Power Line argues that for some perverse reason, some people on the Left trust Barack Obama because he “will lie” about his own beliefs. John Hinderaker wrote:
The idea that President Obama’s supporters trust him precisely because they believe that he frequently misrepresents his own beliefs is becoming more widespread. My friend Bob Cunningham was one of the first to explicate this phenomenon. “It has long been noticed that Obama’s slipperiness had been accepted by the left during the Hope-and-Change campaign when He took positions, for example and notably, NAFTA and foreign trade generally, on both sides of an issue. They were willing to cut Him slack in most cases precisely because they just assumed that, of course!!…He was lying….to someone…about the issue.”
This has been particularly noticeable with the gay marriage issue….Carrie Prejean being exactly right when noting that her position is identical to that of His Oneness. But Obama gets a pass, of course, from the homosexual activists because they just assume He is lying!!!… Today Frank Rich in the New York Times comes as close as I’ve seen actually to acknowledge openly the “we trust Him because He’s lying” view: “Obama’s opposition to same-sex marriage is now giving cover to every hard-core opponent of gay rights, from the Miss USA contestant Carrie Prejean to the former Washington mayor Marion Barry, each of whom can claim with nominal justification to share the president’s views. In reality, they don’t. Obama has long been, as he says, a fierce advocate for gay equality. The Windy City Times has reported that he initially endorsed legalizing same-sex marriage when running for the Illinois State Senate in 1996.”
This kind of political relationship can occur only if discourse can be carried out at more than one level. For Power Line’s assertion to be correct, it implies that some of Obama’s supporters, instead of relying on a single channel, actually communicate over two distinct paths. The reason they can disregard the signal conveyed by what he says is if they have a separate channel which communicates what he is. An excerpt from a 1905 essay by GK Chesterton on the “West’s Malady” sent to me by a friend expresses it perfectly. In it, Chesterton argues that the best predictor of what man will do is his world view. Anything else is incidental. Society can often take both sides of a position, often alternately, sometimes simultaneously. But what counts is its fundamental character and the cunning man knows what to look for.
But there are some people, nevertheless—and I am one of them—who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy’s numbers, but still more important to know the enemy’s philosophy. We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether in the long run, anything else affects them. In the fifteenth century men cross-examined and tormented a man because he preached some immoral attitude; in the nineteenth century we feted and flattered Oscar Wilde because he preached such an attitude, and then broke his heart in penal servitude because he carried it out. It may be a question which of the two methods was the more cruel; there can be no kind of question which was the more ludicrous. The age of the Inquisition has not at least the disgrace of having produced a society which made an idol of the very same man for preaching the very same things which it made him a convict for practising.
The reason therefore that the Left can “trust” Obama whatever he says is the belief they have been vouchsafed over a separate channel some message about his character. Whether they are deluded or not remains to be seen. Stalin believed he could trust Hitler. That proved a little short of true. And while there is no intention to compare anyone with Hitler or Stalin, the point is simply that you can be lied to over both channels. Chesterton lived before Orwell coined the term “doublethink”. But he understood that things were not always what they seemed, and strove in his own way, to discover the more lasting basis of truth. In the past I sat in on many discussions in which members of the “National Democratic Front”, that organ of the Party charged with building alliances and acquiring an armor of human shields, described how they crafted their slogans to draw in supporters. Their slogans always used words like “God” and “Democracy”. Consequently, my questions were always the same: at what point do you tell your tame clergymen that you don’t believe in God? When do you tell the other members of the national united front that they must submit to the unchallengeable leadership of the Great, Glorious and Correct Party, the Vanguard of the Proletariat. And their answers were always the same: we’ll tell them when they are ready to understand, though the smartest of them will have understood long before then.
Their national democratic allies couldn’t handle the truth; couldn’t know what was necessary for strong men to do in order to build the worker’s paradise. And so in their kindness, the hard men told them a lie, which is their kind of truth.
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I love him so, the young thing thrilled
He’s cool and young and handsome
So what if verity is killed
And truth be held for ransome
The journalist with glazey stare
Will tell all who will listen
There’s nothing like the brilliant glare
Of halo’s golden glisten
The ardent cling to every word
They gasp at all inflection
And then discuss what they have heard
Without the least reflection
They love him so for what he says
And what he doesn’t say
They love the eyes that truly mes
Merize in every way
But most of all they love to hear
The truth as he has seen it
And though he says things we hold dear
They know he doesn’t mean it
These moments where American politicians communicate on two different levels are what we call “Sista Souljah Moments”. They are when a politician wanders off the reservation with a wink and a nod for the sheer purpose of broader appeals. He is saying one thing to the general public all the while channeling, “bear with me on this, I’m one of you” to his base.
Obama’s got legions of them, especially when it comes to religion. His denunciation of Reverend Wright is one. Having gotten elected, though, the window for them has closed a bit. On innaguration he had Rev. Rick Warren lead a prayer, and Warren was instrumental in getting out the vote for the recent gay marriage ban victory in California. This was almost too much for many to take, and lots of rankling was had on the left over Warren’s appearance.
But everybody was brought back in line in the end.
The reason, too, that Miss California got shamed for having the same position as Obama on gay marriage is that Ms. Preejan really meant what she said. Everybody knows Obama’s position is purely political and inherently dishonest. Everybody. Why we collectively let him get away with it is beyond me.
Obama is an opportunist partisan liar.
He tailors his lies to the group he is speaking to. Thus, his base of Obamabots increases.
He will tell one group that he is against water boarding and other information extraction techniques. Yet, Obama “reserves the right” to torture suspects as he deems fit.
Obama lectures crowds about “fiscal responsibility” and not maxing out one’s credit card. He then proceeds to enact the largest set of spending bills in recent history – all the while flooding the market with debt backed by the American tax payer.
Obama is not only a liar but a much practiced liar.
Obama gets away with a two channel message for a variety of reasons. He gets away with his phoniness because a lot of people have seen the ascendancy of the Media/Elite/Female/Gay/Hispanic/Black lobby and wish to curry favor.
They wish to be one of the favored few who remain in an America run by Women, Elites, Gays, Hispanics, Blacks, and so on. Of course they are mistaken but the hopefulness of someone hoping that at least HE will get a turn holding the whip even if the lash falls on his back cannot be underestimated.
Of course, external actors like North Korea (Ace is reporting that North Korea has said they’ll initiate War with the US and South Korea over inspections of ships bound for North Korea) will take advantage of this. North Korea according to Drudge just fired off another missile. I would be shocked if Obama were not forced to humiliatingly back down, and few leaders can survive for long even with female backers by being weak and the object of bullying abroad and “strong” at home.
The two-channel bit of information is of course standard for women. Women “claim” to want certain things, but their actions speak louder that they want the reverse. For example, women scream about how Republicans seek to subject women to the Dark Ages, but remain silent on honor killings in the US by Muslims, or Rap’s misogyny.
Certain words come leaping to mind:
Pathologic
Sociopath
Ah, for the days of the mere ludicrous incompetence of James Earl Carter…
On reflection though, and considering how he has thrown in his lot with the murdering tyrants of the world in the last couple of decades, maybe his ineptitude was just a ruse.
Sure people got killed. Actually, a lot of people got killed as a direct result of his sight being limited to a view of the interior of his own sigmoid colon. But our dismay was tempered by a belief that “Oh, Pity, but at least he meant well…”
Perhaps they are not trusting Obama because they think he is disguising his core beliefs. Instead they may they think he has no core beliefs at all and therefore cannot possibly care about what they do or want the law to restrict them.
Under that premise one can view lying as merely a convenient tactic which is to be commended. So they stay calm while they watch him dismantle the systems and institutions they hate. And they fantasize that after those are rubble no one can oppose them.
They forget that an unchallenged O and an entrenched party can oppose them. And, while a leader with no core beliefs may not hate them, he also has no reason to care what happens to them. He can regard them as a disposable faction just like any other.
Tyrannies are usually extremely prissy about sexual freedoms. And most permanently demonize one minority or several.
Look it up.
It’s a classic example of Doublethink. Actually, an ever-expanding set of classic examples of Doublethink.
The Left is getting really, really good at it now. Lots of practice lately.
whiskey,
Please don’t use the word “women” to mean man-hating feminists. Perhaps you could say “those women who seek to reduce all women to their own level of stupidity.” I certainly don’t fit in with the swooning Obama fans. I also didn’t feel empowered by Pelosi’s becoming Speaker. I am disgusted by Obama’s double talk, and I think it will get us in trouble on the international stage.
Following this train of reasoning, the support from Obama’s base won’t even begin to falter until they receive messages on the ‘second channel’ that indicate he’s not the sort of person they would like. Conservative pundits have focused on the ‘what Obama says’ channel, but what is really important is the ‘what Obama is’ channel, relative to his die-hard base. The Jan Fleischhauer “Leaving Home” thread shows what it would take for Obama to become persona non grata with his community. He would have to be suspected of becoming “the other”. That’s the greatest of crimes.
Of course, this holds true only for his hard core left wing support. President Obama has support from people who think he is a well meaning, patriotic statesman. And perhaps he is. But those people are watching the ‘what Obama says’ channel, and to the extent that he goes back on his words, he’ll probably lose standing with them. However, his hard core of believers are glued, I believe, to the image of what they think he is, and will remain faithful to him for so long as he conforms to that picture.
New Polls On Obama Voters On Various Issues
This understanding of person’s worldview is also true among conservatives. McCain was suspect because his worldview was not consistent with conservatives worldview. That is why McCain never had the trust of the conservatives. McCain would be conservative one moment and then not the next.
In comparison Palin did get the trust even though she never articulated conservatives principles. Her worldview was obvious by her life so conservatives trusted that instinctively. Romney’s life and worldview was suspect despite his conservative speeches. Few conservatives trusted his conservative viewpit, they did trust his economic acumen based on his past life.
The basis of trust that an electorate has on a candidate is the candidate’s worldview since the candidate is very vague in his utterances so as not to offend. So in order to judge a person predictive path in promoting laws we have very little to go on then a sense of a candidate’s world view.
Obama throwing Wright under the bus did not hurt black’s worldview of him because they understood that Wright had personally attacked Obama and Obama’s action were ok as a response to that attack.
Obama’a actions in allowing FISA and getting Warren for the prayer struck dissonace to leftists worldview and introduce doubt. But then he nominates Sotamayor who us a black/latina proracist and anti gun and they are then confirmed that underneath Obama has the same worldview.
Bush was considered a conservative he was a God and Country man but enough dissonace came from Bush’s never had a spending bill he would veto. That damaged his credentials enough that many refused to support him near the end. Bush’s greatest rejection was the TARP forcing the banks that violated contract law, fiduicary reponsibility and the concept of capitalism that is the basis of our economy.
When his principles all go awry
His supporters just let out a sigh
Barack’s loyal tribe
Cannot wait to imbibe
What comes out when he gives them the lie.
— —
As he transforms Gitmo to rendition
Or Iraq to a permanent mission
The President states
There is nothing he hates
More than a lambasting lackey logician.
— —
L3
The inability to resolve cognitive dissonance with logic – call it doublethink, call it what you will – is one of the hallmarks of the postmodern left. The truth must be highly plastic, if perception of events and opinions is to have the flexibility required to adapt the universe to one’s narrative.
W
at what point do you tell your tame clergymen that you don’t believe in God?
Er, now; and I know my fellow clergymen aren’t tame, so mercy, BC’ers.
Is it possible that Obmighty already knows he’s a fraud. I think he does.
Is it possible that he knows that Bush hadn’t done enough to entrap the enemy? That we went to war when the (Lefty) population wasn’t on board.
Is not his current entrapment of Iran, the entire Islamic world, (offer an open hand of engagement, get a bloody nose, and then cry foul) a masterstroke?
Is he not showing that NK can’t be engaged, must better than the “Axis of Evil” comment?
If I were Iran, I’d be very worried that Hell hath no fury like a Lefty (and I don’t mean Obama, but the Lefties who have worried about where their oranges came from, as in a prior thread) scorned.
Maybe the Dems and the GOP can unite, albeit on two channels.
Let it go for a while. You’ve only been dealt two cards.
ADE
Back in the 90’s when Pakistan first tested its nuclear weapons, and India responded with its own new tests, and Pakistan responded with more tests, an explanation was offered on NPR for the CIA’s failure to predict these events.
The CIA analysts heard what the leadership of those countries were saying, the bombastic threats and vows to develop nukes but discounted them on the basis that American politicians all lie and so those in Pakistan and India had to be lying as well.
In the Clinton era we were told he was not lying, well, actually yes, he was, – and it was a good thing. Lying kept from hurting people’s all important feeeelings, kept families together, made it rain and caused the crops to grow. It is understandable that people would come to accept lying – but not if you are an intelligence analyst who wants just the facts.
So if you admire his lying because of who he is, then how do you apply it to yourself? Do you excuse your hero’s fault by saying “Everybody does that” and thus not worry about Iran and North Korea? It’s not just your hero’s worldview, but how you have to change your own.
It is not what he says. It is what he does. Even more than most politicians, which is saying quite a bit, what comes out of BO’s mouth is pure 200 proof blather, carefully tuned to befuddle the audience. By now, I think most conservatives have given up on the blather, it is only interesting to the extent that we can watch liberals delude themselves into thinking that he is the ONE. Why, even David Brooks seems to be recovering from his treatment.
Folks we elected an empty suit from the Chicago machine as our president. Fortunately, the republic will survive this, but keep your seatbelts fastened, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
RWE
But if you use your enemies’ lies to expose your enemies to the (recalcitrant) home front, what is wrong with that?
If you have to use lies, is that just not a (milder?) version of the torture debate?
If lies are a better (in its business Cost/Benefit meaning) alternative than torture, then why not?
Remember purists, maybe others can’t afford your purity.
I’ll never eat oranges again.
ADE
Obama and the ‘South Park’ Gnomes
Sometimes it takes “South Park” to explain life’s deeper mysteries. Like the logic of the Obama administration’s policy proposals.
Consider the 1998 “Gnomes” episode — possibly surpassing Milton Friedman’s “Free to Choose” as the classic defense of capitalism — in which the children of South Park, Colo., get a lesson in how not to run an enterprise from mysterious little men who go about stealing undergarments from the unsuspecting and collecting them in a huge underground storehouse.
What’s the big idea? The gnomes explain:
“Phase One: Collect underpants.
“Phase Two: ?
“Phase Three: Profit.”
Lest you think there’s a step missing here, that’s the whole point. (“What about Phase Two?” asks one of the kids. “Well,” answers a gnome, “Phase Three is profits!”) This more or less sums up Mr. Obama’s speech last week on Guantanamo, in which the president explained how he intended to dispose of the remaining detainees after both houses of Congress voted overwhelmingly against bringing them to the U.S.
The president’s plan can briefly be described as follows.
Phase One: Order Guantanamo closed.
Phase Two: ?
Phase Three: Close Gitmo!
East German Stasi Spy Killed Protester, Ohnesorg, in 1967
It was called “the shot that changed the republic.”
The killing in 1967 of an unarmed demonstrator by a police officer in West Berlin set off a left-wing protest movement and put conservative West Germany on course to evolve into the progressive country it has become today.
Now a discovery in the archives of the East German secret police, known as the Stasi, has upended Germany’s perception of its postwar history. The killer, Karl-Heinz Kurras, though working for the West Berlin police, was at the time also acting as a Stasi spy for East Germany.
It is as if the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard had been committed by an undercover K.G.B. officer, though the reverberations in Germany seemed to have run deeper.
—
For the left, Mr. Kurras’s true allegiance strikes at the underpinnings of the 1968 protest movement in Germany.
The killing provided the clear-cut rationale for the movement’s opposition to what its members saw as a violent, unjust state, when in fact the supposed fascist villain of leftist lore was himself a committed socialist.
For the non-political, disengaged, uninformed and vaguely liberal white person (i.e. a giant chunk of the population), a great deal of Obama’s appeal is simply because he’s black. When I meet these types it never ceases to amaze me how you can’t exaggerate the way they romanticize black-ness. It’s a free pass for anything and everything.
It reminds me of that scene in “Annie Hall” when Woody Allen’s character, Alvy Singer, is recalling his childhood and his liberal Jewish parents. The mother is complaining that the black cleaning woman is stealing from them. And the father poo-poohs it by saying “She’s a colored woman, from Harlem! She has no money! She’s got a right to steal from us! After all, who is she gonna steal from if not us?”
Indeed. Well who is Obama going to steal from if not from us?
Obama is like a Carnival Magician, dress flashy, talk fast and wave one hand around so that people are busy watching it instead of the hand doing the real trick. His Obamabots go along because they think they “know this trick” and are chuckling at the rubes that haven’t caught on. What they don’t understand is that, from Obama’s point of view, they are ALL the rubes and he is the only one that knows what the real trick is.
Wretchard noted that “Conservative pundits have focused on the ‘what Obama says’ channel, but what is really important is the ‘what Obama is’ channel, relative to his die-hard base.”
Might this explain why so many people put their fingers in their ears and shout “Nah, nah, nah…” whenever questions are raised about Obama’s sequestered birth certificate, adoption records, passport usage, draft registration, Illinois Bar application, student loan paperwork, college transcripts, tax returns and health records?
Doug
I worry about you out there in Hawaii, all alone on the international dateline, the permanent twilight zone.
Here’s permanance, terra firma, something you’ve never experienced – (Cold) November Rain
ADE
The president’s plan can briefly be described as follows.
Phase One: Order Guantanamo closed.
Phase Two: ?
Phase Three: Close Gitmo!
Actually, I think his plan is:
Phase One: Close Gitmo.
Phase Two: ?
Phase Three: We Win!!!
Enough.
If the BC is to move on, it has to get over its Obama Derangement Syndrome.
ADE
In the late ’70′s, there was a political cartoon by Mike Peters, with George Washington, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter in it.
Under Washington “I cannot tell a lie”
Under Nixon “I cannot tell the truth”
Under Carter “I cannot tell the difference”
Add Obama to this “There is no difference”
It’s all the same to him. Expediency in the pursuit of power. Truth, lies, whatever it takes (as the BankOne commercial used to go). He probably sleeps pretty well at night, because he is comfortable in excercising his “power” in pursuit of the “ideals” of the Left. Truth, lies, whatever it takes.
As Chesterton intimated, the passing comments and remarks of the day don’t really matter. They are just windowdressing to the actual beliefs and acts of the man in power. Everything is relative to him, and he will do what he must, untrammeled by morality or conscience, to wield power for his “cause”. And he is surrounded by people who think likewise, and cover is provided by a largely compliant media who also thinks likewise. Soon, he will capture the Supreme Court, and then this ideology will control all three branches of government, and we will all be at the mercy of the whims of a man with the morality of a ……community organizer?
If he does go too far, or if too many people actually come to realize this, or if the media actually wakes up and starts to reconsider Obama, this has the makings for a bloody revolt against the government. I pray that it does not come to that, and that this bitter cup passes from us.
The die-hard Obama supporters (to be distinguished from the squishes in the middle who voted for his style and/or vague hopey-change and nothing else) aren’t the only ones listening to him on two channels.
I would submit that most if not all of the 46 percent of the voters who pulled the lever for McCain were also listening to Obama on that second channel, were repulsed, and hence voted for McCain. (many holding their noses while doing so)
Most of what we at BC have been discussing with regard to Obama for the better part of a year now has been, has it not, the message coming across that second channel, yes?
Look at his lifelong pattern of associates.
A number of us here once used to be left of center, by varying degrees.
But how many of us can say that we ever picked up, let alone maintained over the course of a decade-plus a close professional association with, unrepentant domestic terrorists like Ayers and Dohrn?
A number of us are deeply religious. Some of us, because of our faith, may even hold deeply committed views that are hotly contested in the political arena.
But how many of us would sit for 20 years in a church and claim to be unaware that spiritual poison (not to mention racial hatred) is being dispensed from the pulpit? And how many of us would expose our children to that kind of environment?
This kind of stuff, to me, was the second channel — the pattern of habit, the recurring themes and people types, that consistent position to which the compass needles all inevitably came to rest, eventually, regardless of how many times and how furiously they spun beforehand.
And my conclusion was: Dog, vomit. (Proverbs 26:11, for those wondering) Character is a good predictor of future behavior … and a pattern of behavior is also a good indication of character.
When I was a child my grandfather had a neighbor that was a bit of a braggard. My grandfather would listen to him good-naturedly but always cautioned me afterward, “Look at what he has done, not what he has said for his achievements are all in the future”.
When I first encountered Obama I did just that, and found that his acheivements were next to nil, his friends reprehensible, and his ambition seemingly limitless. This gauranteed that I would not be a supporter of him.
Under Washington “I cannot tell a lie”
Under Nixon “I cannot tell the truth”
Under Carter “I cannot tell the difference”
Add Obama to this “There is no difference”
It occurred to me some time ago that Obama is probably our first truly postmodern president.
With Clinton, the lies were the tribute that vice pays to virtue. There was, at least, an attempt to stake and hold to certain assertions. Which suggested some notion of the value of the appearance of consistency. Hence the ridiculous rhetorical contortions (“it depends upon what the meaning of the word “is” is) as an attempt to maintain the appearance.
With Obama … it seems as if the pretense has been dropped. There is not only no hesitancy to say “A” to Audience #1, and then turn around and say “non-A” to Audience #2; there appears to be no sense that the contradiction even needs to be explained, let alone covered over (i.e. the Clinton approach).
I could swear I’ve even read lauditory accounts in the media for this (ahem) “ability” on O’s part to hold contradictory beliefs in his mind simultaneously, with ease. Not as part of a mental struggle to resolve the conflict, mind you; but in the sense of being comfortable with the contradiction itself. This is characterized by the media as a trait of mental suppleness (or some similar hooey phrase).
When all it is, is postmodernism, a spit-in-the-eye refutation of the entire foundation and legacy of Western thought, and a habit that drives engineers and other linear thinkers apesh*t because they know (having seen firsthand) the disastrous results of trying to implement A and non-A as the same function at the same time.
Ideas have consequences. Unfortunately, the consequences of academic ideas (too often negative these days) rarely get expressed in a manner that swiftly or directly affects the lives of academics. Ditto the lives of high-level government bureaucrats. (Jamie Gorelick, anyone?) And those are the only two worlds Obama has ever known in his adult life. He has been able to “afford” his postmodern thinking because he has never been the one who had to pay the price for its results. That price was paid, in Chicago, by the people at Grove Parc Plaza. Now it is about to be paid by a couple hundred million regular Americans.
“by their fruits you will know them…”
bogie:
It was his own words that convinced me. The riffing in his book on how to get over on white folks, the naive dorm-room bull session worldview, the admitted heavy drug use, the massive chip on his shoulder over an injustice he’d simply never experienced as a prep school and Ivy League grad and darling of a major politcal party. Hearing all this in his own voice (in my case, during books-on-tape excerpts played on the radio) filled the holes left by his wafer-thin resume and absence of a paper trail.
Hardass commenters notwithstanding, righties should actually be pleased that Obama is a political animal.
Because it bends both ways. He told everybody we’d be out of Iraq in six months. That’s we’d close Gitmo quickly. In the end, he’s doing the right thing.
In the end, every single politician has done this sort of thing, and outrage over it is wasted time. Faux outrage, doubly so.
More from Chesterton: “When a Man stops believing in God he doesn¹t then believe in nothing, he believes anything.”
My take on the Obama phenomenon:
Obama thinks he is the bridge from disunity to unity in this country. A man in the White House who, for the first time, isn’t the overseer, but sees things from the perspective of all the people of color, and not just in America. A time for making things right. A time for all to finally get on board and unleash this country’s suppressed potential.
All aboard!
The rationalization that “everyone does it” is true, but only to a degree.
How far will our post-modern President go?
His administration has already shown it is willing to updend 5th Amendment contractural rights with respect to the Chrysler bankruptcy. And in the name of “re-solving the crisis”. And it appears they will do the same in the GM “bankruptcy”.
This sounds strangely similar to “making the trains run on time.” And we all know how that ended.
But how many of us would sit for 20 years in a church and claim to be unaware that spiritual poison (not to mention racial hatred) is being dispensed from the pulpit? And how many of us would expose our children to that kind of environment?
How many of us would listen to 30 seconds of two sermons and assume that they are entirely representative of 20 years of sermons?
How many of us willingly participate in the poisoning of our own understanding? How many of us teach our children to share this lack of critical thinking?
I used to. Not any longer. In order to completely understand, I listened to the entire “God Damn America” sermon; and in context, the piece that YOU listened to was relatively harmless. The entire piece was about each of us using the events of 9/11 to form a closer relationship to God. I was actually moved by it. I bet you would be, too.
Post-turtle, Post-modern, Post-truth and surely Post-trust as we bide our time for Post-office.
I found many of the reasons commenter gave for not voting for Obama helped me be clearer about my own reasons why I wouldn’t vote for him. If I can add anything I would point that we all project on our presidents – our fears and hopes. I would say BC commenters, while conservative, do not generally rise to the level of Obama Derangement Syndrome. People here are properly worried by a leftist whose real intent we don’t fully know. His behaviour over Gitmo, Iraq and AfPak has been surprisingly similar to Dubya’s. In terms of the economic crisis I can’t tell there has been a change in administrations in most ways – except for bailing out the auto unions and dumping the bond holders. I believe he has yet to be tested. We will find out who he IS, when we see what he DOES under pressure. Finally I think that great presidents use the projections that people put on them for the good of the country. Lesser men just look after themselves. Men like Nixon or Clinton are in the latter category. Lincoln, FDR, and Reagan in the former category. I do not blame conservatives one little bit for looking out for the negative possibilities – that is part of the job of opposition. I am just saying that it is too early to tell how Obama will perform when constrained by events and forced to act from who he IS. He may turn out to be a subtle and resourceful man quite capable of being ruthless in the defence of his country. Or an empty suit.
My apologies to Wretchard – who I sent this earlier – but I think it is appropriate for this discussion.
You have to wonder, at what point does a “Systems Approach” fail?
Say you are promised that if you fork over your money in advance that you will receive a wonderful new car. A plug in hybrid that will go 40 miles on a charge and then kick over to an auxillary biofuel engine and be equipped with every possible advancement and luxury. With such a car you can laugh at the price of gasoline and work from the car as you commute. So you can sell that condo in the city, buy a place at the beach, and change jobs, go from selling insurance or writing computer programs to marketing home gardening supplies so everyone can grow their own food and make their own biodiesel fuel. It will be a new transportation systems, truly transformational, for you, for the environment, and National Security policy – we can throw the Middle East under the bus.
Then they tell you the built-in DVD player won’t be there. Okay. And then the Bluetooth will be gone. Okay. Then the XM satellite radio drops out. And then the WiFi link for your laptop becomes infeasible. And then the batteries and stronger motor needed for the plug-in electric feature disappears, followed by the bio-diesel engine feature.
At what point do you admit the fact that instead of a new completely equipped 2012 Super-Prius that gets 100 mpg when it needs any fuel at all that in reality you paid $35K for a 1976 Plymouth Volare that uses a quart of oil every 100 miles and comes with a scratchy AM radio and an 8 track tapedeck? And that means that the home gardening business and move to the beach won’t work either?
At what point does the Obama New Systems Approach no longer work? When the promises and new features are dropped one by one and that leads to problems not going away as they were supposed to as a result of our New Economy, New Foreign Policy, New Immigration Policy, New Environmental Policy, etc.
Aside from the fancy footwork and eloquent speechs and saying one thing to one group and another to a different group, all this stuff was linked, the same way that Global Warming and Solar/Wind Energy as a solution are linked.
When do they admit they bought the old Volare and not the super-Prius?
….Americans are like teenagers : silly and superficial until they want or need to be serious and decisive. Nothing takes them from immaturity to maturity like economic loss or fear of annihilation. Stand by to stand by, Barry and company, your time on the cross is coming. Lying, cheating and stealing are the forte of the fantasy party, but a stable economy they do not make. Somebody outside your span of control is going to pose a deadly, unavoidable challenge to your worldview and you’re not going to measure up.
In order to completely understand, I listened to the entire “God Damn America” sermon; and in context, the piece that YOU listened to was relatively harmless. The entire piece was about each of us using the events of 9/11 to form a closer relationship to God.
Yes, please, let’s hear more than just the small “God damn America” snippet.
From the same sermon:
“The government still thinks a woman has no rights over her own body …
The US government is pro-life? Roe v Wade, anyone?
“Her body”? Gee, no lefty talking points there.
And if the tens of millions of pro-life private citizens who oppose abortion constitute “the government” and wield all the power of “the government,” then why is abortion still practiced anywhere in this country?
To bring the issue a little closer. Since 1973, black women have had about 16 million of the estimated 48 million abortions in this country. 13% of the population. 33% of the abortions. 16 million black (or from a black mother) human beings missing from our nation. Which has only 40 million African Americans right now. That’s almost 1/4 of the potential community killed off by abortion. All self-inflicted.
…and between Uncle Clarence (Thomas), who sexually harassed Anita Hill…
“Uncle Clarence.” Most charitable and Christian nickname, that. Note also that Ms. Hill’s claim is assumed to be proven on its face.
And this is fitting, how, in a sermon supposedly about forming a closer relationship to God?
…and a closeted Klan court, that is a throwback to the 19th century…
Gee, I missed the reissuance of the Dred Scott decision during that
2000-2001 term. The 19th-century throwbacking must have occurred somewhere between the Clean Water Act and the decision on golf carts for disabled people on PGA tour.
…handpicked by Daddy Bush, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, between Clarence and that stacked court…
For the record, the justices in Fall 2001 were:
Rehnquist – conservative – appointed by Reagan
Stevens – liberal – appointed by Ford
Scalia – conservative – appointed by Reagan
Kennedy – swing – appointed by Reagan
Souter – liberal – appointed by “Daddy Bush”
O’Connor – swing – appointed by Reagan
Thomas – conservative – appointed by “Daddy Bush”
Ginsburg – liberal – appointed by Clinton
Breyer – liberal – appointed by Clinton
The “stacked court” that Wright complains about has four liberals, three conservatives, and two swing votes. The actual lesson and truth in this is, just because a Republican president nominates them doesn’t mean they’re a conservative. But note that the Dem president succeeded in getting 2 liberals out of 2 nominations.
Rev. Wright could have applauded Mr. Clinton for his sparkling efficiency as compared to the suck-worthy Republican track record. It’s just that this statistic didn’t fit the agenda. Better to fixate on the party of the nominating president, rather than on the actual resulting decisions of the justice.
*******************************
There is much, much, much more in that sermon that is fiskable. I have excerpted only one paragraph here because to examine any more would only needlessly take up a lot more space when I think the point is sufficiently made here. Point being: Every time Rev. Wright opens his mouth to make a political reference, it is one or more of the following combination: (a) factually inaccurate, (b) spun as standard lefty talking point, (c) nutter conspiracy talking point, (d) low-class guttersnipe name-calling, (e) cherry-picked blame-gaming.
Look, I know what good gospel preaching sounds like. There is no lack of terrific Bible-centered black churches with truly God-inspired pastors in the lead. We have a laudable example (one of many) of great gospel preaching here in Pittsburgh. I would put Dr. Glaze’s sermons up against Rev. Wright’s any day. More accurately, I would put both their sermons up against the Bible. I’m very confident that Dr. Glaze’s sermons would come up wheat, not chaff. I have extremely serious doubts about Rev. Wright’s.
Proverbs 26:18-19 (KJV)
18 As a mad man who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death,
19 So is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am not I in sport?
I was in error, bogie, it was actually the other, earlier speech that called on using the events of 9/11 to form a closer relationship to God. Longer transcripts from both speeches can be found here:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-wright-transcripts-webmar29,0,5774556.story
The Wright speeches were criticized for being anti-American, not because they were generally lefty speeches that you could find disagreement with. You disagree with him, that’s not news, not interesting, and not flak for the sound-bitten campaign trail.
And another thing: Wright is allowed to be wrong, too, without automatically becoming reprehensible. He’s not a journalist. If you disagree with him on politics, well guess what, politics is about 5% of life on a day to day basis.
Which is partly the point of Wright’s G-D America speech. Governments, he notes, have failed many people many times, including the US Government. Fisk this, my friend:
“God was against slavery on yesterday and God who does not change is still against slavery today. God was a God of love yesterday, and God who does not change is still a God of love today. God was a God of justice on yesterday, and God who does not change is still a God of justice today. Turn to your neighbor and say: ‘God does not change.’
“Where governments lie, God does not lie. Where governments change, God does not change.”
See, his larger point is something you can agree with 100%: Don’t put your faith in the ever-changing governments, which repeatedly fail their people. Put your faith in God, who does not change, and will not fail you.
It is illuminating that his point holds even though his facts are fiskable.
The die-hard Obama supporters (to be distinguished from the squishes in the middle who voted for his style and/or vague hopey-change and nothing else) aren’t the only ones listening to him on two channels.
I would submit that most if not all of the 46 percent of the voters who pulled the lever for McCain were also listening to Obama on that second channel, were repulsed, and hence voted for McCain. (many holding their noses while doing so)
Perhaps some of us hear the second channel, and some don’t. Those who don’t hear the second channel are futher divided into two groups, those who don’t realize there even is a second channel (moderates who voted for Obama), and those who assume the second channel is there but “secured” which is why they can’t hear it (gay activists, gitmo obsessives, etc). I think this last group are the ones who “trust Obama because he lies.” They assume the second channel, assume it isn’t publically available so as to keep “the rubes” in the dark, assume they aren’t the rubes themseves and, therefore, assume the second channel contains what they want to hear.
Well, you know what they say about assume.
Undertoad @ #37:
“The entire piece was about each of us using the events of 9/11 to form a closer relationship to God.”
Sorry, I don’t know what you listened to but reading the Sermon here are some thoughts: The title was “Confusing God and Government” and the biblical passage was about Jesus weeping because the people didn’t understand the underlying dynamic of His coming and resurrection.
The bulk of the sermon dealt with governments lie, change (pass away) and fail but God never does. Wright focussed primarily on the US and condemned it, hence the line :
“No, no, no. Not “God Bless America”; God Damn America! That’s in the Bible, for people. God Damn America for treating her citizen as less than human. God Damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme!”
Though not 100% fiction it was littered throughout with canards, made up facts and vicious libels and epithets that amount to vulgar name-calling ( “Condeskeeza” Rice – ). Any careful reader or casual listener would first understand that it was diatribe against “America” as racist, a robber of the poor to benefit rich whites, a liar and it would be (was) judged by God. A call to grow closer to God was not explicit – the only explicit advice was to let God handle “our burdens”.
That Undertoad could so willfully mis-interpret the meaning of plain words is the key lesson from comment #37.
Undertoad has an Emily Litella moment in 3-2-1…
Re: #44 – That 85% of the Sermon was Anti-American and the last few sentences (less than 1%?) called on reliance on God not government makes it the larger point? Undertoad continues to spin – but who are you going to believe, Undertoad or your lyin’ eyes?
Undertoad wrote: “How many of us would listen to 30 seconds of two sermons and assume that they are entirely representative of 20 years of sermons?” – well read the sermons, it’s not just the 30 second sound-bite and you admit as much so the point stands: Obama sat and listened to Wright for 20 years and heard essentially what we think he heard and the transcripts of those two sermons bear it out…
I’m prepared to discuss this with honest critical thinkers.
So, honest critical thinkers, please step forward.
Stanley, not so fast.
From the dear Revvy Wright.
We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Iroquois, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism. We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism. We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel; we bombed the black civilian community of Panama, with stealth bombers, and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers. We’ve bombed [Moammar] Gadhafi’s home and killed his child.
Blessed are they who bash your children’s heads against the rocks. We bombed Iraq; we killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back an attack on our embassy. Killed hundreds of hard-working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day, not knowing that they would never get back home.
We’ve bombed Hiroshima, we’ve bombed Nagasaki, we’ve nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.
If you don’t recognize that as hard-core Lefty agit-prop, pre-canned Marxist garbage, then you haven’t been listening for lo these past fifty years. Let’s see, what’s missing from that laundry list of “horrors”? Oh yeah, anything done by any other country!
If this kind of swill “moves” you, then turn on your local Pacifica Radio station, because you’ll have a ball listening to miserable Communist wretches like Amy Goodman spout this day and night, indeed almost word for word. Rev. Wright DID get that particular memo.
On the flip side, Wright’s “God was a God of love yesterday, and God who does not change is still a God of love today…” is just banal and obvious. Nothing wrong with it, per se, but so what. It hardly makes up for the rest.
Oh, and any black that freely uses the term “Uncle Tom” is of no use to me. I know everything I need to know about him from those two words.
Thought experiment:
Suppose a white preacher stands up in a white church to preach a sermon on sexual sin.
He spends 10 minutes on statistics about the devastating effects of sexual sin on children — as abortion victims; as neglected, impoverished products of single-mother households; as largely fatherless and emotionally deprived; as victims of sexual abuse. 99% of the statistics he uses — let’s just say, for sake of argument, each one of the statistics is in and of itself true — focus on the inner city African American community.
He spends 5 minutes talking about how these child victims of circumstances of sexual sin grow up, statistically, with all kinds of social deviancies that turn into criminal, economic, and relational disasters. Again he focuses on the self-destruction in the inner city African American community. And again, for sake of argument, let’s say virtually all his statistics are accurate.
He then spends 5 minutes repeating long-discounted propaganda about supposedly insatiable and uncontrollable black sexuality and the (acc to the propaganda) inferiority of the African American’s brain in functions of self-control.
Throughout his sermon he sprinkles verses straight from the Bible warning against sexual immorality (Acts 15:29, Romans 13:13, 1 Cor. 6:18, Col. 3:5), and he both opens and closes his sermon with the overall point that the body, being the temple of the Holy Spirit, should be consecrated to God in purity, including (especially) sexual purity. This amounts to 15 minutes.
What would you call such a sermon?
I’d call it sick. Twisted, distorted, spiritual poison.
Why? Because in the guise of discussing a genuine Biblical lesson (sexual purity), its examples of sin are thrown wholly onto “the other” and, in so doing, potentially feed both resentment and pride in the flock towards “the other.” Instead of leading the listener to be convicted of the sin in him/herself, it displaces the guilt. “Our nation is drowning in sexual sin! And blacks are the worst of these sinners!”
Note that the overall point of sexual purity was Biblically valid and, in its broadest strokes, something that any orthodox Christian would agree with 100%. And that most of the preacher’s statistics were factually accurate. But two bait-and-switch rhetorical tactics — (1) he left out all the stats on white abortion, white adultery, white single-mother households, social deviancies of white kids raised in these households, etc., and (2) the vile propaganda about black sexuality … only 5 minutes of emphasis in a 35-minute sermon, but vile propaganda nonetheless — transform this sermon into grossly unChristian garbage, even what could be labeled hate-mongering.
True gospel preaching always seeks to turn conviction INWARD at the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It’s something else entirely when a preacher riles up his flock by stirring up blame against “the other.” (Even if statistics were on his side, other-blaming is not appropriate spiritual counsel from the pulpit.) Where blame-bombs are thrown on any kind of even semi-regular basis, I would beat a hasty path out of such a church.
wingman: “Undertoad, do you copy?” “Bogie at 4:09, over.”
Words are wise men’s counters; they do but reckon by them. But they are the money of fools.
We need to learn what words mean. We may have taken this land from those peoples by force, but not by terror. For the beginning of wisdom on the subject, read Bobbitt’s Terror and Consent.