ‘norm’ any longer, we need to get tough on people who run for office because we can’t afford it. PERIOD.
#1, If you go to dictionary.com, you will see that the second meaning of the word disinterested is “not interested; indifferent.”
Using either “uninterested” or “disinterested” is acceptable in the circumstances.
Mr. Blumer: You mean like Obama standing up for the degenerate Wall Street plutocracy that he rescued with our tax `dollars,so they can contribute to his re-election?