Cursing, Post-Modernism and the Left's Idiocy

4/6 UPDATE: A great example of the Left cursing at and threatening people who disagree with their positions (as usual) is here. The target of their hatred this go-around is actually a non-partisan group that disagrees with Al Gore's assertions on global warming.

Big Surprise: Lefties Curse -- A Lot More than We Do

Patrick Ishmael published this interesting piece on his blog about foul language used in arguments online. He did a bunch of Google searches based on George Carlin's infamous "Seven Dirty Words" to see which side, left or right, in fact uses them more (if either). The result, that foul language is present WAY more often in leftist arguments than on the right, is no surprise to conservatives as we've been complaining about it for years. The left has always alternately denied it and ignored it.

Ishmael found that the Daily Kos, the leading left blog, had 146,000 pages containing one or more of the words, and the Huffington Post, #2 on the left, had 109,000 pages. The #1 conservative site, Ace of Spades, had less than 10,000. And even that was high for the conservative blogs: The next highest was Dean's World at 2,550. The vast majority were under 1,000.

I don't collect lists or stats on the subject; I just encounter it regularly when I peruse left-leaning blogs or hear/see lefties arguing in public events. I actually want to hear the liberal positions on important subjects of the day. I used to try to listen to Air America during my morning drive and I have tried to read liberal blogs.

I've pretty much given up on these attempts because I've found the Left has very little, if anything, honest to say about any of the subjects I care about. Every time I turn around I hear some leftie saying some outrageous thing about conservatives that just makes my blood boil. This morning Dennis Prager played a quote from Joy Behar, a nut-job leftie on "The View" on ABC television, where she basically said that not only did she hope Vice President Cheney did, in fact, have a blood clot in his leg, but that he deserved it, too, because he's such a liar. Now, this is a despicable comment no matter how you slice it. No human being should be saying things like this about another human being, period. Secondly, she just threw this out there with no attribution whatsoever. He's a liar? Care to back that up?? Of course not. This is par for the course in liberal ideology.

Conservatives (myself included) often accuse Liberals of not bringing intelligent conversation to the arguments of the day. Liberals never seem to actually counter that assertion, they just do what they always do: throw out more chaff - change the subject.

Post-Modernism is Partly to Blame

The major reason for this, in my opinion, is that the left today is a post-modern group through and through. Hillary Clinton even admits this when she refers to the world in which we live as a "post-modern" world. If you know anything about post-modernism, you immediately recognize what a dangerous idea this is, not to mention how ridiculous. But most people have no idea what post-modernism is and so they don't see the threat, and they also don't understand what drives leftist arguments.

In a nutshell, post-modernists do not believe in any objective truth, or "reality". No one and no idea can be "judged" because all ideas are "correct" in the culture they were created in. Hard to imagine that people think like this, but the more you learn about post-modernism, the more you see it all around us in this country today. Because no one can legitimately be criticized, the idea of arguing based on reason goes right out the window. Reason is irrelevant because there is no objective truth. Is it wrong to enslave women? Well, not necessarily. It'd be wrong for Americans but not in other countries. Without an objective truth, everything is permissible in some context.

When you cannot argue from reason, you instead argue using "rhetoric" or "stories". Instead of making an intelligent point based on facts ("facts" don't exist for a post-modernist, remember), you tell an emotional story that is intended to sway your listener to your point of view. Listen to radio and television debates with that understanding and you will see that this is how it is done. Leftists cannot and do not counter conservative arguments by debunking the assertions the conservative used in making the argument. They instead lob ad-hominem attacks against the person, calling them a xenophobe or racist, etc. Or they will tell sad stories about supposed victims of the conservative's ideas. Or they will change the subject by asking a question, often an unrelated one. They do not see this tactic as unfair or dishonest. In fact, this is the proper way to argue based on their worldview.

When you understand that leftists see the world in an entirely different -- and I would say, unrealistic and foolish -- way than the "modernists" have for the past 2,000+ years, you can start to understand their tactics and maybe even the danger they pose.

Libby Found Guilty - So What?

Scooter Libby was found guilty the other day of perjury in the Valerie Plame case that has been a liberal rallying cry (one of many) against the Bush administration. For some reason he had told FBI investigators that he didn't disclose her name to, I think, Robert Novak during an interview, when he actually had. This was after her name was already public, and many years after she had been a spy for the CIA. But because he neglected to tell this to the investigators, a jury concluded he hadn't forgotten it but actually had lied to them. So he's guilty of perjury. Not guilty of disclosing a spy's name and blowing her cover, mind you, which was the point of the investigation. Guilty of lying about it to investigators.

I can't help but see this whole farcical trial as an excuse for the lead investigator, Patrick Fitzgerald, to look he was actually accomplishing something in his investigation. I mean, how much of a threat, even supposing it is true, is Scooter Libby to the country? How big a problem was this lie? Was it material to even that case?

I read yesterday that some jurors polled stated that they believed Libby was the "fall guy" for the administration. That news is troubling for a few different reasons. First, it indicates that the jurors are left-leaning Bush-haters that may just be "out to get" the administration. These are people who would not have approached the trial with an open mind but just were looking for someone to hang. Second, it indicates that the jurors also do not know, or more likely do not care, that the real "leaker" of Plame's identity to the media has already been proven, almost a year ago, to be Richard Armitage, a leftie State Department employee who everyone knows is anti-Bush. So again, it was proven that the Bush administration had nothing to do with leaking her name, ergo there is no "fall guy." And we're back to BDS ("Bush Derangement Syndrome") to explain the jury's actions in convicting Libby.

Even if the disclosure of Plame's identity were a crime, and this is really questionable to begin with for a whole variety of reasons, why is Patrick Fitzgerald not spending his time putting Armitage on trial instead of Libby? If it was wrong, it was wrong. All the time the Left believed Karl Rove was the leaker, you couldn't flip through the news channels without hearing some leftie scream about the evil Bush administration's cover-up and all the harm supposedly done to Plame and her idiot husband, Joe Wilson. The right argued that no matter who it was, it didn't amount to a crime. As soon as the leaker was discovered to be Armitage, the left quieted down (without apologizing even once) and the right maintained its consistent position that it hadn't been a crime to begin with. If the right had been the left, we would have seized the moment and crucified Armitage. But the left is inherently dishonest and the right is not. This is just further proof of that.

Meeting the Doolittle Raiders

I was lucky enough yesterday to have attended the Chino Air Museum's monthly lecture, which this month was about aerial gunners. I became a member of the museum during my dad's visit in December, mainly because I wanted to be able to attend these lectures each month; they're always on some aspect of air power history that is interesting.

The first half-hour of the presentation, a sergeant from the Army Air Corps who volunteers at the museum as they work to fix up their B-17, gave a talk about what it was like to be a ball turret gunner on said plane. Sgt Wilbur told an audience of perhaps 200+ about four of his 30 missions flown during WW2, including his last mission, during which he was wounded. Fascinating stories, and thank God people have begun realizing in the past several years that these stories need to be taped or written down. As one presenter put it, "write them down so that we have them, otherwise Hollywood will write them for us." How true that is (and how awful that today we have to worry about the leftists in Hollywood).

After the aerial gunnery presentation, which was worth the price of admission already, the audience sat with rapt attention as two very old men, Colonel Richard Cole and Major Thomas Griffin, described their time as members of the world famous "Doolittle Raiders". Most everyone has heard of the American bombing raid on Tokyo, Japan in February 1942, just a couple of months after Pearl Harbor. Then-Colonel Jimmy Doolittle planned it out and led 15 planes, 80 crew members, on the raid. Ever since, it has been the stuff of legend; immortalized on film with Spencer Tracy in the lead in "30 Seconds Over Tokyo", and it even made it into the recent "Pearl Harbor" movie, this time with Doolittle played by Alec Baldwin.

The two members of the raiders, sitting alongside an "honorary Raider", Jimmy Doolittle's son John, discussed the preparation and execution of the raid, and fielded questions from the large audience packed standing-room only into the hangar that houses the Museum's Navy planes exhibits. It was riveting, and a couple of the people I spoke to while there had the same star-struck feeling that I did: "These are the actual guys who were there. This one guy was Doolittle's co-pilot. What a treat to be able to listen to these men give first-hand accounts of this very famous event, answer our questions afterward, and shake our hands and greet us individually after that. What a blessing that we still have these men with us, in their 90's (they were born in 1915 and 1916), as well as Sgt Wilbur, to tell us their stories and remind us not to forget the contributions of this great generation 60+ years ago.

In this age of liberal hatred of our military, all of us at the presentation went out of our way to thank these fine men for their contributions to our country. One young man, in his Army uniform, took the microphone during Q&A to do nothing more than thank them explicitly, and salute them. He stood there in salute, rock-rigid, as those around the raiders leaned over to them quickly and explained (they are hard of hearing) what the young man had said, and they then happily returned his salute. One volunteer at the museum, a custom airplane model-builder, presented them with replicas of each of their planes that he had made just for them, mounted and painted with the proper insignias, etc. It seemed we couldn't do enough to thank them. One older man remarked to his friend with a smile, "they're just as popular today as they were in the 40's."

On Religion

I've been thinking for the last month or so about how to write about how profoundly my religious beliefs have enlightened my worldview over the past few years. I haven't written anything about it yet because I can't quite get my arms around the entirety of what I want to say. Since "reverting" to Catholicism several years ago, I've been on an insatiable quest to learn all about Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. Along the way I've continued to stay abreast of world events and have noticed that my strong political views have changed dramatically. As a result, I can clearly see both sides, now, and understand the perspectives of so many of those around me sometimes more clearly than they themselves do. It's enormous to take in, like a flash flood of information and new understanding. Trying to put all that into words to explain outwardly is daunting.

One thing I can say at least, at the bottom line, is that I am more convinced than ever that Catholic faith is the key to seeing things in the world for what they really are, and for also understanding how to approach them. This one religion has started with the Word of God and has worked within a single established framework for adding to its official body of knowledge over the last 2,000 years. Today, it remains true to its understanding of specific rules of morality that were established hundreds of years ago, and it's the only Christian religion to have done so. And while people may call the Church and its teachings "old-fashioned" or "out of step" in 2007, I and other devout Catholics would argue that it is those critics who are out-of-step. Morality does not evolve. It just IS. The Catholic Church has always understood that, and uniquely so.

Once I figure out just what I want to say, I'll break it down into pieces and post it here. I hope you'll stay tuned.

L.A. Times Again Bashes Conservatives

Here is an email I sent to Rosa Brooks, who contributed an op-ed to the L.A. Times this morning. You can find this piece of trash here.

I just read your pathetic excuse for an op-ed in today's online L.A.
Times and I have to wonder just what you idiots on the left are
smoking over there at the Times. No wonder the LAT circulation is
dropping like a stone.

I struggle to find a single sentence of this piece of garbage that's
even true, much less compelling. The Swifties were debunked? When did
that happen? Michelle Malkin is inaccurate and unfair? Where? The
conservative PAC is being run by fringe elements? Who? The troops are
deeply critical of the president's Iraq strategies? Which troops? The
U.S. military is getting its back broken? Where on earth did you hear
that nonsense? I suspect the honest answer to all these is, "in
liberals' dreams."

Liberals are so devoid of anything intelligent to bring to the
conversation that they can't even refer to themselves honestly.
"Progressives"? What's progressive about the Democratic party? That
they want to turn the U.S. into an atheist, socialist welfare state?
Why not save yourself some time and energy and just move to China?

The Swifties were effective because Kerry was so obviously an
anti-American nut-job that he couldn't counter their attacks
effectively. Like so many other liberals, yourself included, he comes
off as an America-hater who just can't stand the fact that we're the
most successful nation in history. Why? Who knows.

Part and parcel of that is hatred of the military. You say, "all the
old myths revived: The antiwar left spits on returning troops and
gives aid and comfort to the enemy." Funny thing is, all that
actually HAPPENED. The antiwar left DID and DOES spit on returning
U.S. troops. CNN really DID run footage on national television of a
terrorist sniper killing an American soldier. There's nothing
mythological about any of it. The left in this country is despicable
and dishonest. John Murtha is particularly so. "Redeploy" the
troops? To Okinawa? What a buffoon. If he's so proud of his
strategy, why doesn't he call it what it really is? Withdrawal.
Retreat. Defeat. Any one of those would be more accurate than
"redeployment".

Ridiculous, inaccurate, America-bashing columns and "news" articles
like yours are the reason I cancelled my Times subscription and will
never go back. Reading this online just reinforces to me that I did
the right thing.

Michael Kellogg