Wow, You Are Really Not Intelligent

Ordinarily, I wouldn't link to articles written by people who have serious mental issues and hate America, but I felt the need to share this one if for no other reason than to demonstrate the incomplete way of thinking such people are afflicted with.

What we have here is an article by Markos Moulitsas, aka "Kos" of Daily Kos fame. "Kos" is well known for his, shall we say, "batsh*t insane" views of the United States and those not leaning heavily left. In this article, he tries to explain why the GOP is, of course, pitiful and on the wrong side of pretty much every issue.

Here is the beginning of his article (emphasis mine): "Pity the poor GOP, isolated and lonely, on the fringes of a country that is moving forward without it. Indeed, watching GOP leaders speak these days is painful, like listening to a racist uncle who doesn’t realize that certain words are simply no longer acceptable in civilized company.

For example, there was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) back in February, accusing President Obama of 'an audacious effort to Europeanize the country,' adding that Obama’s efforts to pass the Employee Free Choice Act would 'turn the country into a Western European-type country pretty rapidly.'

This line of criticism seemed a bit bizarre. Do Americans now hate Europeans? Had I somehow missed the memo? I needed to know if I was behind the times, so I asked nonpartisan pollster Research 2000 to include the question as part of the Daily Kos weekly survey. Well, it turns out that 63 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the continent, compared to just 29 percent who don’t.

Uh-huh. You asked a non-partisan pollster (acceptable) to put a poll on your heavily liberal website, and claim the findings are representative of Americans as a whole?

Or how about completely missing the point of McConnell's message, which is that by basically eliminating secret ballots and making it easier for unions to build their ranks, business will suffer due to the usual exorbitant union demands. This excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article summarizes it quite well: "The larger union economic model here is Europe, where organized labor first led the charge to build welfare states. Then it concentrated on fighting back attempts to roll back costly entitlements and regulations once the bill of chronic debt, stagnant growth and stubbornly high unemployment came due." An current example of why unions no longer have a place in the workforce is the U.S. automotive industry; two of the "Big 3" are close to bankruptcy, while foreign rivals with plants in the U.S. that have non-union workforces, rake in profits.

So to answer Mr. Moulitsas' comment, no, Americans don't now hate Europeans. We just hate having our businesses destroyed by corrupt organizations that declare themselves the voice of the working people they represent.

One more thing from the Moulitsas article: "How about national security? Republicans can always depend on that, can’t they? True to form, they spent this past weekend in a collective frenzy over Obama’s handshake with Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) was apoplectic, accusing Obama of bolstering America’s enemies. Yet polling has consistently shown the American people prefer dialogue with countries like Cuba and Iran over the typical conservative response of belligerence and bombs.

'Venezuela is a country whose defense budget is probably 1/600th of the United States,' Obama said in response to that criticism. 'It’s unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States. Even within this imaginative crowd, I think you would be hard-pressed to paint a scenario in which U.S. interests would be damaged as a consequence of us having a more constructive relationship with Venezuela.'

It’s easy for Obama to mock detractors when they are so clearly out of step with the American mainstream, be it on Venezuela, France, San Francisco, the gays or pretty much anything else. Their fringe, mostly Southern, base may love the rhetoric, but it ultimately alienates the women, youth and independents whom Republicans need for an electoral revival."

No, "the American people" don't support dialogue with our enemies, a slight majority of the American people favor dialogue with our enemies, as polls show. Don't forget that a slight majority of the American people also voted for Barack Obama to be President. Coincidence? I think not. I remember a sign hanging on the wall of a classroom in my middle school; it said, "What's popular isn't always right, and what's right isn't always popular." How true.

I must also take issue with Mr. Obama's statement that we aren't endangering the strategic interests of the United States by capitulating to our enemies. Of course we're not in danger militarily; we're in danger because Obama bends to their wills and is likely to push legislation that will benefit them economically and socially (see Cuba). Also, what kind of message does it send to the oppressed peoples and political prisoners in countries like Venezuela, when the leader of the free world is hamming it up with a cruel, corrupt dictator?

Lastly, why does "Kos" think that the only people opposed to Obama are the "fringe" of the right, who are apparently all old Southern men? The last time I checked, there were plenty of women, young people, and even *gasp* Northerners that don't agree with President Obama. Stop drinking your own Kool-Aid and take a trip to the South. You may be shocked to find that there are actually people in that region that like President Obama, and may have even voted for him. Likewise, you may be shocked to find that there are actually people across the country that don't support gay marriage, and some of them are gay! Ah, America. Don't you just love it?