I’m Sorry, Who’s Dividing the Country?
June 30, 2007 Posted by Amy Hall
I hear a pretty constant stream of a specific kind of personal attack by leftists against conservatives, including to my face. And honestly, I’m sick of it. The basic idea they’re convinced of is that deep down, we have secret, selfish motives for everything, and/or that we’re downright evil. You can see how this leads to fine, rational conversations about policy with us.
Here’s an excerpt from the latest example of the vile, civilized-political-discourse-destroying, irrational assumption that conservatives (and in this particular case, the President) have only evil motives (even if good leftists can’t always uncover them) spewed by Peter Mehlman on the Huffington Post. (If they take it down, you’ll be able to find the whole thing here.) And frankly, this isn’t an unusual opinion, in my experience:
So now we’re six and a half years into Bush and everyone from Helen Thomas on down is declaring him the worst president ever. What no one is saying is the one overarching reason he’s the worst: the Bush administration is the first that doesn’t even mean well.
With the possible exception of immigration reform — and who knows what grotesque financial incentive underlies that — try to pinpoint even one policy motivated by the desire to lessen human suffering, to improve the life of citizens. Nothing. There is nothing….
It’s been the ultimate frustration to consider the people who don’t see Bush’s malevolence….You could argue that even the world’s worst fascist dictators at least meant well. They honestly thought were doing good things for their countries by suppressing blacks/eliminating Jews/eradicating free enterprise/repressing individual thought/killing off rivals/invading neighbors, etc. Only the Saudi royal family is driven by the same motives as Bush, but they were already entrenched. Bush set a new precedent. He came into office with the attitude of “I’m so tired of the public good. What about my good? What about my rich friends’ good?”
How can anyone not see it? It’s not that their policies have been misguided or haven’t played out right. They. Don’t. Even. Mean. Well.
There you go, folks. I’m so disgusted by this that I have no commentary–at least, none without expletives, and this is a family show.
If you’re interested in reading a more level-headed response to this phenomenon that I wrote back when I still naively believed I could reason with leftists about conservative ideas–before I had banged my head against the wall of “secret evil motives” so often that I lost the motivation to interact, read this.
Related posts:
- The Enemy of My Enemy…
- It's That Fabulous Time of Year Again
- Is the President Out of Control?
- Air America Update
- What is He Thinking?
- The Contrast
Posted in Amy's Posts, Main Page, Politics
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June 30th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
… for man looketh on the outward appearance, but Peter Mehlman looketh on the heart.
I'd draw a lengthy comparison to those who definitively tell us who is and isn't a Christian, but I hit my fish-in-a-barrel limit for 2007 last week.
July 3rd, 2007 at 3:13 pm
I would have said “everyone from Helen Thomas ON UP…” Really, Amy, if the guy thinks Helen Thomas represents some gold-standard of objectivity, it's pretty obvious that he's delusional.
I'm a card-carrying Democrat and people like this — my apparent “brothers” — make me cringe. I think they must be living in the echo chamber of liberal lunacy, where all they hear is each other.
July 3rd, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Let's not put words in his mouth. You don't know that he considers Helen Thomas to be the gold-standard of objectivity. She hates the president, and that gives her virtual sainthood in Mehlman's eyes all by itself.
Besides, I figured he was referencing some kind of gargoyle scale.