MaxedOutMama
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
The Failure To Engage The Enemy
1) Jane Galt at Asymmetrical Information writes about misused economic ideas and the Democratic quagmire:
4) And for the reason why moral outrage and fine words is not enough, please see this post at Waiter Rant, courtesy The Anchoress. It's about reality. It's about being there and remaining aware and open to another's pain, confronting the hopeless and the helpless and being strong enough not to run and not to quit trying to help. Sometimes the only thing you can do may be futile as far as you can see, but that's no reason to quit. The only solution I have found to such things is to ask God for help when my strength runs out.
Well, my strength ran out a long time ago but I am still here, still fighting, but no longer afraid. For I lost the battle and I know it; now I walk only by and in the light of God. I have no real worries, only responsibility for others. I can afford to turn outward, powerful in my helplessness, and help others. And now all my weakness is turned to strength, and my past desperation is the raw material with which I can help others. This second life is greater than the first even though it's not really mine.
5) And this from Carl at No Oil For Pacifists is an example of the levels to which you can fall when you stop trying to make a difference and begin just trying to insist that you really, really care. Read it all; he is talking about a great wrong. This is only posturing, a cheap and meretricious exercise in pretending to care while ignoring all the real problems and doing nothing to help. We cannot permit ourselves to be so diminished.
I watched Howard Dean on The Daily Show last night, and rarely have I seen a major political figure so thoroughly, even painstakingly, inept at appealing to voters.... If he wasn't making ham-fisted attempts to prove Democratic moralistic superiority* by selective and theologically shallow quotation from the bible--an activity that even bible-thumping Republican congressmen undertake with more caution (and erudition) than Mr Dean did--he was claiming that his was the party of real moral values. Cringe. When was the last time you heard an RNC chair say something like that? Answer: you don't, because the "Family values" guys know that you do not garner votes by saying "Everyone who voted for the other guy is immoral" . . . especially when the other guy got a majority. You get votes by talking about what your values are, which (other than gay marriage) Howard Dean had a hard time doing.2) Tom Carter, writing separately but making rather similar arguments:
Our two-party system, whatever its ills, works well only when two relatively robust parties serve to balance and moderate each other. The way things are going now, the Democratic Party is going to continue to be ineffective, and that worries me....3) Pedro at The Quietist, commenting briefly and bitingly about the brandishing of moral outrage by the left (read his whole post, please):
Democratic partisans seem to be a lot more interested in airing extremist views, criticizing and obstructing the Republican majority, and in some cases promoting their individual self-interest than they are in winning elections. The American people understand this, and they can see clearly that the Democratic Party has no coherent policy stance.
Being "right" or "wrong" is not the point in leftist politics: being moral is more about intentions and outward appearances than it is about being "correct." Mathematicians deal in "correct." We deal in emotional self-congratulation and assurance.Don't get me wrong - I think the left has the right to moral outrage. I think there is an awful lot about which to be morally outraged in today's world, and it isn't all overseas either. What bothers me is when there's nothing else but moral outrage. I feel like kidnapping Howard Dean, locking him in a room, and deprogramming him by making him write "Don't just get mad - figure out a solution!" 90 thousand times on a blackboard with squeaky chalk.
4) And for the reason why moral outrage and fine words is not enough, please see this post at Waiter Rant, courtesy The Anchoress. It's about reality. It's about being there and remaining aware and open to another's pain, confronting the hopeless and the helpless and being strong enough not to run and not to quit trying to help. Sometimes the only thing you can do may be futile as far as you can see, but that's no reason to quit. The only solution I have found to such things is to ask God for help when my strength runs out.
Well, my strength ran out a long time ago but I am still here, still fighting, but no longer afraid. For I lost the battle and I know it; now I walk only by and in the light of God. I have no real worries, only responsibility for others. I can afford to turn outward, powerful in my helplessness, and help others. And now all my weakness is turned to strength, and my past desperation is the raw material with which I can help others. This second life is greater than the first even though it's not really mine.
5) And this from Carl at No Oil For Pacifists is an example of the levels to which you can fall when you stop trying to make a difference and begin just trying to insist that you really, really care. Read it all; he is talking about a great wrong. This is only posturing, a cheap and meretricious exercise in pretending to care while ignoring all the real problems and doing nothing to help. We cannot permit ourselves to be so diminished.
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Don't let Howard Dean fool you. He lives behind a gated wall and has run roughshod over his neighbors.
Hey- it's a job (dnc chair), right?
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Hey- it's a job (dnc chair), right?
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