You might be a Whack Job.
These guys had a tense night. And give whole new meaning to the words “well regulated militia.”
The usual suspects go nuts. She updates, but changes the subject.
Ya know, ya just gotta love America.
Posts Tagged Whack Jobs
A few commenters challenged me over the last day or two because I refused to engage in a discussion with one of them because he characterized an essay I posted as “garbage” before he challenged the argument itself. This, they suggest, shows liberal hypocrisy: since I characterize several blogs on my blog roll as “whack jobs” even as I complain about insulting characterizations of my work. Since this is a valid point, I thought I would offer a few thoughts on the subject. Read the rest of this entry »
End Time Whack Job
Feb 15
One of the radio stations here in Richmond is an American Family Radio affiliate, and I wound up listening one morning during the local National Public Radio station’s pledge drive. Sadly for me, I landed on a show called Politics and Religion, hosted by Irvin Baxter.
This complete nutcase thinks that the end of the world is coming any minute–at least he says that on the radio every morning. To be sure, he always carefully hedges with “I don’t know exactly when” rhetoric. But he sells his magazine by describing the End of the World as prophesied by the Bible–complete with Antichrist, one world government, one world religion, and a war which will kill a third of human beings–and then saying that he expects it to come during his lifetime. And he’s no spring chicken.
I’ve heard his rants against homosexuality, the European Union, the World Court, and the Federal Reserve. Baxter actually says he worries that RFID chips are the Mark of the Beast. He interviews true freaks, like John F. McManus, the President of the John Birch Society. McManus writes conspiracy theory books on the Bilderberg Group and thinks that if it ain’t a precious metal, it ain’t money.
These people are all paranoid freaks and conspiracy theorists who think that someone who lived two thousand years ago had a vision of attack helicopters at the end of the world and wrote it down in the Bible. They make a great addition to the Whack Job list.
Donald Douglas writes at American Power that the latest New York Times/CBS News poll shows “disastrous” numbers for Democrats. To make his case, he cites two results which indicate a preference for smaller government, and a third showing more concern over the economy and jobs than health care. Douglas then points out that a bare plurality has more faith in Republicans to “ensure a strong economy” and a bare majority who don’t think the President has offered reasonable solutions to the economic problems faced by their families.
Not so fast. These cherry-picked results don’t tell the whole story, and “it doesn’t take a statistician” to see that this grossly exaggerates the bad news in the poll for the President and Democrats. That’s a good thing, because for a political science professor, Douglas isn’t much of one if that’s what he gets from this poll.
Now on the face of it, this looks like a solid argument: Americans care about the economy, they think the GOP could fix it, and they think Obama doesn’t have his eye on the ball. If all of this is so, perhaps The Nutty Professor™ is right.
Not so fast. Douglas’ analysis ignores other results from the poll, not to mention the behavior or real life politicians. For starters, the same poll shows a 47-34 plurality approving Obama’s handling of terrorism, and a 55-34 majority approval of his foreign policy, suggesting that not all has gone south for the Administration. Moreover, only seven percent each say they blame the President for the current state of the economy or federal budget deficits, which suggests that even those who don’t think he’s found the right solution yet may not be prepared to turn to someone else in a search for it. And the respondents were evenly split on whether or not the stimulus package will make the economy better–suggesting that the American popular jury is still out on whether they think it was a mistake by an overactive government. Finally, though somewhat more respondents said that they think the GOP would be more likely to ensure a strong economy, the same group had more faith in Democrats when it comes to creating jobs or fixing health care. It is not clear from these contradictory results that the President or his Party are in trouble.
Douglas’ claim that this poll shows an American preference for smaller government also stands on less solid ground than he thinks. Respondents said they thing government should spend to create jobs, 47-45%, and 62% think Congress should let the Bush tax cuts expire, even though this would raise taxes on high earners. Fifty-six percent would like to see more regulation of banks and financial institutions, and 52% think the President should do more to fix the economy. Half say they would change Senate rules to make legislation easier to pass, and 58% think that Obama has expanded government “the right amount” or “not enough.” It looks like Americans worry less about the size of government than they do its effectiveness–they want more policy that works and less that doesn’t.
It’s no secret that politicians–even conservative, small government politicians–don’t behave as if their constituents want smaller government. Indeed, according to the Washington Times, over a dozen Republicans wrote letters to one agency alone seeking money from the stimulus package, even though they had voted against it and claimed it had no effect (except in letters like Kit Bond’s request from the USDA for stimulus money for a project in his state on the grounds that it would “create jobs and ultimately spur economic opportunities.” Even Republicans know that Americans want more government action to solve problems on the ground.
Donald Douglas is not a very good political scientist and an even worse poll analyst, based on this example of his work. He pulled a few results that support his preconceived notion of the state of American public opinion from a long survey while ignoring data points which might refute his claim. This poll contains nothing particularly disastrous for Democrats or President Obama. If Douglas cared about good analysis, he would have pointed this out.
The anti-gay marriage crowd went bonkers once again last week when Perez Hilton, an openly gay B-list celebrity and social commentator asked a Miss America contestant whether or not other states should follow Vermont by leagalizing same-sex marriaige. The contestant, Carrie Prejean, answered,
“Well, I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anyone out there, but that’s how I was raised, and that’s how I think it should be between a man and a woman.”
Mr. Hilton voted against her, she came in second to Miss North Carolina, and the right went ballistic once more about the homosexual agenda, political correctness, “gay totalitarians,” and attacks on traditional values, whatever those are.
It should surprise no one that this answer, which favored a reactionary religious stance without regard to the nuances of the issue or any discusson of the idea that this debate really does have two sides, cost this woman competition points. The purpose of questions like this in beauty pageants is to uphold the pretense that the woman’s brain is at least as important as her appearance in skimpy outfits, the size of her boobs, or the silkiness of her hair. The fact that Miss Prejean could offer no informed opinion on why she thought states should not legalize homosexual marriage beyond her own family tradition is what cost her the crown, not the actual opinion she expressed.
Of course, conservatives want to generate outrage over this, since they have no real answer to the discrimiation argument in support of gay marriage. So they blame phantom agendas and totalitarians for Miss Prejean’s loss, and scream bloody murder about this newest example of how Hollywood liberals and gays are destroying the American way of life. This probablygives them some satisfaction, but if they want to know why their popularity continues to slip they should look in the mirror at the angry people they have become.
Most of what you see on the blogs linked above–not only on this subject–is anger, rage, and reactive foot stomping over percieved criticism of or insults to America or Christianity. They offer very little policy discussion except assertions that traditional ways are better because they are so…traditional. Very little discussion of how to adapt conservative principles to modern society can be found here. Instead, they want to stop time and preserve traditional gender roles, traditional market rules, and traditional goverment power without defending any of these policies on social utility grounds. “We’ve always done it this way” is all they have.
This is a losing strategy because no one listens to the angry guy. People dismiss angry ranting, however righteous its basis, because it offers no solutions. Americans instinctively understand that the most outraged guy in the room usually has the least justification for his rage.
The gay marriage debate is the perfect example: homosexuals face real discrimination with regard to inheritance, power of attorney, the right to contract, and protection of partnership assets–the State treats them differently than it treats straight people. This is a simple fact that cannot be dismissed with “but gay men have the same right to marry women as straight men do.” But instead of seeking or proposing sensible ways of ending this discrimination, such as separating the religious consecration of sexual unions from state sanction, conservatives rant about the meaning of “marriage” and loudly make the ridiculous claim that the “marriage” of two gay men somehow affects the rights or privilege of heterosexuals to marry. For most people, this only sets them up for ridicule.
A lot of Americans, from the faithful to environmentalists to anti-globalists would like to see a managed social progress that protects those who want to hold on to traditional ways of life while allowing others to move forward and establish new traditions. Wingnuts don’t help their cause with strident rage over non-insults. “You kids get off my lawn” isn’t working.
If You Think…
Apr 12
Whack Jobs
Apr 10
Jason Corley, the publisher of one of the sites blogrolled as a “Whack Job” site, writes to ask if I really think he fits that description. The answer is yes.
This is, of course, quite subjective. In my view, Mr. Corley believes some pretty wacky things. He thinks, for instance, that because President Obama acknowledged the imperfection of the United States, and did not visit the Omaha Beach cemetery, he must hate America. He thinks that criticism of President Obama by liberals means they are “leaving the Obama train.” He thinks that the editor of Newsweek “adores” Islam, and considers a story about the comparative relevance of Christianity and Christian thought an attack on the faith.
He is not alone. A lot of others believe similar crazy things. So in honor of Mr. Corley, I will begin a series of posts (If You Believe…..you may be a Whack Job)* pointing out “whackjobbiness” wherever I find it. I don’t plan to ignore liberal looniness in favor of that on the Right, but I have an idea how this will shake out. We’ll see.
*Thanks, and the appropriate apologies, to Jeff Foxworthy.
Jumping to Conclusions
Mar 21
You know that a guy who calls himself the Confederate Yankee has to be a little out there, and you would be right. Besides the part where he celebrates the treasonous Southern states and their rebellion against the Union while worrying himself over others’ patriotism, he likes to jump to conclusions before he knows all the facts.
Last Monday he did it again, getting all in a high dudgeon over an apparent Department of Defense decision to mutilate spent brass before reselling it. Turns out that some ammunition makers purchase this stuff by the ton and reload it, which keeps their costs and the price of ammo down.
Mr. Owens worries a lot about the gummint comin’ to get his guns. This time, however, he did a Chicken Little over ammo, immediately finding an Obama conspiracy to jack the price of ammunition up so high that the revenooers could let him keep his guns–he still wouldn’t be able to shoot down the black helicopters. He was not alone, and this is one paranoid crowd.
A bit of investigation shows that the original directive applied only to brass sold outside of CONUS, and DoD backed off quickly at any rate. The most interesting thing about the reaction the gun freaks have to this kind of thing is that they immediately think of conspiracy–none of these guys apparently stopped to think the the US Department of Defense is quite a large organization, and prone to do some pretty stupid shit, often without even thinking about it. For these guys, this is a direct effort by the liberal President to destroy their ability to keep him from imposing a communist tyranny. Why Obama would do this and then just change his mind hours later is not clear–he obviously has the power to make this stick.
The best part about these guys and their world view is that they fret constantly–and feverishly, when Democrats have power–about the government imposing tyranny by confiscating their guns, but can’t be bothered to worry about warrantless searches for drugs, wiretapping of virtually every phone call or email that passes through the US, or the CIA simply kidnapping people, putting them on airplanes, and flying them off to a black site in Poland to be tortured.
So far no update to reflect the change of plans by DoD. This is the kind of thing that gets him on the Whack Job list.
Reasoned Discourse
Mar 12
Posted by R. Stanton Scott in Blogging, Commenting and Comments, Foggy Bottom Line, Gun Rights, Second Amendment, Uncategorized, Whack Jobs
[UPDATE: This post was originally published in an incomplete version. The final version is now up.]
Frequent commenter Mike W., who writes on gun issues at Another Gun Blog, posted this comment to my post quoting John Adams in support of educating the young and poor. Since he has taken the time to engage, and complains that I have not responded to his arguments, I have decided to address the points he makes there. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Gun Rights Debate, Rights, Second Amendment, Whack Jobs