It's All About The Scary Brown People
Published by BG on Thursday, May 17, 2007 at 7:09 PM.Apparently, through a combination of "the media" and "the Netroots," the Executive branch's authority is now perilously weak.
Uh huh. Tell that to Captain I-Don't-Have-To-Answer-That and his sidekick Lieutenant Above-The-Law.
Anyway, the argument goes like this: The President doesn't have the ear of the people anymore, but the Netroots do. Democratic Congresspeople are frightened of the all-powerful propaganda arm of the Netroots, and therefore pander to them by pushing legislation they know will never pass instead of real bills that can get things done. Beyond that, the propaganda machine on the left is so strong that it cannot be countered by the right (which, I think, presumably doesn't include Limbaugh, Coulter, O'Reilly or Hannity, among others), and people have been pussified into thinking things like human rights and collateral damage matter in war, instead of Glorious Triumph At Any Cost To The Iraqi People. Basically that all of this has come together and made people not only think instead of blindly trust, but erroneously think themselves to the wrong conclusion.
Oy.
Via InstaPundit:
Villainous Company: The Hypothetical Government
Translation:
"The Democrats were easier to defeat when they were a fractured and disconnected bunch of single-issue idealogues. It's not fair that they're better at this grass-roots Internet thing than we are! James Madison said partisanship was worrisome, so why can't it be us against them, them, them, them, and all those groups over there like it used to be?"
Translation:
"Not only do the Netroots have the audacity to organize online, but they're speaking out too. Oh, for the good ol' days where we could just accuse them of being Communist or something and just make their side of the story go away! And the sick thing? We can't even PAY reporters and news stations to lie for us!"
Translation:
"It's tragic that voters form their own opinions and don't blindly trust those figures of authority who are carrying out their orders from above. I mean, do they expect war to be perfect? Who does? I don't want to talk about how the motivations for this war were flawed and based on lies, or how bad the war has gone before our New and Glorious Plan for Victory, because all that's in the past. Let's focus on the scary people who want to do us harm instead, because your Democrat Congress would rather play politics with the lives of our Noble Soldiers than focus on the True Enemy who wants to kill your mother."
Points to the blogger for at least attempting to maintain a scholarly approach to this, even if she's effectively taking free speech, free thought, and noble moral opposition to government policy and promoting that we'd be better off with blind fealty to our Commander In Chief instead.
Scary brown people, doncha know.
Uh huh. Tell that to Captain I-Don't-Have-To-Answer-That and his sidekick Lieutenant Above-The-Law.
Anyway, the argument goes like this: The President doesn't have the ear of the people anymore, but the Netroots do. Democratic Congresspeople are frightened of the all-powerful propaganda arm of the Netroots, and therefore pander to them by pushing legislation they know will never pass instead of real bills that can get things done. Beyond that, the propaganda machine on the left is so strong that it cannot be countered by the right (which, I think, presumably doesn't include Limbaugh, Coulter, O'Reilly or Hannity, among others), and people have been pussified into thinking things like human rights and collateral damage matter in war, instead of Glorious Triumph At Any Cost To The Iraqi People. Basically that all of this has come together and made people not only think instead of blindly trust, but erroneously think themselves to the wrong conclusion.
Oy.
Via InstaPundit:
Villainous Company: The Hypothetical Government
The power of the Internet, both as a message machine and a fundraising organ for the Democratic party, is enormous. And it is, quite literally, amplifying the voice of the common man by making it easier for like minded people to pool their resources and organize into pressure groups: the partisan factions James Madison feared so greatly in his Federalist #10. Technology has erased many of the barriers that kept one group from dominating the political scene; therefore, even fringe groups which may not technically be in the majority, when given the ability to organize via the Internet, to pool their voices and their dollars, become a virtual majority with the ability to drive policy on Capitol Hill.
Translation:
"The Democrats were easier to defeat when they were a fractured and disconnected bunch of single-issue idealogues. It's not fair that they're better at this grass-roots Internet thing than we are! James Madison said partisanship was worrisome, so why can't it be us against them, them, them, them, and all those groups over there like it used to be?"
Due to the bullying power of the mass media, government possesses no "message machine" with which to counter either propaganda churned out by the Netroots or that generated by our enemies in wartime. It cannot silence opposition from within, any efforts to pay for favorable opinion coverage or placement of positive news stories highlighting our successes (surely acceptable in a capitalist economy where news organizations are for-profit ventures) are quickly cast by a hostile media as unacceptable corruption of the free press.
Translation:
"Not only do the Netroots have the audacity to organize online, but they're speaking out too. Oh, for the good ol' days where we could just accuse them of being Communist or something and just make their side of the story go away! And the sick thing? We can't even PAY reporters and news stations to lie for us!"
As I observed earlier today, like those who govern us most voters have no direct contact with those who protect us, the police and the military. We endlessly second guess even the legitimate use of force to uphold the laws which keep us safe. A dangerous moral confusion has crept into the discourse of war; an inherently silly bleating in which even those who were once warriors themselves argue that only a perfect war in which no mistakes are ever made will satisfy them. And as we all know, there is no such thing as a perfect war, fought with no innocent loss of life. There can never be such a war, except in a hypothetical universe filled with latter-day Pontius Pilates who govern by symbolic votes and non-binding resolutions while our troops face a determined and deadly enemy in a world where the consequences of their refusal to act are most decidedly real.
Translation:
"It's tragic that voters form their own opinions and don't blindly trust those figures of authority who are carrying out their orders from above. I mean, do they expect war to be perfect? Who does? I don't want to talk about how the motivations for this war were flawed and based on lies, or how bad the war has gone before our New and Glorious Plan for Victory, because all that's in the past. Let's focus on the scary people who want to do us harm instead, because your Democrat Congress would rather play politics with the lives of our Noble Soldiers than focus on the True Enemy who wants to kill your mother."
Points to the blogger for at least attempting to maintain a scholarly approach to this, even if she's effectively taking free speech, free thought, and noble moral opposition to government policy and promoting that we'd be better off with blind fealty to our Commander In Chief instead.
Scary brown people, doncha know.
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