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A Tale of Two Realities: Fact vs. Belief
more from Hrafnkell Haraldsson
It has struck me more and more lately how discussions about politics with conservative acquaintances become debates between belief and fact. To some extent it seems Republicans (and Tea Partiers) confuse the two. For example, you will hear things like, “do you believe in evolution?” Evolution is science; it is not something you believe in because science isn’t about belief. It’s about demonstrable facts. You can believe in creationism, but you can’t believe in evolution. You either accept the facts or you deny them and hide behind unassailable belief.
Birtherism is another issue that comes down to facts vs. belief. A conservative relative of mine says there is reason to doubt that Barack Obama was born in the United States. No, there is no reason to believe any such thing. The facts are there – birth announcement, birth certificate, etc. But birthers chose to disbelieve the evidence. You can pile the evidence up but none of it will matter because it’s not an issue of provable, demonstrable fact; it’s an issue of belief.
The same can be said of a great many other important issues of our age, including climate change, American history (the Christian nation myth), Sharia law, the “homosexual agenda” etc. These are all debates fueled by belief, not fact. There is evidence of climate change but this is ignored. There is no evidence of either “creeping” Sharia law or a homosexual agenda, yet these are almost issues of faith for conservatives. The evidence is again irrelevant.
To the extent evidence or fact enter into any discussion with conservatives in all likelihood the “facts” are invented, the science (to use their own favorite expression) “junk” and any history is revised to suit the needs of the moment.
Liberals and progressives pride themselves on their Enlightenment rationalism, but the Republican Party has become more and more the party of Protestant fundamentalism, a party of belief, in the process divorcing itself from reality and the facts that bolster that reality in favor of invented realities. Al Franken told the Republicans that they’re not entitled to their own facts, but this is exactly what Republicans feel they are entitled to.
Where does that leave our political debates? We can’t look for the situation to get any better; it won’t. The forces of reaction only grow stronger as the pressures upon them increase. And they are desperate. That they are not entirely divorced from the Einsteinian universe is shown by their realization that prayer alone won’t bring the change their belief system insists it must.
Sarah Palin spoke for the lunatic fringe of superstition when she promised in 2008 that “God” would make the right choice for America on Election Day. God apparently chose Obama and they seem to realize they can’t afford to let God make that choice again. Consequently, they are taking the choice out of God’s hands and also out of the people’s hands by making it impossible for Obama to be a two-term president through legislation.
As tests of faith go, Gods Own Party has been proven dismally tepid at best. God might tell Michele Bachmann to run for office but apparently he got the memo that he’s not entitled to a vote, even if his followers did not.
In 2008 rationalism prevailed. 2010 was dangerously close to a full victory for superstition; a two-year campaign of fear and disinformation bore fruit with Republican control of the U.S. House and several state legislatures. What seemed like a disaster at the time has proven to be a gift to the reeling forces of rationalism as Americans have been treated for the first time with the fruits of Republican misrule in Wisconsin, Michigan, and elsewhere. The American voter has for the first time been presented with proof of what America would look like after a Republican victory on Election Day 2012.
Real fear, not the manufactured fear of Republican scare-mongers, was the result. Belief that reality is a certain way, belief that your own beliefs trump laws of nature have been proven spectacularly false. All the reason and rationality in the world could not trump belief in a debate, but when given a chance, Republicans provided their own proof of the nihilistic nature of their policies. They made our arguments for us, and are making them still. The mainstream media does what it can on their behalf by declining to show the most egregious examples of public outrage, thus shielding believers from unpalatable facts but in this modern technological age, this age of social networking, the truth has a way of getting out. Why do you think they hate net neutrality so much?
Remember, this is not a clash between the forces of big and small government. This is a clash between two different ideas about big government, one that places controls on corporations and one that places controls on uteri. Don’t fool yourself that a vote for Republican or Tea Party candidates is a vote for small government. They want big government, a big government backing up their social agenda and protecting corporate interests.
The sad truth is that true believers won’t be persuaded even by the evidence of their eyes. Their beliefs call for certain things to be true and they will insist upon this manufactured reality no matter what. There will always be something wrong with that birth certificate. The flow charts and graphs that demonstrate the facts of Democratic vs. Republican economic policies for the past half-century will continue to be meaningless. Democrats will always be the racists even while the Republicans are drawing their watermelon patches around the White House and singing Barack the Magic Negro. It’s the reality they prefer.
And in some ways, the asylum seems a more fitting abode for them than Capitol or White House. That is, after all, what we do with people who divorce themselves too strongly from reality. But this is an entire political party; an entire religion. How does America cope with an epidemic of insanity affecting a quarter or more of its citizens? Election Day 2008’s shock treatment didn’t work and it is unlikely that another treatment in 2012 will have a different result. It will only confirm their fear and paranoia. And what will we do when that quarter of the population, well-armed as it is, decides to take matters into their own hands and tries to force God’s hand?
What happens when the essential disagreement between reason and belief comes to a head? Election Day 2012 may save America from superstition but that may only signal the beginning of our problems when the well-armed minority that believes itself to be a majority decides that only a left-wing coup could have put Barack Obama into the White House for a second term and who believe, despite all the unwanted facts to the contrary, that he will take their guns away. They already believe that he is not one of us, neither American, white (synonymous with American for this group), or Christian (also synonymous with American). They believe, because they have been told, that President Obama wants to destroy America. What happens when these well-armed believers decide it’s up to them to save it?
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40 Responses to A Tale of Two Realities: Fact vs. Belief
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Alli
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 8:55 am
Fortunately I don’t have those type of acquaintances and live in a blue state with rational reps and Senators.
Reynardine
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 9:02 am
That’s what they used to think in Wisconsin.
Anne
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 9:09 am
Instead of basing their belief system on facts, they twist or omit facts to suit their ideology. Even when faced with indisputable evidence that something they believe in doesn’t work or doesn’t work the way they think it would, they refuse to learn from that and obstinately dig in.
David Ealsh
Apr. 29th, 2011 at 2:31 am
Just like they use their bible. Pick and choose the parts support your need at the time… Sad really.
Shiva (Moderator)
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 9:14 am
I have a couple of Internet friends who profess to be conservative. I’m not so sure if they are conservative but both of them come from Louisiana. They constantly talk about “my” president. But when asked what he is doing that is wrong they never have an answer. They cannot find a single reason why he is destroying America, but they know that he is.
The problem with using God in an election is that he very seldom goes along with what you are. There is little doubt in my mind, in 2012 that we are going to hear God on every street corner.
We never hear a tea partier coming out against the fact that a governor can take your constitutionally elected officials away. I can only imagine that they “believe” is the right way to go.
There are so many segments to the conservative arguments. You have God for one, the belief that God wants the same thing you do, and then you have the belief that the poor, the sick and the aged should all be fending for themselves.(God wants this too)
We see the elections of 2012 as an easy win due to the actions of the conservatives. I would not be so sure. belief will always trump(no pun intended) over evidence
Reynardine
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 9:31 am
It’s this exact equivalating of dark, immovable unreason with virtue and patriotism that is so difficult to deal with. People who have accepted this premise are thereby immune to all appeals to fact, logic, justice, science, or the actual state of the law. If “religious”, the more cogent the arguments, the more they see in them the cunning of the Archdeceiver; if simply part of the terrified and downwardly mobile white yeomanry, they see these as the wiles of some kind of “intellectual elite” plotting to sell them out to dark-skinned, inferior, dangerous “others” – one of whom now occupies the White House, and is doubtless selling the nation out to global “others” right now. They listen only to those who tell them what they want to believe, and -like junkies- they are appeased only by larger and more virulant doses of it.
The mainstream media are at fault for giving this stuff a “fair” hearing. “Fairness” to them means striking a balance between facts and the worst lie told; between justice and the worst outrage. If science says the world is round and ensconced superstition says it is flat… well, maybe it is biscuit-shaped. If prejudice demands the “elimination” of six million “others” and law, justice, the Constitution forbid it, well… what about three million? That’s fair, isn’t it?
Those of us who believe in reason, fairness, and mercy already have the scales weighed against us. We have to keep what we have by fighting for net neutrality. And then we must fight for more. When the media cover tea party riots, for example, raise a stink. Demand they cover how these mobs were financed and transported. When the media undercovers reaction to the Ryan budget, raise a stink. Send in your own videos and reports and ask why they’re not reporting on it.
Reynardine
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 9:38 am
(continued). Ask them why they have not given the Democratic budget equal time with the Ryan budget. Tell them if they do not straighten up, you’ll turn them off, and you’ll tell the sponsors why. Tell them you’ll boycott the sponsors. And finally, do it, even if it means you make your own soap and wipe your* with home-grown cornshucks. That’s the best chance we have of stopping the disease from spreading.
Boscoe
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 1:29 pm
Damn, you’re on a roll today Reynardine! :)
Tom
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 10:52 am
I think Anne hit it right on the head – Instead of basing their belief system on facts, they twist or omit facts to suit their ideology. Even when faced with indisputable evidence that something they believe in doesn’t work or doesn’t work the way they think it would, they refuse to learn from that and obstinately dig in.
That comment especially applies to the author of this post. Net neutrality to protect us against those evil corporations? Who do you think is writing that legislation? I’ll give you a hint: Look under the banner of this website, right where it says “no corporate money”. See that “ads by Google”? Or over on the side where you see the links for Facebook and Twitter and down at bottom where it says “Powered by WordPress”? You think those are little community activist groups? No corporate money? HAHAHAHAHA!
Corporations already run the government. Having faith in government to protect us from corporations is having faith that the foxes will guard the chicken coop. It is the most blatant example of the irrationality of faith!
And of course, those who do not share your irrational faith in government are the “lunatic fringe” “refusing to learn” and a dangerous “well-armed minority” “protecting corporate interests”. That is, anybody who disagrees with you must be crazy, stupid or evil. Lock the crazies up in psychiatric prisons, ship the stupid off to re-education camps, liquidate the evil people. That’s been tried many times before, it didn’t work, try to learn from it.
Look at your own “facts”. Birtherism is another issue that comes down to facts vs. belief. A conservative relative of mine says there is reason to doubt that Barack Obama was born in the United States. No, there is no reason to believe any such thing. The facts are there – birth announcement, birth certificate, etc. But birthers chose to disbelieve the evidence. You can pile the evidence up but none of it will matter because it’s not an issue of provable, demonstrable fact; it’s an issue of belief.
The same can be said of a great many other important issues of our age, including climate change, American history (the Christian nation myth), Sharia law, the “homosexual agenda” etc. These are all debates fueled by belief, not fact. There is evidence of climate change but this is ignored. There is no evidence of either “creeping” Sharia law or a homosexual agenda, yet these are almost issues of faith for conservatives. The evidence is again irrelevant.
To the extent evidence or fact enter into any discussion with conservatives in all likelihood the “facts” are invented, the science (to use their own favorite expression) “junk” and any history is revised to suit the needs of the moment.
To the extent that you cannot see why all of your “facts” are not in fact “facts”, you have faith that you are correct.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 12:04 pm
You’re really out in right field there, Tom – deep in right field. Net neutrality is not a government plot to take over the Internet; its purpose is to protect us from corporations who wish to control the Internet. THAT is the purpose of federal regulation. And I don’t believe anybody here has an “irrational” faith in government. We have quite realistic expectations of government. We understand it’s faults. We also understand it’s better than going back to the days of the Articles of Confederation, corporatocracy, anarchy, or theocracy, which seem to be the favored options of American conservatism.
This and other matters we have discussed at length in various posts here at PoliticusUSA, using as evidence actual facts and evidence, things the GOP and Tea Party have said and done, or said they wish to have done. It would be tedious and unnecessary to repeat it all here; I can only recommend you go back and read those posts.
Boscoe
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 1:35 pm
Tom clearly shot his point in the foot when he used birtherism as an example of how all of our “facts are not in fact ‘facts’”. If a long form birth certificate and 48 year old published birth announcements aren’t facts, then what is?
I think the crux of the biscuit is that the right doesn’t know the difference between faith and willful ignorance.
molly malone
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 11:08 am
This post presents one of the best arguments I can think of for the separation of Church and State.
Religion, by its very nature, is dependent upon unquestioning belief in supernatural forces existing or occurring outside the normal experience or knowledge of man. Thus, believers are required to accept on faith that which cannot be empirically proven. It requires no “faith” to believe that gravity exists, or that night follows day–these are simply indisputable facts; faith is something one accepts as true, even though it cannot be factually proven.
To operate a government on the basis of supernatural fact-free beliefs can be a truly terrible way to run a country. Yet this seems to be what we’re seeing now that the Republican Party has aligned itself with evangelical religion–belief has become the only determinate of truth. And facts are only considered valid when they support those beliefs.
None
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 11:40 am
“And what will we do when that quarter of the population, well-armed as it is, decides to take matters into their own hands and tries to force God’s hand?”
I know some people exactly like this, and of a.. particular mindset. God, does that scare me.
Reynardine
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 12:16 pm
I personally know of a law enforcement officer – an outwardly decent fellow – who smiled sweetly and said he’s going to “sit back and let it all happen”, and have heard of others in the military and the Guard. I don’t know how high they have infiltrated, but maybe it is we “liberals” who should be polishing our Second Amendment rights.
Boscoe
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 1:37 pm
Some of us already have. :)
Reynardine
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 1:55 pm
No master eye and can’t hit the side of a barn door with a Mossberg. Empty chicken coop and many contented foxes, red and gray. Those who can, do. I’m handy with a machete and a maul, that’s all.
Shiva (Moderator)
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 2:01 pm
Is that why you apparently type with your forehead? No legs and arms?
Reynardine
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 8:59 pm
‘Scuse?
Shiva (Moderator)
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 9:48 pm
Machete?
Reynardine
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 10:07 pm
Any gardener in Florida knows how to use one, and the half-length ones are good in the kitchen, too. But why do you suppose I type on this tiny little keyboard with what is basically a rather thick German forehead?
Shiva (Moderator)
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 10:13 pm
Why? Thats easy, your always saying this post should have been under xxxxxxxx.
I was in mexico eating a coconut on the street, a woman dissected that big nut with a machete after I had drank the milk faster than I could follow. I have no idea how she still had hands left
Reynardine
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 10:18 pm
This post should have been under what?
None
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Therein lies the problem: To what degree do you polish your Second Amendment rights? Some do to the point they’
re happy simply that they have a ‘stockpile of munitions’ followed by a mischievous smirk, seemingly almost of an anarchist militia intonation. Fear-mongering and scare tactics seem to be creeping ever-so-deeply into peoples’ lives. I just hope the future doesn’t turn Hollywood: Survival of he who possesses the most munitions.
Shiva (Moderator)
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 4:51 pm
there isn’t a whole lot of things funnier than a gun nut who thinks he is going to stand more than 15 seconds against the military or the police.
There are two amendments that were made specifically after the Revolutionary war, that were specifically intended for wars. The one is a right to bear arms and the other is that no soldier shall be quartered in people’s houses. Neither one of them was meant to run up to today so that idiots could run around carrying guns to make their dick longer.
novenator
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 12:51 pm
This is why we don’t even try to engage wingnuts. They are incapable of having a rational discussion in the first place. We ignore and work around them. They can go ahead and stock up on kruggerands for the 2012 doomsday bunker all they want, we’ll be out here in the sunshine enjoying life and progressing the country.
Nasty Liberal
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 2:23 pm
My momma tole’ me “Believe nothing verify everything.” I believe that’s stood me in good stead.
Rmuse
Apr. 28th, 2011 at 8:44 pm
Oh, swear to dog Hraf, you’re writing my thoughts again. We are dealing with delusional people and there is never going to be a reasoning, or convincing of reality. There was a bunch of studies, I forget where, but they showed people hard, factual evidence about a range of issues and the morons still refused to acknowledge the facts because they believed otherwise.
I share your fear that those fools with guns will act on some belief about religion or the Black president or some such nonsense. Religious fervor and “faith” has produced bloodshed in the past and it will happen again. I know some meat-heads in my area who are just biding their time till they get a signal to mobilize. Scariest part is the signal will come from dog himself, and since they hear it in their heads, it cannot be wrong. There will probably be bloodshed before it’s over; that is what I believe! :)
Challenge Yourself
Apr. 29th, 2011 at 6:44 pm
Is it possible for the writer of this article and the reader it preaches to to examine something themselves…the FACTS behind 9/11. Not the beliefs or what you want to be true, no matter what. Can you take the time to look over some facts and then draw your own conclusions? Is America finally able to do that, I wonder?
Reynardine
Apr. 29th, 2011 at 6:55 pm
¿What? ¿How? ¿Relevance?
D. L. MacKenzie
Apr. 30th, 2011 at 3:12 pm
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”
~ Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Tom
Apr. 30th, 2011 at 5:17 pm
I think you missed my point on Net Neutrality – I do not think that Net Neutrality is a *government* plot, I think that it is a corporate plot. Corporations already control the government, they pre-emptively write legislation ostensibly to protect us from corporations which really is designed to benefit them. If and when some form of Net Neutrality passes, it will be the corporations which will have written the legislation. The pay-per-view model of advertising on the internet has shown just how ineffective advertising really is and how much advertisers have long overpaid for it. The internet bubble was based on the idea that advertisers would pay the same for web-based advertising as they would for other forms of advertising, and it proved to be true, just not in the way they had hoped. That’s why so many newspapers and magazines are going under – advertisers will no longer pay the rates they used to, they want some sort of metric like the internet gives them.
So how then are Google and YouTube and Facebook going to make money if not through advertising? Force the ISPs into revenue sharing. That is what Net Neutrality is all about. Government is going to pass a law requiring all ISPs to treat all traffic the same and in the interest of ‘fairness’ are going to require some sort of ‘burden-sharing’ amongst the traffic generators. The internet is going to become a regulated monopoly utility just like your electric company or your gas company or your cable provider. The price is going to go up, the quality is going to go down, you are going to be told to be happy because if it were not for government regulation the price would be even higher and the quality even lower.
As far as ‘the truth’ vs. faith goes, I was making the point that faith and reason are not that far removed from each other and that faith in reason is faith nonetheless. One obvious matter of faith that is taken as a matter of reason for example is the fact that the Earth is round and that it orbits around the Sun. Very few people would say that they take that as a matter of faith, that is is a scientific fact that the Earth is round and that it orbits around the Sun. But ask 100 people in which direction the Sun rises and in which direction it travels and most all of them will tell you that the Sun rises in the East and travels East to West. Very few of them will tell you that the Sun does not rise at all nor does it travel across the sky, that it is the rotation of the Earth that creates the illusion of a Sun orbiting the Earth. If you go to the nearest college and ask an astronomy professor to prove to you that the Earth is round. Chances are he won’t be able to do it. Not because he does not know how to explain it, but because you are not capable of understanding the level of mathematics necessary to understand the proof.
In other words – you take it on faith that the Earth is round and that it orbits the Sun. Ask yourself this: If nobody had ever told you otherwise, would it ever have occurred to you to think that the Earth was not flat and that Sun did not orbit the Earth? Just look at it! It is practically self-evident that the Earth is flat and the Sun orbits the Earth!
So too with climate change. If you have the requisite knowledge in the requisite fields of study to pontificate on the subject, please don’t pontificate in my direction because I am not learned enough to understand it. But I am intelligent enough to understand that climate change is an awfully damn big complicated process and that it might be reasonable to suspect that nobody really knows enough about it to be speaking with any certitude – least of all the people who obviously have little understanding but lots of certitude.
The homosexual agenda or the Muslim agenda? You do realize that there are actual real live honest-to-god homosexual and Muslim organizations that do in fact have agendas? That’s kind of the raison d’etre and the sine qua non of an organization – to have an agenda.
America a Christian nation? Yes, “Christian” as opposed to “Catholic”, perhaps “Protestant” might be a better term. Enlightenment thinkers were heavily influenced by the Reformation thinkers who preceded them. Whether economic philosophy or political philosophy or religious philosophy, it all comes back to existential philosophy and our Founding Fathers’ ideas about the sovereignty of the individual are most definitely Protestant ideas. Despite the assertion that “the Republican Party has become more and more the party of Protestant fundamentalism”, I would argue that they are *Catholic* fundamentalists indistinguishable from the Muslim fundamentalists they profess to oppose.
As far as me being out in “right field” – I agree totally with the original comment that “this is not a clash between the forces of big and small government. This is a clash between two different ideas about big government, one that places controls on corporations and one that places controls on uteri. Don’t fool yourself that a vote for Republican or Tea Party candidates is a vote for small government. They want big government, a big government backing up their social agenda and protecting corporate interests.”
My question then is: what’s your complaint? Once you agree that government should be big and powerful, I think you have forfeited the right to complain about how that size and power is used. If you can’t marshal the votes to sit in the driver’s seat, hey, don’t blame the guy who has been able to gain the seat.
Auntiegrav
May. 3rd, 2011 at 8:15 am
You’re trying too hard, Tom. Thank you, though. I think much of it can be summed up with the state of our democracy (not republic anymore): one dollar, one vote. Our votes are counted at the cash register. The electoral ‘process’ is handled by marketers and analysts at corporations which then forward those votes (in the form of campaign contributions) on to the government. Sure, there might be some protests and whining on the streets every once in a while, but those same people who are protesting are buying coffee and chocolate, and most of all: oil to drive to those protests. If you want Change, keep it in your pocket, people.
Reynardine
May. 8th, 2011 at 3:45 pm
By your logic, if you’re behind the wheel of a VW, you have a right to steer it, but if you’re the locomotive engineer of a hundred-car freight train, you have to let it drive itself. Damme, man, Casey Jones would be ashamed of you.
Auntiegrav
May. 3rd, 2011 at 8:10 am
After 9/11, I wondered about the motivations and actions which people take, as well as what they believe they are doing. I’ve learned a hell of a lot since then, but my initial thought is still valid: “Evil is any action taken based on unquestioned belief.”
In other words, your momma was right, Nasty Liberal.
Auntiegrav
May. 3rd, 2011 at 8:16 am
Two rules for the coming Descent:
1. Beliefs don’t matter, actions do.
2. If it moves, shoot: if it shoots, MOVE!
nedm
May. 3rd, 2011 at 8:24 am
“America a Christian nation? Yes, “Christian” as opposed to “Catholic”, perhaps “Protestant” might be a better term. Enlightenment thinkers were heavily influenced by the Reformation thinkers who preceded them.”
And yet Jefferson was a Deist! No we aren’t a religious country because that is on the basis of law. Prior to 1776 when we were colonies the argument could be made but not now.
Religions do not tell governments how to be run. There is not a single country outside of Iran that has “God’s law”. We are a government of laws, not of men. There is nothing within the context of the Bible or for that matter the Koran or even the Book of Mormon that specifically states that “this is how government should run”
If you want a good example of how religion doesn’t work with government just look at how the Iranian government tried to control the economy in the 1980′s. The Koran stated nothing about how to solve civil disputes…how should a lawsuit go? How should a divorce go? How should custody matters go etc.
Much of the country was founded on the basis of the writings of John Locke who wasn’t exactly religious.
A better example of the right would be more with libertarianism. Much of the politics these days or at least since the religious right took over the right has been on social issues. Democrats use this all the time as well.
vote democrat because republicans will overturn roe vs wade…well actually that can’t happen and even if it did it would go down to the state. Abortion is not a “right” but it is legal and does exist in the marketplace.
Vote republicans because democrats will take your guns away. Again not true as Vermont has the loosest gun laws in the country and hardly any crime…therefore it would not accomplish anything (it’s also the whitest state in the country and openly talks about leaving the country..which would be things one would assume would be a southern state)
On the same level Palin never says that she’s proud to be from a state that has one of the most generous welfare packages in the country. The oil dividend gives money out for simply being there ($800-3000)
I used to consider myself to the left but gradually it just appears to be weak and poor arguments. Fire fighters back in the day used to be private. In the UK there’d be a plaque and you’d pay and your name would be on it. If a fire broke out and they saw your name they’d put out the fire. If not it would burn. Having said that though today no one really dies in burning buildings. Out of over three hundread thousand of fires a few thousand die each year (statistically a half a percent). So now it isn’t so much saving lives but property damage. So outside of cities there might not be a reason to have a full time department.
I’m from Mass and years ago we pretty much decriminalized marijuana. If the left believes in personal freedom why bother with the war on drugs? They do so because police are union and unions give to the left.
Why is it the left can believe in the legality of abortion but somehow the death penalty is not ok even with DNA testing? It has been used as a deterrant. Let’s be honest here jail is no picnic but people do get free food, free water, free shelter, free clothing, some have gyms, some have cable and the list goes on and on. Some even earn degrees while in jail!
Birther concepts are pointless the courts haven’t even said what “natural born” even means. Then again the left has this same conspiracy argument with Iran and the election of Reagan.
The left has an obession of government services without realizing the price or if they even work. Even without a national single payer health care plan the life expectency in the USA relative to Europe and Asia is not statistically significant (less than 4%). To argue we should pay more money to live to 82 instead of 79 is pretty weak. When FDR made social security the life expectancy was 65. He did not create it with the expectations that people would live and be on it en masse. His idea came from Bismark back in the 1880′s that made much of the new deal programs template. But when he was around it was actually 45! Meaning the original intent meant that most people woudld be dead before they could go on social security. It was made as an incentive to keep living rather than an age that anyone today could half ass into.
It is interesting. Back in the day democrats were against corporate welfare but they had no problem with the bailouts of businesses that fail (why?) I don’t see what democrats really stand for because the last liberal president was Nixon!
When confronted with facts the left also doesn’t have a recourse.
When the so called assult weapons ban expired there was no explosion in gun deaths
When states decriminalized drugs there was no explosion in usage. The left went along with reagan in the war on drugs (why?)
Why does the left want to subsidize programs for people while at the same point fails to illustrate that by not paying for them they have no right to complain about them?
If you subsidize demand (i.e. extend credit) then prices go up. FAFSA just leads to higher tuition. Cash for clunkers didn’t work and lead to higher prices in used cars. Obamacare does the same..there’s nothing written within it that specifically illustrates that it will higher more doctors, nurses, nurse practiioners etc. If you add more customers to a retail store without adding staffing then services go down not up. An individuals health is not linked to health care access alone. Diet, exercise and environment dictate it as well.
How can the left argue that everyone is intelligent and able bodied and empowered to make their own decisions but yet EVERYTHING is wrong?
Dan
May. 3rd, 2011 at 5:42 pm
Good article, but I would advise progressives not to give in to fear. Not saying some wingnuts aren’t dangerous, but from what I’ve observed, by and large this crowd is pretty cowardly and chickens***. They like to bark loudly but they have little bite. I’m not recommending complete complacency and for us to undertestimate them. I’m advising to focus as much as possible on progress, positivity and the things we want. Try to ignore conservatives and Republicans if you can; you won’t convert them, and focusing on their twisted beliefs won’t make you feel better either. These people may actually be close to getting the “Rapture” they have been desperately wanting, but in a very different way that they expect…
sabastian curry
May. 3rd, 2011 at 7:58 pm
Liberalism used to be about liberty, the root of the word. Most Liberals today are really socialists. Socialists and religion are the same thing, large collectivist movements against the individual.
sabastian curry
May. 3rd, 2011 at 7:59 pm
Socialism does not work, there is too much friction, it goes against thermodynamics.
Auntiegrav
May. 8th, 2011 at 3:34 pm
Almost all human activities are social in some way. Socialism is all around us and it is the only way that civilization survives. Government intrusion into the basic needs pyramid(what socialism really has to be oriented toward when it does work) with its marriage to capitalism and its selling of government as a separate function from society results in the friction of which you speak. Base socialism on real needs (consumption taxes to replace all other taxes), and the ‘friction’ becomes the feedback mechanism which moderates desires. A little less humanism is necessary if we are to understand our place in the real, natural world. Belief in human exceptionalism is what detaches humans from reality in the first place.