About To Be Even Sorrier

I was watching Ray Suarez on Newshour this morning. He had two guests in the studio, talking about the upcoming elections. I was mildly surprised to find that his guests were well balanced; one thinks President Bush is a moron, the other thinks that President Bush is an evil genius. I recognized one guest, a shorter, pudgy guy with big BCG-type glasses, but didn’t recognize the other. They discussed the upcoming elections and I was quite surprised to find that one of the guests was actually predicting a huge landslide for the Dems. He stated flatly that not a single Dem seat in either chamber was at risk, and that several of the Repub seats were sure wins for the Dems. I guess that could be possible, mid-term elections generally go against a sitting president. But the reasons he gave for making such a statement were perfect examples of the dissonance between what the Dems want to believe about the general public in America, and how the general public generally votes. He was sure that the Republicans had been given a near-fatal blow by the NSA wiretapping scandal, followed by the torture scandal, followed by the Nat’l Intel Estimate scandal. All of the scandals that have been played on the front pages of major metropolitan newspapers. He didn’t mention that these same major newspapers are widely read in heavily Democratic areas that went for Democratic candidates in 2000, 2002, 2004, and will in 2006. He didn’t explain how stories that played very well to the far Left netroots base were changing votes in middle America. Time and again the polls show that a vast majority of Americans, something like 65%, are okay with the idea that the NSA is tapping the phones of terrorists. I haven’t seen any polls on the torture issue yet, but I’m not sure that it’s such a winning position for the Dems. Fighting for terrorists’ rights while we are at war with them, and while terrorists post video after video of them sawing the heads off of their captives, just doesn’t sound like a winning strategy. The latest “scandal”, the NIE, has already lost steam, and was clearly a bit lame even at its zenith. He failed to mention two other “scandals” that were sure to help the Dems this fall, that have come to naught, if not actual embarrassment. The Plame “scandal” turns out to be nothing more than a well-orchestrated effort by a washed-up ambassador to play the Dems like a fiddle in order to pad his ego and retirement. The “scandal” of President Bush ignoring a grieving mother turns out to be nothing more than a media savvy divorcee who likes getting free plane rides around the world, and who played the Dems even better than a the washed up ambassador did (how many times will the photo of Sheehan smooching Chavez be shown between now and Nov? I’m guessing in the thousands).

Although I’d like to see the Dems a bit stronger in Congress, based simply on my belief that this country is best served when at least two political parties are effectively serving the people of the United States, I don’t think this fall is going to see a huge upsurge in seats for the Dems. The talking heads and netroot folks are dreaming when they think that average American’s get excited about the same things that NYTs editors get excited about. Aren’t the netroot folks the same ones that proclaimed all of red-state America morons back in 2004 for not voting for Kerry? Uh yeah, I seem to remember a site dedicated to each and every moonbat apologizing to the rest of the world for the morons that lived between Boston and Berkeley. Now all of a sudden these same folks are going to rise up and put the Dems in power because they are knee-deep in the intricacies of wiretapping laws and Geneva Conventions, and ready to bring President Bush to task for…what? Making the ACLU mad? Pissing off Chavez? Yeah, right. 

Sorry, except for the nutroots and BDS suffering talking heads on PBS, it just ain’t there.

Comments

[Seven Star Hand]

Hello Rick and all,

The time has arrived to think outside of the box, or else...

Understanding and fixing the failings of politics and democracy for the benefit of everyone, everywhere

Politics is little more than greed, arrogance, falsehood, hero-worship, and injustice taken to extremes and organized into teams (nations, parties, interest groups, etc). It is the struggle for your group, hero, and viewpoint so you can profit at the expense of others. This forces others to do the same in self-defense, causing an endless loop, downward spiral, and no-gain effect. When money, religion, and politics are intermingled, they form a true inescapable trap or bottomless pit. It is the opposite of compassion, cooperation, justice, and wisdom and causes you to expend dramatically more effort, time, and resources than necessary to achieve lesser results than are possible when you simply cooperate and have compassion, empathy, and charity for each other. Harmony and cooperation are on the perfect path, while politics, religion and money are ignorance, strong lies, strong delusion, and utter folly.

The primary, though hidden purpose of politics is to effectively divide and conquer populations who support and participate in these great delusions. Politics serves to dramatically slow and confound progress towards common and common-sense goals that most people want to achieve. This is one of the reasons why major problems persist for centuries. When people finally cooperate to solve problems for the good of all, problems will finally be solved and stay solved. On the other hand, participating in and supporting politics causes problems to persist and even to reappear later, though they were apparently solved previously. Because of the ability of those who also control money and religion to reverse past progress and prevent true cooperation, politics is a great deception and a trap and the opposite of truth, wisdom, and justice.

There is no true freedom nor freewill in the presence of such pervasive and institutionalized deception and exploitation. People have struggled for millennia trying to form working societies based on these three great follies. Those efforts always eventually fail because the inherent injustice and deception at the root of these concepts always leads to chaos and destruction. How long must it take before verifiable wisdom is finally valued over such long-term and self-evident folly? How much longer will it take for good people to grow tired of such obvious lies and turn away from deceptive leaders and their deceptions?

We are all trapped in a web of deception woven with money, religion, and politics. The great evils that bedevil us all will never cease until humanity finally awakens, shakes off these strong delusions, and forges a ...new path... to the future.

Read More...

...and here...

Peace…

[Publius]

WTF?

L. Ron Hubbard? Is that you?

Publius

[A.M.]

Somehow this dudes post reminded me of Federalist #10 http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government...

... Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people...

Publius (James Madison)

That last part I aim at todays leaders. People are so black and white. Give an inch and then you might be giving it to an opponent. Who is right and who is wrong?? When everyone thinks they own some portion of the truth (including "Seven Star") they are themselves a faction. I don't know if there is a real truth to be had. But one thing for sure... it won't be found in the Republican or Democratic parties. It "might" be found in some people who are connected to a party, but who think independantly.

[Publius]

Hey! James Madison stole my internet name!

Publius

[A.M.]

I think it is fitting you both borrowed it from Publius Valerius Publicola

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publius )

Now some Libertarian comment: the USA was not founded on Judeao-Christian values, but those of the ancient Greek and Roman republics.