At 140 characters Twitter is a far better place for links than debates. I love it for the brevity of fishing for topics of interest. However it seems now people want to challenge comments and ideas and Twitter seems perfect for it. Let me explain. Americans have always demonstrated the best and worst of human tendencies. At our heart we are a noble people infused with the core values of freedom. At the same time we raise generations of pampered children who are ready to attach everything to jingoistic 30 second sound bites. Worst of all we are less influenced by Jefferson and Madison and more by Alinsky and Marx. Twitter is perfect. You can easily sling a good insult in 140 characters. Not so framing a rational debate.
Today is the anniversary of the communist manifesto and it seems apropos for such lamentations. After all Marx was a self loathing rich boy from a Jewish family. It is ironic that even Josef Goebbels noted that nationalism was the principle difference between communism and Nazism and the Jews suffered under both. Isn’t it ironic that a couple guys who never did any work said they were for a workers paradise. Imagine people with no work or administrative experience formulating policy. 100,000,000 people died at the hands of their own government and yet I fear most people chanting “public option” have no idea that Hitler nationalized medicine and more and could not say who said “from each according to his ability to each according to his need”.
Likewise I suspect when people are asking if you are a birther or calling you a racist they are unfamiliar with the specific description of the character attack they are using from Rules for Radicals and probably have never heard of Alinsky. Forget asking about Cloward and Piven. I’m going to go out on a limb and say I bet most of these people doing the rah rah chant for their blessed leader don’t know the difference between the deficit and the debt. Then why should they. Kieth Olberman clearly doesn’t. Here are some things to ask these Obama-bots. Do they know what GDP is, what percent of GDP our total debt is, how debt is financed and how inflation works. Have they looked at their portion they owe for our national debt. Look here to get an idea.
Here’s a question, know what a Ponzi scheme is? Compare it to your steate employee pension plan and social security. There are thousands of elected officials not going to jail because they write the laws and government seems to be exempted from the same standards people are held to. What about government of the people for the people and by the people? It’s government of the people for the special interests by the elite. 10 more years of doing just what we’re doing and Western civilization may want to learn Chinese. Go look up PIIGS on google.
So how about some ground rules. If you want to criticize me for saying I liked Glenn Beck’s speech at CPAC here’s what you need to do. First of all get a grip. I’m not a fanboy. I listen critically to everyone. If Glenn Beck were to say everything Obama said was a lie I’d switch him off and never watch again. Don’t get me wrong, Obama lies. C-Span anyone? But nobody lies all the time. Anyone making absolute statements like this demonstrates they are an idiot. Take anyone and I will agree with some of what they say. I agree with many things Obama said and disagree with many. I support some of his policies and disagree with others.
If you are being critical of someone and using character attacks or painting them with an absolutest brush you have a problem. Life isn’t a comic book and political discourse is not a WWF event. Oh, and just in case you thought pro wrestling was real they all have SAG cards. For the truly illiterate, they are actors. If you disagree with someone you are not accepted as an intelligent person worthy of discourse if you can’t say what you disagree with them on. For instance I disagree with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly about suspending second amendment rights over weather.
Here is the second rule of intelligent discourse. If you disagree with somebody like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck then you have to have given them a chance and watched or listened for a week or two. Otherwise it is what courts call hearsay, which means it’s not your observation but the opinion of somebody else. I’m not willing to grant the same level of trust to a third party because if I ask you why they hold that opinion you won’t know. Odds are good that it isn’t theirs either. I mean if Susie told Billy told Johnny told you why should I assume your opinion means anything. You’re just some nitwit spewing garbage out of peer pressure. That doesn’t work with adult conversation, just valley girls.
Finally let’s consider how smart you are. You’re awfully smart aren’t you? Mommy and daddy parked you in front of Hannah Montana and now you are ready to lecture the world. Just one problem. You may not know this but adults with intellectual curiosity who recognize things like the absurdity of wielding absolutism and the disgusting nature of Alinsky tactics… Those people may fail to be impressed by your cutesy tweets that vapidly regurgitate lamestream media idiots.
Today the Rasmussen presidential approval poll showed a new low of only 22% who strongly approve of president Obama with 41% strongly disapproving. There was only a total 45% approval with a 54% disapproval. When I wonder who these 22% are and whether they have completely insulated themselves from any news or are simply incapable of critical thought… perhaps unfortunate emblems of our pathetic public education system… I realize that possibly they might be one of the two or three people still watching MSNBC. They might actually think Alan Grayson is an intellectual instead of a vapid charleton opportunist playing to those who believe the WWF is real life high drama.
I have been asked before if I am ever wrong. I find there are three classical approaches to being wrong. The sadly limited one are those people who know they will much things up and keep quiet. The vast majority simply choose to ignore the possibility and call others names who point out their foolishness. I take the more rare position of those who speak out. I really hate to be wrong, so before I speak out I do my due diligence to insure I do not suffer the mea culpa.
May I suggest you consider the ideas I presented here and keep in mind this most basic. “What if I’m wrong”. It’s a simple question. The most wonderful thing about discussing and debating is learning something new. As with chess we can only learn from our mistakes. I have delighted in learning, but after all these years I am content now to mostly be right. If I am wrong and you can prove it I will offer my mea culpa. You should do likewise.