“Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think.”
“Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do.” Bertrand Russell
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In August, I turned 64.
Worn down by my daily dose of ipecac, I feel my age.
Since the election of Ronald Reagan, I have watched America become increasingly crass.
It is now common for Americans to cheer -- publicly -- the execution of human beings, the death of the uninsured, and the denial of civil rights. http://thehill.com/video/campaign/183941-dnc-video-attacks-gop-for-not-criticizing-booing-of-gay-soldier
Most of this crassness derives from an Unholy Trinity of Greed, witless Consumption and piggish Self Interest.
The motto of The Republican Party has become: "We are all in this... alone."
Golden Calf worship is most fervent among the 1% who possess most, and, ironically, among white people who possess least. http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105
At both ends of this slurpy spectrum we find existential contempt for The Common Good.
Besotted by "stuff" - yet drooling for More - The Incorrigibly Dull hold no brief with Reason, Research or Rigor.
Any manifestation of Luminous Rationality reminds The Dimwittery that they have sold their birthright for a mess of pottage.
Enter "The Dirty Tricksters... and the winning strategy of "just making shit up."
Here's how The Big Lie works...
A Tea Party Case Study: Obamacare
Consider this video critique of The Affordable Care Act. http://www.youtube.com/watch?
A robust argument - succinctly stated, precisely itemized, well measured, and abundantly referenced.
From every vantage, the condemnation of Obamacare looks like God's Truth.
Chapter and Verse.
Literally interpreted.
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Now...
Consider the debunking of this same set of lies - fabricated for no other reason than to lead people into Falsehood - and the partisan advantage accruing therefrom.
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/
http://realhistoryarchives.
http://pleasecutthecrap.
http://www.politifact.com/
If you prefer to do your own fact-checking, here's the text of H.R. 3590 (the final form of H.R. 3200). http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/
If you have continued reading until now, you are in the company of people who enjoy a good dialectical romp - a probing exposee' - the rescue of Truth from the jaws of jackals.
Those who have stopped reading are now busy forwarding the Obamacare clip to everyone in their email directory.
Although marginally literate, they are composing an all caps "title" to be followed by multiple exclamation points.
The first line of the text will read: "Forward this to everyone you know!!!
And, as night follows day, I will tarred an elitist for pointing out that "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Patrick_Moynihan
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Sobering lessons from patriotic notables:
http://realhistoryarchives.
http://pleasecutthecrap.
http://www.politifact.com/
If you prefer to do your own fact-checking, here's the text of H.R. 3590 (the final form of H.R. 3200). http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/
If you have continued reading until now, you are in the company of people who enjoy a good dialectical romp - a probing exposee' - the rescue of Truth from the jaws of jackals.
Those who have stopped reading are now busy forwarding the Obamacare clip to everyone in their email directory.
Although marginally literate, they are composing an all caps "title" to be followed by multiple exclamation points.
The first line of the text will read: "Forward this to everyone you know!!!
And, as night follows day, I will tarred an elitist for pointing out that "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Patrick_Moynihan
***
Sobering lessons from patriotic notables:
Benjamin Franklin to Robert Morris
25 December, 1783
"The Remissness of our People in Paying Taxes is highly blameable; the Unwillingness to pay them is still more so. I see, in some Resolutions of Town Meetings, a Remonstrance against giving Congress a Power to take, as they call it, the People's Money out of their Pockets, tho' only to pay the Interest and Principal of Debts duly contracted. They seem to mistake the Point. Money, justly due from the People, is their Creditors' Money, and no longer the Money of the People, who, if they withold it, should be compell'd to pay by some Law.
All Property, indeed, except the Savage's temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions, absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity and the Uses of it. All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it." http://press-pubs.uchicago.
Teddy Roosevelt: “Too much cannot be said against the men of wealth who sacrifice everything to getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensible to every duty, regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a fortune, and putting his fortune only to the basest uses —whether these uses be to speculate in stocks and wreck railroads himself, or to allow his son to lead a life of foolish and expensive idleness and gross debauchery, or to purchase some scoundrel of high social position, foreign or native, for his daughter. Such a man is only the more dangerous if he occasionally does some deed like founding a college or endowing a church, which makes those good people who are also foolish forget his real iniquity. These men are equally careless of the working men, whom they oppress, and of the State, whose existence they imperil. There are not very many of them, but there is a very great number of men who approach more or less closely to the type, and, just in so far as they do so approach, they are curses to the country." Theodore Roosevelt - February, 1895 - http://books.google.com/books?
Abraham Lincoln: "In my present position I could scarcely be justified were I to omit raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism. It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life. Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless. Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." Read more: State of the Union Address: Abraham Lincoln (December 3, 1861) — InfoPlease.com http://www.infoplease.com/t/
Reagan Budget Director, David Stockman, the fellow who oversaw the largest tax cut in the history of humankind: “In 1985, the top five percent of the households – the wealthiest five percent – had net worth of $8 trillion – which is a lot. Today, after serial bubble after serial bubble, the top five per cent have net worth of $40 trillion. The top five percent have gained more wealth than the whole human race had created prior to 1980.” Elsewhere in this same CBS “60 Minutes” interview, Mr. Stockman describes America's obsession with tax cuts as "religion, something embedded in the catechism," "rank demagoguery, we should call it what it is," and "We've demonized taxes. We've created... the idea that they're a metaphysical evil." And finally, this encompassing observation: "The Republican Party, as much as it pains me to say this, should be ashamed of themselves." - http://www.cbsnews.com/video/
Pat Buchanan (the living American who has spent most time inside the White House): "The Republican philosophy might be summarized thus: To hell with principle; what matters is power, and that we have it, and that they do not.” "Where the Right Went Wrong" - http://www.amazon.com/Where-
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Adolf Hitler - "All this was inspired by the principle--which is quite true within itself--that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying." Adolf Hitler , Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X
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