Black is Black (an honest criticism of some fellow FReepers and also of liberals)

TBA | 10-10-04 | Jonathan M. Stein

[jmstein7]

Black is Black

By Jonathan M. Stein
 

Honesty is clearly the best policy; that is not in question.  However, broadcasting one's honesty isn't always the best politics -- sometimes, in fact, it is incredibly stupid.

There is no question that, in general, conservatives are more honest than their liberal counterparts.  However, conservatives have a nasty habit of crowing about just how honest they are, often to their detriment.  Conservatives know when they're right, when they're wrong, when they've done well, and when they've done badly.  That doesn't mean that they have to stand on the rooftops and shout about it.  Loudly letting liberals know when things are going badly for conservatives doesn't make liberals think "wow, gee, look how honest conservatives are!"  It doesn't make liberals feel badly about themselves.  On the contrary, it is incredibly stupid in that liberals wisely, and gladly, use it against conservatives.  As liberal bloggers, and John Kerry, have demonstrated, they are only too gleeful to use Republican criticisms of Republicans against Republicans in the public debate.

Now, I'm not urging dishonesty; I'm certainly not advocating lies.  All I am saying is that the liberals do not need any more free advice or any more free ammunition to use against Republicans and conservatives -- they already have plenty of that.  All I am asking is that, as we move into the final weeks of an election that will determine the safety and security of all Americans going forward, a life or death election, if conservatives don't have anything nice to say about themselves or their candidates, then don't say anything at all.  This can be boiled down to two simple words... if you don't have anything nice to say then shut up.

The consequences of not shutting up are clear; just look at what happened after the first debate, when things didn't go as well as we liked: we criticized, we grumbled, we despaired -- and the liberals fed off it, gained strength, re-energized their base, used it against us, and made some headway in the polls.  This same mistake must not be repeated.  If you don't like how things are going, that's fine -- just keep it to yourself.  As is often said: "loose lips sink ships."

Alternatively, what conservatives should not do is what liberals do when things go badly for them: lie, deceive, and spin.  Just look at what happened after the second debate, when President Bush made a comeback.  Democrats and other liberals went beyond merely keeping quiet about their losses; that would have been fine.  No -- they actually went out of their way to convince others that the opposite was true -- that their loss was actually a win.  That is dishonest, and it is something conservatives should never do. 

What is truly frightening about all this isn't the lying, spin, or deception.  What is truly frightening is that, to liberals, the lies, spin, and deception actually became their truth!  They really believed what they were saying!  Look no further than the rhetoric at the Democratic Underground.  This is frightening because it is further evidence of just how far the left has gone down the Orwellian path.

In 1984, George Orwell describes a trio of though-control devices that make this self-deception possible -- and orthodox.  The concepts are crimestop, blackwhite, and doublethink.  In 1984, any thought that went against that which was considered "orthodoxy" was considered a crime.  Thus, citizens were trained to consciously stop themselves, stop their though processes, before their very thoughts strayed beyond what was considered orthodox.  This concept was known as crimestop, i.e. consciously stopping unorthodox, "criminal" though (crimethink) before it "polluted" the mind.  The left-wingers have clearly mastered this, especially considering the things they have gone on record saying about Senator Kerry's debate performance.  As their negative thoughts about Kerry formed, they simply, and clearly, stopped thinking.  Scary.

Of course, crimestop is necessary when the beginnings of adverse thought have already entered the mind.  Thus, to remedy the effects of some tainted thought, it is necessary to convince one's self that the opposite of those thoughts is really true.  If it is bad to think that black is actually black, and you started to think about that, but stopped short, then one must convince one's self that black is actually white.  If black is a bad thought and white is a good thought, you must convince yourself that black is white.  This technique is known as blackwhite.  If a Democrat had started to think that John Kerry gave a dismal performance, that Democrat must quickly, and consciously, convince himself that Kerry was fabulous, despite reality.  Blackwhite.

The final step in this conscious self-deception is paradox resolution and reconciliation.  The process of convincing one's self that black is white is a conscious one.  In the back of one's mind, one knows that black is black.  So, it is necessary to convince one's self that although one knows that black is black, black can also be white  in fact, black can be black and white at the same time!  It is necessary to believe that a non sequitur can be logical, and that, in fact, it has always been logical.  Not only did John Kerry do well, despite the fact that he did badly, but the fact is that he had been doing well all along.  And, by gosh, he actually did vote for the $87 billion before he voted against it!  Doublethink.

This is how liberals lie so effectively -- because they really believe it, and they have mastered believing it, and they never believed otherwise.  A contradiction can be consciously true and false and reconciled, and, in fact, it has always been true.  They have mastered these Orwellian thought-control techniques and if they assume power, they will make sure that everyone else masters them as well.

Frightening. 

[arasina]

Don't forget Bob Barr.

An Agonizing Choice

[VOA]

bump for
http://www.brainterminal.com

I got to see the brainterminal short at The First Liberty Film Festival in Hollywood
last Saturday morning. It was great!

[Liz]

JIM ROBINSON Asserting the FR mission: “In our continuing fight for freedom, for America and our constitution and against totalitarianism, socialism, tyranny, terrorism, etc., Free Republic stands firmly on the side of right, i.e., the conservative side.” And in that statement, sums up the mission of conservatism and Free Republic. Now we’re dangerous to the “Big Media.” Now we’re available to everyone. We’re in homes, in offices, and in laptop computers. We’ve become an infectious disease that will debilitate the Democratic Party and liberalism’s veined effort to garnish power. We’re putting a stranglehold on a defunct enterprise known as CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN.


MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO: Wise men are instructed by reason; men of less understanding, by experience; the most ignorant, by necessity; the beasts, by nature.


BARRY GOLDWATER: “Conservatism, we are told, is out-of-date. The charge is preposterous and we ought boldly to say so. The laws of God, and of nature, have no dateline. The principles on which the Conservative political position is based have been established by a process that has nothing to do with the social, economic and political landscape that changes from decade to decade and from century to century. These principles are derived from the nature of man, and from the truths that God has revealed about His creation. Circumstances do change. So do the problems that are shaped by circumstances. But the principles that govern the solution of the problems do not. To suggest that the Conservative philosophy is out of date is akin to saying that the Golden Rule, or the Ten Commandments or Aristotle's Politics are out of date. The Conservative approach is nothing more or less than an attempt to apply the wisdom and experience and the revealed truths of the past to the problems of today.” The Conscience Of A Conservative, 1960.

[beckysueb]

Amazing! They had one thing wrong though. Unemployment rate under Clinton-5.6 Under Bush-5.4

[Glenn]

P.S. Read #51.

Fair enough. But we old idealouges have a tough time being told to hold our thoughts, eh?

[Pukin Dog]

I know what you were thinking and my ancestors have all spilled blood to protect me and all Americans from likeminded people.

I'm sure your ancestors (and all the others) who spilled their blood were thinking "we must die to protect the right of others to bitch and moan and get attention because they think they know better than the rest, when it would actually benefit them to temporarily shut their pie-holes"

What a sacrifice indeed.

[bootless]

Good post - for instance, standing back and letting the DUers flood the online polls with their bots. It made the polls look ridiculous, and by extension, Kerry supporters.

[Flux Capacitor]

Oh, I absolutely get it. As my good buddy Mr. Spock once said, "It is not a lie to keep the truth to oneself." In other words, when necessary, play your cards close to the vest.

The first debate is an excellent example of this. Yes, Bush underperformed. Yes, he was flustered; yes, he looked confused; yes, he looked tired; no, he did not communicate his message effectively enough.

But instead of going before the media and admitting "Yeah, our guy kinda blew it on that one," Republicans ought to be playing up other truths of the debate: namely, that slick-talking John Kerry managed to contradict himself several dozen times, sometimes within the same sentence (Lehrer: "Would you choose bilateral or multilateral talks with N. Korea?" Kerry: "I choose both!!!"), while George W. Bush carried an entirely consistent message of strength and resolve about the most important issue in the election, by a mile. Or that George Bush came across as a warm and friendly regular-guy, while every time John Kerry grinned his chin seemed to grow at least a foot.

Loose lips sink ships!!!

-Dan

[infidel29]

Nietzsche, "on Truth and Lying in a Non-moral Sense"
"What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonymies, anthropomorphisms – in short, a sum of human relations, which have been subjected to poetic and rhetorical intensification, translation and decoration, and which, after they have been in use for a long time, strike a people as firmly established, canonical, and binding; truths are illusions of which we have forgotten that they are illusions; metaphors which have become worn out by frequent use and have lost all sensuous vigour; coins which, having lost their stamp are now regarded as metal, and no longer as coins."
Basically says that words themselves are lies because they represent non material ideas, how do we know a leaf is a leaf? We know nothing about "being" a leaf, we only know that someone once called it a leaf so therefore it must be a leaf. If lie-berals have mastered the use of language and metaphor they wouldn`t even need to try to convince themselves what they are saying IS true. Nothing is true or false depending on one`s perspective. Using this twisted logic one can spew anything they want and never have to prove or disprove anything. There is no difference between right and wrong because there is no difference between right and left. "Right" in a directional sense is defined as that which lies to the East while facing north. Unfortunately everything lies to the East when you live on a sphere, it just takes longer to get there. So your left hand is on the right, just farther left of it. Wow I completely confused myself... I guess that`s how the Democrats do it too. My right is my right before it is my left so to speak.

[VOA]

A prime example are the Buchanan/Tancredo organizations.

Leaving Buchanan for other to discuss...I'm trying to figure out why Tancredo is any
sort of extremist.

The extremists are the open-border apologists who have helped close (at last count
IIRC) SEVEN emergency rooms in the Los Angeles area this last year.

Because the emergency rooms are mandated to deliver service to patients....
no matter their ability to pay or their immigration status...without re-imbursement
from their rich Democratic employers in Bel-Air and Beverly Hills.

[jmstein7]

LOL! Thanks!

[jmstein7]

Okay... after I finish reading Ann's new book :)

[Pukin Dog]

Exactly. Too many folks want to play "Pundit for a day", but then they aim at the wrong target. There is PLENTY to talk about without running down our own candidate.

[jmstein7]

Hehehehe... point taken.

[jmstein7]

Exactly. No need to shoot our own candidates with our own bullets.

[SouthernFreebird]

I know what you were thinking and my ancestors have all spilled blood to protect me and all Americans from likeminded people.

I'm sure your ancestors (and all the others) who spilled their blood were thinking "we must die to protect the right of others to bitch and moan and get attention because they think they know better than the rest, when it would actually benefit them to temporarily shut their pie-holes"

What a sacrifice indeed.

They were smart enough to know that it never stops at just just shut up for a while and eventually ends up as an Iraqi dictatorship.

I appreciate the sacrifice of all our servicemen who died preserving our right to have a free voice, while you have the freedom to mock it.

[Toonces T. Cat]

"Meditate on these three names and how they relate to what I have said:

Lincoln Chafee, Chuck Hagel, John McCain."

JM,

With all due respect, it might have been better if your words had been addressed to the three individuals listed above. I have to come down on your side and Pukin' Dog's side on this deal in spirit, but not 100% in the execution.

You are a gifted young man...and both attributes show in your post to an equal degree. Your arguments are strong and the ideas are very powerful. The delivery, however, sucks. As someone who has to work on daily basis with 17,000 hormonally fueled students, please allow me to suggest an alternative tack for you...while keeping in mind that most people despise being lectured to by someone many years their junior.

Life has taught me many important lessons, but one of the most important is that the best way to get people to give you what you want is to convince them that it is in their own best interest to let you have it.

Respectfully,

-Toonces T. Cat

[Willie Green]

The author of this screed suffers a bipolar political mentality that is intolerant of substantive discussion of issues. He should be ignored.

[jmstein7]

We ALL appreciate that here. I also appreciate that we would be doing them a tremendous disservice to allow John Kerry to become their Commander-in-Chief by shooting our candidates with our own bullets.

[Lancey Howard]

BUMP! Good rant.

What your piece makes me wish is that Republicans would use Democrat criticisms of Democrats the same way the rats use Republican criticisms of Republicans. I will never figure out why the Republicans never really ran with Bob Kerrey's, "Clinton is an unusaulkly good liar" quote, for example.

On the other hand, the Republicans have done a great job putting Zell Miller front and center.