Thus Spake Russ

Posted By Russ Emerson on July 25, 2011 at 11:19 am

There’s a saying that’s floated around for a few years — I wish I could properly attribute it — that states, roughly, “those on the Right think the Left is wrong, while those on the Left think the Right is evil.”

Nowhere is this more evident than at the online sewer populated by the fringiest of the fringe Left, Democratic Underground, where the borders of sanity are leapt across daily.

These are the people who complain that our first socialist president leans too far to the right.

Compared to the poltroons at DU, the Huffington Post* is a regular collection of rocket scientists.

Even the assemblage of cretins at the Daily Kos** has been heard to advise the DU, “hey, guys, you might want to dial the crazy back just a bit.”

If only.

Nothing I have seen recently has demonstrated sheer hatred — and more than a little bit of projection — more completely than the spittle-flecked screed that landed in my inbox — forwarded by my brother for my amusement — the other day.

This is going to be a long post. I apologize for that, but I think it’s fair to claim that the length of this post is entirely a function of the critical mass of Pure Stupid contained in the quoted post. I also apologize for polluting your vision with material from DU.

[All bolding in the quoted article is done by me.]

Since the New Deal, Republicans have been on the wrong side of every issue of concern to ordinary Americans:

In a fit of what might be called “political solipsism,” the author immediately assumes that “ordinary Americans” are concerned with his roster of items. I’d be surprised if more than a tenth of Americans could offer a cogent opinion about all the items mentioned. Even *I* have a hard time caring about some of them, though I’m pretty well informed about every single one of them.

Social Security,
Medicare,
Medicaid,
The debt ceiling,
the war in Vietnam,
the war in Iraq
equal rights,
civil liberties,
church- state separation,
consumer issues,
public education,
reproductive freedom,
national health care,
labor issues,
gun policy,
campaign-finance reform,
the environment,
Immigration issues,
Election and voting issues,
American History,
The interpretation of our Constitution
GLBT issues,
and tax fairness.

This is the laziest sort of writing — spew out a list a of topics and cry “you’re wrong!” without actually giving any hint whatsoever what the “correct” position might be, or in what specific way you believe Republicans might be wrong.

Were this an email, the correct response to such undefined and unsupported claims would be a quick and judicious use of the Delete key. But let’s say I want to respond.

I could just as easily say that Democrats have been on the wrong side of each and every one of these issues… and I can back that up. Let’s take two bullet points from the author’s list… that is, two points that can be assumed, arguendo, to have something like a definite meaning. “Consumer issues,” for instance, is a completely meaningless phrase in this context.

labor issues,

By this one might presume the author means “labor union issues,” but what specifically does he mean? That recent Republican opposition to the looting of state treasuries by public sector unions is wrong? Or that Republicans oppose the very notion of labor unions in toto?

By what standard of right or wrong can one say that it is OK for public employee labor unions to:

a) inflate the salaries of, say, DMV workers far above the average private sector clerical wage,
b) protect even the worst performing employees from termination, even for cause,
c) not require them to contribute to their own benefit plans,
d) promise early retirement, and
e) obligate the taxpayers to pay a pension that far outstrips what is available to the vast majority of the taxpayers?

Try this for an analogy: the Model T was a great car, and served the noble purpose of freeing Americans to travel at will, but it hardly meets the needs of today’s driving public. The Model T may still be driveable, but it is utterly obsolete.

Republicans might argue that in much the same way, unions have served useful purposes, but the problems they originally addressed are virtually nonexistent in today’s labor market, and the needs of workers and employers can be (and in right-to-work states, are) better served by different models of employer/employee relations. Unions are essentially obsolete.

and tax fairness.

The author fails to define what constitutes “fairness,” but I’d bet any amount of money that what he means is, “the rich are keeping too much of their own money instead of giving it to us.”

So we ask: what is truly “fair?”

Right now, nearly half of all Americans pay no income tax.

As far as I’m concerned, “fair” means everyone pays at the same rate, perhaps with allowances for essentials. Anything else is merely a variant of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” And we all know how well that particular construct has worked throughout the last century.

Am I wrong? Am I right? At the very minimum, I have offered an argument rather than making an unsupported assertion.

But you know I’m right.

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The author then non sequiters his way to his next point.

And on almost every issue brought before the Supreme Court as of late, big business/corporations have come out on top of ordinary citizens because justices like Clarence Thomas take bribes (gifts) lol, and do not recuse themselves from hearing cases where those involved have bribed his fat ass or recusing himself from hearing cases for corporations who employ his bride Gin Gin

This reads less as opinion than it does as Two Minutes Hate. Not only is it utterly lacking factual support (“everyone knows” doesn’t count***) it adds icing to the cake and wanders strides boldly into the realm of libel.

The author makes two main claims:

a) corporations have come out on top of ordinary citizens

To which I reply: so what? Perhaps the corporations had the law on their side, and deserved victory in court; we can only guess, since the author provides no data.

b) justices like Clarence Thomas take bribes

Ah, libel… sweet, sweet libel.

If you want to talk about recusal, though, I can give you an example we might be hearing more about in the future: Elena Kagan apparently participated in the creation of the legal arguments for the validity of the Obamacare law, and now sits on the high court, where we know cases on that very law will soon appear. This demands recusal.

Further, there’s evidence Kagan lied to the Senate during her confirmation hearings. If proven, this would be worthy of her impeachment and removal from the bench.

See? That’s how you attempt to support a proposition.

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Also, the Republicans seem to have only two motivations for what they do to this nation, the desire for more power and more money with which they mostly use to get themselves and other Republicans re-elected. They no longer even try to hide their contempt for the majority of the citizenry as Citizens United gave corporations person hood and the corporations, (the Republicans masters) and main constituency, can now openly give as much bribe money as they want to rig elections and buy our government for their own nefarious desires and deeds.

No political group or party could remain so consistently wrong by accident. Their God is money and power and their means are evil.

Projection, as they say, ain’t just a river in Egypt.

The only rational

Hee hee.

conclusion I can come to is that, despite their cynical “family values” propaganda, the Republican Party, with its fact challenged FOX/GOP Media along with the Koch brothers, the Waltons, Wall Street, ALEC, The Banksters,the Republican Chamber of Commerce and all of the other corporations and their Republican operatives are a criminal conspiracy to betray the interests of the American people in favor of plutocratic, corporate interests, and absolutist religious groups.

Uh huh. We’re all about taking your money at gunpoint and forcing you to go to church every Sunday. That’s all we can talk about at our meetings.

Or, consider this: maybe the Right is motivated by what some have called “enlightened self-interest.”

It should be obvious to anyone who is paying attention and who uses facts in their critical thinking

Heheheh.

rather than parroting propaganda talking points,

Haw haw haw. The utter lack of self-awareness is astonishing.

that we the people are under attack, the United States Government is working for and doing the bidding of the corporations, the rich and powerful in our country. The voice of the average American is ignored time and time again,

Try this on for size:

Cut, Cap & Balance bill gets 2-1 approval among adults in CNN poll

Democrat Senate: voted down CCB.

Obama: promised to veto CCB.

Now, who is it that is ignoring the voice of the average American?

as those with the money, power and well funded lobby’s take what they want even if that harms the majority and causes pain and suffering for the masses. They have no compassion, no conscience and no integrity. So let’s look at some of the “So whats” that the Republicans, their corporate benefactors and their many operatives seem to say with their obvious lack of concern and their dastardly actions each day.

Republicans, the corporations, the corporate media and the super wealthy basically say to the rest of us:

Anyone who thinks corporations, the media, and the wealthy are monolithically, or even mostly, behind the Republicans is simply deluded. GE, Goldman-Sachs, ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN/MSNBC, George Soros, the entirety of Hollywood, et cetera, etc.

Now, there’s no way I want to spend the time to mock or disprove every one of this next ramblingly incoherent list of whining points, but I’ll pick a few.

So what if you are homeless,
so what if you can’t pay your bills,
so what if you can’t feed your children,
so what if you can’t see a doctor,
so what if you can’t get needed medications,

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but wasn’t it that e-e-evil Republican, George W. Bush, who promoted the Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage?

Why yes. Yes, it was. Sure, many of us objected to another taxpayer-subsidized handout, but many did not.

so what if more and more people need food stamps,
so what if tax cuts for the rich causes earned benefits for the masses to be cut for many who have worked hard and paid into the system for many years,

So, is he saying here is that “the masses” have a right to expect other people — the rich — to pay for their benefits? If the masses adequately pay into their own benefits, they wouldn’t need anyone else to give them a handout, would they?

so what if someone who is white and wealthy and who steals 3 billion dollars gets 40 months in jail while someone who is poor and black and steals a 100 dollar bill from a bank gets 15 years in prison,

Bernie Madoff got 150 years.

so what if Unions are busted,
so what if unemployment is at 15-20%,
so what if tent cities are popping up all over this nation,
So what if you want a paper trail to verify the vote, it would be harder for us to steal elections that way,

Democrats: the party that votes the graveyard and refuses to implement or allow voter identification.

so what if women are treated as second class citizens,
so what if Republicans are passing laws in states that they control to disenfranchise voters,
so what if our elections are being rigged like the recent Kloppenburg/Prosser vote in Wisconsin,

That’s a lovely talking point. Evidence? None.

So what if we ship your jobs overseas,
So what if your job provides no benefits,
So what if people are suffering,
So what if people are dying,
So what if people are scared,
So what if they can’t pull themselves up by their bootstraps,
So what if they chose that kind of life,
So what if they can’t get contraception,
So what if they can’t vote,
So what if we are liars,
So what if we are hypocrites,
So what if we seem psychotic and act like sociopaths,
So what if some of us are narcissists,

There’s that “projection” thing again.

I consider it to be no coincidence that with Obama in the presidency, the American Psychological Association decided to remove Narcissistic Personality Disorder from the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

As the New York Times noted, “The central requirement for N.P.D. is a special kind of self-absorption: a grandiose sense of self, a serious miscalculation of one’s abilities and potential that is often accompanied by fantasies of greatness.”

If that doesn’t describe the current occupant of the Oval Office, I don’t know what would.

So what if most of us are millionaires,

I wish.

So what if most of us get free health care,

The only people who get free medical care are the indigent. Everyone else pays for it, one way or another (with the possible exception of public employee union members.) I certainly have insurance premiums deducted from my paycheck. But then, I suppose one would have to work for a living to know that sort of thing.

So what if we’ll all get pensions for life as we try to gut your Social Security,
So what if gas prices are high,
So what if the masses can’t afford to buy food,

Really? Guess which demographic in this country has the highest incidence of obesity? The poor. There may be a lot of things they cannot afford, but food most assuredly isn’t one of them.

So what if people are living in their cars,
So what if people are angry,
So what if they don’t like it,
So what, what can they do to me?,
So what they’re not my children,
So what they’re all lazy anyway,
So what, they’d rather collect unemployment than to work,
So What if they need,
So what if they cry,
So what if women don’t want to be told what to do with their bodies,
So what if gays want to get married,
So what if illegal immigrants want a path to citizenship,

Here’s a path: they go back to where they came from, then come back legally. We like legal immigrants.

So what if you want gun control,

Gun control, as they say, is less about guns than it is about control.

So what if you don’t like our wars, get over it, we get rich from wars,
So what if some would rather die, then let them die and it will rid us of the surplus population,
So what if they believe in God

Would that be God God? The one from the Bible? Because I’m pretty sure the only god most on the Left believe in is the deity Self.

So what if they can’t afford infant formula and diapers,
So what if they can’t find work,
So what if their meek and weak and crybabies,

Crybabies, indeed.

So what if they can’t make it,
So what if they don’t like the cuts for the poor and the tax breaks for the rich,
So what if families are breaking up,
So what if animals are being abandoned and killed in shelters,

Whoa, whoa, whoa. You know who has the money to donate to shelters? People with something left over after their bills and taxes are paid, or people who need a write-off on their high taxes.

But of course, it’s a well established fact that conservatives are more charitable than liberals.

(Me, I donate to the local SPCA and to the Cat Angels of Cary rescue shelter. Follow those links, make a donation.)

So what if they are losing hope, our first priority is to make this President a one term President,

Amen, and amen.

So what if we default on our loans,
So what if our homes are foreclosed on,
So what if we cause most of the problems in this country, we still get elected or if we can’t get elected we steal the election, don’t like it? Too bad……..whatcha gonna do about it America?
So what if we’re kicked out of our apartments,
So what if we go into a double dip recession or even a depression,
So what if they don’t like us, what can they do to us? We have the power and the money and the powerful corporations on our side,
So what if major corporations don’t pay any taxes,

With rates up to 35% for federal and as high as 12% at the state level, we have one of the highest corporate income tax rates in the world — itself a disincentive to growth — and a tax code that is so convoluted that any major player can “work the system” to their advantage. Indeed, the high rate of taxation positively encourages the steps taken to avoid owing taxes.

This presupposes, of course, that everyone was making profits. Which, in the Obama economy, cannot be safely assumed.

Ideally, of course, the corporate rate would be zero percent, and the income taxes paid by those who receive the dividends of ownership. Or perhaps even no tax at all on investment income. Now that would encourage investment and put the spurs to job growth.

So what if there are all kinds of tax loopholes for big business and millionaires and billionaires where they pay little or no taxes,
So what if the teabaggers were our latest useful idiots,

Yeah… because demonstrating and demanding the government get off all our backs is the path to tyranny. Rather than, say, demanding that the government confiscate an ever increasing share of other peoples’ paychecks.

So what if they’re all screaming online about our criminal behavior,
So what if we torture,
So what if we spy on our own people,
So what if we hold people without trial,
So what if the justice system is unfair, life is unfair.

Finally, an accurate statement. Life is unfair. It has always been and it always will be.

A few years ago, I was stricken with a crippling neurological disorder. Fair? Not hardly. But, as I am an adult, I deal with it to the best of my ability, with a minimum of whining, or complaining that someone owes me for this.

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At long last, the end approaches. Only a few more paragraphs to wade through.

You see, Republicans just don’t care about this country or about you and me.

Sure. That’s why, for instance, “red” states are most productive for military recruitment, because they just don’t care about the country.

There are really only 2% of the country the Republicans need, they don’t necessarily care about them, but they need them and they are the super wealthy, the very wealthy, and the corporations. They also need the Supreme Court and a dumbed down angry base and nation.

You know who does the “dumbing down?” Teachers who belong to unions that almost exclusively support Democrat goals and campaigns. So if it’s the Right that needs a dumbed-down populace, that’s kind of backfiring, isn’t it?

They need some enabling from the Democrats and a population too distracted, depressed, scared, poor or sick to do anything about it. And finally, a corporate media to spread propaganda, lies, and stories to the nation distracted and divided as they continue their march forward destroying the lives of the majority to enhance the lives of themselves and those at the top.

Those are just some of the “so whats” I have heard the Republicans either actually say or that they have intimated to us, the majority, in words and dastardly deeds. They just don’t care because they think there is nothing we can do. They believe we are so distracted by other things, that we won’t take a stand as a country and as a people for what is right. They think we’re too stupid, too lazy and too beaten down to rise up. Are they right?

In the author’s case, I’d be willing to entertain the proposition.

Just open your eyes and take a close look at what the governors in Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio, Arizona, Texas et al are doing to their states

Texas: over the last decade, more job growth than any other state in the union.

Wisconsin: Solvency, budget crisis averted, and job growth.

and you will see the Republican plan, their grand vision for this entire nation if they should get their chance either by winning the vote, or by most likely, stealing elections. Just recently in Wisconsin, the Republicans with the help of Koch money, funded fake Democrats to run against real democrats to try and stop the recall election from taking place.

Cite, or it didn’t happen.

Oh, and in case you missed it: Democrats in several instances put up fake “Tea Party” candidates to confuse the balloting. Some have already been indicted.

Thankfully, they failed, but these people are playing for keeps and Republicans will do and say anything to maintain power, keep their corporate masters happy and further move this country in a direction where only a few will have everything and the rest of us will be at the mercy of their psychotic rule.

Have I mentioned projection yet? Yeah, I thought I did. It’s important to bear in mind, as a general rule, that they accuse us of the things they would be willing to do.

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At this point I assume the author either ran out of crayons, or the Lithium kicked in.

Having gone through this over and over, I think I can honestly claim to never have seen a more disjointed and unsubstantiated collection of scurrilous allegations in my life. If it had been written about a single named individual, it’d be solid evidence for a libel lawsuit. Res ipsa loquitor.

I’ve never had the misfortune to read either Mein Kampf or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but I suspect their hate-per-word quotient doesn’t approach that of this author’s venomous rant.

Yes, venomous. Such thinking is poison to a civil society. Those who actually believe someone to be capable of all the alleged evils complained about by the DU author eventually conclude that any action, anything at all, is justified against their opponents. It starts small, with pies in the face, but soon they find themselves supporting cop killers, until one day someone decides to be a cop killer.

Sure, there are some on the political Right (and Libertarians as well, who tend to annoy everyone) who can equal the vapidity seen in this piece from DU — I’m thinking of some small number of “freepers” — but when you have nearly the entirety of the media arrayed against your side of the political aisle, as we on the Right inarguably do, weak argumentation quickly falls by the wayside.

Ultimately, though, the entire DU piece shows where differences of opinion point to their ultimate roots in differences of philosophy.

There is quite a wide divide between the philosophies of Left and Right. The Right in America believes that government has a narrowly defined set of specific roles that have been broadly exceeded, whereas the Left thinks that government should consume more, do more, and, as demonstrated by so many of the line items above, be more of a nanny.

They don’t express it that way — contrary to the gist of this post, some can indeed make understandable arguments — but that is what they believe.

In much the same way as the Vikings thought they had the right to pillage Anglo-Saxon monasteries, those on the Left think they have a Self-ordained right to take from the productive elements of our society to further their own agenda. They might not wear horned helmets, but what they do is, in the end, every bit as barbaric.

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* No, I’m not going to link there.

** Or there.

*** As Robert Heinlein put it, “if ‘everybody knows’ such-and-such, then it ain’t so, by at least ten thousand to one.”

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Thanks to Stacy McCain for the linkage.

Categories: Barbarians, Idiots, Politics
Tags: my brain hurts