It seems to be a matter of viewpoint. “Incivility” Defined: It Means Criticizing Obama.

“Each sentence here as a master-stroke of the spinmeister’s pen trying to defend her guy in the White House.

1. Note the effort in the first sentence to shift this to a bipartisan issue.  Both sides are upset.  It is a good government issue.    The implication we are supposed to draw is that this no longer can be a critique of this particular administration.  It has transcended.  This is how red-blue team political invective works.  If the outrage is coming from just one party, it should not stick to the President because because it is petty partisanship.  If it comes from both sides, it should not stick because it is a larger issue for all of us that transcends this particular Administration.  In fact, through the article, she actually makes both arguments simultaneously.  Brilliant!
2. It’s Bush’s fault.  This is just so well-worn that Obama officials simply cannot help themselves.   How can a man the Left thought to be so stupid and incompetent still be directing affairs four and half years after he left the building?
3. This one is really funny.  Is, as implied by the structure of this sentence and the world “even”, Carl Bernstein the least likely imaginable person to excuse Obama of such a charge?    I think I am going to start writing this way.  Even Warren Meyer thinks climate change has been exaggerated.  Even Kim Kardashian thinks its important to get a lot of PR.  Even Tia Carrere says its OK to make a bad movie once in a while.  Hey, this is fun.”

One of the diversions that should be noticed in the current scandal crop is about connecting dots. If there is any gap between point A and point B, then those in denial will refuse to accept any connection between the two points. If person A did not explicitly order event B with certifiable provenance, then the idea that A may have caused B is considered false. In certain areas, the level of evidence must surmount unrealistic barriers. That is a defense to go along with the other logical fallacies. One wonders if intellectual integrity will ever surface.

The Russians have retailiated. They have banned 18 Americans from their country because the U.S. banned Russian officials involved in the 2009 death of a lawyer in Moscow who was representing a whistleblower about government fraud. John Yoo, a frequent target of the left in the U.S. was one of those banned and he addressed the false equivalence the Russians (and the Left) have sought to create.

“There is no moral equivalence between the United States and Russia in their treatment of prisoners and detainees. The most obvious difference is in what constitutes “torture” in the Magnitsky case and the American war on terrorism. In the former, even according to Russian officials, Magnitsky was kept in squalid prison conditions, physically beaten by guards and denied medical treatment for serious gall bladder and pancreatic problems. All contributed, it appears, to his death. There is also speculation that he might have been murdered. Yet his treatment should not be considered anomalous. Conditions in Russian prisons are notoriously abominable and the treatment of prisoners routinely brutal.

Antiwar critics likewise claim that the U.S. has similarly mistreated and tortured al Qaeda leaders. This is a willful misreading of the record.”

Scott Johnson tells the story as John Yoo fulfills a dream. He always “dreamed of being declared persona non grata by Moscow.” What the story illustrates, though, is the very common false equivalence used to condemn the U.S. Words such as ‘torture’ lose much of their impact as illustrated in this example. Compare and contrast the treatment that Magnitsky received to the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. Compare and contrast the reasons that these people were imprisoned in the first place. Excusing extreme behavior and going fanatic over mild behavior distorts definitions, belies integrity, and defines deviancy down to where it is simply a matter of one’s fantasies and not of any substance.

The instruction used to be to hate the sin but love the sinner. No more it seems. Emmett Tyrell describes why he thinks the left really, really hates us. Us, of course, is anyone not in sync with the left. “They were always irritable. In fact, I wonder which came first: the irritable disposition or the crazy ideological desiderata. At any rate, here we are in 2013, and boy, do they hate us.”

It is very difficult to have an intellectually honest debate with someone whose emotions distort reality and distract from reason.

A good example of the moral equivalency nonsense that shows up as an assumption or given truth is provided by Via Meadia: Japan walks back official whitewashing of war record.

“finding a way to come to terms with the evils done by the Imperial Japanese Army is a very real dilemma for some in Japan today—much as it still is for many Turks regarding the Armenian Genocide, or even for some Germans and the Holocaust (and, we hasten to add, some Americans and the legacy of slavery).”

What is telling here is that it puts slavery in the early U.S. history as something unique, tragic, and outrageous on a par with mass murder and worse. That ignores history. It also ignores the fact that slavery is endemic even today in some places but it is what is considered ‘educated’ these days. There are many lapses of intellectual integrity in this sort of allegation. One is that of singling out the U.S. as villain, another is taking historical events out of their context, another is conflating evils as equivalent as a means to avoid making proper judgements, and another is selection of evildoers that tends to whitewash the true evil.

It’s got to be experts who opine in a way we like – like the climate change alarmist climatologists. Social violence is another issue where the plea is for some experts, but only those who can help rationalize irrational opinions.

“How can we “gun people” honestly be expected to come to the table with anti-gunners when anti-gunners are willfully stupid about guns, and openly hate, despise and ridicule those of us who own them? There must first be respect and trust — even just a little — before there can be even the beginnings of legitimate discussion of the issue.”

The president is making assertions to young folks that ‘the government is your friend’ and all this talk about tyrany is bogus. That presumes an ignorance about the discussions and insights of those who founded the country.

“An anti-gunner reads a book though, or sees a documentary on TV — or perhaps worst of all, gets a degree — and suddenly they have the almighty authority and expertise to tell us how we ought to live our lives, replying to our objections to their onslaught by throwing pictures of dead kids in our faces and commanding us to shut up, because we’re just a bunch of stupid radicals and liberals alone know what’s best for America.”

Barry Snell at the Iowa State Daily discusses Walking the dragon — How Feinstein fiddled while America burned. Compare and contrast how the sides of the gun control argument differ and see why there are so many who think there may be a rather violent rebellion somewhere down the road. Father knows best is one thing but government knows best is entirely another, especially when intellectual integrity goes out the door in trying to support viewpoints.

It appears that the Sacramento Bee editor defends Rick Perry “BOOM!” cartoon and, in doing so, illustrates the tactic of doubling down on a dishonest assertion and rationalizing that dishonesty by diversion. The rationalization is to assert that the objection to the cartoon is ” being disrespectful for the victims of this tragedy” and a personal assault on the governor’s “disregard for worker safety.” Those assertions personalize the issue, create a straw man, and completely ignores the actual message of the actual cartoon.

There are a number of columns in the Washington Times this morning related to values and virtues, tolerance and bigotry, government and common sense.

STEMBERGER: Scouting is for honor, not sex and politics

“Until recently, the BSA was unwavering in its conviction that these values and principles were “timeless.”

But now those values are under attack. The Boy Scouts are the victims of an aggressive, well-funded and relentless campaign to inject sex and politics into Scouting.”

…

“The real issue is this: Homosexual-rights activists are not satisfied with membership in good standing and being allowed to fully participate like everyone else. They want to be able to openly promote homosexuality.”

HANSON: A nation of promiscuous prudes, America grooves on schizophrenic sexual morality

“Graphic language, nudity and sex are now commonplace in movies and on cable television. At the same time, there is now almost no tolerance for casual and slang banter in the media or the workplace. … Many colleges offer courses on lurid themes from masturbation to prostitution, even as campus sexual-harassment suits over hurtful language are at an all-time high. … The judge determined that it was unfair for those under 16 to be denied access to such emergency contraceptives. However, if vast numbers of girls younger than 16 need after-sex options to prevent unwanted pregnancies, will there be a flood of statutory rape charges lodged against older teenagers who had such consensual relations with younger girls?

… Modern society also resorts to empty, symbolic, moral action when it cannot deal with real problems.

… Not since the late 19th-century juxtaposition of the Wild West with the Victorian East has popular morality been so unbridled and yet so uptight.”

GEORGE: How hostile to religion must the state be? Graduation in a church should pass Supreme Court muster

“the 7th U.S. District Court of Appeals struck down the use of the auditorium as unconstitutional and held that the “religiosity of the space” would cause students to believe that the district was endorsing Christianity. Several judges dissented, arguing that the ruling showed hostility toward churches and would prompt unnecessary lawsuits against school districts across the country.”

DRIESSEN: Double standards for regulators – Feds give themselves a pass for flimsy facts

“blinding reality often has no effect on government programs, and cloaking policies in rhetoric like environmental protection, social justice, renewable energy or sustainable development can grant them enduring approval.

… The examples are legion. If the ruling elites didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all. Legislators and regulators would never tolerate such behavior in the private sector. Citizens should no longer tolerate it in our government.”

good food for thought.

“I have something in common with climate change myself. When I read about myth masquerading as fact, I find that my own temperature starts rising.”

Michael Kirsch thinks medicine and climate change might have some common elements.

“I don’t think that creationism is science and it should not be disguised as such. Global warming, or climate change, however, is more nuanced. While it is inarguable that temperatures have been rising, it is not certain and to what extent human activities are responsible for this. Clearly, this issue has been contaminated by politically correct warriors and those who have an agenda against fossil fuel use. Science, like all scholarship, should be a pursuit of the truth, without a destination in sight. Believing or wanting to believe that man is turning the world’s heat up may sound plausible, but it may not be true.

 

Just because something sounds true and logical, doesn’t make it so. In addition, repeating an opinion like a mantra isn’t sufficient to confer legitimacy on a view. Zealots and partisans gainsay these inconvenient truths.

In the medical universe, much is presented as true, which may be either false or unproved. Consider how many established medical procedures and practices have no underlying science to buttress them. Consider the following examples and decide if you agree that each is a good idea that makes sense.  Do they sound right or are they truly sound?”

Too often, people go off on things that sound right but are not truly sound. They then proceed to rationalize what they think sounds right and that is where the problem comes in. The often miss things like the comparison Kirsch provides between creationism and climate change. That is noting the ‘weak analogy‘ logical fallacy. The use of such fallacies is not restricted to a particular topic but rather to a behavior where trying to figure out what is truly sound is not the goal.

OK: Why should government money go for science, anyway? Sandwalk picked up the chain with Why Do We Do Science?

“Phill Plait of Bad Astronomy hits the nail on the head as far as I’m concerned [Wall Street Journal Editorial Board Member Gets Schooled on Science Funding]. His defense of science should be the primary talking point whenever anyone questions the value of learning about the natural world.”

The idea is a good one, the straw man doesn’t help it. The idea:

“We research the Universe around us because we are curious, inquisitive, intelligent animals. We don’t know what snail mating habits might teach us. That’s why we study it. Maybe it’ll lead into insight on how animals behave, or a new chemical secreted during the process, or to insight on the environment where snails live. Maybe none of that.”

The staw man? It’s those evil conservatives.

“It’s an uphill climb, to be sure; the forces of antiscience are strong and loud. One of them is the Wall Street Journal, which frequently publishes ridiculous OpEds baselessly denying global warming.”

Of course, they couldn’t stick to just “If you don’t engage in the kind of research that Conservatives want, then you won’t get funded” but have to identify a few sample villains with generic topics of dear interest to ideologs – climate change and creationism in these samples. The meme here is also significant because it expresses the anti-capitalism ethos in another straw man. That is that the rationalization for science research is strictly a matter of return on investment. These are characteristics to watch for as they indicate that it is not suppporting ones’ point of view that is paramount but rather demeaning the opposition. That indicates the intellectual integrity is not a priority, either.

John Hinderaker asks Why Aren’t More People Repelled by the Left? The latest episode is about the dancing on the grave of a former Prime Minister.

“Margaret Thatcher’s death has been the latest occasion for the Left to show its true stripes. All across the U.K., there have been demonstrations–vulgar at best, and violent at worst. In Bristol, lefties celebrating a Thatcher “death street party” started fires, destroyed property and battled police”
…
“Here in the U.S., the last similar display from the Left was the Occupy Wall Street movement, but liberal violence and general hatefulness have a long and consistent history.”
…
“I don’t get it. Why aren’t more voters repelled by the constant parade of vulgarity, hate and violence that characterizes modern liberalism?”

it does seem strange but then, there are many who deny the evidence – they are the ‘both sides do it’ camp and will go to dellusional lengths to try to pretend it is so.

“The reality – for better or worse – is that that no one in America takes treason very seriously anymore, and hasn’t for a long time. No individual has been charged with treason in the United States in fifty years, not since Tokyo Rose and Axis Sally were tried for broadcasting enemy propaganda to American troops during WWII. … So let’s not pretend that there is any real threat in the word “treason” capable of chilling criticism of current foreign policy.”
…
“The vitriolic and personal attacks on the President’s integrity and morality, while the war was only months old went beyond legitimate criticism and amounted to an effort to sabotage the war itself in the hopes that a failed war would unseat the President in the elections in November. These personal attacks were incitements to the American public to distrust and hate their President in the middle of a war.”

David Horowitz explains Why We Were in Iraq and the history and methods of the political opposition. The U.S. has abandoned victories before and the results were not pretty.

Testimony before a legislative committee can be enlightening not only in the testimony presented but also in the questions asked and the behavior of the committee members. Here’s an example — Democratic Party to Rape Victim: You Were Screwed Anyway!

“She had a permit to carry a pistol but was unarmed when she was attacked. Ms. Collins was treated sensitively by Republicans on the panel, but when the questioning turned to Democratic Sen. Evie Hudak, the Democrats’ war on women was unleashed.

The Democrat ridiculed Ms. Collins, telling her that “statistics are not on your side.” She said that Ms. Collins had rudimentary training in martial arts, yet the rapist overpowered her. She suggested that the rapist would therefore have been able to wrest her gun away and use it against her, if she had been carrying. This is, of course, a non sequitur. A small woman probably can’t outwrestle a large, strong man, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t shoot him. This is why the 19th century Colt .45 was referred to as “the Equalizer.” The Democrats’ treatment of this rape victim is appalling
…
The most important point here is the woman’s right to choose.”

There is a difference. It can be easily seen and observed. Those who posit that ‘both sides are the same’ are suffering delusions and an inability to make basic discriminations in behavior observations.

It’s the story of The Self-Stirring Pot and Our Rising Quality of Life at Via Media. The invention of a Japanese dentist is the stimulus for noting tha many small steps can make a big difference that often goes un-remarked.

“Besides the big innovations that change the world dramatically, a steady tide of new gadgets continues to reshape daily life in small ways.

Over time these little changes add up—30 years ago Americans had no Internet, ATMs, laptops, or DVDs. The conventional income comparisons between generations miss this. The richest man in the world couldn’t have bought a smartphone in 1983; today even people of very modest incomes can afford one. Our quality of life has improved much more than income levels suggest.”

Waxing nostalgic about the waning of modern whatever is a favorite hobby for many but not necessarily well in touch with reality.

It is posted as Three Reasons Conservatives are Losing the Battle for America. The worry?

“In a word, we are observing the regression of a culture…one that is moving away from sophistication and proudly stepping backward from civilizing attempts. We have seen primitive behavior in our own culture and others: when people look to a label or a skin color as all that need be said about a person; when information from trusted sources of information are grossly biased so only one side is heard or even “exists”; and when physical or administrative violence against people is belittled, laughed at or ignored. It’s a cultural regression and, as the unifying, reassuring legal structures and precepts wither, as information sources become untrustworthy, and as physical and administrative violence worsens, it becomes increasingly difficult to reverse.”

The three reasons? First is an electorate that is glued to a paradigm with unrelenting fierceness where reality, not matter how blatant, just doesn’t matter. Second is a media cohort that participates in and reinforces this paradigm. Third is the political techniques that create the paradigm for the sake of winning power.

“Political correctness is a capital political concept because: the participants silently acquiesce to its dictates; it’s a self-modulating system where groups of people self-monitor and groom each other into conformity; through unspoken or overt threats of censure, it propagates itself; and, among the willing, it inevitably leads to the control of thought. If we freely restrict our speech to only “allowed” topics, in short order we restrict our thinking as well. In the end there is no more powerful political tool than thought control, which is why mastery and management of information is a central issue in all totalitarian regimes. What has required the overt elimination or forced domination of media outlets in most autocratic regimes has been yielded up easily by our group-think media, who now march along in near lockstep while trumpeting their independence. Political correctness must be a beautiful thing to behold if you’re a politician inclined toward domination.”

There is another item to note in this essay in that it is rational and provides examples. It does not promote ideology but rather an hypothesis supported by reason and measure. That is a counterforce to what he describes and one can only hope such an approach and awareness grows.

“By any historical marker, the future of Americans has never been brighter. The United States has it all: undreamed new finds of natural gas and oil, the world’s pre-eminent food production, continual technological wizardry, strong demographic growth, a superb military and constitutional stability.

Yet we don’t talk confidently about capitalizing and expanding on our natural and inherited wealth. Instead, Americans bicker over entitlement spoils as the nation continues to pile up trillion-dollar-plus deficits. Enforced equality rather than liberty is the new national creed. The medicine of cutting back on government goodies seems far worse than the disease of borrowing trillions from the unborn to pay for them.

In August 1945, Hiroshima was in shambles, while Detroit was among the most innovative and wealthiest cities in the world. Contemporary Hiroshima now resembles a prosperous Detroit of 1945; parts of Detroit look like they were bombed decades ago.

History has shown that a government’s redistribution of shrinking wealth, in preference to a private-sector’s creation of new sources of it, can prove more destructive than even the most deadly enemy.”

HANSON: Why do societies give up?,

The Washington Times

. It is fuel for the thinking man.

“That American breakthroughs in fracking, horizontal drilling, improved agricultural protocols and technologies, mobile communications, social networking, and online commerce have developed without fanfare and largely without government aid should remind us that the sources of our continual renaissance lie more outside than inside Washington.”

Professor Hanson describes America’s Bright Future in terms of things many do not see. Food and fuel have both shown significant productivity increases due to technology and innovation.

“Bouts of collective pessimism are common in America, and the current episode of collective depression is understandable given our mounting debt and unsustainable entitlements. But we should remember one thing. In the past, when we feared seemingly great rising powers—from the dynamic Germany of the 1930s, to the Soviet juggernaut of the 1950s that put a man into space, to the supposedly unstoppable Japan, Inc. paradigm of the 1980s, to the much admired post-national European Union collective of the 1990s— all such rivals eventually imploded or sputtered. America, meanwhile, recouped and regained its preeminence in peace and war.

Why such resilience? Largely because of our far greater reliance on free markets, transparent meritocracy, rewards for individual initiative and success, comparatively smaller government, and constitutionally-protected liberties.”

There are a lot of FUD mongerers and they are in your face all the time. The positive side of things just doesn’t seem to be news and a lot of it is incremental like compound interest. Unless you look, you may not see it. Compare now to just a few years ago and focus on what has improved. Balance that with what hasn’t.

On the one hand is Walter Williams on Women in Combat. There is a difference by gender in important military related variables.

On the other hand is David Horowitz on the difference between political parties.

“Behind the failures of Republican campaigns lies an attitude that is administrative rather than combative. It focuses on policies rather than politics. It is more comfortable with budgets and pie charts than with the flesh and blood victims of their opponents’ policies.”
…
“There is a reason for this, and it affects everything that goes on in political campaigns. Republicans and Democrats are not similar people who make opposite judgments about common problems and their solutions—spending is good, tax hikes are bad. Republicans and Democrats approach politics with fundamentally different visions of what politics is about. These visions color not only the way each side thinks about questions of policy, but how they enter the arena to face their opponents.”
…
“Unlike Republicans, Democrats are not in politics just to fix government and solve problems. They are secular missionaries who want to “change society.” Their goal is a new order of society— “social justice.””
..
“Republicans see Democrats as mistaken. Democrats see Republicans — whatever their individual intentions and behaviors—as enemies of the just and the good. Republicans have no parallel belief that drives them and their agendas, and no similar cause to despise and hate their opponents.”
…
“It is the very grandeur of the progressive ambition that makes its believers so zealous in pursuing it.” … “The vision of the glorious future puts urgency into their crusades and encourages them to hate their opponents.”

There is a difference and a politician isn’t just a politician. What drives people influences their values and that influences their tactics. It is why any argument that takes the basis that ‘both sides do it’ is flawed in its first premise. It isn’t just a matter of difference of opinion. As the old saying goes, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. That applies here as well. One side hits in the gut while the other side is trying to tell you that such hits will hurt. One is concrete and the other abstract. One is emotional the other rational. One wants to feel good and the other to be good. That difference makes a difference.

“Frankly, I don’t know whether the majority of Americans have fundamentally changed, whether ignorance, apathy and/or a sense of helplessness have seized too many right-thinking Americans, whether the Saul Alinsky-fed Democrats are just superior at propaganda or whether the Republican political class, out of frustration or lack of conviction, has given up.”

What is the source of this bit of dissonance? A list is presented and the stimulus was a story about a sports star. David Limbaugh offers Half-Plaudits to Mickelson.

“The sports media, which are every bit as shamelessly liberal as their counterparts in the political media, savaged Mickelson for daring to complain about paying his “fair share.” After they shamed him, Mickelson apologized — regrettably — saying he should have kept his thoughts to himself.”
…
“Should we applaud a culture that lacks the moral courage to discourage envy and covetousness and instead champions them? This is liberalism, folks. This is the left’s ideal America.”

There are many who are trying to figure out why “what’s it matter” is sitting on top of gravestones, irrational debate has taken over politics, and the Senate majority leader is “disengaging” while the Republicans “cave” – at least according to headlines.

“to a leftist there can never be an honest disagreement with a leftist policy: it must always come because someone is paid to oppose the Left. Again, we have no mention of the infiltration of campuses by active Soviet sympathizers and devout Communists, which continues to the present.”

Another propaganda film, one that is supposedly a documentary, has its deceit exposed.

“Vietnam did leave a lasting scar, one that was not fully healed until American forces effortlessly kicked Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. The nation was divided, but this was in no small measure due to the fact that many passionately understood that America’s cause against Communism was righteous and necessary. Nixon’s narrow election in 1968, for instance, was only “narrow” because George Wallace, even more committed to defeating the North Vietnamese, siphoned off millions of votes from Nixon. Stone’s series is only “untold” because few have had the temerity to portray Soviet propaganda on cable TV as historical fact. If we are lucky, it will continue to be “untold.””

Larry Schweikart provides A History Lesson for Oliver Stone on Vietnam – real history, not the made-up stuff that is mostly just leftist anti-U.S. fantasy. It is one of a series at FrontPageMag.com on the efforts to re-write history so as to make it fit in what some want it to be rather than what it really is.

Jessoca Chasmar reports that an ‘Infuriated’ Boxer stormed out of Benghazi hearing. That was because “Mr Paul said it was “inexcusable” for the State Department to ignore the Benghazi cables.”

“To suggest that she’s retiring from this post after traveling a million miles and being one of the greatest secretaries of state because of Benghazi is unbelievable,” Ms Boxer retorted on MSNBC. “To speak to Sec. Clinton that way, it says more about him than it does about her.”

The fact of the matter is that the mid-east is in turmoil. U.S. diplomats have been killed due to security lapses. These are significant failures. But to people like Senator Boxer, the deaths and turmoil are less important than how far the boss in charge of these areas has travelled.

There is a difference between Democrats and Republicans. It is on display in the Benchazi hearings.