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Truth-telling and hard-hitting politics — 74 Comments

1. MUCH easier to prove The One doesn’t love this country than to prove he does. 20-years in Jeremiah’s Church. Baa-Daa-Bing. Like Dat.

   That said, it was a dumb thing for Rudy to say with the ‘growing truly popular’ Scott Walker in “public” attendance.

2. Neo, I always admire your intellectual grace. A thoughtful post. If I may dare to interject a Scriptural reference: “By their fruits ye shall know them.” (Matt. 7:20) Jesus was talking about discerning false prophets when he made this aphoristic and elegant point. Let Obama’s own record and his own statements speak for themselves on these matters. (There’s a touch of that “fool or knave” conundrum in everything, isn’t there?) What Obama believes in his heart, about God or the United States, is pure thumbsuckery for any of us. But where he has taken this country and where his beliefs seem inclined, have thus far provided ample “grist” for thoughtful judgment.

3. Bumpin speak:

   Ladies and genltemen id tlike to talk
   about a very improtant suject
   I like tos epak my mind. I do.
   but i’ve notice liately i cannot do that
   because to say some language
   is to risk a fine or prison
   that’s what i call overkill
   for private converstation
   esdpecially if their are spies listenting
   and we know that spies
   are listening everywhere.

   Still, i recognizxe the blgood ilntention.
   Q!uelling hate speecgh and all that.
   Makes sense that to stop something
   you forbid that something.
   But this one goes against common sense
   because for some rfeason i cant ascsetain
   whatever that be, still must be a big reason,
   because I’m not alone. Plenty of peopel agree me
   and, i maight add, gower bigger th day.

   I hpe n pry i aint seen the last of it
   Really, reason do, hope and pray.

4. I don’t know why people would read that post and come to that conclusion.

   cause maybe if he shouldn’t say what he said anything else is clamming up, or self censoring…

5. Thank you for clarifying.
   Admittedly, I did receive your initial comments as a tacit (possible) effort to reconcile Obama’s comments—-those which some have used as reasons to believe that he does not love America.

   Why?

   All too often it is heard in the media and by others (his press secretary, his cabinet, his staff, etc.) comment on what they “think” Obama meant by what he said. He’s got a freakin’ army of individuals explaining what they believe, what they think the dope’s intentions are/were in spewing…

6. I agree with you completely.

   While Obama’s actions speak loudly this is also a marriage counselling technique that counselors use because each person husband and wife should be allowed to state their own feelings.

   Then let the actions of the husband or wife stand to scrutiny because those are facts.

   There is plenty that Obama has done and continues to do daily. ..

7. Here is where I got a tad confused:

   “…You don’t want to “fundamentally transform” something you love.

   Or do you? For example, a family can get together in an intervention to try to motivate a loved one to stop doing drugs. They’re looking for a fairly fundamental transformation to occur, and yet they still love the person.”
   _______________________________________

   I am not saying that you were engaging in apologetics. It could be the training in counseling. It could be a feminine thing; a softening of the “environment”, or message. Or the compassionate behavior of giving one a benefit of the doubt (I surpassed that nonsense far too long ago).
   In any case, every other part of your post was appreciated, as is generally the case. Now, is this one of those opportunities where we can all engage in a “group hug”.
   I relish those.

8. What I am objecting to–and will continue to object to–is candidates who opine about the inner workings of a person’s heart in terms of whether that person “loves” America. It’s something no one can know, so it’s way too easy for the opposition to attack comments like that. And comments of the type Giuliani offered aren’t persuasive to anyone who doesn’t agree with them already, anyway.

   i disagree, and given whats happening from it, your idea is wrong. if guiliani cant prove it right, ie means they cant prove him wrong. however, a fact has to pass their gatekeepers to be allowed, and they have spend over 100 years setting up the rules for that.

   calling republicans Nazis, is just another form of it. and i know you disagree, but Reagan saying for a sovereign nation to obey him is similar… they are both situations where what is being said has nothing to do with the other entity. reagan did not actually put any real pressure on the soviet union, but he did make a show of seeming action for his audience… obama is not going to step forwards and admit anything about what guiliani said and he didnt say it for obama, he said it for his audience.

   in this case, they also considered the negative of their followers to be their audience as well. so whether they like it or not the opposition either shuts up about it, or tries to do something about it, and either way they end up on the bad end of it as the lesser of two evils is still evil.

   the reason you dont like this is that to do this is to break arbitrary rules of conduct that are no longer in play other than people who hold on to them… maybe in some past you could say that queensbury rules apply, but after so many lies and othe games and the complicity of the press, the only one following any rules and losing are the opposition to the ones breaking the rules.

   guys may understand this much better than women as guys were made to fight and die doing so as a regular course of their living… when men fight there are rules we follow… once those rules are crossed the natuer of the fight changes. women run afowl of this all the time!! ie. they go try to kick him in the balls… if i am fighting someone fair and square, and they try to kick me in the crotch, i know the fight has been escalated to one that includes death, not just a beating… thanks to feminism, and their doing crap in movies, you have some people out there creating fights to the death for less than that, which to the feminist leadership is fine, as any dead woman serves the cause.

   but thats the point… to us guys, the left is fighting dirty, you lose if you try to maintain the rules…you fight equally… death fight for death fight, fair fight for fair fight.. the non left loses for holding rules that no longer are in play and exist only for those that agree to the rules. obviosly the left does not agree. they dont even claim there are rules except to subject their opposition to..

   maybe this is some odd side to the fact that US military is so overwhelming strong in most areas it can fight fair against dirty and win… but that is the only exception to this rule. ie. a grown man cant kill a child even if the child breaks the rules… because he is overwelmingly strong against the opposition

   but in anby other mix, this does not apply… just as its bad form to be losing a fair fight and cheat by doing one of those death kinds of moves to win at the last second.

   besides, a political fight in terms of represenattive government in which the representative no longer represents but the search is for someone that believes what the public wants has changed that game of rules you allude to.

   in the old days, a man elected could represent people even if he disagreed with them… he voted and acted on behalf of his constituency… but that changed. we started looking for people who rather than represented were believers. this moved the game to saying, pretending to be, or actually be those things you said cant be proved… which eventually led to people pretending to believe things to be elected then doin what they wanted… ergo, people pretending to beleive then evolving in office to take the other position… once the game went there, then the only thing to do was to make claims as to their actual beliefs and their actual acts under those beliefs… otherwise there is nothing to criticize or claim as the oppositoni can then claim to be whatever the pubilc claism to want and there is no way to fight it.

   this is why the left has been winning… because they now claim to believe what the public wants and so will vote what the public wants from belief not representation. their only game being how to change what they claimed to beleive to do what they want, which they either evolve, or they act without any claim and dare opposition to say that what they belived is not what they believe.

   you may not like it, but they are the ones that moved the game into that realm and work it from there…

   actions speak louder than words and if one believs X but does Y, then they might as well not believe X and doesnt matter if they do.. so as far as arguing is concerned, all guliani is really saying is that for a man who claims to believe X you sure do vote y and never X…

9. And [whether Obama loves America is] a thing that is inherently unprovable and unknowable, anyway, because it’s a statement about what’s in someone’s heart. The most we can say is that Obama’s behaves as though he doesn’t love America.

   what does that have to do with anything? what does knowing his heart have to do with it? personally, its silly… the man killed his wife, but you claim that we cant know if he didnt love her? ok. he loved her a whole lot and killed her anyway… duh… ok, he loves america a whole lot but acts like he doesnt…

   your point is quite silly as it doesnt matter whats in his heart!!!
   and this is not a game of truth or dare, with truth being crucial.
   this is a game of, do their claims match their actions.

   even funnier, humans are so odd that we may not even know what is in our own hearts… its all so silly as your holding guliani to a standard no one keeps… and negating actions speak louder than words, devolving it to he acts one way but that does not reveal anything.

   which in the left is… he bombed the country, but he says in his heart he loves it!!! now beleive him… why? because thats all you can do if you cant devine his real heart and nature.. and opposing it requires devining it, so your out of the game, to heck with any argument.

10. Neo:

    I would much rather Giuliani had cited some act or statement of Obama’s that demonstrates his lack of love for America, and then asked, “Does that sound like a person who loves America?”

    Well put. The first indicator for me that Obama did not love America was his dismissal of “rural folk” as “bitter clingers.” That was a cavalier dismissal of a large swath of America. As someone of rural origin, who today has horse-owning and cattle-owning cousins out in the countryside, I did not appreciate that remark.

    At the same time, I saw his dismissal of rural America as typical of the prog/lib mindset. As the resident of a town dominated by forest and dairy farms, I attended a regional high school in a suburban town, where “dumb farmer” was how those from the suburban town described us from the countryside. [Disclaimer: I didn’t stop voting a straight Democrat ticket until I was 30.]

11. I would much rather Giuliani had cited some act or statement of Obama’s that demonstrates his lack of love for America, and then asked, “Does that sound like a person who loves America?”

    why? much better NOT to say it… because we naturaly fill in the blanks with what we find to fit.. his example may not be the best.

    all he is doing is doing what the left does… ie. giving you part of the info then forcing you to come up with th rest that makes it acceptable and logical to you without having to explain. in this way, you dont have to find the one factual thing that meets the standard of 10 different people, each of the ten differnt people pick the thing taht meets the standard for them

    besides, there is no one single thing he could say in your example that would illustrate preponderance.. which is what is required… so its better to not say it, and let the other person fill in the argument and win by their doing the job for you!!!

    its knowing people better than knowing rules (that dont work unless people are all agreeing to follow them)

    heck.. i have tried the preponderance argument here and it doesnt work!!!! no matter how much i list you dont say a ha and agree… so that does not work in real life… it works in academic fantasy, of which there is a lot of that going around… or it works in court, but in court there is that agreement and a referee holding the parties to it.

    outside of that, everything is fair game…
    including stating or alluding and letting others fill in the blanks with the best answer they accept… which we do very well!!! to the point of arguing that a person said such when they never did.

    humans fill in the blanks so there are no holes..
    we dont like holes and dont even see them
    so we fill them in. good political combatants use that
    given the battle field is your mind, much better to have you select what you think is right, than have them say something wrong

    notice how well my empirical arguments are accepted
    (they arent… are they?)

    below pertains to visual fields. but we do the same thing with verbal information… its part of how we understand each other and how people adept at manipulation can confuse or exploit it.

    we are so programmed to do it, that presented correctly we will even make up artificial memories to fill in these holes rather than percieve a hole and accept we dont know!

    Filling-in
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filling-in
    “Perceptual filling-in”, in its simplest definition, is simply the filling-in of information that is not directly given to the sensory input.

    this filling in the gaps is why witnesses are not good at being witnesses!!

    However, psychologists have long recognized that gap filling and reliance on assumptions are necessary to function in our society. For example, if we did not assume that mail will be delivered, or that the supermarkets will continue to stock bread, we would behave quite differently than we do. We are constantly filling in the gaps in our recollection and interpreting things we hear. For instance, while on the subway we might hear garbled words like “next,” “transfer,” and “train.” Building on our assumptions and knowledge, we may put together the actual statement: “Next stop 53rd Street, transfer available to the E train.” Indeed, we may even remember having heard the full statement.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-

    The process of interpretation occurs at the very formation of memory–thus introducing distortion from the beginning.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-

    Rarely do we tell a story or recount events without a purpose. Every act of telling and retelling is tailored to a particular listener; we would not expect someone to listen to every detail of our morning commute, so we edit out extraneous material. The act of telling a story adds another layer of distortion, which in turn affects the underlying memory of the event. This is why a fish story, which grows with each retelling, can eventually lead the teller to believe it.

    the beauty of what guliani did was he was working the mechanism of the minds of the opposition.

    in this case… if he stated a fact, they could use him as a reason not to listn to the fact!!!!!!!!!!! but since he did not state it, any gap filling assumption comes from themselves. and they wont not listen to themselves. they have to guess which fact is the one he thinks proves his case, this forces them to go over many facts…

    this is the difference between someone who has a talent with people vs average joette…

    every leftist that heard it, and wants to think about it, has to fill in the gap he left with what they think is the most damning things so they can argue against it. they cant discount it as being from him, and they cant pick a lesser one… they also cant avoid searching many items…

    the truth is that they are not blind to the bad, its that they ignore it mostly… but ARE aware of it or they could not function as people in our world where this natural behavior is necessary…

    even now, if you read the arguments, they each are latching on to negatives or they are avoiding them and attacking guliani for not being pure enough to cast stones…

12. Experiments conducted by Barbara Tversky and Elizabeth Marsh corroborate the vulnerability of human memory to bias In one group of studies, participants were given the “Roommate Story,” a description of incidents involving his or her two fictitious roommates. The incidents were categorized as annoying, neutral, or socially “cool.” Later, participants were asked to neutrally recount the incidents with one roommate, to write a letter of recommendation for one roommate’s application to a fraternity or sorority, or to write a letter to the office of student housing requesting the removal of one of the roommates. When later asked to recount the original story, participants who had written biased letters recalled more of the annoying or “cool” incidents associated with their letters. They also included more elaborations consistent with their bias. These participants made judgements based upon the annoying or social events they discussed in their letters. Neutral participants made few elaborations, and they also made fewer errors in their retelling, such as attributing events to the wrong roommate. The study also showed that participants writing biased letters recalled more biased information for the character they wrote about, whereas the other roommate was viewed neutrally.

    Memory is affected by retelling, and we rarely tell a story in a neutral fashion. By tailoring our stories to our listeners, our bias distorts the very formation of memory–even without the introduction of misinformation by a third party.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    Bias creeps into memory without our knowledge, without our awareness. While confidence and accuracy are generally correlated, when misleading information is given, witness confidence is often higher for the incorrect information than for the correct information. This leads many to question the competence of the average person to determine credibility issues.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    what if I told you that what you see might not actually be there? Unknown to most, the human eye has a blind spot–a rather sizable one, in fact. The area where the optic nerve connects to the eye lacks light receptors, leaving it unable to gather information. As strange as it may seem, you have two gaping holes in your vision.

    Called filling in, this phenomenon explains why we do not notice our blind spots. The brain uses our surroundings to literally make up what we cannot see, covering the holes with its best guess as to what’s there.

13. Obama is unpatriotic by his own standard when he criticized Bush for adding trillions in debt and for the mortgage crisis. Hoisted by his own petard? Serves him right.

14. All Reps need some short quick replies to shut up the journalists, like Do you think I’m running for Mindreader in Chief, or Psychoanalyst in Chief, or Theologian in Chief? I thought you folks were supposed to cover issues of government.
    Followup with, “There you go again.”

15. I like this from Rubio: “Democrats aren’t asked to answer every time Joe Biden says something embarrassing. So I don’t know why I should answer every time a Republican does.”

    Wish that would get a lot of MSM play, but it probably won’t.

16. Neo has the right goal for discussing these matters: to craft messages that persuade supporters (especially, the masses of low-information ones) away from mainstream views that give comfort to the Obama administration. Giving an indignant thrill to the anti-Obama people is less important, or worse, counter-productive if it gives ammunition to the Obama side.

17. Ann, that’s about as good as it gets.
    Should they (the press) get a little too aggressive, he might try:

    “If you’d prefer, I could send you a tweet on this to emphasize just how serious I am about it. Would that be better?”

18. Artfldgr;

    I brought up the “unprovable and unknowable” point for one very simple reason, and one reason only—which is that the fact that it is unprovable and unknowable makes it very simple to counter a charge about someone’s inner state by saying “no, that’s not Obama’s inner state and you’re a bigot, a meanie [fill in the blank with something nasty] for saying it.”

    What I am suggesting is a different, more effective, and much more difficult way to get the same message (“Obama doesn’t love America’) across, in a way that is much more difficult to counter.

19. “What I am objecting to–and will continue to object to–is candidates who opine about the inner workings of a person’s heart in terms of whether that person “loves” America. It’s something no one can know, so it’s way too easy for the opposition to attack comments like that. And comments of the type Giuliani offered aren’t persuasive to anyone who doesn’t agree with them already, anyway.”

    I just spent the last hour pondering that statement because despite its reasonableness, I found that something about it troubled me. The “inner workings of a person’s heart” speaks to motivation. By a man’s actions is his heart revealed, especially if his actions are consistent and repeated.

    In such a case, we can know what is in a man’s heart because he has provided demonstrable proof of the inner workings of his heart.

    Can anyone doubt what is in the ‘Reverend’ Wright’s heart in regard to America? One sermon can arguably be claimed to be motivated by frustration or intemperate anger, of having ‘a bad hair day’. But 22 years of such sermons demonstrates an irrefutable pattern that leaves not even ‘reasonable doubt’ as to the inner workings of his heart.

    As to “way too easy for the opposition to attack comments like that” and being unpersuasive to the closed minded, so what? If it is the truth, it is defensible and it is only timidity that sees a battle lost as ‘proof’ of the war being lost.

    The problem is not what Giuliani said or any admitted lack of skill in stating the truth, the problem is that the rest of the GOP leadership when questioned didn’t say, “Of course it’s true and many millions of Americans know it. The man’s actions prove it to be true. People who don’t know it have swallowed the media’s biased deceit, deceit that has been going on for decades.”

    Arthur Schopenhauer observation applies here; “All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; and Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”

    The GOP’s timidity when faced with ridicule and violent opposition and condemnation is why we are losing and, we are losing, arguably have already lost the battle for young Americans ‘hearts and minds’..

    As for lack of persuasion, the willfully blind will cling to their beliefs until their survival forces abandonment of those beliefs. Many cannot be saved, many cannot be awoken because they refuse to be.

    “I would much rather Giuliani had cited some act or statement of Obama’s that demonstrates his lack of love for America, and then asked, “Does that sound like a person who loves America?”

    A skillful approach to be recommended after you’ve hit them between the eyes with the truth. There’s a reason why Churchill recommended, “If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time-a tremendous whack.”

    That’s the famous teaching truism, tell them what you’re going to say, then say what you have to say and then explain to them what you just said.

    Our audience is not the choir, our audience is the blind and deaf, purposely being led into the ditch. LOUD ‘words’ are needed to reach such as they.

20. artfldgr;

    Responding to your comment at 5:21—the problem is that the only people who will fill in the gaps of what Giuliani said are people who are already motivated to do so. You and I and others on the right can do it easily. But those who aren’t already in agreement with what Giuliani said are far more likely to reject it as preposterous and over-the-top. They have no reason to fill in the blanks, or really to think about what he said and how it might apply at all. They are told by the MSM and Democrats that it is way out of line, and it’s easier to accept that characterization than to do any independent thinking about it.

21. Clarityseeker:

    Regarding your comment at 4:43—

    After you quote that quote of mine about families and interventions, you then write;

    I am not saying that you were engaging in apologetics. It could be the training in counseling. It could be a feminine thing; a softening of the “environment”, or message. Or the compassionate behavior of giving one a benefit of the doubt (I surpassed that nonsense far too long ago).

    But I’m not sure you noticed the paragraph immediately following my paragraph about the intervention. In that subsequent paragraph, I explained the previous one this way:

    In fact, they [those who do the intervention for the relative] would say they’re doing this because they love the person. And that’s how I think Obama would answer when questioned about why, if he loves America so much, he wants to fundamentally transform it, and why he criticizes it so much. He’d say he does it because he loves it so much

    The entire discussion of interventions was a way to introduce my notion that it is an argument Obama would use to defend himself, if anyone ever confronted him directly with the charge and asked him to defend it in the light of the fact that he criticizes America so much.

    So why would you think I was offering it as some sort of excuse myself for Obama, or that it represented my giving him the benefit of the doubt? I was trying to guess what his approach to the question would be, if someone in the press were to challenge him with all his criticism of this country (not that anyone in the MSM ever would really do that).

22. neo writes,
    “I brought up the “unprovable and unknowable” point for one very simple reason, and one reason only–which is that the fact that it is unprovable and unknowable makes it very simple to counter a charge about someone’s inner state by saying “no, that’s not Obama’s inner state and you’re a bigot, a meanie [fill in the blank with something nasty] for saying it.”
    _______________________________________

    Completely understand where you are coming from. Got it.
    However, as you well know, this is simply another of those “shackles” which are placed upon the conservatives so as not to mention anything which can’t be “proven”.
    However, the Left will continue, unabated, in their full frontal assault on republicans;

    1.) Howard Dean accusing Governor Scott of being, unknowledgeable” because he chose not to finish his last semester of college—-because it is easily provable that the last semester is the instrumental key, the very semester which imparts the true “knowledge. Then he doubles down on Governor Scott’s inner state by suggesting that he is, “unworldly” in his approach to issues.
    This is entirely approved and certified by the Left. It is acceptable.
    2.) Then senator Barry the “I’m present” Obama accusing President Bush as being “unpatriotic” because he added $4 Trillion to the national debt. Once again, everyone knows that meets the provable definition of, “UNPATRIOTIC”.
    Got it…

23. Of course, therapists, psychologists, social workers all reach conclusions about what a “client” believes, based merely on verbal evidence.
    This is all much ado about nothing but intellectual jousting. Of course Obama hates America. His wife pretty much said it for him: “This is the first time I like America” or words to that effect. Duh.

24. Geoffrey Britain:

    At 6:31, you write:

    The “inner workings of a person’s heart” speaks to motivation. By a man’s actions is his heart revealed, especially if his actions are consistent and repeated.

    In such a case, we can know what is in a man’s heart because he has provided demonstrable proof of the inner workings of his heart.

    But that IS my point! That is almost exactly the way I am suggesting Giuliani should have approached it. State the action (or the quote) that would support the thesis “Obama doesn’t love America.” Then ask the question about whether that sounds like a person who loves America. That way the person is given the “demonstrable proof” of the inner working of Obama’s heart, and can connect the dots to answer the question him/herself.

25. Don Carlos:

    A great deal of politics is “verbal jousting.” You or I may not like that fact, and would prefer it be more substantive, but that’s the way the game is played and a politician must be able to play it well. Reagan played it very very well when the MSM tried to play “gotcha” with him.

26. neo,
    And you seemingly missed that part where I mentioned that Obama sure has an army of people who help him in answering for himself.

    “…And that’s how I think Obama would answer when questioned about why, if he loves America so much, he wants to fundamentally transform it, and why he criticizes it so much. He’d say he does it because he loves it so much..”
    _______________________________________

    Personally, I would prefer to have him ‘splain it himself. Seriously. It is a rare event when he gets any hardball questions.
    _______________________________________

    and neo writes:
    “… it is an argument Obama would use to defend himself, if anyone ever confronted him directly with the charge..”
    Again, presupposing, guessing, answering for him. Alas, we are left with these conditions since we no longer have a 5th column to rely upon.

    NEO—–I have some weighty follow ups to such a response—-IF—–those words you put in Obama’s mouth were regurgitated by the man-child.
    Just as I posted a substantive follow up to a question posed to David Axelrod on your thread last week. Hugh Hewitt failed to ask it. And no one has posed it to Axelrod in the three interviews I’ve watched since Hugh Hewitt’s one hour interview.
    One of those very provable, “you’re a hypocrite, Mr. Axelrod”, without saying as much. Simply using his own words, things he’s said, reflected back on him in form of a question.

27. In his USA Today column Instapundit has a breakdown of the “patriotism” question that I found persuasive.

28. The fact is many, many people have been saying Obama is not a patriot for years. Hey, if we’re being honest, isn’t it pretty much implied into most of what we say even right here about him? Fool or knave? What makes Rudy different is he’s the most prominent figure to say it out loud for all to hear. And I suspect that’s exactly why he said it: to get the discussion started. And maybe he intentionally didn’t provide details, letting those unfold in the back and forth he hoped would follow.

29. Neo,
    Your February 1oth thread on David Axelrod. Mine was the last post:

    Hugh Hewitt: ……….Let me ask you about Alan Dixon. You obviously didn’t like him much. Why did Alan Dixon’s vote for Clarence Thomas bother you so much?

    DA: Well, it bothered me for the reasons that were borne out by a book that was later written by a couple of investigative reporters on that nomination. It bothered me, because I felt like he wasn’t voting on the merits. I felt like he had cut a deal to vote for Clarence Thomas in exchange for a weak opponent in his reelection campaign in 1992. And a book was written in which there was a very detailed account of how he went out and played golf with Dan Quayle, and this was discussed, and the deal was cut. And you know, my feeling was that it wasn’t a decision of principle. It was a decision that was based on a deal around the election, and that offended me. But it was also consistent with my feelings about Dixon generally, because he was a guy who was thoroughly consumed by politics, and not all that interested in policy or interested in following a particular point of view. He did what he thought he needed to do to perpetuate himself in office. And Hugh, that’s not unheard of in Washington. That, there are a lot of guys like that. He happened to be my Senator, and I was offended by that.

    So–—Mr. Axelrod makes the point that the issue of, “principle”, is why he disliked Mr. Dixon.

    BUT––-Mr. Axelrod counseled Barack Obama to LIE about his position on same sex marriage. He LIED to those religious black supporters of his. Mr. Axelrod told Obama to LIE about his religious beliefs.
    Is that not an issue of “principle”?

    Question: Mr. Axelrod, how can you be perturbed about Mr. Dixon’s principles and then ask Barack Obama to forego his own; to LIE about his principled positions?

    Too many people not asking good enough (well researched/conceived) questions. Then there is the issue of getting in front of Obama on his “love” for America, or, myriad other issues. Unless your name is, Glozell—then the door is wide open. Or some dumbass interview between 2 ferns… Yeeeeeesh

30. Clarityseeker:

    Whether Obama himself or his army of helpers would answer, my point is that this would be his camp’s answer.

    And also that, since his camp includes the MSM, he will never be asked the question and so it was all merely hypothetical speculation anyway.

    What’s more, the GOP candidates will always be asked the difficult questions and the “gotcha” questions, and they need to be prepared for them.

31. Clarityseeker:

    I am often very frustrated at the failure of pundits on the right to ask what I consider the correct, most pointed, and most hard-hitting questions. They often miss golden opportunities. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s just hard to think on your feet. But it happens too often.

32. “And comments of the type Giuliani offered aren’t persuasive to anyone who doesn’t agree with them already, anyway.”

    To quote Butch Cassidy: “First we gotta talk about the rules.”

    Enemy: “Rules? In a knife fight?”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5f5_KdLEw4

33. How about the direct approach? — by which I mean, point out exactly what the enemedia are doing. In so doing, we unmask them.

    For example, “Gov. Walker, that question is designed specifically to sow discord among Republicans, and I am not going to play your game. Reporter/reporterette, ask a few of your favorite Democrats whether they agree with your president’s assertion that ISIS is not really Islamic. Ask a few of your favorite Democrats whether they agree with your president that the Libya beheadings are not about religion, there are just a few random “folks” out there without heads now. Ask a few of your favorite Democrats when it dawned on them that the Benghazi incident maybe wasn’t all due to some youtube video. Did you change your mind only when your president changed his? While you’re at it, what was your president busy doing that evening?” Etc., etc., etc.

    Play the same game they’ve been playing for years on end, and don’t back down. If they protest that they’re the questioner and you should be answering the questions, state plainly that the rules have changed as of now, because we have to do your job for you.

    The problem is that Republicans persist in treating the enemedia as though they’re going about their business and are merely poor at it, that they’re referees who are not good referees, but they’re the referees and are to be treated as such. D#mmit, they’re as much the enemy as are the lefties and the religious extremists [except the enemedia aren’t into beheading or immolation — yet].

    It’s way past time to change the frame of the conversation, and to point out the old frame for what it was.

34. Recall people, Obama declined to attend or comment on the
    Anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address.
    He declined to attend or comment on the celebration of the
    Anniversary of the Star Spangled Banner.
    His wife & her familyhad to explain what Thanksgiving was.
    These are hardly the behaviors of someone with an appreciation of the Job he holds as president & more in line withhis wife’s innane comment once made, (very Commie
    Like I might add) “we have to change our history” !
    Good Grief !!!

35. Recall people, Obama declined to attend or comment on the
    Anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address.
    He declined to attend or comment on the celebration of the
    Anniversary of the Star Spangled Banner.
    His wife & her familyhad to explain what Thanksgiving was.
    These are hardly the behaviors of someone with an appreciation of the Job he holds as president & more in line withhis wife’s innane comment once made, (very Commie
    Like I might add) “we have to change our history” !
    Good Grief !!!

36. Opps sorry about double post

37. vanderleun Says:
    February 22nd, 2015 at 7:43 pm

    Enemy: “Rules? In a knife fight?”

    and then

38. Then …
    What is best in life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PQ6335puOc

39. M J R Says:
    February 22nd, 2015 at 7:56 pm

    The problem is that Republicans persist in treating the enemedia as though they’re going about their business…
    That is Cognitive Egocentrism, ie: projecting your own motivation into the enemy’s purposes.
    Very dangerous …

40. Neo writes,
    “Maybe it’s just hard to think on your feet.”
    _______________________________________

    That’s why you’d be perfect. You trained those feet in those torture devices called ballet shoes. I’ll bet you could slap ’em up side the face without showing ’em which way you lean.

    “Ballet Slippers”?
    Hell, I’ll bet they’re, “Foot Bombs”. You should be required to register them as a weapon.

    I dated a southern girl once.
    That old saying, “Velvet glove, Iron fist” proved as true as Obama’s limp wristed baseball throw.

    Neo’s version: Ballet slippers, Nuclear foot”.

41. “Enemy: “Rules? In a knife fight?”

    and then”

    Watch the clip to which I provided a link.

42. neo @ 7:05,

    Your point is very clear and I for one support it but NOT in the order you suggest. IMO you not only have the cart before the horse but have rejected the horse.

    A simple, clear statement that, ‘I have reluctantly reached the conclusion that Pres. Obama does not love America nor have its interests at heart’ is ‘the horse’. Rhetorical questions that illustrate that his words and actions are both inconsistent, contradictory and demonstrably harmful is ‘the cart’.

    “That way the person is given the “demonstrable proof” of the inner working of Obama’s heart, and can connect the dots to answer the question him/herself.”

    Leave off the verbal accusation or place it out of order and only those on the cusp of awakening will ‘connect the dots’. Remember that we are dealing with entrenched, willful denial. You do not break through a wall of denial with words of honey. You attack it with a verbal battering ram and then offer carefully wrought words of conciliation.

    Include the truthful accusation first and you create a crack in the armor of the LIVs certainty. Then the rhetorical questions create doubt. Otherwise they simply ‘bounce off’ their ‘armored’ certainty.

43. M J R, 7:56 pm — “The problem is that Republicans persist in treating the enemedia as though they’re going about their business . . .”

    g6loq, 8:11 pm — “That is Cognitive Egocentrism, ie: projecting your own motivation into the enemy’s purposes. Very dangerous . . .”

    I’d love to respond, but I have to admit I’m not sure I understand your point. I think you’re saying I’m projecting my motivation into the enemedia’s purposes, and to do that is very dangerous. In that case, you and I are in agreement. My gripe (one of many) is that the Republicans treat the enemedia as though they’re honestly trying to do their jobs the right way, and (yes,) it’s dangerous to do that, as Mitt Romney discovered in 2012 Debate II.

    If you are interpreting it differently, I’m not getting that alternate interpretation.

    By the way, in a confrontation between Republicans and Democrats, I normally side with the Republican side, largely because I consider the Democrats’ side to be so thoroughly *odious*. Also, the Republican side tends to talk a good game, but they often don’t walk the talk. That said now, the point of this paragraph is that I am nonetheless *not* a Republican, given that the Republican establishment generally works in opposition to my point of view.

44. G Joubert @ 7:13,

    Outstanding commentary, I too found it persuasive because it talked of what should be obvious to the electorate. An electorate that in its reelection of Barack Obama demonstrated its immaturity.

45. M J R Says:
    February 22nd, 2015 at 8:33 pm

    sorry too terse a post …
    I am saying that R are not sufficiently taking into account the dog-eat-dog mentality of the left..
    The left has no interest in being a loyal opposition…

    The last R to truly understand this was Lee Atwater.

    Discussion of Cognitive Egocentrism:
    http://cifwatch.com/tag/liberal-cognitive-egocentrism/

46. Geoffrey Britain Says:
    February 22nd, 2015 at 8:43 pm
    G Joubert @ 7:13,

    Outstanding commentary, I too found it persuasive because it talked of what should be obvious to the electorate. An electorate that in its reelection of Barack Obama demonstrated its immaturity.

    TWICE!

47. Yes twice, “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me”.

48. TWICE!

49. Geoffrey Britain:

    I disagree about the order and about the psychology.

    The reason is that my observation of the way people’s minds work is that they are reluctant to change them (in fact, that’s one of the themes of my blog). If someone already thinks Obama doesn’t love America, for example, then we don’t have to convince that person. Saying “‘I have reluctantly reached the conclusion that Pres. Obama does not love America nor have its interests at heart” might make those people applaud that you’re finally saying it, but what of those others, the ones whom you describe as in “entrenched, willful denial”?

    It is my observation that those in the latter group tend to close their minds firmly shut at that approach. I have never, literally never, seen it work with anyone. And while it’s true that people don’t change their minds often, I have observed that when they do it comes not from someone making a comment like that, but it comes when they themselves put a fact together with its conclusion. The conclusion cannot come first, because if it comes first the “otherness” of the thought is unable to “break through the wall of denial.” If anything, it strengthens the wall of denial.

    You write:

    You do not break through a wall of denial with words of honey. You attack it with a verbal battering ram and then offer carefully wrought words of conciliation.

    I don’t know how many walls of denial you’ve broken through, but I’ve been fortunate enough to break through quite a few, and observe others break through a whole lot more, and I have never seen it done with a verbal battering ram. Perhaps it could occur when someone is seeking change in the first place—for example, if someone is highly motivated to quit drugs or something like that, and other approaches have failed, and it’s a last-ditch effort. But in the situation we’re talking about, where there’s no motivation to change at all, and the person is perfectly comfortable keeping his/her point of view and never changing (in fact, the person is motivated NOT to change), battering rams of the sort you describe do not work.

    What does work (and this is such a huge topic it’s one of the main themes of my blog, one about which I’ve already written a lot) is more likely to be something the person notices him/herself. Something that gives him/her a sense of unease about something that has happened, an experience that person has had, an observation he/she has made, something that doesn’t fit with a preconceived notion. Another person acting as a “battering ram” by making some categorical statement like the aforementioned one about Obama not loving America is too discordant, too easy to reject as extreme and emanating from animus rather than reason. It makes it way too easy for the listener to reject the speaker as a crank or a crackpot, and for the listener to shut his/her mind against what the speaker is saying.

    But if instead the speaker leads with something demonstrably true, such as “remember when Obama said thus and so?”, the speaker has a chance to get the listener on the same page, and then to follow up with the question (phrased as a question it’s less likely to shut the door of the listener’s mind): “Do that sound like a man who loves America?” You’ve started with agreement with premise #1, rather than disagreement. And if premise #2 follows logically from #1, it makes #2 more difficult to reject. Whereas if you begin with a premise the person already rejects, the mind is more likely to close at the outset.

50. Well, Guilliani is one dumb fox. He does have an awful lot of people discussing whether Obama “loves America”;and I tend to believe that he knew exactly what he was doing.

    As for Walker. The value of “gotcha” questions is that they usually do come from the blind side. Even an experienced politician will often respond less effectively than if there had been a little warning; or a little time to reflect. Gov Walker’s answer was not perfect, but he did not get suckered. Whatever his answer, it would have been spun–or ignored if it were too effective.

    I do hope that Republican candidates will respond aggressively when ambushed. If Romney had just said to the Obama/Crowley tag team: “I challenge your facts, and the truth will be revealed by in short order by unbiased reporters; now let’s move on”; he might be President.

51. Sorry Rudy; meant to double check the spelling before I hit submit, and forgot.

52. Oldflyer:

    Rudy Galliano? 🙂

53. vanderleun:

    Rules? Who said anything about rules? This isn’t about rules, it’s about effectiveness.

54. I apologize if i’m repeating what someone said.
    I lost a lot of time trying to read all the comments and it’s bed time.
    When a man beats his wife, we pretty much agree that he doesn’t love her.
    Not with the meaning of love that is commonly accepted.
    No psychiatric exam.
    He doesn’t love her.
    Obama needs to stop slapping America around.
    We need a restraining order.

55. neo-neocon Says:
    February 22nd, 2015 at 9:30 pm
    Geoffrey Britain:

    I disagree about the order and about the psychology….

    This sounds like a How to make friends and influence people type approach.

    Does it work in the aggregate!

    Rush is right, people will vote for the real thing, ie the candidate with the clearest message …
    Also the candidate needs be good looking with a good voice because …. women:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_MRM3wvVoI
    Women’s vote’s been a problem, big problem.

56. g6loq:

    Well, aren’t we in fact talking about influencing people?

    I agree about the good-looking part. It’s unfortunate, but true.

    Personally, I’ve never cared about the looks of a politician, but I also don’t get attracted by speeches, either (except for Winston Churchill—and I assume I would have liked Lincoln’s speeches, too. Come to think of it, neither of them were big lookers, were they?)

57. We are talking about influencing people but on the aggregate, in a disembodied way.

    The tools that work were formulated by Edward Bernays with subsequent stellar applications by the likes of Goebbels and other.

    I’m asking.

58. Just in, this:
    http://news.yahoo.com/photos/host-neil-patrick-harris-speaks-stage-oscars-sunday-photo-025127437.html

    I’m going to have a fit.

59. Talking about influencing the masses.

60. Seems to me we’re talking about two different audiences that may be influenced: the dispirited and fed-up, who finally have a Giuliani around whom they (we) can rally; and those LIVs some of whom might be up for grabs.

    Two different audiences, two different approaches. Evidently, what reaches one will not reach the other. Now, to what extent does wooing one turn off the other? — because this may be a clue as to which approach (in which districts) should be the one to adapt.

61. M J R:

    Funny thing–

    Even before I saw your comment, I was already writing a draft for a post for tomorrow on that very subject! It had occurred to me that there are two populations there is a need to appeal to.

    The first is the “preaching to the choir” group. The choir needs to be motivated to go out and vote, and needs to be kept energetic and spirited.

    The second is people who aren’t already on board, and who need to be convinced or “swung.” The two groups respond to very different things.

    More tomorrow.

62. The post above about the oscars says it all, until (if ever) we cease to be a celebrity worshipping nation we are doomed to be slaves to the msm and the dnc.

63. neo,
    Given your position, your disagreement is unsurprising.

    the way people’s minds work is that they are reluctant to change them

    We are in agreement on that point.

    Also agreed, there is no need to convince someone who already thinks Obama doesn’t love America, which is why I said that our audience is not the choir.

    Saying ‘I have reluctantly reached the conclusion that Pres. Obama does not love America nor have its interests at heart” is directed specifically at the LIVs who are in “entrenched, willful denial”.

    ”It is my observation that those in the latter group tend to close their minds firmly shut at that approach. “

    It is my observation that the 50% of Americans who are still satisfied with Obama’s job performance have their minds firmly shut to any approach. Those Americans, in their entrenched, willful denial are a near duplicate of pacifist, appeasing 1930s Britian, who continued to support Chamberlain until Hitler invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939.

    ”I have never, literally never, seen it work with anyone. And while it’s true that people don’t change their minds often, I have observed that when they do it comes not from someone making a comment like that, but it comes when they themselves put a fact together with its conclusion. The conclusion cannot come first, because if it comes first the “otherness” of the thought is unable to “break through the wall of denial.” If anything, it strengthens the wall of denial.”

    Not so, it happened with me. In 1991, I was a life long liberal and out of boredom in my solitary job, I started to listen to talk radio, among them Rush Limbaugh and… he outraged me. Many times, in disgust I changed the station in the middle of one of his ‘rants’. Another radio personality that had great impact upon me was Dennis Prager. Limbaugh was the hammer, Prager the voice of reason who gave me context and explanations for Limbaugh’s outrageous assertions. Together, they awoke me because the more I learned, the less I could deny the rightness of what they said.

    I was a perfect example of a well meaning, ‘classical values’ liberal, duped by the MSM, who deeply believed that Republicans were selfish capitalists (or their dupes) who cared little for the common man. My mind was so closed that by itself, neither Limbaugh or Prager’s approach would have worked, it took both and that is why I believe that blunt speech and a combined, reasoned rhetorical approach is needed.

    ”I’ve been fortunate enough to break through quite a few, and observe others break through a whole lot more, and I have never seen it done with a verbal battering ram.”

    I realize that personal anecdote applies equally to my example but I would ask you, how many of your family and friends have you ‘broken through’ to? Previously, I only recall you lamenting the frustrating futility of it all.

    BTW, I’ve tried for years to break through to a close and loving friend, a classic liberal values voter, using exactly your approach and it has availed me nothing. I have, more than once, briefly convinced her, that her beliefs need reexamination but then afterwards, the “liberal reset button” kicks in and a day, a week later it is like we never had the conversation. Out of fear for our friendship, I have never used ‘the hammer’ on her and she listens to NPR and watches CNN… with her, a gentle approach has proven to be simply pi**ing into the wind.

    “in the situation we’re talking about, where there’s no motivation to change at all, and the person is perfectly comfortable keeping his/her point of view and never changing (in fact, the person is motivated NOT to change), battering rams of the sort you describe do not work.”

    Churchill, Hitler and the British of the 1930’s argue otherwise. That is NOT a facile attempt at hyperbole. In important ways, we face exactly the same situation. The reason the British people turned to a man who could only offer them “blood sweat and tears” is because he had previously been so stridently blunt with them and when Dunkirk arrived, they could not deny that he had been right all along.

    I am deeply convinced that our Dunkirk is coming.

    ”What does work (and this is such a huge topic it’s one of the main themes of my blog, one about which I’ve already written a lot) is more likely to be something the person notices him/herself.”

    Certainly that was true for you but I had to be led to it, at first kicking and screaming.

    ”Something that gives him/her a sense of unease about something that has happened, an experience that person has had, an observation he/she has made, something that doesn’t fit with a preconceived notion.”

    That’s fine on an individual level, when the time is available but not on a societal one where time is shorter every day and that is the issue, a depraved electorate that reelected an incompetent, racist Marxist out of subconscious fear of being accused of being a racist.

    ”Another person acting as a “battering ram” by making some categorical statement like the aforementioned one about Obama not loving America is too discordant, too easy to reject as extreme and emanating from animus rather than reason. It makes it way too easy for the listener to reject the speaker as a crank or a crackpot, and for the listener to shut his/her mind against what the speaker is saying.”

    You appear to be forgetting that I favor a dual appraoch, one that includes what you favor. Rhetorical persuasion however is not a substitute for plain talk, it is a necessary adjunct.

    ”But if instead the speaker leads with something demonstrably true, … You’ve started with agreement with premise #1, rather than disagreement. And if premise #2 follows logically from #1, it makes #2 more difficult to reject. Whereas if you begin with a premise the person already rejects, the mind is more likely to close at the outset.”

    Even Jesus was not entirely successful with the ‘come, let us reason together’ approach, how much less will we be? It is indeed a valid individual approach but absent the blunt honesty of a Churchill, such an approach will never lead the LIVs to abandon their indoctrinated memes when the crisis of our Dunkirk arrives. Instead, they will turn to the demagogue who offers salvation through the abandonment of ‘counter-productive’ liberties.

64. Geoffrey Britain:

    Your example, Rush Limbaugh, in my opinion is an example of my approach as well as it is of yours. He goes back and forth between evidence and conclusions, back and forth and back and forth. When a person listens to him, it’s not a two-sentence sound bite, with propositions #1 and #2 in a certain order. It’s back and forth, back and forth, and it depends on when a person tunes in in the program. I know several people with stories of disliking Limbaugh initially and then being convinced by him in the end, but not in a quick sound bite! Only after long (and sometimes reluctant, because they happened to have been in the vicinity of someone else listening to him day after day) exposure. And you did the Prager/Limbaugh back and forth, back and forth—another example of what I mean.

    In my previous comments, I was talking about someone listening to a quick quote (as from Giuliani on the news), maybe just two or three sentences, and having it spark a train of thought, and what order might work best. In my experience, that’s usually all the time people give you. I was not referring to a several-hour-long radio show by a single person.

    To answer your question: Yes, I have changed the minds of a couple of people—only ones who have allowed me to talk to them about things. It takes time, and an open-minded listener. There aren’t many people with both. I believe I have also slightly softened the POV of one or two others. But very few people will even want to talk about politics with someone they don’t agree with—unless they want to harangue them. I don’t talk to people who immediately erupt in rage; I consider that a waste of time.

    As for Churchill, he talked for about ten years and people just laughed at him and reviled him. And he was one of the most eloquent people on the face of the earth. Why did people change their minds? Not because of anything he said. They changed their minds because of outside events that occurred and proved him right—because of the evidence afforded by subsequent reality. It was only then that they looked back at him and realized he’d been right all along, and that’s why they wanted him at the helm. It took some cataclysmic events to do that, not words.

    If some horribly cataclysmic event occurs in which it is proven beyond doubt that Obama doesn’t love the US—I mean beyond a doubt even to the LIVs and some liberals—I am fairly certain people would look back at say “That Giuliani, he was right all the time!” Maybe they would even turn to him for leadership. But short of that, the words alone (especially a sound bite, which is all that’s discussed) do not convince.

    Remember, also, that I am merely suggesting a different way to say exactly the same thing. I see no reason why, just because someone gave the message in the form of a highly leading and suggestive question (“Does that sound like a man who loves America?”) rather than a statement of personal belief (“I believe Obama doesn’t love America”), the outcome would be any different. Both approaches make much the same point, and the person saying either one would be seen ex-post-facto as having been proven correct. They are both pointing something out about Obama and issuing a form of warning, although they are doing it in different styles.

    By the way, from what I’ve seen of Churchill’s mid-30s rhetoric on Hitler, his warnings seem to demonstrate the order I’m recommending. I certainly haven’t made a study of everything he wrote or said on the subject, but for example, in this lengthy essay, he starts with a statement of uncertainty about Hitler’s true colors. Later in the essay he builds a case that Hitler probably has nefarious plans, but he does this by using facts and evidence of what Hitler has said.

    As far as I can tell, Churchill’s more extreme public statements about Hitler (and Churchill made plenty of them) were made after Hitler had shown his true colors and the war had begun. In the earlier part of the 30s, Churchill’s focus in Parliament was on military preparedness in response to the facts of Germany’s growing military preparedness and rearmament.

65. Problem with the cataclysmic event as a way to change minds of the LIV….
    If it happens to America, America will have deserved it and zero will still be right.
    I know some non-LIV. Which is to say, they know a lot but it’s mostly wrong. They cannot afford to admit it and they will argue the most amazingly foolish statements. They are not firstly Obama supporters. They are mush-headed lib/progs and their positions are their personalities. Obama is their Icon, but their personality pillars–new pshrink phrase–were before him and will survive him and any horrid thing he does. But while he’s with us, he’s their ICON. All that is wonderful resides in him and he can do no wrong. Unless he does, in which case it’s right.

66. You mention preaching to the choir as one group.
    That implies that the choir is not motivated to preach itself.
    The choir should be learning the technique of preaching, expanding the exposure of the message.

67. Ann: BRAVO..!! Thank you for the Marco quote. Perfecto.

    And, M.K.Bennett: “THUMBSUCKERY”…!! Long time since I’ve come across a previously unheard(by me)term, but I’m snatchin’ that one, Brutha. Plu-Perfect for the Time of Obama!!!!!!!

68. Richard Aubrey Says:
    February 23rd, 2015 at 5:55 am

    They are mush-headed lib/progs and their positions are their personalities. … but their personality pillars—new pshrink phrase—were before him and will survive him and any horrid thing he does.

    Yup. In the book Battle for Spain this aspect comes across very clearly, on both sides.

    Methinks that’s why the Founding Fathers didn’t have universal suffrage. Universal suffrage is too disembodied. Too many folks are dissociated from the realities of making things work, menial or otherwise. Watch any of the Mark Dice Youtube pieces.

    Jefferson, The Tree of Liberty needs regular watering …
    The Ying/Yang of it all is exhausting …
    ———-
    I resonate with Neoneocom’s approach and writings. Very civilized. BUT, when facing Orcs in a hypnotic state she’d not have a chance …

    Athen lost to Sparta, Mongols took everything over,
    Chinese civilization was not match for the Manchu.
    [ a civilized Chinaman is very civilized indeed]

    Guard dogs, sheeple and wolves … Churchill couldn’t get the sheep roused in time. Then it was a lot of work.
    Geez!

69. And, yes, THUMBSUCKERY…

70. I think Ruddy did the right thing. Everyone understands what not loving America means. It doesn’t require a complex intellectual framework to understand.

    And you can see if someone loves their country from what they say, do, who they associate with, who raised and educated them. Obama has been surrounded by radical leftists (Marxists) his whole life. He is now a radical leftist. It just isn’t possible to love America as a leftist. Frank Marshall Davis mentored him at a critical time of his life. And there is nothing in what Obama does or says to indicate that he has rejected the overwhelming radial leftist environment he has lived in.

    It really is pathetic that conservatives/Republicans can’t say what they think/feel about the left. The left says the most vile, despicable, evil, monstrous, things about conservatives and are rarely rebuked. Trump raised the birth certificate issue and survived nicely. Conservatives should take a lesson from that.

71. g6loq:

    I generally prefer civilized to uncivilized, of course. But at no point in my entire discussion of this “loving America” question have I used as my reason for advocating a certain approach is that it is polite or “civilized” or nice or anything of the sort. I think it interesting that quite a few readers seem to read that into it. That’s not my reason for advocating it at all. My reason is that I think it’s a more effective approach, and I’ve explained in great detail why I believe that.

72. neo-neocon Says:
    My reason is that I think it’s a more effective approach, and I’ve explained in great detail why I believe that….

    Hmmm … “more effective”…
    We now have those people critters in charge of the USSA executive, one of them waiving a death cult finger in our faces while “folks are being randomly fried far away … far away for now.

    Orcs don’t care because … they’re Orcs.
    Pompous, sanctimonious, condescending, disdainful Orcs’ mind.

    Effective means the right tools with the right effects for the situations at hand.

    Churchill suffered greatly I’m sure and never gave up. Thus civilization was saved.

    I’d like to say this is respectfully submitted.

73. “Your example, Rush Limbaugh, in my opinion is an example of my approach as well as it is of yours. He goes back and forth between evidence and conclusions, back and forth and back and forth. When a person listens to him, it’s not a two-sentence sound bite, with propositions #1 and #2 in a certain order. It’s back and forth, back and forth, and it depends on when a person tunes in in the program.”

    It is similar to yours but different in a key metric. Limbaugh starts off with an unequivocal assertion, such as Giuliani’s, then he goes back and forth, after first having stated his premise. Limbaugh’s formula is premise, evidence, conclusion, almost always his logic is coherent and his conclusion consistent with his premise. Generally his premise is forthright and ‘in your face’, which is why the Left’s hate for him is only matched by their hate for Sarah Palin, who also bluntly states her beliefs.

    “you did the Prager/Limbaugh back and forth, back and forth–another example of what I mean.”

    Yes I did with the important caveat that Limbaugh is ‘the hammer’, he is blunt and to the point and does not avoid ‘bruising liberal’s ‘feelings’…

    “In my previous comments, I was talking about someone listening to a quick quote (as from Giuliani on the news), maybe just two or three sentences, and having it spark a train of thought, and what order might work best. In my experience, that’s usually all the time people give you. I was not referring to a several-hour-long radio show by a single person.”

    I realize that, it is the quick soundbite that shocks and outrages that leads to further discussion. Heated exchanges allow for further exposure, for the rhetorical questions in response to leftists accusations. Rhetorical questions that may briefly disturb are easily ‘forgotten’. If applied steadily they can in their effect be like corrosive acid but they take time and consistency, my conclusion is that we are running out of time needed for that approach.

    “To answer your question: Yes, I have changed the minds of a couple of people–only ones who have allowed me to talk to them about things. It takes time, and an open-minded listener.”

    Which makes my point. IMO, we do not have the time your approach takes and the LIVs are not at all open-minded because they are indoctrinated dupes.

    “There aren’t many people with both. I believe I have also slightly softened the POV of one or two others.”

    As admirable an achievement as that is, “one or two” is entirely insufficient to turn the tide.

    “As for Churchill, he talked for about ten years and people just laughed at him and reviled him. And he was one of the most eloquent people on the face of the earth. Why did people change their minds? Not because of anything he said. They changed their minds because of outside events that occurred and proved him right–because of the evidence afforded by subsequent reality. It was only then that they looked back at him and realized he’d been right all along, and that’s why they wanted him at the helm. It took some cataclysmic events to do that, not words.”

    Yes, which is just what libs are doing today. But IMO you are wrong that his words were not a factor in changing minds. First had to come the events, faced with a reality that destroyed the philosophical underpinnings of their pacifism, they then could not avoid remembering Churchill’s words of warning.

    “Remember, also, that I am merely suggesting a different way to say exactly the same thing. I see no reason why, just because someone gave the message in the form of a highly leading and suggestive question (“Does that sound like a man who loves America?”) rather than a statement of personal belief (“I believe Obama doesn’t love America”), the outcome would be any different.”

    You are discounting the need for ‘in your face’, blunt talk that outrages. So in that sense, we are not talking about the same thing. As I have now said several times, I fully support adding your approach to and following up blunt talk with what you are suggesting.

    “Both approaches make much the same point, and the person saying either one would be seen ex-post-facto as having been proven correct. They are both pointing something out about Obama and issuing a form of warning, although they are doing it in different styles.”

    Both approaches do make much the same point but one is subtle and the other blunt. In a quick sound-bite, the blunt one is remembered and discussed, the subtle one quickly forgotten.

    “By the way, from what I’ve seen of Churchill’s mid-30s rhetoric on Hitler, his warnings seem to demonstrate the order I’m recommending. I certainly haven’t made a study of everything he wrote or said on the subject, but for example, in this lengthy essay, he starts with a statement of uncertainty about Hitler’s true colors. Later in the essay he builds a case that Hitler probably has nefarious plans, but he does this by using facts and evidence of what Hitler has said.”

    That was indeed his initial approach. After Hitler’s occupation of Austria in March of 1938 his words of warning became much more blunt. That was well before the start of the War, which occured on Sept. 1st, 1939

    “As far as I can tell, Churchill’s more extreme public statements about Hitler (and Churchill made plenty of them) were made after Hitler had shown his true colors and the war had begun. In the earlier part of the 30s, Churchill’s focus in Parliament was on military preparedness in response to the facts of Germany’s growing military preparedness and rearmament.”

    After 1937, Churchill’s warnings about Hitler became much more assertive, by 1938 he had concluded that Hitler would not settle for simply returning Germany to the status of a world power.

    “In March 1938, Hitler occupied Austria. Churchill immediately responded, “Europe is confronted with a programme of aggression, nicely calculated and timed, unfolding stage by stage, and there is only one choice open… either to submit, like Austria, or else to take effective measures while time remains to ward off danger.”
    Winston continued, “If a number of States were assembled around Great Britain and France in solemn treaty for mutual defense against aggression; …and if it were done in the year 1938… then I say that you might even now arrest this approaching war. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year, unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.””

    In the midst of Britain’s scramble for peace through appeasement, Churchill predicted, “that the day will come when… you will have to make a stand, and I pray to God that, when that day comes, we may not find through an unwise policy, that we have to make that stand alone.”

    But, concessions continued as Hitler demanded the Sudetenland, an area of the new Czechoslovakia with a significant German-speaking population. Having no effective power to stop Hitler, Prime Minister Chamberlain, without Czech involvement, negotiated the partition of Czechoslovakia.
    Churchill stormed, “The partition of Czechoslovakia under pressure from England and France amounts to the complete surrender of the Western Democracies to the Nazi threat of force.”

    The further we are from crisis, the more inclined I am to forgo blunt talk as admittedly counter-productive. The closer we are to crisis, the more I believe that blunt talk is critical. Apparently, I believe that we are much closer to crisis than do you.

74. There is also an inherent ambiguity at work because liberals have a much more liquid definition of “loving the country.”

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