“The Left: People who demonize those with whom they disagree.”

My first thought was to think of how so many neocons today are masters at the art of projection: they take what is commonly done by neocons and turn it around saying it’s really liberals doing it.

Personally attacking one’s opponents, instead of coming up with reasoned rebuttals to their ideas is intellectually dishonest and is a symptom of the creeping anti-intellectualism in this country; an example of the dumbing-down of America. It’s much easier to blame liberals for everything that’s wrong in our world today, than to come up with ideas on how to fix these problems together.

Gone are the days of erudite conservatives, such as William Buckley. Also largely gone are those conservatives, such as Barry Goldwater, who was able to often put ideological differences aside and work in a bi-partisan manner with his Democratic colleagues (now, I bet that is a word you don’t hear too much in Washington nowadays) for the good of the country.

Now, it’s neocon pundits, such as Limbaugh, Savage, and Coulter, among many others, who have brought the black and white, simplistic tactic of using ad hominems against their opponents in from the far right fringes of the tinfoil hat brigade into mainstream conservative thought. Or what passes for thought. This is not to say that the left is entirely free of such nonsense — there are liberals, such as Rosie O’Donnell, who could hardly be called intellectual. But those such as O’Donnell hardly have the reach or the influence tha those in the pantheon on the right wing do

I heard a prime example of this type of anti-intellectualism the other night while listening to the radio. A man called the Dennis Miller show to express why he rejected intelligent design. Miller didn’t give him much of a chance to speak. Instead he cut him off to say that he couldn’t get on board with Darwinism because he just couldn’t get into the idea of “worshipping a pile of amino acids” and that he liked the idea of an intelligent being creating life on Earth.

My jaw dropped when I heard this nonsense. I could not believe that Miller, a former liberal and former cast member of Saturday Night Live — in other words, someone who should know better — was spouting off such simplistic ideas. There was once a time when being a conservative did not mean one also had to accept intellectually bankrupt, fundamentalist Christian beliefs as well.

Instead of the Buckley types being the mainstream of conservatism, we now have the Archie Bunkers of the world running the Republican party, which is a sad thing for old-school Republicans and the party in general.

Thoughts?

Because it was Veteran’s Day, he was relating anecdotes with that theme in mind.  He told a story about a man attacked by four muggers in an alley in Milwaukee.  They stripped all his belongings from him, but when the gang’s leader went through his wallet, he found the man’s military ID card.  Seeing this, he told the other muggers to give everything back to the man.  After this had been done, the leader apologized to the man and thanked him for his service before leaving him to go about his business.

I’d thought this was a nice feel-good story — and it was — until Boortz had to open his big mouth at the end and turn it into a political opportunity.

I don’t recall the exact words, but he said something to the effect that wasn’t it something that these criminals had more respect for our troops than most liberals did.

What a fucking moron.   Many liberals may not support the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it doesn’t mean we don’t support the people over there putting their lives on the line every day.  Many of us have family members serving in the military and who have previously served or have served themselves at some point in time.  My father served in WWII, as well as several of my uncles.  I had cousins and younger uncles who are Vietnam era veterans.  The fact that I am proud of their service doesn’t make me any less of a liberal, nor does my being a liberal make me any less proud of their service.

I did find it interesting, however,  that on the highlights of November 11th’s show on his website that the reference to this story did not include the crack about liberals that went out over the air.  Instead, it said:

This story caused me to think … to wonder if all of us give our men and women in uniform and our veterans the respect these criminals did. I think that generally we do … I certainly hope I’m right.

If he’d said exactly this on the air, I’d have had no problem with him and I’d not be reporting about it today on my blog.

The difference was that the printed version was inclusive and the broadcast version was divisive.   But Boortz doesn’t gain listeners by simply reminding everyone that our veterans deserve respect; rather, he appeals to the lowest common denominator by appealing to their baser instincts, thus throwing the jab at liberals in so his listeners could project their feelings out onto some group they could be self-righteously against.  He doesn’t inspire people to think, but rather he whips up the amorphous outrage of the masses.

Good morning, committee. My name is Phillip Spooner and I live …in Biddeford. I am 86 years old, a lifetime Republican, and an active VFW chaplain. I still serve three hospitals and two nursing homes, and I also served meals on wheels for 20 years. My wife of 54 years, Jenny, died in 1997. Together we had four children, including one gay son. All four of our boys were in the service.

I’m here today because of a conversation I had last year when I was voting. A woman at my polling place asked me, “Do you believe in equality for gay and lesbian people?”

I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that; it made no sense to me.

Finally I asked her, “What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach?”

I have seen so much blood and guts, so much suffering, so much sacrifice. For what? For freedom and equality. These are the values that make America a great nation, one worth dying for.

I give talks to eighth grade teachers about World War II, and I don’t tell them about the horror. Maybe I have to invite them to the ovens at Buchenwald and Dachau. I’ve seen with my own eyes the consequences of caste systems, and it makes some people less than others, or second class.

Thank you.

View his YouTube video at  What Do You Think I Fought For At Omaha Beach?

This unknown woman had the unpleasant quality of sounding both indignant and nervous at the same time. She sounded quite like she’d consumed an entire pot of coffee singlehandedly just before the broadcast.   You know the sound: voice slightly raised in pitch, a haughy, prim tone, with a hint of a nervous tremor in her voice.   Her voice almost hummed as she engaged in an inner battle as to what emotion would win: (self)righteous indignation or nervousness.

Though her voice was grating, I had to listen until she revealed her identity, as I wanted to hear the name of the woman who almost made Neal Boortz seem reasonable.

It was Monica Crowley, who, oddly enough, is the sister-in-law of Alan Colmes, the liberal half of Hannity and Colmes.

Anyway, enough background for now; let me get to the point of this post.

When I tuned in, Crowley was in mid-rant about health care reform.   The thrust of her argument was that the Democrats are “lying through their teeth” about how much health care reform will actually cost.  She mentioned tort reform. citing that malpractice insurance that doctors must carry was one of the biggest offenders in the cost of health care.

All right, I’ll grant that this is no doubt a factor affecting the cost of health care in this country, but she completely lost me when she continued her argument.

She went on to say that the Democrats are against malpractice law reform simply because a large number of trial lawyers supported the Democrats in the last election and for no other reason.  Paranoid, much?

If I thought I’d get a fair chance to air my opinion, I’d have called and asked her, “If malpractice laws are abolished, what do you propose be done to protect patients who are the victims of genuine malpractice and gross medical negligence?”

Naturally, she did not address this concern on her show and I’d guess that she really doesn’t much care.

Thoughts?

Don’t get me wrong, I voted for the guy and think he shows a lot of promise.   But I think it’s premature, to say the least, to award him such a prize so early in his administration.   I am sure there are others who deserve it more at this particular point in time.   I’d been under the impression that the prize was awarded on the basis of actual accomplishments, rather than on the hope of promise.

It’s quite possible that in a few years, Obama would rightly deserve the prize on the basis of accomplishment, but awarding it now makes me wonder if he’s being given the award mainly because he’s not George Bush.

Nevertheless, it’s going to be amusing watching the indignant reactions from the far right wingnuts, as they get their collective boxers/panties in a wad while they froth at the mouth.

Oh, where to begin with this blockheaded black and white thinking?

First of all, Hitler made the trains run on time in Nazi Germany and it was his idea to invent a cheap, well-made car so that all German workers could have their own automobile.  That car survives today by the name he gave it — Volkswagen — which translates from German as “People’s car”.

So — should we abolish punctual public transportation and scrap every VW beetle on the planet because these good ideas happened to come from an evil man?  Will the retention of such things inevitably lead us to fascism?  Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater!

Another point to make is that the Nazi party was not “socialist” in the way that modern Scandinavian states are.  Yes, the Nazis called themselves “socialists”, as the word “Nazi” is a derivative of the acronym NSDAP (National Sozialistische Arbeiter’s Partei — National Socialist Worker’s Party).  Make no mistake about it, Nazi Germany was not socialist but, rather, it was a far right fascist totalitarian regime.  And like all dictatorships, the Nazis were masters of misleading euphemism; for example, a number of concentration camps had signs at their entrances with the slogan “Arbeit Macht FreI’ on them, which translates as “work brings freedom”.

In other words, the Nazis were no more “socialist” any more than the former East Germany was “democratic” or that modern China is run by “the people”.

Many right wingers also confuse socialism with statism (control by workers vs control by state) and believe that anything other than laissez-faire capitalism is “socialist”.  If this were actually true, then every government would be “socialist” under such a definition.

Thoughts?

Dr Pinsky was hosting an open forum for those who had misgivings about the Obama health care plan to call in and voice their concerns.

I was surprised to hear the doctor state to a caller that though he had problems with the Obama plan, he did agree that our current system is broken and that the goal is to ensure that no one in the US has to go without access to health care.  I don’t remember his exact words, but this was the gist of it.

Though I was not able to listen to this show in its entirety, this attitude was markedly different from most other conservatives I’ve either read or heard.

For instance, the other night a man called the Neal Boortz show, explaining to him that he was not able to get health insurance, though he was willing and able to pay for it, because he had a chronic health problem.  He challenged Boortz to tell him what he thought the solution should be in such a situation.

Boortz essentially told him that it wasn’t his problem, which I hear much more commonly from conservatives.  He asked the man if he actually expected him to pay for the health care of another person in such a situation, trotting out his tired complaint, “should the government be able to take away a portion of my life”(some of the money that he’d earned) to pay for stranger’s health care?

The man quickly responded that, yes, that he’d be glad to contribute to Boortz’ care if it had been him in the same situation.

Boortz didn’t propose any sort of better solution to the man’s problem, but took the attitude of “Oh, well, too bad for you.”  I wonder if he expects people in this situation to just shut up, go sit in a corner, and wait to die?  It makes me wonder how the man can manage to sleep at night..

I’ve not heard any conservatives offer any workable solutions to the goal which Pinsky defined and supported.  They are against the Obama plan, but they’re not offering a better one, either.

The Obama plan may not be perfect, but it’s a damned sight better than throwing up one’s hands and telling the uninsured, “Too bad for you — you’d better start praying that you don’t get sick”.

Thoughts?

Whether or not the boycott is justified isn’t the point of this blog entry.  My point is to call attention to Boortz’ hypocrisy in light of a broadcast he’d made about a week earlier than this one.

In the earlier broadcast, Boortz talked about a stationery shop he’d patronized for several years.  One day while shopping at this store, he noticed the owner leaving his car, which has pro-Obama stickers on them.  At that moment, Boortz decided to never shop there again, despite the fact that he’d always been given good service there and had nothing to complain about.  He chose to boycott this store only because the owner had voted for Barack Obama.

He went on to say that voting with one’s wallet is a time-honored way of expressing one’s opinion in a free market society, blah, blah, blah.

Pot, meet kettle.

I’m guessing Boortz won’t be trotting out that old voting with one’s wallet theme when it comes to the 36 sponsors who have chosen to withdraw their sponsorship from Glenn Beck’s show, either.