The Dogs Bark...

But the caravan roles on by. While conservatives get dumber and angrier with each passing day they have precious little to show for it. Meanwhile the party of responsible governance goes about the quiet business of getting real things done. But hey, that Kenyan birth certificate is sure to show up any day now and meanwhile there are all kinds of shiny things out there for conservatives to fiddle with when they aren't holding their breath and stamping their feet.

More conservative debate.

That well known liberal rag the Napa Valley Register wonders why those opposing healthcare reform don't express their point more constructively. Because they can't. They have no answers, just tantrums

How conservatives debate ctd.

Anybody wanna throw out some more of those false equivalencies?

Took 'em awhile.

But the DNC starts to get its mind wrapped around a response to the screaming me-mees that are showing up ( at there own expense doncha know!) at Town Hall meetings whether they live in that congressional district or not. Its fun political theatre but I don't know how much one needs to worry about people who have nothing more than volume to offer the discussion.

In any event. The response:

There's been a lot of media coverage about organized mobs intimidating lawmakers, disrupting town halls, and silencing real discussion about the need for real health insurance reform.

The truth is, it's a sham. These "grassroots protests" are being organized and largely paid for by Washington special interests and insurance companies who are desperate to block reform. They're trying to use lies and fear to break the President and his agenda for change.

Health insurance reform is about our lives, our jobs, and our families -- we can't let distortions and intimidation get in the way. We need to expose these outrageous tactics, and we're counting on you to help. Can you read these "5 facts about the anti-reform mobs," then pass them along to your friends and family?

5 facts about the anti-reform mobs

1. These disruptions are being funded and organized by out-of-district special-interest groups and insurance companies who fear that health insurance reform could help Americans, but hurt their bottom line. A group run by the same folks who made the "Swiftboat" ads againstJohn Kerry is compiling a list of congressional events in August to disrupt. An insurance company coalition has stationed employees in 30 states to track where local lawmakers hold town-hall meetings.

2. People are scared because they are being fed frightening lies.These crowds are being riled up by anti-reform lies being spread by industry front groups that invent smears to tarnish the President's plan and scare voters. But as the President has repeatedly said, health insurance reform will create more health care choices for the American people, not reduce them. If you like your insurance or your doctor, you can keep them, and there is no "government takeover" in any part of any plan supported by the President or Congress.

3. Their actions are getting more extreme. Texas protesters brought signs displaying a tombstone for Rep. Lloyd Doggett and using the "SS" symbol to compare President Obama's policies to Nazism. Maryland Rep. Frank Kratovil was hanged in effigy outside his district office. Rep. Tim Bishop of New York had to be escorted to his car by police after an angry few disrupted his town hall meeting -- and more examples like this come in every day. And they have gone beyond just trying to derail the President's health insurance reform plans, they are trying to "break" the President himself and ruin his Presidency.

4. Their goal is to disrupt and shut down legitimate conversation. Protesters have routinely shouted down representatives trying to engage in constructive dialogue with voters, and done everything they can to intimidate and silence regular people who just want more information. One attack group has even published a manual instructing protesters to "stand up and shout" and try to "rattle" lawmakers to prevent them from talking peacefully with their constituents.

5. Republican leadership is irresponsibly cheering on the thuggish crowds. RepublicanHouse Minority Leader John Boehner issued a statement applauding and promoting a video of the disruptions and looking forward to "a long, hot August for Democrats in Congress."

It's time to expose this charade, before it gets more dangerous. Please send these facts to everyone you know. You can also post them on your website, blog, or Facebook page.

Now, more than ever, we need to stand strong together and defend the truth.

The problem simply put.

Cyncial C Blog sheds an awful lot of light on exactly what's wrong with our current system of healthcare coverage by simply asking readers where they get their insurance. The comments tell the whole story and as long as conservatives are unable or unwilling to eschew talking points and actually get down in the weeds and deal with these problems in an intellectually honest way by suggesting actual policies then Im not sure we need take anything they say, or yell, seriously at all.

Its tough all over

Im fascinated by the raw behind the scenes diplomatic machinations that must have certainly gone on before Clinton headed to Pyongyang but it makes me wonder what is Jesse Jackson going to do now?

Seems to me he used to be the go to guy for this kind of thing but I suppose his brand is fading. Hard times.

How conservatives debate. This is who they are.

Its probably not for nothing that they're chanting "Just Say No" in this vid of a townhall meeting being disrupted as that articulates the sum total of the Right's intellectual and tactical position when it comes to the future. This is what fear looks like, when people have no rational basis upon which to move forward they will throw tantrums trying to stay still, they will confuse volume with content.

And like any good fit it feels good in the middle of it but I shudder to think how the GOP will be able to construct any sort of firewall between these screaming mimmies and the rest of the more temperate electorate. I wish the '12 GOP nominee luck with these folks.

...And F.A. Hayek even better still.

One of the intellectual giants of the conservative movement, on why he isn't a conservative.

He puts it out on Waveland here:

"Let me now state what seems to me the decisive objection to any conservatism which deserves to be called such. It is that by its very nature it cannot offer an alternative to the direction in which we are moving. It may succeed by its resistance to current tendencies in slowing down undesirable developments, but, since it does not indicate another direction, it cannot prevent their continuance. It has, for this reason, invariably been the fate of conservatism to be dragged along a path not of its own choosing. The tug of war between conservatives and progressives can only affect the speed, not the direction, of contemporary developments"

"This brings me to the first point on which the conservative and the liberal dispositions differ radically. As has often been acknowledged by conservative writers, one of the fundamental traits of the conservative attitude is a fear of change, a timid distrust of the new as such,[5] while the liberal position is based on courage and confidence, on a preparedness to let change run its course even if we cannot predict where it will lead. There would not be much to object to if the conservatives merely disliked too rapid change in institutions and public policy; here the case for caution and slow process is indeed strong. But the conservatives are inclined to use the powers of government to prevent change or to limit its rate to whatever appeals to the more timid mind. In looking forward, they lack the faith in the spontaneous forces of adjustment which makes the liberal accept changes without apprehension"

Andrew Sullivan. Better at this than me.

In this post he's giving an eloquent dressing down to yet another bigot wrapping himself in the cloth of natural law viz-a-viz gay marriage but he echoes my frustration with conservatives on health care and a host of other issues. He knocks it outta the park right here:

"I repeat to conservatives: we know what you're against, in healthcare, energy, counter-terrorism, taxation, gay rights, abortion. What are you actually for? How do you intend to actually address the questions of our time and place? And if conservatism cannot do that, what use is it?"

At least he's honest.

It's hard to say exactly how much higher my blood pressure is as a direct result of conservative's naivete and dissembling but I think "somewhat" would be a good bet. So imagine my relief when somebody at the National Review of all places actually fesses up and admits to thinking that, yes, it would be better if the tail wagged the dog.

Mark Steyn actually posts a fairly reasoned argument for an awful awful position and at the same time gives you a pretty good sense of the faux tough-guy, this-man-is-an-island-by-god, fantasy world that far too many of my middle aged white male peers like to imagine they swagger around in or used to in some long lost less complicated and freer time.

As I've noted too many times there is no conservative position on health care reform beyond "No". Doesn't exist. Look for it. Oh sure there is some reflexive vague babble about vouchers and the like which may or may not be a worthwhile bit of tweaking but does exactly nothing in terms of addressing the real issues of costs, uninsured, and market failures. Exactly nothing.

Its sort of a "we don't need no stinkin' ideas" approach to problem solving.

And Steyn nails it right under the title:

"Government healthcare would be wrong even if it controlled costs"

?

!

That's who they are. Even if it is right, its wrong. Even if it helps, it hurts. That's dogma for ya, which is handy because it fills in all the pesky blanks without troubling the adherent to consider the conflicting tensions of reality.

And the great irony here is that these big bad rugged individualists are too lost in their simplistic fantasies to realize they are intellectually beholden to the same basic utopian impulse that informs socialism and communism. The idea that we can be lead to our better and more noble natures by strict adherence to an economic system is a deeply dysfunctional world view that appeals to weak minds and fearful hearts. But like I say, that's who they are and its nice to see them own up to it every now and again.