PROMETHEAN ANTAGONIST

"Yes we can..."

Yes "we" can...what?

Tax productive enterprise and regulate people's lives more? Further centralize the state so that families and their offspring becomes slaves of an imposed bureau-commune?

"Yes we can" is something Mao and Stalin could have said.

As a catch phrase it's right up there with, "Change we can believe in." ...a meaningless crock of demagogue nonsense.

The polarity of right and left political views (in the traditional spectrum scheme) can be seen in some ways as having evolved (or devolved) into a battle in values between two poles within the same class, the middle class -- upper and lower.

The lower ends of the middle class are genuinely bourgeois by most definitions. They have a satisfactory abode – but would like a nicer one. They have satisfactory transport but would like something better. They indulge themselves in hobbies and leisure pursuits but would certainly like to see them enhanced or embellished. They are materialistic and capitalist in sentiment (whether some of them realize it or not). Their life is good but they strive -- or at least wish -- for more and better.

The upper ends of the middle class have typically attained a nice dwelling, pristine transportation, refined leisure, and playful indulgences. They have far passed the realm of mere comfortable subsistence. For many of them “something more” moves into the world of ideals or some other compensation for a self-perceived loss of meaning. So it is that so many professionals; particularly lawyers, journalists, intellectuals, and entertainment personalities shrug off their own good fortune as something un-fulfilling and un-needed (though they’d be hard-pressed to actually relinquish their circumstance).

The lower middle-class in a successful free society has attained considerable power over their own lives and destiny as well as historically unheard of comforts. The upper middle class has reached the pinnacle of this achievement and is often left seeking power over others either directly or through their affiliation with a state enhancing political class. To this end they hope to fulfill their existential cravings. Of course, there are people in the lower middle class on the left, and upper middle class on the right. However, I think it can generally be said that those who have achieved the power over their own lives and leisure excess of the upper middle class begin to look toward other to extend their mastery in life.

The right and left can throw insults from a perceived allegiance to the values of “rich” or “poor” but their real battle in values is with others among their not so distant brethren; within the middle-class as a whole.

Today’s Democrat / Republican divide is example to the unfolding polarity of values between two styles of middle class existence.

Where many lower-middle class Americans had long been a sort of base to the Democrat party and many upper-middle class Americans supported the “pro-business” Republican party, this alignment has been almost entirely reversed in the last few decades.

The lower middle class today may not be specifically pro-business but they don’t share the Democratic Party’s evolving socialist perspective and bitter resentment of capitalist enterprise. The lower middle class today has very little in common with the professional / college “educated” elites that live well yet despise the system that has made it so. It is this clique' of elites that now dominate Democrat party politics. To be a moveon. Democrat today virtually guarantees that one does not drive a second-hand car.

For the Republican Party, a transformation of values has occurred as well. There is still a clearly pro-business perspective within the Republican Party. There is also a (much-exaggerated) presence of fringe evangelicals but most Republicans could be best defined as people who merely seek to restrain the cultural, political, and economic momentum toward the left that has been fostered by Democrats and their support system in pop culture. The new “South Park Republican” is more libertarian in its values and expresses a view of American political life that is much more in line with the values of “simple people” (the lower middle class) than the intellectual elites that now dominate the Democrat party.

Names like Noam Chomsky are well known in Democrat “progressive” circles but one would be hard-pressed to find an average lower middle class person who ever heard of the guy ('not really missing anything there).

It may be idealistic of me to think so, but the lower-middle class has a sort of “yeoman farmer” quality to it that I find appealing – they are Post-modern Jeffersonians. Raising a family and enjoying life by seeking to improve one’s status is not a flaw. Decency is a real attribute and I think it is to be found in greater numbers among the “simple folk.” By the same token, pampered spoiled brats who seek to vent their personal loss of meaning by imposing the values of statist socialism appear to me to be running a decency deficit. Simply saying one is “for the underdog” is meaningless when one is the overdog and merely wants a punitive government to attack people richer than ones’ self.

The standard rallying cries between “the rich” and “the poor” are of little value in discerning the real drivers of values and policy in America today. The front lines are occupied not by extremes of wealth difference but by the mere step between lower and upper with in a society that is basically middle class.

Everyone will Finally be Equal.

-- Hat tip to brain terminal

To ask the perpetually moot question; if humans are “basically” good or evil, is like asking if rainbows are basically red or blue.

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A Marxist intellectual will seldom acknowledge that fascism is merely a variant of their own statist/collectivist philosophy (Mussolini was a devout Marxist throughout his career as the first fascist dictator and, like Hitler, despised free-market capitalism).

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A free person saying, "maybe they don't want to be free" is like a rich person saying, "maybe they don't want to be rich" – it's a stupid statement in both cases. Likewise it demonstrates a complete lack of awareness regarding the circumstance of post-war Germany and Japan where both countries' citizens eventually seemed okay with the freedom idea (well, okay, at least this has been the case in Japan).

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"You can't force someone to be free" is like saying you can't "force" a victim of abuse to be freed of abuse – yes you can(!), in both cases (and it's the right thing to do).

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When a person is discussing their circumstances or values and uses the word, "We," he or she is most likely talking about themself while assuming they are qualified to speak for everyone else.

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Intellectual scholarship virtually never trumps common sense.

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One could never accuse Neville Chamberlain or Jimmy Carter of being a "war monger," but one could accuse them both of being just plain stupid.

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Simply saying one is “for the underdog” is meaningless when one is the overdog and merely wants a punitive government to attack people richer than ones’ self.

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The pen is mightier than the sword,...but the sword really hurts.

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Some of the most ruthless and cruel extremists of history had gained their power partially through articulated bogus platitudes to moral virtue.

There is no law or indication that a person merely expressing a belief in "sharing," altruism, or moral goodness actually embodies any such principals. In fact, there is good reason to believe that the degree of passion in which one speaks for such values is inversely proportional to the actual degree of goodness the speaker embodies.

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If I lived in a country where the state commanded all aspects of my life and where people were regularly arrested and punished for merely holding viewpoints that differed with those of the government, I would really be pissed off to hear of some free and well-off people saying "some people don't want to be free" or "we can't make them free."

I'm still not seeing any massive world-wide protest organized by peace-loving international organizations over Russia's recent military adventure in the Sudetenland...I mean, Georgia.

What's up? Some consistency folks. Why do the real imperialists always get a free pass from the left?

Really.

In a speech in Thailand before the Olympic Games, President Bush spoke once again of his hopes that China will improve its record with regard to human rights. His wording could not have been more diplomatic – stressing that change will come on China’s own terms and in context to its own unique history and circumstance (hardly the words of a "bullying cowboy").

In another region of the world, Iran’s president has promised to “wipe Israel off the map” as his country’s actions and rhetoric suggest the likelihood that they will be developing nuclear weapons.

When issues regarding non-democratic counties’ flaws, threats, and dangers are brought to public attention one can always count on self-styled “devils advocates” reminding us (free societies, particularly the U.S.) that “we have nuclear weapons” and “we have a history of human rights abuses.” Of course a renegade cop in the U.S. acting out of vigilante violence or racism is likely to be tried, sent to prison, and be featured in leading news stories, while his or her victim becomes a compensated celebrity martyr. A North Korean slave laborer or a dead victim from Tiananmen Square is not likely to encounter such attempts at justice so commonly found in democratic society.

To all this nonsense I once again offer an analogy that I believe I had made a couple of million posts back but bares repeating:

Imagine a fairly decent family fellow, lets say he has some normal flaws in character and has, like most of us, done a few “bad” things in the past. Add to this that he has a gun collection – the biggest gun collection imaginable. Now, lets imagine that another guy on the same street is not such a decent family man but an ex-con that has threatened your family and fellow neighbors. He beats his wife and kids but the obedient children are treated fairly well (“free health care and a ‘safety net’”). The family members who demonstrate any degree of independence are locked in the basement and abused.

This guy wants some guns too. Nothing resembling the huge gun collection of the decent family guy, just a few weapons to “protect himself” (never mind his constant threats and abusive home environment).

If this analogy isn’t clear to some readers, maybe the current state of the world isn’t completely clear either.

When the U.S and like democratic nations seek to broaden human rights and seek to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of some of the world’s worst dictatorships, its downright stupid to merely respond that (in so many words) “…well, we’re just as bad.”

Belgium or Canada needn’t fear America dropping a nuclear weapon on its people and no sane country has cause to fear France’s possession of nuclear weapons. Iran and North Korea are another story. It's nice to talk of one day "ridding the world of all nuclear weapons" but its stupid to suggest that we start with democratic nations who never go to war with other free and open societies (on the assumption that ruthless unelected authoritarian governments will then follow with equally kind gestures toward peace).

A few Islamo-fascists being made to stand in cold rooms may be a horror beyond all human rights abuses to those who still fail to acknowledge that the former Soviet Union was a gulag prison state, but one man’s terrorist is not another’s freedom utopia of the people.

Regardless of the perennial “outrage” over America’s human rights misdemeanors, the brutality of some countries' authoritarian governments is certainly fair game for critique’.

One who defends the values of relativism while belligerent "neighborhood" crimianals make threats (and seeks the means to make good on them) is a total fool…as is the armchair philosopher who can’t discern who the genuine belligerent forces in the world really are.

Indeed, “we” are no angles, but the “devil’s advocate” is merely advocating the values of…the devil. Get a clue.

There are no doubt a good many old-school (pre-McGovern liberal) Democrats who will reluctantly vote for their party’s candidate in the upcoming presidential election, but there are also many old-school Democrats who have by now become Republicans or independents.

Today’s Democrat party is the party of Moveon.org, the Daily Kos, George Soros, Michael Moore, George Clooney et al. The new Democrat Party and its presumptive presidential candidate, is “progressive” – they are far left. Many are openly sympathetic to some strain of Marxist ideology (just ask a random Democrat college professor). Some are unapologetically pro-Communist in their beliefs (“it’s a good idea in theory”).

I don’t make this claim as a “red-baiting” McCarthyite. I make it based on sound bites from prominent Democrats heard daily and from the actual talking points of people that describe their party affiliation as "Democrats" (not just "independent").

Some of these neo-comm Democrats qualify their hatred for their own country with bogus statements to the effect that they merely want to see it “changed.” In essence they are saying, “I love my country…I just want it to be a different country.”

If one talks to a fervent Democrat today, one finds themselves waiting long to hear any positive statements about the U.S, its history, or its people. (Of Course Michelle Obama is finally “proud of [her] country” because some of its citizens may vote for her rich socialist husband). No, we're just plain "mean, oppressive, imperialistic, selfish, materialistic, and violent war-mongers" (Mao Zedong couldn't have said it better). Forget about the historically unprecedented level of prosperity, the diverse dynamism and innovation, or any other trait the U.S. may have that one might point out as positive.

The neo-comm Democrat is an internationalist (at a time in history when a passionate nationalism is reemerging in some of the more unsavory countries of the world). They truly hope for a world governed in the socialist model on a worldwide scale (hence their affection for the corrupt U.N. Bureaucracy). Freedom to them only means the freedom to steal as much as possible from productive sources and the “freedom” to muzzle those who still hold traditional views regarding the nature of a free society and economy.

The leftists today – many using America’s 5th column Democrat Party -- want a “change,” but their change is no change at all. It’s a return to monarchy – a king and court (bureaucracy) that will impose the “order” they so crave in a world that is out of their personal control.

They promise they will love the U.S. when it ceases to be the U.S. and they fancy such a stance to be a type of patriotism.

Don’t just “question [these people’s] patriotism.” Honestly acknowledge that they have no such feelings.

During the last five years over 200,000 people have been killed and over two and a half million displaced in the Sudan with the help of the Chinese Communist Party (I would say, "China" but China is the Chinese Communist Party). Yet, the appointed leader of China, Hu Jintao, is mysteriously not "Hitler."

The tragic numbers from the Sudan are certainly on par with those of Iraq yet they earn a mere fraction of media attention compared to the hyperbole, spin, and subversion directed to America's effort to liberate a country from a dictator and theocratic would-be dictators.

Hu Jintao even threw in Tibet to spice things up for the love a dictator crowd. It is true that Tibet got a little temporary attention from the crowd that is always selective in picking which military act to be "outraged" by but the crowds of protestors and non-stop media spin directed at U.S. (and coalition forces) in Iraq hardly rivals that of the response to an equally tragic Sudan or Tibet.

Iraq is slowly becoming everything conservatives hoped it would become (at enormous cost to be sure) and it's becoming everything leftist had hoped to prevent; a free and prosperous society. It may be too early to assume that good luck will continue for Iraq (after all, Obama could be elected and Al Queda could get a new international headquarters in Iraq).

So, the American president is "Hitler" for having the resolve to deal with an Iraqi dictator and theocratic terrorists but Hu Jintao is merely...the host of the Summer Olympics.

And the left talks of "injustice." Give me a break.

The sane and decent are fighting back. I'm so glad to read of these developments. It's about time that the few reasonable folks in Hollywood take on the nonsense.

I'm thoroughly convinced that conservatives are funnier in general than the uptight forever "offended" and "outraged" leftists. This movie will be a refreshing alternative to the constant onslaught of anti-U.S., anti-capitalism, anti-freedom nonsense that is continually thrown at us as entertainment.

Dick Morris was a close advisor to President Clinton and along with Karl Rove is an absolute expert on the game of winning elections.

His current comments are spot on, particularly in regard to the dangers to the economy of an Obama inspired punitive crusade against "the rich." Such pandering to the weak traits of class envy among some is pathetic in principal but downright stupid in regard to basic economic sense. Even the communist parties of China and Vietnam have learned that discouraging the creation of wealth is a no-win situation for everyone.

"...But his tax plans and their likely economic consequence are very much a plan for catastrophe. Doubling the tax in invested capital, and ratcheting up the top tax bracket to an effective 60%, will plunge the nation into a real depression. Not a recession or a downturn or a correction or a slowdown. A depression. McCain needs to hammer this point home again and again and again in his advertising. He has to put top level economists on television talking about what the Obama tax program will mean to America. Obama is suspect as an ideological liberal, anyway. And nobody thinks he has the experience to be a good president. So the potential to scare voters by accurately elaborating what his tax plans will mean to the entire country -- not just the rich on whom the burden will directly fall -- is enormous.

When Obama says he will only tax the rich, it's like saying he won't shut down the entire ship, just the engine room. If McCain just talks about Obama's tax program in the abstract, most voters will shrug and note that the tax hikes won't really apply to them. Only 2% of Americans earn more than $200,000 a year and only 6% make more than $100,000. But if McCain explains the economic impact of Obama's tax proposals on all Americans, he will score points and could score a knockout..."

I fully acknowledge that I may be mistaken. Maybe, “yes [they] can.” Maybe B. Hussein Obama will be America’s next president, but there are many reasons why that is unlikely.

I realize opinion polls and talking heads everywhere are trumpeting the triumphs of this clown in a slippery suit. I realize that many citizens have no idea what unsavory characters have guided this man and his principals. I also know that his opponent is an old man that is increasingly being painted as a conservative (an image that McCain himself has sought to cultivate to some degree even though his own voting record in congress shows this to be otherwise on many issues).

Again, but…

I don’t know how they always manage to slip through the scientifically structured opinion polls taken, but it appears that Joe and Jane average is not showing up on the radar here for some reason.

I know America is a diverse country and that many of its citizens are now part of a dependent class of government workers or freelance parasites – they’ll always vote Democrat. Whoever promises to fork over the most spoils of a concocted class war is going to be their choice. But, most of America is not yet a full-time zombie of the state’s current piper of choice. There are still many out there that can be called average and though they may be black, white, or brown, they do actually have more traditional beliefs regarding the role of the state in one’s life. This doesn’t necessarily make them conservative but it does likely make them suspicious of anyone who has been brazenly promoted as a rock star in the populist-demagogue circuit. Socialism only sells in the U.S. when it pretends to not be socialism.

I have to believe that it isn’t just conservatives who are rolling their eyes up every time we hear another star-struck reporter tell us that Obama is all about “change” and that this catch-phrase in itself is good reason to vote for him.

Today’s Democrat party and its current standard bearer are among the same clique’ that actually support speech codes on college campuses. They are the same clowns who believe Islamo-fascist Jihad is a fantasy contrived so that a few oil companies that are still privately owned can “steal” Middle Eastern oil.

Joe and Jane average American (or Carlos and Juanita) are probably not going to easily buy into such nonsense. They know in their gut (and from reasoned appraisal of facts in a given year’s news) that there does appear to be an effort on the part of some religious fanatics to carry out considerable destruction and violence. And the codes of thought control on college campuses (another example of the triumph of the fringe) are seen by most sane people as just stupid -- or at least pathetically patronizing.

The average American is not white, male, or “gun crazy.” They are also not likely to be a gay vegetarian wiccan pacifist who hates capitalism and adores Che Guevara.

Average folks have families, have jobs, have goals, have standards of self reliance and decency, and probably wouldn’t fit in completely at a poetry reading at a Marxist bookstore (or an Obama rally).

I’ve painted some caricatures to be sure but beneath the exaggeration is a truth. The new Democrat Party and its presumptive candidate do not speak to the sincere hopes of most of America’s citizens…and they can sense a con when one is being pulled on them no matter how professionally wrapped.

The media really blew it (again – they tried this with John Kerry and Al Gore). Their “news coverage” of the Obama (concocted) “phenomena” is an insult to anyone who believes they are capable of making their own rational choices.

Beyond some slick and eloquent speech ability offering amorphous “change,” this guy offers nothing substantial that will help maintain America’s lead role as one of the most successful societies in history. To the contrary, his socialist philosophy promises to do nothing but further erode the attributes of independence, innovation, and achievement that make America a dynamic powerhouse.

Obama is slick. He looks good in a suit. He’s got a virtual cult of media, education, and entertainment behind him but; he’s not going anywhere.

I could be wrong, but insulting the electorate’s intelligence isn’t any way to win an election.