Posted on 04/06/2009 8:55:07 AM PDT by Borges
I have been watching an interesting phenomenon on the right, which is beginning to cause me concern. I am referring to the over-the-top hysteria in response to the first months in office of our new president, which distinctly reminds me of the "Bush is Hitler" crowd on the left.
Conservatives, please. Let's not duplicate the manias of the left as we figure out how to deal with President Obama. He is not exactly the antichrist, although a disturbing number of people on the right are convinced he is.
I have recently received commentaries that claim that "Obama's speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history" and "never has a politician in this land had such a quasi-religious impact on so many people" and "Obama is a narcissist," which leads the author to then compare Obama to David Koresh, Charles Manson, Joseph Stalin and Saddam Hussein. Excuse me while I blow my nose.
This fellow has failed to notice that all politicians are narcissists. So what? Political egos are one of the reasons the Founders put checks and balances on executive power. As for serial lying, is there a politician that cannot be accused of that? And once, a recent president set a pretty high bar in this category, and we survived it. As for Obama's speeches, they are hardly in the Huey Long, Louis Farrakhan, Fidel Castro vein. They are in fact eloquently and cleverly centrist and sober.
So what's the panic? It is true that Obama has shown surprising ineptitude in his first months in office, but he's not a zero with no accomplishments, as many conservatives seem to think -- unless you regard beating the Clinton machine and winning the presidency as nothing. But in doing this, you fall into the "Bush-is-an-idiot" bag of liberal miasmas.
It is also true Obama has ceded his domestic economic agenda to the House Democrats and spent a lot of money in the process. But what's the surprise in this? After all, George W. Bush and John McCain both proposed (and in Bush's case pushed through) massive government giveaways (which amount to government takeovers as well). This is bad, but it doesn't make Obama a closet Mussolini, however deplorable the conservatives among us may regard it. Moreover, he has run into political resistance even within his own party. Charlie Rangel has made it clear that the itemized deduction tax hike is not going through his committee -- and that should tell you the American system is still in place.
Even as astute a conservative thinker as Mark Steyn has been swept up in the tide that thinks Obama is a "transformative" radical. But look again at his approach to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In both cases, he is carrying out the Bush policies -- the same that he once joined his fellow Democrats in condemning. And that should be reassuring to anyone concerned about where he is heading as commander in chief.
In other words, while it's reasonable to be unhappy with a Democratic administration and even concerned because the Democrats are now a socialist party in the European sense, we are not witnessing the coming of the antichrist. A good strategy for political conflicts is to understand your opponent first -- not to underestimate him, but not to overestimate him, either.
As we move forward, Obama faces increasingly tough choices in the wars against Islamic fascism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza and Iran. Hopefully, he will make the right choices, and should he do so, conservatives will need to be there to support him. If he makes the wrong choices, conservatives will need to be there to oppose him. But neither our support nor our opposition should be based on hysterical responses to policies that we just don't like. Let's leave that kind of behavior to the liberals who invented it.
What's true to life? The usenet posting rule that says if people resort to calling each other Nazis after a long flame war, the discussion has outlived its usefulness? Or the idea that the Third Reich is off-limits in any and all discussion of politics and history?
As a rule of thumb in the world of internet flame wars, I suppose Godwin's observation (sorry, "Laws" do require authority if I'm going to abide by them) was accurate, if not redundant. As a mechanism to erase the lessons of the Third Reich from political discourse altogether, it's absurd and dangerous. I don't know if the latter was Mike Godwin's intent (knowing something about him might help in understanding that), but I know that's what it's become. In its present form, it's a specious trump card for terminally lazy cyberpundits.
Tell me, should "Godwin's Law" be invoked if someone makes the obvious analogy in a discussion about the Islamic Republic?
Blow it out your ARSE sir...Obama will in fact destroy America...Anyone on here YET convinced that we need to take to the streets ? No ..Guess not
OK then, “sweetie”, what have I ever done that deserved your insults (whether you call them charitable or not)?
Welcome all knowing visitor from the Radiant Future (Светлое будущее) !
I NEVER said or implied violence my friend.
I think it naive on your part to think we will survive this.Look what this clown has done on only 70 days or so ..We have at LEAST 4 more YEARS of this ahead.We have a neutered GOP that is half as bad as the DEMS .This is a nightmare to be sure.
Billiant. It is sophistry. It’s a Straw Man argument. Classic fallacy. Liberals pull this all the time when they try to make it sound like they are running against the skinheads or the Klan. They did it with Palin.
Moral idiots and their witless stupidity... nice to see you’re above the ad hominems.
And I wonder why the bystanders weren’t convinced that leftism had no rational arguments after eight years of “Bushitler lied... babies died!”. It would seem they rode a wave of anti-Godwinism into absolute power. At the very least, their flagrant disregard for Godwin and his absolute truth didn’t hurt them in the slightest. Yet, when we have a president apologetically moving the country towards unprecedented, unconstitutional nationalization of private industry — a man who can’t so much as sneeze without a hundred-thousand (minimum) adoring worshipers weeping at the mere sight of him — any comparison to Hitler draws an immediate yellow card.
Sorry, you don’t get to play referee. You’re one poster among thousands. Put your flag back in your pocket. It doesn’t mean anything.
It is indeed, but JasonC has at least provided us with a hilariously comedic and surreal tour de force admixture of all of those along with generous dollops of breathtaking ignorance masquerading as delusional claims of erudition, incoherent gibberish presented as logic, and world-class hubris, all whipped-up into a delightfully frothy confection of self-referential mental masturbation...
Now that's entertainment!
The argumentum ad Hitlerum comes in different forms. The one targeted at Nixon the writer from Ramparts surely would remember. There is a big difference though between Jonah Goldberg's political analysis in Liberal Fascism or even Glenn Beck's discussion of the nationalization of private industries and the fringe suggestion Obama has plans for immediate UN internment camps. The lack of such plans hardly rules out any comparisons. Besides a fondness for giving speeches to hysterical adoring crowds in Berlin, the statism, and wanting to depopulate the sick, the weak, and genetically feeble with government funds, there must be many differences.
[irony/sarcasm tag for any challenged trolls lacking a sense of humor]
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