Defense of Truth

The right has been mercilessly hammering home the evilness of this infamous Rahm Emanuel quote over the last few days, and with good reason. The essential meaning Emanuel, Barack Obama's former chief of staff and longtime Clinton iron-fist, was trying to convey, was that the masses are too stupid to understand the political system that's in their best interest. Therefore, it was up to leftist politicians to "capitalize", despite the irony of the term, on the emotional high only a crisis can provide--only a sustained media-hyped public event can provide--to shame principled opposition into permitting compromises on free-market, limited-government solutions. Now to be sure, stifling debate by choosing an unassailable victim as your voice is a preferred trick of the left, and is deplorable for what it is. Whether it's the ideology they're trying to advance, or their own personal political gain, a politician who trots out a victim can quickly chill his principl...

Here's another Facebook conversation I shouldn't have stuck my nose into today. Please note what passes for objectivity. Also Liberal Friend B presents an interesting assumption. Apparently, conservatives have evil intentions and no other explanation for their actions is possible, or even really thinkable. It couldn't possibly be that they have an actual logical disagreement on the merits of the issue at hand... Liberal Friend A: So we don't want to pass a treaty with Russia because... the Republicans don't want to comply with international law? We'll hunt you down if you have nukes, but don't ask us to get rid of ours. Right? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/world/europe/17start.html?pagewanted=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a2 G.O.P. Opposition Dims Hope for Arms Treaty With Russia www.nytimes.com The chief Senate Republican negotiator dealt a setback to President Obama’s effort to pass a treaty with Russia. Me: Thanks for the read. It reminds me why I...

The meat of my liberal friend's reply on gas-gouging: I make no excuses for signing the petition to stop gas price gouging. Exxon (and whoever else) was doing just fine without $15 billion profits 5 years ago. Why the price hike now? Maybe a certain war has to do with it. For simplicity's sake, big oil just doesn't need that much money, and they shouldn't have to rely on the consumer for it. On top of that, (note: the following is speculative only) if we hadn't invaded Iraq, prices would still be at ~$1.19, and everyone would be happy. To my liberal friend, You have brought up a few objections that I should have anticipated before sending my first message. So thank you for giving me another chance to address them. So let's think about your objections together seriously for a minute here: big oil * doesn't need * that much money??? How do YOU know how much money they NEED??!! And most importantly, what makes YOU, or the GOVERNMENT, or anyone else besides Exxo...

Blogs are meant to be frequently updated, so I'm going to try to do a little (shorter) something every day even if it's not a complete treatment of the item in question. Today, I'm thinking that there's so much to get to with the PBS special that a radical shift of topic might be refreshing, so here goes… I recently had a liberal friend of mine forward me a canvassing email from www.moveon.org , a liberal political activist site, asking me to electronically sign a petition supporting an anti-price gouging bill that was in discussion in Congress at the time. The legislation, much to my dismay, was passed, but the email conversation with my friend would make a great cut and paste here. I have heavily edited the original email to refine my arguments, to take out elements that should remain personal, and continue to establish my own internet persona. If I decide to post his replies, I'll edit even more carefully so less personal and more generally useful arguments are m...