Leftism

How the Left Imposes Its Values

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From Newsweek via Instapundit:

 

Belief in god, like getting pregnant, is a private matter between consenting adults (or one consenting adult and one or more deities) and is no one else’s business. I am on record in this blog (and have not budged an inch) as not objecting to any candidate’s religious views.
 
But I object strongly when anyone (and especially anyone with political power) tries to take their theology out in public, to inflict those private religious (or sexual) views on other people. In both sex and religion (which combine in the debates about abortion), Sarah Palin’s views make me fear that the Republican party has finally lost its mind.

I am a pro-choice atheist but the utter massive hypocrisy of the leftists’  conceit  that they do not impose their “private” values on others  nauseates  me. Leftist political doctrines,  especially  those involving sex, boil down to nothing but the imposition by state coercion of minority values on the majority.  

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Free Speech in LA

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Check it out.

(Via Hog on Ice.)

The Overworked Class

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We’ve been used to the phrase, “the working class”, but this article [h/t Instapundit] leads me to think we might need a new one. Try this on for size:

“Today Obama advocated raising taxes on the overworking class.”  

I kind of like it.

Obama’s Decision Making

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Tom Maguire  [via Instapundit] says:

Obama was wrong about the surge while McCain was right, but by and large I think the case could be made (but not by me!) that Obama is by far the more thoughtful and reflective of the two candidates and far more disposed to listen to a range of advice.   My guess is that he would have a broader and arguably better decision making proess than McCain. It’s only at the moment of decision that he worries me – I don’t know if he was trapped by lefty advisers, lefty instincts, or lefty pandering but he was wrong, wrong, wrong on the surge.[emp added]

I think Maguire is wrong. I think that Obama, like most leftist, exhibits a  rigidly  stereotyped  decision making process. He may make a show of polling opinion but in reality, he has long before made up his mind.  

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“Working” versus “Fighting”

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The Assistant Village Idiot observes that Democratic politicians tend to say “I’ll fight for you,” whereas Republican politicians tend to say “I’ll work for you.” His explanation:

Republicans run for office telling you they’re going to work for you, because that’s how they perceive progress happening: someone works for it. Democrats run telling you they’re going to fight for you, because they believe that’s how improvement comes: someone has to wrest good stuff away from others.

I think it’s generally true that Republicans have tended to say “work” and Democrats have tended to say “fight”, although I did notice that McCain used the F-word several times during his announcement of Gov Pailin’s candidacy.

Neptunus Lex had some related thoughts:

The innate character flaw of the political right, with its thrumming appeals to the logic of blood and soil, is its lamentable tendency to go in search of enemies abroad. The left, on the other hand, with its own appeals to the politics of envy and class warfare, is content to find mortal enemies closer to hand.

To me, it seems pretty clear that today’s Democrats view society basically as a neo-Hobbesian war of group against group…hence, their preference for the “fight” formulation–with the fighting, of course, to be done against fellow Americans–is a natural one.