The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Schadenfreude At TNR

Posted on | September 25, 2011 | 14 Comments

by Smitty

Galston at TNR delivers an article moping that the Democrats are losing Independents.

Granted, ideology isn’t everything. Political scientists have long observed that Americans are more liberal on particulars than they are in general—ideologically conservative but operationally liberal. (Surveys have shown majority support for most individual elements of the president’s jobs and budget packages.) And the Republicans could undermine their chances by nominating a presidential candidate who is simply too hard-edged conservative for moderates and Independents to stomach.
In the face of widespread skepticism and disillusion, it will be an uphill battle for Democrats to persuade key voting blocks that government can really make their lives better.

Maybe the Democrat party can just quantify how much liberty I merit keeping. Nobody minds actual help in those acute moments when really needed–I’m thinking natural disaster here. But do you really need the chronic acts of interference, like deciding you cannot have your asthma inhaler?
The comments on the article are fun.

Robert Powell: “The ever-shrinking leftist minority still imagines that if they only get the message right, average voters (who by dint of more actual experience of government in military service, employment in regulation-sensitive businesses, etc than the average left-winger, are more skeptical), will adopt their benign view of The State.”

That’s like looking for that tiny minority of meth addicts who, despite the teeth literally falling out of their head, know that, deep down, the dope is the Right Thing To Do.
Here is another gem, but first, the Tea Party message is even simpler: L I B E R T Y:

roidubouloi: The Republicans have a simple message — government is the problem, government is waste, government spending is destroying the economy, taxes are too high, taxes are too progressive, “entitlements” are killing us — all of which is flat-out wrong. Democrats, soiling themselves with the Republican-libertarian-supply side message, stand for nothing discernible. No coherent message.
Want one? Listen to Elizabeth Warren. She is saying what all Democrats should be saying, and should have been saying, every day 24 hours a day. Think that communications, message discipline, rather than policy, is not the essence of politics? Then you are a moron. And if you are such a moron, what do you observe if that is you bother to look at the actual world at all? Do you observe the Republicans gaining all this political ground with policy or with words? What do you see? Does the way in which the world actually works have any bearing on your ideas about politics and policy? Not if you are William Galston and company.

All the message discipline in the world is irrelevant if your message is not liberty. But the Left is about pushing a cheap substitute for liberty, is it not?

Update: linked at Daily Pundit.

This is why [the Left’s] grand fantasies always, always, always collapse into slaughter when fully implemented, because in the end, there are two classes, and two classes only: masters, and slaves. That never ends well.

Category: Progressivism

Comments

14 Responses to “Schadenfreude At TNR”

  1. Anonymous
    September 25th, 2011 @ 3:03 pm

    The Republicans have a simple message — government is the problem, government is waste, government spending is destroying the economy, taxes are too high, taxes are too progressive, “entitlements” are killing us.

    all of which is flat-out wrong.

    And this is wrong how?

  2. Daily Pundit » The Leftist Calculus: Masters and Slaves
    September 25th, 2011 @ 12:02 pm

    […] Schadenfreude At TNR : The Other McCain Maybe the Democrat party can just quantify how much liberty I merit keeping. […]

  3. Richard Mcenroe
    September 25th, 2011 @ 4:09 pm

    Liberals think you deserve to keep ALL your liberty, Smitty  They just don’t think you deserve to keep ANY of your money to do anything with it.

  4. McGehee
    September 25th, 2011 @ 6:06 pm

    Liberals think you deserve to keep ALL your liberty to do what liberals think you should do. Because liberals are smarter than you.

  5. Tennwriter
    September 25th, 2011 @ 6:31 pm

    Because I said so! And quit laughing you hater, you!

  6. Adjoran
    September 25th, 2011 @ 6:43 pm

    That we even have educated citizens who think the Elizabeth Warren message is one which should be attractive to voters tells me we have to cut off the subsidies to higher education.  It is all being wasted – every subsidy just ends up the institutions’ excuse to raise tuition and fees to match it, so students are being “helped” in any material sense, and certainly the indoctrination in liberal arts curricula has become positively destructive.

  7. Anonymous
    September 25th, 2011 @ 6:43 pm

    The Liberal Mind is a terrible thing to waste.

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  9. Bob Belvedere
    September 25th, 2011 @ 10:29 pm

    It’s wasted, man.

  10. Anonymous
    September 25th, 2011 @ 11:59 pm

    I can dig it!

  11. Bob Belvedere
    September 26th, 2011 @ 11:35 am

    Far out….groovy.

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