Here is why I have so little optimism for the Romney election or the future of the republic. It all has to do with cultural and media bias which is so pervasive and so corrosive that I can’t imagine that conservatism can survive much longer. Here’s why:
The Obama campaign has run nationwide advertising that has called Mitt Romney a murderer, claimed he has not paid taxes in ten years and presented senior citizens making absolutely false claims about the Romney/Ryan budget plan stealing their social security and medicare funding. Barack Obama (who has eaten dog) has made repeated references to a decades old incident where Mitt Romney carried his dog in a dog carrier strapped to the top of a station wagon. Harry Reid has said that Mitt Romney’s father would be ashamed of his son for not releasing tax returns, when Harry Reid has never released his tax returns. Joe Biden, affecting a laughable attempt at gutter slang, addressed a crowd of mostly black attendees saying that Romney/Ryan’s intention was “gonna put y’all back in chains”. The attacks on Paul Ryan have been equally vile and hateful. Nancy Pelosi calls the selection a blow against women. The Obama campaign has suggested that Ryan’s intent is to starve old people.
Against this flood of personal vitriol and outright lies, the Republicans have run an ad factually asserting that Obamacare diverts almost a trillion dollars away from Medicare.
The result of these events is that the major news stories are reporting on Barack Obama’s demand that the Republicans stop running a “campaign of hate.”
This morning, on Fox News, the news report about Joe Biden’s “gonna put y’all back in chains” comment stated that the comment was directed at “the middle class.” There is no way anyone who has half a brain and who saw the video or read any factual account of the event could not realize that Biden was making a desperate attempt to paint Romney/Ryan as hardcore racists who wanted black people enslaved. So to report that the comment was directed at “the middle class” was not merely journalistic incompetence, it was deliberate journalistic malpractice in an attempt to deflect the righteous anger of normal people away from Joe Biden and instead make it appear that the Romney campaign was complaining about a relatively minor comment.
I roam around the net a lot. I frequent a lot of sites that are very popular with young adults, geeks, gamers, shooters, photographers, amateur astronomers, artists and more.
The ONLY venue where conservative commentary is even remotely accepted (and even then it is rarely welcomed) is the shooting sites. EVERY OTHER SITE I visit treats conservatism as some sort of vile and dangerous mental condition. To even suggest that free markets are superior to government redistribution, or to suggest that second amendment rights are not only the law, but are morally defensible, or to make any other comment that is remotely based on conservative principles will get you inundated in the most hateful personal attacks you can imagine.
That’s the culture we have today. Liberals have successfully demonized conservatives in our culture so thoroughly that there are virtually no places left where conservative principles can even be openly espoused, much less argued rationally, without the crushing weight of societal opinion hounding the speaker into submission and retreat.
In a very real sense the culture war was lost when 70% of the American people became convinced (as they are according to multiple polls) that Sarah Palin (not Tina Fey) made the famous “I can see Russia from my house” comment.
We are doomed.
But more to the point, we deserve everything that is going to happen to us in the next century. As a society we have pissed away the greatest idea the world has ever seen.
9 users commented in " What we are up against "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThere are sites out there that are more convervative and not necessarily religious. I like reason.com. But, it does feel like no one is listening. I was hoping that Paul Ryan would bring some fire into the Romney campaign but even he is passing up opportunities to bring it to the White House and the Obama campaign. I just don’t get the Republicans, anymore.
Oh, I get them all too well. As a group conservatives are so beat down by the accusations of starving seniors, enslaving “brown people”, stealing from the poor and eagerly invading other countries to “steal their oil” that they are constitutionally unable to aggressively defend themselves anymore. Because to the owners of the cultural memes, there IS NO DEFENSE for conservatism. The same people who say that it is “wrong to call other cultures evil” will then eagerly and blatantly call conservatism evil. In many ways the only evil that liberals can even see anymore is conservatism itself.
But there are those on both sides that are “evil”. But with the control of the media we only hear about the “conservative” wrong-doers. It was so funny when the media and local police declared that the Sikh temple shooter was a terrorist right after they said he was a right winger. Though, they have not, to this day, called the Fort Hood shooter a terrorist because he is Muslim. This is a clear indication of the bias against conservatives.
It’s a culture war where one side is fighting unarmed.
Please try an remember there are a lot of us that read, but don’t comment. I have been reading your site daily for three or four years now and probably only commented twice.
There are tons and tons of conservative sites out there, it’s just that most gamers are liberal. At least at a young age. Amazing to me is how the majority of older WoW players were conservative, especially the Aussies. We just didn’t talk about it much. The younger kids talk more too, since they aren’t doing much, they talk a lot.
Liberals may be more vocal. They have to be to defend their indefensible positions. Conservatives go to work, take care of their own and don’t crow about it.
The other thing conservatives have over most liberals is manners. We know to stay away from politics and religion in a polite society and to ensure peace in a group. Liberals don’t care.
Does any of this make sense? Just hang onto the fact that we are legion. The term Silent Majority was coined for a reason.
Annie, thanks for the dash of reality. Perhaps I am allowing the very cultural bias that I am complaining about to influence my own attitudes.
Yes, I agree that a big difference between the left and the right is that the right is typically more concerned with simple common decency than the left. And as such they tend not to make the news that much.
In fact I decline to participate in polls and online surveys because I have an ingrained desire for privacy that trumps my desire to skew a poll, even slightly.
I should try to boost my optimism. I have to admit that I have been allowing my personal life’s trials and tribulations to bleed through this blog as an increasingly pessimistic and cynical view.
I need to chill.
How likely do you think it is that Obama will dump Biden and add Hillary to the ticket? Such a move really concerns me…
I love Biden…. seems like every time he opens his mouth he makes a stink!
On the other hand…
Can you imagine what they (the media) would do to the man if he were Dan Quayle?
Dadman, I think Sarah Palin performed a masterstroke of manipulation when she came out and aggressively recommended that Hillary be added to the ticket. She was the first major pundit to recommend the move, so now if Obama does it, he will have to live with people claiming he took advice from Sarah Palin. And I think Sarah is gambling that Obama’s narcissistic pride is simply too pronounced for him to do it, even if he wanted to.
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