Hiding Under a Bush

Robert at Small Dead Animals wants to know how to discuss things with an Obama supporter. Brave man. I know this is above my pay grade when I see the phrase “gotten us into” included twice in the short paragraph he includes, to clue interested readers in on what the problem is:

Obama hasn’t gotten us into this mess, which is the worst recession since the 1930’s, and based on the fact that much of the collapse revolved around lack of regulation in the housing loan business, there’s no quick fix. Once people started losing their homes, it has a domino effect. George W. Bush is the one who got us into two wars, gave tax cuts, and added medicare benefits without EVER including them in his budget. Obama got the hand he was dealt. And I can tell you that the Republicans have done absolutely EVERYTHING they can to stop every effort he makes to get the economy back on track.

Maybe that’s the best way to deal with it, I dunno: “What if George W. Bush started agreeing with Barack Obama on everything?” Well check that, no it wouldn’t help matters any, all it would do is illustrate the obvious: These people are obsessed with faces and names, they don’t care about the content of any ideas, which is the very first step to caring about what ideas work and what ideas don’t.

The whole thing is just silly.

“Hey look, the debt is unsustainable. You took in this much, you spent that much…”

“Oh yeah, well Bush got us into, blah blah blah blah blah.”

(Long, incredulous pause, then more slowly…) “You took in this much…you spent that much…”

“GEORGE W. BUSH!”

(Longer pause…)

Maybe cheesecake is the answer after all.

You know, I guess if the point is going to be made that someone has to talk to these people because the survival of the civilization we know depends on it…probably the best place to start is with the “there’s no quick fix” thing. Not because there’s some easy diplomacy there — there ISN’T, because the Obamachron’s ego is wrapped up tightly around every sentence, every syllable — but because it’s the most delightful and pure bundle of silliness out of the whole thing. Yes, it might look like an attack. Yes, that will send the other party into defense mode, which isn’t helpful. But it simply cannot be allowed to let stand.

It reminds me of: “Why do you let your daughter interrupt you when you’re on the phone with me?” “She’s four!” Um, yeah…that is a correct fact, I don’t see what that has to do with anything. It is equally correct that “there is no quick fix.” Why do people assume that just because these simplistic statements are correct, they somehow invert the very truths that make up the universe in which we live? Hocus pocus, and we’re suddenly back in Joe Biden’s alternate reality of “must spend money to keep from going broke.”

The oasis is so far that we will die of thirst before we get there, therefore we should head in the opposite direction…you know, even that analogy makes too much sense to fit, since we live on a globe that is round, and that plan would eventually work, die-of-thirst and trans-oceanic travel considerations notwithstanding.

I suppose that’s all just a bunny trail. It never ceases to amaze and fascinate me how people use nonsense to prop up other nonsense.

Commenter dashing recommended a link to a video showing a timeline of the financial & housing crisis. I think it’s this one. I’m pretty sure, without checking, there’s a progressive “debunking of the urban myth” that addresses this. After all, it threatens them. That’s why they don’t want us watching Fox News, right?

Tenebris says: “They could find the guts to pass a budget, rather than hiding under a bush.” Heh. Funny!

But ultimately, what we’re really seeing here is Thing I Know #401. People who refuse to work with details don’t fix things. The recurring theme has nothing whatsoever to do with ideas that bring good results, or ideas that do not; it isn’t about ideas at all. Said theme is only concerned with: Strip these people over here of any influence at all, give as much influence as you can to those other people, over there. Put it all in a big snow globe and shake it all about, and things should work out more-or-less okay. If that had anything to do with ideas, there’d be some thought given to: Duh, hey, waitaminnit that’s exactly what got done in November of ’08…we’ve been down this road already. Well I suppose “Republicans have done absolutely EVERYTHING they can to stop every effort he makes” is included to preemptively dismiss that most obvious point. But by “some thought” I’m referring to something a bit more focused and disciplined than, anticipating an obvious point and including a catchphrase to preemptively shunt it aside.

Some kind of concern for outcome is what I mean. It’s entirely missing here.

The concern is all being systematically piped to that other thing discussed above, the stripping influence from some individuals and elevating the influence of other people. These vocal myrmidons are the “useful idiots” of those other people. I know this for a fact, because I get the e-mails. Michelle and I are having our anniversary…can you send three bucks in right now…it’s me, Michelle, Barack’s birthday is coming up can you kick in five…get on the social networking sites, and say this stuff. We’ll need your help in November, vote out those Republicans, they’re stopping the really cool ideas we have that I don’t want to talk about right now.

Useful idiots, using up the last of their usefulness.

I don’t know what’s more pitiful and pathetic: The name “George W. Bush” is still flying about thick & fast this late in the game, or, they’re setting up the talking point that President Obama only had a friendly Congress for the first one hundred thirty-three days. Um, hey…that is the length of time President Obama got to deal with a Senate with sixty senators on His side, a filibuster-proof super-majority. Modern Nero has to have that in order to get anything done? And His ostensible supporters are admitting to this?

That one seems to me like something that would be better left unsaid.

Cross-posted at House of Eratosthenes.

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