In Summary, It’s About Control

Posted on | October 11, 2014 | 28 Comments

by Smitty

I’m coming to the position that every issue is a cultural issue. According to the Thomas Frank view, there are two kinds of issues: real issues and cultural (or social) issues. And, if he had his way, all elections would hinge on “real issues.” He writes in What’s the Matter with Kansas: “People getting their fundamental interests wrong is what American political life is all about. This species of derangement is the bedrock of our civic order; it is the foundation on which all else rests.”

This is of course, warmed-over Marxist twaddle. Frank thinks his view of economic interests is the only defensible view and everything else is boob bait for bubbas (Pat Moynihan’s orthodox liberal ad hominem for Clinton’s push for welfare reform) or what the Marxists call “false consciousness.” Much like Lena Dunham’s sex scenes, the list of things that are wrong with this is very long. People vote on the kind of community or country they want to live in, period. That means that taxes are a legitimate issue, but it also means that guns and abortion and free speech are just as legitimate. Liberals implicitly understand this, even if they lie about it routinely in their rhetoric. They are the first to invoke the language of values and right-and-wrong on the issues they care about, whether it is gay marriage or immigration or civil rights. And they are entirely right to do so. Where they are wrong is when they employ the language of “real issues” to dismiss any value-laden arguments that help conservatives win elections.

My derived understanding of the Lefty worldview is:

(a) You are stupid meat.
(b) You can be controlled by hormonal appeal.
(c) If not (a) or (b), you must be silenced.
(d) Because #Power.

Every baking of a definition, every brutally controlled conversation, every refusal to admit clear fault, every outright lie, is all about (d).

Category: Culture

Comments

28 Responses to “In Summary, It’s About Control”

Political Rift » In Summary, It’s About Control
October 11th, 2014 @ 8:30 am

[…] Read more here: In Summary, It’s About Control […]
kilo6
October 11th, 2014 @ 9:21 am

…That means that taxes are a legitimate issue, but it also means that guns and abortion and free speech are just as legitimate. Liberals implicitly understand this, even if they lie about it routinely in their rhetoric. …

The liberals leading the ideological drive might lie to others (they’ve got plenty of zealots who are true believers that really love them some Marx, Mao & Stalin) but the worst part is the ones who lie to themselves. I’ve seen some of this self deception in friends and family members who still have some irrational bond to the Donk Party. They deny or rationalize away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing viewpoints in spite of evidence and logical arguments. They convince themselves of a truth (or lack of truth) so that they do not reveal any self-knowledge of the deception. It’s quite sad.
kilo6
October 11th, 2014 @ 9:36 am

My derived understanding of the Lefty worldview is:

(a) You are stupid meat.
(b) You can be controlled by hormonal appeal.
(c) If not (a) or (b), you must be silenced.
(d) Because #Power.

Nice accurate summary.

Regarding (b), a friend of mine who used to be a Public Relations Officer for the Army dubbed this control/manipulation “Bernays sauce” (after Edward Bernays and his foundational Propaganda (1928)). FYI, he doesn’t have cable or satellite TV in his house.
Art Deco
October 11th, 2014 @ 10:28 am

It’s gotten that way. I think you’d have been wrong forty years ago, but George McGovern is dead and Nat Hentoff is real old. It’s significant that Jimmy Carter is the only Democratic president in the last 60 years who could be called a decent person.

The ascent of the Clintons was the point of inflection: it was at that point you could call the Democratic Party and its nexus institutionally sociopathic.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
October 11th, 2014 @ 11:26 am

And Carter’s “decency” is more of a relative than actual standard. Yes his Habitat for Humanity work and doing Sunday School is decent. His policy positions over the years and chiding behavior post presidency are far from decent.
Coulter76
October 11th, 2014 @ 11:31 am

When America was a more religious (and better) nation, cultural issues delivered votes for the GOP.

Now that America is MUCH more secular, these issues are now hurting the GOP. And Democrats are making sure every election is about these issues.

Conservatives need to figure out what parts of our platform can still sell, and understand that losing elections on losing issues does not help our cause.

My fear is we end up in a socialist abyss all because conservatives are unwilling to adapt to a different America and are fighting over issues that really aren’t in the control of the government anyway.

Young Americans aren’t embracing the Democrat Party because of policies like ObamaCare.
Art Deco
October 11th, 2014 @ 11:50 am

They’re not indecent. His public presence is abrasive, not indecent. His policies were merely ill-considered. There was no analogue during the Carter years to the sort of brazen lying that’s now bog standard, much less the abuse of power.
Donzie
October 11th, 2014 @ 1:17 pm

Many (many!) years ago my classmate, the late great Barry Rubin, then a big shot in lefty circles, said to me, “Donzie, just remember the issue is NEVER the issue, the issue is the revolution.” Whatever the burning concern of the day – Vietnam, “exploitation of Brazil”(!), housing, pay for garbagemen, whatever – those were just instruments of incitement.

Years later Barry, having moved to the sensible side, rephrased his counsel. With the left in office he said, “the issue is never the issue, the issue is keeping and exercising power.”

Look at what they do and how they live, not at what they say and you can never go wrong.
Adobe_Walls
October 11th, 2014 @ 2:21 pm

I find it difficult categorizing any ant-Semite who frequently calls for the destruction of Israel as a decent person.
Another important perhaps even more significant point of infection was the left’s refusal to accept that George W Bush was in fact elected president. 9/11 temporarily united most of the country forcing the Democrats to back off for a time but only for a short time.
In Summary, It’s About Control | That Mr. G Guy's Blog
October 11th, 2014 @ 2:38 pm

[…] In Summary, It’s About Control. […]
DeadMessenger
October 11th, 2014 @ 2:47 pm

“Bernays sauce” – heh – that one’s going on my quote list. (And I don’t have cable or satellite TV in my house either. It’s wonderful. You don’t come to see the brainwashing power of TV or commercials until you’ve gone without them for awhile; then you’ll never want that stuff back.)
DeadMessenger
October 11th, 2014 @ 2:53 pm

“Look at what they do and how they live, not at what they say and you can never go wrong.”

True statement about every single person who ever lived. Progressives and celebrities (but I repeat myself) have raised this axiom to cartoonish levels, though.
Robert What?
October 11th, 2014 @ 5:49 pm

We should be very happy that most leftists are anti-gun.
Adobe_Walls
October 11th, 2014 @ 6:00 pm

Are they? There are some on the left who are arming too. The majority of the left are anti-gun only to the extent that they are willing to forego the right to own and bear arms so that their enemies are forced to be disarmed. People who believe that globul warming deniers etc. should be jailed are quite in favor of arming the state entities who they’d have enforce their will.
Wendy and the Wheelchair | Regular Right Guy
October 11th, 2014 @ 6:02 pm

[…] In Summary, It’s About Control […]
Robert What?
October 11th, 2014 @ 7:28 pm

That is true, that some on the left are arming too. There’s a big difference though:
Conservatives/Libertarians: Everyone should have the right to own a gun for self defense.
Leftists/Progressives: I, and people whose opinions I approve of, should have the right to own guns for self defense.
Zohydro
October 11th, 2014 @ 8:42 pm

Not to impugn Christianity, but I believe it is myth (promulgated both by the media and Christians themselves—now there’s an odd couple!) that socially conservative issues are solely and uniquely Christian concerns… This alienates many, including younger voters and a very significant number of all voters who hold generally conservative values but who do not strongly identify with (organised) Christianity!

If one’s choices on social issues are apparently limited to either Christianity or the libertarian perspective, I’m guessing indifference on moral issues will rule the day and the Left wins!

I denounce myself…
Adobe_Walls
October 11th, 2014 @ 8:50 pm

I have to disagree, most proggies know that they can’t have the right to own guns without us having that same right. This particularly applies to firearms of military utility. They are willing to rely on the armed state to both protect them and oppress us.
Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate's Cove
October 12th, 2014 @ 9:22 am

[…] The Other McCain (Smitty) explains the Lefty world view […]
The Daley Gator | 5 Blogs you need to read today
October 12th, 2014 @ 10:46 am

[…] Smitty at The Other McCain writes about the Left’s need to control… everything […]
Art Deco
October 12th, 2014 @ 12:06 pm

You’ve confused Carter with Desmond Tutu.
Adobe_Walls
October 12th, 2014 @ 2:56 pm

Birds of a feather.
Quartermaster
October 12th, 2014 @ 3:24 pm

Yeah. Tutu has become not just abrasive, but indecent. Actually, he was there during apartheid.

As we are seeing the South Africans were right about apartheid.
Quartermaster
October 12th, 2014 @ 3:28 pm

I’m sure the denunciation is precautionary.

The left has done the work of Satan himself, making out as though moral issues are nothing more than a restriction of freedom. The fact that irresponsibility is not an aid to freedom, in fact a destroyer of freedom, matters not to the left. They have goals, you see.

It’s really just another form of the lie the serpent told Eve, “did God really say…?”

Yes he did, and he didn’t say it to curtail your freedom. Exactly the opposite.
K-Bob
October 12th, 2014 @ 8:12 pm

A lot of Democrat voters who own guns are lifelong blue collar, union types.

These folks are very conservative. But they tend to vote Democrat no matter what.

In Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and other auto-worker, steel and mine places, a huge percentage of the union folks own several guns and hunt every year.

I think the big difference is that a lot of them don’t think anyone has the right to open carry. Concealed carry with permits is okay with many of them. They just want the say-so on who gets the permits.

The hip hop and thug leftists tend to have illegal, non-permitted guns. They support obama, but they aren’t getting rid of their guns.
Bob Belvedere
October 12th, 2014 @ 8:23 pm

I prefer the phrase ‘Power And Control’, Boss.
Adobe_Walls
October 12th, 2014 @ 10:48 pm

In other words, they’re not proggies.
K-Bob
October 13th, 2014 @ 1:15 am

As long as they get to keep their cottages on the lake, their jet skis, snowmobiles, and huntin’ gear, they will vote for the totalitarian of the day forever.