Modern Political Debate

It has been a constant source of amazement to me, the seeming impenetrable intransigence of political adversaries, the discourse in our society, gridlock in Washington, the so called "culture wars."

If all anybody wants is enlightened debate producing functional public policy, then every time there is a debate, it should end with consensus.

But objective facts do not resolve debates, they are opportunities to spin reality into endless permutations of rhetorical conflict. It's almost as if conflict is the purpose, not the process.

We have among us a novelty in American history about which numberless books have been written, movies, commentary, celebration. Our boomer generation. Sons and daughters of the generation that suffered through the Great Depression and World War Two. Arguably the most selfless generation in our history produced the most selfish, overindulged generation in history, and the first and only generation whose numbers so vastly outweighed the rest of society that it has wielded disproportionate power and influence for half a century.

Our greatest generation came home from the world's most brutal conflict exhausted and traumatized. They both neglected and overindulged their children, the process whereby adults turn little barbarians into socialized adults simply didn't happen. An unprecedented failure rate in the socialization of a generation of unprecedented dimension is the root cause of unprecedented mayhem in the public square.

There have always been developmentally retarded members of society, people who spend their entire lives in their "terrible twos", we call them curmudgeons, misanthropes, contrarians, but never before have we called them a majority. Till now that is. The failed boomer generation contains such an excess of barbarity added to the routine fraction of society deprived of a moral compass that, well, turn on the news any day of the week. Barbarians wield astounding power.

Don't be. Think of their "me" orientation, their selfishness, and the constant upheaval surrounding them as a consequence of their upbringing. They thrive on attention and self indulgence and are incapable of tolerating judgments, consequences, and exhibiting real empathy. And if they want something, they will have it, or else.

Why socialism? These are two year olds. A parental government is a deep seated, gut level preference among our unsocialized little... errr... not so little, barbarians. The manifest inferiority of socialism leads to heated conflict, and being the center of attention is a balm to the unsocialized, no matter if the attention is negative, in fact, the more heat and drama focused on our left wing friends, the happier they are. Just like a toddler, turning the debate from better and worse public policy to "I want" followed by a howling tantrum draws these folks to a left wing agenda like a moth to a flame. And if they win the argument, the disasterous consequences will provoke andless outrage, and therefore endless opportunity to deny real suffering, and enjoy being the central focus of the attention of all of society. And of course socialism means what you earn, they take, with the power of the government to enforce their despicable greed.

Why pick on Christians? Christians are apt to deny self gratification, they have rules and moral judgments which outrage morbidly self centered individuals. And they are safe. "Progressives" do not have a hateful and persistent anti Hells Angels agenda, now do they? Two year olds may have a reptilian disregard for others, but they are not brave about it. You can take joy in persecuting the sensibilities of Christians without provoking physical retribution. And the rare exceptions produce enraptured paroxysms of self indulgence before television cameras. Liberals wear the spiritual poverty of their sterile spirituality as a badge of honor and silent indictment, preening in the discomfited attention they attract from their Christian neighbors, hating Christians is an endless source of self gratifying attention. And of course Christians believe their life is a gift from God, which would put all you possess beyond their grasp. Utterly outrageous.

The homosexual agenda? Be the center of attention by pissing off traditional folk, but also, to a two year old there is something WRONG with people being indifferent to your poo poo and pee pee. A civilized aspect of traditional marriage is, we can be quite scrupulously ignorant about people's sexual behavior, a man and a woman can get married as a business arrangement for all we care, all we know is marriage (as a rule) produces a well socialized next generation to purpetuate society, beyond that we do not care. But for boomers? You must know, and care, that billy likes to put his pee pee in jimmys poo poo. It matters, and damn you for your indifference.

Which explains viagra commercials, and that every relief has got to be "cathartic", every moment of revelation, seminal, et cetera, ad nauseum.

Think about the sixties. Seventies. Eighties. All dominated by outrageous baby boomer cultural upheaval. Which was, and is, the point. It really is "all about me", always, over everything.

Our auto bailout? Do you seriously think anybody thinks it is worth spending billions to keep a sinking ship barely afloat instead of dry docking the wreck and putting it right? No! This a tailor made temper tantrum event. Everyone's knee jerk response was to start bailing, then grownups pointed out that chapter 11 would save jobs and transform failures into viable companies. Some minds changed, and others produce billowing clouds of divisive bullshit about being against workers, against unions, rich versus poor, heartless evil republicans. It is not about the automakers, it is the same old "look at me!" two year old mentality. We can't talk about anything without our adult infant community taking another opportunity to suck all of that air out of the room, and grab everyones attention with an endless litany of barbaric rhetorical aggression, and no cause is too trivial to justify raping your bank account over.

You might be safe if you do not have anything, or earn a wage, or if you are wealthy enough to insulate yourself, but that is about it. Your life is your own until you trade the hours of your day in exchange for money, after that, you're screwed.

They know want like a toddler, and understand civilized boundaries like an infant, which is to say, not at all.

Bailouts, socialism, progressive taxation, these people feel nothing but contempt for your individual sovereignty, they will have all that is yours.

I used to post here a good deal, but got bored (begging your pardon) and went off to engage in heated debate for years on a liberal dominated site. What I learned is clearly disturbing, but this is the world we live in.

Perhaps the most powerful outcome of understanding is, when your local lefties launch, think what you would do with a two year old. There is NO POINT in engaging on substance! Ignore the invitations to heated rhetorical conflict, the result of that fight will not be enlightened consensus, it's just perverse gratification of an infantile need for attention. Don't feed the beast.

Of course, applying two year old psychology will allow you to deal with a liberal, but it won't help you keep them from sticking a bit between your teeth and running your life into the ground, these despicable cretins run your government.

From here, draw your own insights, I'd appreciate thoughful commentary on how to avoid endless conflict and at the same time, preserve our precious liberty for generations to follow. It's a conundrum, giving in to our barbarian boomer friends would destroy everything that makes America special, but resistance is just feeding endless tantrums.

And what is forgotten, because of all the attention MSM paid to the spoiled brats of the boomer generation, is how many of us buckled down, started families, businesses, contributed to our communities, and raised our children to true conservative American values.

Some of us boomers didn’t “start the fire”. And, some of us are disgusted by our cohorts, are grieving about the damage they have done to our communities, and the very fabric of our nation.

I guess we weren’t mouthy enough back then, and we still aren’t. But how do you fight back against insanity?

Good argument. I have a feeling, though, that avoiding engaging won’t stop the tantrums.

Better, I think, to take the adult roll by quietly and repeatedly stating the truth, then refusing to get involved in the ensuing rhetorical exercises. With a consistent and frequently repeated series of talking points we’ll attract support from those who are persuadable while allowing the rest of them to portray themselves as the fools they are.

I’ve been taking this route in local newspaper comment sections, and what I’ve discovered is that when they can’t bait you they start attacking each other out of frustration. I’ve now managed to create multiple factions of two year olds in place of the single organized platoon previously seen.

Thank you, that’s what I’m looking for, informed advice for everybody.

You know that you will get the cruelest judgments, the most exasperating clouds of intricate rhetoric, endless litanies of malformed assertions, really quite brilliantly wrought argumentation, beneath it all, a calculating sociopath, a two year old with the tools of an adult mind and education.

I had the revelation that we are dealing with stunted egos, how, why... But what to do to save our liberty?

Errr... run for the hills?

But objective facts do not resolve debates, they are opportunities to spin reality into endless permutations of rhetorical conflict. It's almost as if conflict is the purpose, not the process. Well, not almost, it is precisely that conflict is the purpose.

Can you give us an example?

It may be a bit disconcerting to observe that we have a two year old speaker of the house, but there you are. Knowledge is power, better to clearly apprehend the world you live in than to live in ignorance. Mystified by barney frank? chris dodd? nancy pelosi? bill clinton? Don't be. These are two year olds.

Oh, thanks. I see what you mean.

Those hills are looking pretty good at the moment, huh?

I’m dealing with much the same issues on a local basis and trying to figure out a way to counter it. There’s a local sandlot band of about a dozen that devotes itself to constantly sniping at any thing local government does. They’re essentially trying to portray everyone else as a failure so that they can then claim to offer the solution. Pelosi’s constant repetition of “George Bush’s failed policies” is another example of that sort of tactic. The problem is a dozen well organized nihilists can gain influence far beyond their numbers when there’s nothing to compare them with.

So, organizing that ‘something’ has been an interesting exercise. When you’re trying to put together a group of people who are essentially happy with their lives, only mildly discomfited by the actions of the government, and not severely impacted by the successes of the infants, motivation is a challenge.

Even more challenging is the recognition that you can’t just organize around traditional ideologies because there are relative few “true believers” for any particular formal belief system. So, what we’re taking a shot at is finding folks with a general belief in the traditional “conservative” principles, i.e. self reliance, minimal government interference, order, that sort of thing.

We’ll try to band together around those basics, then let those who are concerned about a particular issue organize from among the group. That way we don’t get the smokers fighting with the non-smokers, the pro-lifers fighting with the ‘pro-choicers’, etc. We’re very much in the crawling stage at the moment, but if we can work out something locally that enables us to hit city hall with a dozen, “I like things the way they are” proponents to counter the dozen leftists when they try to push through one of their loony proposals, I’ll feel like we’ve accomplished something.

When I get to thinking about this stuff, I’m reminded of a friend who used to say, “I’m a radical moderate, I believe in moderation in all things and I’ll kill anyone who disagrees with me”. In a way, that’s sort of what you’re trying to create when you’re organizing the grownups.

Such an excellent point.

Enemies if liberty are instinctively organized, liberals have the advantage of a commonality of barbarism. When hitlery clinton drew huge applause saying “poor George, he just doesn’t get it”, she was touching on common knowledge among liberals, their ideological alignment is the built in advantage that gives such hubris and confidence to the left.

We are not up against a conspiracy, but it takes effort to organize opposition to barbarians.

But on the other hand, at least in theory, at some undefined point in the future when an excess of fascism is felt, when people perceive sufficient injury to their liberties, these clowns will be deprived of political power through the kind of confrontation we had to resort to to establish freedom in the first place.

I guess what I am hoping for is for it to be common knowledge that the nancy pelosis of the world are just unsocialized infants in adult bodies, maybe if enough people will tune out the insanity and save us from either enslavement or armed confrontation to reverse tyranny.

Knowledge is power after all. If every public representation by liberals is met with the response a mother gives an out of control toddler, their power evaporates.

Wouldn’t it be nice if richly deserved ridicule served the purpose, and not blood and mayhem of fascist european political traditions, or worse, meek submission to the enslavement we escaped in 1776.

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