You’re all wrong! I’ve been telling you dolts for years…”

But seriously. I love Neo’s site. I really enjoy 99% of the commentary, and the rest of the time, I can just scroll past Art. But he’s getting to be too much.

It’s at the point where I feel I am at this interesting cocktail party with a lot of intelligent people, with interesting stories to tell and great insight and not an idiot in the bunch. And then, every fifteen minutes, this character storms in the room and shouts in the guests’ faces how ignorant they all are. And lately, he’s been shouting at the host.

This needs to be said regularly:

Artfldgr, start your own blog. So the people that enjoy your fountain of wisdom and prophesy can go there and be enlightened. Post links to it in your comments.

That question and observation reminded me of the section of Armando Valladares’ excellent memoir Against All Hope where he writes about how he and his fellow political prisoners felt starved for true and reliable information about the world outside of Cuba, and how they developed not only codes for communicating with each other, but also methods of critically reading the publications of the state-run media to try to ascertain the realities that were being hidden from them.

I responded only, “Well, the embassy’s statement was pretty stupid.” I didn’t say that even Obama’s administration later distanced themselves from the statement, though I might have.

Rather than argue the point, though, this fellow changed the subject. “Well, with 54 million Hispanics, Obama is sure to get about 75% of those and he will also get 97% of black voters, so he’s sure to be re-elected. The Republican Party is doomed until they figure out how to appeal to Hispanic voters.” Now I don’t know how, precisely, you get from Romney’s criticisms of the embassy’s pandering statements to a discussion of the implications of collective racial identity in contemporary politics, but it sure seems rather Orwellian to me: if one line of attack against Romney won’t work, might as well switch to another one just to preserve the narrative that he’s doomed.

You seem to believe that people have been rejecting what you say, and disagreeing with you, and misunderstanding you, or are completely ignorant, when they have not (of course, some people have and are, but I think you are creating a group of strawmen in regard to most).

There’s a reason why it’s not transparently clear to ‘thinking persons’ what’s happening here. Thinking critically generally happens within the filters of a person’s beliefs. The MSM has spent decades defining “the narrative” of how the public should view ‘greedy, selfish” Republicans. How conservatives are reactionaries who want to turn the clock back to a nostalgic, mythical America that never truly existed.

Once those memes are accepted, mostly through the sheer repetition of the left’s ‘big’ lies, any ‘critical thinking’ takes place within the parameters of those memes.

To truly think outside the box of our beliefs, requires fundamentally questioning the very premises of the unquestioned memes that most accept. Something few are willing and perhaps able to do.

Neo and my political views have followed a similar arc from committed liberal to neoconservatism to a conservatism that avoids easy categorization. Our host did not come to her views quickly, nor did I. It took years and much deep reflection for me to evolve into the views I hold today and her ‘about me’ page indicates the same.

Is it reasonable to expect that others, similarly entwined within the false memes of the left, come to a quicker understanding?

This is the beginning of the middle of the fight between the left and right, not the end.

yup..

naked women in the mud calling for communism and having free sex was your first clue… the big lesbians calling you comrade in the womens meetig was the second clue… and the quotes as to the womans caucus voting to make a commuist state. that was another clue… norm thomas declaring he wont run for president any more, as the democratic partys platofm is indistinquishable from the CPUSA platform.
(oh, and the CPUSA is endorcing obama again, that was a clue too)

how did that work out?
how many clues do you think are needed?

ie. way back when i was arguing with Huxley, did you get the early signs? or did people refuse?

even now, they thin this is the start, when this is the END GAME of a 80 year project

the left was VERY careful not to give you a clue that was not ambigious…

but hey, even helen thomas anti antisemitism wasnt enough. was it?

and (C) to recognize knowledge and defer to it to maximize merit… not all knowledge can be derived without knowing.

the blind leading the blind thinking very hard, will not think their way out of the forest.

Especially when the machine they are using, was affected by the system in their formative years.