The further to the left or the right you move, the more your lens on life distorts.

Thursday, October 01, 2020

Ideology Behind the Man

If this week's presidential debates have taught us anything, it 's that you don't vote for the man or the image, because if that was a thinking person's choice, you wouldn't vote for either Joe Biden or Donald Trump. But voting for the man and an image is what far too many people do. They did that when they elected Barack Obama—there was no man with a more attractive image. The problem was, Obama's ideology created the new hard-left Democratic party, and his actual accomplishments were weak to nonexistent. He capitulated to the demands of our adversaries (think: Iran) and alienated our allies (think: Israel). His administration was scandal-ridden (think: the VA, IRS and Fast & Furious scandals, not to mention Benghazi), and we're now learning that it tacitly accepted a "soft coup" that was launched against the winner of the 2016 election. That's what voting for the man and the image get you—dishonesty and incompetence, bad decisions and even worse policy.

So what can you do? You vote for or against the ideology that the man supports and the accomplishments that the man has achieved over his political lifetime.

Joe Biden is, by his own admission, the titular leader of the new Democratic party. I suspect that the left-wing base of the new Democratic party tolerates the candidacy of Joe Biden precisely because the man is, sadly, cognitively challenged. His condition, worsening by the month, means that he will be pliable, parroting words of moderation and a nauseating stream of platitudes as he did during the debate, but ripe for ideological takeover by invisible handlers who champion a socialist agenda that will (to use the words of a Tweet that came out under Biden's name) "transform" America.

The Left, of course, truly believes that their "transformation" will be utopian. Here's what they (and BIden) claim, followed by a little dose of reality.
  • The virus will be vanquished. All we really need are additional months of lockdown, mandated requirements to wear masks where they provide little if any benefit, continuous testing, even though real-world data indicates it does little or nothing to stop the spread, and school closures to mollify the hysterical membership of teachers' unions.
  • Income inequality will be erased. It's simple, really, according to the Left, racism is the sole cause for income inequality, not educational differences, variations in work ethic, career path decisions, family structure, or Democrat policies that promote dependency and in effect, discourage some from venturing into the working world. BTW, this little factoid kind of destroys the Dems' favorite narrative (h/t: WSJ)
    • The Federal reserve reports that median real incomes grew 5% from 2016 to 2019, the first three years of the Trump presidency
    • From the Fed report:  “families at the top of the income and wealth distributions experienced very little, if any, growth” in net worth between 2016 and 2019 [under Trump] “after experiencing large gains between 2013 and 2016,”  [under Obama and the Dems] while “families near the bottom of the income and wealth distributions generally continued to experience substantial gains.” That’s a long way of saying wealth inequality declined [under an ideology that is diametrically opposed to the D'ems socialist ideology].
  • Social justice will prevail, racial injustice will disappear. A noble goal, no doubt, but 5000 years of recorded history suggest that eliminating racial injustice is a difficult task. It seems that "social justice" focuses on provided preferences and exceptions for some races and roadblocks and punishment for others. That's not justice at all, but then again, that was never the intent of SJWs to begin with. 
  • In the name of racial justice, all Americans will come to appreciate Critical Race Theory (CRT) and anyone working for the government will be forced to admit their racial sins. If you don't know what CRT is, it might be worth reading exactly what this repugnant and dishonest propaganda tool is all about.
  • "Offensive" historical references will be eliminated. Exactly who is arbiter of what is offensive and what is not? We all know the answer to that—the SJWs who will set the agenda. Even more important, do we consider the value of a person's life work or do we focus obsessively on a failing, even a major failing, and claim that it negates the remainder of the value of that person? In Biden's world, only the SJWs are capable of making that judgment. The rest of us MUST remain silent.  
  • Speech will be controlled so that "hate" cannot be uttered. Even during a GOP administration, colleges and universities have not only allowed, but applaud the notion that people who oppose the SJW narrative be banned from speaking. Now corporatists have joined the fray, censoring (and in some cases, firing) employees who do not abide by the prevailing leftist narrative. 
  • The earth will be saved because a "green new deal" will be implemented. The projections of an earth in grave danger (and the consequent demand for draconian actions that will undoubted wreck what remains of our economy) use models that are analogous to the models that were used to predict the COVID-19 death toll. Predictive models are often grievously incorrect, always erring on the side of the narrative that their authors had adopted.
  • $4 trillion in new taxes will be levied. In a recession caused by an unnecessary and irresponsible national shutdown championed by progressives, how exactly will taxing more money out of the pockets of citizens help?
  • The best health care in the world will be controlled and provided by the federal government. No matter that Obamacare did little to reduce the cost of medical care or that the federal government is notoriously inefficient when it runs major programs, progressives will simply will it to work. It won't. BTW, the claims that pre-existing conditions won't be covered if Obamacare is eliminated are false.
  • Electoral "reforms" (e.g., vote by mail, elimination of the electoral college) will be permanently implemented. The underlying intent is to ensure that Democrats and only Democrats can win national elections. This disastrous results of mail-in balloting experienced by New York in a Democrat primary election this year will be reproduced across the country. Fraud and abuse will reign, and every vote will be suspect and challenged.
  • Senate rules will be modified for the benefit of all. The filibuster rule in the Senate will be abolished. After all, the tyranny of a slight majority should be celebrated. Who cares if fully half the country is opposed to some idea that has fascinated the Left.
  • The SCOTUS will be packed. The hard left will get its utopian agenda implemented by any means necessary.
  • Rapacious capitalists and businesses of all kinds will learn to be "socially responsible." Businesses will be ravaged with high taxes, unnecessary regulation, and ultimately price controls. That has worked so well in places like Cuba and Venezuela, why not try it here?
  • The "rich" will pay their fair share. Taxes on everyone will increase with the heaviest burden falling where it always does—on the middle class.
  • "Mostly Peaceful Protests" will abate because the protesters will celebrate Biden's win. Leftish mobs (think: BLM and antifa), emboldened by their "victory," will become more shrill, more destructive, and more dangerous to our country.
  • And the police—yeah ... defund the police. Urban crime and chaos will accelerate as bail is abolished and left-wing DAs refuse to prosecute.
The fact that the Left has tried to create their utopia for over 100 years and failed every single time does nothing to dissuade them. They reject the aphorism that states: Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

It's kind of interesting that most of the modern Democrats' utopian talking points were used by Hugo Chavez when he took over Venezuela two decades ago. Hugo convinced the Venezuelan people that a socialist utopia would "transform" the then-richest country in South America into something even better.  Today, Venezuela is a failed state. It took only 20+ years for every major industry to collapse, for unemployment, starvation, a health care crisis, and mass out-migration to occur, and for a police state to come into being.

The debate has indicated that both Biden and Trump are not men you'd vote for if you voted for the man. But if you vote for the ideology behind the man, you'll get the fantasy utopian claims and the harsh reality described in this post if you vote for Joe Biden. 

And if you vote for the man's accomplishments? Trump was not wrong when he stated that he has accomplished more of substance in 47 months than Joe Biden has accomplished in 47 years as a politician.