Through a glass darkly
Here's the latest from Diversity Lane – but I have to admit, we all have the tendency to look through our ideological lenses instead of seeing the truth, but I think that the exaggerated panic and alarm mentality of the left makes this cartoon really appropriate. If you just believed the liberal MSM, you'd think that:
- We are on the edge of environmental collapse (Global Warming Alarmism)
- We live in an incredibly racist society (Racism under every Bush, er bush)
- We have a healthcare crisis that is about to plunge us into the dark ages
- We have a financial crisis that necessitates huge government spending and debt
I think their priorities and viewpoints are way out of balance. I see our priorities as:
- Our government is too large and overspending
- Our banking system lacks oversight, but needs to allow market forces to return it to sanity
- We have an abortion problem – 3000 children killed a day
But that's me. Enjoy the cartoon. Click to enlarge.
5 Comments Post a comment
Enjoy the cartoon.
Man if that ain't too true!
I'd certainly put the 28% of Repubs who think that Obama is not a natural born American in that lemming group.
/sigh
Hi Daniel:
I'd say the right wing is at least as alarmist as the left. They see (you see):
1. Obama wants to impose a socialist state on America, destroying more than 2 centuries of American freedom.
2. If we don't continue to torture people we will be destroyed by terrorists.
3. The moderate, market-based adjustment to the way we produce energy in America (cap and trade) will destroy our economy.
We do all have our lenses, you are right about that. maybe we ought to justy discuss things without demonizing each other.
your friend
Keith
Yeah, and I wish that the GOP would stop it's 'slobbering love affair' with Palin – she is not what I would call presidential material. Long live the Gingrich!
Keith, I do think that cap and trade will seriously hurt our economy, and as many experts have said, have little effect on the environment (since we are not really causing or escalating warming anyway, that's just a liberal scare tactic).
And I think that the diff between the liberal and conservative scare tactics is, the things that the neocons are concerned about are present realities, not imaginary, exaggerated, future calamities.
The economy is in trouble, and cap/trade, not to mention gargantuan government debt spending, WILL hurt our economy. Big government IS the enemy of the people, which is why we have, among other things, the Bill of Rights. The government buyout of industry is VERY much like Socialism (owning the means of production) – sure, it is not full-fledged, but it is following the socialist playbook.
Terrorists DID attacks us, and attack free people (and their own) DAILY around the world. I am not supporting torture, but the hullabaloo that libs make over three influential terrorists who were water boarded (not having their privates electrified, for instance), seems in some sense way out of proportion.
Global warming? Speculation, not present calamity. Health care crisis? Exaggerated. We have problems, but not some near disaster that demands huge federal programs.
While both sides may exaggerate, I think that libs have more speculative (read 'imaginary') fears rather than firm ones, and priorities that reflect, not the need of the day, but their own political bent.
Add on to that what I consider misguided economic policy, and I don't think that your comparison is good enough. This cartoon shows the gross misperceptions of liberalism – the kind that would demonize the great ideas of the west in the guise of multiculturalism, apologize for and miss the ills of Islam (not just 'Fundamentalist' Islam), promote the injustices of reverse racism and abortion, go into a panic based on Al Gore's movie and questionable science, and go into great federal debt to fix our economy. This seems like deep blindness compared to the more mild errors of modern conservatism.
And ultimately conservatism is interested in preserving rights of the people, and therefore elevating human dignity.
Liberalism's answer is always the reduction of an individual's rights, "for their own good".
The biggest meta-problem that I see in this country, is that everyone, left and right, sees that our problems have political solutions. I don't believe that which ails our society can be solved by either Democrat or Republican. And it's ultimately the reason I favor conservatism: it gives people the room to make mistakes, find the will and spirit to fix things that are wrong, allows men to help one another, and preserves human dignity.