Sunday, August 21, 2011

Sunday’s Quote: Mamet & Krauthammer

According to Tennessee State Rep. Rick Womick (R-Dist. 34), our current President recently granted asylum to perhaps as many as 80,000 Somali Muslim refugees, about one-tenth of whom will be dumped in Nashville, without so much as a background check of any kind.

Say whatever you want about George W. Bush.  I might even agree with you.  But when Obama vowed to "fundamentally transform" our nation, few realized the extent, or even the full meaning, of what those two magical words entailed – all of which is akin to the pseudo-philosophy known today as modern liberalism.  A couple of former liberals, well distinguished in their own right, add beautifully to the point.

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"I took the liberal view for decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.  . . . The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches.  So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.

"Rather brilliant.  For, in the abstract, we may envision an Olympian perfection of perfect beings in Washington doing the business of their employers, the people, but any of us who has ever been at a zoning meeting with our property at stake is aware of the urge to cut through all the pernicious bullshit and go straight to firearms."
– from "Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'" by Pulitzer-winning playwright David Mamet, published March 11, 2008 in The Village Voice

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"Charging one's opponents with bad faith is the ultimate political ad hominem.  It obviates argument, fact, logic, history.  Conservatives resist Obama's social-democratic, avowedly transformational agenda not just on principle but on empirical grounds, as well – the economic and moral unraveling of Europe’s social-democratic experiment, on display today from Athens to the streets of London.

"Obama's answer?  He doesn't even engage.  That's the point of the ugly accusations of bad faith.  They are the equivalent of branding Republicans enemies of the people.  Gov. Rick Perry has been rightly chided for throwing around the word 'treasonous' in reference to the Fed.  Obama gets a pass for doing the same, only slightly more artfully, regarding Republicans.  After all, he is accusing them of wishing to see America fail for their own political gain.  What is that if not a charge of betraying one’s country?

"The charge is not just ugly.  It's laughable."
– from "Obama reaps what he has sown" by Pulitzer-winning syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, published August 20, 2011 in The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal

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