Another conversation with a liberal *UPDATED*
Bookworm on Jan 06 2009 at 11:20 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
(And, no, I can’t avoid these conversations.)
Lib: You’re poisonous about Obama.
Me: No. I’m just saying he’s never accomplished anything.
Lib: Of course he has.
Me: What has he accomplished?
Lib: He’s incredibly smart.
Me: I agree that he’s smart at advancing his career, but what has he accomplished?
Lib: He was a top student.
Me: How do you know?
Lib: He had top grades?
Me: He never released his grades.
Lib: Yes, he did.
Me: No, he didn’t.
Lib: He graduated in the top 10% at Harvard law.
Me: I’ll give you that. What’s he done since then?
Lib: You are just venomous, you know that?
Me: No. I’m just asking what he’s accomplished since then.
Lib: He was a law professor at Harvard the University of Chicago.
Me: Does being a part-time law professor at Harvard qualify you for President?
Lib: Well, you’re not qualified for President!
Me: I’m not going to be President. I’m just asking you to list Obama’s accomplishments.
Lib: This conversation has to stop. You’re irrational on this subject. I can’t believe your anger.
Me: I’m not angry. I’m just asking you to list his accomplishments.
Lib: Other Presidents haven’t been more accomplished.
Me: They have. They’ve run businesses, they’ve served as officers in the military, they’ve run governments. What are Obama’s accomplishments?
Lib: This conversation is officially over.
UPDATE: Jennifer Rubin points out that Maureen Dowd uses very similar logic (she’s smart because I say she is) to advance Caroline Kennedy’s Senate bid.
Related posts:
- Life in liberal-land *UPDATED*
- Philip’s Complaint, or Liberal political thinking in a nutshell
- Deconstructing liberal think
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40 Responses to “Another conversation with a liberal *UPDATED*”
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Bookworm:
I think you are on the road to publishing a handbook. May I suggest you save these nuggets for the future.
(And, no, I can’t avoid these conversations.)
I actually enjoy it when you post these conversations, Book. Please post more of them ; )
Book, I’m not sure that talking with a four-year-old mind qualifies as a “conversation.”
You must be as frustrated as one of those Stanford researchers who used to “converse” with apes. True, there’s a semblance of exchange:
You: Would NumNums like a banana?
Ape: me i numnums fruit want
You: Would you like me to section it?
Ape: me i numnums yummy want fruit
You: One piece or several?
Ape: i me fruit numnums
You: Peeled or unpeeled?
Ape: whatever bitch complicator oppressor
I echo Sadie and Ymarsaker’s plea….more stories like this. It offers brilliant insights into the Liberal/Left mindset and, in that perhaps, lies a cure. I do worry that your undercover status as a rational person (i.e., conservative) in Marin may be compromised.
Some observations:
1) You had a Joe the Plumber moment, whereby simply asking a question is deemed to be hostile. When there is no good answer, attack the questioner.
2) Facts don’t matter, protecting the “myth” does. I sensed a certain Queen of Hearts “off with their heads” attitude the moment the myth came into question.
4) To Liberals, saying is as good as doing. Thus, teaching law is the same as practicing law. To extend this a bit further, I am sure that acting as a leader is the same as being a leader. To Liberals, “governing” is performance art bereft of consequences.
I too enjoy reading your one-on-one conversations with Libs, BW.
There does seem to be an emotional rather than logical aspect to the Liberal mindset. The editor of a national monthly publication on pediatric infections began his December editorial with the statement he became euphoric upon learning of Obama’s victory. He then declared his conviction that Obama would successfully fix the problems in health care and the economy. I guess that Mrs. Obama’s stint as Vice Prez of Community Service for a large Chicago health care organization provides him with the expertise to fix health care.
“Truth” is a perception. Facts don’t matter.
Al
Al’s story would fit well in this round up by Jay Nordlinger of political intrusions in supposedly apolitical pastimes.
Off topic, but not really:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7815266.stm
The wimping out has begun. It comes as no surprise. It will lead to calamity, but no one will know or care. No one will make the connections except historians generations from now.
Danny:
Don’t worry about Book’s cover….
“I do worry that your undercover status as a rational person”
…since Lib is working in the open as an idiot operative.
Many people support Obama because he’s pretty good with words, and they themselves are “word people” with similar verbal style. It’s actually depressingly common for people to value only those abilities that they themselves possess and to devalue other abilities. See my post respecting other talents.
A minor quibble. I believe that Obama was a lecturer or adjunct professor at the University of Chicago Law School, not Harvard; whatever the precise gradation of his position, he was not, at any rate, not a full professor.
I also believe that he was offered a tenure track position at Chicago despite not having published a single thing.
gpc31 — good point. I don’t know whether it was I or my lib friend who made the Harvard error. We’d been talking about Harvard Law School a minute before, so it was an easy slip to make. I also forgot entirely to confront my lib friend with the fact that even the NYT’s was forced to note Obama’s stunning lack of published material, whether as a law student or a law professor.
I also love these conversations! They resemble a couple I’ve had but Bookworm’s are better.
Yet Charles does have a point about conversing with four year olds. These conservations cannot possibly be advancing understanding (although they ARE advancing my conviction that leftists base everything on emotions and feelings, not rational thought and evidence).
Deana
Educational and hilarious! I’ve linked to this from my blog. Do more!
Start compiling and editing these. Call it The Liberal Dialogs. Or maybe Ship of Fools.
LOL (And, yes, you can avoid these conversations.) But you don’t want to.
Passive aggressive, Helen.
Book, you need dossiers on these Lib friends of yours. A simple notebook that details their priorities and feelings. Then you will be able to manipulate those feelings because you will have known better how they think and feel than they do.
Fake libs like the appeal to authority shtick. This is especially true because their hierarchy of “peace” requires specific layers of such things as disadvantaged blacks, poor people, brown people, Islamic people, and so forth.
How do they decide which identity political gang is more important? Why, by the appeal to authority and hierarchy, of course. So when they have spent their entire lives figuring out which is more important, women’s rights or a black President, then is it so surprising, Book, that they would appeal to the eugenics based philosophy that Obama is “smart” and thus deserves the authority and power of the President?
If you can decide the worth of a human being based upon their skin color, sex, nationality, or religion, Book, then why can’t you decide their worth based upon their IQ and inherited intelligence as well?
Next time a fake Lib starts talking about Obama being smart, Book, I recommend you challenge their unequal distribution of intelligence and self-worth.
Helen, LOL, and yes, you can avoid posting here, but you don’t want to!
Nah, it’s much better. In a performance, the audience has the option of walking out or not buying a ticket.
Charles, Touche.
Try these thoughts on for size…
http://www.amarillo.com/stories/102108/opi_opin3.shtml
Wonder how your lib friends to this lady’s ideas for change!
Try these thoughts on for size…
http://www.amarillo.com/stories/102108/opi_opin3.shtml
Wonder how your lib friends would respond to this lady’s ideas for change!
A special forces guy gets back from Afghanistan, picks up his kid to go skiing in Steamboat springs, gets into a dispute over tunes played on the juke box. Walks out to his car and gets murdered.
A few hours on Drudge. Now gone. It will shuffle off of Google shortly. Down the memory hole. …..a tune by Jimmy Buffet vs a tune by one Kanye West. Discussion ends there.
Well, Wikipedia has things to say about Mr. West. Mr. West is wont to say quite trite and disparaging things about George Bush in his ‘music’. Mr. West was big entertaining the Democratic Presidential convention.
Watch out Bookie. Getting into arguments with liberals can be deadly.
I personally am outraged that America will just let this murder pass…that it will slide so effortlessly down the memory hole. The ‘authorities’ doubt this will go down as murder one because only fists were involved. The ‘authorities’ think it is a “shame”. But you should judge for yourself…..if you can find anything about it anywhere. Pay particular attention to where it occurred (as Sgt. Lopez was trying to get into his car) and the collateral damage that occurred to Sgt. Lopez’s fellow soldiers who tried to protect him from the “enthusiastic” Kanye West ‘fan’.
Sorry Bookie, I have nowhere else to go with this. Sorry.
Link, cottus?
Try blackfive as well, Cottus.
Cottus,
There is a story about the fight on Steamboat Springs Pilot and Today site, dated Jan. 5. Nothing after that. It was accessible as of 4:25 am EST today, Jan 8.
I agree with Y, check with Blackfive.
Al
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_11385784
That story fits the parameters Cottus mentioned.
Lib: You’re poisonous about Obama.
Why do you say that?
Lib: He’s incredibly smart.
Should he not then redistribute his wealth and privilege to others that lack smarts and his natural advantage?
Lib: He was a top student.
Is there a time in our life that we stop being students of the Revolution, that we stop learning to better our fellow man? What is up with the “was” here, comrade.
Lib: He had top grades?
If he had redistributed his privileges and his wealth, would he not have had average grades? Elitism is only the product of the exploitation of underclassmen. To claim otherwise smacks of capitalistic hoarding. Are you an exploiter?
Lib: He graduated in the top 10% at Harvard law.
The top 10% of Americans make more than the bottom 50% combined. If you are a true child of the revolution, why do you praise such unfair elitism and claim that it is an accomplishment on Obama’s credentials to hold such non-egalitarian records?
Lib: He was a law professor at the University of Chicago.
To not serve in the ACLU, to not provide your knowledge of Big Business law exploitations to the underclass that is being exploited, all smacks of an egregious lack of faith in social justice. This is not an accomplishment. This is close to treason to the People.
Lib: Well, you’re not qualified for President!
Revolutionaries don’t become President. We’re here to tear down the system, not place ourselves at the top of the current status quo. How dare you question the justice and the morality of our cause by comparing us to the status quo of exploiters and plantation masters.
Lib: This conversation has to stop. You’re irrational on this subject. I can’t believe your anger.
The Revolution will not tolerate behavior like yours for long. If you continue to place yourself in the way of the Revolution, you will be deemed an Enemy of the People. At that time, my anger will be the least of your concerns.
Lib: Other Presidents haven’t been more accomplished.
Other Presidents were war criminals that will be hanged after a just and peaceful People’s Trial. Your President had better be a lot more accomplished in the People’s Republic than previous admins if he seeks to make common cause with the Revolution.
Lib: This conversation is officially over.
You may believe so, but this is not over. Your name is now on the list as a potential counter-revolutionary.
[As you can see, Book, this is an extrapolation of Alinsky's advice to hold people to their own standards until it breaks from expectations of perfection. The Left have such high standards and often contradictory platforms, that it is so easy to tangle them up just by speaking their own langauge and using their own standards of philosophy.]
How unfortunate that no one here seems to share my sense of outrage. I guess all that enlisted/local firefighter bar fight stuff has no place here. My bad.
I merely wished to call to your attention the fact that a rather distinguished* soldier, – just back from the ‘stan -on leave with his son and a couple of military friends got murdered in a parking lot in Steam boat springs while trying to de – escalate the fight and it is being effectively covered up.
I will point out, however, that had the situation been reversed – the soldier the murderer and the civilian the victim, the howls of outrage would definitely have reached national proportions. The words “hate crime” would have been generously spread around and calls for “immediate government action” to protect private citizens from these “trained killers” would find there way onto major network TV screens.
As suggested here, I “took it to Blackfive”. Presumably because such ‘trivia’ has no place here. He had nothing. I attempted to remedy that.
America is split down the middle and this incident clearly illustrates how much the interests of [what I thought was] ‘our’ half, i.e. conservatives and libertarians, counts.
I would also like to point out that the financial interests of high – end ski resorts in small towns trumps just about everything – murder, class envy, race, politics, justice, truth – you name it. Bad publicity must be stifled at all cost. It’s the American way. I will not bore you with speculation about the consequences.
Bookie, I apologize and will not trouble you or your circle further.
*Please take my word for it. This man was not just another soldier.
I’ve met Caroline Schlossberg. (Hey, media, lefties, nitwits of all stripes: that’s been her name for thirty years – not “Kennedy!” It’ll be “Senator Schlossberg.”) I know a fair number of folks who’ve known her for a long time.
I hate to break this to anyone who hasn’t figured it out, but she was – and is – always seen as fairly dim by those who know her well. The sweet, simple child. Every family has one, you know?
Tiresias: I’m very careful not to confuse being inarticulate with being unwise or unintelligent. I poke fun at Obama’s “um’s” and “uh’s” only because the Left has trumpeted that his intelligence is made manifest by his verbal dexterity — a dexerity most visible when he’s tethered to a teleprompter. I think, therefore, his bumbling speech is fair game.
As for, Caroline, though, once one pushes past those irritating “you knows,” a verbal tic that afflicts way too many people, it is apparent the “you knows” mask nothing: there is no there there. There is no native intelligence, wit, or knowledge struggling to push past a slow tongue. In other words, Tiresias, it’s obvious that you’re absolutely right about the lady.
[...] [...]
You’re perfectly correct, and it’s highly unfair (and all too common, as GW Bush certainly knows) to confuse – either purposely/maliciously or just because you’re one who can’t tell the difference – inarticulate presentation with having nothing to present.
Not being able to get it out isn’t terribly uncommon. Taken by itself, not being able to get it out means that you can’t get it out: not that you’re a dope.
I don’t in fact dislike her, (though I expect I would very quickly begin to do so should she arrive in the Senate). To paraphrase you back to yourself, Bookworm: there’s nothing there to dislike. The electrical activity between the ears doesn’t rise to the level of “dislike.”
The corollary is that there’s nothing there to like, either:
“thinking” is not this one’s specialty. I’ve experienced it myself; and have heard her referred to a few too many times by old ladies in the Colony as a “dear, sweet child.” (This phrase is a code, and what it portends isn’t good.)
The sense of entitlement is also off-putting, as is, for political purposes, the complete elimination of the name “Sclossberg.” (One is free to wonder how he’s feeling about that.)
You and Dororthy Parker are precisely correct.
In her own dimwit way, Caroline is her class’s version of Paris Hilton. The Kennedy name functions even better than Hilton for name recognition, and having scads of dollars does lend a certain aura.
As for the promiscuity and naughty antics, of course Ms. Schlossberg cannot hold a candle to the Torrid Twit. But in lib porn, there are two levels of fascination: One concerns itself with unrestrained sex attached to celebrity, the other with unapologetic vacuousness attached to wealth and orthodox leftist bromides.
Remember the Left constantly going on about Republican nepotism and cronyism? That was just a convenient way to cover up for the Dem’s even greater need for nepotism.
I guess all that enlisted/local firefighter bar fight stuff has no place here. My bad.
I did ask you for a link. How do you interpret from that into that “stuff has no place here”?
Tiresias:
I’ve met Caroline Schlossberg (Kennedy). I hate to break this to anyone who hasn’t figured it out, but she was – and is – always seen as fairly dim by those who know her well. The sweet, simple child. Every family has one, you know?
It would appear that the Kennedy cousins have more than one. At least Caroline got into Radcliffe. While Joe Kennedy II is clever enough to scam a $400K salary for his “oil for the poor” program, evoking memories of his grandfather, even with his pedigree he couldn’t get into Harvard, and graduated from UMass Boston, nobody’s idea of an elite school.
“The sweet, simple child” is exactly what appeals to the left. They have these hazy sepia-toned memories of little Caroline, all pep and pinafores, cavorting with her golden daddy.
JFK is dead, so they try to bring him back by electing Bill Clinton.
That didn’t work, so they work to elect Barack Obama.
But if Hopey Changey doesn’t turn out to be JFK II, we can get Caroline — and she’s the real thing genetically.
Charles, you ever watch the Japanese military and political tour de force “Legend of the Galactic Heroes”?
One of the great things they covered in amazing fidelity to reality concerned how decadent democracies always are clamoring for the newest and greatest strong man to “fix things”. In the perpetual struggle between representative democracy and autocracy, the cycle is very clear.
I found the 3 clips of the episode in question that spelled it out. You may find it very interesting, Charles.
The top three from here should do it
I especially highlight the part that as people’s personal sacrifices in the system decrease due to higher standards of living and prosperity, the less faith and connection they have with the system. They are less loyal to America because they believe western democracy is wide and ever present, that riches could be created effortlessly and maintained effortlessly. They never had to face starvation or militias, so they don’t see a need to be loyal to a unified polity. As more and more people have sentiments in this manner, this gives rise to such things as decadence, increase in crime, and a glorified need to be entertained by violence and sex. While the people are devolving into a mob, a select few are able to manipulate the levers of power that have been abdicated by the citizens in favor of welfare and entertainment, to control the true politics of the system.
The rest is history.
Gringo: Radcliffe remains what it always was: a Sister. Yeah… (sorry, Cliffies) you can indeed buy your way in.