The Left’s Secret Debating Weapon: Shallowness

While the conservative assembles focused logic and facts, the Leftist sprays vacuous clichés in all directions.

I’ve finally figured out the Left’s most effective not-so-secret weapon: shallowness. Their arguments are so empty that they invite reams of countervailing logic and facts. But in a live debate, who has time for that? So while the conservative is thoroughly dissecting and refuting the Leftist’s last empty assertion, the latter has moved on to his next shallow but emotionally triumphant point. The Leftist ‘wins’ the argument!
I have written 2 complete articles (The Madness of a Twisted Faith and It's the Over-Regulation, Stupid!) detailing just a few of the defects in the logic of The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel’s article An Undeserved Win for the GOP, published in the Wall Street Journal on November 5. Having therefore lost the argument from the economy-of-words and emotional impact standpoints, let me attempt to redeem my failure by taking on her main points using fewer words than she.

“Conservatives in both parties who claim the vote represented an ideological shift to the right are plain wrong.”
It is Obama, Reid and Pelosi who misread the 2008 election as a mandate to shift hard Left.

“For 30 years, these Americans have seen their incomes stagnate as the top 1% accrued a staggering percentage of the nation's wealth.”
Incomes have not stagnated, but they would do a lot better if politicians would stop assaulting the people who create jobs.

“The absence of a clear explanation about how conservative policies have failed in the past and will continue to fail allowed a right-wing narrative of empty slogans to gain traction.”
Conservative policies didn’t fail; excessive government growth, spending and interference (including under the Bush administration) did. One man’s empty slogan is another’s simple truth.

“Mr. Obama abandoned his smart argument about building a new foundation for the economy, embracing deficit reduction instead. This only left voters confused about the White House's recovery plan.”
Agreed, Obama’s argument that the health care plan would cover 30 million more people while reducing the deficit was ludicrous. The only thing confusing was Obama’s ‘smart’ arguments.

“Going forward, Mr. Obama would be wise to lay out a bold plan to create jobs. He should take the advice of the more than 300 economists, including former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich…”
Obama should allow jobs to be created by not punishing job-creators who succeed. He should take the advice of economists like Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman and Adam Smith.

“The federal government could help by expanding existing federal loan guarantees by $300 billion”.
Artificial credit expansion distorts entire economies and engenders crises like the mortgage market meltdown.

“Meanwhile, excess cash reserves held by banks—now estimated at an unprecedented $1.1 trillion in Federal Reserve accounts—should be taxed an initial 1%-2%.”
Punishing people for managing their own resources in their own best interest solves nothing. The income tax also started small.

“Common ground … means investments in people and deteriorating infrastructure; ending a wasteful and futile war in Afghanistan; and enacting ethics and campaign finance reform that levels the playing field so ordinary Americans' voices aren't drowned out by covert political money.”
McCain-Feingold’s result was that ordinary American’s voices are more drowned out than ever. Throw Afghan women back to their burkas under the Taliban? If you want infrastructure, stop diverting fossil-fuel tax revenue to pet non-infrastructure projects.

“If this sensible agenda is met with Republican obstruction… Mr. Obama should channel Harry Truman and come out fighting against a know-nothing, do-nothing GOP.”
You mean the president who made no bones about his decision to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki, saving millions of American GI’s lives? OK.

“Common ground and common sense also demand that the president listen to and remobilize the base that is the heart of his party. An empowered Democratic electorate—the young, Latinos, African-Americans, single women, union folks—will be an effective counterweight to the assaults of the GOP and its corporate funders.”
Maybe the young, Latinos, etc. decided they don’t want to be mascots for the Democratic party and don’t believe the clichés about the GOP and ‘corporate funders’ anymore, for good reason.

“More than 20 million Americans are out of work or underemployed… They will not find [real solutions] with a GOP committed to slashing billions from key domestic programs even as they make tax cuts for the rich permanent.” The most-needed ‘domestic programs’ right now are private initiatives that create products, services, jobs and investment opportunities. It’s the Left that is stifling the productive sector of the economy.

“All of this presents an opportunity for Mr. Obama to show he stands with working people and the middle class.”
I couldn’t agree more.

A Well-Deserved Defeat for Leftism, Part II: It's the Over-regulation, Stupid!

What does Katrina vanden Heuvel (editor of The Nation magazine) mean by ‘failing to place demands on [banks]’? Is she blind to the government's increasingly intrusive micromanagement of the last 30 years?
God help you if you don't do with your money what the Left thinks you ought.
Read the full article on Front Page Mag: http://frontpagemag.com/2010/12/03/it%E2%80%99s-the-over-regulation-stupid/