Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, January 30, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 2
Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, January 30, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 2
Our country is not built on blood and bone. We, as Americans, do not have a common heritage. We have nothing to bind us together except our symbols. If one portion of the population defines the symbols that bind us together differently than the rest of the population, then we have a problem. In order for the Left to win arguments, they have to get their re-definition of the symbols that hold up this country to be accepted by the whole country. How can you do that, if you will not debate? How can you ask me to accept your re-definition of the symbols, if you simply say that your re-definition is morally correct, so debate is unnecessary? That SHOULD makes no sense to most people.
Let me show you what I'm talking about.
The Constitution... It's a symbol. People in this country assume the Constitution defines what the government CAN do and in part that is true. Mostly the Constitution is supposed to say what the government CANNOT do. There is a massive method of amending the Constitution to make sure we have a stable society. The Left has attempted to re-define the Constitution with a symbol called living document. Recognize that the symbol called living document is a very dangerous symbol, because it means that each generation of Americans cannot depend on the Constitution to mean what it says. We are at the mercy of nine unelected judges who can redefine the symbol called the Constitution any way they like.
I understand why the Left wants the Constitution to mean what they want it to mean. The agenda of the Left has never been debated and accepted. The only way to get that agenda implemented is by having it imposed by the courts. The Left wants a just society. The Constitution appears to be in the way, thus it has to be moved out of the way so social justice can come about.
When Franklin Delano Roosevelt became President of the United States in 1932, The Republican led government of the United States had screwed up the economy by passing the Smoote-Hawley Bill. The unemployment rate was something like 32%. FDR did something that had never been tried before. He tried to use the government to affect the economy in a positive way. In every other downturn in the economy prior to the 1932, the government had gotten out of the way and let the economy bottom out. In this case the bottom was much farther down, because the government had caused the problem. FDR immediately impounded 40% of all the money in circulation at the time under the Bank Holiday. He did not repeal Smoote-Hawley. He made matters worse. Roosevelt went on a spending spree trying to spend us out of out the Depression. The Supreme Court kept getting in the way. Roosevelt threatened to pack the Court, that is make the Court bigger, so he could appoint Supreme Court justices who agreed with him that the government could be the source of positive social change. The Constitution was in the way of helping people get out of their misery, therefore the Constitution had to be pushed aside.
Once that happened, the final arbiter of what the Constitution moved to the Supreme Court. No longer did the Supreme Court look at the text, it looked at what it COULD say instead of what it said. The Right looked at that re-definition of the Constitution and became frustrated. How do you re-define what the text of the Constitution says? There are ways to amend the Constitution, why weren't Liberals willing to go through that process?
I understand the point of view of the Left. I really do. The Left has an agenda that is supposed to make this country a better place. The Left can't get it through the legislatures. The reason the Left cannot get it through the Legislatures is that the Leftist agenda has failed to produce the results its symbols said it would. YET the goals of the Left are so absolutely fantastic, the Left will not let loose of the means of achieving them. When someone points out that the results of the symbols proposed by the Left have not matched their definitions, the Left becomes angry because it looks like the Right is questioning the goals of a just society.
There is a symbol on the Right which has evolved since 2000, called the Angry Left. The Right defines the Angry Left as people who have lost patience with the American people and want their way even though no one wants to do it according the symbols proposed by the Left. The thinking of the people of the Angry Left is that their goals are SO fantastic and so morally superior, people have got to ignore that the means of achieving those goals do not in actual fact achieve the goals. If you listen to the Angry Left, by reading moveon.org, the dailykos and democratic underground, they are filled with hatred and loathing for the Right, because we on the Right will not implement their agenda using the means they have dictated.
One guy on the dailykos said that "A conservative understands the price of everything, but the value of nothing." That sounds really interesting and it even captures the central bone of contention between the Left and the Right. The problem is that the Left does not realize that the Right wants the same things as the Left except we want to use different tools. We on the Right KNOW that the government CANNOT and will never be a tool of positive social change, because various shades of Communism, Socialism and Liberalism have been tried in over 70 countries. None of those countries have done a better job of redistributing wealth than the U.S.
Europe has come the closest to the Liberal Utopia. Their society looks like it provides all the goods and services to its citizens that the Liberals in this country want for our society. The problem is that Europe is dying. Their economy is collapsing. The means proposed by the Left to achieve social justice cost too much. Slowly but surely the state where a Leftist agenda is implemented dies, because the economy dies. You cannot have social justice where there are no jobs.
Let me hit just one small symbol that the Left in Europe is VERY proud of. The symbol is called Universal Health Care. The definition is that anyone who is a citizen can have their health care needs paid for by the government. When a government provides a service, it becomes a monopoly. Health care in Europe is a government monopoly. A monopoly does not have to respond to user complaints. It does not have to compete. It does not have to have the latest technology. Someone in the government decides how much the public health care system will have to spend each year and if the public health care system needs more, then that's just too bad. As the government has to make choices as to what to fund elsewhere in the economy, health care falls down the list. Why have a MRI machine in ALL hospitals? Why not have one regional hospital with the MRI? Doesn't that sound more efficient? It gets worse. Cleanliness becomes a low priority. Why have someone come by and clean hospital rooms every day? Once a week should be enough. No, I am not making this up. When you have the government fund something, it has to set priorities. At the beginning of the project, the priorities are clear and understood by everyone. As time passes and resources for other government programs become scarce, health care is robbed. People complain, the government says in essence, "You can have this program you want or the latest technology in the health care system, which do you want?" People decide that they can do without the latest... whatever. And it just goes downhill from there until your health care system is a shambles and people start to die because they have to wait for treatment and they are not getting the best treatment possible. The Europeans refuse to see this, because they have defined the symbol Universal Health Care as an absolute, regardless of the substance of the symbol.
The nature of symbols. They have a name. They have a meaning. and they have substance. Again, if you have a symbol that has a definition that does NOT match the substance, then people start going, wait... that makes no sense. Or they assume there IS no substance and laugh at you.
Our country is not built on blood and bone. We, as Americans, do not have a common heritage. We have nothing to bind us together except our symbols. If one portion of the population defines the symbols that bind us together differently than the rest of the population, then we have a problem. In order for the Left to win arguments, they have to get their re-definition of the symbols that hold up this country to be accepted by the whole country. How can you do that, if you will not debate? How can you ask me to accept your re-definition of the symbols, if you simply say that your re-definition is morally correct, so debate is unnecessary? That SHOULD makes no sense to most people.
Let me show you what I'm talking about.
The Constitution... It's a symbol. People in this country assume the Constitution defines what the government CAN do and in part that is true. Mostly the Constitution is supposed to say what the government CANNOT do. There is a massive method of amending the Constitution to make sure we have a stable society. The Left has attempted to re-define the Constitution with a symbol called living document. Recognize that the symbol called living document is a very dangerous symbol, because it means that each generation of Americans cannot depend on the Constitution to mean what it says. We are at the mercy of nine unelected judges who can redefine the symbol called the Constitution any way they like.
I understand why the Left wants the Constitution to mean what they want it to mean. The agenda of the Left has never been debated and accepted. The only way to get that agenda implemented is by having it imposed by the courts. The Left wants a just society. The Constitution appears to be in the way, thus it has to be moved out of the way so social justice can come about.
When Franklin Delano Roosevelt became President of the United States in 1932, The Republican led government of the United States had screwed up the economy by passing the Smoote-Hawley Bill. The unemployment rate was something like 32%. FDR did something that had never been tried before. He tried to use the government to affect the economy in a positive way. In every other downturn in the economy prior to the 1932, the government had gotten out of the way and let the economy bottom out. In this case the bottom was much farther down, because the government had caused the problem. FDR immediately impounded 40% of all the money in circulation at the time under the Bank Holiday. He did not repeal Smoote-Hawley. He made matters worse. Roosevelt went on a spending spree trying to spend us out of out the Depression. The Supreme Court kept getting in the way. Roosevelt threatened to pack the Court, that is make the Court bigger, so he could appoint Supreme Court justices who agreed with him that the government could be the source of positive social change. The Constitution was in the way of helping people get out of their misery, therefore the Constitution had to be pushed aside.
Once that happened, the final arbiter of what the Constitution moved to the Supreme Court. No longer did the Supreme Court look at the text, it looked at what it COULD say instead of what it said. The Right looked at that re-definition of the Constitution and became frustrated. How do you re-define what the text of the Constitution says? There are ways to amend the Constitution, why weren't Liberals willing to go through that process?
I understand the point of view of the Left. I really do. The Left has an agenda that is supposed to make this country a better place. The Left can't get it through the legislatures. The reason the Left cannot get it through the Legislatures is that the Leftist agenda has failed to produce the results its symbols said it would. YET the goals of the Left are so absolutely fantastic, the Left will not let loose of the means of achieving them. When someone points out that the results of the symbols proposed by the Left have not matched their definitions, the Left becomes angry because it looks like the Right is questioning the goals of a just society.
There is a symbol on the Right which has evolved since 2000, called the Angry Left. The Right defines the Angry Left as people who have lost patience with the American people and want their way even though no one wants to do it according the symbols proposed by the Left. The thinking of the people of the Angry Left is that their goals are SO fantastic and so morally superior, people have got to ignore that the means of achieving those goals do not in actual fact achieve the goals. If you listen to the Angry Left, by reading moveon.org, the dailykos and democratic underground, they are filled with hatred and loathing for the Right, because we on the Right will not implement their agenda using the means they have dictated.
One guy on the dailykos said that "A conservative understands the price of everything, but the value of nothing." That sounds really interesting and it even captures the central bone of contention between the Left and the Right. The problem is that the Left does not realize that the Right wants the same things as the Left except we want to use different tools. We on the Right KNOW that the government CANNOT and will never be a tool of positive social change, because various shades of Communism, Socialism and Liberalism have been tried in over 70 countries. None of those countries have done a better job of redistributing wealth than the U.S.
Europe has come the closest to the Liberal Utopia. Their society looks like it provides all the goods and services to its citizens that the Liberals in this country want for our society. The problem is that Europe is dying. Their economy is collapsing. The means proposed by the Left to achieve social justice cost too much. Slowly but surely the state where a Leftist agenda is implemented dies, because the economy dies. You cannot have social justice where there are no jobs.
Let me hit just one small symbol that the Left in Europe is VERY proud of. The symbol is called Universal Health Care. The definition is that anyone who is a citizen can have their health care needs paid for by the government. When a government provides a service, it becomes a monopoly. Health care in Europe is a government monopoly. A monopoly does not have to respond to user complaints. It does not have to compete. It does not have to have the latest technology. Someone in the government decides how much the public health care system will have to spend each year and if the public health care system needs more, then that's just too bad. As the government has to make choices as to what to fund elsewhere in the economy, health care falls down the list. Why have a MRI machine in ALL hospitals? Why not have one regional hospital with the MRI? Doesn't that sound more efficient? It gets worse. Cleanliness becomes a low priority. Why have someone come by and clean hospital rooms every day? Once a week should be enough. No, I am not making this up. When you have the government fund something, it has to set priorities. At the beginning of the project, the priorities are clear and understood by everyone. As time passes and resources for other government programs become scarce, health care is robbed. People complain, the government says in essence, "You can have this program you want or the latest technology in the health care system, which do you want?" People decide that they can do without the latest... whatever. And it just goes downhill from there until your health care system is a shambles and people start to die because they have to wait for treatment and they are not getting the best treatment possible. The Europeans refuse to see this, because they have defined the symbol Universal Health Care as an absolute, regardless of the substance of the symbol.
The nature of symbols. They have a name. They have a meaning. and they have substance. Again, if you have a symbol that has a definition that does NOT match the substance, then people start going, wait... that makes no sense. Or they assume there IS no substance and laugh at you.
posted by aRandomTexan at
7:36 PM
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