Ball And Chain

Fringes 
Movements and associations of most ordinary Americans seem to lack the elements of destruction and hate we see on the fringes of the ideological left. And there is something about the left that seems to regularly produce a violent, even nihilistic fringe.


Shouldn't it be exactly opposite—shouldn't selfish conservatives be the ones to produce nasty mobs and shouldn't the left, with its vaunted idealism and love of neighbor, produce on its margins those even more idealistic and more loving?


But we've all seen the images on television or even, perhaps, been to rallies and demonstrations of the left. And all too often what we see looks like the opposite of compassion and virtue. (John Agresto, WSJ, 6/1/2012)


As others have noted, right-wing Tea Party types make angry speeches then pick up their trash and go home. Left-wing protesters (Occupiers, anti-war, anti-nuke, anti-anti, etc.) break windows. Why is that?


Block Appeal
I have regularly criticized an agenda that would punish businesses and job creators with more taxes just as they are trying to thrive again. I have taken issue with an administration that has lapsed into a bloc by bloc appeal to group grievances when the country is already too fractured: frankly, the symbolism of Barack Obama winning has not given us the substance of a united country. You have also seen me write that faith institutions should not be compelled to violate their teachings because faith is a freedom, too. You've read that in my view, the law can't continue to favor one race over another in offering hard-earned slots in colleges: America has changed, and we are now diverse enough that we don't need to accommodate a racial spoils system. And you know from these pages that I still think the way we have gone about mending the flaws in our healthcare system is the wrong way—it goes further than we need and costs more than we can bear. (former Alabama Democrat Congressman Artur Davis, quoted in the WSJ, 6/2/2012)


A common theme running through Liberal discourse is how Republicans, once reasonable, willing to compromise, pragmatic etc., are now none of these things having been co-opted by the radical right. It's a phony argument. Before the Tea Party, Liberals NEVER called Republicans any of those things. They described Republicans as unreasonable, unwilling to compromise and as ideologues. Now Davis shows us that maybe it is Dems who have changed.


Villainous
While Mr. Obama seeks to make Republicans the villains when it comes to the economy, he is also, more diplomatically, blaming Europe. In Minneapolis and Chicago on Friday, he cited the impact of the continent’s travails on the American economy.


Citing the jobs report, Mr. Obama said, “A lot of that is attributable to Europe and the cloud that’s coming over from the Atlantic, and the whole world economy has been weakened by it.” (NYT, 6/2/2012)


Whose fault is it? It's the Republicans....and the Europeans! And what is the solution?


Offsetting
....Mr. Obama said Congress had not passed measures he had proposed to get jobless construction workers rebuilding roads, bridges and runways; to give small businesses a tax break for new hires; and to help states pay teachers, firefighters and police officers. The steady elimination of public sector jobs has offset increased hiring in the private sector for more than two years.


So notwithstanding the fact that states and municipalities across the country teeter on the edge of insolvency because of bloated public sector payrolls (including pensions and health benefits), the answer is to start hiring more public sector employees. Did we hear that right?


Is Mitt Romney’s Mormonism fair game? (Washington Post headline, 6/2/2012)


Well, we don't know. Is Democrat and Senate majority leader Harry Reid's Mormonism fair game?