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Thread: Some thoughts on Obama, Limbaugh and Holder

  1. #1
    I put the DU in DUMBO. Dangerously Unqualified's avatar
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    Default Some thoughts on Obama, Limbaugh and Holder

    I was sitting around a few days ago listening to people discuss President Obama. They were genuinely confused upon hearing that troops were going to be reassigned from Iraq to Afghanistan.

    “Hey Nate, I thought your Obama was supposed to bring the troops home. What made him change his mind about Afghanistan?”

    “He didn’t. About three months before he announced his candidacy he wrote on his website about doing just this and several times early in the campaign he discussed not only increasing troops in Afghanistan but moving troops into Pakistan if needed to hunt Al-Quada.”

    The same conversation keeps replaying itself over and over with a different root topic but the same basic misunderstanding that could have easily been looked up on barackobama.com at any time during the campaign. So what is the problem? Where does the misinformation come from? Are they ditto-heads? Do they all bow down at the altar of Hannity and Beck? No, these people have some other reason to dislike the candidate.

    This brings me first to politicalcompass.org and their sociopolitical chart. Granted the questions leading up to the chart are subjective and thus prone to bias (all subjective questions are prone to bias) and yes, the bias falls on the liberal side. However, if a person’s sociopolitical convictions and personal values are fully integrated into their opinion then the bias does not matter, full conviction in one direction or another is full conviction and malleable conviction (why yes, I do realize that’s an oxymoron, thanks for point it out) falls to the whims of an individual’s current state of mind. Given this, no matter the bias, unless the biased vilification totally alienates a counter position, a subjective poll can be an adequate, if somewhat rough, tool for self discovery.

    So I take the poll, having drank for years at the fountain of Reagan, and am quite surprised to find myself slightly left of center (however I’m not surprised at the depth of my anarchistic side, I’m farther right than the Dali Lama but on about the same level of the political axis). Even more interesting is seeing where Barack Obama scored, based on public speeches, blogs, and voting record. Why, he’s right up there, just a little right of center (much further right than Ms. Clinton) and north of the division between authoritarian and anarchist, right up there with other known socialists such as George W, Dick Cheney, Ronald Regan and Adolph Hitler. Oh wait, that’s the other quadrant of the scale, never mind (and no, I was not at all surprised to see Mrs. Palin fall farther right and higher up on the fascism scale than any other candidate, smaller government indeed).

    More importantly, many people I know fall not too far from the same general upper right area while I find myself almost 180 degrees away. So why would I support Obama while they are more venomous against him? Why would I not support Nader, the natural choice for my sociopolitical quadrant?

    I’ve given this some thought; fortunately for me the issue has remained topical far beyond the election and inauguration. Why would someone whose ideological values and feelings on issues feel opposed to a candidate, and now a pundit, whose values are closer to theirs?

    It was then I considered Rush Limbaugh and his desire for Obama to fail. Why would he wish that? Is it really to distance ourselves from a socialist state? Does Mr. Limbaugh not realize that the US of A has been a democratic socialist state for over a hundred years? The federal reparations following the 14th amendment, the regulation of the Robber Barons and busting up of monopolies, Roosevelt’s TVA and other New Deal programs, social security, Medicaid, Medicare, welfare, free cheese from Reagan, free money from Bush, food stamps for all, these are all fine examples of American socialism at work. No, there’s something more sinister at work here.

    Any radio talk show host’s primary job is to generate ratings to appease the sponsors. Content is secondary and, if the sponsors see fit, can be altered to follow their values. Limbaugh has the same horse in this pony show as the rest of us so failure hurts him as much as anybody else. There has to be another reason to continue with an otherwise illogical diatribe.

    There is – ratings (I though I just said that).

    Ok, so how do I get from a disparity in perception of common values as illustrated by subjective sociopolitical polling to an illogical diatribe to generate ratings in just a few easy steps? Better yet, how did Rush get there from here?

    It’s simple really, I go back to my break room and listen to my fellows. There have always been thinly veiled comments of a racial nature spoken amongst people of their own kind but never in the company of others. Surely that’s not it is it? Please tell me that’s not it. Please tell me that the conservative right is not misrepresenting a person as being “different” from decent Americans politically when the truth is, the politics are in the same ball park but the race isn’t.

    Is this why the righties and lefties are both equally surprised at some of the political actions and stances of our president? Were we blinded by color, some by the audacity and other by the accomplishment, to the point that platforms, issues, prior records and achievements were washed to the side of the road? Is it possible to have a mature discussion about the current administration without it digressing into a series of ill-informed and illogical red herrings steering us away from temporal truths both past and present?

    As for me, I hope and pray that Eric Holder was wrong when he called us "nation of cowards on the issue of race" (see, there’s that diatribe of deflection again. Did anyone really think he was talking about the brave men and women who are willing to lay down their lives every day for our freedom? Did anyone really think he was speaking of those who have already sacrificed their lives, their bodies, their minds and their souls to protect our rights? No, soldiers, firemen, policemen, and anybody else who is willing to stand up for our liberty, possibly paying the ultimate price are in no way the subject of Holder’s quote. To misdirect the quote toward an unintended target is to commit the same crime of digression I am talking about, and provides evidence of the same craven sentiment to which Holder was referring.

    I hope and pray he’s wrong. I hope and pray that I’m wrong and that we are genuinely misaligned with the current administration for if we are, it is a course we as a nation can correct without so much worrying about “hidden agendas” and “conspiracies”. I hope and pray that each and every one of Barack Obama’s detractors have done their homework, read through the past 4 years of blogs, reviewed his voting record over his 6 years as a senator and delved into his past as an attorney and his writings at Harvard. I hope this dissent is not the result of a parody of truth engineered to garnish ratings, nor is it the veiled remnants of hatred and attrition to the sins of our fathers.

    Lord I pray I’m wrong… but I’m afraid I’m not.

  2. #2
    Sophmoric Existentialist
    Registered
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    Default Re: Some thoughts on Obama, Limbaugh and Holder

    Nope. You're not.
    Sophmoric Existentialist

  3. #3
    Member
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    Default Re: Some thoughts on Obama, Limbaugh and Holder

    It seems to me that quite a few of his supporters haven't done their homework, read through the past 4 years of blogs, reviewed his voting record over his 6 years as a senator and delved into his past as an attorney and his writings at Harvard. This is made blindingly obvious by those who claim Obama isn't vehemently anti-gun. Seems to me that more than a few of his detractors have done more homework than his supporters, but that could be selection bias because I avoid the brainless "he's muslim and not a citizen" types.
    There are times to retreat from danger and times it must be faced head on. If you choose to face it-go boldly. Remember that no matter how strong your enemy might be, you too have power

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