Don't End Up With Obama For A Second Term. Switch To Direct TV

Recently "Direct TV" has been airing a clever ad series wherein the premise is that when someone has cable instead of "Direct TV", the cable service creates some kind of problem, which leads to another unrelated problem, which then ultimately leads the cable user to some kind of ridiculous end. These ads are meant to be ironic, trading on the loosest of segues, and assuming that the audience understands that these events aren't really related. It is farce. And it is funny. The one I like best involves a cable user initially being irritated by the minute amount of available recording space on his cable DVR, then ultimately through some non-sequitors, ending up reenacting scenes from the movie "Platoon" with Charlie Sheen. At the close, the announcer says "Don't end up reenacting scenes from "Platoon" with Charlie Sheen. Switch to "Direct TV"."

These ads are humorous in that they are not providing any substantive reason that "Direct TV" is better than cable. It is implied that "Direct TV" might have a larger recording capacity on their DVRs. But there are no specifics. The ad simply asserts that this chain of events is catastrophic, that being a cable user is the original causality, and that in order to avoid some kind of future chaos, you need to change service providers. The humor lies in the fact that the viewer KNOWS that he is in on the joke. He knows that these events are unrelated. The final leap in logic that changing to "Direct TV" would keep you from ending up reenacting movie scenes with Charlie Sheen, is the lynchpin of the farce.

One may believe that this kind of logical gap exists purely in advertising and other intentionally ironic scenarios. Unfortunately, however, I read something today which illustrates that this total absence of logic is alive and well in the American political arena, as well.  Namely in a speech which President Obama delivered during a campaign stop in Roanoke, Virginia last Friday. There is an excerpt from this speech that has been making the media rounds these past few days wherein the President essentially says that he believes that no one who enjoys success in America does this alone. This is not all he says. But he does say this. Obama indicates that he is "always struck by people who think, well it must be because I am just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you, there are a whole lot of hard working people out there."

I am going to stop this quote right here because, although this is merely the beginning of his statement, it is an important step in this death spiral of rationality that Obama attempts to walk us through. Let us examine his premise. As always with the left, this speech is, in essence, a plea for redistribution of wealth. Period. He does not advocate wealth creation at any point in this speech, in fact, he discusses home refinancing, tax hikes and Obamacare. None of which amounts to actual creation of new wealth. The entirety of his speech is a promise to preserve the "middle class" through access to various financial benefits. But nothing about how he will actually either initiate nor support individuals in creation of personal wealth. Quite the opposite, in fact. And the reason that Fox and other more conservative news outlets have seized on this particular paragraph in his speech, is that it is not wrought with hyperbole. These are very clear statements, not open to interpretation, wherein Obama demonstrates his contempt for the individual by doing, in essence, the same thing that the advertising executives do in the "Direct TV" ad. They use a bunch of unrelated non-sequitors to lead us to a faulty conclusion about cable television and Charlie Sheen. Obama does the same thing. Only he isn't doing it to be funny.

The beginning of this slippery slope is the premise that success is defined by money. Interestingly, the left is constantly telling us how terrible the pursuit of financial success is, and how evil corporations are, yet, when pressed, the only real definition they have of success IS financial. So he begins with this premise. He doesn't say."...hey, money is only one measure of success and today let me tell you about ten people in the Roanoke area who have devoted their time to charity and we need to all be more like them." Nope. Instead, he launches into a speech about how successful people believe that they are smarter and harder working than other people. If you listen to the speech rather than reading it, you can hear the contempt in his voice. He is patronizing. He is condescending. HE chooses these traits - smart, hard working - he alone decided that this is how "successful people" feel about their success. Yet he presents these traits as axioms, basically saying,  "...everyone knows that all successful people believe they got that way through intelligence and hard work." Which may or may not even be true. Some successful people may feel that way. But this is hardly an absolute. He then goes on to dismiss these ideas, which HE chose, out of hand, with no corresponding reason. None. He simply says many people are smart, many people are hard working but not all of those people are successful. So therefore, it cannot be intelligence nor hard work that makes people successful. (I would like to note that he doesn't comment on the success rate of intelligence COMBINED with hard work, merely the two concepts as singular ideas.)


He then ties this premise to the next logical fallacy, which is his statement that the missing element here, the thing that distinguishes these successful people from their loser comrades, is access to some form of public aid. Never mind that BY DEFINITION this is public. So everyone has access to these things. So using his same "logic", you could infer that the fact that everyone has access to public aid, yet NOT everyone is successful means that public aid CANNOT be the determining factor of success. Essentially, this premise is like saying that breathing oxygen is the reason people are successful and we owe it all to the planet so lets not even bother to analyze human behavior or success any further. This is ludicrous. Obama dismisses the individual character traits of intelligence and work ethic, and purports that the real magic bullet in this scenario, the thing that allows people to succeed, is a group dynamic. Not an individual set of skills. No. Rather it is the support we receive from government employees. Teachers. Road workers. Government researchers. The presence of these people in your life are what has made the difference. Not the uniqueness with which the individual approaches his or her pursuit. No. Not that. It is the support system of government provided assistance that has made all the difference in successful peoples lives. He provides no evidence to support this. It is simply an assertion. But a very important one. Not because it is in any way accurate. But because it so clearly illustrates his viewpoint that the aggregate is more valuable than the individual. And part of what makes this so apparent, IS his desire to stretch the truth about success in order to try to make it fit the scenario he wishes to present. He has to create a false model because that is the only way his premise can be supported. I mean, you could choose any traits of a successful person (all of which are subjective, by the way) and plug them into this vapid equation. Self-sacrifice, generosity/frugality (depending on the circumstances), ability to plan, risk management, luck. The list is endless! And you could then assert, with ZERO corroboration, that these things are not in themselves the reason for success. Then you could choose another, unrelated premise, and say WAIT!!!! NO!! THIS IS IT!!!! And still offer zero corroboration. This is not a difficult task. This is precisely what Obama is doing, in the same way "Direct TV" does, by stringing together loosely associated ideas then driving them to a faulty conclusion in order to "prove" a predetermined premise. The premise which Obama wishes to prove is that we as Americans owe our success not to ourselves, but to the government. The premise "Direct TV" wishes to prove is that their service is superior to cable. So both do the same thing. They start at the end, and work backwards, filling in the blanks with whatever is necessary to lead (or mislead) the audience to the conclusion that their premise is sound. "Direct TV" does it tongue in their cheek. Obama does it hand in your pocket. But it is unmistakably the same process.

Of course one of the MOST insidious things about the President's rhetoric, is the secondary layer of impersonalization that lies just beneath the surface of his words. Obama attempts to engage in class warfare by pitting the private and public sector against each other. By telling people in private business that they are indebted to public workers. This is his message. But in doing so, he is also marginalizing the public worker. This backhanded slap is what so many people fail to see. He may use the term "teacher" in some sort of abstractly personal way when he says "there was a great teacher out there in your life" as a nod to the public employee. But really, so what? I mean, if you are a teacher, and you read this, you may have a momentary feeling of pride in that you know you helped people learn to count, communicate, read, write, sing, dance, whatever. This may make you feel good. As it should. But if you KEEP reading, you will see that Obama doesn't care any more about your individual ability to help your students than he does about the more"successful"persons individual ability to succeed at his or her job. He states that "when we succeed it is because of individual initiative but also because we do things together." In other words, it is all well and good to be a great worker, as long as your efforts go to support the state. Obama goes on to suggest that fire fighting, space exploration, and the GI Bill are examples of necessary government aid. And maybe they are! But what is more telling, is what he DOESN'T say. He never highlights any personal achievement, not even by the government workers he claims are so integral to private sector success. You know why? Because to Obama, teachers are simply a tool of the government. If you are a teacher, you may believe that you are smart. And you may believe that you succeeded because of it. But you are wrong! There are lots of smart teachers. And they aren't all successful. Right?  This is the heart of Obama's argument. And you may believe that you are a good teacher because you are hard working. But guess what? That doesn't matter either! Because there are a lot of hard working teachers who aren't successful. So if you follow Obama's logic and apply it to the public sector as well, you reach the same conclusion. Which is that you, as an individual, are irrelevant. The structure is in place. Education, research, infrastructure, it is all bigger than you. It is a giant conglomerate that will roll on whether or not you are involved.

Later in the speech, the President invokes the requisite nostalgia about our grandparents (barf) by suggesting that they were somehow better than we are because they understood that "succeeding in America wasn't about how much is in your bank account, but by doing right by your people, doing right by your family, doing right by your neighborhood, doing right by your country, living out our values, living out our dreams, living out our hopes. That's what America was about." These statements are so empty and full of holes, its difficult to know where to start. If there is one thing I cannot abide, it is the ad hoc use of nostalgia for purposes of emotional manipulation in order to provide a diversion from the fact that your argument is devoid of any weight or logic. Let me assure you, America, that if you did not know your great grandfather, he was an even bigger bastard than your grandfather. ESPECIALLY if he was, as Obama tries to evoke in this speech, an immigrant. Those guys were tough. Thats how they survived. So the idea that they wanted some kind of society where we all stand around emptying our pockets so that other peoples children can have tax breaks is utter nonsense. But whatever. The larger problem here is that he keeps telling us over and over that our mandate in life is not to become wealthy as individuals. Yet he does not say that wealth is bad. In fact, wealth is the ONLY standard he uses for success. So wealth, apparently, is not bad. Its only bad if you have the audacity to expect to keep it for yourself and your family. If you want to turn it over to the government? Then that very same money somehow becomes noble.

For me, as a voter, this is a watershed speech. Because in my mind, for the first time, Obama is clarifying his position as a candidate who believes that government is more important than the individual. Perhaps he has indicated this previously. He may have. But to me, these carefully chosen words during this election year let me know definitively that this is what he believes. This is not Obamacare, spearheaded by Pelosi and Reid with equal and tandem fervor to the executive branch. This is not Michelle Obama, stating her qualms about her personal experience as an American of color. This is not Joe Biden shooting his mouth off without thinking. This is Obama, himself, speaking to his constituency in the very important, hard fought state of Virginia. This is how he sees the country. Not as comprised of individuals. But as a group. I needed to know that.

Because for me, voting for someone who views me as merely part of a group is about as likely as Chuck Lorre having Charlie Sheen to his house for Passover.

BB

The Fourth Put Forth

I read several stories today about how people are tweeting that America sucks, and complaining that this country is built on genocide and slavery and misogyny.

I think a better statement is that civilization is built on genocide and slavery and misogyny.

Its pretty sweet to live in a place that actually has laws against those things and spends a lot of money and resources to try to help rid other countries of those problems.

America is not perfect because people are not perfect. 

Lighten up, ok?



Thanks.


BB