Invective

Partisan Intransigence and Political True Belief

The last few days I have spoken with a number of people about Donald Trump, almost all of them supporters. What surprises me is their refusal to admit the man's negatives. Their partisanship blinds them. And then there is the naive belief that, if elected, Trump will accomplish what he says he will. Given his bad judgment and school-boy mouthing off and glee at offending people, how will he work with Congress? Or will he try to do everything by executive order? There is this document called the Constitution. Or does he too believe in a 'living' Constitution?

Will I vote for Trump if nominated? Of course. Hillary must be defeated, and Trump has so mastered the politics of personal destruction, hitherto a specialty of leftists, that he has a good chance of defeating her.

So what's my point? My point is that we are very sick society if it should come down to a choice between a brazen hard-leftist liar like Hillary and a low life like Trump. I would like to see a bit of understanding by Trump's supporters of who it is they are supporting. That and a little less rah-rah partisanship. You don't think he is a low life? He fails the decency test. Max Lucado has his number:

I don't know Mr. Trump. But I've been chagrined at his antics. He ridiculed a war hero. He made mockery of a reporter's menstrual cycle. He made fun of a disabled reporter. He referred to the former first lady, Barbara Bush as "mommy," and belittled Jeb Bush for bringing her on the campaign trail. He routinely calls people "stupid," "loser," and "dummy." These were not off-line, backstage, overheard, not-to-be-repeated comments. They were publicly and intentionally tweeted, recorded, and presented.

Such insensitivities wouldn't even be acceptable even for a middle school student body election. But for the Oval Office? And to do so while brandishing a Bible and boasting of his Christian faith? I'm bewildered, both by his behavior and the public's support of it.

The stock explanation for his success is this: he has tapped into the anger of the American people. As one man said, "We are voting with our middle finger." Sounds more like a comment for a gang-fight than a presidential election. Anger-fueled reactions have caused trouble ever since Cain was angry at Abel.

We can only hope, and pray, for a return to decency. Perhaps Mr. Trump will better manage his antics. (Worthy of a prayer, for sure.) Or, perhaps the American public will remember the key role of the president is to be the face of America. When he speaks, he speaks for us. Whether we agree or disagree with the policies of the president, do we not hope that they behave in a way that is consistent with the status of the office?

The A. P. A. Statement on Bullying and Harrassment

The American Philosophical Association has issued a statement that condemns bullying and harrassment. Who could disagree? But the following paragraph needs a little more work:

Abusive speech directed at philosophers is not limited to responses by the public to published op-eds. A look at some of the anonymous philosophy blogs also reveals a host of examples of abusive speech by philosophers directed against other philosophers. Disagreement is fine and is not the issue. But bullying and ad hominem harassment of philosophers by other philosophers undermines civil disagreement and discourse and has no place in our community. [. . .]

Two points. Why the restriction to anonymous philosophy blogs? There is a decidedly non-anonymous gossip site run by a philosophy adjunct that has featured numerous unprovoked attacks on fellow philosophers. Here is a prime example.

Now let's say you have been attacked out of the blue by this fellow, and you respond in kind with mockery and contumely, to give him a taste of his own medicine. Should it not be pointed out that the same types of actions can be justified as defense that cannot be justified as attack?

Civility is a good old conservative virtue. But it has limits. Civility is for the civil, not for those whose hypocritical calls for civility serve to mask their aggression.

Jerking Toward Social Collapse

Thanks to 'progressives,' our 'progress' toward social and cultural collapse seems not be proceeding at a constant speed, but to be accelerating. But perhaps a better metaphor from the lexicon of physics is jerking. After all, our 'progress' is jerkwad-driven. No need to name names. You know who they are.

From your college physics you may recall that the first derivative of position with respect to time is velocity, while the second derivative is acceleration. Lesser known is the third derivative: jerk. (I am not joking; look it up.) If acceleration is the rate of change of velocity, jerk, also known as jolt, is the rate of change of acceleration.

If you were studying something in college, and not majoring in, say, Grievance Studies, then you probably know that all three, velocity, acceleration, and jerk are vectors, not scalars. Each has a magnitude and a direction. This is why a satellite orbiting the earth is constantly changing its velocity despite its constant speed.

The 'progressive' jerk too has its direction: the end of civilization as we know it.

Michael Medved uncorked a good one yesterday when he referred to the ACLU as the American Criminal Liars Union.

That's pretty harsh, but then the ACLU has shown itself on numerous occasions to be a contemptible bunch of leftist shysters.

What justifies the use of invective? The fact that we are in a war. Why are we in a war? Because there is no longer the common ground upon which to resolve differences. And what has brought us to this pass? The fact that so-called 'liberals' are becoming more and more extreme.

Reason with Liberals?

One cannot reason with those who are permanently in a state of self-colonoscopy.

Friday Cat Blogging! Is Your Cat Racist?

Did you know that "Tom and Jerry" is now deemed racist? Yikes!

Is there any limit to liberal-left foolishness? Here are three more recent examples.

Andrea Tantaros of Fox News attacked for using the perfectly acceptable phrase 'witch doctor.'

Australian opera company bans Carmen for smoking.

Swing sets banned in two school districts in Washington State.

Dennis Miller on Obama

Last night on The O'Reilly Factor, the sharpest comedian out there uncorked the following:

He makes Narcissus look like he invented self-effacement.

In battling the Left, it is not enough to have facts, logic, and moral decency on one's side; one must turn their own Alinsky tactics against them by the use of mockery, derision, contumely, and all the weapons of invective to make them look stupid, contemptible, and uncool. For the young especially, the cool counts for far more than the cogent. This is why the quintessentially cool Miller is so effective. People of sense could see from the outset that the adjunct law professor and community organizer, associate of former terrorist Bill Ayers and the 'reverend' Jeremiah Wright, raised on leftist claptrap and bereft of experience and knowledge of the world, would prove to be a disaster as president — as he has so proven, and as even Leon Panetta the other night all but admitted. But Obama came across as a cool dude and that endeared him to foolish voters.

Civility is a prized conservative virtue, and one wishes that such tactics would not be necessary. But for leftists politics is war, and it is the foolish conservative who fails to see this and persists in imagining it to be a gentlemanly debate on common ground over shared interests. Civility is for the civil, not for its enemies.

Some time ago I heard Miller quip, in reference to Melissa Harris-Perry, that

She is a waste of a good hyphen.

A nasty thing to say, no doubt, but not as nasty as the slanderous and delusional things she had to say about the supposedly racist overtones of the word 'Obamacare.'

Conservatives should not allow themselves to be hobbled by their own civility and high standards. As one of my aphorisms has it:

Be kind, but be prepared to reply in kind.