Oh, Daily Kos, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
It is undeniably gratifying to find my fondest views reconfirmed by even a few scattered Obamacrats and half-reformed John Edwards devotees at different corners of the country. So, whether it's my father parroting Hannity talking points verbatim, my ex-boyfriend not seeing how Bill Clinton's latest rhetorical atrocity was all that excessive, or my co-workers managing somehow to be both anti-war and pro-Clinton, it is always reassuring to have a "Calgon take me away" moment and come to Daily Kos, here to partake in the soothing leftist echo chamber, and occasional field of bloody internecine war.
So what's wrong with that? This morning, I found profounder pleasures elsewhere, and finding them, indulged myself to the utmost, so that I return to you newly incarnated a voluptuary:
From Economist.com's comment pages:
One commenter, tawp, said:
You are largely correct in your analysis of the activist part of the Democratic Party, if somewhat over the top. This part of the party is particularly influential and can exert influence far beyond their numbers, so the fact they form a minority is not important. You miss the great ideological premises they share though. First, the Federal Government can and is the appropriate body to solve our problems. Second, each of their special programs, based upon at best subjective and at worst false values, rise to the level of absolute universal rights that claim an absolute demand on our societal resources to the exclusion of all other necessities. Third, traditional values like individual liberty, religion, and majority rule should not be allowed to stand in the way of their specific programs, which will solve all of our problems and bring "real freedom." While focused on different programs, this general attitude is very common and will lead to a dangerously expansive government.
As for Obama in particular, he has said a raise in the Capital Gains Tax is necessary, because it is not fair the amount of money people are making. He supports protectionism, universal health care, a "living" minimum wage, creating planned "mixed income" urban housing, and massive governmental intervention in the economy under various green programs (beyond just a reasonable emissions reduction). He summed it up recently when he spoke about our personal salvation lying through our collective action. Redistributive taxation, protectionism, nationalization of large sectors of the economy, and other interventionist policies in pursuit of an impossible and undesirable standard of absolute equality have led many other countries into the economic doldrums and necessitated painful reforms when they can even muster the political will. Obama is advocating policies that have failed everywhere they have been implemented and specifically failed in this nation during the 1960s and 1970s. Pursuing policies that have been proven disastorous by history, because your ideology commands it shows 1) your ideology is flawed and 2) you have bad judgment.
Wow. Authentic rightwing thought. So pure. So unadulterated by DLC ideological laundering. To prowl around Daily Kos, one would think it was as rare as the mammoth, and as toothless as a canary. There was at least one really authentically wingnuttish comment, something to the effect that Obama's supporters were all Hamas flunkies, racist Blacks, and Muslims vehemently desiring Shariah in these fifty states, but it has since been removed by Economist.com's discerning staff. Others, not so incendiary but also not so substantive, imagine Obama and his supporters singing vintage Whitney as if the belief that children are indeed our future are all we stand for.
So I started commenting. And I have to say, God was that fun!
Real conservatives--and the vociferous rightists commenting on here are not among them--understand that it is not that individuals are the owners of property and the bearers of rights that exist before and apart from the involvement of the state. It is through the state that any right must be enforced, and that about which we do not need the state in some respect or other we need not call a right. So let's go ahead and check at the door this alarmist fear that any state involvement in the market equals unfettered tyranny.
The criticisms of Barack Obama being offered here forget the substantial respect that his proposals express for individual liberty. His health care plan would allow, but not require, individuals to buy health insurance policies offered by private companies and would subsidize the purchase of those policies by the poor. Moreover, the fact that Obama does not mandate insurance coverage for everyone is the primary difference between his plan and the one signed into law by Republican darling Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts.
Moreover, consider one solution Obama offers to the looming financial crises of those Americans facing retirement pensionless, with meager savings, or with declining value in their home equity. He proposes to make the first $50,000 of their yearly income tax free, encouraging them insofar as possible to work and increasing the reward for that work. Likewise, his other tax cuts are targeted to increase the rewards of work to Americans, whether it is by increasing the earned income tax credit or the child care tax credit. Even Obama's proposals to make college more accessible rely on an exchange of service for that benefit.
Not only does Obama's domestic policy create economic opportunity, it reflects the precise opposite of an "entitlement" approach and imagines everyday Americans not as the passive recipients of government assistance but as active parties, encouraged to work, encouraged to learn, and encouraged to serve their communities.
What kind of conservative--indeed what kind of person at all invested in the preservation and furtherance of republican forms of government--could look upon Obama's platform and not be, well, hopeful?
To which I get this reply:
VK1961 wrote:
June 04, 2008 12:18
"What kind of conservative--indeed what kind of person at all invested in the preservation and furtherance of republican forms of government--could look upon Obama's platform and not be, well, hopeful?"
Well... for one, any economic sceptic. Yesterday's speech, with all its fatuous promises, was nothing to cheer about. Yes, those in attendance did cheer, of course; they have not seen his promises in action yet, though.
After one factors in unintended consequences, e.g. a deeper recession, futile protectionism, perhaps irreparable damage to trade agreements, corporate shrinkage, high unemployment, etc. that would inevitably ensue if his ideas are written into law, Senator Obama's rhetoric sounds not only void of any hope, but downright frightening.
This, of course, is NOT to say that Senator McCain has warmed many hearts, either...
Which made me get all
andydoubtless wrote:
June 04, 2008 13:35
To VK1961: Precisely what glorious present-day prosperity the Republican Party is protecting from Democratic vandalism is hard to locate precisely. Certainly, all that deficit spending to support the war in Iraq has a certain stimulative effect, and there are soldiers and contractors returning from Iraq who actually find themselves able to buy houses and pay for higher education. But by and large transferring a trillion dollars of the national wealth to Mesopotamia because the president decided it was a worthy pet project has not been the best course of action for America.
This is especially the case considering the Iraqi government has been banking its receipts from oil sales and allowing all Americans--acting through the largesse of George W. Bush--to pay its bills, certainly making it the most lavish "Welfare Queen" in human history.
It's better that money be spent in the U.S. building windmills than squandered in the Middle East for George W. Bush to tilt at them.
Arguments about the deleterious economic effects of reversing George W. Bush's tax cuts are a wash, considering Obama primarily intends to feed the additional revenues from them into his own tax cuts, as well as badly needed programs to develop renewable energy and expand health care access.
Finally, Obama's trade policies are carefully modulated responses to existing market distortions, such as China's manipulation of the yuan so as to maintain a permanent advantage for its exports and the use of production in less regulated economies to circumvent safety standards. They do not steer the U.S. away from market competition; they remind us that there are factors to competition other than the efficiency of buying the cheapest consumer product from the poorest corner of the globe possible, with no attention paid to the product's fitness for use.
THIS. IS. AWESOME.
By all means, you have to try it. Although it does incidentally serve the purposes of the Obama campaign by allowing us to refute conservative myths, make known Obama's actual proposals, express our enthusiasm for the candidate and combat the same old rightwing talking points that have now been around since before most Kossacks were actually born, the main reason I advocate that we all begin leaving Daily Kos at least part of the time to advocate for Obama in the comment sections of media websites, where we are likely to actually encounter undecideds, borderlines and McCainiacs--is because it is so damn enjoyable!
You'll note some of the things I try to do in the above. I authentically enjoy the Economist's reportage though I disagree frequently with the editorial line. So I try to maintain a sensitivity for who my audience is, and adjust my ideological frames accordingly. People who have read previous comments of mine on this website know that I have misgivings about Obama's healthcare policy because it does not subscribe to the universal-coverage model of John Edwards and Hillary Clinton. But at the same time I recognize that to an economic libertarian Economist.com reader the more limited reach of Obama's program will be a positive.
Others may disagree with me, but I think rhetorically adopting right-wing frames can be actually helpful to the extent it allows us to demonstrate the superiority of our agenda and our arguments even within these frames.
But the most important thing we can do is to make substantive arguments that say things about Obama people unfamiliar with his platform or biography do not already know, things that may win converts among the specific audience. I don't think anyone reading Economist.com will be persuaded from voting Republican by the commenter who said "Obama is God." Likewise, we should make certain we respond to the specific subject matter and issues raised by the stories we reply to, to make it plain that we're not merely trolling.
Of course, venues like nytimes.com and msnbc.com are bound to be attractive because they allow us to reach likeminded voters. But likeminded voters are not the point here.
Likeminded voters will not win us the election. So let's display our collective ingenuity, wit and longwindedness in contexts where we can actually attract new believers to our cause.
BTW: Just so I'm not misunderstood, this is not a GBCW.