Q: What sort of post would be so stupid that even Uncommon Descent would remove it? September 21, 2008
Posted by Evil Bender in News and politics, economics, wingnuts.trackback
A: This post by our friend DaveScot (since removed, but preserved by my blog reader):
In his short time in Congress Senator Obama received more campaign contributions from Fanne Mae than 48 other currently serving Senators had received in their entire careers. Obama is a charismatic crook in the best Chicago political tradition. The socialist policies he’s supported, even as a young Harvard lawyer representing the low-income housing lobby, nearly caused the ruination of the world’s largest economy. Want to see the U.S. crash into some REALLY crushing poverty like that which plagued the former Soviet Union? If so then by all means vote for Mr. Barack “Karl Marx” Obama. On the other hand, if you want to see more of the greatest peacetime economic expansion in history which occured under Ronald Wilson Reagan, the kind of economic expansion that brought the Marx inspired socialist Soviet Union to its knees, then vote for war hero John McCain. The choice is just that simple.
Aside from the hilarity of someone being so stupid that even now they can’t see what a horrible mess “free market” philosophies and their attendant excesses and bailouts are, DaveScot keeps forgetting that demonstrating UD is a home for far-right ideologues does not help advance IDs agenda. Just as rank and file cdesign proponentsists can’t stay away from the fact that ID is religious, DaveScot can’t keep from saying stupid, stupid things.
Of course, it isn’t entirely fair to blame DaveScot for this. He’s clearly not capable of understanding these complex economic problems (blaming Democrats for being “socialists” while Republicans make the public owner of all manner of private enterprises, for example). What we clearly need is to hear from a Republican with a more serious understanding of the economy:
Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.
So says John McCain.
Compared to that epic stupidity from a man auditioning to lead the free world, DaveScot’s petty variety of stupidity seems fairly harmless by comparison.
As someone who sometimes leaves out important words from my sentences, I have some sympathy for DaveScot. He should have written “employees of Fannie Mae”, as Fannie Mae does not make contributions. Then again, I saw an analysis that includes board members as well as employees where McCain received far more than Obama. I don’t suppose senators not running for president received as much. Some of this is the author just going too fast.
Still when I get to the sentence, “The socialist policies he’s supported, …, nearly caused the ruination of the world’s largest economy,” that’s not just a matter of going too fast. I’m tempted to use words like “crazy” and “fantasy”, but that’s an oversimplification. He must really believe what he wrote here. Does he believe every element implied by that sentence, that socialist policies exist in the US that hurt employment and the financial markets, that those policies in fact are the major reason for the current crisis, that there has been a near ruination of the US economy for any reason? Or is he just used to speaking in extremes, as if it’s a catastrophe if his stock portfolio loses money?
I don’t know. This is where I am at a loss. Would he actually try to argue the above in the affirmative, element by element? I’m sure it can be done, as poorly argued as it would be argued. Would it just be sophistry to avoid saying there’s any mistake in the original comment? Or does DaveScot understand politics so simplistically he can’t even imagine the contradictions in his words? The left is bad. The right is good. Tax cuts are good for the economy. Any government spending is bad.
That’s all rubbish. It’s familiar rubbish. It didn’t start with DaveScot. Yet he believes it. I always wonder why anyone with such an extreme belief believes it. Is it personal? Does he think John McCain will make him wealthy or at least minimize his taxes? Or is it the greater ideology that attracts him, that Republicans would make the US great, while Democrats would redistribute wealth, have orgies in the streets, and steal from churches? Or is it something else?
Does he really not know the difference between Obama and a Marxist? Does he not care? Does he not know the difference between a progressive income tax and the redistribution of wealth? Rudy Giuliani pretends not to know the difference. Does DaveScot live in a world where a Democratic president means the destruction of something prescious to him? Is his rhetoric the indirect expression of that?
I don’t expect straight answers. I just know my uncertainty about why conservatives aren’t more like me. It’s not all uncertain. I heard Sarah Palin quoted as expecting Jesus Christ to return in her lifetime. I don’t know if she thinks that the first she knows of this will be when she is raptured out of whatever political office she is holding at that point, but this might explain why she is not overly conscientious or people pleasing in her approach to her office. It doesn’t matter. The end is in sight, if you’re one of the chosen.
I understand Sarah Palin’s arrogant opportunism. She sees her opportunities as coming from God. I don’t understand DaveScot’s rhetoric, though I understand it better as something he truly believes, for whatever reasons, rather than his not believing this, but just liking how it sounds.
I don’t know who’s the most dangerous. DaveScot’s rhetoric isn’t believable, but the conservative rhetoric that has become so extreme in him is believed by many people. Is it just an excuse for people’s greed and for excluding groups of others that conservatives don’t like? If so, maybe the rhetoric doesn’t matter at all. It’s just a cover for people’s ugly choices. Still it might be more than that.
I have a simple solution for my uncertainty. I’m voting for Obama. I’m certain that DaveScot and others who write similarly are wrong in more ways than I can count. We’ll see what happens, either way.
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