The Law of Unintended Consequences

On many social issues I'm actually fairly liberal, to a point. But on the issues of Law & Order, Fiscal Responsibility, and Self Responsibility I'm extremely conservative. In the Canada of 2009 this makes me a "right-wing nutcase" in the eyes of many on the Left (if the hate mail I receive is any gauge).

Like many of you who have also not overdosed on the Kool Aid of the Far Left, I have plenty of friends on the Left. Living here in Vancouver, it's pretty much unavoidable! I would never say that any of them are stupid and in fact, on a typical IQ test, I'm fairly sure they'd do quite well. But most of them seem to be more driven by emotion rather than intellect & logic, especially when it comes to political & social matters.

I've thus come to the realization that if someone is so driven by emotion to be compelled to constantly want to make "quick fixes" then they are absolutely incapable of appreciating the Law of Unintended Consequences.

This seems to be extremely emblematic in the Obama Administration. What's happening now with the CIA is beyond appalling and I fear will be extremely dangerous for us in the coming years & decades. Fred Thompson shares his thoughts.

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Update: I received the following two comments from different folks on SDA. While I don't agree with everything that both said, there are some interesting thoughts nonetheless:

thanks for the link to the excellent analysis by Fred Thompson.

He's right - Obama, a man of total naivete, lack of experience, coupled with 'unbelievable arrogance and ineptitude' has indeed unleashed a pandora's box in Washington.

But he operates by emotional manipulation. His campaign was all about emotional manipulation, based on the amorphous emotions of 'hope and change' - without details of what enabled these emotions to exist. His campaign was geared to emotions, such as 'anti-Bush' and racism, where he defined himself as possibly, subject to racism is a white person rejected him ...Remember his tale of his white grandmother being 'afraid of big black men'.

Recall how he dealt with the public anger at the AIG bonuses; he inflamed and inflated it, setting up a lynch mob hysteria! And then, he was exposed as agential in that his administration actually wrote those bonuses into, and agreed to them; they were legal.

But Obama didn't tell the public that; instead, he misinformed and manipulated them, using them as part of his Campaign Against The Middle Class; against entrepreneurship, against setting up businesses to make money.

The Democrats were stunned by the Tea Parties. They tried to deflect them by denigrating them, by suggesting they were 'all planned' by FOX, by the Republicans etc. This didn't work; they know another one is planned for Sept 12.

So, Obama has resorted to his usual emotional manipulation, where he sets up class vs class, race vs race - and people vs people. This diverts from his pork spending, his take-over of private corporations, his funding of leftist socialist agendas.

Now, he's using his Bash Bush tactic, one that he's used before. He's trying to define ALL Conservatives, ALL people against the Iraq, Afghanistan, Terror Wars - as criminals. This is a massive attack.

He released that DHS memo - the day before the Tea Parties; this memo, a travesty of bigotry, defines anyone who questions and dissents from the left - in issues on abortion, on immigration, on security - as 'extreme right winger prone to violence'. It defines any member of the military returning from service as a 'right winger' and 'susceptible to violence'.

Notice - the military is criminalized.
Dissent and questions on left wing policies are criminalized.

Then, his next step was to attack Bush and his era as criminals. He claims they are torturers. This has backfired on him because it's been shown that the Democrats knew and approved of these interrogation tactics.

Now, he's going to release photos of psychological manipulation in the prisons - to further divide American citizesn..and to take the heat off those Democrats who supported 'harsh interrogation'.

Result? He's viciously divided and weakened Americans, focusing their attention on the past and on Bush, diverting their attention from his extreme socialist policies. He's weakened questions and dissent from 'the right', by his definition of anyone on the right as 'an extremist prone to violence'; as an enabler of torture; as an abuser, etc etc.

That's on the domestic side. Abroad - what has he done? Denigrated and belittled the USA, insulted close allies, cosseted and fawned over declared enemies, equated democracy to dictatorships, ignored American bounty and generosity to the world and declared that his pride in his country is only because he comes from there and is expected to support it but has nothing to do with any value of the USA.

All, in 100 days.

Posted by: ET at April 27, 2009 2:32 PM

I share ET's concern(the DHS document has changed my life and views). If I was an American I would fall into the "threat to security" category. For what? I'm an atheist, I'm pro-choice and pretty liberal on most social issues. My crime, I support small and decentralized government. One could make the argument that religion, abortion and GW are not political issues, but you can't as far as I can tell argue that "type of government" isn't a political issue.

I foresee a day where people are being imprisoned for not towing the government line. I thought it was all jokes and fun when we were busting Suzuki's chops for suggesting what at the time seemed ludicrous. Today I'm not so sure. From BO's civilian police force, to thought police at universities, to Joo's being banned and harassed publicly, to being declared a threat to national security, and finally the media suppressing the truth and actually creating a new truth about the Tea Parties; I'm not so sure we're joking anymore. The media has shown they are quite capable of covering-up anything; so, what if the government started rounding up people and jailing or executing them for political views? Can the media be trusted to keep the public informed and not indoctrinated?

The people have been identified, the eyes and ears of the population have been compromised. So what comes next?

It appears to me that war has been declared on those that would oppose the Democrats and the new President. War has been declared on millions of people with diverse views, but all sharing that one common thread. No view or ideology is sacred, you must adjust on the fly, only government is constant. As it stands now, we're a move or two from check-mate.

One cannot fight a war without a leader. Soon the time will come when we must disperse and keep our mouths shut for self-preservation's sake.

Posted by: Indiana Homez at April 27, 2009 6:16 PM