Posted on 08/25/2012 9:54:24 AM PDT by presidio9
In theory, liberal and conservative perspectives should better each other by making realistic demands the opposition can meet. They should use facts like ice water, dousing those who have grown too hot with their own ideology.
Facts do not dissolve under microscopes of serious scrutiny the way factoids, or half-truths, do. For years, Americans could battle with facts. We had a democratic sense of government that faced human limitations and foibles but remained focused on progress from some kind of ignorance to some kind of enlightenment. Consequently, this spirit of compromise worked past the inevitable corruption coming from the left or the right.
We have thus created a society of enormous individual freedom and success, but it has been paced by a sense of empathy.
Today, though, that sense of empathy is disappearing in the ranks of the Republican Party. For the most extreme conservatives, empathy is no more than liberal claptrap. It was Mitt Romney, after all, who said, “I’m not concerned about the very poor.”
Even staunch conservatives like Barry Goldwater had more integrity than that. And George W. Bush popularized the term “compassionate conservatism,” even if his presidency did not put it into practice as often as he might have wanted to.
The question today is where the Republican Party stands on questions like health care, Social Security and, in general, the social safety net that is so special to the American way.
No one is above help, especially today. Enough of us have seen misfortune among our family members and friends to know that, sometimes, government can help. It is not, as the right claims, always a problem.
Admitting this is far from the kind of gullible sentimentality some stand ready to exploit.
That is why so many people fear Romney and Paul Ryan getting to the White House. They feel that Medicare will be gutted and that the Republican administration will submit to the demands of a gang of wealthy people no more compassionate than a sack of rocks.
Yes, some programs do need to be cut and we do need to filter out as much waste as we can, but we do not need to willfully misunderstand what President Obama meant when he said that successful businesses did not get there alone. They were inspired and supported, at least in part, by public works and public programs that we should all want to stay in place — for example, the bridges and roads that Congress seems intent on either not building or keeping from being improved.
Of course, that’s not what the Republicans want you to believe. Their hustle is all about the self. Forget everyone else.
Nobody embodies this line of thinking better than Romney’s vice presidential nominee, Ryan, who was mentored intellectually by Ayn Rand, one of the most fraudulent “thinkers” of our time. Rand, however, is perfect for a GOP taken over by loudmouths and cartoon toughs who are better at callousness than anything consisting of deep meaning.
Here’s what Ryan said about Rand a few years ago: “There is no better place to find the moral case for capitalism and individualism than through Ayn Rand’s writings and works.”
Rand’s entire motto can be boiled down to two words: Be selfish. But what are the ill, the poor and the otherwise unfortunate to do in the dog-eat-dog society she envisioned and the Republicans intend to put in place?
Perhaps that is one of the miracles Romney and Ryan intend to show us once they have finished brown-nosing the super-rich and the super-selfish.
We’ll see.
crouch.stanley@gmail.com
Look at Barack Obama. Now look at George Obama. Now who is selfish?
We've entered the full Joseph Goebbels campaign mode.
And if Obama loses, I do not think that he will go quietly. That's when they switch over to the Gotterdammerung mode.
Presidio9 where is the BARF alert? Stanley is scum.
Relax...they are so scared sh!tless right now it isn’t funny. Their time is near the end.
If Republicans are the selfish ones, why is it that they contribute much more in charity? Democrats idea of charity is to spend someone elses money.
Rand is a partial focus in this article, although it seems to be an attack on Randism.
When, according to the writer, did the republicans ever have empathy? Democrats have been campaigning on republican callousness for 75 years.
I have never been a teenaged girl, so I don't listen to Justin Beiber, and I don't do "BARF alerts." The headline of this article is pretty clear.
I see, keeping what you work for selfish. Wanting what someone else worked for is open minded.
RIGHT.
The idea is to throw so much noise out there that it has some residual effect. The average voter may not pay much attention, but in two months they will have a vague idea that Romney is not like them. In response to Romney's protests Team Obama will soon be complaining that the Republicans are calling them liars. It won't matter if the charge is accurate. The average voter doesn't pay that much attention.
It is the liberals who are selfish, in that they believe in forcing OTHER people to support the poor and then call it "charity." Conservatives donate far more money to charity than do liberals.
Dems are projecting themselves.
Liberalism is a mental disorder. This is why you get White progressive female activists protesting for the “rights” of criminal minority rapists who would not think twice about raping her and leaving her left for dead in an alley if they could get away with it.
We may like to think our political heros were able to simply rise above negative politics and win the battle of ideas, but that has never been the case. Ronnie went after Jimmuh with both barrels at Liberty State Park almost 32 years ago to the day:
The Carter record is a litany of despair, of broken promises, of sacred trusts abandoned and forgotten. His answer to all this misery? He tries to tell us that we're only in a recession, not a depression -- as if definitions -- words -- relieve our suffering. Let it show on the record that when the American people cried out for economic help, Jimmy Carter took refuge behind a dictionary. Well, if it's a definition he wants, I'll give him one: A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his!
I have talked with unemployed workers all across this country. I've heard their views on what Jimmy Carter has done to them and their families. Let Mr. Carter go to their homes, look their children in the eyes, and argue with them that it's only a recession that put dad or mom out of work. Let him go to the unemployment lines and lecture those workers who have been betrayed on what is the proper definition for their widespread economic misery. Human tragedy, human misery, the crushing of the human spirit. They do not need defining; they need action. Call this human tragedy whatever you want. Whatever it is, it's Jimmy Carter's. He caused it, he tolerates it, and he's going to appearance to the American people for it.
I'm looking forward to meeting Mr. Carter in debate, confronting him with the whole sorry record of his administration -- the record he prefers not to mention. If he ever finally agrees to the kind of first debate the American people want, which I'm beginning to doubt, he'll answer to them and to me. This country needs a new administration with a renewed dedication to the dream of America, an administration that will give that dream new life and make America great again.
If the Republicans are the selfish ones, why do the democrats continue their multi-trillion dollar bling party, burdening their children and grandchildren with debt they cannot possibly repay?
Ronald Reagan had a way with words that the empty suit in the white hut today could never match. I wish Romney could inspire the electorate the same way.
Thanks for posting this. Stanley Crouch sounds like Harry Belafonte without the senility. Need more stuff like this (and there will be more); it’s unintentional entertainment & funny in its own pathetic way.
Lefties are really bitter angry people. The revolution never came and they lack the integrity to move to Cuba.
FWIW I wear my Vietnam vet cap into Earthfare and Whole Foods hoping some grey ponytail of either sex will growl “babykiller!”. So far the only reaction is military discount from the checkout girl.
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