This page was last updated on January 27, 2016.
INSTANT ANALYSIS: My Two Cents; Carl Davidson; Facebook; January 15, 2016.
You can learn more about BCR’s leftster management here. “Leftster” is the combination of leftist and gangster, inspired by the left-originated “bankster.”
For your education and entertainment. As I did for President Obama’s SOTU address, I have to give KD credit for watching the GOP debate in North Charleston, South Carolina on January 14, 2016. I can’t stand most debates/speeches by politicians regardless of ideology or political party so I tend to rely on transcripts. Be sure to fact-check the debate, KD’s “instant analysis,” and my comments.
Carl Davidson (KD): “INSTANT ANALYSIS: My Two Cents. After each of the GOP presidential debates, you might think the spectacle and its content couldn’t sink any lower. But you would be wrong, especially given the most recent round Jan 14, 2016 in Charleston, South Carolina.
“From the opening statement by Senator Ted Cruz, calling for war against Iran because it took the Iranians about 24 hours to let go of ten US sailors who had strayed into their territorial waters. Secretary of State John Kerry got them released with a few diplomatic phones calls, but to listen to Cruz and nearly every other content, this was nothing but a display of US weakness that would have been better replaced with an all-out military assault. It was like the candidates were playing a game of ‘the dozens,’ where one after another, each had to up the ante with blood-curdling insults and fierce grimaces. If the world were not such a dangerous place, it would have been hilarious comedy.”
[RWC] According to the transcript, here’s what Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said:
“Well, Maria, thank you for that question, and let me say thank you to the state of South Carolina for welcoming us.
“Let me start -- I want to get to the substance of the question on jobs, but I want to start with something. Today, many of us picked up our newspapers, and we were horrified to see the sight of 10 American sailors on their knees, with their hands on their heads.
“In that State of the Union, President Obama didn't so much as mention the 10 sailors that had been captured by Iran. President Obama’s preparing to send $100 billion or more to the Ayatollah Khamenei. And I’ll tell you, it was heartbreaking.
“But the good news is the next commander-in-chief is standing on this stage.
(APPLAUSE)
“CRUZ: And I give you my word, if I am elected president, no service man or service woman will be forced to be on their knees, and any nation that captures our fighting men will feel the full force and fury of the United States of America.”
In late December, Iran conducted live-fire exercises during which one of their rockets came within less than a mile of aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman. Iran denies the incident happened. KD may not see it, but his Iranian buddies are in the process of seeing what they can get away with.
“Expanded militarism, outrageous war-mongering and completion to see who could be the greater or more extreme national chauvinist—those were the main elements of the ‘debate’ bandied back and forth. But this time Senator Rand Paul was not there to express a note of caution or non-interventionist criticism. It was just reaction all along the line.
“Some comic relief arrived in the new Trump-inspired attacks on Senator Cruz, claiming that since he was born in Canada of an American mother, he didn’t fit the ‘natural born’ requirement in the Constitution. One can only wonder why the same obstacle was not put before John McCain, born in the Canal Zone, or Mitt Romney, born in Mexico, both of American parents. Perhaps Cruz had a higher bar because his father was a Cuban and not quite ‘white?’”
[RWC] KD knows this issue was raised about both Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Mitt Romney.
“There was a more open racism expressed toward President Obama. Twice he was referred to as a ‘child’ or a ‘petulant child.’ Governor Christie even said Obama would have to be ‘kicked out of the White House on his butt’, as if the President had any intention of not respecting his term limits.
“Every African American knows full well the white supremacist origins of referring to Black men in infantilized or juvenile terms. Every politically conscious person of any other color should be sensitive to that aspect of our nation’s more backward heritage as well. But every one of them on that platform made it clear they were not bound by ‘political correctness.’ Now we see just what they have in mind.”
[RWC] KD and I discussed political correctness (PC) during late-October 2015. In that discussion I asserted the left’s trying to redefine PC as “civility.” So, why does the left misrepresent PC? The answer is simple; most of us know what PC means (participation trophies, elimination of honor rolls, hyphenated Americans, and so on) and don’t like it. Even worse for lefty agitators, they know most of us – including rank-and-file Democrats – know who’s responsible for it. The left’s solution? Misrepresent the term and label critics of PC as bigots, racists, etc. In KD’s words, he “can’t help but think of the ‘anti-political correctness’ crowd as a bunch of grade school sniggering wimps made [sic] because Mom got on their case to clean up their speech habits.”
Not all lefties have bought into the redefinition of political correctness, however. In “Not a Very P.C. Thing to Say,” Jonathan Chait wrote, “Political correctness is a style of politics in which the more radical members of the left attempt to regulate political discourse by defining opposing views as bigoted and illegitimate.” According to “The Atlantic,” “Chait is a liberal’s liberal: a warm and consistent supporter of the Obama administration, and a fierce and relentless critic of conservative policies and personalities.”
If you want a fairly good and entertaining overview of PC, take a look at this season’s (season 19) episodes of “South Park” on “Comedy Central.”
As for the “white supremacist” BS, keep in mind nothing negative can be said about Mr. Obama and his policies without charges of racism, unless it’s a lefty attacking from the left.
“All the proposals put forward for the economy were warmed-over Reagan-era trickle-down measures—get rid of regulations, get rid of taxes on the capitalists and even at least two forms of the ‘flat tax’ that would abolish the IRS. Everyone was a champion of blue collar workers. (of course, not in unions, but with the ‘right to work’) Yet, at the same time, every single one of them called for drastic increases in military spending and more military deployments around the world. How will we pay for it? Seize the oil fields in Iraq. We’ve seen that movie before.”
[RWC] As KD knows, we did not “Seize the oil fields in Iraq.” According to Time, “Those who claim that the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 to get control of the country’s giant oil reserves will be left scratching their heads by the results of last weekend’s auction of Iraqi oil contracts: Not a single U.S. company secured a deal in the auction of contracts that will shape the Iraqi oil industry for the next couple of decades.”
“A psychologist could probably write several journal articles on how utterly ‘terrorized’ the minds on the stage were by all the outrages of the theocratic fascists in the Middle East, in lower Manhattan and elsewhere. These events are all bad enough, but for this crew, their thinking was utterly scrambled to the point that you might think, once in office, they would have a magic wand or invisible shield they could erect to filter out all the Muslim ‘bad guys.’ Only Jeb Bush backed off a bit, warning them that that were going to have to make alliances in the Islamic world in order to deal with ISIS and it ilk.”
[RWC] While he’s at it, perhaps KD could get the same psychologist to look at KD’s problem of projecting his bigotry on the rest of us. As I’ve noted elsewhere, I’ve come to wonder if KD is overcompensating for something he did in his youth. In any case, let’s look at some real racist comments by KD’s political contemporaries instead of the imagined.
“But at the risk of my giving too much credit, these are not stupid men. I started to get the feeling that they don’t even believe half the stuff they were shouting at each other. Instead, they were trying to play into the fears they thought were held or believed in by a majority of GOP voters, especially those economically insecure and fearful of ‘The Other,’ and their task was to stoke these fears into a white heat, where the truth or falsity of any claims made didn’t really matter.”
[RWC] Now, now, this is hardly the time to back off on lefty dogma. By definition, anyone not far enough to the left is “stupid.”
“trying to play into the fears they thought were held or believed?” That’s exactly how lefties sell their policies. Remember the idiotic “war on women?” In the 2000 and 2004 elections, lefties claimed electing a Republican was tantamount to burning black churches. Election after election, lefties claim elected Republicans will cut off Medicare and stop sending Socialist Security checks.
“Where the truth or falsity of any claims made didn’t really matter?” For his sake, I hope KD doesn’t live in a glass house. KD does exactly what he claims these guys of doing. Heck, you only need to go back a couple of paragraphs to see KD lied about the U.S. seizing “the oil fields in Iraq” and citizenship questions about Messrs. McCain and Romney. Other than daily drive-by accusations of racism, sexism, and so on, the fable KD tells about the demise of LTV – Aliquippa Works may be the lie he repeats most.
“If so, it was quite a show, but that’s why these things are more spectacle than serious political discourse. For the latter, you have to go to a Bernie Sanders rally.”
[RWC] Mr. Sanders and “serious political discourse?” Mr. Sanders and KD share the same problem of deception and lying. Only a handful of examples are here, here, here, here, here, and on and on.
In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity. <g>
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