Liberal agenda and Perception

I've watched the first few episodes of a new series on TNT called Perception.  It is about a troubled genius and neuroscience professor Daniel Pierce (similar situation to the movie A Beautiful Mind) who helps the FBI solve cases using his knowledge (and personal experience) of psychology, mental disorders, and human behavior.  While I find it fascinating and I like the actors, my husband can't stand to watch it because of the extreme liberal agenda.  I just finished watching the episode from Monday night, which involves a Monsanto-like agricultural company that forced farmers out of business and into foreclosure.  The corporate giants are evil and the "little man" may in fact be somewhat justified in taking extreme vengeance.

While I have heard there may be some problems with Monsanto's business practices (I don't know much about this issue), that doesn't justify murder and they are not necessarily the corporate norm.  Television shows like this want us to sympathize with the downtrodden, the 99%.  We can sympathize, and certainly there are situations in which people are taken advantage of by big business, but this isn't the fault of the capitalist system.  This is a function of living in a fallen world and of too much government intervention in business. 

Spoiler Alert: Just in case the liberal bias wasn't glaring enough for the viewer, at the end of the episode the producers throw another hint out.  Pierce is trying to talk the murderer down from a hostage situation and prevent him from blowing up two innocent people, himself, and the professor.  Pierce understands how this man feels and how he's been wronged and is trying to prevent more lives lost.  The FBI SWAT team is outside, and they have a sniper in position ready to shoot this poor wronged individual (and save 3 other lives in the process) as soon as he goes in front of a window.  The sniper is wearing a "Don't Tread on Me" baseball cap.  Hmm, you think they got their point across?

Thoughts on the recent tragedy in Arizona

I'm a little late to the party.  By now, thousands of bloggers have already weighed in on this issue, but I am going to comment anyway.  If you have paid any attention to the news, then you are aware now that a nut shot several people outside a Tucson, Arizona, grocery store, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and Judge John Roll.  Roll was killed in the attack, and Giffords is expected to make a recovery. 

Predictably, some commentators immediately suggested that a member of the TEA party is responsible for the attacks.  Sarah Palin was also implicated because of her infamous map of targeted Democrats.  Some lawmakers, including Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) are taking advantage of the occasion to talk about gun control.

Here are my thoughts on the passing scene...

• The attacks are a tragedy.  This news does not make me happy.  I do not wish for any harm to come to my ideological opponents in the Democrat party.  All I want is for them to be defeated at the polls by large margins.
• The attacker, Jared Loughner, is not a conservative.  He's not a liberal.  He's a nut.  He shot all those people because he's a nut, and that's what nuts do sometimes.  Among his favorite books listed on his blog are Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto, and Atlas Shrugged.  (Essentially, the free market manifesto.  A rather odd juxtaposition, don't you think?)  His acquaintances also think that he has a few screws loose. 
• Gun control?  Seriously?  Do we really have to pass a new law every time something bad happens?  And isn't it rather tacky to use a tragedy like this to push your pet cause?
• As for blaming Sarah Palin for the attacks...good...grief.  Seriously?  Some crosshairs on a map made a guy flip out and kill a bunch of people? 

In Defense of Obama

The title of this post may come as a bit of a shock to some of you. After all, I've been relentlessly critical of Obama from the inception of this blog. I still think that his foreign policy, domestic policy, and national security policy are doing great damage to our country. I am in the process of writing a harsh critique of his State of the Union address.

However, I am starting to be bothered by an over-the-top tone to some of the recent attacks on Obama. A good example of this is the uproar over the following comments Obama made during a townhall meeting in New Hampshire a couple of days ago: “When times are tough, you tighten your belts. You don't go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash in Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.” This comment is getting a lot of attention in some quarters. Several elected Nevada officials, including Senator Reid, have criticized Obama's comments as hurting Las Vegas's struggling economy, which is based heavily on tourism. The mayor of Las Vegas went even further, saying that Obama was not welcome in his city.

Now I can understand why Nevada politicians would be quick to defend their city. That's their job. But conservatives are making too big a deal out of this. I am a fan of Mark Levin, but he went way overboard on this during his radio show Tuesday evening. After playing Obama's comments, he ranted about how Las Vegas is the symbol of American capitalism and Obama hates Vegas because he hates capitalism and he hates for people to have fun and enjoy life. Come on. And this morning on the radio, they were still replaying Obama's comments and talking about them.

I think Obama's comments are pretty innocuous. He was making a point about how Americans know to cut back on their spending in tough economic times, and the government should do the same. Very reasonable point. (Too bad he isn't practicing what he preaches, unveiling another huge, bloated, $3.55 trillion budget this week.) He mentioned Sin City because it is a universally recognized destination for people who want to spend their money on non-essential entertainment. (He mentioned buying a boat too -- should boat manufacturers and sellers be outraged?) And give me a break, Vegas is not the symbol of American capitalism. In my opinion, it is more the symbol of American decadence and extravagance. (Although I'm not saying there aren't legitimate activities and reasons to go there.) Of course, in a free society people have the right to behave decadently and extravagantly if they choose. But nothing Obama said can be reasonably construed as counseling people not to visit Vegas.

So here's my point in talking about this. Do conservatives not have enough legitimate policy criticisms of Obama? There are so many more important things to be focusing on. If we're going to defeat the Democrats in November, we have to substantively show why the Democrats' ideas are so harmful to our country and present Americans with an alternative policy agenda that will make our country stronger. It's what we're trying to do on this blog. And it's what two recently successful Republicans did -- Bob McDonnell and Scott Brown. These candidates did not run as squishy moderates -- but they stayed focused on issues and refused to engage in harsh personal attacks like their opponents. And both were very successful with independent voters. As I said before, I like Mark Levin, but of late his radio shows have been sounding increasingly hysterical, with a lot of shouting and name-calling. I know he's upset with what the Democrats in Washington are doing, and so am I. But these antics just turn people off. We didn't like it when the left launched daily cheap shots against Bush. Let's not take petty cheap shots at Obama either.