The Great Divide – the debate continues

George Rebane

RL ‘Bob’ Crabb posted ‘Inept vs Insane: The National Feud’ on his blog which by its title alone invited a heated discussion in its comment stream.  I put in my two cents and started a thread that had Bob worrying that people would “put holes in (his) new blog”.  Points were raised and questions put that are best answered on RR, which already has enough holes in it so that a few more here and there won’t matter.

Bob’s main point seemed to be that the polarized politics of the country have very little basis in reason, and therefore if people just cooled their rhetoric, they could find a nice middle way and all would be well for the country.  He couldn’t see that much difference between the two sides.  Well, I have spent the last five years on RR trying to substantiate the proposition that there is a huge difference between free market capitalism and collectivism in all its forms, many of which are clearly on the rise for reasons discussed in these pages.  Anyway, I commented –

“The main difference I see in the contending sides is that one says, your way won’t work because it will put all of us in a poorhouse surrounded by barbed wire; therefore let us go do our thing, and you can do your thing. The other side says your way is unfair, and you have to stay and pay us to make our way work (and we’ll use the barbed wire if we have to).”

Michael Anderson, somewhat incredulously, asked “George, what’s/who’s stopping you from creating a new country where you can “do your thing” within the border of the USA?”

Somewhat nonplussed, I replied that it’s “sorta like asking the citizens of the USSR, who outnumbered the Party members about 50:1, the same question. That’s the correct reply.  However, a more comprehensible answer is a) two plus generations of citizens graduated by our public schools, and b) the ‘progress’ of our republic toward a democracy. There is no way that the gimmes are going to let their meal tickets go.”

Gregory Zaller, a new voice from the left, replied, “I don’t know, George. The truth goes the other way you intended more readily. The far right are the intrusive ones who will jail those they find morally different and who want less government so they can develop more schemes to exploit people.”

GregZ’s “I don’t know …” was the only correct part of his comment, as several following commenters from the right attempted to inform him.  GregZ’s perception is iconic of the left and the prime reason for the Great Divide debate.  Only class warfare collectivists have put in place and operated regimes which removed individual liberties, jailed their opponents by the millions, and killed them by even greater numbers.  But their view of history is so different that the dialogue ends before it can start.

Piling on incredulity, MichaelA comes back with the claim that not only didn’t I answer his question, but that even my “proposition was dishonest”.  Then taking a tack way to the left, he attempts to point out the weakness of conservative propositions in general by focusing on healthcare, and claiming that the right has no solution that beats going to nationalized healthcare via the rosy road of Obamacare.  That argument had enough leaps, turns, and twists in it to put shame to some of the best Cirque de Soleil routines.  It was definitely time to come back to RR.

Adopting the established argumentation of the mainstream left, MichaelA completely ignores the sustainability and level of care problems under which EVERY nationalized healthcare system today in the world suffers.  As new evidence emerges daily about implementing Obamacare, it is clear that if you thought healthcare costs and levels of care were out of control now, you ain’t seen nothing until that monstrosity fully kicks in.  Yet progressives like MichaelA want to go toward certain disaster (added to the already dire fiscal condition of the nation) instead of even giving the conservative proposals another look.

Actually, it’s worse than that.  The leftwingers have not even given the conservative healthcare proposals a first look because these require drastic overhaul of our tort laws, tax code, and the elimination of a number of holy collectivist cows.  For liberals it’s nationalized healthcare or the gulag since, as I continue to point out, for us the highway apparently is out.

But pushing Obamacare is just one of many rocks on the road to recovery that this administration has laid down, and will continue to pile up in spades once they get re-elected.  And to be sure, it is again the apparatchiks of the left who are preparing the usual draconian response to the inevitable and massive civil disobedience when it comes.

If we appeal to Occam’s razor for the simplest explanation and one that has the most predictive power, then ‘It’s global governance, stupid!’ and Agenda21 is the way.

[Today’s headlines  - ‘Payrolls Rise by 69,000; Jobless Rate up to 8,2%’ - continue to corroborate the thesis that we are in Depression2.  And predictably the economists and analysts were again “surprised” by these “unexpected numbers”.]
 

Comments

[George Rebane]

Gregory 135pm - Yes, but then there are those lucid moments.

In DougK's 1136am my concern is not so much that he's all over the place, but that he has established a "connection" with discussants who don't visit these pages, and may exist undisturbed only in his conscience. Early on, most of us were advised not worry about people who talk to themselves, but only about those who also demonstrate their ability to carry on a full blown conversation, solo.

[Douglas Keachie]

When Greg builds straw men, he uses choco-flavored flex straws, full of artificial ingredients, many untested by the FDA.

Greg, please lists the monuments to the white slaves brought over from Europe. What, you can't find any? Only blacks were imported as slaves. To import only blacks as slaves is racist. To start deciding that underpopulated by whites, states, need to start counting their slaves, to figure out how much representation they should get is also racist. Don't believe me? Try polling 100 random blacks and see what results you get. This is a prie example of compartmentalized thinking, when you can't see the discrimination involved in slavery and this system setting up representation. Maybe they should have counted cows and grant 1/5th of a vote for steers, 2/5ths for cows, and 3/5ths for a bull.

[Gregory]

Bizarre. Keach, you really don't have a handle on the language, do you?

From the wiki: "According to a PBS article, the Three-Fifths Compromise is sometimes erroneously said to mean the founders believed blacks were only partial human beings (i.e. three-fifths of a person). The article also states the compromise had no relation to the individual worth of the black slave."

[Gregory]

Here's a simple yes/no question, Keach: In your mind, would counting slaves as a whole person in the clause in question been less racist than the 3/5 compromise?

[Douglas Keachie]

Nope, accepting states into to the union at all where slavery was legal was both dumb and immoral. Prove other wise, and note that all of SE Asia did not become communist after the fall of Saigon, and that one of our better water volleyball players, and ex nuclear submarine engineer, has moved there permanently to enjoy his retirement, on the coast, a 100 miles north of Saigon. The USA did not "need" the South.

[Douglas Keachie]

I not only have the handle on the language, I can pump like hell. Who did you think Zimmerman/Dylan was talking about, "Subterranean Homesick Blues?"

[Gregory]

Considering the large number of slavers who were Scots, your forebears probably didn't agree. And, given only five of the original thirteen colonies were Free, it's amazing the slave states didn't force a deal better than they got.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_SlaveFree1789.gif

Without the slave states, there would not have been a USA, and without the USA being formed as it did, the institution of slavery would have been free to expand, including into the west.

[Douglas Keachie]

"Without the slave states, there would not have been a USA, and without the USA being formed as it did, the institution of slavery would have been free to expand, including into the west."

Possible but not provable. That's why I mentioned Vietnam, I thought that was obvious.

[Gregory]

No, the only obvious thing was yet another disconnected connection.

Cold war Domino Theory in southeast Asia and expansion of slavery in north America had similar dynamics? And that is obvious? Bizarre.

[Douglas Keachie]

"Bizarre," Gregeeze for, "I refuse to consider it in any rational logical way."

[Douglas Keachie]

I never said they had similar dynamics. You lie.

[Gregory]

It's even more bizarre to think one could inform one on the behavior on the other if their spread weren't governed by similar dynamics.

Really, Keach, not a single one of your posts on this thread held up to even minor scrutiny. You just do your usual dance steps, changing the subject, erecting straw men and waving red herring.

Face it, the original colonies were dominated by the slave trade the Brits and Scots instituted, and it took most of a century after independence to roll it back.

And, to belabor the point which you never conceded, there was never anything in the Constitution that declared blacks or ANYONE to be less than 100% human.

[Douglas Keachie]

"there was never anything in the Constitution that declared blacks or ANYONE to be less than 100% human." Again I never said this. I said that the general spirit and tone of the times was racist, certainly by today's standards. What the hell do you mean by "similar dynamics?"

I did make it clear that you have no way of proving your hypothetical history, and illustrated that by indicating that the right wing conservative fears that all of SE Asia would fall to Communism never happened. Even Vietnma itself is now welcoming Americans to find a happy retirement there.

[Gregory]

More bizarrity from Keach.

"Again I never said this."

You attacked me for asserting the contrary, which goes way beyond a mere implication.

Dynamics is in the dictionary, look it up. Forgive me for thinking your drawing of a parallel between the cold war Domino Theory and the history of slavery in the US was more than just an idiotic statement trying to equate a looking back to the early history of the US to a cold war fear, and that you were actually considering the economic and political mechanisms for slavery spreading.

I decided something special was needed to convince Keach that the progression of slavery in America was slowed by the Union... here we go, from a source whose leftist credentials are undeniable:

"The last Continental Congress of 1787 and the first Constitutional Congress of 1789 -90 had legally excluded slavery from all Territories of the republic north-west of the Ohio. (Territories, as is known, is the name given to the colonies lying within the United States itself which have not yet attained the level of population constitutionally prescribed for the formation of autonomous states.) The so-called Missouri Compromise (1820), in consequence of which Missouri became one of the States of the Union as a slave state, excluded slavery from every remaining Territory north of 36 degrees latitude and west of the Missouri."

-Karl Marx, Die Presse No. 293, October 25, 1861.

[Douglas Keachie]

"(Reuters) - A Somali Islamist militant group is offering rewards of chickens and camels for information on the whereabouts of President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, mocking the millions of dollars the United States has offered for leaders of the al Qaeda affiliate."

I'll bet three Llama's and three avians I know where to find the guy who like to refer to those he despises in the third person.

[Gregory]

Keach, I accept your forfeit; you just can't stay on topic, can you?

[Douglas Keachie]

Greg, you can't handle comments on meta-communication. Have you figured out yet how the job creators are going to change their stripes and start creating jobs in the USA? Give zero taxes and zero regulations, will they come back here, or will they continue to milk the workers of the world outside the USA for all they can get and sell. Romney's not going to be able to do a damn thing, and bunker-cading isn't going to work to save the quality of life in the USA, not even for the .01% ter's.

As an old commenter on The Union used to say, "WAKEUP, AMERICA!"

[Gregory]

"Meta-communications"... so that's what you call your inability to actually discuss issues of the day without completely misrepresenting the positions of the adults you're talking to?

[Gregory]

Checking into "meta-communication", knowing how Keach relies on wikipedia, I found their explanation:

"Human communication, in addition to verbal communication, involves kinesic and paralinguistic elements which can be seen as metacommunicative signals i.e. messages about messages. These indicate how the verbal communication should be understood and interpreted. Meaning does not depend only on literal verbal meaning, but is codetermined in a critical way by the intensity and inflection of the voice, facial expression, accompanying gestures, secondary signals sent to bystanders ,etc. The same verbal message framed by different metacommunication can mean something entirely different, including its opposite."

Keach, you do understand no one here can see the faces you're making when you type, don't you? Just how does this "meta-communication" of yours work on a blog thread?

What you really are performing is a classic "Gish Gallop".
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop

That isn't a recipe for discussion. The only real question is whether you are trying for a Gish Gallop, or you just can't manage anything else after years of your style overwhelming whatever substance you may have started with.

[Douglas Keachie]

You obviously failed again, depending only on wikipedia. Meta-communications also involves considering the manner and stylistics used in the written and spokjen word. In this case I called you out for disrespect, by way of mentioning your penchant for referring to me in the third person, much as two adults talking about a child might do, even with the child in the room and hearing everything.

[Gregory]

The wiki is awaiting the editing of "meta-communication" by Keachie. It will require citations, which he may find hard to find.

The manner and stylistics of his writings suggest a childish avoidance of facts and a penchant for "drowning the opponent in such a torrent of half-truths, lies, and straw-man arguments that the opponent cannot possibly answer every falsehood". In other words, the Gish Gallop or

Since he may well believe much of what he writes, substitute "misconceptions" or "delusions" for "lies"

[Douglas Keachie]

Greg, the childish loser of the argument, is continuing his meta-communication missteps by going on again, referring to his fellow adults as if they were children, in the third person, in what is otherwise an open adult forum. Grow up, Greg! Or keep on writing meta-code, and pretend to be erudite.

[Douglas Keachie]

Here, chew on this for awhile:

How does one evaluate the risk or potential return for an investment of intellectual
capital? If it were somehow possible to create a theory-neutral environment wherein
conflicting paradigms might be compared—an environment devoid of social, psychological,
and emotional variables and influences—scientific debate might be relatively
brief. The arguments would be a simple matter of logical or mathematical proof, or of
identifying the perspectives required to support each paradigm. But as Kuhn suggests,
when dealing with theory-choice (i.e., practitioners’ commitments to a paradigm), debate
is not simple:

Debates over theory-choice cannot be cast in a form that fully resembles logical or mathematical
proof. In the latter, premises and rules of inference are stipulated from the start. If
there is disagreement about conclusions, the parties to the ensuing debate can retrace their
steps one by one, checking each against prior stipulation. At the end of that process one or the
other must concede that he has made a mistake, violated a previously accepted rule. After that
concession he has no recourse, and his opponent’s proof is then compelling. Only if the two
discover that they differ about the meaning or application of stipulated rules, that their prior
agreement provides no sufficient basis for proof, does the debate continue in the form it
inevitably takes during scientific revolutions. That debate is about premises, and its recourse
is to persuasion as a prelude to the possibility of proof. (Kuhn 1996:199; italics added)"

You'll find more at: http://www.sil.org/silepubs/Pubs/48756/48756_Blackburn%20P_Code%20model%20of%20communication.pdf

[Gregory]

"A variant of the Gish Gallop is employed by bloggers who post an endless series of dubious assertions - each of which can be countered, but to no effect, as it will be buried under the cascade of dubious posts."

Keach, if you want a long discussion on your new found favorite subject, as opposed to the one George posted on, why not post it on that blog of yours and wait for someone to join you there?

[Douglas Keachie]

You are the one who wandered it off topic, with your rude behavior, which I called attention to. Next time, don't be so rude, and we can stay on topic. BTW, Car Show fotos here: http://www.277foto.com/

[Gregory]

Note to George, this is not one of his "lucid moments".

[Douglas Keachie]

Note to George, Greg is such a rude dude, with an attitude, that shows negative altitude. Third person seems to be his preferred mode of communication.

[Gregory]

"A variant of the Gish Gallop is employed by bloggers who post an endless series of dubious assertions - each of which can be countered, but to no effect, as it will be buried under the cascade of dubious posts."

[Douglas Keachie]

Greg's had one too many doobies.