Obama leans to the Left, leans to the Right, leans…
One of the odd things about Obama’s presidency so far is that, although he’s been consistent in his habit of changing his mind, he’s been somewhat inconsistent in the direction he’s gone when he does so.
In the case of the war on terror, he has—at least temporarily and sporadically—tacked somewhat to the Right of his campaign rhetoric, much to the dismay of the Left. It turns out that perhaps the villainous Bush wasn’t so very awful after all; some of the choices he made about wiretaps and military tribunals may have been difficult to accept, but they were probably the best ones possible at the time, since Obama is keeping some of them in place and studying others.
But on the all-important issue of the economy, Obama has veered sharply and consistently to the Left of his campaign persona—except for a few revealing pre-election slips here and there (that only the Right seemed to notice) such as his “spread the wealth” statement to Joe the Plumber. Obama has used the financial crisis as an opportunity to remake this country in a far more radical direction than he initially indicated; one that could be called ultra-liberal, socialist, statist, European welfare model, or all of the above, depending on your inclination.
What’s a person to make of this? Karl Rove observes the following, with which I concur:
Mr. Obama’s appealing campaign images turned out to have been fleeting. He ran hard to the left on national security to win the nomination, only to discover the campaign commitments he made were shallow and at odds with America’s security interests.
Mr. Obama ran hard to the center on economic issues to win the general election. He has since discovered his campaign commitments were obstacles to ramming through the most ideologically liberal economic agenda since the Great Society.
Mr. Obama either had very little grasp of what governing would involve or, if he did, he used words meant to mislead the public. Neither option is particularly encouraging.
No, not very encouraging.
And the behavior continues. In today’s foreign policy speech, Obama tacked to the Left again on security, indicating that he’s not given up defending his rash promise to close Guantanamo despite the lack of what might be called an exit strategy, and despite the current opposition of much of his own party. Nor has he stopped repeating as an unsubstantiated article of faith that techniques such as waterboarding have enhanced recruitment for al Qaeda rather than detracted from it. Nor has he finally acknowledged the benefits such techniques accrued in terms of protecting the US from planned future attacks.
In his speech, Obama refered to “brutal methods like water-boarding” and explicitly “reject[s] the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation.” Note three things: (a) he refers to “brutal methods” in the plural, although as far as I know there’s been no assertion that any technique other than waterboarding has raised serious objections; (b) he ignores the fact that this particular method was used on a total of three hardened terrorists who had failed to respond to all other methods of questioning, and who were rightly suspected to hold information about imminent attacks on US citizens; and (c) he denies the fact that such methods did yield important information about these attacks, unobtainable by other means that had already been tried on them.
Lofty rhetoric does not change these facts, although it (and the cooperation of the press) can certainly help keep them from the attention of the American public.
Meanwhile, the decidedly uncharismatic Dick Cheney continues his efforts to defend the Bush administration in a speech that immediately followed Obama’s. In his address, Cheney went back in memory to describe the experience of 9/11 and the mindset that followed it, both of which were instrumental in the decisions he and Bush made at the time about national security. He stated [emphasis mine]:
We had a lot of blind spots after the attacks on our country. We didn’t know about al-Qaeda’s plans, but Khalid Sheikh Muhammed and a few others did know. And with many thousands of innocent lives potentially in the balance, we didn’t think it made sense to let the terrorists answer questions in their own good time, if they answered them at all…
CIA personnel trained to deal with a few malevolent men….were carefully chosen from within the CIA, and were specially prepared to apply techniques within the boundaries of their training and the limits of the law. Torture was never permitted, and the methods were given careful legal review before they were approved. Interrogators had authoritative guidance on the line between toughness and torture, and they knew to stay on the right side of it.
Even before the interrogation program began, and throughout its operation, it was closely reviewed to ensure that every method used was in full compliance with the Constitution, statutes, and treaty obligations. On numerous occasions, leading members of Congress, including the current speaker of the House, were briefed on the program and on the methods. Yet for all these exacting efforts to do a hard and necessary job and to do it right, we hear from some quarters nothing but feigned outrage based on a false narrative.
I’m not sure that Obama’s outrage is feigned, although I am quite certain that Nancy Pelosi’s and that of many other Democrats is. But feigned outrage or sincere, President Obama is misrepresenting the facts to the American people.
Of course, Obama is free to decide to reject waterboarding as a technique in the future. There are certainly valid arguments to be made for that stance—but one of them cannot be that it didn’t work, or that other methods would have gotten the same results. And it’s no accident that, despite Obama’s release of the so-called “torture memos,” he’s refused to let the American public see the evidence that would prove their efficacy in preventing attacks. That would go against his own “false narrative.”
[NOTE: Here’s an interesting tidbit of information: Dick Cheney’s approval numbers have been going up since he left office, even before delivering today’s speech.]
“One of the odd things about Obama’s presidency so far is that, although he’s been consistent in his habit of changing his mind, he’s been somewhat inconsistent in the direction he’s gone when he does so.
Personally, I think he tailors his message for his audience.
Based on his actions with respect to the economy, I agree he’s gone hard left. With respect to defense, I think that while he is not fool enough to allow ideology to ruin the emerging stabilization in Iraq and he also seems to be taking the right actions in Afghanistan, some of Obama’s other actions are troubling. for instance his refusal to refurbish our ageing nuclear weapons stockpile.
Also, he needs to open a dialog with India, which he has studiously ignored and with Pakistan’s imminent implosion, may be our one stable ally in the region.
All in all though, it seems to me that defense and foreign affairs are for him a distracting side show to his main agenda, remaking ( or ruining, take your pick) the American economy.
Obama never imagined he’d be propelled to the led position in the primary, he was running for 2012, otherwise he would have distanced himself soon from Wright.
Obama wasn’t completely to the Left in in matters of National Security, he praised returning troops at Ft. Hood and added that he would go after Al Qaeda in Pakistan if it came down to it.
Nothing new here. Mass lies fed to the deluded masses. Pray for our nation.
dissimulation..
the sociopath says waht is convenience at any point to reach a goal. if he was consistent then he would succeed less. the key for the sociopaht is not to be in a place where the choices can be recorded and measured.
oops!
I don’t think that Obama really wants to destroy the USA. He just doesn’t have a firm grip on reality. He may want to destroy Western Civilization As We Know It, but I’m sure he hasn’t thought through the consequences.
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Can we suppose that Obama’s refusal to release the memos Cheney has asked for is strictly a temporary refusal, politically and temporally conditioned, since Obama surely understands that they will be released eventually, whether by unauthorized leak or by some succeeding administration in the hands of his political opposition? So, he can keep up whatever pretense he chooses, both as to the reason he won’t release them and as to his characterizations of what it is the memos demonstrate for some indefinite time to come, whereupon, once he feels the issue has died away, quietly put them out into a disinterested void. And while he can’t ultimately change the view an informed public will have of those memos, he can enjoy a politically advantageous period of uncertainty about them overwhelmed by his assertions (presumably false assertions, imo) .
This was a panic response showing his weakness. The need to placate the hard left on the high profile GITMO issues (high profile to them) shows fear that they will not be tolerant on this. Other than the delivery of soaring speeches, he doesn’t understand the dynamics of leadership at all.
If Obama appears inconsistent, it is because we have yet to find the correct perspective from which to judge him. With Bill Clinton ihis consistency was poll-driven; he could take positions that seemed ideologically contradictory because the polls told him it was the popular decision.
When we discover Obama’s “fulcrum” everything will start to make sense.
T, I suspect that Obama has to find it first.
Obama gives the impression of a lottery winner, of someone whose fortunes suddenly and unexpectedly changed dramatically, and he has no idea what he’s doing. That’s my conjecture, and it fits the observations. Specifically, it explains his bouncing like a pinball from one perspective to its opposite and back again.
think or believe? the two are not the same even though most use them interchangeably. i would say in your case believe since there is overwhelming evidence if you literally throw everything on the table, a preponderance.
you would have to ignore that everyone around him as a child was subscribing to an ideology that required the end of capitalism and a dictatorship, then ignore all the way the people who follow the same ideology all knew him and moved him into place, then ignore that once in place he has been incredibly destructive. breaking the rule of law, seizing control of the major banks and manufactureres, distributing TRILLIONS to those who for that reason alone will work to keep him there, piss off our friends, look like fools to our enemies, a president bowed, create a budget larger than all other budgets for the country combined (and thats just the first year, not the whole term), stocked the state with theives and tax cheats, all at the curious time that there is no opposition in either house or senate, doesnt produce a valid birth cert with parents and birth location, loves everyone till he has to exterminate them under a bus, has shown he will personally go after people, will put terrorists in general population (so the three guys caught by the FBI would have been hooked up and trained properly rather than left to themselves), terrorized ny with a two jet fiasco, destabilized the middle east, emboldened korea, mishandled russia with a button from staples, sent the queen movies she cant watch (what a rip that must have been), pretends he is like lincoln when he is 180 degrees the other way (not to mention lincoln was a republican), started a trade war, cosied up to other totalitarians who practice the same ideology as all the people he grew up around, studied with by his own admission, and even insured his daughters names related to the birth nation.
i could go on as everyone knows.
so i ask… think, or believe? cause if its think, then explain all that away as just bad luck. dark cloud had it easier.
john cleese made a darling boring movie with a title something like, how to really really really really annoy people. the whole thing is a lesson on how to sadistically torture people as you wish without any repercussions at all by doing it under a cloak of assistance and feigning incompetence.
i had to look…
john cleese how to irritate people
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89ixkPJEufM
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Irritate_People
the car salesman one reminds me of politicians..
as long as people think that the bad outcome is not intentional they will forgive anything. literally. the trick is to say “hey! wait a minute, there are almost nothing but bad outcomes”. like the guy tested for psycic ability who gets a statistically significant run of wrong answers not right ones.
A guess: Obama arrived as an ideologue on many fronts, but a) would rather do well than poorly, and b) is deeply concerned with Obama 2012. The actual security briefings he receives contradict his ideology in immediate, measurable ways, causing him to reevaluate his position. On economic matters however, the rent does not come due for some time, and data is ambiguous at first. He is free to hold his fanciful economic notions without challenge at present.
I would like to think that as his economic and general foreign-policy ideas don’t work he will re-evaluate them, but I very much doubt it. There is such an enormous amount of information on both subjects that one can go many years (some go entire lifetimes) picking out those bits of data that confirm one’s bias.
AVI I would phrase those doubts even stronger. I am not a Psychiatrist, nor did I stay at a . . .; but I have come to believe that there is a pathology at work.
Pathology superimposed on ideology is lethal. We have plenty of historical examples to guide us in this. There have been more in my life-time alone than I can bear to think about.
Please! Welcoming some soldiers at Ft. Hood and “talking” about pursuing Bin Laden to Pakistan is supposed to encourage us?
German newspapers are reporting that he will apologize for the “war crimes” of bombing Dresden during his trip next month. I suppose Bush should feel good that Obama will now label FDR a war criminal also. Wonder how the Dimocrats will like that? If he ever visits Japan we know HST will join the ranks. Sooner, or later, Americans are going to get tired of this.
Some on the Left are atwitter on their talk radio (XM167) tonight because they report Hussein either has or intends to propose indefinite detention for domestic suspects who are a threat to national security “but cannot be charged and tried”. Their developing amazement is a very good thing (though they liken BHO to the evil Cheney in this), combining the Left with the Right in favor of due process for the Volk.
I have noticed that, overall, since taking office, and especially after there had been some stirrings of protest over the Porkulus Bill, Obonga has been throwing more red meat at his Far Left base. I have not observed him taking to the Center or the Right at any time since taking power. As for the continuing war, I believe he is looking for an exit strategy, if he can find one, and that the Pentagon and CIA have been pressing him to stay the course. But I don’t think his heart is in the fight.
This is where neo and I part company about Obama. She sees him as driven by factors that are best described in the parlance of her profession, which does carry weight, as far as it goes. I see him more ideologically driven, even as I do not dismiss the validity of neo’s psychological analysis of Obonga. His instincts are to remain faithful to the revisionist Marxist tradition he was raised in. His political handlers, I’m sure, do try to dress things up so as to broaden his appeal. But he remains, at the core, a man of the collectivist/statist tradition.
I make it a point to never listen to a speech of his. I watch what he does, not listen to a word he says. I have heard parts of speeches when it is unavoidable. For the life of me, I cannot see what others see in him. Even stylistically, I do not see what the big deal is. So, when he did his schtick today I could not care less. Too many people get taken in with his words, and let his actions pass without notice.
Does anyone have any theories as to why so much energy and political capital are being expended on the whole detention, rendition, interrogation, and intel gathering issue at this time? It seems that a lot of effort is being expended to go after President Bush and his policies MONTHS AFTER HE LEFT OFFICE.
Are we being treated with some kind of political misdirection intended to get us to focus on something instead of something else?
Neo:
“[NOTE: Here’s an interesting tidbit of information: Dick Cheney’s approval numbers have been going up since he left office, even before delivering today’s speech.]
Good for him and all of the rest of us balding old white guys.
I wonder how long Dick Cheney could watch Lynne Cheney be waterboarded before he thought it was more than “enhanced interrogation?”
I mean, you people have every right to think some of these guys deserve whatever they get, I won’t argue with that opinion.
He leans to the left,
He leans to the right,
He leans to the left and he obfuscates about,
He does the hokey pokey and he turns himself around,
That’s what it’s all a-bout!
(Sorry, couldn’t help myself this morning….lol)
Logern.
I think you’re making the point that it works.
Logern,
Are you telling me that you would rather have had a thousand dead innocent Americans over KSM with water up his nose? That’s the moral argument you’re making.
Being able to rough up captured enemy for info seems a no brainer to me. And it has been for every society and civilisation, including America, as far back as history goes.
Liberals and their touchy feely mindset that views ill will towards enemies as the cause of all war is what’s new. Maybe some Hindu sects who wont step on bugs out of respect for life trumps modern liberals. But at the breakneck speed libs are evolving, they’ll soon be top dog in the weirdest ideology in history category.
Fred, none of the adulation Obama receives is based on the reality of what he does or says. The praise he receives fills a moral need among his admirers to affirm the symbols of their own life narrative. He gives the Left a vehicle for feeling virtuous and parading their virtue, which is their claim to power.
Having said that, Obama must keep these folks symbolically on board. So if he does something sensible that he must do in order to survive in the real world (for example, by continuing the substance of the Bush detention and interrogation policies), look for him to choose new symbolic actions to re-assure his base. Cutting the Defense budget is one such action. Another will be to launch a debate on “social issues” in some form, and here race is probably his best bet. We will see whether there is some hysteria over race (or some other social issue) by mid-summer, and whether the media is helping create an atmosphere of “moral panic” in which people can be stampeded into affirming support for the “reasonableness” of this administration. I see the Limbaugh kerfuffle as preparing the battle zone for future operations.
But I think the administration has the lost the debate on enhanced interrogation. Look for them to change the subject, and pretend that it never happened.
I think the amazing thing here is that the debate about the war on terror, about detainees, it’s still being hammered out — the far Left, and Obama to much degree, believes this topic was concluded — it hasn’t and it’s a grave misapprehension to think so.
Minor aside: Jesse Ventura’s comments were not surprising, he’s such a goober.
Based upon their contrasting speeches on Thursday, I think The One is quite rattled by Cheney and is somewhat fearful of him. Cheney is putting his neck far out on the line by being very specific as to the briefings given and the safeguards then in place legally regarding the use of interrogation techniques. If Obama and his cohorts in Congress, specifically San Fran Nan, have any evidence that Cheney is wrong or simply lying, they could easily put a quick end to Cheney and his criticism. One “snap” and Cheney would be gone. But, this has not been done, and the Dems would have no hesitation in doing so if they could, so one must assume that Cheney is telling the truth. This is one reason I think Obama is so rattled by Cheney. The other reason is because of Obama’s fear of Cheney. As a narcissist, and possible sociopath, Obama seems to come slightly unhinged when criticized, and Cheney is doing this in a very severe manner. Moreover, this is not someone who is in any way susceptible to Obama’s “charms” and “snake oil,” and Obama knows it. I think one of the results will be that the Dems great “Truth Commission,” a/k/a “The Stallin Show Trials of the 1930’s” is now DOA.
Fred,
You guessed it!
I suspect that
a) there is a political (and deep seated emotional) need among the left to utterly destroy and undo all Bush has done and to repudiate him into oblivion. If this were the old USSR, Bush would be airbrushed out of old photos.
b) It is a distraction for the public to keep their minds off of the economic bad news. Take a look at the Drudge headlines just his morning…
I just picked that at random. It doesn’t look good and is going to get worse. By keeping Bush & Co. in the spotlight Obama & the democrats also keep alive the meme that they inherited all of this from the ‘evil’ Bush. It’s a cheap, easy & dishonest way to deflect blame for the damage they are inflicting on the economy.
I do not think that most of the public will notice until everything starts to collapse around their ears. At that time, there will be lots of anger and it will need to be directed somewhere.
If Logern were to craft a more apt analogy he would ask how quickly Obama would employ waterboarding to protect Michelle.
At that point, you’d have a better than 50/50 chance of having Obama giving a response similar to the one Dukakis give about his wife being murdered.
The President shouldn’t take this option off the table, and it should never become standard policy too, enhanced methods for interrogating detainees held for international crimes should be rare, and by presidential order, approved by congress, and yadda ya, and did I say ‘rare’ — I mean extremely rare but not off the table.
Apparently, it was Democrats on the Hill who pushed the president into this fracas with Dick Cheney. Pelosi stepped into it, would not clean it off her shoes, tracked it into the House chambers and now the stench is everywhere.
I think all this drama was initially started in order to accomplish two things:
1. Throw red meat to the base and get them all worked up and in “campaign” mode. I sense that around the time of the Tea Party organizing the Left was in a panic. So was the president. They realized that they were losing momentum, and the Rasmussen polling showed it. So, they needed to get a rally going, and thus Waxman, Pelosi, and Emanuel thought they found the answer: as near to proscription as this country’s government ever got.
2. To distract from the legislative and executive agenda they wanted to ram through with lightning speed.
It remains to be seen if they have failed. I am very concerned that his popularity is quite high and is sticking there despite everything. This goes to my worry that the nation has indeed turned to the Left. If so, then only hard reality is going to disabuse the sheeple of their ignorance and fantasizing.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22846.html
turfmann, you hit on a revealing point. When lefties think about waterboarding and enhanced interrogation, they picture a vaguely Arab-looking figure being mistreated. As vaguely Arab-looking people are everywhere, they see that person as a random stand-in for all humanity. And of course it is wrong to waterboard random people, no matter how they look.
From this, they conclude that conservatives must be in favor of waterboarding random vaguely arab-looking people, and are thus cruel bigots. Their picture thinking, their impression of what is happening, is so overwhelming to them that they cannot think.
Reversing this field, as you did, might be a very useful technique. They don’t think of the enemy as the enemy, but merely a stranger. Nailing down the impression “these people are on the verge of hurting people you love” might be more effective than attempting to reason with them.
Of course, liberals have many Americans they don’t love, whatever they say. They were briefly activated after 9-11, when real true people just like them were killed. But in the other terrorist acts, it’s most military people at risk, which doesn’t bother them near so much.
Progressives reading this will consider my criticism unfair. Well – some actually do care about the people in our military. Others want badly to be the sort of person who would, and so try to create that feeling in themselves. But the 19% of the population that is progressive is far and away the least likely to know anyone in the military (Pew research). As I work with a bunch, I can assure you that the military-disgust and disapproval is strong in that group as well.
Saving Michelle Obama. Or the daughters. Who would now be terrorist targets, of course. If we make reality real to them, turfmann, they might get it.
Logern, don’t think of it as the CIA waterboarding a terrorist. Pretend that it is a Republican.
That should help you get over your qualms.
logern: Just as soon as Liz Cheney announces it is her policy to kill many thousands of innocent Americans, participates in the killing of several thousand Americans by flying planes into buildings and reveals that she knows of plans to kill thousands more Americans, but isn’t going to tell about them…then we can have her waterboarded to see what her father’s reaction will be. Until then, I prefer to see my children live long lives rather than lose sleep over a terrorist with water up his/her nose.
AVI, sorry, working down the thread I just read your post after replying to Logern, and saw that I made essentially the same point you did. Sorry for the duplication.
Excellent point, Don. Much like a tough old grizzled NCO who’s seen and heard it all many times before, Cheney exudes a no-nonsense manner that must terrify a con artist such as Obama.
And let’s not forget that Cheney is everything that Obama is not. He knows what he believes, does not vacillate, and commits to what he thinks is right, without putting a wet finger in the breeze. He does not crave approval and adulation. He has buckets of experience in government and business, and the gravitas one would expect from that. He ran a successful business, and achieved that success through his own efforts, without any affirmative action. He has no glitz, only substance. Basically, he’s the anti-Obama, and must terrify him.
Pathology superimposed on ideology is lethal. We have plenty of historical examples to guide us in this.
actually we dont… what we have is an automatic excuse that if a despot wins he is crazy… which is counterintuitive and of course propaganda.
crazy people have thought process disorders and cant rise and organize liek that… they are not followed by others, even crazies. (sorry to use the legal term not medical but its easier).
your more likely to see 10 napoleons calling for their follower than to meet one crazy napoleon who can leave elba and march on paris.
and tthats the funny part..
the less effective cause they understand the world less are calling the more effective and the more able to handle the world crazy…
nope.. they understand the REAL world better than you do… you cant hide the real world unless you understand it.. you cant maximally harm thing unless you understand them
a diamond cutter can do with reason what a sledge hammer could only do with luck..
all the people that argue this have never read the ideology that they are following!!!!!!!!!!!
i have… my family had me read it since they wer refugees… i grew up with all manner of different ideologies.. because my family wanted me not to settle on one as the answer to everything as a slave to a false idea.
[edited for length by neo-neocon]
they are not crazy, we are vain…
I think all this drama was initially started in order to accomplish two things:
1. Throw red meat to the base and get them all worked up and in “campaign” mode. I sense that around the time of the Tea Party organizing the Left was in a panic. So was the president. They realized that they were losing momentum, and the Rasmussen polling showed it. So, they needed to get a rally going…
Fred — That’s my reading too. The “torture memos” were a direct response to the Tea Parties, and Obama’s speech last night — inserted intentionally opposite Cheney’s — was to undercut the remarkable gains of Cheney’s defense of the Bush administration in recent weeks.
Obama’s strategy seems to be working for now. He is the ablest and most dishonest propagandist we have had in the White House since Nixon at least, and that’s probably a disservice to Nixon.
Does anyone have any theories as to why so much energy and political capital are being expended on the whole detention, rendition, interrogation, and intel gathering issue at this time? It seems that a lot of effort is being expended to go after President Bush and his policies MONTHS AFTER HE LEFT OFFICE.
It’s easy…
But in order to understand it you have to abandon all hope that he is something than he actually is. Otherwise you will confuse belief with reason, and deny reason for belief.
The communists NEVER argue straight, EVER. Everything as in chess is ulterior motives. What they want is the material outcome, the thoughts, arguments and things are only a means to select the right tool to get an end.
Everyone’s rationalization here is from themselves and this is a CRAPPY way to analyse other people. it created the vanity that if they don’t do what you do, then they are inane and crazy, despite being more effective than you would ever be able to in your life!!!
Can you see how to effectively maneuver from your childhood or some realization all the way to taking control of a few hundred million people and then have then kill and exterminate themselves for you and for your goals and get it all done in a few years?
Nuts… right? well that’s because we think that you have to be nuts to do horrible things. nothing could be further from the truth. I hope neo would bear me out, but the mentally deficient are not any more dangerous than the sane. Some types are, but then again, we can lots of types of sane people that believe such things. George Bernard Shaw thought we should stand in front of a board every five years and justify your existence.
The average joe uses severity of act to determine sanity… the doctor uses other things besides that… but severity of act is a contextual thing. Was the severity of acts that brought Hitler to power crazy? Well then what about the severity of acts that made Washington the first president? I am not trying to be a relativist, but showing what damage it does, and how we think and never realize it.
We look at a man or wife that cuts up a body as nuts, the court and psychs see them as sane because they understood the position they were in and acted to protect themselves.
In this way, the ones who believe they are sane in this way are incomplete. They are unable to judge real sanity. That is, everyone is sane till they do something nuts… while the psych or cop will say they can be very insane and haven’t done anything nuts yet.
Its not a thought process disorder to become a ruler of the world… its only such if you declare it while standing on a table… declare it after you have achieved even a large part of it, then is it so crazy?
This is why you cant stop the despot before the act. they are NOT crazy, and they bide their time, till they can do these acts and be safe. They work the whole system till they can legally do the evil they do unopposed and even lauded. That’s not nuts. That’s just misplaced purpose.
Their nasty behavior comes from another place. A mixture of personality qualities, desire, and numbness when the thing they have strived for is unperceivable.
Power itself cant be perceived. One must exercise it to feel it. However, positive power cant be perceived. Like checking a broken clock stuck on noon with a working clock, and doing so exactly at noon, you cant tell.
Perception is not reality. We do not live in reality, we live in the past in a model that is trying to anticipate in the future so that we don’t lag reality. It’s the only way to explain all of the symptoms of us in one package and to explain ‘mind’ as a spectrum from housefly to Einstein.
Once the person is taught and refuses to reject the logic, then they have to accept that the only power that one can feel is the power to hurt. It’s why hell is the way it is for us. it’s a deeper metaphor to the truth. Like a western version of a koan where you have to earn the knowledge by reasoning it in order for it to count.
[edited for length by neo-neocon]
logern
why dont you ask the family of ted kazinsky how they felt doing what was right and leave inane thigns like that out of the game
i know the concept of creating cognitive dissonance to unfreeze a persons moral situtiaon by creating a moral delema..
usually its presented like… if you and your daughter were standing on a platform waiting for a train, and you had a choice of pushing your daughter in the path of the train and saving five other people, or saving her and letting them die what would you do?
talk about puerile parroting…
such dissonant situations can only be created in mind, and only serve to confuse us and create moral dissonance. that way, if we faluter you get to set the moral end byu choosing. you can set it to either one…
then after that, teh conversation moves to argying within that framework, as if no other is allowed.
hows that logern?
i can play your game better than you…
i was taught the game as a child..
a childs game is what your playing
but with adult outcomes.
you woudl be better taking your skilsl and your copy of havlocks change agent guide and becoming a grade school teacehr. 🙂
geez, please don’t listen to dick cheney, he is an extremist and war crimal. obama knows what he’s doin
sitter, you need to provide more than that to get taken seriously around here. Don’t smear Cheney with labels like “extremist” or “war criminal,” unless you have some way to back it up. And everyone here knows that you don’t.
Behold the cognitive skills of the Obama base.
sitter:
I will not listen to someone who makes an undocumented claim in a writing style that would not pass muster in a second grade classroom.
A word to the wise is sufficient.
Dont come to a gun fight with a toothpick
Toothpick! Art, I love it. Snap!
But seriously folks….Obama has been walking a tightrope on balancing foreign policy decisions against his domestic social transformation plan. He can’t be seen as irresponsible on national security issues (memo release aside) because he’d lose the good will he needs to push through his social engineering agenda, which is what really floats his boat.
After all that we’ve seen an heard can we still not answer the question, is Obama an ideologue or an opportunist: as if his twenty year personal relationship with Reverend Wright wasn’t snuffed out in an instant of political opportunism, as if the backlash from the release of the CIA memos didn’t give him second thoughts about releasing the Afghan detainee photos.
I say he’s an opportunist the like of which the oval office has never seen, and I say his outrage is indeed quite feigned.
“geez, please don’t listen to dick cheney, he is an extremist and war crimal. obama knows what he’s doin”
sitter
Well then, can you tell him to get on it, tout de suite. I heard that his Tonton Macoutes, like yourself, can speak to him directly.
BTW, did he finally get all the positions that needs to be filled, you know, filled?