Posted on 02/09/2016 10:41:06 AM PST by Starman417
Back when Sister Babe was pregnant with Little Bob, we had a conversation about how our lives would be changing once we became parents. One concern she raised was that I would no longer be able to go to the (sadly, now closed) Rhino Bar on Sunday afternoons in the fall to drink too much beer and watch Philadelphia Eagles football with the local crazies, and that I might come to resent her and our child for taking the ability to do that from my life. This was the pregnancy talking, as Sister Babe has too good a head on her shoulders to have married and had a baby with someone who didn't share her views on parenting. I tried explaining to her that my spending Sunday afternoons at the bar would be a great way to bond with our son. By the time football season would be rolling around the lad would be a toddler. And if I walked through the door staggering, doing a face plant and chuckling like an idiot before and myself before passing out it would be a great way to show our son that I'm trying to relate to him!
Just kidding, although I did present that argument at a later date with no success. My actual response to her was simple, but got the point across. I told her that, "I have to give up things in my life now because of a long series of choices I made that got me here. I'm not going to get angry at other people over the consequences of my decisions - I'm a conservative!" We both got a good chuckle out of that remark, but I wasn't kidding about the substance of it.
In the first part of this series I pointed out numerous examples of how the Radical Left furiously rejects math in any discussion, but left unanswered is the question of "Why?" Back in late 2014 Jim Geraghty gave a roundup of a number of issues where the Federal Government has failed. Look for the common thread among them:
What's with the Centers for Disease Control? They keep telling you "we're going to stop Ebola in its tracks here" and then there are new cases. The NIH Director seems to think he's reassuring us by telling us "the system worked" as we learn about new infections. Then there's that enterovirus 68 floating around, killing kids. Terrifying, heartbreaking. Hey, guys, maybe a little less time studying gun control and a little more time spent on, you know, disease control? That's your job.Do you notice what's missing from these failures? There isn't any quantifiable objective. Granted, with warfare quantifying objectives is tougher, although a simple one that could be used would be to not let ISIS gain any additional ground and to destroy every last one of their followers that we can find.What's going on with everybody who's supposed to be protecting us? First Obama says "We don't have a strategy yet" - why not? Don't we spend billions, even trillions, on national-security agencies, intelligence agencies, and a Department of Defense? Isn't somebody in those vast, expensive organizations supposed to come up with a strategy? Then he said "they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria" - isn't that their job? Wasn't anybody watching?
Now they're saying the airstrikes over in Iraq and Syria aren't doing enough, and the Islamic State is knocking on the door of Baghdad. Sunday morning, National Security Adviser Susan Rice said we're not reassessing our strategy. Well, shouldn't somebody? Just in case? Doesn't anybody over there believe in having a Plan B? Isn't that the job of a national-security adviser?
How the hell did the top guys at the Department of Veterans Affairs not know about the waitlists and that veterans were dying, waiting for care? That's their job.
How the heck did the federal government AND so many state governments manage to spend so much money and not build insurance-exchange web sites that worked? That was their job.
The president keeps insisting that test scores are up and that college attendance is up, when it's actually been the opposite. Obviously, the public schools aren't good enough for his kids. He promised the moon when it came to improving schools back in 2008. Wasn't that his job?
In your life, failure is not an option. If you don't pick up the kids from school, they're stuck there. If you don't go shop for groceries, the kids don't eat. All around you, every day, you see things that have to get done, and you do them. You don't tell the kids, 'well, our intentions were good. We tried. We had some glitches." You don't get to blame your predecessor or the opposition party. You don't get to tell them, or your spouse, or your boss, that the situation is the same, as normal, and that they're "just noticing now because of social media."
Where is this "get it done" attitude in Washington? Every time you turn around, it's some new excuse. Americans do not accept this kind of incompetence and accountability in their personal and professional lives. Why should they accept it from Washington?
But why would the Radical Left be so violently opposed to quantifying any of their objectives? The reason is simple - when you quantify an objective, results become measurable. When results can be measured, there is an accountability for those results. And with accountability comes accepting responsibility, which is the heart of the issue. Leftists cringe at the notion of personal responsibility the same way that Vampires cringe at the sight of a crucifix (which leftists do as well, ironically enough). The two words you will never, under any circumstances, hear from a leftist is "I'm responsible." But why?
Leftists do not care about the actual results of any policy/politician/ballot measure that they support. There is one metric and one metric only that is universally applied by every leftist that pre-determines whether or not anything that they support is a good idea or not, and it is the question, "Does supporting this idea make me feel good about myself?" If the answer is "yes", then facts or reality be damned - it is a good idea and there is absolutely nothing you can do to convince them otherwise. Heck, they seem to wear their thought process' impervoiusness to reason like a badge of honor! I'm sure anyone reading this has seen the mental contortions that they twist through to justify their beliefs:
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...
I have no idea where in that article the “two advantages” are, but I’m not going to take the time to find them.
The article is strangely unreadable.
But at least the writer seems to be enjoying himself.
For most political leftist, the one metric of importance to them is:
Does this increase my power, or my ability to hang onto power?
Or does this gain me, personally, an advantage, even if it destroys countless others? (that does not matter).
The two essential doctrines of the left are being free from consequences and that the earth is a planet that is limited in resources.
Everything they promote is an extension of these two beliefs. Through these beliefs, they seek power to ensure they can practice these beliefs freely.
The GOP nominee has to have a HUGE lead to counteract this. Otherwise, BOHICA.
And therein lies the incompatibility of the Left's doctrines: The first part is unsustainable and the second part is based on uncompromised "sustainability".
It’s the flip side of my recurring observation:
The biggest problem with the Right is that we’ll tie ourselves in knots trying to objectively explain & rationalize both sides of whatever position they take, while they just race on to the next feel-good self-satisfying declaration. We may be right, but the bulk of the electorate doesn’t want to, say, follow a prolonged treatise on the history of the Second Amendment and its extrapolation to today’s weaponry & circumstances, when “of course we should have reasonable restrictions” is so effective.
Geez, I just wasted my time reading this.....
The Left has two big advantages over the Right: they have no moral standards (so you cannot shame them) while being able to hold the Right to standards that are impossible to live up to.
They only have to yell “Racist!”, “Sexist!”, “Homophobe!”, and people retreat, or tangle themselves up in knots in a futile attempt to explain why the label doesn’t REALLY fit.
The solution is to just not care. A Leftist friend of my wife’s, talking about a friend of mine, called him a Klan member. I replied, deadpan, “I doubt he’s a Klan member. Neither of us has ever seen him show up for any of the meetings.”
And that was that.
Meanwhile, Trump will not take the bait. He will simply mock them. Therein lies his appeal for many.
It’s why the concept of government itself is flawed, and why private institutions do absolutely any task better. There is simply no incentive for government to do anything efficiently, and tons of incentives for it to do things inefficiently. You basically have to say that math is a lie if you genuinely believe the government is efficient.
There is another or at least a corollary, "Does supporting this idea make make other peoples' lives miserable?" If the answer is 'yes,' then proceed. Also worth mentioning is, "Does supporting this idea give me more power?" If 'yes' then pull out all stops and get it done!
Why does your wife associate with such a person?
He’s right that they support any issue by “Does supporting this issue make ME FEEL GOOD?” And they want zero responsibility for anything. Conservatives feel guilt because they take responsibility. Leftists find blame, and it is never themselves. Only their intentions and feelings count.
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