Yet Another Spin Of The Progressive Wheel O' Contempt...

Just ask any progressive. They love "the people". They want to help "the people". They want equality, fraternity, mutual respective and constructive dialog.

An excellent example of this sort of mindset comes from Bill Maher over at Huffington Post, although using any word containing "mind" in a sentence with the words "Bill Maher" seems clearly contraindicated:

New Rule: Just because a country elects a smart president doesn't make it a smart country.

Yep. Now that President Obama's dropping like a stone in the polls, it turns out we're all morons. That's because - and all the smart people know this - it is precisely the smart ones who understand that the wisdom of Barak Obama and his policies are obvious to anyone who isn't stupid.

To buttress his assertion, Maher cites the inability of American's to correctly answer poll questions regarding their government:

I'm the bad guy for saying it's a stupid country, yet polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does.

Maher goes on to cite more examples, but you get the idea. And just to drive the point home, he throws in some of the sort of wit that's taken him away of more traditional humorist tasks such as stand-up comedy, comedic acting and comedic writing and put him on the D-list cable talk show circuit.

My own though on Maher's thesis starts with a single - rather obvious - observation: Bill Maher is the sort of dimwit who gets real serious when he gets a phone call from a pollster. Being unfunny on both a personal and professional level, it would probably never occur to Maher that many of us unsmart folk thoroughly enjoy yanking the chain of the kid reading the poll questions to us.

Once, while feeling particularly evil, I managed to convince a pollster I was a 38 year-old neurologist who was part American-Indian, been born in Scotland at a U.S. Marine Corps base, had a wife and seven kids, who really didn't know the name of the United States President, the name of my Representative to Congress, or who either of my Senators were. In fact, I think I managed to convince him I didn't really know we had a Senate...

Now I could, if I was a horse's ass like Bill Maher, just assume the kid doing the poll over the telephone with me was a complete moron, but unlike Bill Maher, I'm a smart enough person to understand the concept of Christian Charity. That kid on the other end of the phone probably knew I was yanking his chain, and the sensible response to such an event on his part was to do exactly what he did: Record my answers and move on to the next citizen.

Now that the post-coital glow of the election recedes, what we are beginning to see is The Slipping of The Progressive Mask. It isn't about Hope, and it isn't about Change. It's about Contempt and it's about Coercion, as Maher clearly articulates:

And these are the idiots we want to weigh in on the minutia of health care policy? Please, this country is like a college chick after two Long Island Iced Teas: we can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked out of anything, like health care. We should forget town halls, and replace them with study halls. There's a lot of populist anger directed towards Washington, but you know who concerned citizens should be most angry at? Their fellow citizens. "Inside the beltway" thinking may be wrong, but at least it's thinking, which is more than you can say for what's going on outside the beltway.

And if you want to call me an elitist for this, I say thank you. Yes, I want decisions made by an elite group of people who know what they're talking about. That means Obama budget director Peter Orszag, not Sarah Palin.

Which is the way our founding fathers wanted it. James Madison wrote that "pure democracy" doesn't work because "there is nothing to check... an obnoxious individual." Then, in the margins, he doodled a picture of Joe the Plumber.

What else is there to say? We brownshirted anti-reform vigilantes, thugs and neo-nazis couldn't have put it any better.

Comments

[markg8]

You'd prefer Sarah Palin over Peter Orzag writing health care policy?

Bill Maher isn't happy unless he's mad about something. Sort of like a teabagger. Check that, exactly like the teabaggers. And last I saw he wasn't working in the White House.

[Dennis the Peasant]

We'll probably never know whether Sarah Palin would bother to fuck up health care reform... Oh, excuse me, this week it's health insurance reform.

What we do know is that Peter's had his chance to fuck it up... And he ran with it.

That's why we have union members beating up black conservatives at townhall meetings.

[Eric Blair]

Maher is just vile. But he's always been that way.

[markg8]

What we do know is that Peter's had his chance to fuck it up... And he ran with it.

Well Dennis you seem to be as misinformed as Maher. There are four bills that have been passed out of committee with another one to come out of the Senate Finance Committee. None of them were written by anyone in the WH, 3 were written in the House and Kennedy's HELP committee wrote the other. You by chance didn't happen to get some stupid email claiming to deconstruct the bill with lines like this did you:

Pg 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill - YOUR HEALTHCARE IS RATIONED!!!

Because if you believe that crap you're no smarter than a birther.

That's why we have union members beating up black conservatives at townhall meetings.

Actually one brother punched another who was selling anti-Obama paraphernalia.

Here's a few comments from the boys at Flopping Aces where I mistakenly didn't uncheck the auto update to my email when I left a comment earlier.

The SEIU thugs from the video should be identified, investigated and never given a moment's rest. We should know everything about them. They should be harassed at their homes and so should their families.

Wear a camera? Wear a Glock!

Keep it up fellas. Keep it up. See what it gets ya. These clowns really think they're going to shoot their way into townhall meetings so they can be "heard"? You lost, we won, and you guys really can't handle it. Talk about a sense of entitlement. Your goons started this and you can't pretend they didn't. It isn't funny anymore is it Dennis?

[David]

"Talk about a sense of entitlement."

I KNEW that one left a mark. So to speak.

[TmjUtah]

Maher has made a living on TV for decades now, and he just now twigged that there are a lot of morons out here?

Go figure.

[Peter UK]

"You lost, we won, and you guys really can't handle it."

No,you all lost. Socialised medicine,Cap and Trade,vast deficit,green power generation,is going to bankrupt you. Despite all the historical evidence the left think "It cant happen here". It is!

[Dennis the Peasant]

Mark-

Track down the letter from the lawyer of "the brother" that was beaten.

Liberal black professor gets arrested and released and you're in a snit for a week, black conservative get beaten up and you couldn't give half a shit.

[Mary]

If Dennis didn't want to do the survey, he should have refused instead of trying to "yank the chain" of the pollster as he claimed.

Health care needs to be reformed. Too many people have no insurance and many who do are not covered appropriately.

There are too many right wing extremists shouting at these town hall meetings. Many are servants of the very rich who don't want to pay a little more in taxes. The people who support fair policies need to speak up. Everyone needs to know the truth. The shouters are trying to spread disinformation and downright lies.

Sarah Palin is one of these worst offenders. She is like a wolf in sheep's clothing. She stated that Obama' health plan is evil. It is actually wonderful. Sarah Palin is evil.

[Peter UK]

Sheesh Mary,That is so 1917.

[markg8]

Track down the letter from the lawyer of "the brother" that was beaten.

Oooh a strongly worded letter from a lawyer! Is that like a strongly worded letter from some senators?

I got one of those once from some kid's "lawyer" out in CA. The kid was jerking me around on a deal warning me to stop telling the truth to the supplier he was also jerking around. I looked up the "lawyer" in the CA Bar Association database and there was no one by that name with a license to practice law in the state of CA.

Regardless, you have packs of rightwing fools showing up at townhall meetings for the express purpose of shutting them down and stopping any civil discourse. They are not there to discuss, listen, learn or teach. They are there to make a media spectacle and foment violence.

The entire wingnutosphere has gone code pink but iokiyar? Um, no. We don't have punks pretending to be Secret Service agents hauling people out of rallies because they have the wrong bumper sticker on their car like Bush did. We don't pass out tickets to events to the trusted few.

But from now on you don't get to pack the hall with your own supporters egged on by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the insurance lobby. You don't get to shout down House reps or speakers. You don't get to chase them to their cars, hang them in effigy in front of their offices, and phone in death threats with impunity.

And once the hall is filled to capacity anybody who doesn't leave the building and take their protest out to the sidewalk and keep it peaceful, and respectful or ought to go jail.

You reap what you sow Dennis. You may think comparing Obama to Nixon is more clever than comparing him to Hitler or Lenin but you're not fooling anyone.

[Dennis the Peasant]

You reap what you sow Dennis.

Does that mean I'm now in line for an SEIU beatdown?

[Hankster]

I think we should do away with anything having even a faint odor of socialism in the United States. Where would we start? How about the behemoth called Social Security? (Government-run socialized retirement)If a person made poor investment decision during their working years, then let them deal with the consequences in retirement. A good start. Medicare? (Government-run socialized healthcare) If the elderly can't afford private health insurance, that is their own fault. Food Stamps? (Socialized Government-run food distribution)If you are too lazy to go out and get a job to feed your kids then let them starve. Low rent housing? (Government-run socialized housing)If you can't afford a private rental because you are working some low paying job while your boss is getting rich, then there are plenty of bridges to sleep under. Farm subsidies? (Socialized government run crop guarantees) If these farmers can't run a farm then let them get out and let some Wall Street executive run the farm. Medicaid? (Socialized, government-run healthcare for the disabled and poverty-stricken) If they are disabled let their families take care of them and if they can't well, sorry about your bad luck. Of course if we undertake all these cuts then the headlines would be atrocious within months, if not weeks. "Millions of elderly out on the streets as Social Security ends" "Drug crimes rise as millions fight to survive" "Prostitution runs rampant as mothers innovate to feed their children"
Like it or not we live in a Social Democracy folks, and without these programs we would fare far less well without them.

[tommy shanks]

>>You'd prefer Sarah Palin over Peter Orzag writing health care policy?

I don't want *anyone* writing "health care policy." Now we don't have to play the silly game of who's the smartest.

[Guesst]

Let's face it. Maher has a point.

He's talking about the people who voted for an Obama/Biden administration because they had a lot in common with them.