"The majority of citizens in nearly all the world’s most developed countries simply aren’t prepared to tolerate the degree of borrowing required to sustain generous welfare programmes any longer."---- Telegraph, Aug. 2, 2011Going through the headlines over at Memeorandum today, watching Liberals whine, howl, beat their chest and demonize the Tea Party and members of the right over the debt deal that has been reached, agreed to and is passing through both chambers of Congress, I am seeing a theme of complete denial from the left side of the political spectrum.
One of the most arrogant pieces yet is over at Mother Jones by Kevin Drum.
But no matter how many times we try to kid ourselves with one poll result or another, liberals just don't have that advantage. The public is mostly in favor of raising taxes on the rich — though I suspect its support is pretty soft — but on the bigger issues they mostly aren't on our side. They think deficits are bad, they don't trust Keynesian economics, they don't want a higher IRS bill (who does, after all?), and they believe the federal government is spending too much on stuff they don't really understand. Conservatives have just flat out won this debate in recent decades, and until that changes we're not going to be able to make much progress.
This is why I blame the broad liberal community for our failures, not just President Obama. My biggest beef with Obama is the same one I had three years ago, namely that he's never really even tried to move public opinion in a specifically progressive direction. But that hardly even matters unless all the rest of us have laid the groundwork. And we haven't. Wonks, hacks, activists, all of us. We just haven't persuaded the public to support our vision of government. Until we do, the tea party tendency will always be more powerful than we are.
I call this arrogant because Drum admits that on the largest of issues the public is not "on our side", [Liberals] yet he believes it is because Liberals simply haven't convinced the rest of the country that the Liberal mindset and agenda is right and the majority of the public is wrong or simply doesn't understand what the "smarter"(in Drum's mind that would be Liberals) folks understand.
I disagree, the Liberal "Wonks, hacks, activists", as Drum calls them, have spent the last months doing nothing but trying to convince the general public that Liberals are right and the public is wrong. They have produced chart after chart, dedicated millions of words and posts and articles, explaining their thinking.
Guess what? The public opinion still has not changed.
The liberal arguments have been heard and rejected by the majority.
So, instead of simply admitting that the majority is more conservative than they are, believes the government should spend within it's means as the rest of us have to, think that our debt is out of control and needs to be brought down and government needs to be smaller, what do Liberals do when they cannot force their agenda down our throats?
They call them "hostage takers", "terrorists", they claim the Tea Party has declared "war" on America, they liken Republicans to "baby-kidnapping", and "monsters" and call the debt deal a "Satan sandwich
Libs do that instead of giving the majority of Americans the simple respect of having their own opinions that don't match their own and they blame Tea Party members of Congress, those the majority of the public voted for in the 2010 midterms, for the specific policies that Liberals are against, rather than considering their own agenda and beliefs are wrong.
One has to wonder if these Liberals, like Drum, have ever looked in the mirror and asked themselves, "could I be wrong, could the majority be right?"
I did that when I was a Clinton Democrat and lo and behold I found my answer was yes, I could be wrong and yes the majority could be right.
Perhaps if Liberals would sit down, shut up and listen for a change, they might actually learn they are not the smartest kids in the room and the majority of Americans are much smarter than our politicians or our pundits give them credit for.
[Update] Jonah Goldberg has a message for the Liberal media stooges and their hypocrisy.
Well, go to Hell. All of you.
Please read the whole thing.
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