Commentary By Ron Beasley
A quote of the day via Sully:
"I've become less conservative since the Republican Party started becoming goofy," -Richard Posner.
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The raving loons in the GOP base - precisely because they have no serious thinking behind them - will double-down on their fantasies, empowered by partisan hatred. And that's why the GOP needs to be defeated this fall. For the sake of an honest conservatism.
I don't think that judge Posner has become less conservative. There is nothing conservative about the Republican base. They are goofy and that is kind - they are lunatics and they have taken over the asylum. The Republicans and the conservative movement created this monster by pandering to the bigots and the religious right for votes and they have taken control of the party.
Good observation. In the early morning hours I was thinking just now of a similar contradiction.
ReplyDeleteOne of the various criticisms of the president is that he "doesn't have a plan" or is a closet socialist who doesn't embrace American exceptionalism. It reminds me of the Southern sheriff examining the body of a young black man, bound in chains, pulled from a nearby river, who said "Just like a Nigger to steal more chains than he could carry."
I learned in the military and as a business manager that one need not like something to do it well, but there are limitations to what is possible. I don't approve of slavery but I can appreciate the importance and beauty of the pyramids (or the US capital, for that matter). And one need not enjoy being a soldier in uniform to do that job well. Plenty of us from the Vietnam Era can attest to that.
But two soldiers wearing identical uniforms may have opposite internal drives. One may enjoy, even look forward to, the thrill of the battlefield and the rush of excitement he gets from watching an enemy die. The other may perform his duty just as well, but regard what he does as one of the most hateful, disagreeable actions of his life, doing his duty knowing that when he kills someone -- even an "enemy" -- he will at the same time kill a little of himself inside.
You don't have to be a capitalist to know how to drive a car made and fueled by capitalist enterprises and you don't have to like management to be a good manager. In the same way I am convinced that Barack Obama may not like much of what he has been forced to do, but he's smart enough to know what has to be done to repair problems not of his making. In the same way that a medical team working on an accident victim must decide which parts of a victim can be saved and which will have to be amputated, he came into office as one of the worst financial crises of our lifetime was unfolding, just as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the world's most expensive (and ineffective) health care systems were all headed for disaster.
These challenges need a variety of historic bipartisan coping strategies. But what he has faced instead has been a level of ignorance and careless indifference not very different from that of the sheriff mentioned above. And I hate to say it, but his opponents haven't all been Republicans.
I'm not sure of the sentiment, here. We object to Republicans calling Obama a "Kenyan" and such, but we have no compunction about insulting them at great length, calling them "looney tunes, morons" and even worse names. I was raised by parents and grandparents who disapproved of treating other people differently than I wanted them to treat me.
ReplyDeleteI geuess politics is different, and things like politness and such don't apply, but for me it's not about who they are, or what the venue is, it's about who I am, who I was raised to be. I don't practice that principle with complete perfection, admittedly, and my parents and grandparents are dead and no longer able to rap my knuckles, but...
Obama isn't a Kenyan, which in any event isn't an insult.
ReplyDeletePeople who deny global climate change, think the US has the best health system in the world, that the earth was created in seven days six thousand years ago, and so on and so forth ARE morons.
You do have a point. Empty insults are to be avoided. But words like "idiot" and "moron" are not insults when applied to the average Republican supporter -- they're accurate descriptions.