Liberal Illiberalism; The Liberal Assault on Liberalism

Victor Davis Hanson "Conservatives are put into awkward positions of critiquing liberal ideas on grounds that they are impractical, unworkable, or counterproductive. Yet rarely, at least outside the religious sphere, do they identify the progressive as often immoral. And the unfortunate result is that they have often ceded moral claims to supposedly dreamy, utopian, and well-meaning progressives, when in fact the latter increasingly have little moral ground to stand upon.
"Take a few contemporary controversies."...

Mr. Hanson proceeds to discuss the arguments against each of these items listed and the perceived impediments to our defense of them. TW has excerpted only a small portion of each argument from this excellent column for the list below:

Radical environmentalism.   "...the green creed began to dictate that all species were equal to humans. Soon concern for a tiny frog or worm trumped a needed project — a dam, an irrigation canal, an oil well, or a mine — designed to alleviate human suffering.

Multiculturalism. "...those in the West often have a particular obligation to elevate illiberal and intolerant systems above their own in recompense for their supposedly ill-gotten prosperity and success".

Bing image

Illegal immigration.  "It is hard to recall a comparable example in the history of two nations, in which millions of foreign nationals fled their own nation to a neighboring one, and then immediately made claims upon their new hosts, often in deference to their home country that they had just abandoned due to its failure to provide them basic services and opportunities."

Affirmative Action. "What are we to make of the coach of the Chicago Bears, Lovie Smith, announcing on a campaign video, “I have the President‘s back and it’s left up to us, as African Americans, to show that we have his back. Also join African Americans for President Obama today.” Does Coach Smith mean that “as African Americans” one has a duty to support the president by virtue of his race rather than his politics alone..."

US Soldier's Friends Stunned at Afghanistan Rampage Charges

GlobalSecurity.org   "Bales was a decorated solider who had commendations for good conduct and superior performance. He served three tours in Iraq, where he lost part of a foot and suffered a concussive head injury.
"He has had several run-ins with the law. He was charged with assaulting a girlfriend in 2002, but the charges were dropped after Bales took a course in anger management. He was charged in a hit-and-run traffic accident in 2008, but those charges were also dropped.
....Bales was a decorated solider who had commendations for good conduct and superior performance. He served three tours in Iraq, where he lost part of a foot and suffered a concussive head injury.

"He has had several run-ins with the law. He was charged with assaulting a girlfriend in 2002, but the charges were dropped after Bales took a course in anger management. He was charged in a hit-and-run traffic accident in 2008, but those charges were also dropped.

Robert Bales’ wife: “Profoundly sad” over killed Afghans, “I too want to know what happened”   "All I can do now is emphasize my sadness and my condolences to the families in Panjawai for their terrible loss," she concluded her statement this week. "The victims and their families are all in my prayers, as is my husband who I love very much." 

Polityka, Poland: Dirty Business: the Kandahar Massacre "The nocturnal massacre carried out by a lone gunman in Kandahar is not only a propaganda loss, but also a moral one. Undoubtedly, this was an act carried out by a troubled soul, but in the propaganda struggle, the entire NATO mission has taken a hit."  Via Watching America 

Obama the Big Oil Man

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2012/03/20/97521 

50s Commercial with Ronald Reagan about Socialized Medicine

Youtube 

"This is a commercial from the 1950's with Ronald Reagan. In this commercial he explains the evils of socialized medicine. How it can lead to total socialism, even back in the 50's people were worried about what the government was trying to do with universal health care."

Hat tip to Bob Hope, former Marine friend from Sacramento. 

Here's a second one for only 99 cents extra

Rutherford B. Hayes Responds To Barack Obama

American Glob 

Link no longer active.

Celebrities and progressive causes

Hollywood Celebrities are in Obama's Pocket  "The 2012 presidential election is about whether we will continue a course that's doomed to fail or if we will elect someone besides Barack Obama, get our act together, and solve our nation's problems.  You can expect to see and hear from many more Hollywood luminaries who have more dollars than sense.  They will use their names, faces, and pocketbooks to try and convince voters that Barack Obama is a great president who deserves their support.  They will make their case with slick productions that can persuade an ill-informed electorate.  Our job is to present the truth with facts to support our positions.  That's not hard to do because the facts are on our side, but we must be at least as determined as Obama's flunkies are if we hope to succeed.  If we fail, we will have four more years of Obama.  I'm not certain that our nation can survive that outcome."


Yes, Virginia, there are conservatives in Hollywood   This list goes way back and some here are no longer with us and there are a few in here that I can't say conservatives should be proud to claim.



From 2004: While Academy Award-winner and Obama supporter Tom Hanks and Eagles musician Glenn Frey parade around in the worst racial stereotypes imaginable, they mock Republicans. 
See the video here.  "In response to the video, Congress of Racial Equality national spokesperson Niger Innis has called on President Obama to remove Hanks’ narration from his campaign film. Innis called the incident “an orchestrated, heinous, and racist ‘Stepin Fetchit’ routine that Mr. Hanks was a part of.”

"Over to you, racially-obsessed Lefties!"

The "Christian women's group"

‘GCB’: Come for the Christian-Baiting, Stay for the Bad Sex Jokes "... the “Good Christian” show spent 40 minutes focusing on the sexual frustrations of married couples and touting remedies such as “googling the Holy Spirit and horny” and heading to the Bible bookstore to buy “guides to spicy Scripture,” and no that last one is not referring to a cookbook.

“GCB’s” trend of maliciously using Christian terms takes a wild turn when Carlene Cockburn’s husband can’t get his “steeple to stand up straight.”

Hard-Rocking Hypocrisy Bruce Springsteen’s new album has been hailed as a soundtrack for Obama’s re-election, especially the song “We Take Care of Our Own” (“wherever this flag’s flown”). Springsteen is lauded for going on “a tear to raze Wall Street and raise Main Street.” This is where author Jason Mattera comes in to laugh and point with the facts in his new book “Hollywood Hypocrites.”

..."Mattera’s book reports the problem for Springsteen is he’s a “first-rate tax evader.” ... The taxes for his house and three acres are more than $138,000. But because of a state tax break for farms, “the Boss” grows a few (organic) tomatoes and has horses, so the tax bill on the 200 additional acres is less than $5,000."

...."It’s too bad these rock stars can’t spare us the lectures about the glaring need for the redistribution of wealth. Until they’ve lived up to their own poverty preaching, they should just unplug the guitars and shut up."

From 2011: List of Barack Obama presidential campaign endorsements by entertainment industry personalities, 2012   Actually it's the entire list by category. Check any you like or just scroll down to Entertainment. One source. 

about.com 

Fairness Indoctrination

Michael Wiant in American Thinker:  "When I got home tonight, my 6 year old told me what she learned in kindergarten today.  She was so proud, you could just tell.  Finally, she had something to report to Daddy. 

""Today I learned the definition of the word fair," she said.  "When you have something and you give half to your friend, that is fair." 

"I was somewhat taken aback, and more than a little annoyed at our educational system.  I had to explain to her that that was only a definition of fair if you are a socialist, and it's not in any dictionary."

....
"Be careful you pay attention to what the teachers are teaching your children, or the country is going to be run by brainwashed little Democrats." (Emphasis added)

THE WELFARE STATE: RHETORIC VS. REALITY; Thomas Sowell compares liberals' claims about blacks to hard cold facts

Thomas Sowell:   "While many politicians and “leaders” have claimed credit for black progress, no one seems to be willing to take the blame for the retrogressions represented by higher unemployment rates, higher crime rates and higher rates of imprisonment today. Or for the disintegration of the black family, which survived centuries of slavery and generations of government-imposed discrimination in the Jim Crow era, but began coming apart in the wake of the expansion of the liberal welfare state and its accompanying social dogmas.

"The time is long overdue to start looking beyond the prevailing political rhetoric to the hard realities."

Bristol Palin to Obama: When should I expect your call?

Hot Air   "Like her mother, Bristol Palin has been on the receiving end of incredibly cruel criticisms. The negativity has run the gamut from passing remarks about a lack of intelligence to hateful indictments of the mistakes she’s made (and earnestly attempted to rectify). But perhaps no one has been more unkind to the Palins than Barack Obama’s million-dollar man, Bill Maher. Maher’s mean-spirited, unrepeatable remarks about Sarah Palin have been well-documented, but he also once said Bristol Palin was “f—-d so hard a baby fell out.” Who says that sort of thing about an unwed teenage mother? Who says that sort of thing about anyone? 
....
"In a post on her new blog and in clear, sincere language, Bristol appeals to the president’s highest, noblest instincts — most especially his instinct to protect his daughters, the instinct he cited as the reason he felt compelled to call Sandra Fluke to apologize for Rush’s insults. She writes: 

If Maher talked about Malia and Sasha that way, you’d return his dirty money and the Secret Service would probably have to restrain you.  After all, I’ve always felt you understood my plight more than most because your mom was a teenager.  That’s why you stood up for me when you were campaigning against Sen. McCain and my mom — you said vicious attacks on me should be off limits.

Yet I wonder if the Presidency has changed you.  Now that you’re in office, it seems you’re only willing to defend certain women.  You’re only willing to take a moral stand when you know your liberal supporters will stand behind you.

More...

Obama’s evolution: Behind the failed ‘grand bargain’ on the debt

Washington Post  "From the White House point of view, those few days show a politically selfless president willing to rise above the partisan fray and make difficult choices for the good of the country — if only obstinate Republicans would meet him halfway."

...." He was caught between his own aspirations for historical significance and his inherent political caution. And he was unable to bridge a political divide that had only grown wider since he took office with a promise to change the ways of Washington, underscoring the gulf between the way he campaigned and the way he had governed.

"In the end, that brief effort, described by White House officials as the most intense and consequential of Obama’s presidency, not only illuminated pitfalls in the road he had taken during the previous three years but also directed him down a different, harder-edged, more overtly partisan path that is now defining his reelection campaign."

Rush Limbaugh discussed all this in some detail in his Monday program: "What Boehner and the boys decided to do was essentially call his bluff.  He was setting up to run against a do-nothing Congress.  They said, "Okay, here you go."  Obama rejected it and then addressed the nation and lied. He told the American people that the Republicans were intractable, inflexible.

"It was their way or the highway. They wouldn't give an inch. When in fact they had given Obama -- this is the key -- everything he wanted.  And that's what he couldn't afford.  The trick that they played on Obama was giving him what he wanted.  They forced Obama to reject that, then go do a national address -- a prime-time address to the nation -- and lie about it."  

WaPo Fact Checker: Obama Propaganda Film Lied About His Mother Being Denied Health Insurance During Fight With Cancer…

Washington Post: The Fact-Checker   "‘The Road We've Traveled:’ A misleading account of Obama’s mother and her insurance dispute"

 

"We use a “reasonable man” standard here, and we think there are few viewers of this film who would watch this sequence and conclude that Dunham was involved in anything but a fight over health-insurance coverage.

"The disability-insurance dispute certainly may have motivated the president, but he has never explicitly stated that. In any case, the filmmakers must have known they had a problem with this story or else they would have recounted it as Obama had done in the 2008 campaign, using phrases such as “pre-existing conditions,” “health insurance,” and “treatment.”

"Instead, they arranged the quotes and images to leave a misleading impression of what really happened."

Obama’s History Lesson; Future generations will laugh at us for taking him seriously.

Mark Steyn "I was interested in the rest of Obama’s yukfest of history’s biggest idiots. Considering that he is (in the words of historian Michael Beschloss) “the smartest guy ever to become president,” the entire passage sounded as if it was plucked straight from one of those “Top Twenty Useful Quotes for Forward-Looking Inspirational Speakers” websites. And whaddayaknow? Rutherford B. Hayes, the TV flash in the pan, the horse is here to stay — they’re all at the Wikiquote page on “Incorrect Predictions.” Fancy that! You can also find his selected examples at the web page “Some Really Really Bad Predictions About the Future” and a bazillion others. 
....

"A great nation needs successful self-made businessmen like George Peck, and purveyors of scholarly excellence like Mary Somerville. It’s not clear why it needs a smug over-credentialed President Solyndra to recycle Crowd-Pleasing for Dummies as a keynote address."   Via Neal Boortz


As long as we're on the subject:
Victor Davis Hanson: Presidential Embarrassment about Gas   "It is sad to see the president of the United States not telling the truth about the current gas crisis, as he barnstorms the country ridiculing those who wish to develop more domestic gas and oil.
....
"Item by item, we are seeing the fantasies of academics and community organizers overtaken by the reality of a quite unforgiving material world — and the reality of wanting to hang onto power by being reelected. "