Monday, September 22, 2008
Willful blindness
I went out this evening to get a few beers and some chicken wings. When I was getting ready to leave the bar I ran into a guy I know and another guy that I met once before. We talked for a few minutes and the fellow I knew told the other guy that I was renovating my house and he mentioned the sidewalk. At this point the other said that I should have had the city do my sidewalk. I told him the city wasn't about to take care of my sidewalk. He then informed me that you just have to "know the right people". It went downhill from there. I told him that people who are connected get things done, at the expense of the rest of us, he didn't like hearing it. People like him never like hearing that they are, in fact, gaming the system--just like all those welfare cheats they always talk about.
I know the other guy is a staunch republican and try to avoid discussing politics with him. But the whole thing got going with both of them reciting the GOP's talking points about Obama. One of them went so far as to to say that it's not okay for the MSM to call Obama a black guy, but it's okay to make fun of Sarah Palin and ask if she's done her laundry today (something I've not heard on ANY news outlet). When I asked him if he felt like Obama was the "black guy", he tried to act as if it wasn't what he said.
I was quite pissed and had to leave. It's not that I can't accept people having convictions about their candidates. It's that I can't abide people who are being willfully blind to the truth.
One of they guys said that Bush had given everybody $600 and, now, Obama was "bribing" people to vote for him by promising them $1K. The other guy said Obama has done nothing, gotten no bills passed, during his 4 years in the U.S. Senate. Neither of them had any opinion, apparently, on Sarah Palin's absolute lack of knowledge or meaningful experience in dealing with issues affecting significant populations. Nor did they have anything to say about Bushco's $700B bailout plan for WS, which they either think is a good idea or they have no thoughts about at all.
When I encounter that sort of mindset, willful blindness is as charitable a description as I can muster for that sort of attitude. Selfishness, cowardice and cynicism are, I think, a good deal closer to the mark.
I almost forgot to mention that they will both be voting for McCain.
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14 comments:
I'm glad you could return home and crank out a few hundred words about your experience at the bar because I would have been flabbergasted and speechless, perhaps for days.
Please, please tell me these fools were drunk. People like this are the reason I fear for the future of the nation.
How bleeping stupid can you bleeping be? These freaking guys would have voted for Hoover in '32.
Are they aware that when the soon-to-be a trillion dollar federal bail-out for Wall Street is discussed that the trillion dollars at issue is their money?
No conservative worth his salt would have ever stood for such a thing. But, it's been a long time now since conservatives have stood for anything.
Perhaps someday you and I will be able to get together for a beer and some wings. And then another beer. (Repeat as needed).
I think I would enjoy that.
I would, too, Richard. Hope you don't mind if I bring SeattleTammy along
Richard:
Oddly enough, no. They don't understand that their money is helping to pay for the WS bailout, but they're very clear that their money is being used to support those worthless n-----s on welfare and bums who don't pull their weight.
I would love to take people like this to mental health facility and show them all of the obviously able bodied young men there who are faking their illnesses to feed on the gubmint teat--and then let them know it's a VA facility.
We need a few stories about the Welfare Kings on Wall Street, then maybe it will start to sink in.
I do not encounter people like those in my real life, but I do frequent the comments sections of my local news rag, and the reaction there has been as you describe: either none at all, or everything is just fine. I have to wonder how FOX and Rush are presenting it, or if they're talking about it at all. (I know that's where they get their news because they write like people who get all their information aurally and never read.) I also think part of the indifference has to do with the innumeracy of the American public in general. If the idea of spending $12 billion/month to occupy Iraq doesn't bother them, then a $700 billion lump sum isn't going to bother them either. We are the Kings of the World. We will just ask our buddies the Saudis for it and they will give it to us.
[my "word verification" ends in "gwb". I hope this is not a clue that our communications are being monitored.]
Sharon:
Try this the next time you're talking to some bonehead that doesn't get the numberz:
"Ummm, y'know how the pretendsident says we should, like, buy stuff (made in China) with our ekunomik stimulant check--to keep our ekonomi healthy. Well, so, like, with that $1,200 you got, you could put a down payment on a nice bass boat or 60" LCD teevee; right? Well, so, them guyz on Walleye Street, they can buy a football team (and get a frikkin' jumbotron in the bargain) or, like, Norwegian Cruise Lines--knowudimean, Vern?"
Demo (et al.):
Yesterday on that communist radio station, NPR, some guy called in and blamed the whole mess on Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, ’cuz, you know, they’re, like, the chairmen of the Senate and House banking committees ’n stuff; and, plus, they’re, like, Democrats, too. So, obviously, it must be all their fault.
And thus will John Herbert Hoover McCain, he who was once a charter member of the Keating Five, spin himself out of what should be the last nail in his political coffin. It’s not the fault of the regulators. It’s not the fault of the administration, of which the regulators are a part. It’s not the fault of the Wall Street speculators … never mind the fact that they’re close chums of the regulators and the administration.
It’s the fault of the Democrats.
Game, set, match.
If our man Barack doesn’t come out swinging Friday night, I predict we won’t win this horse race.
On an unrelated issue, I think Sharon’s onto something: Word Verification Bingo. I’ve got “fzmgtt” … which somehow reminds me of “fuggeddaboudit.” Which is what Obama can do if he doesn’t nail Johnny McHoover’s ass to the wall Friday night.
That's the story here, too. It's all the fault of the Democrates [sic] [aka "democraps"] for believing Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke when they said that "everything is okay, the situation is contained" for the last year and a half. And truly, I recall seeing stories in the NY Times over 2 years ago about the growing discrepancy between the cost to buy and the cost to rent, and how more and more people [who could afford to buy] were choosing to sell and then rent, or to postpone buying and rent instead. That should have been a big red flag.
The other people they blame are the borrowers, for not reading the fine print and not understanding that if the market goes south, their equity goes with it. No one blames the people higher up in the food chain who also didn't read the fine print, but continued to slice and dice and repackage mortgages like the dance would go on forever.
Sharon:
I agree, except for one thing. The big fish didn't read the fine print, they dictated it to the stenolawyers.
I applaud your ability to keep your temper in this situation. I drink at home because of stuff like this.
That was my own comment, I couldn't edit it, so--here it is again
anne johnson:
I did not keep my temper, but I left before it reached my hands. I'm sure that I'll hear about it.
I will engage anyone who actually wants a discussion but when people start telling me lies because they are too stupid to know they're lies, or they think I'm so stupid that I won't know--well, then I get a wee bit snippy.
September 23, 2008 6:09 PM
heh heh, I'd love to see you get snippy!
Completely off topic, but I wanted thank you for pointing out Mudflats. Problem is, they have a webcam and I am now totally addicted to watching a yard in Portland OR, to make sure their Obama sign doesn't get nipped a third time. Thanks alot demo! I'm sure Dano will have words for you.
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/obama-sign-cctv-1
SeattleTammy:
That mudflats blog is a frikkin' phenom. Comments on each thread I've been on number in the hundreds. It's one person doing all of that afaia.
I live in a pretty red area--but having SUNY Oswego right up the road tempers the vibe a bit. I have not talked to one college student who has anything to say about the election, not one. Fortuantely, the majority of the faculty knows how to spell relief:
F-U-C-K THE G-O-P
Anne Johnson sez, "I drink at home because of stuff like this."
Amen to that! I rarely set foot in bars anymore ... less'n Demo's in town, that is.
(Now my word verification is "veueowhj," which makes me think of "Jehovah." For which I will now be stoned to death, a la John Cleese in Life of Brian. By the way, I have a vewy gweat fwend in Wome named Biggus Dickus ...)
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