{"id":2997,"date":"2008-08-04T12:04:22","date_gmt":"2008-08-04T17:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2997"},"modified":"2008-08-04T21:07:12","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T02:07:12","slug":"when-math-becomes-semiotics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2997","title":{"rendered":"When Math Spins Into Semiotics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeff “Not The Gun Guy” Rosenberg is a regional leftyblogger who, like most regional leftybloggers, writes at a couple of dozen blogs. I’ve met him, he’s a good guy.<\/p>\n

Which doesn’t mean I can’t respond to this post, “Conservative Math”<\/a>, over at (checks list) The Daily Liberal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Turns out there’s more to “liberal math” than “multiply the crowd at any lefty protest by an order of magnitude; two if you’re nasty”:<\/p>\n

Sometimes I just can\u2019t help but respond to the local conservative blogs. Roosh at Shot in the Dark<\/a> seriously believes conservatives have the answer to our national debt problem:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jeff quotes Roosh’s post from last week, “Sheriff’s Sale”. The post’s money quote…<\/p>\n

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I maintain that our deficit spending habits and their product, our national debt have left our country in an increasingly precarious position and is in fact an issue of national security.<\/p>\n

The extrapolation of the mathematics, an element of which is our evolving demographics (i.e. more people getting on the wagon and less people pushing it) will eventually result in a national financial meltdown and the collapse of the American dollar.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

…echoes the possibly-fictional<\/a> but still utterly accurate “Alexander Tytler” quote (I always thought it was De Tocqueville?): “A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can exist only until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

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Liberals oft cited moral imperative to be a compassionate, civilized nation manifested in layers and layers of entitlements will be eclipsed by the fact that at some point we will simply be unable to service our debt let alone borrow more.<\/p>\n

Soon we will all be conservatives. Fiscally-speaking that is. The question of what our federal government should or should not do for it\u2019s citizens will become an academic discussion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Rosenberg responds:<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, he and the rest of the conservatives don\u2019t have a leg to stand on. Their hero \u201cW\u201d has the dubious distinction of being the only president to lead us into war while simultaneously cutting taxes. Republicans in Congress fought tooth and nail against returning to pay-as-you-go rules.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let’s try to get a couple of things straight:<\/p>\n