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Originally Posted by Nebe
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Jim in CT discredited the characterization of Ted Cruz in the article you posted, and he presented further, constitutional, reasoning for Cruz's comment with which you agreed.
All it took was the insertion of two relevant words left out by the article to totally change the perspective on what Cruz actually said. It is that kind of manipulation of language by SCOTUS judges which distorts the meaning and the principles underlying the Constitution, and which provides cover for the politicians' transformation of our democratic republic into a centralized "democracy"--a democracy of the worst kind. One in which the "people" cede their responsibility of local and personal self governance to a centralized bureaucracy. In effect, rule strictly by simple majority opinion over the entire diversity of individuals and populations which comprise the nation of supposedly free people. And because the majority opinion is based on distorted language which ridicules and destroys principles that protect against the tyranny of the majority, the democracy is a form of mobocracy.
And the mob, mostly comprised of "good" intentioned people (what Lenin referred to as useful idiots) is kept under the influence of the central bureaucracy by its steady stream of good intentioned propaganda and its constant distortion of language to destroy old and burdensome notions and principles of individual freedom in favor of the easy, by simple vote, handouts and privileges granted by the central government.
Your article is full of such language and ideological distortion:
By Paul Thomas
"Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz called it "the darkest 24 hours in our nation's history". Was he referring to:
• The outbreak of the Civil War.
• The assassination of Abraham Lincoln or John Kennedy or Martin Luther King.
• The 1929 Wall St crash.
• Pearl Harbour.
• 9/11.
• The realisation that the immensely costly and destructive Iraq War was launched on the basis of a lie."
So the author gives a list of bullet points which, in his opinion, outrank the SCOTUS decisions in "darkness." Of course, he doesn't actually discuss the possibility of "darkness" in the SCOTUS decision because, I assume, he doesn't think they were dark at all. On the contrary, one is left with the impression they were the essence of light.
In any case, we are to think they are darker than the Court's decisions and, ergo, Cruz is some sort of idiot for claiming otherwise.
"None of the above: according to Cruz, America's darkest day was when the Supreme Court decided not to overturn the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, and ruled that states cannot ban same-sex marriage."
Jim's pointing out the two words "one of" destroys the premise of the author's attempt to ridicule.
"Thus the extension of health insurance, previously the preserve of the rich, "
This is language distortion to the max. It's a blatant lie. Health insurance was not a preserve of the rich before the ACA.
"and marriage, previously the preserve of the straight, is [the Court's decisions] worse than war, depression, assassination and mass murder."
This is distortion by implication and concocted definition. He implies that marriage somehow existed as an open state of being, then defines it as a "preserve." And that the "preserve" was (unfairly?) claimed by "the straight". This is a reversal of how language works. Words attempt to define what exists. He seems to think that the word "marriage" somehow existed before there was something which it defined. And after that reversal of linguistic function, he defines marriage as a "preserve" which can be expanded to include things that the word never before described. He, like the Judges, redefines marriage. He can, as a propagandist, redefine and twist words however he wishes. But when Judges do so, the basis of law is destroyed. But the author, Thomas, doesn't seem to think that such judicial distortion ranks as a dark day. That the destruction of the basis for law is anywhere near, or at all, as dark as his bullet points.
And what does fellow Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee believe will "bring death to America":
• Bird flu.
• Climate change.
• Isis.
• North Korean nuclear missiles.
• Obesity.
• Psychopathic gunmen wrapped in the Confederate flag.
Again, none of the above: Huckabee was referring to the just-announced nuclear deal with Iran. He wasn't alone. It appears all 17 Republican presidential hopefuls believe the treaty painstakingly negotiated by the US, Russia, China, Britain and France is not merely not worth the paper it's written on, it's positively catastrophic.
This is an extension of the metaphorical bullet points technique which is an introduction of them as a piling on that is disconnected from any need to use them. Whether any of his bullet points will bring death to America has nothing to do with whether the nuclear deal will.
It will - Huckabee again - "wipe Israel off the map". It's worth pointing out that Israel, itself often accused of being a terrorist state, has a nuclear arsenal whereas Iran doesn't and, by virtue of this treaty, won't have for at least a decade.
Israel being accused of being a terrorist state does not diminish the potential for Iran to wipe them off the map. Another non-sequitor intended to deflect and inject moral equivalence. Well, gee . . . If Israel can wipe Iran off the map, why shouldn't Iran be able to wipe Israel off the map? I don't know . . . have we been hearing Israel constantly shouting death to Iran?
So apart from bringing death to America and Israel, are there any other flaws? You bet: it will lead to widespread war in the Middle East.
Leaving aside the fact that war in the Middle East is the current and normal state of affairs, this assertion begs the question of how the critics would deal with Iran and its nuclear programme. Well, by making war in the Middle East even more widespread or, as the 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain put it, singing along to the tune of the Beach Boys' Barbara Ann, "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran".
Oh gosh . . . war in the Middle East is "normal" (according to the author) so we may as well encourage nuclear proliferation there. This could even bring a "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb" each other out of existence as a final end to that perpetual war. Good choice.
Fittingly, given that the Republicans are now essentially a party of religious fundamentalism,
Blatant lie in the form of outlandish generalization. Thomas is warming up to hyper-propaganda mode here.
their candidates are partly taking their lead from Zionist Israel and Wahhabist Saudi Arabia who are terrified - hopefully with good reason - that the Iran deal foreshadows a seismic realignment which reduces their malign influence on US Middle East policy.
AHA! Zionist and Wahhabist! That says it all. In a couple of inflammatory words. Nothing else going on there. Sums it up. And taking their lead . . . the Republican candidates are puppets of Zionists and Wahhabists. Propaganda getting hotter.
But their kneejerk
(Ooooh . . . kneejerk. a favorite propaganda accusation denunciations also signal a frightening
Ooooh . . . frightening.abandonment of diplomacy as a means of defusing tension, avoiding conflict and managing international affairs. The mindset seems to be that diplomacy should be reserved for friendly nations with whom you have interests in common.
Right, right, the Republican candidates would never stoop to diplomacy. This guy really knows their mindset . . . even better than they know themselves. That they remain disposed towards armed intervention
Sanctions are armed intervention? Weren't sanctions a part of the diplomatic negotions? Oh, that's right . . . the Repubs only use war.which has accelerated rather than suppressed Islamic militancy
He knows this not as a talking point but as a fact? Hasn't the "normal" state of war in the Middle East been accelerating ever since Israel became a state? Armed intervention (which slowed it down until the intervention stopped) has caused the acceleration?shouldn't come as a surprise since persisting with policies that achieve the exact opposite of what was intended is something of an American speciality.
Yup, especially the progressive American left and its destruction of rule of law and governing by whim.
The takeover of American conservatism by evangelical Christianity, Fox News and a handful of shadowy billionaires has transformed the Republicans into the party of wilful ignorance: doctrinal purity is more valued than intelligence; tolerance has been supplanted by persecutory moralising; paranoia has replaced realism.
His statement here is almost true. Except that the " wilful ignorance: doctrinal purity is more valued than intelligence; tolerance has been supplanted by persecutory moralising; paranoia has replaced realism" applies more so to the very people this author presumably supports.
This process may be reaching its logical conclusion with the emergence of property billionaire Donald Trump as the front-runner for the party's presidential nomination.
He's an evangelical Christian, has doctrinal purity, believes in military intervention . . . etc. etc.? He's the logical conclusion to all that stuff? Man . . . the distortion of language, the lying, the propaganda, the need to use the Marxist terminology . . . the would-be socialist unveils himself.
Trump personifies everything the rest of the world despises about America: casual racism, crass materialism, relentless self-aggrandisement, vulgarity on an epic scale. He is the Ugly American in excelsis.
You might expect a tycoon/buffoon cross to be a political player in some Latin American failed state or backward former Soviet republic, places with no democratic tradition or public institutions that have stood the test of time and no such thing as "the people" in the sense of an educated, civic-minded citizenry.
The fact that so many Republicans are comfortable with the thought of this monumentally unqualified individual in the Oval Office shows how warped the party has become. To borrow the rhetoric of their candidates, the party is now an existential threat to America's leadership of the global community.
The grand finale ends in a crescendo of moralistic accusations against a man who the author claims to be the conclusion to American Conservatism . . . and yet he fails to see the other Republican candidates scurrying to denounce Trump themselves . . . strange.
Well, not so strange. His version "of an educated, civic-minded citizenry", if he subscribes to progressive government, is a people who are educated into a statist mind of evolved Marxism. A state of being influenced by the distortion of words and abandonment of principles.