Why is McCain using Maoist language on Palin? [Manchurian candidate alert]

FR ^ | 2009-10-11 | FReepers rae4palin, piytar, cripplecreek, rabscuttle385, and others

[curiosity]

His post period criticizes McCain for using a veiled Maoist quote PERIOD.

Barbara Streisand. Just because Mao used a phrase doesn't make it a Maoist phrase. As AndyJackson pointed out elsewhere, the phrase has been a lot longer than Mao, and it simply a metaphor for letting a variety of opinions flourish.

Mao once noted the sky is blue. Next thing you know, paranoid conspiracy kooks like you and Rabscuttle385 are going call a Maoist anyone who notes the color of the sky.

Mao swam across a river to kick off the cultural revolution. I swam across a river once. By Rabscuttle385's logic, that makes me a Maoist too.

The whole post was devoted to the question of whether McCain was trying to damage Palins future political viability by "associating" her with Maoist terminology.

More Barabra Streisand. Exactly how does saying you want a variety of opinions to flourish damage Palin's future political viabiliy?

Or, he may genuinely be a programmed Manchurian candidate whose programming compels him to make these types of comments...

Uh huh. How's that tinfoil hat fit?

[curiosity]

It pains me much to say it, but your own reactions to this post just show, that reasoned positions based upon well know facts and accepted principle are no longer conservative strengths or desired traits. It's sad. It really is.

When I became active in the conservative movement in college, it was about logic, science and reason. Our positions were based on sound scientific theory and empirical data. It was the left, not the right, that was all about feelings, intentions and dogma.

It's all changed now. No more logical arguments. No more demands for evidence. To be a conservative now appears to mean dogmatic adherence to mindless slogans and cults of personality. Tax good, campaign finance reform bad. Creation good, evolution bad. Anyone who wans universal health care is a socialist. Palin is our lord and savior, and anyone who criticizes her is the devil.

When did it get this bad? I never noticed the decline. It's almost as if I just woke up one morning and found the movement overrun by luddites. How did this happen?

[curiosity]

Woops. Typo. In my Animal arm-inspired parody of conservative dogmatists, I meant to say, "Tax cuts good, campaign finance reform bad."

[AndyJackson]

I argue with these pathetic snarling hydrophobists for one reason only: in the hope that out of the ash heap of conservatism we can find some odds and ends worth salvaging, out of which we can make a party that can rescue us from the single party state we have become.

Conservatives have to understand that democrats are cute and they say the sweatest things. Maybe its irrational fantacizing, but all I hear from these folks right now is a frenzied nightmare in response. Reason and light might work, but the notion that the death-knell of freedom is ringing and its silence requires my submission to the universalist creed, which today claims that McCain is a Maoist, is absurd. There is a lot to be said for Palin, but I have to agree with David Brooks (another Maoist who once wore conservative clothing) that she lacks the intellectual depth and seriousness one would like to see in a national leader. Can she grow? Well God gave us each the capacity to choose a path for good and follow it. But it will be a while before I am ready to declare her the second coming of Ronaldus Magnus, who, while no one much was watching, spent a decade or two thinking and writing and developing a point of view and testing it in the marketplace of ideas until the Berlin Wall fell. THAT is, I think, what David Brooks means by intellectual seriousness. Not some nonsense about McCain as the Manchurian candidate [the tin foil is a much better reflector of intrusive eminations if you gold-plate it, by the way.]