Unfair and Unbalanced

I am often accused of not being fair and balanced, to which I reply, "Thank you for noticing."

I am a man of the right, so when I draw comparisons and examples, of course I am going to feature outrages of the left. I don’t need to constantly criticize the right; there is already a whole industry devoted to that: It’s called the Mainstream Media.

No conspiracy; just a group of people who are biased to the left, as evidenced by their own avowed beliefs, voting patterns, and the preponderance of campaign cash from this group going to Democrats.

These statistics suggest that journalists, as a group, are more liberal than almost any congressional district in the country. For instance, in the Ninth California district, which includes Berkeley, twelve percent voted for Bush in 1992, nearly double the rate of journalists. In the Eighth Massachusetts district, which includes Cambridge, nineteen percent voted for Bush, approximately triple the rate of journalists. (A Measure of Media Bias)

Remember reporters not just interviewing tea partiers, but debating them and pushing back? Remember how such interviews turned into verbal wrestling matches, with journalists striving to pin sign-wielding grannies to the intellectual mat? Where are those reporters now? Why are they not challenging the OWS people in the same way? Is it really about the truth, or is it about reinforcing preconceived notions and advancing an agenda?

The press eats this propaganda up and spreads it like manure, where a thousand liberal fantasies bloom. No argumentation, no logic examinations, just channeling the emotion.  (Silverfiddle - Is this a protest or a debate?)

I wrote a criticism of reporters and the left awhile back over at Ontological Angst entitled, Is this a protest or a debate?  In it I explore the use of logic, and contra logic, the meta-narrative.  I invite you to check it out.

Tea Party Punks vs Stodgy Progressive Establishment

Tea party conservatives are now the anti-establishment radicals

We've got the dogmatic progressive prigs backed into a corner, screaming that we're terrorists and kidnappers, or bloodthirsty carjackers stabbing babies in their car seats, or whatever the fevered ranters are telling the Obama-bots to repeat this week. 

I guess the imagery of the tea partiers being bad drivers and running Uncle Sam's car in the ditch wasn't morbid enough.

The 1900's: A Progressive Century

The 20th century saw the founders' constitutional republic grow into a monster, gobbling ever more money and personal freedoms. Sure, some good things happened: Womens suffrage, civil rights. But we also got a pay-for-play government of czarist fiat and special exemptions. America's ruling oligarchy makes money crafting dense bureaucratic sludge and then selling indulgences to the moneyed class who don't want to eat it. And the progressives continue to defend this stinking status quo that now has us teetering on the Eve of Destruction.

Greg Gutfeld over at Breitbart's Big Hollywood writes...

To me, the Tea Party really is the punk rock moment of politics – harkening back to simple math – rescuing us from 20 minute organ noodling found on Emerson Lake and Palmer records.

Yep, in a bloated world typified by Yes’s Roundabout on F-M circa 1977, the Tea Party offered “Beat on the Brat,” a jolt of Ramones wisdom that reminded us of what worked before.

It also exposed a key problem with “hope and change” of 2008. When an organic American movement rose up to question the direction of the Administration, those ephemeral “good feelings” of 2008 withered against simple principle.

George Will piles on...

"Think of any customer experience that has made you wince or kick the cat. What jumps to mind?

Waiting in multiple lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Observing the bureaucratic sloth and lowest-common-denominator performance of public schools, especially in big cities. Getting ritually humiliated going through airport security.

Trying desperately to understand your doctor bills. Navigating the permitting process at your local city hall. Wasting a day at home while the gas man fails to show up.

Whatever you come up with, chances are good that the culprit is either a direct government monopoly (as in the providers of K-12 education) or a heavily regulated industry or utility where the government is the largest player (as in health care)."

Since 1970, per-pupil real, inflation-adjusted spending has doubled and the teacher-pupil ratio has declined substantially. But math and reading scores are essentially unchanged, so we are spending much more to achieve the same results.

That is what we are rebelling against. Will reviews Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch's new book on libertarianism in America, and he brings us good news. We are raising a generation of libertarians:

A generation that has grown up with the Internet "has essentially been raised libertarian," swimming in markets, which are choices among competing alternatives.

And the left weeps. Preaching what has been called nostalgianomics, liberals mourn the passing of the days when there was one phone company, three car companies, three television networks, an airline cartel, and big labor and big business were cozy with big government.

The America of one universally known list of Top 40 records is as gone as records. (George Will – Minds Opening to Libertarian Ideas)

And we punks aim to toss big government statism on the same junk heap...

We Have a Long Way to Go

Vlad The Impaler Putin, leader of a country where thousands of alcoholics still die each year from drinking antifreeze, had the gall to call America a parasite.

President Obama responded by apologizing, and then he answered an economic question: 

"We've still got a long way to go before we hit bottom. I ain't done changin' it yet. A powerful country like the United States, you can't flush it down the toilet overnight. It takes time... Be patient!"


Hold the Champagne

I know, I was kicking up my heels yesterday at our glorious small government victory (small though it was), but there’s a long road ahead. We have just begun to fight, and the specter of hubristic overreach stalks conservative plans.

GOP lawmakers need to proceed with caution.  The press is the maidservant of Obama, and they know how to churn out the propaganda.  WaPo writer Ruth Marcus would have thrived in Stalin's Soviet Union.  See how she artfully employs the republicans as carjacker trope:

One side wanted the car, had a gun and wasn’t afraid — certainly not afraid enough — to use it. The other had a child in the back seat. (WaPo - Ruth Marcus)

That's what we're up against, and it's powerful stuff.  There really are softheaded people in this country susceptible to such emotional fripperies

Cut too much too fast, and the backlash will be horrific, and rightly so. Even before this deep recession, we had millions of souls dependent on government assistance, more so now. Single mothers struggling to feed their kids, people on medicaid going through cancer treatment, older workers broke and on the cusp of mandatory retirement… Our government has made promises to all of them.  We cannot suddenly yank the rug out from under them, or even appear to.

Also, how can you morally justify slashing the federal workforce when the anemic economy holds no employment alternatives for those thrown out of work?

Whoever would destroy the progressive state and remake it for the 21st century must first present a clearly-defined plan and be able to explain it well.  It will need to be phased in over time.  People have invested money based upon the creaky statist model, and slashing too deep too quickly creates uncertainty that inevitably leads to a bad business climate, which means more unemployment.

It’s like a spider web, all sticky and interconnected. You can’t just rip out one piece without endangering the entire fabric.   George Will explains...

During various liberal ascendancies, the federal spider has woven a web of dependencies. The political purpose has been to produce growing constituencies of voters disposed to vote Democratic. This disposition, a.k.a. the entitlement mentality, is triggered by making the constituencies constantly apprehensive about the security of their status as wards of government. (George Will – WaPo)

The truth is, we are a long way from a libertarian nation

The nanny state has destroyed self-sufficiency and initiative. What would you cut and how would you do it without hurting the truly vulnerable? Progressive statists will be asking this question, and rightly so. We had better have viable answers.