Fear Itself

I opened an email from MoveOn.Org the other day.

Here’s the header:

Screen Shot 2016-07-29 at 8.02.47 AM

I stopped right there and threw it in the trash.

Robert Reich is “terrified”.

Now, I’ll cop to is – I read this on the end of a two week big of liberal panic; of a social media feed clogged with liberal acquaintances overwrought with “fear” about the GOP candidate.

Of course, as we noted the other day, this “fear” is something they’re painstakingly trained to have by the people who call their collective shots.   Every Republican is, in succession, the worst human ever!

It’s classic Berg’s Seventh Law; on the one hand, the left says conservatives, the right, and even Trump supporters (who are far from necessarily conservative) are motivated by “fear”; on the other, the most powerful voices on the left are trying to provoke and motivate people to feel…

…what, now?  I don’t wanna see all the same hands, here.

35 thoughts on “Fear Itself

  1. I made the mistake of flipping through a Mpls Star Tribune while in line to pay for my gas station coffee yesterday. They have a rant about Ted Nugent playing at the Freeborn Country fair in Albert Lea. The Mpls puritans are upset and think there should be a boycott of the fair.
    There was also a story about “the real dark history of the Black Hills” but I choose not to see what that one was about.
    What a dark life the left has…they hate country fairs and Mt Rushmore.

  2. Mitch,

    Claiming being intolerant of hatred is being intolerant is about the same as the false equivalency you present here.

    Motivating people to vote out of fear of the “other”, out of bigotry, out of fear that they’ll be the victim of crime or terrorism, is not at all the same as saying, consider that other candidate and decide whether you can live with their policies, a policy like the unconstitutional attempts to require voter ID’s, or a policy like the unconstitutional attempts to claim “women’s health” is the reason to require an undue and needless care burden on abortion providers. One is teaching to hate a group, the other is saying a candidate is flawed. They aren’t the same and I think you know it.

    Candidates have engaged in negative advertising for, well, probably forever but certainly at least the past couple centuries in this country. They attack their opponent to weaken his/her base of support. That’s hardly the same as saying, “The Jews are coming, vote for the guy who will kill the Jews.” It’s not the even close same and it’s not close and you know it if you think about it. Yes, fear is a component, but fear is not by itself, damning. Using fear to foment hatred of a group (ethnic, religious, even political) is damning.

    But, if instead you know it and don’t care, then, well then your argument is sophistry (purposeful distortion or misstatement intended to mislead). Me, I think you probably know better, but I’ll let you say otherwise.

    Now, here’s an actual hypocrisy for you:

    The chief complaint I see about Clinton is that folks feel they can’t trust her, don’t think she’s honest. I’d say the second most common is (now) that they can’t trust her judgment with secret details.

    Let’s focus, though, on that first one because it’s the one which has been the subject of 25 or so years of attacks on her. You have attempted to defend fear tactics by saying (somewhat fatuously I’ll add) that the other side is doing it too. If that’s the bar, the below should be perfectly acceptable and you should want to change your position… I mean, if I’m to take your complaint about Reich seriously….

    Donald J Trump said he met Putin. A lie. He later (yesterday) said he never met him (which is true but obviously contradicts his other statement). He said Putin isn’t going into the Ukraine, when he already has. He said he didn’t mean that he hadn’t gone in, also very likely a lie, but it shows he doesn’t know the situation. He said he’d “consider” whether Putin should be allowed to annex the Ukraine (a deeply troubling statement, apparently we’re now going to allow our enemy to annex portions of countries with whom we have friendly relations).

    He said he opposed the Iraq war before it started, a lie. He says he never said he supported the war, also a lie. Both lies he continues to repeat.

    Truth is, he lies virtually every time he opens his mouth. If caught, he denies he said it, compounding the lie. I certainly can put up a few (more) examples if it matters (past those I’ve just now given you).

    So, if honesty is a big issue, why is it not a big issue where Trump is concerned for you? If judgment and awareness of world matters is a big issue, why, when Trump condones the attack upon a citizen of the US by a foreign power, when he seeming invites seditious acts, is that lack of judgment not an issue for you (because inviting the Russians to hack US State Department servers would be a seditious act). When he uses religiously bigoted wording to attack the mother of a fallen US soldier, conduct which is at best morally reprehensible and at worst showing EXTRAORDINARILY poor judgment, why is that not an issue for you?

    The point is, Mr. Wants to focus on an hypocrisy (which isn’t), you don’t seem to notice the log in your eye. No matter, Trump is burying himself, and your credibility along with it if you don’t stand up and show at least the cojones which Ted Cruz showed. When someone behaves like a pig, at some point, you walk away. If you don’t it just shows your too afraid of the consequences. That by the way, is another kind of fear. Sometimes justified but not in this case. What do you suppose will happen? Do you think the RNC is going to revoke your membership card? Are they revoking Jeb Bush’s or John Kasich’s or Ted Cruz’s? Seriously, Mitch, do yourself a favor and walk away from this demagogic disaster show called Donald J. Drumpf. He’s not worth your integrity.

  3. last paragraph “you’re”, not “your”. Typo, fling poo.

    BTW, Chuck, I love Mt. Rushmore. Please don’t question my love for the country, I don’t like some of the leaders, and I don’t much like the conduct of some people, but that’s not the same as not loving the country. You don’t like some people too, does that make you a US hater? I loved my country enough to give it quite a bit of my time. I love my country enough to know it can be better, just like Mitch does, is that reflective of not caring? Is love supposed to mean servile acceptance of any flaw? Seriously, when I read crap like what you wrote, I want to ask the writer, “Were you born stupid or did you take a blow to the head?” because it implies that dissent isn’t acceptable and/or that it shows a “hatred”. Does that mean Mitch hates the country because he dissents about what Obama does? Does the fact that I may say “The US has a checkered past with respect to it’s clandestine conduct of policy in Latin America” make me a hater more than when Mitch says, “Obama’s foreign policy on Israel is a catastrophe”? Why, because I said “The US” instead of “Eisenhower/Johnson/Kennedy’s” ? Seriously?

    Seriously, get real. The left isn’t blind and they aren’t silent. they don’t “my country right or wrong”, they say, “let’s not make the same mistake twice.” The right offers very similar critiques but then admonishes the left for offering any criticisms because “that’s unpatriotic.” That’s both hypocritical and laughably absurd. The only difference between you and I is not that I critique and you don’t, it’s that I don’t accuse you of hating your country for doing so, in fact, I applaud you as long as your critique is fair.

  4. Chuck, I’m pretty sure the “real dark history of the Black Hills” is more “evil white man killed the Indians and stole their sacred land”

    Side note: Again with one of my pet peeves: headlines that make a pun intended to be clever: “Dark” history of Black Hills. Next time, say what you really mean. “The Black Hills should be renamed “The Red Hills” due to all the blood that was spilled by evil white territory thieves.”

  5. “is not at all the same as saying, consider that other candidate and decide whether you can live with their policies”

    Then why make the subject line “I’m Terrified?”

  6. Mitch, your silence on Trump’s attack on the Khan family is deafening.

    With respect to your reply, you seem to have missed or ignored the point that just because fear is in both sentences, that doesn’t make the meaning of the sentence the same. Stoking fear of a group, such as saying something like, “Why didn’t the mother talk, was it her religion?” just flat out isn’t the same as saying Donald Trump is a lying fraud with an orangutan stapled to his head and I’m terrified if HE becomes President of the policies he’ll enact. Would it somehow have been better if he’d said, “I think he’ll be a catastrophe?” One is open bigotry, Mitch, the other is criticizing the stance and conduct of a public figure. One is fair game, the other, while protected as speech, indicts the speaker as a demagogic, hate-filled bigot. I may think you’re silly or even stupid for saying Obama will be a catastrophe, I don’t think you’re a bigot because of it unless you appeal to some sort of racial argument. Is that more clear? Do you understand how these aren’t equal?

    Regardless, seriously, I think you need to repudiate Trump’s comments about the Khan family for your own self-respect.

  7. Ha! Let us try to document the lies of Candidate R, but when considering Candidate D we will pretend that lies are unimportant (“can I live with her policies?”).

    Is it a lack of standards on the left, or just extreme flexibility in their observance? And “at this point, what difference does it make?”

  8. PenDoggy;

    Please enlighten us as to how requiring voter ID, is unconstitutional? Any time a left wing nut job like you utters that lie, most of us read that as code for “we can’t prevent all of those illegal aliens, felons, Disney characters and dead people from voting DemonRAT.

    You losers always point to other more progressive countries, like Sweden, Denmark, etc. as being the model for the U.S. but they all require voter ID. In fact, your side invited U.N. observers to observe our election process in 2012. Every one of these observers were SHOCKED that we did not require voter ID.

    In that regarded, they are far more advanced than we are, because they don’t want non citizens invalidating the votes of their citizens. The must all be racists and Islamophobic haters, huh hypocrite?

  9. Also, Mitch, Robert Reich isn’t running for the Presidency. Donald Trump is accountable, as the standard bearer, for his comments in a way Rush Limbaugh isn’t. Nor do I hold Trump accountable for Limbaugh’s comments.

    The VFW has repudiated Trump. Take a hint. The VFW is hardly a left-leaning organization.

    Troy, I’m saying Donald is far less honest than any other candidate running. It’s not that I excuse Clinton. She has lied, she does lie. She lies more than most politicians. But I’m not saying the REASON Trump should not be elected is chiefly due to his lack of honesty. I’m saying it’s his lack of depth, lack of character, and lack of ability to adapt and learn (and I suppose his inability to know that his words matter). I’m saying it’s because he’s an abject bigot who plays on religious hatred. Let’s not call a spade a club, it’s a spade. Trump is deeply dishonest, in fact lies constantly. He said the NFL asked him to move the debates (or complained), the NFL said that’s untrue. He (Trump) lies daily. He certainly lies more often and more deeply and about far more serious and unserious things than Clinton’s prevarication about e-mails. What she did was wrong, but it’s on another planet compared to Trump. mmkay?

  10. Pen,

    Mitch, your silence on Trump’s attack on the Khan family is deafening.

    You’ve never condemned gang rape, either. Clearly the deafening silence indicated approval.

    That’s a stupid thing to say, right?

    Pen, do us a huge favor; NEVER EVER use the phrase “Your silence…” on some issue in a comment again. MY “SILENCE” MEANS NOTHING.

    I was out of town all weekend. And I DON’T write about absolutely every issue. I may write about it tomorrow. And if I don’t, it still means nothing!

  11. Oh, please, not the “your silence is deafening” air-biscuit again. Didn’t that get beaten like a rented drum last week or so?

    Meanwhile, Pen probably thinks it is wonderful that the DNC gave Kzir Khan a platform, while it was exploitative of the RNC to feature Pat Smith.

    Pen, your silence regarding Cindy Sheehan’s activities the last 8 years is deafening.

  12. What she did was wrong, but it’s on another planet compared to Trump. mmkay?

    How many people did sTrumpet kill? Now compare that to sHrillary’s record. MMKAY? You amoral equivalence Chihuahua.

  13. Claiming being intolerant of hatred is being intolerant is about the same as the false equivalency you present here.

    Pen, you’re definitely a victim of projection if you think people who oppose your positions are guilty of “hatred.” I may disagree with the idiocy that is the Left’s move away from judicial oversight of criminal sexual behavior on campus, but that doesn’t make me “hate” women as you leftists always chant. I may disagree with the social policy to allow gay marriage, but that doesn’t make me “hate” my neighbors that I had over a couple of weeks ago.

    People of good will can disagree about policy. But it’s a shame that Progressives have made their ideology a religion and now persecute all who do not follow their orthodoxy. It makes them small minded and inimical to debate and actual progress.

    (because inviting the Russians to hack US State Department servers would be a seditious act)

    Like most liberals, you repeat chanting points without clue. Sedition is “conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.” Are you saying that Hillary is Queen? Or are you just your typical Progressive “I heard this thing and want to repeat it without thinking too much because it sounds bad” clone?

    I freely admit that for Liberals the release of the DNC emails and all of Hillary’s deleted emails would be a seditious act given how they have rushed Hillary to a coronation, but I am highly amused that Liberals are so clueless that they’ve actually adopted words that show their real view of the world.

    Nothing Trump did was seditious. In the extreme you could say treasonous, but only if you believed that the release of Hillary’s emails from Russian hands would be betraying the US or the sovereign Queen Hillary. Remember, if Hillary isn’t lying then all the emails have been vetted by the FBI and the emails Trump was asking for don’t exist even behind State Department firewalls, or they’re just about yoga classes and wedding plans, and anyway, Russia can’t possibly have them because the bathroom server was guarded by Secret Service guns.

  14. “…unconstitutional attempts to claim “women’s health” is the reason to require an undue and needless care burden on abortion providers.”

    I’m with you peeve. When SCOTUS declared that PP abbatoirs don’t need a minimum measure of medical equipment, or hospital backup no one was happier than me.

    As far as I’m concerned, PP should be able to hoik future lefties, moochers and wards of the state out of the slags that bred them in the back of a station wagon. Who needs fancy equipment? Just hop up here open up that fetid spam purse and wham bam thank you ma’am..,NEXT!

    See, when you toss out the normal, prudent precautions and state of the art equipment, you increase the chances those slags will be rendered barren, and maybe leave them with a little something to remember their infanticide by…like a nice fistula; Bonus!

    So when it comes to protecting “women’s health care” (snicker) count me in baby!

  15. The father of a Muslim American soldier killed in Iraq who is caught up in a war of words with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is an immigration lawyer who specializes in a highly controversial program accused of letting immigrants buy their way into the U.S.

    No conflict of interest there. No politicization. No cashing in on your son’s death. Penny, your silence is deafening.

  16. Being intolerant of intolerance is like being certain that there are no certainties. It’s self contradictory and self-congratulatory, so it is embraced by those who believe that the purpose of reason is to allow them to feel morally superior to the people they do not like.

  17. Hey, peeve, you don’t mind if we motivate people to crush leftist reprobates like bugs because they are intent on attacking our constitutional rights to freely practice our Christian faith, keep and bear arms, or be free from illegal search and seizure, do ya buddy? That don’t make us bigots, does it? I mean, that’s OK with y’all right?

  18. Nerd: Pen, you’re definitely a victim of projection if you think people who oppose your positions are guilty of “hatred.” I may disagree with the idiocy that is the Left’s move away from judicial oversight of criminal sexual behavior on campus, but that doesn’t make me “hate” women as you leftists always chant. I may disagree with the social policy to allow gay marriage, but that doesn’t make me “hate” my neighbors that I had over a couple of weeks ago.

    People of good will can disagree about policy. But it’s a shame that Progressives have made their ideology a religion and now persecute all who do not follow their orthodoxy. It makes them small minded and inimical to debate and actual progress.

    TL;DR is the 2 sentence Dennis Prager saying. The right believes the left is wrong. The left believes the right is evil.

  19. “Mitch, your silence on Trump’s attack on the Khan family is deafening”

    Listen, you ignorant motherfucker, your candidate was just judged an incompetent buffoon that “jeopardized national security” (verbatim) in order to keep the details of her little graft scheme from being subject to a FOIA disclosure.

    She had THOUSANDS of classified documents in her possession, including 2 that were TOP SECRET/ SPECIAL ACCESS PROGRAM. That’s the kind of shit that gets people killed, like the position of our nuke boats, or where a SEAL team is operating.

    Khan sold his right to my sympathy the minute he stepped up on a stage to support the candidacy of that piece of shit you are running for President. Clearly, his son was made of better stuff than he.

    Did you get all that? I wasn’t too harsh, was I? If you need a tissue, or a moment in your safe space I understand.

  20. Oh, please, not the “your silence is deafening” air-biscuit again. Didn’t that get beaten like a rented drum last week or so?

    Meanwhile, Pen probably thinks it is wonderful that the DNC gave Kzir Khan a platform, while it was exploitative of the RNC to feature Pat Smith.

    Pen, your silence regarding Cindy Sheehan’s activities the last 8 years is deafening.

    Once Khzir Khan’s usefulness to the Clinton campaign begins to wane, he’ll be sent to the ditch in Crawford where Sheehan has apparently been living for the past decade.

  21. Even the definition of “intolerance” needs to be stretched to equate the “intolerance” of the left (“hate people who don’t agree”) with the “intolerance” of the right (“don’t agree”).

  22. Wasn’t Khan’s son killed by Muslims?
    Jesus, you’d think that Trump strangled him to death with his own hands.

  23. Q:What do progressives call a person who believes in freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and freedom of association?
    A: Intolerant!

  24. Penigma wrote:

    “What she did was wrong, but it’s on another planet compared to Trump”

    Your one semi-specific argument is NFL related? Dude. You are unintentionally correct here: totally different planet. She commits federal crimes, puts lives in danger, maybe even gets them killed, lies all day long about it, gets a YouTuber thrown in jail, conspires and successfully fixes the Democrat Presidential nomination, and you think Captain Bullshit is the really bad guy here?

    You are an idiot, Penigma. Truly.

  25. Speaking of lies . . .
    Did you know that Bill Clinton’s speech at the DNC was based on a lie?
    He said that Hillary gave up a great law career to come and be with him in Arkansas.
    That is a lie. Hillary went to Arkansas because she failed the DC bar exam. That killed her chances of getting a big law job.
    Bill told his lie in his “aw shucks’ style. Democrats seem unable to see through it.
    The Clintons lie. They lie about matters big and small. They lie because they have no respect for the truth. Hillary lied about her email server, over and over, she lied about what emails were kept on it. She lied about Bengazi. She lied about the ‘vast, right-wing conspiracy.’ She lied about the Rose Law firm emails.
    The Democrats get played by the Clintons. If Clinton had resigned when the Lewinsky scandal broke, no one would have blamed him. It is likely that Al Gore would have elected president in 2000. The Democrats gained nothing and lost much by defending Clinton’s lawlessness in office.
    If you want to keep a liar out of the White House, don’t vote for Hillary because you will fill the White House full of them.

  26. Pen-“motivating people out of fear….”. You mean like the climate change people try to do almost every single day? I guess we missed your post on how that’s not right, either. “Motivating out of bigotry…”. So if bigotry is wrong then why would the left want to import thousands more into the country? Or are those attitudes against gays and women only wrong if practiced by white Chtistians? And still waiting for your reason why voter ID is unconstitutional.

  27. Did you know that Bill Clinton’s speech at the DNC was based on a lie?

    Glad I was near my fainting couch when you told me that, Bento. Who would have thunk that he could tell a lie….I’d always pictured him by that old cherry tree….

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