TheAgitator.com
Wishing That Heroes, They Truly Exist
Saturday, April 2nd, 2011“Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision he makes and should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens.”
–Britney Spears, in 2003, commenting on the war in Iraq.
“But the reason I voted for Obama in 2008 is because I trust his judgment. And not in any merely abstract way, either: I mean that if he and I were in a room and disagreed about some issue on which I had any doubt at all, I’d literally trust his judgment over my own. I think he’s smarter than me, better informed, better able to understand the consequences of his actions, and more farsighted. I voted for him because I trust him, and I still do.”
– Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum, in 2011, on Obama’s war in Libya.
The only good thing that came out of blind faith was one album.
These are the people who vote, folks.
Pleasant dreams.
Now take Drum’s shameful I-surrender-my-will-to-Great-Leader’s-wisdom thing and compare it to this popular narrative from the left, especially the academic left:
“Studies seem to suggest that in the U.S. today, conservatives and Republicans are notably more authoritarian than those on the left or Democrats.”
Riiiiight. Plenty of authoritarianism to go around, left and right.
And now you might begin to have a clue why the Founding Fathers did not establish a system where the popular vote elected the President.
Exhibit C: Ed Schultz (@ the 4:30 mark)
Also related: John Caruso’s recent post, Why I don’t read Mother Jones.
Wow, what a perfect parallelism. Because there is absolutely no difference in intelligence, knowledge, intellectual depth and political awareness between Britney Spears and Kevin Drum. Or, for that matter, between C+ Augustus and That One.
Whatever HuffPo will be paying you, it should be more.
Hey, we’re a nation of sheep, okay? Is that really so baaaaaaaad?
“Well, I guess it goes from God, to Jerry to you to the cleaners. Right, Kent?”
As one who held his nose and gritted his teeth and voted for Juan McCain, I did not expect a damn thing from him, except that he would not be Barry Obama. Of all the people I know who voted for him, (dang near everyone I know) all of them said they felt the same way and did not really want him for President. I was kinda secretly hoping that he’d get elected and then stroke out dead immediately after being sworn in. Sarah ain’t no prize, but she’d have made a better Prez than either Juan or Barry.
That post (Drum’s) really should have started with a “Dear Diary,”
Well, I voted for him because he was black. And guess what? He still is.
Well, at least Drum doesn’t sound like Bob Dylan.
I believe this is the exact definition of “drinking the kool-aid”.
I think this is unfair, to Britney.
It makes more sense for someone like Britney Spears to defer to the president when serious matters are being discussed because she (based on her public profile) she is not intelligent, mentally stable or interested in serious issues. Kevin Drum is a pundit who studies the issues and is perfectly capable of forming his own judgment.
yeah, this is great. you’d love to catch someone as they express that sort of fielty. i have lots of acquaintances who have expressed something similar. when you tell that how the entirety of the congress felt that way when they authorized the Iraq war, all you can hear is “yeah, but” or “no, but”.
i also like that you can’t disagree with someone if you feel that they are “smarter” than you, whatever the hell that means. just because i have doubts about my own opinions (lack of doubt = religion) doesn’t mean that i have to bow to their opinion.
what a toadie.
Nice job failing to quote the immediately subsequent passage.
I really get annoyed with all these pundits and others saying how all these politicians are so smart. This country is $14 trillion in debt because these ‘smart’ politicians apparently can not balance a check book or read a credit card statement. They are only ‘smart’ in the sense they can con people to keep voting for them.
@ Gordon Clason
Ha! I’m glad you kept your expectations reasonable.
Waste 93 +++++++++++++++
“They are only ‘smart’ in the sense they can con people to keep voting for them.”
They don’t con people to vote for them. Most people vote for them willingly because they promise to bring them goodies from everyone else’s pocket.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again:
Our politicians are not the problem. They are only a symptom of the problem. The problem is that we have too many people in this country who want free-stuff rather than free-dom.
[...] http://www.theagitator.com/2011/04/02/wishing-that-heroes-they-truly-exist/ This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged every-decision, honestly, makes-and, one-more, president, time-http, trust-our, you-know. Bookmark the permalink. ← Mummy is currently searching for the red and black basque and a tub of lemon curd. Canada is Tweeting. Leaders, though, aren’t listening: → [...]
Sad. What amazes me is how angry lefties get when I point out that Obama is just a third Bush term. They refuse to look at what he has actually done, instead of all his lofty rhetoric.
[...] Radley Balko points out that Drum’s comment in particular isn’t all that different from one made several years ago by another well known political philosopher: “Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision he makes and should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens.” [...]
How is this better than any of the quotes that come out of anarchist’s mouth about the lack of need for any government? Nice attempt at a bait Radley.
The Spears quote reminds me of the one bit I really liked in the second National Treasure movie: “Because you’re the President of the United States, sir. Whether by innate character or the oath you took to defend the Constitution or the weight of history that falls upon you, I believe you to be an honorable man, sir.”
If only that were true.
Forgotten quote from Drum. “For now, anyway.”
Bush and his controllers wouldn’t have settled for such qualifications.
P.S.: How’s that WMD search coming along?
Jppatter, the lefties I know are generally disgusted with Obama because they see him as continuing (and in some cases, expanding) Bush policies. You need to find a better quality of leftie.
Merely stating that you believe someone is essentially trustworthy amounts to blind faith and hero worship?
There is context to be considered. Drum cites his disappointment with Obama — his *faith* seems more in the “close your eyes and think of England” mode. He concludes the piece:
“But I wouldn’t have intervened in Libya and he did. I sure hope his judgment really does turn out to have been better than mine.”
You’ll find, also, that most of the Mother Jones commenters are as disgusted by Drum’s *faith* as Balko is.
I keep wondering what hook Obama is going to try to use to get himself a second term. What issue hasn’t been getting press in the last couple of years? Maybe he does close GITMO (doubtful), or un-war the US (doubtful), put banksters in jail (doubtful), but I think it’s going to be something people aren’t really expecting.
Z, what’s the point of this attempt to say, “Well, yeah, but Bush’s partisans were even worse”? For one thing, whether or not there is any truth to that claim, you certainly haven’t demonstrated any just by making it. More importantly, no matter how true it might be, it doesn’t make Obama’s partisans look any better. You end up coming across as defending Obama and there is absolutely no reason to do so. Free yourself: Give up on him and be done with the need to somehow justify his actions.
#1 Mike C:
“The only good thing that came out of blind faith was one album.”
From one music geek to another, thank you. Excellent work!
#16 Rob Gordon:
Here is the quote Rob mentioned:
“For now, anyway. But I wouldn’t have intervened in Libya and he did. I sure hope his judgment really does turn out to have been better than mine.”
Ok, Drum’s article isn’t great. There is clearly too much gushing over Obama. The fact that Drum and others “in the know” still see this guy as anything other than a mainstream progressive who is willing to “go along to get along” is very frustrating. But conflating Drum’s opinion with that of a washed up barbie doll doesn’t seem fair, Radley.
For the record, I do not read Mother Jones, though I used to.
Christopher Hitchens frequently makes the point that faith should not be listed among the virtues.
#35 Elliot
Mr. Hitchens is correct on that one. I saw a sign recently that described faith as closing your eyes and opening your heart. Sounds pretty accurate to me. Or as Lennon & McCartney might say: “Living is easy with eyes closed/ Misunderstanding all you see.”
Mike C. | April 2nd, 2011 at 1:23 am: good call
overgoverned | April 2nd, 2011 at 2:07 am: [citation needed]
Justthisguy | April 2nd, 2011 at 3:11 am: you’re delusional
Ross | April 2nd, 2011 at 7:58 am: good point. someone like Drum ought to know better, although he’s a little more nuanced when the article is considered as a whole, rather than the quote Radley put up. it’s still a bit problematic, but not as bad as it seems.
Glenn Greenwald has weighed in on Drum’s comment:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/02/citizenship/index.html
#36: “overgoverned | April 2nd, 2011 at 2:07 am: [citation needed]”
There are links in the comment.
Waste:
They’re smart about getting and keeping power, which is what’s important to them.
Merely stating that you believe someone is essentially trustworthy amounts to blind faith and hero worship?
It’s amazing that you can type a comment without being able to read. Are you some kind of idiot savant?
pretty stupid on both counts but there is a key difference. Britney put her faith in authority while Kevin put his faith in expert opinion. I would personally lean toward expert opinion but not in the simplistic way kevin suggests.
I’m sorry? Obama has some sort of “expert opinion”? Expert in what? Being a politician like all the others?
#31- its a false equivalency. If you wanted to say that Bush and Obama are both riding high off personality cults I’m down with that. But that’s not what the quotes supposedly show. It’s supposedly a dig at Obama and how he (and his followers) are no different from Bush. There’s a mother of a difference. Obama is no great shakes in a lot of ways but #44 and #43 are not carbon copies and its insulting to pretend otherwise.
“‘Studies seem to suggest that in the U.S. today, conservatives and Republicans are notably more authoritarian than those on the left or Democrats.’
Riiiiight. Plenty of authoritarianism to go around, left and right.”
Things that are authoritarian:
Religion, sodomy laws, corporations
Things that are empowering:
Taxation, smoking bans, anti-discrimination laws
Z, I am not claiming Bush and Obama are equivalent on all things, though they are remarkably similar in a great number of ways that fans of either don’t seem to like to admit. (Ditto for their faithful supporters.) I am instead saying that both are so bad that defending one over the other is a waste of time. It’s a little like arguing whether one thinks cat crap or dog crap tastes better; at the end of the day, even if one isn’t as bad as the other, it’s still crap.
I keep wondering what hook Obama is going to try to use to get himself a second term.
1) He’s not a Republican, and (2) he’s already president. Those two combined will convince most of his base.
Barring some Big Event (like Libya becoming another Afghanistan or the GOP falling into civil war), however, the unemployment rate at the time of the election will probably be the deciding factor.
@44 No there are marked differences between them. Obama hasn’t done nearly all that he let his supporters think/feel that he would but to say that they are both the same shit is false. Libya is a prime example. Did Obama lie to Congress about threats from Libya? Did he claim that Libya was tied to 9/11? Did he tell critics of the invasion that they are traitors to America? Did he go on an ego trip, sending in ground troops and thinking that they’d be welcome as liberators because after all they are Americans dammit? Did he open up massive prisons on the soils of dictatorships while exporting torture chambers to Eastern Europe? No. Now he may do these things in the future but must of the (righteous) anger at him is that he hasn’t done more to UNDO these things which his predecessor started and institutionalized.
Jeff@#45:
Incumbency is irrelevant, not being a Republican is more than enough — that’s certainly true for my ex-Republican friends. The Bush years put the party on probation for them and the current crop of legislators and governors has put them over the edge. I think the Democrats will be getting their votes for at least another 4-6 years.
On the other side, friends who would ordinarily have turned away from the Democrats by now refuse to go Republican — they see themselves more as compassionate libertarians (as if such a beast exists — can’t resist the snark).
I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Drum. His personal judgment is without doubt defective, as evidenced by the fact that he is willing to trust Obama’s judgment over his own.
#47- there may be such a thing on a personal level. The thing about libertarians is that their philosophy returns us to caveman times. “Uggh me hungry. Me kill deer. Me take Jane. Me club Fred. Me take Jane and June….”
Hey where do I sign up? :)
As an atheist, I’m no fan of religion, but in and of itself, it isn’t authoritarian. Nobody makes me go to Church or threatens to murder me for apostasy, in this country.
When you want to make religion authoritarian, you need government to pass laws, like anti-sodomy laws.
Corporations are not authoritarian, in general. I don’t have to do business with Wal-Mart or Sears if I choose not to. When you want to take away choice, you use government to give a corporation a special advantage (look up “rent seeking”, e.g., monopoly, regulation/licensing to squash entry-level competition).
Taxes are empowering for government, but are harmful to the victims. Smoking bans deprive private businesses of their right to give consumers a choice, which only empowers the government bureaubots who make the smoking rules. Anti-discrimination laws, when applied to government (i.e., overturning Jim Crow) are definitely empowering, because they take away power from government.
So, your idea of what is totalitarian and what is empowering is a bit muddled. It’s much clearer when you realize that the use of government power is what deprives people of their rights and ultimately leads to authoritarianism.
#48, that’s either ignorant or dishonest. Either way it’s as inaccurate as suggesting that climate change isn’t happening or that humans didn’t evolve.
Now, here’s a picture of something that is happening on a regular basis not because of libertarian philosophies, but rather the philosophies of Obama and the Democratic Party.
http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/rawagallery.php?mghash=a69ba84843a6c778938bd59b65a08f63&mggal=6
In fact, if libertarian philosophies dictated our foreign policy, none of those people would have their lives destroyed by our government. And I’m not even a libertarian!
If one of your family members was in that picture would you be comforted by the fact that Obama was responsible, instead of Bush? But they aren’t your family members, are they? And I always thought liberals were supposed to be compassionate.
So when people are freed from the oppression of government, you think they’ll exercise the freedom to live their lives on their own terms by running off to a cave?
I’ll be enjoying my high tech life, with bountiful choices afforded by the free market, working with civilized people who would rather engage in commerce beneficial to all sides than to act like a savage and risk death, having to do everything themselves.
Division of labor, specialization…look it up.
Oh, but eating like a caveman would probably help your health, since industrial junk food makes us fat and diseased.
Otherwise, enjoy your electricity, modern medicine, and refrigeration, most of which was accomplished by entrepreneurship, in spite of government attempts to control and interfere.
@Les (#50): Evolution is demonstrated by the evidence.
Catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW), on the other hand, is nothing like evolution. It’s another Y2K con job.
Warren Meyer has some good scientific counterarguments to CAGW.
Find a better example and don’t believe the hype. Skepticism is a fundamental aspect of science. Political consensus isn’t.
Well, Kevin Drum probably echoes a lot of Americans and indeed, people who live in industrialised democratic countries who have pretty much taken the back seat in political discussion. Example; whenever global warming or healthcare bill issues are debated, I rarely hear the commoner on the street fighting for his opinion, its normally just a shrug of the shoulders and the words ‘yea maybe it will work’ or ‘nah, i hate liberals’ etc etc. Very little participation by citizens like you or me except the yearly trip or one in three year trip to the poll booth to caste your vote for a party whose ideas you probably do not even know of! The world we live in really does make my head spin………
Z (#48), I don’t know what Obama has told Congress about threats from Libya, but it seems that the effort is being made to link Qaddaffi as a supporter of terrorism (which is true, of course, but it was also true of Hussein). Meanwhile, Obama doesn’t feel the need to go to Congress for a declaration of war (or authorization for use of force or whatever nonsense Bush used), so maybe he doesn’t feel the need to lie to them. As much as I thought the 2002 Iraq Resolution was a joke, the present administration is going one further by saying that there is no need for Congress to approve Obama’s war, the U.N. resolution is enough.
Meanwhile, what are Obama’s reasons for attacking Qaddaffi? Even ignoring the random grasping for a reason by the administration during the early going, I would point to Ben Friedman’s Cato@Liberty post on why Obama’s finally stated reasons are weak. And, for those who refuse to read a Cato piece without getting all head-explodey, the final link Radley posted in today’s (Saturday’s) links roundup should do quite nicely. (BTW, in case anyone has any doubts, on top of being an extraordinarily articulate reporter regarding U.S. activity abroad, Jeremy Scahill is not even vaguely a conservative or Bush-supporter.)
I don’t recall whether Bush himself ever said that critics of the Iraq War were traitors (though his supporters certainly beat that drum) and I honestly don’t know what Obama has or will say about the critics of his war, though the situation isn’t completely analogous in the political sense because many of Obama’s critics are going to be among people who are otherwise on his side of the aisle, where the opposite was true of Bush. It’s a little tougher to call your critics traitors when you are hoping to get their votes again in a year and a half. However, one can look at the Ed Schulz segment to see that the Libyans the U.S. supports are now “freedom fighters” and certainly lines like “My President Obama? My President Obama?! Isn’t he your president, too?” are coming right up to the line in implying that real Americans should be on Obama’s side. [Note that Scahill never even said "your President Obama".]
And, actually, on top of leaving Guantanamo open and maintaining foreign prisons for rendition, Obama has done Bush one better by claiming the right to assassinate U.S. citizens without trial, without presenting a warrant, without even presenting evidence to a court. And, of course, there’s the treatment of Bradley Manning; that’s all Obama, though maybe Bush would be proud.
Oh, and one may claim that Obama hasn’t opened new prisons for prisoner rendition (indefinite detention and torture without trial), though that’s sort of meaningless since he has less need to as he hasn’t shown much hesitation in continuing to use the old ones. For example, take the case of Obama opposing a court ruling that prisoners in Bagram be given even the same rights as prisoners in Guantanamo:
Of course, Obama never got around to closing Guantanamo, so we can assume he stopped using Bagram for prisoner rendition right?
Obviously, I can’t decide for other people what constitutes a “marked difference” between Bush and Obama on these issues. To me, it’s “Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss.”
Elliot, it’s important to note that I said “climate change,” and not CAGW. Climate change is very well documented, while CAGW is very hypothetical and political.
Yes, but “climate change” is also completely meaningless.
The Earth has been both significantly colder and significantly warmer than it is now. And that’s just in the last thousand years.
So, yes, the climate is changing, but… so what?
I, for one, have no trouble believing that Obama is smarter than Drum, and has better judgment. Unfortunately for both of them, Obama has yet to exhibit much intelligence or judgment.
It’s a “perfect parallelism,” as Joey Maloney says, of thought – or non-thought, on worldly affairs; both are more than willing to surrender their capacity for judgment to an infantile emotion that commands: Follow the leader. However, the figures of Brittney Spears and Keven Drum are not in parallel.
Much as we make fun of her, Spears does have her own brand or artistic creativity, and she does make the world funner place. Pompous zeros such a Keven Drum contribute nothing, and yet still won’t shut up. Their existence is a corrosive element in our society, and they make the world that much worse.
[...] If you compare Kevin Drum to Brittney Spears, they get incredibly defensive about it. Again: fascinating. [...]
Justthisguy.
Gee, I wasn’t alone. I was gonna pass up voting for the first time in my life until Sarah was put on the ticket. Then, like you, I held my nose and voted for McCain hoping that if he won he’d become incompacitated on jan 21st and for the first time in years we’d have a real person as president.
(God could work in his mysterious way?)
Sarah sure ain’t no prize, but as compared to any of the others……..
[...] comes from TheAgitator, and as you can tell, it was the first comment to this post. Kudos to Mike C, who likes to add some [...]
Why does all this matter?
When the Left makes a wack-o pronouncement others take it as the gospel truth and that drives conservatives nuts. Why argue with the Left about their Wack-o ideas.
Instead, perhaps we should make our own pronouncements, agree with one another – especially to the point that it makes sense (“Yes, the sky is blue”, “Yes, a penny saved is a penny earned”, etc). and then move on with our lives.
For every liberal you can identify and argue with there are twenty who are queued up with their own view. WE NEED TO OWN THE DIALOG, NOT THEM! Let me repeat, arguing with the extreme left just creates a lot of smoke and feeds their dialog. I believe we should handle ourselves so THEY are arguing our point (“Explain to me why you think the sky isn’t blue”, “if you don’t save pennies then how do you save”, etc.)
We’re almost there but we need to stop being shrinking violets and confidently make our arguments.
Well, poor guys, “it’s better for them to admire him than to admire nobody,” as the Magician says of the Dufflepuds in Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
Incumbency is irrelevant
The devil you know…
Mr. Drumm, performing fellatio in public is unbecoming.
Totally unfair. I also think that I think he’s smarter than Kevin Drum, better informed, better able to understand the consequences of his actions, and more farsighted. Than Kevin Drum. As is my cat.
This is so unfair! Leave Kevin alone!
So Brittany can put it in a single sentence what Kevin profusely spews in a paragraph. What does it say when Brittany Spears is more articulate than your blogger Mother Jones?
“Did Obama lie to Congress about threats from Libya?”
Of course not: that would have required him to actually show up.
Considering his education consists of a B.J. degree from Long Beach State, I would say that he is probably right. Despite the layers of affirmative action that have gotten Obama through his schooling, I think it is pretty clear Obama is smarter than Drum.
@Elliot $50: I was just trying to illustrate that the assumptions of what is authoritarian would color a study’s view of who favored authoritarianism. It was meant to be a little tung-in-cheek.
“I’ll be enjoying my high tech life, with bountiful choices afforded by the free market, working with civilized people who would rather engage in commerce beneficial to all sides than to act like a savage and risk death, having to do everything themselves.
Division of labor, specialization…look it up.”
You will be doing this, one assumes, in cooperation with your fellow citizens (who will comprise the bountiful choices afforded by the free market) once you are freed from the shackles of government control? That’s super! I assume that Koch Industries, AT and T, Sprint etc etc etc will welcome and embrace the competition of open markets, pay workers fair wages, and provide you with superior services like they did between about 1890 and 1929 right? With enough Republicans around now you may get your wish soon enough.
It might be generally worthwhile to learn the difference between corporatism and libertarianism. The misconception that big corporations favor limited government would be hilarious if it weren’t so common.
But, I must say, I’m impressed that it took this long for someone to conjure up the Koch bogeyman against libertarians. If this thread were still active, I’d take bets on how long it takes for someone to propose that Somalia is a libertarian state. :)
“I think he’s smarter than me,”
Maybe in your case that’s true
#74- Libertarianism is a fine ideology and corporatism is distinct from it.
Which one does the U.S. practice?
@freedomfan (#74): A corporate charter is granted by government. Without it, it’s just a partnership. More corporate political donations go to the DNC than the RNC, IIRC. And, I wouldn’t be surprised if more go to RINOs than others.
Somalia is a bunch of mini-states run by warlords who impose harsh theocratic rule, hardly the stuff of libertarianism.
God, I hope you’re right. In the libertarian world you envision I will be like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs rolled into one what with my amazing, exotic, and brilliant “farm” where I sell food to hungry people. DO NOT STEAL MY IDEA, Z!
For the record, libertarians are against corporatism. Z, just how much do you actually know about libertarianism (which you appear to be very much against)?
78 see 76 above. Who was the army dude who said that you go to war with the army you have not the army you want?
Libertarians as members of this forum seem to understand the term are despised by Ayn Rand by the way. Check out her interview. http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=education_campus_libertarians
I’ve seen every vid of Ayn at least 20 years ago. You’re stating obvious, well known things as if you are dispensing profound wisdom. If that’s what flips your skirt…just don’t steal my farm idea so I can profit from that chaos that happens with just a little less government. I mean THAT’S the thing about libertarians.
Touchy Boyd touchy. I’m merely pointing out that someone’s hero despises them. I don’t know how that is relevant here….hmmm.