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Home » Leaving the circle and entering the circle

Leaving the circle and entering the circle

The New Neo Posted on by

Ace writes about his own process of political conversion:

If you’ve always been conservative, then you can tell me a great many things about doctrine and such, but one place I will always have more experience than you is in terms of conversion and persuasion.

Because I went through a conversion myself. I was persuaded myself. I have only anecdotal experience; but I do have that anecdotal experience.

Anyone who’s always been Solid Red doesn’t have that experience.

So you can tell me you know more about conservative doctrine (this concession is easily made– I am not a deep thinker on conservative doctrine at all) but unless you’ve actually changed your stripes, you cannot tell me what arguments work on persuading someone to move from liberal-ish to moderate to conservative/moderate to finally conservative.

And I will tell you this: The giddy thing about a conversion is the liberation from complete and utter bullshit — accreted dogma, groupthink, it is so because we have said it is so.

Anyone who moves from liberal to conservative will always describe it as liberating epiphany, of breathing free air.

So please listen to me, if on nothing else at all, when I tell you that this dopey attempt to pound people into accepting the groupthink by appeals to solidarity and appeals to authority (authority which is not universally conceded, even on the right) is a loser.

Only a few people who are truly unhinged find they can no longer live under one set of dogmas and then fly to embrace, passionately, a whole ‘nother set of dogmas…

For most people, they convert when they want to escape a set of dogmas and then live under fewer dogmas, or even none at all.

They do not wish to jump willy-nilly and embrace a whole new set of dogmas.

Please read the whole thing.

Ace is expressing a thought I share: I didn’t jump off the liberal bandwagon to jump onto a conservative one. I try to think for myself as much as possible, and sometimes it leads me in directions that are quite different from the conservative position. I often try not to even read others’ opinions before I write on a topic, to remove their possible influence on me.

Some people don’t like what I have to say, such as my support of Romney in this election. That’s fine. I don’t really care, as long as you disagree civilly.

Comments

Leaving the circle and entering the circle — 51 Comments

  1. How can your support of Romney, given that it comes from your best thoughts, make us love you less? It only endears us more.

    We are choosing our leader and who knows but that Romney may blaze a trail no one else could. No one thought honest Abe was special when he was candidate. Maybe we can’t see Romney’s special character now.

    One thing is for sure. He might make some gaffes, he might seem “elite,” he might have changed his positions over a long lifetime (what honest person, hasn’t unless they were lucky enought to be raised with all the truth), but he’s a good man and dedicated and talented. Let’s hope these qualities can somehow bring a majority back that wants to preserve and not fundamentally change our United States of America.

  2. I would take issue with anyone who’d come upon a dogma to live by — conservatives most especially. One can know what ‘conservatism’ is and live his life accordingly by relying on the thoughts of two men — Edmund Burke and Frank Greystock. As nearly every conservative is aware of Burke to some degree and few know anything of Greystock, here is a bit of him.

    re Frank Greystock and his type of conservative gentleman:

    “They [Conservatives]feel among themselves that everything that is being done is bad, even though that everything is done by their own party…

    A huge, living, daily increasing grievance that does one no palpable harm is the happiest possession that a man can have. There is a large body of such men in England, and, personally they are the very salt of the nation. He who said that all Conservatives are stupid did not know them. Stupid Conservatives there may be, – and there certainly are very stupid Radicals. The well-educated, widely-read Conservative, who is well assured that all good things are gradually being brought to an end by the voice of the people, is generally the pleasantest man to be met.”
    – Anthony Trollope (Frank Greystock in The Eustace Diamonds)

  3. I don’t understand this. I guess I’m missing something. The only appeals to solidarity I see are coming from those who want us to get behind Romney because he’s the only one who can win.

    I know that conservatives are attacked for expecting everyone adhere to some dogma, only I don’t see them doing this. Conservative do want some sort of conservative policy win, some sort of structural change that they can point to and know that their participation in the process is not pointless. The GOP machine has continually denied conservatives any satisfaction. They should not be surprised that conservatives want some sort real sign that the nominee want more from them than their votes.

  4. Conservatism has no dogma. Just common sense and a willingness to let people experience consequences for not pulling their own weight if they’re capable. Surely you can find conservatism in people from the jungles of Borneo to the Arctic tundra. And it ain’t like they had to read some conservative tea party manifesto on how to be a right winger.

  5. Randy, nice comment. I think Ace of Spades was responding to persons who criticized him (Ace) for criticizing Limbaugh.

    Limbaugh is open for criticism re slutgate. It is also true that Limbaugh is receiving a volume of criticism which is out of proportion to “slut”. Give me a break: “slut” is a felony? Slut? SLUT is horrible-est epithet of all time? Slut? SLUT?! Does anyone watch HBO any more? Slut?

    The volume of Limbaugh criticism is largely driven by a political agenda to destroy a fierce opponent of leftism. The volume is driven by Rule 12.

    So, Ace is correct: demands to follow dogma are … dog poop. And, related, Ace failed to connect the dots re the excessive volume which is driven by Rule 12. Not that Ace had a responsibility to connect the dots. But, the dots are related.

  6. It is also true that Limbaugh is receiving a volume of criticism which is out of proportion to “slut”. Give me a break: “slut” is a felony? Slut? SLUT is horrible-est epithet of all time? Slut? SLUT?! Does anyone watch HBO any more? Slut?

    What tires me about this is the double standard. Anyone remember Ed Schultz calling Laura Ingraham the same word? How about Bill Maher calling Palin a C%#t?

    I’m tired of the limp-wristed pantywaist republicans letting the left frame every issue. Grow a set, Repubs.

  7. So you can tell me you know more about conservative doctrine (this concession is easily made— I am not a deep thinker on conservative doctrine at all) but unless you’ve actually changed your stripes, you cannot tell me what arguments work on persuading someone to move from liberal-ish to moderate to conservative/moderate to finally conservative

    Nonsense. As a prior commenter said, conservatism is just plain logic and common sense. You don’t have to travel some road to Calvary to understand what is logical. When people learn how to think instead of emote, they become conservatives.

  8. ICallahan,

    You wrote: “I’m tired of the limp-wristed pantywaist republicans letting the left frame every issue. Grow a set, Repubs.”

    Precisely. This is why I have been supported Gingrich’s campaign. He, not unlike Andrew Breitbart, has demonstrated the clarity to not accept the libral framing of an issue. Neither Romney nor Santorum have done that to any substantial degree.

    Now, if Romney is the candidate, as now seems likely, I agree with Curtis, above, who writes: “. . . who knows but that Romney may blaze a trail no one else could.” Curtis, from your keyboard to God’s ears!

  10. neo, what do you think of the recent revelation that Romney pushed Obama to include the individual mandate in Obamacare?

  11. Common sense is nothing more than a set of prejustices learned before one reaches 18, as Einstein famously said. Nothing wrong with it, for me “prejustice” is not a pejorative term, but a building block of any culture. And for a common man this in most of cases is enough to be properly socialized and oriented in reality. But a philosopher needs more: a well designed set of founding principles, or dogmats, to proceed. Dogma, just as prejustice, is not a pejorative term, they are fundamentals, cornerstones of any philosophy. So true changers inevitably change one set of dogmas and prejustices to another set of them. Only intuition of reality can suggest which set is better and has better predictive and explanatory value. This is only philosophical ignorance of progressives allows them ignore their own dogmas and prejustices and believe that these all are truths.

  13. Steve…

    I don’t believe that the Wan ever wrote 0bamacare.

    Pelosi and K Street drafted it.

    Never forget that the resident reigns and rules.

    He never sullies his mind with law or law-craft.

  14. Sergey, I love your grammar and spelling and pronouncements. You Are Absolutely Right:
    “Dogma, just as prejustice, is not a pejorative term, they are fundamentals, cornerstones of any philosophy.”

    Man, I’d like to sit down and have a vodka drinking contest with you.

    (To the KGB: Please x-ray this transmission, bitches.)

  15. Let’s face it. The Republican field is weak. One doesn’t have to be dogmatic to see that.

    However, Obama and his socialist/communist/fascist cronies are trying to bring down our Republic. So one has to vote against Obama. Maybe we changers can get better candidates in 2016 than we have in 2012.

    Re the “slut” issue (non-issue), that’s just good old Alinsky rule # something (name-calling). The woman who wants free contraceptives should get a diaphragm and some KY jelly and be done with it. Anyone who takes this fool seriously is weak-minded.

    That’s why the loss of Breitbart is so huge. He managed to get people to look past the nuttiness of the Democrats/Progressives and call them out for what they are: dirtbags.

    ******************************************

    I have so much trouble discussing political issues here and in my real life because the terms are all confused. I like to think about “statists” v. “small government ideas.” A statist would want to give me free dental floss (theoretically). A small government person would support a charity that helped the poor buy dental floss.

  17. “or even none at all.” — There’s no place for that in Conservatism, which is not liberating, there is from Progressive Liberalism a park on the Right designated non-affiliation/free thinker it’s somewhat Left/Right Centrist.

  19. I define conservatism as believing in a minimalist role for government as defined by the Constitution and postulated by our founders. To the extent that that definition is true I will always be consistently conservative. What I will no longer be is consistently Republican. President Washington warned us about the corrosive effects of political parties in his farewell address. That warning has proven to be remarkably prescient.

    I will readily acknowledge that the Democrats have been far worse than Republicans. But both parties have failed us and failed us dramatically. Far too many members of both parties are more worried about the next election than they are about the next generation. Far too many members of both parties have been willing to mortgage our futures for whatever perks their particular constituency demands at the moment.

    And ultimately I must acknowledge that I have failed. I have been far to willing to accept whatever goodies the government has offered without protest. And I have been far too involved with the minutiae of my daily life to notice the growing cancer that is Washington.

  21. As one who is increasingly at odds with people who call themselves conservative, Ace’s basic buy-in struck me:

    Here’s what we believe, basically: freedom, respect for citizens in their capacity and wisdom to manage their own affairs, modesty of government ambition and modesty in the government’s appraisal of its own ability to manage large ventures, and the basic idea that the government exists to keep the order so that men and women may face each other as free citizens in the public square and make voluntary transactions and decisions between each other, with as minimum government intrusion and “oversight” as possible.

    Despite the belief, this does not happen. There is no temperance in the ruling class. It is as if faith alone were all that is required in a political philosophy. I need works. I want more liberty. For all.

    If that quote is a fair synopsis of conservative belief, I am have conservative beliefs. If we measure conservatives and conservatism by how well those beliefs are applied and implemented, conservatives can go to hell.

    I want a new right. A new conservatism, that advances liberty. Not one that yields slowly–but with virtue in its heart–to the baser drives that the Founders aimed to protect us from.

    If conservatism can show nothing more than belief, it is dead. Let’s bury it and move on. Words on parchment and a flag on a pole set no soul free. The tree of liberty must be refreshed. Give me change. Give me action! Give us Victory!

  22. Well said kaba and Parker.

    Obama “stimulus trillion-dollar programs” and Obamacare were giant wake-up calls for those of us who may have been asleep.

    As a Chicagoan, I admit that government graft has always seemed normal to me. But the growth of government at all levels has metastasized like cancer.

    I have actually prepared myself for a certain level of violence when the money dries up in our city, county, and state governments. I expect looters to start roaming our streets and alleys.

  23. 1) I read Ace’s post and I think I get what he was saying, but at the same time I don’t understand it.

    I myself am a changer, so I am inoculated from his attack, but something is failing to connect. I left the (very far, bizarro, anarchist) left to becomes a conservative. I already was a free-thinker, in my own (biased) eyes. I learned new things, and I changed my perspective. I never saw that as involving any sort of dogma, per se, but at the same time there were some basic tenets and principles I accepted as far as politics is concerned. The line between the latter and “dogma” can get pretty blurry.

    Ace mentions drug legalization – one issue, and one that I happen to rabidly, perhaps dogmatically, disagree with. But fine, let it be so. Yet, if you believe in drug legalization, gay marriage, socialized medicine, cap and trade, Keynesian economics, living constitutionalism, and banning happy meals – then you better believe you’re excommunicated on grounds of “dogma.” Furthermore, you’re a leftist, regardless of what you call yourself. I suppose I just don’t understand how the word “dogma” is being used here.

    Let me put it like this. How many people here would consider David Frum (or David Brooks, for that matter) a conservative? Well… Frum considers himself one – who are we, per Ace, to say he’s not? Frum is just – as he never tires of reminding us – “thinking freely” and “undogmatically” outside of anyone’s smelly little orthodoxies. And he may really be doing so. But a conservative he ain’t.

    The issue is a bit more complicated than Ace is making it out to be. (As far as his points about proselytizing go, they’re well taken).

    2) It’s glorious to be a free-thinker, but that sort of thing works at a different level than political ideology, which most certainly is about at least a bare bones set of principles with which certain policies are inevitably going to be inconsistent or outright contradictory. And it is perfectly possible to free-think oneself out of an ideology (as Frum and Brooks have done, and as I did with my former Bakuninite anarchism).

    I can accept, for instance, someone who thinks all drugs should be legalized as a conservative; but not someone who believes in socialized medicine. Sorry. If that makes me an unfree-minded dogmatist, then I wear the epithet proudly. I consider it “Central Foundational Conservative Doctrine,” as Ace puts it.

    In any case, I’m quite sure that Ace is not willing to call anyone who simply likes the label a “conservative.” So what is the basis of the determination? A ______? “Dogma”? “Set of principles”? “Freely thought out notion about good policy”? What?

    Ace mentions “conservative doctrine” several times and he makes it clear that he considers himself a conservative. Ergo he must adhere to conservative doctrine. I’m sure most people who write others out of the movement – as I am happy to do for, say, Frum and Brooks – do not think they do it on grounds of a dogma (in the pejorative, unthinking sense), but rather, precisely, on grounds of “doctrine” (in the “a set of principles freely determined to be rational and moral” sense). One might say that trying to frontload conservatism with a “liberty” orientation as opposed to an “order” orientation (as Ace advocates) is dogmatic. Or doctrinal. However it may be, it’s not a rubber duck, and it’s not just “free-thinking” versus “dogmatism.”

    3) The point is, Ace is talking about adhering to an intellectual principle, not a political ideology (I’m assuming he doesn’t mean “conservative” in the sense of a mere attitude or lifestyle). As said, I get that Ace was pissed off over specific things and he doesn’t like the idea of not speaking the truth (as he sees it) out of “solidarity.” Good – I don’t either. But the way Ace expresses the sentiment is not quite right.

    Everyone knows that political efficacy requires enough unity over both principle and policy to carry things through to fruition. Within that unity there is obviously room for disagreement. But not just any and all disagreement is acceptable. Another part of being a conservative, aside from loving liberty, is accepting sad facts of life. That’s one of them.

    “Where do we draw the line on doctrine?” is the real question. Ace seems to be saying that there is no line, although I’m sure that’s not what he means to say. Doctrine (dogma?), however much we free-thinkers may hate it, is necessary. Not lying. Not suppressing conscience out of solidarity.

    So why not just say lying and mendacity are bad? He can hate dogma (doctrine?) to his heart’s content, but if he thinks freely and tells the truth and winds up where Brooks and Frum are, then…

    Free-thinkers can be self-righteous too. Ace makes a strawman of the doctrinal position and opposes himself as a conscientious liberty loving free-thinker to the Dittoheads. I’m not a Dittohead, but I am a doctrinalist. A tolerant one, but only within what I consider reasonable limits.

  24. I don’t think there can be a “conservative” dogma (small-state dogma).

    For example, on the drug issue, I don’t have an opinion. My husband believes that drugs should be legalized, but I think it’s a public health issue. Do we really want a lot of cokeheads roaming our streets, trying to get us to give them money? I already have a lot of druggies in my alley. Don’t need more of them.

    Legalized drugs is an issue that needs rational analysis. Ditto gay marriage, which everyone seems so eager to accept in order not to be prejudiced. Sorry, folks. We need to actually discuss this issue. There is no dogma re conservative thinking. There are public health issues that must be discussed in a rational manner.

    Unfortunately, human beings are not as rational as they like to think they are.

  25. Since I was born in Stalinist Soviet Union in 1947, I had endured a radical change of worldview not once, but several times. First, from a standard propaganda-induced Marxism of Stalinist type to more liberal variety of Marxism in 1960s; than, in 1968, when Soviet tanks invaded Prague, to social-democratic perspective of European intellectuals, than, after Yom Kippur war, to more conservative perspective of American moderates, and, after series of events, like turmoil of collapse of USSR, to free-market ideology in politics and Orthodox Judaism view in moral and social issues. This journey is far from its end and is likely to land me in something what most contemporary moderates would call fascism and reactionary obscurantism. I still with pain and confusion try to purge myself from the last vestiges of humanism and Enlightenment, moving from 18 century philosophers to Aquinas, Augustine, Plato and further to Ecclesiast.

  26. Ace can be as full of crap as the next person. If you’re on the wrong side of the fence of some subject he’s being all pissy about (or if he’s just in a pissy mood in general), he’s going with the “you’re a [fill in the blank] person” ad hominem tack, and disregarding the logical argument as soon as the next guy.

    His charm lies in at least sometimes later admitting he was being a wrong-headed and stupid prig.

    I’ve seen him provide cover for people in the past from someone who couldn’t argue the logic, and I’ve seen him blast the same people when HE couldn’t argue the logic and disagreed.

    Ace is just …ace.

    He’s not consistent, and not going to be consistent.

    …overall, I like and admire him. But I found his points re: only being able to effectively make the conservative argument because he’s a member of the change group silly (and yeah, that’s what I read into it). See, the point he makes is actually the reason he can’t even be consistent.

    Too often he conflates being able to craft his trademark witty and rambling rejoinders with being able to discern effective conservative political judgments, and judging conservative values.

    Frankly, he should spend more time reading Dan Riehl.

    Ace is a moderate, leaning right on most causes (not that there’s anything wrong with that …but it doesn’t make him as free of the prejudices he prides himself on being free of, but rather blinds him to his lack of core …doctrine …if you will). He prides himself on being a free thinker, but his political instincts often enough just suck …he trusts too much to his obvious intelligence, but he’s too facile in his argumentum. So when he starts taking himself too seriously, he’s as likely to miss the mark as any one of the plebes.

    My opinion is that NOT adhering to core values is what ultimately consigns him to the lightweight category, and from punching past his weight class (which I also think he could easily do, if he wanted to commit himself; the success of his blog providing the evidence of that).

    I think it ironic that ace is kind of the Rush Limbaugh – someone he doesn’t care for very much – of blog sites: when he’s entertaining, he’s VERY entertaining. But when it comes to ace’s mundance-at-best politics, well, I’d rather read Dan Reihl on his worst day.

    @sergey …and you’re further along your journey if you’re reading Aquinas, Augustine, and pondering Ecclisiastes then ace is LOL.

  27. Though I rather liked the term “mundance” in an accidental punny sort of retrospect, I actually meant mundane, of course.

    @kolnai …agree with every thought expressed. Actually, I should have read what you said before I even commented, since you put it so much better than I did. Again (lol).

  29. My recreational polemics aside, today it strikes me that we’re using the multi-culti secularist frame.

    “Conservative” is best not a first-order descriptor. Political identity is best not a core identity. Politics, as the art of the possible and the essence of compromise, lacks moral foundation.

    Better to be a Jew or a Catholic or a Hindu first. Dogma has the advantage of permanence. Our actions and even our thoughts are best guided to please the Judge of the Universe than to win elections. Holding the body politic as the ultimate arbiter of virtue is the path to where we are today.

  30. Ecclesiastes. Song of Solomon. Job.

    The wisdom in these three books is enough for a lifetime and all three books demand that our life here and now is only the beginning.

    It is my number one belief against socialism, against the drive of men to create Utopia. Our lives, here, in this four dimensional world, are not designed to be fair, free or fun. They never will be and if they were, we would fall down lifeless, like machines minus their electricity.

    We are being forged and the forge allows for our free will. Call it cause and effect or sufferring or injustice and without the larger picture it is intolerable. That that is so is proved because all those who fail to admit the larger life demand an unavailable justice and freedom here and now.

    Therefore, in the forging of each and every individual, so myiad in their make up, so that one’s understanding and expression of the same idea expressed by others, may take a very different realization. This may be part of the reason why conservatism cannot be unified. We do not seek its unification because such lies beyond us. There is a unity but that unity is only given to those who apply and earn its acceptance. Fortunately, there are many ways to apply.

  31. @curtis “…They never will be and if they were, we would fall down lifeless, like machines minus their electricity …We are being forged and the forge allows for our free will….“

    That view would receive short shrift from ace btw. I couldn’t even convince him of the primacy of religious freedom in the founding of the Republic (via the recent HHS mandate) …the reason seems obvious why religious freedom permeates the founding documents, our history as a nation, and why it was the first statement of the first amendment, but he wasn’t buying.

    @foxmarks – “Conservative” is best not a first-order descriptor. Political identity is best not a core identity. Politics, as the art of the possible and the essence of compromise, lacks moral foundation …Better to be a Jew or a Catholic or a Hindu first. Dogma has the advantage of permanence.

    Precisely. And well put: kudos.

  32. Well, davisbr, it’s ironic because foxmarks believes pretty much the same way as ace, whcih an examination of foxmark’s website shows:

    http://negativerailroad.com/content/20120222being-good-without-god

    I cannot say dogma is not important. It is. But it is possible to have the wrong dogma and yet have God’s approbation. As God’s highest creation, he has given us reason. But it is also somewhat a concept that actions are greater than words and so those who do not profess a belief in God may still be closer to Him than those who do merely because their actions align closer with his commandments.

    Maybe foxmarks has identified there is a time when one must chose between belief and non-belief.

  33. If I get Ace right, his point is that it’s easier to get somebody to leave the dark side if you don’t insist he buy the entire package.
    True.
    The True Believers, those whose self-image is tied irrevocably to being The Right Sort, are lost.
    Others can be converted by pointing out one or another issue and the errors therein.
    What are some examples: Stimulus? AGW? Fast and Furious?
    Once the individual learns there’s a legitimate other side, he may decide the intellectual freedom is pretty neat. Go on from there in his own.

  34. @kolnai
    From what I’ve read of Ace over the last several months, he has a bit of an anti-religious streak. That’s just how he seems to be wired. That may well be coloring his use of the terms “doctrine” and “dogma”.

  35. Good point, Tesh. Many have been wounded by and are twice shy of the sword that cleaves.

  36. @ Curtis: …it’s ironic because foxmarks believes pretty much the same way as ace, whcih an examination of foxmark’s website shows …

    I dunno if I read into that what you did, Curtis.

    It seemed to me that foxm’ was indicating merely that he wasn’t tied to a particular liturgy, than that he was truly agnostic …whereas, my experience is more like Tesh’s (especially as I came – otherwise, puzzlingly – under fire from ace for what seemed an innocuously true observation along those lines LOL).

    What say you, foxmarks?

  37. Hey, thanks for stopping by my joint!

    I say God exists. So, I am not agnostic. When we try to assign particular qualities or desires to God, we run into problems. The leap of faith is not over the simple existence of some Supreme Being, but over what that Being expects of us.

    I’m not sure I could lay out my entire theological/moral framework here (or that anyone wants me to).

    What I see is that those who follow the Judeo-Christian tradition with sincerity and reverence achieve stuff I hope to achieve, respond well in adversity, and have a personal magnetism. It looks like they’re doing something right.

    I don’t have the motivation of a personal relationship with G-d. But that shouldn’t stop me from following the framework (dogma) that appears to serve others so well.

    At the root of that framework is freewill and choice. Without choice, there can be no moral agency. No responsibility, no just reward, no just punishment. Even the non-Christian systems usually include an idea of justice. Justice itself is a decision.

    Government and politics is coercion. Even at a primitive tribal scale, not everyone wants the same thing all the time. So we have a conflict between the benefits of liberty and the benefits of society.

    The Founders invented a political system that can arbitrate the compromise beautifully. But it depends on other, non-political dogma to provide most of the order in a society. We each must have our reasons to choose benevolence and temperance, otherwise we expend all our efforts defend against each others’ base urges.

    Again, I recognize the essential value of Christian traditions, even if I have no relationship with Christ. I choose to speak Latin because that’s the best way to get along in Rome. I choose to live in Rome because no other place leaves me the same opportunity to apply myself and flourish.

    So I ramble on anyway…

    For any philosophers out there, my view of reality and truth is Coherentism. An individual point may be refuted, but the system is robust and consistent.

  38. If you live long enough you will likely find conservatism does not offer all the answers either.

    I can empathize with the feeling of freedom at being released from the mental bondage of liberalism, but conservatism is just a looser fitting corset.

    Rather than Burke read Paine, Locke, Mills, Smith, Bastiat, Turgott, our founders. Mises, Hayek, Friedman, Nozick, …..

    You can be more than half-free.

  39. expat, didn’t Romney try to justify his support for an individual mandate at the state level by saying it was inappropriate at the federal level? checkmate.

  40. didn’t Romney try to justify his support for an individual mandate at the state level by saying it was inappropriate at the federal level?

    Isn’t Obamacare at the federal level? That’s at the level Romney urged Obama.

    Not quite checkmate – there are several pieces left on the board you ignored.

  41. Steve,
    I think he did. The point Loyola makes, though, is that the problem isn’t easy to solve. ERs can’t turn away patients; people with no money get medicaid. Some how all our programs to help the poor have made some people feel that they shouldn’t have to pay for health care or insurance and that all their desires should be fulfilled. I would really like to see a move away from employer-provided insurance to individual policies so that people remain aware of the costs.

    There is a practical reason for this too. In today’s world, people change jobs. Gold-plated health care traps people in jobs they no longer like because they have moved into higher risk groups, making their coverage too expensive. The system has to change. I don’t know how the transition should be managed. I sure don’t think the feds are the answer.

  42. OT, but on the topic of Iran and the nukes, and “what is Obama & Co,’s endgame?” Saw this posted at the Belmont Club, by “Battle of the Pyramids”:

    >>Actually, Wretchard, there is no mystery here. Just conflicting priorities and goals.
    1. The Obama administration wants to convert the USA from a superpower to a larger version of Mexico, a corrupt one party welfare state with the democratic party in permanent control. They see no need for a large or capable military and would rather spend the money buying votes and doling out favors to the various groups that make up the Democratic Party. Hence they will practice as much appeasement as necessary to get throough the election. If in 2013 or 2014 Iran nukes Israel neither Obama nor anyone who supports him will care. If tossing a few soldiers who followed procedure to burn trash and confiscasted Korans that Muslums themselves desecrated will appease various mobs for awhile, well Obama wont mind.

    2. Iran wants to be the leader of the Islamic world and wants to destroy the little satan (Israel) today and the great satan (the USA) tomorrow. Towards that end she is developing nuclear weapons and delivery systems suitable for large scale EMP attack.

    3. Israel wants to survive. And is learning, as the South Vietnamese learned, that it is a lot more dangerous to be a friend of the USA than an enemy — as long as your name is not Osama Bin Ladin.

    4. Egypt — well, the Muslum Brotherhood wants a pure Islamic state within Egypt, and most likely they want to take up the Jihad. So, no more natural gas for the hated Jews, and look for them to scrap the peace treaty and arm Hamas as soon as possible. The Egyptian military wants to hold on to what they have and will not oppose the Brotherhood.<<

    Thoughts? Grim assessment, but seems all too plausible.

  43. Re Ace: Davisbr, I think you’ve anatomized him brilliantly.

    I also agree that a conversion begins with an “entering wedge of truth.” Like log-splitting. First you tap that wedge into the butt end of the log … then you get out the sledgehammer of reality for a mighty WHACK!

    For me, the entering wedge was the lies the Left told about the 2000 election (I fell for them at first, then realized we’d been conned). The mighty WHACK! was the attack on September 11th by monsters whom the Left shortly allied themselves with, indecently so.

    I will never forgive them for that.

  44. davisbr @ 11:50 AM –

    Yes, completely agree with your anatomy of Ace. I love him to death, but… well, what you said.

    I wrote a massive post last night distinguishing between different senses of “rational analysis” and “dogmatism,” but apparently it was so long I couldn’t post it. At any rate, it wouldn’t go through. I tried to chop it in half, but it still wouldn’t go through. I took that as the higher powers telling me to let it go, so I let it go.

  45. The march of Leftism continues by such reasoning.

    I reject Communism (in part) and therefore become a Socialist. I reject Socialism (in part) and therefore become a Democratic Socialist and vote in the Republican primary.

    Why don’t the “former” Maoists, Leninists, Trotskyites, progressives, liberals, etc. stay in the Democrat Party, voting there to make it more “conservative” instead of voting in the Republican Party to make it more progressive.

    This is why there is so little difference between the two parties, and between Romney and Obama: “former” progressives reject the consequences of their ideals, join the opposition, but continue to believe in the lite version of their ideology.

    It’s difficult to distinguish this from deliberate infiltration and corruption.

    By 2050 “conservatives” will Maoists, if this migration continues.

  47. While you and Ace sometimes really get under my skin, like itching powder, I know exactly why you do. That liberation does create a truly open mind and thus leads to more and various conclusions that aren’t always “conservative”. But it’s a beautiful thing to note, and see, when I can back off from “my place” and see that you are on a path, the same one I am, and that I didn’t get where I am in a day. You couldn’t be where I am, it takes a lifetime. There are others, impatiently waiting for me too, further along the path. Interesting.

    And, yes, breathing the free air is my favorite way to describe it. But with freedom, of course, comes responsibility. That is why so many choose (I think they choose?) to stay liberal. Responsibility is hard, paying for mistakes “sucks”, and why think when someone else will do it for you? And I am still not sure which woke in me first, the want of freedom or the acceptance of responsibility. Which came to you first?

  48. ErisGuy: you either haven’t read my blog or haven’t understood it.

    And just to correct the record, I’m not a former any of those things except Democrat. I called myself a liberal but didn’t subscribe to all its tenets even back then. In fact, my views haven’t changed so very much (although they certainly have somewhat). I was always in the more moderate wing of the Democratic Party, which was even more to the right then than now.

    What’s more, former Marxists, etc. in the GOP are often the most conservative of all when they “change.”

    And if you don’t see a difference between Romney and Obama, I don’t think you understand much about conservatism and liberalism, or the right and the left.

  49. @neo: What’s more, former Marxists, etc. in the GOP are often the most conservative of all when they “change.”

    …an important, too often overlooked, observation. Kudos.

    Perhaps this is true, because they are the ones that know all too well …that are most familiar with, as former denizens …the hell that mere liberalism always arrives at, and consigns liberals to?

    And knowing the depths attainable, they fear liberalism the most? Fear drives people, you know.

  50. expat, I agree completely. The problem is not easily solved but will be made worse by greater government (top down) control. What is needed is bottom up control (everyone paying their own bills). We already know that all of Obama’s solutions involve a greater role for government. We need to be sure whoever replaces him does not support the same approach for healthcare. Romney apparently does given his own record and his own words.

  51. “if you don’t see a difference between Romney and Obama, I don’t think you understand much about conservatism and liberalism, or the right and the left”

    Depends on where one looks from. It is possible to understand the differences and judge them insignificant.

    A cat is bigger than a mouse, but they’re both tiny compared to elephants. 100mph toward the cliff is faster then 20mph, but both trips end the same. We should give this argument a number to save us all repeating it… 🙂

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