I’m hoping…
…that Sean Trende is right, and that Scott Brown now has a good chance of beating Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire.
And for those of you who say he’s a RINO, it’s not ideal but so what? His Republican opponents are either obscure or unpleasant, and Brown is neither. Jeanne Shaheen is a typical liberal party hack, and a mediocrity as well.
Taking the Senate, and especially getting rid of the reign of the odious Reid, is important. And “important” really is a mild word for what it is. Which doesn’t mean it will solve any of the deeper and more systemic problems in this country.
” And “important” really is a mild word for what it is.”
– Amen to that.
And for those of you who say he’s a RINO, it’s not ideal but so what?
easy… it just means you like the clever liars better than the honest socialists…
Take a leaf from our enemies: Ratchet, ratchet, ratchet…. pretty soon, you’re all the way over!
IOW, direction is all.
Artfldgr:
No, it doesn’t. Brown isn’t even a liar; he doesn’t hold himself out to be a strong conservative in the first place. He is a RINO, and he presents himself as one. New Hampshire is now basically a blue state (some say purple, but it’s hardly been acting that way in the last few years), just not as blue as Massachusetts, so he’s a good fit.
It means I would prefer Republicans to be in charge of the Senate for the next two years. I am well aware of the flaws of Republicans, but I’ve already written at great length about why I prefer them, and why I think that, however flawed they may be, they are hardly the same as the Democrats.
Buckley’s dictum applies: Vote for the most conservative candidate who can win. Period.
As I’ve mentioned before, many conservatives/tea partiers hold a far too optimistic and idealistic view of how much can be accomplished through the electoral process. I am far less sanguine. Even if the GOP Caucus consisted entirely of Ted Cruzes, Congress is simply stymied. The administrative state and the judiciary are virtually intransigent. And it is not worth sacrificing victories over ideologically “pure” but unwinnable candidates.
It might be depressing, but conservatives should set their sights on small, incremental goals. Such is a very “conservative” attitude to have. A GOP Senate and removing the odious Reid from power is such a goal. A Scott Brown victory would be a significant step towards this goal.
you know what the acronym means, yes?
RINO – Republican in NAME ONLY
ie. he is a democrat who ran under republican platform as the US has no oaths or restrictions in party declarations.
if he runs openly as a RINO he believes that he is the better democrat than the opposition which is a democrat… if you control BOTH SIDES of an issue, or a political race, does it matter who wins?
how do you win a game people dont know is being played? how do you get a leftist elected as a republican? and why would you want that over a dem?
the game is about control and power, and in this game, having your people on the opposition is a very good way to get things you cant get otherwise.
how do you do it? you get a rino, and then you run a more hard core person… like the tall cup vs the short cup, it creates the illusion of something else than what it is. you even attack him, and voila, you not only get one of yours in the place, but this person gets the other side to work with your side when otherwise they would ot.
these are very old tricks that are played on the electorate who will fight to defend the person and the election, and never get to see the sham that it is.
normally if people were honestly representing themselves based on what they do not what is advantageous, then he would run as a moderate democrat, and then the field would be open to a real republican. but instead… run a extreme dem in the dem position, and the republican will seem extreme on the other end… but now your moderate democrat seems like a less extreme republican
it has to do with manipulating how the brain works and using its functions against a person.
think of it as a political form of “The Munker Illusion”
take a look at this image:
it has a red square and a green square. the squares are the same color red, and the same color green.
http://tinyurl.com/o9hxxg8
another version of this is here:
in this case, the box labeled A and the box labeled B are the same shade
http://tinyurl.com/mfb3rm6
we do this kind of thing in other areas not just in visual processing…
its the darker side of all the studies by the left into how we function as beings… remember who invented that area of study… MARX?
of course… if you know the game, you know whats going on, even though you cant shut off the illusion.
Control of the US Senate is gained by maneuvers that strongly resemble the classic Chinese game of GO.
But, in America, the name of the game is STOP.
Blocking Reid — a blocker, born and bred — is of the essence.
This is why I’m in neo’s camp: even a RINO beats a Leftist — at least for organizational purposes.
It is ALL IMPORTANT to block bizarro judicial appointments — which is only done in the US Senate.
There is no political law that prohibits the US Senate from being dead-locked on judicial appointments for years on end — if Barry Soetoro remains that obdurate.
FURTHER, the US Senate has plenty of embarrassing investigative committees, itself. I want to see Barry’s crew tag-teamed by Congress.
Starting with the IRS and EPA. Both are now fulsomely corrupted. Barry will find it impossible to protect the corrupt by administrative means.
And, at some point, I expect the deluge to pour out of the sands of Arabia. America needs wise counsel at the head of the relevant national security committees.
Roberts reads the polls. This November may well stiffen his spine, which would be quite an improvement over stiffening Axelrod’s spin.
I am no fan of rinos, but a gop majority in the senate does mean reid can pound sand and bho will become even more withdrawn. The election is about bho and dem defeat will be an in your face rebuke to his presidency.
Artfldgr:
You are being too literal.
I know what the acronym RINO means, literally, originally. But it has come to mean something else over the years.
I am using it in that latter way, to mean a person who is basically more conservative than liberal, but who is not conservative on every issue that the most conservative voters would want. In this usage of the word, a RINO is typically less conservative on social issues, and is basically for smaller government than a liberal would be, but has somewhat more give on this issue than a more conservative candidate would have. Nowhere near as much give, however, as a liberal.
So, RINO is used now as a shorthand for “somewhat conservative but not as conservative as a rock-ribbed conservative would like him/her to be.” That’s the way I was using it.
The original meaning was “a fake conservative.” Some politicians such as Arlen Specter, for example, who later became a Democrat, fit that definition quite nicely. Scott Brown does not, from my observations.
By the way, Specter was the quintessential political opportunist, who started as a Democrat, became a Republican, and then switched back (what Churchill called “reratting”).
I’m no fan of the current national GOP, but watching Harry Reid pee his pants and run crying out of the room when he loses position as Majority Leader is something I’ve been looking forward to for a while now. Brown is probably the best that NH can do right now. As a commenter above said, ratchet, ratchet, ratchet. Always keep pushing.
Rino vs leftist
A distinction without a difference is a type of logical fallacy where an author or speaker attempts to describe a distinction between two things even though there is, in fact, no actual difference.
The assertion that a position is different from another position based on the language when, in fact, both positions are exactly the same — at least in practice or practical terms.
there are a lot of such illusions…
especially where the rules allow trickery or prefer it
we fall for all kinds of such things, with one of the easiest things to use is LABELS… we are trained to trust all labels… so we generally trust them.
Illusory correlation: Illusory correlation is the phenomenon of perceiving a relationship between variables (typically people, events, or behaviors) even when no such relationship exists.
we percieve a relationship between the person and the party declaration… even if none exists..
and if your clever, you can combine illusions so that one reinforces another. in this case, using contrasts.
if you walk from a freezer into a 73 degree room, it feels warmer than 73 degrees… and if you walk from a 100 degree room, into 73 degrees, it feels cooler
what we put next to something changes our perception of that something – and since the game here is perceptive, not impirical, this works.
and people willl even argue over it if there is no empirical tool that can measure to show them!!!
“Illusory correlation” was originally coined by Chapman and Chapman (1967) to describe people’s tendencies to overestimate relationships between two groups when distinctive and unusual information is presented
we do this all the time… its a very dominant effect in how we see the world and make schemas
Most explanations for illusory correlation involve psychological heuristics: information processing short-cuts that underlie many human judgments
(Which is what schema’s are for)
a good place to learn some stuff is from B F Skinner and Radical behaviorism…
Operant conditioning has two basic purposes (increasing or decreasing the probability that a specific behavior will occur in the future), which are accomplished by adding or removing one of two basic types of stimuli, positive/pleasant or negative/aversive
so by placing the unpleasant RINO next to the more unpleasant leftist, you get to move your guy into the place you want them. the point is not to put the extreme person in place, the point is to put the other in place so that you control both sides
social psychology is quite interesting…
see: Marxism and Psychological Science
https://www.marxists.org/archive/leontev/works/1978/ch1.htm
the larger point is to control perception, or rather, use the science of illusions to modify perception so that the subjects act accordingly… in this case, vote in the persons that are the ones actually wanted…
1) take a person who is on the left, but declare him on the right…
2) put them in opposition with an extreme left, so that the perception of their position on the spectrum is off
3) add to the mix vociferous complaints and opposition to create veracity
when the game is screwing with minds, no one in history has done better than the soviets and socialists.
they convince blacks that slavery matters today, even though none of them have been slaves… (And most are not related to any)
they convince women that they can not give birth, and yet have families…
that utopia is possible
that jews are nazis
and on and on…
compared to that, this rino game is a cakewalk
neo-neocon
your being too relative..
read your explanation, and then see how that applies to the illusions of putting things near each other, and how that influences acceptability
your explanation is the outcome of my point..
you have no absolute measure!!! your measure now is relative… and with it being relative, its game on..
your definition of rino is a distinction without a difference…
ie. a leftist is partly cloudy while a rino is partly sunny
take some time to read about the stuff no one gets to read about… the social psychology of controlling people and manipulating them… its the dark arts of the science… and its ALWAYS at play among socialists from carrot and stick taxes to tons of other things…
and of course…
everyone says commercials dont work on them..
but they do…
and they do very well..
i worked for two years on madison ave and learned a whole lot from doing art diretion for a big firm under the wing of a top art director (boy friend to my cousin)
of course.. you may not realize whats being done
and will deny it… but i could show you things that would make you question your own thinking
next time you go to the supermarket.. go to the cereal section… then look at the eyes of the figures… they almost all look downwards… why? well, the target here are children… children are shorter, and so, when they look up at people the people that pay attention to them look down, and lo and behold the characters on a ceral box look down to invite the kid to influence the purchase of cereal
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-x57enYncwaQ/UXVFXODqz9I/AAAAAAAAG1c/ZCkIpoIkiZ8/s1600/cereal.boxes_.jpg
ever look at the eyes of the model that your looking at in a magazine? one thing that is common to do is to enlarge the pupils.. for the same reason women used to take bella donna… when you love something, the uncontrolled response to it is your pupils widen to let in more light and detail… players know this when they go out hunting for women… but others do too.
the idea here is to make it look like she loves you, and so, you like her back.. (or him)
same is true of models they pick… ever notice that the women h ave strong jaws like men? why? to attract women, who are programmed to respond to secondary sexual characteristics of maleness as attractive.
as i have said before
KNOWING beats imagination
but those who dont know, fight tooth and nail that what is known isnt even real if they dont know it
as i said. i can show people stuff that would amaze them… but most of the time, they live in denial of it, or that they are special. heck, i know it but i fall for it too… at least i dont deny my humanity to consider myself superior…
“odious.” heh. perfect.
(cf. movie “The Fall”)
Artfldgr:
We will just have to disagree on this. I think it is a distinction with a difference. I’ve discussed this many times on the blog, particularly during the Romney campaign. So I don’t need to go into it again.
It is really very simple: Brown is the only one who can beat Shaheen, Brown is preferable to Shaheen.
From the 2012 Almanace of American politics, some voting scores, liberal first, conservative second. These are from the National Journal:
Scott Brown:
economic – 37, 62
social – 36, 63
foreign – 30, 67
composite – 35, 65
Jeanne Shaheen:
economic – 62, 36
social – 65, 0
foreign – 47, 0
composite – 73, 27
Judging by those votes, Scott Brown is not a Republican in name only; he’s a moderate conservative, just as he has presented himself. (Shaheen is not a Democrat in name only, either, though she is less on the left than many of her colleagues.)
A few years ago, when talk radio hosts were calling this person of that person RINOs, I looked hard for a Republican that would deserve that label. I found just one — Ron Paul.
(Incidentally, over at Tom Maguire’s site, where the term was being thrown around, I asked those using it to give me a definition that could be used with votes. For example: A RINO votes with the Democratic party more often than his own, in votes where majorities of the two parties oppose each other.
No one at the site took me up on that, perhaps recognizing that I would take their definition and show that there was almost no one who fit it. But if artfldgr thinks he has a vote test, I urge him to email it to me, so I can do a relatively scientific test.)
There is something else about Brown that those who want a Republican Senate should recognize; he is one of the better “natural” politicians to come along in some time — and the Republicans don’t have many like him.
I take no pleasure in saying this : if the Republicans retake the Senate be prepared to be disappointed. Other than Reid stepping down, I think the only thing that will change is more “bipartisan” legislation passing. Obama will get more of what he wants, not less. RINO’s will approve his judicial nominations and either help him with the rest of his agenda, or Obama will use executive orders.
Election night euphoria won’t last long.
I think even the likes of Graham, McCain, and McConnell have learned any deal with bho are deals with the devil.
parker: I think you misunderestimate them.
Artfldgr’s rants in this thread highlight a significant aspect of the problem of electoral politics today; i.e. The Ideologues who stand back and throw muck at anyone who is not pure enough to suit them. I call it the “Peggy Noonan Syndrome”.
If the choice is between an avowed Statist/Leftist-Democrat and a less than pure Republican, by all means, hold your nose and withhold your vote. Then you will continue to get the likes of BHO, Harry Reid, and –heaven help us–Hillary.
Went to the Reagan Library last week. Magnificent presentation. But, as I looked and listened to all of the adoring presentations, I thought that I must have lived in a different world. But, I didn’t. I saw the problems and the failures. Reagan was great in the sense that his core beliefs, his sunny disposition, and his optimism were exactly what the country needed. But, I suspect that even he would regret that he has been turned into a mythical Icon that every GOP candidate, for any office, must be measured against and invariably found wanting.
Ackler makes a valid, if sad, point. The Genie will not go back in the bottle–or whatever cliche suits you. Our government is huge, and it is bureaucratic. The Bureaucracy is entrenched and it will not retreat. The best we can hope for is that the political process will apply the brakes, and make some cuts on the margins. There are too many rice bowls and too many dependents to do much more.
OK, so Rep take the Senate. The messiah says “Include a minimum wage hike (or some other thing he wants) in the next budget bill or I veto and YOU shut down the government?” What do we do since we know who will be blamed? yes, the Senate is important to block his Supreme Court appointments. But it will not be a good two years.
I think Artfldgr’s optical illusion analogy is spot on.
I suppose that if I lived in New Hampshire I’d vote for Brown, but I wouldn’t be the slightest bit enthusiastic about it. I would not donate to his campaign or put up a yard sign.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that a Republican-controlled Senate would not approve every one of Obama’s nominations, no matter how egregiously leftist they are. This sort of thing has been going on for years, even decades.
jvermeer.
Watching the blame for the last shutdown, I couldn’t tell if it worked or not. Surely the MSM was down with it, but ordinary folks…. Heard some go this way, some go that way.
I think the nonsense with the WW II Memorial didn’t make as much difference as zero and the dems had hoped. Pretty transparent.
A government shutdown with both houses controlled by the GOP would be different. They would actually pass a budget which the president would veto. Therefore it is the president causing the shutdown. The last shutdown could more easily be blamed on the GOP.
Of course I realize the MSM would spin it the same way but it might be harder for them.
You know, I really find revolting many of the cutesy neologisms that the Left has for Republicans, but frankly I strongly dislike “RINO”. Like the Left’s words it’s an arrogant term, a term like “apostate” or “heretic”. It’s a term used by those unable to conceive being wrong on anything, a term used by those who have decided everything they’re going to believe for the rest of their life. Like neo, I know the flaws of both the Left and the Right pretty well and generally prefer the latter, but the Right does its best to challenge that. You people who use “RINO”, you yourselves are an important reason why the Left has done as well as it has.
No, I’m not a RINO, I’m an Independent. You know, one of those people whose votes everyone needs but who in argument the Right calls a liberal and the Left calls a conservative. But I truly don’t always have to find the Dems worse no matter what you do. Be better people: try not always to drive away people with accusations of ideological impurity, no matter how good and righteous that feels. It’ll make my vote for Republicans easier and the persuasive task of Democrats harder.
handworn:
Agreed on the counterproductiveness of the word “RINO.” I use it because people use it, but even in this thread its use has caused some confusion as to what it means and to whom it should be applied.
I actually think it should only be applied to people like Arlen Specter, as I discussed in a previous comment.