Win it by Five

Win it by FIVE - in other words, get out there and vote, and don't count on others to do it for you. We need all of them. What the caller and Dennis are referring to is this, specifically.

Apology Tour "Lie" Comes Full Circle

Because Obama didn't utter the word "sorry" or "apologize", they think they have their "gotcha" here. The headline has the scare quotes in the wrong place. It should be,

Apology Tour "Lie" Comes Full Circle

Romney didn't say that Obama never visited Israel. Pointing out that he has visited Israel ... as a candidate ... is a strawman argument. Romney pointed out that Obama went on a Middle East Tour, skipped Israel, and gave mea culpa's (Romney even pointed out the wording) to countries in the Middle East. It really showcased Obama's anti-colonial worldview.

The hair splitting that must be done to call this a "lie" is on the order of arguing over what the meaning of the word "is" is to wiggle out of a charge on a linguistic technicality. But this is how the Left truly thinks, and they're actually proud of it.

What this really does is expose the kind of linguistic gymnastics Obama employs when he says something is or isn't true. And the next time he makes a claim or interrupts someone in a debate saying "that's not true" ... people will have this asterisk in the backs of their minds.

Economic Recovery Plan

What I got out of the debate the other night is that apparently Obama's economic plan consists of hiring 23,000,000 new teachers.

Rounding Errors?

I had someone on the other side of the political fence the other day state that the Obama additions to the deficit were "rounding errors" compared to the additions made under Bush.

Really? Not even if you round to the nearest half-trillion. I therefore submit this chart to disabuse anyone of that notion.

Most of the people on my side of the fence were not happy with the Bush bailout. But Obama can't sidestep those, either, since he voted for it. After he took office, more bailouts, more stimulus. He and the Democrats own it.

Things That Make You Say 'Hmmmmmm'

Perhaps this is why the Obama administration doesn't want anyone looking too closely at what happend in Libya. (ht: The Blaze)  From Business Insider

The official position is that the US has refused to allow heavy weapons into Syria.

But there's growing evidence that U.S. agents—particularly murdered ambassador Chris Stevens—were at least aware of heavy weapons moving from Libya to jihadist Syrian rebels.

In March 2011 Stevens became the official U.S. liaison to the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan opposition, working directly with Abdelhakim Belhadj of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group—a group that has now disbanded, with some fighters reportedly participating in the attack that took Stevens' life.

Read more...

Again With the "Giveaway" meme

The guy who comes along and stops taking as much money from you as the previous guy isn't "giving" you money. He's taking less of yours for himself.

So if the top 1% pays 31% of the tax burden (it does on the Federal Level), and say, you drop it to 28% of the tax burden (which Romney isn't proposing, but we'll get to that in a minute) ... he isn't giving them money. They're still paying the bulk of the taxes relative to their numbers.

The whole idea of tax breaks is actually a way for the government to encourage or discourage certain behaviors. Of course, I'm pretty sure from reading their writings that the Founders did not intend for the tax code to be used to manipulate markets at all. I'm all for eliminating tax "breaks" for anyone altogether if the tax code is revamped to a more equitable [read "flat"] structure. If everybody knows up front how much they're going to have to pay in taxes on what, then they'll know how much they need to make to get by or to live the life they want to live, and they have a goal to shoot for. But I digress. This isn't going to happen any time in the near future. Still, steps toward it would be welcomed.

Taxes should not be used to punish or reward, because those in power will use it to punish those they don't like and reward those they do. Humans are predictable beasts. The founders were well aware of this, which is why they wrote they wrote the Constitution they wrote. To limit opportunities for the excesses of power.

Romney's proposal is to lower tax rates for EVERYONE but eliminate a lot of loopholes, especially for the upper class. It's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction (almost 180 degrees from the direction favored by Obama). It still has a progressive element to it (people making less than 200K won't lose the loopholes on the scale that people making more than 200K will) -- and the rich will still pay the bulk of the taxes -- but the "breaks" take some of the manipulation out of the equation - and the way Romney sees it, the rich will still bear the same proportion of the total tax burden. They'll just have fewer ways of hiding or protecting income.

IE, fewer opportunities to cheat.

Saw a great cartoon the other day -- mostly words. Had a picture of Obama, and the caption read "So we'll put money into the economy by taking it out of the economy and putting it back into the economy and tax it on the way through. Yeah, that should work."

Which is pretty much what the hyper-Keynesians are saying. I think even Keynes would be apalled at what these people are doing.

Romney is saying basically the same thing JFK said in December of 1962. They're not calling JFK a radical. And it is true. Romney is no JFK. For one thing, he doesn't sleep around on his wife, and I'm pretty sure his brother hasn't gotten off scott free after drowning a woman in a drunk driving accident and then not reporting it while he worked on his alibi. But he is saying the same thing JFK said ... and which Congress took him up on the following year with much success. But like I said, we're to believe Romney is a radical for proposing it ... because he's a Republican.

Yeah, That Should Work

Overread on the Internet

Chris D. @SthrnFriedYankE "Dear Liberals. A binder is what people used to put resumes in. A resume is something people use to get a job. A job is what we do to earn $." 

 As Dennis Miller would say ... "beautiful..."

No Labels

Whenever I hear someone piously state that they don't believe in labels, I immediately suspect a leftist bent.

"I'm just interested in what works."

Well, I'm not.  Mostly because "what works" is contextual.  What works for what and for whom?

What works for protecting my life, liberty, and property from others ... probably the simplest way to put it for me, when it comes to Government.  Anything else should come through other private persons and social institutions, ideally.

Now we've woven a bunch of extraneous government into the fabric of our lives over the years, and only the hard core Libertarians are for yanking that rug out from under people whole cloth.  But we do have to change the way we do things going ... and I hate to use this word, but I'll be damned if I let them hijack it...

Forward.

Forward is also a relative term, as it can literally mean any direction, as long as it's the direction the person using it wants to go.  Which is why it is so popular among politicians, and especially self-described "progressives".  Because "Progress" and "Forward" both suffer the same contextual bias.

But back to "No Labels".

Frankly, I don't care whether this one was started by a right leaning group or a left-leaning group (it was surely started by one or the other to appeal to people who don't tend to lean at all) ... but this post is in response to an article touting this "No Labels" meme -- which again, makes me immediately suspect.

Labels are useful.  If you won't call something what it is, there's something lacking in you.

Ah, the new No Labels™ label. :-)

We'll be sure not to use that label, as it must be forbidden in its mission statement, somewhere. ;-)

I want them to work together, too, but I want them to work together within the confines of our Constitution, and with a healthy respect for our founders' vision and how it's actually supposed to work.

"It’s tax cuts that we can no longer afford and spending programs that are growing far faster than our ability to pay for them." 

 But mostly it's spending programs that are growing far faster than our ability to pay for them on things that are not supposed to be in the purview of the Federal Government. And you can only "not afford" tax cuts if you think that you MUST spend money whether or not you collect it. When I get a pay cut, I it's not that I "can't afford the pay cut". The pay cut makes it so I can't afford that new flat panel TV. The fact that it doesn't work this way for the government ... *is* the problem.

 And it's really not that simple anyway, on the tax cuts. The "Tax Cuts Cost Money" meme makes two aggregious assumptions. One, that the money already belongs to the government in the first place, and two, that the economy is a static pie. It is not. The pie grows (and occasionally shrinks ... often due to bad taxing and spending policies by the government). If the pie grows and I tax at the same rate, I get more money. If I make a tax cut in response to that ... I might get the same amount of money I got before the pie's last growth spurt. So "tax cuts cost" isn't necessarily true.

Add to that the fact that certain tax cuts can often spur pie growth, the right tax cuts can actually increase the revenue brought in at that lower tax rate. It's happened plenty of times. Obama even acknowledged it in one of the 2008 debates, but he basically said he didn't care. He's more interested in making people pay his vision of what a "fair share" is ... for his favorite programs ... than he is in actually collecting enough money to pay for them, or revisiting whether or not we should have those programs at all. It's a bass ackward way of looking at it, and yes, both parties do it. But this guy has clearly turned it up to 11.

BSIHORL. For the originator of BSIHORLs

I promised Morgan a BSIHOR award for this one.   Funny thing is, BSIHOR is a distinctly Morgan K. Freeberg concept.  He started it.  In a way, he's getting his own award, only it's being bestowed by me.

"You know the trouble with our country today? Too many offensive people getting offended by non-offensive things."  - Morgan K. Freeberg

Spot on, Morgan.  Spot on.

(Best Sentence I've Heard Or Read Lately)

Politicizing Bengazi

The administration deliberately mischaracterizes (lies) about what happened (for political purposes!), but pointing that out is "politicizing" it. This administration thinks it has a perpetual "Get Out of Jail Free" card.

 It does not.

Miller on the Alternate Universe of the Left

Women in Binders

A truly bizzare meme regarding something Romney said in last night's debate has cropped up.  Gasp, that jerk Romney, he said "binders full of women!!!!"

What.  The. Hell... are you people even getting at?

ROMNEY: An important topic, and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men. And I -- and I went to my staff, and I said, "How come all the people for these jobs are -- are all men." They said, "Well, these are the people that have the qualifications." And I said, "Well, gosh, can't we -- can't we find some -- some women that are also qualified?"  And -- and so we -- we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. 

I went to a number of women's groups and said, "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women. I was proud of the fact that after I staffed my Cabinet and my senior staff, that the University of New York in Albany did a survey of all 50 states, and concluded that mine had more women in senior leadership positions than any other state in America. Now one of the reasons I was able to get so many good women to be part of that team was because of our recruiting effort. But number two, because I recognized that if you're going to have women in the workforce that sometimes you need to be more flexible. My chief of staff, for instance, had two kids that were still in school. She said, I can't be here until 7 or 8 o'clock at night. I need to be able to get home at 5 o'clock so I can be there for making dinner for my kids and being with them when they get home from school. So we said fine. Let's have a flexible schedule so you can have hours that work for you. 

Oh yeah.  What a horrible jerk!  He actually dismissed binders full of men because there were no women and sought out female applicants ... and hired them ... and, recognizing they needed a more flexible schedule, *gasp*, gave it to them!

It's a giant stretch from what he clearly meant -- and I don't think it was an awkward way to put it at all ... to "he wants to store women in binders" or whatever the hell the left decided they think he meant. He wondered why there weren't any female applicants brought to him. He wanted female applicants. He sought female applicants. He then got binders full of female applicants in the form of applications from females. He hired a bunch of them. Had more females in high positions in his administration than any other governor.   Horror of Horrors!!!!

If this is what the screaming liberals took away from that exchange, it tells me far more about them than it does about Romney. And the biggest thing it tells me about them is ... they got nothin' if this is what they focus on.

It also tells me they don't really give a rats ass about hiring women, all they care about is painting their opponent with dark strawman paint (of their own mixing) and shouting "I'm NOT that! Give me a gold star!"  Not only are they all talk (women in the Obama administration make an average of 18% less than males in the Obama administration)  -- and no action ... here's a guy who went out of his way to act, and they ridicule him for it because ... he's the guy we're supposed to hate.

Big Bird and Binders Full of Women. That's what you guys are talking about as we look joblessly over a fiscal cliff with Islamic Terrorism breathing down our backs. You guys are awesome, man. Funny as hell. 

Well, Joker Joe, some of us are not amused.
-------------------
addendum: Dennis Miller on Biden in the Veep debate.  Sums up the whole Left, really.  And this idiotic meme is a perfect example.

Oh, Good Thing You Pointed That Out

Opinion article in the NYT today by one Stven Rattner.

See, they've been scaring us about the wrong person, it turns out.  Romney, not Ryan, is the real radical.   Apparently because he doesn't have a ready made plan for Congress to sign in a huge hurry without reading like, say, a much less radical President might have.

No, see, I have a different take.  I think perhaps the candidate who is for, by, and of a movement and an organization whose Bible is titled "Rules for Radicals" ... just might be the real radical.   I think perhaps, when the country is headed for a fiscal cliff at a rate of half a trillion dollars a year, the party that won't even allow a budget to come to the floor to vote and the party that accelerates toward that fiscal cliff at 1.5 trillion dollars a year ... I think that party just might be the radicals.  These are drastic spending increases.  I understand that rolling back drastic increases implies a certain level of ... "drasticity", but it's the responsible thing to do.  Standing on the brake is a dramatic action, for sure, but when you're accelerating  toward a cliff it's the only responsible thing to do.  It doesn't make you a "radical".

I think a man who campaigns on the Fundamental .... Transformation .... of the country .... I think he just might be the radical.

Again,

fun·da·men·tal/ˌfəndəˈmentl/
Adjective: 
Forming a necessary base or core; of central importance.
Noun: 
A central or primary rule or principle on which something is based.
Synonyms: 
adjective. basic - essential - primary - cardinal - radical
noun. principle - basis - foundation - groundwork

trans·form/transˈfôrm/
Verb: 
Make a thorough or dramatic change in the form, appearance, or character of.
Noun: 
The product of a transformation.
Synonyms: 
verb. change - convert - alter - metamorphose - transmute
noun. transformation - metamorphosis - conversion


Fundamental Transformation is a warm, fuzzy term for Revolution, chosen specifically for it's warmness and fuzziness.

From his book, Dreams of my father ... he talks about his behavior in college.  It doesn't sound like his tune has changed, either:

"To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structured feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpets or set our stereos so loud the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society's stifling conventions. We weren't indifferent, or careless, or insecure. We were alienated."

Yeah, you chose alienation, Barack.  Our experiences shape us.  Our choices ... define us.

Obama just happened to know 60's far-left radical revolutionary William Ayers, whose father just happened to be Thomas Ayers, who just happened to be a close friend of Obama’s communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis, who just happened to work at the communist-sympathizing Chicago Defender with Vernon Jarrett, who just happened to later become the father-in-law of  leftist Valerie Jarrett, who Obama just happened to choose as his closest White House adviser. [<---shamelessly lifted from Rosie on the Right, but this is all verifiable.]


Romney, a radical?

As Joe Biden would say ....

Civil Rights or Civil Entitlements

File under, too good not to file away for future reference:

Civil rights stopped being civil rights decades ago and became civil entitlements, civil privileges allotted to especially deserving groups on account of their official victim status. These civil rights, peculiarly, deprived other people of their freedom and violated the very ethos of equality that had been the basis of the whole fight. In a tragic turn of events the fight for equality became the fight for inequality. -- Sultan Knish: Sex and the Single Socialist

HT to Gerard at American Digest.

Jackass

Our local Tea Party group's meeting this week was a debate watch party.   Good way for us to kick back in a less formal environment and do something together.

I'll tell you, the first thing we all noticed was the intense disrespect and condescention radiating from Joe Biden like a melted-down nuclear reactor.   And speaking of nuclear reactors, a lot of it was during serioius discussion of Libya, Syria, and Iran.

A younger member in our group was watching her college friends comments on twitter, etc ... and they were ... serioiusly ... along the lines of, "How can I take Ryan seriously if Biden can't take him seriously?"

To which my response would've been ... "That presumes you take Joe Biden seriously.  Why?"   To which I imagine their answer would be "nobody's lauging at him".   But I'm certain Lindsay's friends' reaction was exactly what he was going for.  It's one of Alinski's rules for radicals.  Ridicule.   But this was the weakest form of ridicule.  Simply laughing and sneering while your opponent talks.   If that wins arguments, we're in deep trouble.

Sometimes I truly weep for my country.  If it weren't for young ladies like Lindsay, I might have to throw in the towel.

Well nobody was laughing at Joe because none of this was any laughing matter.

Some are complaining that Ryan was too deferential.   Maybe he was.   But I can't complain.   I think Romney won by being the obvious adult in the room, and I liked that strategy.   And some before the debate were concerned that if Ryan were too aggressive it'd look like a young bully beating up on an old man.

Instead it looked like a rude old coot who thinks way too much of himself interrupting people every 30 seconds and talking over them.

Which is precisely why I don't watch cable news channels for my news.  It's never a debate.  It's who can keep the other guy from saying what he came to say most effectively.

But what it did do was what the Dems needed it to do, and that was to amp up their base.  Most of their base really does think that the loudest person wins ... which is why they're typically the loudest people in an argument.   "I stopped you from saying what you were trying to say, therefore I win the argument."  The strategy last night was not to change minds, but to increase voter turnout for their side.  They may have succeeded.  Some.  Hopefully not enough.

I'm hoping Biden gets some serious fact-checking done on some of his claims, especially on Libya.  And Afghanistan.   And the Catholic Church ... which he feels is "on board" with their program.

 

A couple of key points that got lost behind Joe's bluster ...

• Failing to raise taxes as much as the previous administration would have is not a tax "cut"
• If the Catholic Church is happy with the health care plan situation, why does it keep suing the Obama Administration over it?

 And Joe brought up the alleged $5 Trillion tax cut a couple more times as well.   I guess it wasn't surprising that Joe knew more details about it than Ryan did, since it doesn't actually exist and Joe's side made it up out of whole cloth ....

In the end, here is the overriding difference in what the two sides are offering:

Dems: "help" the unemployed by taking more money from the people who create jobs and either outright giving it to them, or giving it to companies and industrys it favors to "create" jobs which would not exist without the subsidies -- meaning the government gets to "pick" favorites  -- a big step toward central planning.   Go pick up any book by Hayek or Sowell for why this is not a good idea.

Republicans:  leave money in the hands of those who create jobs so that they can create competitive jobs based upon what the market wants, creating more taxable income and less "need" to redistribute in the first place -- lessening the strain on entitlements, growing the economy, keeping us competetive in the world.

Dems: Alienate our friends, kiss up to our enemies, leaving us with less respect from both.

Republicans:  Stand up for our principles, do our enemies no favors, and support our friends.

Dems: Make the Constitution as irrelevant as they already think it is.

Republicans:  Well ... they're better, but they need their feet held to the fire all the same.  They try too hard to get Democrats to like them rather than change their hearts and minds.

Nuns Off The Wagon

I knew something was up when I saw an article by E.J. Dionne touting a message from "Nuns On the Bus".

One of my favorite pressure groups, Nuns on the Bus, will be launching a five-day tour on Wednesday through the red, blue and purple parts of Ohio.

I grew up Catholic.  I've never heard of "Nuns on the Bus." But if E.J. is touting them, there's a good bet they're out of favor with the Catholic Church (especially if they're backing Democrats this particular election cycle).

They are.

It's a group of Cafeteria Catholics who really don't appear to like much of the food in the food line, but they like the cred that particular cafeteria gives them.   You might say they want to have their cake and nothing else.

Who better than a group of women who have consecrated their lives to the Almighty to remind us that our decisions in November have ethical consequences? 

Ah, you mean like the entire hierarchy of the Catholic Church?

But my favorite part came near the end when Dionne tartly stated:

Nuns on the Bus will no doubt be criticized from the right for intervening in a political campaign, something that doesn't bother conservatives when religious figures engage on their side.

There's that ubiquitous projection again.  Those on the left have scathing criticism for the mere act of religious figures or organizations (especially if they are Christian ones) merely state their positions -- even the official positions of the Church ... in the context of a political campaign.   Unless, of course, it backs up the Leftist message.

Those on the right, such as myself, may criticize the Nuns on the Bus -- but it would be on the substance of their positions, not on the mere fact that they have some sort of religious cred and dare to speak.

They're either right about things, or wrong about things.

But it's the left that constantly runs to tout credentials over substance -- because they don't want to have the argument.  They just want to point at the "expert" that agrees with them and say "the debate is over".

The "Nuns" did say that they spoke at the Democratic Convention on condition that they could say they're Pro-Life, and I applaud them for sticking up for that, at least.

But E.J. thinks we should listen to the parts of their message he agrees with and buy into it because, hey, they're Nuns -- while allowing him to ignore the parts he doesn't like.

The Nuns say they want "Social Justice", which is little more than a Marxist buzzword that sounds good.  I mean, who doesn't want social justice, right?   But Marxists mean something very specific when they use that term, while the rest of us tend to think of it in general terms.

And they are general terms that are for us to decide, not followers of the Church of St. Karl of Marx.   Each of us, individually and in voluntarily formed groups is responsible for helping our fellow man in the ways we see fit.   Because you can't have religious freedom when one man's social justice is providing or subsidizing a service with public funds that another group finds morally abhorrent and the State is in charge of administering it.

They don't want separation of Church and State.  They want to build the State into the Church.

This basically means Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato . And they call us  Fascists.

Projection.  Again.

Liberty, Bilderberg, Ron Paul

Tom Woods, a brilliant man for whom I have much respect, posted this cartoon on Facebook, fully conceeding that some people wouldn't like it.

Yeah, I do like it.  I understand it.
But the Ron Paulers started coming out of the woodwork in the comments, saying such things as:

Only a POLITICAL MORON would vote for EITHER Obama OR Romney! STUPID is as SHEOPLE vote! BUSHBAMA! OBAMITT! Welcome to the USSA! The United States of Terrorism!

*Sigh*

I think more likely conservatives aren't trying to kick a field goal with Romney holding, it's more like a vote for him is a punt.

The object of a punt is ... while you won't have the ball, you have a good chance to move it far away from the goal you're defending and then you defend -- and hopefully when you get the ball back you're in a better postition to score.

We won't change the candidates we get until we change the minds of the electorate. The culture, if you will.

And that's gonna take time. Time we don't have right now, with literal Marxists on our one yard line, looking for four more downs to score.

Too many votes for Paul will be intercepted by the Marxists, and they'll get their 4 downs to try to score and they'll be in a very good position to do it.

Paul had a chance to make his case. It's not that he's wrong, it's that not enough people are convinced that he's right. Paul's not going to win, no matter how many of his supporters vote for him, because HE DOESN'T HAVE ENOUGH SUPPORTERS -- even when you count sympathizers such as myself.

Like it or not, it's a coalition game. You can vote "correctly" to your grave, or vote strategically and live another day to convince more people what's right.

Taxes, Taxes, and Taxes

Over on HKB (facebook, "The Hello Kitty of Bloggin'™") again, Morgan pointed out a link to a Think Progress article where they libs there think they've got their "Gotcha".

They don't.

There are several ways to talk about taxes.

There is the dollar amount of taxes one pays.  There is the rate of tax one  pays.   There is the total amount of tax that the government collects.  And there is the percentage of the tax burden one pays.

Democrats and our self-described "Progressives" like to shuffle these around as if they are interchangable to make things sound like they want them to sound.

From the context in the debate, it is clear that Romney meant that he will not reduce the third measure on "the rich".  In other words, when he reduces tax rates for everyone, the rich will still be shouldering about the same percentage of the resulting tax burden.  Which, by the way, is the vast majority of the tax burden anyway.

And for you snarkers out there who want to talk about sales tax and property tax, etc... we're talking about the Presidency, the Federal Government, hence, we're talking about Federal taxes here.   Even payroll taxes are paid by the employer, typically.  Yes, even the employee's portion.  All of the money comes from the employer.  And the employee never sees the portion he "pays".  The employer sends *all* of it to the Federal Government.  It only "belonged" to the employee in a ledger.  It was never in his hands.

These are not contradictory statements, but of course the Dems want you to think they are.

Romney is absolutely right that the only way out of the hole we are in is by growing the tax base ... by growing the economy.  There is a point where more money taxed at a lower rate yields more money taken in in taxes.  And an overtaxed economy is restricted from growing.  Of course, Democrats don't want anybody thinking that way, but even they know it's true (see Obama in the 2008 debates -- he acknowledged this but said it didn't matter in his vision of "fairness").  But they're too busy casting themselves in the role of Robin Hood to admit it in public.

So the Dems stick with the class warfare and fan the flames of discontent with vague (and sometimes not-so-vague) Marxist rhetoric to help divide the country into little groups of people to pander to with other peoples' money to buy votes and gain power.

That's pretty much it.

But I've ALWAYS voted Democrat

"... and I can't have some bigot running my country."

Fellow Tea Partier Robert  was advising on facebook that we can't just keep preaching to the choir, we have to take the argument to the liberals.

I have sympathy for that argument, I really do.  I do have a slightly different perspective on it, complete with sober expectations of the liberals involved.  But I appreciate Robert's sentiment and it will at least partially lead you to "Stop an Echo".

To wit, a woman commented on his musings:

Yea well, this stupid person is voting for Obama. Get over it. I don't want some bigot running my country!

Ignorant shades of darkness falling, Echo Stopping Time  
Out of the mist your voice is calling, Echo Stopping Time 
When murky accusations mark the end of light
You'll hear me, at Echo Stopping Time

Note that by implication she is saying that Robert and I do want a bigot running "her" country.  I had to ask what made her think Romney is a bigot?  The fact that Barack Obama thinks he's just a "Typical  White Person™?"

Irony rocks, by the way.

She didn't answer me, but Robert asked who the "stupid person" was, and she replied

umm, I'm the stupid person because I'm a democrat and have been all my life. As long as our house and senates can't come together does it really matter who is president???

Oh, dear.   Well, I could just let that first part stand, because if that's the way she really thinks, well I should just let her hang in her own word noose.

umm, I'm the stupid person because I'm a democrat and have been all my life. 

Touche, sweetie. I have nothing to add. :-)

Well, except for the fact that I do.  Mostly because of this bit.

As long as our house and senates can't come together does it really matter who is president???

Yeah.  About that...

The most obvious point is that apparently she does think it matters, because she doesn't "want some bigot running my country"  .... so she's voting for the guy whom she perceives is not one over the guy she's been told to believe is one.   So she kind of quashed her own argument in a puff of logic there.

But what's really going on here is she's trying to back off of the bigot claim ... the "my guy's better than yours because if I vote for my guy, I'm not a bigot" belief.  Which is really what this is all about at its core, or it's what she and way to many others are making it all about.   She backs off to what she believes is more common ground, "well a pox on all of them, it doesn't matter... " expecting Robert and me to back down politely and provide her an out.  Which in years past we probably would have done.

Ah, but it does matter, even to her contrary to what she said there, as will be evidenced when she walks into the voting booth in a few weeks and gets a rush of GoodPerson Fever as she pulls the lever for Obama, which I have no doubt she will.

Time to get out the ACME Ray Gun of Echo Stoppage™ and turn it on the situation full blast.

So, just so I get this straight... you called Romney a bigot. You've got nothing to back that up, you just did because that's what Democrats do .... well, all the time with their opponents, but especially if they're backed into a corner and they've got nothing but "I'm a Democrat and I've been a Democrat all my life" so I'll support the Democrat because I'm a Democrat, and that's my team right or wrong. "

To which the rest of us say, "huh????"

The default fall-back position on this is to say "well they're ALL guilty" ... which usually works because nobody's perfect and we on this side have, in the past, been too polite not to let is slide. 

Well we're not buying this time around (or last time or the time before) ... because yeah, we know that the Republicans are too much like the Democrats ... which is a big part of the problem, but at least they still have an inkling of what the founding principles of this country are and will at least do lip service to them and often a sight better.

Even if Romney were a bigot, which I doubt more than I doubt the moon is made of green cheese, I'd rather have a bigot in the White House who at least feels restrained by the Constitution than a Marxist who is actively trying to circumvent it in any way he can because he wants it replaced with something Mr. Marx would approve of more highly and he knows a majority of the American People would balk at it if he tried to out and out do it.

What do you think "Fundamentally Transform" means? Read their bible, Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals". I did. "Transform" is their NewSpeak, friendly word for "Revolution" ... with a smile. Literally, it is. They say as much.

fun·da·men·tal/ˌfəndəˈmentl/
Adjective:
Forming a necessary base or core; of central importance.
Noun:
A central or primary rule or principle on which something is based.
Synonyms:
adjective. basic - essential - primary - cardinal - radical
noun. principle - basis - foundation - groundwork

trans·form/transˈfôrm/
Verb:
Make a thorough or dramatic change in the form, appearance, or character of.
Noun:
The product of a transformation.
Synonyms:
verb. change - convert - alter - metamorphose - transmute
noun. transformation - metamorphosis - conversion

As in "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America" -- Barack Obama, right before the 2008 election, about two blocks away from where I work.

What the hell does "Fundamentally Transform" mean? It means, literally, make it something that is nothing like it is. You don't make something that you love something completely different from what it is.

He's an educated man. He knows what these words mean. And his hard core support network knows what they mean, too.

Which is why Sam Webb, Chairman Communist Party USA said of him, "This president can be a transformative leader (he has that potential in my view), but only if he embraces and fights for a transformative agenda."

There's that nice word again, "transformative". He means "revolutionary". Oh yes, he does, no question about it.

Wake the hell up.

The Dems have tried too much too quickly (and in a way, I thank them for this) and the American people are balking. Obama/Pelosi/Reid and company are standing there with their pants around their ankles saying, "who, MEEE???"

Yeah. You.

Well another woman was concerned that I was wasting my breath.  And perhaps I was.  On the first woman.  But that's not what Echo Stopping is about.

Do you really believe that they're educable?

Well, there's always a small amount of hope. But I doubt I'll convince her of anything. However, if others are "listening" ....

It's all a part of my "Stop an Echo" campaign .... which I encourage you to join.

The second woman replied

I know five people [..]who would vote for Satan himself if he had a (D) behind his name. You can't even talk to people like that!

Which is pretty much true.  Can't really argue with that, outside of the slight "always hope" argument.

Which I gave:

I know many former liberals who woke up.

One of them is Bill Whittle. Who is now one of our best spokesmen.

Be polite. Be an ambassador for us. Don't raise your voice impolitely. Know your stuff. And calmly present your case while calmly questioning theirs.  Bluntly.  But calmly..

Again, EVEN if you don't convince the person you're talking to, there are other people who are less convinced, or are in danger of being convinced of the other side's case ... who need to hear that 1) there is another argument, and 2) it's a lot more rational

In the end, as evidenced by my Stop an Echo post ... it's best to let them hang themselves with their own words. That way, the realization comes from within, not forced by you. That is the best hope of awakening. When it happens as a result of inspecting their own thought processes -- which admittedly most of them won't do, because they've got too much of their image wrapped up in GoodPerson fever (google that, and look for posts from the House of Eratosthenes) ... and any admission to the contrary will implode their entire sense of self-worth. Only the emotionally stable ones will be capable of reconstructing one out of truth and slipping into it like an old shoe ... one custom built by themselves.

This is why Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow, et. al. were completely freaking the other night. Their worldview was threatened, and they've got no other recourse than to spin like wind-up toys. Pride will not let them abandon the false narrative they've woven their self-worth into.

Which is why Pride is one of the seven deadly sins. You can't grow or correct course when you're married to it.