The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Destroying the Strawmen
I started off today--as I hope you will--by having a good laugh at Harry Reid's expense. Watching Reid go through painful contortions to try and explain to an interviewer how we really have a "voluntary" tax system is a great way to start off the day with a good laugh. And Allah has provided the opportunity this morning to do just that.
But all humor aside, deeper things trouble me today, namely this: how is it that our friends and neighbors continue to be so obtuse that they would elect these neo-Marxist Democrat bozos? I have been watching HBO's excellent series on John Adams, and what strikes me about their adaptation of David McCullough's superb biography, is that back then when our Founding Fathers discussed their political differences, they did so in a civilized and poised manner which puts to shame the daily conduct of today's lowest-rated-in-history Democrat Congress. And of most people in any conversation today in disagreement about politics...
Another thing I can say about Adams, Washington, Hamilton, Jay, Jefferson, et. al., is that the Founders certainly thought that our future as a nation was important to bring up in polite conversation--even at dinner with the kids and family. So why is it that today, people are so afraid to disagree with their friends and neighbors over politics, or even to raise the issue, when failing to do so is allowing our country to be sold down the river?
Yes we are a polarized country, but could that not be precisely because we are no longer having such dialogue and polite discourse? Are our Leftist teachers to be allowed to fill our children's heads with lies, but we are not to be permitted--out of politeness, of course--to have a reasoned discussion with our friends? (Caveat: not at the workplace--I am not trying to get people fired here...)
We are taught that it is impolite to bring up politics with friends. Exactly why is that? If we live in a democracy, a representative Republic, does that not make electing our representatives one of the most important things we as citizens do? Is it not every bit as important as the education of our children?
The most "educated" person in the world is worth absolutely nothing if he/she is living under a tyranny that is as bad or worse as that which engendered the American Revolution. (I use quotes on the word 'educated' because our kids are not being taught what makes this country exceptional--and what would make them exceptional--in schools today. They are not taught to strive to be exceptional, but rather that the dullard has the same intrinsic value as the most gifted --"there are no winners, there are no losers", etc... )
But I digress--the point I am trying to make is this: would you be willing to allow your own personal concern for being "polite" or "one of the gang" vis-a-vis your friends and associates to prevent your kids from getting any education? Because--I submit--allowing your country to go down the tubes out of apathy is just as consequential in denying your progeny a bright future as is their classroom education. (And the fact that in the schools they are being taught relativistic socialist crap doesn't exactly help to guarantee them a bright future either...)
Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to our future, and neither is the brand of Stalinism being sold to us by today's Democrat shysters as "hope" and "change". Change into a tyranny is not a change worth making. To hope for a welfare state, is to hope for mediocrity and the least common denominator. If latent Marxist drivel is what we get by our neighbors and associates' continued apathy and/or ignorance of what is really happening in our government today, then why is it so "proper" not to attempt to alert them to the bill of goods that is being peddled by the Democrats they've been busy electing? Is it not our duty to do everything we can as citizens to prevent a disastrous future? Not only for ourselves, but for those who will have to live here after us?
Maybe it is time we redefined what is really "polite". To me, the problem is not so much bringing up "politics" in a discussion, it is rather that most often that those whose arguments are not well thought out--when presented with logical arguments that tear down their strawmen--become precisely the impolitic "thought bigots" which they so often accuse those of us with a Judeo-Christian moral outlook of being.
Left-leaning "intellectuals", who quite obviously are not grokking what is being done in their name by the snake oil salesmen in the Democrat party, will get downright belligerent when their vapid views are challenged in a discussion. Because once reasonable, logical discussion gets to that point where there is no more logic available to support an intellectually vacant argument, the only tools left to he/she who has been taking the illogical side of things are: emotion, character assassination, and bullying. Hence the adage of being "polite".
Right--let's be polite as we watch everything we care for dissolve into the ether.
And so our challenge is not that we should never discuss those things; but rather--when friends do become so emotionally unhinged--we then must bring the conversation back down to earth, rather than to adopt the same cheap emotional tactics of your unhinged antagonist. Trying to bully or outshout someone who quite evidently doesn't get it does not work. However properly applied, logic, reason, and facts--presented in a calm tone, regardless of the tone adopted by an adversary--trumps hyper-emotional vapidity every time. And if others around you are listening to logic and reason vs. intellectually vacant emotionalism--so much the better for all of us.
It is important to deconstruct the intellectually dishonest PC strawmen of our day. And it is more important to convince those who do yet not see the forest for the trees. If we ever do want to be "united" as the mealy-mouthed "messiah" from Illinois preaches, then that means we all must be united in purpose. And the only common languages which the human species understands is the language of reason--or the language of bullying.
So long as the hidden purpose of the Democrat party is to re-establish Marxist State Socialism, it is incumbent upon us to destroy the strawmen that are holding our nation back from what it can be. Where does an evangelist go to convert the "unwashed"? To the sinners themselves.
This is precisely what we must do, in defense of the greatest experiment in government ever devised by Man. We must prevent these latter-day Trotskyites from destroying our Constitution. We must also have the character and poise to establish a dialogue with the unwashed of our day--and that means taking our "A-game" into the Lions Den.
Who's with me?
But all humor aside, deeper things trouble me today, namely this: how is it that our friends and neighbors continue to be so obtuse that they would elect these neo-Marxist Democrat bozos? I have been watching HBO's excellent series on John Adams, and what strikes me about their adaptation of David McCullough's superb biography, is that back then when our Founding Fathers discussed their political differences, they did so in a civilized and poised manner which puts to shame the daily conduct of today's lowest-rated-in-history Democrat Congress. And of most people in any conversation today in disagreement about politics...
Another thing I can say about Adams, Washington, Hamilton, Jay, Jefferson, et. al., is that the Founders certainly thought that our future as a nation was important to bring up in polite conversation--even at dinner with the kids and family. So why is it that today, people are so afraid to disagree with their friends and neighbors over politics, or even to raise the issue, when failing to do so is allowing our country to be sold down the river?
Yes we are a polarized country, but could that not be precisely because we are no longer having such dialogue and polite discourse? Are our Leftist teachers to be allowed to fill our children's heads with lies, but we are not to be permitted--out of politeness, of course--to have a reasoned discussion with our friends? (Caveat: not at the workplace--I am not trying to get people fired here...)
We are taught that it is impolite to bring up politics with friends. Exactly why is that? If we live in a democracy, a representative Republic, does that not make electing our representatives one of the most important things we as citizens do? Is it not every bit as important as the education of our children?
The most "educated" person in the world is worth absolutely nothing if he/she is living under a tyranny that is as bad or worse as that which engendered the American Revolution. (I use quotes on the word 'educated' because our kids are not being taught what makes this country exceptional--and what would make them exceptional--in schools today. They are not taught to strive to be exceptional, but rather that the dullard has the same intrinsic value as the most gifted --"there are no winners, there are no losers", etc... )
But I digress--the point I am trying to make is this: would you be willing to allow your own personal concern for being "polite" or "one of the gang" vis-a-vis your friends and associates to prevent your kids from getting any education? Because--I submit--allowing your country to go down the tubes out of apathy is just as consequential in denying your progeny a bright future as is their classroom education. (And the fact that in the schools they are being taught relativistic socialist crap doesn't exactly help to guarantee them a bright future either...)
Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to our future, and neither is the brand of Stalinism being sold to us by today's Democrat shysters as "hope" and "change". Change into a tyranny is not a change worth making. To hope for a welfare state, is to hope for mediocrity and the least common denominator. If latent Marxist drivel is what we get by our neighbors and associates' continued apathy and/or ignorance of what is really happening in our government today, then why is it so "proper" not to attempt to alert them to the bill of goods that is being peddled by the Democrats they've been busy electing? Is it not our duty to do everything we can as citizens to prevent a disastrous future? Not only for ourselves, but for those who will have to live here after us?
Maybe it is time we redefined what is really "polite". To me, the problem is not so much bringing up "politics" in a discussion, it is rather that most often that those whose arguments are not well thought out--when presented with logical arguments that tear down their strawmen--become precisely the impolitic "thought bigots" which they so often accuse those of us with a Judeo-Christian moral outlook of being.
Left-leaning "intellectuals", who quite obviously are not grokking what is being done in their name by the snake oil salesmen in the Democrat party, will get downright belligerent when their vapid views are challenged in a discussion. Because once reasonable, logical discussion gets to that point where there is no more logic available to support an intellectually vacant argument, the only tools left to he/she who has been taking the illogical side of things are: emotion, character assassination, and bullying. Hence the adage of being "polite".
Right--let's be polite as we watch everything we care for dissolve into the ether.
And so our challenge is not that we should never discuss those things; but rather--when friends do become so emotionally unhinged--we then must bring the conversation back down to earth, rather than to adopt the same cheap emotional tactics of your unhinged antagonist. Trying to bully or outshout someone who quite evidently doesn't get it does not work. However properly applied, logic, reason, and facts--presented in a calm tone, regardless of the tone adopted by an adversary--trumps hyper-emotional vapidity every time. And if others around you are listening to logic and reason vs. intellectually vacant emotionalism--so much the better for all of us.
It is important to deconstruct the intellectually dishonest PC strawmen of our day. And it is more important to convince those who do yet not see the forest for the trees. If we ever do want to be "united" as the mealy-mouthed "messiah" from Illinois preaches, then that means we all must be united in purpose. And the only common languages which the human species understands is the language of reason--or the language of bullying.
So long as the hidden purpose of the Democrat party is to re-establish Marxist State Socialism, it is incumbent upon us to destroy the strawmen that are holding our nation back from what it can be. Where does an evangelist go to convert the "unwashed"? To the sinners themselves.
This is precisely what we must do, in defense of the greatest experiment in government ever devised by Man. We must prevent these latter-day Trotskyites from destroying our Constitution. We must also have the character and poise to establish a dialogue with the unwashed of our day--and that means taking our "A-game" into the Lions Den.
Who's with me?
