Cries For Civility

Posted in Ethics & Morality, Politics, Society on January 31st, 2012

Cry Baby - You're MeanMuch like the cries of racism and complaints about ad hominem attacks, recently we’ve been hearing a lot of cries for civility in political discourse. There’s a certain subset of the residents within America’s borders who want a more polite and staid approach to deciding the course of America.

It seems that politics has gotten too raw and real for some people.

This, of course, begs three related questions: who are these people crying for increased civility, what is it that they actually want, and why do they want it so much?

Who’s Crying For Civility

I see two disparate and unrelated general segments of America’s population crying out for an increase in civility in political speech and argument. They are respectively the apolitical drones and the Leftists, the Liberals and Progressives. Each makes similar outcries but for seemingly different reasons and with different real goals.

What Do They Really Want And Why?

The apolitical people just want things to go quietly. They’re uninvolved in politics, fervently wish to stay that way, and are both bothered and scared by the passion that is being shown by many others. Whether from cynicism or self-centeredness, they do not want to pull their heads out the oh-so-comfortable sand and become involved and the fire of current political discourse is preventing them from doing this.

The staid, stuffy, and easily ignored ways are what these drones want to return to because they don’t want to open their eyes and choose a side.

The Leftists, these Liberals and Progressives, are quite different.  They are awake, aware, involved in the political process, and they have a definite direction that they want to take America in. Their cries for civility are really two things: cynical attempts to silent their enemies and cries for validation and acceptance.

The willfully uninvolved will just have to stop their ears better and learn to keep their heads down.

For many of the Left, their cries are just dog-whistles for censoring the American people. They don’t really want civility, as their very cries for it often show, so much as they want to stop any dissent against their foundations of their agenda.

For others on the left it is a matter of crying out for acceptance and validation. They’re looking for some affirmation that, even though their enemies disagree with their core ethos, they are still respected and approved of.

~*~

Sadly for those who’re crying out for increased civility, I don’t see much chance of- or value in its return any time in the near future. The divide in America is not too deep; it’s to fundamental. It doesn’t allow for the luxury of civility anymore. It’s not a political divide; it’s an ethical and moral divide.

We’re not going to be silenced. We’re not going to engage in carefully managed debates over minutiae of methodology when we want to change the goals and systems. And we’re very much not going to respect our enemies when we find the core beliefs that underpin their goals and actions to be utterly abominable and abhorrent.

Related Reading:

Stupid History: Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions Throughout the Ages
Lies that Chelsea Handler Told Me (null)
The Lexicon of Stupidity
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America
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Obama’s 2012 SOTC Address

Posted in 2012 Election, Politics on January 25th, 2012

Obamaprompter 2012 Presidential CampaignLast night, Tuesday, January 24, 2012 Obama gave his 2012 State Of The Campaign Address to Congress and the electorate. Theoretically this should have been the 2012 State Of The Union Address but the Campaigner-in-Chief doesn’t like to go outside of his experience.

As one would expect of a SOTU Address from any POTUS in an election year, but especially from Obama, the hour+ long speech was far less about the state of the union than it was about the state of Obama’s presidency and his 1099 day-long – as of January 24, 2012 – bid for reelection.

The speech was filled with mis- and disinformation, obfuscations, attacks upon Obama detractors, class warfare, and various attempts to couch Liberal talking points in rhetoric more palatable to the American people. To give Obama his due though, it was one of the better examples of such a speech since Prefect Pontius Pilate washed his hands of a certain, sordid affair in Judea a bit over two millennia ago.

One thing – I found the juxtaposition of calling for the application of military philosophy and doctrine to civilian matters and the subjugation of the individual for the collective a little disturbing.

In a time when both the Left and the Right are worried about the authoritarian shift in government and the militarization of civilian entities it’s quite “tone deaf” of Obama to be using rhetoric that is reminiscent of that surrounding the Volksgemeinschaft.

As for the actual state of the union – Given that Obama’s 2012 SOTC Address was quite similar in many key respects and tone to his 2011 SOTC Address, it reasonable to assume that the actual state of the union is also quite similar to how it was a year ago. Obama has made little progress and America is still stagnating.

Related Reading:

Michelle Obama: A Life
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America: A Narrative History (Brief Eighth Edition)  (Vol. 1)
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (Vintage)
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Obama’s Success

Posted in 2012 Election, Politics on January 24th, 2012

Obama E. Neuman - What, Me Worry?Many Americans believe that Obama has had few, if indeed any, meaningful successes of his own during what has been passed off as his presidency so far. Contrariwise, many Liberals have and will continue to present a laundry list of the boy’s supposed “wins.”

While the drivel spilling from the maws of the Obama Regime, its remaining cultists, and the Liberals is laughable, it’s not fair to call Obama a total failure. It’s not all bogies, double bogies, and triple bogies on Obama’s scorecard and not every success was the result of a Mulligan.

There’s one area where Obama has more than made par…

Obama’s class warfare has brought us to the point where successful people feel they have to apologize for getting it right.

Neal Boortz

Yes! Obama has been quite successful at class warfare. It is, in point of fact, the defining point of the boy’s presidency.

To be fair and to give Obama the props which are his due, as the First Black President the boy is de facto a Black Leader and Black Leaders have to dream and dream big.

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of integration and equality and of a nation where Race didn’t matter. His successor, Malcolm X dreamed of a race war and the annihilation or subjugation of the Whites.

Obama Has a Dream
Obama Has A Dream

Obama’s dream is somewhere in the middle of those two and skewed a lot towards the Left, or so he and/or his handlers want people and the Liberals’ constituents to believe because it’s Obama’s first, best, and last hope of keeping his job.

Yes, Obama has been singularly successful at class warfare. The question is whether this singular success, being mere words from his bully pulpit, will be enough to gain him victory in the 2012 elections.

Related Reading:

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The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2012
The Last Election
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