Posted on 10/09/2023 6:30:40 PM PDT by jfd1776
We talk frequently – those of us who are paying attention – about the various policy proposals of the opposite sides in American politics.
It goes back centuries; it predates our founding era, even. One side has one solution and the other side proposes an alternative; both sides debate, and eventually one option or the other is tried. Sometimes – and this is one of the goals of the idea of states’ rights – some states try one method and other states try the other. The “laboratories of democracy” concept is given its opportunity, and we can see which methods worked and which ones didn’t.
But at least in the past we could convince ourselves that both sides’ views were reasonable, that they were legitimate options for their time and place. Based on what we knew of the world in 1800, or in 1850, or in 1900, both of the two sides – on the currency question, the tax question, the tariff question, etc. – were at least proposed and argued in the realm of the possible.
This is no longer the case.
It would be easiest to say that one side is just lying, but that’s really not it. A lie must be believable for it to even be attempted; nobody is going to spin a falsehood so outrageous that his audience couldn’t possibly believe it. To do so, one must either have no sense at all oneself, or be incredibly confident of the foolishness and gullibility of the audience.
For example:
The first time, Gentle Reader, that this author noticed the proportionality problem was about a decade ago, during the Obama administration. Barack Obama announced that his administration would be pushing for projects to derive energy from algae, as if this was some brilliant and worthy scientific advancement.
Barack Obama presented it as if it was a great discovery, and we never knew that we could obtain energy from algae before. In fact, of course, everyone has always known that you can get energy from anything, anything at all. The question is which sources are worth the bother and which sources aren’t.
There isn’t enough algae in the world for this to be worth the bother. Anyone with sense can see that. But the Left floated this balloon to see if their target demographic would see through it, or if they would accept the claim that the Obama administration had discovered some wonderful new source of fuel.
Sure enough, their base ate it up. The fundamental flaw was invisible to them.
Since then, we have seen countless other examples:
- Masks to stop a virus hundreds of times smaller than the spaces in the mask.
- Vaccines that were tested on a sample size so small they were, for all intents and purposes, untested.
- A one-time stimulus check to make up for high gas prices, when the stimulus check is less than a fifth of the increased annual fuel cost the people are suffering.
- Celebrating job creation stats when the new jobs are lower-paying and with less advancement opportunity than the old jobs that are always disappearing.
- Championing the low inflation of some products (pork, television, books), while dismissing the real inflation felt by all consumers because of massive hikes in other often unavoidable purchases and needs (beef, autos, gasoline, housing, insurance).
- Encouraging the minimal percentage of young males with gender dysphoria to compete “as females” in women’s sports, forever ruining the experience for the 99%-plus female participants who don’t suffer such delusions.
On issue after issue, we see that it’s not just a matter of being right or wrong; it’s a matter of denying the difference in proportion between two sides. Championing one savings while denying the existence of infinitely larger cost increases. Creating special rights for a tiny minority that deny the rights of the vast majority. Spending a mint on benefits for an undeserving minority specifically at the expense of the deserving majority.
In this context, it should perhaps not be so shocking to look at the election of 2020, in which we are supposed to believe that a senile and crooked candidate who had been a national joke for almost fifty years nevertheless inspired a twenty percent increase in the presidential vote, winning in a walk despite every poll saying the incumbent was winning practically every individual demographic.
It’s all about proportion.
Sometimes individual data points are believable on their own:
Could you get energy from algae? Sure. Could you save money on buying televisions? Sure. Could you make this confused kid feel better by letting him swim in this contest? Sure.
It’s only when you step back and look at the context – is this really possible, achievable, worthwhile, believable, in the big picture? – that you realize, undeniably, that you’re being conned.
But they don’t have a choice. The modern Left has gone so far, on every issue, that they have to promote bigger and bigger whoppers every year.
And their base – having been carefully denied a decent education for the past few generations, leaving them largely without the ability to reason – simply cannot see through it.
Copyright 2023 John F. Di Leo
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance professional and consultant. A onetime Milwaukee County Republican Party chairman, he has been writing a regular column for Illinois Review since 2009. His book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel) and his political satires on the current administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I and II) are available only on Amazon
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