Winner: Least Subtle Irony Competition

Another Chapter in the ‘Left Don’t Want to Know’

Irony can be subtle; certainly a good writer can catch the reader out and raise a smile. Unfortunately Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of US House of Representatives) and Steny Hoyer (House Majority Leader) are not skilled in the art.

In an article which basically aims to silence critics by slandering them, by telling them they are not telling the truth (about a bill she and her colleagues have not read) without any argument to back that claim, even though some of their information is from the Congressional Budget Office, on behalf of the party of the President who wants people to "shut up and get out of the way" which is supported by organisations emailing activists asking them to “drown out [opponents] voices”, Pelosi and Hoyer have the cheek to say,

“… opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American”.

I am not sure which to hope, that they intended the irony or that they did not, because it is difficult to see which would require more idiocy, to miss the irony or to consider it acceptable in an article written by politicians who want their constituents to trust them with healthcare.

If the case of Kenneth Gladney is not enough to persuade people of the lengths socialists will go to silence critics of ObamaCare, they will also visit the house of a family with a cerebral palsy sufferer, if his father dares challenge a Democrat about his son’s healthcare.

Update: SEIU is not the only union trying to silence dissent.

And There’s More …

Of course if the Left don’t want to hear, still don’t want to know, perhaps it is better if they shut up all criticism. How better to do that than cry “racism” at even the poorest satire however obtuse the twisted argument to claim racism? Of course this has been going on since Obama’s election campaign began, in response to even the most articulate, coherent argument against his politics.

Oh, and it's that muppet Paul Krugman again.

The Theme Continues

I am not going to talk about the only interesting British political story, Mandelson running the country from Corfu, as the less Labour in general and the Dark Lord in particular have to do with running the country the better. So I shall continue my idea of those on the American left who do not question their own rectitude trying desperately not to listen to anyone outside their little coterie.

Via Instapundit (as usual) Kathryn Jean Lopez at The Corner comes up with a beautiful illustration from The One himself.

I don't want the folks who created the mess do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don't mind cleaning up after them, but don't do a lot of talking.

So Obama, Great Caesar as Ms Lopez has it (appropriately with the number of Tsars being appointed Stateside) has decided imperiously who was at fault, and told them in good left-wing style to shut up.

Never mind that plenty of those bearing equal or greater responsibility are actually numbered amongst Obama’s clique; never mind that many of those in banking bear no responsibility at all; never mind that even those with some responsibility still have expertise, and having (we can hope) learnt from the foolish experiments in derivatives they might have sound advice to give.

The same article also mentions Obama’s attempts to bully state governors into supporting the “stimulus” early in the year. Of course that bullying subsequently went much further than private talk.

For those in the UK that might not seem a big deal. I am certainly only in the last few months getting to understand the nature of US federal politics, and the constitutional relationship between state and federal government. I am beginning to understand because of the politicisation of that relationship, as big-government authoritarians (largely on the left, but including G.W. Bush) make federal inroads into state business. This has huge constitutional implications, and is very contentious, with many especially on the right but also among so called ‘blue dog’ Democrats contending that the federal government often oversteps the constitutional line.

Obama allegedly did not wish to listen to duly-elected state governors, who at a state level I believe have authority roughly equivalent to his own at federal level, on an issue with vital impact on state governance. The “stimulus” was of course federal money (or rather federal debt) but of limited duration, whereas many of the targets for funding were likely to continue, forcing the states to pay after the pot ran dry.

This was a shocking breach of correct relationship, but it appears that Obama’s desire not to hear his opponents is more important than the constitution.

I Find Myself Repeating … (updated)

That the Left don’t want to know, they’d rather be Left than right

I wrote a couple of days ago about Paul Krugman not wanting to know the arguments against Obama’s changes to health-care arrangements in the US. This proposal is highly political, and of course those campaigning in favour tend to be left-wing, but also rather authoritarian, as the legislation is coercive rather than permissive. ‘Authoritarian left’ is a pretty good description of New Labour, and the antithesis of libertarian.

So the methods used to try to win support for the change interest me, regardless of whether the legislation itself is beneficial or harmful. This video, which I found on the US conservative website RS Redstate, is a meeting of the American Association of Retired People, the AARP.

The middle-aged, left-wing activists running this meeting did not want to know, and I think that is because they had no doubt that they were right.

• Notice that the woman who opened the meeting told the members what their views were, “…I think we can all agree…”. When they told her that she was wrong, she accused them of being rude. She did not want to know their views.
• When it is pointed out that she works for them, her dismissive body language says that she didn’t really want to know that.
• The man who takes over starts out solidly on broadcast mode, dishonestly giving one side of the story. He points out that the current system limits healthcare to support his advocacy of a change, implying by omission that government-run healthcare is not rationed (as we in Britain know to our cost it is).
• At the 2-minute point of the video the first woman says, quite unconvincingly, that she is sorry to her members. She then walks out, clearly in a huff. She certainly did not want to know what her members told her.
• As the meeting continues the next opinion heard is from a man saying he had never been canvassed on the issues. Someone made (left-wing) policy for the association but did not want to know members’ views.

You might say that Obama does want to know. It appears that he wants to be informed of any email or website arguing against the planned legislation. Of course if he planned to have these objections considered with a view potentially to amending the legislation then this would be a laudable if inefficient request.

Read Obama’s words, “…those who profit from the status quo, or see this debate as a political game … are filling the airwaves and the internet with outrageous falsehoods to scare people into opposing change …”.

“So we've got to get out there, fight lies with truth, and set the record straight”

That does not sound to me like a man who wants to hear the arguments. He does not want to know. It appears he has already decided that he is right and any possible argument against is wrong. Actually I think it is more to do with power and control, and Obama is not interested in the arguments against the legislation because they all concern health, wealth and liberty, and I suspect that neither is his goal (at least relating to other people).

It appears that, as is so often the case with authoritarians, Obama has broken the law in even asking for this information. I do hope this is tested in court and he is humiliated. He has already received bad publicity from this incredibly stupid email, more can only be better.

Of course more evidence of the American Left’s unwillingness to even listen on the issue of healthcare is in the video in the update to my post on the police state.

Still the Left does not want to know, because it still does not doubt. This is why, dear reader, that on the subject of the Left and most especially Barack Obama, I have always had My Doubts.

Glen Reynolds, of Instapundit, is the ultimate source of all links, so many, many fine hats tipped to the great legal academic.

Update: the US Democrats are willing to stack an ‘open’ meeting with union members just to avoid having to listen to their opponents. They don’t want to know.

Update: it appears that Barack Obama is breaking another article of the same privacy law. David Hardy, the blogger who points this out, reckons this to be a far more serious breach. Oh, dear.

Update: so keen not to know they try to start fights … with the people Democrats are calling a mob.

Update: it helps of course if you only answer written questions after your talk, but only tell your supporters that they can submit written questions. Then get your supporters to beat up opponents.

The Left Don’t Want to Know

Or ‘Better Left than right’.

Sorry for the hiatus in blogging. Have had a busy week working and visiting family.

However I did catch Glen Reynolds’s link to this clip of a television debate in America about the proposed changes to the healthcare system. In the clip a chap called Paul Krugman, a self-proclaimed ‘liberal’ New York Times blogger, asks the few Canadian members of the audience if they think their government-run health system is terrible, and although the proportion is not given, all or nearly all of them said they thought it was terrible.

What I found really telling was not that this was a great argument against Obama’s plans (which it is of course) but Mr Krugman’s response, which was “Bad move on my part!”.

So what Mr Krugman is saying is that it is more important to win a TV debate than to learn something (that there might be a lot of people who have a bad impression or a bad experience of government-run healthcare) or that the debate comes to the best answer it can. Left-wing ideology seems, by extension, to be more important to Mr Krugman than good healthcare.

Often I get the same impression from the current UK government and the British left in general, on the subject of the NHS but even more on education, where the ideology of ‘equality’ is more important than the actual welfare of young people. Comprehensive education is important enough to ignore its failings, equal access is more important than maintaining the quality of education at our world-class universities, and instead of dumping ideologically-driven teaching methods and curriculums in schools which have damaged state education the universities are told to bias their selection against privately-schooled applicants.

There are more examples, certainly in the welfare system, in defence, on the EU, where winning the argument is more important than finding the best course, but it is more dangerous in education and health, where the results will last for decades or are often fatal.

I also think this theme fits in well with my previous post on the intended consequences of legislation being to keep power; the intentions might also be to keep ideological purity.

Update: Obama and the British Labour Party have the same dislike of the concept of education vouchers (despite Obama saying that he would consider the issue on merit). This looks more like left-wing dogmatism than rational objection with more evidence. Yet more evidence here, but still Ed Balls, Gordon Brown and Barack Obama would rather be Left than right.

Update: It appears that Paul Krugman holds a Nobel Prize for economics. It also appears that he has no desire to get the correct answer to a problem, and that he knows nothing at all about people’s response to incentive (which is core to economics and econometrics), since he fails to understand the limitations of government-run healthcare. Are they giving away Nobel Prizes with Cornflakes now?