Exceptionalism

To my legions of devoted readers, I apologize for the recent silence of the blog. I was too depressed to write.

It is depressing to realize that, in this world of money takers and money makers, as an old retired person with no Wall Street connections, I could easily fall into the wrong group: the 47%, of the populace composed of slackers and parasites. This worthless 47% are sick people, poor people, college students, minimum wage types, good-for-nothing low wage earners, disabled veterans, and old geezers with dementia.  They are the “money takers.”  They are income redistributors sucking the economic lifeblood out of America, living off the hard work of billionaire bankers, oil company CEOs, Wall Street traders, and hedge fund managers (the “money makers”).

The icing on the cake for me was finding out that the next President of the United States says that he doesn’t even care about me and other 47 percent of America who are takers.

I could not locate any money to take. …so I took to the bottle.

The only encouraging part of the 47% news was the revelation about Mark Leder. Leder is the private equity  fund billionaire who hosted of the exclusive party at which Romney made his 47% pronouncement.  Leder is best known, according to the magazine that broke the story[i], for his extravagant parties featuring nude Russian models and live sex![ii]

So far, I have been unsuccessful in securing an invitation to one of Leder’s live sex parties.  If anyone knows how I could get an invitation, please help me out.  My lips will be sealed--I promise--about what Romney might say at the party about percentages or whatever else. I am also willing to participate in any way I can in the entertainment.

Live sex parties are part of American exceptionalism.  Check it out on wikipedia.  Condi Rice based her foreign policy on exceptionalism and boasted about it at the recent convention. The basic idea of exceptionalism is that because we Americans are better than anyone else, we get to do whatever we want.

Mormons especially know all about exceptionalism.[iii] A basic Mormon belief is that Jesus, the only begotten son of god, actually came to America and did not go to any other non-exceptional modern nations. This is only one of many fascinating Mormon beliefs.

Exceptionalism distinguishes America from all other nations.  Less exceptional nations run their systems on corruption, socialism, communism, hero worship, religious fundamentalism, confusion, and other false ideologies, that prevent small businesses from doing whatever they want to do to create jobs.

On the other hand, America was ordained by God to teach other nations how to run their affairs. We have all the answers, and that makes us exceptional.

So don’t go around like Obama apologizing for America when we have to burn up a few Korans or kill small children in far away villages with drones. We have to do things like that sometimes to get nonbelievers to recognize our exceptionalism. The essence of being exceptional is being able to get away with doing whatever you want.

As an exceptional nation, we are obligated to teach benighted nations how to run their affairs and elect leaders. It is no good to keep burning down foreign consulates, shooting diplomats, and throwing bombs. We need to teach these misguided fledgling nations how to discuss politics in a more rational and non-threatening way. People on opposite sides should go out and have a beer together, like Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan used to do.

One way we could help out would be to send other countries examples of how American democracy works. For example, we could show them how Americans who disagree with the President’s view express their own opinions in a friendly way. One way we do it is by staging mock lynchings of the President, as reported recently by NBC News.

Or if someone in a political debate disagrees with you, you can say to him or her, as American political spokesman Bill whittle recently said:

“If such a thing [referring to Whittle’s view] is not self-evident to you…. I should tell you I own a gun and I know how to use it. I assure you that the pleasure I would take in shooting you would be temporary, minimal, and deeply regretted later.”

Another way to show young democracies how to debate politics in a rational way would be to show them some of our inspiring educational political signs, such as this one:

If none of that works, we could teach them how to prevent worthless slackers without driver’s licenses from messing things up by voting, as we are now trying to do in Pennsylvania, Florida, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Texas.[iv]

It’s our manifest destiny. Let’s get busy and spread our exceptional American democracy to the world.

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This is an organic free-range blog from a parallel universe. It may contain factual material that could be hazardous to deeply held delusions.

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[i] Mother Jones magazine. Leder owns Sun Capital, a private equity firm in Boca Raton, Florida, and is part owner of the Philadelphia Sixers.( See note 2 below).

[ii] If you are a sick prurient type of individual like me, you can read all about Mark’s sexploits in the Philadelphia Enquirer.

[iii] For a surprising theory about the curious connection between Mormonism and American exceptionalism, see the article in the NY Times here by Simon Crichley entitled “Why I love Mormonism”.

[iv] See the article on America’s past and current history of disenfranchisement in the Huffington Post.

Pants on Fire in NC?

In the last blog I noted a few of the more outstanding lies by Romney and his running mate, Pinocchio Ryan. Now it’s the Democrats turn to try to match them lie for lie.

Can they do it?

Maybe.

According to one observer, “so far there is little to be believed in the course of the Democratic Party convention. It is a great concoction of half-truths, distortions, and outright lies. The hypocrisy fills the convention all like the musk of a dead, decaying animal corpse.”[i]

This sounds promising.

In fact, it sounds exactly like the other convention that ended last week.

But as this blog has often pointed out, it’s not just the number of outright lies you can tell or the totally quantity of dissembling you do.  It’s the weight of the lies that count.  The real key is how well do the lies fit into and support your narrative of why your way is the best way to run the country.  A heavy weight lie fits into the narrative and makes the story work.

To put it in a nutshell, the Democrat’s story is that we are all one big family and that no one is really successful unless the whole family, including the elderly, the weak, the unemployed, etc. are all brought along and given opportunities to succeed, at least to some extent.  It’s no good for one person to be wildly successful and then “slam the door behind him” as Michelle Obama said, closing down the opportunities for the rest of the family.

The Republican narrative, on the other hand, is that its every man for himself and the government needs to stop making job-creating successful businessmen drag along a bunch of lazy good-for-nothing freeloaders.

These are thumbnail versions, of course.  A more detailed and accurate description of the two narratives each party buys into appears in the excellent article by Bill Shireman in the September 5, 2012, Huffington Post.  I recommend this article for a full picture of two contrasting dogmas by an astute political observer.  Unfortunately, however, Shireman has deluded himself into thinking that we can undo the destructive effects of these false political narratives. He has a three-step plan, each step of which is insanely unrealistic. [ii]

But now…back to the Democrat’s convention lies.

It is only half time, but how are the Dems doing in cooking the facts to support their one-sided phony story? Five big ones have been noted so far and Obama has not even taken his shot.

1.       Bill Clinton opined that it is only the Republicans who stand in the way of compromise. This is a big fat blatant lie because it ignores the fact that both parties are now extremely polarized, according to The Blaze.[iii]

2.       Delaware Gov. Jack Markell claimed that Mitt Romney has said that “he likes to fire people.” This is a distortion. What Mitt really said was that he liked to fire people in the service industry who don’t provide good service.[iv]

3.       Connecticut Gov. Daniel Malloy made the claim that the Republican platform would “take away a woman’s right to choose even if she is a rape victim.” That may be true, but Mitt Romney has said that he does not agree with it. So this is a twisting of the truth. Same thing as a lie only more effective.

4.       Various speakers enumerated the harmful cuts that Romney would make under his plan to cut 20% from domestic discretionary expenditures, including  first responders, Head Start, Pell Grants,  after school programs, etc. This is a scare tactic lie. The truth is that Romney has not said exactly which programs he would cut to make the 20% overall cut.

5.       Bill Clinton said that Obama’s plan would cut the deficit by $4 trillion. That figure is not accurate because it includes $1 trillion in cuts Obama has already agreed to. It also counts almost $1 trillion in savings from winding down the wars in Afganistan and Iraq that Obama had already planned to make anyway.

On top of all that, the Democrats have been throwing around the “N” word way  too much (the “N” world that refers to a German dictator, not the other “n” word). This is totally uncalled for because no one in the Republican party is openly calling for a German style dictatorship.[v]

Joseph Geobbels, Propaganda Minister

It should be clear that, so far at least, the Democrats are lying as much as one would expect, but they have totally failed to connect their lies to their underlying narrative.  Their message is splattered all over the place.  They cannot seem to keep their story straight. They even let a few facts enter the arena illegally. They are wandering off message half the time, and the lies they are telling do not hook into the dogma that they need to promote.  It’s a messaging disaster.

In creating a masterful story and underpinning it with a strong foundation of appropriate lies, the Republicans are still the masters. They have the PhDs. The Dems are still in elementary school.  In fact, some of them seem to have skipped school altogether.

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[i] The quote is from the always enjoyable Rightside News blog.

[ii] You can read about Shireman’s absurdly optomistic scheme here.

[iii] This list of 5 Democratic lies is taken from The Blaze.

[iv] The full Romney quote is ““I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means if you don’t like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone doesn’t give me a good service that I need, I want to say I’m going to go get someone else to provide that service to me.” Jan 9, 2012.

[v] Pat Lehman, the dean of the Kansas Democratic delegation, said of the Republican convention that It’s like Hitler said, if you’re going to tell a lie, tell a big lie, and if you tell it often enough and say it in a loud enough voice, some people are going to believe you,” Also California Democratic chief John Burton said of the Republican speakers that "They lie and they don't care if people think they lie ... Joseph Goebbels -- the big lie, you keep repeating it," Burton said. "That was Goebbels, the big lie."Read more about how the Dems are throwing around the Nazi word at: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/05/third-democratic-party-official-reportedly-likens-republicans-to-nazis-at/#ixzz25hxPX7Ph