I am taking no small amount of offence these days at the manner in which the course of American politics is setting itself. I say set itself not as a simile, but rather as an illustration. It is out of control, with a very small minority of people having their hands on each side of the tiller, and both sides seem determined to steer the ship of state straight into the rocks. Just now, however, it is the conservative idealists that have the upper hand. And it is becoming a scary ride.
Watching the Bill Maher show the other night, upon which Ann Coulter was a guest, I was struck by the example she sets for almost all the rhetoric one hears in the media these days. At one point she claimed that liberals were just “Whiners” for complaining that they could not get a fair hearing in the press or other media, then not moments later stated how put out she was that it took a whole six months for anyone to publish her new book. Even
some good, inteligent writers have to wait a bit for their books to be published. It struck me as an insufferable bit of whining on her part to say such a thing. For anyone who has looked at this book
She plays weird word games as a means to demonstrate her points. “It was Democrats who were segregationists”, she proclaims, to divert accusations of racism away from the conservatives. As if saying that both sides have been racist in the past, defends her side from the label “racist” now. Anyone who knows anything about the history of politics in the United States, understands what the Southern Democrats were all about, and it has nothing to do with liberalism. This is not to say that most conservatives ARE racists, nor is it to defend liberals. The point is the fallacy of the argument. This is the same type of argument that seems to be pervasive on talking-head TV and radio these days.
But she is just an example of what is going on all around us. Lies and distortions inserted into an ostensibly “liberal” media. The idea of a liberal media is so pervasive that many think it is, like the sun rising, just a natural order of things. This is untrue. But the conservative pundits almost constantly refer to it, as if they are swimming against some overwhelming current. They are the “True Radicals” now, saving everyone from the evils of the “Liberal agenda”. You still think there is a liberal media? You think Rupert Murdock is a liberal? Read Eric Alterman’s “What Liberal Media?” or David Brock’s "Blinded By The Right” and see if the idea of a liberal media still makes any sense at all.
Liberal MediaIf the conservatives were taking on the liberals on real issues, then perhaps there would be a point to all this name-calling and back-stabbing. But they are not. They seldom advance ideas, mainly because they do not have many of their own. Their main interest seems to be opposing the ideas of others. The personal attacks have continued even after they used them to finally run Clinton into the ground. There is no point, it seems, in arguing against someone’s legislative record if instead you can find out that they have a girlfriend on the side. This tactic has bitten them back on more than one occasion, yet the battle cry seems to be “onward Christian soldiers” regardless of the damage it inflicts on the nation.
The only idea they seem to be able to focus on, on the domestic front, is that tax cuts strengthen the economy. This is played and replayed over and over in print, as well as on radio and TV. It is false. The economy under Shrub’s father was not doing well , yet he raised the tax rates. An act that conservatives condemned him for at the time, and even now talk about as a traitorous act against the conservative movement. It had no effect on the looming resession either in prolonging it, nor curing it. Ronald Reagan’s trickle-down economic plan is now widely recognized as a total failure. The Clinton boom times started with tax increases, not decreases. If cutting taxes stimulates the economy, then should not increasing taxes stifle it? This has been repeatedly shown not to be the case. There are reasons for this, so look it up.
Do Tax Cuts Help?The thing that has made American strong in the past, is that both sides, pulling upon the tiller, seemed to have been able to steer a course that pretty much stayed in the middle of the river. When either side got us to close to breaking up on the shore, the other would give a mighty heave and save us from disaster. Is it the left that is too weak? Or is right to strong? I’m not at all sure. The great crusade of the Clinton-haters has made the conservatives battle wise and media savvy. If the left does not wise up soon, I fear it is sand and rocks ahead for all of us.
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Baggins@netcom.comLast updated by Baggins on 4/28/03